Bombs and Monsters

Sorry about the lack of posts this week. The year may be new, but it's already getting old. I can't remember ever feeling so overwhelmed. At least the last Congress is history, the lame duck session particularly having been overrun by the one of the most bizarre bunch of political quacks in recent memory. Some of them are back, their feathers ruffled, for another paddle in the scummy Washington pond. F-bomb boy Boehner with cheek of tan is still around, though having barely squeaked through for a new stint as the Weeper Speaker.

The new year promises more of the same old, same old with a vengeance. We are being inundated with one episode of Shock Doctrine Theater after another. The Feckless Cliff Aversion Act was just signed by long distance presidential robo-pen, giving us a clue of how utterly contrived the crisis was in the first place. Now we're getting previews of Sequestration Saga and Debt Ceiling Drama Redux. Will Obama cave again, or will he stand firm for the principles he really, truly, deep down inside believes in? is already on the pseudoliberal marquees. Unbelievably, the narrative still revolves around this being a Democratic vs. Republican battle, rather than the Class War it truly is. Here's how I responded to Paul Krugman's column today, about the coming Battle of the Budget:

The trick to using disaster capitalism tactics is to use them sparingly, in order to keep us from noticing how our leaders are shafting us. But here we are, the targets of a marathon assault of clumsily epic proportions. We're just now finding out how narrowly we dodged the initial barrage of New Deal-destroying dummy bullets, with the news that Harry Reid tossed the president's most recent Bargain for the Grandees into his fireplace. 

But like a demented phoenix, the austerity monster keeps rising from the ashes. The president said he still wants to "improve" Medicare, calling it our greatest deficit driver. He still seems perfectly willing to cast himself as the great appeaser in the pursuit of an awesome deal that Wall Street will cheer about. He said nothing, of course, about such deficit cures as dismantling our trillion-dollar war machine, or phasing out private insurance to bring health care costs down, or raising the FICA cap to protect Social Security, or a living wage law, or a financial transaction tax. But the Chained CPI monster is still on the loose, with various and sundry allied threats of less food, less heat, less housing assistance, and less medical care.

Meanwhile, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, the top 100 plutocrats added a combined $241 bn to their kitty last year, for a total aggregate net worth of $1.9 trillion.

The new anthem of the oligarchs is playing loud and clear: They can never be too rich, or the lesser people too thin.

Another Year, Another Deal

So, did you have an exciting New Year's Eve? I sure did. I wore a tacky necklace made out of purple beads and a plastic shot glass, watched a bit of Twilight Zone marathon, switched over to CNN to watch the orgy, and switched off the TV the minute the ghoulish ricti of Shrillionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his union-busting, Occupy-evicting girlfriend Diana Taylor appeared. It could always have been worse. At least he wasn't tonguing Lady Gaga this year.

"It could always have been worse" is the conventional wisdom of the Great Fiscal Cliff Averting deal apparently reached last night when I was all wrapped up in little Billy Mumy turning people into jack-in-the-boxes. At least we are waking up to a temporary continuation of unchained Social Security checks, and another measly year of subsistence unemployment benefits for a handful of jobless people, and not being turned into jack-in-the-boxes. So who can really begrudge the rich for getting their permanent tax cuts on their first half a mil, and the spawn of millionaires never having to pay a single penny of tax on the first many millions of their inheritances? It's a balanced approach. That is, if you equate pensioners eating a third meal with Paris Hilton being able to buy a third Porsche. Or conversely, pensioners scrimping on medication at the same time Paris Hilton writes out a check to the IRS on the petty mad-money million not stashed away in an offshore account. 
 
Paul Krugman has a cogent rundown of What It All Means. My response: 

Look at this way. The Republican-spawned phrases "fiscal cliff," "kick the can down the road," "job creators". and "double down" have now all been banned from the lexicon by Lake Superior University. Of course, the GOP will balk at this list, accusing the college of elitism because of its very name, and because it makes fun of rich people.

But to be serious (they should also have banned that one, along with "grand" and "bold"), the worst thing about this deal is that the gifts to the wealthy are permanent, and the crumbs thrown to the poor and middle class will be gone in a few years at most. As far as I'm concerned, this is political malpractice. It's a crime that the crisis of unemployment is not being addressed, other than to sustain a minimal standard of living for the chronically jobless for a maximum of only one more year -- and for only relatively small group of people.

