>As The Cookie Crumbles: Pain In The Ass

The thing about pain, hippies, is that it is all YOURS. Nobody else can tell you what hurts, how badly, or what helps or how much. It's like the old surfers' adage: You're the only one in that barrel.

If the complaints by MANY MANY Of my peers --the OLD hippies--are an indication, I am beginning to think there is an undisclosed, disabling epidemic of pain among the middle-aged people of Murka: Dozens of my correspondents have mentioned trials of enduring and trying to stop/prevent sciatic pain. Call it "PAIN In The Ass-Region." And I agree: It's a bitch.

I suffer sciatica in my right leg/hip/back. An attack starts with the sensation that someone it twisting a dull, rough-edged poker deep inside my right buttock. This pain persists throughout the entire episode, but it is augmented and intensified by other attendant discomforts: the numbness, and the simultaneous tingling that advances down the exterior of my leg, down to the ankle, where it seems to cut off sensation with my foot such that, if I'm walking, it seems that I am merely pushing some dumb peg ahead of me.

These sensations persist until I can sit down for a few--mebbe five--minutes. If lucky, I'm good for about half- to 3/4 of an hour before I MUST sit down.

Because of the location of the spot at which the discomfort ALWAYS originates--just about the center of my right haunch--I have always attributed it to the fact that, for most of 40 years, it was on that hip/haunch, in just about exactly that spot, where I carried my wallet...

Which, in the way of those things, grew thick--not with cash but with all those goddam plastic cards and ID. The fucker was as thick as a block of 2x4, sometimes. And just as hard and unyielding. And I casually sat on it, without much thought, until the damage was done...

So now, I'm on a sorta private crusade to persuade men to stop carrying their wallets in their hip pockets, cuz sciatica hurts like a sumbitch and doesn't easily go away, if it goes away at all. Call it "karma repair." Check it out...

I've linked a video which demonstrates ways to stretch one of the muscles the extreme tightness of which very often is implicated in the pain, the piriformis. I gather there's a surgical procedure, too. But I haven't looked into that much.

So I'll hobbling down now, and hope to see you at the beach. Bring accupuncture needles, Hippies...

HN &S: Naming Names (12/12/11)

We're Number One! We're Number One! USA! USA! It being an even-numbered year impending, there will be plenty of occasions to hear the chants and bragadoccio resound in athletic and political venues.

Now, it's one of my own personal "editorial" conceits is that I make fun, a little, of the iconic terms by which my countryfolk identify themselves. Under the heading of complaints youi'll never fix?

So, I refer to "Americans" as "USers," since we're the NUMBER ONE users of shit on the planet.

I've been trying to spread "USers" as a subversive meme for a close to decade now, but I'm the only one apparently who recognizes the wit and cleverness of my allusion. You're not supposed to have to explain a good joke, but apparently it's n ot a good joke, so here goes:

To me, there's no fewer than four levels at which changing our national appellation, "works":

1) USers aren't the ONLY "Americans," though we imperialistically ceded the term to ourselves exclusively, so it reinstitutes a necessary distinction;

2) "US" metonymizes the whole title of the State just as well as "American" does, and does it more efficiently;

3) US also names "us," the group, the way the names of tribal groups always mean "the people" in whatever the relevant language, and

4) the aforementioned, globe-gobbling consumptive habits we so thoughtlessly exhibit... This was the "BEST" Black Weekend on record. It's like we're celebrants toasting marshmallows on the fire that's already consumed the kitchen and is starting on the den.

On the whole, "USer" works perhaps on TOO many levels--which in not a bad thing, except in a country which regards "nuance" with the same acceptance as it would "leprosy."

Another term I virtually always substitute in prose is "'Murkun" for "American." That's cuz most of the people who I hear saying the word, outside the professionally "literate" class, truncate it. Usually the "A" disappears or is barely hinted at; hence the 'apostrophe'. Then the first diphthong, which in Standard American English (SAE) rhymes with /bear/, slurs into a sound like vowel sound in /murky/ or /murder/... The third syllable is elided, swallowed, disappeared; the "i" vanishes. And the "can," as finishing syllable is filled with a schwa.

"'Murkun."

This'n, as my pal Trish reminded me, is a little more problematic, cuz it "class-loaded, in ways that USer isn't.

Anyway, you see what fun you can have with words, hippies?
Bring the scrabble board, and we can play at the beach, if the surf's not up. Back to you in hippie-central, winstone...

Beware: All-Murkin "Heroes" On The Loose

Lotta folks here in UServille are feeling secure that the US military wouldn't attack the "people."

HERE'S another scummy, reeking, drooling motherfucking shitbucket asswhole in uniform distancing itself from the "people." If this skeevy shitheel is any indication, I wouldn't be so sure.

Read what the shitbag writes!



Woody takes the expression of sentiments like these as the clearest evicence I can think of that certain elements of the USer military would INDEED "fire" on the "people" if ordered to do so...and gladly, without compunction.

Here's another one.


If this moron is to be believed, the Marines are compromised too. I had something to say about this clown last week:

As The Turkey Crumbles: Gobble, Gobble

With the "failure" of the Super-Duper Defeat-the-Debt-Deficit-and-Screw-the-Poor Reconciliation Committee, congressional approval has sunk lower than what hitherto was the lowest of the low, deeper than proverbial whale shit. Nine percent? Worse than The Obamster; worse than British Petroleum; worse than Iran; worse than pedophile priests! Worse than canned cranberries! Worse than ANYTHING! according to a report released this week by Sen. Michael Bennett, D-CO.

