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Even an intelligent and objective U.S. President relies on advisors when it comes to economics. Many former such advisors can be seen/heard giving market and economic opinions regularly. Few of them, however, are objective and nearly all received indoctrination in the same long-standing economic principles. The textbooks are yet to be written on the effects of instant transfer of funds and information in 24/7 markets.
One who has recognized this is Stephen Roach of Morgan-Stanley.
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(Feb 21, 2006)
Posted by whattheheck on Feb 27, 2006 at 8:53 AM
How you manage to be more pessimistic than I am escapes me WTH, but your first paragraph there is a zinger. Economics is primarily a group of cults with fortune tellers (not completely, but “primarily”). I agree that the 24/7 and increasing speed of the market is a serious factor that is not being addressed too. You could get whiplash watching markets rise and fall.
Plug for Henry George—- If land is treated as capital or left out of the formula then the whole theory is crank.
There are better measures. We do actually progress sometimes WTH. The simple act of repealing NAFTA might have profoundly positive effects.
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 27, 2006 at 12:55 PM
No one wants poverty stats to elevate during their watch. But no one wants accurate data, either, to know whether they have actually elevated or declined.
That tells me that it’s the perceptions about poverty, it’s the nature of the media spin that can be mustered in regards to economic well-being or distress, that has them disturbed. More so than actual poverty levels, which they seem not to want to know (or at least to have publicized).
They’re less discomfited by the substance than they are by the distorted image, even when they’re aware of the distortion. They feel this even while knowing that it’s the actuality of privation that leads to a bitter quality of life for real people who are living in real poverty.
Classic doublethink. We know the figures are unrepresentative, but blank out when confronted with the idea of using better ones. And any suggestion that methods might change is regarded as though the one making the proposal is a maverick or a fringe weirdo; they’re basically ignored to death. Regarding such a suggestion as a gesture contributing to improved governance is apparently too much to ask.
Improved governance. Less of a priority, I guess.
Cooked data, sugar-coated assessments, calculations of modern circumstances using formulae that literally belong to a previous century. Your typical college undergrad in Bio 101 adheres to better standards. I’m reminded of Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, the researcher who recently faked data on reproduction of stem cell lines. If the data-euphemizers referred to in the article were part of virtually any enterprise other than government, they’d have been fired and disgraced. As it is, they self-perpetuate through the decades, insulated from accountability. And their bad-faith number crunching only lends more fuel to the fire of those whose attitudes about government is cynical at best.
Flavia Colgan’s piece on the weak ethics in Congress comes to mind. The National Academy of Sciences released its report to the Joint Economic Committee 11 years ago. What’s the hold up?
Of course I know the hold up. Moraff’s article pretty much spells it out. It’s not in enough people’s interest that the system change, therefore it has not. What I don’t know won’t interfere with me and my party buddies getting re-elected.
Posted by Kuya on Feb 28, 2006 at 1:33 AM
Wiley,
Posted by whattheheck on Feb 28, 2006 at 9:46 AM
Existing low threshold “poverty” income accuratly measures the number of families and people -
*living in financial desperation,
*facing regular hunger,
*barely get ANY health care
*face imminent homelessness
*have no real chance for improvment or success
*totally lack financial security.
In short these people live a life of fear and deprivation in a nation of abundance and wealth, often extreme wealth.
And here we argue about how many angels fit on the head of a pin.
Posted by MikMouse on Feb 28, 2006 at 11:43 AM
WTH Henry would have probably used a lot of serious adjectives to describe the injustice of this Eminent Domain thing. He would have recognized it as the legalized theft for the owning class that is. He would also recognize NAFTA and CAFTA as scams would be my guess.
Anything that can written into law, can be written out. Of course, there is a possibility. Much of the world is rejecting the WTO and IMF. Neoliberal economic policy is losing ground as we speak. I’m not saying that things are going to be all rosy, we might all suffer miserably in its aftermath, but things will change. That’s what things do.
I noticed you have a tendency WTH to discount an idea if it can be defeated by a possibility—-that’s everything that ever was and ever will be. That’s why I shoot for the approximate and for improvement.
We’re not going to make a perfect world. If the U.S. economy bottoms out, then I hope we find a decent way to deal with that.
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 28, 2006 at 12:09 PM
Righteous post Kuya. Everything gets back to education. If we had the math skills and rhetorical skills not to be so easily bamboozled. If we weren’t all brain washed with the idea that supply-side economics is God’s blueprints of economies that are ruled by laws neither God nor Human and not a faulty theory. If professors could focus on research and teaching instead of having to come up with more crap theories to publish so they can keep their job and advance. If independent media, especially news were the norm. If we weren’t living in a plutocracy and corporate feudal state that educates us to believe that we are “free” because we can say anything we want to our fellow drones and we can express opinions, and we are “free” to be unemployed because if all the work has been bought up with red tape, tribute money to government officials, and big marketing budgets.
We’ll know we live in a free market when someone with the idea of measuring our economic well-being is highly encouraged to do so on their own dime. Who can’t benefit from a hobby?
Posted by wileywitch on Feb 28, 2006 at 12:23 PM
I hear you WTH.
If it’s any consolation, Indian phone workers are having nervous breakdowns. At first, they didn’t think it was real work. Ha ha. I so totally saw that coming—-it’s not digging ditches, it takes its pound of flesh out of your head.
However “globalism” has affected our economy (and I think the term “globalism” is as ambiguous, impure, and dishonest as the term “capitalism”), we need to start making things. We must manufacture. And we must learn how to do business if we want to live a decent life in the future. Necessity is the mother of invention, I say start with an underground economy and expand (among other things).
One possible trend I’ve read about recently is cutting all the unnecessary classes for some college degrees and just getting people trained to do high tech jobs. College is too expensive for most people to spend sixty hours of class time in classes that have nothing to do with the field they want to enter.
Having a trade track for high schoolers is being talked about too. I don’t think it’s great that so many electricians, plumbers, mechanics, and carpenters learned their skills in prison. We need good, skilled crafts people, and if a teenager knows he/she loves welding, then why not let him/her have the tools and training in high school, instead of having to take courses geared toward an academic career he/she is not interested in. And why act as if having academic training makes a person superior to or smarter than a crackerjack arc welder?
By high school, everyone should be able to find a niche where they feel alive and can discover and exercise talents, instead of feeling like they’re dumb because Camus doesn’t interest them, or that education is irrelevant because it often is.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 1, 2006 at 11:25 AM
Wiley,
I like your realistic view of practical education. Mortimer Adler (a brilliant, independent thinker) was an advocate of a general education for all
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 2, 2006 at 8:15 AM
We’ve agreed on so much now, WTH. Refreshing.
I figure if the dollar and joblessness tanks enough we’ll be able to barter with doctors and dentists. Like the old West——here’s a fifth of whiskey and some apples doc.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 2, 2006 at 8:38 AM
“Whiskey, excellent! Just a moment while I sterilize my tools…”
Posted by Harrower on Mar 2, 2006 at 10:20 AM
Wiley & Harrower,
Funny you should mention this example
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 2, 2006 at 12:05 PM
OUCH, WTH. You might want to soak some gauze with Anbesol and pack it around the offended tooth and gum area. Sip the whiskey through a straw, unless you are taking vicodan or oxycontin. The risk of a vegetative state does not outweigh the benefits of even the finest Scotch.
If you can’t find compromizing photos of your dentist, then you’re stuck with that hefty bill. Shelling out a gran hurts, but a tooth is worth it, especially if it’s a back tooth.
What’s the real value of your tooth?
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 2, 2006 at 2:21 PM
Wiley,
Thanks for the sympathy & info. It is a back tooth and with an investment of close to $2,000 in it in two years, I’ve decided to live long enough to make it worth while.
——————————————————————-
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 3, 2006 at 9:05 AM
Wow, WTH, television news started to make me feel like that a long time ago. That conversation is trippy. Is Larry King on acid. Am I on acid? Did someone slip me a mickey? I can’t believe I’m seeing this conversation. Especially the interview guys—-they get so creepy. I have rarely watched television my whole life, but found myself glued to it during Gulf War I. I’m ashamed to say that along with getting the news, I was looking for a glimpse of my favorite aircraft—-the A-10. While I was watching video clips on CNN I thought this is an Air Force Now film, and I stopped watching televized coverage.
In 2001 I was a 24/7 live-in caregiver for a man and his daughter. My client had a television, and I ordered cable. (The Daily Show and reruns of old Outer Limits are the only things we miss.) So, I saw some coverage of 9/11, but wasn’t glued to it, because it was the same thing over and over again and because I typically worked 14 hours a day.
While her father was having a medical procedure done I took his daughter with me to a store in the VA hospital. They had a television on with 9/11 images with the scene of people jumping out the building. I saw that the girl was looking at it, and I guided her away from the television and told her I didn’t want her watching that. Even six year olds know the latest in parenting fashion, it’s so transparent—-she said, “oh, it doesn’t bother me—-it’s just like watching a movie.” I told her <i> It’s not a movie! It is real life and those people died! I don’t want you to look at their deaths like it’s a movie!
I wonder sometimes if that’s what the MSM is working toward—-it’s just a movie. Everybody get in costume and get on your marks.
Does this have anything to do with poverty and statistics? No. Sorry.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 3, 2006 at 12:54 PM
I won’t do these as cartoons to avoid any bloodshed.
———————————————————-
It strikes me that when we hear,
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 3, 2006 at 12:55 PM
Hey! What happened to my LOL? I posted you and LOL WTH, “American Idle” is a hit.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 3, 2006 at 11:43 PM
Good people
It strikes me that the regurgitation of useless information that passes for education in this country feeds directly into the corporate conglomerate.Young children are not allowed to find areas of intrest that are “outside” structured teaching.The college students who don’t have silver spoons are forced to pay loans to insure their economic role back into the mainstream….
This educational quagmire can be called “progress” because of a very simple political tool used by both Dems and Repubs in many different
areas -
“Our economy is healthy….”
“Brownie’s doin’ a great job ....”
“The War in Iraq is going well….”
“No one knew the levees would break….”
If we say it, it’s the Truth.
Amazing
Posted by R.B.Green on Mar 4, 2006 at 5:23 AM
Wiley,
Did you already use that line and I missed it, or were you writing about the one I sent?
As for missing LOL
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 4, 2006 at 7:09 AM
It seems to be quite absurd to base poverty statistics, especially ones used to determine program eligiability on the old model developed in 1963. Food costs in the US occupy a lower portion of the family budget than anywhere else in the entire world! Certainly nobody spends thirty three percent of their income on food when the average spent on housing for those at or around the median is held to be about twenty five percent. This figure to has increased for those below the median, however. Most people below the median income spend about 20-25% of their income on food depending on how many children or dependants they support.
In any case, the triple food basket model is outdated as a concept, not only in terms of proportionality. The real target figure should address what it takes to achieve a certain socially acceptable standard of living for a particular size household. It should consider the general cost of living including healthcare, housing, education, and other related necessities including food. The triple food budget model seems arbitrary as much as outmoded.
