The Debt Dodge
Unless politicians are prepared to dig into the pockets of middle- and upper-income families, experts say, the demands from bond market investors to get government finances under control can be satisfied only by cutting back even further on benefits for the poor and needy.
Nobody’s perfect. That’s why the truth accidentally pops out of our kept media from time to time. The truth revealed in the above quote from the NY Times is that bond investors own the world and that we are in their thrall.
The richies and the righties have successfully sold the stupidos on the notion that debt will be the death of us. Everyone and their tea-brained uncle is shrieking and hollering about how our engorging arrears means the ball and chain for future generations. Our kids’ kids and their kids will have to feed on gruel and sleep on stones, in the words of Emerson, “to pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.”
But, of course, the creator is not our creditor. Our debt is owed to bond investors. They trade in that debt in order to profit by it. Some hold it for years and some for months or days. Some hold it for mere microseconds. We no more know who owns our debt at any given moment than we know how many grains of sand our feet kick up when we walk on a beach.
What we should know, but are rarely told, is that credit and debt have replaced the mass production of goods as the chief means of taking money from everyone and giving it to the wealthy. In fact, we should no longer call ourselves capitalist because ever more of what we once called capital has been turned into debt. The French have a fine old word known to all economists for people who live off the interest from debt: they call them rentiers.
Our rentier, nee capitalist, class has two great fears common to its ilk everywhere. The first is inflation. Their ultimate nightmare is a repeat of Germany in the 1920s when people needed a wheel barrow full of bills to buy a crust of bread. If the value of the dollar falls to, say, a penny, debtors will pay off their loans with near worthless bucks. At that point, the creditor class will start driving their Maseratis into abutments.
Their other nightmare is repudiation. What if debtors just refused to pay up? It’s happened recently with sovereign debt. Argentina and Ecuador repudiated part of their paper, the latter when it was discovered by the new reform government that certain loans the country had taken out were illegally drawn. The Ecuadorans saved themselves $3 billion.
On the Daily Show the other night, Jon Stewart, a cretin when it comes to matters foreign, mocked Europeans for their massive demonstrations in opposition to government austerity programs. Why, he asked, weren’t those crazy furriners modeling themselves on the Tea Baggers and protesting public spending instead?
Despite being a smart as well as smart alecky bunch, it has apparently never occurred to Stewart and his writers that not every middle class in the world is as stupid and suicidal as ours. The millions who marched in Europe understand perfectly well that the debit crisis is really a trick to make the rich richer at our expense. Unlike us, they are prepared to repudiate the righties and the richies. They're already fighting back. Ten million marched in Spain the other day. In U.S. terms, that was 100 million people. If we could turn out one-tenth that number, the bond traders would go into another business.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
The Absolute in Moderation
Suppose the Brits had won the Revolutionary War. Suppose King George III imposed one of his German cousins on us as monarch. Suppose that King Karl I of Upper and Lower Canada and the Royal Colonies of America spoke English with a Prussian accent and much preferred Berlin to his palace in Philadelphia. Suppose Karl appointed America’s government, including members of the legislature. Suppose even mentioning freedom of speech, let alone practicing it, got you into deep doodoo with the Royal Constabulary--chains and chopping blocks kind of doodoo.
This scenerio came to mind as I was watching several amiable interviews last week with the charming King Abdullah II of Jordan and his lovely consort, Queen Rania, who were in town for the General Assembly opening. Abdullah is a real favorite in America. He was schooled and militarized here and at Sandhurst in Britain and speaks in an attractive combination of colloquial American and polished British English. His dad, the late King Hussein, was likwise popular in in the states. Hussein even had an American wife whose good works and snazzy wardrobe were regularly publicized by Barbara Walters and such.
Though the Jordanian monarchy claims a line back to Mohammed himself, this particular branch was installed by the Brits to see to their interests in the territory of Trans Jordan, one of the countries they invented when the Ottoman Empire collapsed. If you recall your Lawrence of Arabia stuff, the Brits got the Arabs to fight against the Turks in World War I by promising them independence. They, of course, betrayed that promise and installed various puppet rulers around the Middle East whose glance turned more to Mayfair than Mecca.
Whenever members of the now pro-American Hashemite house appear before our politicians or on our media, it’s polite that a certain word never be mentioned. That also goes for the Saud family as well as the various emirs and sultans of the Gulf states. The word is democracy. Their nations don’t have it and they don't like to talk about the fact that they prefer absolute dynastic rule instead.
If we applied dictionary definitions to our usages, these royals would properly be termed despots. But then we supposedly freedom-loving Americans would be asking ourselves why we pal around with their like. To avoid such embarrassment, we abandon Funk & Wagnalls and call them moderates instead. Except to tea baggers and other yahoos, moderate is a nicely anodyne word. I mean, who’s opposed to moderation?
We constantly urge people in that part of the world to abandon extremism and model themselves on these moderates. They shrug, not particular caring whether moderates or fanatics stone the adulterers and lop off the limbs of thieves.
Meanwhile in the genuinely democratic nation of Venezuela they had genuinely free and fair elections on Sunday which handily returned the pro-government parties to power with a 70 percent turnout. Nevertheless, Washington labels Venezuela “extremist” and “undemocratic.” It accuses its president, who has twice the domestic popularily of Obama, of being a detested dictator who steals elections by buying the votes of the poor majority with jobs, schools, health care, housing and such.
It should be obvious that the reason that King Abdullah of Jordan is a “moderate” but President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is an "autocrat" is the the former accepts American “leadership” while the latter insists that Venezuelans lead Venezuela. Mr. Funk and Mr. Wagnalls must be spinning in their sarcophagi.
