James – It seems that the constant noise from our crumbling civilization keeps us from hearing voices that are more truly aligned with our ongoing needs as human animals, and the sustainability of life on this planet. Perhaps we need to find a way to stop all the noise. Enjoy

http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/conversations-on-a-country-path/

Europe, like America, is crumbling, and all that has been built up will be lost in the chaos if we don't take steps to preserve it for future generations.

Visit the Leibowitz Society at http://leibowitzsociety.blogspot.com/2011/09/balkanization.html for commentary on saving our knowledge for the future, as well as observations on our coming Dark Age.

I know you don't see it J H K, but however we arrange the deck chairs -- World made by hand, etc. -- the Titanic is sinking. We mere serfs will never beat the speculators and bankers, for they own the super computers that decide in nanoseconds to buy on low and sell on high. There is no way to put the genie back in the bottle; they've got it all sown up.

James, you assume we need a means of exchange, but exchange is not intrinsic to our true nature. We come into this world; taking and we leave it; giving. Meantime we sometimes give and we sometime take, and the two are separate issues. Money and it's hand-maiden economics, hence law and consequently government, is the quagmire we set–up for ourselves ... eons ago. We don't need any of it, though few historically grasped the concept--Proudhon, Marx, Bakunin, Kropotkin et al.

Maybe the Arab spring will evolve into the eradication of all three ... if we let it, but for the most part we are afraid. "There is nothing to fear, cept fear itself". Once we are in this nether-land, we'll see the absurdity of privilege, race and culture and know we are all in it together. We are merely one species, on one planet.

"Imagine no heaven and no hell” and no money, and how that will eradicate 90% of our current problems. We will adjust ... we will have no options ... cept extinction.

Jack

Jim: I thought that now we all need to read (or re-read) Rudyard Kipling's 1919 poem, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," which has relevance to the whole world now:

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Davindra’s Blessing: In the Blink of an Eye

http://www.Thesisa.org/

Or, what did Ralph Nader do to the Green Party after using it to get Dubya the Jesus Joker in Chief appointed [not elected] to the presidency. And the fate of the developed world after the banking shenanigans play themselves out the rest of the way? How about Albania, circa 1968, when that country in the Balkans was the laughing stock of the eastern bloc?

And the one thing that we must do, but will not do, is have a serious discussion about what functions we will accept government to perform and at what level of taxation. Since we are borrowing over 50% of what we are spending, the first thing we must do is agree on what 50% we are going to cut out -- and nobody will do anything other than recoil in horror at that number.

Great post... I agree with you about the Postal Service - at least it accomplishes something useful and reduces how much people have to drive their cars. The right-wing wants to destroy it, so they force thousands of post offices to close instead of removing Saturday delivery... These politicians talk about needing to cut the postal service, but the U.S. military remains intent on spending hundreds of billions to keep 700+ overseas bases open: http://www.lesswaiting.com/cost-overseas-bases.shtml

A really clear explanation of the mechanics and outcomes of this is that of Prof. Michael Hudson:

"Banks will get paid when people go into a decade of stagnation and voluntary poverty all over Europe, especially Greece"...

Those uppity Europeans! How dare they not do that?

Great post. It will be interesting and scary when it does hit the fan.

Be prepared !

And as for the General crossing the Potomic,you just might see that sooner then you think. IF Panetta keeps cutting back our defence systems it could spur a coup. There is a point where someone will step in and stop this deliberate national suicide brought on by the liberals. Never weaken yourself to appease your enemies or competitors. Strength and resolve are what keeps the wolves from the sheep.

It's interesting you mention carp.

The Asian carp is an aggressive and adaptable species that has invaded the Mississippi River system. On the political front there are moves a foot to close the channel (built about 100 years ago)to prevent the Asian carp from swimming into and having a major presence in the Great Lakes system and all of its thousands of tributory bodies of water, destroying what's left of the local fishery. Closing this channel, however, would be a blow to international trade, as there is bulk material shipping from the Great Lakes the Mississippi and beyond and so seems unlikely.

However, there is a certain type of entertainment these carp provide. The carp, for some reason, are stimulated to jump when speed boat go by. A motor boater (while the fossil fuels last) can make figure eights in the Illinois River. This will cause a number of these 20 pound fish to jump, sometimes into the boat. One can try to catch them or try to hit them with a baseball bat or otherwise test one's reflexes. Sometimes the fish missles will blindside one and knock one in the head. However,without danger there is no adventure.

James, thanks for your writing as always.

" In the meantime, can anybody answer this question: where is the Tea Party of Progressives? Why are the Nascar morons and Jesus jokers the only people in this country who can mount an aggressive political movement? Will somebody please step up and take the baton?" -JHK

Mr K.,
I know it sounds weird, but those that have some clues and have their noses into the wind are waiting to see which way the Christo-cripple-true-believers are going to jump [and aggregate], and then [figuratively] run like hell in the exact opposite direction. (Kind of a "head down, powder dry" type position.)

Cowardly? One could interpret it that way, but I tend to think of it more as a survival strategy. "Call me coward, but 'ware my existence; I am more dangerous than my ghost..."

Tea party progressives?

Blowing in the wind with Joe Hill's ashes.

Progressive anger (that is ready to take action) is an oxymoron.

One has to be willing to stand at the front line, charge into the abyss and risk personal loss, pain and injury to mount aggressive campaigns. Intelligence may be a liability under such circumstances.
Believing in a righteous place in the afterlife makes it much easier to saddle up yer guns ‘n go. Also, you have to be prepared to pull the trigger, condemn & execute likely innocents as well as the unfortunate collaterals along the way. Forgiveness of sins and mistakes helps to wash away the guilt of decisive action.

Where are the Ghandians, willing to take the blows, the modern freedom riders? Nostalgia for the civil rights movement isn’t same as walking the line. Is filing a class action lawsuit or a discrimination claim as visceral as not being allowed to drink from public fountains, or remaining seated on a bus?

Which side presents the pageantry, the solemn ceremonies honoring the fallen? You cannot tell people to fight to the death for bread, as it is of no use to the dead. You should probably re-read Mein Kampf, and listen to Wagner to appreciate the mystic state that denies physical reality and the ennobles the pursuit of honor through violence.

Basically, most intellectuals have become chicken shits, counting on their access controlled doors, laminated & reinforced glass and the minor goons of the security companies to keep order in their world. They have abdicated responsibility for their personal security, while the ‘guns for Jesus’ crowd at least goes to the range and practices hitting human shaped targets.

I would like to see a progressive say, “we are willing to take fifty thousand casualties to achieve our goals”, and then try to recruit them to the cause. Good luck with that.

All:
Please send copies of Jim's books to the OCCUPY WALL STREET site. They have a library there and are requesting books to educate themselves.

You can bring the books to the site - just ask for the library and they will be gratefully received (and you will meet some extraordinary people!) or you can send the books to:

The UPS Store
Re: Occupy Wall Street
118A Fulton St. #205
New York, NY 10038

Also, send other books or articles that you think these guys and gals should read to become well rounded and aware.

It's also obnoxious when businessmen and politicians, including Obama, compare the Postal Service to FedEx or UPS - as if they were doing the same thing. FedEx and UPS don't have to deliver letters or send & receive items from every postal address six days per week. I can walk to my mailbox and mail a padded envelope with some extra stamps on it - or travel a ten-mile round trip to the nearest UPS shipping location and pay considerably more.

doomster wrote:

"at least it accomplishes something useful and reduces how much people have to drive their cars."

Not always. It's a small thing but...my MIL, who lives on a very fixed income, drives 7 miles to take her outgoing mail to the local post office when she could put it in the mailbox at her front porch.

I think she likes to visit with the Postmaster. I suppose that's useful. The fact that she's wasting $3/gal gasoline is apparently lost on her.

I'm a NASCAR fan and Jesus is my friend and savior, but I don't care for the tea party. I don't take offense to your remarks, but stereo-types don't always fit.

In some ways I dread what's coming. In some ways I look forward to it. There are pro's and con's to the future like you find with anything.

Wall St., CEO's, etc. who don't know how to tie their own shoes are going to have a hard time. I prefer my jack-of-all-trades, bibbed-overall wearing husband to an exquisitely dressed guy who only knows how to play golf, sell stock or send jobs overseas.

Re: CynicalOne - well, you just can't stop some people from wasting energy. Look at the people who buy a new, more energy-efficient refrigerator and keep the old one running in another room...

Always we are warned of impending physical stress and pain as the reset button is about to get pushed, but this process of social dismemberment carries a much greater psychic burden. For all of us who thought we counted, in the grand scheme of things, the incessant demand that we not touch the wealthy with taxes, coupled with continuous demands tha we dismantle our public services should be a clear warning to all former middle class Americans that we do not count. We are the peasants standing at the side of then road as the American Military Convoys rumble by. We are the shaded peasant faces standing behind Pancho Villa as he shows off his new car to the cameras. We are the farmers who farmed as the revolution swept their land in 1775, trying to keep on making a living and feeding our families as the heroic Makers of History rode through the night warning of thenimpending arrival of the oppressors.
In simple terms we middle class peasants don't cpunt when kt comes to deciding who loses everything and who gets everything. We have been fed a diet of supremacy since World War Two and now we need to unlearn the lesson. We are expendable, we deserve nothing. All hail the banksters who must be kept whole at our expense.
And for pity's sake don't protest, even on Wall Street because no one will notice you anyway.

James,

I like your writing style but your reading lacks a bit. The A1, S8 of the Constitution permits Congress to create the postal system. It does not mandate that one be created. There is nothing illegal if the USPS were ended.

