Musings of an Old Guy

Occupy Wall Street

2011-09-30T02:05:00.001-04:00

Have you heard of this wannabe movement, or what appears to be a sister site, the other 99?

Here's a good report by Amy Goodman from Democracy Now!

A good long article at Alernet.

And a bit of good criticism by Maha.

Solyndra Scandadl: Republican Smear

2011-09-30T00:56:00.000-04:00

This pretty much sums up the recent "Solyndra Scandal" Republicans and right wing media are hyping:

Why Working People Are Not Doing So Good

2011-06-15T01:54:00.003-04:00

This chart tells the story of the present depression:

This one is related:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/03/30/chart-of-the-day-us-financial-profits/

Boehner Sides With Qaddafi

2011-06-15T00:53:00.003-04:00

If there was a liberal news media that operated like Fox and Roger Ailes, this is how the headline would read.

The hypocrisy of Boehner demanding the "constitutionality" of the Libya bombing in a NATO operation, after leading the charge into Afghanistan and Iraq under Bush, just makes me want to puke.

These Republicans know no shame.

Rick Santorum: Really Ignorant

2011-06-09T13:06:00.005-04:00

Recently, Rick Santorum, presidential candidate of the religious right, had this to say:

I believe the earth gets warmer and I also believe the earth gets cooler, and I think history points out that it does that and that the idea that man, through the production of CO2 -- which is a trace gas in the atmosphere, and the manmade part of that trace gas is itself a trace gas -- is somehow responsible for climate change is, I think, just patently absurd.

Seriously? The either Mr. Santorum is either ignorant of the science behind carbon dioxide's greenhouse effect, or is willfully in denial of the same. Note his accent on what he "believes."

Whether or not greenhouse gasses are the sole responsibility for climate change is not entirely relevant. The fact is, greenhouse gasses trap heat that would have escaped under normal conditions. Heat is energy and it's the energy that is producing climate change. The amount of carbon dioxide gas necessary for this to occur is 350 parts per million (ppm). Sure it's a trace gas, but that is all that is necessary. We are well past 350 ppm, having blown by 380 ppm. Every year tens of millions of tons of new CO2 are pumped into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels. This has been plenty more than enough over any natural source to attribute this increase in greenhouse gas to humans.

Mr. Santorum thinking this is patently absurd is patently absurd itself. All he does is show willful ignorance of the topic. This tendency itself disqualifies this man.

Faith Based Everything

2011-06-09T12:25:00.002-04:00

We all know the term "faith-based." It's usually applied to religious groups, who coined the phrase. It is, in fact, how they pursue their religion, and ostensibly their god.

It's not the religious context I want to bring up. The most powerful faith based idea around is in the economic realm. This global, free market, libertarian, neo-conservative capitalism, that has been embraced by conservatives and the Republican Party, including the wholey owned subsidiary Tea Party, is an entirely faith based economic ideology. It has it's holy scriptures, tenets of the faith, it's prophets, high priests, preachers, evangelists, seminaries, churches and cathedrals. To speak against this economic religion is to commit blasphemy and be branded a heretic.

Another is that of the military-industrial complex. However, there's a lot of corruption by the above. The whole basis of the MIC is there's a lot of MONEY to be made, and the way to do it is by imagining enemies everywhere that want to kill us. With making money the prime virtue of the faith, only a few heretics question it.

The big problem with faith based anything is that it obscures reality, making any problems that arise out of the idea in question nearly impossible to overcome.

To My Neighbors Working Against the Biomass Plant

2011-01-24T00:25:00.005-05:00

I'm a johnny-come-lately to the issue. When y'all were geared up and fighting this thing last fall, I was working ungodly hours and didn't have a lot of time to really tune into it. I did make it to the VLCIA forum in December. However, at the the time I was tired from the hours and I knew a marketing presentation when I saw one. I wasn't in the mood for bull***t and they seemed to be shoveling it big time. Others knew a lot more than I and I had to leave. Things have slowed down recently, and I've spent the last couple of weeks playing catch up. I'm with you a hundred percent, and respect and thank you for all the work you've done to gather the case against the plant.

I was shocked at the way Commission Chairman Paulk came down on Professor Noll, President of WACE, at the county commission meeting. The tone seemed entirely over the top. At this point, the commission has expressed its opinion to support the plant. I understand the effort to get them to respond to citizens from the community, however, beyond a token, "The Lowndes County Commission expresses its disapproval of the proposed Biomass Plant," what can they do to stop it? The only real power on a county government level seems to be zoning. The VDT brought that up in its editorial. Would that be an area to bring pressure to bear?

It seems to me the two other entities that have decision making power over this thing are the VLCIA and Sterling Planet. With Sterling Planet in Atlanta, would the IA be the focus? Kudos to those who have gone to the meetings to express their resistance to the BP. Given at this point they are set in their ways, how much more of expression of displeasure at their meetings is going to help?

What do you think about this? We need to marshal a lot more public opinion to our side. Honestly, I doubt the vast majority of citizens in Valdosta-Lowndes County have any idea about this issue. I had a conversation with a young man I work with tonight that had heard something about the biomass plant, but had no clue what the issue was about. It opened the door to explain it to him. I could get his signature on a petition now.

LAKE, and its blog, On the Lake Front, have done a most excellent job in providing us with the best source of information about this topic. Thank you JSQ and GQ for your work. Let me also throw props to LT and all for the great mini-newspaper devoted to the biomass issue. These are examples of citizen journalism at its finest.

It's a pleasant plus that KH and the VDT seem with us at this point. Unfortunately, Frank Barnas seemed to give Brad Loftus and the IA free rein on that local radio program. Anyone know if Scott James has taken a position?

Let me bounce this idea off you: There is a tactic called guerilla marketing, which seems to be marketing, or the dissemination of ideas on a shoestring budget. I have experience producing brochures, flyers and tracts. These are powerful, condensed, concise, and most importantly, relatively inexpensive vehicles to convey information to people on an individual level. If we could combine these with a door to door campaign to blanket the city, followed up by a petition drive, we could probably get thousands of supporters.

The issue seems to be health considerations resulting from the poisoning of our air, land and water. If we could come up with a figure on the healthcare costs on an individual level, physically and financially, costs that will be most acutely incurred by our children and grandchildren, it would be a powerful tool in bringing people on board.

In the meantime, what do you think of a picket line at the VLCIA? The paper would probably come out, and the TV. Maybe the radio would take notice. The point is, I'm thinking we need to take battle from the halls of government to the homes of people, the citizens of Lowndes County, our neighbors.

Better to go down fighting than to lay down let them roll over you. -JJP

Bomb Found Along MLK Day March Route

2011-01-20T22:50:00.004-05:00

A bomb was found Monday, along a MLK Day March route in Spokane, Washington. The FBI is pursuing the case as an act of "domestic terrorism." The bomb was confirmed to have been "sophisticated," with a remote detonator.

Does anyone in the media recognize this as a description of an IED? You know, the wicked things that have been the bane of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was in Spokane in western Washington, out toward Idaho, hotbed of white supremacy. In '09, the Department of Homeland Security put out this report that stated that right wing groups were recruiting veterans from the military. Could the bomber have learned his trade there?

We Are Being Lied To. All the Time.

2010-12-25T14:19:00.003-05:00

There's no other way to put it. Constantly, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty five days a year (three sixty six in leap years), we are lied to, jacked with, conned or otherwise manipulated by those who are supposed to be informing us.

Where do we get our news, information and/or opinion? Is it not from multi-millionaires speaking from multi-billion dollar corporate microphones? Are they representing our interests and reporting to us information that is to our advantage?

The right wing blowhards would have us believe that the media is dominated by a liberal worldview. As a proud liberal, I don't know what they are talking about. The country has always been predominantly conservative. It seems to me the highest point of liberalism was in the sixties. Since then, we have had an extreme move to what is commonly called the right. It began unabated with the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, even though old Tricky Dick would be considered a flaming liberal by today's standards.

On top of that, the news is brought to us primarily by corporate controlled media. The sole function of corporate anything, let alone corporate media, is to make money. It is not to bring us news to keep the citizens of this country informed. The business model of all media is based in selling advertising. That's where their money comes from. Everything they then do is designed to attract an audience to bring in the cash. That is the media Prime Directive. It is not to inform us, but to attract our attention long enough to sell us something. Do you really think any sort of thought would be tolerated that shook that money tree?

Thank God or our lucky stars we still have the internet, at least for a little while longer. It's a given there is much misinformation and disinformation, but if one learns how to sift through the bs there is good information out there that cannot be gotten any other way, at least as quickly. There is solid information out there but it is not getting channeled to the citizens of this so they can make informed decisions. The question then becomes how to get this information to the people.

It's my belief that local, small scale media is the solution. David didn't bring down Goliath fighting on Goliath's terms and turf.

Georgia Reps Stab Constituents in the Back

2010-12-11T11:58:00.002-05:00

The Democratic Party in south Georgia has been proud for years to have its entire delegation Democratic. Immediately following their reelection in November as Democrats, the entire delegation jumped ship to the Republican Party: Senator Tim Golden, and Representatives Amy Carter and Ellis Black.

Never in my life have I seen such a thing. Even though they issued their own statements, they almost sounded identical. I see Amy has been rewarded with being some kind of a gofer girl for the new governor. They all proclaim how they can better serve their constituents. When I heard of Tim Golden's defection, my immediate thought was, well, his business is that of financial advisor, he knows where his bread is buttered, he knows who his real constituents are.

I'm a constituent. I'm a hard-working, elderly fellow, that has been waiting ten years for things to change for the better while two of them have been in office. It hasn't and now I know why. These people have been conservatives all along, and as shown by their defections, DINOs, Democrats In Name Only. They were, in reality, Republicans all along.

I campaigned for these people. I made calls and encouraged people and friends to vote for them, believing they represented our interests and values. The Republican Party does not represent my values or that of most people I know. This constituent feels quite stabbed in the back by this.

Where are the jobs all you Republicans?

2010-11-17T13:23:00.004-05:00

Here's what Bob Corker has to say about job creation: screw the jobs, what's important is "price stability." Perhaps he should talk to his friends in the health care industry, since that's where a lot of the inflation for the last thirty years has come from. Not to mention the tech and housing bubbles.

Seems that Republicans could not care less about putting America back to work. All you unemployed and under employed, go get a job that doesn't exist.

Also, Sara Palin accuses the Fed of causing food prices to rise this past year, when food had the lowest rise in price in years:

A broad measure of food prices from the Labor Department shows prices rose at an average annual rate of less than 0.6% in the first nine months of the year. September’s increase in food prices — 1.4% for food and beverages at an annual rate — was low by historical standards.(In fact, the lowest average annual inflation rate on record was 1.4%, in 1992.) Commerce Department inflation data show a similarly slow year-over-year increase for food prices, 1.3%.

Truth is food prices rose dramatically in 2008 when Wall Street fled the housing market and bought into commodities distorting the markets. People even starved because of it.

I truly resent that ignorant woman.

The Real Face of Fox News

2010-11-17T11:41:00.004-05:00

Is there anyone more repugnant than Roger Ailes?

This is the man responsible for the likes of O'Reilly, Hannity and Beck, not to mention Steve Doocy and the other blond bimbos at Fox (btw, I know they're not bimbos, but only play one for TV). Is it any wonder the regular Fox News watchers are the most dumbed down audience in history. Worse, he pushes extreme divisiveness. He revels in dividing the country and getting people all riled up against the "socialists." He knows damn well Obama is no socialist, but that's the line and he's sticking to it, purposefully deceiving the audience.

The only thing this man cares about is money. He serves it. Everything he does is in the interest of money, especially his own. He obviously has led the High Life and will protect that at all costs. He knows where his bread is buttered, and he will defend it by hook or crook, if necessary.

And his bread is buttered by Rupert Murdoch, the highest salaried CEO in the world.

Tough Times Ahead, IMHO

2010-08-15T02:13:00.006-04:00

I know I can get into a negative vein, but I think I'm mostly an optimist, so I hope you understand that it's not that I'm naturally a doomsayer, and the truth is I've been surprised before.

One of my greatest surprises was when the US emerged from the oil shocks and inflation of the seventies seemingly unscathed. I had expected some serious repercussions that didn't materialize. I wonder if there isn't a similarity to today, in that, business and the economy went on as if nothing was really wrong. With this latest bust of '08, it was the new Obama administration's allowing the banks to say the value of the properties on their books was whatever the banks said it was. They did not have to "mark to market", or value the properties at the actual market price. When this was announced the Dow stopped it's descent toward below 7000 and went back to over 11,000. And tens of millions of 401(k) owners heaved a sigh of relief that they regained fifty percent of what they'd lost. Question: where'd the other fifty percent go? is it important?

This "stabilized" the banking industry. They'd been infused with $750B from the Treasury (borrowed by the government, mind you). This is well known, the infamous "bailouts." What's not as well known is that the Fed infused the banks with around six trillion dollars, according to some. The whole exercise was so the banks had cash to lend to business (there's a valid need for this.) The problem of the last year and a half was that the banks tightened their lending, contrary to the stated purpose of the bailout. Yet, over that period commercial banks have bought $1.5 trillion in Treasury bonds. It's a matter of where they chose to put the money. At the same time, it is reported that companies are sitting on about $1.8 trillion dollars in cash on hand and are not spending it or growing their business and adding new jobs. Meanwhile, unemployment hovers around ten percent (officially, unoffically around twenty). Honestly, given these facts, one could make a case that business leaders are deliberately negatively affecting the economy. At a minimum, given the horrendous state of the economy for most people, it absolutely shows how what is called supply side economics, or neoconservatism or Reaganism is absolutely wrong. It's not even, in the words of a President of the United States, voodoo economics, it's just wrong.

Yet this idea is what drives economic discussion today. While the Neo-cons, and Randians, and other conservative ilk debate their ivory tower folderol, Rome burns. And the fire is in our part of town.

Modern Civilization

2010-06-02T16:49:00.003-04:00

Last night as I was getting home from work, I was thinking how much I disliked modern civilization. It's a long story that I won't get into now. Then I thought how MyBetterHalf was in the hospital getting ready to have surgery to remove her gall bladder, and how two and a half years ago I had surgery to remove a concerous tumor the size of an orange from my colon. If it hadn't been for modern civilization, we'd both probably have died a painful death. So yeah, I'm very thankful. I think that's the definition of ambivalence.

Healthcare Passes in the House

2010-03-21T22:53:00.002-04:00

Healthcare reform has passed the House 219-210. Thirty four Democrats voted against the bill. Two Republicans voted against the bill, and NOT ONE voted for it, yet they blame the Democrats for the lack of bipartisanship. Damn hypocrites all! Not one Republican ever wanted to change the way things are - they are quite down with it. It's what makes them conservative and protectors of the status quo and the powers that be. Most of them owe a LOT of campaign funds to the health care industry. Most of them probably have health care stocks in their portfolios and they are making their profits and capital gains from it. How many will leave Congress and go on to lucrative jobs in the "private sector," getting their reward?

Coming Back

2010-03-21T21:41:00.002-04:00

It's been six months since my last post. I've had to figure out just what kind of voice I would have. Not so sure. but I wanted to liveblog this so-called debate in the House regarding healthcare. The Republicans are shameless liars or cult members. They are bought and sold by their corporate overlords and yet posture themselves as if they are so patriotically righteous and concerned with the Republic. Maybe some of them truly believe what they are saying, but in that they are like cult members spouting platitudes from their faith. IMHO that cult is the cult of Mammon.

Oldguy Speechifies the Crowd.

2009-10-19T02:01:00.003-04:00

Oldguy gave his first political speech Saturday. On a beautiful fall afternoon he had the crowd of near a hundred that showed up for a "Support the President" rally chanting, laughing, clapping and cheering. It went well enough that WCTV grabbed the Oldguy for another interview. It didn't air Saturday, didn't check the tv on Sunday, but an article appeared on their site.

The speech is now up on YouTube in four parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

I gotta admit, it was a lot of fun.

About That Plutonomy.

2009-10-13T23:42:00.005-04:00

In a "plutonomy", according to Citigroup global strategist Ajay Kapur, economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few.

This is from a Citigroup memo in 2006. A blogger on DailyKos picks up on it - it's worth the read. There's no question that this is what we're now saddled with.

BTW, you gotta love a title like, Stopping Banks From Fleecing, Looting, Scamming, Robbing, Swindling, Tricking, Cheating, Conning, and Generally Ripping Us Off, and begins with,

In the last several years we have all been fleeced, looted, robbed, swindled, thieved, tricked, cheated, scammed, exploited, ponzied, stung, conned, extorted, ripped off and bankrupted by the banks and other big financial companies.

