A report on the ghost fleet of the economic down turn.

Just 12 months ago these financiers and brokers
were enjoying fat bonuses as they traded cargo
space. But nobody wants the space any more, and
those that still need to ship goods across the
world are demanding vast reductions in price.

Do not tell these men and women about green shoots
of recovery. As Briton Tim Huxley, one of Asia's
leading ship brokers, says, if the world is really
pulling itself out of recession, then all these
idle ships should be back on the move. South China
Sea map

'This is the time of year when everyone is doing
all the Christmas stuff,' he points out.

'A couple of years ago those ships would have been
steaming back and forth, going at full speed. But
now you've got something like 12 per cent of the
world's container ships doing nothing.'

Aframaxes are oil bearers. But the slump is
industry-wide. The cost of sending a 40ft steel
container of merchandise from China to the UK has
fallen from £850 plus fuel charges last year to
£180 this year. The cost of chartering an entire
bulk freighter suitable for carrying raw materials
has plunged even further, from close to £185,000
($300,000) last summer to an incredible £6,100
($10,000) earlier this year.

Business for bulk carriers has picked up slightly
in recent months, largely because of China's
rediscovered appetite for raw materials such as
iron ore, says Huxley. But this is a small part of
international trade, and the prospects for the
container ships remain bleak.

Some experts believe the ratio of container ships
sitting idle could rise to 25 per cent within two
years in an extraordinary downturn that shipping
giant Maersk has called a 'crisis of historic
dimensions'. Last month the company reported its
first half-year loss in its 105-year history.

No green shoots here...just barnacles and sea weed.

Boats of mine go boating. Oh where will all come home.


C

It is common knowledge that if you enable a substance abuser,
they will continue their behavior of abuse. 

The only thing that will get them clean is a tough intervention.

"Abstinence....then we talk"


C

Max Blumenthal in The Nation gives a good example.

Like the sadistic antagonists of William Golding's
Lord of the Flies Murray's violent impulses had
been constrained only by what Golding called the
"invisible yet strong...taboo of the old life...the
protection of parents and school and policemen and
the law." When he mowed down his peers, Murray
hoped to demonstrate his complete contempt for the
civilization of adults, along with all its
corruption, cruelty and internal contradictions.
His victims, then, were no more than "littluns" he
sacrificed to exact his revenge, to make Colorado
Springs weep for the end of innocence long after
order returned. Murray's real targets were his
rigid parents, their draconian childrearing gurus
and the prying pastor who raided his room--the
architects of his "Christian nightmare."

The evangelical hierarchy's handling of the Haggard
scandal had hardened Murray's murderous intentions.
Both Murray and Haggard were unable to fulfill
their essential selves within the strict confines
of Pentecostal culture, so each of them sought an
escape through drugs and illicit sex. But whereas
Murray openly embraced his turn to decadence,
Haggard concealed his secret life behind bombastic
expressions of religious fervor. After Haggard was
unmasked as a fraud, however, he was pronounced
"completely heterosexual" by the movement's elders
in only three weeks. Murray, who had been
irrevocably rejected for abandoning his faith, was
stung by this spectacle of cheap grace. "I want to
know where was all the love, mercy and compassion
for my supposed imperfections?" he wrote
despairingly.

The mainstream media made little effort to analyze
the trauma-wracked mentality that drove Murray to
violence, opting instead for a tight focus on the
more sensational aspects of his killings. When
cable news arrived on the scene of the crime, it
sketched a haphazard portrait of Murray hardly
distinguishable from that of Eric Harris [one of
the two Columbine High School shooters], Cho
Seung-Hui [the Virginia Tech gunman], or John Lee
Malvo. He was just another young male nutcase with
a gun, or, according to CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, a
killer motivated exclusively by "his hate for
certain Christians." When Sanchez interviewed
Marlene Winell, the psychiatrist who attempted to
counsel Murray, her attempts to assess the impact
that Murray's religious indoctrination had had in
shaping his destructive behavior were brushed
aside.

And Frank Schaefer enplanes why these people are politically
and socially dangerous as well.

The Anti-American Home Schoolers Come Of Age

We are now several generations into this experiment
of holier-than-thou withdrawal from our American
mainstream culture. If you wonder who it is that's
both running and underwriting organizations such as
the Family Research Council, Focus On The Family,
Freedom Works and other organizers of the 9/12
March and who are most faithful followers the likes
of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh or viewers of Fox
News your answer is: it's the home school/Christian
school generation of men and women now hitting
their thirties and even forties who might as well
have been raised on a different planet.

What are these home school and Christian school
children taught? Here's a quote from one of the far
right's leading home school curricula creators:

    "The stranger in ancient Israel did not serve
as a judge, although he received all the benefits
of living in the land. The political question is
this: By what biblical standard is the pagan to be
granted the right to bring political sanctions
against God's people? We recognize that unbelievers
are not to vote in Church elections. Why should
they be allowed to vote in civil elections in a
covenanted Christian nation? Which judicial
standards will they impose? By what other standard
than the Bible?"