I'd prefer it get a makeover like those corporate CEO's you detest wish, though. It can operate and it does provide a needed service but not the way it's currently operated. It needs a major overhaul.

Here's an audio link to Michael Hudson on Europe
and how the bankers demand that entire countries
go into a decade of depression to pay back their loans that went to their oligarchies. How dare those Icelanders vote it down--Twice!

Don't let the absurd intro music dissuade you, it's well worth listening to. Hudson is one of the few that
can make complicated finance understandable to the average Joe or Jane.

http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/73344

KrankyinVancouver wrote:

"Basically, most intellectuals have become chicken shits,"

and

"I would like to see a progressive say, “we are willing to take fifty thousand casualties to achieve our goals”, and then try to recruit them to the cause. Good luck with that."

+1

brianh,

More tellin' it like it is. +1

The "progressives" who make up the citizen power in the Democratic party are not. They are primarily compensated and/or pension holding professionals; upper middle class people who are very if not most often MORE divorced from the working class than the Tea Partiers of the far right in a practical or technical sense.

Condescending and patronizing, albeit conscience (shame?) driven they have no natural, instincive or acquired feel for the lower classes. And they naively believe that they actually created wealth through their earnings and accumulation.

Only when the institutional Democrats become democrats and become consistently genuine progressive will we even as much as begin to hold a legitimate conversation. Of those of that description I encounter personally, that being dozens a day, only a very few are of the opinion or understanding that we can't get through this and maintain lifestyle, equity and culture. Yet, insistent that that it can be "fixed"

The Clinton/McCauliffe/DLC/"New Democrats" phenomena was the removal of the firewall. Deregulation of finance opened the floodgates. Offered up the false confidence of bubbles and hyper leverage.

I can't envision a pitchfork weilding army or even so much as a mass boycotting or hunger striking mass of retired government employees, services administrators and clerks demanding mark to market accounting or resolution of the finincial institutions that harbor their ever increasingly and vulnerable funds.

The forces that used upper middle class liberals like rented mules in this recent generation have always been at play. However, they have generally been held at bay by progressives, on both sides of the political aisle, actually. Now, hardly anybody even knows that they exist, or what progressivsm or the history of it is, and as a result too many have devoted their (genuine) conscience and empathy driven energy to boutique issues and causes.

Punked, indeed.

I'm glad you pointed out that delivering the mail is one of the duties of the U.S. government listed in the Constitution. When I point that out to conservatives, it doesn't seem to make much of an impression anymore.

As for where the Tea Party is for progressives, there are several of us. Your estranged neighbor Elaine Meinel Supkis is blogging about the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd, who are the Anonymous who were protesting Scientology a few years bad. They're now going after a bigger target. There is U.S. Uncut, who are their parents who sympathize with them and are going after Bank of America. There's also Coffee Party USA. We have something planned for the last Saturday in October on the Mall in Washington, D.C. I keep telling you about the Coffee Party, but you never seem to recall. Maybe when you promote your next book, you or your agent might remember, now that I'm telling you, that we have a Blog Talk Radio channel. I'm one of its hosts.

I didn't blog about the Coffee Party last week, although I did the week of July 4th. However, I did blog about both the Postal Service and Food Stamps in "Silly Sustainability Saturday: While the World burns, Farmville thrives" on Crazy Eddie's Motie News. There was a lot of grousing about Facebook, which seems to get more attention than the economy among people online. At least the price of gas is down--for now!

http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/

I'll take on of those free dinners at Taillevent please.

Why are the Nascar morons and Jesus jokers the only people in this country who can mount an aggressive political movement?

Because aggression comes from ignorance and fear.

Also because we're all looking around for

somebody

to step up and take the baton.

It's our turn to cry

JHK, I keep talking about neoliberalism and the shock doctrine. If this isn't that moment, then I don't know what is.

Obviously they need to blow up the global finances in order to take society through the rampant privatization that Milton Friedman exhorted.

We are now that laboratory, perfect for the next step and if you haven't read the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, then you don't recognize it for exactly what it is. Read it and weep because this thing is a steam roller and it's flattening the western world.

Once you know the theory and how they work it, you don't have to be as brilliant as Larry Summers and his ilk (making 500% on the public to private conversion), who used it on Russia, using the alcoholic Yeltsin after the fall of the USSR.

Of course they want to get their mitts on social security, and Medicare. Of course they want to privatize the Post Office. They hate the nation state and hate the public sector. It must always be a profit center. Them's the rules.

In Europe, they may be planning to overhaul the whole government run medical apparatus. There's a reason why people who know how economies work would blow up the global economy. I don't believe for one second that these people didn't know what they were doing.

The economy based on debt only helps the banks and makes the rest of us debt peons. I'm no economist, but I know that we have had less options for saving our money since the 1970's.

We used to be able to put money into safe FDIC backed savings accounts and make money on our money for instance. Less liberty for us and a whole lot more for the banks who want no regulations and no money to back any of their casino bets even now after everything we've seen!

Who knows how this is going to end, war, depression? It's anyone's guess but I do know it's a powder keg just ready to blow.

I wish to add a few sour notes:

Why did JHK expect Obama to have a clue? He gave no indication in his campaign that he was any less a believer in the establishment boogiemen that are supposedly the challenges we face than other politicians. And even if he had had a clue it would be political suicide to act on that.

As to how come there is not a tea party of progressives? There is, it is called the progressive movement. Progressives have a different set of delusional diagnoses and prescriptions for our society as the tea party does.

And why is a tea party of the left a good thing? So we can have some sort of quasistable ideological equilibrium in the form of a Balance of Whackjobism?

The New Yok Times took up your question over the weekend: "Whatver Happened to the American Left":

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/whatever-happened-to-the-american-left.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

The Nascar morons and Jesus jokers are bankrolled by those with deep pockets. they've got the Koch Brothers bankrolling their shenanigans, Dick Armey organizing them, and Rupert Murdoch giving them a national platform. We've been here before. The big industrialists backed the nascent Nazi party to head off the Communists. At least Hitler would let the industrialists keep their companies, in exchange for letting the state push them around. The Communists would abolish them totally, maybe even hanf them in the public square.

Sinilarly, bankrolling the Tea Party keeps the little people angry at government rather than the banks and big corporations. BUt beware - the industrialists of Germany thought they could control Hitler. The joke was on them, and the German people. Similarly, I think the American plutocrats bankrolling the Tea Party don't know what they've unleashed.

Ah well, as usual, the office drones are rhapsodizing about their fantasy football heroes. Fantasy football for a fantasy nation.

the teabaggers versus the coffeebeaners

lmfao

"...Just so you know the sort of fate we are tempting with our shenanigans..." JK's style of inclusiveness. Excuse me, but I am not a player.

Meanwhile the "protesters" in lower Manhattan have no unified message and no game plan other than to video tape themselves being arrested by the NYPD.

Where is the ghost MLK when you need him? He must be on the payroll of some hedge fund.

Aimlow Joe was here
http://www.aimlow.com

"where is the Tea Party of Progressives?"

We on the Left resemble a tea party, but an overly sensitive, Kumbaya, step-on-no-toes one where actual tea gets poured (and smoked). Just be sure everyone gets their sugar and cream.

It's pathetic. We need the old class of working men to see who is turning the screws today and take to the streets. Their grandfathers supported FDR against the idiocy of the GOP of the 1920s, George Babbitt vintage. Today their grandsons, displaced and downsized out of the American dream, rally to the Tea Party, the very force whipped up by the GOP's corporate sponsors.

We need Yippies, not old academic Hippies, to stand up to these NASCAR morons and Jesus-jokers. We need more George Carlins (Jon Stewart is a point of light among the otherwise humorless Left). The kids in Wall Street, who at least have the spine to take to the streets, have no coherent agenda.

The Tea Party doesn't either, cramming Ayn Randians and Dominionists under one tent. But they do have a coherent political goal: less of our current government.

If they gained a lot of power and tried to decide what government *should* do, I'd predict dissent and violence among their ranks. Then we'd need that General from the Pentagon, though we'd best hope he's not a Dominionist Christian.

This is why I stick with wimpy Progressives and Leftists. I don't think they are going to every kill me or anyone else, except by boredom.

I have stepped up. I am going to change the world. Baton in hand.

PUSH ON. DO GOOD. KEEP SMILING.

- Solar Guy

JHK, good column this week. Added "mummery" to my vocabulary, thanks.

Speaking of the tea party progressives, if they hold a protest on Wall St. and no media covers it, did it really happen? Damn that "liberal" media.

Personally, I'm planning to feed and protect my family and a couple like-minded friends. I think we are past the point where intelligent, organized political action will succeed in time to stave off disaster.

I think it was Dmitry Orlov who said that the two survival modes for the near future will be 1 - nomadic, moving away from trouble and towards resources, or 2 - building something that will be more useful to whatever 'powers that be' intact rather than looted.

I've got a small farm, a long gun, and the skills to use both. I only half-jokingly tell people who annoy me (i.e. daughter's boyfriends, proselytizing religious types, etc) 'I've got a shotgun, a shovel, and 52 acres; don't piss me off'

I don't want to do the nomadic thing unless pushed to it, and the 'bug-out bag' is ready if/when necessary, but I'm counting on my little 'lifeboat' here to see me and mine through.

I don't have the time to convince others of what they should do; anybody who hasn't got the message yet probably won't wake up in time to seriously prepare anyway.

I am spending some time 'sorting' (rather than convincing); i.e. I am sorting my friends and neighbors into those who are ready to do something now, from those who aren't.

Most of my non-farming attention is being spent with the former, to create a local network of like-minded folks that will hopefully be able to plan and act together when necessary.

