The Mapping of the Terror Trains

Look a-yonder what's coming down that railroad track. It's the Oil Bombin' Special, and while it's not bringing your baby back, it is most definitely bringing the Bakken. Crude, that is: millions of gallons of highly flammable fracked Bakken oil and Alberta tar sands product are sloshing at breakneck speed through thousands of North American towns, every single day.

Towns like Lac-Megantic, Quebec where one year ago this month an oil train derailed and exploded, killing 47 people and incinerating the central business district.

If you live within half a mile of railroad tracks, chances are that you are among the 25 million people living within a blast zone. But since railroad and oil companies are afraid they'll lose money if you are actually informed that you are in harm's way, the government has not seen fit to issue color-coded terror threat alerts to vulnerable populations. People might protest, or otherwise interfere with deregulated late capitalism.

But thanks to the efforts of environmental groups, information on routes and deadly cargo is slowly dribbling out anyway. One group, ForestEthics, has even devised a simple tool whereby you can type in your locale to instantly discover how at-risk you and your loved ones really are:

For the first time ForestEthics has brought Google mapping capabilities together with railroad industry data on oil train routes across the US and Canada. The tool uses US Department of Transportation guidance for emergency response, identifying the one mile evacuation zone in the case of an oil train fire or a half mile in the case of a spill. The group used census data to estimate the number of Americans living in the one mile blast zone, but the map also shows schools, sports stadiums, town halls, and landmarks across the country within the danger zone.

Oil train traffic has increased by more than 4,000 percent in the past five years, from 9,500 tank cars in 2008 to more than 400,000 in 2013, mostly Bakken crude from North Dakota and tar sands from Alberta, Canada. Derailments, spills, and fires are also on the rise.

My town is "safe," being more than half a mile from the tracks on which the oil is being transported. Of course, the entire rail route from Albany, NY south to a major storage tank facility is just yards from the recently cleaned-up Hudson River. My son's riverside apartment is right in the middle of the blast zone, as is the elementary school both my children attended.

Albany has become such a main hub of Bakken crude and Alberta tar sands shipments that it is now known as "Houston on the Hudson." Residents of an apartment complex located just yards from storage cars protested and got city and state officials to demand disclosure and protection from the oil and transport companies, who've been loath to provide them. Most government officials, it turns out, have only been learning of the dangers from the citizens and activist groups themselves. Or, so they say.

Riverkeeper notes that the oil is also being transported by barge. The whole scenic Hudson Valley area that I call home has become a virtual oil pipeline. As have the homes of countless others:

Nationwide, shipping crude oil by rail has jumped sixfold since 2011, according to American Association of Railroads data, and rail shipments from the Bakken region have jumped exponentially since 2009. This ad-hoc transportation system has repeatedly failed—and spectacularly. The fires resulting from derailments of Bakken crude oil trains have caused fireballs and have burned so hot that emergency responders often can do nothing but wait—for days—to let the fires burn themselves out. In just over six months, four major Bakken crude oil train derailments resulted in: the death of 47 people and the total destruction of several square blocks in the village of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in July 2013; an intractable spill in fragile wetlands in Aliceville, Ala., in November 2013; the evacuation of thousands of people living within a five-mile radius after a fireball spewed caustic smoke in Casselton, N.D., in December 2013; and, an explosive fire in Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, in January 2014. The same type of crude oil, carried by the same type of train cars involved in these derailments, are traveling through New York State today.

 New York has had three near misses: In December 2013, a train carrying empty oil tanker cars collided with a truck at an at-grade crossing in West Nyack, Rockland County. In December 2013, a train carrying crude oil derailed in Cheektowaga, near Buffalo. In February 2014, a train with 97 empty oil cars derailed just north of Kingston, NY, near populated areas, a business district .

As McClatchey Newspapers reports, more crude oil was spilled in train derailments last year than in the previous four decades combined:

Including major derailments in Alabama and North Dakota, more than 1.15 million gallons of crude oil was spilled from rail cars in 2013, according to data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

By comparison, from 1975 to 2012, U.S. railroads spilled a combined 800,000 gallons of crude oil. The spike underscores new concerns about the safety of such shipments as rail has become the preferred mode for oil producers amid a North American energy boom.

The federal data does not include incidents in Canada where oil spilled from trains. Canadian authorities estimate that more than 1.5 million gallons of crude oil spilled in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, on July 6, when a runaway train derailed and exploded, killing 47 people. The cargo originated in North Dakota.

Nearly 750,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from a train on Nov. 8 near Aliceville, Ala. The train also originated in North Dakota and caught fire after it derailed in a swampy area. No one was injured or killed.

