Dystopia Diaries

A Tree Falls In The Forest

2012-03-10T12:34:00.001-08:00

To paraphrase the old Buddhist koan, "When Sabu shoots himself in the head, alone in the desert, will anyone care?" What, for that matter, about the copper who turned him?

By now every one's read at an account of how an influential member of the hacktivest collective Lulzsec was co-opted by American "law enforcement" to incite his fellow members into incriminating behavior for which they may now spend the rest of their natural lives behind bars.

Some of these stories have focused on local interest of individual participants in the drama. Others have investigated the nature of hacker culture. Still others on the legal problems presented by the apparently classic "entrapment" strategy used by the FBI. But to date I have yet to see one discuss at any length the operation here of the deeper psycho/social dynamic that underlies the the self-concept of both Lulzsec and police forces.

This seems very odd to me, almost as if there were a deliberate conspiracy of stupidity to ignore the single most salient point of the whole affair. Then again, my particular family history could be expected to make me preternaturally sensitive to issues of communal solidarity and order.

The Irish, like the Jews, as Brendan Behan says, have not so much an ethnicity as a neurosis. And the seedbed of this neurosis lies in the centuries-old conflict for that island's self-determination. While the vast majority of persons outside of the north and the Republic's border counties are quite glad to consider the apparently insoluble conundrum a relic of the past with no particular consequence to their daily lives, it still has a deep, deep resonance for their political culture, both formal and informal. Whether they're willing to admit it or not, the long history of black operations, governmental and sectarian, has profoundly shaped their institutions and their unspoken rules. There is an awareness that few controversial events are truly as they appear on the surface, and that the most troubling account of events may be the most factually accurate.

Northern people of all political stripes are intimately aware of this situation. The engagement of most citizens of the Republic is probably as an embarrassed denial mixed with recognition. Mainland British opinion may be all over the map, ranging from cultivated ignorance, violent jingoistic denial to a dramatic sort of "white guilt" that embarrasses both themselves and their Irish friends who'd really rather forget the whole thing and get on with their own lives.

But Americans of Irish descent, like myself, who came of age before the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, usually see the thing with a type of cartoonish simplicity. Assuming we have any interest in history at all, we typically get it wrong. With the luxury of thousands of miles and hundreds of years between (most of) us and the conflict, we have adapted the complicated story of those tiny and densely interrelated islands into something resembling a racial opera of an endangered ethnic minority united in a timeless moral struggle against a decadent elite motivated by nothing more than a sadistic lust for raw power. Pick your own side, but there's just enough reality there to make it an incredibly durable and useful lie.

Yes, around 2 million persons, or 25% of Ireland's population (overwhelmingly Catholics of native stock) died or emigrated as a result of the Great Famine. And yes, the impact of the crop failures was exacerbated by the inaction of libertarian administrators like Sir Charles Trevelyan, who callously declared the event, " . . . a direct stroke of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence."

But no reasonably complete reading of history can ignore the fact that over half of that empire's armed forces, and indeed the the staff of the Royal Irish Constabulary, were Roman Catholic. Maybe that was a statistical necessity in the context of a desperately impoverished island overwhelmingly of the Catholic persuasion, but that does raise the question of just how many of the officers overseeing those heartless 19th century evictions were coreligionists of the dispossessed tenantry.

To my knowledge, my own family's history in law enforcement stretches back only into the 1950's, in America. Yet I think there is a deep commonality of context in the police experience that needs to be considered if we're to learn anything from our history.

True, the surface contours of the social and policing issues of 19th and early 20th century Ireland and 21st century America couldn't seem more different to the casual observer. Even to this day, only the most far-out and marginal groups of never-credited theoreticians would have considered a viable "Black Nationalist" conflict to be a major contributing factor to policing policies that remain highly prejudicial, by any objective standard. But alternate formulations making race a proxy for more destabilizing class conflicts do make a lot of sense.

An examination of the backgrounds and behaviors of both policing forces does tend to bear out striking similarities. Overwhelmingly drawn from the lower-middling sort of the masses they're intended to check, the outlooks of these men must necessarily be conditioned by their marginal position in society, just barely above those they are conditioned by training and experience to view as "problems". Better educated than many of the population they policed, 19th century Irish constables derived an enviably stable but small cash income in an incredibly precarious agricultural economy susceptible to recurring famine. In today's America you will find very few millionaires in the ranks, far more NASCAR fans than owners.

This tenuous position tends to weld officers into a tight-knit little society of their own, with tremendous pressure towards internal conformity and in-group solidarity. In a very real sense these men form a "Thin Blue Line", but also a sort of "Bright Line"--intended to force consistent, predictable results from a world that is often anything but consistent or predictable.

The factions separated by this Bright Line are the civil elites and underlings. The civil elites, curiously, are bodily removed from front line contact yet mentally preoccupied with the management of the holdings and institutions actually operated by their underlings. While the social investment of the underlings is paradoxically smaller than that of the elites in an absolute sense (when measured in financial assets, at any rate), it is nonetheless total in a way the elite man's can never be. The $10,000 loss that will become a salvageable tax write-off on the IRS return of the elite man will mark the total destitution of the underling.

The methods adopted by the Bright Liners to keep the unstable and unpredictable underlings on their side of the fence must necessarily be correspondingly elemental. Whether the particular problem in question was a delinquent tenant farmer crowding out valuable pasture land for His Lordship's new flock of prize merinos, or is a hacker publishing Goldman Sachs memos outlining its strategy to bilk its own customers through deceptive investment advice, the very slender resource base of the police force's adversary tends to make debilitating them surprisingly easy--and brutal.

Details of the precise methods used to turn Sabu have not yet come to light. I tend to doubt the government is anxious to discuss these details at any length during the defendants' prosecution, as most of the scenarios I can imagine leave them open to "entrapment" challenges.

Many in the activist community may also be anxious to avoid this discussion in the fear that any apparent sympathy shown to Sabu may undermine the (presumed) deterrence effect of ostracizing him. But I do think it is worth our consideration here, in order to draw out the broader implications of the betrayal and its historical context.
Street crimes like vandalism, burglary and theft provide ample scope for physical coercion--the "elevator ride" being a classic example. But information offense charges, like those facing the Lulzsec members are accused require a different but no less primal approach.

All strategies begin by isolating the "perp", leaving him to stew in his juices for some uncomfortably protracted period of time and let his imagination run wild regarding the possible punishments he may face, and to wonder whether anyone will ever take notice or care.

That is the chief goal of the police interrogator--to convince the subject that not only does he have no control over the investigation's outcome, but that no one will care. Ever. In a paradoxical manner, the ostracization Sabu is likely currently undergoing furthers the police programme.

The subsequent course of interrogation may vary considerably, but always alternates between demonstrating the subject's total alienation from society and allowing him to catch a slender thread of hope that he may yet have One Option Left. The specific tactics involved are many, and usually it is not difficult at all to come upon a suitable alternative. Often the subject or his family or close associates willingly offer a gem up to the police, completely unbidden.

A relatively sophisticated subject may have anticipated police efforts to belittle him personally and may even have developed considerable resistance. But very few of those so intensely identifying themselves with a pro-social agenda like that of Lulzsec will have the heart to apply the same brutal discipline to their family members. And this is the inevitable Achilles Heel. The police will manipulate the very sort of deeply empathic relationship that stoked their activism into convincing the subject that flipping is their One Viable Option to save at least one close personal relationship.

So maybe the police scared Sabu's wife, girlfriend or kids into begging him to cooperate. Maybe all they had to do was dangle a hopeless natural-life prison term scenario in front of him. Or maybe they had to dig deeper and convincingly edit some intercepted communications from his colleagues to demonstrate that it was a race against the clock to turn state's evidence. One thing's for sure, though, by frightening him with the specter of eternal isolation as a social pariah and outcast, they effectively got him to do the job himself.

Just like the MI5 supergrass and black ops of the 1970's, however, the outcome of the FBI's Sabu/Lulzsec case will more than likely result neither in long-term cessation of hostilities nor the disbandment of the groups in question. More likely it will involve the eventual mental breakdown and/or suicide of Sabu.

That is a fairly typical denouement for men who trade in treachery. Just like Judas in the Bible or Richard Pigott after the revelation of the Jubilee Plot. For men who once ostensibly dedicated themselves to the pro-social cause of liberty, the absolutely worst and most intolerable fate is to have your name associated with the betrayal of your comrades. Beyond the serious but temporal consequences of prosecution and the interruption of the collective's operation, betrayal eternally forecloses from you the love, trust and confidence of your fellows.
That final chapter will probably be decades in the writing, punctuated no doubt with all manner of theatrically buffoonish distractions like tell-all book tours and radio programmes on corporate propaganda outlets like Fox News. Such antics may temporarily blunt the pain, but can never totally block the realization of the absolutely existential scale of the treachery.

In that sense, I think the cops may be even worse off. True, they enjoy the formal sanction of society's elites to perform the systematic betrayal of their fellow underlings. They have an entire culture devoted to looking the other way in order to shield themselves from their crimes. But that only delays paying the psychic bill, not extinguishing the debt. Callous as any individual may be in and of himself, he still needs to interact with others on a regular basis.

Just as Sabu was likely not able to effectively inoculate his family or friends from breaking under the pressure, the lone officer will eventually have to face the horrified disapproval of his own loved ones who become aware of the horrible, horrible things he's done. So the half-life the policeman is forced to endure is under the continual action of a slow-acting poison of his own making. It's no accident that police have rates of domestic violence, marital infidelity and substance abuse far in excess of the society at large.

If he is not able to retire first to an inadequate pension and alienated family, he will be subject to hypocritical prosecution by the very civilian elites for whom he committed his crimes.

YouPorn: Up To 1 Million Adult Chat Users' Email Addresses And Passwords Exposed

2012-02-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

Oh there is guaranteed to be some fun from this. Can you say "Caligula"?

I recommend a deep dive into the list of these names for top-level donors and operatives in the Santorum, and Romney camps, as well as that of embattled Wisconsin governor Scott Walker.

You're invited to have a go at any Dems, too, but I'd be dubious about the payoff. Since they're all professed perverts and homosexuals, I can't imagine getting much mileage over that lot downloading some pics from a foot fetish site.

Nothing brings out the kink like a vigorous dose of self-righteous Puritan denial, however, so I expect quite a few high level Repubs showing up as a clients of "Trannytown.com". From the Huffington Post's Timothy Stenovec:

Unsecured login information for a chat feature on YouPorn, one of the most popular pornography sites on the Internet, has revealed the email addresses and passwords for some of its users, the Associated Press reports.

While the AP could not confirm the number of accounts that had been compromised, Anders Nilsson of the security solutions company EuroSecure, wrote on his blog that login information for more than one million accounts was made public on Tuesday.

Kate Miller, a spokesperson for Manwin Holding SARL, YouPorn's parent company, emphasized in an email to The Huffington Post that YouPorn was not hacked, but that its third-party chat service "failed to take the appropriate precautions in securing its user data" and has since been taken offline pending an investigation.

"Until then, YouPorn continues to ensure that all appropriate measures and tools are in place to maintain the security of its infrastructure, and to safeguard the privacy of its users," Miller said in a statement to HuffPost.
She added in a phone call that "YouPorn is operating the way it should."

Still, many email addresses and associated passwords have now been made available online.

Sophos's Graham Cluley notes on the serendipitously named blog "Naked Security" that beyond the potential humiliation of having one's email address associated with YouPorn, the users' other accounts that share this login information could be compromised.
From Naked Security:

So, if your YouPorn password is now known, hackers might try that same password against your email address, your PayPal account, your Amazon account, and all many of other online resources.

Writing for Forbes, Kashmir Hill references a tag cloud created by Ashkan Soltani, an independent researcher and consultant who focuses on privacy and security, that shows some of the most popular passwords seen in a sample of the leaked data.

According to Nilsson, the leak was probably caused by a programming error that made a debugging log -- which collected usernames and passwords, among other data -- publicly viewable.
YouPorn is the 98th most popular site in the U.S. and the 96th most popular website in the world, according to Alexa.

Miller said that Luxembourg-based Manwin, which acquired YouPorn in May 2011, is the world's largest network of adult websites, with more than 60 million visitors to its sites each day.

Earlier this month, a person claiming to be a 17-year-old hacker in Morocco said he had accessed the personal information of users of a Brazzers-operated adult site, which Manwin also owns.

Could a 16 Hour Work Week Save Civilization?

2012-02-16T10:38:00.001-08:00

The question is: If Americans wanted to retain compensation and employment gains between 1987 and 2009, how long would the average American be required to work each week? Answer: 16 Hours.

I was a little reticent to publish this one at first, since it does rather smack of classical Libertarianism (i.e., in the sense of being concerned with "free" time, ergo "liberty").

But then I thought, "What the Hell?" It's only a thought. If I give the reader access to all the underlying data they could do whatever they wanted with it and make their own decisons.

Would you spend more time at Church? The average employed American only seems to spend about 45 minutes per week on religious activities. Imagine how many more God points you could rack up if you had another 23 to play with?

Would you take courses in civics or constitutional history? Again, the current weekly average spent on education is only 38 minutes, supposedly. You could probably get a doctorate in the subject in a couple of years.

Then again, maybe that's not your bag. Maybe you're a non-sectarian family type. If so, you're only spending a little more than 4 hours per week on year nearest and dearest. Aren't they worth at least 10? The numbers suggest you can easily spare them--if you're willing to plan properly.

What's YOUR personal priority?

Don't Know Much About History . . .

2012-02-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

Yeah, volatility is usually considered a "bad thing" in economics. It's basically the chance that the dollar you leave in your wallet tonight will be worth $0.50 or $1.50 when you wake up in the morning. Makes decision making difficult. Like living on a roulette table.

* Conversion of the U.S. dollar to silver and gold was suspended during the Civil War and discontinued entirely by 1972. Covers the years for which full data are available (i.e., 1820 through 2009).

This analysis excludes, for what I hope are obvious reasons, the years covering America's wars of existential crisis, i.e., the Civil War, World War I, World War II, when military spending as a % of GDP reached anamolous heights, ranging from over 3% and up to nearly 37% in 1942. See details of calculations and source citations at the linked workbook.

J'Accuse: Where Is MY Rocket-Powered Jet Pack, Mr. Gingrich?!!!

2012-01-30T16:29:00.000-08:00

Well, haven't we all been treated to quite the show lately? Of course I'm talking about the debates for the Republican Party's primary in Florida, which have degenerated into an unseemly picking over the corpse of Reagan-era optimism, each candidate trying to prize from Zombie Ronnie's rigor mortised grasp the famed Talisman of Americana. Shameful and disgusting.

The mind readily grasps the allure of laying claim to the mantle of the august Uncle Dutch (i.e., being the only legitimate basis of rule, the "One Meme to Rule Them All"). Therefore it is hardly surprising that its power should attract the devious lust of unsavory creatures from beneath even the dankest rocks in the even the darkest corners of America's mushroom garden. That is merely natural and expected, actually a necessary function of narrative causality, being all the better to highlight by means of contrast the enlightened munificence and nobility of the True Heir of the king who single-handedly defeated the corrosive and perverse troglodytes of The Evil Empire. What is unbearable is to see how far you have fallen from thine birthright, oh Padawan. Woefully are we disappointed in thee, Newt Skywalker!

Where is my rocket-powered jet pack, Mr. Gingrich?!!!

I and millions of others just like me came of age in the waning days of the Soviet Union and were raised on the promise of unlimited horizons in the new frontier that was supposed to supplant the forces of monolithic evil. Loyal soldiers of the Cold War we were, instilled daily with the knowledge that our confrontations with wily machinations of pencil-pushing bureaucrats must necessarily be crowned with eventual success, our manly revolutionary virtues being altogether unstoppable by the feeble, crippled imaginations of pallid, apparatchik eunuchs hiding behind the skirt of an effeminate and decadent Socialism. It was a heady, romantic time of dreams and ambition, all fuelled by the unique vision that only you and Ronald Reagan could conjure in the American imagination. Don't pretend that it wasn't you who inspired Moonraker, Mr. Gingrich, my generation's Beowulf. It's no use in pretending otherwise.

Yet here we are today in 2012, living in the world that you and my generations' heroes made, a world very different from the sleek futuristic glamour promised us by the Hollywood visions like Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and Blade Runner. We have a housing market with demand worse than that seen at the nadir of the Great Depression, and plagued by the locusts of foreclosure, fat on the rancid feed of robo-signed title documents crafted by the very devils you told us had been vanquished when the Berlin Wall fell.

Oh we moved the effective tax rates for multimillionaire "job creators" to the demanded levels alright. But where, pr(e)y tell are the plenteous "jobs of the future" to be found in today's 10%+ real unemployment landscape? Walmart? Is this the "transformation" you had in mind when you came to power in a 1994 landslide? The landslide powered by the votes of idealistic Gen X-er's like myself, seduced by your Orpheus-streaked, honey-dripping eloquence and roguish good looks?

Where is my Nexus-6 "pleasure model" android wife, Mr. Gingrich?!!! You seem to be able to spring for a new one every couple of years.

Were we perhaps expecting too much of one man, Mr. Gingrich? Was your venture into the belly of the beast merely a standard literary trope, part of the proto-typical heroic cycle of Call/Answer/Confrontation/Setback that serves to heighten the dramatic tension before you recoup and sally forth to eventually defeat the dragon? Perhaps so. Perhaps so.

But I tend to doubt it. Such a thematic interpolation at this point in the story seems irretrievably at odds with the character of the mentor you have chosen to guide you to the appointed Confrontation with Evil. Sheldon Adelson's chequered career path calls to mind more Emporer Palpatine than Obi Wan Kenobi, with an ethical code more along the lines of The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition than Ramon Lull's cult of chivalry.

So here we are, Mr. Gingrich, me and my Gen X cohorts drawing nigh on to mid life, a generation lost in space, with no time left to start again. Third down and ten to go, you promising (yet again) to find some magic to pull out of your "transformational" thinking cap. And all I want to know is:

WHERE IS MY HOVERCRAFT, MR. GINGRICH?!!!

America's Bad Girlfriend: Mossad Agents Impersonate CIA to Foment Trouble in Iran

2012-01-26T15:05:00.000-08:00

Another sad one. I think everybody's had a Crazy Girlfriend at some time in their youth. It's all thrills and drama before you're mature enough to realize that the untraceable charges for men's clothing on your cedit card and cryptic messages on your answering machine are signs of a deep, deep feeback loop of Daddy Problems, self-loathing and manipulation. Unwittingly you've signed yourselves up to play the roles of abuse victim/avenger and rescuer/cuckold.

Few of us have had totally ideal childhoods, but self-aware people usually get past this stuff by the time they've graduated college. The scripts get more and more alike and the Law of Diminishing Returns kicks in. If you're altruistic types you'll try to explain the whole thing rationally before retreating to your separate corners in order to get your heads together. Ideally you'll be able to part on friendly terms, but more often there are some undignified scenes ahead, complete with gouged eye sockets and your shame forever documented in a police report. From Haaretz:

Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA officers in order to recruit members of a Pakistani terror group to carry out assassinations and attacks against the regime in Iran, Foreign Policy revealed on Friday, quoting U.S. intelligence memos.

Foreign Policy's Mark Perry reported that the Mossad operation was carried out in 2007-2008, behind the back of the U.S. government, and infuriated then U.S. President George W. Bush.

Perry quotes a number of American intelligence officials and claims that the Mossad agents used American dollars and U.S. passports to pose as CIA spies to try to recruit members of Jundallah, a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization that has carried out a series of attacks in Iran and assassinations of government officials.

According to the report, Israel's recruitment attempts took place mostly in London, right under the nose of U.S. intelligence officials.

"It's amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with," Foreign Policy quoted an intelligence officer as saying. "Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn't give a damn what we thought."

According to a currently serving U.S. intelligence officer, Perry reports, when Bush was briefed on the information he "went absolutely ballistic."

"The report sparked White House concerns that Israel's program was putting Americans at risk," the intelligence officer told Perry. "There's no question that the U.S. has cooperated with Israel in intelligence-gathering operations against the Iranians, but this was different. No matter what anyone thinks, we're not in the business of assassinating Iranian officials or killing Iranian civilians."

The intelligence officer said that the Bush administration continued to deal with the affair until the end of his term. He noted that Israel's operation jeopardized the U.S. administration's fragile relationship with Pakistan, which was under immense pressure from Iran to crack down on Jundallah.
According to the intelligence officer, a senior administration official vowed to "take the gloves off" with Israel, but ultimately the U.S. did nothing.

"In the end it was just easier to do nothing than to, you know, rock the boat," the intelligence officer said.

Apparently, the Mossad operation caused a fiery debate among Bush's national security team and it was only resolved when U.S. President Barack Obama drastically scaled back joint U.S.-Israel intelligence programs targeting Iran, Perry quotes several serving and retired officers as saying.
The U.S. State Department has vehemently denied any ties to Jundallah and many U.S. intelligence officials remained angry with Israel over the 2007-2008 operation.

"Israel is supposed to be working with us, not against us," Foreign Policy quoted an intelligence officer as saying. "If they want to shed blood, it would help a lot if it was their blood and not ours. You know, they're supposed to be a strategic asset. Well, guess what? There are a lot of people now, important people, who just don't think that's true."

The CIA, the White House, and the Mossad failed to respond to the Foreign Policy report by the time it went to press.

Would Andrew Adler Be in Guantanamo If He Were Muslim?

2012-01-23T08:24:00.000-08:00

It's an important question. But you can be sure that not even Ron Paul, would mention this in a televised debate. Still, it'd be interesting to see what sort of response Gingrich comes up with, given his recent financial commitments. From the Sydney Morning Herald:

ASSASSINATING US President Barack Obama for refusing to wage war on Iran is an opinion Andrew Adler wishes he never published. But that's exactly what the owner of the Atlanta Jewish Times did on January 13 and now he's facing vocal opposition and a Secret Service investigation.

''Give the go-ahead for US-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice-president to take his place and forcefully dictate that the United States' policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies,'' Adler wrote in a piece called ''What would you do?'' Adler issued an apology, saying, ''I very much regret it. I wish I hadn't made reference to it at all.''

However, the Secret Service is not taking the threat so lightly, CNN reported. ''We are aware of it,'' Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie told the news channel. ''We are taking the appropriate investigative steps.''
While the weekly Atlanta Jewish Times has a modest circulation, Gawker.com found the op-ed piece and brought it into the spotlight.

Adler offered three options for dealing with an American president unwilling to defend Israel fighting a hypothetical war: First, strike Hezbollah and Hamas. Second, attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Third, ''order a hit'' against the president.

Reaction from fellow Jewish journalists has been swift. Chemi Shalev lamented the poor choice of words at Haaretz.com: ''It will indeed take a long time and a great effort to undo the damage Adler has wrought.''

The Leak That Made America

2012-01-05T13:44:00.000-08:00

Well, no surprises in the Iowa caucus. Gingrich, Bachman and Perry beat themselves into irrelevance and the voters remain undecided whether their priority is to be impoverished by Wall Street wh*res like Mitt Romney or burned at the stake by puritanical simpletons like Rick Santorum. If the Democratic Party's Achilles heel is a lack of conviction and willingness to fight for its stated beliefs, the Republican Party's fatal flaw is its love of stupidity.

But that's just us, the electorate. Supposedly the great education and ethical commitment of professional functionaries should mitigate against the creeping culture of mediocrity that's overtaken American culture in the last 50 years. Does it really, though? For example, do the judges deciding the fate of Bradley Manning have clue # 1 that their nation's very founding legal principle owes its existence to a state department leak in 1773? Do any of them remember the Hutchinson Letters Affair?

Benjamin Franklin

Bradley Manning

Complacency

On the face of it, the late 18th century should, by all rights, have represented a gratifying period of peace and contentment within the British Empire. The vicious civil wars that marked the 17th century had finally been resolved with the decisive defeat of the Jacobite rebellion in 1745. A remarkably stable political settlement had been achieved which conclusively destroyed the arbitrary power of absolute monarchy.

True, it did not satisfy or even address many of the concerns of the age's most idealistic revolutionaries. And that was exactly why the settlement proved so durable; truly radical destabilizing forces had been violently eradicated and the remaining disparate threads of British society had been assimilated into an ambiguous consensus. Oliver Cromwell brutally suppressed John Lillburn and his populist Leveller movement. Cromwell ensured that no one need concern themselves with Ireland's welfare for another two centuries by murdering one quarter of that island's population in a bloody campaign of genocide and theft. At home he quashed (seemingly) for all time the politically volatile mix of British Protestant sectarianism by triangulating a non-ideological sort of state Anglicanism that offered some degree of toleration to all non-Catholic denominations.

