Grope & Thud - The Battle of the Failed Records

It was all so tediously predictable.  President Obama looked a little livelier than hung-over and the press was gaga about how he had regained and recovered momentum and footing. Whatever news story one read, the talk was about "biting attacks" as the candidates "slugged" it out in "fiery" debate.  And so it has come to this: that in America's epoch of Haute Empire, a presidential debate was inescapably indistinguishable from the contrived Grope and Thud of World Wide Wrestling.  It was all so tediously depressing.

Within this slippery farce, the press valiantly sought to retrieve some peanuts of substance -- peanuts provided, we might add, only from the gallery.  "I'm glad you asked that, Sally...."  But no peanut was big enough to obscure the fact that what we witnessed was the Battle of  Failed Records.

And it is for this reason that we think Romney won the second debate as well as the first. Romney failed as an entrepreneurial "job creator" and governor but Obama has failed as a president.  It was ironically distressing that Romney's attacks on Obama's record should sound like they were cribbed from the leftish likes of Counterpunch, Truthout and (even!) Socialist Worker.  But, howsoever cribbed, contrived and oozing in crocodile tears, the fact is that things today are as lousy as they were four years ago.  That was, and remains, an albatross from which Obama could not free himself.

Gasoline prices were emblematic.

Under Wonderous Boy George, Romney cried, gasoline was $1.86 a gallon!   Yeah, replied Obama, with incisive sarcasm, only because the economy was in the tank.  (Actually, the bon mot was missed in Obama's leaden performance, but that was the gist of his reply.)  The only problem with Obama's ripost is that the economy is still in the tank and gasoline is upwards of $4.00 a gallon.

Neither candidate, it appears, has any desire or willingness to tackle the real bete noire of gasoline prices including speculative abuse of futures trading and (we do suspect) price manipulation.  Since neither of them disagree on the fundamentals of oil and gas production, the net distinction is the fact of $4.00 which ends up being Obama's loss.

We do not deny that there are differences within the fine print of the candidates' otherwise identical boilerplate contracts with America.  A case in point was the Administration's termination of preferential and profitable use-licenses for companies that didn't use the rights except as a paper asset or tradeable derivative. While Obama's executive action was not a bad thing, it left the fundamentals unchallenged and it is the fundamentals that are killing families at the pump.

Both candidates are in agreement that all will be well if we tweak and tinker with the tax code and let "Market Magick" do its miraculous work.  But all will not be well if that is all we do. 

Given that things are as lousy as they were four years ago; that Obama does not propose to do anything different from what he has been doing, and that he refuses to go grind the obstructionist opposition into the pink slime they are, it is hard to see how Romney does not come out the winner.  After all, all Romney has to do is "look presidential" and provide some plausible chimera for hope and change. 

It is here that come to the real substance -- albeit the psychological substance -- of the debate. Romney certainly looks presidential, given our normative socio-racial and cultural expectations.  It may be illogical and unfair, but Obama looks like a "black" Dennis E. Kucinich and is not what we expect to see on dollar bill.  Romney's height, his ease on stage, his stentorian grey at the temples and his healthy pancake all look the part.  To be objective, he has a bit of the F.D.R. air about him.

Romney also sounds presidential, as is proved by Barfo's Kitchen Test :  Turn on the debate and go fry something in the kitchen so that you can't hear what the candidates are saying but only the modulation, inflection and cadence of their voices.   What you will hear is that Obama is not a good speaker.  His delivery is interrupted by clipped sentences, abrupt pauses and unusual punctuations. His voice is down-beat and protesting.  Romney's delivery is fluid, commanding, rapid and upbeat even when accusatory. He urges utter bullshit and lies with earnest sincerity and facile argument-- a skill he no doubt acquired early in life during his two years of missionary work.

In short, the psychological substance of the matter is that Romney comes across as the Alpha Male and Obama does not -- and he does not because he is not.   The sad fact is that Obama is an arriviste. No one wants to say it because it hearkens to America's Ugliness.   But race in the United States is what gentility of birth used to be in Europe.

No one could have been more nouveau tout than Bill Clinton.  But he could expect and count on being forgiven all because, in Metternich's inimitable phrase, he fell into "baron and above."  Obama does not.  That is not his fault but it does not change the result.  In virtually every picture we have seen of Obama either golfing with Bohner or dining with executives, he has a looks that says, "I can't believe I am actually here."   And the "I" of the matter comes burdened with a lot of history that has nothing and everything to do with Obama. 

No one will get anywhere in the United States unless they are willing and able to accept "the system" on its terms.   A person goes to law school to learn the rationales and excuses that buttress the political structure.  A person goes to business school to learn the accepted theories  and  modalities of "generating" wealth.  For sure,  America has been gracious in allowing non-conformists a more or less free space at the sidelines to carp and cavil.   One can even make a living out of being an irrelevant pest.  But if you want to play the game, you swallow the oyster --and no oyster is swallowed in halves.  