The conclusion that politics stands in the way of change in the Bush era is an obvious one to reach. Poverty is the last thing on Bush’s mind and the old model of measurement suits him precisely because it hides the real extent of US poverty. The twenty percent or greater rates seem to be the more realistic.
As the economy gets set for more GDP growth based on ever greater wealth concentration and rates of foreign direct investment (which actually counts toward US GDP because it measures productivity not consumption) poverty rates in the US will surely grow along with it almost as a function of the economic growth itself. This is because our economic model promotes growth at the expense of the poor and working class rather than in their interest. Those in doubt should look at how even manufacturing job outsourcing/consumer goods importing model is seeking to remove the few decent paying transportation and west coast port authority jobs to Mexico via the NAFTA Superhighway.
WTH, I had posted a one line LOL because I thought American Idol was funny. I usually select and save as I go on short posts. On long posts I often type it in word and then paste and edit.
I think I might have hit a button that made the post disappear, and assumed it posted. A round later, I noticed it wasn’t there. I have tics in my hands and blinks sometimes so I hit buttons (and drop things) unconsciously.
And sometimes, the posts just drop out for what I assume is server reasons.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 4, 2006 at 9:01 AM
cabdriver, on my hiatus, I got a lot done, but forgot to work on a spiel about projecting the past onto the future. Maybe, later. I have been thinking about it, but I’ve also been thinking a lot about nuclear war and gardening—-those usually trump everything else for a while.
Speaking of gardening—-the low budget Americans have for groceries represents a lot of crap food, which means more dollars spent on doctors. It would be nice if they grew a few vegetables and fruits so they could see what “fresh” is really like, then maybe small, local farmers could get a boost in demand, and the citizens could get a taste of self-reliance. (It tastes just like chicken.)
The main problem with the indicators is that they aren’t for the working people, they’re for the financiers and serious stock players and props for lies. If the government wanted to know how Americans were really doing, they could ask—-a poll with a lot of questions that require the poll taker to write down the answer, not that multiple or bipolar choice non-sense.
I finally heard a comedian say it not too long ago——try to live in the U.S. on a dollar a day! We have high rent in some places and every single little thing has a price on it. I carry a backpack so I can leave the house without spending money. But if everyone did that, our economy would get sicker than it already is.
What to do? What to do?
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 4, 2006 at 9:15 AM
Wiley,
Localizing food production and organic and sustainable farming is an immense topic and one of great complexity. Agribusiness has undoubtedly increased the cost and decreased the quality of food for most people today. In some interesting internet research I was doing I ran across a website called CARP (Corporate Agribusiness Research Project) in which it is estimated that about three quarters of the farms in the US currently produce about 7% of the value of produce sold while about 7% of the Farms glean three quarters of the value of farm products sold. A fascinating inverse proportion but also one that indicates much about the true sources of poverty, malnutrician, and food costs in America currently.
US agribusiness has polluted the environment, caused public health problems, increased the price of food, and caused a concentration in the rural distribution of wealth by replacing profitable, locally based family farms with big, industrial feed lots that exploit immigrant labor and market expensive and fattening processsed food products full of preservatives and growth hormones. This has contributed to ill health both from highly processed food consumption and from the environmental impact of agribusiness factory-farm production and to poverty stemming from the economic effects.
The sustainable agriculture movement is one answer to this problem.
Join the People’s Impeachment Lobby taking place today and tomorrow, February 28 - March 1 and demand that the representative from your district support H.Res.635 calling for a Congressional inquiry to investigate the grounds for impeachment.
There are now 27 members of the House of Representatives, including John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee who are supporting a bill, H. Res 635, calling for “a select committee to investigate the Administration’s intent to go to war before Congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.” Tell your representative today that you want him or her to co-sponsor this important measure.
1) Click here, or go to ImpeachBush.org, where we have set up another easy-to-use mechanism so that impeachment campaign members and supporters can quickly send a message directly to your representative insisting they support H.Res.635. We have a sample message that you can use and customize before you send it.
2) Tell your friends and family and urge them to also send a message to Congress. You can forward this e-mail simply by clicking the email-this-page button above. After you have sent a message you will also be given a link that lets you send a message to your friends and family encouraging them to participate in the People’s Impeachment Lobby.
3) Donate to help the impeachment campaign and to place the next major impeachment newspaper ad by clicking here. The full-page New York Times ad brought tens of thousands of new people into the impeachment movement and brought the crimes of this administration into public view in no uncertain terms. We want to place the next full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle within the next ten days—prior to the March 18 mass anti-war demonstration in San Francisco that will include a large impeachment contingent. Let’s keep the pressure going and spread the word. Click here to help place this ad.
- All of us at VoteToImpeach / ImpeachBush.org
Posted by brian28 on Mar 4, 2006 at 12:24 PM
Worse than the independant feedlots, which are only part of a vast vertically integrated industrial agribusiness structure and a weak link at that, are the big four meatpackers (cargill, IBP, conagra, and national farmland) who control 85% of the US market for Beef. They pay the feedlots low prices for slaughtered cattle while jacking up the price to the consumer. In recent years the average rancher went from taking two-thirds of the retail beef dollar to two fifths currently. The small local cattle farmers that don’t operate the big feedlots can hardly get in the game at all and usually consign their livestock to the big feedlots at a very low price or go out of business altogether. The big four Packers sock it to the US public but still worse is the monopsonist retailers like Walmart who jack up the prices still further. Though independant producers have never had so small a share of the food dollar, real beef prices have never been higher! Agribusiness corporate profits are through the roof. The small and medium size producer is merely a link in a vertically integrated food commodity chain with no real independance and lots of financial vulmerability as he is squeezed by the “big four.”
Again, it is our current monopolist economic model of capitalism and globalized production chains sustained by concentrated government subsidies and monopoly profits that is creating greater poverty and instability. In a word, it is our system that is at the core of the problem. Monopoly is created as subsidies create overproduction that lowers prices so that only the biggest firms and farms can survive in the increasingly concentrating market. This leaves America’s two million family farms vulnerable. It is US agribusiness that is hurting community farming both at home and (through dumping of subsidized produce) abroad.
The invisible hand of the capitalistic economy (that elusive, metaphysical economic nirvana) is so fickle that sometimes ranchers cut the throats of their cattle and chuck them off a cliff to cut their losses. Killing all their product can lose them less than shipping the cattle to a market.
I say, cut the invisible hand off if it offends thee. (You can usually find it among economic rentiers.)
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 4, 2006 at 5:16 PM
I find it amusing that people think that poverty is something they are insulated from…
especially in this country, which has whole heartedly adopted the ‘Company Store’ style of economics.
You are 2 or 3 pay cheques from losing your house , average American.
You buy too much on credit…..you are too caught up in the bullshit of daily existence, buying ( or , even worse, leasing ) houses and cars you can’t afford.
You indenture yourselves to pay cheques that are, increasingly, uncertain.
Welcome to your economic slavery…. just don’t think that it’s anything better or more secure than it really is, ok?
Sheesh!
Posted by minerva on Mar 4, 2006 at 6:12 PM
I don’t know about your neighborhood, Minerva, but no one I know feels “insulated” from poverty. Most of the people I know fear losing their health insurance and, in some cases, fear dying as a result of not being able to afford their medication or hospitalization. Most of those life saving medications are marked up thousands of times over the cost of producing them, and that’s not because R & D costs so much——It’s because advertizing wall to wall and spending what averages out to $2,000 dollars per physician in the U.S. for promotions and junkets costs a lot of money.
We rent in my parts. Some of us are prepared to live in a car if it becomes advantageous for the short term or unavoidable. None of us are living beyond our means. Our cars are paid for. No debt.
Most Americans declaring bankruptcy are doing so because of medical bills, btw.
I think you’re referring to the middle class, which may not be “average” for long.
BTW, blaming the economy on people’s spending habits is pure bunk. People can become more fiscally responsible for their own good, but if they lived in mud huts and lived on rice and lentil soup, you can bet that employers would pay them just enough to live in a mud hut and live on rice and lentil soup.
Oh, and one more thing Minerva, what’s your point? There are certainly a lot Americans over their heads in debt, but how many American individuals can’t account for 3 trillion dollars?
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 4, 2006 at 9:34 PM
Hey, Brian, did it. Thanks for the update. I’ve lost count of the number of impeachment petitions I’ve signed, but things are starting to get really hot. Exciting, isn’t it? Cheney’s emails? YES!!
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 5, 2006 at 1:23 PM
Wiley & Brian,
Harper
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 6, 2006 at 7:08 AM
Wiley,
I understand what you’re saying about ranchers slaughtering their cattle to cut rather than incur loses. This has less to do with the invisible hand than with the Corporate (beef packing and retailing) monopolization of the US economy. Ranching is itself pretty concentrated-more than half of the beef sold to the big four packing houses come from 5% of the big feedlots. I say support the small free range ranchers and cut down on red meat in general; its unhealthy and very expensive!
Red meat has a lot in common with the automobile and fossile fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. It encourages expensive mass consumption through the creation of a highly concentrated, waste-producing, capital intensive, system that concentrates profits, externalizes social costs from the system to society, leads to centralized corporate control, creates unstable labor markets and high unemployment, and awards high profits to a few at the expense of a sustainable and more democratic economy. True, peak phases of the business cycle see high GDP growth but at the expense of long-term social well-being.
This leads back to the original question of US poverty and its measurement. Thorough going change is needed at the very core of our societies structure, management, and value system if the real and necessary changes are to occur.
The invisible hand is a bastardized and overwrought concept used to deflect responsibility from government and corporations for the results of their actions and policies. There is no invisible hand, IMO, there is cause and effect, and choices that people make (and advertizing and marketing, but that ‘s too big a tangent for the moment).
These measurements are nothing if not cynical. If every working American adult went out one day, spent their last dime and maxed out their credit cards on pesticide, asbestos, cyanide, and salad dressing; then went home and killed their children then themselves, it would be one of the all-time great days according to current economic measures.
Value cannot really be measured and is quite subjective and dependent on circumstance. Price and trades, and dollars can be enumerated (sp?). That , of course, is more important to financiers and economic rentiers who make their money from money than it is to people who make money producing wealth and services.
To see about the value of 5 million dollars, see The House of Nine.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 6, 2006 at 10:45 AM
Re; Impeachment
As I said earlier I doubt the case for impeachment can do anything substantive. I do believe it will occupy too many people who should have better things to do.
Bush is just a liightning rod. Mostly he is drawing attacks from those who did not vote for him. Even though he is losing prior supporters (if polls are a vallid measure) This is just an emotional exercise.
Even if he were to be gotten rid of, think of who succeeds him
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 8, 2006 at 12:21 PM
We need a radical change alright, WTH I am for impeachment though, indictment, and prosecution for all crimes committed by government officials in their capacity as government officials. We can’t keep letting them get away with murder and expect things to change.
Mr. Kirkpatrick is hard at work. Bless his heart. I can almost say that I pray for him every day.