Of course, we'll be called purist ideologues for not falling in line with the "don't let the perfect be the enemy of good" pragmatism that is trying to disguise itself as the new progressivism. But this time around, I do see some of the Obama personality cult being chipped away, which is a hopeful sign as far as citizen resistance is concerned.

Meanwhile, our elected leaders will have to be watched like hawks (they forgot to remove "deficit hawk" from the lexicon, too!) as they try to bargain away the New Deal under the auspices of yet another manufactured crisis.

Happy New Year, everybody!

Bargaining Chips and Chomping Chains

How can I put this delicately? If you are old, or if aging is in your future plans, your president just doesn't seem to think your life is worth very much. That average $1200 monthly Social Security check you've been counting on?  Way too extravagant for Barack Obama's refined sensibilities.

In the past, he has been more circumspect about his plans for a "balanced approach" in which the little people share the sacrifice are sacrificed to the predators of the financial class. But yesterday, he got his machismo up. It probably had a lot to do with being mere inches away from fellow corporate apparatchick and gerontophobe David Gregory. Familiarity breeds contempt.... for people beneath their exalted class. Bullies are often too cowardly to work alone. They need at least one flattering sycophant close by.  From yesterday's Meet the Press: 

DAVID GREGORY: You’ve got to talk tough to seniors --

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:But–

DAVID GREGORY:–don’t you about this? And say, something’s got to give?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:–but I already have, David, as you know, one of the proposals we made was something called Chained CPI, which sounds real technical but basically makes an adjustment in terms of how inflation is calculated on Social Security. Highly unpopular among Democrats. Not something supported by AARP. But in pursuit of strengthening Social Security for the long-term I’m willing to make those decisions.

Much is being made of how Harry Reid and his minions "stood firm" against chained CPI being part of the Feckless Cliff negotiations. But people are missing the point that when the Democratic leadership balked at putting Social Security on the table now, it merely means they don't want to waste this valuable bargaining chip in a game of penny ante. They won't add Chained CPI to the kitty until the high stakes game of poker known as The Grand Bargain takes place in the Debt Ceiling Casino next year.

"The idea was if you are going to do debt ceiling, you would then do chained CPI," (a) Democratic aide said, speaking anonymously because talks are ongoing and extremely sensitive. "They can only ask us to make that concession in that pairing. We are not going to do anything with chained CPI now [without a debt ceiling deal]. That's a poison pill.

It has come to this. The lives and livelihoods of America's most vulnerable citizens have been reduced to political concessions. Our monthly retirement checks are something that millionaire political hacks "do" the same way they do lunch, do cocktail parties, do the revolving door shuffle. They're doing us. But even though they're bold and serious and macho, they pride themselves on being very sensitive lovers. They wield their whips and chains discreetly, out of public view. Once we start feeling the lashes, we won't even remember who it was that actually beat us to a pulp. We'll just keep inviting them back for seconds.

The Better to Tweak You With, My Dear

Richard Eskow of Campaign for America's Future has written a far more serious and sensible prescription for how we can address the almighty deficit without torturing innocent people. There are plenty of ethical and more effective solutions out there than Chained CPI. The problem is that there are no ethics left in Washington. And being ineffective in the Beltway Bubble doesn't ever get you fired, especially if you're a member of Congress. The president just rewarded the do-nothingest legislature in history with a pay raise. Seriously.

Gridlock Theatre is good. Just ask the lobbyists and the corporate advertisers funding the corporate media perpetuating the gridlock. Action delayed means the serious people get paid. Lots and lots of cash:

  Washington is getting richer because the intensity of the struggle for influence at the centre of power has a natural tendency to keep spiraling upwards, and influence groups have to spend more on their struggles in the capital just to stand still. This isn't a conspiracy by a unified ruling class of takers against the far-flung makers, as in the Capitol of "The Hunger Games". It's an unavoidable, never-ending political battle between powerful clans to protect their interests at court, as in King's Landing in "Game of Thrones".... Gridlock between powerful vested interests can be very profitable for experienced, well-connected court players who can promise to preserve the gridlock.

So when the deficit scolds blame the "dysfunction" in Washington for all our ills, don't believe it for a minute. It's not dysfunction that's killing us. It's the corruption. It runs wide, it runs deep, and the stain just won't come out. 
 

Irritable Bipartisan Syndrome

Whoever keeps saying that Congress is gridlocked is wrong, wrong, wrong. Of course, they become chronically constipated whenever they need to pass legislation that benefits regular people. But when it comes time to reward the defense contractors and the corporate sugar daddies, the diarrhea part of political Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) always kicks in. The money and the bullshit both flow freely.

