The greatest threat now, with reelection of Jon Tester to the Senate, is an attack on national forests and wilderness areas that he is spearheading. Because he is a Democrat, there is reflexive support behind him. Fortunately, most Democrats have headed back to football and Jersey Shores (“our work here is done”) but the professionals are still hard at it. (Had Dennis Rehberg been elected, the timber lobby bill, called the “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, would likely have come from another quarter under another name, perhaps Ron Wyden. But the burden now falls on Tester.)

These are dangerous times, and as with all political disputes it sometimes feels like end times. But it is not. It is merely time to redouble and organize. The two most effective forces in fighting for Montana’s wild lands are Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Matt Koehler’s Wild West Institute. These groups are information clearing houses, a source of professional organizing and a good gathering place for activists. I’ll be following their activities closely, and this blog is open to them for announcements and articles, such as it is.

I find myself wishing that I was still a Montana resident as I hear the words “It’s on” in the back of my mind. Democrats are trying to lure environmentalists into their camp. Here’s an appeal from Polish Wolf:

This is but one iteration of the biggest problem facing the environmental movement in the coming decades: breaking the perception (and the reality, where it exists) that environmentalism means preserving nature close to wealthy, largely white populations even at the economic, social, and health expense of poorer communities and countries.

One, he speaks presumptuously, as if he is part of “the environmental movement,” and two seeks to draw our attention away from the only place where organized opposition to Tester has meaningful consequence: his back yard. Tester has his chain saw fired up. Polish Wolf is urging American environmentalists to head off to Ghana and get busy being inconsequential. At home we are a pain in the ass for the timber lobby and their tool.

It would be helpful if we could get some reflexive support from Republicans, as the two-party framework suggests we should. But oddly that doesn’t happen in environmental matters.

It gets tiresome. There’s no substance! It’s a fricking desert out there!

People are now analyzing election results and vote-counting. Some elections are “very important” but we don’t really know why. Control of Congress is a big issue, especially the Senate, but we don’t know why!

The Democrats will soon vote to allow continuation of the filibuster rule, thereby negating their majority. Obama will now openly pursue the Neocon agenda, including aggressive war, torture, detention and attacks on civil liberties. The mere label “Democrat,” the thinnest of disguises, hides it from view.

Next comes austerity, including attacks on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. In 2014 we’ll be forced to pay exorbitant premiums to private corporations for crappy insurance and we will no longer be allowed to talk about it. That is settled, now, and health care is fixed. (Remember they said that we need to pass that crappy bill so we can come back and fix it later? It’s just a start, they said. Force that issue on them, demand that they start fixing it. See where it gets you.)

It is all happening before their eyes, and they are happy about it! At least the mean old Republicans didn’t win those doggoned elections!!! Sheeeeit! Republicans really would have screwed us!

The following is called “show business.”

Trust me. Karl Rove is not unhappy about this election. The Neocons are still in charge. This is, as I understand it, being called a “meltdown.” It’s nothing of the kind. It’s actually nothing. As with Howard Dean’s “I have a scream” speech, without TV anchors to explain our perceptions to us, we don’t know what to think. And when Karl Rove is unhappy (he’s not even a very good actor), then Democrats know they should be happy. Do you ever feel even a tad manipulated?

TV is not a source of news. It is our reality. We are a mindless nation of zombie-followers. I’m 62. There are far more people who are younger than me than older. But if you have by chance been around longer, please tell me: Has it always been like this? Have Americans always been this way?

I maintain that in an oligarcy such as ours, elections are nothing more than a pressure relief valve. Yesterday felt like January 1, hangovers all about. All of the celebrations of November 6 has all of the impact of a New Year’s Eve party. Back to work now. Nothing has changed, folks.

2006 was a referendum on Iraq, and Democrats took control of the House and effectively the Senate, and thereafter funded a “surge,” or expansion of that war. In 2008 the Democrats took control of the executive, and effectively had a “veto-proof” senate*, and thereafter became the party of aggressive war, terror, military spending, torture, Gitmo and other secret prisons, tax cuts, indefinite detention and even assassination of Americans. Obama has transformed the party in total to its perceived opposite.