I think the most profound changes would require monetary reform, making elections completely public, and letting officials know that abuse of the public trust and accepting bribes is more criminal and damaging than smoking crack and should require much harsher penalties.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 9, 2006 at 12:30 AM
I hope impeachment succeeds! It is the therapy and the solution for the return of US democracy!
Wiley and Cabdriver,
Bush is an idiot, but I think he is more honest than most people think. He thinks in black and white and is just honestly gullible. I believe he sees himself as “doing good.” We all know who owns the Good Intentions Paving Company and where it leads.
It may feel good, but it is no more effective than outlawing guns, banning the bomb, warning labels on everything from cigarettes to
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 9, 2006 at 7:27 AM
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2515/
February 27, Party of One
As an extension of the “Good Economy” topic here, you might find the above to be an interesting article.
Suggestion
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 9, 2006 at 10:07 AM
Correction to above post: That’s Fitzgerald not “Kirkpatrick” the God I don’t believe or disbelieve in knew who I meant when I almost prayed for him——that prosecutor with the Justice Department that’s got Libby, has cornered Rove, and is working on Cheney.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 9, 2006 at 1:07 PM
WTH stupid and presidents is as stupid and presidents does. He signed on, he signed the legislation, he’s responsible no matter how misguided, or well intentioned he is. His character is not al that relevant. He’s not in a Miss American Pageant he’s the president. He is in the venue of LAW.
Perhaps, since he doesn’t understand the role of President as Commander in Chief as one of civilian oversight he should be charged with Impersonating an Officer. That would be a good start.
It’s Cheny, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Rove I would most like to see brought to justice but whether Bush is plain folk or a sociopath matters not. His appointments to vital offices like head of FEMA demonstrates that he doesn’t have the slightest understanding of the concept of RESPONSIBILITY, and that has cost live. He’s let Rumsfeld destroy our ground forces, and on and on and on.
His good intentions seem directed mostly at people who gave him dollars—-he can pave his road to hell with their intentions and gold if he likes.
Reducing holding government officials to the law to a “feel good proposition” is some silly bit of sophistry, WTH. I don’t want this administration to be in court because I enjoy other people’s suffering, I want to see them in court because I want democracy, and I do not want my country launching illegal aggressive attacks and looting our treasury to pay for them, and shitting on every treaty my country has ever made, and creating a huge corporate welfare state.
I dont’ have an emotional relationship with our leaders like so many people have emotional relationships with celebrities. I don’t care about their personalities, or who they’re dating, or whether or not they cheat on their wives, or where they summer, or whether I would like to have a beer with them.
I care about how well they do the job, and whether or not they deserve public trust. I wouldn’t trust Bush with a peanut butter sandwich.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 9, 2006 at 1:24 PM
Wiley,
I was thinking economic terms (this article). You mentioned monetary reform.
IMO economists fit into three categories:
1.) Only interested in playing the money game using the alleged stats. CNBC-type blather.
2.) Genuine data nerds using a very narrow view and all using out dated texts and models.
Countless how to books
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 11, 2006 at 8:14 AM
Well, you’ve had days in court and won! That’s some notches on your belt. I (almost) pray to the God (I don’t believe or disbelieve in) that I never require the services of a lawyer. Yet I like sending money to the ACLU.
I don’t have a lot of confidence that the rabid bats at the helm will be brought down before there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth all around. But I do believe that there are possibilities and possible solutions to most of our problems.
I think you have economists fairly pegged. And the feds have made an art of stalling, and dodging, and passing the buck, and LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH.
I consider the possibility that members of the administrations will be found guilty of crimes, and do time to be a real possibility. Not a probability, but a possibility.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 13, 2006 at 10:05 PM
Wiley,
We
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 14, 2006 at 9:05 AM
WTH,
I basically agree with the thrust of your comments. Though turning over the management of a US port facility to a foreign power isn’t necessarily a security risk and certainly not unprecedented I have serious questions about Du’bai. The US public’a basic instincts are right. There is a contradiction between fighting terror and opening our borders to the area of the world that hosts and finances so much of the world’s terrorism especially while cutting related security funding! Bush increasingly appears pathologically greedy using the Waronterror politically. The mixed signals from Bush are beginning to wear thin on the US public and rightly so. Also engaged are some populist anti-globalization instincts! A US port is not just a business, it is part of our national infrastructure and seen as sacrosanct.
This is yet another reason to doubt that the waronterror is any more real than the warondrugs.In both cases a security cause is deployed to wreak incredible violence on political enemies with no real visible effect on the actual problem itself. There are no efforts to attack the problem’s root cause either. In both cases the powers that be seem to be doing business with and are long in cahoots with the very source we are told is causing the problem. We deliberately laid off Osama bin Laden. The Medallin Cartel is alive and well with attempts to expose it’s connections to US political authority met with unfettered and uninvestigated lethal force (Gary Webb of the LA Times?) Ultimately the waronterror is a war to globalize the world economy with no holds barred. The Du’bai issue emphasises this point.
I know I have harped on this before so I’ll avoid repetition except to say that we should expect port facilities to be globalized as well as everything else. The southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr that was built in the late 1950s with great national pride by the Iraqi people after a nationalist coup was taken over early in the “reconstruction” epoch when Bremer was selling Iraq off to the highest bidder. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Now comes the turn of the US public. Tax payer dollars built our great port facilities which in turn served the trade in goods that built our country and now it is be outsourced for profit to someone with no connection to our history or concerns. As trade in goods has come to replace domestic manufacturing as the core of the US economy one consolation has been a commensurate rise in the number of good paying jobs that will come from trade in the fields of shipping, longshore and dock work, transportation, and warehousing. The one sector that globalization has currently built for us is now being outsourced as well with the building of the NAFTA highway (hwy 69) stretching north from Mexico to Canada. The US West Coast will lose jobs to the Mexican Pacific Coast for the container trade from China and many US jobs in the shipping industry will go with it. There will be greater foreign dependance of our economy. We will become poorer. Capitalism is in the global phase and this is the real issue. US Income will skew and polarize even more with increasing domestic poverty. The big corporations, US and foreign, will benefit. At stake is our future. This is the real issue. This is what is behind the real US public outcry.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 14, 2006 at 10:36 AM
Cabdriver,
One of the things each of the radio hosts and Dobbs agreed on is the
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 14, 2006 at 1:21 PM
WTH,
The US media does report much that is negative about the US presence in Iraq. The media is not liberal or conservative but a very large business enterprise that goes along with the prevailing winds. At the moment the majority of US public see very little good that can come of further occupation of that country. Even conservative sources admit that various news polls around the country show that most Americans do not feel that the Coalition can bring about a stable, peaceful, healthy, democratic regime in Iraq. Most everyone wants a timetable for an orderly US withdrawl. Most see a real civil war developing that we can niether manage nor stop. Most don’t want to “cut and run” but want to gradually internationalize the issue which is exactly what should have been the policy three y ears ago!
The accounts of returning US military personel are quite diverse ranging from a great accomplishment to total disaster and much in the middle. Many DO see a much profiteering and corruption and almost all feel that the humanitarian side has been given short shrift while much unnecessary meddling in such internal issues as the economy, the new constitution, vetting candidates for the various elections, and certain nation-building efforts were overly intrusive creating more problems than were solved. Most also think we’ve overstayed our welcome.
WTH, I see a big problem ahead. We have litterally undertaken to colonize and reshape a country in the old manner of the British colonialists with arrogance and greed. We need to leave and stop pretending this is about democracy and security. These goals would be better served without the US/UK intrusion. What we now have is a horrible theocracy based on the Shi’ite majority with Kurdish rump state attached and many angry Sunnis up in arms about the deliberate dismemberment of their state. Iraq needs to be reconsolidated with a genuine reconstruction program that ensures the wealth of that country stays localized and that the participation of Iraqis takes precidence over US/UK corporate globalization. Further, there needs to be equality and adequate political representation for all Iraqi social groups. Only this will stem the civil strife and violence.
Iran whould remain the UN’s concern for now as we have enough on are hands. One war is enough.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 14, 2006 at 2:30 PM
WTH, you and I both know we’re not going to agree on the war issue, but on the defense of the homeland, I say HIRE AMERICANS!
I am anti-war, but not a pacifist. I believe in a strong defense. The whole time we’ve been spending all this money on radioactive munitions to kill people and ruin the world of the survivors we should have been working to protect our ports, borders, and the air space we so clearly failed to protect before the “war on terror” was launched.
We need well trained first responders and communications——in short, every thing that went wrong or didn’t happen for New Orleans will go wrong or not happen in the case of a terrorist attack if our homeland defense is not fortified and organized——that’s military and civilian working together. All hands on deck. And proper education.
Duct tape, my butt—-people need solid information. We’ve already paid for that information too, the funds need to be diverted from public relations propoganda to teaching citizens how to deal with various emergency situations. And the dopes in office need to listen to people who know what they’re talking about and have experience handling disasters.
As it stands now, it appears that the administration prefers that citizens feel completely helpless.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 14, 2006 at 7:25 PM
Cabdriver,
There has been no consistent attempt by the administration to counter the
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 15, 2006 at 11:38 AM
Wiley,
As you said,
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 15, 2006 at 11:45 AM
That reminds me, WTH, while I was stationed in Germany, there was a major flood in Austin, Texas and people died. I have an uncle who is a hydraulic engineer and what could have prevented the flood was something he had pushed for for years to no avail. ANYWAY—-the emergency broadcast system didn’t work at all. Radio stations just shut down. No claxoms. No information of where to turn or what to do. Mensch.
Also, while I was in Germany, terrorist alerts were a regular thing. Al Queda is not the one and only original group of terrorists. One reason why the British and the Germans respond differently to the threat of terrorist attacks is because they’ve been dealing with it for a long time, and they deal with it well—-logic, solid intelligence, police work, undercover people who speak many languages, etc.
I guess I’ll post my response to the crisis training in the next post to keep it simple.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 15, 2006 at 3:25 PM
got atropine
Ran into this article today. Here are a few excerpts:
NEWPORT, Ind. - Army officials said Wednesday a drain-plug that dislodged in a chemical reactor caused about 300 gallons of caustic wastewater to spill at a plant built to a destroy western Indiana’s stockpile of a deadly nerve agent.
Tuesday’s spill the Newport Chemical Depot halted chemical neutralization of the VX nerve agent until the problem is corrected. It was the fourth such spill since May 2005, when an Army contractor began destroying VX at the complex.
No one was injured or exposed to the hydrolysate, which Kimmell said contained no active VX, which is so deadly that a single droplet can kill a human within minutes.
Spills occurred last June, July and October. The spill in October was the largest to date, dumping about 490 gallons of hydrolysate when degraded gaskets failed.
After the spills in June and October, neutralization was halted until Army contractor Parsons Technology Inc. determined the cause and made necessary repairs or upgrades. The July spill occurred as neutralization was still in “pause” mode following June’s spill.
