24 July 2011

video above: Keiser Report: Ideas for Revolution (E166)

via Avedon Carol, who writes,

Down in comments, CMike advises: "Max Keiser provides a minute or so of useless analysis but Stacy Herbert does spotlight a headline about "fair use" here which I found interesting."

snopes.com: Internet Petitions
www.snopes.com
Does signing online petitions serve any real purpose?


"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Obama Top Recipient of Murdoch’s News Corp. Donations?
uk.ibtimes.com

Political donations by News Corp., its employees and their families were evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, with President Obama the all-time leading recipient, according to a report from the Sunlight Foundation.

I hear and read a lot of people on the internets talk about revolution, some seemingly flippantly and some not, some anonymously and some not, etc. At this juncture I wonder what would happen if people just stopped voting, especially in presidential elections. You'll never get everybody to stop, of course. I remember reading somewhere that in the last Soviet election somewhere around 12 percent of those eligible participated. If that happened here(damn unlikely at this juncture), I'm guessing either the big media portals would downplay it or show you man-on-the-street interviews with people who boycotted the vote, with an emphasis on the nuttier sounding ones.

But even if you could persuade 70,80 million or more regular voters to not bestow legitimacy on the process and just stay home, would that be sufficient? Then what? A jubilant scene as the credits roll, with soldiers and hippies dancing in the streets, and billionaires giving all their money away? I imagine not, however much we have been conditioned to long for those kinds of endings. And even if the first two things occurred the third thing wouldn't happen, as the billionaires will just hire a different group of soldiers.

Of course, this decline in voter turnout may happen anyway, without any persuasion involved. It would more likely be a gradual process that hardly anybody would remark upon.

Baboon Petting Zoo

Keiser Report: Europe's Neo Feudalism (E162)
Youtube: This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, report on selling Greece's sovereignty and Spain's El Gordo. In the second half of the show, Max talks to economist Michael Hudson about the IMF assassins sent in to destroy the Greek economy.
KR on Facebook: www.facebook.com/KeiserReport

Discussing our crumbling government and society is growing increasingly depressing. I wonder, as I so often do, what 'the people' think, and it's hard to escape the overwhelming impression that US society is growing increasingly fragmented, and although large numbers of people "get it", as it were, that fragmentation is only part of the reason the elites seem more brazenly corrupt, and knowing there's a problem is most definitely not some kind of magical first step out of twelve.

I don't believe in violent revolution, not because I believe the elites are likely to reform spontaneously or through strictly non-violent pressure-- I don't expect either of these things. Rather, because I know violent revolutions can and often do spiral out of control and cause more bloodshed and misery than the rotten old order. Given how predisposed American society is towards violence, this might be particularly likely in our case. Having said that, I don't know what kind of alternatives may exist to effect worthwhile change.(And yes, that word seems to have been ruined, doesn't it?)

Do those alternatives exist?

For that matter, why read political blogs? Why read anything or pay attention to anything about the world around you, apart from what's on Entertainment Tonight or the latest interminable circus-celebrity trial on CNN, et al? I'd like to believe that reading and writing blogs is a gesture of solidarity, but let's face it: (1)it's hardly the same thing as demonstrating in the streets, and (2)there are also millions of other politically engaged people blogging for a sense of solidarity and arguing for the destruction of the welfare state, against public education, for slashing the benefits of government workers and numerous other things you may find alarming and wrongheaded.


WSWS.org,"How the Mediterranean Anti-Capitalist Conference defended French imperialism"

Washingtonsblog,"The Big Banks Are Waging Warfare Against the People of the World"

Gregory Elich, "Class War Without Mercy"

Ian Welsh, "So, compared to McCain, was Obama the lesser evil?"

7 June 2011(special Florida edition)

FORT LAUDERDALE:
Florida justice: rich man will do no time for killing two tourists in exchange for cash restitution.

A "millionaire playboy" who killed two British tourists in Florida when his $150,000 Porsche jumped the curb will not go to jail, despite the fact that he fled the scene and lied to police officers about who was behind the wheel during the accident.

ORLANDO:
Three arrested, accused of illegally feeding homeless:

Members of Orlando Food Not Bombs were arrested Wednesday when police said they violated a city ordinance by feeding the homeless in Lake Eola Park .