On that same day, one of my F-book correspondents, a smart guy, liberal, progressive, literate, posted some reflections about Congress on his F-book 'wall':

CONGRESS HAS TWO FUNCTIONS: To declare war and administer the power of the purse. Nixon took away their power to declare war with the War Powers Act and Congress just proved again they have no ability or interest in exercising the power of the purse; they failed once again to create a budget and this will have dramatic consequences for every American. The first thing government should cut to save money ought to be the appropriations for Congress. No sense in paying for incompetent waste on a grand scale, is there?

I'm not gonna read it to you. It's on the blog. But, unfortunately, it's sensible, and logical, and measured. And considering the source, an opinion of some gravitas. He ends up suggesting that we just defund Congress, make 'em impotent. And it prompted me to consider again a suggestive confluence of recent phenomena.

Cuz I wondered: You don't really think this all is just some fluke or something, do you? That every public institution of government in the democratic USof A in complete paralysis and disarray? Really? I don't.

I ask, cuz if I were part of same CorpoRat brain trust which is tasked by our compeers--peacefully and unobtrusively and inexpensively and maybe even deniably, and bloodlessly if possible--to overthrow all that bothersome democratic regulation and oversight shit, this is exactly how I would approach the problem: sabotage "democracy," itself. It is, after all, the ONLY force keeping these fascist freaks even slightly in check.

We've talked about an economic "coup" before, hippies...In slow motion. Sixty years, now, and counting. They're in no hurry, nobody's going anywhere. They see to that, too. Where ya gonna go? And it's paying compound interest! No, there's no hurry.

And so, over time, the Owners have slowly but surely been implementing policies and practices which would have the cumulative effect, after 50 or 60 years--which is right now, coincidentally, hippies--of finally and irrevocably alienating the people from their own personal, political sovereignty.

That's the target, hippies: Make us so sick and disgusted with it all that we'll voluntarily abandon self-government. Oh, and the Treasury? Did we mention, the Treasury. Um, yeah, that too. Yeah, the Treasury, yeah...You understand, these things are expensive. And you didn't think WE were gonna pay for 'em didja? Really? Arenjew CUTE!

So by conscious design, a couple of generations ago, machineries and devices and plans and discourses were set in motion which are culminating, even as we eat our turkey and watch football, in the undoing of the ability of ANY instruments, powers, and/or institutions of the State to be employed for the Public good instead of for, or even--the unthinkable!--AGAINST the private, monopolizing, corpoRat interests.

Remember sophomore Civics? The three "branches" of govt: Executive, Legislative, Judicial. Ring bells, hippies? They've been taking the Gummint apart, one branch at a time, since 1963, when they assassinated JFK.

What, you think that WASN'T an "inside job?" They murdered Camelot, quite consciously, as an object lesson to chasten the people still chuffed from victory in World War II, and to warn their kids: Eh, you ain't so to hot; don't get your hopes up. (Likely, the proximate cause was JFK's dismissal of Allen Dulles from the CIA, but it could have been anything.) Johnson installed the Great Society on JFK's gravitas, memory, and mythology. But he got Vietnam, too, in thanks for his troubles, and it broke him.

Then they put Nixon in, and we know what happened there: the high crimes and misdemeanors, his own obvious disingenuousness, his war, his agents, his treachery, and his near impeachment. Spiro Agnew!?! Carter was set up and swept aside as inept.

Then came the Reagan regime's wholesale corruption, unprecedented in the the Century, possibly, beginning even BEFORE the election with their negotiations with Iranian mullahs to prevent Carter from winning the release of the embassy hostages before the election, and extending comprehensively throughout the rest of their tenure: the arms-for-hostages scandals, and the Contras scandals, Oliver North, Salvadoran nuns, and the rest. The honored and beloved Gipper presided over the most egregiously corrupt regime since Taft, at least. By the time GHWBush pledged by his own lips No New Taxes, public trust in the Presidency was as shattered an illusion as the fucking tooth fairy. Bill Clinton was almost a more efficient REPUBLICAN president than GHWBush. He ended welfare as we know it and celebrated the repeal of Glass-Steagal, after all.

Along with the Presidency, naturally, went the trust in the bureaucracy, which Reagan's gunsels also undertook to destroy and diminish from the start. Remember his catchy phrase, telling us "the nine most feared words--I'm from the Gummint and I'm here to help." Both Bush regimes Chimperor Bush's as well as Poppie, installed cells of subversive, anti-government, and in the latter's case, Christo-theistic ideologues whose sole and only reason for existing is to clog up the internal works of the legitimate functions of the State from the inside...They're saboteurs.

I spend more time on the presidence because it it the more prominent, the more iconic institution. But the other two have been reduced, too.

The ideological corruption of the SCROTUS--and by extension, the whole judicial edifice--was displayed once and for all in the Bush v. Gore decision ending the Florida recount in 2000 and ensconcing the Chimperor Bush in the WhiteHouse, as the official sock-puppet of the PNAC and the banks. Sandra Day O'Connor, already planning her retirement to care for her ailing husband, told confidants that she didn't intend to have her replacement named by a Democrat. Since then, the Opus Deists--Roberts, Thomas, Scalia and Alito, abetted crucially by Edwin Meese protege Kennedy--have effectively compromised whatever was thereafter left of the previously vaunted neutrality and integrity of the SCROTUS. And with SCROTUS compromised, what's left of the rest of the Federal courts' authority?