A federal review continues into the Army’s plan to ship the hydrolysate to a DuPont Co. plant in New Jersey for final treatment and disposal into the Delaware River.
The Army reported that as of Tuesday about 33,375 gallons of VX had been destroyed - about 13 percent of the more than 250,000 gallons originally stored at the depot about 30 miles north of Terre Haute.
The total cost of the project now stands at $1.2 billion, including Parsons’ $782 million contract. That contract would run through the end of 2007, when the VX destruction is scheduled to be complete, leaving behind between 2 million and 4 million gallons of the wastewater.
http://staff.washington.edu/~chudler/vxd.html
This is an excerpt from an amazing children’s site I found today:
Chemical weapons (nerve agents) are some of the most deadly substances in the world. At the US Army Newport Chemical Depot (Newport, Indiana), 1,269 tons of the nerve agent called “VX” sits in 1,690 containers. The Army wants to destroy the VX by treating it with chemicals. This treatment would make the VX less dangerous and create several million gallons of waste water called caustic VX hydrolysate (CVXH). The CVXH then would be transported from Indiana to Deepwater, New Jersey, where the CVXH would be treated and then dumped into the Delaware river.
There is even a map of the U.S. on this page next to all this hunky-dory information. I don’t like the extreme secretive personality of this administration, but you would think that someone somewhere in the system would have cautioned against giving such information up easily.
Maybe it’s a total lie to confuse the enemy.
It’s so much work getting rid of WMDs and so hard to find good help these days. Four times. This is just one stockpile.
Instead of obsessing as if al Queda has completely cornered the market on threats, I think it would be more important to focus on “disaster preparedness”. Of course, and al Queda attack would be a disaster, but so would a lot of other things. A sucking chest wound is a sucking chest wound. Radiological poisoning is radiological poisoning.
Nerve gas is nerve gas—-it doesn’t matter who made it or who spread it.
I would like to see Americans and first responders feel confident that they can handle a disaster, because they are competent to deal with a disaster, and are properly equipped, and networked. Drill, drill, drill.
We need to break out of this victim mentally, and good/evil melodrama and start dealing with what we can control without giving up our liberties, IMO.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 15, 2006 at 3:49 PM
Wiley,
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 16, 2006 at 12:10 PM
Wiley,
Thanks for the nerve gas info
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 16, 2006 at 12:18 PM
My brain is very lazy today, so I’m not going to say much before I watch the rest of “Good Night, and Good Luck”. What I’ve watched so far makes me miss Walter Cronkite. Those news casts were delivered with the assumption that the audience could read. Today’s journalists are nattering gossipmongers by comparison.
Competence and quality. Where did they go?
I think it was Reagan who repealed the Eisenhower act that made it law to declassify government information after 40 years? First thing Bush 2 did when he took office was to keep Reagan and Bush 1 information from being released.
You did notice, WTH that we have stockpiles of WMD? Yes?
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 16, 2006 at 6:22 PM
Wiley,
Compitence and quality. Hmmm? When I was a kid there were reporters and there were “News Commentators”
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 17, 2006 at 7:29 AM
I’m not ignoring you WTH, but perhaps because I haven’t finished my first cup of coffee I don’t quite get your point.
You know we aren’t going to agree in the war, and that I don’t understand your disconnect between “don’t we all (have left over nerve gas)” and attacking Iraq for WMD they didn’t have.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 17, 2006 at 9:34 AM
Sorry, Wiley, pointless I guess. I
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 17, 2006 at 1:51 PM
Wiley,
On the China thread I noticed your comment:
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 18, 2006 at 9:33 AM
I would agree that all your predictions are possible and most are probable.
But, after things fall apart enough, I can see human creativity kicking into action. Our economy is built on sand. It needs to fall apart, because most people are running around using up resources and producing a lot of waste to produce products and services that are, at best, not necessary.
It’s an old chinese saying, let me see if I can find that fortune cookie fortune—-
muzak
Didn’t find it, but found “You are strong and brave enough to pull yourself through”. That’s a good one.
In a nutshell—-in crisis there is the opportunity for change.
World War is not inevitable. Probable, but not inevitable.
I just finished “The Superpower Syndrome” by Jay Lifton. In a nut-shell, the whole total-spectrum-domination thing is like a mental illness and is an expression of fearfullness and paranoia.
Wouldn’t avoiding a nuclear war be better than doing everything in our power to be the king of s*it creek?
I think any government that has a modicum of power is quickly making alliances to grab vital resources like oil and water that are dwindling. And nothing makes sense outside of that framework. No one is going to war for altruistic reasons.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 18, 2006 at 10:32 AM
I seem to remember back about the mid 1970s, I did a job for a client who gave me a Chinese character he wanted to use in a logo design which he said meant both “crisis” and “opportunity” depending on context or inflection. Something like that.
Seems plausible since so many of life’s crucial decisions can go either way.
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 18, 2006 at 1:22 PM
Tis true that the character is the same. It’s in the I Ching.
The main thing, is not to panic. And whatever you see before your eyes, no matter how crazy—-believe your eyes. That moment of disbelief can get ya.
Posted by wileywitch on Mar 18, 2006 at 8:39 PM
When I referred to “conservative websites” it was because I don’t know what else to call them. I think Wall Street Journal is pro big bucks primarily which fits a lot of characters on both sides of the aisle.
I consider myself truly conservative. I never buy on credit. (I use credit cards, but always pay in 30 days to avoid interest.) If I don
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 19, 2006 at 2:39 PM
Back to the main topic:
In 1993 I wrote to my representative, Don Manzullo, urging him to vote against NAFTA. This was the last paragraph of that letter.
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 21, 2006 at 8:19 AM
WTH
Stumbled across the thread and was interested to read your personal experience of the “hollowing out” of the US. Well, horrified would be more accurate. We are on the same road here in europe.
Your fear of wars far worse than this pretend war on terror is understandable. Under the present politicians and their likely successors we are all in danger , but the guarantee of failure is when we allow ourselves to be sidetracked.
On the political level, anyone who persuades us to be fearful of a foreign enemy , that we are in mortal danger, has won. And we have lost.
So forget the islamo-fascist hordes. Russia, China, Pakistan, India, France and Israel all have nuclear weapons, but aren’t going to attack America tomorrow.
The real enemy is inside the borders, and it isn’t the ‘arab american’.
Who is tearing the guts out of the US ? If you look a bit more closely, you will find that GWB is not just a gullible good-time guy. His family and a coupla hundred more have been getting gigantically rich by robbing the US. If you look at the DoD scandals, HUD, S&Ls;, the Iraq reconstruction scandals, ETC, we are into hundreds of billions of $ over the last few years. They have a few-score thousand accomplices willing to serve and participate in the profits. They don’t give a shit if the US doesn’t make machine-tools any more, if you scrabble to pay the dentist.
Those guys own most of the media, so when the message comes across ” BE REALLY SCARED OF IRAN ! “, just remind yourself , quietly, that you do not have to do what they tell you. You are not in the Army any more, and neither am I.
Posted by frog on Mar 27, 2006 at 3:51 PM
WTH
Since we agree so strongly on so much, I also am a fan of the March Of Folly , I must underline where I disagree with you !
I wrote above—-
“”“On the political level, anyone who persuades us to be fearful of a foreign enemy , that we are in mortal danger, has won. And we have lost. “”“
My contention is that even YOU, a wideawake US citizen horrified by the criminality of those in power, have fallen for their spin on the news.
You say they “don’t even need to own the media”. I disagee. They DO own the media, and use it unremittingly. See the video “Outfoxed” .
Religious fanatics are to be found all over. US , Israel, and the Muslim world. No reason to be scared of one lot more than the others. You seem to have fallen for the propaganda that the Muslim extremists are more dangerous than the others, which is exactly what GWBushco wants you to do . Pause for thought ?
For me Iran is not a threat. Early on after Ahmedinejehad made his speech about Israel , then reported by Reuters, I saw a translation of the whole.., which was far less “extreme” than what is actually being served up to us by the Media. They simplify, then over-simplify, and the rest of the media copycat. Endless goebbels-like repetition.
Same thing with Hamas. I read an interview with their boss, who asked the simple question—“which Israel do you want us to recognise, the one with the the 1948 frontier, the 1967 frontier, or what ?”
Now Israel is having an election to define its 2006 frontier .....
We may well be on the edge of an economic and financial precipice. I cannot see it any other way,and will marvel if we escape.
This whole idea you have of being afraid of “terrorists” is to me a total subservience to the Bush worldview, the one he wants us to have, and I reject it completely.
Posted by frog on Mar 28, 2006 at 4:54 PM
Frog,
On US economic policy (the main theme here):
I read an interesting panel discussion transcript yesterday at. These guys are all free traders
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 29, 2006 at 2:41 PM
Frog,
Your comment: “On the political level, anyone who persuades us to be fearful of a foreign enemy , that we are in mortal danger, has won. And we have lost.
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 29, 2006 at 3:03 PM
DEAR WTH
All of the world with a television shared the horror of 911, with the same human reactions.
I spent 12 years 8hours a day on open line to a company that lost 60 in the south tower.
In the 1970’s I had to cross central london every day, to work, and was always aware that there could be an IRA bomb somewhere.
I’ve watched WTC7 go down scores of times, have you ?
Posted by frog on Mar 29, 2006 at 6:31 PM
WTH
It is now common knowledge that the Cold War was hyped, and that the “usual suspects” made billions of $ out of it.
.coldwarthom hartmann
Now we have some new hype
You say “the Muslims have declared war” , based on some bullshit from one guy. He no more speaks for all muslims than you speak for all americans.
Anyway, he is most likely dead for some time.
Posted by frog on Mar 29, 2006 at 7:14 PM
Frog,
Historical revisionism is not new. Easy to go back and say an event was not real
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 30, 2006 at 10:50 AM
WTH
History-writing is surely always revision, otherwise why not go by the newspapers of the day ? Documents get released after 30/50years, predictions are proved wrong or right. The immediate “winners version” gets “revised “!
I re-read the OLB fatwah you linked to. Yes, at first sight it is scary stuff !
But somewhere else he says, Norway is in no danger , they haven’t done anything to us. That’s from memory, but the gist is there. So this is not a declaration of war against all “christians”.
Even though saddam installed a secular state, and was thus an enemy of OLB, the fatwah warns that the US wants to dismember Iraq and other countries, and so here we have an arab nationalist speaking .
Viewing the 50+year history of western interference in the mideast, overthrowing progressive governments, supporting dictators—Saddam, Shah, etc, i would not have to be a religious fanatic to want to fight back !
So back to the Cold war scam.
For someone as honest as i believe you to be, you’ve been doing some selective reading on the Hartmann article !
“terror alerts on flimsy evidence” , but you neglect the next phrase from Tom Ridge—or were >done over his objection at the insistence of “administration officials,” it’s increasingly clear that the Bush administration itself is the source of much of the “be afraid!” terror inflicted on US citizens over the past 5 years.
Nasty stuff, eh ?
