Like Ike

Posted on November 22, 2016 by camelotkidd

 

Before he took office, President Obama professed his admiration of President Reagan. Lately he’s behaving like President Eisenhower.

Eisenhower, after creating the military-industrial-complex and nascent deep state, famously warned against it. As he was leaving office.

Many Americans remember Eisenhower’s farewell speech and have a nostalgia for his time in office. However, a careful reading of the history of his administration offers a much darker interpretation. The men that Eisenhower choose to cary out his foreign policy–John Foster Dulles, as Secretary of State, and Allan Dulles, as head of the CIA–turbo-charged the Cold War and embarked the US on a fateful program of corporate imperialism. Projecting the dangers of communism, the Dulles instituted a massive arms build-up, while deposing recalcitrant Third-World governments. On their watch, Iran and Guatemala were overthrown, and pliable dictators installed.

Now it’s Obama turn. After helping inequality explode, Obama warns of the dangers of inequality. As he’s leaving office.

As President Obama prepares to depart, it’s more imperative than ever for us to understand his legacy.

In hindsight it appears that Obama was a chameleon. While conservatives saw him as a Kenyon-Muslim-Socialist, herding them down the road to serfdom, liberals viewed him as their community-organizer-savior who would usher in the new–New Deal.

Neither view was correct, as Obama has turned out to be another corporate neoliberal.

When it comes to inequality, Obama neglects to mention that when he entered the White House in 2009 he had a historical opportunity to address runaway inequality. In the aftermath of the Wall Street crash the country was angry at the bankers that had caused the crash and eager for bold leadership.

Obama soon demonstrated that he wasn’t really interested in serving the public but in protecting Wall Street.

On 27 March 2009, Obama secretly told the chieftains of Wall Street assembled at a private meeting inside the White House, «My Administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks». «You guys have an acute public relations problem, and I want to help… I’m not out there to go after you. I’m protecting you».

This protection should be viewed in light of Obama’s financial benefactors. After all, Obama allowed Citigroup to select the men who would serve in his administration. Chief economic advisor Lawrence Summers, whose advice to President Bill Clinton in 1999 had encouraged him to terminate FDR’s Glass-Steagall separation of consumer-banking from investment-banking (Wall Street’s casinos). And, Timothy Geithner, who was the G.W. Bush era’s N.Y. Federal Reserve Bank President and thus king of Wall Street, became U.S. Treasury Secretary. Geithner went on to foam the runway with American homeowners to cushion a bank crash landing, causing millions of evictions.

Thus did Obama cement into place the massive inequality, he’s now at pains to decry. «Poverty Rose In 96% Of U.S. House Districts, During Obama’s Presidency». And, the income and wealth of the billionaires soared like at no time since 1923-1928. Meanwhile, the share of income and wealth of bottom 90 % wealth holders» both declined.

President Eisenhower’ favorite pastime in office was playing golf with wealthy industrialists.

Likewise, Obama enjoys golfing with his wealthy benefactors.

After January, he’ll have plenty of time to work on his game.

 

 

 

 

 

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Don’t mourn, organize

Posted on November 15, 2016 by camelotkidd

 

Trump is going to end the world, as we know it.

Or, something.

Liberals are always more energized and pugilistic when a Republican president gains power.

My biggest peeve with liberals, is that they were aghast at the behavior of Bush, but couldn’t be bothered when Obama was committing the same crimes. The only difference was that Obama represented team Blue. That, and he was much more articulate, with a lovely, intelligent wife, and two beautiful daughters.

My liberal friends are just convinced that Obama could never be as bad as Bush.

Except, that he was.

It’s all about moral consistency. If something is evil, it’s evil, no matter who’s doing it.

And, let’s be honest, the Democratic party has abandoned working-class people and progressive economic policies. Instead the Democrats have embraced financial neoliberalism, where the policies of deregulation, privatization, austerity, and corporate trade have devastated America’s once vibrant middle-class. These Americans living standards have declined precipitously. They’ve lost their jobs, they’ve lost their pensions, and they’ve lost much of their safety net. They see a bleak future for their children.