Finally, William K. Black, Associate Professor, University of Missouri, St Louis has an interesting piece, How the Servant Became the Predator, Finances Five Fatal Flaws.

The financial sector harms the real economy.

Even when not in crisis, the financial sector harms the real economy. First, it is vastly too large. The finance sector is an intermediary -- essentially a "middleman". Like all middlemen, it should be as small as possible, while still being capable of accomplishing its mission. Otherwise it is inherently parasitical.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/how-the-servant-became-a_b_318010.html

Second, the finance sector is worse than parasitic. In the title of his recent book, The Predator State , James Galbraith aptly names the problem. The financial sector functions as the sharp canines that the predator state uses to rend the nation. In addition to siphoning off capital for its own benefit, the finance sector misallocates the remaining capital in ways that harm the real economy in order to reward already-rich financial elites harming the nation.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/how-the-servant-became-a_b_318010.html

FYI, the Real Economy is the trading of actual goods and services. The Financial Economy or financial sector deals in abstractions of that called money, stocks, bonds, and a plethora of exotic inventions generically called derivatives, or what is commonly referred to as Wall Street.

Tonight on Jeopardy there was a clue, "A criminal that charges exorbitant interest" and the question was, "What is a loan shark?" I like to tell people that when I was young, the "exorbitant interest" rate the loan sharks charged that was against the law was twelve percent. What are the rates on your credit cards. Twenty four percent? Thirty? I've read of those rates.

Glenn Beck, Rodeo Clown

2009-09-21T00:41:00.003-04:00

He said so himself. "I'm a rodeo clown."

Tonight I saw a car with a sticker on the back with the "Don't Tread on Me" flag. Beck's followers are using this as some sort of symbol of their rebellion - so I got the point, they were an example of a Beck disciple.

With this in mind I began to wonder what these people should be called, with Beckites coming to mind. But upon further thought I think we should start referring to these people as Beckys, or Bekkies. I'm letting it rhyme with Trekkies on purpose, although I do feel a twinge of conscience for doing it to the Trekkies, who are a harmless bunch. I don't think that about the Beckys.

But getting back to the clown, I find it interesting that Beck likes the metaphor. Ever been to a rodeo? They have them on TV. We took the kids to one once in the old Astrodome. One of the events that you see is bull riding. A rider tries to stay on this big, strong, surprisingly quick and flexible bull with one hand for something like eight seconds - which ain't easy and probably feels like an eternity. But should the rider get bucked off before the eight seconds or jumps off after, there's a real possibility that the bull, pissed off because this animal was on its back, sees it now on the ground and takes off after it, intending to do some damage to the source of its discomfort. So it's been called, "the most dangerous eight seconds in sports."[

This is where the rodeo clown jumps in. It's his job to get the attention of the bull and direct it towards himself and away from the rider so that the rider can scoot to safety. The clown then scoots his own butt to safety before the bull can do him some damage. He's there to save the rider's life and limb from harm.

If Beck's the clown, then it seems the American people are the bull he's trying to get the attention of, away from the rider who is the source of the irritation, the ones causing our discomfort, the big money boys.

OMG. I've Gone Viral!

2009-09-09T13:00:00.003-04:00

Holy smoke! Check it out. The Oldguy's tete-a-tete with his congressman, Jack Kingston, over health care has hit the bigtime:

Here I am at ThinkProgress.

Then Huffington Post picked it up.

Rock on!

Single Payer Now!

Packing Heat at Obama's Town Halls

2009-08-19T10:30:00.006-04:00

You've seen the pictures:

There's more here and here.

After they shot Dr. Tiller, I wanted to say to them, "Put the gun down. Take a step back and take a deep breath."

Finally. someone beside me is getting a little concerned about this:

“I’ve been worried for some time, even before the events surrounding these health care town halls,” Rich told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday. “It began during the campaign, where people were shouting ‘treason’ and worse about Obama at Palin rallies — and, essentially, no one in the Republican Party would condemn it. … It’s just been stepping up ever since then.”

--- snip ---

“I think we have a problem,” Rich stated. “This has been going on for too many months. It always seems to happen when there’s a new liberal group taking over. It’s not coincidence that the militias started up again in the 1990s when Clinton came in — or, when Kennedy came in, the right-wing stuff in the early 60s.”

“It’s shocking to me that very few Republican leaders have really condemned this kind of activity,” Rich stated sharply. “In fact, they’ve sort of encouraged it.”

I remember all the right wing bruhaha after Waco. I paid attention to their stuff and even went to a rally in Marietta, Georgia and met Linda Thompson. I liked their view of the Constitution and distrust of government.

However, all their credibility with me went out the window over the last eight years and the Bush administration. None of these people raised an eyebrow when Bush was shredding the Bill Of Rights and saying the Constitution was "a god-damn piece of paper." They said not a word when the Bushistas were tapping our phones, disappearing people, torturing others, and in all ways throwing any semblance of fidelity to freedom out in the trash as "quaint" relics of the past.

So they can keep their partisan outrage. And by the way, I faced this kind of attitude forty years ago in an SDS meeting. It was just after the national guard had shot the students at Kent State and some idiot in the meeting was talking about how we needed to start getting guns. Being from Detroit and having seen them shut down the city in '67, bringing in tanks and armored personnel carriers with fifty caliber machine guns, and they were not reticent to use them, I thought any talk of arming ourselves was ludicrous.

The real lesson of Waco was that the government will in no way allow any challenge to its authority in an armed fashion. It will crush it like an ant.

\

I Confronted My Congressman Today

2009-08-04T12:27:00.005-04:00

A week ago I learned that my congressman, Jack Kingston (R-GA-1), was coming to hold a town hall in my hometown to talk about healthcare - a subject near and dear to my heart. I'm familiar with Jack, seeing him on Bill Maher and the different cable shows, but I did a quick check of the congressman's website to check his position. Of course he's against government take over of health care, but I felt something had to be said.

Over 300 people showed up for the town hall. Since this is a very conservative area, most of the crowd looked like it was on Jack's side. Almost immediately after sitting down a petition was passed to me that was "AGAINST SOCIALIZED HEALTH CARE" or something like that. Half the crowd were seniors, which I mean over 65, so I was interested how they would approach the Medicare issue, and since this is a military town there are a lot of former military who love their TriCare.

Jack came in to a standing ovation, and after a couple laudatory introductions he got up and went through a bullet point presentation about the health care problem, at least from his Republican talking points, which were echoed on occassion from the crowd. Then he opened up the meeting, and for the next thirty minutes or so, half the commenters were in support of government sponsored health care.

I thought there might be ten minutes left when I stood to be called on. I knew I might get a minute, maybe stretch it to two, but also simple boldness can go a long way. Anyhow, the congressman called on me, and it went something like this:

Congressman, I'm so happy to have you here today so I can relate to you my situation and my thoughts.

You see, January 15 last year - 08 - I had to go to the emergency room at the medical center because I was bleeding. Two days later, I had a colonoscopy, and when the doctor came in the first words out of his mouth were, "I'm sorry. It's cancer." (This landed rather heavy on the crowd as I was a bit emotional in remembrance). On January 25, I had surgery and they removed fifteen inches of my large intestine along with a tumor the size of a tangerine that was a millimeter from breaking through the intestinal wall. Thank God, it had not spread and I stand here today. I have nothing but praise and gratitude toward the people at the medical center, they saved my life.

(About this time some handed me a mike, and I saw a TV camera pointed my way)

But congressman, I had a friend that was in the same boat as I - a computer guy and business was drying up. By the time he got the care he needed it was too late and we buried him early this year.

You see he did not have health insurance and neither did I - I was trying to cobble together two or three part time jobs and bootstrap a business.

Jack tried to get the floor back and sympathize with the loss of my friend, but then he pissed me off. He said something like, "But you're alive. This is how great our health system is, you got care" and he was being rather condescending about it. Now the adrenalin is rushing, and I still had the mike, so I said,

Yes, congressman, but now I'm functionally bankrupt, and half of my income goes to my medical bills and the credit card debts I incurred during that time.

You don't get back to work the following week after surgery like that. Not even the following month, or three months. It was nine months before I could say I was beginning to feel myself again. I knew my time was up, but I held the mike and I had to say what I came to say:

As I see it, it's the insurance companies that are standing between us and our healthcare. These companies are reaping billions in profits, paying ceo's like Bill McGuire of United Health Care, one of the largest insurance companies, 1.7 billion in compensation. Billions are having to go to "investors" with names like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, while they deny claims and practice that horrible recission refusing to pay when people need it most. Cut out the fat at the top and for no more money than we're paying today we can cover everyone.

This is when the crowd turned and started booing. I could barely hear them as I was focused on Jack, and I could see them coming for the mike. Had to get this out:

Five billion dollars has been spent over the last ten years lobbying congress by these companies. Lately a million and a half a day has been added. Billions are being spent on ads against government run health care not to mention campaign contributions. My question to you congressman is:

Are you on our side or with the insurance companies?

There was a little bit of an uproar going on, but wouldn't you know it, Jack quickly changed the subject. But I had said what I came to say.

The TV station interviewed me afterward. She actually asked if I was for "socialized medicine". I explained how I took issue with her characterization. that socialized medicine was like the VA system, the government owns the hospitals, and the doctors, etc are government employees. What I'm advocating is turning the entire population into one giant pool. She didn't use that. My quote she used:

We do need to revamp the health care in this country. I mean, we may have the best health care in the world, especially if you're a millionaire and a billionaire. They can get whatever they need. But most of us are not.

I guess that's okay too.

A Plea To My Neighbors

2009-07-30T14:12:00.003-04:00

I'm composing this as a Letter to the Editor in my local paper. It's long so it will probably be several.

I've been listening to this so-called "debate" about health care and I have been appalled at the misinformation, disinformation, distortion, outright lies and manipulation going around. To be frank, most of the junk is coming from the Republican Party and conservative talk, but really, they are just acting as conduits for the health care industrial complex. Lord knows how much Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and their ilk are being paid to spread the corporate word.

What we do know is that over the past ten years the so-called health care industry has spent over five billion dollars lobbying congress. That's five hundred million a year or more than a million dollars per congress critter per year. That's also five billion dollars they did not spend on health care for patients. Over that same time the CEO's of these companies have also walked away with billions, most infamously William McGuire from United Healthcare Group, who personally collected a cool one billion seven hundred million dollars in compensation when he retired, so he bought a 136 foot yacht and called it "The Golden Parachute". Exactly what did he produce to deserve those riches?

You see, to channel these fortunes into their own pockets these executives were telling their employees to to deny payment, delay care, and outright canceling or rescinding policies that people had paid on for years, using the excuse of so-called "pre-existing conditions" - like the woman whose policy was rescinded when she needed treatment for breast cancer because she was treated for acne when she was sixteen. Many people have experienced "Treatment Denied" or "Claim Denied" from insurance companies, or other techniques to not pay out. Employees are rated on how much they deny care and huge bonuses are paid to more senior managers. It is in everyone's financial interest in the insurance company to deny care. The phrase, "death by spreadsheet," was coined for a reason. Even when the health crisis doesn't result in death, it can result in bankruptcy. Sixty percent of bankruptcies are now caused by medical debt. Seventy five percent of those thought they had insurance until they needed to seriously use it.

The insurance company public relations firms are complaining about how awful it will be to have government bureaucrats between us and our doctors. But I'll take the government bureaucrat any day whose mission is to get me health care over the corporate bureaucrat whose job depends on denying it. As much as any serial killer, mafia, or gang of terrorists, these companies, executives and stockholders are directly responsible for the death and misery of countless thousands.

Above the five hundred million being spent as usual on lobbyists, there's still plenty of cash to hire an additional three hundred fifty former congress ritters and their staffs to draw on the personal connections these people have with present members of Congress. They're paying out something like one and a half million dollars a day extra for these people, an average of four thousand dollars per person per day. Pretty good pay in this economy. This figure does not include the "campaign contribution" bribes being made. Could there be any greater evidence that our government has become the wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America, and that our representatives are simply corrupt. Do you think these people are ever going to act in our interest?

Which brings us to our esteemed congressman, Jack Kingston. I went to the congressman's website to see what his position was in all of this. Needless to say, he was against reform. Government take over of health care, he calls it. Yet he'll not tell you that the top three industries contributing to this cycle's campaign chest are Insurance, Lobbyists, and Health Professionals, or that his single largest campaign contributor is Aflac. You don't think this affects his stance in any way, do you?

Congressman Kingston, along with a number of other Republicans are touting a study by the "non-partisan" Lewin Group that says if a public option is included in the health care bill that one hundred fourteen million Americans are going to "lose their coverage." At least that's what the congressman claims in bold, red and underlined lettering. One wonders why he didn't go all the way to the hysteric ALL CAPITALS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!!!! So he want's you to think he's saying one hundred fourteen million will be without insurance – maybe you. When one actually reads the report one realizes that people are migrating from private plans to the public plan actually increasing the gross number insured. It's flat out deception on the part of the congressman.

Finally, who is the Lewin Group? About thirty seconds on the web and we find that the Lewin Group is a subsidiary of Ingenix, a company that produces software that's designed to limit insurance company payouts. It was so good that it was bought by United HealthCare Group. Early this year United Healthcare had to pay a four hundred million dollar settlement with the federal government for fraud related to that software. So this criminal company (that compensated a ceo one point seven billion dollars) has a subsidiary company putting out a report designed to make us fear a government run health insurance plan. What's amazing is that they're not even subtle about it.

Connecting Some Dots

2009-07-13T01:29:00.002-04:00

About two or three weeks ago an article came out in the Rolling Stone that had those "far lefties" talking, and not much anyone else, especially the MSM and right wing blather machine - no, not a peep out of them about it. He pegs Goldman Sachs as primary contributor to all the latest bubbles and bursts, and on back to the Crash of '29. I think the piece talks about the extent of Goldman Sachs "alumni" that have gone on to various high level government or other bank positions, like former Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson, the man that worked out that seven hundred billion dollar bailout banks got from the government last fall. Quite a lot of that money found its way into GS coffers, not just directly, but also through the billions that went to AIG.

Now, check this out: The FBI arrested this russian guy that was a computer programmer at GS. It seems this russian guy downloaded some very proprietary software that GS was using. The money quote comes from Assistant US Attorney Joseph Fracciponti to a federal magistrate judge:

The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways.

I'm sorry. What did he just say?

The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways.

Let me see if I have this right: Goldman Sachs has the FBI arest this russian guy, Sergey, for downloading some software of theirs that can "manipulate markets in unfair ways". Yeah, really, you sure wouldn't want someone else out there that could "manipulate markets in unfair ways". Hell, they just might "manipulate markets in unfair ways". No siree. That ole software that can "manipulate markets in unfair ways" needs to stay right there at Goldman Sachs. Because Goldman Sachs people are honorable people that would never think to "manipulate markets in unfair ways", would they?

Hmmm, as Lewis Black might say, "ARE YOU F**KING KIDDING ME?"

In related news,

The Federal Reserve warned on Thursday that a growing congressional threat to curtail its independence would destabilise markets and raise the cost of servicing US debt for “current and future generations”.

This is about Ron Paul's legislation to audit the Fed, but, excuse me, did the Fed just threaten our grandchildren? ARE YOU F**KING KIDDING ME? Goddamned banksters threatening the government and the citizens of the United States? And nothing subtle about it, like frikkin' mafioso. I'll bet this doesn't percolate up into the MSM.

The SHTF* warning level has been raised to orange, contingeny planning is warranted.

Peace and good luck.

\
*SHTF = Sh*t Hits The Fan

The U.S. Government: Wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America.

2009-07-07T23:47:00.005-04:00

As if we needed any more proof that our present government is truly wholly bought and sold by the corporations and the wealthy, even with the election of Barak Obama, 350 former congresscritters and staffers have been hired by the healthcare industry to lobby 535 present day congresscritters regarding the healthcare reform legislation. They say they are spending $1.4 million a day for these new hires - really temps, but not bad pay in this economy. It works out to four thousand dollars per lobbyist per day. Of course this does not count how much moolah is being promised to the various congresscritters for said congresscritters next campaigns. They used to call them bribes and the politicians who took them corrupt. Now they call them campaign contributions and the politicians representatives and senators.

The last time they got into this sort of thing we got Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit that was a big kiss to the pharmaceutical industry by mandating that the government had to pay retail (as opposed to Canada which buys wholesale from the same companies.) It's also designed to go broke. Unless the legislation has a good public option, not one that is designed to fail to show how "government care" doesn't work, it won't be worth spit to us. Of course you already know my view. Why we're talking about anything other than Single Payer is because of the health insurance companies dominance of the media and congress. Polling shows that anywhere from 72 to 80% of Americans want at least a public option, if not outright single payer. There should not even be a question.