The federal Department of Transportation recently issued a weak order that simply requires companies to inform local and state governments when the bomb trains will be barreling down the tracks. It doesn't require stronger cars, but merely "suggests" better construction. And companies only have to be transparent when more than a million gallons hurtle through at a time. As in war, limited collateral damage is apparently acceptable.

Only two days after this "emergency" May directive from the federal government, there was another derailment near Denver, resulting in the spill of more than 6,000 gallons of crude oil. Google "oil train" on any given day and chances are good you'll find a derailment story only a day or two old.

State officials, meanwhile, have been busily signing "confidentiality agreements" with rail executives, promising not to disclose the dangers they pose to citizens. Delaware is only the latest state to buckle to industry pressure. State Homeland Security spokesperson Kimberly Chandler whimpered, "The disclosure of this sensitive information to the general public could impact transportation security and public safety."

From the Del Marva News Journal:

Rail companies balked at states disclosing too much information, citing security concerns and commercial confidentiality for their clients.

CSX and Norfolk Southern officials said they sent all relevant information to Delaware per the Department of Transportation's order, but both asked state officials not to disclose any details on crude oil shipments.

"We feel that the disclosure of specific routes, specific amounts, timetables, schedules undermines our competitiveness in this environment," Norfolk Southern spokesman Dave Pidgeon said.

In other words, protesters might show up near the tracks and at corporate board meetings.  Knowledge might spread throughout the land, destroying both profits and pollution. The flames of greed might be quenched!

As the great DeSmogBlog points out, oil companies and their transportation partners have been quietly lobbying the White House to quash the same safety regulations it pretends to tout. At one recent meeting, industry poobahs complained that strengthening the brake systems on the bomb trains would cut too deeply into their bottom line. They also complained that a proposed regulation requiring that stopped trains be constantly monitored by human beings would be way too costly. 

It was an unattended train with bad brakes that caused the Lac-Megantic disaster. And when bad stuff like that happens, you know the story. Mistakes were made, because who could ever have guessed that the brakes were crap? Whoever could have predicted that a renegade down-sloping curve would dare get in the way of crude progress? 

In this brutal age of neoliberalism, nothing gets in the way of progress. Even in destroyed Lac-Megantic, the oil trains are coming back. 

And meanwhile the culprits have learned that they can always absolve themselves of responsibility by using friendly bankruptcy courts to simply transfer ownership. The politician-bribing plutocrats pocket the change and never go to prison. And the public pays the price.

Until and unless we decide we've finally had enough.

A Rogue By Any Other Name

Barack Obama apparently is one embarrassed, pissed-off dude. So the New York Times is again obligingly acting as the White House farm tool which spreads the manure of blame on anybody and everybody who is not Barack Obama:

When President Obama placed a call to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany last Thursday, he had a busy agenda: to consult with a close ally and to mobilize wavering Europeans to put more pressure on Russia to end its covert incursions in Ukraine.

What Mr. Obama did not know was that a day earlier, a young German intelligence operative had been arrested and had admitted that he had been passing secrets to the Central Intelligence Agency

Right off the bat, we are informed what a busy, busy important man our president is. Too busy to know all the minutiae of what his rogue agencies are up to. Right off the bat, the Times hastens to unquestioningly repeat the State Department line that Russia is covertly operating in Ukraine, as though the US is not also covertly operating in Ukraine.

The details of this spying case remain murky. Intelligence officials have declined to comment, and it is still not clear what the German operative has told the authorities.

But the episode sheds light on the tensions that arise from the colliding cultures of spycraft and statecraft — one driven by the need to vacuum as much secret material as possible; the other giving primacy to diplomatic objectives.

 While Ms. Merkel chose not to raise the issue during the call, the fact that the president was kept in the dark about the blown spying operation at a particularly delicate moment in American relations with Germany has led frustrated White House officials to question who in the C.I.A.’s chain of command was aware of the case — and why that information did not make it to the Oval Office before the call.

When unquestioningly spreading manure, make sure the newspaper uses such words as "dark" and "murky" to absolve the busy, frustrated CEO from responsibility.

But let's be truthful. When spycraft and statecraft collide, the result is manurecraft damage control. The artisan acrobat-in-chief can't be left flailing without the safety net perk he assumes he's entitled to. 

So the story will be that Barack Obama, the star attraction tightrope walker at the circus, had the lights turned off on him right in the middle of his act by operators he thought he could trust! He was thwarted in his own vaunted balanced approach of schmoozing with heads of state while simultaneously stalking them. Somebody had spilled the beans to the lady he was trying to woo and here he was, pretending to be the attentive lover. She just let him go on and on and on, letting him damn himself with every dulcet word. It made him look like such an asshole that he (or a flack) ran to the National Enquirer Times to plant his own feeble side of the story.