I'm not wasting any time waiting for a 'political hero' to ride to the rescue; we've seen just how impotent they all are (regardless of political stripe) to really affect what's coming. In short, talk time just about over; deeds not words from this point forward.

deliquescing

You must be So Proud and Feel So Superior today.

Your ramblings this week were like used-dishwater, but again, Congratulations on:

deliquescing wow, I LIKE the way that sounds

deliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescingdeliquescing

Hello all

Oh yes, we are well and truly punked at this point. Even that chibbering brigand Christine LaGarde can't avoid the fact that anymore austerity in Greece will blow up all of Europe. But she still has the unmitigated stupidity to insist on more austerity and full repayment
of Greece's so called debts. Once Europe goes down you can plan on the North American continent following within hours to days.

Sjorgen, please don't be naive, Obama has fulfilled all of his goals very admirably from his point of view. No help for the middle class, continuous bailouts for his major campaign donors , continuation of the wars for profit scam, Guantanamo up and running full speed, a healthcare Trojan horse plan- designed to extract the most pennies from the sick and dying. Come on haven't you twigged on yet? He is the supremely smooth stealth weapon in the hands of the oligarchs. Don't doubt it. Meanwhile his wifey spends millions on vacations. Talk about audacity(and not audacity of hope), I'll just say!

Watching all the events unfold with disgust and terror.
loveday

"Where are they going to get the money? From the machinists' union in Dusseldorf? The waiters and chambermaids in Munich?"

JHK gives too little credit to the plans designed to raise revenue. I just heard a report on NPR the other day that one way to scare up some cash in Europe is to make sure prostitutes pay their fair share of taxes.

To that end the German government (I think) has issued Tart Cards, er something like that, in which the Lady of the Night in question has to make sure she inputs the card on any working day, paying an $8 fee for that day's (night's) work. If she's caught soliciting and hasn't punched the card that day, she gets a warning. The next time, a fine.

Perhaps nothing is so fitting a metaphor for Europe's digging in the couch cushions for coins as this. Finally they're being open about whoring for money.

Let's hope a lot of people want to pay for five-ten minutes worth of companionship and that the sex peddlers follow state policy. Otherwise, they're f*cked!

(I swear this was a real policy idea presented on the radio last week or so).

"Where are they going to get the money? From the machinists' union in Dusseldorf? The waiters and chambermaids in Munich?"

JHK gives too little credit to the plans designed to raise revenue. I just heard a report on NPR the other day that one way to scare up some cash in Europe is to make sure prostitutes pay their fair share of taxes.

To that end the German government (I think) has issued Tart Cards, er something like that, in which the Lady of the Night in question has to make sure she inputs the card on any working day, paying an $8 fee for that day's (night's) work. If she's caught soliciting and hasn't punched the card that day, she gets a warning. The next time, a fine.

Perhaps nothing is so fitting a metaphor for Europe's digging in the couch cushions for coins as this. Finally they're being open about whoring for money.

Let's hope a lot of people want to pay for five-ten minutes worth of companionship and that the sex peddlers follow state policy. Otherwise, they're f*cked!

(I swear this was a real policy idea presented on the radio last week or so).

I see in today's news they're raising the possibility of a "partial" default by Greece on its debt obligations.

It's amazing how a little bit of spin makes the worst news somehow palatable, almost tasty.

Or, to quote Mary Poppins in the movie, "A Spoonful of Sugar makes the Medicine...go Down."

"The rage of millions will shred the trappings of fakery, and for a while things will seem too real. The world has no idea how all this might resolve. What a show."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za5AH7qVlqE

It seems to me that there are only 2 options now -- (1) the entire world agrees to absolve most debts and reduce the rest of them for everyone but the world Banksters will throw raging fits and politicians everywhere will capitulate or (2) the Tea Party wins and taxes are no longer paid because Western Civilization has collapsed. No more taxes means no more schools/hospitals, etc. No more safety either. Food will stop being delivered to grocery stores because no one will have any credit. Old people, the sick, the very young and the vulnerable will die first. Everyone will be on their own. Stock up on ammo/guns/canned food/bottled water because there won't be any left to buy. The police and military are gone because they're not being paid either. So that opens us to invasion by foreign countries because now we're completely disorganized. No one is in charge anymore. And everything is ripe for the picking by giants like Russia or China.

The whole world is suffering from massive unemployment (not just the US). The US, Europe and the Middle East have millions unemployed and are growing angry because no one is willing to say "Hey, let's tax the rich more!" so we can fix collapsing bridges or help with national disasters like prolonged droughts and destructive hurricanes and put people back to work with jobs that CAN'T be outsourced. That would be too sensible for politicians. Just imagine all the Tea Baggers who will have gold/silver/cash/stock/bonds on hand, who killed civilization and everyone with it so they wouldn't have to hand over a percentage of their precious loot to some central bureaucracy. Will they think their cash is all that important when the worlds burns down to the ground?

Long Term Solutions for Perpetually Punked

Consider the amount of tax money you send to the Federal Government each year. When completeing your state and federal tax forms note the diffence in where you dollars are sent.

Does it make more sense to trust your dollars to the Feds or to your more local officials? Imagine for a moment the services your state could offer now flush with cash. Parks, greenways, transit, better (lower cost) education, business development and a true local choice in the matter.

The process of scaling back Washington, in of itself, will shrink the beltway bandit mentality that much of corporate America depends on to satisfy shareholders. Yes to local business, local food, and an empowered local government.

Southern View

Good essay. Too funny. And true. What about the kids on Wall Street being sprayed with Mace ? Any insight into that ?

How odd, why would Jim close with a question that he just spent his entire post rendering moot?

There will be no rising up of the progressive left precisely because they are not the politics of rage. I would go even further and argue that progressive politics (and non-violent protest) is a luxury afforded only by those with abundant resources and a thriving economy.

Both of which appear to be in dwindling supply, as of late.

Besides, what exactly would the aging baby-boomers and young wanna-be hippies actually be protesting? Their own obscene and now suddenly obsolete standard of living?

Perhaps their time would be better spent preparing to be impoverished.

Cheers,
Jerry

People will look back to the savings and loan scam of twenty years ago as a watershed event. “Never in history was there such a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich”. Well, they got away with it. People grumbled then shrugged. The short-term outrage of the people helped elect Clinton, who promptly forgot about the whole thing. This set the model for huge 2008 Bush bailout and now the enforced Euro bank welfare scheme.

JK,

Nice enough rant, yeah nice is all. The Cat must have your quill pen - no point in restating the obvious.

As far as the need for a "progressive" party - please refer back to "square one" of CF Nation.

Formulating a political party assumes that the current government is legitimate and managed as a result of elections and civil will. I think we both know this is no longer the case. Right-thinking people are correctly understanding the futile nature of using political power to affect change. As you conclude, reality will seep into public discourse sooner or later.

My current perspective suggests that the rich have effectively marginalized those people with failing standards of living. You see Jim, it is the poor, the ignorant and the old and unproductive folks that are the enemy of our prosperity. We must disabuse them of any claim of "rights" or entitlement of governmental redress or access.

As long as the cheese-doodles fill the guts and the TV dims the brains of the masses there is little hope of fomenting a vengeful right-thinking public.

Liberalism: We do hereby most humbly acknowledge that the immutable laws of nature and of nature’s god ordain free-market capitalism as the one true religion, i.e. economic system, and that the earth entire, all its critters and every single gene of every strand of their DNA, the solar system and all the stars in the firmament belong to capital. We also most humbly recognize that those laws require capital to fuck the common people long and hard. We, however, do beg, plead and only most tenuously legislate that you not fuck the people too long and hard. Only the bare, requisite minimum—with maybe just a little “feel good” extra on the margins.

We have the largest military and the largest prison system in the world. The wars on the left, organized crime, drugs and terror have completely destroyed any meaningful constitutional protections. I wouldn't hold my breath for any epiphanies, Mr. K.

"In the meantime, can anybody answer this question: where is the Tea Party of Progressives?"

Errrr, in the White House?

I'm mean what do you want? For the last forty years administration after administration has advanced the progressive agenda. Even the ones you didn't like such as Bush I and II and Ronny.

Moreover how are people who believe in a techno utopia of post humans possibly going to come to terms with a future, sorry present, of an ex- industrial Dark Age?

You wonder why the elites and their followers can't comprehend the now distinct outline of the great demonic locomotive of doom bearing down on our civilisation? Two words baby: Whig History.

JHK, you ask where the 'progressive' tea partiers are? They are the fine folks who are occupying Wall Street (and the sister movements forming in San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles, Cleavland, Portland, etc):

https://occupywallst.org/

http://twitter.com/#!/OccupyWallSt

This may be the beginning of the beginning of people acknowledging the beginning of the end of the world as we know it.

Jim, the reason why religious people and tea party people are the only ones organized who want to help this nation is because the others you are speaking of are not capable of organizing in a way that will benefit anyone but themselves. Its called selfishness. The gay agenda is ONLY for itself. The Left Wing is only for itself, and not inclusive of others that don't agree with it (its main philosophy seems to be anarchy , after a couple of joints and maybe knocking back a few drinks.) and whatever else is there out there??? I really don't know. You have the die hard druggies, alcoholics, and narcissists. So in the end you pose a question,that is the quintessential question. Where is everbody else besides the Tea Party and Jesus followers? Don't forget the Jesus followers and Orthodox jewish communities have a lot in common. Its called, "looking out for your neighbor, instead of yourself all the time, ie. sacrifice if you have to.) It may not be easy for those narcissists to understand but that is main distinction between those that think to help their neighbor and those that want to step on their neighbor to get what they want.

I believe it was Patrick Henry who said:

"Once the dick is up your ass, good luck putting a rubber on it."