Although Cromwell was, by virtue of his control over the military, king in all but name, he refused to assume such a provocative title publicly--providing the illusion if not the substance of representative government. This belief in representative government became a core defining principle of national identities throughout the Anglophone world.

While the American colonies were generally founded as private commercial ventures with limited rights of self-government granted by crown charter, these odious restrictions were largely mitigated by several unique practical factors. Owing to the extreme geographic isolation of these colonies from the mother country, the monarchy's domestic preoccupations and general satisfaction with the balance of trade in those earliest years, settlers were provided with a great deal of de facto local autonomy.

Gradually these private charters were revoked and administration abrogated to the crown--a policy which did have some redeeming aspects. If anything, this appeared to draw American colonists closer to the mother country than ever before. Now they theoretically enjoyed direct right of appeal to the crown for the redress of grievances whereas before they were subject to the tyranny of self-interested, petty commercial tyrants. Now they enjoyed the same right of appeal that all British subjects enjoyed--or so they thought. Until 1763.

Corruption

North America was a central theater of the French and Indian War, known as the Seven Years' War in Europe, which concluded in 1763. While the treaty of Paris settled Britain as the uncontested European hegemon of the North American seaboard, and on the surface at least, seemed to resolve many of the colonists' most anxious worries about security and prospects for economic expansion while simultaneously making them a more integral part of the political part of the empire than ever before, the settlement which followed gradually clarified the deepening divergence of interests between locals and the mother country.

The resentments of American elites like George Washington over petty snubs from the haughty and incompetent behavior of British-born generals may provide fodder for interesting speculations about their personal psychological motivations, but they could be and were for a long time swept under the rug in the interest of the 'common good' and misplaced confidence in the benevolence of the monarch himself. Over time, however, it became painfully clear that the monarch either could not, did not wish to, understand the sense of alienation engendered by its uneven division of the spoils of war.

Time and time again the crown signed off on policies that were seen as directly opposed to the interest of colonial Americans. For a long time fly-by-night British-born speculators and military officers received promotional preferments and western land grants far in excess of their colonial-born comrades--each one a direct insult to the sacrifices endured by loyal colonists who lived and died on the front lines of the war. And yet further sacrifices were demanded of the locals: George III's Proclamation of 1763 specifically forbade further colonial expansion beyond the Appalachian Mountains. American economic opportunity was at the whim of the Hanoverian kings.

These sort of crony-relationships were really quite par-for-the-course for mercantilist colonial monarchies in the 18th century. Mostly they had not yet developed professional civil services or progressive taxation schemes, so really there were few viable alternatives to pay for such massive war efforts. Yet, it came as a profound shock to our naive colonial ancestors who believed so fervently in their natural-born rights as "Englishmen" and the paternal benevolence of the crown.

Suspicion and Unease

Eventually, the final betrayal would be the imposition of a series of tax schemes by the British parliament--a parliament in which the Americans had no direct representation. This was a direct violation of the social contract which had created their identities as British subjects.

The 17th century revolutions that had up-ended society and the long lasting settlement that finally quelled them, all balanced on the principle that the British persons could not be subject to arbitrary taxation without formal consent. This was the cause for which Cromwell had killed Charles I and set off nearly a century of turmoil. If this principle were abandoned, all bets were off and the American colonists could no longer consider themselves willing parties to the pragmatic Cromwellian settlement, but rather a species of private property to be used and abused at will; an unacceptable indignity.

Before 1773 this betrayal was seen more a vague yet insistent perception rather than a clear and indisputable fact. More like a dull toothache than a gangrenous compound fracture. Public dissent until that time had been limited to a small cadre of professional troublemakers like Sam Adams in Boston. He had been dismissed as a filthy congenital malcontent whose activities were limited to comical street theater, wonky manifestos and "committees of correspondence" with like-minded losers. Of course he was angry--his father had been bankrupted in 1741 when the crown-appointed governor of Massachusetts used his insider influence to destroy the small, proto-credit union he'd established in 1739. Povos will be povos; there will always be winners and losers in any system. No need to pay them much mind.

But then Benjamin Franklin leaked the Hutchinson Letters.

Leak

Thomas Hutchinson was a Massachusetts native whose family had been prominent in the governance of the colony almost since its first founding. Like Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, he studied at Harvard and was seen as a bit of a flip-flopper and regarded with suspicion by populists like Sam Adams. At various points in his career, Hutchinson had both opposed and supported the Stamp Act, both acted as an advocate for Massachusetts residents in negotiations with the crown and ordered searches and seizures of private property to enforce controversial crown policies. Hutchinson undermined the effectiveness of protest against policies he claimed to oppose though tepid, ineffectual political maneuvering. He was part of the very small circle of royal patronage that profited from the very tax policies he publicly decried. And between 1767 and 1772, while Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, Hutchinson wrote some very, very stupid letters to a member of the Privy Council's Board of Trade, comparable to an office within the modern U.S. State Department.

Hutchinson had ordered British army units to quash demonstrations in Boston opposed to arbitrary crown actions. During one of those demonstrations, soldiers fired into a crowd of unarmed civilians, killing five civilians. Hutchinson effectively weathered the short-term storm by managing a show trial where 6 of 8 soldiers were acquitted, partially on the basis that the victims were merely a " . . . motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and mulattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs."[1] The remaining two had their death sentences commuted from death to a "branding on the thumb". Public reaction was largely limited to some small, desultory rhetorical protest.

However it did sharpen the focus of public suspicions of Hutchinson, and they were no further pleased to discover in 1772 that he'd accepted a royal salary of £1,500, independent of that granted by the colonial assembly. So Benjamin Franklin was probably not surprised when he somehow acquired a series of letters written by Hutchinson and his brother-in-law to Thomas Whately, a British MP and member of the Board of Trade, explicitly suggesting a policy of gradually eliminating the colonists' liberties and approving dubious military interventions. But he was certainly outraged. Outraged enough to break with centuries of gentlemanly diplomatic protocol and send copies to Thomas Cushing, speaker of the Massachusetts assembly, who published them in June 1773.

Uproar

The contents of the letters were unambiguous. Despite his public pieties and rhetorical espousal of American virtues and liberties, Hutchinson was colluding with the Privy Council to disenfranchise colonials and institute a police state to ease the working of the royal patronage network. A complete account can be found in The Life of Thomas Hutchinson, Royal Governor of the Province of Massachusetts by James Kendall Hosmer, but here are some of the choicest comments from a letter dated 4th October 1768:

" . . . . Many of the common people have been in a frenzy and talked of dying in defense of their liberties and have spoke and printed what is highly criminal, and too many of rank above the vulgar, and some in public posts, have countenanced and encouraged them until they increased so much in their numbers and opinion of their importance as to submit to government no further than they thought proper. . . ."

" . . . . They met and spent a week, made themselves ridiculous, and then dissolved themselves after a message or two to the governor which he refused to receive; a petition to the King which I dare say their agent will never be allowed to present, and a result which they have published ill-natured and impudent. . . ."

". . . The government has so long been in the hands of the populace that it must come out of them by degrees . . . "

Americans had long suspected treachery and some, like Sam Adams, acted on their suspicions. Others, maybe being more timid or conservative, bided their time. But after Benjamin Franklin leaked these letters, everyone knew the duplicity of Hutchinson and the Board of Trade to be an actual fact.

Revolution

From the publication of the Hutchinson Letters, the public furore in Massachusetts was continual until the end of the War of Independence. It sparked a series of further demonstrations, like the November 1733 Tea Party, and repressive counter measures by the British government. Franklin was dismissed from his post by the Board of Trade and additional troops were sent to Boston under General Thomas Gage. Then came Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill in 1775. You know the rest. I hope.

These royal appointees were probably incapable of responding in any other manner, really. The eighteenth century's expectations and conceptions of government were very rudimentary and minimal. Like misguided libertarians of the 21st century, they believed private property to be society's central institution. Wealth and privilege, to them, were the only criteria for enfranchisement as a practical matter of logistical operations rather than moral or ideological commitments to the citizenry. Might makes right.

It's a part of America's founding mythology that this isn't so, however. Our identity was forged in the totally improbable victory of a tiny, practically unarmed civilian underdog against the world's most powerful military machine, pooling our resources together as a united people to secure the common goal of American liberty. Right makes might, in the long run at least.

Do you figure any of the judges at Manning's trial are aware of this? Do they know that were it not for a leaker like Bradley Manning, their "ill-natured impudence" in assuming the authority to put a man on trial under the U.S. Constitution would have been regarded as an act of rebellion?

Footnotes

[1] John Adams' speech at the trial.

Nollaig Shona Agus Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Daoibh!

2011-12-23T09:26:00.001-08:00

Worker-Owners of America, Unite!

2011-12-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

Gar Alperovitz chimes in on the re-evolutionary convergence of capitalism and socialism into a hybrid paradigm in a recent article in the NY Times. Gar Alperovitz is a professor of political economy at the University of Maryland and a founder of the Democracy Collaborative, is the author of “America Beyond Capitalism.”

THE Occupy Wall Street protests have come and mostly gone, and whether they continue to have an impact or not, they have brought an astounding fact to the public’s attention: a mere 1 percent of Americans own just under half of the country’s financial assets and other investments. America, it would seem, is less equitable than ever, thanks to our no-holds-barred capitalist system.

But at another level, something different has been quietly brewing in recent decades: more and more Americans are involved in co-ops, worker-owned companies and other alternatives to the traditional capitalist model. We may, in fact, be moving toward a hybrid system, something different from both traditional capitalism and socialism, without anyone even noticing.

Some 130 million Americans, for example, now participate in the ownership of co-op businesses and credit unions. More than 13 million Americans have become worker-owners of more than 11,000 employee-owned companies, six million more than belong to private-sector unions.

And worker-owned companies make a difference. In Cleveland, for instance, an integrated group of worker-owned companies, supported in part by the purchasing power of large hospitals and universities, has taken the lead in local solar-panel installation, “green” institutional laundry services and a commercial hydroponic greenhouse capable of producing more than three million heads of lettuce a year.

Local and state governments are likewise changing the nature of American capitalism. Almost half the states manage venture capital efforts, taking partial ownership in new businesses. Calpers, California’s public pension authority, helps finance local development projects; in Alaska, state oil revenues provide each resident with dividends from public investment strategies as a matter of right; in Alabama, public pension investing has long focused on state economic development.

Moreover, this year some 14 states began to consider legislation to create public banks similar to the longstanding Bank of North Dakota; 15 more began to consider some form of single-payer or public-option health care plan.

Some of these developments, like rural co-ops and credit unions, have their origins in the New Deal era; some go back even further, to the Grange movement of the 1880s. The most widespread form of worker ownership stems from 1970s legislation that provided tax benefits to owners of small businesses who sold to their employees when they retired. Reagan-era domestic-spending cuts spurred nonprofits to form social enterprises that used profits to help finance their missions.

Recently, growing economic pain has provided a further catalyst. The Cleveland cooperatives are an answer to urban decay that traditional job training, small-business and other development strategies simply do not touch. They also build on a 30-year history of Ohio employee-ownership experiments traceable to the collapse of the steel industry in the 1970s and ’80s.

Further policy changes are likely. In Indiana, the Republican state treasurer, Richard Mourdock, is using state deposits to lower interest costs to employee-owned companies, a precedent others states could easily follow. Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, is developing legislation to support worker-owned strategies like that of Cleveland in other cities. And several policy analysts have proposed expanding existing government “set aside” procurement programs for small businesses to include co-ops and other democratized enterprises.

If such cooperative efforts continue to increase in number, scale and sophistication, they may suggest the outlines, however tentative, of something very different from both traditional, corporate-dominated capitalism and traditional socialism.

It’s easy to overestimate the possibilities of a new system. These efforts are minor compared with the power of Wall Street banks and the other giants of the American economy. On the other hand, it is precisely these institutions that have created enormous economic problems and fueled public anger.

During the populist and progressive eras, a decades-long buildup of public anger led to major policy shifts, many of which simply took existing ideas from local and state efforts to the national stage. Furthermore, we have already seen how, in moments of crisis, the nationalization of auto giants like General Motors and Chrysler can suddenly become a reality. When the next financial breakdown occurs, huge injections of public money may well lead to de facto takeovers of major banks.

And while the American public has long supported the capitalist model, that, too, may be changing. In 2009 a Rasmussen poll reported that Americans under 30 years old were “essentially evenly divided” as to whether they preferred “capitalism” or “socialism.”

A long era of economic stagnation could well lead to a profound national debate about an America that is dominated neither by giant corporations nor by socialist bureaucrats. It would be a fitting next direction for a troubled nation that has long styled itself as of, by and for the people.

Apocalypse Tao: Austerity Hits the Export Economies

2011-12-07T11:56:00.000-08:00

Agence France-Presse, via MSN News, calls our attention to the typically under-stated way in which the 2nd trumpeter plays his solo*:

Ni hao ma, beeyatch?

Large-scale strikes have hit China in recent weeks, as workers resentful about low salaries or lay-offs face off with employers juggling high costs and exports hit by lower demand from the debt-burdened West.

Politburo member Zhou Yongkang said authorities needed to improve their system of "social management", including increasing "community-level" manpower.

"In the face of the negative impact of the market economy, we have not formed a complete system of social management," Zhou said in a Friday speech to officials reported by the state Xinhua news agency at the weekend.

"It is urgent that we build a social management system with Chinese characteristics to match our socialist market economy."

China's economy grew by 9.1 percent in the third quarter, down from 9.5 percent in the previous quarter. Manufacturing -- a key engine of growth -- slumped to its lowest level in nearly three years last month, amid slowing demand from the European Union and the United States.

Beijing has started to implement measures to boost lending and spur growth in the world's second largest economy.

China's central bank last week reduced the amount of money banks must keep in reserve for the first time in three years, after earlier easing lending restrictions on more than 20 small banks nationwide.

Analysts have warned that China's huge army of factory staff -- many of them migrant workers -- will be the first to feel the effects of the global slowdown.

Ji Shao, a Beijing-based labour expert, told AFP recently she had visited Shenzhen and expected many small firms to shut down due to high costs, difficulty accessing loans and the global downturn.

Last week, more than 1,000 workers at a plant in China's commercial hub Shanghai went on strike for at least two days, some clashing with police, to protest at staff being laid off, the US-based China Labor Watch said.

In November, more than 7,000 workers went on strike at a factory in the southern province of Guangdong -- China's manufacturing heartland -- clashing with police in a protest over layoffs and wage cuts.

Details and images of many of the recent strikes have emerged first via Twitter-like "weibo" social networking sites that Chinese authorities are struggling to purge of what officials call "rumours" and "false news."

China has the world's largest online community, with more than half a billion Internet users, and as such news of unrest quickly spreads round the country despite the government's strict censorship regime.

Glossa McGonagalica:

*What--you weren't thinking you could run an export economy under an austerity-induced global demand slump, were you?

The Gift that (We) Keep(s) on Giving: Through January 2013

2011-12-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

"Demand a property tax on idle wealth. Demand it NOW."--Liam McGonagle

"Seriously, do you expect a better opportunity to extract concessions from your enemies than when they lay begging, bleeding at your feet?"--Liam McGonagle

In case you were in the washroom when 'Jersey Shore' was interrupted with this late-breaking newstory: Ben Bernancke just committed the U.S. to provide the European Central Bank ("ECB") with an unlimited line of credit.

That's right, a brand new bailout. Structurally along the lines that Business Insider had warned us about in September, but much more ambitious; that article had postulated a trifling $1 trillion, not the bottomless pit we're actually being presented with.

The basic deal is that we hand dollars over to the ECB in exchange for Euros, the value of which, has become highly dubious to say the least. The ECB will in turn invest those dollars in large corporate banks to bolster balance sheets they themselves ruined through reckless underwriting practices and constant pressures for tax holidays and austerity measures.

Boun Natale e felice anni nouvi, Mario!

This is being billed as a stopgap measure to compensate for the fact that the genius architects of the Eurozone couldn't be bothered to implement a fiscal coordination authority in their new currency. Must have seemed reasonable at the time. We'd seen the end of history, after all.  Just like American civil liberties after 9/11, all the rules had changed. The new era of seemlessly integrated global markets had pushed the capitalism's cycle of inevitable liquidity crises into the dustbin of history, right?

But is it really stopgap? While similarly available currency swap loans had been available for some time previous, the duration of the current arrangement (i.e., a 50% reduction in the interest rate) is through January 2013, and is unlimited in amount. Meaning that the committment is bounded in no way by the current supply of U.S. dollars. So, at least theoretically, the U.S. will end up printing the dollars it will be obligated to provide incompetent European bankers.

When the implications of this development had finally settled in, and I'd had a chance to change into a clean pair of trousers and shower up a bit, I settled to thinking. Two paradoxically conflicting corollaries floated to the surface:

1. Nobody, I mean NOBODY, seems to have learned the lesson of the previous bailout regimes or Quantitative Easing programmes, namely that the size of the money supply in-and-of-itself is of distant, secondary importance to the circulation of currency. Or, to put it in layman's language: BANKERS DON'T DRIVE THE ECONOMY, CONSUMERS DO.

2. The bizarre occurence of one nation printing money to manage the fiscal problems of another demonstrates exactly the sort of international commitment and cooperation that would be necessary to curb the irresponsible corporate leeching that led to these problems in the first place. You know what I'm talking about, that old mantra of the defeatist traitor: "But if we try to regulate corporations effectively, they'll just pull of stakes and move the show overseas!"

As this incident suggests, it is effective government that provides the necessary stability for corporations to exist. If so-called "populist" Tea Baggers in the House had the brains to realise this, they'd take this opportunity to make corporate elites pay their fair share of the burden: i.e., more historically reasonable income tax rates and a tax on idle wealth. Seriously, do you expect a better opportunity to extract concessions from your enemies than when they lay begging, bleeding at your feet?

Sadly, neither of these realizations seems likely to amount to much.  This is the era of greasy hacks like Newt Gingrich are seen as "transformational leaders" [1] and the worthless empty suit Obama tries to slide turds like this past us whilst simultaneously telling the American people that their "moment is NOW". To date, the most vigorous response I've seen on this issue has been Ron Paul, condemning the Fed for taking this action unilaterally.

Which, quite frankly, whilst being a step in the right direction, is nowhere good enough.  Paul was asleep at the wheel on this issue in September, wasting our time with penny-ante Solyndra b*llsh*t. And nowhere do I see him calling for greater international government cooperation to curb the unaccountable multinational banks who are the primary beneficiaries of these abuses. No mention anywhere of any increased corporate oversight, or fair transaction or property tax on the parasitic financial sector that destroys 80 cents in GDP out of every $1 that we give them. Overall, even after grading on a curve, I just can't give Paul any grade higher than a "D-". Try harder.

Footnote
[1] Newt's constant use of the word "transformational" is equal parts insult, comedy and tragedy. There's one reason that dried up old carpet-bagging whore never got "born again" into the Evangelical movement he so lustily courts on the campaign trail: He'd leave a toxic oil slick in the baptismal pool. The only thing Gingrish ever transformed is my dinner into vomit.

President Pardons Thanksgiving Turkey; Murders U.S. Citizen without Trial

2011-11-23T10:44:00.000-08:00

Talk about your empty gestures. For seriously now, Eli, how do you expect to retain YOUR OWN credibility after tolerating shenannigans like this?

Who Will Protect the Protectors?

2011-11-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

"What bullsh*t, Liam. If your lot really thought they [i.e., the police] were part of the "99%", you'd be doing something to protect them, too," Sorcha Nic Congail

Well, it has to be admitted that my cousin Sorcha has a point. A powerful point. Not the sort of thing that I would have been inclined to explore on my own unbidden. But that's what friends are for, I guess. To prod you along some paths you would never have even considered, left to your own devices.

Here's where the hole ugly mess began:

Photo, allegedly of the dog Parrot moments before being shot to death by police

I received a copy of this photo last weekend from an FB friend and as a dog lover was immediately horrified. As a kid I grew up with dogs--lots of dogs. Probably the best, most loving and loyal animals on earth. I'd long ago come to see dogs as man's natural companion and most trusted comrade. My nerves just could not handle the image of a so-called "law enforcement officer" crushing the spine of a beloved family pet. I blanched at the nightmare of a child discovering this photo haunt the web, eternally memorializing the brutal killing of his best friend--the best friend that would have done anything to protect him, but whom he himself was powerless to help in his hour of need.

The accompanying text was spare. It described this officer backing a frightened family pet named Parrot into a corner, pouncing on the hapless creature and applying the full weight of his body to the animal's back before it was corralled to a concrete pen where another officer executed the creature at point blank range with his service revolver.

In the context of a stream of videos and text updates on the various Occupy protests throughout the company, I assumed (though was not told) that a protester had brought the animal along, either not wanting to subject the poor beast to the intolerable neglect and lonliness that his/her long absence would create, or maybe even as some stype of service animal like a seeing eye dog. This time the cops had gone too far, I thought.

Scott Olsen, victim of police violence

I know--this was a sick, sick notion. The whole world had seen a participant of Occupy Oakland, 24 year-old, 2-tour Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen shot in the face by overzealous police in California. You may well say, "What kind of pervert are you, Liam, that you care more about a mere DOG than a human being?!"

I don't blame you or disagree with you necessarily. That is essentially true; my reaction was indeed a reflection of the bizarre, inverted distinctions I maintain in my various relationships with humans and animals.

Like I said, I grew up considering dogs to be my closest, most loyal friends. My father was an expert at picking family pets. My mother nicknamed Dad "St. Francis" because of the uncanny rapport he had with all sorts of animals. He really did radiate an almsot supernatural calm among them that could lead to the most anamolous sights you're ever likely to see outside of a Pixar(tm) animation. At one point he had somehow trained our two Labrador Retrievers to calmly (if inquisitively) accept the unfettered prescence of a parakeet hopping about the living room floor. Believe it or not, those dogs NEVER molested the bird.

And this is precisely where the pardoxes enter the story of the photo above. Three paradoxes, really.

First Paradox
The first is the explanation or rationalization for my relatively greater horror at the abuse of the dog as compared to the human being. It was my experience--and I believe the experience of many if not most Americans--that they are taught to bifurcate their relationships with animals and human beings in a sick way that ultimately does justice to neither. I reasoned, based on more than a little personal experience, that American society teaches us, in a way very, very few others do, that animals are acceptable repositories of our altruistic impulses of kindness, loving and warmth in a way another human being never could be.

Only makes sense, after all. We urbanites literally infantalize our domestic animals in a way that would be utterly unthinkable in societies where the animals still performed working roles, as the "Dog Whisperer" Caesar Millan discusses frequently in his book "Be the Pack Leader". Outside of some chichi enclaves within the gated communities of Mexico's elite, I doubt you will see many dogs forced haplessly into silly halloween costumes as you regularly do in the U.S.

Humans, on the other hand, are dangerous. They are our competitors for resources, social prestige and mates. In the current "Ayn Rand"-ian dystopia, where social incentives are paradoxically structured to encourge the destruction and elimination of these competitors, our personal "integrity" is best pursued through a policy of indifference or even outright hostility to our fellow humans. Much better to relegate our "vulnerabilities" like the need for affiliation and unconditional acceptance to the narrow confines of the canine world--where they can't be effectively manipulated against us.

Sick. Sick sick sick.  A sad and heartless realpolitik calculation, but nonethelss useful in accomplishing its stated aims. A regretable feature of the rhetorical landscape which could, provided the story got enough press, represent a significant flashpoint in the slow and dangerous alienation between protesters and the law enforcement officers who ironically are being just as brutalized by the current economic and political regime as anyone else. I've been torn between the fear of just such a development and the hope that it might yet be avoided for some time, ever since the massive rallies in March protesting Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's unprecedented and undemocratic power grab.

Second Paradox
As further discussion of the photo with my cousin Sorcha revealed, I had jumped the gun a bit. While the investigation of the incident is still pending, there is considerably more controversy surrounding the true factual course of events than was aparent from my initial, ham-fisted reaction. For starters, this thing happened outside a D.C. area street festival--it had nothing at all to do with Occupy Wall Street or any of the spin off protests.   It may still turn out to be a case of tragic policing excess, but it will take more than a single incomplete and out-of-context FB blurb to reach that conclusion definitively.

Had I not enjoyed the benefit of Sorcha pouring a bit of cold water onto the whole affair, I would have been sorely tempted to write, without reflection or hesitation, a scathing, probably melodramatic account of the affair which not only would have led to precisely the sort of counterproductive alienation between protesters and police that I had feared, but maybe unjustly tarnished the reputation of that officer.