But that's not the situation we find ourselves in, is it? This is how it boils down to me: I can't get healthcare without going broke because somebody else wants to get rich. Sorry but I don't see anything good or right about that.

As has been said for so long, our government operates as of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. This is not metaphor or hyperbole, but cold reality. It is no longer of the people, by the people and for the people. What was set up to be a democratic republic is now a corporatocracy. A silent coup has been executed and the very foundations of government have been altered.

\

Biznezz

2009-06-22T17:04:00.003-04:00

Biznezz: After the fall of communism in Russia, that's a term that grew up among the oligarchs and mafia describing in what they were now engaging. It carried more than a hint of corruption, something dark that wears the cloak of respectable business. That's what business has become in America. I don't know if it ever was anything else, but it certainly is now. Business has insinuated itself into areas that it has no business, and I've seen over my lifetime what I like to refer to as the businessization of America, but biznezz will do.

For example, the health insurance industry, or health payment industry, and all those thieving CEOs, can just go away. The bastards make a fortune and live the very high life by denying medical payment, and thus medical care, that can often lead to death, and act like it's some sort of divine right. Screw 'em. We turn everyone in the US into one big insurance pool and join all the other civilized countries in providing health care to all of its citizens.

Lately I've been listening to a podcast called Deconstructing Dinner. It's produced out of Vancouver, but it's entirely applicable to the US. It gives a lot of great information on how things work in the industrial food supply system, and basically how bad it is for us, but certainly makes a few people very rich. At the same time it gives examples of people that are trying to do something about it, taking matters into their own hands to ensure a safe and healthy food supply.

Only Because Its Being Talked About - Healthcare Part I

2009-06-16T17:11:00.006-04:00

We don't have much in the way of health care in the US. What we have mostly is sick care. Most of us only use the medical system because we need it because something has gone wrong. If it is health care, where is the care, the outgoing concern from health care providers, to keep us healthy?

I got really pissed at the doctor I was going to for a few years. It became obvious that he didn't give a damn about me, would come buzzing through checking the stats out and try to be out in five minutes, for which he charged my insurance a hundred sixty five dollars, or me sixty five when I lost the insurance. The practice actually dropped me when I was struggling financially. People have a hard time believing me when I say I got fired by my doctor.

There's something very wrong in making a fortune off of other people's misery and sickness. It's totally parasitic. I don't have a problem with a doctor making good money. It takes a lot of smarts and hard work to do it. But I do take issue with someone who is only in it for how much they can gouge out of you. The leaders in this category are the health insurance companies.

The health insurance companies are parasites. They produce nothing. They are leaches and vampires - maggots. They feed off of sickness and death. They are not in existence to provide health care. They exist to make money, and pay their CEOs huge amounts of compensation. We don't need them. All we need to do is turn the entire country and population into one large insurance pool administered by a federal agency that answers to the voters.

Going Green in Support of Mousavi

2009-06-16T09:20:00.003-04:00

Someone thought we ought to go green in support of the protesters and supporters of Mousavi in Iran, so here you are. We'll see how long this lasts.

The large demonstrations against the obviously fraudulent election returns really put Americans to shame. The best we can do are the hokey "Tea Parties."

The Titanic Has Hit the Iceberg, Think Its Going to Right Itself?

2009-06-15T19:07:00.005-04:00

The entire paradigm that has dominated the twentieth century is beginning to collapse here in the good ole USA. Economic systems dependent on growth have maxed out on resources and are beginning to fall apart. What the economy has just experienced is a symptom. Basically, the late twentieth century American economy is crashing on the shoals of history. It's for the best as far as I'm concerned.

There are two factors that are global in nature and absolutely out of our control that dominate the world. The first is Peak Oil, which I've written about before. The civilization that grew out of the industrial revolution, the one that we live in today, requires amounts of energy that are astronomical. This energy is obtained by the burning of fossil fuels: oil, coal, and natural gas. Up until now it's been relatively cheap. It's about to get much more expensive, then much harder to obtain, until finally there's not enough left and it's so hard to get that it's not worth it. The time until then was thought to have been centuries when I was growing up, now it's considered in decades.

It's not just energy that fossil fuels are used for. Look around you right now and become aware of the things that are plastic or synthetic fiber like nylon. That's oil. Most pharmaceuticals are synthesized from oil. Very importantly, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and such are made from fossil fuels. Our entire agricultural system is based in the use of these things on the land. Without them, agriculture as we know it is in a heap of trouble.

The second major force is global climate change brought on by global warming amped up by greehouse gasses such as carbon dioxide. Atmospheric carbon dioxide was about 270 parts per million (ppm) prior to the industrial revolution. The say 350 ppm is a serious point. We now stand at 386 ppm.

It's not as if this is going to happen tomorrow, although I am concerned about the overall economy in the months to come, but I'm thinking that we need to be checking out the lifeboats.

These Xtians Are Not Only Crazy, Now They're Getting Dangerous

2009-06-07T23:36:00.002-04:00

As a follower of the teachings of Jesus, I resent people like this Scott Roeder, and others like Randall Terry and all the other anti-abortion jerks, that posture with that veneer of righteousness. Truly Jesus spoke of this ilk,

You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. ²⁸In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 7:27-28)

I won't even give them credit for being beautiful on the outside. Anyone with a lick of discernment can see the darkness of these folk. They posture themselves as defenders of the "pre-born" when they couldn't give a rat's ass about the baby. Just ask them, can we get prenatal care for the fetus? can we ensure the mother has a good place to live and raise the child? can we make sure she has an good diet? can she get proper medical care? They're answers: no, no, no, and hell no.

But even before we get to that, just what business is it of their's? What is their skin in the game that they can demand anything? Bottom line is they think it gets them brownie points with God. These people no more know God than Osama bin Laden.

Check out this American Taleban, Lou Engle, praying over The Huckster, Mike Huckabee, and twice admitted adulterer, three time married, recently converted to Catholicism, Newt Gingrich (who obviously hasn't reached the part in the catechism where he learns one of the seven deadly sins (the kind that get you sent to hell) is gluttony, not to mention pride and avarice, let alone greed; oh dear Newt, study hard). This was at some kind of Xtian rally.

Did you catch where Engle calls for acts of Christian martyrdom? What he means is that people like Scott "The Executioner" Roeder are actually martyrs for Jesus. In other words, he's calling for more acts of the like of Roeder. More people shoot more doctors, and you go down as a martyr for the cause of Christ, they say. Roeder admits that there are others like him. What's particularly creepy is that most of the audience seems to be young people. I don't think Engle's going to do the deed himself, but he says somebody should.

This is no different than what Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, or Islamic Jihad or any other lameass terrorist group does. Having failed in the court of public opinion they now turn to force. They have the audacity to cloak themselves as some martyrs to the faith while they kill. All the while Engle is out there inciting them on. People of God, Army of God? Puh-lease.

These people are Xtian terrorists. They are utterly dangerous. And Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich are pallin' around with them.

/

Capitalism

2009-05-11T23:52:00.002-04:00

Check out this series of articles over at Huffington Post. A good money quote:

Personally, I think capitalism is simply a concept that does not, in the long run, work. It's like communism -- it looks good on paper.

A "capitalist" is someone who makes a living not from their own labor, but from their money, their "capital." See, that's why it's called "capitalism," and not "laborism," or "hardworkism." Interest, dividends, stock sales -- not work. If you work for a living -- even if it's intellectual work, and you need that paycheck to live -- you are a worker. (Middle class is just a worker with a mortgage.) "Oh, what about the hairdresser on the corner! What about the mechanic down the block!" Well, what about 'em? If you own a business that you have to work at to make a living, you are an owner/operator, a self-employed worker. Let me say that again: If you own a small business that you have to work at you are not a capitalist! Sorry to shout, but for some reason people have a hard time with that one. The hairdresser, mechanic and the rest are owner/operators, living on their labor, and if they stop working they fail. Workers.

Most Americans are not capitalists. They might want to be capitalists, but no matter how much you, or that hardworking barista, that well paid techno-nerd, small farmer, or gangsta rapping bank teller may want to be capitalists, you are not capitalists. You are workers.

It goes on to give a nice critique of capitalism. A quick, concise read.
/

Eureka

2009-05-06T00:11:00.002-04:00

I turned to MyBetterHalf the other day and said,"Honey, I think I know what I want to do when I grow up. She looked up at me, smiled and said, "That's good."

Two years ago I finally got around to actually listening to what environmentalists were saying, and it didn't take me long to realize that at least most of what they were saying was true and jumped on the Green Movement bandwagon. Since I had pretty much decided what I was trying to do and the business I was trying to start just wasn't really going to get off the ground, I figured I could look at what sort of job I could create for myself that was green oriented.

It was then that I read Bill McKibben's book, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and The Durable Future. Here's a quote from a reviewer of the book,

McKibben assails the core capitalist precept: that more is always better. While this was a good principle for nineteenth century societies scrabbling up the early rungs of the development ladder, he says that in a world outstripping its energy resources and facing global warming, a different ethos about the scale and structure of production has to be adopted — one that can help us live within our means (including developing giants like India and China).

But living within our means doesn’t imply that we have to return to the poverty of our pre-industrial forebears. It can also mean living better. In fact, McKibben says that growth without limits doesn’t makes us happy or satisfied. He points to studies in the new field of “hedonics” that claim that after a certain basic basket of needs is filled, the correlation between happiness and money disappears. Americans are the most affluent, but the least content people in the advanced industrial nations, according to these studies. Europeans, who consume about half the resources we do, far outstrip us in reported “well-being.”

McKibben says one difference may be that Europeans place a higher value on local community. Like the philosophy of “deep ecology,” which promotes the idea that humans need to experience a deep connection to the natural world in order to be happy, McKibben says that people need “community” to attain satisfaction. And they must use “technologies of community” to achieve it. Such technologies are locally based, promote direct connections between producers and consumers, and tend to be small-scale, although they can be integrated into a much larger network. They shift the balance away from globalization and toward localism in production and distribution.

There was something in the book that resonated deeply with me. The natural question becomes, how do we put something like this into practice. I look at the small southern conservative town that I live in and see plenty of people that have been thinking about some of these things. There are a number of people that that are very environmentally conscious and many that would like access to good, fresh, locally-grown food. I was even getting in touch with people that wanted to organize a co-op. They expressed they'd wanted to do this for quite some time, it was just that nobody had the time. I said I 'd give it a whirl, but then I got rudely interrupted.

It came about as I was recuperating that I planted my first garden. It was pretty successful for a newbie and I began eating fresh veggies straight out of the garden. Vegetables that actually had a taste to them. The potatoes that we dug out of the ground had a tecture that bordered on creamy. Tomatoes that weren't like biting into some sort of bland water balloon. You really can't get any better than that.

The real issue of course, is the economics of it. While an acre of land farmed "organically" is more productive to an acre farmed conventionally, it requires more labor. It was hard to get the numbers to a point you're getting somewhere. Then along came a revelation: something called permaculture. Although I may refer to it as The Answer, it is at minimum a very key component in the rebuilding of our local economies and the establishment of communities of such that McKibben talks about. The economics move into the permaculturists favor. Sounds good to me.

Do a google and some reading about it and we'll talk more next time.
/

The Local Economy.

2009-04-27T13:58:00.004-04:00

Whenever local people/politicians talk about economic growth for my small southern city, in the next breath they will talk about bringing companies to the city to provide jobs. The biggest advantage is the cheap labor force. Special tax breaks for the company also get involved. The plus side to this is the cash injected into the local economy from outside in the form of wages gives a net gain to the economy.

On the other side of the equation, the big box retail stores that come here are a net drain on the local economy. The stores are in the business of making a profit, which means more money must come into them than they leave, which means money flows out of the local economy through them. These stores are dependent on distribution chains that spread around the world. Dollars spent at Wal-Mart not only make their way to Bentonville, Arkansas and the Walton families pockets, but most go all the way to China. Good for the Chinese. Us? Not so much.

Also, in a very real way, we are dependent on these stores to feed, clothe and supply a myriad of other things for us. If they stopped, for whatever reason, where would that leave us?

If we keep our dollars circulating in the local economy we will all benefit. It would be of much greater benefit to our local economy if we were to move to a more locally oriented and sustainable economy, dependent on ourselves and our own talent and labor.

/eom

Resist or Become Serfs

2009-04-08T00:25:00.003-04:00

I know this economic stuff can be really depressing, and I'll get back to my Alley Garden Updates soon, along with some other cool things that may develop, but sometimes people connect the dots in such a way as you go, Oh... my... God...

Chris Hedges has this article at Truthdig called Resist or Become Serfs:

America is devolving into a third-world nation. And if we do not immediately halt our elite’s rapacious looting of the public treasury we will be left with trillions in debts, which can never be repaid, and widespread human misery which we will be helpless to ameliorate. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state. The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs.

Boy, that can sure stick a pin in one's optimism.

The corporate state, and the political and intellectual class that served the corporate state, constructed a financial and political system based on illusions. Corporations engaged in pyramid lending that created fictitious assets. These fictitious assets became collateral for more bank lending. The elite skimmed off hundreds of millions in bonuses, commissions and salaries from this fictitious wealth. Politicians, who dutifully served corporate interests rather than those of citizens, were showered with campaign contributions and given lucrative jobs when they left office. Universities, knowing it was not good business to challenge corporatism, muted any voices of conscience while they went begging for corporate donations and grants. Deceptive loans and credit card debt fueled the binges of a consumer society and hid falling wages and the loss of manufacturing jobs.

--- snip ---

“Bankrupt corporate capitalism is on its way to bankrupting the socialism that is trying to save it,” Nader added. “That is the end stage. If they no longer have socialism to save them then we are into feudalism. We are into private police, gated communities and serfs with a 21st century nomenclature.”

He ends with this cheery picture.

A furious and sustained backlash by a betrayed and angry populace, one unprepared intellectually and psychologically for collapse, will sweep aside the Democrats and most of the Republicans. A cabal of proto-fascist misfits, from Christian demagogues to simpletons like Sarah Palin to loudmouth talk show hosts, who we naively dismiss as buffoons, will find a following with promises of revenge and moral renewal. The elites, the ones with their Harvard Business School degrees and expensive vocabularies, will retreat into their sheltered enclaves of privilege and comfort. We will be left bereft and abandoned outside the gates.

How much of this is plausible? All too much of it for my comfort.

/eom

If You Can Take It

2009-04-02T14:36:00.005-04:00

There's been a number of good articles come out that I haven't had time to blog about (along with the fact I had a good post going when my computer bluescreened).

Let's start with an article titled, The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Understand the Crisis,

As a white-collar criminologist and former financial regulator much of my research studies what causes financial markets to become profoundly dysfunctional. The FBI has been warning of an "epidemic" of mortgage fraud since September 2004. It also reports that lenders initiated 80% of these frauds.¹ When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a "weapon" to defraud we categorize it as a "control fraud" ("The Organization as 'Weapon' in White Collar Crime." Wheeler & Rothman 1982; The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Black 2005). Financial control frauds' "weapon of choice" is accounting. Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime -- combined. Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a "criminogenic environment" (Big Money Crime. Calavita, Pontell & Tillman 1997.)

The FBI correctly identified the epidemic of mortgage control fraud at such an early point that the financial crisis could have been averted had the Bush administration acted with even minimal competence. To understand the crisis we have to focus on how the mortgage fraud epidemic produced widespread accounting fraud. [emphasis mine - OG]

I get really suspicious when people keep copping to "incompetence." It can hide much more nefarious motives.

These two documents are enough to begin to understand:
the FBI accurately described mortgage fraud as "epidemic"
nonprime lenders are overwhelmingly responsible for the epidemic
the fraud was so endemic that it would have been easy to spot if anyone looked
the lenders, the banks that created nonprime derivatives, the rating agencies, and the buyers all operated on a "don't ask; don't tell" policy
willful blindness was essential to originate, sell, pool and resell the loans
willful blindness was the pretext for not posting loss reserves
both forms of blindness made high (fictional) profits certain when the bubble was expanding rapidly and massive (real) losses certain when it collapsed
the worse the nonprime loan quality the higher the fees and interest rates, and the faster the growth in nonprime lending and pooling the greater the immediate fictional profits and (eventual) real losses
the greater the destruction of wealth, the greater the (fictional) profits, bonuses, and stock appreciation
many of the big banks are deeply insolvent due to severe credit losses
those big banks and Treasury don't know how insolvent they are because they didn't even have the loan files
a "stress test" can't remedy the banks' problem -- they do not have the loan files

Wired has an article about this Chinese economist David X. Li,

For five years, Li's formula, known as a Gaussian copula function, looked like an unambiguously positive breakthrough, a piece of financial technology that allowed hugely complex risks to be modeled with more ease and accuracy than ever before. With his brilliant spark of mathematical legerdemain, Li made it possible for traders to sell vast quantities of new securities, expanding financial markets to unimaginable levels.