Suppose the Brits had won the Revolutionary War. Suppose King George III imposed one of his German cousins on us as monarch. Suppose that King Karl I of Upper and Lower Canada and the Royal Colonies of America spoke English with a Prussian accent and much preferred Berlin to his palace in Philadelphia. Suppose Karl appointed America’s government, including members of the legislature. Suppose even mentioning freedom of speech, let alone practicing it, got you into deep doodoo with the Royal Constabulary--chains and chopping blocks kind of doodoo.
This scenerio came to mind as I was watching several amiable interviews last week with the charming King Abdullah II of Jordan and his lovely consort, Queen Rania, who were in town for the General Assembly opening. Abdullah is a real favorite in America. He was schooled and militarized here and at Sandhurst in Britain and speaks in an attractive combination of colloquial American and polished British English. His dad, the late King Hussein, was likwise popular in in the states. Hussein even had an American wife whose good works and snazzy wardrobe were regularly publicized by Barbara Walters and such.
Though the Jordanian monarchy claims a line back to Mohammed himself, this particular branch was installed by the Brits to see to their interests in the territory of Trans Jordan, one of the countries they invented when the Ottoman Empire collapsed. If you recall your Lawrence of Arabia stuff, the Brits got the Arabs to fight against the Turks in World War I by promising them independence. They, of course, betrayed that promise and installed various puppet rulers around the Middle East whose glance turned more to Mayfair than Mecca.
Whenever members of the now pro-American Hashemite house appear before our politicians or on our media, it’s polite that a certain word never be mentioned. That also goes for the Saud family as well as the various emirs and sultans of the Gulf states. The word is democracy. Their nations don’t have it and they don't like to talk about the fact that they prefer absolute dynastic rule instead.
If we applied dictionary definitions to our usages, these royals would properly be termed despots. But then we supposedly freedom-loving Americans would be asking ourselves why we pal around with their like. To avoid such embarrassment, we abandon Funk & Wagnalls and call them moderates instead. Except to tea baggers and other yahoos, moderate is a nicely anodyne word. I mean, who’s opposed to moderation?
We constantly urge people in that part of the world to abandon extremism and model themselves on these moderates. They shrug, not particular caring whether moderates or fanatics stone the adulterers and lop off the limbs of thieves.
Meanwhile in the genuinely democratic nation of Venezuela they had genuinely free and fair elections on Sunday which handily returned the pro-government parties to power with a 70 percent turnout. Nevertheless, Washington labels Venezuela “extremist” and “undemocratic.” It accuses its president, who has twice the domestic popularily of Obama, of being a detested dictator who steals elections by buying the votes of the poor majority with jobs, schools, health care, housing and such.
It should be obvious that the reason that King Abdullah of Jordan is a “moderate” but President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is an "autocrat" is the the former accepts American “leadership” while the latter insists that Venezuelans lead Venezuela. Mr. Funk and Mr. Wagnalls must be spinning in their sarcophagi.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Virgin on the Absurd
One of the differences between human beings and the United States of America is that humans lose their innocence only once. America’s innocence, like the remote that falls between the sofa cushions, is forever getting lost and refound.
My father’s generation was taught that America lost its innocence when Prohibition engendered lawlessness and dissipation. My cohort was said to have misplaced its virginity in Dallas and Danang. Then, says Blow, it got misplaced yet again in the rubble of the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
I guess it’s marvelous that we Americans think so highly of ourselves that whatever screwing we give and get only temporarily deprives us of our purity. Now if we could only make the other 95 percent of the world who see us as Tony Sopranos only fatter rub their eyes and perceive Cinderella instead.
Were we a cosmopolitan and adult people, we would have treated 9/11 with the same stoicism with which the Brits suffered the Blitz or the IRA bombings. We would have calmly regarded that attack as yet another battle in our long see-saw war to control the Middle East and its resources. We might have remembered the USS New Jersey hurling 2,700 pound shells dubbed “flying Volkswagens” into the perched villages of the Levant. Or the tens of thousands killed by the chemical weapons we supplied to our then pal Saddam Hussein for our joint war on Iran. Or Israel’s wars of punitive annihilation that we provisioned.
We would have reckoned that we got in our shots, and with 9/11 they got in one of theirs. So let’s bind our wounds and head back into battle. If we Americans want global leadership and cheap gas we have to pay some price, don’t we? Instead, the politicians and the bullshit mills of the media churned out yet another version of the virgin being assailed. Evil ravaged goodness merely because it was good. “They hate us for our freedom,” as Bush endlessly intoned. So we must destroy evil lest it rob of our innocence yet again. And not just any evil, but the one that resides east of Suez, bows to Mecca, and sits on oil deposits.
Back in World War II, Harry Truman made a national reputation by heading a Senate investigation into war profiteering (it was considered a crime rather than a smart career choice back then). During Vietnam, Senator Fulbright held revelatory hearings on how we got into that war. Our Iran-Contra adventure raised questions for which congress sought answers. Interestingly, no one in power today seems interested in investigating the Allah awful mess we have gotten ourselves into between Baghdad and Kabul. Few even want to hear about the subject: Obama’s speech on replacing combat in Iraq with a euphemism for same was rated one of the dullest and least listened to of his presidency.
Ground Zero has become the cross on our shield and we are settling into a new round of crusades. The last series of such endeavors went on for two centuries. The fact that we're insolvent shouldn’t slow us down. After all, Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless led several thousand paupers in the first Crusade. They looted Belgrade as if they were CIA contractors in Kabul before the Seljuk Turks cut them to pieces.
Nine years ago today, we saw the world stand still. We saw the innocence of a nation crumble to the ground. We saw the face of evil form in plumes of smoke and ash. It was Sept. 11, 2001---NY Times columnist Charles M. Blow
A Jewish mother is sending her frail son off to war. “Don’t over exert,” she admonishes. “Kill an Arab and then take it easy." “But mom," he answers,“what if they kill me?" “Why should they,” she asks, “what have you done to them?”--from Uri Avnery, wise old Israeli politician and writer
One of the differences between human beings and the United States of America is that humans lose their innocence only once. America’s innocence, like the remote that falls between the sofa cushions, is forever getting lost and refound.
