The Insincerity of Referencing Future Generations

Politicians are quick to point out that their polices are designed to protect the next generation from the excesses of the current times. The Republicans point to the budget and scream that we are enslaving our children by running deficits. They will puff up their mighty indignation and point to a society that has gone off the rails in doing too much for too many who parenthetically ought to get off off their lazy asses and go to work. That the only employment available is minimum wage jobs that would take at least a sixty or seventy hour work week to maintain a substandard existence is of little concern to those well-to-do folks who benefit from all kinds of incentives to keep them wealthy. To think that some average Joe actually buys into this bull is truly amazing.

Romney just recently went to a white board and demonstrated how a fool with some polish can make the most outrageous assertions seem viable. Ryan, on the other hand, cherry picked the conservative Rand's writings to rationalize high military budgets, more tax decreases for the wealthy all the while gutting social programs. When compared to a street walkers who make no bones about what they are offering for money, Ryan looks like a duplicitous whore who would parade himself as an intellectual all the while taking money from the citizenry and giving nothing but a goofy smile and some allusion about the future generations. It is said he wanted to be a politician since a child. Well, Atwater (the man who mastered hate and lying politics in the modern age) and Rove must have schooled this neo con zealot in how to package bull in patriotic wrappings.

The fact that Ryan's fiscal plan is being questioned by even Reagan's budget director makes you wonder just how far a flimflam man can go before people truly understand just what the hell he is selling. That aside, there is another area where the current crop of Republicans are full of it. That is the environment.

When any of these clowns talk about the future the question should arise what kind of a land and water quality are they proposing to leave as their legacy. Sure, the troglodytes can contend that the burning of fossil fuels and releasing carbon into the air has nothing to do with climate, but that doesn't mean that it “ain't” happening. In his book, “The Fate of Species,” Guteri talks about tipping points. They being a point in time when the effects of a consequence cannot be reversed. That the earth has already gone under some major extinctions in the course of its long history should raise a caution flag. That many of the catastrophic events have come, in geological terms, quite fast should be reason enough to look at polices and practices that have dire consequences. Something to the effect that you can't use your drinking as a place to dump your sewage. That dire changes could come upon humanity at a faster pace than models suggest would surely get thinking people to look at the issue without the bias of moguls who profit from those elements that are causing the harm. The focus should not only be on this country but the world as a whole. The fact that the United States thwarted the Kyoto Accord speaks volumes to the ostrich-like policies and practices of this nation.

This high handed reference to future generations that the vast majority of neo-cons are wont to allude shows that they are little more than profligate, insincere liars. Their practices and polices as well as their laws and their court decisions will do little but leave this country and the world a vast barren land, under water, with only the roaches surviving the upheaval befalling this small planet. Funny thing is that the world will survive and will take on a composition that will eliminate the need for reality shows, and politicians who claim that their god has charted the way for a country and its fools to do whatever the hell it wants without an iota of concern for the fragile nature of this small planet.

By the by, the Democrats can stop feeding at the troughs of the bankers and other bastards whose only concern is how to acquire vast amount of capital. One noble gesture would be to transition this nation from a war state to a peace state.

The Madness of Neoconservatism

Richard Jenni, a brilliant though troubled and tortured comic, once observed that it is within a man's ego to look upon himself and see nothing but what is in his mind. An overweight sow can assume because he has plastered his eyebrow down with spit he strikes an image like a matinee idol. So it is with the Republicans politicians who parade their idiocy and think that they are astute. The country is awash in debt and the right wing revisionists point to public service workers and safety nets programs as the sole source of our economic difficulty. To hear this collection of troglodytes pontificate on a balance budget is to think that they know the way to fiscal solvency. Yet the facts remain clear. You can't spend treasure on unfunded wars, you can't cut taxes when you are increasing government spending on military systems of dubious and questionable value and you can't keep proposing policies that are responsible for the mess.

