As Frank Rich notes about the off year election.

Should the G.O.P. avoid self-destruction by containing
this fringe, then the president and his party will have
to confront their real problem: their identification
with the titans who greased the skids for the economic
meltdown from which Wall Street has recovered and the
country has not. If there's one general lesson to be
gleaned from Christie's victory over Jon Corzine in New
Jersey, it's surely that in today's zeitgeist it's less
of a stigma to be fat than a former Goldman Sachs fat
cat, even in a blue state.

This rage is not just contained to the extremes  either.

Americans don't hate rich people, but they do despise
those who behave as if the rules don't apply to them.
"Michael Bloomberg is About to Buy Himself a Third
Term" was the cover line on New York magazine in
October. However unfairly, some voters conflated his
air of entitlement with the swaggering Wall Street
C.E.O.'s who cashed out before the crash and stuck the
rest of us with the bill.

The Obama administration does not seem to understand
that this rage, left unaddressed, could consume it. It
has pushed aside the entreaties of many -- including
Paul Volcker, the chairman of the White House's own
Economic Recovery Advisory Board -- to break up
too-big-to-fail banks. Those behemoths, cushioned by
the government's bailouts, low-interest loans and
guarantees, are back making bets that put the entire
system at risk. Yet last Sunday, we once again heard
the Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, on "Meet the
Press" dodging questions about the banks in general and
Goldman in particular with unpersuasive bromides.
"We're not going to let the system go back to the way
it was," he said.

Surely he jests. On Monday morning, a business-savvy
Democratic senator, Maria Cantwell of Washington,
publicly questioned Geithner's fitness for his job,
given his support of loopholes in proposed regulations
of the derivatives that enabled last year's collapse.
On Tuesday, Congressional Democrats, with the White
House's consent, voted to gut the Sarbanes-Oxley Act,
the post Enron-WorldCom law passed in 2002 to prevent
corporate accounting tricks and fraud. Arthur Levitt,
the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman,
told me on Friday it was "surreal" that Democrats were
now achieving the long-held Republican goal of smashing
"the golden chalice" of reform. If investors cannot
have transparency, Levitt said, "the whole system is
worthless."

The system is going back to the way it was with a
vengeance, against a backdrop of despair. As the
unemployment rate crossed the 10 percent threshold at
week's end, we learned that bankers were helping
themselves not just to bonuses as large as those at the
bubble's peak but to early allotments of H1N1 vaccine.
No wonder 62 percent of those polled by Hart Associates
in late September felt that "large banks" had been
helped "a lot" or "a fair amount" by "government
economic policies," but only 13 percent felt the
"average working person" had been. Unemployment ranked
ahead of the deficit and health care as the No. 1
pocketbook issue in the survey, with 81 percent saying
the Obama administration must take more action.

And if Obama and the Dems do not take some very firm
action soon and rain in these self aggrandized titans
of Wall Street, pass meaningful regulation and see to it
that those responsible are held accountable - they may
very well find themselves out on the street.

C

Sam Smith really puts it in perspective.

The recent murders at Ft. Hood recall Pascal's
observation that "Men never do evil so cheerfully and
so completely as when they do so from religious
conviction."

Of course, the assumption in this country at the moment
is that only Muslims are evil, which ignores Christians
doing evil to Muslims in Afghanistan or Jews
threatening to nuke Iran in the name of civilization.

In the end, it doesn't make much difference whether
your husband or son is killed by a Muslim major in Ft.
Hood, an American drone in Pakistan, or a Israeli
soldier in Gaza. In each case the dead are victims of
violent religious and cultural hubris.

This is so true. More and bloodier wars have been done in
the name of some deity than for any other reason.

Or consider that the war, along with that in
Afghanistan, was the creation of politicians blithely
willing to cause that many deaths to win reelection and
supported by generals and admirals who thought it was a
good idea and who then ordered Major Hasan and tens of
thousands of others to engage in battle as an
absolutely indisputable act of responsibility.

Or think about one little symbol of all this. Pull up a
photo of the Joint Chiefs, those responsible for
conducting wars like Iraq and Afghanistan and sending
people to fight in them. Notice their chests bedizened
by ribbons.