My father’s generation was taught that America lost its innocence when Prohibition engendered lawlessness and dissipation. My cohort was said to have misplaced its virginity in Dallas and Danang. Then, says Blow, it got misplaced yet again in the rubble of the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
I guess it’s marvelous that we Americans think so highly of ourselves that whatever screwing we give and get only temporarily deprives us of our purity. Now if we could only make the other 95 percent of the world who see us as Tony Sopranos only fatter rub their eyes and perceive Cinderella instead.
Were we a cosmopolitan and adult people, we would have treated 9/11 with the same stoicism with which the Brits suffered the Blitz or the IRA bombings. We would have calmly regarded that attack as yet another battle in our long see-saw war to control the Middle East and its resources. We might have remembered the USS New Jersey hurling 2,700 pound shells dubbed “flying Volkswagens” into the perched villages of the Levant. Or the tens of thousands killed by the chemical weapons we supplied to our then pal Saddam Hussein for our joint war on Iran. Or Israel’s wars of punitive annihilation that we provisioned.
We would have reckoned that we got in our shots, and with 9/11 they got in one of theirs. So let’s bind our wounds and head back into battle. If we Americans want global leadership and cheap gas we have to pay some price, don’t we? Instead, the politicians and the bullshit mills of the media churned out yet another version of the virgin being assailed. Evil ravaged goodness merely because it was good. “They hate us for our freedom,” as Bush endlessly intoned. So we must destroy evil lest it rob of our innocence yet again. And not just any evil, but the one that resides east of Suez, bows to Mecca, and sits on oil deposits.
Back in World War II, Harry Truman made a national reputation by heading a Senate investigation into war profiteering (it was considered a crime rather than a smart career choice back then). During Vietnam, Senator Fulbright held revelatory hearings on how we got into that war. Our Iran-Contra adventure raised questions for which congress sought answers. Interestingly, no one in power today seems interested in investigating the Allah awful mess we have gotten ourselves into between Baghdad and Kabul. Few even want to hear about the subject: Obama’s speech on replacing combat in Iraq with a euphemism for same was rated one of the dullest and least listened to of his presidency.
Ground Zero has become the cross on our shield and we are settling into a new round of crusades. The last series of such endeavors went on for two centuries. The fact that we're insolvent shouldn’t slow us down. After all, Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless led several thousand paupers in the first Crusade. They looted Belgrade as if they were CIA contractors in Kabul before the Seljuk Turks cut them to pieces.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Obama Drones On About
U.S. Global "Leadership"
Mafiosi refer to their organization as cosa nostra, our thing. Our politicians refer to our empire as ‘our leadership.’ By the third paragraph of his let's pretend we're leaving Iraq speech on Tuesday night, President Obama was warning “the world that the United States of America intends to sustain and strengthen our leadership in this young century.” In other words, that despite having gotten cuffed around in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention Latin America), he intends to beef up the empire. That's, of course, if China lends him more ducats for drones.
Since the most durable lesson of history is that people everywhere prefer their own kind rather than foreigners as leaders, Obama’s intention is a formula for endless conflict and war with one bunch or other of the 95 percent of human beings on earth who owe no allegiance to the United States and its succession of undressed emperors.
As that 95 percent has noticed, America has surrendered its manufacturing edge and frittered away its finances. That means its ‘leadership’ now consists mainly of a military power competent at dealing death and destruction, but utterly incompetent and corrupt when it comes to pacifying, governing and exploiting the survivors of its violence.
Ironically, this is an affirmation of the conservative belief that government just screws things up. The crazy contradiction here is that though the conservatives want to starve the government at home, they are ever eager to sprinkle endless billions on its ‘nation building’ efforts overseas. But that’s not actually a contradiction, since those billions are really being doled out by Uncle Sam to its contractors and mercenaries. In effect, the Pentagon and CIA have become little more than brokers for an increasingly corporate and private military. The right wingers love that. Meanwhile, Barack Obama has become to drones what Martha Stewart is to duvets.
The privatization of once public institutions like schools and armies relieves them of their original purpose, whether it be educating kids or winning wars. The new purpose becomes profit. From that perspective, Iraq and Afghanistan may be losers for the empire but are winners for their investors. But the war bubble is no more sustainable than the housing or stock bubbles. It’ll blow up one day, too. The only question is whether the explosion will be literal or figurative.
U.S. Global "Leadership"
Mafiosi refer to their organization as cosa nostra, our thing. Our politicians refer to our empire as ‘our leadership.’ By the third paragraph of his let's pretend we're leaving Iraq speech on Tuesday night, President Obama was warning “the world that the United States of America intends to sustain and strengthen our leadership in this young century.” In other words, that despite having gotten cuffed around in Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention Latin America), he intends to beef up the empire. That's, of course, if China lends him more ducats for drones.
Since the most durable lesson of history is that people everywhere prefer their own kind rather than foreigners as leaders, Obama’s intention is a formula for endless conflict and war with one bunch or other of the 95 percent of human beings on earth who owe no allegiance to the United States and its succession of undressed emperors.
As that 95 percent has noticed, America has surrendered its manufacturing edge and frittered away its finances. That means its ‘leadership’ now consists mainly of a military power competent at dealing death and destruction, but utterly incompetent and corrupt when it comes to pacifying, governing and exploiting the survivors of its violence.
Ironically, this is an affirmation of the conservative belief that government just screws things up. The crazy contradiction here is that though the conservatives want to starve the government at home, they are ever eager to sprinkle endless billions on its ‘nation building’ efforts overseas. But that’s not actually a contradiction, since those billions are really being doled out by Uncle Sam to its contractors and mercenaries. In effect, the Pentagon and CIA have become little more than brokers for an increasingly corporate and private military. The right wingers love that. Meanwhile, Barack Obama has become to drones what Martha Stewart is to duvets.