These Americans used to be reliable Democratic voters. They even voted for Obama. Once Senator Bernie Sanders lost the nomination, the Democrats hardly made any effort to recapture these voters.  Perhaps because their candidate, Hillary Clinton, was the very embodiment of the establishment policies that has created so much misery for these groups. These voters instead went for the change candidate–Trump–though there’s a pretty good chance his policies will make their position worse.

My liberal friends, while rightfully upset, need to see this as a historic opportunity.

When activist Joe Hill was waiting on death row he wrote a letter to union organizer, Big-Bill Haywood, urging him: “Don’t mourn, organize.”

The same principle applies in the wake of Trump’s surprise victory.

Even though progressives and liberals are upset and depressed, with more than a few threatening to move to Canada, they need to realize that now is the chance to put their outrage into action and gear up for a long struggle.

Naked Capitalism is running a series this week to remind us that, “The nut of the matter is this: you lose, you lose, you lose, you lose, they give up. As someone who has protested, and studied the process, it’s plain that one spends most of one’s time begin defeated. That’s painful, humiliating, and intimidating. One can’t expect typically, as in a battle, to get a clean shot at a clear win.”

In my opinion, it’s time to go on the offensive, and develop public policies that are universal. Progressives have been on the defensive for so long that they’ve forgotten how to articulate a positive agenda for what a progressive world would look like. We need to never forget that Bernie Sanders demonstrated conclusively that progressive policies are popular with the American electorate.

“The only way out of these dead ends lies in committing to a defined agenda of institutionalized, economic justice because this affects all. Social justice cannot be secured absent economic justice. Any such agenda is going to be anti-corporate, anti-poverty, pro-education (and job re-education), and pro-regulation. It has to be citizen-based outside of existing political parties. This kind of program can be articulated as pro-community rather than pro-faction if the organizing is done. This has to be pursued from a defined agenda, unapologetically, and from a pro-citizen(ship) position regardless of other more discrete goals.”

As I’ve said before–with great change comes great opportunity. Milton Friedman and the movement right understood this concept and had a program–neoliberalism–ready when New Deal policies faltered in the 1970’s. It’s the same thing for progressives. If you want a better world, start thinking about how to make it so.

Despite all the doom and gloom, the election of Donald Trump actually represents an unprecedented opportunity for change in both political parties and a chance to reform the underlying political and economic power structures in the US.

As Margaret Mead, the great democratic campaigner, said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Let’s get busy.

 

Update: Joe Hill also sent another letter in which he implored Haywood, “Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah.”

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For the good of the country

Posted on November 11, 2016 by camelotkidd

 

How did a monster like Trump win?

The short answer is that Hillary was a uniquely horrible candidate, as I detail here. She was also the establishment candidate in an anti-establishment election. The Democratic Party also bears a large part of the blame by sabotaging Bernie Sanders, the Democratic candidate who offered populist economic policies instead of identity politics, and could have beaten Trump, as polling data bears out.

The longer answer is historical, and may shock and surprise many of you. After all, you didn’t learn what I’m about to detail in school.

Since the early 1930’s powerful Republican elite have committed crimes against our republic, while Democrat elite have largely refused to investigate or hold them responsible. The rationalization for this was that the exposure of these crimes would be divisive, so these crimes were kept secret, for the good of the country.

Essentially, the conservative ruling elite has been protected from the destructive consequences of its predatory dominance by a serial failure to hold them accountable.

More importantly, along the way a false narrative and history has been established.

The election of FDR and the implementation of the New Deal was a shocking development to the ruling elite of America. This loss of power and prestige was so traumatic that many of them contemplated changes to our representative system of governance. Gazing at Europe for inspiration, Mussolini and Hitler, came in for special praise. Now, here were leaders who understood how to mesh government and big business together with minimal interference from pesky workers.

The Republican elite also attempted a coup against their nemesis, FDR.

Like I said before, they don’t teach this in school.

The coup never progressed very far and the plotters weren’t all that clever. The Marine Corps general they tapped to lead their coup–Smedley Butler–was a true patriot, and promptly informed the Roosevelt administration of the nefarious plan. FDR, for the good of the country, kept this plot a secret and went about the business of helping America recover from the Great Depression.