MIAMI:I harp on Digby's obeisance towards the Democratic party hierarchy from time to time, and naturally I think she deserves that. But she also deserves credit when it's due, such as with her keeping up of incidents like this one:


"To Protect and To Serve"

The government's war on videographers is getting worse. In Miami a bystander filmed police firing a hail of bullets into a car and the cops went after him, smashed his phone, threw him to the ground and took him to a command center and photographed him. Unfortunately for them:
But what they didn’t know was that Narces Benoit had removed the SIM card and hid it...

NAPLES: Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Time, "Homeowner Forecloses on Bank of America"

What must have seemed to observers like a scene out of a parallel universe — you can see some video here — was actually the fair and logical conclusion to a situation which, the court had ruled, had an unfair and illogical start. In 2009, retired police officer Warren Nyerges and his wife, Maureen Collier, paid $165,000 cash for their 2,700 square foot home in the Golden Gate Estates subdivision, and never took a mortgage out on it. So imagine their surprise when, in February of 2010, Bank of America initiated foreclosure proceedings against them. The Nyerges hired an attorney, Todd Allen, to defend them against the wrongful foreclosure, and the bank eventually abandoned the matter.

But not before the Nyerges incurred $2,534 in attorney’s fees, which they requested informally from Bank of America multiple times before resorting to the courts, which ordered the bank to make the couple whole. When B of A still had not paid the judgment after five months of phone calls and letter writing by Allen and the Nyerges to the bank insisting that the court order be obeyed, Allen took the next step in the legal collection process, obtaining an order of foreclosure against the bank.

The slow(er) boat to hell

[video, above] Tenebroust, The "left" sets up the "right" for takeover, Feb 15, 2010 (1st posted at DH here, "Fascism USA...")

Ian Welsh: "A blast from the past and a reminder about the future", April 24, 2011

Obama is not turning things around, what he is doing is negotiating with Republicans how fast the decline will be, and how much and how fast it is necessary to fuck ordinary Americans in order to keep the rich rich. If Obama wins another term, he will continue to negotiate the decline, then, odds are very high, a Republican will get in, and slam his foot on the accelerator of collapse.

Chris Hedges, "The corporate state wins again", April 25, 2011

The rhetoric of the Democratic Party and the neoliberals sustains the illusion of participatory democracy. The Democrats and their liberal apologists offer minor palliatives and a feel-your-pain language to mask the cruelty and goals of the corporate state. The reconfiguration of American society into a form of neofeudalism will be cemented into place whether it is delivered by Democrats, who are pushing us there at 60 miles an hour, or Republicans, who are barreling toward it at 100 miles an hour.

Xymphora: "Hell or heaven", April 29, 2011

I'm getting sick and tired of these elections fought by the left on the basis of promising to take you on the road to hell, but a little slower than the other guys. This is killing the Liberals in the current campaign, as they have nothing positive to offer but that they are not the utter hopelessness of Harper.

First of all, no, I am not saying that Hedges and Xymphora are just filching from Ian Welsh, nor am I saying that Ian is filching from Tenebroust. (It's highly unlikely the other three have even heard of Tenebroust, who is not, er, conventionally articulate. (although I suspect he could be if he wanted to be, but just doesn't feel like it.))The same idea can spring up roughly simultaneously in many places.(incidentally, I gather that Tenebroust and Welsh are both cautiously pro-nuclear power, while Hedges and Xymphora are both steadfastly anti-nuke.)

At any rate, to me it seems that one of the reasons an idea spontaneously springs forth in divers minds may be because it is increasingly valid. (I was tempted to say 'increasingly resonant' but I'm getting tired about hearing about how ideas and spin 'resonate', and didn't want to contribute to the din.)

If you can recall other instances of having seen this line of argument please email me, or better yet tell me in the comments.

Our happy slave future

Keiser Report: Bin Laden Bounce (E144)

This week Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, report on talking up Greek debt fears, the short-lived Bin Laden bounce and buying gold if your government is trying to kill you. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Dr. Kiriakos Tobras about his lawsuit against investment banks and derivatives dealers for their crimes against Greece.

our happy slave future, pt 1:

Marketwatch.com, "You're Richer Than You May Realize" (also here)
by Andrea Coombes
Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Count your 'human capital' as an asset; watch your net worth skyrocket

You may be a lot wealthier than you think. Most people look at their 401(k) or other retirement plan, add in the value of other assets — their home, other investments, savings, etc. — then subtract their debt to get their net worth. After the housing-market bust and the bear-market rout of recent years, that number may look painfully small.