(Gary North of Institute For Christian Economics)

The generation raised on the belief that the US
government is illegitimate because it is trying to
"impose" non-biblical laws on people has hit the
streets. These are the people who grew up
indoctrinated into an alternative reality. Today
they are out there waving signs of Obama dressed as
Hitler. They are buying weapons and ammunition.
Some are in the growing and revived militia
movement. They are Dick Armey's foot soldiers.
People like Armey and Beck can count on the
ignorance of their dupes. It's against their
religion to read a real newspaper, watch anything
but Fox or go to a real school.

Evangelical Red Guards

Over the last 30 years Evangelical fundamentalists
have managed to do what Chairman Mao failed to do
with his Red Guards: indoctrinate a whole
generation of evangelical people to see their own
society as the enemy and act like subversives from
within the culture. These people are more
anti-American than Al-Qaeda. The "Christian
Reconstruction" movement is working for theocracy.
Reconstructionism (of which Gary North is one
leader) says that the law given for the political
and legal ordering of ancient Israel is intended
for all people at all times.

Reconstructionist leader David Barton gives a
definition:

    "The Christian goal for the world is the
universal development of Biblical theocratic
republics, in which every area of life is redeemed
and placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and
the rule of God's law."



Who are Glenn Beck's foot soldiers? In effect what
we have is a group of indoctrinated people who have
never actually lived in America because they were
brought up deliberately cloistered from it by their
parents and churches. Because they are legally
"Americans" they can move freely around our
democracy trying to destroy it working within the
United States. Today they are acting like a fifth
column, no, they are a fifth column. Some of them
have not just seceded metaphorically, there is even
a growing movement for states to secede literally.

Today the right wing America haters actually are
doing to America what no "illegal" immigrants ever
do: work to overthrow our democracy and replace it
with a theocracy. The home-schooled, privately
educated brainwashed horde are an antidemocratic,
fundamentally anti-American political movement. For
a start they do not accept the results of the last
election.

To say that these people are bat-shit crazy is an under statement.
And for them to accuse anyone of being anti-American is beyond
ludicrous.

C

Clueless as what to do about them......priceless !


C

A student went to his meditation teacher and said, "My
meditation is horrible! I feel so distracted, or my
legs ache, or I'm constantly falling asleep. It's just
horrible!"

"It will pass," the teacher said matter-of-factly.

A week later, the student came back to his teacher. "My
meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful,
so alive! It's just wonderful!"

"It will pass," the teacher replied matter-of-factly.


Humanity has this nasty habit of not wanting to accept reality for
what it is. We continually want to see the world as we would like
it to be. Now I'm not saying that having a vision of better things
for ourselves and those we know is bad. On the contrary - it helps
in giving us the motivation to improve ourselves and live for those
around us.

But to constantly believe that this rose colored view is what life
actually is, will always lead us astray. And when reality does
show itself it can be very traumatic to our psyche. 

This affliction exists in both the left and the right.  We lived for a very
long time not wanting to look a the reality of the effects out life style
had on the environment,  economy, society and ourselves. Cheep
energy, cheep labor and the ability to have our every hearts desire
clouded our desire to see the consequences of our life styles.

But now it cannot be ignored. The elephant in the dining room has
neon signs on it and is trumpeting loudly.  Those on the right are
screaming bloody murder because it is now being pointed out that
their devil may care live style cannot go on.  That we have to take
care of the environment. That the economics of the past cannot
continue. And that we need to make some major changes which
will require everyone to make some sacrifice.  So they are behaving
like a youngster being scolded for doing some dumb and dangerous
thing and they cannot have fun any more.

At the same time too many on the left are also in their own delusion
believing that becoming vegan, driving electric cars, running 8 miles
a day and embracing every  social cause - will save the human race
and the planet. All worthy ideals but hardly our salvation.

What needs to happen is for everyone to look at the reality of the world
we live in and our own human nature...the bad as well as the good.
And then make the decisions and changes necessary to really make
a difference. Even it if it is uncomfortable and requires giving something
up.

Reality is not always pleasant nor is it always uncomfortable.  It does not
stroke our little egos or kick us in the gut. But it does have to be dealt with
on a daily basis.  It cannot be ignored or white-washed.  And there are no
quick and easy solutions to that which it throws at us. But their are intelligent
choices.

C

This one passage from AG's communication with Josh really stuck out
to me.

However, it was an angry group with a real sense of absolute
entitlement. Something not focused on by many. This sense of
entitlement that they deserve to be the dominant deciders and
that it's being taken away.

Because they are WHITE.  And it's being taken away by a Black. 

So it's not just Wall Street that feels entitled. It's  whites from main street
up to Wall Street who had the last say on everything for so long and are now
in decline. And the Election of Obama drives this point home like a nail right
through their gut. They know it and it is just too much for them.

They hate it - they hate Obama and they hate the progressive establishment
that got him elected. The whole thing just sticks in their craw.


C