.maybe you could re-read this ?.............................................................................................................................
Trillions of dollars and years later, it was proven that they had been wrong all along, and the CIA had been right. Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz lied to America in the 1970s about Soviet WMDs and the Soviet super-sub technology.
But the Cold War was good for business, and good for the political power of its advocates, from Rumsfeld to Wolfowitz to Cheney who have all become rich in part because of the arms industry.
Today, making Americans terrified with their so-called “War On Terror” is the same strategy, run for many of the same reasons, by the same people. And by hyping it - and then invading Iraq to bring it into fruition - we may well be bringing into reality forces that previously existed only on the margins and with very little power to harm us.
................................................................................................................................
Well we started off on Poverty, went to OLB and Pearl Harbor, and are back at square one.
“Who said Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed; those who are cold and are not clothed ?
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Dwight D.Eisenhower
John Major
Jimmy Carter “
(borrowed from www.politicalcompass.org)
Posted by frog on Mar 30, 2006 at 12:41 PM
I agree with the WTH who wrote this about our rulers——
They have no concept of the daily problems of average people. To them ordinary people are non-persons in the same sense the Negro slave was. We may have made some progress a racial division after all. Now all races are equally discriminated against by these glib comments and thoughtless policies.
The politics of fear works on all fronts, foreigners, Muslim fanatics, unemployment, de-skilled jobs, crime, drugs, ruinous healthcosts, unaffordable housing, Enron/pilots/carworkers pensions that disappear and so on.
Like most europeans and americans I face considerable uncertainty for my future, but Muslim fanatics are way down my enemies- list !
Did you know that all their organisations have had close associations with OUR intelligence services ? Started off as useful tools in the ColdWar, but have since been collaborated with on other Ops ?
Posted by frog on Mar 30, 2006 at 12:43 PM
Frog,
Yes, I realize they were used by the West during the Cold War
Posted by whattheheck on Mar 31, 2006 at 8:43 AM
<b>WTH>/b>
Thoroughly agree with most of the second half of your post.
I not only saw WallStreet, but worked in the $ industry for 12years in Lux, Paris, and an interesting 1980 month in Kuweit.
You may find it Interesting to do the test at politicalcompass.
Technically we may be very far different on the “scales” but agreee substantially about everything except the “terrorist menace” !
...........................................................................................................................
FIRST Part—example
1999 was after the Cold War , or not ?
OLB and fellow orgs USED by CIA, MI6, Bka, in kosovo to train and fight with “terrorists” of OCK/KLA against Yugoslav army, police, serbian civilians, and kosovan albanians who were too “moderate”...
Posted by frog on Apr 1, 2006 at 12:06 AM
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Reader Comments
Even an intelligent and objective U.S. President relies on advisors when it comes to economics. Many former such advisors can be seen/heard giving market and economic opinions regularly. Few of them, however, are objective and nearly all received indoctrination in the same long-standing economic principles. The textbooks are yet to be written on the effects of instant transfer of funds and information in 24/7 markets.
One who has recognized this is Stephen Roach of Morgan-Stanley.
——————————————————————
(Feb 21, 2006)
How you manage to be more pessimistic than I am escapes me WTH, but your first paragraph there is a zinger. Economics is primarily a group of cults with fortune tellers (not completely, but “primarily”). I agree that the 24/7 and increasing speed of the market is a serious factor that is not being addressed too. You could get whiplash watching markets rise and fall.
Plug for Henry George—- If land is treated as capital or left out of the formula then the whole theory is crank.
There are better measures. We do actually progress sometimes WTH. The simple act of repealing NAFTA might have profoundly positive effects.
No one wants poverty stats to elevate during their watch. But no one wants accurate data, either, to know whether they have actually elevated or declined.
That tells me that it’s the perceptions about poverty, it’s the nature of the media spin that can be mustered in regards to economic well-being or distress, that has them disturbed. More so than actual poverty levels, which they seem not to want to know (or at least to have publicized).
They’re less discomfited by the substance than they are by the distorted image, even when they’re aware of the distortion. They feel this even while knowing that it’s the actuality of privation that leads to a bitter quality of life for real people who are living in real poverty.
Classic doublethink. We know the figures are unrepresentative, but blank out when confronted with the idea of using better ones. And any suggestion that methods might change is regarded as though the one making the proposal is a maverick or a fringe weirdo; they’re basically ignored to death. Regarding such a suggestion as a gesture contributing to improved governance is apparently too much to ask.
Improved governance. Less of a priority, I guess.
Cooked data, sugar-coated assessments, calculations of modern circumstances using formulae that literally belong to a previous century. Your typical college undergrad in Bio 101 adheres to better standards. I’m reminded of Dr. Hwang Woo-suk, the researcher who recently faked data on reproduction of stem cell lines. If the data-euphemizers referred to in the article were part of virtually any enterprise other than government, they’d have been fired and disgraced. As it is, they self-perpetuate through the decades, insulated from accountability. And their bad-faith number crunching only lends more fuel to the fire of those whose attitudes about government is cynical at best.
Flavia Colgan’s piece on the weak ethics in Congress comes to mind. The National Academy of Sciences released its report to the Joint Economic Committee 11 years ago. What’s the hold up?
Of course I know the hold up. Moraff’s article pretty much spells it out. It’s not in enough people’s interest that the system change, therefore it has not. What I don’t know won’t interfere with me and my party buddies getting re-elected.
Wiley,
Existing low threshold “poverty” income accuratly measures the number of families and people -
*living in financial desperation,
*facing regular hunger,
*barely get ANY health care
*face imminent homelessness
*have no real chance for improvment or success
*totally lack financial security.
In short these people live a life of fear and deprivation in a nation of abundance and wealth, often extreme wealth.
And here we argue about how many angels fit on the head of a pin.
WTH Henry would have probably used a lot of serious adjectives to describe the injustice of this Eminent Domain thing. He would have recognized it as the legalized theft for the owning class that is. He would also recognize NAFTA and CAFTA as scams would be my guess.
Anything that can written into law, can be written out. Of course, there is a possibility. Much of the world is rejecting the WTO and IMF. Neoliberal economic policy is losing ground as we speak. I’m not saying that things are going to be all rosy, we might all suffer miserably in its aftermath, but things will change. That’s what things do.
I noticed you have a tendency WTH to discount an idea if it can be defeated by a possibility—-that’s everything that ever was and ever will be. That’s why I shoot for the approximate and for improvement.
We’re not going to make a perfect world. If the U.S. economy bottoms out, then I hope we find a decent way to deal with that.
Righteous post Kuya. Everything gets back to education. If we had the math skills and rhetorical skills not to be so easily bamboozled. If we weren’t all brain washed with the idea that supply-side economics is God’s blueprints of economies that are ruled by laws neither God nor Human and not a faulty theory. If professors could focus on research and teaching instead of having to come up with more crap theories to publish so they can keep their job and advance. If independent media, especially news were the norm. If we weren’t living in a plutocracy and corporate feudal state that educates us to believe that we are “free” because we can say anything we want to our fellow drones and we can express opinions, and we are “free” to be unemployed because if all the work has been bought up with red tape, tribute money to government officials, and big marketing budgets.
We’ll know we live in a free market when someone with the idea of measuring our economic well-being is highly encouraged to do so on their own dime. Who can’t benefit from a hobby?
Wiley,
I hear you WTH.
If it’s any consolation, Indian phone workers are having nervous breakdowns. At first, they didn’t think it was real work. Ha ha. I so totally saw that coming—-it’s not digging ditches, it takes its pound of flesh out of your head.
However “globalism” has affected our economy (and I think the term “globalism” is as ambiguous, impure, and dishonest as the term “capitalism”), we need to start making things. We must manufacture. And we must learn how to do business if we want to live a decent life in the future. Necessity is the mother of invention, I say start with an underground economy and expand (among other things).
One possible trend I’ve read about recently is cutting all the unnecessary classes for some college degrees and just getting people trained to do high tech jobs. College is too expensive for most people to spend sixty hours of class time in classes that have nothing to do with the field they want to enter.
Having a trade track for high schoolers is being talked about too. I don’t think it’s great that so many electricians, plumbers, mechanics, and carpenters learned their skills in prison. We need good, skilled crafts people, and if a teenager knows he/she loves welding, then why not let him/her have the tools and training in high school, instead of having to take courses geared toward an academic career he/she is not interested in. And why act as if having academic training makes a person superior to or smarter than a crackerjack arc welder?
By high school, everyone should be able to find a niche where they feel alive and can discover and exercise talents, instead of feeling like they’re dumb because Camus doesn’t interest them, or that education is irrelevant because it often is.
Wiley,
I like your realistic view of practical education. Mortimer Adler (a brilliant, independent thinker) was an advocate of a general education for all
We’ve agreed on so much now, WTH. Refreshing.
I figure if the dollar and joblessness tanks enough we’ll be able to barter with doctors and dentists. Like the old West——here’s a fifth of whiskey and some apples doc.
“Whiskey, excellent! Just a moment while I sterilize my tools…”
Wiley & Harrower,
Funny you should mention this example
OUCH, WTH. You might want to soak some gauze with Anbesol and pack it around the offended tooth and gum area. Sip the whiskey through a straw, unless you are taking vicodan or oxycontin. The risk of a vegetative state does not outweigh the benefits of even the finest Scotch.
If you can’t find compromizing photos of your dentist, then you’re stuck with that hefty bill. Shelling out a gran hurts, but a tooth is worth it, especially if it’s a back tooth.
What’s the real value of your tooth?
Wiley,
Thanks for the sympathy & info. It is a back tooth and with an investment of close to $2,000 in it in two years, I’ve decided to live long enough to make it worth while.
——————————————————————-
Wow, WTH, television news started to make me feel like that a long time ago. That conversation is trippy. Is Larry King on acid. Am I on acid? Did someone slip me a mickey? I can’t believe I’m seeing this conversation. Especially the interview guys—-they get so creepy. I have rarely watched television my whole life, but found myself glued to it during Gulf War I. I’m ashamed to say that along with getting the news, I was looking for a glimpse of my favorite aircraft—-the A-10. While I was watching video clips on CNN I thought this is an Air Force Now film, and I stopped watching televized coverage.
In 2001 I was a 24/7 live-in caregiver for a man and his daughter. My client had a television, and I ordered cable. (The Daily Show and reruns of old Outer Limits are the only things we miss.) So, I saw some coverage of 9/11, but wasn’t glued to it, because it was the same thing over and over again and because I typically worked 14 hours a day.
While her father was having a medical procedure done I took his daughter with me to a store in the VA hospital. They had a television on with 9/11 images with the scene of people jumping out the building. I saw that the girl was looking at it, and I guided her away from the television and told her I didn’t want her watching that. Even six year olds know the latest in parenting fashion, it’s so transparent—-she said, “oh, it doesn’t bother me—-it’s just like watching a movie.” I told her <i> It’s not a movie! It is real life and those people died! I don’t want you to look at their deaths like it’s a movie!