Again, this realization is NOT by way of exhonorating the man unconditionally, but simply an honest recognition of the fact that the precise sequence of events are not yet an established part of the public record. Whatever else that man may have been that day, perhaps nasty overbearing bully, crew-cutted thug, overzealous, undertrained or frightened incompetent, he is also a human being and an American citizen with the right to due process, just like the protesters. Glossing over or denying that central fact doesn't exactly up our own value as tribunes of the people or enlightened human beings; in fact, it would only cheapen us.

Third Paradox
The third and perhaps greatest paradox of all here is the fact that I, perhaps more than most people, should have been aware of all the above from the git-go. I come from a law enforcement family. My father, brother and several cousins are current or former police officers. Most also have served some time in the military, which is relevant, as in a very important sense (and I mean this in a non-pejorative way), police departments ARE quasi-military organizations--just like the Marine Corps service of Oakland victim of police brutality, Scott Olsen.

While I myself clearly am not, was never, and never will be a candidate for membership any police department, I do have ample experience with their institutional biases, and the way they impact the psychology and behavior of individual members. By inclination and the course of my own education I personally am given to reflection and philosophical inquiry, but I understand that police officers are not.

That's not some casually flippant stereotype. It's a constantly reinforced observation grounded in bedrock fact. A fact that any honest person with even the most tangental relationship to long-term military or law enforcement personnel will admit uncontroversially.

I will spare you the litany of minor examples illustrating the point, the continual and desultory verbal sparring endemic to relationships of fathers and sons with irreconcilably different worldviews. Partially because they're still painful, partially because they're still boring, but mostly because you almost certainly have much more vivid examples in your personal memory banks. The point I'm making is NOT that police are by nature vicious brutes, but that their culture doesn't foster very deep reflection or psychological reflection.

The primary reason police officers are so psychologically one-dimensional should not be controversial either. We demand that they be so.

We demand that police do the unreasonable. We demand that they apply the force of law to the most disruptive elements of society. The thieves, conmen, pimps and murderers. And we demand that they do so every day, unfailingly without question and completely by the books. By the very books that their erstwhile adversaries utterly despise. All without hesitation or complaint.

The stress that their social role places on them must not be trivialized. It's not enough to rattle off some lame-*ss bullsh*t about them "volunteering for the job", etc., etc., or otherwise bringing this upon themselves. That would be just as backward as the sad cries of the "53%" who insist on blaming the current economic collapse on the very victims of banksters' reckless speculation. That would not only risk alienating already hard-to-reach constituencies within the "99%", but is fundamentally opposed to the revolutionarily inclusive and truly populist spirit of the Occupy movement.

As a society we cannot afford to abandon them to the lack of leadership and public indifference they have stoically suffered for decades. The cost is already too high. It's a well known fact that law enforcement officers, just like military personnel, suffer from our society's highest levels of marital breakup, alcoholism, and, ironically or not, general run-ins with the law. Just this past week comes from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ("MJS") an expose of how this trend is reflected within the ranks of its own police department (e.g., domestic violence rates approximately four times higher than the average among society as a whole).

As that MJS article makes clear, a significant factor in this epidemic is the unwillingness on the part of department "leadership" to tackle these problems head-on, preferring instead to sweep them under the rug. The problem clearly is NOT that the officers themselves are irredeemable bullies or fascists--one officer highligted was the recipient in 2010 of a meritorious service award for enduring personal danger to protect a crowd gathered to demonstrate on behalf of immigration rights. The problem is the we, as a society, flatly demand that officers expose themselves to danger and abuse in many novel or even entirely unprecedented situations without proper leadership.

For starters, let's consider the anamolous situation of police officers being assigned to crowd control duty before a large political demonstration, a la Occupy. Law enforcement's raison d'etre is clearly to forcefully interdict willful illegal activies that impose an unacceptable harm to society or an individual's rights, harms which cannot be effectively remediated subsequently, like bodily injury or gross destruction of property. Ironically, that is precisely what movements like Occupy hope to accomplish in the political arena--interdict the continual plunder of the commonwealth and its traditions of open democracy by careless, incompetent and indifferent elites.

But of course that's not how the narrative that is typically offered by our society's so-called "leaders". They constantly put forth, undeviatingly and unquestioned, the rationalization that the presence of the police officers is to prevent inevitable criminal abuses which will be committed by the protesters. Even if the "authorities" are relatively successful in portraying themselves as ideologically neutral and uninterested in the protest's outcome, they hand us the old chestnut that large crowds of unhappy, dissastisfied citizens will inevitably resort to physical violence if not forcefully confronted with a quasi-military force.

Should we--and by mean ALLof us, police officers especially--just buy into that? How does that make sense? In what way does it help to de-escalate potential violent confrontation by introducing an armed element? An armed element whose existential justification is to identify and confront law breakers, who are ironically sitting warm and comfortable in the elegant skyscraper palaces behind them, rather than the peaceful citizens arrayed before them. Isn't this, in fact, almost exactly what a cynical bastard would prescribe if he were asked for a formula to sew self-destructive chaos?

I don't buy that for a second. And to tell the truth, I'm kind of indifferent as to whether this massive failure on the part of police departments' leadership is a function of active malice within their ranks or the wider political establishment. I subscribe to Hanlon's Razor, the philosophical tenet that, "One should not ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence." At this juncture, I'm much more interested in solutions than I am in assigning blame.

What to Do?
Well, what DO we do? It's a pretty enormous vacuum of leadership that needs to be filled here. And my intuition tells me that it will not be acceptable under current condtions, on anyone's part, to encourage or allow police to simply refuse deployment to these crowd control assignments. There is simply no way in Hell that any politician hoping to be re-elected, or any law enforcement officer worthy of the name, would allow himself to abandon the proposition, phony and half-baked as it is, that these "public safety" duties can be unilaterally abandoned. Such a course of action, in the current environment, would inevitably cause enormous personal crises of identity in sincere public servants, if not immediate and complete exclusion from their institutions.

And maybe that's where a non-orthodox and non-linear, "Occupy"-inspired approach could be the game changer. Maybe the point isn't simply to jump to a conclusion and impose a short-sighted, draconian "solution" like the failed leadership we're trying to brush aside. Maybe the actual point is to "go inclusive"--treat law enforcement just like the 99% we're always claiming they are. Maybe we should be aware of their specific concerns and make a powerful statement to support them in a very real way.

Here's how I propose to do so: Model legislation requiring do-nothing politicians to take responsibility for the mess they force police into. If candy-*ss empty suits won't provide cops with the leadership that they need, maybe the thinkers and visionaries of the Occupy Wall Street movement can help the cops grow it on there own. My ideal bill would contain some version of all the following elements:

1. Requirement that all officers assigned to crowd control duty be vetted by a specially designated panel of subject matter experts and elected representatives.

2. Provide minimum standards and sufficient and competent training in the performance of crowd control duties utilizing the least amount of physical confrontation and coercion as possible.

3. The stated goal of reducing burdensome legal defense and settlement costs associated with violent confrontation between police and citizens, in a manner consistent with the responsible stewardship over public funds.

4. The obligations of the oversight panel must be expressly include ALL of the following:
     a. Ensure the public's constitutional right to effective free expression and political participation, AND
     b. Minimize the potential for serious violent conflict often exacerbated by the presence of arms, AND
     c. Protect the physical and mental well-being of officers by asking them to participate in such
         controversial and difficult assignments only when they have received appropriate training and guidance

5. Allow officers to categorically opt-in or opt-out of participation in the controversial crowd control duties, subject to attainment of minimum training and vetting standards as described above, so that they may determine for themselves whether their participation, in their unique circumstances, would cause undue stress.

6. Requirement that the department set aside sufficient funds, personnel and time for officers to implement this law in order to avoid the additional unncessary stress of unfunded mandates would place upon them. It seems pretty logical to me that the most equitable method of funding these provisions would be a direct levy on the institutions that are increasingly the focus of public protest--large banks and other financial institutions. Given the multi-state and even multi-national character, it might be wise to pursue some type of shared funding arrangements accross multiple jurisdictions.

So How Hopeful Am I that Such a Thing Would Be Enacted?
Not very. Not in the near future, anyhow. It's no secret that municipalities accross the board are being raped by Republicans' continued calls for defunding. We can't even fund our most fundamental services needs, like bus routes, primary school education, or for that matter elementary law enforcement, much less realistically hope for such an ambitious redefinition of their missions.

Maybe there's someone or some people out there with the vision and experience to take this thing to some actually implementable stage in the foreseeable future. It's worth a shot.

But in my mind that's not even the main point. The point should be to move the needle in the right direction, get a constructive debate going about just what the appropriate law enforcement response should be to massive displays of citizen disaffection.

And that debate has to start with us. The police can't do it on their own. For starters, it's not legal or even conceptually proper for an armed, quasi-military force to interject itself in political movements. Just as importantly, the well-founded institutional bias against deep philosophical engagement doesn't really prepare them to play a very constructive direct role in such thorny abstract issues. That should be our job. We. Us. The people who supposedly give a sh*t about the whole 99%.

Part I: Thank You for Your Lovely Cards . . .

2011-10-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

I'd like to start out by sincerely thanking all those friends and readers who sent cards, flowers, etc. and generally wished me a speedy convalescence from the recent unpleasantness. The doctors advise me that I'm likely to regain complete functionality in both wrists within the next year, and I'm certain that it was your warm encouragements that are responsible for this unusually speedy recovery. It's really touching to know that I'm never far from my readers' minds, despite my long absence from the blog.

Unfortunately, I'm not entirely at liberty to discuss the precise chain of events that lead to my hospitalization. There are certain pending legal matters to be resolved, and I've been counseled against any discussions which may prejudice their outcome. Nevertheless, the kind interest you've displayed in my welfare and the provocative nature of the photographs appearing in the "Police Beat" column of the local Blattsburg Tattler do call for some exposition of the matter, which I will now attempt--within the limits of prudence, of course.

I've often been told, "Don't drive angry!" Which is generally good advice, but is much more difficult in practice than it's simplistic rhetorical formulation would suggest. I live in an isolated portion of rural Wisconsin, where it is frankly impossible to do so much as pick up the morning paper from the mail box without driving five miles from the house. I attribute my near constant rage to living in rural Wisconsin as well. The people here are almost without exception intolerable bigoted hicks and hayseeds. The few locally available alternatives are not much more soothing.

"Wow. This stuff you've written here is real sh*t, Liam. I mean, this isn't worthy of publication on a bathroom wall."

Raj is one of the very few non-honkies resident in my small town, and his Indian-born globe trotting urbanity is generally a welcome relief from the otherwise unrelenting provinciality of the place. He'd actually grown up in Berlin, London and Paris--cultural and literary capitals whose names I was still learning to spell when I met him at night school, a creative writing class at the regional technical college. He'd gotten his B.A. at a big name liberal arts school on the West Coast with a serious reputation and lengthy roll call of seriously elite professors, so his opinion does bear some attention.

"Okay, Raj. But I think you're being a little hyperbolic there, chief. After all, it is a first draft. And you're completely glossing over its elegant narrative exploration of the proletariat's complicity in his own alienation. Give this thing its due."

"Give this thing its due?! It's garbage! Absolute, uninspired formulaic garbage! Trey Parker regularly craps out better episodes of South Park while tripping on acid than the drek you've wiped all over these pages!"

"Heyheyhey! Let's keep this discussion productive, okay? I can handle criticism if there's a point behind it. Care to unbundle that landfill of a critique there and point out a single, specific instance of this so-called irredeemable "drek"?"

"Well well well . . . Where to begin?" Raj rifled through the jam-and-butter stained manuscript, violently stabbing his thumb towards the offending page once he'd settled on one example. "How about this? The scene where you have Karl Marx coming home early to find his wife Jenny in bed with the economist Adam Smith. What is this supposed to be? An episode of "Falcon Crest" or "Rocky and Bullwinkle"?"

I really was NOT understanding Raj's point of view on this one at all. OF COURSE it was a ridiculously melodramatic parody. That was the intention all along. The entire concept here was meta commentary on the "Snidely Whiplash"-esque quality behind the phony Left/Right culture wars. Did Raj really think I'd write in a goofy todtenkampf between Adam Smith and Karl Marx on the rooftops of Victorian London without any satirical plan? I took a deep breath and did my best to dial back my own building rage. I started to explain as slowly and calmly as I could.

"Raj, you're missing the entire point here. The point is exactly that--to ridicule the cartoonishly simplistic terms of the public debate. Is that really not apparent to you?"

"Liam, how can I say this? How can I adequately convey to you the tired, "been-there-done-that" quality of this unimaginative rubric without implying that you're a hopeless philistine? . . . Oh, that's right--I CAN'T."

I probably would have been able to endure his jealous, fairly hack-like sniping had it not been for the eruption of a snorting cackle of laughter from the horse-like co-ed sitting a few yards from us in the cafeteria. It's one thing to receive a vigorous challenge from a reasonably informed person, but it's quite another to be subject to the abuse of the bovine cretins that haunted the halls of this technical college. I exploded out of my chair in a fury, ripping the manuscript from Raj's hands and swinging my way about toward the exit in a near blind rage.

Which probably explains why I slammed headfirst into a pillar on the way out, showering the manuscript and the contents of my computer bag all over the floor. Now the whole cafeteria roared with laughter.

So this is more or less where my head was just before the accident, and why it seemed like a good idea at the time to get away and just clear my head for a bit with a quiet drive through the winding country lanes. If anyone had come up to me at that moment and insisted on that tired old aphorism, "Don't drive angry!", I probably would have head-butted them and told them to mind their own business.

But again, that was before the accident. Before I'd encountered Abbey Small and the Buddhist Mafia. Before everything spiralled out of control.

What Do You Do with a Problem like Timmy? Results as of 6th October

2011-10-06T16:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who participated in the poll about Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's treacherous behavior. This was very timely, given all the excitement caused by the emerging Occupy movement. Seems like as a species we're all embarking on a collective experiment in consensus building.

Your responses were fascinating. The pattern of your answers demonstrated a very sophisticated rationale and complex analysis. I can't really parse the thread of each individual's thought process -- the questionnaire format I used was far too simplistic. But the overall pattern is pretty clear: You don't quite believe that others have your same clarity about the wrongfulness of Geithner's actions. For example:

I apologize for the poor legibility of this pics. Full data and charts for all questions is available here for better viewing.

Still, 2 things probably stand out as readily to you as they did to me:

1.) Almost complete unanimity that the failure (to date) to harshly punish Geithner's actions constituted some serious violation of moral consistency;

2.) Almost 2/3 of you believed that the public at large are indifferent to that inconsistency and its implications for American democracy.

Why do you figure that's so? True enough, this poll's design left a lot to be desired. This thing could be torn to shreds on any number of methodological grounds: leading questions, confusing, wordy format, inappropriate or incomplete choices offered, etc., etc. But my real suspicion is that 2 main phenomena underly these trends:

1.) Self-selection bias. The forums I submitted this thing likely guaranteed that the only people taking the questionnaire were people who already outraged by Geithner and very cynical about mainstream media interpretations.

2.) Things may not be quite as bad as you thought. Few of us, those of us who've been paying attention, anyhow, have been willing to indulge in the "H-word" since 2009. Even if our gloomiest, most alienated prognostications turn out to be correct about the denoument of this particular issue, there does seem to be a strong chance that there are more intelligent, vigillant and right-thinking people out there than you think. After all, nearly 100% of you agreed that Geithner's continued presence in the administration is a moral outrage.

Maybe we just have to spend more time talking about these things out loud, demonstrate the high level of latent consensus that's already out there.

Flouncing Fathers: Tea Party Edition

2011-10-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

"Eek! A black man!"

From an AOL story recounting the latest trumped-up conflict in the phony culture wars.

Aside from this funny photo, I couldn't really give a rat's ass about that bullsh*t. When I saw this I laughed so hard that I simultaneously snorted, choked, farted and spouted milk out me nose with the convulsions. Not pleasant. Believe me, it's not something you'd wish on your worst enemy--to fart through a milk-drenched nose.

Yes, it's a shame that Hank had to go there--I actually like a lot of his music. But as Hunter S. Thompson once said, " Buy the ticket, take the ride."

An Undifferentiated Mass of Human Dignity

2011-10-04T09:58:00.000-07:00

It's an anti-capitalism thing. No, it's an anti-war thing. No, it's a civil rights thing. No, it's a desert topping. No, it's a floor wax.

Occupy: Social Supernova?

Ever since the Occupy movement began garnering mainstream media attention there has been an energetic, maybe even desperate, debate to define the significance of thousands of people from all over the nation spontaneously gathering in America's large urban centres, decrying the rapacious criminality of the establishment--all sans identifiable figureheads or fixed policy programmes.

Yes, from the start it was clear that, in its broadest outlines at least, this thing was a passionate rebuke to parasitic Wall Street types. Whatever that may mean in actual practice, it's definitely not a formulation consistent with laissez faire economics a la the Koch brothers' Tea Party. So not surprising that most right wing analyses approached the topic with a dismissive laziness. They've crafted fear into a formidable electoral weapon and are well familiar with the coward's first law of dealing with Truly Scary Things: avoid real contact.

That general approach, however, is hardly the exclusive resort of the right wing. It is, in fact, the universal reaction of all establishment types accross the board. Witness the White House's statement about the Occupy movement.

And that is the point most interesting to me, as a recovering Obama zombie. Not so much that His Zero-ness is not even trying to swim with the raw, powerful populist currents churning within Occupy, but that those on the institutional left are not doing a helluva lot better.[1]

Analyses during the early, pre-mainstream exposure pretty much focused around the creeping sense of unease felt by veteran activists when confronted with the informal, unpolished and unfocused demeanor of some demonstrators.

While I've only become really engaged with public affairs recently, I identify most closely with this group of commentators. They may have much more extensive pedigrees of activist involvement than I, but we all share one key characteristic: a relatively simplistic linear model of the world. Something akin to a cold, impersonal, mathematical dogma bound by a rigid series of theorems and acceptable logic that is fatally dependant upon the artificially constricted environment of 2-dimensional Euclidian space. Just as where A+B=C and C=2A, then A=B, when social outcomes are a function of the implementation of policy programmes by formal authorities, all movements seeking to affect social change must have designated leaders and a fixed platform of specific policies.

Elegant notion, that, no? Makes a man feel superior. Powerful. Easy able to comprehend the vast workings of the society around him and have a decisive impact. 'Cept it don't quite work that way in the real world.

We live in a world of at least 4 dimensions (height, depth, width and time) and certainly more, if you're able to contemplate the inescapable yet ineffable fact of human subjectivity. Within certain specialized domains, the objective statistics of a person's height, weight, eye color and age may be crucial, but are totally inadequate to evaluating that person's tangible impact on his family and co-workers. Is he smart or stupid? Funny or morose? Energetic or slothful? Handsome or hideous? Generous or niggardly? We ultimately care a lot more about these questions than we do whether he's 5'10 1/2" or 6' or his eyes are most accurately described as green or hazel.

But what exactly is intelligence? Humor? Vitality? Attractiveness? Generosity? Those are philosophical or religious questions that the mathematicians, myself included, have utterly failed to acknowledge, let alone resolve.

This is exactly what Occupy is or should be teaching us. How to come together as people and articulate a clear consensus of values that actually work. It is no longer acceptable to passively trust the dithering buffoons formally charged with interpreting received wisdom, quite simply because that "wisdom" does not work and has not worked for quite some time. Occupy is about morality, not politics. It is most definitely a type of activism, but one more concerned with developing a shared moral vision of society's priorities than in establishing yet another corruptible "leader" or co-optable policy programme.

Until Occupy, America's been kind of winging this one. Lost in almost completely unchartered territory. True, there are ample historical precedents for crumbling superpowers undermined by a feedback loop of dysfunctional entrenched interests and incompetent leadership. But never in the context of a society philosophically on autopilot, almost completely indifferent to actual engagement about the moral content of its choices.

Let's not screw this one up again, America. Let's not insist on Occupy being a closed-ended event, smashed viciously into the unforgiving mold of our stupid personal prejudices. Let's accept this beautiful gift for what it is on it's own terms--a process, not an event.

Footnote
[1] Obama's motivation in avoiding the thing is obvious. He's a cack-handed snake oil salesman who will say anything to avoid true conflict and achieve short-term electoral advantage. His deal with the Devil in defunding Social Security through extended payroll tax holidays sapped, quite rightly, Democratic support for a jobs bill that contained many otherwise useful provisions such as a rebalancing of income tax policy. Obama finds himself hoplessly cornered by Republican demands that, in exchange for bringing the bill up for consideration in the House, he submit for approval a job-killing "free trade" agreement that he negotiated with South Korea. No where for Obama to go on this one; Old Nick's coming to collect his due now. This jobs bill, at least its potentially helpful bits, is dead.

So it's more than a little disappointing to me that organized labor has been a little slow in seeing the light. Earlier this year, in conjunction with the events surrounding Republican Wisconsin governor Scott Walker's attempts to crush public workers unions, heavy hitters like Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president, were making encouraging noises about a renewed vision of the labor movement independent of compromised empty suits like Obama. Yet once again they swallowed hard when Obama handed them this sh*t sandwhich of a jobs bill too small and too reliant upon long-disproven free market tropes like the Laffer curve and regulatory disincentive hyptothesis.

I'm glad that unions have started to make solid, practical contributions toward the Occupy movement--like the New York Transit Workers Union's refusal to be co-opted into busing NYPD detainees. But if they want to make a true difference, display some deeper understanding of Occupy's significance, they're going to have to directly confront Obama. Either with a primary challenger, as proposed by Cornell West and Ralph Nader, or a potential third party candidacy, as Dylan Ratigan is reported to be mulling.

Poll: Why Tim Geithner Is Or Is Not A Fatal Liability

2011-09-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks have not been good ones for Tim Geithner, Obama's Treasury Secretary. On Tuesday, Ron Suskind's book, "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President", came out detailing behavior that could be most generously interpreted as gross insubordination, if not an outright unconstitutional usurpation of executive power by a political appointee. Nor did Geithner do himself any favors by openly proclaiming before European finance ministers: "He [Obama] 's not in charge; I am".

Has this rendered Geithner a political "toxic asset"? Should he be given his walking papers immediately? Should Geithner be let free when soldiers refusing to serve 2nd, 3rd or even 4th tours of duty in Afghanistan are jailed for years? In deciding a response, which is most important to you: enforcement of the United States constitution, Obama's personal reputation, the Democratic Party's electoral viability for 2012 or polemical use of the issue to further Republican partisan aims? Is there any justifiable defense for a man who has sacrificed the American economy in order to protect his personal friends on Wall Street? Please take the linked survey and let me know your thoughts.*

Plan to publish first batch of results next week.

*As always, feel free to add a comment to discuss further if you like. Just bear in mind that I only make a limited amount of revenue from the Victoria's Secret (tm) banners here, so it may be awhile before I get arround to posting your comments.

Great News, Everybody: A New (Secret) Bailout!

2011-09-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

This in from Business Insider: Scuttlebutt that German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be softening up Obama, Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for yet another round of bailouts for the incompetent multinational financial elites.

Awesome! I was afraid that the next round of bailouts would require "patriots" like representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) to take to the floor begging again. I feel so relieved now, knowing that the whole thing can proceed quietly without anyone having to jeopardize their campaign funding.

The Parable of the Blind, Pieter Bruegel, 1568

But where do our other, prospective "leaders" stand on this topic? Hard to say. Irrelevance and opacity seem to be the primary tenets of the major candidates' PR machines. Here's what I mean.

Ron Paul's heart may be in the right place regarding the need to end counterproductive wars and pointlessly intrusive social wedge issues, but his knack for failing to identify urgent priorities remains unequalled. Witness the most recent update to his news page: Paul's response to the burning issue of a vaguely worded email RECEIVED (i.e., NOT sent) by a third-tier lackey in the slave galley of Obama's PR establishment. Yeah, I know. $527 million is 0.05% of the $1 TRILLION in bailout money supposedly at stake in the Euro bailout, but Ron's never claimed to be more than what he clearly is: an amateur.

Still, it was a bit of a disappointment. Those of us who had taken heart in the earnestness of Ron's campaign do feel a little saddened by his betrayal of it's core moral theme, that public figures should take firm stands on what they believe and know to be correct, regardless of the short-term pragmatic consequences. Ron doesn't have and never had a snowball's chance in Hell of winning anything other than honorable mention. But his piling on here to the failure of an innovative business venture, and one pioneering a technology that could threaten the petroleum-military complex at that, just feels like he's gotten himself lost. Hopelessly lost.