The privatization of once public institutions like schools and armies relieves them of their original purpose, whether it be educating kids or winning wars. The new purpose becomes profit. From that perspective, Iraq and Afghanistan may be losers for the empire but are winners for their investors. But the war bubble is no more sustainable than the housing or stock bubbles. It’ll blow up one day, too. The only question is whether the explosion will be literal or figurative.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Playing Ball
As is my habit, I was avidly reading the business page when I came across this headline:
UBS? Hadn’t I read those initials in another story of a different sort just a day or so ago? Sure, UBS, or Union Banque Suisse. It’s one of those reclusive repositories where the really rich stash their spondulicks away from busybody tax collectors, divorce lawyers and such.
The story referred to earlier attempts by Uncle Sam to get the names of UBS’s American clients. Now Washington was backing off. “The statement by the I.R.S,” said the NY Times, “puts to rest a serious headache for UBS, the world’s largest private bank, and for Switzerland over offshore private banking services that enabled wealthy Americans to avoid taxes.” Phew, I felt relieved. Then I remembered that I didn't have a Swiss bank account.
I recalled that there was another story the same week mentioning UBS. What was it? Then, it came to me. It was raining on Martha’s Vineyard so the vacationing President Obama had to play basketball in the gym at the Oak Bluffs school because all the outdoor courts were being pelted. He went to shoot hoops with a couple of his buddies. One of them was Robert Wolf, a bond guy who must be sharp, having risen to the job of CEO of UBS Americas.
Later in the week, with the sun back out, Obama played golf at Mink Meadows. Along with the president, the foursome included Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York City and a zillionaire financial news mogul, Vernon Jordan, the wealthy director of the Lazard global banking group and a longtime intimate of presidents, and, again, Robert Wolf of UBS. The stock market cheerleaders at CNBC were making jokes about the president having a new pal on Wall Street.
I assume that when our president gets together with the gods of finance, apart from the usual manly banter, sports talk and the occasional blue joke, the talk is about restoring the economy, putting the jobless back to work, and other serious and uplifting matters. I can't imagine that the conversation would drift to something like getting the I.R.S. to go soft on a company headed by a BOB (buddy of Barack). Even thinking such a thought would make me all but one of those crazy conspiracy theorists. You know, they’re the nuts who believe that when people of wealth and power meet in private, they sometimes advance their own selfish interests rather than strive for the common good.
No, I’m sure that the two stories about UBS are purely coincidental. And I'm sure that President Obama, Mr. Wolf, and all those folks in Washington and on Wall Street want you to be sure, too.
As is my habit, I was avidly reading the business page when I came across this headline:
UBS? Hadn’t I read those initials in another story of a different sort just a day or so ago? Sure, UBS, or Union Banque Suisse. It’s one of those reclusive repositories where the really rich stash their spondulicks away from busybody tax collectors, divorce lawyers and such.
The story referred to earlier attempts by Uncle Sam to get the names of UBS’s American clients. Now Washington was backing off. “The statement by the I.R.S,” said the NY Times, “puts to rest a serious headache for UBS, the world’s largest private bank, and for Switzerland over offshore private banking services that enabled wealthy Americans to avoid taxes.” Phew, I felt relieved. Then I remembered that I didn't have a Swiss bank account.
I recalled that there was another story the same week mentioning UBS. What was it? Then, it came to me. It was raining on Martha’s Vineyard so the vacationing President Obama had to play basketball in the gym at the Oak Bluffs school because all the outdoor courts were being pelted. He went to shoot hoops with a couple of his buddies. One of them was Robert Wolf, a bond guy who must be sharp, having risen to the job of CEO of UBS Americas.
Later in the week, with the sun back out, Obama played golf at Mink Meadows. Along with the president, the foursome included Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York City and a zillionaire financial news mogul, Vernon Jordan, the wealthy director of the Lazard global banking group and a longtime intimate of presidents, and, again, Robert Wolf of UBS. The stock market cheerleaders at CNBC were making jokes about the president having a new pal on Wall Street.
I assume that when our president gets together with the gods of finance, apart from the usual manly banter, sports talk and the occasional blue joke, the talk is about restoring the economy, putting the jobless back to work, and other serious and uplifting matters. I can't imagine that the conversation would drift to something like getting the I.R.S. to go soft on a company headed by a BOB (buddy of Barack). Even thinking such a thought would make me all but one of those crazy conspiracy theorists. You know, they’re the nuts who believe that when people of wealth and power meet in private, they sometimes advance their own selfish interests rather than strive for the common good.
No, I’m sure that the two stories about UBS are purely coincidental. And I'm sure that President Obama, Mr. Wolf, and all those folks in Washington and on Wall Street want you to be sure, too.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
9/11 Nine Years On
Charles Peguy, the French Catholic writer, said that things begin in mysticism and end in politics. Had he been an American, he might have written that things end in business.
It’s nine years since 9/11. No equivalent outrage has recurred. Amazingly, its principal progenitors are still on the loose. The CIA's "harsh interrogators" have turned those they have caught into such zombies that they dare not present them in court. Meanwhile, the CIA and Pentagon dispute whether Al Qaeda has been droned down to scores or mere dozens of effectives. In any case, an American has less chance of being killed by terrorists than of being run over by a Kaiser-Frazer or winning the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.
While conundrums and conspiracies still becloud 9/11, what is clear is that the event has added a whole new profit sector to our economy. An extraordinary series in the Washington Post tells us that since 9/11:
The computer revolution came along at roughly the same time that our capitalists figured they could make more money by sending manufacturing jobs overseas and speculating in paper assets instead. So our military started making fewer but more costly weapons stuffed with foreign-fashioned electronics. And just like private business, the Pentagon also began farming out jobs. The classic KP potato peelers disappeared, replaced by the civilian wage slaves of huge private contractors like Halliburton who charged the tax payer Maxim’s prices for serving up MRE chow.