His method was adopted by everybody from bond investors and Wall Street banks to ratings agencies and regulators. And it became so deeply entrenched—and was making people so much money—that warnings about its limitations were largely ignored.

Then the model fell apart. Cracks started appearing early on, when financial markets began behaving in ways that users of Li's formula hadn't expected. The cracks became full-fledged canyons in 2008—when ruptures in the financial system's foundation swallowed up trillions of dollars and put the survival of the global banking system in serious peril.

David X. Li, it's safe to say, won't be getting that Nobel anytime soon. One result of the collapse has been the end of financial economics as something to be celebrated rather than feared. And Li's Gaussian copula formula will go down in history as instrumental in causing the unfathomable losses that brought the world financial system to its knees.

Isn't that special...

The damage was foreseeable and, in fact, foreseen. In 1998, before Li had even invented his copula function, Paul Wilmott wrote that "the correlations between financial quantities are notoriously unstable." Wilmott, a quantitative-finance consultant and lecturer, argued that no theory should be built on such unpredictable parameters. And he wasn't alone. During the boom years, everybody could reel off reasons why the Gaussian copula function wasn't perfect. Li's approach made no allowance for unpredictability: It assumed that correlation was a constant rather than something mercurial. Investment banks would regularly phone Stanford's Duffie and ask him to come in and talk to them about exactly what Li's copula was. Every time, he would warn them that it was not suitable for use in risk management or valuation.

In hindsight, ignoring those warnings looks foolhardy. But at the time, it was easy. Banks dismissed them, partly because the managers empowered to apply the brakes didn't understand the arguments between various arms of the quant universe. Besides, they were making too much money to stop.

And isn't that what it's all about?

"Li can't be blamed," says Gilkes of CreditSights. After all, he just invented the model. Instead, we should blame the bankers who misinterpreted it. And even then, the real danger was created not because any given trader adopted it but because every trader did. In financial markets, everybody doing the same thing is the classic recipe for a bubble and inevitable bust.

Yeah, they deserve all that money because they're such frakkin' geniuses.

Li has been notably absent from the current debate over the causes of the crash. In fact, he is no longer even in the US. Last year, he moved to Beijing to head up the risk-management department of China International Capital Corporation. In a recent conversation, he seemed reluctant to discuss his paper and said he couldn't talk without permission from the PR department. In response to a subsequent request, CICC's press office sent an email saying that Li was no longer doing the kind of work he did in his previous job and, therefore, would not be speaking to the media.

It's probably nothing.

I was commenting on The Quiet Coup, when my computer bluescreened,

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

It's worth the read.

Sleep Well.

/eom

Infinite Debt

2009-03-26T11:39:00.002-04:00

Thomas Geoghegan (pronounced ja-hay-gun) has an article in Harper's called Infinite Debt: How Unlimited Interest Rates Destroyed the Economy. He was on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now show last Tuesday. You hear it or read the transcript here. It's well worth the time.

It reads, quote, “no amount of New Deal regulation or SEC-watching could have stopped what happened…The problem was not that we ‘deregulated the New Deal’ but that we deregulated a much older, even ancient, set of laws.” The article goes on to say, quote, “We dismantled the most ancient of human laws, the law against usury, which had existed in some form in every civilization from the time of the Babylonian Empire to the end of Jimmy Carter’s term.”

And who came after Carter? Why, yes, that would be Saint Ronnie of the Ray-Gun. He refers to a SCOTUS decision in 1978: Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Service Corp.

Sure, that’s the Brown versus Board of Deregulation for the financial sector. The case—Justice Brennan, of all people, opinion said that banks that operate—out-of-state banks that were subject to the National Banking Act of 1864, signed by President Lincoln in the middle of the Wilderness Campaign, effectively preempted any state regulation capping the interest rates of those banks when they sent their credit cards in from out of state. Now, back in 1864, banks in Delaware weren’t operating out in Nebraska or handing out credit cards across the country, and there was no such thing as Visa or MasterCard.

The effect of this was that the big national banks were not subject to any state usury law, because the Banking Act of 1864 had no interest rate cap on it, not contemplating the kind of situation that we’re in today. And in effect, this sealed what had been a trend throughout the country, which is lifting these interest rate caps for banks and giving consumers easy credit on the premise that they would just pay tons and tons of interest so that the banks were protected if the loan weren’t repaid. In fact, the banks had incentive to hand out credit cards and hope that the loans would not be repaid, because the interest rates on these credit cards were so high.

So the capital in this country began to shift in the financial sector. That’s why the financial sector began to bloat up. That’s why we ended up, by 2006, having a third of all profits going into the banks and the financial firms and not into the real economy.

This is nothing less than the banksters waging economic war, class war, on the rest of us.

I feel one of the reasons I am in favor of the bailout of the auto industry is, aside from all the other reasons, a sense of guilt that we set up all the returns in this economy in favor of financial firms and really disinvested from industry. And even worse, we began to turn industry into a banking itself. General Motors, General Electric began to operate banks, because that’s where they made the big profit, in the loans to consumers, uncapped interest. It’s a very destructive situation.

And this isn’t some left-wing progressive critique circa 2009. Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, warned how important it is to have interest rate caps on the financial sector, or all the money will gush into there and out of productive uses. Keynes, in The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, the great classic, 1936, has a little chapter at the end saying, “Yes, we have deficit spending. I’ve got this way of getting out of the Depression. By the way, we’ve got to keep the interest rate caps on the banks.”

...Many economic historians, see history as nothing but a turf war between three groups: the manufacturers, workers and the bondholders, or the financial sector. So where does labor fit in in all of this? People lost the ability to get wage increases and got the ability, an incredible ability, really unknown in previous times, to get credit cards with which they had high rates of interest. So, unable to get wage increases, people—or unable to get union cards, really, people got credit cards and began running up these great debts, which addicted the country to high rates of return in the financial sector, so that people were kind of spending their way out of the real economy, pushing more and more money, by the fact that they were going into debt, into this virtual financial sector economy. So, really, the inability of people to raise their own wages and the incredible ease with which they could get credit instead helped create this flow of capital out of manufacturing and into finance. You know, we, the little people in this country, helped finance the bloating up of this financial sector and really the downsizing of our own jobs in the real economy. We sent the signals, you know, to investors to put money into the financial sector and not into the manufacturing sector.

Check it out.

/eom

The Big Takeover.

2009-03-26T01:07:00.002-04:00

If you haven't seen Matt Taibbi's The Great Takeover in Rolling Stone, it is absolutely must read.

You gotta love an article about the Wall Street mess that begins,

It's over — we're officially, royally fucked.

And goes on to,

The best way to understand the financial crisis is to understand the meltdown at AIG. AIG is what happens when short, bald managers of otherwise boring financial bureaucracies start seeing Brad Pitt in the mirror. This is a company that built a giant fortune across more than a century by betting on safety-conscious policyholders — people who wear seat belts and build houses on high ground — and then blew it all in a year or two by turning their entire balance sheet over to a guy who acted like making huge bets with other people's money would make his dick bigger.

That guy — the Patient Zero of the global economic meltdown — was one Joseph Cassano, the head of a tiny, 400-person unit within the company called AIG Financial Products, or AIGFP. Cassano, a pudgy, balding Brooklyn College grad with beady eyes and way too much forehead, cut his teeth in the Eighties working for Mike Milken, the granddaddy of modern Wall Street debt alchemists. Milken, who pioneered the creative use of junk bonds, relied on messianic genius and a whole array of insider schemes to evade detection while wreaking financial disaster. Cassano, by contrast, was just a greedy little turd with a knack for selective accounting who ran his scam right out in the open, thanks to Washington's deregulation of the Wall Street casino.

It goes on to explain collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and credit default swaps (CDS),

In its simplest form, a CDS is just a bet on an outcome. Say Bank A writes a million-dollar mortgage to the Pope for a town house in the West Village. Bank A wants to hedge its mortgage risk in case the Pope can't make his monthly payments, so it buys CDS protection from Bank B, wherein it agrees to pay Bank B a premium of $1,000 a month for five years. In return, Bank B agrees to pay Bank A the full million-dollar value of the Pope's mortgage if he defaults. In theory, Bank A is covered if the Pope goes on a meth binge and loses his job.

Secondly, Cassano was selling so-called "naked" CDS deals. In a "naked" CDS, neither party actually holds the underlying loan. In other words, Bank B not only sells CDS protection to Bank A for its mortgage on the Pope — it turns around and sells protection to Bank C for the very same mortgage. This could go on ad nauseam: You could have Banks D through Z also betting on Bank A's mortgage. Unlike traditional insurance, Cassano was offering investors an opportunity to bet that someone else's house would burn down, or take out a term life policy on the guy with AIDS down the street. It was no different from gambling, the Wall Street version of a bunch of frat brothers betting on Jay Feely to make a field goal. Cassano was taking book for every bank that bet short on the housing market, but he didn't have the cash to pay off if the kick went wide.

He goes on to talk about Phil Gramm, the scumbag former senator from Texas, who led the charge in 1999 with two pieces of legislation that effectively overturned the safeguards put in place by FDR to prevent this sort of nonsense.

In the 10-year period beginning in 1998, financial companies spent $1.7 billion on federal campaign contributions and another $3.4 billion on lobbyists. They quickly got what they paid for. In 1999, Gramm co-sponsored a bill that repealed key aspects of the Glass-Steagall Act, smoothing the way for the creation of financial megafirms like Citigroup. The move did away with the built-in protections afforded by smaller banks. In the old days, a local banker knew the people whose loans were on his balance sheet: He wasn't going to give a million-dollar mortgage to a homeless meth addict, since he would have to keep that loan on his books. But a giant merged bank might write that loan and then sell it off to some fool in China, and who cared?

The very next year, Gramm compounded the problem by writing a sweeping new law called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that made it impossible to regulate credit swaps as either gambling or securities. Commercial banks — which, thanks to Gramm, were now competing directly with investment banks for customers — were driven to buy credit swaps to loosen capital in search of higher yields. "By ruling that credit-default swaps were not gaming and not a security, the way was cleared for the growth of the market," said Eric Dinallo, head of the New York State Insurance Department.

You really should read it.

As complex as all the finances are, the politics aren't hard to follow. By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future. There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power. In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below.

The most galling thing about this financial crisis is that so many Wall Street types think they actually deserve not only their huge bonuses and lavish lifestyles but the awesome political power their own mistakes have left them in possession of. When challenged, they talk about how hard they work, the 90-hour weeks, the stress, the failed marriages, the hemorrhoids and gallstones they all get before they hit 40.

"But wait a minute," you say to them. "No one ever asked you to stay up all night eight days a week trying to get filthy rich shorting what's left of the American auto industry or selling $600 billion in toxic, irredeemable mortgages to ex-strippers on work release and Taco Bell clerks. Actually, come to think of it, why are we even giving taxpayer money to you people? Why are we not throwing your ass in jail instead?"

But before you even finish saying that, they're rolling their eyes, because You Don't Get It. These people were never about anything except turning money into money, in order to get more money; valueswise they're on par with crack addicts, or obsessive sexual deviants who burgle homes to steal panties. Yet these are the people in whose hands our entire political future now rests.

Good luck with that, America. And enjoy tax season.

AIG Guy Quits. World Goes On...

2009-03-25T16:32:00.005-04:00

The New York Times printed a resignation letter from a guy at AIG, one Jake DeSantis, who worked in the Financial Products Division, heading units in "equities and commodities," that earned the company $100 million in profits.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated clearly supported my compensation. I never received any pay resulting from the credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial activity — directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.

Poor baby... Let down by Suits and Politicians, imagine that. At least he didn't claim to be working when he said he spent ten, rwelve, fourteen hours away from his family. Excuse me? What do you think the rest of us do out here? We're all pretty much working those kind of hours and I guarantee we are making no where near that kind of money. My guess is that he still has well into seven figures in his portfolio.

I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over our retention payments, and that you didn’t defend us against the baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut.

You expected your management to back you up? What planet have you been living on? Talk about living in a privileged bubble!

So what am I to do? There’s no easy answer. I know that because of hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust. Some might argue that members of my profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn’t disagree.

No shit Sherlock! You don't think all those hefty paydays aren't directly related to the mess we're in? You admit, you're set, you have a lot of money saved up. It wasn't from "hard work" that got you that money. It's from skimming the profits that working people deserved. Most of us aren't as fortunate, and WE'RE NOT TO BLAME EITHER!

What a whiner!!! Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Mr. DeSantis.

And if people in your "profession" are feeling fear, WELL THEY SHOULD! You should get down on your knees at night and thank God that we aren't socialists or communists or whatever the right wing and other Suits like yourself want to call us. If we were, you wouldn't be afraid. You'd be dead.

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This is Not Good

2009-03-25T11:29:00.001-04:00

China, who is probably the largest holder of US dollars is going to be pushing to move away from the dollar as the default world reserve currency.

Right now, all nations need to have dollars in their reserves mostly to pay for oil which is denominated in dollars. It was one of the reasons they attacked Iraq - Saddam was moving to get paid in euros. Iran has also talked about this publicly, which is one of the reasons for the bad press.

If this happens, we're talking about bigtime inflation, which may actually mitigate against it, it may not be possible now without huge affects hitting the worldwide economy.

\

Yep, the World Has Changed

2009-03-24T23:39:00.001-04:00

You all remember how things were back a few years ago? I'm afraid we'll be thinking how good those days were some years from now.

I'm not holding out any hope that the old paradigm is going to return. It really can't, because like the Soviet system there's a fatal flaw in the theory, but it's only going to go kicking and screaming every step of the way.

The last thirty years have shown us just what happens when you let Wall Street, so-called "free enterprise", run things. When Wall Street crashed the system big time resulting in what we now call the First Great Republican Depression, we got a president that took on the banksters of his day, overthrowing their power and implementing policies that favored working people greater than has ever been seen in this country. In his acceptance speech to the Democratic Convention in 1936, his "Rendevous With Destiny" speech, FDR spelled out what he considered the greatest threat to the nation that he was calling on Americans to turn back:

I cannot, with candor, tell you that all is well
with the world. Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance
gather darkly in many places. In our own land we enjoy indeed a
fullness of life greater than that of most nations. But the rush of
modern civilization itself has raised for us new difficulties, new
problems which must be solved if we are to preserve to the United
States the political and economic freedom for which Washington and
Jefferson planned and fought.
That very word freedom, in itself and of
necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we
sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy - from the
eighteenth-century royalists who held special privileges from the
crown. It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without
the consent of the governed; that they denied the right of free
assembly and free speech; that they restricted the worship of God; that
they put the average man's property and the average man's life in pawn
to the mercenaries of dynastic power; that they regimented the people.
Since that struggle, however, man's inventive genius
released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our
people. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity;
the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution - all
of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new
problem for those who sought to remain free.

For out of this modern civilization economic
royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon
concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of
corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and
agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers -
the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal
service.

There was no place among this royalty for our many
thousands of small-businessmen and merchants who sought to make a
worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were
no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and
progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their
generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic
scheme of things.

It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged
princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached
out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism
and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new
mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their
property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the
problem that faced the Minute Man.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they
received, the conditions of their labor - these had passed beyond the
control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial
dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the
small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age - other
people's money - these were tools which the new economic royalty used
to dig itself in.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the
rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was
decreed by men in distant cities.

Throughout the nation, opportunity was limited by
monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great
machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted.
Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged
enterprise, not free enterprise.

An old English judge once said: "Necessitous men are
not free men." Liberty requires opportunity to make a living - a living
decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man
not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

For too many of us the political equality we once
had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small
group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control
over other people's property, other people's money, other people's
labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer
free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of
happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American
citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The
collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election
of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is
being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded
that political freedom was the business of the government, but they
have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They
granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to
vote, but they denied that the government could do anything to protect
the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that
freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is
guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal
opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to
overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is
that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American
institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they
seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness
they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as
always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not
subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the
over-privileged alike.

Welcome back.

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What's a Trillion Dollars, Daddy?

2009-03-24T23:31:00.001-04:00

Check out this graphic on what a trillion dollars looks like.

/

The Prez Hits It Out of the Park.