And that was the high ground, folks. The rest of the lot could either bore you with their predictability or make you laugh at their vapidity:

A quick visit to Michele Bachmann's website yielded only her trumpeted zeal for "politicking" in Iowa. FYI to Bachmann: You're from Iowa. You have home turf advantage. You already won the straw poll there last month. Time to move on. There's another 49 states in the union, some of them with more than 1 electoral college vote.

Rick Perry's site wasn't a helluva lot better. True, he seems to have left last month behind him, but devil a word you'll hear about the impending bailouts. He also spent all his gunpowder in low-grade partisan b*llshitting. G*ddamn it, at least Bachmann gave us a few laughs. All Perry did was bore me to tears.

Mitt Romney's response was a little more nuanced and amusing. Yes, no one is surprised that the much-vaunted hedge fund manager uttered not peep #1 about the use of public funds to underwrite his pals' vacation homes in St. Tropez, or that he cleared his policy platform with these same scum bags. But did you know you could win a once-in-a-lifetime date with this Tiger Beat dreamboat? I don't know about you, but his flat, nasal automaton speech and "Reaganesque" elder statesman-y graying temples just make me melt. 'Specially the way he says: "Corporations are people, too, my friend!"

No, you won't hear much about Bailout III: The Re-"Bush"-ening on any administration web site either. Not the Fed. Not the Treasury. Not the president's blog. Hardly much of a surprise. Obama's always been an awkward, "play-behind-the-beat kind" of guy anyhow. He seems continually caught off-guard by the way his bailouts, unconstitutional wars, plutocratic tax giveaways and civil rights violations have continued to erode the economy and the support of the people who voted for him in 2008.

But shouldn't we expect more from his "challengers"? There should be no question of pragmatic compromises in order to achieve tactical victories, because going on the 4th year of 10%+ unemployment and simultaneously sky-rocketing unemployment claims and corporate profits, there's really nothing left to compromise any more. Ergo a complete and overwhelming moral victory seems free for the taking.

The One Big Reason You Should Not Celebrate 9/11

2011-09-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

Are you the kind of sick pervert that celebrates the murder of 3,000 civilians? More than likely the answer is "yes".

"Hold on a minute, A-h*le," you may counter. "It's not a 'celebration'. It's a 'commemoration'. It's one of the few things that can bring divided America together as a nation. Mourning a shared tragedy, a loss of innocence. Expressing gratitude for the selfless courage of the first responders. Building community."

Ah, not so much. In reality, it is a masterful manipulation of the complementary moral and intellectual weaknesses of the both extreme wings of the American body politic, a satanic appeal to our vanity and invitation to the destruction of our democratic institutions. Stupid right wingers love the 9/11 narrative because it's a simple authoritarian parable providing clearly delineated foreign villains and glorifying nativist military authorities. Spineless left wingers love it because they get to light all their coolest scented candles around the drum circle and feel each others' pain.

However, it's actual primary importance, though quite obvious to anyone who actually thinks about it, is rarely explicitly articulated: the destruction of our sense of agency. The sense of individual and corporate empowerment and responsibility necessary to the successful conduct of affairs is decisively undermined by a morbid preoccupation with victimhood.

Especially so when that impotent whinging becomes the sole focus of public discourse. Remember: The United States did NOT defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The Soviet Union defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War--through the tragi-comic stupidity of insisting upon its vision of itself as the embattled last champion of a communal ideology beset from all sides by an insidious, corrupt capitalist enemy. This tunnel-vision prevented a balanced, realistic interpretation of the nature and severity of the economic and political challenges facing them. It foreclosed necessary policy options from even theoretical consideration. And it inevitably concentrated the latent energies of its ignored population to a breaking point. Even if those constitutents' ambitions have been imperfectly realized, and maybe even resulted in as much instability as progress, they undeniably achieved one goal--the destruction of the Soviet Union.

How ironic, then, that a nation of people professing to be can-do pioneers and innovators of the American frontier insist on painting themselves into a very Soviet-style ideological corner. All "American" solutions must be private sector solutions. Never mind that over-reliance upon and under-regulation of the corporate sectors recently resulted in the largest economic disaster in three generations. Never mind the obvious fact that the single common business purpose embodied int he charters of ALL corporations worldwide, profit, is essentially anti-social and undermining of the impetus toward activity and exchange for which Americans are starving. And never mind the fact that the most impressive and dynamic economic turnaround in our history was the result of progressive policy and vigorous governmental engagement. We are committed to a death spiral of stupidity.

Anyone with even a single semester of Econ 101 or one year in the private sector knows that the real challenges to successful enterprise are capital and access to markets, not taxation. If you're netting more than $250,000 per year and you can't get by on that, you are a pig. If, however, you find that your dream of opening a corner grocery store like the one your grandfather owned is impossible due to the simple fact that you'll never be able to obtain the credit necessary to operate on the scale dictated by the Super-Walmarts of the world, you are simply being realistic.

But realistic observations like these count as heresy according to the current canon of acceptable American ideas. Even if they accurately identify the forces thwarting individual economic freedom, they clearly run counter to the myth that America "won" the Cold War through total absence of economic regulation and the benign wisdom of the resultant corporate elites. The true narrative isn't one of the plucky individualist overcoming adversity through enlightened self-interest; it's actually the peasant-like surrender of our rights as free-born American citizens.

9/11 is arguably the single most important feast in the liturgical calendar of America's cult of impotence. Maybe you feel like a real patriot on the surface, tossing off a couple of cheap, content-free platitudes. But deep down you should probably hate yourself. Apart from displaying a disgusting indifference to the literally hundreds of thousands of lives lost and ruined in 9/11's aftermath, and utterly failing to explain the event itself in the context of American foreign policy, celebration of 9/11 reinforces a hide-bound mythology of powerlessness. It guarantees, in fact, that America's situation will only become worse and worse in the years to come.

Please Join the Fight Against FMS

2011-08-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Steitz: Extra chromosome or victim of donkey kick?

It's clear just from looking at him that Johnny Steitz is "special". The Republican recall candidate for Wisconsin's 22nd district sports a sloping forehead, thick eyebrow ridge, wide-set eyes and a vacant grin . . . But is the culprit an extra chromosome or a kick in the head while working a TJ donkey show? Neither, I suspect. I believe he may be suffering from Furious Masturbation Syndrome ("FMS"), which is why I have nominated him as poster child for the fight against this dreaded disease.

FMS is a condition first diagnosed by the McGonagle foundation yesterday. FMS appears to afflict many public personalities. As many as 100% of all Republican politicians may suffer from it. It is characterized by a frantic activity which almost seems purposely designed to defeat its stated goals, hence the analogy to another famously desultory form of behavior. While the American Psychiatric Association's review is pending for inclusion in the next DSM, I have proposed the following check list items for diagnosis:

Running for office in a working class district as a corporate tool.

Touting such douchey affiliation to the single most severely flawed institution in recent world history, the multinational corporate sector, as credentials for "economic expertise". The only deal to Steitz is publically associated with is the issuance of 2.7 billion Euro of junk bonds.[1]

An awkward aura of phoniness, a want of spontaneity, a general lack of soul. While I don't yet have definitive proof that Steitz doesn't cast a reflection in the mirror, it certainly seems possible. At one time he managed bland Xian rockers "Skillet".[2]

Sad over-reliance on the corn-pone hokiness of staged family pic's in preference to actual substantive discussion of issues. My God, I hope they airbrushed those smiles on! I'd hate to think their pumping that baby full of lithium!

Generally evasive, secretive behavior; hiding one's true personality behind a facade of friendliness. Despite the all-American image he's trying to project in Wisconsin, the man working in Latham & Watkin's glass tower on Wacker Drive is certainly more complex.[3]

Persistant delusional beliefs. Like the notion that a total stranger like Steitz, born in Utah, raised in Texas, working in downtown Chicago can even possibly win against heroic, long-serving and much-beloved Kenosha/Racine man, "Uncle Bob" Wirch.

This disease is insidious and debilitating to society. It must be stopped at all costs. There is much to be done and it will require a team effort. Not everybody can afford long-term political commitments, but everybody can do something, whether it's ridiculing deluded fantasists like Steitz or simply showing up to vote for old fashioned Wisconsin 14 heroes like Bob Wirch on August 16th. Let's each of us do what we can.

But for God's sake, whatever you do, don't shake Steitz's hand. Ick.

Footnotes
[1] Yeah. It's for real, alright. The most recent S&P rating for the Wind Telecom bonds is Ba3--"Non-investment grade speculative", or "junk". He's peddled his garbage over in Euroland, now he's trying to unload an even bigger pile in Racine/Kenosha.

[2] No, I never heard of them before either. But it's not like they aren't trying. Their current managers keep setting up front organizations like "Dove" to give themselves awards left and right. They must really be horrible. . . . Wait a minute--who were we talking about again? I've forgotten them already. Maybe that's why they didn't bother to mention Steitz on their wikipage.

[3] Naguib Sawiris, the owner of the telecommunications client referred to above is currently serving as advocate for deposed Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak. In 2006 Sawiris received the Sitara-e-Quaid-e-Azam award from General Pervez Musharaf, the former dictator of corrupt terrorist state Pakistan. And in 2008 Sawiris aided North Korean dictator Kim Jung Il in establishing a system to monitor its citizens private communications. Just doesn't seem to square with the apple-pie, Tea Party libertarian stuff Steitz's being shovelling in Wisconsin lately.

Paul Ryan Hands Cold War Victory to the Ruskies

2011-07-15T08:51:00.000-07:00

Well, there it is folks. Plain as day: Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan's "Roadmap to Ruin" austerity program sh*tcanned the U.S. Spaceshuttle program and left us dependant upon the charity of ex-KGB chief Vladimir Putin. No you wouldn't hear much about that from the Fox News(tm) Politburo. Seems that we have to rely on our Aussie cousins to get the scoop.

It's true. Now without an independant space program of our own, we'll be at the tender mercies of the aparatchiks in Moscow to support our telecommunications satellite infrastructure.

Now I don't have definitive proof yet that Paul Ryan is a sleeper agent for Uncle Vanya, but all signs point to yes. In debt ceiling talks this week his lot are trying to force American-born grandmothers to give up their cat food money in order to support the vodka habits of his Wall Street buddies like Frenchman "Fabulous" Fab Torre.

Do You Smell The Chum?

2011-07-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well, this past Tuesday certainly was freaky. In case you hadn't noticed it, a massive disturbance rippled through the Force with enough power to knock the shoes off of anyone paying attention. It's unclear to me precisely what it all adds up to, but I suspect that the universe just passed through a Paradox Inflection. Just possibly the forces of Right Wing Corporatist Perversion have actually begun to turn on themselves. Here's just three examples of what I mean:

1. Rupert Murdoch retreats on his bid to monopolize Britain's largest satellite service BSkyB. In the wake of the recent phone hacking scandal where person's in the employee of Murdoch's flagship publication News of the World was forced to close up shop for illegally eavesdropping on the survivors of terrorist attacks and bribing police officials. Many initial reports saw that as a savvy move to divert attention from Murdoch's attempt to acquire control of a much more lucrative and influential television market, but apparently British politicians are reacting more like a shark sensing blood in the water.

2. Mitch McConnell, leader of Republicans in the U.S. Senate publically sh*t upon himself by begging Obama to release Republicans from the responsibility of actually acting on the looming debt crisis. Mitch did act with characteristic fascist flare, however, by structuring it as an end to the Constitutional "Separation of Powers" principle whereby Congress holds responsibility for the nation's purse strings. Is there any principle of democracy that Republicans aren't willing to throw away?

3. In the Wisconsin recall primaries, Real Democrats scored shattering victories (i.e., almost all 66%+) over fraudulent candidates set up by Scott Walker's black op's department. The state Republican Party rationalized its attempt to deceive the voting public as an attempt to buy time to campaign in races they do not feel they could win honestly. Frankly, there's no way of recapping that last bit without them outright admitting that they are in thrall to the Master of Lies.

Yeah, it's bizarre alright, folks, and the best seems yet to come. But it calls to mind nothing so much as RNC chief Rancid Priebus diving into the Pacific waters of Shark Alley wearing a pair of chum-flavoured speedos.

Millions for Defense; Not One Cent for Tribute

2011-07-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

Oh how the times have been a changin' since Robert Goodloe Harper coined that gem in 1798. In the 21st century, apparently, patriotism means stealing hundreds of billions from the U.S. Treasury to bailout incompetent bankers, as "minute man"[1] Paul Ryan begged the House to do on September 29, 2008.

Okay, so as a nation we're totally cool with recasting tribute to greasy financial fatcats as "investment"--even if it doesn't exactly pay a huge return. [2]

But since "far left socialist" Barack Obama proposed cutting Social Security benefits during recent talks to increase the nation's debt ceiling (to much Republican enthusiam), making sure Granny gets her catfood money has also been redefined as "wanton profilgacy". Ah, sure, the ol' gal only had another ten years left in her TOPS anyways, right?

America, you are a pack of perverts.[3]

Footnotes
[1] Not a quote from Ryan's wife, mind you, but my personal interpretation of the guy's attention span. Not only does he seem never to have bothered considering the negative consequences of diverting billions from high multiplier government programs to line the pockets of his already bloated buddies at AIG, I'm not sure that he even knows what the term "fiscal multiplier" means.

[2] The Bureau of Labor Stats today showed that our nation of 300+ million managed to increase jobs by a lousy 18k. Which I figure is about 80k short of even keeping up with the increase in the work force. But of course the fantastically inept media will fail to report the numerous predictions that enactment of Ryan and Obama's tax cuts in December would lead to job losses not gains, so in the public mind the policy's continued failure will remain a mystery.

[3] Feel free to let your representatives and senators know how obscene you find highjacking old age pensioners to pay for Goldman Sachs bonuses: right them NOW.

Soul Train Hits The Big 4-0

2011-07-01T08:50:00.000-07:00

Wow. The popular music program Soul Train celebrated it's 40th anniversary at the Lincoln Center recently. Funny how you only see the disparate threads of your crazyquilt life coalesce into a coherent pattern when the grave comes into sharper focus than the cradle.*

As an awkward whiteboy sporting a buzzcut in the upper Midwest during the 1970's, Soul Train was a HUGE catalyst to my way of thinking. Maybe not in the sense of being a springboard into some lifelong commitment to Black culture and art, but definitely in terms of providing a reliable frisson of contrast and excitement.

Sure, I would live out the '70's and '80's as an extremely awkward and conventional white kid, but watching what was for me the totally unprecedented display of unabashed sybaritic revelry and an aesthetic that could leverage bold emphasis as much as understatement really blew open doors in my mind. As exciting as the Beatles' excursions outside of the 4-piece pop paradigm were to a boy raised on Johnny Horton's "The Battle Hymn of The Republic", the O'Jays represented an even more interesting departure. They could be more conventional than the Beatles in terms of instrumentation, harmonic and melodic structures, but offered way more rhythmically novelty, and with a much warmer timbre.

Jacques Derrida

I truly believe that this was the subjective frame of reference that allowed me to handle Derrida. Without the inimitable flare of Don Cornelius' glowing, mellow tones guiding me, I'm not sure how I would have been able to develop subtle enough distinctions between 'enthusiasm' and 'reserve', 'formality' and 'cultivation' to appreciate alternate ways of looking at the world, the difference between "Deconstruction" and "Destruction." Thank you, Soul Train.

Footnotes
*How's THAT for a mixed metaphor?

Luntz and Counter-Luntz: The Word You're Looking for Is "Dissent"

2011-06-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

In recent weeks I've had number of interesting discussions with friends, Facebook and otherwise, about the bizarre shift towards totalitarianism in American politics. Of course, no political movement is possible without a corresponding cultural alignment, and the most lamentable trend in this regard seems to me to be the ascendancy of misanthropic polemical whores like Frank Luntz, who function more or less as the shock troops against the American tradition of anti-ideology, perverting our traditional inclinations into a cult of Mammon.[1]

Wisconsinites, whom I believe to be reasonably typical victims of Luntz et alia, demonstrate some pretty mixed reactions to the word "protest", judging by some friends' anecdotes surrounding pre-recall canvassing going on in this state. One friend's story particularly resonated with me: a man who angrily turned a canvasser away from his door saying that he was tired of all that protesting going on in Madison, and thought the "Wisconsin 14" had shown bad faith by leaving the state to forestall passage of Governor Walker's union busting bill. In his mind, the Democratic senators should have "negotiated" with Walker.

Pretty odd interpretation of events, from any review of the factual situation. Being minorities in both houses, and confronted by a Senate majority leader who called for extra-legal vigilante groups to physically hunt them down, there was always exactly ZERO possibility of Walker negotiating in good faith.

Yet it does make good sense when you realize that what voters have no interest whatsoever in good policy or standards of debate. This is the key to Luntz' "success". Our main concern is to be on the "winning" side, even if our role is largely limited to chosing the instrument of our own destruction. It's just the American way. The flip side to the American virtue of an open-minded lack of ideological commitment is the willingness to rationalize any horrific perversion as a victory for the forces of "Good". In fact, the more complete the perversion, the more "virtuous" the pervert. And vice versa.

Case in point: the fate of the words "protest" and "protestor" after the Vietnam era. That age of unrepented sin continues to fester in the American soul. Memories like the Kent State shootings, Mai Lai massacre and Weather Underground violence pile miseries so thickly upon one another that, in the absence of a prolonged and thoughtful examination of the events, the only way to throw them off and move forward seemed to be to simply pick a winning side and demonize the loser.

And with the credit of the GOP, American foreign policy and the military industrial complex on the line, what do you figure the chances of a pile of wet-behind-the-ears college kids coming out on top were? Someone had to take the fall, and it was America's conscience. From then on, the word "protestor" would be a pejorative, conjuring images of greasy long-hairs living off their parents' largesse and whose primary purpose in life seemed to be holding picket signs and blocking traffic for God-fearing citizens trying to get to their offices down town.

So the word has to go. Even if the denotation is still technically correct, and still retains some romantic charm for a subset of society, in the elections and debates that ultimately make real quality of life differences in America it is a turd.

My proposed replacement? Dissenter. Denotatively it also depicts a factual situation where a disadvantaged minority resist the impositions of the formally constituted authorities. But in the deepest reaches of the American soul, it evokes memories of valliant--and ultimately successful--struggle against an arrogant tyrant almost as hated as Mao or Stalin. The term "dissenter" in American and English history refers to the 17th century people who opposed the established church on grounds of individual religious conscience but also the state's venality and corruption.[2] The adventures and mis-adventures of those original Dissenters ultimately gave rise to the Anglophone tradition of republic and constitutional government.[3]

An observer no less acute than the reknown Alexis de Tocqueville recognized America's primary ethic as a civil religion, and analyzed it in these terms:

"The greatest part of...America was peopled by men who...brought with them into the New World a form of Christianity...by styling it a democratic and republican religion."

In keeping with the inherent contradiction of a populist principle establishing a governing order, it was subject to numerous, sometimes conflicting interpretations from the very start. For example, the colony which eventually became the state of Connecticut was established by a group splintering from the original Puritan colony of Massachussets.

The central quality is a commitment to the process of reconciling liberty with good order--not a bigotted clinging to unquestioned dogma. There is no reason at all a true Dissenter cannot be a principled atheist or upstanding agnostic as well as a righteous believer in any of the various faith traditions. This is borne out by the respect for the original Dissenters retained among almost all ethnic and religious or non-religious of American society to this day.

Get it? Judges and duly constituted tribunes of the people "dissent". In the public mind, only self-centered hedonistic collections of venereal disesase "protest".

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the winner, the rhetorically and morally acceptable face of the opposition to strong-arm junta tactics of the likes of Walker and Fitzgerald. Thanks for the template, Frank Luntz.

Footnotes
[1] Yes, I think that metaphorical construction is well warranted, given the parade of ethics violations that haunt Luntz' career. Just one example: In 1997, the American Association for Public Opinion Research formally reprimanded Luntz for his inability to provide the standard support requested for some of his more outrageous claims. In my mind Luntz' role in American culture is best analogized to that of an aggressive bowel cancer. But only because I can't think of a fouler aberration.

[2] There are plenty of though-provoking analyses of the English civil wars and the competing strands of political thought that they gave voice to. In no way can they considered to be an unalloyed triumph of Good over Evil--the Roundhead hero Oliver Cromwell's campaign to impose his notion of a "Godly Nation" on Ireland resulted in the extermination of approximately 1 out of every 4 inhabitants of that island between 1649 and 1653. But it clearly laid the groundwork for the predominant mode of limited government in the English speaking world. Simon Schama passibly recounts the contemporary British view of those events in the book and television documentary, "A History of Britain".

[3] An ironic result of Cromwellian dispensation in Ireland was the destruction of a far more ancient tradition of constitutional monarchy, Brehon Law. This is not the place to launch into a lengthy discussion of its merits and demerits, but it is worth mentioning that this system of jurisprudence amounted to the formal accumulation of precedent and interpretation of legal principles by a class of professional scholars which even kings could not flout without suffering painful sanction. Laws were created solely by the process of refined interpretation of precedent, much like the English Common Law tradition, rather than by executive fiat.

Happy Bloomsday, America!

2011-06-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

June 16th is the annual celebration of Leopold Bloom's doomed wanderings through Dublin in 1904, as chronicled in James Joyce's classic novel "Ulysses". And in the 21st century, reality finally catches up with and overtakes fiction.

In 1921 a U.S. court banned Ulysses on the grounds that some of its graphic depictions of nudity and sexuality constituted pornography under the Postal Code. And while that decision was reversed in 1933 by a judge who could only have failed today's more rigorous selection processes for illiteracy and cretinism, the private sector came to the rescue of public morals when Apple banned an online illustrated version from its iStore last year.

However, that victory had an even shorter half-life. A couple months later, presumably realising that it would lose it's investment completely if it maintained the ban, and that nobody would likely access anything remotely smacking of literary merit anyway, Apple decided to give it a go after all.

Still, Ulysses can still claim numerous triumphs. We were reminded recently that the real-life tribulations of one Henry Kahn, great-grandfather of actress Dervla Kirwan, may have inspired the nightmare courtroom episode in the book. Kahn was forbidden by the notorious Sir Frederick Falkiner from testifying on his own behalf due to Kahn's blatent, obstinate and willful Judaism.

While the "Double Castration" sentence handed down in the clearly Ulysses-inspired digression within Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" stands as a worthy literary heir (IMHO), the book's actual legacy in the field of (juris)prudence is even greater. Aside the from the miscarriage of justice in the conduct of the Bradley Manning affair, Wisconsin's miraculously "re-elected" supreme court justice David Prosser handed down an opinion on the controversial collective bargaining bill which, according to 50% of his colleagues, was riddled with error and faulty analysis.

And so it goes. The more things change, they more they stay the same. Although a court in 1921 may have affected offense by the onanistic happenings in Chapter 13 of Ulysses, "Nausicca", in fact, courts invented public masturbation.

Weaktard: The Obnoxious Word That Explains American Politics

2011-06-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

Weaktard: Noun and adjective, a portmanteau of 'weak' and 'retarded', a puerile term of contempt for an opponent

A couple of months back a good friend of mine gave me copies of the great books "Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America" by David Fischer and "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America" by Jim Webb. My pal is of proud Ulster Scots descent--but much more importantly, very active in trade unionism and local politics. For nearly 20 years now my friend has been one of the core on-ground volunteer campaign workers for a line of great local and state candidates, like Senator Bob Wirch, who exemplify the best in Wisconsin's heritage of progressive politics. Yes, those books do explore his ancestors' experience[1], but their real importance is explaining the social dynamics that win American elections in the 2010's--and offer us a jumping off point to think about alternate paths that American society might evolve into.

Contemporary Americans[2] have a shocking amount in common with those Ulster Scots who came to America in the 1700's: they are both the products of broken societies.

Historical Populism, Dispopulism and Mispopulism
As described by Fischer and Webb, the border country between England and Scotland, whence the majority of these families originated before migration to Ireland and thence to the United States, was just short of being a lawless no-man's land. The writ of neither crown had been particularly effective here, and folkways that were both staunchly un-ideological and un-sentimentally brutal flourished here. In the absence of a reliable government, a man's surest remedy would be the strength of his own arm--and the loyalty of his kin.

This particular brand of populism diverged from its British and Irish counterparts considerably upon introduction of a very different sytem of class relationships in America. The scope for individual ambitions provided by the vast American hinterland of the 18th century seemed endless. No longer were tenant farmers locked, without even theoretical recourse, into abusive rack-renting relationships with tituladoes whose only claim to their land lay in crown grants arising from military conquest. Military campaigns which the poor fought but which the aristocrats profited from. Even if very imperfectly realized[3], the theoretical possibility of homesteading his own family farm was open to any willing lad, regardless of his origins. This seems to have effectively dissolved the traditional antagonism between the rural poor and landed gentry, to the point where many were more than happy to embrace secession and Civil War on behalf of a slave holding elite whose interests were starkly at variance with their own.[4] Those Ulster Scots in America still demanded shows of raw agression from their political leaders[5], but now they lost whatever progressive moral valence they originally had in Ireland.