Now ask yourself: in what other field of human endeavor
could one wear ribbons indicating areas of service,
major campaigns, training, unit achievement, and
personal accomplishment without people regarding you as
completely mad?

And in what other job can you wantonly kill so many
people and be treated as a normal human being?

None of this excuses Major Hasan but it puts his acts
in perspective: a uncontrolled act of madness in a
deliberately insane system.

We don't think about such things much, because most of
us don't have to. The business of war has been
outsourced to the weakest parts of our economy, to
victims of our pathological economic system among
others.

The same pathological economic system that is perfectly
willing to bankrupt the country to kill those it hates. But
will not commit one penny to help it's own citizens afford
health care or live in a decent home or have a job that
pays livable wages.

The same pathological economic system that caused
Jason Rodriguez to finally snap and go on a shooting
spree. A system based entirely on greed, power elitism,
megalomania, arrogance and a totally cold and cruel
attitude toward fellow human beings.

C

 

"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively
removing all barriers to communication between
different races and cultures, has caused more and
bloodier wars than anything else in the history of
creation." - Douglas Adams

C

I came across this essay while paroosing one of the progressive
news sites. It really is quite good and if you can find the time
between the brain draining drivel on the video screen and the
home work you need do before the little sleep you get before
going back to work - do read it.
Here are a few of my favorite parts.

It may be my bias, or my imagination, or my distaste
for toil, but from here America looks like one big
workhouse, "under God, indivisible, with time off to
shit, shower and shop." A country whose citizens have
been reduced to "human assets" of a vast and
relentless economic machine, moving human parts oiled
by commodities and kept in motion by the edict,
"produce or die." Where employment and a job
dominates all other aspects of life, and the loss of
which spells the loss of everything.

Yeah, yeah, I know, them ain't jobs -- in America we
don't have jobs, we have careers. I've read the
national script, and am quite aware that all those
human assets writing computer code and advertising
copy, or staring at screen monitors in the "human
services" industry are "performing meaningful and
important work in a positive workplace environment."
Performing? Is this brain surgery? Or a stage act? If
we are performing, then for whom? Exactly who is
watching?

Proof abounds of the unending joy and importance of
work and production in our wealth-based economy. Just
read the job recruitment ads. Or ask any of the
people clinging fearfully by their fingernails to
those four remaining jobs in America. But is a job --
hopefully a good one -- and workplace strivance
really everything? Most of us would say, "Well of
course not." But in a nation that now sends police to
break up the tent camps and car camps of homeless
unemployed citizens who once belonged to the middle
class, it might well be everything.

This is so true. There is still this notion that you are not doing
a real job in some areas such as the arts or entertainment.
And even some technical field or working for the government,
national or state. Yet those areas are even more rigid that the
private sector.

But you won't hear anyone complaining. America
doesn't like whiners. A whiner or a cynic is about
the worst thing you can be in the land of gunpoint
optimism. Foreigners often remark on the upbeat
American personality. I assure them that our American
corpocracy has its ways of pistol whipping or
sedating its human assets into the appropriate level
of cheeriness.

Appearing cheerful is vital in a society where all of
life is monitored by an employer, a credit rating
bureau or the media's projection of the world, and
mediated by the financialization of life's every
aspect. Every action and movement is a transaction,
some as large as the mortgage, others as small as the
purchase of a bus token, or the cost of a cell phone
call, gasoline, vehicle maintenance and parking costs
for movement within the sprawling asphalt grids we
call communities. Even respite from work with its
vacation "leisure destinations" put on the credit
card, and even the greatest commons of all, nature,
has a cost of access, whether it be admission to
national parks or the cost of camping and other
"recreational equipment."

Yes we cheerfully welcome being screwed by our employers,
financial institutions and government all the while bending over
with this sick grin on our face and stating in a loud gleeful voice.
"Thank you sir ! Can I have another." like some eager fraternity
pledge.