The corporations that had helped foment the coup showed their gratitude by withholding investments in the US, while aiding in the rearmament of Nazi Germany. One of the darkest secrets of the pre-war era, was that US corporations and banks financed German reconstruction under the Nazis, especially their rapidly expanding armaments industries, in exchange for priceless industrial patents. This funding of German industry continued through World War II and involved some of the most powerful and well known US corporations, such as GM, Ford, and IBM. It also involved powerful US banks and investment houses, and influential Republicans, like George W.’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, and the Dulles brothers, Allan and John Foster.

After the war Democrats failed to hold these Republican officials and the banks and corporations accountable for this treason. For the good of the country, of course.

Did Republicans appreciate this gesture?

Hell no.

Emboldened Republicans responded by playing the hardest of hardball. After Truman’s surprise victory over Dewey, bitter Republicans attacked the Truman administration over supposed communists infiltrating government at all levels, with the insinuation that the New Deal was basically a communist front. The House Un-American Activities Committee, with Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon playing key roles, led the way in using the Red Scare to pummel the Truman administration as being weak and overrun with communists. The effect was to seriously weaken and discredit the New Deal reforms and turn the American people against them.

In my opinion, this Cold War hysteria never would have gotten the traction it did if the Democrats had exposed the connection between the Republicans and the Nazis. With passions against the Nazis running high after the war with the revelations of the Holocaust, there would have been scorn and revulsion at the treason of these men and institutions.

Jumping ahead to to 1968, Democratic president LBJ had announced that he would not run again for president, and was working to end the Vietnam war by negotiating with the North and South Vietnamese governments. Richard Nixon, the Republican, was running for president against Democrat Hurbert Humphrey, after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. According to investigative reporter Robert Parry, in his book, America’s Stolen Narrative, there exists strong evidence that Nixon’s campaign secretly sabotaged the peace talks in an October surprise as a way of ensuring Nixon’s victory. LBJ learned of this treason through NSA intercepts but was convinced to keep quiet after Nixon’s victory, for the good of the country.

Again, in 1980, according to  America’s Stolen Narrative, there is strong evidence that Ronald Reagan’s campaign officials carried out their own October surprise by meeting with Iranian officials and sabotaging the negotiations that the  Carter administration was engaged in to return for the hostages seized by the Iranian Guards when the Shah was allowed into the US for medical treatment. Even though Carter and many other Democrats suspected this treason, there never was an investigation. Again, for the good of the country.

In the wake of 9/11, Bush administration officials, led by Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, attacked Democrats for being weak on terror and engaging in moral equivalence with a hostile enemy. However, recent history shows these very same Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center were created and sustained by Republican national security officials and deployed as a means of foreign policy to this day. But of course, timid Democrats did not challenge this false narrative after 9/11 because it might distract from the War on Terror and wouldn’t be good for the country.

In 2008, after eight catastrophic years of Bush, Obama was elected on a pledge of “Hope and Change.” Immediately Obama announced that he would look “forward and not backward.” For the good of the country, of course. A lot of good Obama’s magnanimity got him. As soon as Republicans saw they were in the clear, they turned around and repaid him by obstructing everything he tried to accomplish. From the moment Obama entered office, right-wing conservatives embraced the posture of hell-bent opposition. Recall, in Jan. 2009, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh expressed his hope that Obama fails. One month later, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proudly embraced Limbaugh at a conservative conference. The fringe rhetoric of far right activists had quickly become the de facto governing strategy of the Republican leadership, as they adopted a posture of obstructionism.

As you can see from these numerous examples, there is a clear pattern of Republican crimes, followed by Democratic timidity and failure of accountability. The Republicans have learned that they can get away with it, and emboldened have turned around and projected these crimes onto the Democrats. The result has been a triumph of conservatism, where the left spends all of its time fighting off these faux scandals while the right goes on the offensive, cheered on by a media that’s learned where its career advancement lies.

All done, for the good of the country.