2009-02-25T02:52:00.001-05:00

Well, President Obama just knocked one out of the park with his first “State of the Union” address before the entire government of the United States, IMHO. Well, not quite. Attorney General Eric Holder was the “Designated Successor”. He’s the one, that in the line of succession would become president if something catastrophic happened. So he’s out of DC at some undisclosed location (which somehow does not sound nearly as ominous as when it was applied to Dick Cheney). I took note that he acknowledged the mucky-mucks that were there then turned and spoke directly to the American people. A few highlights:

The concern is that if we do not re-start lending in this country, our recovery will be choked off before it even begins.

It’s the bankers that have the capital and are not lending. Are they trying to sabotage Obama’s recovery plans? I laugh when I hear the right-wingnuts say we’re socialists. I’ve even told people, if we were socialists the bankers wouldn’t have testified before Congress, they would have been shot before Congress. I had a doctor agree with me.

Already, we have done more to advance the cause of health care reform in the last thirty days than we have in the last decade. When it was days old, this Congress passed a law to provide and protect health insurance for eleven million American children whose parents work full-time.

He got a standing ovation from the Democrats on this, but none of the Republicans stood, and I don’t think they even applauded, and I thought, Yeah, I hope someone’s getting a picture of this, how they’re disgusted about providing healthcare to children. How can you not say they’re simply heartless bastards?

I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.

Impressive. He’s putting it on the table now. He’s going for it, I think: national health care. Teddy Roosevelt first called for universal health care in the US. If he’d mentioned Truman, then it would have been for sure. He might as well, he’s as popular as he’s ever going to be.

That is why it will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education - from the day they are born to the day they begin a career.

I think he’s talking about college. The US should have free education through all levels at all times. It’s called investment in human capital. Something the so-called “free market” has been woefully lacking in since it’s ascendancy under Reagan.

And there was a lot more. I can’t believe how flat and god-awful Bobby Jindal sounded afterwards. Not to mention the fact he was spouting the same nonsensical Republican ideology and policies that have brought us to the edge of the abyss in the first place (if indeed we aren’t over the edge already and merely slowly picking up speed). If this is what the Republican Party is becoming, all I can say is, Bring It On…

/

Credit Crisis Made Simple

2009-02-21T02:38:00.000-05:00

This is pretty good.

/

Republican Liars

2009-02-20T15:34:00.002-05:00

I’ve had snippets of stuff for some days now and haven’t had the time to tie it together, so you’re getting the raw feed, so to speak:

It bothers me that Republicans and conservatives get to spout any old bullshit and wild-ass ideas and are never brought to account for the blithering idiots they are by the major media. From watching these people on TV, and listening to them on the radio for years now, it has become painfully obvious to me that most of them have no clue about what it is they are trying to pontificate. So imagine how horrifying it is to listen to their words being echoed by people you know and are close to. Aaaaaaaagggghhhh!!!!

The thing that ticks me off about the Republicans/conservatives is that they can flat out lie to us, try to revise history, and just generally have a very loose relationship with reality and real morals, all the while hypocritically posturing themselves as the righteous, responsible and truthful.

The Big Lie that they are pushing now is that Roosevelt and the New Deal did not get us out of the depression, that it was World War II that did that. Let’s look at a graph of GDP, a measurement that they like to use as a barometer of the economy:

What do we see when we deal with the real world and the actual facts of history? We see GDP peaked in 1929 when the stock market famously crashed. The Republican Hoover followed eight years of the Republican Coolidge. You see that GDP consistently went down for the next four years until 1932. By then, there was twenty-five percent unemployment and the people threw the Republicans out and brought the Democrats and Roosevelt in.

We see the New Deal begins and GDP climbs consistently for the next five years, exceeding 1929’s GDP by 1936. In other words, the Depression ended in 1933 since GDP began growing again that year, and continued until 1937. If you want to consider the Great Depression the trough of the graph of GDP over time, then it was over in 1936. The Republican Hoover took it to the low point, the Democrat Roosevelt brought it out.

Then, you have some Republicans pointing to 1938. Yeah, there was a down tick. Why? Because Roosevelt let himself get bamboozled by Republicans into cutting taxes and spending and the result was a recession in 1938. Roosevelt quickly reversed himself and growth resumed through 1941 and the beginning of World War II.

Even if one concedes the point of World War II getting us out of the First Republican Great Depression, what was the war but an enormous public works project? And here’s the real kicker, even though GDP goes up throughout the War, average people felt a lowering of their standard of living due to rationing and other shortages.

So then, anyone that tries to spout this stuff is either ignorant or lying. If it’s ignorance here are the facts of the case. You are no longer ignorant. To continue is to lie.

The question is why is this getting any play in the Media?

/

A Picture of Our Current Situation.

2009-02-11T00:40:00.002-05:00

Check out this graph that shows employment losses over all the recessions since World War II. Check out the trajectory of the current one. That does not look good.

Don't ever forget. This has been brought to you by the Republicans, Wall Street and the Media. They totally rejiggered things from the time I grew up and ran it off a cliff. I see no reason they should get to keep their ill-gotten gains. It has been a scam from the beginning, and they are still trying to run the scam. If you hear someone say liberals are the cause of this, realize they are lying and the only reason they are saying it is to somehow benefit their own pocketbook at the expense of yours.

Not Three Weeks In

2009-02-10T01:09:00.003-05:00

Not even three weeks have gone by and the neo-fascist Republicans are revealing they are going to make Obama’s life as miserable as possible. They are going to try to obstruct and undermine anything that he tries to do and blame the failure on him. Also, I have no doubt that the Bushistas have left some time bombs for him.

Check out Paul Krugman’s columns. Krugman is last year’s Nobel prize winner in economics and as far as I can tell has a real handle on what’s going down, and what had been happening over the last eight years to his great horror. Another guy to check out is Ravi Batra at Southern Methodist University. These were voices saying no, the fundamentals of the economy are not sound. In fact, there’s some serious erosion going on and you know what happens when the house is built on sand.

Make no mistake. We are on the edge of the Second Great Republican Depression, if not already beyond the point of no return. The reason we are here is due to the unraveling of the protections that had been put in place under Roosevelt (FDR) to prevent a rerun of the thirties, and the implementation of a cockamamie economic theory. Beginning with Reagan and on through the latest Bush, Clinton included, the safeguards against this sort of thing were taken away. And now they’re shocked, shocked they tell you, that gambling had been going on.

It shows what little honor these bastards have. Frankly, we owe them no respect. These people are no friends to people like you or me. It is a testimony to the power of the propagandistic control of the media, and the people’s complacency, that these people are not only not in chains or worse, but are out there free to make our lives even more miserable. In some very real ways, our lives and Obama’s life are intertwined, and our and the success of our children and grandchildren are all intertwined with his success. If he fails, just where do you think that is going to leave us?

Which brings us to the arch-blowbag himself, Rush Limbaugh. He flat out said, “I hope he fails.” He’s actively having his dittoheads call their representatives and senators and tell them to be against this stimulus bill, and so the calls are running like a hundred to one against. I called my senators offices in DC Friday and told them I wanted them to support the President. God, I loved saying that to my Republican senators, I want you to support the President, with great emphasis, with great relish on the word, President. Saxby Chambliss’s office was respectful. It hung in the air like a lead balloon at Isakson’s.

If Obama fails, what do you think is going to happen? Do you think it will get better or get worse? If Obama fails, it means things will get worse. It will not only be worse for us, but for our children and grandchildren. Rush Limbaugh has as good as said to me that he hopes my life, and the lives of my family, my wife, my mother, my brother, my in-laws, my children and grandchildren get worse. He’s saying that to all of us out here in the normal world that he hopes our lives get worse. And all the while he gets richer and richer.

I welcome the idea that Rush Limbaugh is the de facto leader of the Republican party. Every Republican needs to have him hung around their necks like a dead, sticking, rotting albatross. I think I’ll call my senators back and ask if they’re going to stand with the President or with Rush Limbaugh. If the Republican Party wants to whittle itself down to the size of dittoheads, it’s fine with me. Rush’s great stats are that he gets something like fifteen million people who might tune in to his show sometime during the five days he’s on. Hardcore dittoheads are much less. My guess is at least three fourths of Americans think Rushie is totally full of shit.

By the way, just what is someone who actively works against the American government and people? Weren’t they the ones just saying this to us? As far as I’m concerned Rush Limbaugh has crossed the line.

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It's a New Year!

2009-01-15T15:47:00.002-05:00

Blogger is giving me a hard time with cutting and pasting all of a sudden - won't let me post.

It's been nearly a month since my last post. It was a wonderful holiday with all the immediate progeny in attendance, which we grandparents get great joy from. I wish we could could include more of the immediate family, but most are fifteen hundred miles or so away. Both my family in Michigan and MyBetterHalf's family in Boston had some snowy and frigid weather - and they're still being subjected to it.

I've made it a goal this year to try to wrap my brain around the Chinese concept of chi. First, I'm trying to get some grasp of feng shui. I have four books spread out across my kitchen table, and a number of sites bookmarked. I'm into it far enough to learn there are different schools of feng shui - which really gets a neophyte like me confused.

All agree, though, that the place to start is to get rid of clutter. I'll only state the obvious to those that know me and MyBetterHalf when I say we're a couple of pack rats (You never know when you might need such-and-such... I'll get back into those old clothes as soon as I drop off these pounds I've put on... How can you have too many books?... Know what I'm sayin'?)

Our first step was easy. There's an old shed out back that we've been using as our own private dump since we moved in here. In fact, there was junk left by previous tennants. We hauled off five hundred pounds to the city dump. I cleaned out the shed, cleansed it, and moved a lot of stuff from the side of the house and my back porch out to it. This made my back door, which I use quite a bit, more open.

We're working on our bedrooms and den/study/workshop now. We also have opportunity to paint the whole house. In other words, our whole house, our immediate environment is having a makeover. With everything we do I feel better and like I have more energy, more chi. From what I can tell this is what feng shui is all about.

\stay tuned

Happy New Year!

2009-01-15T15:42:00.002-05:00

I decided to make a change in the blog appearance in honor of the new year. Hope you like it.

This post is also a test, since I tried posting yesterday and had a problem.

/

The Mystic's Dream.

2008-12-16T22:15:00.001-05:00

I was listening to a program recently and this guy said that people that are into the psychology of religion are aware of what they call the primary mystical experience. They’ve gone through the writings of the mystics down through the ages and defined characteristics with a cross cultural generality.

Unity. There is a feeling of oneness with the universe and a loss of ego boundaries. Self is experienced as pure awareness.

Transcendence of Time and Space. There is a loss of usual references of time and space. Time seems to slow down or even stop. Experiences of eternity and infinity are common.

Deeply Felt Positive Mood. There are feelings of blessedness, joy, and peace, and a sense of unconditional love. The uniqueness of these emotions is in the level to which they are elevated, the intensity of the experience.

Sense of Sacredness. There is an intuitive sense of wonder and peace, a sense of special value, and a feeling of the holy and divine.

Subjective Nature of the Experience. The knowledge seems remarkably insightful. It is conveyed not through words, but through the experience itself, and there is a certainty that this knowledge is authentic and direct.

Paradoxicality. When attempting to explain the experience to others, there are frequently logical contradictions in explanations, such as emptiness in which one simultaneously feels full and complete, or a dissolution of self in which something of the individual remains to experience the phenomenon. There is both separateness from and unity with the surroundings.

Alleged Ineffability. The experience seems to be beyond what words can define. Logical descriptions or interpretations are incapable of accurately describing the experience, partially due to the paradoxical nature of the phenomena.

Transiency. The actual time spent in the mystical state is temporary. A return to the everyday surroundings occurs after a short period, whether through sudden awakening or a gradual shift of awareness to the immediate environment.

Persisting Positive Changes in Mood and Behavior. In many cases, the individual integrates these revelations into future life experiences. Pahnke divides these attiitude changes into four areas: toward self, toward others, toward life, and toward the mystical experience itself. The individual is more able to recognize and deal with the negative aspects of his own personality, acts more open to others and is more authentic and more tolerant. The attitude is frequently more optimistic. Purpose and meaning are more prominent in everyday life. There is a new, deeper understanding of the mystical experience and the individual feels more connected with spirituality and religion.

This is what I have faith in, what I mean when I talk about direct spiritual experience of God and the Spirit, gnosis. This is what I seek in my religion and spiritual practice. This is what I see as the substance of my faith and what it means to be in the Spirit. I’ve had a few experiences such as this, and many more glimpses or flashes, such that I can only consider it evidence of its reality. This is what I think its all about.

The Mystics Dream

Xtians.

2008-12-15T21:32:00.003-05:00

I have had it with these people, these bloviators who presume to speak in the name of the Lord. From henceforth I shall call these people Xtians, as in Christ-less Christians. They don’t deserve the honorific prefex, as they bear no more resemblance to the Christ than Osama bin Laden. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, let’s start with the late Jerry “Fat Man” Falwell and James Kennedy. Still kicking are Pat Robertson and James Dobson, though they’re aging fast. There’s the gnome John Hagee and Franklin “The Prodigal” Graham. I suppose you have The Xtian Channel at TBN where you can see a veritable zoo of these types. Other lesser lights include Benny Hinn, Rod Parsley, Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye., Cal Thomas, and we might as well throw George W. Bush into the mix. I’m sure you can come up with your own list.

(h/t to Maha for the word Xtian).

Now before any start screaming how anti-Christian I am let me say unequivocally that I am a Christian and have been for at least thirty seven years. I’m even a member of a very traditional Christian denomination. However, all of my views are mine and mine alone and in no way represent the particular church I go to, or any church for that matter. It’s my experience of God within the Christian context that I speak from.

Now some may say, “Gee, Oldguy, isn’t that way harsh, calling them Christ-less Christians? Shouldn’t you have some Christian charity yourself?” Well, maybe so, but sometimes you have to call a spade a spade, and if something is particularly odious it needs to be called out. It’s what’s called the prophetic ministry.

The latest to move onto the celebrity Christian stage is “Ricky Boy” Warren. That would be he of the Purpose Driven Saddleback Church Candidate Forum where he purposely set Obama up and drove it for McCain. Recently Rick was on Sean Hannity’s show and had this exchange:

HANNITY: Can you talk to rogue dictators? Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, wants to wipe Israel off the map, is seeking nuclear weapons.

WARREN: Yes.

HANNITY: I think we need to take him out.

WARREN: Yes.

HANNITY: Am I advocating something dark, evil or something righteous?

WARREN: Well, actually, the Bible says that evil cannot be negotiated with. It has to just be stopped. And I believe…

HANNITY: By force?

WARREN: Well, if necessary. In fact, that is the legitimate role of government. The Bible says that God puts government on earth to punish evildoers. Not good-doers. Evildoers.

HANNITY: I’m just gotten, thanks to my wife, who you know, you know, been reading the Old Testament. Because as a good Catholic growing up, I studied more the New Testament.

WARREN: Just ignored that part.

HANNITY: I ignored the Old Testament. But what about King David? What about the — all the battles, all the conflict, you know, going back - - you know, Abraham — Adam and Eve and their children, going forward?

WARREN: The point is, there are some things worth dying for. There’s no doubt about that. And I would die for my family. I would die for my freedom. I would die for this country.

HANNITY: If somebody broke into your house, you would be justified to kill them?

WARREN: I would be justified to protect my family. Absolutely.

HANNITY: And if it took killing them?

WARREN: Absolutely.

HANNITY: But it’s not murder at that point?

WARREN: No. Murder is not self-defense.

This is just so wrong I hardly know where to begin. First, if Rick Warren seems to be everywhere in the media lately, it’s because he is. He’s hawking a new book of his for Christmas. The Purpose Driven Life made him millions, and he wants more. He’s at the top of a mega-church pyramid with something like four thousand members, and you better believe he has them tithing. So they’re probably paying him at least a million a year (that’s what Hagee gets). There’s more to Rick than this, but we can get into that another time. Let’s get back to how wrong this whole thing is:

HANNITY: Can you talk to rogue dictators? Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, wants to wipe Israel off the map, is seeking nuclear weapons.

First, Ahmadinejad is not a dictator. He is the elected president of Iran, with powers defined by a constitution, which powers are much less than our own president. For example, Ahmadinejad is not over the military as our Commander-in-Chief. In fact, Ahmadinejad is not even the head honcho in Iran. That would be the Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Ayatollah or some such mucky-muck, who is over the military. Now, I cannot believe, that after all this time, that someone has not brought this to Hannity’s attention. Yet he continues to cling to the bogus claim of “dictator” with all its emotional whallop. And he’s not just any old run-of-the-mill dictator, he’s a “rogue dictator” – something even worse. Can I not legitimately call Sean Hannity a false witness going into this exchange? Or given over to a lying spirit?

HANNITY: I think we need to take him out.

WARREN: Yes.

HANNITY: Am I advocating something dark, evil or something righteous?

WARREN: Well, actually, the Bible says that evil cannot be negotiated with. It has to just be stopped. And I believe…

HANNITY: By force?

