The Inevitable Failure of Status Quo Capitalism

Mon Jan 07, 2008 at 05:53:12 PM PST
alternatively entitled "If the planet truly needs saving then you’ll spend accordingly."

Levees fail. Housing bubbles crash. Wars begin over the blood of dead dinosaurs, paid for by the Citizens and future generations of Citizens while making Big Business rich and richer. Meanwhile the earth speedily converts into an ashtray as Big Oil scrambles to create an unresolved debate where there is none, courtesy of Big Media, transforming what's supposed to be an informed citizenry into a society of distracted, terrified and probably sleeping lemmings.

And gibbering chimps get elected as President.

Bush is a perfect symbol of the failure of Capitalism. A bungling moron has been given the keys and it took Big Bucks to get him there. Nothing about him or his past is exemplary in any way, never was he ‘the best’ or even ‘very good at’ anything. With this gibbering chimp we see that Money is not the answer to everything, for it has failed the people of the United States of America and indeed, the entire rest of the world. It’s like when the boss’s idiot nephew who's failed upwards his whole life got hired in to run your company and all you can do is complain about it when the whole shitcan goes up in flames because he's a stuttering fucktard that rewards other stuttering fucktards by failing them upwards as well. And so it goes. And there's so much more...

With Capitalism as it stands the Corporation and their masters have it all, it is the SupraCitizen. How else to explain a time of huge layoffs in an era of record profits? C.E.Os making five hundred million dollars a year? "But it’s the labor!" moans Mr. C.E.O. as he lights a huge illegal Cuban cigar with a smoldering thousand dollar bill, his secretary’s cocaine-covered lips hard at work under his nice mahogany desk, "the labor was bloody killing us! What’re you gonna do?!?"

What indeed.

Establishment Science says the levvies were in danger of busting and bust they did, without asking anybody’s permission. Establishment Science said these bridges were gonna go too and go they are, without even a courtesy call. Establishment Science has also warned of a host of bad things that are going to happen due to Human Climate Abuse and happen they will, to tragedies of a scale never before seen by human eye, if for no other reason than that there’s so many of us now and we’ve built so many glorious and shiny new things and we so desperately need them, no matter what the cost to anybody or thing else.

The "Invisible Hand of the Marketplace" being the high law of the land is hideously flawed in its conception, for what should be a very obvious reason: it takes time for the Hand (so, you, me, and EVERYBODY ELSE as mass consumers of SupraCitizen products and services) to react in said marketplace. Infrastructure is ignored until something catastrophic occurs.
(see also; Health and Safety,
see also; Security,
see also; Poverty,
see also; Education,
see also; Society,
see also; Civilisation,
see also; the Human Race)

Chaos and disaster ensues and the Invisible Hand reacts, but only after the catastrophic event and even then, not very efficiently or speedily. Why? Because Big Media has transformed the Citizenry into uniformed lemmings as I believe I've mentioned before once or thrice.

Describe yourself as a believer in the Invisible Hand of the Free market? Get used to catastrophe and quit whining about it. Just don't be surprised when that poor kid clinging to a rooftop with a makeshift help sign might just turn out to be you. Or yours. Because the Free Market,(reliant on chaos, tragedy and failure as it is) isn't saving anybody. And it never will, it will only react and slowly at that.

But hey, shit, keep spending, Citizens! Your life might just depend on it! Maybe even the whole planet!

Dubya, World War III and the Damning NIE

Well, there it is. Keep impeachment off the table and the neocons will inevitably try to spin their way into Iran, not having finished their Iraq or Afghanistans. Well, there's nothing really surprising here, it's simple Cause and Effect and you really can't blame them for trying to trigger World War Three. Might as well blame the scorpion for hiding in your shoe. It's in their nature.

Why not build another phony case for invading Iran or indeed anybody else? Dems have rumbled impotently about pulling out some troops, some time or other with little discernable effect on the President, his policies and wildly aberrant behavior. The American people have not yet shaken the Dorito crumbs off their collective chest, poured themselves out of the couch, switched off the inanely chattering omnipresent boob-tube and actually got pissed off in a way anybody would notice, (like, say during Vietnam?). So if you’re a bloodthirsty, chicken-hawk neocon you gotta be saying ‘why not Iran’? I mean, fuck it, right? It’s the ultimate double down and these cats don’t mind betting the house when it certainly is not now nor has ever been their blood and guts on the line. Not to mention all their Rich Friends just keep getting richer throughout the whole debacle which everybody knows and has still done nothing about.