Just today, for example, the Senate overwhelmingly approved continued warrantless wiretapping/internet spying on the inhabitants of the global battlefield of make-believe terror. In other words, everyone. (You can find out how your own rep voted by clicking here.) Less than a quarter of all senators believe that domestic spying under the guise of anti-terror is unconstitutional. Not only that, we now officially have no right to know whether we're among the countless lucky duckies who've already been sucked up into the voracious maw of the Homeland Security behemoth.

Before final passage, the Senate voted against an amendment from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), which would have required the Director of National Intelligence to report to Congress on whether any U.S.-based email and phone communications have been picked up in the process of conducting overseas surveillance, and whether any wholly domestic U.S. communications have been swept up under the program.

Wyden said intelligence officials have so far failed to provide such an estimate.

There's more. The goons are also refusing to even confirm or deny whether a list of millions or billions or trillions of victims even exists. The money may flow, but the info it pays for is bound up deep within the bowels of the secrecy fetishists. Talk about anal retention! And the complicit Senators are not about to administer a massive dose of Ex-Lax, either. The constipation part of Irritable Bipartisan Syndrome will continue for another five years, at least. And the gasbaggery, needless to say, will be infinite.

Chief FISA Scold Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who has never met a Homeland Security sub-agency bureaucrat she didn't like, testily insists that any illegal spying on Americans has been sparse and inadvertent, so there is no way in hell that we will ever be allowed to see if our names are on any list. Because, like President Obama's Kill List, the Spy List has never been officially confirmed. The lists exist, but mainly in the mist, is the gist.

Glenn Greenwald has written an excellent smackdown and back-story on the latest bipolar bipartisanship. An excerpt:

In doing so, the new 2008 (FISA Amendments) law gutted the 30-year-old FISA statute that had been enacted to prevent the decades of severe spying abuses discovered by the mid-1970s Church Committee: by simply barring the government from eavesdropping on the communications of Americans without first obtaining a warrant from a court. Worst of all, the 2008 law legalized most of what Democrats had spent years pretending was such a scandal: the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program secretly implemented by George Bush after the 9/11 attack. In other words, the warrantless eavesdropping "scandal" that led to a Pulitzer Prize for the New York Times reporters who revealed it ended not with investigations or prosecutions for those who illegally spied on Americans, but with the Congressional GOP joining with key Democrats (including Obama) to legalize most of what Bush and Cheney had done. Ever since, the Obama DOJ has invoked secrecy and standing doctrines to prevent any courts from ruling on whether the warrantless eavesdropping powers granted by the 2008 law violate the Constitution.

When it comes to serving the regular people who elected them, senators are famous for obfuscation, delays and can-kicking. But when it comes to wars, and weapons, and national security, and keeping fear alive, and doing pretty much whatever President Obama wants in the way of destroying the Bill of Rights, they always manage to get a massive jolt of bipartisan adrenaline:

Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) urged his colleagues not to support any amendments because he said the bill would then have to be reconsidered by the House. He said unless the House version passed, surveillance would halt after Dec. 31, posing a threat to national security.

“We’ve got to get this bill on the desk of the president by Dec. 31,” Chambliss said on the floor Friday.

Or else, what? We go off the FISA Cliff and millions of spy state listening posts go dark?

We will never know. It's been officially decreed as none of our business. And if you complain about it, you're supporting the terrorists. More than three-quarters of the Senate has just declared: "We are all Dick Cheney now."

This reminds me of Rick Sanchez of CNN, who used to run a segment called The List You Don't Want to Be On. Then he got fired. 

NYT Editors Asleep at Switch

27 minutes ago

Obama Returns to Washington, With Bo By JACKIE CALMES President Obama returned to the White House on Thursday to resume efforts to end a partisan fiscal impasse with the family dog, Bo.   (Bo refuses to stop pooping under the White House Christmas trees until he gets a raise in his chewy toy allowance. Obama has drawn a firm line in the sand.  Threatens to switch Bo to cat food. Stay tuned.)

Is Our Children Learning?

If California Senator Barbara Boxer gets her wish, the definition of "military school" may be about to change. Her Keeping Schools Safe legislation will give governors  the option of calling in the National Guard to their states' schools as they deem necessary. Right now, only local police departments are allowed to respond to incidents running the gamut from mass shootings to temper tantrums that are suddenly requiring that tots be placed in handcuffs. 