WARREN: Well, if necessary. In fact, that is the legitimate role of government. The Bible says that God puts government on earth to punish evildoers. Not good-doers. Evildoers.

Holy Crap! Hannity is imagining killing Ahmadinejad and advocating for just that and he asks if it’s righteous. Have you no conscience, Sean? Of course it’s something dark and evil. But more importantly, does Warren reprove Hannity or spiritually direct him in the Word? No. He joins in with some nonsense about evil being stopped that simply encourages Hannity in his self-righteous delusions. Warren then goes on to say that “God puts government on earth to punish evil doers.”

In this context, Warren gives his sanction and blessing to at least assassination of someone some people here don’t like, or even bombing and war “if necessary.” Warren is positioned as a man of God, someone that is supposed to know God, so giving his blessing as it were, says to Sean and all the viewers that God’s all for this kind of thing. Not just no, but hell no! Not for one instant is Rick Warren speaking from God’s Spirit. He is only speaking from some self-delusional framework of his own mind. If you come right down to it, the man is spouting heresy and blasphemy!

Warren’s people confirmed that he was referring to Romans chapter 13 in the New Testament. He also referred back to the Old Testament. I’ll refer you to this guy’s take on the theology involved in this, along with some other insights I appreciated.

Note in the final exchanges how swiftly Warren’s passionate conviction that there are some things worth dying for morphs into what is really at issue: some things being worth killing for.

If Rick Warren wants to spout bible, maybe he should consider this:

James 4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

Romans 12:19-21 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

[ed: Ironically these verses immediately precede the section Warren was referring to.]

Mat 7:12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. (i.e. this is what the whole OT means.)

Mat 5:44-45 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven:

As far as the Old Testament, or more accurately, the Old Covenant or the First Covenant, goes, as a disciple of Jesus, being born again of the Spirit, the old covenant just doesn’t apply. I’m under a new covenant. We have a new way of being. Jesus said, “It is finished,” referring to the old covenant.

Michigan Reality Check.

2008-12-14T21:48:00.004-05:00

I talked to my brother in Michigan today. He’s lived in Grand Rapids for thirty five years or so. Here’s the reality of the state that bases the auto industry. As I’ve said before, Michigan was a good place to grow up. The economy was humming and it was hoppin’ and poppin’. My brother told me that Muskegan, a city on Lake Michigan a little southwest of Grand Rapids, has an unemployment rate at twenty-two to twenty-five percent, and that up where my mother lives it’s near fifty. These are depression levels already and the auto industry hasn’t totally collapsed yet.

But if it’s up to a cabal of southern senators the American auto industry will collapse. These most vocal senators against making loans to the auto industry, who are ubiquitous in the media, every one of them has a foreign car plant in their state. Even in my own state of Georgia, where both of my Republican senators were filibustering against the auto companies, KIA is moving in. They even gave the governor a KIA to drive. It is obvious these senators are acting as agents for foreign corporations in an economic war against the remaining three American automakers. If the American companies go under, it is these foreign companies which stand to gain. These senators are economic traitors to the United States of America and to the American working people.

I called both of my senators 800 numbers Friday and chewed out the person on the other end of the line. I couldn’t believe the line of garbage they were trying to hand me. Then I saw this memo that was circulated among Republicans. This whole thing is about busting the UAW. It’s a union busting exercise. They want to take down the union. This confirms that the line they were giving me over the phone was utter garbage – a pack of lies. Not only do they not represent my interests as a working person, they have so little respect that they will literally bullshit me over the phone.

Every one of the states got these companies to build a plant in their respective states by giving all kinds of concessions, tax breaks, and most of all, assurance of help in keeping the unions out. They say Alabama shelled out what amounted to two hundred thousand dollars per job to get the Mercedes plant. On top of that, the state bought twenty five hundred of the first vehicles to roll off the line – the whole state fleet. That’s Shelby’s state. The loan would amount to five thousand dollars per job.

Never forget that it is so-called conservative, supply side, low tax, Republican, Reaganomic economics that has brought us to the brink of depression – and as I wrote in the opening paragraph, a very real depression already in Michigan. What is this type of economics? It is an economic system whereby wealth is transferred from the poor to the already wealthy. It is a system where the top one-tenth of one percent get as much as the entire bottom half, and it’s not enough!

Oh yeah, my brother told me that his wife, president of the Michigan Diabetic Association who has even testified before Congress, lost her job of some twenty years at the hospital in a cost cutting move. It's starting to get ugly out there.

This is good: 7 Myths About Detroit Automakers

Food.

2008-12-01T21:06:00.002-05:00

Did you happen to see Bill Moyers’ Journal this past weekend on PBS. He interviewed Michael Pollan, whose two books, The Omnivore’s Dilemna and In Defense of Food, Moyers mentions at the beginning of the program, and which I have read and highly recommend. They will forever change the way you look at food.

As Time magazine recently put it: farm policy is ‘a welfare program for the megafarms [ed: that would be agribusiness – names like Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM), Cargill, Tyson] that use the most fuel, water and pesticides; emit the most greenhouse gases; grow the most fattening crops; hire the most illegals; and depopulate rural America.’

[Obama was talking of something he read] when he told Time magazine, ‘that the way we produce our food "is partly contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in health care costs."’

What he had read was this article by Michael Pollan. It’s well worth the read.

As long as we think that the supermarket is where our food comes from we will be totally subject to what others are feeding us. Those others are large multi-national, multi-billion dollar corporations. Do you think they have our health interests in mind? Beware the edible food-like substances.

/ - more to come

Detroit and Class Warfare.

2008-11-19T21:13:00.002-05:00

I’ve already written about how I grew up in Detroit and what it was like in the fifties and sixties. I can’t really tell you much about the fifties since I was just a kid first trying to figure out what the heck was going on with this life thing. I did go to a freshly built elementary school three or four blocks from my home and my class size was around twelve or fifteen. It really was a neighborhood school. In 1963 I went to a newly built junior high school that was still within walking distance. I do remember the sixties – albeit with some foggy time toward the end of the decade, but that’s another story – and Detroit was hoppin’ and poppin’ – at least on my white ass side of town.

I grew up right in the middle of square miles of working class families and we were solidly middle class. One of my friends’ father worked in mid-management for Chrysler, and another friend’s father sold Chevys. My uncle Eddie worked forty-five years for Ford. He retired with a good pension and lived a long life. Sometime around World War II my mother worked for Fisher Body. Later she worked for the National Bank of Detroit whose biggest customer was General Motors. She once told me about having to track down a million dollars of GM money. That’s when I first learned that the rich see money differently than the rest of us.

In ’69 I worked for Ford for a couple of months in the summer. I worked at the Rouge Complex at the stamping plant. We put together all the sheet metal that went into cars, operating huge machines that shaped and cut the steel or spot welders that put pieces together. I had to join the UAW and they took forty dollars out of my first check for union dues. I was paid 3.47 an hour – that would be seventeen something today. The next year I worked at a machine shop five minutes from my home that made parts for Chrysler, the quintessential small business interface to the auto industry. It was non-union and I got 2.50 an hour – or about twelve something now. Notice that jobs were available and they paid rather decently.

My brother worked for Ford after he got out of the Navy while he went to college and law school. He worked testing electronic components. Did you ever see the movie Class Action? It stars Gene Hackman. Fred Thompson makes a cameo, kind of like he did in Hunt for Red October. He explains how a company knew about a problem but that the beancounters, the company accountants, ran the numbers and saw that it would be cheaper to settle lawsuits later then have a recall to make the cars safe. My brother worked for the unit that informed Ford of the problem that the movie references.

This is what has gone wrong with American business over my lifetime. The beancounters got control and dictate to the rest of us. The executives have the power and they wield it ruthlessly. Heartless, they care nothing for the pain they cause thousands and thousands of families. They have made millions and millions off the blood, sweat, and tears of the workers, the ones that actually do the work of designing and building cars. Scumbags like Roger Moore (Roger of Michael Moore’s Roger and Me), Henry Ford III, and Lee Iacocca literally destroyed Detroit as heads of the Big Three, yet they made themselves richer. It’s the same aristocratic attitude that our forefathers had a revolution over.

I left Detroit in 1973, and my parents did in 1975 when my father retired. By 1980 when I returned to Detroit to bury my father, I was shocked to see how badly the city had been devastated. The executives made millions, the workers got screwed.

\ - more to come

Its a New Dawn.

2008-11-06T10:48:00.001-05:00

This was going up last night when we had a power outage for a few hours and I went to bed.

Never in my life have I seen such a thing. The whole world is rejoicing over the election of an American president. They were dancing in the streets around the globe, not to mention all over this country: two hundred thousand in Chicago, thousands in Times Square, Harlem, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, Oakland and hundreds of other localities from coast-to-coast. They came out in a spontaneous public display of collective joy honking horns, whooping, or chanting, “O-ba-ma”, or just all around having a street party. It was like New Year’s Eve. Again, over the election of a president.

It is an incredibly profound event for the African-American community, and it is going to have a tremendous affect on society as a whole.

Yes He Did.

2008-11-05T11:28:00.000-05:00

I’ll flat out say it, Tonight I am really proud of my country. Ten months ago I didn’t think it possible. I thought there was no way America would vote for a black man, no matter that he is as much white as he is black and is the quintessential mythical American Dream story. It was interesting when he took Iowa, but then he lost to Hillary in New Hampshire. Then he kicked butt Super Tuesday and went on the ten state run. When states like Montana and Idaho went with the black guy over the white chick, I thought that it just might be possible.

Now tonight. I’m an oldguy. I cut my political teeth on the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. There’s a very good reason African-Americans are ecstatic and in tears tonight. Hell, I’m in tears! Something I never believed possible in my lifetime has occurred. This is a tectonic shift. The world has just changed. I can think of no more historic moment in my lifetime. Maybe the fall of the Berlin Wall – but this is where that change picks up.

--- More to come ---

24 Hours.

2008-11-03T21:49:00.000-05:00

Finally, it will all be over. Yes, I am stressed. All night tonight they’ve been running an anti-Obama Rev. Wright ad telling north Florida to be afraid of the angry black men – gotta frighten all the white folk. That’s what the Republicans are all about, and all they got in their bag. The past month has been the ultimate revelation of what their kind of politics brings us to, the brink of economic meltdown. Just because the DOW stopped its freefall, don’t believe we’re out of the woods. More than likely, the hundreds of billions of dollars that the Treasury just sent over to Wall Street was greatly appreciated and there were bargains to be had, with the result of a rise back above nine thousand.

Anyway, I have absolutely no trust in these people. They have no regard for the American people. We are merely sheep to be fleeced in their eyes. As a computer professional, I absolutely cannot trust computerized voting – it’s just too easy to mess with the votes. In our form of government, a citizen’s vote is sacrosanct, regardless of what the fascist judge Antonin Scalia would have us believe. My hope is that if Obama’s supporters turn out in overwhelming numbers, it will not be denied. I’ll be watching Virginia as an early barometer. If it goes Obama, it’s all over but the shouting. We can only hope and pray. Oh God, let justice reign.

How Despicable.

2008-10-29T22:08:00.002-04:00

I find people like this extremely abhorrent. I don’t mind this woman’s anti-abortion stance, that’s her right and freedom. What I take issue with is her arrogant self-righteous attitude and spirit that makes me question her Christian bona fides in much the same way she wants to question mine. She starts right out:

To all those who name the name of Christ who plan to willfully disobey Him by voting for Obama, take warning. Not only is our nation in grave danger, according to the Word of God, so are you.

I didn’t get that memo. In fact, God told me to vote FOR Obama. Also, I don’t take too kindly to fear tactics like she’s employing and whenever anyone does it sets off the alarms. Frankly, I’m willing to bet (and I’m not a betting man) that I know the Word of God better than she does, so I’m not worried about the nebulous danger that she’s trying to make me fear.

In one week, America will make a choice. And to those who call themselves "Christian" who are planning on voting for Barack Obama, put down the Obama talking points and read God's voter guide before you go to the polls:

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live (Deuteronomy 30:19)
.

I not only planned on voting for Obama, I ALREADY HAVE!!! Putting Christian in quote marks tells me that she doesn’t think I’m a real Christian since I don’t believe like she does. I assume she means the Bible when she says “God’s voter guide,” because she quotes me a verse from the First Covenant saying it like GOD is speaking to me right now. Is she prophesying? I don’t think so. She’s merely swinging the verse that someone taught her was good and kind of apropo like some kind of cudgel.

Then she rattles off a bunch more verses which I could just as easily apply to her when she comes out with this doozy:

Obama-Biden are pro-death.

What can you do but call that out for what it is: just a flat-out goddamned lie. Let me say that again, that’s just a FLAT-OUT GOD-DAMNED LIE! As in, the statement bears no resemblance to reality. The woman is being hysterical at best, but since she likes to throw the Big Ten around how about:

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Ex 20:16

Then she goes into an anti-gay screed. What gay people do affects me not in the least, but could someone tell me why they’re usually nicer, more creative, and have better taste than nearly every religious person I ever met – and I met a lot.

Then she goes into redistribution of wealth like it was a bad thing. I can only gather for all her bible-spouting that she has never read the book of Acts, as in Acts 2:44-45 and 4:34-35, not to mention Matthew 19:21. What most people don’t understand is that we’ve had an enormous redistribution of wealth over the last thirty years, only it has been from the poor and middle class to the already rich, and it’s impoverishing us. I think it’s a good thing to turn that flow around, back to what it was like in the fifties and sixties when the country was at its peak.

She wraps up by basically condemning again anyone who doesn’t think like she does, rattling off a few more condemnatory verses, again wielding the cudgel of fear that we won’t be saved.

I’ll be simple, fear is not of God. Anyone that goes there is not in the Spirit of God. However, it is a staple technique of charlatans and oppressors. When it happens we can know that we do not have to trust the source of it.

This is par for the course with these “Pro-Life” people. I don’t believe for a second that they care one whit for the fetus they say they want to “protect.” Why? Because they won’t have anything to do with it once it’s born. They couldn’t care less about the child. After it’s born it’s YOYO (You’re On Your Own). The only reason they posture themselves this way is because they think it gets them brownie points with God.

There is nothing in the entire essay to lead me to believe this woman actually knows God in any direct experiential way. It’s entirely legalistic in a warped Old Covenant sort of way. It’s the spirit of the Pharisees, not Jesus. A “Christian” is a disciple of the teachings of Jesus. Honestly, I think she needs to get to a nunnery and do some major studying about the New Covenant and engage in serious meditation, prayer and devotion to the Lord. It would do her spirit good.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

FYI: This is what Sarah Palin is all about.

Seven Days.

2008-10-28T20:16:00.006-04:00

Thank God, only one more week left to this endless campaign. While it’s looking good right now for Obama, I will be holding my breath until he’s declared the winner by the Electoral College, whose are the only votes that really count in this republic. It’s not a done deal for me. There’s been a LOT of shenanigans being pulled by the Republicans with voter suppression. I shudder to think of what will happen if Obama wins by millions of votes, but McCain/Palin get elected by the EC. It just so happens that the day after the Election Day is November fifth, Guy Fawkes Day:

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

It’s really an admission of failure of the McCain campaign that a week from the election and all they can do is raise the specter of the boogeyman of socialism – Obama’s a socialist, they say. Anyone that believes that Obama is a socialist first does not know what socialism is, and second does not know what Obama believes. Again, it’s just utter bullshit. It always seems that it’s the Republicans that shovel the most bullshit. It’s like it’s all they got. They certainly can’t run on redistributing the wealth to the already wealthy (which is what they’ve done the last thirty years). They’re saying that Obama’s for “spreading the wealth around,” as if it were a bad thing. I certainly hope so! I could use a little more wealth coming my way, but I’m not going to hold my breath. We haven’t seen the end of this crunch.

It seems the Republicans are fearing a real bloodbath on Election Day. We can only hope that our long national nightmare be over. I’m talking about thirty years of national insanity. It looks like this could be one of those realignments that come about once a generation. The Democrats were swept into domination of the government in 1932, due to the First Great Republican Depression. I personally believe Franklin Delano Roosevelt to be the best president we ever had. The Republicans tried to make a comeback after World War II, winning the White House with Eisenhower. However, Eisenhower was what was called at the time a moderate Republican, and the Republican Party soured themselves on the electorate with Joe McCarthy. Interestingly, I would say Eisenhower was to the left of Clinton economically. That’s how much things have changed in my lifetime. They tried making a comeback with the vile Nixon, but he nearly destroyed the party. Reagan made the comeback in 1980 and ushered in the sea change for the Republicans. Fortunately, the Republicans never got control of both houses of Congress, until the 2000 election. Then after 9-11, Republicans got whatever they wanted for a solid five years. The Democrats regaining Congress merely put the brakes on the Republican agenda.