All indications now are that in addition to all of this, the Democrats will now become the austerity party. It is an Orwellian body snatch, so perhaps you can understand how, on Tuesday evening as I saw the happy faces and wild celebrations, I thought of Donald Suherland letting out that awful howl, and turned to an old episode of Spin City. At least that show is reality-based.
Continue reading “Election reflection” →

Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana in last night’s otherwise pointless election. It’s a futile gesture, as Obama and the Neocons will not ease up on pot. There’s a simple reason: It is too powerful a tool in the hands of police to give up easily.

Marijuana is everywhere. I don’t indulge, but if I wanted to it would be easily attainable. Cops know this, and do not care. The reason for prohibition is just that – it is widely available and widely used, so that they can selectively enforce the law against selected victims. It is generally aimed at minorities but any of us are vulnerable. It is a tool of tyrants – to find something everyone does, make it illegal, and arrest selected subjects.

For that reason it is easy to see that the government in Washington will ignore last night’s referenda.
________________
I had an attack on Budge up here, and it was quite a bit of fun thinking of new words for the miserable bastard, but took it down out of respect for my daughter, who I am having lunch with. She said I should never call anyone a dickless douche, b-alless cheese wad, or miserable bag of blood and bones. She’s right of course.

David Sirota listed at least a dozen issues that Obama and Romney are identical on, and not small matters. Both are war hawks, both will attack Social Security and Medicare, carry on with the fake drug war, fake terrorism scares at home, tax cuts and austerity. And yet, as I watched all of the cheers and beers last night, I realized again the power of American propaganda. Illusions are far more powerful than reality. Democrats really were scared of Romney and the mean old Republicans. The really cannot see – genuinely cannot see – the real agenda.

Please don’t get on me for being omniscient and better than you and stuff. It is what it is. It takes a special event, a flash of light, a new view on an old movie, to see what is all around you. Thought control is a powerful tool. After Sirota did his list, people still called in and insisted that there were “real and important” differences. When asked what they were, it was really weird. They were not specific – they only spoke in vague generalities. It’s real, they insisted. They did not know why. It’s just real. It is their reality.

Oh well. It must be advancing age. It’s probably always been like this and I was just blind to it. The turning point for me was reading “Propaganda” by Jacques Ellul back in the late 90’s. Only then did I begin to see the massive apparati that control our perceptions. Many (including Ellul) think it is done for benign reasons, and it true that in spite of it all, we have had some good leaders over the decades. Napoleon remarked that people simply do not want to be free. But it appears that with the Joe McCarthy charade and the infestation of our minds with anticommunism n the 1950’s that there has been a conscious fear regime used to assure support for American aggression all over the globe. Chomsky says that the government views the American people as “the domestic enemy,” and works to keep us under thumb along with every other enemy. Last night, I saw no domestic threats to existing power.

Our best hope is credible enemies to keep our troops parked at home. I see the rise of China and Russia as a good thing for world peace, and resistance movements in Latin America, Greece and some Mideastern countries as a sign of perpetual hope. People are born free. They have to be taught to live under tyrant regimes and better yet, imagine that they are free as their minds are enslaved. American indoctrination starts at a very young age, so I don’t see much hope here. But we are not the world. Others are not controlled by fear and yearn for real freedom, and are willing to spend blood to achieve it. Last night the lantern flickered and went out here in the Land of the Free, but it still burns bright elsewhere. Obama now sets out for four more years of house-to-house light-dousing.

The fight goes on.

Tosh had some good footage of a Jamaican gal doing some really erotic dancing. He gets away with a lot. Channing Tatum is rumored to be this year’s sexiest man alive. The Red Sox have shown interest in Torii Hunter, Rob Bradford of WEEI.com reports. Hunter, a free agent, has previously expressed interest in playing in Boston alongside David Ortiz. Hillary Clinton goes on record as opposing extremist elements taking control of the Syrian government. She does not name names, winking, but “Al Qaeda” is not on her list. American voting machines are really easy to hack.