Now the Congress, the third branch, is getting its treatment. Either because the Super-Committee could not reach agreement on the chore set it by the Shazamster, or for some other, equally plausible reason, what little approval Congress has enjoyed--and it hasn't been much--has swirled right into the bottom of the tank. So, finally, and now, a "Do-Nothing/Know Nothing/Pass Nothing" Congress is regarded approvingly by a mere nine percent of the people, who appear to be seeing through the Oligarchic kabuki.

So all three branches of the state are weakened. We should ask that old Ciceronian, double dative kicker: Cui Bono

Truth, here: Against the power and might of the CorpoRats, the only friend you have is the State. Hence the corpoRat fixation on and obsession with undermining and subsuming it. Yet, in the words of the renowned/reviled Robert Ruark, in around 1965, already: "Nothing works, and nobody cares."

In whose interest is this incipient collapse? Now, as it all grinds down, and the infrastructure slowly crumbles, and obesity and disease envelope the "people"--those poor, medicated, dedicated, terminally confused, ignorant, distracted, impoverished, desperate, incurious citizens, along with the drooling morons, ranting imbeciles and prancing fucktards--whose interests are served by a people who will be EAGER to renounce the troublesome, contentious, dirty business of self-rule, and will be HAPPY to turn it ALL over to the tender mercies of the Oligarchs in their boardrooms?

And, now, it seems, all the pieces are in place.

The primary piece, if we were honest is that here you got a "Negrow" in the WhiteHouse. No 'white" person--not even Ralph Nader or another Kennedy--could supply that particular grade of irritant. He is sand in the fillings of the Limbaughs and the rest of the slithering Rightards...But the Obombster's still LOVED by around half the people, if loathed by the rest. A POLARIZER, no matter that he casts himself as a compromiser and a conciliator.

I think his "reelection is assured by the fact that he's been so good to the Owners already that, even though they complain (for chops--so the proles don't get the wrong idea), it sounds pro forma and insincere.. But the surest index of this fact is the mediocrity of the caricaturish clowns on the stages of their candidates' debates.

Truth, hippies: The Point-One Percenters have seldom done BETTER than with Sir Barry, the Nutless, at the helm. The very impossible mediocrity of the candidate pool itself BELLOWS to me that they plan to throw it, after a plausible effort, like they did in 08. So that "America's First Black President in fact PRESIDES over the inevitable, foreseeable moment--inevitably, like seasons--within the next five years, when China's economy surpasses that of the US, and the pundits proclaim the end of the Murkin Empire.

De Massas don' wanno WHAHT pusson takin' de faw fo' dat, no way, nossuh!

The "fall" of the Empire will be dropped directly into the laps of the "Leftists," the Soshilists, the "coloreds" and the rest of the marginalized, authentic democratic constituencies. Thus spelling effectively the exhaustion of the possibility of any subsequent effort to gain and hold power, by anyone even remotely associated with "progressive" politics.

"We trahd dat soshulism shit widdat damn Negrow, an it din't work wort' a damn...Gummint needsta run lahk a binness..."

And THAT's "Mission: Accomplished!" statement, right there, in a nutshell.

And as the nation and way of life we have know begins to disintegrate, it's fair and just to remember it's not "Obama's Plan." He is merely the designated agent. The plan "belongs" to the CorpoRatist Oligarchists who intend to bring an end to all the meddlesome and interferring, unnecessary and EXPENSIVE regulation by bringing an end to the democracy that brought the constraints into existence...

And they do THAT, hippies, by making people like ourelves so disgusted we'll WILLINGLY relinquish our rights for their "security."

Anyway, that's how it seems, from down here at the beach...Gobble, gobble, hippies!..

Thanksgiving With Arlo---

As The Cookie Crumbles: Frame Up

‎"Whenever the people are well informed," an optimistic Thomas Jefferson once wrote, "they can be trusted with their own government."

The Doc just LOVES Ol' Massa Tom, mos'o'de'time!

But, of course, where there is a possibility to keep the democratic throngs informed, there is also always the possibility of conscientiously DIS-inform them. The latter of which possibilities will ALWAYS be seized by the Oligarchs, and exploited, to advance their interests.

Some wag once said: IN the corporate State, corporate media are State Media.

Under a regime of corpoRatized media, in which the CorpoRate media and the State media become intertwined and indistinguishable--become, in Althusser's words, "Institutional State Apparati"--it is impossible for a whole people to BE "well-informed" because the propaganda interests of the State are such that complete disclosure, or full information are detrimental --shit, they're bloody ANATHEMA--to the agendas of those in charge.

Which is what ALWAYS happened/happens, Jefferson's ill-placed 'optimism notwithstanding.

I REALLY admire George Lakoff, too. In many ways, I regard him as a latterday Jefferson.

His book, in the 80s, "Metaphors We Live By," should be read to every child in the cradle, and annually after that.

But he--like Krugman, and Reich, and so many others (Thom Hartmann, e.g.)-- are REQUIRED to appear to uphold the myth.

It's his JOB. He's a member of the "coordinator" class, so he takes his livelihood from the top of the system it's his job to gently criticize. He CANNOT attack any hegemonic applecarts. His job is to "reform" the system from within.

He's right as rain about "frames," of course.

You knew exactly what kind of shitty, skeevy, treacherous, lying fuck Shazama would be when he never even raised a peep to challenge the Owners' frames, but accepted them as he performed his governing discourse INSIDE the GOPhux frames.

If you had paid no attention to ANYTHING else, when Obombster started talking about "entitlement reform," he gave the game away. Even a sea-urchin would have had the cranial capacity to figger it out from there.

Briefly, on another matter: Last week I ranted about both the rhetorical and the legislative futility of the Udall-Bennett amendment to permit Congress and the states to regulate campaign financing and thereby to circumvent SOME of the consequences of the Citizens United ruling in 2010.