Tea Party Progressives?

Ya, we got 'em. They're called 'Code Pink'.

But they are not protesting foreign wars anymore since their side is running them.

--Widespreadpanic

Tea party of the left? We call it Canada. You folks on the left are welcome up here when it all goes to pot down there. Seriously, the left seems to lack all conviction, as the poet said. Your lunatic right has seized the national narrative and we've been looking on in astonishment, wondering the exact same thing, "Where's the left? Where are your convictions?" Theirs they wear on their shirtsleeves, but where's yours? What do you believe in? What do you stand for?

Best wishes to you all, but reality will probably prevail.

Gerrit in Ottawa

There will never be a revolt from the progressives against their own social democratic State. Kunstler needs to wake up from his liberal fog.

Also, progressives have committed the following strategic errors:

They've alienated white people, particularly the white working class.

They're not armed.

They're anti-religious.

They don't have children.

"Progressive Tea Party"? Left-populist? There was an effort to start something like that in the early 1990s, the New Party, but it didn't get national organizing success and petered out. The nearest thing now is the Working Families Party, in New York and a couple other state.

"In the meantime, can anybody answer this question: where is the Tea Party of Progressives?"
The "tea party" (as they are appropriately named in the LA Times) is not a Party at all, but a disparate, disordered catch-all which has been embraced by the corporate media. If "the media" had a mind to do it, they could dub a liberal/left alternative. They could have done it easily in Madison, WI a couple of months ago. They could do it today with #OccupyWallStreet if they so choose. These groups are at least as credible as the so-called "tea party," more educated and more representative of the actual (financial) interests of average US citizens. I wonder why the MSM doesn't glom on to these liberal groups the way they do to the not-genuinely-existent Tea Party.

Jay,

Public employee unions are not populist and not representative of the financial interests of typical US citizens.

I don't know about OccupyWallStreet, but most progressives realize that without the Fed and its network of primary dealers on Wall Street, their crackpot utopian schemes could never be financed solely by tax revenue from net payors.

"In the meantime, can anybody answer this question: where is the Tea Party of Progressives?"

I suppose an appropriate name would be the Wake Up And Smell The Coffee Party.

It is interesting that many commentors here envision a "Road Warrior" type future, and meanwhile I am pretty sure those in power envision a 1984 Big Brother type future. Given the heavy use of drones and weapons we are not even told about they are practicing for it at this very moment so it will all come down to who our all voluntary military is going to back. Remember Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin all had people that did the dirty work and willingly so.

Greetings,

Movements begin one person at a time.

I believe that the grid is unsustainable therefore I am off of the grid.

I believe that peak oil is here therefore I live on a sailboat and let the wind push me around.

I believe that large agro-business is doomed therefore I purchase much of my food locally.

I believe that working for a large corporation is no different than voluntary slavery therefore I refuse to work for ANYBODY but myself.

The difference between an activist and a blowhard is action. Someone that tells me that peak oil is here and is doing NOTHING about it doesn't really believe what they are saying. Likewise, someone that tells me that the grid is unsustainable but, yet, is still ON the grid doesn't believe the words coming out of their own mouth.

If you believe, act. If not, shut up.

Everyone please discount ANYTHING asoka has said lately and that goes for this week, too. He's been off his meds for September due to financial difficulties. Thank you.

We need more of those protesters to occupy Wall Street.

JullietteofOhio, God Bless You.

Tea Party Progressives? How the Public Sector Unions? They don't mind mixing it up with the 'Right Wing' (ordinary citizens) while, with the help of their Democratic allies holding office, grabbing all they can from the local, state and Federal treasuries.

Incidentally, while in S.France in August paid about $9.00 per gallon for gas. And the roads were jam packed.

--WideSpreadPanic

JHK - funny you think the post office is worth something and tax payers should continue to fund it....well i am sure a welfare recipient feels the same about welfare and a road construction worker feels the same about gov road building.

you are no better than all the other leach f%cks in that your priorities should be funded...

Uh, I meant "Congratulations."

Come on in, the water is fine and the sharks haven't arrived yet.

In the meantime, can anybody answer this question: where is the Tea Party of Progressives?

IMHO

The emergence of a strong progressive reaction depends on news coverage or it can't germinate. Unfortunately money dictates what makes news in and progressives are not thought of kindly by corporate interests or the rich. The conservative tea party movement to the contrary reflects similar views to keepers of the gold taken to a wanna-be extreme.

This means the conservative tea party is not a threat to moneyed interests so long as they don't get an excessive amount of news coverage, they're cheerleaders. Progressives however get no coverage. These assholes have ideas and want to change things using their ideas.

In time past government and corporate media were less sophisticated than now. Reporters covered important progressive issues in attempts to enhance their careers. That nonsense stopped a long time ago. Now reporters with careers are embedded yes men and protest by the left is mostly ignored.

Control access to corn-pone and you control the world.

I have a hunch, reading comments such as the one about "get a dictionary" are from the angry, ignorant, Tea Party types.

Anyway, the situation in Europe, as well as the US is this: you give someone a credit card with an infinite credit limit, then, you tell the world, 'deficits don't matter' (remember Cheney's comment) and then, when the person cannot pay, because jobs have vanished, you demand the person pay, or else. And then, you offer to lend the person more money to make the payments. Insanity, my friends. There's not enough GDP on the planet to pay these debts. As a check ask if YOU can pay your debts off immediately. We are witnessing banking and governmental insanity exposed. And it is too bad that the ignorant Americans who chide on this blog can clog up the Internet with their utterly stupid, uninformed, childish comments.

We clearly need the draft, to get our stupid American male-children off the blogs. When they return to real life, after actually experiencing reality, I'd bet they will be smarter, or dead, which would be fine in either case. I'm sick of stupid, uneducated American men, young or old. Take the pipe, all of you, please.

To the person who pointed out that if a tree falls in the forest and the media doesn't cover it, no one else knows it happened-thank you.

Yes, there are people on Wall Street, and on LaSalle Street in Chicago, and there are people working for peace and for the environment and for monetary reform.

The Green Party still exists. I know because I am out there collecting signatures and passing out leaflets and talking to everyone I can.

Can anyone really think that money and media don't make a difference? When millions of dollars go to organize the angry doofuses of America, and the media covers their every burp, that this somehow makes the right wingers more organized than the left?

No, you won't see progressives out fighting with guns and willing to take 50,000 dead to win. That's just stupid. We're against war and violence and murder.

We aren't stockpiling weapons and food because we think that if we cooperate with each other, we can provide a decent, sustainable way of life for everyone.

And the ruling class is no way going to not pay the army and the police. Check out what is happening to the kids on Wall Street.

Armed thugs, well-paid, are attacking and arresting the kids who are demanding that Wall Street bankers pay their share of taxes.

Why aren't the police arresting the bankers? Who have stolen pensions, gambled with people's money, thrown people out of their houses, speculated on food, causing millions to go hungry? Yeah, why not?

Do you think that is a stupid question? Then you realize who the police and the army serve.

Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. would have gotten no where without an audience, provided by the media, as pointed out by Arundhati Roy.

http://wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2010/06/if-peasant-dies-in-forest-does-it-make.html

By the way, confidence is not an indispensable resource, except for enabling the Wall Street gambling scam to continue.

We need sunlight, water, and soil.

The capitalists are busily destroying and/or controlling at least two of those.

Here's a direct link to Ms. Roy-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnTS9gHCZoI

While some of you jokers were praying for salvation, I spent the weekend building a mobile triplex for 3 new, and very large, meat rabbit does we picked up at auction Saturday. One of them arrived quite pregnant, a second most likely impregnated by the male companion with whom she arrived, and the third ready to go as soon I move her to it. Should be swimming in all-but-free (and very delicious, if you haven't tried it) meat by New Year.

If your piety at the temple can top that I'd be surprised.
Happy transition, dear friends!

People here point out week after week that there is no way that these trillion dollar debts can be paid off, especially by impoverished workers.

That is very true. However, the ruling class will take as much as they can in payment.

It's like the Mafia breaking your fingers and
then your legs before they actually kill you.

There is a lot of public wealth left in the world. Max Kaiser sat in a hotel in Greece and listened to Goldman Sachs employees discuss how they were going to take Greece's public wealth.

Here in the US, they are going after public lands, lands that were to be preserved for future generations, and public pensions that were to be used to make old age a time of carefree rest.

And, as George Carlin said, they're going to get them. (Google it, I'm afraid of posting more links!)

Right wingers don't care about public wealth, or public lands. They think that they can sit on their acreage with their guns and protect their private land from the greedy.

Hah! Look at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo. The US is sitting on prime farmland that it simply took from its rightful owner. And they threw thousands of people off of Diego Garcia so that they could build a base there.

Don't think that they won't do it to you.

I cannot get Jim's idea of a 'progressive tea party' out of my head. Who would be in it? What would be its symbols? For example, at tea party rallies you see many American Flags, Betsy Ross Flags, and that flag with the coiled snake that says 'Don't tread on me'. What kind of flag would the 'progressive tea party' fly? Soviet hammer & Sickle? Palestinian? African National with a raised black fist gripping a Kalishnikov rifle? or the multi-coloured 'Gay International' flag?

I would say the gay national flag, held tight by a NAMBLA member leading the demonstration, followed up by every underground crank organization, anarchists, sexual deviants, public sector unions, minority rights schemers, 911 conspiracy theorists, communists, illegals, haters of all stripes ... every disaffected, miserable, revenge seeking, envious son of a bitch in North America ... that's you 'progressive tea party' on the march, burning down the state capitol.

--WideSpreadPanic
Key Largo

On the question of what happened to the left in this country.

