Playing chess with the Chutes and Ladders crowd

The Senate election in Massachusetts goes down today. I don’t know the outcome, and don’t much care. One of the candidates is interesting, the other as boring as Wonderbread. One is a radical right winger, the other a nothing. One will fight for the things he believes in, the other not. Massachusetts won’t long tolerate a right wing nutjob in office, and so if Scott Brown wins, he’ll he ousted in 2012. He’ll probably be replaced by another good-for-nothing Democrat. Where’s the upside here?

For a brief while I hoped that a Brown win would help defeat the corporate-written Senate “Health Care Reform” bill, which is meant to be the final version. But word has leaked out that if Brown indeed carries the state, as I hope he does, that the Democrats will abandon reconciliation of the House and Senate bills, and push the Senate bill through the House. This would negate the need for another vote in the Senate.

They can be clever. Democratic leadership, so often seen as weak and ineffective in fighting for progressive reform in health care, can make things happen. They can bring pressure on members of the House, they can force a majority, they do know how to make deals, they do know how to threaten and intimidate members. Obama will weigh in, he will use the hammer. Our last hope, the “Progressive Caucus”, will shrivel under the heat when it comes down to passage of that awful bill. The Democratic leadership is strong and resourceful, and effective. It is simply misunderstood. People think these people to be …liberals? Whatever. They are corporate, and that phrase encompasses hacks and poseurs of both parties.

Democratic hacks and poseurs are a little more dangerous, as they are supported by the rank and file of the party, who simply don’t understand corporate politics.

There are differences between Democrats and Republicans. Russ Feingold and Pat Leahy are different animals than Jim Inhofe and Jim DeMint. But the players in the health care debate, the appointed spearchuckers, have been people like Max Baucus, Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. These men have played a skilled game of chess, and are not only effective, but managed to undermine reform efforts before they got off the ground. Each played a critical role in carrying forward the “reforms” sought by AHIP and PhRMA.

The reason we will have a bad bill signed into law, why it will be shoved down our throats despite protestations of Massachusetts voters, is not because of Democrat weakness. It is because Democratic leadership knows how to manage its left wing, just as Republicans know how to manage their Christians. Progressives and liberal reformers, who thought they had a voice in the process, were actually steered to a predetermined outcome by some very cagey politicians.

Democratic leadership plays chess, and plays it well, while the Democratic followship is mired down in Chutes and Ladders.

There can be no reform of this system from within this system. Those who say we must join the Democratic Party to change it do not understand how the Democratic Party works. Non-corporate Democrats do not gain leadership positions, while progressives are routinely marginalized. Since Obama’s election, new Senators have been appointed in Colorado, Illinois, Delaware and New York. Rahm Emmanuel has worked hard behind the scenes to make sure that each new appointee had appropriate corporate credentials. No liberals were allowed. Only Roland Burris managed to sneak through in a comical in-your-face maneuver by then-Governor Blagojevich. But Burris has been given his walking papers, and the heir apparent, the corporate hack who was meant to fill that seat, Tammy Duckworth, will ascend.

How do you change so corrupt an organization from within? You don’t. Corporate paymasters own that party, and its leadership works closely with Republican leadership to orchestrate events – that’s how we get this bizarre phenomenon we now witness where legislation so extreme that Republicans could not possibly pass it will be rammed through by Democrats.

The problem is money. The rest is all show. Deal with the problem, and we might have progress. For so long as the parties are corporate, reform is impossible. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were each seen as dependable, and were consequently touted as the “front runners” by corporate media, all others ignored. There cannot be reform when corporate media effectively performs a coronation of the eventual winners before the vote. Think back to 2006 when Howard Dean had his character assassinated, his candidacy destroyed – not by his own actions, as his “I have a scream” speech was not in the slightest significant. The media torpedoed him. That told me that he was a worthwhile candidate, and he has since proven to be a good man. But he could not succeed as a Democrat.

It’s a long hard road, things have to get much worse. We need popular movements, dynamics that spring up by groundswell and lead to popular explosions. That is how it has worked throughout history.

If there is a groundswell, if popular movements do indeed form, they must by all means avoid the Democrats, who only mean to destroy them. That’s their role in our “two party” system.

The power of images …

Below are some pictures taken of the tragedy that is Haiti and the recent earthquake. The suffering is immense, and the outpouring of charity from the American people is, as usual, immense. It’s a question of logisitics and timing. Can we help them in time? It is not for lack of trying.

Images have power.