The legislative futility is still as factor, but at least an amendment HAS been introduced which WOULD actively and actually DEPRIVE corporations of their ill-gotten, and ill-used "personhood" perqs: Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, has introduced an amendment that would ban corporate money in politics and end corporate personhood once and for all.

Deutch’s amendment, called the Outlawing Corporate Cash Undermining the Public Interest in our Elections and Democracy (OCCUPIED) Amendment, would overturn the Citizens United decision, re-establishing the right of Congress and the states to regulate campaign finance laws, even up to outlawing for-profit corporations to contribute to campaign spending.

Now THAT'S my kind of language.

It may still be futile, electorally, but it won't be useless in the event it should succeed. I'll take that, to the beach, hippies...

As the Cookie Crumbles: Amended Development

A little while back, my Sen., Tom Udall, and Colo. Senator Michael Bennett (not, perhaps significantly, Tom's cousin, also a Colorado Senator of the Dim persuasion) introduced into the Senate a measure which would set in motion the process of amending the Constitution in ways that the sponsors say are designed to mitigate the effects of the US SCROTUS' 5-4 decision last year, that bestow individual personhood on corporations by endorsing for them--in the Citizens United case--the same right of speech in political campaigns which had previously been affirmed for individuals.

(That's prolly the longest sentence you're likely to encounter today, hippies; but this is "Woodyville," capitol of the Land of Long Sentences.)

It would be, I think, an enormous understatement to say this decision will have more, and more enduringly baleful, destructive, corrosive effects than Bush v. Gore, in 2000, which ended the Florida recount and ensured the Chimperor his first term, and which provoked the Nation's running jump onto the horns of evangelistic, Right-wing, All-murkin, neo-fascist perdition.

In the aftermath of CU decision, as its obvious, evident, predictable effects played out in 2010's elections--and as it bids fair now, again, to overwhelm the process in 2012--the "best minds" of a leftish persuasion have been struggling to find ways to 'get around' the SCROTUS ruling.

The problem--which should be apparent to even an earthworm--is that the only ("legal") expedients are all "legislative," in that they entail 'electoral' remedies, such as the passage of legislation, or the enactment of a Constitutional amendment, such as the one proposed by Udall and Bennett, on the other day.

We all agree (well, not ALL) that the biggest source of the corruption of our political process has been the conquest of the whole political system by private/corpoRat interests and financial influence, right down to the proprietary software in the tabulators that "count" your votes.

So, here's what I want to know...I'm gonna ASK this VERY slowly, clearly, and distinctly:

How does one amend the constitution to get private money out of politics when the private money already IN politics will certainly oppose it with every resource at their disposal, which are virtually unlimited and already unbounded, and include already owning out-right or effectively controling all the machineries, personalities, and institutions which would have to cooperate to get private money OUT of politics?

(That might be the second longest sentence and the longest question of they day, nest paw, hippies?)

According to the wire stories on the introduction, the proposed Udall-Bennett amendment..."doesn't directly address the justices' (insupportable, probably suborned) legal "finding" that "corporations have a right to free speech that was curtailed by election law." Instead, it would add to the Constitution language that says Congress and the states can regulate campaign contributions and expenditures.

I'm dreadfully sorry, but that somehow doesn't sound all that much of an improvement, to me.

Okay. Under the proposed amendment, States "could" regulate campaign financing expenditures.

But why or how WOULD they, when the SAME corpoRats who now exert a choke-holds on political discourse would be--ARE NOW--free to exercise EXACTLY the same baleful, corrupting, corrosive influences at the State level with which they have infected the National one.

Think about it. It's probably gonna be LOTS cheaper and EASIER to buy off State officials than national ones. That's cuz the costs of getting elected and maintaining a political establishment are lots lower in Santa Fe or Bismark or Columbus, so the bribes don't have to be exorbitant.

If Jack Abramov's right in his recent revelations that virtually EVERYBODY in office in DC is either bought or available, it is SURELY the that one can buy ANYBODY in ANY "state" gummint for a mere FRACTION of what it would cost for the services of a US. Rep, much less a Senator. And they, like their national colleagues, are ALL for sale, IF THE PRICE IS RIGHT!

On top of that, the scrutiny by the electorate (or the lap-dog "press") is less intense and easier to evade.

State judges are the key. They are usually elected, and they are essential tools to successful, corpoRat coups d'etat, as the corruption and despoliation of the SCROTUS proves, in the macro-scope: take the Judiciary, and EVERYTHING ELSE is possible.

So save yer sheckels, and "C'mon Down, Hippies."

I'll see ya at the beach...

As The Cookie Crumbles: Matter of Degree

Along with throwing a papier-mache life-raft to home-owners already underwater, and floundering, in a sea of credit malaise, St. Barry, the Capitulator, tweaked the terms of SOME students' loans, lowering interest rates and lengthening terms. As someone who borrowed freely when the loans were plentiful, back in the day, I know the burden.

But back in the day, there were jobs with the wages/salaries from which you could pay them back, albeit slowly and interruptedly.

But bad as it was then, the plight of the student forced to borrow for their education is even worse today. And, paradoxically, it seems the PRICE that students increasingly have to pay for their "degrees" is inversely proportional to the actual VALUE of the credential once it is awarded.

The verity of this observation is attested to by a recent report which compared the value of a "college education" with that of a new car, and found the car actually, though only marginally, superior in durability value.