9/11 brought an emphasis on intelligence. Not the human kind in which information is combined with judgment, but rather the military kind in which vast amounts of data are mined and refined into futuristic attacks on medieval tribes. So part of the the military was rejiggered to resemble Wall Street trading desks, with ranks of lap top commandos poring over the latest “secret intelligence” to provide targets for the old hat part of the military that still sallies forth to kill people and break things.
As we saw by the Wiki leaks, our wars by software appear no more able to produce coherent victories than our hardware ones like Vietnam. Imperial wars always run into the same problem: already being home and having nowhere else to go, the enemy usually outlast their more easily bored would-be conquerors. A greater worry is where Washington is going to direct this secret, massive and mushrooming "intelligence" behemoth after its finishes its polysci proctology of the Pushtuns. What more can Uncle Sam possibly want to know about us that we haven't already flashed on FaceBook and such?
(For a shorter version of the Washington Post series check this recent New Yorker piece)
Charles Peguy, the French Catholic writer, said that things begin in mysticism and end in politics. Had he been an American, he might have written that things end in business.
It’s nine years since 9/11. No equivalent outrage has recurred. Amazingly, its principal progenitors are still on the loose. The CIA's "harsh interrogators" have turned those they have caught into such zombies that they dare not present them in court. Meanwhile, the CIA and Pentagon dispute whether Al Qaeda has been droned down to scores or mere dozens of effectives. In any case, an American has less chance of being killed by terrorists than of being run over by a Kaiser-Frazer or winning the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.
While conundrums and conspiracies still becloud 9/11, what is clear is that the event has added a whole new profit sector to our economy. An extraordinary series in the Washington Post tells us that since 9/11:
- Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
- An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
- In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings—about 17 million square feet of space.
- Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.
The computer revolution came along at roughly the same time that our capitalists figured they could make more money by sending manufacturing jobs overseas and speculating in paper assets instead. So our military started making fewer but more costly weapons stuffed with foreign-fashioned electronics. And just like private business, the Pentagon also began farming out jobs. The classic KP potato peelers disappeared, replaced by the civilian wage slaves of huge private contractors like Halliburton who charged the tax payer Maxim’s prices for serving up MRE chow.
9/11 brought an emphasis on intelligence. Not the human kind in which information is combined with judgment, but rather the military kind in which vast amounts of data are mined and refined into futuristic attacks on medieval tribes. So part of the the military was rejiggered to resemble Wall Street trading desks, with ranks of lap top commandos poring over the latest “secret intelligence” to provide targets for the old hat part of the military that still sallies forth to kill people and break things.
As we saw by the Wiki leaks, our wars by software appear no more able to produce coherent victories than our hardware ones like Vietnam. Imperial wars always run into the same problem: already being home and having nowhere else to go, the enemy usually outlast their more easily bored would-be conquerors. A greater worry is where Washington is going to direct this secret, massive and mushrooming "intelligence" behemoth after its finishes its polysci proctology of the Pushtuns. What more can Uncle Sam possibly want to know about us that we haven't already flashed on FaceBook and such?
(For a shorter version of the Washington Post series check this recent New Yorker piece)
Thursday, August 5, 2010
The Yawns of August
Our platinum-weighted military is unable to outfight feudal foes. Still, its bloated budget and pointless wars remain sacrosanct. There are 2.4 million of us in jail. That’s far more, in total and percentage wise, than any other nation, including China, a dictatorship with a population five times ours. If all those Americans belong in jail, we are the most criminal society in the universe. If they don’t, we’re a police state.
The fact that we have 16-17 percent real unemployment doesn’t stop us from shipping ever more jobs overseas. The increasing millions losing their homes doesn’t stop us from running the same old real estate scams. And, by the way, we’ve advanced from the fattest to the most obese of the human tribes.
The global economic mess has folks revolting from Thailand to Thessalonika. Europe is riotous. Fed up Latin Americans are opting out of our empire. Our former clients everywhere have turned surly and, worse, disobedient. The world out there is a
churning, bubbling maelstrom.
Here? Not so much. Despite all the strurm und drang across the planet, the USA remains the Alfred E. Newman of nations. Folks are taking insecurity and poverty in stride. A few weeks ago when the Reps blocked further unemployment insurance payments, outrage was limited to a couple of congressional liberals Where were the jobless themselves? God only knows.
Back in the Great Depression neighbors organized against evictions by surrounding foreclosed homes and moving furniture back in as quickly as the sheriffs dragged it out. I don’t see any of that, or of much other protest on the housing front.
Despite our endless and wasteful wars, the peace movement has peacefully gone to sleep. The people who were angry about such things as the Patriot Act and other attacks on civil liberties are nowhere to be seen now that Obama is enforcing the same Bush policies.
We’re told that lots of liberals are disillusioned by Obama’s failure to even attempt the change they imagined that he would bring. I don’t buy it. But even if it’s so, so what? Where do liberals have to go? They are self-declared serfs of the Democratic Party. And that means forever being terrorized by those to their right and terrorizing those on their left in the name of the “lesser evil.” Nothing new here.
The only interesting politics happening in the country are on the right. The Ron Paul Libertarians are terrific on ending our imperial wars and restoring constitutional rights. A few of the tea baggers are actually irked at rule by big banks and corporations. Unfortunately, they appear to be outnumbered by the knucklehead wing of conservatism, those who want to play with guns, not pay taxes, and vote Jefferson Davis back into office.
Right, left or whatever, none of these tendencies threaten business as usual, let alone promise change. The world may be interesting, but we’ll check it out on You Tube after our nap.