Now we are on the brink of the Second Great Republican Depression. It’s good that the Democrats are poised to take serious control of government. Obama is very familiar with the struggles of the poor and middle class. It has been his life. With the notable exception of his pow years, McCain has been nothing but a spoiled brat of privilege his whole life, much like George W. Bush.

So, yeah I’m with Obama. I think he’s one of us.

Oh. My. God.

2008-10-15T20:57:00.001-04:00

Well, after waiting for it for thirty five years when I was a young guy, it seems The Crash finally decides to show up when I’m old and gray. Yep, it sure looks like they really screwed the pooch this time. When they actually start saying the words, “worst economic crisis since the thirties,” things have to be bad. Make no mistake, this is the direct result of conservative economic policies that have been pushed on us since Ronald Reagan. What we are seeing is the loudest repudiation of those ideas that could occur.

Let’s see, they come up with a 700 Billion dollar bailout, but the markets around the world precipitously drop. Last week the Dow drops 2500 points or near a quarter of it’s value, the largest in HISTORY. Everyone got excited when it went up over 900 points on Monday, only to see that wiped out by today two days later. Now the Dow is not an accurate measure of the economy, but it does reflect what the business class thinks of the economy, specifically, it’s future.

It isn’t through yet. They say the bailout got them through to the election three weeks away. More than likely there will be some more serious tremors after that, especially the beginning of next year.

Locally, pretty much everyone I know is in a slump and have been for months.

I’ll still be holding my breath for the next three weeks, but it seems that Obama may win this election unless it gets stolen by the Republicans which is still a very good possibility. There is voter suppression going on in a number of states that just happen to be considered “battleground,” and they still control the damn machines. The Obama campaign is pushing people to vote early, if possible. We did here in Georgia a couple of weeks ago. I read this morning that over 500,000 have voted in the state already.

I’m really thankful for the meditation practice that I’ve taken up this year. Things are getting pretty crazy out there, and it’s my spiritual refuge.

Bullshit

2008-09-10T01:02:00.005-04:00

Bullshit

1. A blatant lie, a fragrant untruth, an obvious fallacy,

Or just the excrement of cattle.

“I smell something…

Is it a dog? No…

Is it a horse? No…

I know, It’s BULLSHIT!”

1) noun. Stuff that is made up for the purpose of placating someone, or passing an exam, or getting elected to office. Most often false or ridiculous.

2) verb. To generate bullshit.

3) interjection. Accusing someone of bullshitting.

4) adjective. Identifying or suspecting something as bullshit.

- The Urban Dictionary

A little while ago I heard of a book called, On Bullshit. A review of the book reads:

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."

Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.

Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are. [emphasis mine]

Who Dr. Frankfurt calls “bullshitters,” I have always called “bullshit artists.” It has been my sad experience to have occasionally trusted them. Now I avoid them if at all possible.

Unfortunately, we have had a bullshit artist par excellence as President for the last seven and a half years with the result of a country teetering on the brink. Of course, all politicians generally are bullshit artists, it is part of the job description, but some shovel it much more than others or at least in a good cause like Bernie Sanders, my favorite senator. The key is to know shit from shinola.

Then there are times they just make it easy for us. Karl Rove commented on the Palin pick, “[it was] not a governing decision, but a campaign decision.” Indeed.

With Palin, they start with blatant sex appeal. Her selection adds another dimension to the phrase “firing up the base.” It’s wildly successful with the number one comment of Palin in the right side of the blogosphere being, “She’s hot!”

But since they’re Republicans and conservatives, having those impure thoughts cannot be expressed forthrightly, but must be left as naughty undertones and innuendos, and so her public persona starts with the Mother myth. Millions of working moms feel a reflexive identification.

She’s given a speech written by someone else for a man so that it had to be reworked for her, which she delivers with such snarky gusto showing that, yes indeed, she can shovel the bullshit with the best of the boys. Too which the fans went wild! All the High Mucky-mucks of Bullshit, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, O’Rielly, and all the lesser demigods hail her magnificent bullshit delivery of bullshit.

On the way out of town, Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager told us this, “This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” In other words, Rick is telling us this election is about bullshit.

Damn, what bullshit.

McCain, Republicans Desperate

2008-09-01T17:26:00.002-04:00

Obviously, John McCain is desperate with his pick of Sarah Palin as VPILF, I mean Vice President. I thought he had to go with Huckabee for the Hagee/Dobson/Fundie vote, but this will work out just fine for them. She's a very hardline fundamentalist. James Dobson probably danced a jig.

By the way, did you see McCain checking out her ass? Here's a good YouTube clip. Very funny.

/

Whose Side is God On?

2008-08-31T23:37:00.004-04:00

I remember seeing this dork that works for James Dobson and Focus on the Family at the beginning of this month. In the video he calls for Christians, at least his type, to pray that it will rain on the Thursday night rally in the stadium when Obama speaks. Not just any old rain mind you but,

abundant, torrential, urban and small stream flood-advisory rain...

I thought, that's pretty ballsy. It'll be interesting to see what happens. Like, just what side is God on? Something like a would-be Elijah on Mt. Carmel moment.

Within a few days of being up on the FoTF website it was taken down and a statement that he was only joking. Yeah, right.

Like they say, be careful what you wish for. What does it say when Obama's night was fantastic weather, and just as the Republican convention was about to get started, a major hurricane hits still-Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, reminding everyone in the nation of the most glaring example of the Bush Administration's and Republicans utter apathy to the human condition and the abdication of their responsibilities as our elected officials.

Remember Bush was at a birthday party while New Orleans drowned. The birthday boy? That'd be our boy Johnnie, Johnnie McCain.

/

Alley Garden Update

2008-07-03T20:11:00.005-04:00

Well it continues to be a fun time with our gardens. I now have two patches for veggies. We’ve eaten red potatoes, broccoli, ichiban eggplant, green pepper, green beans, jalapeno peppers, collard greens, tomatoes and cherry tomatoes from our own garden so far this year.

It’s not like it has come in any great quantity, although the potato salad at a recent family gathering was made with potatoes fresh out of the earth. The tomatoes actually have a taste to them! And it’s delicious! Honestly, every bit of it is better than store bought.

This is my tomato bed. You can see them staked up. Those beautiful squash plants with the big green leaves and yellow flowers unfortunately all got diseased and died. We think it was powdery mildew that got to them. Everyone we know that had been growing squash all got it and died. The lighter green in the foreground are green bean plants.

This is from a Rose of Sharon that got totally diseased a couple of years ago and we completely cut it back. It came back. Isn’t that a beautiful bloom?

The view out the back door onto the carport/patio.

It simply pleases me to have these gardens, and this has really surprised me - just how much pleasure I've gotten from doing this. I never thought of it that much before, but there is something to it. It helps one to get a better perspective on the world. It moves one out of the programmed industrial city culture and into the energetic, vital, natural world that our genetic blueprint grew out of. I encourage everyone to have something growing. It doesn’t have to be big, just something that grows and needs to be taken care of.

McCain. McSame. McBush.

2008-07-03T19:15:00.003-04:00

Sorry that I’ve been offline lately. There’s really been too much going on, and one thing pushes out another, as Barleyman used to say, but we’ll try:

How anyone could be for John McCain I don’t know. The guy is a total lightweight. Wes Clark was right on when he said getting shot down and becoming a POW does not, in itself, qualify one for being president. Now all the pundits are blathering about him besmirching McCain’s service. Asinine! He praised McCain’s service, but said what happened to him does not ipso facto qualify him for the presidency. But since the right wing doesn’t have anything to run on, besides running the country into the dirt the past eight to thirty years they have to twist what was said to get sympathy for McCain, I guess.

I would like to see what McCain’s psychological profile says. I find it hard to believe that someone can be a POW for five years, tortured, stuck in a cage sometimes and not come out with some issues that need to be dealt with. I want to know if he has. His reputation is that he has a violent temper, serious potty mouth, and has been known to take swings at people. I guess this is quintessentially American, but it’s not what I want in the presidency.

But getting back, it’s obvious that he doesn’t know anything about economics (as he’s admitted). He’s supposed to know about foreign affairs (not!) which we’ve touched on before. About all he can do is give you that creepy smile of his and say vote for me I was a POW.

Barack Obama may not be the second coming of Christ, but he’s the best politician to come along in a very long time. At least there’s a measure of hope if Obama’s elected, none of it’s McCain, IMHO.

Oil over $130; Gas at $4.

2008-05-22T11:07:00.004-04:00

I was reading this yesterday - cuz that’s how weird I am, I read stuff like that – and I realized what an absolute whine it was: OPEC isn’t pumping enough oil out of the ground! What he’s saying is if Saudi Arabia pumped more oil out of the ground, what they call “production”, then the increased supply would bring the price down. If the price of oil was subject to supply and demand “laws” then maybe, but Stephen Hadley, the National Security Advisor, said, “Saudi Arabia does not have customers that are making requests for oil that they are not able to satisfy.” In other words, today’s price of oil is not related to a lack of supply driving the price up.

The related article referenced is particularly interesting. It’s from the Congressional Record by Byron Dorgan, a senator from South Dakota. Although Dorgan tries to say that Saudi Arabia cutting back production and the President continuing to put oil in the Strategic Reserve is pushing up price, he gets to what really is doing it:

“But there is something else happening with the price of oil. An orgy of speculation is occurring in the futures market for oil and gas. This didn't used to happen. The futures market is necessary. It is necessary to hedge. It is necessary to provide liquidity. I understand all that. [Really?] But the futures market has become something unbelievably speculative. We have hedge funds neck deep in the futures market. Do they want oil? They don't want any oil. They just want to bet on oil. They want to gamble on oil. These are people who want to buy something they will never get from people who never had it and make money on both sides of the transaction in a futures market. We have hedge funds making big bets on oil in the futures market. We have investment banks making big bets on oil. Investment banks didn't used to be engaged in the futures market, but they are now.

In addition to that, in addition to the investment banks working in the futures market, we have investment banks that are actually buying oil storage for the purpose of taking oil off the market and putting it in storage until oil is more valuable later.

That is what is happening. We have not previously had that occur. So we have this binge of speculation in the futures market that has nothing at all to do with the supply and demand of oil. Why is this happening? At least in part it is happening because in the stock market. If you want to buy stock on margins, you have to pay 50 percent of the margin. You have to come up with half the money. If you want to buy stock on the margin, come up with half the money. If you want to buy oil on margin in the futures market, all you need to come up with is 5 to 7 percent. If you want to control 100 million dollars' worth of oil contracts, $5,000 to $7,000 will do it for you. [Ed. Note: I think he meant $5,000,000 to $7,000,000, millions not thousands, five to seven percent of a hundred million is in the millions, not thousands.]”

It is a speculative bubble that is pushing up the price of oil. It’s not enough they trashed the computer industry, then the housing market with speculative bubbles. Now they are going after oil and other commodities (such as food) pushing the price up. These people think that speculation accounts for sixty percent of the price of oil.

In other words, rich people are bidding up the prices of commodities looking where they can make a killing. They have so much money it doesn’t affect them much, but it wreaks havoc on about eighty percent of us. That doesn’t matter to them. Their greed has overtaken and consumed them and no good can come from it.
/

Peak Oil

2008-05-20T00:37:00.005-04:00

If you don't know about Peak Oil, please take some time to check it out.

It's probably the most important event of the twenty-first century.

When? My guess is that it already has.
/

Alley Garden Update

2008-04-27T22:15:00.008-04:00

At the beginning of the month my garden looked like this:

The big plants in the picture are potatoes. There's also a row of broccoli, a row of red cabbage, and a row of collards, all interspersed with onions. Now it's looking like this:

Everything is getting so lush there's competition for sunshine! I've now added four varieties of peppers and some ichiban eggplant to the bed. Yeah it's getting really packed out. The potato plants got so big the stalks are falling down. It's not a big deal, just doesn't look as good as when they stand. A number are blossoming which means they're making potatoes down below. Today I noticed a couple of my pepper plants were blossoming.

If you were to turn directly around from the above view you would see another bed about four feet wide by about twenty two feet long. It took me about a week to prepare it properly, taking out two wheelbarrow loads of roots. Then we laid two hundred pounds of manure compost and eighty pounds of potting soil and tilled it all under. Yesterday I planted a dozen tomato plants, half a dozen yellow squash and a few zuccinni.

By the way, I harvested some servings of broccoli. There's something about eating food that you know where it's been. They also say that every bite of food we take has traveled an average of fifteen hundred miles... and God knows how many hands.

Eat well.
\

It Was Forty Years Ago Today

2008-04-05T23:16:00.001-04:00

April 4, 1968, my seventeenth birthday in my senior year of high school. Of the four thousand students in the school a bare handful were black. For kicks I had taken an elective class called Current Events, which was led by the first black teacher I ever had, Mr. Jackson, although that was over a year earlier when he taught early U.S. History for the eleventh grade. The way he taught history was pretty bad, but this class was fun. We basically sat around and discussed things going on in the news. We did have reading to do that provided us with a context on American foreign policy and the civil rights movement.

Let me give you some more context: The previous summer was a time the media referred to as “the long hot summer.” Civil disturbances swept through cities like Tampa, Buffalo, DC, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Newark. Sunday, July twenty third, it came to Detroit. For the better part of a week Detroit was under martial law and a dusk to dawn curfew. The National Guard was activated with one of their staging grounds being Northwestern High School. I had played football on the field they camped out on.

On Friday a bunch of us guys jumped into a friend’s car and went down to check out the riot area. It was a bit surreal, driving through the streets of Detroit having National Guard deployed on the corners and seeing bullet holes in the windows of shops if the shops hadn’t been fire-bombed. Although I had ridden through it before I had never seen the inner city this close up. Apartment buildings came right up to the sidewalks, which were only about five feet wide and then the busy street. The thought came to me, “Where do the kids play?”

I worked part-time at a carpet store, and worked with a man that lived in the riot area. He told me how he couldn’t sleep at night for the tanks and halftracks coming down the street. He said one night a halftrack came down and opened fire with its fifty caliber machine gun across the top of an apartment building across the street.

On April 5, 1968 I was working at a Shell gas station back when someone pumped your gas for you – like me. At three in the afternoon a curfew was announced for Detroit and people began literally lining up for gas. We had three straight hours of eight pumps continuously going, because during the riots of the previous summer you could only get five gallons at a time. The police made us shut down by six thirty.

I was surprised by how well Mr. Jackson took Dr. King’s assassination. He didn’t seem that fazed for some reason. Two months later, my father called me from work before I went to school one morning to let me know Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated the night before. When Mr. Jackson came in that morning all he had to say was, “I don’t want to talk about it. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

That may have been when the hope for justice was turned back – the high point of liberalism. Since then the country has moved inexorably to the far right.

Alley Garden Update

2008-03-31T18:31:00.003-04:00

I LOVE MY GARDEN!

The potato plants now cover the mound with big, strong, green leaved plants. The broccoli, red cabbage and collards have gotten hold and are beginning to grow. It's like I can see how healthy and full of vitality they are. As soon as the moon gets to the right phase (I think it's into first quarter), we'll plant peppers, tomatoes, squash, spinach and whatever else strikes our fancy. I'd also like to plant berry bushes. I think blueberry and blackberry grow well around here.

I am so excited about it! Like I said, it's the first time I'm doing something like this. I've been around gardens, but other people tended them. My grandmother had a beautiful garden. I spent a summer on a farm outside of Elizabethtown, Kentucky where I learned what real yellow squash tasted like right out of the garden. It was delicious. That's where we had farmers coming from all around the area to see our fifteen foot corn. They'd ask how we got our corn to grow so tall and we told them we just prayed over it. Then they'd ask us to come pray over their corn. It was around then that I ate fresh spinach for the first time which I enjoyed so much. You see, I was brought up in a very modern home. I guess my folks figured canned veggies were as good as any, although they did some frozen (I was revolted by the frozen mixed veggies for some reason - I'd near vomit trying to eat them). Most all veggies were seriously cooked, it seemed. It was as a became an adult that I learned it was better to stay as close to raw as possible.

This is the first time I'm tending my own garden. Don't get the idea I'm doing this on my own, that would be impossible. My good friend lives next door, and he knows all about this stuff. It's just that I'm tuning into Life - real Life. I can feel, see and sense the vital spirit in it all like I never before have, and it's wonderful! Try it. You might like it.

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Iraq Program Part I

2008-03-31T17:21:00.002-04:00

“Program! Getchur Program here! You can’t tell the players without a program!” the man used to call out on our way into Briggs Stadium to watch the Tigers when I was young. That was before they renamed it to Tiger Stadium then, much later, built a new one across the street.