Now we have Romney selecting Paul Ryan, who somehow has been labeled an intellectual, and a budget genius when he proposed among other things to create a voucher program instead of Medicare. Paper is the last thing our health care system needs. The system is awash in paper. Fact is simplistic solutions which do little but create more confusion to an already confusing and bewildering system will never do anything to improve health care. Vouchers will do nothing but unleash a host of providers who will spend millions, if not billions, to scream out to potential subscribers the benefits of their programs probably with no entity verifying their claims. Of course, the ghouls of our healthcare industry ( that would be those giant corporations who sell insurance) are just waiting to scoop all those vouchers from unsuspecting senior citizens and giving them nothing but denials and a whole lot of paper work. We need to eliminate the ghouls who have somehow gotten their greedy dirty hands in the middle of the relationship between doctor and patient. We don't need someone sitting in an office in Hartford to determine what are medical necessities and we don't need them determining who should get coverage and we definitely don't need politicians sucking up to these guys for campaign contributions. Yet, we have a fool like the Senate Minority Leader telling us that our healthcare system is the best. It is obvious he doesn't have a clue of how to read world wide statistics. Facts, though, never got in the way of a fool's proclamation.

The question is how did the government programs that attempted to build a great society become the problem when all the fault lies with corrupt bankers, fool hardy and chicken hawk politicians, and conservatives who think that the only government necessary is government that gives them tax breaks and allows them to operate free of any restriction in their pursuit of capital. In this curious world, environmental protection is tantamount to a crime while pollution is touted as a cost of doing business. Conservatives claim unions are at fault when in fact they were responsible for the iconic middle class which has shrunk due to the absolute ignorance of those who can't grasp a fundamental law of economic. If you give the rich a tax break they buy rich people things which benefit a few, while a working person will buy a house and housing, of course, is a good indicator of a vibrant economy though that would assume you keep the thieves out of the equation.

So, here we go folks. The gauntlet has been dropped. The “necons” have secured the Republicans. They are back with their fear and saber rattling. They have all the answers. They will talk of job creators and a country that is strong and possesses all the greatness it always has. They will talk of god as if they have had a personal audience with the almighty. Bottom line, they are full of themselves to such a degree that they cannot see the forest because of the trees. They have, in fact, been calling the shots along with the thieves on Wall Street for a long time. Industry has dominated the landscape forever while the public sector and the blue collar workers who once occupied a sliver of a middle class have faded because of a hostile environment created by two bit snake oil salesmen who have charmed the electorate with guile and deceit all the while waving a flag and singing patriotic tunes. This country is in a decline and I fear Romney, the newly anointed pied piper, is tooting a tune that is nothing more than a call to the masses to follow him as he leads them to the precipice, where, if perchance, he convinces them, they will, like lemmings, fall into the abyss of inane conservatism. The truth is the true conservatives have long opted out of the fray for the crazies are in control.

