2012 Election: Nobel prize for narcissism

American elections are a painful spectacle, a release of pent-up emotions, sound and fury signifying nothing. And yet if we don’t bother with them, if we merely continue the transfer of apparent power from one neocon to the next without a public referendum, people might get suspicious.

The hardest part of watching this spectacle is the apparent cluelessness of the American media. They ride around with the candidates transcribing every word, rarely attempting to connect speeches and deeds. To rise to prominence in this circus people have to demonstrate an inability to grasp the obvious, or at least to live in bondage and keeping real insight private. I’ve seen contentious exchanges between presidential press secretaries and reporters, and at the same time realize that a reporter doesn’t enter that room without first checking his balls at the door. It’s theater, and a sad spectacle. There are real journalists among them, but if they practice their trade they’ll never make it.

Obama is now playing the role of “liberal,” and Romney the other, whatever the hell that is. Neither has any intent of ever following through on any vague ambition for positive change. But the ring matters – both really want the job and the privileges that go with it. Even if there is no real power there, even if the office is long captive of private power centers, these men want it. They get to have high profiles, ride in amazing batmobiles, have every word first written for them and then transcribed by others. They have personal chefs and doctors, vacation retreats, personal security and private schools for the kids … what’s not to want? It’s a real prize, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for narcissism.

Here’s Sibel Edmonds, a woman who lost her job under Bush for reporting FBI misdeeds to superiors and who will go to jail if she ever speaks publicly about the crimes she witnessed:

How would Senator McCain have acted on … issues if he had been elected? How would Senator Hillary Clinton? Do you believe there would have been any major differences? Weren’t their records virtually identical to Senator Obama’s on these issues? If you are like me and answer same, same, no and yes, then why do you think we ended up with these exact same candidates, those deemed viable and sold to us as such?

With too much at stake, too many uninished agendas for the course of our nation, and too many skeletons in the closet in need of hiding for self-preservation, the permanent establishment made certain that they took no risk by giving the public, by means of their MSM tentacles, a coin that no matter how many times flipped would come up the same – heads, heads.

Hillary Clinton will soon leave public life, but will likely haunt us as has her husband. She’ll be a featured speaker, perhaps a media pundit or recipient of an academic position at a prestigious university. Her opinions will be sought out by the media, she’ll sit on panels, and bore us to death with profound utterances of uninspired banality. John McCain is an old man, and will step down from the senate when it appears he’s too addled to give a good speech. He’ll not be sought out thereafter as, like Reagan, there ain’t no there there.

In the meantime 2012 is here and we’ve got to do it all over again. We’re given two more heads, so to speak, an old money aristocrat and a newbie upstart. Both really, really want the job. They each knows somewhere deep down that it is all for show, as if when we need a doctor, we ask for Dr. George Clooney because he is so damned good looking. That’s as deep as American politics ever goes.

Fathoming the unfathomable

Recently I came across a TED talk* by Elaine Morgan, an old gal and a counter-cultural writer who has challenged the academic world with her advocacy of the water-born theory of human evolution. It’s been around for a while. She did not originate the theory, as her degree is in English, which should rule her out without argument. Yet the idea has explanatory power that others lack. We have little body hair, we are amazing swimmers, and we know that other species have evolved from water, gone back to water – it’s not unusual. None of that is definitive, of course.

Today I learned of a new theory to challenge the Big Bang – the Big Chill. Advocates, based in Australia, claim that this theory has more explanatory power than the BB, perhaps even approaching a “unified theory” that relativity theorists have so long sought in futility.

I have no clue, of course. But I like this sort of debate where an entire framework is challenged. Of course the old guard dismisses these ideas! That’s how science works. It takes new people to bring in new ideas. (Unfortunately, Elaine Morgan is an octogenarian.)

Are there unknown unknowns? Most assuredly. Every age has prided itself on advancements over the preceding ages. Mark Twain, in his book Connecticut Yankee, wowed (and murdered) knights and kings with electricity. He was on the cutting edge, as we are now.