I wonder sometimes if that’s what the MSM is working toward—-it’s just a movie. Everybody get in costume and get on your marks.
Does this have anything to do with poverty and statistics? No. Sorry.
I won’t do these as cartoons to avoid any bloodshed.
———————————————————-
It strikes me that when we hear,
Hey! What happened to my LOL? I posted you and LOL WTH, “American Idle” is a hit.
Good people
It strikes me that the regurgitation of useless information that passes for education in this country feeds directly into the corporate conglomerate.Young children are not allowed to find areas of intrest that are “outside” structured teaching.The college students who don’t have silver spoons are forced to pay loans to insure their economic role back into the mainstream….
This educational quagmire can be called “progress” because of a very simple political tool used by both Dems and Repubs in many different
areas -
“Our economy is healthy….”
“Brownie’s doin’ a great job ....”
“The War in Iraq is going well….”
“No one knew the levees would break….”
If we say it, it’s the Truth.
Amazing
Wiley,
Did you already use that line and I missed it, or were you writing about the one I sent?
As for missing LOL
It seems to be quite absurd to base poverty statistics, especially ones used to determine program eligiability on the old model developed in 1963. Food costs in the US occupy a lower portion of the family budget than anywhere else in the entire world! Certainly nobody spends thirty three percent of their income on food when the average spent on housing for those at or around the median is held to be about twenty five percent. This figure to has increased for those below the median, however. Most people below the median income spend about 20-25% of their income on food depending on how many children or dependants they support.
In any case, the triple food basket model is outdated as a concept, not only in terms of proportionality. The real target figure should address what it takes to achieve a certain socially acceptable standard of living for a particular size household. It should consider the general cost of living including healthcare, housing, education, and other related necessities including food. The triple food budget model seems arbitrary as much as outmoded.
The conclusion that politics stands in the way of change in the Bush era is an obvious one to reach. Poverty is the last thing on Bush’s mind and the old model of measurement suits him precisely because it hides the real extent of US poverty. The twenty percent or greater rates seem to be the more realistic.
As the economy gets set for more GDP growth based on ever greater wealth concentration and rates of foreign direct investment (which actually counts toward US GDP because it measures productivity not consumption) poverty rates in the US will surely grow along with it almost as a function of the economic growth itself. This is because our economic model promotes growth at the expense of the poor and working class rather than in their interest. Those in doubt should look at how even manufacturing job outsourcing/consumer goods importing model is seeking to remove the few decent paying transportation and west coast port authority jobs to Mexico via the NAFTA Superhighway.
WTH, I had posted a one line LOL because I thought American Idol was funny. I usually select and save as I go on short posts. On long posts I often type it in word and then paste and edit.
I think I might have hit a button that made the post disappear, and assumed it posted. A round later, I noticed it wasn’t there. I have tics in my hands and blinks sometimes so I hit buttons (and drop things) unconsciously.
And sometimes, the posts just drop out for what I assume is server reasons.
cabdriver, on my hiatus, I got a lot done, but forgot to work on a spiel about projecting the past onto the future. Maybe, later. I have been thinking about it, but I’ve also been thinking a lot about nuclear war and gardening—-those usually trump everything else for a while.
Speaking of gardening—-the low budget Americans have for groceries represents a lot of crap food, which means more dollars spent on doctors. It would be nice if they grew a few vegetables and fruits so they could see what “fresh” is really like, then maybe small, local farmers could get a boost in demand, and the citizens could get a taste of self-reliance. (It tastes just like chicken.)
The main problem with the indicators is that they aren’t for the working people, they’re for the financiers and serious stock players and props for lies. If the government wanted to know how Americans were really doing, they could ask—-a poll with a lot of questions that require the poll taker to write down the answer, not that multiple or bipolar choice non-sense.
I finally heard a comedian say it not too long ago——try to live in the U.S. on a dollar a day! We have high rent in some places and every single little thing has a price on it. I carry a backpack so I can leave the house without spending money. But if everyone did that, our economy would get sicker than it already is.
What to do? What to do?
Wiley,
Localizing food production and organic and sustainable farming is an immense topic and one of great complexity. Agribusiness has undoubtedly increased the cost and decreased the quality of food for most people today. In some interesting internet research I was doing I ran across a website called CARP (Corporate Agribusiness Research Project) in which it is estimated that about three quarters of the farms in the US currently produce about 7% of the value of produce sold while about 7% of the Farms glean three quarters of the value of farm products sold. A fascinating inverse proportion but also one that indicates much about the true sources of poverty, malnutrician, and food costs in America currently.
US agribusiness has polluted the environment, caused public health problems, increased the price of food, and caused a concentration in the rural distribution of wealth by replacing profitable, locally based family farms with big, industrial feed lots that exploit immigrant labor and market expensive and fattening processsed food products full of preservatives and growth hormones. This has contributed to ill health both from highly processed food consumption and from the environmental impact of agribusiness factory-farm production and to poverty stemming from the economic effects.
The sustainable agriculture movement is one answer to this problem.
Join the People’s Impeachment Lobby taking place today and tomorrow, February 28 - March 1 and demand that the representative from your district support H.Res.635 calling for a Congressional inquiry to investigate the grounds for impeachment.
There are now 27 members of the House of Representatives, including John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee who are supporting a bill, H. Res 635, calling for “a select committee to investigate the Administration’s intent to go to war before Congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.” Tell your representative today that you want him or her to co-sponsor this important measure.
1) Click here, or go to ImpeachBush.org, where we have set up another easy-to-use mechanism so that impeachment campaign members and supporters can quickly send a message directly to your representative insisting they support H.Res.635. We have a sample message that you can use and customize before you send it.
2) Tell your friends and family and urge them to also send a message to Congress. You can forward this e-mail simply by clicking the email-this-page button above. After you have sent a message you will also be given a link that lets you send a message to your friends and family encouraging them to participate in the People’s Impeachment Lobby.
3) Donate to help the impeachment campaign and to place the next major impeachment newspaper ad by clicking here. The full-page New York Times ad brought tens of thousands of new people into the impeachment movement and brought the crimes of this administration into public view in no uncertain terms. We want to place the next full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle within the next ten days—prior to the March 18 mass anti-war demonstration in San Francisco that will include a large impeachment contingent. Let’s keep the pressure going and spread the word. Click here to help place this ad.
- All of us at VoteToImpeach / ImpeachBush.org
Worse than the independant feedlots, which are only part of a vast vertically integrated industrial agribusiness structure and a weak link at that, are the big four meatpackers (cargill, IBP, conagra, and national farmland) who control 85% of the US market for Beef. They pay the feedlots low prices for slaughtered cattle while jacking up the price to the consumer. In recent years the average rancher went from taking two-thirds of the retail beef dollar to two fifths currently. The small local cattle farmers that don’t operate the big feedlots can hardly get in the game at all and usually consign their livestock to the big feedlots at a very low price or go out of business altogether. The big four Packers sock it to the US public but still worse is the monopsonist retailers like Walmart who jack up the prices still further. Though independant producers have never had so small a share of the food dollar, real beef prices have never been higher! Agribusiness corporate profits are through the roof. The small and medium size producer is merely a link in a vertically integrated food commodity chain with no real independance and lots of financial vulmerability as he is squeezed by the “big four.”
Again, it is our current monopolist economic model of capitalism and globalized production chains sustained by concentrated government subsidies and monopoly profits that is creating greater poverty and instability. In a word, it is our system that is at the core of the problem. Monopoly is created as subsidies create overproduction that lowers prices so that only the biggest firms and farms can survive in the increasingly concentrating market. This leaves America’s two million family farms vulnerable. It is US agribusiness that is hurting community farming both at home and (through dumping of subsidized produce) abroad.
The invisible hand of the capitalistic economy (that elusive, metaphysical economic nirvana) is so fickle that sometimes ranchers cut the throats of their cattle and chuck them off a cliff to cut their losses. Killing all their product can lose them less than shipping the cattle to a market.
I say, cut the invisible hand off if it offends thee. (You can usually find it among economic rentiers.)
I find it amusing that people think that poverty is something they are insulated from…
especially in this country, which has whole heartedly adopted the ‘Company Store’ style of economics.
You are 2 or 3 pay cheques from losing your house , average American.
You buy too much on credit…..you are too caught up in the bullshit of daily existence, buying ( or , even worse, leasing ) houses and cars you can’t afford.
You indenture yourselves to pay cheques that are, increasingly, uncertain.
Welcome to your economic slavery…. just don’t think that it’s anything better or more secure than it really is, ok?
Sheesh!
I don’t know about your neighborhood, Minerva, but no one I know feels “insulated” from poverty. Most of the people I know fear losing their health insurance and, in some cases, fear dying as a result of not being able to afford their medication or hospitalization. Most of those life saving medications are marked up thousands of times over the cost of producing them, and that’s not because R & D costs so much——It’s because advertizing wall to wall and spending what averages out to $2,000 dollars per physician in the U.S. for promotions and junkets costs a lot of money.
We rent in my parts. Some of us are prepared to live in a car if it becomes advantageous for the short term or unavoidable. None of us are living beyond our means. Our cars are paid for. No debt.
Most Americans declaring bankruptcy are doing so because of medical bills, btw.
I think you’re referring to the middle class, which may not be “average” for long.
BTW, blaming the economy on people’s spending habits is pure bunk. People can become more fiscally responsible for their own good, but if they lived in mud huts and lived on rice and lentil soup, you can bet that employers would pay them just enough to live in a mud hut and live on rice and lentil soup.
Oh, and one more thing Minerva, what’s your point? There are certainly a lot Americans over their heads in debt, but how many American individuals can’t account for 3 trillion dollars?
Hey, Brian, did it. Thanks for the update. I’ve lost count of the number of impeachment petitions I’ve signed, but things are starting to get really hot. Exciting, isn’t it? Cheney’s emails? YES!!
Wiley & Brian,
Harper
Wiley,
I understand what you’re saying about ranchers slaughtering their cattle to cut rather than incur loses. This has less to do with the invisible hand than with the Corporate (beef packing and retailing) monopolization of the US economy. Ranching is itself pretty concentrated-more than half of the beef sold to the big four packing houses come from 5% of the big feedlots. I say support the small free range ranchers and cut down on red meat in general; its unhealthy and very expensive!
Red meat has a lot in common with the automobile and fossile fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. It encourages expensive mass consumption through the creation of a highly concentrated, waste-producing, capital intensive, system that concentrates profits, externalizes social costs from the system to society, leads to centralized corporate control, creates unstable labor markets and high unemployment, and awards high profits to a few at the expense of a sustainable and more democratic economy. True, peak phases of the business cycle see high GDP growth but at the expense of long-term social well-being.
This leads back to the original question of US poverty and its measurement. Thorough going change is needed at the very core of our societies structure, management, and value system if the real and necessary changes are to occur.
The invisible hand is a bastardized and overwrought concept used to deflect responsibility from government and corporations for the results of their actions and policies. There is no invisible hand, IMO, there is cause and effect, and choices that people make (and advertizing and marketing, but that ‘s too big a tangent for the moment).