That, in no small part, is because "college degrees" have become a spurious requirement for about 60% of the jobs for which they're now pre-requisites. As the number of actual jobs has been declining, the qualifications for acquiring one of the scarcer and scarcer jobs have become more difficult to achieve, depending on any given individual's position on the social scale at the start. Requiring a degree for just about any position helps "keep the riff-raff out," too, because it provides another layer of "legitimate" exclusion.

It is also, again in no small part, because the whole system, it seems to me, has been cheapened and diluted by the plethora of trivial crap in which colleges and universities now offer "degrees." The paramount case of which, in my humble estimation, is business administration. "Office management?" What kind of a degree is that? What classics of the field could someone NOT in the field read with pleaasure and understanding?

And finally, they've been cheapened by their commodification by the recent explosion of proprietrary "colleges" like Kaplan and Phoenix, which essentially SELL their degrees if you can provide the cash in an atmosphere of consumerist, cash-and-carry-ism.

Did you know the University of Phoenix gets over 80% of it's $$$$ from veterans? That the majority never graduate with any meaningful professional skills? That the federal money from veterans does not count against the amount of federal money they are allowed to take in? The the for profit college gold mine is a huge supporter financially of Obama? That any regulations are mostly nonexistent? One more way to screw those least able to protect themselves. Desperation--long-term unemployment, a family, and dim prospect--inhibits clear thinking and decision making. ANY opportunity can look like salvation.

But evidence leaves one with the conclusion that ‎"Proprietary" colleges are nothing but junk degree mills, too often. Retail outlets for trivial credentials. The claims of the few folks in their ads notwithstanding, many investigations have reported that an embarrassingly SMALL number of the "graduates" of such programs do much more than increase their debt load.

That's the "price" of commodifying "education," by 'credentializing' every possible kind of job. And, as I noted before, it provides another level of social "filter," to keep the undesirables out.

It's been this way, though not nearly so blatant or obvious, for 20 years. Higher Ed has been so commodified and consumerized that it's essentially become worthless as a pedigree for dogs.

My (paid) professiorial career ended in 2000. For the previous decade at least, it had become obvious to me that students had come to regard their teachers as something akin to "knowledge clerks," paid minimum wages to fetch their "education" from the well-stocked shelves, as if it were a video game or a pair of jeans. The idea that they would actually be involved in the creation/generation/evaluation of NEW "knowledge" never even crossed their docile, bovine minds. They were there, like trained livestock, becazuse it was it was the next/last hoop they'd have to jump through before they began the process of jumping through more hoops, for pay.

I taught at big, highly regarded state schools. A plurality of my students were "legacies," whose parents had sufficient resources to send their progeny to any school the kids could get into, and they stayed home. A large percentage of the students I observed, and with whom I interacted, wanted nothing from "college" more than getting their prejudices ratified, and their tickets to the middle class punched.

They were there to "get" an education. they hadn't the faintest notion that they were actually supposed to make it themselves. Your education is like an artisan's tool-box. It contains the tools you've already made, and the templates for the ones you'll later need.

HN&S (11/14/11): Resemblance

Woody's all ROTFLMAO! When I saw that Newt Gingrich was calling on Herman Cain to answer the charges by women who claim he--Cain--assaulted them.

Dat's funny: The used condom calling the anal plug scummy?

But if Herman Cain is a serial rapist? That's not funny. He wants to be President, so he says.

Rape = Sex procured under coercion...Or, is there something I'm missing??

Cain used his power to coerce women into sex with him, demanding--in one case we know of--that an applicant for a job as a lobbyist with the NRA (No, Not that one, though...) perform oral sex on him in exchange for the position (erm...so to speak)

So there really is no other possible construction to put on it. Five women whom Cain has allegedly abused (or more) have come forward. There are probably five DOZENS more, over the course of his life-long career of seeking power and then abusing it to assault women with impunity. Women who cannot (or dare not)...resist, or report him....

(What, you think he just started this shit in 1998, and abruptly stopped?? He's been pulling this shit since he was a young man! And he hasn't stopped, either. Think about that French dude from the IMF who was caught raping the third world one hotel maid at a time.)

Herman's problem: He "cain't" keep his dick behind his zipper.

Plus, he sounds, and he behaves, and he comports himself as SUCH the perfect, buffoonish, fast-talking caricature of the stereotype, power-hungry, pretentious, parvenu black pimp, you gotta wonder why the GOPhux keep him around, unless it is in fact because he is.

Ol' cynical WOODY, he figgers the GOPhux are using Cain to remind their "base" about the prevailing myths about black men, and why they detest and fear 'em.

They can't use that lever against Shamwow, cuz he's careful and circumspect...You listen to Obomster, why, y'd Aw-most think he was a "Whaht Mayn!"

But in GOPhux political epistemology, one black's pretty much the same as any other. Cain reminds the Whites--the rednex, crackkkers and tea-baggers in the GOPhux base--that "they all look alike."

Anyhow, that's how ol' Woody sees it, down here at de beach, hippies...back to Mah pal, Win-stone, in Hippie Central.

As The Cookie Crumbles (11/11/11):Pale Chartreuse

It's been over 18 months since BP and Halliburton presided over the worst environmental catastrophe in the HISTORY of the USofA, and the world watched in dread fascination as the civilization's heedless need for fuel delivered yet another blow to the global ecology as a whole.

Why is no one asking St. Barry, the Hopeful, the necessary, relevant questions, "even as he plans to grant NEW licenses to commit MORE ecocide?

Questions like: How will it be possible to prevent what happened in the Gulf of Mexico from happening in the Beaufort Sea, when all the same players are in place, again?

