"The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs."
~ Karl Marx.
The US is imploding. Seriously.
First of all, there has been the attempt by Wall Street vermin Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke to con the US taxpayer into handing welfare to Wall Street so that the financial elites can continue to live in the manner to which they've become accustomed. The problem is, the taxpayers seem to be on the verge of revolution the likes of which hasn't been seen
since 1776:
An e-mail that began as a rallying cry from a lone journalist to an influential circle of friends to protest the U.S. government bailout of Wall Street has ignited a national day of street protests. Some demonstrators plan to dump their rubbish in front of the bronze bull sculpture near Wall Street in downtown Manhattan Thursday.
Some photos of the event on Wall Street can be seen at
Alternet. My personal favorite:
And there's
an article on the same protest, also at
Alternet. Note the response by the vermin who need bailing:
Many Wall Street types greeted the protesters with contempt. "Just look at these people," sneered one broker as the march neared the Stock Exchange. Another group held a "Get a Job" sign in an office window, and one man dropped a few dollar bills out of his. They fluttered down short of the marchers, landing in a construction site.
Someone needs to give Wall Street a hard lesson in personal responsibility.
TrueMajority.org reports that some 250 emergency protests were held in 41 states on Thursday. On Friday, the
labor unions, such as they are in the land of the unfettered free market, protested. Almost
200 economists from the most prestigious American universities are protesting the bailout and the director of the Congressional Budget Office told Congress that the Paulson bailout could make matters
so much worse.
Not that anyone in the government of the people, by the people, for the people is bothering
to listen to the people. Ain't democracy wonderful?
What's interesting is that the bailout plan proposed by the criminal Paulson was actually put together by the Bush administration
months ago:
[White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony] Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.
So if this "plan" were "drawn up as a contingency over previous months" then why the rush to get it passed in Congress? Why did Bush harangue the nation for fifteen minutes on Wednesday night with his usual,
fear-mongering tactics:
With the situation becoming more precarious by the day, I faced a choice, to step in with dramatic government action or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions of some to undermine the financial security of all.
I’m a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention. I believe companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to go out of business.
Under normal circumstances, I would have followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There has been a widespread loss of confidence, and major sectors of America’s financial system are at risk of shutting down.
The government’s top economic experts warn that, without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold.
Isn't this the same kind of thing we heard after 9/11? Isn't it the same kind of thing we heard in the run-up to the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq? Who benefited from that fear-mongering? The elites. Instead of addressing economic problems in a way that would benefit the country as a whole, the administration is attempting to railroad everyone into a plan that will only benefit the elites. This is the same tactic used by con artists the world over.
And as all of this was going on, the largest savings and loan in the US,
collapsed and was seized by the government, the Congress gave
$1 trillion to the Pentagon, and gave a
$25 billion bailout to the failing US auto industry.
Oh, did I forget to mention . . . the CEO of WaMu may walk away with more than
$13 million in his golden parachute and he's only been on the job for a few weeks.
In the US, socialism for the ordinary people is absolutely forbidden while welfare is handed out with largesse for the elites. The Germans are beginning to see it, too. In fact, the
German Finance Minister is beginning to sound like Vladimir Putin by referring to multi-polarity:
"The world will never be as it was before the crisis," Steinbrueck told the Bundestag lower house of parliament.
"The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multi-polar," he said.
Speaking later at a news conference in Berlin, Steinbrueck said he was not predicting an end to the dollar's role as a leading reserve currency, but rather highlighting the rise of other major financial players besides the United States.
[ . . . ]
In the Bundestag, Steinbrueck denounced what he called an Anglo-Saxon drive for double-digit profits and massive bonuses for bankers and company executives.
"Investment bankers and politicians in New York, Washington and London were not willing to give these up," he said.
Other worrying news involves the Republican VP nominee, Sarah Palin and her interview with CBS talking head, Katie Couric. The general consensus is growing that Sarah Palin is dumber than a rock. But, see for yourself:
There were more installments of the interview which can be seen on
Youtube if you're not embarrassed by so much stupidity.
Matt Taibbi, journalist for
Rolling Stone, makes the case for the fact that Sarah Palin is a symbol of all that is wrong in the US:
Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power.
Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV -and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.
[ . . . ]
The great insight of the Palin VP choice is that huge chunks of American voters no longer even demand that their candidates actually have policy positions; they simply consume them as media entertainment, rooting for or against them according to the reflexive prejudices of their demographic, as they would for reality-show contestants or sitcom characters. Hicks root for hicks, moms for moms, born-agains for born-agains. Sure, there was politics in the Palin speech, but it was all either silly lies or merely incidental fluffery buttressing the theatrical performance. A classic example of what was at work here came when Palin proudly introduced her Down syndrome baby, Trig, then stared into the camera and somberly promised parents of special-needs kids that they would "have a friend and advocate in the White House." This was about a half-hour before she raised her hands in triumph with McCain, a man who voted against increasing funding for special-needs education.
[ . . . ]
All of which tells you about what you'd expect from a raise-the-base choice like Palin: She's a puffed-up dimwit with primitive religious beliefs who had to be educated as to the fact that the Constitution did not exactly envision government executives firing librarians. Judging from the importance progressive critics seem to attach to these revelations, you'd think that these were actually negatives in modern American politics. But Americans like politicians who hate books and see the face of Jesus in every tree stump. They like them stupid and mean and ignorant of the rules.
OUCH!! Really, it's worth it to
read the whole thing because this is the kind of writing you'd never see about a political candidate in Turkey--or in South Kurdistan--however much they deserve it.
The Palin/Couric interview has also begun to horrify those on the fascist right in the US as it slowly dawns on them that the woman who will be one heart-beat away from the White House is a total and complete moron. From the NRO:
Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.
[ . . . ]
Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”
When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”
If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.
[ . . . ]
Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.
Do it for your country.
Hehehe . . . Maybe the fact that the US appears to be reaching critical mass is the reason that the US Army will, for the first time since the Civil War, begin operations within the US itself, to assist with civil disturbances and crowd control. From
Glenn Greenwald:
Several bloggers today have pointed to this obviously disturbing article from Army Times, which announces that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the [1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division] will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North" -- "the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities."
[ . . . ]
For more than 100 years -- since the end of the Civil War -- deployment of the U.S. military inside the U.S. has been prohibited under The Posse Comitatus Act (the only exceptions being that the National Guard and Coast Guard are exempted, and use of the military on an emergency ad hoc basis is permitted, such as what happened after Hurricane Katrina). Though there have been some erosions of this prohibition over the last several decades (most perniciously to allow the use of the military to work with law enforcement agencies in the "War on Drugs"), the bright line ban on using the U.S. military as a standing law enforcement force inside the U.S. has been more or less honored -- until now.
[ . . . ]
It shouldn't take any efforts to explain why the permanent deployment of the U.S. military inside American cities, acting as the President's police force, is so disturbing. Bovard:
"'Martial law' is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has occurred. . . . Section 1076 is Enabling Act-type legislation—something that purports to preserve law-and-order while formally empowering the president to rule by decree."
Buckle your seatbelts. It's going to be a wild ride. And now that a multi-polar world is more close, it may be time to look to the East. Seriously.