Greece is grinding to a halt. That, friends, is how democracy works. What we have here … I don’t know what to call it. The United States is a silly place. Greeks could learn us a thing or two.

Elections do have consequences. But who is to know what is in store? Take 2000, for example. Al Gore was a deeply dishonest man, George W. Bush deeply stupid. What was in it for us? Quite a bit as it turned out. 9/11 came about due to people put in key positions by Bush’s election, though many of the moles were already in place. The people who did that crime are still there, still in key positions. The US is a scared-silly country, but even knowing that, and knowing that our fears of non-American terrorists are unfounded, American terrorists do scare the shit out of me. These are some really evil dudes.

Had Gore won, would 9/11 have been avoided? Delayed? As I understand it at this time, always subject to modification based on new information, Bush was told that day that he was expendable (that was the reason behind his being hung out on display in Florida without adequate Secret Service protection). His choice was to capitulate or die. Since he is a craven and cowardly man, he capitulated faster than you can say “De plane! De plane!”* If Gore were that man on that day, what would he have done? Perhaps he would have thought about it a little, and then capitulated. Continue reading “Enjoy the day!” →

What is at stake tomorrow? Nothing, really, says James Petras. I liked his expression, a nice turn of phrase, that if Romney wins there will be a shift in the “rhetorical pendulum.”

That’s about it.

Accounting is not glamorous. Journalism is more so. But the two professions have things in common.

As a student way back when, I learned that the prestigious AICPA had an enforcement arm, and that most of its efforts were dedicated to disciplining CPA’s who engaged in advertising, then prohibited. I was also shocked to learn that the dreary profession of auditing did not consider uncovering fraud to be part of its job. Furthermore, there was a blatant conflict of interest easily apparent: the auditing function is done by private entities in the pay of the very people they were charged with monitoring.

The result: Enron, Arthur Anderson, Wall Street banking collapse, rating agencies deliberately puffing up financial instruments of no value. Those are only the scandals we know about.

How does this come about? Professional auditors sense power, as we all do, and know where not to tread. The codification of the inability to uncover fraud naturally followed. The refusal of Arthur Anderson to discipline Enron is natural and predictable. Enron monitored the auditors, and because Enron picked up the tab, the auditors internalized the power structure and behaved accordingly.

This piece, by David Crisp, is an example of a similar force at work in his profession. Mr. Crisp is a serious man of letters and a gentleman, and I dispense with any further mention of his name. I select his writing here merely to highlight the broader Enronization of journalism. His piece in fact defers to higher authorities in his profession, and is a musing on objectivity and professional standards. Political ads are telling lies, and the profession debates about whether pointing out these lies in articles, “ledes,” or even headlines, will compromise objectivity.

Auditors have equally serious debates about their own trivia. They are up against powerful forces, as are journalists. Power is a magnet, and journalists, like auditors, are but metal flecks.

So the question becomes how to maintain dignity while serving power. “Objectivity” in journalism serves the same function as “professional standards of auditing.” Journalism allowed Iraq, 1991 and 2003, Kosovo, Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, and is currently serving up Syria and Iran. Just call them their Enrons writ large.

A close reading of the article in question reveals that there are only two parties (often referred to as “both*” thereby excluding all others) constitute the entire frame of reference for journalists. Is Mr. Romney telling lies? Of course, as is Mr. Obama. Journalists are concerned about fact-checking the little lies. The big ones, contained in the framework of two-party politics, are off-limits. Journalism, as structured, will never uncover those lies. It’s not their job.