I’ve used the phrase, for the good of the country, throughout the essay, and I’m sure many of you understand that I’m being facetious, so let’s unpack it shall we? For the good of the country is a phrase our ruling elite likes to toss about, but it hardly means for the good of the country. I suspect that, for the good of the country, really means, for the good of the deep state. And, the deep state is made up of: the military/industrial complex, Wall Street, the oil and gas industry, and powerful corporations. In my opinion, the rise of the deep state in America traces directly back to the collusion between our conservative elite and the Nazis. The secretive nature, reliance on violence, and belief in a corporate/state fusion are all hallmarks of fascism.

The result of these crimes and lack of accountability has been the creation of a false and misleading narrative and history. Americans don’t know where to place the blame for the shit-circus their life has become. They may not understand the details, but they know that something has gone tragically wrong, and that all the elite institutions, including corporations, the government, and the media have been complicit.

This election was an anti-establishment election with the American people essentially offering up the one finger salute.

Come on down, President Trump.

Update: Matt Taibbi, reprising Hunter S. Thompson, at Rolling Stone, puts the blame where it belongs.

“Trump made idiots of us all. From the end of primary season onward, I felt sure Trump was en route to ruining, perhaps forever, the Republican Party as a force in modern American life. Now the Republicans are more dominant than ever, and it is the Democratic Party that is shattered and faces an uncertain future.

And they deserve it. The Democratic Party’s failure to keep Donald Trump out of the White House in 2016 will go down as one of the all-time examples of insular arrogance. The party not only spent most of the past two years ignoring the warning signs of the Trump rebellion, but vilifying anyone who tried to point them out. It denounced all rumors of its creeping unpopularity as vulgar lies and bullied anyone who dared question its campaign strategy by calling them racists, sexists and agents of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”

 

 

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Border Guard

Posted on November 7, 2016 by camelotkidd

 

Going into one of the craziest elections in American history it’s important to remember how we got to this point.

Hint–both parties have contributed to a slow-motion economic crisis.

The Republican party, as it exists now, is an absolute disaster for working Americans. The problem is that the putative opposition party–the Democrats–does not offer up much resistance to the pro-crony-capitalist policies that the Republicans put forward. In fact, too many Democrats are neoliberals pursuing corporate policies while offering identity politics as a fig leaf.

In an interview with  Jacobin on the ramifications of Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, Adolph Reed Jr., professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that neoliberal Democrats use identity politics, like race, as a way in which to impose boundaries on what is permissible as a liberal.

“These responses to Sanders’s critique throw into bolder relief just how fundamentally antiracism and other identitarian programs are not only the left wing of neoliberalism but active agencies in its imposition of a notion of the boundaries of the politically thinkable — sort of neoliberalism’s intellectual and cultural border guard.”

Reed, one of the more thoughtful political scientists in US academia, makes the obvious argument that economic issues, of the sort that Bernie campaigned on, benefit all the groups that the Democratic party fobs-off with identity politics.

“All through the campaign I asked how a federal minimum wage of fifteen dollars an hour (the current minimum wage is $7.25) is not an issue pertinent to black Americans and Latinos, who are disproportionately likely to be low-wage workers? How decommodified national health care is not a “black issue”? Or free public higher education? Or massively increased public investment? Or renegotiating existing “trade” agreements and blocking the Trans Pacific Partnership, which would further strengthen corporate power against all working people? And so on. No one has argued that black, or other nonwhite, Americans indeed would not benefit disproportionately from implementation of those items of Sanders’s platform.”

Tomorrow we are faced with, once again, a lesser-of-two-evils election. Our urgent goal should be to move past the limited policies offered within our political dichotomy.

Reed says the goal should be to build a political movement that offers true working-class policies.

“I think we should build on the more visionary aspects of the program, e.g., the demand for free public higher education, de-commodified health care, etc and the vital fight to stop the TPP, and yes of course against discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc and also against neoliberal policing and the constantly expanding public/private carceral apparatus, which we have to understand and insist that others also understand is a class issue.”

Whoever wins is going to inherit a shit-show. The neoliberal economic policies both parties have pursued for the last 40 years ensure that we face a divisive future.

Be careful out there.

Update: In the wake of Trump’s surprise win, it appears that the Democrat’s reliance on identity politics was not the elixir they imagined it to be. Yves, at Naked Capitalism has a good run down of why.