Today, my husband and I talked about capital punishment on our radio show, because Georgia just executed an innocent man.

I pointed out that the US killed the Rosenbergs in the 50s, making orphans out of their two little boys.

The controversy still rages about whether they were innocent or not, but that is decidedly besides the point.

Don't you know that every young Communist woman looked at her babies, and told her husband that there was no way they were going to continue beating their heads against the wall of capitalist propaganda, and take the chance of the government killing them and leaving their children orphans!

That on top of the better pay that workers were getting in the 50s, and the oppression and job losses that commies got, made it too much of a life ruiner to continue to try to educate Americans.

Wage,

The sad part about the right is they think they won't be paying taxes. Herman Cain is doing well pushing his 999 tax plan. A flat tax plan, 9% business flat tax, 9% Individual tax and 9% National sales tax. He does away with inheritance taxes.

It all sounds so good until you consider that without pooled wealth, everything is a la carte and privatized. Boy will everything be expensive. Not to mention that we will be selling off our infrastructure to more unfriendly foreign nationals in order to pay to run the country.

I always say be careful what you wish for...

I'll just bet there are many out there who say they want this who will be wishing they didn't when they get the bill.

Why the Left has no tea party" Simple, because the Left is comprised of cults rigidly segregated.

All these cults are now fighting for the last tax dollar, and it is going to get ugly.

Just found something from Thom Hartmann:

[re: Gov. Rick Scott
"We've had plenty of success so far...we have 15,000 less government jobs in the state of Florida." Upon hearing that - his audience cheered - which isn't too big of a surprise since Republicans have cheered executions, sick people dying, and homophobia - why not cheer job losses too. Then Scott repeated the same right-wing talking point that "government doesn't create jobs."

Since President Obama took office - more than half a million government workers have been laid off in mostly Republican states - which is the real reason why our nation's unemployment rate is still above 9%.]

I just have to try to pause this comment thread for a split-second and pay tribute to the creativity of our host.

"...a freaky-deaky moment and it will be way worse than Lehman was. When it happens, what seemed financial will instantly go political. The rage of millions will shred the trappings of fakery, and for a while things will seem too real. The world has no idea how all this might resolve." -jhk-

Wow! "what seemed financial will instantly go political..."

It does appear that the "money-boys" are pushing the envelope just as far as they can - exactly how far down the road of privatizing profit and making risk public - CAN THEY GO??

============
And creativity - - put the phrase "a freaky-deaky moment" in quotation marks and GOOGLE it. As of a few minutes ago you will get only 36 total hits.
And several of those hits will return only onto today's JHK missive. I'm going to go back and take a look at a couple of those hits - blogs and things of which I do not believe I have yet heard.

Perhaps a nice snapshot of the "peak everything" and "survive everything" communities on-line.

Pretty good comments on CFN so far today!

====================
This internet is still a powerful thing.
Do those Wall Street protesters have a webpage?

Do they have a vision statement and a mission statement? This is today's America, after all.
Marketing counts - even among those who hate it.

I returned from Spain four days ago, I was there for two weeks. The general unemployment rate is 23%, for under-30s it is 40%. Yes, everyone seems to be waiting to see what will happen with Greece. I saw lots of worried people, especially among the elderly. I guess most of the under 30 group was out spray painting graffiti, which rivals anything you'd see in East L.A. Graffiti blankets the country. I was part of an American/Australian tour group. No one in the group spent money or shopped, so so much for tourists stimulating the economy there. The people in Spain are very beautiful, and the children are wonderful. The kids are well-groomed, well-dressed and polite. And HAPPY. That's good to see. So unlike the hyperactive, whining, scraggly American rugrats you see in Los Angeles. Everyone in Spain minds their own business when they go out in public, there wasn't much attitude to speak of, unlike France or England. Or the U.S. Upon my return to L.A. I'm struck by how snarky people are here. The staring, the sneering, the attitude, the road rage. It's really unpleasant and unhealthy. However, I must say that Los Angeles does have excellent food, it at least has that going for it. L.A. really is a culinary mecca of sorts, so it's good to have a wide variety of food and restaurants to choose from, including fresh produce and farmer's markets. If you have any desire to travel I'd do it now....while you can. However, it's best to save your money and conserve energy. You all know this.

Where are the baton carriers for a People's Progressive Movement? I totally agree. Why isn't Russ Feingold, or Alan Grayson rushing down to the Wall Street protests encouraging a nationwide street movement protesting the criminal activity of the largest banksta syndicate?

There needs to be well-known forces pushing this forward.

The young people protesting on Wall Street could be the beginning of an Autumn Revolution right here in this country!!!

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

Come on now, Mr. Ozone, should The Floods come again you Yankees (if you are a Yankee. I assume you are!) will welcome us with open arms. Just like we welcome you all each winter.

Speaking of floods, I understand the super Yankee state of Vermont got hit pretty bad this late summer, and it ain't been cleaned up yet.

I wish you all the best up there.

Oh, and JulliettaofOhio, my pleasure.

--WideSpreadPanic

How dare you insult the Jesus Jokers. They are the only ones left that can summon the miracle worker back to make all of us more oil.

Why would anybody "step up and take the baton"?

The effect would be the same as ranting against Las Vegas on the Strip. Water? Environment? Sprawl? Game? "Sorry Sir, we're having a party here. Could you please move out!"
Our "world" is the result of decisions taken long, long ago. We cannot undo them, and even if we could, it would not cancel the effect of these decisions. It may not even change to outcome.
The fact anyway is that the vast majority of the people want nothing to do with this line of thought. The heroes of our time are entertainers, not philosophers and entrenched interests are such that dissenting voices can easily be snuffed out. There is, at least for now, no acceptable alternative than the inviable one we are in. We can change our neighborhoods to make them more livable but we cannot change our whole economic system; it must fail first. Then, maybe new ideas will be proposed and more importantly, will be considered.

Ozone, like I was sayin' to my cousin just last week, you Yankees have a unique sense of humor.

--WideSpreadPanic

The "Progressive Tea Party" is steeping in the ever-simmering waters of post-university betrayal. On the water's surface, tea leaves appear to float in apathetic indifference. Below the surface, however, tea leaves of a generation betrayed are increasingly sinking into the steaming waters of debt and despair. Their liquified transformation will be bitter, dramatic, scalding. And they will crumple up the contrived anger of the current Tea Party like a peeling Elvis Presley wallpaper rug.

Prog,

I would say primarily the 20-30 age group deep in student loan debt and with dismal career prospects. Most of these kids believed that a college education was the on-ramp to the American Dream. Increasingly, it is proving to be a dead end road for many. It seems to me, that a generation of college educated coffee-shop workers mired in student loan debt( very difficult to discharge in bankruptcy court) have the potential to at least outstrip the privileged acrimony and fake fury of the current Tea Party.

By the way, I believe all learning instititions that accept student loan payment should be required to reveal their job placement stats, one way or another. And let parents and kids make an informed economic decision based on something more than the traditional paradigmn, to use Lbendet's words. But that's not going to happen because there's too much to lose. And once again I am struck by the incoherent attenuation of the societal fabric.

Speaking of those kids demonstrating on Wall Street, you've got to admire anybody with the you-know-whats to mix it up with the NYPD. Those dudes are tough. They have a Cavalry, and just last nite Commissioner Kelly announced that the department has the capability to shoot down incoming fighter aircraft. Mayor Bloomberg wouldn't comment specifically, be hinted at even greater capabilities.

So be careful.

--WSP

Take the baton, the controlling powers run the only newspaper in town and the tv news is run by wham radio which runs Rush, Cavauto, Beck 24 hrs a day."Several weeks into the new Dark age, life goes on as it always has, oblivious to the passing of the Age of reason. of Socratic thought and Apollonian logic. No one had noticed. But they would. And Soon" Great quote, oh Zeus where are you? Good points JHK but when I ask neighbors to read it, dont worry Perry and Palin will save us all, or we can escape like that new show Terra Nova.

Come to Wall St or start a protest in front of your local branch of the criminals where ever you are.
============

Let me go out on a limb right here. The "Occupy Wall Street" protest will die in its sleep and be forgotten before the final game of the World Series.

I read your entire link (it figures Chomsky would jump on this rickety bandwagon) and except for a few words in the opening paragraph there is no statement as to the actual financial crimes the protesters are there to protest. The crimes are apparently so self-evident that they need never be enumerated.

It is perfectly obvious to me that the purpose of this get-together is to create another "siege of Chicago" to slake the thirst for attention of a new crop of Abbie Hoffmans and Jerry Rubins.

When asked by a NY Times reporter why he had traveled to NYC a young protester said he came to be part of "making a spectacle."

They also have intelligence officers posted throughout the world, a small Navy & Air Force, and rank & file of 40,000 officers, the size of an Army Division. No, not and organization to be taken lightly.

--WSP

The above is a reply to Deacon-John.

WAR IS PEACE, 
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY and 
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

-AK

or vice versa

things in angle brackets get lost:
(orwell, nineteen eighty-four)

"Who you gonna put your money on, Oceana and her new sodomite army, or these guys" ... Vlad.

These guys meaning the combined Russian & Red Chinese Armies.

10 million Strong.

Against our Regular US Army of 490,000, one that now tolerates (and may soon encourage, who knows) open homosexuality within its ranks.

Vlad, it sounds to me that you don't have much faith of the suddenly new model American Army, made up of Queers and the ladies. Do you think the Russians and the Chinese haven't noticed these new, surprising developments? Their generals have to be shaking in their combat boots.

--WSP

In answer to Capt Spaulding.
Re: Naomi Klein. I really would love to read No Logo. Having been in advertising in the past, the idea of branding has always struck me as a marketing ploy with no substance.