The Economy of Crap

 So the new growth rate was a rather paltry 1.5% which when compared to home prices and personal income was a downer. As an uneducated student of economics, I looked at the explanation given by the talking heads and asked, WTF are they talking about. Let see, we are stagnating because a) people are saving b) were not running out and buying new crap. Hmmm, does this make sense. It wasn't too long ago we got into a shit because people were spending too much and not saving, relying on credit cards to fuel the insatiable consumerism created by the constant bullshit that bombards every American on any electronic device 24/7. The depth and extant of this pernicious need to consume smothers the world in junk, for if there is one constant among all the crap we buy it will all become junk. To base an economy on junk is little more than an attempt to squander resources in the pursuit of an illusion that the present is more important than the future, or to think only in terms of the immediate effects, something like a child consuming too much ice cream. If the world is ever going to get off the hamster wheel, things will have to be recalculated using measures that will fully account for all the variables going into a product. For example, when we calculate the value of a new product, we need to include the cost of disposing of the shit that it comes in, and for the matter, the cost of producing all the crap it is wrapped up in. To look at new consumer goods as the be all and end all of prosperity is to deny what the hell it cost to produce and to junk it. We are so fixed on this madness that we can't see the consequences of the practices that need to be addressed before we have the “new” product in our hand. That brings us to a point, is it better for someone to save or to spend? I would argue that it is better someone save for the building up of capital makes it possible to buy more durable goods. Of course, that position can only be proven if the people who safeguard the monies aren't a collection of thieves. Alas, we need some regulations, well no, we need to arrest and convict those who betray the public trust and make it hard for the rest of them to steal, something like the steel doors in a bank, but only tighter for scurrilous pin stripped bankers. To be frank, I don't know a lot about economics but what I know is that buying shit shouldn't be the basis or the measure of how well we are doing. If the modern grid were to fail, let's face we would all be in a shit. Our towering cities and suburban enclaves would fail on a scale that only a doomsday author could fully detail. Our foothold on the world was demonstrated at Fukijima. In one horrific storm, that modern shell of comfort was destroyed. Somehow, we need to refocus our energies and our models to reflect a positive move forward. It is absurd to base our economy on merely production and waste. Funny thing, since most of the junk we buy comes from China, perhaps we need to understand the value of permanence and to appreciate that if something lasts it isn't bad. We don't need all this crap, we need stuff that lasts. So as the summer rends its way through the dog days and the candidates continue to babble and the reporters talk of numbers that really don't mean anything to anyone but to the people who calculate them, we need to ask what the hell does it all mean. I would think that, for me, it is time to save and to hold off buying useless stuff I don't need. If that is impacting the economy then it is the economy and how it is measured that is at fault not me.

Silly Season in a World of Bullshit

As the country bakes, the candidates ramped up their campaigns. One can only imagine what the final two months will be like though I imagine it will be like television except instead of banal commercial commercials we will have the banal political ones. That we are bombarded with bullshit from the great bullshit manufactures in the hopes that the brain numbing sales pitches will entice us to part with some of our diminishing cash reserves is a sign that in the end this economy is merely an illusion propped up by those whose only purpose is to acquire vast sums of money so they can bemoan the welfare state and buy politicians who will make them more wealthy. The fact that any common man without a portfolio or Swiss bank account will sign on to the beliefs that a) capital gain taxes are bad, b) that a public health system is socialism, and c) that capitalists know what is best for the country and the economy is a testament to Menken's admonishment that no one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American public. While the noise machines of the right continue to incite their lemmings to action, the country flounders in a sea of greed, theft, and incompetence. That congress is little more than house filled with elected officials whose behavior can only be classified as juvenile, though to be fair, kids often acts with some degree of ethics and morality. The house is a joke parading as a deliberative body; and, the senate has turned out to be totally ineffective institution with the requirement that anything that passes that body needs 60 votes. The lazy bastards did away with filibustering so that they can spend more time at the trough of big campaign contributors than standing in the well and defending what they believe. Forget the banks. Daimon, who the president praised as a smart banker, has lost billions on risky investments. The explanation he gives sounds those of a dude with a gambling addiction. That the person responsible for the losses earned 28 million is unfathomable. That these thieves, they being the bankers, screwed consumers and municipalities with their fast talk and rate rigging and not having been brought to justice is proof positive that in this world we are in the hands of those who don't give a shit about anything but their own greed. What makes it all the more ironic is that “they believe they deserve everything they stole.” Mort Sahl made that observation many years ago. Unfortunately, it holds true today. Now for Mitt, here is a dude that claimed he is a job creator and he points to Bain Capital. Interesting, now that it has been shown that Bain was a job destroyer, he claims he wasn't in charge, just the CEO. Only in the curious world of politics can you have it both ways. As for Obama, he cites that his biggest mistake was that he failed to tell a story of hope. I think what he meant to say a narrative. We have had enough stories. What his biggest mistake was his dreaming some phantasy about a Lincolnesque team of rivals, when he should have hit the ground and kicked ass. Listening to those republicans early on, when he had a super majority in the senate and majority in congress, was tantamount to masturbating, though that act at least has some conclusion. So, here we are facing the dog days of summer. The super rich are ponying up their large checks so that they can get the ear of candidates. A recent article in the Atlantic, showed that the only people whose income went up where those with the most. The average joe is whipsawed by prices and a diminishing economy. The banks continue to get free money, while everybody's investments deteriorate. The rich will tell us they have the answers, but only a fool would believe them because these rich people have been in control and have had the politicians in their pockets and the only thing we got for all their bullshit, is crumbling schools, roads. We have squandered treasure and lives on senseless wars. We have gotten pollution. To make matters worse, we have to listen to idiots praise the rich and redefine what is good. Zealots with no morals tell people how live. Thieves manage are money. Hacks gum up our political institutions. Bullshit remains the underlying principle of this country and its economy. The candidates will begin pumping us with their unique brand of bullshit. The irony is that they are the only ones with the dough to wast on useless crap. Don't look for the news program to help decipher the bullshit. They only repeat it.