“One of the reasons for the ferocity of the howling from the Democratic Party hackocracy in the wake of the unexpected Trump vicory is that they are effectively cornered animals. As political scientist Tom Ferguson explains, the Democrats can’t get the number of voters they need with their traditional coalition of Big Finance money plus identity politics without delivering tangible benefits to workers, which they have abjectly failed to do. But the power of money in the Democratic party makes it well nigh impossible for them to devise the sort of populist policies that would appeal to voters that Trump has successfully peeled off.”

Update II: Lambert has a great rejoinder to identity politics.

“racism/sexism/xenophobia” are forms of politics, and that they are the evil twin of identity politics, and together are the only forms of politics permitted by elites.

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Multipolar Future

Posted on October 31, 2016 by camelotkidd

 

The US has been the sole-superpower for the last 25 years. Those days are coming to an end with the US facing a multipolar future.

The problem with this development is that the neocons in charge of US foreign policy are feeling butt-hurt. Their impotence and anger are manifest. Unfortunately, the neocons hubris and vanity just might kill us all, as they wage a desperate attempt to maintain the American corporate empire through increasingly brutal military means.

Perversely, the reliance on military and covert paramilitary methods are the reasons why the US has squandered the opportunity to be a different kind of empire. The neocons, through their heavy-handed policies of going to the dark side, have ruined America’s unique strength; its soft-power. By and large, the rest of the planet believed in the story of American exceptionalism while they admired the US because it generally wasn’t like other authoritarian empires. But, the neocons, with their extreme belief that the elite should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses, have largely destroyed whatever good will that remains with their brutal policies of occupation, torture, regime change, and assassination.

Federico Pieraccini, at Strategic-Culture, examines the ramifications of our multipolar future.

“The failure of the foreign doctrine of the United States was a direct consequence of the arrogance and the utopia of being able to dominate the planet, seeking to extend indefinitely the unipolar moment and forging a worldwide system culturally and economically based on the will of Washington, reinforced by a power and military posture without precedent.

The certainty is that the future will turn fully into a multipolar model, and this obliges Washington to struggle in every way possible to remain relevant. To date, apart from nuclear agreements, every choice has been counterproductive and wrong. Will Washington’s elites ever learn, or will they eventually become irrelevant?”

The end of the American empire is the actuality that dare not be spoken of. Whoever is sworn in as our new President will have to deal with the consequences of this momentous event that might possibly be the deepest and most dangerous crisis of our history.

The challenge facing those of us who yearn for a different America, one that lives up to the potential our founders envisioned, is to bring about a peaceful end to this empire.

Our dilemma is thus–to save America, we need to destroy the empire, or it will destroy us.

 

 

 

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Hypocrisy is thy name

Posted on October 23, 2016 by camelotkidd

 

Only our unique American exceptionalism could create hypocrisy so great that it threatens to blot out the sun.

Historians have documented that empires fail when the discrepancy between what elites say and what they do grows too large.

It’s hard to know where to begin, but for me the most blatant hypocrisy is the one that lies at the heart of the so-called “war on terror.” After 15 years of fear mongering about Al Qaeda terrorists, it turns out that the US is using the very same Sunni terrorists as proxies to effect regime change in Syria. For anyone paying attention, this dirty-little-secret has become difficult to miss. It’s been acknowledged here, here, here, here, and here.

Now that Russia has intervened decisively in Syria to aid the government of Bashar Assad against said Al Qaeda terrorists, the corporate media is awash with concern about Russian and Syrian “barrel” bombing, with the victims of these dastardly attacks trotted out to crocodile tears. That the US regularly bombs hospitals, wedding parties, and civilian infrastructure, is magically forgotten. Even more hypocritically, while the US decries Russian and Syrian war crimes, it’s ally Saudi Arabia is busy bombing defenseless Yemeni civilians, using US made cluster bombs delivered by US F-15’s.