Speaking of no substance, I remember back in the day when I was involved with anti-war protests, there were many people there who felt strongly about the issues. There were some, however that were doing this for cultural style purposes. There are always in a group of people those who are vapid and can't articulate the issues, but fill the ranks non-the-less.

My guess is that between the people demonstrating in Wisc. fighting for unions and those who are waking up to how impossible it is to live here anymore, there will be momentum for more. It will build slowly and there may be a coming together of grass roots types from right and left who can't continue functioning in this country. It will boil down to that.
When you've got nothing you've got nothing to lose.

Obama has just officially destroyed the country with his "Operation Vote."

Campus race (hate whitey) politics taken to the presidential level is a huge mistake, unless you wish to destroy the world's last superpower and destroy the value of the world's reserve currency.

Jim you might be a leftist but I think of you as a fairly clear thinker, so what is it do you or your family and extended family have a short position?

Its one thing to brainwash some kid on campus so they waste their life in a cult for the "D" party but to tell the world we are one step from open violent revolution is another.

Maybe the left already has an anti-Tea Party movement going and everyone has just failed to recognize it. Its the Occupy Wall Street bunch -- disorganized and multi grouped like the Tea Baggers but without the FOX News promotion and the Koch Brothers mega bucks. The Vietnam protest was largely a youth movement until other people started joining in so was Civil Rights movement. All young people. Young idealists v. old greedy baggers.

Occupy Wall Street is now in its second week. After those young women were pepper sprayed, its starting to get attention and sympathy (especially in light of the fact that one of those girls was deaf). Michael Moore (documentary maker) has now jumped on the band wagon -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/occupy-wall-street-protesters-get-boost-from-filmmaker-michael-moore/2011/09/26/gIQAaExG0K_story.html

One more thing related to ProCon's whining about immigrants and jobs.

U.S. businesses posted 3.2 million job openings in July, a 13.3% year-over-year increase and the highest number of job openings posted since August 2008.

You probably will not hear that on FoxNews. All you will hear about is unemployment, not about 3.2 million job openings.

By the way, the number of immigrants arriving did not increase by 13.3% during the past year.

Crying "the immigrants are taking our jobs!" is a red herring.

But it does put ProCon is solid agreement with Michelle Bachman regarding immigration. You supporting Michelle, ProCon?

A little distressing to see you're buying the meme that (heavens to betsy!) "We're running out of money."

Most modern currencies, the dollar and the euro included, are not backed by any commodity. Therefore the notion that we can "run out" is on par with telling a scorekeeper at a sporting event they can "run out" of points. It is Alice-in-Wonderland level absurdity.

But why is this widely promoted absurdity in existence? So the oligarchs can start dismantling the public realm. Rather than handle this by issuing more points, er, I mean euros or dollars, they're artificially throttling economies, and threatening grandma's pension to boot.

As Michael Hudson says, this is the financial equivalent of warfare. The takeover of the public realm in Greece would include mortgaging the Parthenon, the ports, etc. Imagine if Finland has to foreclose!...

Back in the U.S. the "debt crisis" appears to be the threat that had Obama abandon, at least for a moment, the crown jewels of the Democrats' historical accomplishment -- Social Security and Medicare.

But the Fed issued (out of nothing) $13 - $29 trillion to bail out banks and various other institutions caught in the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. Why can't they issue a few trillions more rather than cut back revenue sharing and social safety net programs?

Answer: Because the point of this is to dismantle those programs.

As for your question about where are the aggressive people on the left: Labor, not liberals, is the essential component of this answer to the oligarchs. So far labor has only made threatening noises to Obama.

Excuse me, progressives, but just what is Labor going to do when the multicultural State can import one million compliant, passive Third Worlders every single year to pick cotton? Do the progressives think there's going to be a 'living wage' offered when manufacturing can be off-shored to the teeming masses of Asia, and when the teeming masses of Meso-America can be brought here?

Just how 'green' do you think the US will ever get once we move half the populace of Liberia, Haiti, Egypt, Mexico and Guatemala here?

All those utopian social engineering schemes and Wilsonian crusades--you do know what pays for them don't you? The Fed and its network of primary dealers, ya stupid hippies. OccupyWallStreet, indeed.

How many urban hipsters out there are starting families and instructing them in the Christian Faith so they have trust in something other than the corrupt and doomed social democratic State?

Who's going to do the real organizing when TSHTF--SWPL faggots who don't even put air in their own tires, or Scots-Irish rednecks who can rebuild engines and were hunting and field-dressing game by their 15th birthday?

I actually thought about voting Green once. Then I took a look at their gnostic, anti-white, anti-hetero platform and thought differently of it.

The Left created this totalitarian monster and has lovingly nurtured it at every step. As far as I'm concerned they can all go down with it.

Phew, AntiAgnostic, that's one hard-hittin' post! Libs take note. Try to top that.

Those Noam Chomsky protests on Wall Street haven't hurt business any: The Dow is up 500 points in the past 2 days.

All those debt problems in Europe, which seemed so daunting on Monday, must have been solved.

WSP

From the latest at The Automatic Earth:

"Greek banks are in trouble because they hold a lot of Greek sovereign debt. French banks are in trouble because they hold a lot of Greek sovereign debt AND of Greek bank debt. Morgan Stanley will certainly soon be in trouble because it is heavily involved in French banks. Other Wall Street banks will be because of their dealings with Morgan Stanley.

The whole system is so tightly interconnected that you would have to bail out everyone's debt. But that is not possible. There's too much of it. That fact is generally recognized. But not publicly. In public, we hear fear-mongering about bank runs, which can, so we are told, be prevented with more of your money. But this is not true. They can be postponed, not prevented. And postponing them comes at a huge and entirely futile cost to our children."

It's all of a piece, of course. Wealth buys political power; political power protects [and expands] wealth/the wealthy.

...And idiots dependent on energy-intensive tourist "economies" believe this scheme can go on indefinitely. (Which they MUST believe, in order to also believe that they will [one great and glorious day] become one of those select, wealthy few. It's truly an endless source of wonder.

(Adam Eran laid it out quite nicely, just above. The fraud of creating "money" out of thin air in order to thieve actual physical wealth, is a finely-honed "confidence" game. Remember the "markets"? It's all about "confidence", ain't it? Every day, it gets more and more absurd, and I'm more disposed to laughter.)

Ozone,

Well put, my friend.

--WSP

there's a story on CNN Money today, about Papandreou reassuring investors that Greece will get its affairs in order. Right next to that story, there is a clickable box for a Halloween feature about how to survive a zombie apocalypse.

Coincidence? I think not!

To those who disparage those who are on Wall Street protesting the excesses of financial capital, because they believe that capitalism is the ultimate expression of human nature -

Capitalism has only been around for a couple of hundred years, and has been fought by decent people the entire time. The last 30 years have seen most of the planet's natural wealth destroyed by a fully impowered capitalism, with millions of people killed in the wake, either by direct murder or by starvation after they were thrown from their lands.

They are now going for all of it, and some of us think that that is a very bad idea.

Already the oceans are depleted of large fish, and threatened by acid rain, the forests have largely been cut down, our topsoil is depleted, our water is polluted, and our climate is heating up.

So they're going for the Artic now, and Canadian forests and fracking.

They are psycopaths, who care nothing for anything but profits, and they must be stopped.

Q, speaking of the World Series, WhoDoYaGot? Yanks vs. Phils? That leaves you smack dab in-the-middle.

--WSP

The poor carp. It has a poor reputation. It isn't really pretty. It infests our waterways, but maybe it can feed a lot of people.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/sep/22/us-asian-carp-hunger/

The worst environmental degradation occurs in Communist/Socialist countries, where there are no limits nor checks and balances. Large parts of the former Soviet Union are still toxic and no go; the air in China is unbreathable, the water poison, the food tainted.

--WSP

It's pretty clear the Left has no coherent arguments and no idea what to do as their crackpot 'diversity' and Keynesian schemes run their inevitable awful course.

So fuss and fume away, lefties. You persecuted firearms ownership, embraced the secular State and derided the Church and hetero-normative families, threw your own kinsmen under the bus to burnish your 'anti-racist' (i.e., anti-white) credentials, and now find yourselves on the wrong side of history as the phony, debt-based monetary system that was holding up your social democratic Utopia starts to collapse.

I suggest moving to Canada. The oil shale and timber should keep the Ponzi schemes going in Quebec, the GTA and Vancouver for a few more years at least. Then you can move out west once those provinces tell the human zoos back east that they're leaving.

"Capitalism has only been around for a couple of hundred years, and has been fought by decent people the entire time"

ONLY 200 YEARS??? WHERES THERE ARE COINS THERES
CAPITALISM, INCLUDING IN CUBA TODAY

And In Juliettas post you commented on I read no self pity, she saves that role for you!

I'm having a bit of a problem imagining what a progressive tea party would be all about. Haven't the progressives essentially won in every meaningful sense for about the last century? So what are they upset about?

The single most successful campaign to take over this country, and possibly the world, has been pulled off.

By creating a "liberals vs conservatives" dynamic, a vast majority of people are unaware, that the powers in charge are neither. They can keep the rhetoric rolling, and keep us fighting amongst ourselves, while they rob us blind, of our wealth, and our freedom. When is the last time you had an actual dialogue, with someone that might have an opposing viewpoint? Try it sometime, you might actually find very much agreement. You wouldn't know that, by listening to the corporate media monopoly. Why does the media dislike Ron Paul? It's because he's a real conservative, not a Neo-con like the rest of the candidates. Why do they dislike Bernie Sanders, and Dennis Kucinich? Because they are real liberals. Funny thing, all three of them dislike the corporate enrichment system that prevails in our "bought and paid for" democracy. The truth, is that the real liberal agenda, and the real conservative agenda aren't really that much different. We want sound money, a prosperous nation, with opportunities for anyone that actively pursues it, and the freedom to go about our business in peace. Turn your back on the corporate media monopoly, and actually talk with people that you might ordinarily not dialogue with. You may find your own beliefs confirmed, or even possibly challenged, but you will understand how much, we're being deliberately divided, as so we can be easier to conquered.