  Meanwhile, as CIA Chief John Brennan finds himself cast in the rare role of pretend-scapegoat, there is some mansplaining to do. Why didn't he warn his acolyte boss that Angela had caught yet another surrogate stalker in the act but still cruelly allowed Obama to act like his usual cloying self? Was Brennan too busy busy busy redacting the CIA report on torture and letting his own lady friend (Dianne Feinstein) get a sneak peak? The sound of testosterone pouring down the Oval Office drain must have been deafening.

But on to the realest, biggest scapegoat of all:

It also reinforces the problem that surfaced a year ago in the wake of revelations about National Security Agency surveillance practices from the rogue contractor Edward J. Snowden: whether the costs of spying on close allies outweigh the gains.

The Times once again parrots the canard that everybody hates the NSA simply because of mean old gossipy Ed Snowden and the Pulitzer-winning journalism he inspired. The canoodling Times even goes out of its way to call Snowden a "rogue contractor" instead of a whistleblower. 

 Rogue (noun):

1. a dishonest or unprincipled man.

   "you are a rogue and an embezzler"

   synonyms:

   scoundrel, villain, miscreant, reprobate, rascal, good-for-nothing, ne'er-do-well, wretch; More informalrat, dog, louse, crook; datedcad; archaicblackguard, picaroon, knave "a rogue without ethics"

   • a person whose behavior one disapproves of but who is nonetheless likable or attractive (often used as a playful term of reproof).

     "Cenzo, you old rogue!"

     synonyms:

     rascal, imp, devil, monkey; More informalscamp, scalawag, monster, horror, terror, hellion "your boy's a little rogue"

2. an elephant or other large wild animal driven away or living apart from the herd and having savage or destructive tendencies.

   "a rogue elephant" 

  (The Tightrope Walker-in-Chief doth protest too much, methinks. Also, there's that pesky cliched pot and kettle problem.)

At the White House, senior officials have expressed concern that the latest allegations could set back relations with Germany just as Mr. Obama and Ms. Merkel are struggling to move past the distrust generated by the Snowden disclosures, including the revelation that the N.S.A. had tapped Ms. Merkel’s cellphone.

What is particularly baffling to these officials is that the C.I.A. did not inform the White House that its agent — a 31-year-old employee of Germany’s federal intelligence service, the BND — had been compromised, given his arrest the day before the two leaders spoke. According to German news media reports, the agency may have been aware three weeks before the arrest that the German authorities were monitoring the man.

This is pathetic, not to mention grotesque. Just when poor overworked Obama was trying to inveigle his way back into Angela's good graces, another wretched renegade messes up the make-up session by outing even more chicanery. So, dare we ask, why didn't the NSA pick up on the German authorities monitoring the alleged double agent? Or did the intel get mixed up with the gazillions of emails and phone records of innocent Americans? Did all that vacuuming-up create its own ironic vacuum?

For all his concerns, Mr. Obama does not plan any extraordinary outreach to Ms. Merkel, an official said, noting that some in the administration also feel that Germany should not overreact to the case or conflate it with the privacy issues raised by the N.S.A.’s surveillance.

Some experts say the recent tensions betray a lack of attention in Washington to its relationship with Berlin. “Bush and especially Obama have treated it as a ‘solved problem’ requiring no further American involvement,” said John C. Kornblum, a former American ambassador to Germany. “Recent events have demonstrated that just the opposite is the case. Germany is still deeply conflicted about itself and about the world around it.”

He will not stoop to another apology. He'll let Angela, like all NSA victims both at home and abroad, read his passive-aggressive excuses in the Times and then let her stew in her own betrayed juices. Like any abuser worth his salt, he will profess concern while casting doubt on the mental health of his angry victim ("overreacting" and "still deeply conflicted about itself".)

And like any abuser worth his salt, the likable attractive Obama will anonymously brag (via his Times stenographers)  about what a caring, romantic guy he is --  again blaming everyone but of himself and his team of dishonest unprincipled men:

For Mr. Obama and Ms. Merkel, the N.S.A. disclosures poisoned what had been one of the president’s closest relationships with a foreign leader. At a Group of 8 meeting in Camp David in 2012, Mr. Obama invited Ms. Merkel to linger after the other leaders left. At a state dinner a year earlier, she was serenaded by James Taylor singing, “You’ve Got a Friend.”

Tender Murkies

Since Carly Simon's The Spy Who Loved Me is no longer such a big hit, maybe Angela can send Taylor's ex over to the next Group of 8, I mean 7, meeting to serenade Obama with You're So Vain.

Neoliberal Death Match, 2016?

There is no blue Wall Street. There is no red Wall Street. There's only the United States of Wall Street. And needless to say, it's not purple. It's a bilious shade of green.

