Rare sighting, a hasbarist being subjected to tough questioning

Impossible without US support

As you go about your day stop for a moment to reflect upon the Dalou family murdered by an Israeli air strike in Gaza utilizing weaponry supplied and subsidized by the US government. See here for relevant updates.

Great Minds and all that

The current election season has been just as predictably devoid of issues relevant to the public as I'd imagined it would be. How could it possibly be otherwise? Both "oppositional" political parties, or more accurately to borrow the memorable phrase of the late and sorely missed Gore Vidal, "the Business Party with two right wings" are of one voice on the matters of critical importance to the public. So, there will be no meaningful prosecutions of the Wall Street hustlers whose greed and fraud collapsed the world economy, a financial transaction tax on the Wall Street speculation that has replaced its original function of raising capital for productive enterprises is out of the question, in fact raising revenue via tax levees on the wealthy and their corporations to help the nation climb from the crater they dug for us is a non-starter, two thirds of tax revenues the government does receive will continue to flood the coffers of military contractors, and there will be no move to implement a national health insurance program along the lines of Medicare for All or a single payer system as in the the rest of the developed world. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the government will not step in to address the demand deficit caused by the deflation of the housing bubble and the 1.2 trillion dollars in lost GDP it represented. I short, Barrack Obama dares not run for re-election on his record.

The current White House occupant has managed to accomplish in just under four years what I'd imagined would have taken at least a dozen to accomplish. He has single-handedly resuscitated the Republican Party, that other wing of the Business Party which alone sets the parameters of the political spectrum in the United States. How, one wonders, was it at all possible after the Bush administration initiated two ruinous illegal wars, watched impassively as an American city drowned for five days following Hurricane Katrina, and stood by in dumbfounded amazement as the greatest financial collapse in eighty years wiped out eight trillion dollars of (admittedly faux) wealth could Obama have failed to the extent that he clearly has? Recall that the Obama administration entered office with a powerful mandate from the public for meaningful change, the control of both houses of Congress including a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and no expectation from the public for detente with the Republican Party that it had just overwhelmingly rejected. What went wrong?

These are intriguing questions on the surface, however, a moment's reflection provides the answer. Clearly this was the intended outcome of the Obama administration and its actual constituency---Capital and the corporate sector generally by which the .001% have commandeered the levers of power and virtually all wealth. The performance of the Obama administration has been a classic example of what has been called the Ratchet Effect in the American political system. I highly recommend that you follow the link above for all the interesting details but here's an illuminating excerpt:

Over time, the Democratic Party has assumed the role of ensuring that the countervailing pressure from the Left doesn't happen. The party contains and neutralizes the Left, or what there is of it. Left voters are supposed to support the Democrat, come what may -- and it's amazing how many of us have internalized this supposed obligation -- but they are not allowed to have any influence on the party's policies, either during the campaign or during the Republicans' infrequent holidays in opposition.

The key function of the Democratic Party in our nation is to preserve the system of power and privilege from the democratic impulses of the population in general, its primary victim. This explains Obama's "failures" and "cave-ins" to his "opposition" and all the play-acting that passes for political debate this election cycle. These efforts are geared towards the single goal of dissuading the public from considering any viable alternatives such as those proposed by this reasonable man.

Hey Mr. Dimon, mind if we trouble you for a sec?

Jon Stewart's take on the US Senate's groveling performance before the real boss:

The Daily Show
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The American Class System Revisited

Here Richard Wolff uses the mortgage crisis and the explosion in personal indebtedness here in the US as the vehicle by which a discussion on class may be explored...

A Reasonable Suggestion

After my long hiatus I thought this presentation by Prof. Richard Wolff would serve as a nice segue into at least some semi-regular posting. My thoughts have been consumed by our economic devolution of late here in the US and any suggestion of alternatives will manage to catch my attention. Look for more like this in this space:

Always remember that they hate us for our freedoms

Update: Arthur Silber elaborates further as only he can...

Get your Cry On!

Ok, so I'm bored.

How charming!

And to think, US taxpayers directly subsidize this vicious colonial settler state to the tune of 3 billion dollars per year with no strings attached. Hat tip Jews san frontieres.

Why? Because they can.

PS. Arthur Silber shares a few thoughts on the subject as well...

Some images speak for themselves

Hat tip to Mike Flugennock

They Hate Us Because of Our Freedoms and Wholesome Goodness Damn it! You Got That?

Things to make you go, hmmm...

Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor and former Air Force lecturer, will present findings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that argue that the majority of suicide terrorism around the world since 1980 has had a common cause: military occupation. 

Pape and his team of researchers draw on data produced by a six-year study of suicide terrorist attacks around the world that was partially funded by the Defense Department's Defense Threat Reduction Agency. They have compiled the terrorism statistics in a publicly available database comprising some 10,000 records on some 2,200 suicide terrorism attacks, dating back to the first suicide terrorism attack of modern times — the 1983 truck bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 241 U.S. Marines. 

"We have lots of evidence now that when you put the foreign military presence in, it triggers suicide terrorism campaigns, ... and that when the foreign forces leave, it takes away almost 100 percent of the terrorist campaign," Pape said in an interview last week on his findings.

Don’t believe him? Then check it out for yourself.

Or... you could simply plug your ears and close your eyes to trifles such as counter narratives grounded in empirical evidence like Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation fame who launched into an ankle-biting tirade at GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul for expressing heretical thoughts about the consequences of American foreign policy...


Glenn Greenwald’s extended comments on this performance by one of our finest stenographers to Power is worth reading in full.

Happy Thanksgiving

I really mean it...

Rise of the Mighty Technocrats

Barring popular resistance this obscenity may be coming to the EU (aka testing grounds for the US) quite soon. Here’s the visual Cliff Notes version:

William K. Black at Occupy LA

Oddly enough this former regulator who gained vast experience in prosecuting the last batch of financial frauds to menace the economy during the S&L crisis of the late 1980's never seems to make any appearances on CNN, MSNBC, et al. Humm, I wonder...

Imagine

Allow me to preempt the simple-minded before viewing: this is not an endorsement of Ron Paul but merely a thought exercise. Major thanks to Jack Crow to whom my lazy ass is increasingly in debt of late...

Soon There Will Only Be One

The following comes courtesy of Lenin's Tomb and helps to graphically illustrate the level of Capital's concentration today.

How may we be of service?

Since the G20 Summit will be coming around these parts soon with plans to hash out the further institutionalization of austerity for the masses, I thought this little ditty would be a nice lullaby for those of us charged with protecting the pampered asses of our guests:

Whew! Thank goodness NATO has saved Libya from itself in the nick of time.

Africa's crown jewel now lays in ruins but then again that's the whole point friends. Now that the most developed nation on the continent with the largest proven oil reserves has been pulled apart someone's got to put it back together again.

Silly Libyans just didn't understand that this sort of shit is for sovereign people... and "we" don't allow that sort of thing bub:


Please don't mistake the posting of this video as an endorsement of Giddafi the man. No, as should be clear to all but the willfully blind, what now awaits the Libyan people left to the tender mercies of NATO and the IMF will be orders of magnitude worse than anything Big G may have dished out.

Blame it on Warren

Billionaire Warren Buffet's modest proposal in a recent New York Times editorial has set off the mouth pieces of plutocracy like you wouldn't believe. Well, actually what's not to believe given the characters in question? In any event I thought Jon Stewart of The Daily Show had a pretty funny take on it:
Part 1:

The Daily Show
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Part 2:

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