However, our foreign policy elite, sensing a Hillary landslide, are pushing for more war in Syria, never mind that an attack on Assad and the Syrian army risks a nuclear conflict with Russia. Veteran investigative reporter Robert Parry says that, “Virtually the entire mainstream U.S. media (and much of the progressive media) are onboard for a U.S. “regime change” operation in Syria and for getting tough with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

There’s plenty more hypocrisy.

On the economy, who are you going to believe, Obama, or your lying eyes? Recently, DNC chairwoman, Donna Brazile, tweeted this boast. “Under President Obama, the economy has experienced a record 70 straight months of private-sector job growth. Over 14 million jobs!”  However, a recent study entitled Problems Unsolved and a Nation Divided, by Harvard University points out that, despite claims of an “Obama Recovery,” in fact, the U.S. economy has continued to deteriorate in the aftermath of the “great recession.”

There’s also political hypocrisy, where the political elite and their corporate media allies have united to decry Trump’s questioning of American political legitimacy. The corporate media solemnly assures us that our American political system is sacrosanct. Never mind the election of 2000, where Republican political operatives staged a riot to prevent a recount in Florida, that would have elected Gore rather than Bush.

In a hilarious turn of events, Russia is trolling the US with an offer to monitor US elections. “In what can only be described as an epic attempt to troll both Obama and Hillary, and an apparent move to embarrass the United States over Trump’s claims of that the upcoming presidential election will be “rigged”, Russia has asked to send monitors to US polling stations for the Nov. 8 vote, according to reports by Russian media.”

Then, there’s the tax hypocrisy. The political and media elite are aghast that Trump hasn’t paid his fair share of taxes. But Trump is hardly the first elite to game the tax system. In fact, right now there is a scheme afoot to trade the financing of much needed American infrastructure for a tax holiday on the profits that US corporations have squirreled away in offshore tax havens.

“Last year, behind the scenes, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., quietly tried to lay the groundwork for a classic Washington, D.C., bipartisan solution — i.e., the kind of deal that both parties’ big donors adore and regular Americans would despise, if they ever heard about it. Under U.S. law, multinational corporations based here theoretically must pay taxes on their profits earned anywhere around the world at a rate of 35 percent. However, they don’t have to pay U.S. taxes on overseas profits until they repatriate the money back to the U.S…The prospective Ryan-Schumer deal doesn’t have many details. But it would change the law so that profits earned by U.S. multinationals overseas, including the $2.4 trillion overseas now, would be taxed whether or not they were brought back to the U.S. — while also radically reducing the tax rate on those overseas profits. This would essentially make the 2004 tax holiday permanent.”

Whoever wins the presidential election in November is going to face a growing crisis of legitimacy because of the ongoing hypocrisy. The American people may have slept through the last 40 years but they are starting to wake up. And, they are pissed off.

If Hillary wins the election, and all signs are pointing that way, she could face a danger greater than the loss of legitimacy. In my opinion, a domestic insurgency in the United States is a real possibility. The Americans that she castigated as “deplorable,” are the ones who, by and large, have served in the military and are heavily armed.

This could get interesting.

Update: Here’s more confirmation of the Al Qaeda connection.

“Buried deep inside Saturday’s New York Times was a grudging acknowledgement that the U.S.-armed “moderate” rebels in Syria are using their U.S. firepower to back an Al Qaeda offensive, reports Robert Parry.”

 

 

 

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Decorum

Posted on October 16, 2016 by camelotkidd

 

Let me get this straight. Pussy grabbing is bad, but assassinations, torture, and invading a largely defenseless country are cool?

Image: Michelle Obama, George W. Bush

Watching the 2016 Presidential election has been illuminating.

In my opinion, what bothers our elite, who are united in revulsion against Trump, is that he never learned how to maintain the proper decorum. Unlike Michelle, Barack, and W, Trump didn’t go to Harvard or Yale, institutions that serve as sociopathic finishing schools for America’s elite.

Regarding our sociopathic elite, I’m reminded of an article I read years ago in the New York Times, that I can’t find now, where Madeleine Albright tutors students in the finer arts of dinner behavior. This was after Albright, former Secretary of State under the Clinton administration, had admitted to Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes, that the sanctions the US had imposed on Iraq that had resulted in the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was worth the price.