With the media-political complex incessantly announcing  that the Democratic branch of the Money Party will anoint Hillary Clinton from a large field of potential  progressive candidates, the Republicans find themselves facing an inverted predicament. Out of a field of countless right wing extremists, none could possibly match Hillary in loyalty to High Finance, bloodthirsty Neocon credibility, and out-of-touchy-feeliness with the teeming masses. 

There had been the great white hope of Chris Christie, until the corruption did him in. (for now anyway.)

There was the second great white hope of Jeb Bush, until his left-of-Obama immigration stance did him in.

So who's left? Mitt Romney, that's who. It's looking to be 2012 all over again.

The trial balloons are already out there.

And the media-narrated contrast between Mitt and Hillary hasn't even been about their narrow policy differences -- it's been about their narrow wealth differences. Who owns the most? How these two politicians amassed their immense personal fortunes is sure to inspire a country full of struggling, disaffected voters. If the objective is the lowest turnout in a presidential election in history, then a Clinton-Romney contest is tailor-made for Oligarchia.

Before you shrug or vomit, look at the bright side. A choice between Hillary and Mitt would be an embarrassing and long-overdue admission that our democracy is no more. No longer could we be forced to pretend to have the choice of the lesser evil.  We'd be saddled with either Lord Doofus Evil or Lady Calculating Evil.

They say that money is speech in this post-Citizens United world. But let's get real: money is political food, with the end product being speech. And the candidates and the pseudo-candidates and the advertisers and the operatives are already sucking in the dollars as fast as they can, for swift transformation into ripe platitudes for hurling at a stunned electorate.

Just think for a minute of a Hillary-Mitt nag race. It would make the Barack-Mitt trot-a-thon of moral geldings look like the Kentucky Derby. Instead of pitting Makers against Takers, vulture capitalist against phony populist, the 2016 presidential debates would include such hot-button issues as which candidate has the better tax shelters, estate planning teams, the biggest homes, the fattest bank accounts, the most gaffe-free days in a row, and the best-preserved cognitive ability for staying on narrow-minded script. 

So do not give up hope. There is a very good chance that these two creatures of the neoliberal Reagan revolution will ultimately cancel each other out:

 Mitt: "Ann drives only a couple of Cadillacs."

Hillary: "We were dead broke when we left the White House. We had houses to buy and an Ivy League education to pay for. I hadn't even cashed my $14 million book advance yet.

Mitt: "I made my millions the old-fashioned way.... in  private equity."

Hillary: "I made my millions the new-fashioned way.... giving speeches to people like you in private equity."

 Mitt: "I give millions of dollars every year to charity -- my own church.

Hillary: "I give millions of dollars every year to charity -- the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

Mitt: "I party with the Kochs at fund-raisers."

Hillary: "I party with the Kochs at fund-raisers." 

Mitt: "John McCain endorsed me in 2012."

Hillary: "So? I was an honored guest at John McCain's annual Neocon forum in Sedona in 2014, and you weren't!"

Mitt: "My favorite campaign neocon war adviser was Robert Kagan."

Hillary: "Isn't that too bad -- I already got dibs on him for 2016."

Mitt: "When I ran Bain, we saved the Job Creators by buying up American factories, milking them of assets, and outsourcing labor to Mexico."

Hillary: "So? Who do you think signed the legislation that allowed you to outsource your precious jobs to Mexico?"

(Tune in, tune out, and then hit the streets.)

Obama's Accomplishments

By Isaiah Earhart

 

There is a common perception that the Obama Administration, and Obama himself, have not achieved the goals set by Democratic Party leadership. It is commonly communicated that the Obama Promises of hope and change are thwarted by a recalcitrant Republican Party, or that Obama’s willingness to negotiate with Republicans is cynically and brilliantly exploited by the mean and nasty conservatives. Other threads of thought among ‘liberal’ reasoning for the failure of deliverable change relies on the assessment of Obama’s personality, dismissing his uselessness in carrying out his campaign promises as having a weak resolve that gave in to the machinations of the corrupt elite in Washington. These narratives should be replaced by a realization of the extraordinary accomplishments, and strength of will, by the Obama Administration.

 

Obama is an incredible success at doing exactly what Democratic Presidents are supposed to do, and I think his success began from the very beginning of his presidency.

 

In the face of economic devastation brought by widespread fraud and abuse perpetrated by the criminal economic elite banking and lending class, 67 million people mobilized and voted for hope and change. The financial crisis that cost Americans about $14 trillion  and precipitated the Great Recession causing the eviction of 10 million people- as of August 2013- left people clamoring for justice. Obama responded to these calls for accountability by nominating Eric Holder as attorney general.