West Tisbury, Mass.
Big things are happening--but who cares? Our country is losing its economy and its empire. Few nations outside of the banana belt have managed to concentrate wealth and power so intensely. The time when one guy owns everything is a lot closer than the time when everyone owns something.Our platinum-weighted military is unable to outfight feudal foes. Still, its bloated budget and pointless wars remain sacrosanct. There are 2.4 million of us in jail. That’s far more, in total and percentage wise, than any other nation, including China, a dictatorship with a population five times ours. If all those Americans belong in jail, we are the most criminal society in the universe. If they don’t, we’re a police state.
The fact that we have 16-17 percent real unemployment doesn’t stop us from shipping ever more jobs overseas. The increasing millions losing their homes doesn’t stop us from running the same old real estate scams. And, by the way, we’ve advanced from the fattest to the most obese of the human tribes.
The global economic mess has folks revolting from Thailand to Thessalonika. Europe is riotous. Fed up Latin Americans are opting out of our empire. Our former clients everywhere have turned surly and, worse, disobedient. The world out there is a
churning, bubbling maelstrom.
Here? Not so much. Despite all the strurm und drang across the planet, the USA remains the Alfred E. Newman of nations. Folks are taking insecurity and poverty in stride. A few weeks ago when the Reps blocked further unemployment insurance payments, outrage was limited to a couple of congressional liberals Where were the jobless themselves? God only knows.
Back in the Great Depression neighbors organized against evictions by surrounding foreclosed homes and moving furniture back in as quickly as the sheriffs dragged it out. I don’t see any of that, or of much other protest on the housing front.
Despite our endless and wasteful wars, the peace movement has peacefully gone to sleep. The people who were angry about such things as the Patriot Act and other attacks on civil liberties are nowhere to be seen now that Obama is enforcing the same Bush policies.
We’re told that lots of liberals are disillusioned by Obama’s failure to even attempt the change they imagined that he would bring. I don’t buy it. But even if it’s so, so what? Where do liberals have to go? They are self-declared serfs of the Democratic Party. And that means forever being terrorized by those to their right and terrorizing those on their left in the name of the “lesser evil.” Nothing new here.
The only interesting politics happening in the country are on the right. The Ron Paul Libertarians are terrific on ending our imperial wars and restoring constitutional rights. A few of the tea baggers are actually irked at rule by big banks and corporations. Unfortunately, they appear to be outnumbered by the knucklehead wing of conservatism, those who want to play with guns, not pay taxes, and vote Jefferson Davis back into office.
Right, left or whatever, none of these tendencies threaten business as usual, let alone promise change. The world may be interesting, but we’ll check it out on You Tube after our nap.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Great BS Machine
About the same time newspaper owners were discovering that something called “objectivity” might make them richer. All through American history, blats and broadsheets had been the clarions of parties, pols and special pleaders. You bought the paper that reflected your opinions and dumped on others. With the rise of giant consumer industries, a need for mass advertising arose. The solution was mass publication newspapers that rose above favoritism by having their stories written by “professional” news people rather than partisan hacks. Naturally, these newspapers were never quite so “objective” as to bite the hands that fed them by getting tough on the sins of big business since they had become big businesses themselves.
Thus the great American bullshit business was born. Ever since, the national take on reality has been produced, edited, Photoshopped and cosmetized. Raw information is treated like uncooked chicken gizzards: something that will make you sick if you even touch it. The honchos at NPR, CNN and such regularly warn us that we need them as “responsible gatekeepers” to make the news digestible.
So complete was the government-corporate control of information, that it had become all but sacrilege to challenge it. The greatest sin, as Gore Vidal liked to say, was giving up the game. By which he meant revealing the truth to those who weren't supposed to know it.
I used the past tense because the net has changed all that--at least technically. Sitting at a laptop on my back porch on an island in the Atlantic I can potentially reach as many people with my take on the news as any media conglomerate. By the same token, I learn things about the world every day from the net that that no money media editor would dare to publish, lest it rile some pol or plutocrat.
So, thanks to the net, our gatekeepers have lost the lock and hinges to the gate, allowing naked reality to wander into the backyard and disport itself before our amazed eyes. The latest and most notorious intruders consist of the Afghan war reports revealed at wikileaks.org/wiki/Afghan_War_Diary,_2004-2010. Not to brag, but they confirm, underline and tie in pink ribbons the things I’ve been writing about the subject for the last couple of years.* Namely, that the culture and politics of that part of the world are beyond the ken, let alone the manipulation of our empire, and that therefore our designs on it are as doomed as Elphinstone's regiments of foot at the Khyber Pass in 1842.
I have enormous admiration for Specialist Bradley Manning and the crew at WikiLeaks who gave us reality instead of rhetoric on Afghanistan. I hope it will match the impact of the release of the Pentagon Papers that exposed the fraud of Vietnam. But it may be too late. I fear the great American bullshit machine has accustomed us to pointless wars, corruptly, criminally and incompetently fought. Proof of the same may merely produce more useless indifference rather than useful ire.
* War's Costly Toll (Booth), June 10, 2010
Traveling With Hillary, March 19, 2010
Keeping Score On Our Wars, December 3, 2010
Salong, It's Been Good To Know You, Oct 4,2009
West Tisbury, Mass.