Contemporary Echos
Sound familiar? It should. This minimalist, personal rather than institutional approach to governance is exactly what an idle elite devoted to preying on their fellow Americans have been praying to Moloch for: a clear field, a total lack of effective opposition. Apart from the disasterous and partially quantifiable effects failing to regulate and tax the wealthy and their corporate proxies, it articulates and magnifies a fundamentally anti-Christian, anti-social philosophy of hatred of self and others that alienates America from the rest of the world today. It has rendered Wisconsin a black pit of corruption.

In this environment, where the electoral success necessary to provide meaningful opposition to Evil requires an ability to exhibit almost vicious aggression, all the national Democratic Party has been able to offer of late has been a tired, washed-up whore named Barack Obama. Yes, there are proud exceptions on the state and local levels--and my pal's trade unionism and political work is a part of that. But on the national level, where almost all key policies must be enforced, due to constitutional provisions such as the Commerce Clause? Not so much.

The Way Forward Under Taboo
My conceptualization of this is still very much "in progress". What's needed is an uncomprimising display of integrity and vigor by a candidate willing to do or die by actual populist ideas, not just some phony re-tread bullshit a la hedge fund millionaire like Mitt Romney or weaktard traitors like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. But this much I do know: It cannot be presented as an ideological platform.

Modern Americans, despite the variety of their religious or ethnic backgrounds share with those first Ulster Scots immigrants a rabid fear of imposed credos. They may well demonstrate a shocking lack of respect for others' beliefs and traditions, but Hell if they're going to submit to anyone else's. Even if they're not particularly political or religious themselves, they have an incredible paranoia about the efforts or imagined efforts of anyone else to proselytise them. This is why Obama, despite actively supporting or caving into every one of the Republican Party's demands can still be "credibly" labelled a socialist among America's unsophisticated and unideological electorate: he keeps talkin' in abstract, bullshit language like "hope" and "comprimise" among nations. That's "ivory tower, faggit-talk".

If and when the "Left" identify an electorally viable rhetorical framework, I don't know. Still working on it. Could have a lot in common with the reinterpretation of history like the one that worked so well to harness the progressive energies of the Irish Land Reform movement and Scottish enlightenment into the 19th century trade union movement.[6] One thing's for damned sure, though: worthless wastes of bumwhipe like Obama have to go.

Footnotes
[1] I don't want to digress too far into my friend's pedigree, but it's a fascinating example of the many divergent threads of historical continuity and the way their distinctive individual character can seem to be temporarily submerged by those of their more dominant neighbors only later rise to the surface and assume more prominent leadership. While the remainder of this post will focus primarily on the ideology-free character of early Scots-Irish politics and its current legacy in the U.S.A., it's worth noting that my friend's family left Ireland in the mid-1790's--just prior to the 1798 Rebellion. In fact, reproductions of the diary of his original emigrant ancestor discuss at several points their connection to a Reverend James McKinney--a man praised for his courageous Irish patriotism in these terms by James Seaton Reid in the book "A History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland":

"His ministry terminated abruptly in 1793, for, preaching to a large open-air meeting at Ballinaloub, he took as his text, Ezek. XXI., 27 : "I will overturn, overturn, overturn it," and delivered " an inflammatory discourse," implying the threat of the overturning of the British Government.

Preachers sometimes complain that their sermons fall on listless ears, but it was not so with Mr. McKinney. Some of the loyalists among his audience reported his expressions; and he found it convenient to betake himself hastily to America, and there became a very distinguished minister at Rocky Creek, S.C., and died 16th September, 1802. A ballad composed in his honour by a local poet is now lost to history, save a few lines, one of which concluded each verse, declaring that: '. . . At Ballinaloub he played the man.'"

Elsewhere Rev. McKinney is mentioned as a "Houstonite"--a supporter of the radically populist, anti-authoritarian views of Reverend David Houston. To my knowledge, this never became a formal faction, but it does seem a clear precursor to the progressive "New Light" movement within the Presbyterian church.

The seemingly endless vistas for expansion into the 18th century American wilderness resulted in a greatly reduced level of friction between the elites and common settler folk as compared to the relatively narrow confines of the north of Ireland. An ironic result was that the influence of progressive movements lasted somewhat longer in Ireland than in the nascent United States. In Ireland, New Light Presbyterianism was more or less destroyed in the early 1800's, by internal schism, and to some extent British persecution for their involvement in resistance actions like the 1798 Rebellion. Until then, New Light Presbyterianism had served an interesting political role in mobilizing the peasantry against the confessional descrimination and abusive rack-renting practices of established church elites.

The social utility of their progressive doctrines being less, their influence gradually faded, and I think my friend was entirely unaware of the heroic role his ancestors had played in the history of Irish nationalism and progressive politics.

[2] Again, I don't want to go overboard with the digressions in the body of the post, but I think some explanation may be called for given my distinctive moniker. My ancestors came from the very same county as my pal's--but obviously of the RC rather than Presbyterian persuasion. Which is kind of interesting, because persons of BOTH persuasions can be found with the McGonagle name or variants thereof who cannot remember a time when their ancestors subscribed to a confession different than their own.

The reason I've chosen to explore in this post the specifically protestant Irish experience in America rather than the experience of my own ancestors is manifold:

1. Historians typically date the earliest significant influx of Roman Catholic Irish into America at more than 100 years after the migration of their protestant neighbors, and therefore the protestant experience can be more clearly linked to the events of the American revolutionary period.

2. Although the Roman Catholic church in the U.S. is by far the largest single denomination (I think like 22%), far more Americans subscribe to one or another of the protestant churches (maybe like 53%).

3. Catholics of Irish descent are only a small minority of total American Catholics--maybe like 20% at most.

4. Even the Irish brand of Catholicism as practiced in the United States is significantly different than that brand practiced back in Ireland. I guess I can speak only from personal experience here, but the differences seem ENORMOUS to me.

I think roughly 95% American Irish Catholics are so thoroughly American that they do not even recognize the deep, deep psychological centrality of the Christian story of Jesus' persecution, death and resurrection to Ireland's conception of itself as a nation, and the political rallying point the RC church represented during times of persecution by an alien aristocracy. The outlook and behavior of Irish Americans is much more like their non-Irish and non-Catholic neighbors than their Irish cousins.

Maybe another 2.5% are radical conservatives in the Opus Dei / Mel Gibson tradition who regard anything short of the Latin Mass as heresy, and another 2.5% are interested in cultivating a deeper understanding of Irish church history, but don't feel particularly well served by the hierarchy.

Anyhow, while all that stuff is massively interesting, and some of it may be useful to provide context for my post here, I decline to elaborate further now. Though I do have some vague plans to use the Irish RC experience as a starting point for another post about theoretical pathways that progressive movements can branch into the future: "Everything Old Is New Again: Is It Time for A Re-Think on Brehon Law?"

[3] From page 751, section entitled "Backcountry Wealth Ways: Border Ideas of the Material Order", of Albion's Seed:

"Throughout this great region where virgin land existed in abundance, most men were landless. At the same time, a few families owned very large tracts. . . . By the last decade of the eighteenth century . . . . (t)he top decile of wealthholders owned between 40 and 80 percent of the land. In many areas, one-third to one-half of taxable white males owned nothing. . . . "

[4] And I don't think I have to remind many of my American readers that this self-loathing romance for an abusive past continues to this day. But it may shock some of my overseas friends. Crypto-Klan phenomena like the book "Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life" have tarted up in psuedo-scientific clothing the all the essentials of the old slave "morality" to the point where it was openly embraced by Tea Party douchebags like Wisconsin's own loathsome lout, Ron Johnson.

[5] I will not catalogue here the litany of voter intimidation and ballot-stuffing offenses that provide ample illustration of this aspect of historic American political culture, the books do a great job of that themselves. And until you get a chance to read those books, I'd say viewing the film "Gangs of New York" does a fair job of rendering an approximate subjective equivalent. It's about NY, obviously, and RC Irish experience rather than those specifically of Ulster Scots on the American frontier, but they have a lot in common in this regard.

[6] Like I said, I'm still working on it. But in the meantime, you might enjoy a relevant episode from the awesome Scottish history series presented by Neil Oliver.

Where'd It All Go Wrong, America?

2011-06-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

"What happened to you, McGonagle? You used to be a GOOD cop! Where'd it all go wrong?!", she demanded, or rather begged from the other end of the alley.

"It's these damned city streets, America. These filthy, rotten streets. No matter how hard you try, no matter how clean and upright a man you are when you walk into them, you walk away a putrid animal."

It was glib bullshit. Or at least I thought it was at the time. But it seemed like the only reasonable answer to a faded highschool princess who'd just seen the former star quarterback completely take the head off a total stranger in a darkened alley with a Midnight Special at point-blank range.

"You're a god-damned savage now, McGonagle . . . a god-damned . . . savage . . ." Her voice quavered off into a blubbering white noise in the background as I massaged my temples, trying to force back down the bubbling cauldron of terror and self-loathing I'd come to recognize as the inevitable aftermath of committing an act as abominable as I'd just done. I was now experiencing such things with a shocking regularity and had begun to formulate a list of suggested responses to them in the back of my head.

America, on the other hand, had no friggin' idea what the hell she was going on about. She seemed to carry on for decades as if she were still the lilly-white pure virgin painted on some old Mary Pickford movie poster. It takes increasingly massive doses of heroin to sustain this illusion, of course. Certainly after a career as checkered as America's. How could I put this to her? COULD I put this to her? She was certainly no virgin. She'd probably serviced more people of all descriptions than the entire McDonald's(tm) franchise, sometimes simultaneously both at the front drive-through window AND from behind the counter.

No. I decided quickly. No, I could not explain this to her. It was simply beyond the mental, moral and imaginative resources left to her after decades of self-abuse. The denoument of this particular matter seemed pretty clear to me, however, and the re-education of a smack-addled whore figured in no part of it. I was going on the lamb. If-and-when the "Law" caught up with me, I would be on my own and offer no excuses. Under no conditions was I going to render a mundane-factual account of events which had transpired, of how I had actually been duped by America into the wholesale slaughter of complete strangers in a dark city alley.

First of all, even if a factual account were believed, it could not hope to save me from the hangman. Second of all, it would only result in snapping the final barrier between America and decades worth of filthy deeds waiting to revisit her from the other side.

Foghorn Leghorn Speaks . . .

2011-06-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

Is it possible to spirit channel a fictional character? Specifically, the Southern-gentrified blowhard from the Warner Bro.'s 1960's "Foghorn Leghorn" franchise? Based upon experiments performed over the weekend, I can report a firm and conclusive "yes". But the ritual requires copious volumes of an obscure Sri Lankan stout called "Lion". And Mr. Legohorn seems to have quite a bit to say about Wisconsin people and places . . . .

"The behavior on display before us in this instance constitutes a perfect SCANDAL in the eyes of our sacred parliamentary traditions. This method of proceeding cannot call to mind words any loftier or more noble than "poltroon" and "knave". I understand that the accepted standards of comportment may not be all they could in some of the darker corners of the great state of Wisconsin, but I see no reason to drag them into the sacred halls of our legislature." (Regarding the extradordinary violation of Wisconsin's open meetings law by which Republican majority leader "Big Fitz" Fitzgerald surreptitiously passed Gov. Walker's union-busting bill.)

"I am led to believe that Mr. Fitzgerald holds some strong opinions regarding the physical attractiveness, or lack thereof, of the typical Wisconsin voter. No doubt the feeling is heartily reciprocated. Indeed, I daresay that Mr. Fitzgerald's but-tocks are still sportin' the friction burns from his mother's desparate attempts to force in a feedin' bottle." (Regarding Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald's comments suggesting that Wisconsin citizens "smell bad". Stay classy, Fitz.)

"I obtain an uncommon degree of satisfaction from Represenative Ryan's enthusiastic sallies onto the rhetorical battlefield of economic policy; they are a reliable source of great amusement. Only a comedic genius of Rabelaisian proportions or a complete imbecile would prescribe a tourniquet around the throat as a treatment appropriate for a patient dying of thirst." (Regarding the brutally counterproductive austerity plan proposed by Janesville's Paul Ryan.)

"I personally find the extraordinary conduct exhibited within Waukesha county to be scarcely worthy of a mangey street mongel much less purported gentlemen and ladies. It is a shocking disappointment, to say the least." (Regarding the transparent fraud approved by the so-called Government Accountability Board during the recount in the Prosser/Kloppenburg race.)

"No, sir, I do not hold any degree in the biological sciences. I cannot opine on the plausibility of a human male siring offspring by union with a she-goat. As such, I decline to further entertain any notions regarding the true parentage of the Government Accountability Board's Kevin Kennedy." (Apparently a reflection of the current esteem in which Mr. Kennedy is held, given the Prosser fraud in Waukesha and the approval of 3 recall elections against "Wisconsin 14" senators, despite literally hundreds of signatures found to have been obtained through fraudulent means.)

Oh Fudge: Is the Romance Really Over?

2011-06-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

I have never heard of Sam Mayfield before. But if this turns out to be true, it suggests that the Agape Love Feast between protestors against governor Scott Walker's union-busting bill and the police (or at least someone referred to as Sgt. Corcoran) is OVER.

See additional textual play-by-play at Blip.tv

Washington V Jefferson: Franklin by TKO

2011-06-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

In the buildup to the 2012 elections, we can anticipate candidates attempting to appropriate inaccurate depictions of the legacies of the Founding Fathers. But when it comes to real history, pound for pound, and in any fight between Jefferson and Washington, I'd put my money on Ben Franklin.

I know that I can always count on the media company Disinformation to produce the goods. They consistently offer a high octane blend of solid analytical reportage, cultural commentary and outright blasphemy. I'm a particular devotee of their news aggregation site.

One recent article, and the attendant readers' comments particularly grabbed my imagination: "Dancing at the Memorial of a Slave Owner", an examination of the events following the arrest of five persons for dancing near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Of course the real importance of the article bears upon the current state of civil rights and free speech in the United States, not on Mr. Jefferson's personal stance on slavery. The impression the piece left with me was a reinforced sense of America as a declining cultural as well as economic and military power, clinging desperately onto past imagined glories in a viciously ironic way that presents a tragi-comic contrast with the soaring notions of liberty articulated by Jefferson himself. In that context I regarded the reminder of Jefferson's slave owning as an unnecessary distraction from current crises.

But the question of the contrast between the talk and the walk of our Founding Fathers is serious enough to bear repeated visits, especially as competeing factions in this super-polarized nation step and stumble over one another to appropriate their legacies in the 2012 party nominations season. And the contrast between America's two favorite founding fathers, Jefferson and Washington is probably a great place to begin. It provides the seminal branching off point to explain the two most popular sects in American political philosophy, just as the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael split did after Ireland's Civil War and the Whig/Tory split did after Britain's Glorious Revolution: these philosophical divisions are very much alive today, all the more so for having a matter of centuries to incubate and articulate.

With a view towards the limitations offered by the blog posting medium, I'll limit myself to extremely brief discussions of Jefferson and Washington's response to what I think are the three most pressing issues confronting America today: economic policy, foreign policy and individual liberty.

Before launching into an exploration of the particularities of each man's world view, I think it's worth reminding ourselves of the overall historical context in which Jefferson and Washington lived. Yes, this was the expansive "Age of Englightenment", when the scope of human affairs first truly becomes global and the power and appeal of parochial power structures and philosophies is successfully challenged by seekers of a more universal and empirical outlook. The notion of Progress is born, and the focus of intellectual endeavour becomes more about expansion rather than a slavish devotion to perpetuating archaic elites.

However that is a serious double-edged sword. It came at the expense of the wholesale extermination of indigenous peoples by European colonizers and a persistent legacy of political and military antagonisms that haunts us to this day (e.g., Afghanistan?). Not that we could insist that persons so deeply caught up in the eye of the storm as Jefferson and Washington truly understood precisely how their response in word and deed would be viewed 200+ years on, but it does provide us in 2011 with the requisite context to evaluate the internal conflicts events must have provoked within them.

Both of these men were of the Virginia Tidewater Elite, by hereditary right members of the very exclusive club who held the only local opinion that counted in America's largest and wealthiest colony on the eve of the Revolution. They viewed themselves, not the unwashed masses of impoverished immigrants pouring over the backcountry, as the intended beneficiaries of this American Project, which was fundamentally expansionist in nature--NOT democratic.

Jefferson
Jefferson probably has a slight edge over Washington in enduring popularity. I would ascribe this to the man's rhetorical skills and protean ability to (seemingly) convincingly reconcile deeply conflicting impulses of idealism/pragmatism. When viewed from the perspective of utility for the common man, the primary appeal of historical studies lies in its application to contemporary polemics. And in this, Jefferson was a past master.

True enough, Jefferson's father came from rather obscure origins and his place in the elite owed rather more to the inherited prestige and wealth of his mother's family. But I say this is really the psychological whetstone against which Jefferson obsessively sought to sharpen his own impressive talents, a vague sense of inadequacy nagging at the back of his mind that continually drove him forward to achieve more and more intellectually and politically. Whereas more socially secure grandees like the Fairfaxes or the Carters may have found relatively smaller compensation from such efforts, even would they have been blessed with the native ability to achieve them, Jeffeson had a profound hunger for recognition among his peers that he could scarcely have obtained in any other way. Regarded by contemporaries as tall and handsome, he was, however, also physically awkward and thoroughly unathletic.

With regard to economic policy, Jefferson would likely be seen as very libertarian by today's standards--for most of his political life. He vigorously opposed the establishment of the perpetual corporate form [1], anything smacking of a federally co-ordinated industrial policy [2], and the establishment of a central bank [3]. However, as history resoundingly vetoed his stance on all these counts, his greatest practical economic legacy is probably the vast resource base brought to the U.S. by the Louisiana Purchase--an incredible irony considering that the unprecedentedly massive federal expenditure is probably the single clearest violation possible of his stated libertarian views.

None of this should suprise us, perhaps, if we consider my thesis that a primary psychological motivation for his political career was a desire to secure a place for himself within the Virginia landed elite. By any standard you could care to consider, Virginia in Jefferson's day was the single largest, wealthiest and most poweful of any North American colony; the status quo would have suited him quite nicely, had not the British aristocracy insisted on elbowing the local elite out of the way at the feeding trough.

Jefferson's foreign policy, on the other hand, was most definitely interventionist, the most prominent example being his strong advocacy of support for the French Revolution of 1789 and against British forces arrayed to oppose its spread. What may be his single most famous quote:

"The Tree of Liberty needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots."

A lot has been made of Jefferson's misunderstanding of the fundamental differences in the nature and causes of the American vs. the French revolutions (i.e., political and economic vs. social and economic, respectively). Maybe some of this is unfair, since we can more clearly perceive with hindsight the glaring contrast of the seminal issues, the Ameican revolution being sparked by a fight between local and British elites over the economic spoils of the French-Indian War, and the French revolution being a result of the wholesale lack of credibility and effectiveness of the Ancien Regime.

I argue that this failure is exactly what we should expect from Jefferson, a man whose political prestige rested to some extent on his effectiveness in obtaining French support in America's vulernable nascence. I would further argue that his aristocratic removal from the concerns of the common man, his high-flown rhetoric and personal financial struggles aside, constituted a formidable barrier to his ability to grasp the fundamental nature of events in France, the character of which was in some ways completely alien to the American experience anyway. America at that time was a vast storehouse of untapped resources being withheld from its thin population only by the geopolitically pragmatic policies of British imperial resource management. The Old World, on the other hand, had been thoroughly populated for centuries and provided drastically less scope for economic mobility, meaning that any progress available must necessarily come at the expense of some class or other--remarkably like the U.S. position today.

As regards individual liberties, let's just admit upfront that nobody could work the rhetorical magic like Thomas Jefferson. "Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" and all that. However, I don't think we can completely ignore his disappointing record on slavery as an anachronistic misintepretation on our parts. Even if you're willing to ignore Jefferson's endorsement of the infamous "Three Fifths Comprimise"[4] and the fact that his failure to emancipate so much as one slave stands in total contrast to the inter vivos action of Benjamin Franklin, twighlight Abolition campaigner, and Washington, whose will contained detailed and rigorous provisions for the emancipation and economic support of slaves that he owned, Jefferson's rape of Sally Hemings would not stand as an ornament to the principle that "all men are created equal" from the perspective of any historical age.[5]

All in all, were the Gods of Historical Anachronism to permit us a visit to Monticello, I think our minds would leave with two impressions: 1.) TJ was sure a gas for a party and there's no end to the flow of flowery talk from the man; and 2.) he surely had not clue #1 what was going on down outside the House of Burgesses or literary salons.

Washington
Washinton's philosophy and career are a thorough contrast to Jefferson's. Both men may be said to have arisen from the less secure fringes of the Tidewater elite, but Washington's rise clearly had more to do with practical action than rhetorical flourish.

Washington's family had a long history in Virginia affairs. George derived his his nickname among the native peoples of the American frontier, "Town Destroyer", from local memories of the vehemence of his great-grandfather, John Washington, in pursuing the colonial policy at expanding at the expense of native communities. But the Washingtons' legacy would probably have been regarded at the time as a fleck of flyshit in comparison with the pervasive influence of grandees like the Randolph family of Jefferson's maternal relations. High mucky-mucks like the Randolphs ordained the expansionist warfare; middling gentry families like the Washingtons actually fought them.

Which, however, is not to say that Washington in the slightest considered himself an economic libertarian. While his decidedly pro-central government stances with regard to Hamilton's central bank policy and the crushing of the Whiskey Rebellion should be clear enough indications of his proclivities, the apparent incongruity of a "conservative revolutionary" deserves some exploration.

Washington's motivations in the rebellion were more pragmatic and down-to-earth than Jefferson's from the beginning: a front row seat at the imperial feeding trough. I think Joseph Ellis, author of "His Excellency: George Washington" does a great job in highlighting this aspect to Washington's worldview in discussion of two seminal events.

First, I consider Washington's rebuff at the hands of an arrogant (and incompetent) Lord Loudon, when seeking a commission as an officer in His Majesty's regular forces. This could hardly be interpreted as anything but a personal insult to his dignity. In many ways, Washington was THE military pointman during the early phase of the French and Indian War, the single thread of consistency of campaigns from the war's inception through Braddock's defeat. Granted, that involvement usually manifested itself in ghastly blunders rather than martial glory; the very event triggering the conflict in North America was the murder of a French diplomat who, under all conventions, contemporary and modern, should clearly have been under Washington's personal protection. But Washington's organizing abilities, zeal and personal bravery went unquestioned by all eyewitness accounts. Washington's demand here was not the abolition of social distinction or aristocracy--merely the acceptance that his actions had earned him those perogatives.

Secondly, and more to the point, Washington was a thorough-going capitalist. In 1763 he banded together with a number of his colonial peers to form the Mississippi Company, for the purpose of establishing a quasi-feudal state on the North American frontier, where settlers would in effect be serfs of the investing proprietors such as himself. This proposal was quickly vetoed by the Crown, on the grounds of its inconsistency with the various treaty rights of First Nations in the region. However, lest any of my British friends succumb to a premature sense of self-righteousness, a substantially identical scheme, to be called Vandalia, was approved by the Crown in 1770--under the aegis of Brish-born investors.

Where did Washington stand in regards to foreign policy? I don't think it'd be correct to call him either interventionist or isolationist--he was a non-ideological pragmatist. While freely admitting the fact that Ameican independence was due in large part to the generous (but in his opinion belated) French naval and artillery support at Yorktown rather than any brilliant strategy concocted himself, he expressed strong opposition to American involvement in the crises engulfing Europe in the wake of the 1789 French Revolution. Perhaps his most famous quote on the score, from his 1796 farewell address:

"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. "

Washington was equally pragmatic with regard to his philosophy on personal liberties. Whereas Jefferson's intellectual approach to life demonstrated itself in a slick rhetorical smoothing over and selective igorance of the contrast between walk and talk, Washington was at least explicitly recognised the tension and made some tangible efforts to reconcile the two, if but in an uneven manner and in language that would be considered unambiguously offensive today. Washington's emancipation of his slaves and provision for their sustenance within his will has already been touched upon. In a letter to James Duane, dated 7 September 1783, with regard to America's policy of clearing First Nations people from their ancestral lands, Washington wrote: "The gradual extension of our settlements will as certainly cause the savage as the wolf to retire."