I never believed that if or when Iran gets the bomb like so many of it’s neighbors have already done, they’re gonna use it on the vastly more powerful Israeli-American axis/alliance (again, call it whatever you like, just acknowledge it exists). It would be a very obvious act of suicide. To which, I’m certain, many of the Rabid Right would say, "well, so what? Are they not a nation of Suicide bombers?" Well, no, actually, not a nation of them. A Nation employs it’s suicide bombers the way the West employs it’s ground troops: only the poor need apply. The Rich, on either side of the ideological divide, almost always have "other priorities." So, Akmaniwhatshisnuts ain’t gonna sacrifice his own skin or that of those that put him in power. Which means he’s actually have to be nuts to fire them at Israel, even if he had the power to do so which he doesn’t.

But bomb away! Seriously, can't blame them. Impeach? Yes. Blame? No. It's not their fault and Jefferson would agree. Jefferson and the fellas knew there'd be greedy evil bastards looking to warp America and its people for their own sick purposes. What the whole American experiment rests on is an informed citizenry to hold these people to account. That job not done, that's who you blame, and it's really that simple.

Make your choice:
Bush invoked WWIII and another pre-emptive strike in spite of the NIE because...

a) He most likely doesn't know what an NIE is and should therefore be impeached for stupidity
15% 7 votes

b) He had only been told about the NIE about a week ago and should therefore be impeached for incompetence
2% 1 votes

c) he figured he'd just spin it when it came out anyways and should be impeached for being a lying bastard. Again.
68% 30 votes

d) the NIE is wrong, Bush is right and will be right in all things forever. FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!!!
13% 6 votes

Truth Decay: Deconstructing Rove

Sun Dec 02, 2007 at 11:30:38 PM PST

To many, including former Whitehouse chief of staff Andy Card, Karl Rove's latest blossom was laughable on it's very face. The ineffectual, kowtowing Democrats were somehow responsible for anything at all to do with the run-up to the Iraq War? Yes, it’s ridiculous. Yes, it is entirely unassociated with what actually happened. Shake your head and laugh at him if you like. I don't laugh. Betcha Orwell wouldn’t either. It's not funny.

Karl Rove is not ‘the National Enquirer’. He’s the man that got George ‘Dubya’ Bush elected, not once but twice. Everything the man does is strategy. It's who he is. So why lay out the stinkin'est most obvious of laughable lies for all and sundry?

You and I may never forget who started this thing, when and why they started it but none of us can expect the same from our brothers and sisters. Or the people we work with? And that gaggle of folks that hang out around the watercooler and yammer daily about the latest American Idol winner? They’ve already forgotten much and are looking to forget yet more. Rove is never, ever afraid to underestimate the intelligence, the memory or the attention span of the common man. On that, and that alone, he and I are in full agreement.

Where Dubya’s legacy will always be the Iraq war, Rove’s will always be the permanent Republican 50% + 1 majority. As always, for this to be the case you and your fellow Citizens must remain angier at your polar opposites, (be they Far Right Religio-Nutjob or Bullgoose Loonie Lefty) than your ineffectual government or your powergrabbing leader. It’s worked swimmingly so far, why on earth should he stop now?

Create the mere perception of a debate on even the most obvious of Truths and soon both wings will happily fight it out for you, creating (or in this case, perpetuating) the most fertile of grounds for the schemer of schemers: an environment in which there is a lot of anger, a lot of confusion and no objective Truth. No objective Truth means maybe the Democrats did push America into the Iraq War, maybe Saddam did have WMDs, maybe Saddam did have connections with Osama, maybe it actually is okay to wipe one's arse with the Constitution and maybe there actually is no such thing as an objective Right or Wrong. That America even now debates the legitimacy of torture is proof enough of the success of this strategy in the last few years. This is to be expected in a society turning ever closer to Fascism. Orwell, if he was that type of guy, would say "I told you."

The grim thought I’ll wrestle with whilst trying to sleep: each and every time we rally at the next Repubbie (be they Senator, Governor, Talking Head or the guy next door) that inevitably repeats this most obvious of lies, Rove chuckles deeply to himself and rubs his porky hands together with sick glee, and why not. We’re doing all he could ever ask of us. And we’re powerless to do otherwise.

Genius.

Scandal Made Easy: Walter Reed

You want to find out who’s responsible you have to look at what got put into the budget for soldier care. Next to nothing? Thanks, Dubya! But I sure do support the troops though! That should be a no-brainer but we’ve over-estimated the Far Right before. It’s called putting your money where your mouth is.

Supporting the troops begins with funding their recovery when they get hurt. Plain and simple. WHAT’S IN THE BUDGET? This Truth is self-evident. You don’t send these folks into battle with the proper armor or training and you don’t take care of them properly when they get hurt but you feel you support them because you support their war, you support them dying for your country while you go about your life making gruff noises about the Left Wing Media and what not. But you know what, you’re the pansy that doesn’t support them. Their lives ain’t piss to you.