Where are the DoJ/EPA criminal prosecutions of the major corporations responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Shouldn't that be settled before you grant the same miscreants MORE chances to fuck up?

Where are the prosecutors and investigations, and grand juries around the deaths of the workers?

Why is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not seeking prosecutions of the major polluters?

What are they doing, Instead??

Echo answers: Well, for one thing, they're coming down on whistleblowers like they were Arab terror cells. And those who support whistleblowers. And silencing the science. And buying off critics, or impuning their motives. Helping the polluters, in some cases to shut-up unruly locals and experts by threats and intimidation, where bribery won't stop it.

Meanwhile, the corporate miscreants--the liars, and corner-cutters, and late-night dumpers-- are still unfettered by anything like a social conscience, or any new, significant regulation, and they have set out to do once more in the delicate, fragile, vital Arctic oceans and permafrosts--with ENTHUSIASTIC Presidential support and endorsement--what the fuckers so baldly and blandly did in the Gulf of Mexico last year, and in the S. Timor Sea, in 2009. They're the same fuckers.

I believe that when St. Barry, the Capitulator, abstained from putting in even a pro forma appearance while the 12--15,000 conservation voters were encircling the WHite House, it should have told you ALL you need to know about Shamwow's "green" sympathies.

The world runs on carbon-fueled energy.

The carbon-energy corporations hold the whip-hand.

Obamster has no more discretion about such matters than a crossing-guard can control traffic: He can wave a sign but if they don't slow down, there's not jack shit he can actually DO,even if he WANTED to, which he DOESN'T.

St. Barry, the clean, wasn't chosen for his current position because of his 'bravery,' or 'initiative,' or 'imagination.' He was (s)elected because he was/is RELIABLE to the OWNERS." The CorpoRat Apple-Carts are safe with him, or he wouldn't BE there.

So save your breath. They're gonna drill (and spill). They're gonna build that big, filthy pipeline, and it's gonna fuck stuff up, good. They're gonna build more nuclear plants.

Hey, it's MODERN TIMES, hippiez!

As the Cookie Crumbles: Pretenders

I sher do wish Krugman and Reich and all the other MSEz (MainStream Economistz) would stop PRETENDING to be 1) surprised! or 2) shocked!, or 3) dismayed!, or 4) upset!, or 5) disturbed!, or 6) otherwise confused! when the GOPhux AGAIN refuse to act or negotiate or bargain in "good faith." There was a perfect example of the art in on Krugman's blog at the NYTimes, recently.

By NOW, this appallingly transparent duplicity CANNOT come as--or be represented as--some fucking "SOO-PRAHS!" anymore. It strains credulity to the snapping point. The GOPhux have NOT given ANY indication AT LEAST since 1981 that they have ANY intention, whatsoever, of EVER acting in "good faith" with the Dumocrats, as equal, co-governors, ever again.

The deal that once prevailed--where everybody at least pretended the other guys were just as able as they were to govern--was abrogated, consciously, by the GOPhux, beginning probably with Nixon; but it became official policy under the Raygunners. It was a coup d'etat, and it's over.

Krugman and Reich, and the rest of the MSEz still HAVE to pretend to NOT see the pretense they're paid to preserve, and maintain the necessary illusions. That's their job, for which they are handsomely remunerated.

But don't YOU be deceived, hippies...

Interestingly, and speaking of deceit...Jack Abramov, the uber-lobbyist whose eye for corruption finally o'er-spanned his ability to disguise it, and who subsequently spent some time in jail for his appetites (a fate which I'm sure others of his ilk--Luntz, Ralph Reid, Grover Norquist, among them, would find salubrious) has broken the omerta-like silence about the operating conditions and operant understandings and arrangements in your typical, well-financed, well-connected, right-wing K-Street bribery...I mean, "lobby" shop.

The trick, apparently, when you're a lobbyist trying to secure the sympathies of any given Congresscritter--was then (and presumably still is), to recruit a key members of the Critter's staff as FUTURE employees of the lobbyist's multi-billion-dollar-booking operation.

And NOT to exchange anything but telephone numbers, as long as the recruit was still in "public" service, along with the "understanding" that the career of the Congressional flunky who played along was secured when they went out the revolving door.

Deferred compensation, I guess you'd call it, by the lobbyist; an "investment in the future" for the staffers.

It was SOP (Standard Operating Procedure), and an EVERYDAY occurrence in Abramov's shop, which was one of the most successful, and wealthiest, and therefore would have been a MODEL for all the other wannabes on K-Street.

How does one cleanse such Stygian filth? The Potomac doesn't run swift or full enough to flush away the accreted SHIT in Congress and the industries designed to control it.

Napalm?

Like Stokely said, the fire next time?

Whadda you think hippies. We can talk about it when I see you at the beach.

Oh, yeah: The so-called "giving season" is fast upon us. The WWH comp'ny store has cool stuff with which to assuage your potlatching impulses.

As The Cookie Crumbles: The Capacity for Mendacity

A lot of folks will remember a song, or at least the sentiment, that "it's a sin to tell a lie."

It's not lying, per se--or, at least not ALL lying--which the world's 'great' religions forbid.

It's one special kind of lying, at least in the 10 Commandments...

"Thou shalt NOT bear false witness against thy neighbor."

Says nothing about denying you're banging your sister-in-law, or the pool-boy, or lying on your tax returns.

It does prohibit SLANDER, however; That's the "bear false witness against a neighbor" part...lies about others.

Which makes sense, as a social condition.

Nobody can prevent or prohibit most lies.

But lies about others are a danger to social cohesion.