 

The move was as calculated as it was shrewd. Holder just got through cementing a “sweetheart deal” with the Bush Justice Department on behalf of Chiquita who was caught red handed funding and arming the terrorist group AUC with thousands of AK-47s so they could more effectively terrorize and execute laborers in Colombia. Holder’s deal with the Bush Justice Department kept all Chiquita executives out of jail in exchange for a monetary payout.

The takeaway should not be that Holder is a sociopath that helped top executives working for one of the world’s most awful, brutal, and reprehensible corporations get away with soliciting murder and terror on poor people, although it would help explain this, this, and this;  the takeaway should be that Obama nominated a person to head the Justice Department  that has a brilliant and exceptional record of protecting the most egregious elite criminal corporate functionaries and keeping them out of prison. It is no wonder why the rate of federal prosecution for financial crimes is lower under Obama than the rate of similar crimes under Gonzo Ronald Reagan.

 

Some Holder apologists suggest that prosecuting bankers is just too complicated a task for the U.S. Justice Department; this former federal prosecutor and current U.S. District Judge disagrees.

 

It is not possible to blame Obama for having a weak personality; succumbing to the popular clamor of populism of hope and change would be a sign of a weak Democratic President. If I was president and I ran my winning campaign on hope and change, and I nominated someone who helped engineer the Great Recession with the creation and passage of the  Commodity Futures Modernization Act in 2000 and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, and that person went on to make $5 million a year managing a hedge fund exploiting OTC derivative market in 2006, and made almost $3 million in speaking fees for the nation’s largest banks- to be Director of the National Economic Council on the first days of my presidency, no-one would possibly believe I had a personality weak enough to be moved by any sort of populism whatsoever. Right?

 

But that is exactly what Obama did in his nomination of Larry Summers.

 

What kind of economic outcomes for the working poor would you expect from an administration that placed the CEO of GE, Jeffrey Immelt, as the active Chairperson of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness? After all, GE and Immelt had just finished the incredible accomplishment of laying off 20% of his American workforce while managing to become one of the largest tax cheats in U.S. history.  

 

I do not have an excellent grasp on how unicorn single payer got sold out. I think it died the death of silence and omission by the executive branch; it just was never mentioned or brought to the public as a policy option. Death by omission, especially considering the disaster that is U.S. healthcare, is an excellent accomplishment. Obama successfully employed the death by omission strategy with poverty as well. With about 25% of every child in the U.S. living in poverty, Obama managed to run for reelection in 2012 trying his best to not even mention the word ‘poverty.’

But a real test of a Democratic President’s success is not how the President can stifle moral social movements largely on the periphery of acceptable media discourse; Democratic Presidential success is measured by the willingness and effectiveness in killing off moral social movements that are very popular. Very popular democratic initiatives include breaking up the too-big-to-fail banks, prosecuting crime in the financial services industry, using the powers of the executive to reduce the largest prison population on the planet, closing Guantanamo, ending mass surveillance, getting J Edgar Hoover John Brennan out of the intelligence community, ending NAFTA, rescheduling marijuana as NOT a Schedule 1 narcotic, and having the very popular public option to the sociopath health insurance industry.

 

I know it is very controversial to say that the executive can kill off the public option, since the ACA is ostensibly a creation of congress. I think the public option died far sooner than what most believe- in the summer of 2009.

With all of Obama’s success in killing off democracy and thwarting progress, I don’t think his achievements are as outstanding as Bill Clinton during his time as Democratic President. Clinton really accomplished some major cruelty with NAFTA, the Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, DOMA, Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act- which included gems like “three strikes” and money for many more prisons, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act – absolutely brutal for single mothers, the now infamous Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, and the Iraq Liberation Act- which was used to help justify the AUMF four years later.

 

Although it would be difficult to be as horrible successful as Clinton, Obama does have some tangible achievements besides killing off moral and democratic social movements. Obama achieved a very hard fought victory on getting a “free trade” deal with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. Obama had to fight very hard for the deal because there was significant backlash from working people and people who cared about human rights. Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, wrote an impassioned letter to President Obama using candidate Obama’s own words opposing the “trade” deal with Colombia “because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements.” The letter from Trumka goes on to list, by name, the 22 union activists and the 6 Catholic priests murdered in 2011 alone because of “their courageous commitment… with the prophetic denunciation of injustice and the cause of the poorest in the country.”  [original emphasis]

 

On the insidious bright side of Obama’s “free trade” deal, the agreement with Panama provided legal protection and codification for the 400,000 corporations and the extremely wealthy that use the Panamanian banking system to dodge taxes.