Denn

Denn:

The Left doesn't want sound money, because mere tax revenues will not support anything like the current level of government largesse. The Left doesn't want prosperity, because prosperous people only need limited government that simply protects negative rights. The Left doesn't want freedom to go about one's business, because that means the freedom to withdraw from the State's multicultural edicts.

@The Anti-gnostic

I suppose you heard that on Corporate faux news? or perhaps corporate CNN? you're just repeating the bleat-bleat noise the other sheep do. I said "ACTUAL DIALOGUE". not sound-bites from the corporate media monopoly.

So on Sept. 27 the world stock markets rallied. What Greek, European debt, banking problems? All is solved! Recall that U.S. Treasury Secretary Timmy Geithner attended the Euro finance ministers meeting in Poland a week or so ago and 'advised' them what to do. Some of the Euro finance ministers were not amused and criticized Timmy for his arrogance. Guess what, they're on track to doing it anyway. See how the real world operates. The system, i.e. elites, will continue to do whatever they deem necessary - even if it means the end to what few powers individual european central banks retain. All hail a federal Europe. That was the endgame afterall. Read your history, folks. This Thursday the Germans will vote on the next chaper of the Greek bailout. Bet it passes. The only change on offer to the current corrupt system is short-change. And the masses are the ones who it's being done to. Short of a mass upheaval, nothing is going to slay the juggernaut that's been allowed to grow over the past 98 years, i.e. since the establishment of the US Federal Reserve, IRS, and other organs of central government. Problem is that there are not enough strong and good people willing to stand up and say 'no' to the peril of unfettered greed and criminality.

Denn Mann,

The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.

Voltaire

@Confusionism

The media monopoly system, has proven very, very adept at sowing the seeds of cognitive dissonance.

As for Why there isn't a clear Tea-Party for the left? There aren't that many dishonest, multi-billionaire leftists to foot the bill. I don't see any left-leaning shadow politicians like the Koch brothers applying for the job. It's strictly up to individuals, taking chances like the folks protesting on Wall Street.

Do you want to know how to find the truth? Listen to what the media is "Not Saying". How come when Ron Paul did so good in the debates, he mysteriously vanished from the media reports?

Hey Wage, I don't identify with State Power as wielded by the City of New York; I was simply pointing out their astonishing capabilities, and that their police dept. is nothing to be trifled with . Q said most of the protesters are non-New Yorkers. I suspect New Yorkers themselves know better than to square of with the NYPD on the streets of Lower Manhattan.

--WSP7

@The Anti-Gnostic,

What a nice sheep you are. You are even self-fleecing. You bought the party line so very well. I'm sure that they will reward you nicely someday.

MR. DMann;

Funny, to me, AntAgnostic sounds more like a lion than a sheep.

What party line are you talking about?

Certainly not the one published in the New York Time, or seen on MSNBC everyday.

--WSP7

Hahahah
Thanks WSP7

@WS7

Nope. A lion would see past the rouse. A lion would investigate, and determine for himself what the truth is. He's just repeating the same old stuff that Glen Beck, and Hannity, etc spew for ratings, and their corporate handlers. That makes him a sheep

Denn:

What am I missing? I see a bunch of foks who spent their lives detesting and actively undercutting even the idea of an organic American nation, and then they realize that when TSHTF, all those straight, armed, white guys can be pretty useful to have around. Well this is one who's telling you you're on your own, jack.

Good thread today, folks!

Lots to think about.

I've only been aware of this site for about a month; I think its the best thing going.

--WSP7

@The Anti-Gnostic

You're missing the multi-national corporations, that are actively feeding deceptions to those "armed white guys". You're missing the fact that if something isn't ecologically sustainable, it's not economically sustainable either. You're missing the fact that many very liberal people are hard-working, self-sufficient, people, that in many cases are also armed. You're missing out on the fact that freedom of religion, is also a freedom from religion.

You're falling into the black & white thinking, that characterizes mental illness. It's not black and white at all. That's just what they want you to believe.

Oh, a note to JHK

I think we should find a copy of this, for a clusterfuck nation screening

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americathon

KrankyinVancouver;

Apropos; Excellent

You gotta love this one. As I said the bets are in for a total market crash. This will not continue forever, because it's utterly impossible but here goes, from Thom Hartmann:

[Are the banksters fueling a global market meltdown? Heads turned yesterday - when stock trader Alessio Rastani went on the BBC and predicted that the Eurozone is going to crash within the next twelve months - and that a lot of banksters will make a fortune off it.

"This problem cannot be solved," Rastani said. "I'm fairly confident that the Euro is going to crash, and it's going to fall pretty hard." Rastani then admitted that he - as well as traders in giant banks on Wall Street - have actually placed bets that global markets will crash, and are poised to make huge profits if their bets come in.

Rastani said, "The depression in the 30's wasn't just about a market crash. There were some people who were prepared to make money from that crash. I think anybody can do that. The governments don't rule the world," Rastani added, "Goldman Sachs rules the world. Goldman Sachs does not care about this rescue package." From manipulating food prices that spark a hunger crisis around the world - to distorting oil prices that trigger recessions here in the United States - to bringing down an entire global economy - it's all part of a day's work for traders like Rastani and Goldman Sachs.

How much longer are we going to let speculators and banksters run the show - and screw us all over?]

"Freedom from Religion" DMann

Uh oh, AntiAgnostic, that was one of Stalin's favorite phrases, one that he used as an excuse to dynamite churches ... by the thousands.

No use arguing. You're dealing with a true believer.

--WSP7

@WS7

Do you believe that the United States should be governed by a theocracy?

Ps.
Most unfortunately, Nature ain't havin' any of it. Sorry, the future has been cancelled on rumors and evidence of abundant foolishness...

...by monkeys of insufficient gawd-like qualities. (Much to the chagrin of the moneyed priesthood.)

It's official: there is no difference between a conservative or liberal and below is the proof. And since there is no difference, I'll go ahead and vote for Obama anyway :)

" Nearly half of his nominees who have been confirmed to federal judgeships are women; 21% are African American; 11% are Hispanic and 7% are Asian. Less than 30% of his judicial appointments have gone to white men, who hold the lion's share of federal judgeships"

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-09-27/obama-judges-court-appointments/50557044/1

@ozone,

What?

It appears as though, the "English as a second language" class was a bust?

Q, pointing out my (many) typos and errors is like shooting ducks in a barrel. Or should that be fish in a barrel?

I don't know Asoka. I don't think it matters much who the president is. But Obama has lost his Jewish support down here in South Florida, and I doubt 40% of whites will vote for him this time around.

--WSP7

The current game in Europe, as it was in this country in 2008, is to save the banks that made all those big and bad investments. The people of the wealthier nations will have to pay big time to bail the banks out.

But this is only half the game. If you are a bank, or other huge multinational entity sitting on a huge bag of people’s money, would you rather buy things for the regular price or vastly discounted? That’s what austerity is for, beat the price of things down. Desperate people will have to sell everything cheap, even themselves. Only when things get really cheap will the wealthy buy.

I learned from "hubby" on his way back from work (someone's got to support us, you know!) that there was a demonstration of postal workers (about l00 or so by his estimate, protesting the U.S. government's proposal of potentially eliminating jobs, several post offices, and Saturday delivery. Tied up 5:00 pm traffic near the busy intersection near our home. Pissed him off. I didn't catch the news tonight, so I failed to discover whether or not the police had decided to use tear gas or laser them.

Interesting posts this week.

Of course there's a big difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals want to help those less fortunate than themselves by either unfairly forcing people to pay for services they don't need, or by recklessly increasing public debt.

Conservatives are basically frightened people who turn to god big-time for protection, and who try to accumulate wealth, because what if non-conservatives, god forbid, end up ruling the country and wreck it? The only way to survive, then, is to buy your way out of trouble if things go bad.

Don't you guys realize it's all about the money? It's always about the money. Arguing about liberals vs. conservatives is a red herring. The real issue is who has the most chips at the end of the day.

In the meantime, while people are arguing about labels, the world's population is increasing disasterously; world-wide food distribution is out of whack; the weather seems to be getting more and more fluky; we're depleting energy resources faster than we are creating them; nuclear weapons and material are proliferating to the extent that they aren't even totally accounted for; fresh water resources are being depleted; the oceans and air are so filthy that some citizens, like those in Mexico City and Los Angeles, almost never see a clear day, and there are floating islands of garbage hundreds of square miles in the Atlantic and Pacific; and extremely rich people, governments and business entities are zealously scheming to accumulate total power and wealth, which of course are the real religion.

And mostly, people here are arguing about why liberals or conservatives, or blacks and whites are such shitbums. Really, doesn't this chitter-chattering remind you of a bunch of monkeys jabbering in the trees as the forest fire keeps getting closer?

I, Have you contacted JHK about your access message?

________________________
OK, so what I posted yesterday about the Goldman Sachs bets against the world that Thom Hartmann posted: This rang true in every sense to me. I remember when the Banks in GB had a run, people were lined up in the streets trying to get their money and the traders were betting on whether the little people would smash the windows or get violent in some manner.