The business of public relations, an American invention, is about a century old. One of its earliest manifestations came when John D. Rockefeller hired Ivy Lee, one of the first flacks, to clean up his reputation after the notorious 1914 massacre at his coal mine in Ludlow, Colorado. Miners there went on strike. Rockefeller goons and troops burned them out of their encampment, killing women and children. Old man Rockefeller was already in bad cess because of his pitiless business practices. Roasting little kids made him the nation’s bogeyman. Ivy Lee changed that. Soon the papers and newsreels were filled with images of the sere, crow-beaked old John D. handing out shiny dimes to photogenic urchins.About the same time newspaper owners were discovering that something called “objectivity” might make them richer. All through American history, blats and broadsheets had been the clarions of parties, pols and special pleaders. You bought the paper that reflected your opinions and dumped on others. With the rise of giant consumer industries, a need for mass advertising arose. The solution was mass publication newspapers that rose above favoritism by having their stories written by “professional” news people rather than partisan hacks. Naturally, these newspapers were never quite so “objective” as to bite the hands that fed them by getting tough on the sins of big business since they had become big businesses themselves.
Thus the great American bullshit business was born. Ever since, the national take on reality has been produced, edited, Photoshopped and cosmetized. Raw information is treated like uncooked chicken gizzards: something that will make you sick if you even touch it. The honchos at NPR, CNN and such regularly warn us that we need them as “responsible gatekeepers” to make the news digestible.
So complete was the government-corporate control of information, that it had become all but sacrilege to challenge it. The greatest sin, as Gore Vidal liked to say, was giving up the game. By which he meant revealing the truth to those who weren't supposed to know it.
I used the past tense because the net has changed all that--at least technically. Sitting at a laptop on my back porch on an island in the Atlantic I can potentially reach as many people with my take on the news as any media conglomerate. By the same token, I learn things about the world every day from the net that that no money media editor would dare to publish, lest it rile some pol or plutocrat.
So, thanks to the net, our gatekeepers have lost the lock and hinges to the gate, allowing naked reality to wander into the backyard and disport itself before our amazed eyes. The latest and most notorious intruders consist of the Afghan war reports revealed at wikileaks.org/wiki/Afghan_War_Diary,_2004-2010. Not to brag, but they confirm, underline and tie in pink ribbons the things I’ve been writing about the subject for the last couple of years.* Namely, that the culture and politics of that part of the world are beyond the ken, let alone the manipulation of our empire, and that therefore our designs on it are as doomed as Elphinstone's regiments of foot at the Khyber Pass in 1842.
I have enormous admiration for Specialist Bradley Manning and the crew at WikiLeaks who gave us reality instead of rhetoric on Afghanistan. I hope it will match the impact of the release of the Pentagon Papers that exposed the fraud of Vietnam. But it may be too late. I fear the great American bullshit machine has accustomed us to pointless wars, corruptly, criminally and incompetently fought. Proof of the same may merely produce more useless indifference rather than useful ire.
* War's Costly Toll (Booth), June 10, 2010
Traveling With Hillary, March 19, 2010
Keeping Score On Our Wars, December 3, 2010
Salong, It's Been Good To Know You, Oct 4,2009
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Two Scenarios
Two Years Later
I published the blog below on July 19, 2008. Unfortunately, Scenario 2 appears to have prevailed. I went astray in predicting protest (good) followed by repression (bad). The paucity of the former has so far obviated the latter. I was also amazed that, given the new political mood in Latin America, Obama was stupid enough to alienate a whole continent by signing off on the vicious coup in Honduras whose Washington-advised leaders are currently practicing old-fashioned death squad democracy in all of its grizzliness. Our media continue to ignore Honduras's growing list of victims on the well-established principle that it’s not newsworthy, let alone a violation of human rights, for rightists to kill and torture leftists. And, of course, no one could foresee environmental catastrophe on the scale of the Gulf kill. Apart from that, I think, unhappily, that Scenario 2 allows me to don the swami’s turban.
At home, Obama launches a Real Deal of fresh initiatives on the Four E’s--the economy, the environment, energy and education. He says it's time to catch up with the rest of the first world on health care. Some of his proposals seem more practical than others. But people are inspired and energized by the sense that Washington is finally on their side. Hard times gradually give way to a more rational and balanced prosperity that emphasizes broad well-being over personal consumption. The world seems a bit safer and Americans more hopeful. Obama and the Dems easily win reelection in 2012. We become Denmark with Rockies.
Scenario 2. Obama wins. The people who voted for him demand the change he promised. They expect things to happen, but nothing much does. It becomes more and more apparent that Obama, despite his brains, youth, cool and promise, is just another face for business as usual.
People feel betrayed. The angriest among them take to the streets. Obama quickly unleashes the repressive apparatus built up over the Bush years to punish the troublemakers. Mass roundups, disappearances and fear of torture or worse scare potential protesters into quiescence. The economy sinks further, imperial wars get nastier, the country grows dismal and surly. And, of course, the rich get richer. Comes the 2012 election and Obama is excoriated for the mess. An extreme right wing Republican (possibly an Alaskan yahoo) promising order and military victory, wallops him in the election. We enter a dark age of fascism.
Two Years Later
I published the blog below on July 19, 2008. Unfortunately, Scenario 2 appears to have prevailed. I went astray in predicting protest (good) followed by repression (bad). The paucity of the former has so far obviated the latter. I was also amazed that, given the new political mood in Latin America, Obama was stupid enough to alienate a whole continent by signing off on the vicious coup in Honduras whose Washington-advised leaders are currently practicing old-fashioned death squad democracy in all of its grizzliness. Our media continue to ignore Honduras's growing list of victims on the well-established principle that it’s not newsworthy, let alone a violation of human rights, for rightists to kill and torture leftists. And, of course, no one could foresee environmental catastrophe on the scale of the Gulf kill. Apart from that, I think, unhappily, that Scenario 2 allows me to don the swami’s turban.