So we deplore liars. Don't want anything to do widdem. Check the "Personals?" Folks don't want liars calling 'em. NO LIARS NEED APPLY!

So why does the "Big Lie" --the "Jewish problem," WMD in Iraq, Hope&Change, indeed, kapitalism in general--work?

The "Big Lie" propaganda mechanism is based on the central insight that despite our ostensible socialization to tell truth, everybody DOES lie, sometimes. And that they mostly are reluctant to be caught at it, so they only lie about little shit, lies they can walk away from, trivial shit--age, weight, spouse?--which is what everybody lies about.

Goebbels (reading Bernays, 1928) reasoned--rightly, as it turned out--that folks who are socialized with contempt and disdain for lying--no matter that they themselves lie--would be inclined to BELIEVE--or, not at lezst to immediately disbelieve--truly enormous lies on the grounds that the people hearing the the BIG LIES would believe that those telling the lies would have the same hesitation about lying that prohibited THEM from egregious untruth-telling. The bigger the lie, the greater the shame and opprobrium upon discovery.

The "lie," its perpetual repetition and by 'credible' speakers, are the keys to the success of the method--and NEVER doubt its success. The tenacious "Brand loyalty" to "St. Barry, the Capitulator," is one of its indisputable products.

At present, we are in the grips of the propagandistic 'perfect storm' for Big Lies. There are, first, interests and powers which will not and do not scruple to tell them, and employ many, many adepts--Frank Luntz, and/or Grover Norquist--to create them. So there's the message.

Second, we've recently been present at the indisputable "maturation" of the culture of celebrity. The capacity to BE known--which is what a celebrity does--has become the warrant for 'credibility." Being known for being known, alone, is enough to imbue the dreariest, slobbering banalities with the authority of the Mass. The mega-hyper-multi-plex of screens screams to be filled. They don't call it "dead air" for nothing. That's the 'credible voice.

Finally, there is the wonder of the 24-hour news-cycle, 24/7/365, endlessly, on the cabloids and/or the Netz. Repetition. I wouldn't recommend this, I believe it cause your brain to curdle; but people who HAVE watched CNN/MSNBC/Fox/HNN'ETC for 24 or 48 hours report nearly endless repetitions of the same stories, the same themes, the same narratives. If I were a propagandist specializing in the Big Lie, and the technology existed to support it, I'd PAY somebody to build the Internet.

No, really. But I betcha you've heard all this a thousand times, huh, Hippies? We'll compare notes when I see ya at the beach...

HN&S, 11/7/11: Candid Chimeras...

"Thanks, Winstone! Hangin' Bugs, hangin' by a thread...Hola hippies: Didja ever think about "free will?" Well, I got on the cap with the tassel (and not the vessel with the pestle or the flagon with the dragon, so beware: Philosophy comin'!

As the conditions under which success in this culture becomes more and more a MATTER OF SHEER, DUMB LUCK, I am growing weary of listening to folks who are well, or better-off criticizing other folks who are less well-situated, less "well off," as if the less-fortunate were somehow deficient in industry, or had abused their opportunities. And then proceed to blame the less fortunate for their beleaguered situations because they "made bad choices."

Man, that one pisses me off. And not because I, too, made bad choices. Of course I did. Everybody's made 'em. They're just less catastrophic for some than for others, depending on your social position, usually, and that's just the fucking luck of the draw.

So, you'd be right un thinking I'm not one of those who clings to the arcane notion of "FREE WILL" within his epistemological framework.

"Free Will" is one chimera. In mythology, a Chimera (capitral "C") is a fabulous monster of disparate, unmatched parts; in literature, poets use the word to refer to "an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially : an unrealizable dream. Free Will is a chimerical component of the dominant "myths" of civilization.

As such, the myth of "free will" mainly serves the Owners by preserving the status quo without appearing to do so. Because "free will" makes it possible for the Bosses, who DO control the destinies of the rest of us, to assign blame to the us proles for NOT surmounting the leaden lots allotted them at the bottom of the social pile and dragging ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

It's part of that whole "you had choices" condemnation process that relegates the littler folks to their positions and provides an explanation for why we/they're still on the bottom when we had those "choices."

AND Which has additional virtues: Not only does "free will" NOT implicate the Owners in the forces keeping people down, but it also actively excuses their predations, since the idea oif free will implies we might somehow resist them.

One has no more "free will" than one has choice of one's parents, or of one's native language.

Ich wird Ihnen am Strand sehen! Back to Hippie Central, Win-Stone!

As the Cookie Crumbles: Downing Thomas

Is Coke-can Clarence Thomas above the law? Can "Ol' Curley-on-top" flout his turpitude, his dishonesty, his contemptible corruption without ANY public consequence?

We'll see. There appears to be at least one plausible avenue through which to attack his corrupt, venal ass. As with Capone, the issue is via taxes.

The Thomases, asserting the privilege of their rank and position, apparently failed--neglected? disdained?-- to report ANY income for her for 12 years, from 1997-2009.

Funny thing: This coincided with when he apparently positioning himself as the foremost ADVOCATE OF THE corpoRat AGENDA on the Court; meanwhile "Ceasar's" wife was making big bux as a high-dollah, Conservative 'rain-maker,' lobbying, fundraising and policy-wonking with the Kochs, and Karl Roves of the world, on issues that (No, REALLY?) JUST MIGHT come before the Court.

Called on it, finally, in 2010, THOMAS grudgingly filed amended returns, claiming it was all just a "misunderstanding." He'd simply misinterpreted the instructions.

