[President Obama] is accelerating the advance of the military industrial complex, but is percevied in many quarters as doing the exact opposite. President Obama has increased the size, cost, prioritization, and global presence of the U.S. military. He has, with his War on Libya, established the prerogative to take the nation into war against the will of the United States Congress. He has created drone warfare on a significant scale. He has enlarged and formalized due-process-free imprisonment, and cemented in place warrantless spying and the power to abuse prisoners. He has expanded the use of assassination, including U.S. citizens. President Obama has radically expanded claims of state secrets to protect the crimes of his predecessor, and made greater use of the Espionage Act to punish whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined. Obama has formalized, legalized, systematized and normalized what was illicit under Bush. He has pursued base construction and expansion of missile “defense” systems to the detriment of U.S. relations with China, North Korea, Russia, Iran and Pakistan, among other nations. Like all presidents during this permanent war, Obama is a war president. Unlike all other Nobel Peace Prize recipients, Obama praised war in his acceptance speech. David Swanson, opening remarks at a conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of Eisenhower’s weak-kneed remarks concerning the Military Industrial Complex. (Emphasis added)

There was a reason why Ike made his famous MIC speech as he left office rather than during his eight-year term – he was afraid to speak up. Even then, only twelve years after passage of the National Security Act, the military had such a hold on government that even a president could not counter its power. So he yelled back a warning to us as we viewed his asshole and elbows.
Continue reading “The Somambulant Party” →

We were traveling this last week and listening to radio and watching motel TV. It’s amazing! According to the mainstream media, the only thing going on is the presidential race. It’s a non-issue, as Obama has been ordained for a second term. He’s been a good servant.

But the phony race is used to fill up air time. We don’t get real news, but supposed journalists are doing their job if they are doing the back-and-forth that horse-race reporting requires.

I could assert that this is by design, but I think it’s more by default. American journalism is dead, and reporters are not allowed to go near or report on real news. So they fall back on those stories they know will please management, D v R, sound and fury signifying nothing.

It’s stone-cold Soviet, gray and lifeless. We are brain-dead.

An Economist is someone who, when shown that something works in practice, comments ‘Ah, but does it work in theory? (Piero Sraffa, Italian economist, 1898-1983)

Get a job!

I was listening to radio new this morning as I worked, and the voice said that Mitt Romney had topped Newt Gingrich in the Iowa caucus polls. What he forgot to say was that those two were in second and third place behind Ron Paul.

First, let me make it clear that I don’t care. It is easy to see that Obama is the anointed one for a second term because no Republican has been granted fair hair status. In the meantime, money is rolling in to the Obama coffers, and his team is putting together a masterful ad campaign that will wow people just as they did in 2008. He’s still a schmuck, but he is a two-term schmuck.
Continue reading “Ron Paul can’t get any love” →

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but it was already impossible to say which was which.

(Orwell, Animal Farm)

President Obama is ready now to sign the Defense Authorization Bill, which gives the executive the power to snatch Americans off the street and send them away indefinitely (CIA secret prisons, torture chambers in Romania, Poland, Iraq anyone?). Apologists are running around saying that the threat is overstated, and anyway, it is only aimed at terrorists. A rational observer might note that “terrorists” barely exist and are not a credible threat to our society, which would imply that our leadership is blind and stupid, or deliberately misleading us. Since there are so many of them, it’s easy to say “all of the above,” but the hard core elite that sits behind “the executive” are neither stupid or blind.

So it is easy to predict the real purpose and use of the snatch provision of the DFA: to attack protesters, quell the emergent rebellion. Since the executive already has to power to willy-nilly designate a “terrorist” (generally speaking, “someone we don’t like,”), we have effectively given the president the power to designate a group as terrorist without oversight, and then disappear its members. OWS can easily be attacked in this manner, likely will be.
Continue reading “American foreign policy comes home to roost” →

Since I am technically challenged, I cannot upload the video here, and so am linking to it. Richard Perle, perhaps one of our greatest war criminals, dissembles in detail when confronted by a real journalist asking real questions about intent, outcome, and the possibility of deceit.

Have fun. I know I did.

The US is operating at 78.8% utilization of manufacturing capacity. That’s very low. We are told that we need to keep taxes low, reduce them even further, to stimulate investment. 

How on earth can that do any good if we are not even utilizing current capacity? 

________
Well, it took all of five minutes to get the usual response below. My question is why the “science” of economics does not describe the world that really exists.

The answer: “Econ 101” (!)…

Let’s rephrase the question: Is there a science that studies human behavior than can take our essential irrationality and put it on a graph? Does all of the insanity of our individual behaviors, when added together, create a singularity of sanity?

No. Economics is bunk. It is disguised ideology. The ideology that neoclassical economics is hiding goes by many names. I like oligarchy, but fascism works as well.

Egypt went to the polls this week and elected a new legislative body. That body, of course, has no power. Nor will it ever – get real. A country whose population offers up a 78% unfavorable view of the United States (we did, after all, back their dictator and arm their military for the past thirty years) cannot possibly be allowed a true democratic government. Such a government would be anti-American. Not allowed. The militarily will continue to rule for the foreseeable future, and palliative remedies like meaningless elections will have to suffice.

However, Egyptian democracy in its current form is superior to the American version. After all, Egyptians are mostly aware that the election was for politicians who have no real power. Americans are mostly oblivious to that small detail.

The Senate has voted to allow indefinite detention of Americans without charges, another sign that our constitution is just a piece of paper. That document does not protect our rights, people do. But people have to be strong and organized. Continue reading “It’s on” →