But the truth is that we are all very commonly issued
products of a profit driven workhouse where no human
commons is allowable, lest the workers find meaning
and joy in each other as human beings, and perhaps
become less work driven, less productive and less
profitable. Best that their lives remain mediated,
disembodied from the great commons of the human
spirit, unmoored from the great natural commons
binding all living things called Earth --

    images of which will be provided for your delight on
    The Nature Channel at 9 PM tonight.
    Until then, stay cheerful.
    Pay your bills on time.
    Good night!

Which begs the question of why ? Why all this focus on monetary
productivity ? When at this juncture it should be obvious to all that
it has not produced peace and prosperity to anyone but a few in the
upper economic strata. That we are not healthier or happier for it.
That all we have produced so far are a lot of mindless toys and a
great deal of personal and national debt.

That in fact the whole facade has systematically unraveled will not
likely regain anything remotely resembling what it once was.
That we are quite literally working and producing ourselves into an
economic and emotional abyss. With both sides blaming the other
while clinging to the rocks by their finger nails.

C

  
 

"Consumption - It's the new national pastime. Fuck
baseball, it's consumption. The only true lasting
American value that's left: buyin' things! Buying
things. People spending money they don't have on things
they don't need - MONEY THEY DON'T HAVE ON THINGS THEY
DON'T NEED - so they can max out their credit cards and
spend the rest of their lives paying 18% interest on
something that cost 12.50! And they didn't like it when
they got it home anyway.

Not too bright folks, not too fucking bright."

George Carlin


We now have a light bulb that will last 25 years. Think about that.
You buy one or more for the various lights in your home and you
don't need to purchase another replacement for 25 years. I will
bet you dollars to donuts that it will be 50 or 100 years in very
short order.

Donal has a blog on the Farmers Dilemma that goes into the
problem of local farming vs big agriculture.  But we now have the
ability to produce enough food to feed everyone in this country 10
times over and do it in a healthy, sustainable manner. Large or
small because we have the technology to do so. The problem is
that we in this country do not need this much food but other
countries do. And to ship the excess abroad goes against our
puritan capitalistic work ethic  we keep holding on to with
such a death's grip.

I personally own a television set that is over 10 years old.  Oh
it takes the picture tube a few minutes for the colors to stabilize
but other than that it works just fine. No problems. In fact most
electronics will out last the owners.  So why produce more ?

The fact is that we now have the technology to produce most things
in as vast a quantity as we want and make them last nearly for ever.
But how much of this stuff do we really need ? The cell phone
you just dumped into the garbage because you changed carriers
works just fine but not with your current carrier. But it could. In fact
there is no technical reason what so ever why any cell phone
could not work with any carrier. Except then people would not
buy nearly as many.

We have the technology to build cars that can get decent gas
mileage and have them last a lot longer than they current do.
But if we did, people would not buy nearly as many or as often.

We now have Solar Cell roofing shingles that can be installed
just like regular shingles.  You just need an electrician to wire
them up. But if every home did this, the electric utility use would
drop dramatically.

We consume and purchase what we do not based on any real
need but on a manufactured need. We are constantly told the
that we must have the newest, latest and greatest car, house,
pharmaceuticals,  medical test, candy bar, soda and on and on.
And that any time we have a problem we need to consult a lawyer
or a doctor or what not.

And we put people to work to manufacture this need and to fulfill
it as well. All the while using and abusing the resources of this
planet to do so. And accomplishing little in the way of real
advancement.

Our capitalist system is over 2000 years old. People have been
trading goods and services for eons. And it worked very well as long as
the needs and wants were fairly equal to the products available.
Money in one form or another was used as a medium of exchange
for nearly as long.

But as soon as the production of food and articles started to exceed
the wants and needs of the people, it stopped working quite as well.

So we had to artificially increase these wants and needs. But it does
not and cannot last. This is basically what has happened and had
happened in the past. And it will only get worse because our ability
to produce can only get better and more efficient. We simply
can no longer hope to continue trying to invent artificial needs.

We now have more countries entering into the global economy
that we ever had with more and more production.  Out current
capitalist method has to be revamped and overhauled to account
for this. The puritan work ethic simply does not work any more.

Another way has to be found if we as a species have any hope
of surviving.

C