We are so screwed

Well the quadrennial popularity contest is upon us. Bullshit will be flying fast and in amounts never seen before now that the Supreme Thugs allowed robber barons to participate in the media frenzy that accompanies our national effort to reduce everything to tv spots. Forget a meaningful discussion of issues. Slogans and catch phrases will be hurled at us, always with the backdrop of some patriotic symbol. Fact is that our entire political system has been reduced to electronic bullshit. While there may be a real difference in the two candidates, the end result always seems to be the same. Money and monied people drive this country. We, the people, only matter at the polls and given the fact that the majority of us either don't give a shit or are too blinded by our own biases make the deciding faction a small minority. The candidates are, for all intensive purposes, sides of the same coin. Last time, the country went for hope and change, and all that was delivered was despair and the status quo. This year the deficit seems to be the issue. Luddites on the right scream we need to cut all social programs while maintaining tax cuts for the wealthy and expanding the military and its doomed missions. To hear this collection of “know nothings” is to hear the murmurings of the lemmings as they race toward the cliff's edge. They have no common sense. They huddled in circles and mumbled their prayers to a god that we can only be thankful does not exist. They reduce everything to faith and their faith is stooped in Byzantine knowledge. The movement of the right grew out of everything ugly and hateful in our history and to make it palpable they wrap it up in fundamental Christian thought that has nothing to do with Christ save the misappropriation of his name. As for the left, and in the interest of full disclosure, I am of that persuasion, we keep pushing the idea of equality and social services but we don't have a clue as to the dynamics under which the game is played. We have ideas that are, at times, strangely based on new age thinking that can be down right faddish. We supported Obama as if he was a messiah demonstrating that we are as fool hardy as our brethren on the right in our belief that we live in a system that can be shaped by the will of the people. What we got was but another four years of the failed polices of the previous administration. That a man as articulate as Obama could not have seen that the road to meaningful change comes from meaningful action not bullshit is beyond understanding. How can we believe that Congress is at fault when he was elected with a super majority and did nothing with it? To have waltz his way into this quagmire after four years is at its best a sign of incompetence. Underlying it all is the possibility that in this game of politics it is the moneyed people profiting from it all. Instead of Paul Volcker we got the wall street pigs who proceeded to suggest that they knew how to correct the mess they made. It was like to house breaking a pup by giving him a new room to crap in. To even suggest, as Obama did, that JP Morgan's chief guy is an astute banker is about as close as you come to drinking the Kool-Aid as you can get. If he is so damn astute, does he need a regulation to keep his subordinates from sashaying up to the dice table and pissing away a fortune? Give me break. I believe but I am not stupid. We are all plugged in and hopefully that maybe our salvation If we could only have an American Spring and move this country toward a meaningful path to a future filled with the promise that our science has given us. Politicians to the one are mere bull shit artists who work at convincing us at what we already know. As I look across the vast expanse that divides this country, the problem as I see it is that as much as we have been able to progress in terms of knowledge there is an opposing force just as certain in their ways to returning the country back to a time that never existed. In the meantime, the moneyed people sit in their glass tower smiling in amusement at the antics of the masses. For in the final analysis, as long as there are two factions fighting one another, neither will have the time to ferret out the real culprits.