On balance, if I were somehow able to visit Mount Vernon in 1790, I think it would be an occassion of great disappointment. No doubt the stolid, thoroughly dependable Washington would come off as a rather dull, but completely indispensable character, but he's hardly likely to have regarded an ordinary joe like me as worth the time of day. Likewise, I have real doubts as to whether Washington's particular stoic brand of charisma would be suited for the glitz-and-flash obsessed clone wars that constitute much of modern corporate and political culture.

WTF? Where does Franklin come into this? The title suggests that Franklin's the real winner!
And indeed, I think Franklin is the real winner here. His example clearly holds far more relevance to the American of today than either Jefferson or Washington for precisely the reason that he is usually overlooked in discussions of the origins of American political culture--he was never president. He didn't represent the any facet of the hereditary elite. He was a townie, from a working class family from a frigid, relatively densely populated 2nd-tier colony far from the expansionist debate surrounding the Ohio country. My analysis proceeds from one brutal fact: regardless of the relative population density of the U.S. vs. China or any other country on earth, the scope of economic activity today clearly most closely resembles the stable-but-constrained atmosphere of New England in the 1700's as compared to the Wild West of Virginia and Pennsylvania during the same period.

Which is not to say that Franklin didn't have a growth-oriented economic outlook. He invested in frontier settlement schemes, though perhaps not with as much enthusiasm as planters Washington or Jefferson. But his legacy vis-a-vis economics is concerned more with intellectual expansion--invention--than the mere opening of untapped resources or markets. The franklin stove, the lightening rod, any number of his personal innovations seem a much more apt starting point for our own economic explorations than some non-existant unchartered territory on earth or improbable terra-formed planets from which we're exiled by light years worth of space and technology.

And let us not forget that it was Franklin's phenomenal success in the information technology industry of his day--type printing--that allowed him to accumulate the influence and private wealth necessary to become a prominent advocate for public infrastructure projects like libraries and road and sewage improvement, and launch his career in national affairs.[6]

Franklin's achievements in foreign affairs stand head and shoulders above those of any other Founding Father. His success in convincing the French foreing minister, the arch Comte de Vergennes, to support American idependence despite any reasonable hope of tangible benefit and considerable risk to France's own finances, as regularly and loudly trumpeted by his Bourbon League conterpart, the Count of Aranda, must stand as one of the all-time championship feats of diplomatic ingenuity. As already alluded to with regard to Washington's military shortcomings, it seems highly unlikely that independence could ever have been obtained without the assistance, especially naval, rendered by France at Yorktown. Put this all in the context of the inevitable blundering infighting within the nascent American foreign service and incessant offenses against French court protocol committed by patriotic but provincial colleagues like John Adams and Arthur Lee, and the achievement becomes nothing short of miraculous.[7]

The particular quality responsible for Franklin's success here was an almost unique ability to sense the priorities of his counterparties--a quality distinctly at variance with the lofty aristocratic demeanor with which aristocrats like Jefferson, Washington and Lee had been taught to conduct themselves since birth. And in the modern world where, like it or not, we are continually confronted by multicultural diversity in opinion and objective, this quality will clearly be at a premium.

However, Franklin never simply allowed this ability to play him into a weak passivity. Although initially opposed to John Jay and John Adam's preference for negotiating peace terms with Britain in secret, and contrary to the protocol expected by both the French Crown and the Continental Congress, lengthy discussion convinced him of the pragmatic wisdom of his colleagues' selected course, given the realpolitik of European empires and America's profound disadvantages in terms of political prestige and the money and resources needed to conduct a prolonged war.

Franklin comes out on top again when you consider his legacy on civil rights. Having made his fame and fortune in publishing controversial political tracts and he consistently and strongly advocated free speech. He was the author of many pieces about the importance of the tolerance of other religions and towards nonbelievers. In 1786 he freed his slaves and became a founding member of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.

The tally seems totally clear to me. On the basis of relevance to contemporary Americans, and the strength and consistency of his moral stances with his economic, foreign and civil rights policy practice, Franklin takes the day by a TKO. And, on top of it all, the guy clearly liked his occasional jar; writings, like his parody of white supremacist douchebag James "Left Eye" Jackson in the "Sidi Mehmet Ibrahim" letter prove it.

Footnotes
[1] Amongst my favorite Jefferson quotes are the one to the effect that perpetual corporate existence " . . . suppose(s) that . . . the earth belongs to the dead, and not the living." See TJ's letter to the governor of New Hampshire quoted in full at Chapter V, Volume IV of "The Life of John Marshall", by Albert Jeremiah Beveridge.

[2] Jefferson opposed consolidating the states' debt from the revolutionary war on the federal level, the establishment of a central bank to coordinate monetary policy and the trade treaties with Britain in furtherance of America's manufacturing independence from Old World Europe. Very few today outside of Ron Paul supporters seem to regard any of these ideas with much enthusiasm, and I personally have yet to see any convincing depictions of a scenario where trade dependance upon foreign powers seems like a good idea.

[3] Yeah, I know--already mentioned TJ's opposition to the central bank at #2. So I created these footnotes before my final edit--mea culpa. This should at least go some way into convincing the reader that these blog posts are the creation of a sophisticated, multimillion dollar political conspiracy.

[4] Lest any white readers be tempted to lazily dismiss the "Three Fifths Comprimise" as a black civil rights-only issue, they should remember the disproportionate voting power this gave to the large slaveholding states like Virginia and South Carolina, themselves long in thrall to the cronyish domination of planter elites like Jefferson. Historian Garry Wills, in his book, "Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power" demonstrates that Jefferson could not have won the 1804 election had it not been for the disproportionate representation provided by the comprimise.

[5] In my opinion, the DNA evidence is pretty unambiguous on this point. Despite efforts of various TJ apologists to throw suspicion upon some other member of the Jefferson household, the facts are clear that many Hemings descendants share the Y chromosome haplotype of the Jefferson family and that there existed a direct stairwell between TJ and Hemings' rooms in Monticello. To blythly discount the inconvenient testimony of contemporaries, antagonistic as they may have been personally to Jefferson, is also to ignore the explicit testimony of slaveholders regarding mores under this regime. From the diaries of Mary Chesnut, antebellum aristocrat of South Carolina:

"God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system and wrong and iniquity. Perhaps the rest of the world is as bad—this only I see. Like the patriarchs of our old men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines, and the mulattoes one sees in every family exactly resemble the white children—and every lady tells you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household, but those in her own she seems to think drop from the clouds, or pretends so to think."

[6] It's probably worthwhile at this stage to also note the contrast in Franklin's particular brand of information technology entrepreneurship with some modern day exponents--like the douchey hedge fund manager and silver-spoon recipient Mitt Romney. Whereas Franklin was almost completely self-taught came up from an impoverished background on the streets of his native Boston, later in London and Philadelphia, by a combination of business savvy and active involvement in community politics, Romney put his Ivy League education solely to use for private gain in the modern economy's LEAST socially redeeming end of info technology--big finance robs the economy of about $8 out of every $10 invested in it.

[7] My favourite book on this score is Stacy Schiff's "A Great Improvisation: Fraklin, France and the Birth of America"

Through the Eye of a Needle

2011-05-27T11:07:00.000-07:00

And now a return to more traditional commentary-slash-re-reportage at the Dystopia Diaries . . .

Some unexpected good news here: A Wisconsin judge has ruled that the passage of Governor Scott Walker's aggressive union-busting bill's, engineered late in the night without the statutorially required 24 hours notice or the quorum necessary for a budget bill, is a violation of the state's open meetings law. An injunction is now in place to prevent the bill's enforcement.

You may recall the raucuous buildup to the April 5th Wisconsin Supreme Court election which was widely seen as a referendum on that un-precedented (and now apparently un-lawful) powergrab, an Orwellian abuse of rhetoric and procedure whose only certain purpose was to destroy any group to politcally organize outside the orbit of his Koch brothers patrons. David Prosser, the Republican incumbent was and still is regarded as strongly in favour of Walker's dubious scheme, whereas his opponent, Madison-based JoAnne Kloppenberg ran on the ticket of the Democratic party who not unnaturally opposed it.

But if the buildup was a barn-burner, the prolonged aftermath was distinctly anti-climactic. The 11th hour defection of one of Prosser's campaign managers seemed to deal a heavy blow to the Republican's judicial credibility. Lazy or naive[1] commentators would have expected the hoary old chestnut about Wisconsin being the clean-government state, a la it's Robert La Follette heritage, to come into play here and cast Prosser's chances in doubt.

However, as so often happens, The Lord delivered a miracle unto his Chosen People. One day after poll close, when current stats showed the candidates within .00001% of each other, a prodigy appeared unto Wisconsin: an additional 14,000 votes which "mistakenly" did not appear in those original tallies, which eventually translated into a decisive 7,000+ vote "victory" for Prosser.

Now that's not the anticlimactic part; I love a good make-believe fairy tale as much as anybody else. No, the anticlimax came when you got to look closer at the Instrument of Divine Will that the Lord had chosen. This was not exactly the Immaculate Conception that I had been raised to believe in as a young Roman Catholic child. For starters, Kathy Nickolaus, the Waukesha County clerk who delivered these "votes" turned out to have been a former employee of Prosser's--who has a rather complicated "compliance" history vis-a-vis the Government Accountability Board.

Things only got more gruesome when the inevitable recall procedures got started in earnest. [2] The control tag for the very first bag of "votes" selected for recount in Wauksha was incorrectly entered tracking log. As this weary sham slogged on we were presented with the sight of numerous bags with loose seals or seals completely broken open. Yeah, no reason to suspect a "ballot" could have been crammed into there after certification.

That last bit was sarcasm, of course. My breaking of the fourth wall here, if you will, isn't merely gratuitous. I know that YOU, dear reader, are not a fucking idiot and don't need to be told outright that this is an outrage unto the very notion of electoral integrity. But apparently Judge Maudsley, and many of the Democratic count observers need to be told that. For they completely allowed all these votes to be entered into the ultimate and final official tally, setting the seal on Prosser's "win". Yes, fortuna favet audaci [3], alright, and so do spineless fools who care more for casting themselves in a pleasing appearance of polite decorum than getting themselves lathered into a holy fury in the defense of virtue, a la Jesus before the money changers in the Temple.

And today the announcement that this bill's passing was procedurally unconstitutional. Kenosha people have great reason to be proud of Representative Peter Barca, who immediately cried foul on the violation of the open meetings law, and seems to have been the driving force behind this legal challenge. But the story is far from over.

True, the July 12 recall elections of several republican senators (currently) appear poised to send a very strong message condemning Caudillo Walker's junta. But I'm not personally optimistic about the odds of wresting control of the senate from Republicans--though Repbulican senate majority leader and Walker tool, Scotty "Big Fitz" Fitzgerald apparently IS frightened. And despite the superhuman heroism of stalwarts for virtue like "Wisconsin 14" Senators Bob Wirch (Kenosha) and Chris Larson (Milwaukee), there simply are no procedural bullets available at this time to prevent Walker for steamrolling through a huge list of Christmas presents for his financial and ideological puppetmasters.

All that is assuming, however, that The Lord is unable to find any vessels as fit for his purpose as pliant as Kathy Nickolaus seems to have been. The lack-lustre results of the GOP's own efforts to recall Democrats, give working people some reason to hope. But then, since when have the opinions of working people counted in the eyes of the God of the Prosperity Gospel? Jesus may have believed that it is more difficult for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle [4], but Scott Walker and David Prosser don't appear to be of the same opinion. And then again, Jesus was just some slob from the shitty Gallilee Local777 of the Judean Carpenters Union--he didn't have nearly the money or connections of the Koch brothers.

The union-busting bill is expected to go before David Prosser's supreme court later this year.

Footnotes
[1] Yeah, that's me: naive. Of course the bad guys always win. I'm over four decades on this weary old planet now, but I still can't get it through my skull that willingness to break any law,taboo, custom, oath or vow not only confers a nearly insurmountable tactical advantage over old-fashioned ideals like Honor, Justice or Truth, but is also seen as a positive virtue in a society so totally devoted to being "in it to win it".

[2] Under Wisconsin law, any candidate may request a recount when he or she is within 0.02% of the "winning" candidate. While 7,000 votes on a state-wide basis was within that 0.02%, the history of electoral recounts suggested that it would be very difficult, if not exactly statistically impossible, to overcome such a "lead". Indeed, this turned out to be the case last week--though through a rather disappointing series of events as I've detailed above.

[3] Latin for "Fortune favors the bold."

[4] Mark 10:25

BO Turns on the Charm: U.S. President Leaves Ireland Early for an Audience with British Monarch

2011-05-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

Guess crowns count for more than kin with some people . . . from Anissa Hadaddi at the International Business Times:

A dense cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano was being blown toward Scotland yesterday. While airlines started to cancel their flights, U.S. President Barack Obama was forced to cut short his visit to Ireland as fears of disruptions similar to those engendered by the Icelandic Eyjafjallajökull eruption in April 2010 mounted.

Hope nobody peed in that . . .

U.S. President Barack Obama drinks from a pint of Guinness stout at the Ollie Hayes pub in Moneygall, Ireland May 23, 2011. Obama sipped a pint of stout and cuddled babies on Monday as a tiny Irish village on Monday welcomed home "a long lost cousin" with an outpouring of affection. Hoisting a glass of Guinness at Ollie Hayes pub as fiddle music played, Obama thus began a four-nation tour of Europe with a celebration of his ancestral roots.

The expected disruption in Scotland is being caused by the smaller of two ash clouds from the volcano, with the main cloud causing minor disruptions around Scandinavia.

Officials say they don't expect the problems caused by the Grimsvotn volcano that began erupting on Saturday to be as great as that caused by the previous Icelandic volcano last year, when almost all air traffic in Europe was grounded for several days amid fears that the ash could cause engines to stall. As a result, millions of passengers were stranded for several days. In an attempt to reassure the public, the authorities maintained that systems and procedures have been largely improved.

Taking a different approach, pilots unions, however, expressed concerns that the ash could still be dangerous. Britain's Civil Aviation Authority said it now appears that ash could affect the U.K. and Ireland throughout the week. Loganair, a Glasgow-based regional airline was yesterday forced to cancel 36 flights scheduled this morning. The airline however added that its flights between Scottish islands would be unaffected.

Obama, who was previously due to spend Monday night in Ireland, preferred instead to fly to London early following fears he could end up stranded in Ireland . It is not the first time an ash cloud affected the U.S. president schedule as last year's ash cloud forced Obama to cancel a trip to Poland, which he is due to visit this week as part of his European tour.

Officials say Obama's schedule in London, where he will spend two days, has not been affected at this point.

Talking to journalists Andrew Haines, Chief Executive of the CAA, explained: "Our number one priority is to ensure the safety of people both on board aircraft and on the ground. We can't rule out disruption, but the new arrangements that have been put in place since last year's ash cloud mean the aviation sector is better prepared and will help to reduce any disruption in the event that volcanic ash affects UK airspace."

His comments came after last year many airlines said authorities overestimated the danger and impact that the ash would have had on planes, and accused them of overreaction when airspaces were closed for five days.
CAA spokesman Jonathan Nicholson said that this time authorities would ensure airlines are better informed as they will be constantly updated about the location and density of ash clouds. He however explained that any airline wanting to fly would have to present a safety report to aviation authorities in order to be allowed to fly.

After being closed for almost 36 hours on Monday Keflavik, Iceland's main airport has now reopened and despite flights disruptions still occurring, it remains for now operational.

Yesterday Hjordis Gudmundsdottir, spokeswoman for the airport administrator Isavia, said, "The outlook is good for Keflavik and other Icelandic airports in the coming 24 hours. We don't have a forecast for after that so we wait and see."

If massive disruptions are for now just a threat, the possibility of disruption was nonetheless affecting airline shares, which fell more than the market average. IAG, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia, closed down 5.1 per cent yesterday while Lufthansa shed 3.5 per cent and Air France KLM fell 4.5 per cent.

And Now: The Homily from Brother Dimon . . .

2011-05-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

It's 21st May: If you're reading this, you're in Hell; welfare Queen JP Morgan Chase's CEO, Jamie Dimon provides today's post-rapture homily via AOL/AP/Huffington Post

"US Debt Default Would Be A Moral Disaster"

(AP) DENVER -- It would be a "moral disaster" if the United States were to default on its debts and become unable to pay its obligations, JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon said at an appearance in Colorado Thursday evening.

The U.S. is the financial linchpin of the world, and the economic effects of the U.S. defaulting could be "potentially catastrophic," he said at a dinner for the University of Colorado Denver Business School.
"It will dwarf Lehman," Dimon said, referring to the 2008 collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers, which contributed to the beginning of a global financial crisis.

Dimon's comments came in response to a question about the federal deficit from moderator Tom Petrie, a vice chairman of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Congress is debating raising the country's $14.3 trillion borrowing limit. White House officials say the government will run out of cash to pay expenses Aug. 2, but lawmakers have said they want spending cuts before they agree to raise the debt ceiling.

Dimon got a standing ovation at the dinner, a marked contrast to JPMorgan's annual meeting in Ohio on Tuesday, when more than 400 demonstrators shouted outside. The protests were organized by a coalition of clergy and unions, which is pushing for action and legislation around banking practices that hurt troubled homeowners.

Along with all the major banks in the country, JPMorgan Chase has been criticized for its handling of mortgage foreclosures.
After Petrie noted The New York Times recently called him America's least hated banker, Dimon quipped he never expected to be in a business where he'd be on the receiving end of so much anger.
"Our people work hard, they give a damn, they help their communities," he said.

During the crisis, JPMorgan Chase bought Bear Stearns Cos. and what was left of Washington Mutual Inc. after it failed. It also accepted aid from the federal government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, even though it didn't need to, Dimon said.

Dimon has said government officials told him that taking the aid would boost the health of the financial system and reduce the stigma of only a few banks accepting aid. At the time, Dimon called TARP money a scarlet letter.

Once JPMorgan repaid the aid, Dimon said he was tempted to include a note to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that said, "P.S. During the whole time you were lending us $25 billion, we were loaning you $200 billion" in the form of Treasury instruments the company holds.

Kartoonz fer Krist's Sake . . .

2011-05-05T08:18:00.000-07:00

Found these bizarre clips on Youtube . . . from an old RTÉ series called "Give Up Yer Aul Sins"

Pretty amazing in its own way. The narrative content shows a pretty deep familiarity with the characters and plots central to the Christian drama, even if its skimpiness with the gorey brutality of The Passion seems a little naive. I guess I have to keep in mind that this thing was produced by foreigners, so I shouldn't expect them to demonstrate the sublte mastery of an American artiste like Mel Gibson.

Anyhow, the voice talent on this thing is superb--those actors sound like real kids. One can only hope the polish of this thing inspires some for-real Americans to step up the plate with the likes of a "Terry Jones and the Westboro Babies" cartoon.

Sasquatch Sighted At England's Bath Abbey*; Osama Bin Laden Dead at Age 54

2011-05-02T10:31:00.000-07:00

"The next worst thing to a battle lost is a battle won," Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (1769-1852)

"Team America--Fuck YEAH!" Joe Cowboy, upon 'foiling' a terrorist plot to destroy Paris

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," French proverb

"Heads you win, tails I lose," Barack Obama to Rance Priebus, November 2012

"100 years of dogs on commemorative plates," Dr. Lionel Tobin, British Association for the Paranormal ("B.A.P.", retired)

Obviously you have heard the news by now: On 1st May 2011, a team of U.S. Navy S.E.A.L. operatives, working from intelligence obtained by the CIA confronted and killed Osama Bin Laden outside his safehouse located in Abottabad, Pakistan. In accordance with Islamic requirements regarding the prompt internment of corpses, his body was buried at sea within 24 hours of his death.

I found out about this gradually from about 20 after 9pm, Central Time when someone posted a Huffington Post item about Obama giving an urgent, impromptu speech about a grave national security matter. Additional dribs and drabs came in through the twitter feed of a CNN reporter, Steve Brusk until Obama's actual television appearance.

Whatever your reaction to the news, whether or not you believe it or, as certain readers of Disinformation seem likely, don't even believe that Osama Bin Laden ever existed it has to be admitted that it the announcement itself is of huge practical importance: Obama's public commitment to the statement raises an enormous question mark over the official rationale for continued military operations in Afghanistan.

Also, what precisely are "paranormal sciences"? Isn't that a bit of an oxymoron? How could "supernatural forces" be measured and quantified for empirical study?

Initial Reactions

Judging by media reports and my ancedotal observations of my mostly American Facebook coterie, the immediate response was an overwhelming call to celebration, a recognition that a sort of balance had been restored to the universe by the violent death of a man "credited" or "charged" (if there indeed be a single word or phrase capable of comprehending the attribution of such a heinous crime) with the slaughter of thousands of non-combatants on a sunny morning in Manhattan in September 2001.

Even staunch opponents of Obama's policy of unconstitutional, eternal warfare seemed overjoyed: Sure now there no longer lay before us any serious obstacle to the complete and immediate withdrawal of American troops from the Middle East; our causus belli had been completely satisfied.

I myself, however, couldn't really muster the same enthusiasm. While I recognized that this was surely a hugely significant turning point in the evolution of Ameica's involvement in the region, it was clear to me that there were many curious ambiguous threads woven into this story that are not likely to resolve themselves in the near future, if at all. True, the dramatic character of the events seemed to shriek a confident certainty. But 'Certainty' is a moron.

I nearly fucking vomited when I heard NPR tool Guy Raz, referred to NYC, the site of some of the most jubillant celebration as, " . . . the city most affected by Osama Bin Laden."

Downtown Manhattan, Guy Raz' conception

Additionally, it is possible that the Sasquatch, a cryptobiological species almost exclusively associated with the northern Pacific Coast of North America, came to Britain along with Canadian support troops for the 1944 assault on Normandy?

Questions

The first question that hit me was, "How the Hell could the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service, not have been aware that Bin Laden had been living literally in their back yard for at least four years?" While Obama's speech vaguely credited the operation's success on cooperation with Pakistani authorities, all detailed reports agreed that:

1.) The operation was conducted with U.S. personnel only;

2.) The information upon which it was based came from sources detained by U.S. forces;

3.) Pakistani authorities were notified only AFTER the fact;

4.) Abottabad is a Pakistani military town about 60 miles from its capitol city, Islamabad--just about the OPPOSITE end of the country from the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan whence U.S. intelligence services had been directed by the ISI.

So just what the Fuck was really going on here? Was Bin Laden actually being hidden, aided and abetted by elements of the Pakistani government? The same government the cash-strapped U.S. had forked over perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars to during the last ten years? Had we really completely destroyed another country's infrastructure and installed a corrupt gangster puppet regime for no effectual purpose?

Even if somehow we could honestly come to grips with the loathesome self-horror attendant upon those answers, will we ever be able to make it right again? Apart from the renewed Taliban savageness in Afghanistan, the various demotic movements in the Islamic world of recent months make it clear that Pakistani society iself now needs to come to grips with the shadowy games that its troubled government has been playing on its behalf--independently of U.S. influence.

In light of these developments, we seriously have to consider the possibility that the extraordinary "Star Chamber" character of the proceedings against Dr. Lionel Tobin were actuated by motives of petty jealousy far beneath the supposed dignity of the British Association of Parapsychologists.

Fears

I have to say that at this point, I don't think that big changes are likely. Not in the near term, anyhow. Not without increased bloodshed. First of all, there is no one in the world, let alone the region, capable, after a decade of dirty black ops tricks, rank media manipulation and the understandable paranoia inflicted by vicious civil wars, of garnering enough credibility and good will to command the uncontested loyalties of the region's peoples.

In truth, the mere death of Bin Laden isn't really even much of a speed bump, even, to the conduct of the conflict. Mainstream media security pundits have been quick to point out that Bin Laden's deep cover had effectively relegated him to the position of symbolic figurehead years ago, and de facto day-to-day control of operations have been in the hands of Ayman al-Zawahiri. Whether or not you believe this to be the factual case, it is the accepted narrative of the media, and it is the narrative that will drive the future conduct of American policy: No big changes in the foreseeable future.

Least of all because of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Remember that Sec. of State Hilary Clinton has on numerous occassions gone on record re-affirming America's prolonged commitment in the region is due at least as much to the presence of nuclear weapons in Pakistan as avenging the events of 9/11. Show of hands out there as to how many people think that such a threat, even if you consider it primarily theoretical rather than actual, would be REDUCED by a Pakistani population enraged by yet another unauthorized U.S. military operation within their sovereign territory?

Are the fetid, manure-like odors cited by more recent observers in Bath Abbey further evidence of the Sasquatch's continued lurking within the buildings confines? I shudder to think . . .