But scientific hubris is unwarranted. We are self-engrossed and wholly attentive to further exploring those things we know. There is little money available for unknowns – DARPA exists for that reason. (Like most of our R&D, it is a disguised subsidy to industry parading as a national defense program.) We are unable to fathom discoveries and ideas that upset the broad existing structure of science. Galileo and Copernicus did this, as did Newton and later, Einstein.

To imagine that it won’t happen again? Please.
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*Not available on line

Will the real Obama please stop making my blood curdle?

The totalitarian impulse is the same everywhere, crossing nationalities and race. Just as the old Soviet Union used to throw dissidents in mental hospitals, so too does the US Marine Corps.

If that doesn’t raise a hair or two, this will make you sick. US drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere are indiscriminatory by definition. Now the Obama Administration condones secondary strikes on rescuers and medical personnel who arrive after the first strike.

It’s been done regularly in the past, no doubt (here, for sure), but the odd thing with Obama is that he is going public with this stuff, rubbing our faces in it. It’s as if he is in a vacuum, with Democrats supporting him no matter what, and Republicans attacking him for being a socialist. The real Obama is a supporter of wealth without question, and apparently, desk murderer.

Lawless times

Not even in the darkest days of the Cold War did countries flaunt international laws regarding asylum. I blame 911 for this, opening Pandora’s box, turning the U.S. (and puppets) into an openly criminal enterprise, allowing its dark forces to operate in sunlight.

Smaller countries do not really amount to much in Washington or London’s view these days. What will be interesting is to see how much will come out in terms of the real game being played here. Nobody seems to remember that the prime accuser of Julian Assange – Anna Ardin in Sweden – used to work for extreme anti-Castro publications funded by the CIA. So there are links there, and it doesn’t require a conspiratorial attitude to see that the only way they can get at Julian Assange is by trumped-up charges of sexual indiscretions in a country that is hypersensitive to that, and they haven’t even persuaded a judge in Sweden to make those charges.

They have had ample opportunity to go to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and question Julian Assange. They said, ‘we’re not going to do that.’ Now, why is that? The reason is, there is no case against Julian Assange. In my opinion, it’s all very transparent. They want to extradite him to Sweden, and then to the United States to suffer the same indignities, the same torture of Bradley Manning – the person who allegedly gave those documents to Julian Assange – has faced. This is a violation of the First Amendment in our country and other amendments in our Bill of Rights, and I dare say that our founding fathers are rolling in their graves to see a [publisher] treated this way in violation of the right to make things known that are otherwise hidden. (Ray McGovern, former CIA agent turned political activist)

Pssst! Montana Democrats – a word please?

All of this talk about Bryan Schweitzer as a potential presidential or VP candidate … knock it off please. It’s about as likely as a snow storm in the Sahara.

I like Governor Schweitzer, by the way. He ain’t perfect by any means, but he leads, he fights, he’s clever. I wish such a man would use is skills to progressive ends more often, but at least with him we get a few things.

But he needs to be an executive. I don’t see him as a Senator, what with endless meeting and hearings … he’d go crazy. So forget about that.

And president? VP? He’s from Montana, fer chrissakes! He wears bolo ties and jeans. He’s essentially honest, for a politician. (It’s a profession where lying is necessary, a tool of the trade, essential for binding diverse constituencies, so I give him great leeway in that regard.)

Obama is a natural for president. He has charisma, and is dishonest to the core, a con man and a tool of power. Honestly, you think Schweitzer would be good in that role? You think that little of him?

Terrorists living among us

Orlando Bosch
Posada Cariles
On October 6, 1976, Cubana Airlines flight 455, final destination Havana, blew up in midair. All 73 aboard were killed. Among them were the Cuban national fencing team, young men just fresh off a victory in Venezuela where they had won 22 gold medals.