The Legacy of Reagan

The Legacy of Ronald Reagan

It is hard to imagine looking at this year's Republican Primary and wondering where in the hell have all the conservatives gone. There exists in the annals of the GOP, many giants. Nelson Rockefeller comes to mind though to be honest he was more Democratic in his leaning than ever Republican. There was also Javits a senator from New York, Brooke of Massachusetts. Let's not forget Ike who warned the nation about the Military Industrial Complex. Add to this list, Drisken and many others. These men were all politicians but somehow they contributed to the great experiment. They had ideas, they promoted programs, they advocated policies. In short, they helped to steer the great ship of state through the troubled waters of time. Where have men of this caliber gone?
I think the fall of the Republican party began with the ascent of its recent icon, The Gipper. Ronald Reagan stands at the juncture between meaningful dialogue and manufactured bullshit, better known as “spin.” Reagan made stupid an art form. He could disarm and counterpoint the most salient of points with a down home, “There you go again.” Reagan was the senile grandfather whose greatest gift was his ability to make stupid seem common sense.
History shows that during the campaign for the presidency he won that he was dimwitted, not unlike a recent soccer mom with a pit bull ego. When asked serious questions, he showed nothing but confusion about history and geography. In fact, some analysis of his behavior suggest that he may have already been suffering from Alzheimer's. In the early going of that campaign, it was clear by his operatives and his wife that he was not up to the give and take of the campaign. What happened was that all of his contact thereafter was staged. The great modern conservative icon was scripted.
What is significant about this turning point in politics is that dumb became the new common sense. People related to Reagan, in large measure, because he was one of them. His smile and demeanor always at the ready played to the American sense that you didn't need to be smart. In fact, there was once a popular bumper sticker, that proclaimed, “if you so damn smart, why ain't you rich.” It was at this time “trickle down” economics became popular. The idea was if the rich had enough money, they would create opportunity. There was also something called the Lafer Curve used to prove supply side economics, and was about as sound as using a sieve to hold water. This popular leader played the tune of cliches and non statements that got the populace dancing. A program at the time, The Lives of the Rich and Famous extolled the virtue of excess and the masses sat in their homes and lived vicariously. Another push at the time was the assault on government. Regulations became the bane of the Republic. And of course, the ghouls who pushed this once B actor onto the main stage waited with baited breaths as the checks to their greedy nature were stripped away giving them full reign to do whatever they wish to do. What followed was the Savings and Loan Debacle.
The south plays into this revolution. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act and their inability to control the Democratic Conventions with their arcane penchant for segregation in all its ugly expressions, they flocked to the Republican Party and began with the slow sure progression of a malevolent force to seize control. Against this backdrop, enter the Elmer Gantries who with the help of hired guns like Reed and Atwater shaped public discourse with hate and fear.
It is a sad commentary that one party out of two is so far removed from the century we are living and the issues we are facing. Intolerance seems to be an underlying theme. Santorum can actually call out a president for being for education. It is absurd, when education has been the corner stone of all progress. I know the Senator is a Roman Catholic, and I would like him to point to one progressive act the church has taken in last one thousands years. I would dare say that the Rome of today would probably censor the Jesus of Biblical times for his positions expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. The irony of this current primary is that candidates can proclaim outright foolishness and prove their point by saying it is what I believe. It is like Reagan standing there on the platform and rather than answering the question come out with his “Aw shucks, there you go again.” The only thing more scary than that is me learning that after the primary season, the Republican candidate takes up the violin.
A great nation does not fall because of its lofty goals but its belief in things that have long outlived their usefulness.