Dubya's the only guy on earth who can decide not to fund soldiers when they get hurt then act all surprised when it comes out in the wash, then announce he's gonna launch a probe that history DEMANDS he's gonna totally ignore, just like the 911 probe. See also Katrina. See also Iraq Study. Get the picture? He doesn't give a shit. Never has. Do you?

Supporting the troops, it turns out, involves a little more than beating your puffed up chest and calling people names.

-iSenseChange

No Recollection of Anything, Actually

Dim memories of a weird night. Much booze. Have taken to Jack Daniels and rocks of late. Mix has sugar, sugar’s poison and besides, where do you think all those vicious hangovers are coming from? It’s not the booze, I can assure you that! Because all I had was various combinations of straight booze and though I had to make the bartender pull over so’s I could launch a mighty barf on the sidewalk in front of a group of total strangers, I feel it’s incumbent upon me to say, there is no splitting headache element to my hangover on this particular Sunday morning. Or afternoon. Just fuzzy memories. Maybe I should work for the government.

Because nobody seems to be able to recall, well, anything, right? Libby can’t recall meetings with the Vice freaking President, Gonzales can’t recall conversations with the President of the United States of America (which I find fascinating. Like, what else do you have going on that’s distracting you from conversations with the President? Must have some super ultra sweet kind of tail your tapping, hope it ain’t what Foley’s been into but at this phase would that surprise any of us? Or maybe it’s just because all the conversations are kinda the same? GWB quietly works away at his coloring book as Cheney tells you the real deal through blood-stained teeth as he bites the heads off of live, mewling kittens). I wasn’t there for that, I don’t know, I haven’t read the report yet, may not ever. Why not work for the government? I can forget with the best of them.

“Driver, pull this fucking thing over, STAT! Gonna barf, gonna barf, gonna barf barf BAAAARF!” Dr. Suess, eat your motherfucking heart out. And I remember that crew of strangers on the road, some horrified, some finding humor in the situation and me just trying not to get any on my fine coat or hotel slippers. They’re saying something to me, that random crew but it’s totally slo-moed and horror-movie twisted. I don’t respond. I have more pressing issues on my mind at the present. Like barfing. So it’s easy to see how one can be distracted around momentous events.

Is Gonzales a drinker? If he wasn’t before he is now, I can assure you of that. Screw it. It’s not like any of this wasn’t anticipated, right? Fella wrote all about the potential fallout of this mess when he camwe up with the idea and why not? It’s good to be prepared, even if you know you’re not going to be able to remember any of it two years from now or even tomorrow if needs be. And they be, Citizens, they be. Hey, can’t figure the Press is gonna lay down forever, right? Media’s been used like Saturday night Shirley and everybody knows it. Maybe media’s tired of that next-morning-walk-of-shame-no-make-up-wrinkled-clothes-Just-Been-Fucked-and-Still-Cummy-Hair. Everybody knows it’s perfectly okay to be a whore, but it’s not okay when everybody knows that you specifically are that whore. At least, that’s what I’m told, and the difference is crucial.

I remember being a kid and the nuns at St. Mary’s were heavy into Iran Contra, watching these important-looking and serious people ask all sorts of questions and nobody seeming to be able to remember much of anything. On a 12 inch black and white tv, with coathangers covered in foil for reception.

“Sister Francis,” I remember asking, “why don’t they leave that poor fellow alone?” Didn’t seem fair, fellow was obviously not very smart and they keep asking him about things he can’t remember. He was a soldier, I thought, maybe he’d injured his head in the War. When I asked sister Francis about it she took a big drag from her smoke, exhaled and said “you see all the medals on that guys jacket?” and she wrinkles her brow like Bruce Willis as she continues, “you don’t get that many medals if you’re the type ‘a guy that forgets stuff all the time.” When I asked her if the other guys, the guys asking him the questions were lying too was the first time she looked at me as anything other than a necessary burden. She saw it had my interest and the rest of the nuns couldn’t have been more surprised when I joined them for the rest of the afternoon and every afternoon subsequent during those investigations. That poor fellow was Ollie North and that was when I started turning things to my advantage at the orphanage, now that I think about it, was when I started watching politics.

All of which is a far cry from last night’s shenanigans. Apparently had they not seen my hotel slippers theyd’ve never found me under the pool table, fast asleep. I remember the lights coming on, somebody taking a picture and me being loaded into a car by the owner and the bartender and I remember those good folk I nearly barfed on not six minutes later. Did I actually barf on somebody? I just can’t fucking remember, man! Which means I just don’t fucking know! Right?