Webster Tarpley says the real power that works in the background is the nexus between Wall street and London's financial sector.
This nonsense will continue unabated because they have positioned themselves to never lose. They bet for and they bet against. Since 2008 their power is codified.

Ibendet,

This NY--London 'nexus' as you call it, has existed since at least the 1880's. What's astonishing is that GB has devolved into such a weak little country and that London matters at all. But it still seems to be the repository for the wealth of many of its former colonies. I notice that the LIBOR rate is headed down close to zero.

Have you ventured down to Wall Street to have a look at the protests? It would be interesting if you could do do that and give us a first hand CFN report.

--WSP7

Understood, Ibendet. Thanks for responding.

--WSP7

"I'm still voting for Obama"... BuckStud

Its unanimous then!

All the effete, well-paid, tenured Profs, in the dimmed, comfortable ambience of the faculty lounge, Che Guvera t-shirts worn underneath tweed jackets, gingerly sipping brandy after a grueling 3 hour workday, will all be voting Obama 2012.

I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya'.

--WSP7

So, then what?

WSP7

Regarding Jim's comments"Where is Tea Party of Progressives?....Will somebody please step up and take the baton?" There is an interesting column written in The Tyee by Katrina Orlowski which deals with this subject it isn't very long but it covers one aspect of this issue, the role of the mainstream media. The item is titled "Big Media Afraid to Take Wall Street Protest Seriously" Not to plug this publication but Andrew Nikiforuk also has a good item on the Tar Sands ( Sept.22nd The Tyee) Just thought some fellow bloggers would find theses items informative.

There are progressives out there, but several things have to take place. There needs to be agenda building and there needs to be a greater reach-out, not just among like-minded people but try and get the attention of those with more voice and power.
Dylan Ratigan, not a liberal, but an honest voice is one place to start.
The conservative movement took years to build behind the scenes and they have been taking the wrecking ball to all things public. It has been mentioned that they deliberately passed laws in 2006 to force the Post office to fund pensions of those not even working there yet, but on projections.

They are fighting a war and we aren't. We never see this stuff coming till it's too late and we have to react and instead are like deer caught in the headlights with each outrageous attack.

I was listening earlier to Max Keiser "Wall st. weaked financial havoc" and another good one is:
"We told you privatization was going to fail. We told you they would renationize to save billions."

Those who do not back the status quo are not getting heard by the majority of people because the corporate owned media doesn't want people to think.

I contacted Joe Scarborough today as they were drooling over Christie speaking at the Reagan Library to a crowd who hate their candidates. On the one hand Scarborough says how important it is for the truth to part of our public discourse, yet when Christie extols Reagan there is no mention of his having raised taxes 11 times!

There's no left-wing equivalent to the tea party for a few reasons: 1)there's no left-wing Koch Brothers to bankroll us; 2)The media resolutely distort/ignore what we do pull off, like the Wall St. occupation; 3)most "liberal Democrats" are blind to the fact that they're buying into a TweedleDem and Tweedledumber duopoly, and support the corporate Dems like Obama out of fear of the foaming fascist corporatos like Rick Perry, etc. A onetime teacher of mine said of the baby boom generation that we are "the most spoiled generation in the history of the planet." Sad to say, it seems he was right. No courage, no willingness to defend anything but our own comfort. We're getting what we deserve.

Brother Martin;

What about Spielberg, Geffen, Katzenberg, and a half dozen other Hollywood billionaires?

What about the Google billionaires?

Just to name a few.

--WSP7

Not to mention Carlos Slim. Nothing he'd like more than to bring down gringos in el Norte a notch or two.

You got plenty of dough on your side. It must be something else.

--WSP7

George Soros- a Hungarian who made his billions in currency speculation, and uses it to destroy the national sovereignity of countries who resist globalization, under the guise of "human rights", now being played out in Libya, as thousands of civilans are being bombed TODAY by NATO forces, backing a strange group of expatriates, alqueda members, and Ghaddafi disloyalists who have agreed to turn Libya's riches over to the West, is being used by multiple people here as an example of the "left".

Un-fucking-believable!

George Soros backed Obama because he preferred the Zbigniew Brzezinski method of attacking Central Asia and Russia to the Wolfowitz doctrine.

As Phil Rockstroh points out, I'm sure it means a lot to the children being ripped apart by US cluster bombs and drones that the Obama/Brzezinski neoliberals are the ones directing the bombs, and not the Bush/Cheney neoconseratives.

Neoliberals and neoconservatives are the "choice" we get. The definitions of their philosophies are pretty much the same.

Sovereign countries are so 20th century. We now have global corporate governance and any one who dares refuse will die.

George Soros!! Bah!

While many of us have heard the Project for a New American Century's (the neocons in charge on 9-11) on the need for a terrorist attack to raise support for their plans-

"Section V of Rebuilding America's Defenses, entitled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force", includes the sentence: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor" (51).

How many know that Obama's man (the neoliberal) used the same event to point out that Americans are not naturally imperialist, and need prodding to start bombing other people?

"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” (pp 24-5)

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia... Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.” (p.30)

WageLab;

Good post about Soros. I didn't know any of that about him. Last year CNBC did an entire feature on Soros and didn't mention any of that.

Speaking of television, NatGeo channel has a new show called "frontier force", following around state and local police in Montana. I've never been to Montana, but I picture stalwart westerners with cowboy hats, gold miners, ranches, the open range, independent people living in the mountains etc. There is some of that, but there is more cooking crystal meth, selling crystal meth, using crystal meth, being addicted to crystal meth, neglecting your children while on crystal meth, robbing the local market to buy crystal meth ... every little town the cameras enter the narrator announces "has a crime rate worst than Detroit". There are gangs and gangsters in the small towns and cities and they aren't wearing cowboy hats or boots either, no, they're dressed like they're from South Central LA. Its pretty discouraging. Even in the snowy west everything is corrupted and f----d up. There's no place left to go.

--WSP7
KL, Fla

Wage

Excellent posts. Thank you for discussing these two crazy sides of the same coin!!

I think the only difference is that the neocons wanted the oil in Iraq for the US and the neolibs wanted it for the corporations---we couldn't even get that advantage, since nation states (as you say) are so yesterday.

In the meantime prepare for the theater of cruelty, have you heard the responses of the rabble during the Republican debates and Christie's speech? (oh, he's running)

I think I have a pretty good idea of how the Long Emergency will play out. The PTB has decided there is no reward in playing to the masses. Hence the continuing non-stop bank robberies.

I assume they figure enormous wealth and power will insulate them from discomfort for the foreseeable future.

Most reasoning regarding Peak Oil and other resources will be skewed by rigged markets. Supply and demand has little do with pricing.

I guess all you have to do is watch what happens in Greece to see our future. Of course, they will have the new world "austerity" plans considerably refined by the time we're reduced to eating fish heads.

Be prepared, expect no satisfaction, and learn to tolerate your neighbors. The trouble with Kansas is coming to all fifty states in spades.

Jesus says the meek shall inherit the Earth - but he didn't say "when."

Hmmm. Information Clearing House has articles from Ron Paul AND Noam Chomsky regarding "humanitarian intervention", which Soros pushes and the US uses to attack countries that refuse globalization.

There you go. Right and left agree that bombing countries that haven't harmed you in any way under the guise of "protecting human rights" (as defined by Western imperialists) is absolutely wrong.

That's pretty much how it goes, Asoka.

In '44 & '45, American strategic bombing killed roughly 500,000 Japanese civilians, and that's not including the nuclear detonations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I'm not passing judgment on Roosevelt or Truman; they did what they had to do to win the war. But it just goes to show you it's the victors who pass judgement. The losers get judged.

--WSP7

Re: Dylan Ratigan

He's starting a petition to stop corporate financing of our elections.

I think this is something we all agree on regardless of political predilections:

getmoneyout.com

Does that mean history will now be written in Mandarin?

:)

Hey Asoka, remember in the '80s how economically invincible Japan seemed, and how everybody freaked out when they bought Rockefeller Center? Then in 1990 it all collapsed; they haven't recovered yet. It is suggested the same thing might happen to China. What do you think?

--WSP7

What are they?

WSP7

Asoka;

We'll see what happens with China. As JHK points out in TLE, China's problems are enormous, perhaps insurmountable. Time will tell.

So far about 80 Wall Street protesters have been arrested in lower Manhattan by the NYPD. Question, if these kids can't make bail, are they then shipped over to Rikers Island until their court date comes up?

Yikes!

--WSP7

As JHK points out in TLE, China's problems are enormous, perhaps insurmountable.

--------------

Do you really believe that?

Oh well, the more people who believe China has "enormous" problems, the better for China.

Europe calls China
: "Can you help us bail out Greece?"

China's response
: "Don't expect a bail-out from us. We have enormous problems, don't ya know?"

IMF calls China
: "Can you help us out with the problems we are having with the euro? Can you purchase some European debt?

China's response: "We're not saviours. We have to save ourselves! We have enormous problems, don't ya know?"

Just keep on believing that China has problems, keep up your skepticism about China, keep on giving China the perfect excuse, and China will keep on eating your lunch.

..."TOO fine a point on it"...
Do I read a'fore I post? uh...sum-thens, but not now and agains.

My lunch? I'm a diesel mechanic, working on Yachts down here in S.Florida. What do i care about China?

--WSP7

Yeah, Anti Soak, Crystal Meth, the scourge of rural America!

Hawai, Missouri, the Dakotas, here in Central Florida, I'm sure in many other places, wrecking families and communities.

Its one of my pet theories that all the Zombie movies and TV shows, like the current one on AMC, is a result of the ice epidemic throughout the US.

Combine that with the Oxycodin addicted counties in Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama, S Ohio and Indiana, the future doesn't look too bright.

--WSP7