"Is it not part of the national defense to make sure that your children are safe?" Boxer said at Capitol Hill press conference.

This ranks right up there with the fatuous musing of another confused politician named George W. Bush."Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"

Greed disguised as innocuous stupidity started the No Child Left Behind corporate march toward school privatization. Now, Boxer (one of that new breed of bellicose Democrats) wants to take the neo-fascist greed one step further by turning schools into militarized zones. Before you know it, our schools will be called Charter Re-education Camps.

Because when it comes to disaster capitalism overkill, the tragedy in Connecticut is beginning to rival 9/11 in its potential capacity to shred the Bill of Rights. Boxer isn't wasting time. She has also introduced the School Safety Enhancement Act, which would allocate up to $50 million for the installation of spy cameras and metal detectors in schools. Is our children learning yet?

Since there can never be enough flying robots crowding our great American skies, a special School Drone program to further enrich the defense contractors of the military-industrial complex is not outside the realm of possibility. Civil liberties destruction can begin early, as soon as nursery school, to keep us all safe. Students will be surveilled from above and below and within (as in TSA airport screenings). This will eventually help ensure that no independent thought is breaking out, and that no teaching outside the for-profit testing companies is taking place. Public schools already allow military recruiters to set up shop in high schools, even supplying the armed forces with the private home telephone numbers of potential war fodder. So it's only a hop, skip and a jump to transforming the halls of academe into full-fledged war zones.

Is our children learning? Is George Orwell spinning in his grave?

Last year's National Defense Authorization Act allowed for the arrest and indefinite detention of U.S. Citizens by the military. Although the National Guard is exempt from rules which forbid domestic action by the military, the presence of any camouflaged troops in schools could feasibly continue the subversion and work-arounds to the Posse Comitatus Act already being seen in the rampant racial and ethnic profiling being conducted by police agencies. Federal and state agencies theoretically could begin cracking down on schools suspected of sheltering terror cells and other criminal enterprises. Searches and seizures in the War on Drugs are already a reality -- could further draconian measures under the pretext of gun control and mental health screening be looming on the horizon with proposals like Boxer's?

  The slaughter of the innocents must stop," she said. "We must keep our schools safe by utilizing all of the law enforcement tools at our disposal."

Boxer said the National Guard legislation is modeled after a program in place since 1989 that allows governors to use the National Guard to aid law enforcement in anti-drug operations. Troops could be deployed at schools, or assigned to desk jobs at police stations to free up local law enforcement to patrol schools.

Not that our police forces aren't already militarized. The Department of Homeland Security operates a slew of "fusion centers" that combine the resources of the national spy state with those of the cops on the beat. A recent scathing report on the goon-cop partnership revealed monumental ineptitude and the huge amount of money wasted by a government whose function has devolved into spying on its own citizens even as it happily shreds the safety net and plunges us over make-believe fiscal cliffs.

For when it comes to spending money on the evisceration of human rights, the United States government knows no shame, and no boundaries. This country is the de facto partner of the gun industry. It's the largest arms dealer in the world, with sales of weapons to other countries actually tripling last year to a whopping $66.3 billion. The congressional cads and caddesses couldn't even be bothered to pass legislation that will keep the price of a gallon of milk from rising to $8 next year before they skipped town for the holidays. Yet they were almost unanimous in their bipartisan allocation of another $641 billion for the National Defense Authorization Act.

Got milk? Nope. But Georgie Bush is still waiting in vain for an answer to his plaintive question: Is our children learning?

Christmas in the Trenches

It's Christmas, and time for 12,000,000 bloggers blogging to post their favorite holiday videos and songs. I hadn't heard "Christmas in the Trenches" by John McCutcheon in awhile, so I'll add it to the internet symphony here.

The song is based on the series of spontaneous Christmas truces during the first year of World War I. British and German soldiers would regularly put down their arms, and engage in impromptu soccer matches, sing-alongs, picnics and gift exchanges. Although the Yuletide ceasefires continued for another year or two, by the time chemical weapons came into play, the young soldiers had finally learned how to truly hate each other. But as the fictional hero reflects at the end of the song, "the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame- and on each end of the rifle we're the same."

Here's wishing all of you a safe and peaceful Christmas. And many thanks for the inspiration and encouragement you have given me to keep on writing. But be warned -- Sardonicky will be entering the Terrible Twos in just another month!