Human capital "is anything that's going to generate a cash flow that isn't your investments," says Moshe Milevsky, a professor of finance at York University in Toronto. "It's your ability to work, your ability to get a bonus, to get overtime. It's a gold mine and an oil well, but you're producing the gold and the oil," he says.

Doesn't that sound cheery? Don't forget to count your 'human capital' sounds like an argument made on behalf of the ownership class, telling us to keep working hard, and not complain about never being able to retire. Next I suppose I may need to sell a kidney to pay the light bill. Hey, it's an asset!

our happy slave future, pt 2:
Camp: Tax Plan Aims for 25% Cap

Republican Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee:"America needs a tax code that promotes, not prevents, job creation," he said. "Today's code is simply too complex, too costly and too burdensome for families and employers of all sizes to comply with.…We need to set ambitious goals and work toward those, because if we don't try that will be the biggest failure of all."

Mr. Camp's tax overhaul isn't designed to specifically cut the U.S. budget deficit. Overall tax revenues would remain at recent average levels, or about 18% to 19% of gross domestic product, committee aides said..
[...]
Many Democrats also have voiced support for lowering tax rates, particularly for corporations. In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama expressed support for lowering corporate tax rates while closing loopholes and other special breaks. The president also talked about the need to simplify the individual code. Mr. Obama's budget proposes raising taxes on high-income earners after 2012, however."

There are of course, many other examples.

Irony deficiency: Yahoo vs. class consciousness

Two screenshots from Yahoo from earlier today.

2 December 2010

Regarding Cablegate and Assange:

BDR

Silber (also here)

Greenwald, "The moral standards of WikiLeaks critics"

Karen Kwiatkowski, "The Proper Response to WikiLeaks"

Pepe Escobar, "Cracks in the wilderness of mirrors"

To some he is a traitor. To others he is the tool of a subtle propaganda campaign hatched by a spy agency. But what Julian Assange is really up to with WikiLeaks is more radical: crashing the carefully maintained information system that dominates our lives with its lies

And, less brightly:
re silber "okanogen" at Corrente, "Getting played"

An odd work of spin from Fareed Zakaria,
"WikiLeaks Shows the Skills of U.S. Diplomats"

A remarkably broad consensus has formed that WikiLeaks' latest data dump is a diplomatic disaster for the U.S. While there are debates over how the Obama Administration should respond, everyone agrees that the revelations have weakened America. But have they? I don't deny for a moment that many of the "wikicables" are intensely embarrassing, but the sum total of the output I have read is actually quite reassuring about the way Washington - or at least the State Department - works.

Assange seems to me the perfect illustration of a gestalt public figure. People see what they want when they look at him. I should say this isn't intrinsic to what he's trying to do but intrinsic to the whole situation. Do you wonder how many people , whether here or abroad, actually believe the charges against him have any merit, and are not a political smear? So much for Swedish neutrality, I guess.-JV


Matt Stoller, "End this Fed"

Modern American industrial policy is to push capital into housing, move manufacturing abroad, build a massive defense establishment, and maintain an oligarchic financial sector. This system isn’t a structural inevitability. (via BDR)

Two from Slate:
Timothy Noah, "McSurance"
Crap health coverage wins a regulatory victory.

Ted Conover, "The Pathetic Newburgh Four"
Should the FBI really be baiting sad-sack homegrown terrorists?

BBC: Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood 'faces heavy poll losses'

Rob Payne, "Not Complicated at All"

Terry Greene Sterling, Dallas Observer,"Whose Dole Is It, Anyway?"

The spread of technology: French Taser Death


John Blake, CNN: Is America on the path to 'permanent war'?

As the Afghanistan war enters its ninth year, author Andrew J. Bacevich and others ask: When does it end? They say the nation's national security leaders have put the U.S. on an unsustainable path to perpetual war.

(Richard Dreyfuss says we should call it the war against extremist islam. I guess we should listen to him because he's a famous actor. [video link])

Police seek domain closure powers: "

Domains deemed to be "criminal" by the police could be shut down, if proposals before the overseer of the UK's net addresses come into force."

Austerity stew: Is squirrel the perfect austerity dish?
‘Liberal Clause’ Christmas book boosts tea party candidate