* * * * * *
Scenario 1. Obama wins. The landslide majority that elected him along with a lopsided Democratic congress demand the change he promised. They want immediate action on jobs and the economy. They want the troops out of Iraq and America out of the empire business. Their to-do list also includes energy, health care, the environment, schools, and infrastructure. Obama and the Dems respond positively. They signal their bona fides by initiating withdrawal, citing mounting Iraqi calls for us to clear out. Obama announces global base closings to save money and show foreigners we have no imperial designs on them. In what is called the Obama Overture, he assures democratic Latin leaders that efforts to overthrow their governments will cease to be replaced by cooperation on ending the poverty that drives millions north.At home, Obama launches a Real Deal of fresh initiatives on the Four E’s--the economy, the environment, energy and education. He says it's time to catch up with the rest of the first world on health care. Some of his proposals seem more practical than others. But people are inspired and energized by the sense that Washington is finally on their side. Hard times gradually give way to a more rational and balanced prosperity that emphasizes broad well-being over personal consumption. The world seems a bit safer and Americans more hopeful. Obama and the Dems easily win reelection in 2012. We become Denmark with Rockies.
Scenario 2. Obama wins. The people who voted for him demand the change he promised. They expect things to happen, but nothing much does. It becomes more and more apparent that Obama, despite his brains, youth, cool and promise, is just another face for business as usual.
People feel betrayed. The angriest among them take to the streets. Obama quickly unleashes the repressive apparatus built up over the Bush years to punish the troublemakers. Mass roundups, disappearances and fear of torture or worse scare potential protesters into quiescence. The economy sinks further, imperial wars get nastier, the country grows dismal and surly. And, of course, the rich get richer. Comes the 2012 election and Obama is excoriated for the mess. An extreme right wing Republican (possibly an Alaskan yahoo) promising order and military victory, wallops him in the election. We enter a dark age of fascism.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Vergessene Helden
(Forgotten Heros)
Now that July 4th has become a barbeque bash and America a counter-revolutionary corporatocracy, it’s time to switch over from adulating the Minute Men to a celebration of the proud predecessors of our forces from the private for-profit security sector now standing terrorism alert from the savannahs of Somalia to the karsts of Kyrgyzstan.
They are our up-and-coming first line of offense against those who would keep their countries for themselves. When these Velcro-belted warriors delve into their scrapbooks and pause to reflect on the history of their profession, they too harken back to the fateful summer of 1776.
It was on August 15 on Staten Island that the Hessians first trooped onto our shores. They were immediately flung into combat at the Battle of Long Island and acquitted themselves with honor. The contract combatants were part of a larger force of Brits whose mission was to suppress terrorism and restore law and order. Insurgents had destroyed food stocks, even tossing tea into the sea in Boston. They were rampaging through the countryside and killing loyal troops.
Over the next seven years, nearly 30,0000 private enterprise fighters from Hesse would see battle in the war on terror from Trenton to Yorktown. Thousands would succumb to disease--more than died in combat. Upwards of six thousand would settle here and raise families. Thousands of others would return to their beloved Hesse.
In truth, not only Hessians but Russians, French, Poles and other Europeans served the cause of King George III, America’s sovereign. The colonial insurgents used the name Hessians to denote mercenaries of whatever provenance. People on both sides of the Atlantic had different values in those days and were appalled by the use of hired soldiers. The rebellious colonists were particularly outraged that their monarch was using foreign troops to restore order.
In Europe, “Frederick the Great, a man not over-scrupulous in his own measures, viewed it as an abominable traffic in human lives, and it is said that whenever any of these hirelings passed through his territory he levied on them the usual toll for cattle, saying that they had been sold as such.”
Attitudes are much changed today. We’ve gotten over that particular difference with the king. Not only have we Americans moved from a draft military to a paid one, but business interests have found it to their profit to increasingly substitute for the government when it comes to making war. Given the direction of events in Afghanistan and Iraq, it looks like our future wars will be purely entrepreneurial endeavors. So lets hoist a July 4th brewski to King George and his hired Hessians who paved the way.
(Forgotten Heros)
Now that July 4th has become a barbeque bash and America a counter-revolutionary corporatocracy, it’s time to switch over from adulating the Minute Men to a celebration of the proud predecessors of our forces from the private for-profit security sector now standing terrorism alert from the savannahs of Somalia to the karsts of Kyrgyzstan.
They are our up-and-coming first line of offense against those who would keep their countries for themselves. When these Velcro-belted warriors delve into their scrapbooks and pause to reflect on the history of their profession, they too harken back to the fateful summer of 1776.
It was on August 15 on Staten Island that the Hessians first trooped onto our shores. They were immediately flung into combat at the Battle of Long Island and acquitted themselves with honor. The contract combatants were part of a larger force of Brits whose mission was to suppress terrorism and restore law and order. Insurgents had destroyed food stocks, even tossing tea into the sea in Boston. They were rampaging through the countryside and killing loyal troops.
Over the next seven years, nearly 30,0000 private enterprise fighters from Hesse would see battle in the war on terror from Trenton to Yorktown. Thousands would succumb to disease--more than died in combat. Upwards of six thousand would settle here and raise families. Thousands of others would return to their beloved Hesse.
In truth, not only Hessians but Russians, French, Poles and other Europeans served the cause of King George III, America’s sovereign. The colonial insurgents used the name Hessians to denote mercenaries of whatever provenance. People on both sides of the Atlantic had different values in those days and were appalled by the use of hired soldiers. The rebellious colonists were particularly outraged that their monarch was using foreign troops to restore order.
In Europe, “Frederick the Great, a man not over-scrupulous in his own measures, viewed it as an abominable traffic in human lives, and it is said that whenever any of these hirelings passed through his territory he levied on them the usual toll for cattle, saying that they had been sold as such.”
Attitudes are much changed today. We’ve gotten over that particular difference with the king. Not only have we Americans moved from a draft military to a paid one, but business interests have found it to their profit to increasingly substitute for the government when it comes to making war. Given the direction of events in Afghanistan and Iraq, it looks like our future wars will be purely entrepreneurial endeavors. So lets hoist a July 4th brewski to King George and his hired Hessians who paved the way.
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