American auditors and journalists serve as window dressing. Their primary purpose is to prevent accountability.
____________________
*I’ve been bouncing in and out of here today and must do a fix-up and clarification – the article does not use the word “both” and I am referring to the larger journalistic sphere. In Crisp’s piece he does refer only to the two parties, and so all politics is in reference to differences between them. The critical point is that if the two parties agree, then there is no discussion. Period. They agree on almost everything, so that journalists are relegated to dissecting and fact-checking 30-second ads. That’s a problem inherent in oligarchy, and also in a climate where real journalism is discouraged.

One of my favorite pastimes, in the past anyway, was to find the mirror opposite for any accusation that one of our two permitted parties hurl at each other. If one is playing dirty, so is the other. If one is up to its neck in bribes, the other is up to its ears. If one goes after the other with a knife, the other will come back with a gun. They are all dirty. American politics is a playground where only wealthy financiers are allowed in the game. Consequently, we are corrupt up to our receding hairlines.

Here’s an amazing example of Democratic Party politics, as played in Montana. It’s now up at Intelligent Discontent: Astonishing Look at American Tradition Partnership’s Campaign Coordination in Montana from ProPublica, Questions automatically arise:

• A Box of documents found in a meth house in Colorado? Please. Even I suspect planted evidence, and I’m an accountant. Mr. Progreba, do you allow cops to look in your trunk without a warrant? This is very strange.
• Frontline documentary on October 30, 2012? One week before the election?
• March 2011? Box delivered to Montana Commissioner of Political Practices 19 months ago? And they just now come to light?
• “My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that WTP was running a lot of these campaigns,” said investigator Julie Steab of the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices. Steab holds an official position in Montana, has known about the this for 19 months, and now speaks off-the-cuff. Very strange, Julie. What’s your official action on this matter?
• “Direct Mail and Communications is a print shop in Livingston, Mont., run by a one-time key player in WTP and his wife. After naming so many names, why not name a “key player and his wife?”
• “The records are in the hands of the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices, which considers them public and reviewable upon request. There is a slight problem here – by the time anyone has a chance to review them, the election will be over.
• “Folders labeled with the names of Montana candidates held drafts and final letters of support signed by candidates’ wives and drafts and final copies of mailers marked as being paid for by the campaigns. The folders often appeared to have had an accounting of what had been sent and paid for scrawled on the front.” This sounds suspiciously like … nothing. If there is indeed big money behind WTP, which there no doubt is, they are not going to hit up campaigns for printing costs! That is not only a stupid thing to do, but really, really … strange.
• “Use this one,’ someone wrote in red pen next to a cut-out rectangle on a page with five signatures from one candidate.” But then again, I overstate the meaning of the word “nothing.”
• “For the general election, the group appears to be targeting Montana’s attorney general, Steve Bullock, the Democratic candidate for governor. As attorney general, Bullock fought the partnership’s lawsuits against the state, including the one that ended up in the Supreme Court.” Of course, he didn’t fight hard, and didn’t even lose so much as fail to show up before the final nine. He merely restated arguments that the court had already decided on in CU. He knew this! He was warned.
• Contest!!! Winner to be announced on November 7! Enter now. First prize: Brownie laced with some really good weed. There are at least 15 dead links in the Intelligent Discontent article. See if you can locate them! Entries must be in writing and postmarked no later than November 6. Official contest rules apply. Not valid in Vermont, New Hampshire or Puerto Rico. Must be eighteen years or older to qualify. See web site for contest rules.

This is American politics. Everyone is dirty. I take it from this that Bullock is dirty too. Of course he is distanced from this, has no comment, knows nothing about it, and oh, before I forget, Mike Taylor – your hair dresser called.

I like Pro Publica. They’ve done good work. But honestly, this is a hit piece done for Montana Democratic politicians, most notably Steve Bullock, the guy who, despite very good contrary advice, offered up a crappy case against Citizens United, almost designed to fail. If you want to know how a box of dirty-looking but non-incriminating documents end up in a meth house in Colorado and get forwarded to Julie Steab of Montana Office of Political Practices and who discloses them one week before the election after not taking official action, then I suggest you administer a blood test on Bullock. He looks dirty to me. He might be on meth.

If nothing else, check his teeth.