Certainties

I admit that I'm just sounding the depths out there on how regional realpolitik will affect American policy going forward. Testing my intuitions. However, to me, the ultimate effects of this announcement on American presidential politics seem much clearer: Obama will be punished.

I realize that this may seem utterly counter-intuitive to many readers. It certainly does run against the grain of the current tide of popular opinion that I see being expressed on Facebook and other popular and social media. But it should be recognized that this is the 2nd day of May 2011--exacly 554 days before the presidential election and more than a year before even the party nominations are expected to be officially announced. And I am totally convinced that if there is anyone on this earth incompetent enough to fuck up the apparently unassailable PR advantage of being the "sheriff who shot" Osam Bin Laden, it is Barack Hussein Obama.

Given the feckless stupidity of the American electorate and the depressingly powerful entropic forces of realpolitik that most likely mean either a humiliating American retreat from the region, or more likely, an increasingly obvious stalement that will totally expose Obama's essential powerlessness and rhetorical falsity over the next 554 days, the conclusion seems a foregone result: An as-of-yet TBA Republican nominee will receive credit for "successful" conduct of a muscular American military policy, while Obama will be blamed for its inevitable failure. This is the typical result of the cartoonish dichotomy established for the kabuki theatre that we call America's two party Democratic (Mommy party) / Republican (Daddy party) system.

This time there will be no fantasy market bubbles to save Obama, a la Bill Clinton in 1996 or ginned-up wartime enthusiam to tide him over a la Bush II in 2004. Even in the unlikely scenario that Obama does announce a plan to immediately and drastically reduce troop commitments in the region, it will not be practically possible to put it into effect before the election. With regard to Ameicans' attention spans, they have a 16-oz drinking habit and 4-oz bladders; they'll piss all overthemselves long before the pint has a chance to get warm.

Finally, how long can the creators of this video, Dave Clark and Kevin MacLeod, escape the same fate of enforced pixilation suffered by Dr. Tobin? I fear that the vengeful tentacles of the B.A.P. extend deeper and further than they may imagine.

Footnote
*Surrealistic metacommentary on my part. View the full 3-video series: "The Secret History of Bath Abbey"
by Dave Clark and Kevin MacLeod, on the BlueCrayon77 channel at Youtube.

"Herr Prösser?!!": The Madison Uprising to Shift Gears on April 5th

2011-03-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQiXPHhZ4Go

The madness surrounding Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's efforts to destroy trade unionism continues apace, but outsiders are likely to be deceived into thinking momentum of the Madison Uprising has been dissipated from its previous well-defined orbit. They couldn't be more wrong--and the turnout for Wisconsin's April 5th supreme court contest between Prosser (R) and Kloppenburg (D) will prove that.

Current reports from Madison consistently describe a hard core of about one to two dozen protestors haunting the capitol building these days. Some Right Wing supporters of the union-busting tactics have publicly taken courage from this decrease since March 11th, when Walker signed the contententious bill. That, however, would be to focus on the hole, rather than the doughnut, so to speak.

While massive 100+ person rallies like those that continued for 3+ weeks in the capitol building are hugely important for gathering momentum and mobilizing latent energies, they really only represent the tip of an ungodly horror being whipped up for Walker and his supporters in places where it will do some real damage--the home districts of Republican legislators. Here is but a brief sampling of highlights from the blog TMPDC:

· The wife of Senator Randy Hopper (R-Fond du Lac) and their household help have signed petitions demanding Hopper’s recall in a very public way.

· In a related development certain to have impacts on the electoral viability of all the Republican legislators, even if mainly due to their common enrollment in the “Brotherhood of the Bill”, Hopper’s wife explained that the “family-values” senator has been living in an illicit Madison love nest with the staffer of a corporate lobbying firm since may of last year. The immediate fallout seems to have been the termination of Hopper’s 25 year-old lover from Persuasion Partners, a corporate lobbying firm. Hopper himself is 45 years old. Beyond the high pitch of phoniness and hypocrisy it broadcasts, it does also raise questions about the legality of his tenure and vote, considering Wisconsin’s legislative residency requirements[1]. As of March 17, polls showed hopper trailing a generic Democratic challenger by 49% to 44%. I shall also be on the lookout for any rumours of prosecution of ethics laws relating to Persuasion Partners’ lobbying efforts.[2]

· Overall, efforts to recall Republicans from other districts appear to be meeting with similar success. Dan Kanapke (R- LaCrosse) and Luther Olsen (R- Ripon) were lagging in polls as of March 15th. Indeed, the fury of Wisconsin voters seems to be spilling beyond the boundaries of the original programme to recall 8 Republican senators; the current total being targeted is 14. I myself can say anecdotally that I have been very impressed by Democrats' maintenance of strict adherence to ethical guidelines [3].

· The "progress" of counter-efforts to recall Democratic senators appears to be a bit spottier, however. I haven't been able to find much reliable data regarding their progress to date or reliable poll figures which might provide some additional insight. That may be because recall drives don't require interim status reporting under Wisconsin law. Or it might be a reflection of the lack of enthusiasm of Walker's anti-democratic top-down approach among rank and file voters. Come to find out that several of the GOP's recall drives were spear-headed by out-of-state consulting firms, which is a no-no under the law. There seems to have been some hold up in the campaigns whilst they sought an in-state partner to validate their efforts.

· Recently released figures suggest that Walker's attempted putsch has actually revitalized unions as a political force, a thing that may not have happened if he'd been content to let sleeping dogs lie. Apparently Democrats have already raised $250,000 more in the seven weeks from February 1, 2011 through March 21, 2011 than they did during the whole of 2010--which defies convention, given the fact that there (were) no regularly scheduled elections for statewide legislative or executive office for 2011.

However, there is an even more urgent confrontation on the horizon: The April 5th state supreme court election; David Prosser (R-Sheboygan) vs. JoAnne Kloppenburg (D- Madison). Recent events seem certain to shove this thing up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court (at least), and the position of the Republican candidate seems clear: fearing that his incumbency will be defeated by the anger whipped up by the bill, Prosser along with the rest of the Republicans currently on the supreme court, is pushing to bring the case to the court's review before any successful Democratic challenger can be sworn in.

By now you've surely heard of Walker's continued efforts to up the ante in the already knuckle-biting game of injunction and counter-publication surrounding legal challenges to the union-busting law and extraordinary procedures by which it passed the legislature. The final outcome still seems murky at this point, but it amounts to Governor Walker daring Wisconsin's courts to enforce their own injunctions; he's ordered publication of the bill despite a court forbidding such publication. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) may not be a lawyer, or even one of the sharper knives in the drawer, but he has gone on record stating that publication means the bill IS law, without regard to any action of the courts. Not exactly the "checks-and-balances" sort of approach you'd expect from a constitutional scholar and limited government advocate, but many people don't really think that Big Fitz actually believes everything that he says; the only requirement is that you believe what he says.

With the myriad of issues surrounding this case is complex, including the legality of passing a bill which is ostensibly vital to the success of the budget plan without the necessary quorum required of budget bills, the lack of sufficient notice given for the vote under Wisconsin's open meetings law, and whether the bill might constitute some sort of violation of the unions' political rights given the U.S. Supreme Court's affirmation of the same in the controversial "Citizens United Case"--and now the revelation that some sitting Republicans may have been ineligible for the seats they held and the bill's publication contrary to court rulings. I highly doubt that any effort to reach a final determination within Wisconsin's supreme court within one week will be successful.

It is, however, further confirmation, as if any were needed, of the Republicans' willingness to abandon all pretence of transparent, orderly proceeding under the state constitution in order to effect their personal power grabs. Rather casts them in the light of some comically brutal Prussian burgomeister strutting about in a WWI pickelhaube and abusing his subordinates. It's all like something out of "The Good Soldier

Šveijk".

Footnotes

[1] I'm no lawyer, though I have had some rudimentary legal training. I have to wonder if Hopper truthfully responded to the required pre- and post-election reports per Wisconsin Statutes 11.20(3)(a) with regard to his living arrangements? I don't think so. Chapter 17.03 indicates that a legislative seat is vacated by a member's failure to meet residency requirements. Bad mojo for Hopper.

[2]My first thoughts are regarding the ability of Persuasion Partners to continue its lobbying activities under Wisconsin Statutes Section 13.68(6) given possible implications of Hopper living in an apartment paid for by one of their employees.

[3] I received an email setting out the set of guidelines for conducting recall efforts aimed against local Democrats. These guidelines appear to be zealously communicated and enforced by the groups I've had occassion to visit, not only online, but by trained on-site directors through scheduled education sessions.

The Beginning of the End? We Can Only Hope

2011-03-16T15:38:00.000-07:00

Previously sympathetic commentators disillusioned by Obama's unchecked lying and fumbling were heartened by the uncharacteristic candour coming from Deputy Secretary of State P.J. Crowley late last week--until he was shit-canned for the same early this week.

But there is still some cause for hope: Hillary has anounced her own plans to jump ship at the end of this term as well. Check out her blunt statements to that effect here.

Is this yet another harbinger of the destruction of Obama's career? A recognition that the situation is so bad that even the filthiest bilge rats see that it's time to abandon ship? Seems like a reasonable possibility. Anyone working a political paradigm that relies on unquestioning tribal loyalty to the exclusion of substantive policies the way Obama does should be concerned about the defection of establishment stalwarts. Very concerned.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's been quite a bit going on at all levels of the political spectrum--I should not fail to mention the special fireworks being lit in Michigan. But for the purposes of our discussion here, it's probably more immediately relevant to pass on the rumour being floated around that DNC chief Tim Kaine, may be replaced in the coming months. Ted Strickland, the man currently speculated to replace Kaine, has a bit of a waffel-y record on business and tax issues, but has gone solidly on the record in opposition to free trade treaties like NAFTA.*

Yeah, early days here. But encouraging trends seem to be bubbling up from the surface. It's tempting to imagine that, with the remains of an incompetent establishment no longer blocking the way, the latent energies unleashed at by the Madison Uprising finally have a chance to take on a more coherent and effective shape nationally.

Footnote
*Incidentally, although PolitiFact Ohio seems to lay out the various elements in the contention clearly enough, they seem to have done a pretty half-assed job in assessing them. If the author of this piece could believe that the EPI's estimates were effected by it's pro-union affiliation, why could he or she not challenge the impartiality of the World Bank or the U.S. International Trade Commission? Those last two organizations are not exactly deep undercover as bastions of deep neo-liberal commitments.

And I seriously doubt the PolitiFact author read or understood the underlying studies very well--because the CBO's stated conclusion regarding reduction in tariffs is directly contradicted by that of the Carnegie Endowment (see linked reports here FN5,p4 and here, esp. fig's 1 & 3 on pp 15 & 16). The CBO's conclusions about net job movement seem oddly oblivious to the plain fact that the destruction of Mexico's agricultural sector has more to do with the mind-boggling productivity efficiency in the U.S. than its sheer scale. Mexico's employment losses here certainly did NOT result in massive hiring gains in the U.S. How could it? As measured by the ratio between GDP and farm employment, the U.S. went from being just over twice as efficient in 1992 to being over 5 1/2 times more efficient in 2010. Check out details in this workbook if you care to.

On balance I give PolitiFact Ohio an 'F' for this report. It's not my job to go around correcting all their failed reports, so I'm not going redo their work here. I'll just say that PolitiFact did nowhere near an adequate job in assessing these claims.

The Face of Responsible Republicanism . . .

2011-03-10T14:54:00.000-08:00

Final tally in the Assembly, folks: 53-42, along mostly party lines. However:

1 Republican senator defected--Dale Schultz.
4 Republican assembly members defected - Dean Kaufert, Lee Nerison, Travis Tranel and Richard Spanbauer.

Remember those names; those are the only Republican legislators from the 2011/2012 session that have political careers going forward.

Naturally this is only the beginning of a long legal contest. There are numerous procedural grounds for contesting the legitimacy of this bill that I won't go into here. I've already touched on the U.S. constitutional conundrum presented. I find it difficult to believe that any court would not quickly issue an injunction to prevent implementation, at least pending trial.

Shit's on for real now, boys.

What If They Held A Civil War And The Military Didn't Show Up?

2011-03-10T08:51:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you've already heard the news: Between roughtly 4:00pm and 6:30pm last night, Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald stripped the union-busting provisions of Wisconsin's notorious "Budget Repair Bill" into a stand-alone bill, which as an allegedly non-fiscal bill required a much smaller quorum to floor, and forcibly destroyed trade unionism in the state.

A vote in the assembly is scheduled for 11:00am local time today, 10th March, but nobody seriously expects any significant defection within the heavy Republican majority.

Upon learning of the coup d'état, crowds rushed and occupied the capitol building in violation of Walker's Department of Administration restrictions. See video here.

Although exempted from the draconian provisions of the bill, it's been clear for weeks that the police and their unions know that it is only a matter of time and opportunity until Walker attempts to destroy their political voice as well.

Clearly the next round of conflict will surround injunctions and constitutional challenges to this extraordinary bill, which surely will be legion. But Republican Walker's fantastic incompetence and three-week public relations fiasco has provided more than enough evidence to prove that the measures were never intended to address fiscal issues, but solely to destroy the historically Democrat unions ability to organize politically.

Strike action of some kind, maybe even the ledgendary National General Strike, appears to be immanent. Protests are being organized at county courthouses statewide, as Madison doesn't appear big enough to contain the people's fury at this end-run past constitutional process.

In my mind, the fundamental question becomes: "If the U.S. Supreme Court is willing to uphold corporate political rights for businesses under Citizens United, how will they deny them to labor unions without a tacit admission that our society is held together only by sheer brute force?"

I guess that begs the further question, given police disgust at Walker's contempt for public trust and order: "What if they held a Civil War and the military refused to show up?"

Still Waters Run Deep: Phase 2 of the Madison Uprising

2011-03-07T14:08:00.000-08:00

"The Scream" by Edvard Munch

The differences between Madison, Wisconsin and Tripoli, Libya should be obvious. The fact that the Madison hasn’t been floated away on a crimson tide of gore should be encouraging—horrors on that atavistic scale happen only where there exists not even the nominal right to redress majoritarian excesses through protest. And the contrast to America’s experience of 1968 is positive as well; I remind you that movement flamed out prematurely due to inexperience and lack of discipline. The image created in my mind by this phase of the Madison Uprising is more like that evoked by Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”—the silent edge of a rising shout.

The crowds in Madison seem to have leveled out at a steady 30,000-40,000 per day, according to most reports. That is a pretty freakin’ huge # when put into context of the relatively sparse population of this section of Wisconsin and personal commitments being made by protesters in order to attend, in terms of time and money. All the more so when you consider the scanty number of counter-demonstrators that the dilettante Koch brothers have been able to scare up from out of state, even with literally billions of dollars at their disposal.

And the theatre isn't over by a long shot. There are ongoing recall efforts on both sides. And beyond recent Hollywood fly-bys, there is a plan for thousands of Wisconsin farmers to show their solidarity with a tractor convoy to the capitol on Saturday, March 12th.

Nonetheless, it has to be admitted that the two camps have pretty well defined their positions, and the recent encounters between them seem limited to procedural skirmishes rather than the sort of rooftop todeskampf that our infamously short-attention span media crave. Here are a few of the highlights:

-Courts ruled that Walker’s attempt to close off the Capitol building to protesters is unconstitutional—but also placed restrictions on the hours that protesters may access the building, including a prohibition on overnight stays.

-Authorities discover live ammunition left at the entrance to the Capitol building. Given his breezy contemplation of hiring undercover goons to start a ruckus within the protesters’ ranks, some speculate that Walker is using this as a black op of some sort to ratchet up the tension.

-If so, the balance of the evidence suggest that this is a MAJOR miscalculation on Walker’s part. The peaceful conduct of the protesters was formally commended by a local judge, and the single confirmed incident of which I have become aware seems to have been resolved quickly and quietly with no disruption to the peaceful conduct of the protests.[1] Although police are dutifully maintaining their mandate to oversee public order, they don’t seem inclined to violate citizens’ rights in the name of Walker’s power grab. In fact, the police have gone on national record as declaring solidarity with the protesters.

-Senate Majority Leader, Republican Scott Fitzgerald, called for vigilante action to apprehend the Wisconsin 14. Jim Palmer, the president of a major police union, decries the action as an abuse of power, being neither in accordance with the state’s constitution nor statutory law.

-Walker didn’t really unleash any surprises in his official budget unveiling last Tuesday, either. There are suspicions that Walker may have coordinated with Koch in order to bus in ringers to applaud his highness’s speech. But no surprises. The substantive detail drawing the most public attention are the devastating cuts contemplated to the state’s education programs—not generally considered a wise workforce development strategy.

These actions all seem par for the course, and few, in the short term, are likely to be swayed out of their current positions. But that would be to ignore the tremors rumbling beneath the surface, the silent scream rising within. The opposition is beginning to get organized. Walker’s stupid, scattershot intransigence has done the single thing that Clinton- or Obama-esque triangulations could never do, which is to meet together and formulate coordinated structures, strategies and tactics to actively promote a truly moral agenda.

Getting’ Organized

I don’t think the terms “Left”, “liberal”, “Democrat” or “progressive” are much use here, because even if they are widely associated in the public mind with the stated platform of the Democratic Party, their high-flying connotations don’t match the recent history of its actual policy. I’ve written at length about this phenomenon and why I think it spells the end of Obama’s career elsewhere, so I’ll just limit myself here to mentioning that, for the purposes of this article, I intend to refer to as “moral” all aspects of the genuine, since and active promotion of policies supporting what heretofore has been commonly known as the “Democratic” platform. Feel free to write to me with comment, protest or counter-suggestion at your leisure.

It’s worth reminding ourselves that while the spark that lit this whole conflagration was Walker’s insistence on depriving unions of their collective bargaining rights, as time wore on a legion of other spooks came crawling out of this bill that aroused even deeper public ire and distrust, being total prima facie betrayals of even the Tea Party’s minimalist ideals[2]:

1. Destruction of collective bargaining rights.

2. DHS takeover of Medicaid, which some are calling Walker's de facto "Death Panels"

3. Severe restriction on women's contraceptive options

4. The destruction of the Wisconsin educational system, at both the primary and secondary levels.

5. Scott Walker's $60 million per annum corporate tax give away.

Could any one of these items in isolation have pulled tens of thousands protesters onto Walker’s back daily for over two weeks? Or sparked similar outrage in Ohio and Indiana? I doubt it. Certainly it would not have created a rallying point for advocates of civil rights, peace, fiscal responsibility and economic equity. In a previous blog post I wondered aloud whether Richard Trumka and Jerry McEntee, the presidents of two of this country’s largest trade union federations understood this. I haven't heard anything from them to that effect, but certainly others ARE taking big strides in this direction.

American Dream Movement

On 22^nd February a piece by Van Jones in the Huffington Post announced the launch of the “American Dream Movement” by Moveon.Org and others to harness the energy of Madison Uprising into a formal platform and statement of policy goals. Basically it’s a call to unity and a conscious attempt to avoid the pragmatist splits that peeled off the civil rights, peace, fiscal responsibility and economic equity wings of the Democratic Party under Clinton and Obama. They, too, appear to be abandoning the tired, co-opted language of the DNC in favor of a purer distillation of their philosophy—MORALITY. Just what I was groping for in my more experimental meditations posted here and at Disinformation.

I find this to be totally frickin’ aweseome—it could just be the framework that a new alternative party could be built around. I had pretty much announced the demise of the national Democratic Party in another blogpost, noting that Obama’s worthless inactivity in face of the crisis and the energy Madison had garnered in spite of it greatly appealed to my sense of history and emerging possibility. I was unaware at that time that the American Dream Movement had already been around for a week previous, yet I still don’t think my article was really redundant since the nascent American Dream Movement appears conspicuously to be missing some key components discussed in my blogpost: the scale and existential commitment of the unions, and identified leadership.

The Moveon approach is great; it cleverly leverages the media in a way that is truly responsive to the zeitgeist. But it is a very informal network of extremely loose affiliations whose effectiveness, many argue, has been diluted by a structure that advocates around individual, specific issues as selected by a plebescite rather than a coordinated long-term plan. One might be tempted to call it the counterpart to the Tea Party movement in its populism, but I’d say that the Moveon approach, lacking a slate of charismatic candidates of their own, they’re at a severe communications disadvantage. The American Dream Movement adds a formal platform, but still lacks a formal list of candidates and real physical infrastructure.

Distant Rumblings: An Awakening Giant or Merely the Re-Emergence of Old Intramural Rivalries?

The unions, however, DO HAVE the physical infrastructure that is needed. Their problem was an exhausted complacency, given the deceptive appearance of “prosperity” in the economy at large for the last 30 years, gradual erosion of their apparent relevance in the tide of globalism, and the end of vicious internecine warfare between the so-called “Left” and “Right” wings of the movement. I hope that the general contours of collapsed bubbles and the impact of outsourcing are well enough understood by my audience to preclude the need to address them in depth here. But if you’re anything like me, you probably didn’t know much about the recent history of the labor movement in the United States or why the International Workers of the World’s (“IWW”) general strike campaign in Madison should shock you.

America is not an environment that has long tolerated radical movements. My overseas friends might be surprised to hear that, given the truly jaw-dropping stupidity on display by Tea Partiers the likes of Sarah Palin or Christine O’Donnell, but it’s true. There have been comparable radical bumblers in American history, like the John Birch Society and the Know Nothing Party, but they’ve generally been flashes in the pan, so to speak, because they inevitably offend two core American values: personal liberties and social mobility. We’re less than three months into the new session of Congress or any of the state legislative sessions, but recent polls suggest that the Tea Party’s refusal to confront difficult realities during the campaign, and therefore to develop an approach to government respectful of those core principles, is already coming back to haunt it.[3]

And in the eyes of many, the IWW was simply a Left-wing counterpart, par excellence, of the Birchers, a bunch of crazies just as unrealistic in their refusal to accomodate American values. On the face of it, the IWW’s constitution does seem openly hostile to the notion of social mobility. They were physically harassed by U.S. government agents for their efforts to oppose American involvement in WWI and they were practically rubbed out of existence by the anti-Communist Taft-Harley Act of 1950. Today their numbers in the U.S. are estimated at about 900 (i.e., about 0.02% of the AFL-CIO federation and 0.10% of Andy Stern’s “Change to Win” organization, which includes the Teamsters). Recent achievements include and some organizing some Chicago bicycle messengers.

Yah, I know what you’re saying, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WASTING MY TIME WITH THIS IWW CRAP?! Nine hundred dudes?! That’s a slow weekend for Paris Hilton!” But that’s precisely my point: the truly ideological Left has been so utterly marginalized in this country that top leadership of traditional trade unionism may well be in as bad a fix as the Democratic Party leadership, bereft of much more than a few populist-sounding platitudes that it has no intention of pursuing forcefully.

I’m not a union guy myself, let alone with any serious access to the top echelons of that rarified crowd, so I couldn’t say to you that this is a universal fact. Certainly there are more than a few rank and file union members who are willing to vilify individual leaders—Andy Stern, in particular, is seen as being a sellout, closely allied to the unreliable Barack Obama, a frequent visitor to the White House and serving with the desultory National Committee on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. While that does seem damaging to me, let’s remember that the issues are complicated. Stern led a major revolt against the AFL-CIO by creating the “Change to Win” federation, peeling off perhaps as many as 5 million members from their rolls in 2005 in an effort to divert priorities towards membership recruitment rather than political campaigning or lobbying. Although many of the unions that defected to “Change to Win” have since returned to the AFL-CIO, there are some lingering animosities; some say that the AFL-CIO’s reluctance to pursue more aggressive recruitment goals was due to xenophobic reluctance to seriously expand out of its white, rustbelt heartland.

And Madison, February 2011 is where the IWW comes back into the picture, advocating for a general strike.

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/05/iww-general-strike-p.html

Posters like these and pamphlets like these have been circulating in Madison, trying to stir up more dramatic action than the well-ordered marches that have regularly taken place on the Capitol these past three weeks. I myself don’t quite know what to make of them yet. My first reaction was to dismiss them as an irrelevant self-promotion, given the paltry numbers that the IWW itself is capable of mustering, and the massive practical difficulties confronting any general strike (e.g., their illegality, the high degree of discipline required, the likely depleted condition of strike funds, etc.). [4] Remember: general strikes are attempts to shut down an entire economy, so they’re no small joke.