Over a million Cubans were part of the public funeral for the victims. To this day, 10/6 has the same resonance for Cubans as as 9/11 for Americans – senseless violence by ugly, evil people.

There are no mysteries about this crime. Two bombs were placed in the passenger compartment by Venezuelans* Freddy Lugo and Hernan Ricardo. Each was captured and convicted and sentenced to twenty years in prison in Venezuela. One is now a cab driver in Caracas, the other’s whereabouts unknown. Each man fingered Posada Cariles and Orlando Bosch as the masterminds of the crime. These two men have managed to escape justice, with US assistance, for many decades. Each now lives comfortably in Miami.
Continue reading “Terrorists living among us” →

Mailman, bring me no more blues

I have an ongoing (mostly one-sided) dialogue with the Denver Post. Their letters section is typical newspaper fare, boring beyond words, absorbed in politics and sniping from the two permissible viewpoints: Democrat and Republican. I send in letters now and then, but it’s a big city, so the odds are long anyway, but beyond that, my letters don’t fit within the proscribed framework.

I do occasionally get a call saying that my letter “might” be printed, and then it isn’t. That tells me there is some sympathy in the lower levels there for my words, but that the editor, typically someone who ascended the ranks due to predictability, vetoes it.

Anyway, here’s the latest, and for this one I can assure you that there will not even be a perfunctory phone call and a “might.” This one crosses three boundaries: It violates D/R; it criticizes the Post, and it is disrespectful of American journalism.

President Obama’s visit [to Colorado] created a flurry of press coverage, as intended.

Obama is doing what any politician would do given leeway. He professes devotion to high ideals while working against them behind the scenes. His public words and private actions do not square up.

Example: His administration is in court in New York attempting to preserve the executive power to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens without formal charges or even a day in court. This attack on habeas corpus started with President Bush. Obama has flanked Bush’s right wing by extending it to American citizens.

The Post is all over his stump speeches. We need to know about his real activities. It’s called “journalism.”

A politician can speak in favor of any high-falutin’ notion while running for office. But speeches are not governance. Actions are what matters. Journalists need to report to us on activities, and not just words.

Progressives and Democrats are each ineffective in their own ways; eminent domain as a solution to the housing crisis; political nihilism exemplified

Progressives are yet to come up with a good solution
The kerfuffle noted below between Democrats and progressives over minimum wage is exemplary of the larger rift in our society between a captured party and the remnants of what used to be called “the left.” Each bears its own share of responsibility for the dysfunction of our political system.

Democrats bear most of the brunt, but I’ll deal with progressives first.

We are like soldiers outside a castle shelling it with small rocks from decrepit catapults. The old ways are done, ineffective, long since under management by the right. Protests are routinely ignored by the media, and when effective, are infiltrated, marginalized, and otherwise gelded.
Continue reading “Progressives and Democrats are each ineffective in their own ways; eminent domain as a solution to the housing crisis; political nihilism exemplified” →

What was the name of that country?

This story is fairly predictable. It is from the Russian news outlet “RT.com” (Russian Times*). I was told by Polish Wolf that Obama’s wars, as opposed to Bush’s, were smarter, better waged, kinder and gentler … something like that.

So we bombed Libya, murdered its leader, and the liberals now have all moved on to more murder and mayhem in Syria. (Some things never change. It was the liberals who initiated the Southeast Asian wars, and the millions killed there.)

In the meantime .. I love the last line of this story:

However, if the new Libyan authorities fail to bring peace to the country, that wouldn’t become an obstacle for the US to control its vast oil reserves, believes Richard Spencer, founder and co-editor of AlternativeRight.com.

“I think the US is very happy if Libya becomes a chaotic place where there is no real central power opposing anything they do,” he shared adding that “political stability and having the oil flow are two very different things.”

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*The Washington Post, demonstrating its acute self-awareness, referred to RT as the “Russian propaganda outlet.”