-iSenseChange

RandomMP3age:“The Chauffeur” by Duran Duran.

the Gonzo Letters: to Big Fat Pimp Lou Dobbs

Hey Lou,

I'd like to know when you guys are going to cover the biggest piece of news to yet come out of the Libby case, specifically a personally handwritten missive from VP Cheney directly implicating the President in the scandal. I refuse to believe CNN has not yet heard of this news, as the evidence was admitted in the case by Libby's defenders and you no doubt have all manner of reporters on the case (no excuses, here’s the link: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013107Z.shtml). I can only assume somebody up in the chain of command has decided America doesn’t need to know certain types of news during ‘wartime’ and about the President. This is the same type of half-assed coverage that got America into the Iraq war mess in the first place! Guys like you, Mr. Dobbs, have just as much culpability for the Iraq war as anybody on earth, in deciding as you do what to cover or not cover.

So much for the ‘Most Trusted Name in News.’ More like ‘Most Regular Source of Propaganda’. Other than Fox of course, but that’s a pretty low bar to set for anybody even remotely interested in calling themselves journalists, right? Right.

Try to be the champion of the People all you like but until you start telling the whole Truth many will see you as little more than a big, fat pimp (or worse, I guess, a whore?) no matter how many books you write. I’m asking for Truth Lou, and more than that, I’m asking you to do your fucking job.

Don’t be a pimp! Or a whore!

Respectfully,
iSenseChange

*

From : Lou Dobbs Tonight
Sent : Saturday, February 3, 2007 2:31 AM
To :
Subject : Thank you for your E-mail

Thank you for your e-mail. We read each and every comment, but are unable to respond personally to so many.
We value your interest and thank you for watching Lou Dobbs Tonight

Evidence Implicating Dubya in the Libby Trial: CNN Doesn't Cover the Story

How many of you are aware, as of this moment, that George W Bush has been directly implicated in the Libby case with evidence penned from the Dark Lord himself, Dick Cheney? Hear of this yet? Ask yourself; why not?

Less talk. Go here. Check it out. Then meet back here.

Deal is, Cheney names the Pres in a note discussing the vile act of outing an undercover agent to get back at her husband for speaking the Truth against the war lead-up lies and this note remains as evidence. Against the Pres. In a criminal case. Which'd make impeachment a bloody snap. We always knew this thing went high up, folks, and we always knew in our hearts that it went up to at least that creep of creeps, Dick 'Darth' Cheney, but this note indicates that 'the Pres' had his grimy mitts all over it too. Fairly important shit, no?

Worthy of coverage? Absolutely. Being covered? Not at all.

CNN is covering the case daily but I've been waiting for that mamby-pamby Wolf Bullschitzer et al to talk on this extremely important document and nothing at all. It's been introduced to the court, a piece of the case and CNN is actively choosing not to cover it. Fucking criminal. After everything that's happened, after all the lies, all the grime, all the crime, all the time, Dubya still gets a free pass.

Want to know what this translates down to? CNN actually has a reprter on the scene all day every day to 'cover' this story. This piece of mind-numbingly important evidence is introduced in the trial, this 'reporter' calls in this information and somebody at the office decides this is not newsworthy. Or rather, that John Q. Public shouldn't see it. For whatever reason.

Need another reason to join some kind of media reform group and force an independant fourth estate?

All. And I'm bloody sick of this shit.

-iSC

p.p. Cheney could very well go down in the Libby case. And Dubya? Could go down in so many different ways it's crazy. It ain't about crossing your fingers, America, it's about pointing the finger, and it's about making your representatives represent you like they're supposed to.

Finally, A Sign of Hope From America

That smarmy fink Leiberman or whatever his name is, beat out by an AntiWar fellow! Ho ho! Out on yer arse, you undercover Dick! The People have spoken! Tell it to your Fink NeoCon, NeoFascist masters that THE FIX IS IN, that these are the Last Days of Disco, that it’s now, officially, as good as it’s ever gonna get and it’s never gonna get this good again! We’ve seen the hideous nature of your Souls and want no truck with it! Stick to Big Business where being a psychopath actually works for you!

Now begone, before the righteous tar and featherings begin in earnest! You lousy RAT BASTARDS!

This, finally, a sign of Hope from America.

But hey, that fink Lieberman is just a start, friends and neighbors. Many Democrats supported this War and still support them. You gotta let 'em know, that doesn't stand. It doesn't represent YOU! And you don't have to choose the best of the bad apples anymore! Is not yours a Democracy OF and FOR THE PEOPLE?!? AND THE PEOPLE DON'T WANT WAR! THEY NEVER DO! IT HAS TO BE SOLD TO THEM! THEY ALWAYS HAVE TO BE MANIPULATED, TRICKED OR FEARED INTO IT! SAY TO THOSE WHO WOULD PUT YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY AND LOVED ONES ON THE FRONT LINES FOR THEIR OWN CORPORATE GREEDS, 'NO MORE'!!! SEND THE BASTARDS PACKING!

Lieberman is just a start. Let 'em all know.

That is all.

-iSenseChange...?