 

Obama’s “free trade” deal with South Korea was opposed by the Korean Union Movement, the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, the International Association of Machinists, the Communication Workers of America, United Steelworkers, the IBEW, the Carpenters, Professional & Technical Engineers, Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club, National Farmers Union, National Family Farm Coalition, Public Citizen, United Students Against Sweatshops, U.S. Chamber Watch, and 550 diverse organizations have joined together in opposition of the Korea FTA. But Obama was relentless in the pursuit of achieving policy in the face of such opposition. (Is relentless policy pursuit a personality trait?)

 

I think we should all take a moment to realize what an incredible accomplishment this trade deal actually was. In the face of democratic movements at home and abroad, with the NAFTA disaster still freshly despised and reaping havoc and punishment for the poor and working poor, Obama used the “fast track authority” fought for by the Bush Administration to force congress into an up or down vote on trade agreements designed under the Republican Administration. And it worked!

 

Although Obama has a significant achievement gap to reach the incredible conquests of hurting worker democracy and dignity destroying policies produced during the Clinton Presidency, one should not give up on the prospects of amazing Obama achievement. Obama is currently seeking fast track authority so his administration can ram the Trans Pacific Partnership “trade” agreement down the throats of union members, small farmers everywhere, poor people who need affordable medication, environmentalists, people who love internet freedom, and anyone that likes democracy.

 

If Obama can accomplish the Keystone XL Pipeline that will transverse the nation’s largest aquifer and if he can somehow get the greatly sought after TPP, he just might win one of these.

Twilight Zone's Last Gleaming

Welcome to our annual day of forced patriotic revelry, mattress sales, and Founding Fathers in bad makeup peddling crappy cars on TV.

And, of course, the roar of the flag-waving crowds:

That was the scene this week in Murrieta, California. It once was a nice, quiet, All-American little farming town, founded a scant hundred or so years ago by a (ahem) Spanish immigrant who later turned his land over to a sheep-herding brother.

 And like most victims of the Wall Street Greed Machine-fueled housing bubble, Murrieta experienced a radical population surge of more than 200% in the first decade of the New American Century. Among the top ten employers of this teeming cauldron of humanity are Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes and Sam's Club. Oh, and a health insurance company and a Bible center. It's been rated the safest city in Riverside County. It even has an annual Town Song contest! Life, despite the usual hardships, was imagined by the citizenry to be pretty good in Murrieta.

And then came the busloads of brown-skinned refugee children fleeing from crime-ridden countries, where there are no Sam's Clubs but plenty of the same American-made weapons and ammo they sell in Sam's Clubs. And all-American hell broke loose. You probably saw it on TV. 

The only good thing coming out of this is that although the buses were forced to flee by the angry mob, the spectacle was sickening enough to get some people re-thinking the whole "let's deport em all" mantra being sung across the allowable political spectrum: all the way from Point A (Fox News) to Point B (Hillary "It Takes a Village" Clinton and the conservative Democrats.)

  The national backlash forced the libertarian mayor of Murrieta, one Alan Long, to protest that his townsfolk are not as rabid as they seemed on TV:

 We’ve heard some of those passionate people seeing the clips on the news and coming to a conclusion that Murrieta’s not compassionate,” Long told Fox News. (my bold) “It’s a shame that two minutes of video time on the news channel really stereotypes our city.”

 Video surfaced on Wednesday that showed protesters from Murrieta blocking Homeland Security buses full of undocumented children and adults from entering the town to be taken to facilities for screenings. Protesters held signs that read “Stop Illegal Immigration” and “Illegals Out!” The buses were rerouted to San Diego out of fear for the safety of those on the bus.

Taking a cue from President Obama, who insisted about a year ago that his drone strike war against innocent civilians is Not Who We Are, Long sputtered: “Showing a bunch of angry people isn’t really a true reflection of Murrieta."

To prove it, he boasted that the town contains 700 different charities. (Charity does begin at home, after all.) And when he urged the townsfolk to protest, he thought they'd do the right thing and contact their elected representatives. Never mind that he is an elected representative. And gosh oh golly, never in a thousand years did he imagine that his ovine flock could turn into a verbal lynch mob. His main concern is that he didn't want the innocent interlopers to be jailed in detention centers.

City Manager Rick Dudley posted a similar message on the town's official website. It reads, in part:

Sadly, too many people took this as encouragement to protest the arrival of buses carrying the women and children to the Border Patrol station in Murrieta.  Protesters came from around the southland to oppose the arrival of undocumented immigrants to Murrieta for processing.  In the face of the protest, three buses were turned around and the protesters claimed victory.  This was not victory.  It was a loss for the city of Murrieta, for the community that we live in and love.  It made this extremely compassionate community look heartless and uncaring.  That is NOT the Murrieta that we all know and love. 