In swallowing, Obama is no different than Clinton or anyone else.  But in arriving at the table Obama won a far, far, far harder struggle.   Thus, when Obama says he does "not begrudge"  Blankfein his huckstered millions he really, really means it and is (evidently) not about to jeopardize his place at the table.  In contrast, a man like F.D.R. (who swallowed oysters at birth) would have had no problem in calling Blankfein a disgrace to his class.  

In Romney's case, the "alpha" in the male stands for more than just "top".   The ostentation of his car-elevator is exceeded only by the obscenity of his off-shoring, tax-evasion, asset plunder, job destruction and -- lest we forget -- appalling hypocricy.   But rather than rip this monster a new Alpha hole,  Beta Bama will simply not begrudge "governor" Romney his tissue of decency.  That is a failing that lost the debate and could  cost the president his reelection.

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Begging & Begging the Question

Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth. -- Lucy Parsons

Faced with massive beggary in Europe, the New York Times met the issue head on by begging the question. The Times reported that, despite austerity protests, Greece and Spain were proceeding with further budget cuts. In Greece, the government "agreed on an austerity package that includes some of the most severe cuts in public pensions ever imposed in a developed country." In Spain, the government "introduced one of the most draconian budgets in the country’s history."

"The markets need reassuring," the Times explained and the cuts were "intended to reassure international investors and demonstrate the fiscal discipline that the euro zone was demanding..."

foto per N.Y. Times

Unlike Greece which had slashed pensions 10 percent, Spain took its cuts of flesh from other parts of the body. "Politically, it is understandable that Mr. Rajoy would want to put a protective bubble around the country’s 10 million retirees at a time when people are marching in the streets," the Times sympathetically intoned before going on to warn that "the fact that Spanish public pensions are being enhanced is a reminder of one reason European debt and deficit problems have proved so difficult to resolve."

What deserves note is not that budget cuts are being made but rather that the Times simply assumes that the "deficit problems" can only be "resolved"  by starving pensioners.   Entitlements  (i.e., people entitlements) are the problem and once pensions are cut the difficulty will be solved.  Never once does the Times question whether perhaps people -- and not "markets"-- need reassuring. Never once does the Times question the Moloch that demands the sacrifice of babies.

For the past nine months or so we have been thinking about Marx's Fetish of the Commodity and have been whittling away at a chip on the subject, but the Times report -- which is simply a reflection of what the Establishment thinks -- about sums it up. And what the New World Order demands is a Shylockian "economy" on a ferocious scale. We are in need of a Portia or a Parsons. 

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Persia and The Euphrates Sturgeon

Taking their lead from the New York Times, most of the American media excoriated Iran's president Ahmadinejahd for remarking that Zionist Jews were a blip in the history of the Middle East. " 'They have no roots there in history,'  Mr. Ahmadinejad said of the Israelis," reported the Times, " 'They do not even enter the equation for Iran.' " 

The Times went on to report that "The New York Post, which has made no secret of its hostility toward Mr. Ahmadinejad, said it had tried to deliver a gift basket over the weekend to the Warwick [Hotel] filled with items including Gold's Borscht, Manischewitz gefilte fish, Murray's Sturgeon Shop whitefish, Zabar's cream cheese and a free ticket to the Off Broadway show 'Old Jews Telling Jokes'. The Post said Iranian officials at the hotel declined to accept it." 

The irony apparently escaped the Times, and just in case it might escape anyone else, neither borscht, gefilte fish nor sturgeon have much of a history in the Middle East. 

But whether by design or omission, the Times and certainly the Post appear to have missed Ahmadinejahd's more significant Olive Branch. 

Whether the vast bulk of Ashkenazi Jews who comprised the impetus for Zionism had any actual antecedent presence in the Middle East, it is clear that Ahmadinejahd believes they did not and that, in his mind, they are an isolated ethno/genetic subgroup arising out of Central and Eastern Europe. 

As reported in the Western media, Ahmadinejad has also previously threatened to drive  this Zionist "regime" from the map and, by implication, to expel the so-called European foreigners from the Middle East.  Not surprisingly,  Israel considers such remarks to be an "existential threat."

However, there is a chasm between vowing to drive "foreigners" from the land and saying that their presence is evanescent blip which does "not even enter the equation."  Israelis may feel insulted to learn that they are "beneath an equation" but insulting or not Ahmadinejad could not have made it more clear that Iran has no belligerent intentions against Israel. 