But now even if the IWW is not really a mover-and-shaker, there IS reason to wonder if a general strike may not be in the offing: Some members of the traditional labor establishment seem to be rising to the challenge. According to a Huffington Post article of 3^rd March, Kenny Riley, president of a South Carolina longshoremen’s local, was expected to call for a NATION-WIDE general strike during an emergency meeting of various labor representatives in Cleveland, Ohio. Given what many perceive as decades of neglect of unions and a sclerotic shift to the right by their top leadership, how feasible is this notion? Could its primary importance, like that of the IWW pamphlets, really be as a signal that a new generation is beginning to challenge the old guard?

Footnotes

[1] One incident involved the tackling of a Democratic assemblyman, Nick Milroy as he attempted to enter the Capitol building. However, the matter doesn’t seem to have created any lingering ill will, and Milroy chalked it up to an understandable consequence of the heightened tensions brought on by Walker’s extraordinary security measures and related breakdown in communications in such unusual circumstances. This explanation is a lot more plausible than outsiders might first think, especially in context of the administration’s refusal to allow fire fighters access to the building in response to an emergency call.

[2] I’ve discussed all of these earlier at this link. The only item new to me since that time, I believe is Walker’s subterfuge to severely limit contraception options through his takeover of healthcare.

[3] Authoritarianism and austerity aren’t nearly appealing in reality as they sounded in the abstract: Nearly two thirds of Wisconsinites believe Scott Walker is being too inflexible with regard to unions. Nation wide, there seems to be a growing call to increase taxes on the rich closer to their historic norms, to make them “carry their own weight”.

[4] In a previous post (paragraph # 8), I touched briefly on these how these difficulties were reflected in recent news articles here and here.

An Appeal to Readers: Help Me Update Fact Checking Resources

2011-03-03T15:12:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned several times, events in Madison are moving at an insanely quick pace. It is an environment where flakey rumours get spread quickly--too quickly.

This blog is resourced mainly to provide analysis and editorial. Thus, as you'd expect, I am very dependent upon original news sources. I don't have a huge staff to cover hundreds of miles of ground myself. The best I've been able to do to date is to clearly cite sources, and to have multiple sources or at least have one source in the traditional media who do have the staff to perform the necessary fact checks.

Of course, given the enormous significance of the issues at stake in Madison, some analysis or comment is still useful before events have settled irretrievably. Remember: these protests are about the public's ability to influence state policy; it wouldn't do in every circumstance to wait until it's too late to effect that policy. I've done my best to be judicious and fair, and as the case applies, publish a clear caveat about the unconfirmed status of the relevant details.

Where necessary I am updating posts and leaving footnotes about the details which have been edited.

So I'm making a formal appeal to my readership to leave a comment beneath this post send me a Facebook message if they feel they have some additional sources they'd like to recommend. If you guys make this blog work because you read and comment on the quality of analysis, you also make it work because you help me get the facts right.

Thanks.

Hold That Tiger! And Check For Fingerprints!

2011-03-03T13:16:00.000-08:00

Check this out from WisPolitics.com: "UW Police chief says ammunition found at three Capitol entrances"

These are crazy times, so anything is possible. Maybe the report is false. I've seen only two sources to date*, Andy Szal's blog linked above, and Bill Glauber from the relatively reliable Milwaukee Journal Sentinel here.

Maybe a random, desperate attention seeker did this to ratchet up the tension.

Maybe a misguided individual protester did it out of frustration at Walker's intransigence.

I'd bet that Scotty has some notions of his own.

One thing I feel pretty confident about, though: Given the general bonhommie supposed to be prevailing among police and protesters, if it were a frame job of some sort it seems unlikely that Walker could find anyone vile enough within police ranks to plant this stuff. If Scotty did want to run a black op, he'd probably have to delegate it to one of the family retainers. And given the cheapjack incompetence he's demonstrated so far, it'd likely be smothered in incriminating fingerprints and DNA.

Again, anything could happen here. It may not have even happened. But if it did, I hope the sent it to the lab right away.

Footnote
* Updated from original post, which only referenced the Szal blog.

The Sacred Clowns Bring Krampus To Wisconsin Protests

2011-03-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

Visit http://www.modernmythology.net/

Fuckin' awesome, but beyond my powers to describe any better than the participants themselves. Posted at Disinformation by Rrauben:

"Liam,

I read your stuff here all the time and know you're only miles away from us and in sympathy. Help us keep the momentum up. We're scrambling to make more happen– there's a lot going on. Contact us via http://www.modernmythology.net... until we get our own site up.

MISSION STATEMENT – Sacred Clown Union

Yep. Some of our clowns definitely take inspiration from Krampus –“the henchmen of Saint Nick” thing you find in the Austrian, German and Swiss Alps. We live in Wisconsin, a bastion of German heritage, and we see those clowns as something we lost– something we want back!

The Nazis apparently hated Krampus. Our antlers tip in respect to those clowns. But this is global. We love love love the Japanese Namahage and the Native American Heyokas too! We embrace them all.

If we have one reservation though, it involves terrorizing little children into obedience, servitude or serfdom. That makes us cry. We no like that. Here, we do take our cues more from the Native American clowns (as well as other intact tribal traditions), more so than Krampus (as it is performed in the Alps today).

We’re here to sweep away the vile spirit of big, greedy, power-mad ego– the ones that seemingly care so little for the children– the ones that would imperil their own grandchildren just to line their own pockets. Our heart-sworn ethic is to do this with humor, creativity, art, dance, music and absurdity. Yes, we would willingly spank naughty parents and politicians, but the children are sacrosanct.

Sacred Clown Union is for the children– for their creativity, playfulness, and egoless-ness. We laugh and rampage, but we also cry over the loss of those qualities in “more mature” people. WE ARE HERE TO SAY: RETURN RETURN RETURN RECOVER RECOVER RECOVER get back to that creature you were before someone or something corrupted your mind!

We don’t care how you put on your clown or what you do to entertain the folk, just evoke love, empower your own personal sense of creativity, and get out there and get silly! And be REALLY sweet to the moms and the kids and the animals in particular!

OK, an admission here: we really do want to spank Sarah Palin until she squeals in orgasm! It would be healing for her! We are cunning linguists! We guarantee her satisfaction! As John Cleese once said, “Michael Palin is the funniest Palin.” No argument there.

Now it is time for all clowns to practice their silly walks. Get busy. Everyday! Silly walk practice for 5 minutes!"

Visit Modern Mythology

DNC RIP: 1848 - February 16, 2011

2011-03-01T14:56:00.000-08:00

"There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning."

Hunter S. Thompson, 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'

Well, almost . . . I'm not too confident about defeating Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's junta in the near term. In fact I'm detecting a growing rumble that suggests the earth is about to crack open within the next week and swallow the Madison Uprising whole. However, two other points seem equally clear to me: 1.) If it does, it will likely drag the DNC to Hell along with it; 2.) The DNC's demise may not be all that great a loss for Richard Trumka and Jerry McEntee--or the American people.

Richard Trumka, President AFL-CIO Jerry McEntee, President AFSCME

Madness
I'm only one lone blogger, an overfed garden gnome with a bad haircut. I can't possibly hope to convey to those outside of Wisconsin the full brutal glory and incendiary bolts of sheer lunacy roiling through the state right now. In part because I have heretofore lacked the resources and the contacts to be at the epicenter and in greater part because the whole awesome mess is so overwhelming that I think it'd be beyond the capability of a dedicated full-time team of bloggers to bring home the sublime scale of the thing.

For your consideration, is a mere list of highlights that I hope can convey a few of the dominant notes within the chaos and existential terror reverberating through this moment in history:

Betrayal . . .

. . . of populism

Revealed: Hidden within Tea-Party Governor Scott Walker's "Budget Repair Bill" is a provision surrendering unilateral determination of premiums, coverage and eligibility over Medicaid to the governor's Department of Health Services--in effect, creating the "Death Panels" the Tea Party fantasized about within the federal Health Care Reform Act.

Revealed: The bill also conceals a provision usurping as the exclusive prerogative of the executive branch the right to unilaterally negotiate in total secrecy the sale of public assets to private interests.

Revealed: Walker is expected to announce that he will use Wisconsin jobs as bargaining chips in his bid to take away the unions’ bargaining rights: the layoff of hundreds of workers unless his bill is passed exactly as he proposed it, without alteration. A far cry from his pledge to create 250,000 jobs made while he was campaigning.

. . . of traditional party loyalties

Far from ‘putting on a pair of comfortable shoes and joining in the picket line’ with the union supporters that made his 2008 election possible, Barack Obama resisted for almost two weeks before making even this feeble wet comment about the slaughter the constitutional rights of his constituents.

Rumors circulated on Facebook and Twitter around 6:30pm local time on Sunday February 27^th that Dale Schultz, a Republican senator, had defected and committed to vote against the bill. There were even YouTube clips circulating, purporting to contain audio of the defection and the protestors’ reaction. However, if this DID happen Schultz soon turned coat again. Back to square one.

As of late Monday the 28^th Facebook was bombarded with by repeated postings of two articles offering markedly different prognostications for the coming days:

An article by the ICFI explicitly announcing (on what I felt were slender pretexts) the definite end to the Madison Uprising, and a decisive fold by the unions. Didn’t seem to jive with emails I’d personally received from the AFSCME to join protests in Madison on the 1^st of March. However it is undeniably true that the protest leaders made significant scale backs in the size of the protest. [5]

A blog posting on Firedoglake, not in overt conflict with the quotes and interviews in the IFCI piece, that seemed to suggest that while the protests were definitely not being cancelled, there may be a growing rift within the union movements: A local union federation seemed to be actively contemplating a general strike should negotiation attempts fail before 13^th March, and a weirdly ambiguous statement by a union local rep asserting that individual union members were welcome to pursue individual actions outside the union framework.

Sum total: Whether or not the Madison Uprising succeeds in the short term, or is even betrayed by a national union leadership in thrall to the Obama machine, there DOES seem to be a new fissure opening or re-opening within the Left.

Idiocy . . .
. . . on the “Left”

During a recent Wisconsin Public Radio interview, Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate defeated by Scott Walker during the last election, gave a free pass to Obama for being AWOL at show time, sharing with us the heartwarming tale of how honored he felt to be admitted into the presence of the “Great Man” himself for a Super Bowl party. Tom might otherwise have been looked to for leadership of the political affiliation with whom his whole career had been predicated.

. . . on the “Right”

Scotty Walker: Well, where do you begin with such a ripe target? His capacity for stupid is so vast that it makes sense to break it down into several sub-categories:

Fiscal: Does THIS make sense, during a time of large impending deficits?

Throw away about $60 million in revenue per annum [1]

Split the Wisconsin University System into several smaller educational authorities, thereby multiplying non-value added administrative costs? [2]

Forgo the deferral of $165 million in debt payments for the sake of non-fiscal ideology [3]

Incur, at least by the only estimate I’ve seen to date, AT LEAST $147k of un-necessary policing costs PER DAY by refusing to negotiate with the Wisconsin 14. [4]

Default on a $47 million federal grant in order to pursue his vanity project of formally crushing a union movement has been practically been written off as moribund for decades.

Also, most union contracts with state and local authorities have already been completed for the next two years, reinforcing the fact that the union busting provisions of this bill have practically no fiscal impact within the timeframe contemplated by the budget.

The Constituents:

I could go on literally forever about this one. Wisconsin people will never disappoint a thirst for stupid, but here is my favorite analysis, according to 64 year-old “businessman” Robert Kleisner from Ripon and ask quoted in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

“ [management and labor are on the same side] . . . that would be like me and my wife negotiating our contract, pure and simple, and that’s wrong.”

As if somehow the two-week, 100,000+ person union marches against this bill in Madison represent the quintessential example of management/worker harmony in action. But don’t be too harsh on Kleisner: Ripon is on the edge of Wisconsin’s north central pine barrens, so apart from rampant inbreeding, the shallow soil isn’t really able to provide the type of mineral nutrition needed to stave off glandular problems of this sort. I’ve never met or seen Mr. Kleisner, but it’s a fair bet that he’s sporting a goiter the size of a cantaloupe.

Legal: Even if somehow Scotty still manages to push this bill through legislative procedure, despite polls showing about 2/3 of the state firmly against its Right Wing Power-grab, there are many strong reasons to believe that it cannot be enforced, even if the Supreme Court were willing to overlook its prima facie violation of the constitutional right to freedom of association:

There is ample precedent for the voiding of bills due to the inclusion of irrelevant provisions due to a lack of ‘germaneness’. I believe we have made generous discussion of the irrelevant if not down-right counter-productive effects littered within this bill.

The fact that the bill made it out of the Assembly at all seems to be the product of a low-grade “Hey what’s that thing over there behind you?” rhetorical tactic employed by Republican Majority Leader Scott Suder at 1:00 am on Friday, the 25th. Dirty tricks of that creeping level of dishonesty are so blatant that you hardly expect them from a sentient creature. Certainly four Republican members didn’t; they seemed to be caught in it just like all 25 Democrats were. Unless of course those four were being used as a decoy of some sort . . . .

The inconsistency of the union busting provisions with ‘Citizens United’ at the federal level. Ironically, Walker’s assertion of the authority to deny collective political rights to union members also directly undermines the conceptual framework underpinning the ability of business corporations to participate in political action.

Potential jail time: We were initially amused by the gullibility of Scott Walker in conducting a lengthy phone discussion with what he thought was a major campaign patron. However, the substance of those discussions appears to be an attempt on Walker’s part to solicit advice and funds in exchange for policy influence—which is a direct (and jailable) offense under Chapter 11 Section 36 of the Wisconsin State Statutes.

The Milwaukee City Attorney has released a formal statement challenging the constitutionality of Walker’s bill because it infringes upon the City’s right to independently determine the terms of its contracts. It certainly does seem ironic that a Tea Party stalwart like Walker is so insistent upon the state usurping the rights of its constituents to freely enter into contracts of its own volition.

Immorality . . .
Did you actually READ any of the stuff up through this point? Which bits sound particularly worthy of St. Francis of Assisi to you?

Madness. Sheer madness. Not on the atavistic scale of Libya or even Egypt. But impressive by the standards of starchy Midwestern United States. And certainly not some type of plastic wannabe poser madness put on by the likes of a crappy 1970’s tribute band, but far reaching soul wrenching lunacy. This protest was not the product of some half baked students looking for the way to pass the time—it was largely coordinated and to a great extent manned by an army of grey-beards who would look more at home on the set of Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” than “Les Misérables”. Totally against the conventional wisdom that it takes a youth movement to get people onto the streets.

Sparks

All of this is still up in the air, without any hint of resolution as of the time of writing. However, events are moving quickly. I have to concede that dramatic shifts are not only possible but likely before you even get a chance to read this. Rumors of general strikes to rival the 1970’s barn-burners in the U.K. Sympathy marches in front of statehouses throughout the U.S. inspired by Bob Wirch, Chris Larson and the rest of the “Wisconsin 14”, Democratic senators in Indiana have also fled in order to stall strong-arming by that state’s Republican caudillo.

When I managed to get away from immediate maelstrom late Monday I sat down in my flat and made a list of takeaways, even if only as an exercise to calm my nerves and help me get my bearings. Here’s what I had:

The gloves are off. The Right Wing has stopped even pretending that this union busting bill is about job creation or fiscal responsibility. Even for idiots like Robert Kleisner the choices must be obvious: stand up with the workers and fight for your rights as free born Americans, or start learning how to suppress your gag reflex and become a Koch-sucker.
Obama has lost any shred of credibility within the Democratic Party base. Preternatural skills at Machiavellian triangulation may have saved him from the immediate fallout of betraying the anti-war wing in Afghanistan, the civil rights wing with the renewal of the Patriot Act, the foreign policy wing by refusing to sign a U.N. statement censuring Israeli human rights abuses in Palestine, the financial wing by continuing Dubya’s policy of continued bailouts for incompetent banksters and even the fiscal responsibility wing, when Obama arranged a backroom deal to provide millionaire trust fund brats with yet another tax break, despite the vigorous and principled opposition of stalwarts like DeFazio, Sanders and Feingold. But outright idleness in the face of the destruction of your actual voting base is a bridge too far.
Even should the Dark Arts of political equivocation yield Obama the Democratic nomination in 2012 he will not win. Politics is about trust and energy. You don’t get meaningful energy by $1,000 per plate fundraising dinners at the Kennedy Center. You get it by firing up a network of on-ground volunteers who go knocking door-to-door and create real relationships with people. Relationships of trust. And Obama’s unrepented sins are far too grievous and too legion to permit a return to the presidency.
Ironically, the people who apparently DO have their hands on the reigns of the Left’s energies at the moment are influential in the DNC: Richard Trumka, head of the largest trade union federation in the U.S., the AFL-CIO, and Gerald McEntee, the head of the AFSCME, the federation covering the state government employees at the heart of the Madison Uprising. And they have ample reason to seize the moment and dethrone Obama.

There are many reasons beyond obvious the gratification playing kingmaker could give their egos, and the deep schadenfreud to be released by the destruction of their hereditary enemy Andy Stern, viewed by many as a turncoat to the labor cause and Obama’s lackey. Primary in my mind is the existential threat posed to them by Obama’s courting of NAFTA-esque trade agreements in Asia, which it is widely feared will do even further damage to the American union base.

What Are We Doing Back in 1854?

So here’s the situation: A moribund Left is suddenly revitalized by the closest thing to a popular uprising seen since the summer of 1968. And it’s linked to a vast ground-level machinery of experienced volunteers and activists. But far from embracing and harnessing it to further its stated agenda, the DNC limits itself to the release of some belated, flaccid commentaries that read like instructions on adjusting the time on your clock radio. This is what we call, in the biz, the recipe for a coup.

This HAS happened before. And in remarkably similar circumstances. Back in 1854 the progressive affiliation in American politics, the Whig Party, became convinced that its traditional leadership had taken their eye off the central issue of the day, slavery, and had clearly outlived their usefulness. Corrupt or at least incompetent, the likes of Millard Fillmore and faded war hero Winfield Scott’s failure to address the issue head on lead to a mass exodus by nascent political stars, the likes of future Supreme Court justice Salmon Chase and Secretary of State William H. Seward.

When enough became too much, small group of disaffected Whigs finally met in a school house—ironically enough, near Ripon, Wisconsin—and joined with labor and members of the populist oriented ‘Free Soil’ Party to found the ‘Republican Party’, dedicated to a progressive platform of infrastructure development and curbing the uneconomical, immoral and inherently undemocratic dynamic fostered by the “Three-Fifths Compromise” that had given slave states over-representation within the House of Representatives.

The new Republican Party took a hiding in the elections of 1854. They were beaten out by what on the surface appeared to be a vigorous grass-roots movement called the “Know Nothings”—perhaps as much for their equivocal refusal to articulate a coherent platform as well as its participation in anti-immigrant violence.

However, the startling electoral victories of 1854 soon faded when the Know Nothings’ lack of discipline and vision became apparent. So much so that it was even feasible six years later for a much despised, horse-faced hayseed name of Abraham Lincoln to sweep both the Republican nomination and the presidency itself.

So the question I have is: Do Richard Trumka and Jerry McEntee know what fate has thrust into their laps? Are they prepared to possibly become the founders of a Grand New Party?

Footnotes

[1] Footnote #2 here.

[2] See this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article here.

[3] See this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article here.

[4] Footnote #1 here.

[5] Edited at 3:32pm local time. The previous version of this story contained reference to the supposed replacement of the Capitol police chief Tubbs with a relative of a Republican senator. Upon further investigation I was unable to obtain multiple independant sources for this information, all reports appearing to stem from a tweet published Sunday 28th February. If you have additional information that can confirm or refute that assertion, or even provide additional information on the source of the original report, leave a comment. I'd love to know.

Profiles in Courage -- Bob Wirch, WI Senator

2011-02-26T08:46:00.001-08:00

In coming days and weeks I'll be doing some profiles of the heroes central to the stuggle For the American Middle Class AGAINST the Multinational Plutocrats--first up, Senator Bob Wirch, one of the "Wisconsin 14".

State Senator, Bob Wirch (D-Kenosha)

Because of his principled stance against governor Scott Walker's overtly illegal putsch attempt, Wirch has been targeted for personal attack by forces in thrall to Walker and his Koch brother masters. One of the more curious initiatives is a recall attempt--launched by a Utah resident!

Say, is that even legal? No that has bothered any of the Koch coterie before, but it IS a pretty glaring show of contempt for the principle of local democracy that borders on the stupid . . .

Radical Union Advocate (In)action

2011-02-25T08:33:00.000-08:00

Conversation overheard in Madison:

Man: Where the fuck is Obama in all this shite? Unions were his biggest supporters in '08, and now Fauntleroy can't be bothered to get his dainties dirtied rubbing shoulders with us?

Woman: He's in Washington--doing his JOB!

Man: His job?! What's that? Choking on Lloyd Blankfein's crank? Bush not good enough for him any more?*

*Triple entendre

Back to the (Dystopian) Future: Scott Walker's CV Explains a Lot

2011-02-22T10:59:00.000-08:00

Is Scott Walker's latest stunt in Wisconsin just an attempt at revenge for his own mediocre academic career? Let's take a look at the facts.

Been busy days out here in Wisconsin, what with all the turmoil wrought by "Boy Wonder" Scott Walker's genius pre-emptory activation of the armed forces. Clearly the man missed his calling as an FBI hostage negotiator.

As of the time of this writing, the basic facts of the matter remain as they have for nearly a week now: Scott Walker has called for, and the public employees unions have agreed to, major financial concessions. Which raises the question as to why there remains so much upset a week into the farrago. I mean, if this were really about saving $ and ¢, why would Walker have bothered to call in the national guard, starting the meter running on their active-duty pay1 when unions have caved on the only issue? Why does Walker still refuse even to negotiate non-financial issues?

Well, the answer, of course, is that the budget is NOT the only issue--or even the main issue. Clearly, if the budget were the real issue Walker would have been content with the union concessions. Clearly, if the budget were the real issue Walker wouldn't have thrown away $117.2 million in revenue.2 Not when the amount that he sought (and succeeded) in hi-jacking from union workers is only about $27.9 million annually3. That's less than half of the amount he's feely pissed away in corp tax handouts, and Walker seems willing to throw away $147k in national guard costs daily1 on top of it.

No, the real issue here is caudillo Walker's blind insistance that the public employees unions surrender their constitutional rights to freedom of association and contracting. You know, that pinko commie shit guys like Thomas Jefferson and George Mason were trying to slip through the backdoor in the so-called Bill of Rights.4

But why, oh why would such an intellectual giant and economic genius as Scott Walker feel compelled to behave this way? Simple: Because Scott Walker is far from an intellectual giant or an economic genius. In fact, a quick perusal of his CV will demonstrate that Scott Walker is far from even adequate in either of these respects. Two salient facts:

1. Scott Walker's "professional" career was in sales--not economics, not accounting, not finance. Well, no surprises there.

2. Scott Walker failed even to graduate from school. A mediocre "C-ish" student, he dropped out without a degree.

So that's the picture we've got here: A college dropout who couldn't acheive a GP of better than a 2.59 is demanding that the state teacher's union surrender their constitutional rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining, all in the name of a "fiscal responsibility" plan that is on balance about $30.7 million WORSE annually than doing nothing. Oh yeah, and he's willing to gin up about $147,000 in national guard deployment costs PER DAY1 in order to enforce it.

Sounds almost like the plot to a bad 1980's teen comedy: Scott Walker goes 'Back to the Future'--and it's payback time for some very unhappy teachers . . . .

Footnotes
1 My guess is that Scott Walker is forcing us to pay about $147k per day in order to surrender our civil rights. Not being privvy to inside information such as the exact # of Wisconsin Army National Guard personnel who have been made active, or precisely how many of which grade are deployed at specific locations at any given time, the public is only left to guess. But it sure ain't free, so this is only one rough estimate to start the discussion. Details here. I am more than happy to entertain other informed guesses.

2 Yeah, it's true. $117.2 million is the net cost through 2013 associated with only 3 of the Boy Wonder's pet corporate giveaways: $55.2 million YE 2012 and $62.0 million YE 2013. See page 11 of the report of the Wisconsin Legislative Bureau ("WLB") here. The WLB is a non-partisan body of economists tasked with the estimation of financial impact of legislation, similar to the Congressional Budget Office's role on the federal level.

3 See the WLB's estimate of $27,891,400 for fiscal 2012 on page 2 and detailed discussion on begining on page 29 of the WLB report here.

4 Just how, pray tell, could the right to collectively bargain through a union be qualitatively different than the right of individual entrepreneur to contract on behalf of his wholly owned business? Do individual employees somehow have LESS right to determine the disposition and compensation of their OWN personal labor than an entrepreur does to contract for his business? Is that the new Tea Party line of talk--that the state is entirely able to disregard the God-given civil liberties the Founding Fathers fought and died for?