Reflections From The Tropics

The amazing thing about the new right is that individually and collectively they are so self absorb in their twisted logic that to prove their outlandish position they need need to revise history, name call, outright lie or bend the facts. The conclusions they reach defy science and common sense. For example, they argue that the deficit is the chief problem but they don't want to raise revenues to reduce the deficit and if that wasn't enough they want to double down with tax cuts. The irony of this logic is that what they want to do will only exacerbate the deficit. It is so ironic that in the face of these deficits, most still rattle the sabers calling for more military expenditures. They also feel that business needs to be unshackled for its potential to be realized. They argue that any government regulation is onerous. A cursory look at the history of abuses of industry in this nation shows example after example where the public health and safety was compromised in the pursuit of profit. From child labor to the love canal to the financial collapse in any decade, we find greed and outright corruption at the heart of each and ever disaster. A most recent example of this insane approach to non intervention is the antics of Halliburton, a connected company, overcharging the government in Iraq. Unregulated business is but an open door to the law of jungle.
What is most striking about this new conservatism is those who elbow their way into the public eye and who bring equal amounts of bombast and viciousness to their glib critiques of anything outside of their limited political philosophy. They have mastered the art of name calling. They are little more than the executioner in the public square or the cruel and sadistic Caesar turning his thumb down towards the crowd. It is sad but true that we humans have a sick propensity for violence and enjoy both inflicting and observing it. It is to this perverse side of our nature that these ghouls of conservatism play to. That they are successful in their efforts causes me to shudder for out of this insanity lies the death, chaos, and mayhem of man's inhumanity to man as exemplified in the genocide so replete in human history. This collection of mad antagonists sow the seeds of hate. They care not for the consequences of their actions. As a result, political hacks looking to take advantage of public sentiment kowtow to these fools The sad result is a nation divided, a dead lock congress, an ineffectual president and a country incapable of dealing with the issues that need addressing. The antagonists drone on pushing the lemmings to the cliff's edge. What awaits is the pit of decline, wherein a great nation collapses into a fragment of what it was and its potential withers under the strain of hate, intolerance and ignorance.
Against this backdrop parade the fools who proclaim they are ready to play the tune so the lemmings will find some measure of calm as they hurry towards their sad fate. Fools and protagonists form a chorus whose shrill voices sing the song of a past history that existed only in the mind of the deluded. The masses crowd into cathedrals of ignorance nodding and cheering each and every inanity. Their cacophonous utterances drown out any hint of reason or science. Their only desire is to see any liberal skewed on their skews of indifference. “To hell with education” “To hell with the rights of women” “Death to the unbelievers” Then, with a pause, they stand to sing the National Anthem, though no one knows the words and they fill the empty spaces with monosyllables that tax their cognitive abilities. Slaves to simplistic explanations, they nod and affirm the nonsense they are fed.
Liberals are no better. They cling to a promise of equality while they hurry to whore themselves to the moneyed class. They, when given the opportunity to change things, procrastinate waiting for the succor from the moguls. They crave money so they will be able to continue in their role. Even the staunchest ones among this collection are tarnished with the benefits accruing to their station. Their idealism long ago sold away for thirty pieces of silver. Their constituents hold to the belief that their representatives are doing good, but the reality is that liberal and conservative dance the dance of politics which demand that the spoils be evenly distributed though the majority gets just a little more.
Our country has always had a spotted history. We freed the slaves but held them in chains with Jim Crow Laws. We offered reforms in the stock market after the crash only to unleash insatiable hogs who dreamed up schemes with the help of rocket scientists. We talk of worker safety while we send the coal miners down to their tombs. We sacrifice the good earth. We sacrifice our youth to misadventures. All the while deceiving ourselves with bullshit. America isn't so beautiful when looking from the window of a tenement while your child wheezes from the stifling air. All the while those who have made it to the pinnacle of the dung heap complain about food stamps as their distended bellies push away the excesses of their greedy eyes. Their offal more food then some children in some distant land will see in their short lives because hunger will snuff out their brief life.
As I sit and write this, I too am part of the pampered lucky ones. I have been able to eat my way into obesity. I have been able to draw dole from the Treasury for services rendered. I have gamed the system and am able to do things that others before me couldn't even dream about. I have stood and observed things that defy description, like a sunset from the deck of ship in the middle of the ocean. I have broken bread with those who haven't a worry about finances. I have heard them decry the liberals for wanting too much. I have heard them begrudge the poor for the relief they receive. All the while, they bask in the benefits of a system designed that allowed them great wealth. It is an irony the satirist Mort Sahl described in this fashion, The Rich Conservative Believes He Deserves Everything He Stole.