Tricked you. The last four images are casualties and damage inflicted by Americans on Iraq and its inhabitants. These are not about random violence. The man in the car was shot by Americans, the man salved with burn cream was the victim of attempted cremation – by Americans. It’s grotesque, and it would invoke outrage … if we were allowed to see it. The control of imagery is efficient, and unlike the 60’s and 70’s, where a compliant media nonetheless allowed truth to escape now and then, a whole country is kept in the dark.

We have the Internet. I can show these pictures. I am a guy in Boulder, Colorado. The Internet has vast reach, and yet, we do not not reach people. Our message is not musical, not about celebrities, and the images are too real for video games. We’re not even allowed to see this:

Ever so gingerly, they allowed this one image to escape. And then they clamped down again. Obama is Bush II.

It’s thought control. Face it.

Iranians destabilizing US elections?

This is a little unnerving, to say the least. Some investigative journalism (Annals of National Security) has uncovered a plot by Iranians to invest in internal activities in the country by so-called “dissidents” to disrupt our upcoming elections and to make it appear as though the Obama Administration is not a credible democratic regime. Rather, they want it to appear to outsiders that we suppress opposition forces, even resorting to violence.

The money, $4 quadrillion rials, or about $400 million in U.S. dollars, was appropriated by the Iranian People’s House and has been turned over in an “almost carte blanche” manner to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for use as he sees fit to achieve this purpose.

U.S officials are watching closely. Said one source, “We take democratic governance very seriously in this country, and the Iranian activities are an affront to our way of life. We look at this matter with serious concern.”

A gaffe

For those who come here to hear their favorite themes repeated, you picked the right day.

Harry Reid committed a “gaffe,” that is, he slipped and said something in public that was actually true. Such behavior usually creates a flurry of criticism.

It is true that Barack Obama is more white than black. If he had thicker lips, a flatter nose, darker skin, and had gotten his degree from Grambling; if he spoke in a dialect; if his family were not beautiful in a tasteful white kind of way, he’d likely be on a city council somewhere. Maybe even a community organizer.

It is also true that Harry Reid will be forgiven for this gaffe, and that had a Republican said the same thing, the Republican would not be forgiven and might have to leave office and go to work in a high-paid position in the drug or defense industry or banking. Such a dark fate awaited Reid save for his party selection.

Is this a double standard? Absolutely. At this point, I doff my cap two our only two allowable parties, and offer my sincere appreciation for the mere double standard. The normal triple and quadruple standards are set aside for this moment of candor. In the matter of race relations, they literally reek of an integrity that they show in no other area.

The curious case of the men who “return to battle” who were never even in battle in the first place …

Steve made a bold prediction a short while back, saying that media reports of released Guantanamo prisoners being behind the curious case of the explosive Christmas Day unperpants were likely “bullshit.” (Here, and here). Now Dan Froomkin, a serious man with a critical eye (and therefore marginalized by the Washington Post), says the same thing. (“Media being fooled over and over again“, Huffington Post.)

First, let’s deal with absurdity. Meet me on camera three.

[Pssst! Folks, there’s no danger! There’s no “Al Qaeda”, just a ragtag group of dissidents unable to pull off meaningful revenge for the things that are happening to them. Even the name itself, “Al Qaeda,” is an American invention. They take these isolated incidents of attempted revenge, and make it out to be a huge conspiracy with evil dark-skinned bearded people wanting to blow up our darling blond children.

Remember Sean Connery as Jim Malone in the Untouchables?

They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That’s* the *Chicago* way! And that’s how you get Capone.

It could be rewritten for the current script:

We drop a bomb, they set a shoe on fire. We send a million of them to the morgue, they set their underpants on fire. *That’s* the *Al Qaeda* way. And that’s how you get the Great Satan.

Please, Americans, get a grip. These people fight back now and then, but look at where they come from! It’s always place that we are attacking and/or occupying. Just sayin’.]

Now, about the American media and its tendency to uncritically repeat Pentagon lies and then fail to follow up when the truth becomes available: It’s not a recent phenomenon. It transcends wars, decades and centuries. The press, owned by the Warbucks corporations that finance the politicians as well, is fulfilling a function: it is advancing the story line. It’s a play put on to keep us in fear and off balance, never giving us time to reflect on what is really happening.

In the Italian loafer world of the media hierarchy, this is probably understood, though these people are most likely focused on earnings per share. They are not about journalism. But in the lower levels, where our eyes meet theirs, we are dealing with the clueless. That’s why they have a job, these pretty people who give us our news, while the Washington Post set Dan Froomkin adrift.