There appear to be two sides to this issue – those who believe Mayor Long was encouraging them to stand in front of the buses in protest, and those who believe that Murrieta does not recognize that the US is the envy of the world and that people want to migrate here, even at the risk of their lives and the lives of their children.  Both sides are wrong.  We understand that people want to come to the US to seek a better life for their families, and we are a compassionate people who want to help.  But we also are a country whose legal system is based on the rule of law, and the people migrating must do so within the boundaries of the law.  The protests resulting from the incorrect interpretations of Mayor Long’s comments have given our community a black eye. 

They want to have it both ways. They totally ignore the conditions that made the Hondurans and Guatemalans embark on the dangerous flight from violence, poverty and corruption in the first place. They still think these people can be sent home and then go through some sort of bureaucratic process that involves waiting in some nonexistent line.

There is, of course, no line. For the poor and the dispossessed, there never has been and never will be.

This being Fourth of July weekend, the SyFy channel is running its Twilight Zone marathon. One of the most popular episodes of the whole series is a cautionary tale called "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street." Written by Rod Serling during the height of the Cold War, it tells the story of a nice little town that becomes a victim of mass hysteria. The townsfolk go completely nuts as they convince themselves that they're being invaded by aliens. Of course, they are only invading themselves with their own suspicions and paranoia and group-think. The results are tragic, neighbor turns against neighbor. And as the aliens themselves look at them from above, they realize that these humans don't even require an alien invasion. They're self-destructing, all on their own.

As Serling narrated at the end of the story,

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices - to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill...and suspicion can destroy...and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own - for the children...and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is...that these things cannot be confined...to the Twilight Zone.

Happy Independence Day, everybody.

Let's Light a Firecracker Under Neoliberalism's Butt

Nothing like using the Fourth of July weekend to deflect our attention from the latest round of secret negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership, eh?

The culprits of the corporate coup will be converging in the Canadian capitol tomorrow. And you, dear readers, are cordially invited to write them a friendly note, hopefully disengaging them from both their comfort zone and their buffer zone. The public policy group Open Media International is collecting signatures and remarks for the delectation of the plutocrats. So may the pitchforks start jabbing inside their heads as they mull, among other abominations, restricting our Internet access and controlling our Internet speech.

Attending on behalf of the American corporate persons (who now have freedom of religion as well as freedom of speech) will be Trade Czar Michael Froman, late of Citigroup, along with Obama's new ambassador to Canada: Bruce Heyman, late of Goldman Sachs. They will be among the unnamed hordes happily giving up their glorious Fourth in hopes of scoring more profits for their firms. And since most of those firms are transnationals, the free traders of late capitalism usually are not hampered by such niceties as patriotism to one's native land.

Interestingly enough, the Canadian power elites seem royally pissed that Obama has foisted Heyman, crass money-bundler from Chicago that he is, upon them. (They were pissed off at Obama to begin with, given his delay in approving the Keystone XL Pipeline.) According to a Financial Post editorial, Heyman has recently been trying to pull a "fast one" on the Canadians by insisting that the TPP can still be rammed through even if Obama fails to get fast-track authority from Congress. A posh dinner meeting with a former Canadian diplomat (Frank McKenna) was tense.... and hilarious:

Things didn’t go too well either when Mr. McKenna tried to get a U.S. commitment to fund the customs plaza that Canada needs to support a new bridge it is building at the Detroit-Windsor crossing, where the U.S. trade with Canada is greater than with all of Japan. “We support nice infrastructure between our two countries,” Mr. Heyman said. “This is a financing issue and I think it’s best that we wait and have those discussions privately.”

When Mr. McKenna moved to raise “another issue that has turned out to be bothersome,” Mr. Heyman cut in: “Do you have any good issues here you want to talk about? I try to take this at a high level and make this a lot of fun. I’m sorry you’re all bummed out here. We have this incredible relationship. C’mon.”

Mr. McKenna kept his cool: “When you’re the small partner in a relationship the irritants do become quite significant,” he calmly explained.

Mr. Heyman remained clueless. “Frank,” he asked, “did you ever buy a new car? You get a new car? And you have that new car, it smells great and it looks beautiful and everything else. And you bring that new car home and you realize there’s a scratch on the bumper that you didn’t notice when you bought it. And you go inside and start thinking about the scratch all day long. Ever do that?”

Mr. McKenna deadpanned: “No.” But the American went right on with his analogy that effectively belittled Canada’s concerns as trivial next to its good fortune in being a U.S. neighbour.

Oh, Canada! The style of journalism as practiced by our neighbor to the north is quite refreshing, especially when one plutocrat bitch-slaps another. You just don't see such snappy coverage of elite brouhahas in the New York Times' Wall Street P.R. apparatus known as DealBook, for instance. 