These measurements are nothing if not cynical. If every working American adult went out one day, spent their last dime and maxed out their credit cards on pesticide, asbestos, cyanide, and salad dressing; then went home and killed their children then themselves, it would be one of the all-time great days according to current economic measures.
Value cannot really be measured and is quite subjective and dependent on circumstance. Price and trades, and dollars can be enumerated (sp?). That , of course, is more important to financiers and economic rentiers who make their money from money than it is to people who make money producing wealth and services.
To see about the value of 5 million dollars, see The House of Nine.
Re; Impeachment
As I said earlier I doubt the case for impeachment can do anything substantive. I do believe it will occupy too many people who should have better things to do.
Bush is just a liightning rod. Mostly he is drawing attacks from those who did not vote for him. Even though he is losing prior supporters (if polls are a vallid measure) This is just an emotional exercise.
Even if he were to be gotten rid of, think of who succeeds him
We need a radical change alright, WTH I am for impeachment though, indictment, and prosecution for all crimes committed by government officials in their capacity as government officials. We can’t keep letting them get away with murder and expect things to change.
Mr. Kirkpatrick is hard at work. Bless his heart. I can almost say that I pray for him every day.
I think the most profound changes would require monetary reform, making elections completely public, and letting officials know that abuse of the public trust and accepting bribes is more criminal and damaging than smoking crack and should require much harsher penalties.
I hope impeachment succeeds! It is the therapy and the solution for the return of US democracy!
Wiley and Cabdriver,
Bush is an idiot, but I think he is more honest than most people think. He thinks in black and white and is just honestly gullible. I believe he sees himself as “doing good.” We all know who owns the Good Intentions Paving Company and where it leads.
It may feel good, but it is no more effective than outlawing guns, banning the bomb, warning labels on everything from cigarettes to
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2515/
February 27, Party of One
As an extension of the “Good Economy” topic here, you might find the above to be an interesting article.
Suggestion
Correction to above post: That’s Fitzgerald not “Kirkpatrick” the God I don’t believe or disbelieve in knew who I meant when I almost prayed for him——that prosecutor with the Justice Department that’s got Libby, has cornered Rove, and is working on Cheney.
WTH stupid and presidents is as stupid and presidents does. He signed on, he signed the legislation, he’s responsible no matter how misguided, or well intentioned he is. His character is not al that relevant. He’s not in a Miss American Pageant he’s the president. He is in the venue of LAW.
Perhaps, since he doesn’t understand the role of President as Commander in Chief as one of civilian oversight he should be charged with Impersonating an Officer. That would be a good start.
It’s Cheny, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Rove I would most like to see brought to justice but whether Bush is plain folk or a sociopath matters not. His appointments to vital offices like head of FEMA demonstrates that he doesn’t have the slightest understanding of the concept of RESPONSIBILITY, and that has cost live. He’s let Rumsfeld destroy our ground forces, and on and on and on.
His good intentions seem directed mostly at people who gave him dollars—-he can pave his road to hell with their intentions and gold if he likes.
Reducing holding government officials to the law to a “feel good proposition” is some silly bit of sophistry, WTH. I don’t want this administration to be in court because I enjoy other people’s suffering, I want to see them in court because I want democracy, and I do not want my country launching illegal aggressive attacks and looting our treasury to pay for them, and shitting on every treaty my country has ever made, and creating a huge corporate welfare state.
I dont’ have an emotional relationship with our leaders like so many people have emotional relationships with celebrities. I don’t care about their personalities, or who they’re dating, or whether or not they cheat on their wives, or where they summer, or whether I would like to have a beer with them.
I care about how well they do the job, and whether or not they deserve public trust. I wouldn’t trust Bush with a peanut butter sandwich.
Wiley,
I was thinking economic terms (this article). You mentioned monetary reform.
IMO economists fit into three categories:
1.) Only interested in playing the money game using the alleged stats. CNBC-type blather.
2.) Genuine data nerds using a very narrow view and all using out dated texts and models.
Countless how to books
Well, you’ve had days in court and won! That’s some notches on your belt. I (almost) pray to the God (I don’t believe or disbelieve in) that I never require the services of a lawyer. Yet I like sending money to the ACLU.
I don’t have a lot of confidence that the rabid bats at the helm will be brought down before there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth all around. But I do believe that there are possibilities and possible solutions to most of our problems.
I think you have economists fairly pegged. And the feds have made an art of stalling, and dodging, and passing the buck, and LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH.
I consider the possibility that members of the administrations will be found guilty of crimes, and do time to be a real possibility. Not a probability, but a possibility.
Wiley,
We
WTH,
I basically agree with the thrust of your comments. Though turning over the management of a US port facility to a foreign power isn’t necessarily a security risk and certainly not unprecedented I have serious questions about Du’bai. The US public’a basic instincts are right. There is a contradiction between fighting terror and opening our borders to the area of the world that hosts and finances so much of the world’s terrorism especially while cutting related security funding! Bush increasingly appears pathologically greedy using the Waronterror politically. The mixed signals from Bush are beginning to wear thin on the US public and rightly so. Also engaged are some populist anti-globalization instincts! A US port is not just a business, it is part of our national infrastructure and seen as sacrosanct.
This is yet another reason to doubt that the waronterror is any more real than the warondrugs.In both cases a security cause is deployed to wreak incredible violence on political enemies with no real visible effect on the actual problem itself. There are no efforts to attack the problem’s root cause either. In both cases the powers that be seem to be doing business with and are long in cahoots with the very source we are told is causing the problem. We deliberately laid off Osama bin Laden. The Medallin Cartel is alive and well with attempts to expose it’s connections to US political authority met with unfettered and uninvestigated lethal force (Gary Webb of the LA Times?) Ultimately the waronterror is a war to globalize the world economy with no holds barred. The Du’bai issue emphasises this point.
I know I have harped on this before so I’ll avoid repetition except to say that we should expect port facilities to be globalized as well as everything else. The southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr that was built in the late 1950s with great national pride by the Iraqi people after a nationalist coup was taken over early in the “reconstruction” epoch when Bremer was selling Iraq off to the highest bidder. It was a bitter pill to swallow. Now comes the turn of the US public. Tax payer dollars built our great port facilities which in turn served the trade in goods that built our country and now it is be outsourced for profit to someone with no connection to our history or concerns. As trade in goods has come to replace domestic manufacturing as the core of the US economy one consolation has been a commensurate rise in the number of good paying jobs that will come from trade in the fields of shipping, longshore and dock work, transportation, and warehousing. The one sector that globalization has currently built for us is now being outsourced as well with the building of the NAFTA highway (hwy 69) stretching north from Mexico to Canada. The US West Coast will lose jobs to the Mexican Pacific Coast for the container trade from China and many US jobs in the shipping industry will go with it. There will be greater foreign dependance of our economy. We will become poorer. Capitalism is in the global phase and this is the real issue. US Income will skew and polarize even more with increasing domestic poverty. The big corporations, US and foreign, will benefit. At stake is our future. This is the real issue. This is what is behind the real US public outcry.
Cabdriver,
One of the things each of the radio hosts and Dobbs agreed on is the
WTH,
The US media does report much that is negative about the US presence in Iraq. The media is not liberal or conservative but a very large business enterprise that goes along with the prevailing winds. At the moment the majority of US public see very little good that can come of further occupation of that country. Even conservative sources admit that various news polls around the country show that most Americans do not feel that the Coalition can bring about a stable, peaceful, healthy, democratic regime in Iraq. Most everyone wants a timetable for an orderly US withdrawl. Most see a real civil war developing that we can niether manage nor stop. Most don’t want to “cut and run” but want to gradually internationalize the issue which is exactly what should have been the policy three y ears ago!
The accounts of returning US military personel are quite diverse ranging from a great accomplishment to total disaster and much in the middle. Many DO see a much profiteering and corruption and almost all feel that the humanitarian side has been given short shrift while much unnecessary meddling in such internal issues as the economy, the new constitution, vetting candidates for the various elections, and certain nation-building efforts were overly intrusive creating more problems than were solved. Most also think we’ve overstayed our welcome.
WTH, I see a big problem ahead. We have litterally undertaken to colonize and reshape a country in the old manner of the British colonialists with arrogance and greed. We need to leave and stop pretending this is about democracy and security. These goals would be better served without the US/UK intrusion. What we now have is a horrible theocracy based on the Shi’ite majority with Kurdish rump state attached and many angry Sunnis up in arms about the deliberate dismemberment of their state. Iraq needs to be reconsolidated with a genuine reconstruction program that ensures the wealth of that country stays localized and that the participation of Iraqis takes precidence over US/UK corporate globalization. Further, there needs to be equality and adequate political representation for all Iraqi social groups. Only this will stem the civil strife and violence.
Iran whould remain the UN’s concern for now as we have enough on are hands. One war is enough.
WTH, you and I both know we’re not going to agree on the war issue, but on the defense of the homeland, I say HIRE AMERICANS!
I am anti-war, but not a pacifist. I believe in a strong defense. The whole time we’ve been spending all this money on radioactive munitions to kill people and ruin the world of the survivors we should have been working to protect our ports, borders, and the air space we so clearly failed to protect before the “war on terror” was launched.
We need well trained first responders and communications——in short, every thing that went wrong or didn’t happen for New Orleans will go wrong or not happen in the case of a terrorist attack if our homeland defense is not fortified and organized——that’s military and civilian working together. All hands on deck. And proper education.
Duct tape, my butt—-people need solid information. We’ve already paid for that information too, the funds need to be diverted from public relations propoganda to teaching citizens how to deal with various emergency situations. And the dopes in office need to listen to people who know what they’re talking about and have experience handling disasters.
As it stands now, it appears that the administration prefers that citizens feel completely helpless.
Cabdriver,
There has been no consistent attempt by the administration to counter the
Wiley,
As you said,
That reminds me, WTH, while I was stationed in Germany, there was a major flood in Austin, Texas and people died. I have an uncle who is a hydraulic engineer and what could have prevented the flood was something he had pushed for for years to no avail. ANYWAY—-the emergency broadcast system didn’t work at all. Radio stations just shut down. No claxoms. No information of where to turn or what to do. Mensch.
Also, while I was in Germany, terrorist alerts were a regular thing. Al Queda is not the one and only original group of terrorists. One reason why the British and the Germans respond differently to the threat of terrorist attacks is because they’ve been dealing with it for a long time, and they deal with it well—-logic, solid intelligence, police work, undercover people who speak many languages, etc.
I guess I’ll post my response to the crisis training in the next post to keep it simple.
got atropine
Ran into this article today. Here are a few excerpts:
This is an excerpt from an amazing children’s site I found today:
There is even a map of the U.S. on this page next to all this hunky-dory information. I don’t like the extreme secretive personality of this administration, but you would think that someone somewhere in the system would have cautioned against giving such information up easily.
Maybe it’s a total lie to confuse the enemy.