It’s propaganda. It’s the air we breathe. These gray little men and women are unimaginative cogs in the big machine. These supposed “journalists” are dreary wretches. They uncritically repeat Pentagon lies because they have no souls.

At least the people at the Pentagon who write the lies have to come up with fresh ideas, but those whose job it is to repeat these lies and never think critically have no life force within them. They are nothing.

————————

Jim – he’s worse than dead. His brain is gone!

————————

PS: I pass on an observation by one Thom Hartmann, a radio host and run-on talker. He’s an introvert. He says that most radio hosts are that way. On the other hand, he says most TV personalities are extroverts. I tend to prefer introverts, as they tend to be a little more thoughtful, taking gratification from internal resources, where the exxies have to get it from outside sources.

I am often harshly critical of the profession of journalism, but mostly when I write that stuff I am thinking about the pretty TV people who are the primary source of news for the American public.

A Bill Ritter story …

Bill Ritter is not going to run again for governor of Colorado. No big deal. Having a nominal Democrat in office is no more useful than having a Republican in office is harmful. Good bye, Bill.

Here’s a good Ritter story: In Colorado, in order to form a labor union, there must be two votes, and after threats and propaganda, the second vote seldom succeeds. Ritter ran on a promise that if elected, he would support efforts to eliminate that second vote, and to allow unions to form by mere assent of a majority of the workers in a workplace.

Ritter won, and the legislature passed the Labor Peace act, following through on their campaign promises.

Ritter vetoed it.

Here’s your hat, Bill. What’s your hurry?

Reprise … second verse, same as the first

Now and then I get something right, not so often that I can brag. But here is a piece that I put up on June 20, 2009, that indeed turned out to be prescient. We are in the final throes now of health “reform” defeat, and the Democrats have decided that the joint reconciliation process is too dangerous to corporate interests, and have shut off that avenue. It is all going to be done behind closed doors, and you know they are looking out for us. Chortle!

Now, as from the beginning, our only hope in avoiding this nightmare is the Progressive Caucus. Chortle!

We’re screwed, dude. Totally.

Anyway, I likened having Democrats negotiate health care reform for us to us renting out our house last summer.

House for Rent


We have our Bozeman home up for rent, and asked some local Democrats for advice. Here’s the newspaper ad they came up with:

House for rent outside Bozeman. It could be a whole lot nicer, but it’s the best we could afford. We’d like $1,695 rent. We don’t really want $1,695! We’ll take $1,000! We’ll take less than that even if you’re really insistent. Please don’t be mean.

There are other houses for rent in Bozeman, so the Democrats suggested that we ask the other owners to be in charge of renting our place. “It’s a collaborative process”, they said. They also said that we weren’t very clever about asking for $1,695, since we wouldn’t get it and that we should leave it to them to get us the best deal possible.

Last night the owners of other rental units had a party on our front lawn, and scattered beer bottles and kept us up till 4 AM. But we’re nice neighbors, and didn’t complain. I peeked out the window at one point, and there were other owners and Republicans and Democrats too – a lot of Democrats, and they all seemed like really good friends. That really surprised me. But I guess that’s how the rental business works.

So far, we’ve had one offer – we pay our renters $500 a month, and we also pay utilities. The Democrats thought it was worth consideration. After all, they said, it’s not a pretty process, and that we should not expect to get everything we want.

“80% is better than nothing”, said one.

I said that I thought (but wasn’t sure) that 80% of $1,695 was $1,356.

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”, I was told.

And anyway, it could be worse. “Imagine what it would be like if you had a Republican property manager!”, said one. He spoke with kind of a stutter.

The 14 comments below are from June of ’09.

Why Yemen?

It is very difficult in a fake democracy to understand events as they unfold. “News” is reported to us by Orwell’s trained circus dogs. (Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip.)

On 9/11 I was utterly amazed that such a gigantic and nefarious plot could pulled off, but also had a sense of dissonance that our intelligence community, which could not prevent it, knew almost instantly who did it and where it originated.

So the scenario repeated with the underpants bomber. Intelligence officials knew about him, had been warned about him. His behavior was unusual – paying cash for a one-way ticket, no luggage … if only he could ignite his underwear as I can mine, we would have had a midair explosion. And instantly we know who he is, where his bomb was made, and who supervised his activities.

It might be that it is easier to track backward through events than to project forward. So it might seem logical that our news media, fed by the government, is relaying the truth to us about the Nigerian underwear situation.

That could well be. The news media might be serving a legitimate news function. The question is, why would they start now?