So here’s a quick program on Iraq that Senator McBush can check out since it’s obvious he doesn’t have a clue to what’s going on over there and “doesn’t care what anybody says.”

First, there are three main groups in Iraq Sunni, Shia, and Kurds. The Kurds are a separate ethnic group in the north of Iraq (and the south of Turkey and northwest of Iran). They were semi-autonomous since the Gulf War I in 1991, protected under the cover of the No-Fly Zone. They were the closest things to friends we had in Iraq and where there have been the least problems. I won’t say no problems, but I’ll save that for another time.

Most of the Muslim world, from Morocco to Indonesia is Sunni. Saudi Arabia is Sunni and so is Osama bin Laden (remember him?). The Shia are mostly in Iran and, wouldn’t you know it, Iraq. Yep, Iraq is predominantly Shia by about a two-to-one margin. Saddam was a Sunni, and he put mostly Sunnis in power. He was also pretty brutal in putting down the Shia such that a lot of them had to flee Iraq and live in Iran for some time. So with “democracy” coming their way it was okay with the Shia if the US came in and overthrew Saddam, since they would ascend to power by virtue of their majority. Of course the Sunnis weren’t so thrilled.

When the US took over in 2003, they disbanded the predominantly Sunni military and the police and sent everyone home. Several hundred thousand soldiers went home and took their weapons with them. Right after the US toppled Saddam, people in Iraq realized there were no cops on the street and serious looting began, old scores began to be settled and a general lawlessness set in. Beginning at the neighborhood level, militias were formed to protect the residents since the US couldn’t or wouldn’t do it – although the Oil Ministry building was protected quite well, thank you very much. This was when the genesis of the militias in Iraq occurred. The economy of the country was in shambles with sixty percent unemployment. Militias were able to pay a couple of hundred a month and sometimes there was a couple hundred dollar bounty for killing Americans. The Sunnis formed the core of the resistance to the US occupation. They also attacked the Shia for collaborating with the invader. One thing to remember is there isn’t one group of Sunni insurrectionists. There are a number of groups formed along tribal bases.

Prior to the war, a Jordanian named Zarqawi had spent some time in OBL’s Afghan training camps and was hanging out in northern Iraq, Kurdistan. Remember, this was the area beyond the control of Saddam. He was interested in having his own jihadist franchise, and started his al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, or al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) as its called in the US. The US military actually had him targeted prior to the invasion and could have taken him out, but it was nixed by the administration because he made good propaganda. Anyway, his group created a lot of mayhem in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. It’s important to note that AQI is made up mostly of non-Iraqis. As bad as they are, it’s absurd to think that they can take over Iraq.

Next time: we deal with the Shia and Basra.

Iraq is FUBAR

2008-03-31T10:04:00.001-04:00

FUBAR: a military acronym meaning Fucked Up Beyond All Rehabilitation. It’s a good term. It’s happened to me a few times. Things just get screwed up and go south and all you can do is pack it in and move on. I’m not sure exactly when it dawned on me that Iraq was FUBAR, but it seems it was at least three years ago. I wish I would have written about it then.

I must confess the drop in violence in Iraq over the last year made me wonder whether the Surge might indeed be working, although I couldn’t see how since there still weren’t enough troops to follow the Petraeus doctrine of counterinsurgency of one troop per fifty natives, which would have meant sending about five hundred thousand troops to Iraq. As it turned out there were a couple of other factors that accounted for most of the drop in the killing.

First, the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr had been observing a ceasefire. Second, the US had been paying off Sunnis and former Saddam Baathists not to shoot at Americans, along with the fact that a lot of Sunnis had gotten fed up with al-Qaeda and had gone after them already. Finally, most of the killing and violence was centered around the ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods and cities and by last year had pretty much been completed after going on for two or three years.

I thought it telling that just as John McCain was saying. “The surge is working. I don’t care what anyone says,” Maliki decides to attack Sadr in Basra and all hell breaks loose throughout the south of Iraq with hundreds of deaths and a sounding defeat of Maliki, and by extension, the Americans. What McBush won’t tell us is that the US is already defeated in Iraq. If we’ve been there five years and there is this much violence, you cannot say we won. I don’t know what planet McBush is living on.

My Sin Profile

2008-03-10T21:19:00.001-04:00

Greed:	Medium
Gluttony:	Low
Wrath:	Very Low
Sloth:	Low
Envy:	Medium
Lust:	Medium
Pride:	Very Low

Discover Your Sins - Click Here

I didn't think I was so greedy!

I'm Clean!

2008-02-29T18:10:00.001-05:00

I got the results of my PET scan back this week, and as far as that is concerned I’m clean of any further cancer. That’s one thing PET scans are used for, to detect cancer in the body, and nothing showed up. So nothing showed there, nothing showed up in my lymph, so as far as we can tell I’m clean of cancer. I’m down with that!

The only thing they’re concerned about now is the possibility of recurrence. To that end I’m taking part in a study that is looking at molecular markers in the tumor. In sixty percent of patients these markers are not present and those are considered at low risk for recurrence. If that be the case then all that is required is observation. I’ve been told by my surgeon that I’ll need a colonoscopy every year for the rest of my life, although after five years they may back off to once every other year. Oh well, it sure beats the alternative. I’m certainly thankful for the reprieve.

You know, when you get cancer you have a choice about how you’re going to approach it. Anything that I’ve ever read said that it’s better to keep a positive attitude about it as opposed to a fatalistic dread. Don’t get me wrong there’s always the mental battle, and it’s easy to spin an imaginary future that ends in death since cancer is terminal if not treated. When I was growing up getting a diagnosis of cancer was like getting a death sentence. Things are different today. People are beating cancer all the time. In fact, the vast majority of cancer diagnoses have survival as an outcome. So it would seem more realistic to keep that in mind as the outcome of your bout with cancer. The fact is you don’t know one way or the other what will happen if you’re treated. It’s you’re choice which outcome you will imagine. You might as well make the best of it.

Oldguy Reminisces – Part I

2008-02-29T11:45:00.000-05:00

I mentioned in the last post that I’m a city boy. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan in the fifties and sixties. At that time Detroit was hoppin’ and poppin’ – it was the Motor City, Motown. It was the fifth largest city in the US, and Michigan was the fifth richest state in the union with Detroit leading the way. I was raised in the middle of a middle class, working class swath of the city where my friends fathers had jobs like produce manager, car salesman, insurance salesman, policemen, and low to mid-level managers for companies like Chrysler and Westinghouse. Most of their mothers did not work, their fathers could supply a middle class life style on a single paycheck. I didn’t know anyone whose fathers were unemployed.

My father worked for the city, a civil service job. When I was in school, his job was head operator at a power plant. Yeah, the city provided its own power for street lights and public buildings. The job didn’t pay as much as something comparable in the “private” economy, but it was a secure job and coming out of the Great Depression that fact was very desirable to him.

After turning sixteen, I always had a job. If it was pumping gas and doing oil changes at the corner Shell station when I was in high school, or working at the Ford Motor Company or a small machine shop in the neighborhood making parts for Chrysler, it was always possible to find a job. Of course, I was white, so I’m sure that helped. Maybe in the future I can get into the racial situation in the city (it wasn’t good, finally exploding in 1967).

I bring all this up to illustrate how far we’ve come from those times. Look at Detroit now. It’s lost forty percent of its population and is now considered the poorest city in America. Michigan has fallen to twenty fifth in wealth among states. I lay this at the feet of three men: Roger Moore at General Motors, Henry Ford II at Ford, and Lee Iacocca at Chrysler. It was they who made the decisions to move the manufacturing out of Detroit and Michigan to foreign countries and cut the American worker and his family off at the knees. If you want to look at what this neoconservative economic model that has been dominant for nearly thirty years is doing to this country, just look at Detroit. That’s where it is heading.

The rich don’t give a shit, and for some reason they are given the power to make the great decisions that affect everyone, including future generations. This is nothing short of aristocracy. If you’re rich and want a hyper class system in which the materially wealthy are privileged, then this is the way to continue to go. But if you’re like most of us and believe that people need good jobs to provide for their families, and have democracy in government, then we need to turn this back around. We need to stop buying into the rich man’s propaganda and the businessization of life. Thank goodness it seems the pendulum is at least slowing down, and may be about to swing back. Unfortunately a lot of damage has been done and there is probably some serious pain coming up. I hope you’re able to ride it out.

Oldguy Plants His First Garden

2008-02-28T11:16:00.007-05:00

That’s quite an accomplishment for this city boy. I’ll get into the city boy aspect someday, but I have to say I’m proud of myself. It’s taken quite an effort to get it done, especially considering I’m coming off of major surgery so I can’t get too strenuous. Before all this latest stuff started happening we cleared out an area behind the small shed in the backyard for the garden. After reading Bill McKibben’s book, Deep Economy, and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemna, both highly recommended readings, along with Pollan’s new book, In Defense of Food, I realized I needed to grow my own food to ensure that I was eating something of nutritional value and without poisons. Frankly, I think what I have just had to go through is directly related to having been subject to the Industrial Petrochemical Agricultural Supermarket Fast Food Complex that has fed me the notorious Western Diet all of my Oldguy years. Let’s just say I see my garden as an act of independence and a middle finger to the powers that be.

Anyway, today we laid down a yard of potting soil and a yard of mushroom compost and tilled it under. Then we planted a row of red potatoes. My neighbor has a good crop of collards almost ready for a little harvesting, along with some snow peas beginning to climb, and some broccoli that’s flowering. We’ve also appropriated a six foot by twenty foot patch of the yard of the house behind me. It’s a rental that has a hard time keeping tenants and has been empty for months at a time, as it is now. So we just grabbed a piece in the far corner of the yard. You gotta love it, gardening as a rebellious act. We call them Alley Gardens, since they straddle the alley out back.

Cancer

2008-02-09T16:45:00.000-05:00

It’s a pretty heavy word when it gets applied to you. It has a way of clarifying the thoughts.

When it was applied to me, I found I couldn’t deal with bullshit, didn’t want to deal with bullshit, and in fact, had the absolute right not to have to deal with bullshit. I only wanted the real deal around me. I had absolutely no interest in playing Let’s Pretend. I wanted reality and positivism around me. If I were to free myself of this plague, that seemed the best way.

Since I am the one with the cancer, it seems that I get to decide how I’ll approach it, thank you very much

“It’s cancer. I’m sorry…”

2008-02-04T09:02:00.000-05:00

So said Dr. S two weeks ago after something like an emergency colonoscopy. On Jan 15 I had to go to the ER with some serious bleeding from where one shouldn’t normally see blood. It had been going on for a few days and seemed to be getting worse. Now we knew the reason why.

In a major way, the bleeding was an early warning that something was wrong. The doctors said that even though the cancer was present, it was too early to be bleeding like that. What was interesting was that the symptoms were nearly identical to that of my mother’s colon cancer of about two decades ago. Anatomically, it was in the same place and what tipped them off was what they called “early bleeding.” She had a sigmoid resection, took a little pill for a while and is now twenty years removed from the event.

On Jan 25, Dr Z performed the sigmoid resection on me. I have about twenty inches of incision down the middle of my gut. The nurses thought it cute that Dr Z went around my belly button leaving me that part of my anatomy. It seemed a rather large cut to me, but he wanted to be able to look around inside and see if it spread anywhere. It didn’t, and he says my lymph is clear. So things look good and I’ll be going to an oncologist this week to see what, if any, follow-up is necessary. I hear they are a cautious lot, so I’m guessing there will be a pill to take, but probably no serious chemo, for which I’m very thankful.

It’s all somewhat surreal to me. In three weeks, I have had cancer, had it cut out, and am now into the recovery period of some six to twelve weeks. Now I have it, now I don’t. Anyone besides me think that a bit strange?

It’s not like the first time I have had to face my own mortality. I’m not afraid to die. I’ve come to enjoy life and living and would like to stick around for a little while longer. Now, by God’s Grace, I intend to.

Oldguy Muses About Power

2008-01-13T17:29:00.000-05:00

Power is something that has taken me a long time to get a handle on. It may be that I have had something of an aversion to it. Yet I kept coming back around to it in several different ways. Little by little, I’ve begun to get a little grasp of it.

Power has many different forms. For instance, there’s the power of the natural world. We’re well aware of its more extreme forms since they impact us greatly. Events like earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and tornados, ice storms or fire storms like we recently saw in California. Our position in this is of one that has no power to affect these events. We do have power to mitigate the effects on us by using what we have to at least find a way to survive this exercise of natural power.

Then there is social power. This gets played out in a number of ways. We’re all familiar with the political, at least we should be. For most of history we had these high mucky-mucks, who through their use of strong-arm methods of force made us do their bidding. They were known as emperors or kings. Generally their kingdoms and empires were organized in hierarchical fashion, with those higher on the social ladder exercising power over those beneath. It was always the few over the many, with one guy (usually) saying he’s the top dog. Basically, the power relationship was that of the bully and his victim, the dominator paradigm. It took the Enlightenment to begin to overthrow this arrangement, but it hasn’t been eradicated yet, not by a long shot.

Next we have economic power. To continue to live we have to eat food, drink water and have shelter from extreme weather and predators. In our present system, the vast majority of us have to sell our labor and/or our brains for a medium of exchange (money!) that we can in turn exchange for said food, water, and shelter. Prior to this a preferred method was for some folks to own other folks as slaves, whom they forced to do whatever the master wanted, what I like to call the master-slave paradigm. When the industrial revolution hit, wage slavery was the preferred method used by the industrialists and Robber Barons. I’ve read some of the debates by ante-bellum southern senators defending the “peculiar institution” that formed the basis of the economy of the southern states, in which they critiqued the wage-slavery of the north as a worse institution. Frankly, I think they were right on. The employee is in a dependency relationship, in that he/she depends on their paycheck. The only power that the employee has is their labor, to give or to withhold. The employer’s power resides in his control of the transaction. Additionally, he finds an ally in the coercive power of unemployment. If the employee has no income, they cannot continue to live, not being able to purchase their sustenance.

The final power for tonight is the power over people’s immortal souls. The priests insert themselves as the gatekeepers to the spiritual realm, and presumed themselves to speak for some God that all others must obey or face eternal punishments. While the religion may have originally had a spiritual basis rooted in the spiritual experience of the founder, once it became organized empty ritual replaced actual experience, faith (or belief) substituted for the real deal. Once someone gains control of the ability to define everyone’s eternal position, great power is accrued to them.

Well, that’s it for now. Chew on this for a while – we’ll be coming back to these ideas regularly.

Happy New Year 2008

2008-01-01T02:16:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year 2008. 2007 was a helluva year. Not as bad as 2006, thank God, and there are good things percolating. So I can’t complain, and as they say, it wouldn’t do any good.

Looking back over the year I can actually be encouraged, because it looks to me that this is the year the Green Movement entered the mainstream. In my field of technology there was the concept that when introducing something really new that people broke down into four parts:

The first 10% were pioneers, people that liked and were willing to try new things.
The next 35% were called early comers, those that caught on after the pioneers.
The next 35% were late comers; when they saw the others they thought, “I guess I’ll do that too.”
The last 20% were the never comers, and you didn’t need to concern yourself much with them.

The trick was to move from the 10% pioneers, to the 35% early comers. I think that’s what’s happened with the Green Movement, this is the year that it jumped from the 10% to the 35%. Kudos to Al Gore for almost single-handedly bringing the issue of global warming to the forefront of the global stage. That and a little help from the pictures of the Arctic ice cap melting at an unprecedented rate and the northwest passage becoming reality for the first time in history. Oil hitting a hundred dollars a barrel added an exclamation point.

That’s the good news.

On the other hand we’re stuck with Bush-Cheney and the Neocons for another year to see how much damage they can do to our country. I’m holding my breath until the next election. Sadly, I’m half afraid we might not get to vote these guys out of office, and the other half afraid it’s all rigged by the computers anyway (as a computer professional, I don’t trust those things one bit, pun intended).

The credit crisis precipitated by the subprime debacle could be the stone that tips things such that they cannot get out of it, and serious recession or depression here we come. The dollar is crashing overseas, which means prices will be rising. American companies are being bought by foreign firms at record levels. Bankruptcies and foreclosures and the gap between rich and poor are at the highest levels since the Great Depression, This isn’t the country I grew up in. It’s all due to conservative policies, beginning with Ronnie Reagan, and on through Bush the First, Clinton, and Bush Junior.

So, in all, looking ahead to 2008, I’m reminded of the immortal Betty Davis, “Hang onto your hats, boys. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

Then again, what do I know. I hope 2008 is your best year ever. It’s a whole new one. Do with it what you will.