It’s so much work getting rid of WMDs and so hard to find good help these days. Four times. This is just one stockpile.
Instead of obsessing as if al Queda has completely cornered the market on threats, I think it would be more important to focus on “disaster preparedness”. Of course, and al Queda attack would be a disaster, but so would a lot of other things. A sucking chest wound is a sucking chest wound. Radiological poisoning is radiological poisoning.
Nerve gas is nerve gas—-it doesn’t matter who made it or who spread it.
I would like to see Americans and first responders feel confident that they can handle a disaster, because they are competent to deal with a disaster, and are properly equipped, and networked. Drill, drill, drill.
We need to break out of this victim mentally, and good/evil melodrama and start dealing with what we can control without giving up our liberties, IMO.
Wiley,
Wiley,
Thanks for the nerve gas info
My brain is very lazy today, so I’m not going to say much before I watch the rest of “Good Night, and Good Luck”. What I’ve watched so far makes me miss Walter Cronkite. Those news casts were delivered with the assumption that the audience could read. Today’s journalists are nattering gossipmongers by comparison.
Competence and quality. Where did they go?
I think it was Reagan who repealed the Eisenhower act that made it law to declassify government information after 40 years? First thing Bush 2 did when he took office was to keep Reagan and Bush 1 information from being released.
You did notice, WTH that we have stockpiles of WMD? Yes?
Wiley,
Compitence and quality. Hmmm? When I was a kid there were reporters and there were “News Commentators”
I’m not ignoring you WTH, but perhaps because I haven’t finished my first cup of coffee I don’t quite get your point.
You know we aren’t going to agree in the war, and that I don’t understand your disconnect between “don’t we all (have left over nerve gas)” and attacking Iraq for WMD they didn’t have.
Sorry, Wiley, pointless I guess. I
Wiley,
On the China thread I noticed your comment:
I would agree that all your predictions are possible and most are probable.
But, after things fall apart enough, I can see human creativity kicking into action. Our economy is built on sand. It needs to fall apart, because most people are running around using up resources and producing a lot of waste to produce products and services that are, at best, not necessary.
It’s an old chinese saying, let me see if I can find that fortune cookie fortune—-
muzak
Didn’t find it, but found “You are strong and brave enough to pull yourself through”. That’s a good one.
In a nutshell—-in crisis there is the opportunity for change.
World War is not inevitable. Probable, but not inevitable.
I just finished “The Superpower Syndrome” by Jay Lifton. In a nut-shell, the whole total-spectrum-domination thing is like a mental illness and is an expression of fearfullness and paranoia.
Wouldn’t avoiding a nuclear war be better than doing everything in our power to be the king of s*it creek?
I think any government that has a modicum of power is quickly making alliances to grab vital resources like oil and water that are dwindling. And nothing makes sense outside of that framework. No one is going to war for altruistic reasons.
I seem to remember back about the mid 1970s, I did a job for a client who gave me a Chinese character he wanted to use in a logo design which he said meant both “crisis” and “opportunity” depending on context or inflection. Something like that.
Seems plausible since so many of life’s crucial decisions can go either way.
Tis true that the character is the same. It’s in the I Ching.
The main thing, is not to panic. And whatever you see before your eyes, no matter how crazy—-believe your eyes. That moment of disbelief can get ya.
When I referred to “conservative websites” it was because I don’t know what else to call them. I think Wall Street Journal is pro big bucks primarily which fits a lot of characters on both sides of the aisle.
I consider myself truly conservative. I never buy on credit. (I use credit cards, but always pay in 30 days to avoid interest.) If I don
Back to the main topic:
In 1993 I wrote to my representative, Don Manzullo, urging him to vote against NAFTA. This was the last paragraph of that letter.
WTH
Stumbled across the thread and was interested to read your personal experience of the “hollowing out” of the US. Well, horrified would be more accurate. We are on the same road here in europe.
Your fear of wars far worse than this pretend war on terror is understandable. Under the present politicians and their likely successors we are all in danger , but the guarantee of failure is when we allow ourselves to be sidetracked.
On the political level, anyone who persuades us to be fearful of a foreign enemy , that we are in mortal danger, has won. And we have lost.
So forget the islamo-fascist hordes. Russia, China, Pakistan, India, France and Israel all have nuclear weapons, but aren’t going to attack America tomorrow.
The real enemy is inside the borders, and it isn’t the ‘arab american’.
Who is tearing the guts out of the US ? If you look a bit more closely, you will find that GWB is not just a gullible good-time guy. His family and a coupla hundred more have been getting gigantically rich by robbing the US. If you look at the DoD scandals, HUD, S&Ls;, the Iraq reconstruction scandals, ETC, we are into hundreds of billions of $ over the last few years. They have a few-score thousand accomplices willing to serve and participate in the profits. They don’t give a shit if the US doesn’t make machine-tools any more, if you scrabble to pay the dentist.
Those guys own most of the media, so when the message comes across ” BE REALLY SCARED OF IRAN ! “, just remind yourself , quietly, that you do not have to do what they tell you. You are not in the Army any more, and neither am I.
Frog,
WTH
Since we agree so strongly on so much, I also am a fan of the March Of Folly , I must underline where I disagree with you !
I wrote above—-
“”“On the political level, anyone who persuades us to be fearful of a foreign enemy , that we are in mortal danger, has won. And we have lost. “”“
My contention is that even YOU, a wideawake US citizen horrified by the criminality of those in power, have fallen for their spin on the news.
You say they “don’t even need to own the media”. I disagee. They DO own the media, and use it unremittingly. See the video “Outfoxed” .
Religious fanatics are to be found all over. US , Israel, and the Muslim world. No reason to be scared of one lot more than the others. You seem to have fallen for the propaganda that the Muslim extremists are more dangerous than the others, which is exactly what GWBushco wants you to do . Pause for thought ?
For me Iran is not a threat. Early on after Ahmedinejehad made his speech about Israel , then reported by Reuters, I saw a translation of the whole.., which was far less “extreme” than what is actually being served up to us by the Media. They simplify, then over-simplify, and the rest of the media copycat. Endless goebbels-like repetition.
Same thing with Hamas. I read an interview with their boss, who asked the simple question—“which Israel do you want us to recognise, the one with the the 1948 frontier, the 1967 frontier, or what ?”
Now Israel is having an election to define its 2006 frontier .....
We may well be on the edge of an economic and financial precipice. I cannot see it any other way,and will marvel if we escape.
This whole idea you have of being afraid of “terrorists” is to me a total subservience to the Bush worldview, the one he wants us to have, and I reject it completely.
Frog,
On US economic policy (the main theme here):
I read an interesting panel discussion transcript yesterday at. These guys are all free traders
Frog,
Your comment: “On the political level, anyone who persuades us to be fearful of a foreign enemy , that we are in mortal danger, has won. And we have lost.
DEAR WTH
All of the world with a television shared the horror of 911, with the same human reactions.
I spent 12 years 8hours a day on open line to a company that lost 60 in the south tower.
In the 1970’s I had to cross central london every day, to work, and was always aware that there could be an IRA bomb somewhere.
I’ve watched WTC7 go down scores of times, have you ?
WTH
It is now common knowledge that the Cold War was hyped, and that the “usual suspects” made billions of $ out of it.
.coldwarthom hartmann
Now we have some new hype
You say “the Muslims have declared war” , based on some bullshit from one guy. He no more speaks for all muslims than you speak for all americans.
Anyway, he is most likely dead for some time.
Frog,
Historical revisionism is not new. Easy to go back and say an event was not real
WTH
History-writing is surely always revision, otherwise why not go by the newspapers of the day ? Documents get released after 30/50years, predictions are proved wrong or right. The immediate “winners version” gets “revised “!
I re-read the OLB fatwah you linked to. Yes, at first sight it is scary stuff !
But somewhere else he says, Norway is in no danger , they haven’t done anything to us. That’s from memory, but the gist is there. So this is not a declaration of war against all “christians”.
Even though saddam installed a secular state, and was thus an enemy of OLB, the fatwah warns that the US wants to dismember Iraq and other countries, and so here we have an arab nationalist speaking .
Viewing the 50+year history of western interference in the mideast, overthrowing progressive governments, supporting dictators—Saddam, Shah, etc, i would not have to be a religious fanatic to want to fight back !
So back to the Cold war scam.
For someone as honest as i believe you to be, you’ve been doing some selective reading on the Hartmann article !
“terror alerts on flimsy evidence” , but you neglect the next phrase from Tom Ridge—or were >done over his objection at the insistence of “administration officials,” it’s increasingly clear that the Bush administration itself is the source of much of the “be afraid!” terror inflicted on US citizens over the past 5 years.
Nasty stuff, eh ?
.maybe you could re-read this ?.............................................................................................................................
Trillions of dollars and years later, it was proven that they had been wrong all along, and the CIA had been right. Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz lied to America in the 1970s about Soviet WMDs and the Soviet super-sub technology.
But the Cold War was good for business, and good for the political power of its advocates, from Rumsfeld to Wolfowitz to Cheney who have all become rich in part because of the arms industry.
Today, making Americans terrified with their so-called “War On Terror” is the same strategy, run for many of the same reasons, by the same people. And by hyping it - and then invading Iraq to bring it into fruition - we may well be bringing into reality forces that previously existed only on the margins and with very little power to harm us.
................................................................................................................................
Well we started off on Poverty, went to OLB and Pearl Harbor, and are back at square one.
“Who said Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed; those who are cold and are not clothed ?
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Dwight D.Eisenhower
John Major
Jimmy Carter “
(borrowed from www.politicalcompass.org)
I agree with the WTH who wrote this about our rulers——
They have no concept of the daily problems of average people. To them ordinary people are non-persons in the same sense the Negro slave was. We may have made some progress a racial division after all. Now all races are equally discriminated against by these glib comments and thoughtless policies.
The politics of fear works on all fronts, foreigners, Muslim fanatics, unemployment, de-skilled jobs, crime, drugs, ruinous healthcosts, unaffordable housing, Enron/pilots/carworkers pensions that disappear and so on.
Like most europeans and americans I face considerable uncertainty for my future, but Muslim fanatics are way down my enemies- list !
Did you know that all their organisations have had close associations with OUR intelligence services ? Started off as useful tools in the ColdWar, but have since been collaborated with on other Ops ?
Frog,
Yes, I realize they were used by the West during the Cold War
<b>WTH>/b>
Thoroughly agree with most of the second half of your post.
I not only saw WallStreet, but worked in the $ industry for 12years in Lux, Paris, and an interesting 1980 month in Kuweit.
You may find it Interesting to do the test at politicalcompass.
Technically we may be very far different on the “scales” but agreee substantially about everything except the “terrorist menace” !
...........................................................................................................................
FIRST Part—example
1999 was after the Cold War , or not ?
OLB and fellow orgs USED by CIA, MI6, Bka, in kosovo to train and fight with “terrorists” of OCK/KLA against Yugoslav army, police, serbian civilians, and kosovan albanians who were too “moderate”...
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