For such a horrible candidate, the Donald has unintentionally performed a public service by clarifying what our values are.

Misogyny bad, mass murder of far-away brown people, not so much.

No wonder our elite despise him.

Update: Matt Taibbi gives us the Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail angle:

“Trump’s shocking rise and spectacular fall have been a singular disaster for U.S. politics. Built up in the press as the American Hitler, he was unmasked in the end as a pathetic little prankster who ruined himself, his family and half of America’s two-party political system for what was probably a half-assed ego trip all along, adventure tourism for the idiot rich. 

That such a small man would have such an awesome impact on our nation’s history is terrible, but it makes sense if you believe in the essential ridiculousness of the human experience. Trump picked exactly the wrong time to launch his mirror-gazing rampage to nowhere. He ran at a time when Americans on both sides of the aisle were experiencing a deep sense of betrayal by the political class, anger that was finally ready to express itself at the ballot box.”

 

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The Flying Lemon

Posted on October 4, 2016 by camelotkidd

 

Reading the Project of Government Oversight report on the F-35, it’s apparent that the fighter/bomber is a flying lemon, and we the taxpayers are the unwitting buyers. The report claims that the F-35, built by Lockheed Martin, is weighed down with problems and, contrary to Air-Force assurances, not ready for combat.

“The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is the most expensive procurement program in Pentagon history. It’s been plagued by schedule delays, gross cost overruns, and a slew of underwhelming performance reviews.”

This development is not surprising. The US’s system of military procurement is hindered by corruption, where the Military/Industrial/Complex, uses programs like the F-35 as opportunities  for price gouging and extra profits. By choosing the most complex, and expensive weapons systems, instead of simple, rugged, inexpensive ones, the MIC ensures that they will make exorbitant amounts of money far into the future. If they have to fix a bunch of problems on these expensive weapons systems, oh well. It’s cost-plus, after all.

“This is all further evidence of program mismanagement. There is still a long way to go to complete the development phase of the F-35 program, but rather than budgeting to resource that adequately, program officials seem to be focused more on expanding future procurement budgets. F-35 program officials both inside the government and at Lockheed Martin have repeatedly expressed their desire to ramp up from low rate initial production. They want Congress to authorize a block buy of 465 planes—with commensurate large pre-payments—for the United States and foreign military partners beginning in 2018.”

If a weapons system, like the F-35 works or protects us is a mystery, thanks to the very same information asymmetry that plagues used car sales, and causes people to purchase lemons. Weapon systems like the F-35, are controlled by incredibly complex sensors and computer software, “…with 24 million lines of computer code.” This complexity ensures that only experts, who usually work for the MIC, can understand and rate these complex weapons systems. Do you think that it’s a coincidence that high ranking military officers, when they leave the service, go to work for the MIC?

This article by Federico Pieraccini, at the Journal of Strategic Culture, examines the dangerous situation the US has gotten itself into with its corrupt military procurement program. While this procurement system might have sufficed when the US was fighting 3rd world nations without an air-force, it’s a real handicap in conflicts with competent opponents.

“Military spending is an essential gear in the machine of the US system of oligarchy, but the consequences are starting to drag down the future military capabilities of the United States. Its rivals are catching up, using systems that are more advanced, more economical, and more effective, while also easier to use or replicate. The military leaders at the Pentagon are starting to show telling signs of impatience, calling for a transformation that will be difficult to achieve, since it will require a sea change in the country’s top-brass establishment. The ultimate consequences are evidence of a pattern that is slowly draining Washington’s wallet and greatly reducing the competitive advantage that Washington possesses.”

I find it darkly humorous that the neoconservatives are having their dreams of empire derailed by the neoliberals penchant for looting.

I mean, how are the neocons going to impose their treasured no-fly zone in Syria with a flying lemon?

 

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plus ça change

Posted on September 30, 2016 by camelotkidd

 

Sometimes, I think that I’ve become too cynical.

But, then I see something like this.

Image: Michelle Obama, George W. Bush

Look, I’m for political comity as much as the next fellow, but that calculation is for a political system that crafts policies and hammers out bi–partisan legislation that benefits our republic and its citizens. That’s not exactly the system we have, is it? From endless war, to financial parasitism, to rancid globalization, our elite political class doesn’t serve us. They serve the wealthy and the corporations they control.