Meanwhile, the Council of Canadians is wondering why the negotiators are being so damned secretive. It seems the Canadian government forgot to even tell its own citizens about the meeting!  So, what else is new? Join the club. And sign the Open Media petition -- it's ecumenical.

And the Mission Keeps Creeping Along

Under the forever-War Powers Resolution invested in him as unitary executive, Barack Obama has in one fell swoop just doubled the number of troops being (re) deployed to Iraq. They are being sent to "protect American interests" ( aka the plunderers from Big Oil and their taxpayer-funded Embassy support staff) and as "advisers" (armed thugs to keep on eye on the corrupt and weakening Maliki protectorate whose function has always been to provide cover to the plunderers from Big Oil).

It is the very model of a modern major mission creep. Here an adviser, there a drone, everywhere is war.

Or, as Obama put it in his letter to Congress,

In light of the security situation in Baghdad, I have ordered up to approximately 200 additional U.S. Armed Forces personnel to Iraq to reinforce security at the U.S. Embassy, its support facilities, and the Baghdad International Airport.

This force consists of additional security forces, rotary-wing aircraft, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support. This force is deploying for the purpose of protecting U.S. citizens and property, if necessary, and is equipped for combat. This force will remain in Iraq until the security situation becomes such that it is no longer needed. This action has been directed consistent with my responsibility to protect U.S. citizens both at home and abroad, and in furtherance of U.S. national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct U.S. foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive.

Translation:  He's only ordering a threatening drizzle now, but just in case he changes his mind, (and he probably will, based on ever-changing weather conditions "on the ground") he is also issuing a severe storm watch, which will last until the end of time, or until the oil is depleted. For purposes of obfuscation,  he is defining Blackwater or whatever the hell they call themselves these days as "US citizens both home and abroad." He is defining Halliburton, BP, ExxonMobil, Chevron and their various and sundry offshoots as "national security and foreign policy interests."

The Baghdad Embassy, as a de facto American state-within-a-state (much like Vatican City)  is not being evacuated. As the largest "diplomatic mission" in the world, the 5 million square-foot fiefdom was built at a cost of $750 million (allegedly with the help of slave labor trafficked in by contractors) and employs/houses more than 5,000 people. It has its own power and sewer infrastructure, as well as an Olympic-size swimming pool, so that the plunderers and rentiers can cool off between their pillaging jaunts in that desert heat.

And while Obama and the stenographers of the corporate media are spreading their propaganda, the Embassy itself is heavy into its own propaganda, still striving the win the hearts and minds of Iraqis who have managed to survive the war and the ensuing occupation. This past February, before ISIS invaded the country, Iraqi students were being brainwashed instructed on great American presidents and the great American wealth trickling down upon them like so many Heavenfire missiles and American-installed puppet leaders. The Embassy Ministry of Truth explained it thusly:

In recognition of President's Day, Embassy officers spoke with Iraqi students about visionary leaders from U.S. history. Streamed live from the Baghdad American Corner to five other corners, this engagement was an opportunity for Iraqis to learn how American leaders such as George Washington helped set the United States on a path towards democracy and prosperity.

During the question and answer session, the students discussed how to identify transformational leaders among the candidates for the April parliamentary elections.

Maybe one way they're being taught to identify "transformational leaders" is to read White House/Pentagon-planted stories in the New York Times. If they read today's front page, for example, they would have learned that discredited CIA plant and WMD story-telling plutocrat Ahmad Chalabi is being passive-aggressively "talked about" to replace Maliki as the new potted plant:

 On the face of it, Mr. Chalabi as prime minister seems, at best, highly unlikely. His exile-based, C.I.A.-financed Iraqi National Congress never built much of a grass-roots following in Iraq, and he suffered from the Americans’ growing unpopularity as the war dragged on. His role in promoting what many now view as concocted evidence of weapons of mass destruction under Saddam Hussein badly tarnished him.

Hey, but there are plenty of tarnish-removers available on the Free Market! Just look at how the corporate media has so ably removed the tarnish from such war criminals as Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz and put them back on TV, all shiny and new, as though they were monarchs in exile.

The Times goes on to explain that Chalabi stalwartly stayed in Iraq throughout the war, by choice, and just narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in which six (!) of his security guards suffered unfortunate fatal collateral damage. Just like George Washington at Valley Forge! Oh, and he's also a centrist technocrat all of a sudden. Very Obama-like, as a matter of fact. Very able to co-opt the varying factions into the Big Oil veal pen.

And to prove his worthiness, he has even been invited back to the Embassy! 

Remember, citizens: Always look forward, never look backward. Why have memories when there are visions for sale?