Okay, you might say. It's a piss-poor, dumb-ass, shit-heel excuse, but okay. You've seen him. He could be that fucking stupid.,

But now it's turned out he's not stupid. Not JUST stupid. He's crooked, too. Seems the records show the Cunt-hair Clancy Thomas family accurately and correctly filled in the necessary informatiuon for his wife's employment in EVERY YEAR, IN every position he held in GUMMINT until 1997. Thereafter, for the next TWELVE YEARS, the motherfucker lied.

Every year. It does make ya go, hmmmmmm, donit, hippies?

So a progressive congresscritter has blown the whistle to Chief Roberts, not as Chief Justice, per se, but as the presiding officer of the gummint's Judicial Council, the top oversight board for the whole federal bench. And CREDO--the phone folks--are soliciting signatures from citizens to bolster their complaint to Roberts. There's a web-site, on the screen below, where you can go to sign up.

The problem is, of course, that this path requires that Chief Justice Roberts take the information to the DoJ and that the DoJ do something with it in the way of investigation and indictment.

For which eventuality I judge the probability as somewhere between nil and minus 20.

I'm not a lawyer, nor a legal ethicist, but I do NOT see how, legally, Roberts can decline to proceed and still maintain even the most fragile, most tenuous ascription of legitimacy for himself and his whole Court, indeed to the whole Federal Judiciary.

At a minimum, Roberts should summarily ORDER Thomas's recusal from ALL pending cases.
"Cert" --short for "Certiorari", a place on the docket--on which he voted affirmatively should be revoked and be required to resubmit.
Indeed, I betcha a case could EASILY be made that ANY decision to which Coke-can Clancy's vote provided the determinative margin, or on which he wrote a majority decision, should be immediately vacated, and the entire case should be re-argued.

Clarence Thomas' every breath on the Bench of the US Supreme Court does nothing but further contaminate what is already--at least sinece Dec. 2000--a hellish mash of corporate mendacity and moral vacuity. Til further notice, Ol' Curley's apparently above the law, but he is undubitably beneath contempt, and he drags the rest down with him

Sign the letter, hippies. We'll send 'em from the Beach.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/thomas_2/index2.html

As the Cookie Crumbles(11/3/11): Scandalous, Dahling

In an article that lowers the "Presidential Achievement" Bar to ever-more ridiculous levels, the fawning, fatuous, ever-obsequious, O'botic O-pologist Jonathan Alter last week joyfully proclaimed the "miracle" the Obamanista regime's of moral purity, preemptively declaring it to be sin-free and "without scandal."

What Alter meant, of course, was that the O'bots had so far managed to conduct themselves without the taint of salacious rumor and/or embarrassing DNA-spots on the odd, young, female intern's simple blue dress.

I guess "scandal," like beauty, is a matter of taste.

Cuz, no, Shamwow hasn't yet been discovered dipping his wick in some willing intern.



But what do you call peremptorily assassinating US citizens without trial, by remorte control?

What about renewing the Bush Tax breaks for the wealthy?

What about the whole-sale, full-frontal attacks on Social Security and Medicare "entitlements?"?

For WHOM would these not be a scandal, except for the "first Black President?"

How about the scandal of the patently unconstitutional "Super (We're REALLY Gonna Fuck YOU Up) Debt/Deficit Commission"?

Isn't it scandalous to be planning for and promoting MORE nuclear plants, even in the light (or "glow?") of the Fukushima disasters in Japan?

Isn't that a scandal that there are 20 MILLION willing workers in Murka who cannot find jobs?

With stratospheric unemployment, what do you call three new "Free trade" agreements? I'd call it the return of the gigantic sucking sound of USer jobs flying off-shore.

Shall I go on?

I'd call it a scandal that he twice extended and once even STRENGTHENED the so-called PATRIOT ACT, which during the campaign he said he meant to soften.

Does no scandal attach to putting back in charge of the economy those very szme folks who so totally fucked it up? Summers? Geithner? Bernanke? Is there nothing even a LITTLE stinky about them?

Is there no scandal in abandoning the labor constituency? How about stonewalling the Employee Free Choice Act for workers who want to organize their work-places? Labor REQUIRES a supportive State to face-down the greedheads and other butt-fux in the boardrooms. But St. Barry's no friend of the working man...

Wouldn't it make you blush a little if you allowed secret domestic surveillance or hadn't restored the principle of habeas corpus, even though you were a Constitutional fucking law professor???? Not St. Barry, apparently. Nope, no 'scandal' there...

What about if you didn't back your OWN Environmental Protection Agency on mountain-top removal, and clean air and water regulations on industrial polluters? Nope. Nothing here, folks. Move along...

I guess there's no "scandal" in the murderous drone attacks which kill hundreds of innocents along with selected 'targets' thousands of miles away, in six different African and Central Asian, sovereign NATIONS? Nah. Nothing important there, folx, keep movin...

Mebbe you noticed, the promised restoration of the Superfund Clean-up tax on polluters hasn't materialized, either. Politifact calls that a "promise broken." But hey, what's another broken promise, anyway. There are so many...

Oh, and by the way: There is a MAJOR issue with Obomber's mortgage modification plan!!

That was the plan they touted last week, along with federalizing the interest on student loans, to help the working stiffs? Remember?

In the fine print, one discovers that if the borrower has one SINGLE delinquent payment over the LIFE of the mortgage, they're disqualified... No really!

Ah, but there haven't been any blow-jobs in the executive office, hippies. No cum-stains on the carpet...Three rousing cheers for that, I guess...

So grab yer megaphones, and we'll sing a couple of congratulatory choruses when I See Ya At The Beach, chers......