Our system, to be frank, reeks of oligarchy.

This oligarchical bi-partisanship is what the corporate press glorifies with pictures like the one above, where the wife of a war criminal hugs another war criminal.

Hope and Change was always a suckers bet.

Perhaps the French, with their longer arc of history, have a more nuanced view of such affairs: plus ça change.

 

 

 

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The Deep State Goes Rogue

Posted on September 21, 2016 by camelotkidd

 

It appears that the military/intelligence arm of the deep state has gone rogue, bombing Syrian Army positions, and potentially jeopardizing the truce agreement with Russia that Secretary of State, John Kerry negotiated, and President Obama signed off on.

Here’s Mike Whitney writing at Counterpunch.org.

“A rift between the Pentagon and the White House turned into open rebellion on Saturday when two US F-16s and two A-10 warplanes bombed Syrian Arab Army (SAA) positions at Deir al-Zor killing at least 62 Syrian regulars and wounding 100 others. The US has officially taken responsibility for the incident which it called a “mistake”, but the timing of the massacre has increased speculation that the attack was a desperate, eleventh-hour attempt to derail the fragile ceasefire and avoid parts of the implementation agreement that Pentagon leaders publicly opposed. Many analysts  now wonder whether the attacks are an indication that the neocon-strewn DOD is actively engaged in sabotaging President Obama’s Syria policy, a claim that implies that the Pentagon is led by anti-democratic rebels who reject the Constitutional authority of the civilian leadership.  Saturday’s bloodletting strongly suggests that a mutiny is brewing at the War Department.”

Why has the deep state gone rogue and escalated the new Cold War with Russia?

The dirty little secret of the war in Syria, is that for all the rhetoric about the “war on terror,” the US is wielding terrorists as part of its regime change policy. The US Defense Department and the CIA have been working with Sunni extremists, including al-qaeda, and ISIS, in an effort to overthrow the Syrian government, headed by Bashar al Assad.

When the Russians intervened forcefully in Syria to prevent the regime change plot from going forward, the deep state reaction in Washington was rage, and dismay. The new Cold War that’s been whipped up in the corporate media is a direct result of this reaction. ” The ‘Cold War Bloc,’ which includes Defense Secretary Ash Carter and House Speaker Paul Ryan, is extremely angry.”

Indeed, the deep state hawks are in open rebellion against any agreement with Russia to resolve the conflict in Syria. They don’t want to admit it, and are doing everything they can to deny the reality, but their terrorist proxies have been decisively stalemated and are on the way to being defeated through the efforts of Russian air-power.

There is also a domestic angle to this story. The deep state hawks, and their political intermediaries are truly bipartisan, with as many Democrats as Republicans. For instance, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is the queen of the neocons. For the hawks, the conflict with Russia is also related to domestic politics, a way to appear tough and paint their opponents as soft. And, of course, it’s also a way to steer lucrative military contracts to their districts or states.

The first Cold War was largely about domestic politics, despite breathless descriptions of imminent Soviet invasions, “steely eyed” deterrence, or protecting the “free-world.” The Republicans, with overwhelming business support, were desperate to regain the presidency and terminate the New Deal reforms, initiated by FDR. Communism was a very convenient cudgel with which to pummel liberal New Dealers.

Similarly, this present conflict is largely about domestic politics. With an election shaping up to a be nail-biter, the Democratic administration of Barak Obama, is using the conflict with Russia to discredit Donald Trump, who’s made some quite rational statements about Putin and Russia.

Despite the ongoing Constitutional crisis involving civilian control over the military, an even greater danger is the potential for a mishap between two nuclear armed protagonists, resulting in a “hot war.”

This could get interesting.

Update: Investigative journalist Robert Parry wonders why this behavior is not a big story.

“If you were living in a truly democratic country with a truly professional news media, you would think that this evolution of the United States into a rogue superpower violating pretty much every international law and treaty of the post-World War II era would be a regular topic of debate and criticism.”

 

 

 

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