The Bush Administration, like that of Clinton before it, wanted to attack Iraq. Before 9/11, it just wasn’t plausible. After 9/11, anything was plausible. Some have taken the high correlation between post 9/11 activities and pre-9/11 desires, and intuited that 9/11 was a staged event. The problem with that scenario is that the government after 9/11 pointed us at Afghanistan, and only later did they attack Iraq, almost as if it were an afterthought. So I think it logical to conclude that they merely took advantage of public rage brought about by an event not of their making. One must never underestimate the potential for stupidity in high places.

Stupidity, yes, but also high intelligence. It’s a volatile cocktail. We are being shepherded by intelligent forces, though within those forces exists great hubris. I see in the underpants bombing three possibilities (or more – I am no more omniscient than anyone who reads this):

1) A fake scenario where a young man, whose father claimed was recently radicalized, was manipulated into the appearance of attempting to blow up an aircraft, not understanding that he had no chance of success. This staged event was then used as fodder to incite public opinion to allow our government to attack yet another country, this time, Yemen.

2) “Al Qaeda” operatives, being highly stupid themselves, wanted to give further credibility to the forces within our government who like attacking Arab countries. They like irritating the great beast.

3) Our government lies in wait, wanting to pounce, and only needing an event of any kind to justify predetermined activities.

It’s very hard to know, and we won’t know for weeks, months, years – if ever. What I conclude from these events is a little more abstract:

1) There have been no substantive changes in our ruling coalitions, even after the great groundswell of November, 2008. The same forces that propelled the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq are still there, and they are still ambitious;

2) News is not really news. It serves some other purpose, and there is a high correlation between the ambitions of the ruling coalition who sit behind our elected officials and the news that we are fed.

Therefore, the coalition has power over both elected officials and the news media. Picture a triangle of powerful forces – private wealth, government, and the news media. Most of us want to place the government atop that triangle, with power over the other two. Rotate the triangle so that private wealth sits atop both government and the media. To me, events make more sense if we remove the possibility of democratic governance from the picture.

If they are focusing our attention on Yemen, something is going on in Yemen unrelated to a plane that took off from Amsterdam on Christmas Day.

That’s the best that I can do without any real information at hand.

A Photo Essay

So a guy gets on a plane and tries to set his underwear on fire. Pretty scary, eh? Maybe 300 people would have died, but that’s child’s play for us. America pilots make that many corpses and text message at the same time. But the reaction is interesting, a stark contrast between self-image and reality.

Here’s how people in other countries see us:

Run your lives! Here’s a famous image – U.S. fighter jets hit a South Vietnamese village, and the resulting picture captured for all posterity the terror that we inflicted on others that day.

I don’t have to remind anyone that the reason the little girl is naked is because of napalm -it makes people tear off their clothing. When Dow first invented it, people were able to jump into lakes and rivers to get it off them. So the Dow boys came up with a new formula that adhered to the skin even after immersed in water. Good old American ingenuity.

That’s not how we see ourselves, of course.

Soldiers that return from our foreign adventures often tell tales of horror – that’s a lot of why the Vietnam war became so unpopular – returning soldiers. I would imagine that the military is pretty tight about that stuff these days – they do control the images we see. The picture of the little Vietnamese girl above would never be seen today- not in a newspaper or magazine, and certainly not TV. That was one of the lessons of the Vietnam War, first applied in Gulf War I – control what we see, control what we think. Here we are fighting two brutal wars with thousands upon thousands of civilian deaths, and people are hardly aware of it.

Images have power. Remember Abu Ghraib?

Pretty gruesome, but here is something important to realize about thought control in a society like ours: if it ain’t in pictures, it ain’t in people’s minds. Abu Ghraib, so far as I can tell, is the only imagery that has harmed the valiant war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Colombia, Yemen, and Pakistan. And Iran. Sudan … I lose track. When we are not actually fighting these wars, we are supplying the weapons.

Remember when the Israelis attacked Gaza a couple of years ago?

American bombs. The little girl is known as “collateral damage”.

Now forget for a minute about the dead kid. It’s the building behind … that is what is known as a “military target”, sometimes called a “terrorist hideout”. Usually when they blow up a building like that, they have a real target in mind. In this case, it was the little boy. He is what they call an “Al Qaeda operative”, possibly “second in command.”

This is more like it:

Yeah baby! These colors don’t run.

What’s that? A bomb on a plane? Good God -Obama, do something! Now we’re afraid to fly again! Xray underpants, keep anyone with dark skins off our planes!

Guess we ain’t so tough after all.