To be sure, in the Israeli view, Iran is already aiding and abetting alleged hostile terrorist organizations and/or tyrants.  But it behooves diplomats not to slip and slide on the jelly of confused issues.  The "existential" issue is whether Iran has a geopolitical purpose and military design to destroy the State of Israel and disperse its Jewish inhabitants elsewhere.  As to this question  -- the Titus Question --  Ahmadinejad has stated that Israel doesn't enter into Iran' calculations.

Whether Iran supports a monarch in Syria or whether the United States supports a misogynist dictator in Saudia Arabia; whether Iran sends arms to Hamas or whether Israel sends advisors to Kurdistan or whether the United States supported Al Qaeda against Assad,  are distinct issues involving non-existential geo-political gambits of an entirely different order of magnitude.   

It will hardly come as a surprise that the word "diplomat" is "hypocricy" by another name but neither the United States nor Israel can complain that Iran plays the same game they do.    As to the existential game,  if anyone came bearing gifts to New York, it was Iran. 

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Romney & the 47%

In a closed meeting with his supporters, Governor Romney disclosed his less than charitable feelings about 47% of the country which, he said, were too poor to pay taxes and felt they were entitled to hand outs. His remarks reminded us of a thought that came into our mind  but a mere week ago.

I am a Calvinist. I believe God adores me. I adore me. Me for Me. I deserve what I can steal because I am full of Grease. Screw others if they starve. God hates them. So do I.

Sometimes i think that the present floats about in some ether of some sort.

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The Political Howl

We had better things to chip at than to watch the Republican Party convention; however, short of living in a remote cabin, it is impossible to isolate one's self from the "news stream" that has become something of an Orwellian ether which is omni-present and all-permeating.

So it was we read that the media were not happy with Ryan's speech which was strewn with lies -- not seeming lies, not plausible lies, but lies which lay beyond the pale.  . .  . [continue reading]

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Self Defence & The Pussy Riot

The Russian Orthodox Church claims that the Pussy Riot performance in St. Basil's Cathedral was an assault on Christian sensibilities. So?

Jesus offered no defence against his accusers and suffered every injury and indignity before and, most probably after, his Crucifixion.

Christ's absolute sufferance led his earliest followers to espouse an uncompromising passivism. It was a rule of the Early Church, that a Christian was not allowed to defend himself. Even St. Cyril Constantine (d. 869), who advocated "just defence" of neighbours, accepted the passivist premise against self-defence.

What did this mean? It meant very simply, that if struck you were to turn the other cheek; if thrown to the lions you were to offer neck to fang. A Christian was committed to suffer whatever evil God sent his way.

Now there are those who would like to engineer a more convenient result by resort to casuistry, which "resolves moral problems by extracting theoretical rules from particular instances and applying these rules to new situations." (Wiki)

Typically, this case-based rationalism seeks to manoeuvre between a thicket of supposed goods and not-goods by asking "how do we?" and "what is the purpose of?". The injunction to put aside the sword, these rationalists say, is a command to avoid violence. Self-defence without violence is permitted and indeed even "Christian."

Thus it is that AIKIDO is popular among those who wish to have their defence and be pacific too. The martial art of Aikido is based on receiving the force of violence but deflecting it mirror-like against its source so that the attacker end up attacking himself.

Clever but not Christian. There is nothing wrong with aikido as a martial art and as a martial art it is perhaps the most ingenious. But pacifism and Christianity are not co-terminous. Put another way, pacifism and submission are not the same thing. Jesus did indeed enjoin living by the sword but the crucified Christ went beyond that. The Christian who thinks he is emulating Christ by practicing non-violent Aikido deludes himself. The only way to emulate Christ is to suffer whatever crucifixion God bestows as one of his dubious graces.

Which leads us to the Pussy Riot. The Russian Orthodox Church is scandalized by what it calls the salacious and satanic performance of the female punk rock group within the sacred precincts. We did not have the benefit of seeing the performance ourselves and may accept that it was so grotesque and blasphemous as to be deeply offensive to orthodox religiosity. But so what?

There is a degree of palaver in the Russian and Western press about the unduly close ties between Church and Kremlin, about the unduely repressive response to an "inappropriate" exercise of nonetheless free speech, about the public relations disaster of the whole affair, on the one hand, and the substantial popularity of the prosecution on the other. We have also read that the Pussy Performers were put up to it by nefarious agencies seeking to stir up trouble in Russia. But none of this is here or there.

The Church should emulate its Founder and bear the injury with patience and gratitude. Had patriarch Kirill truly followed his Saviour he would have suffered through the performance and then invited the Pussy Girls to tea.

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Transparency Redux - Crystaline Clarity in Syria

       

A year ago this month, we noted  [1] the candor with which Western businessmen flocked to Libya on the very afternoon of Col. Qadaffi's murder. 

A provisional government we had never heard of in the news was there waiting to greet deplaning German and French businessmen with contracts and pens in hand.  The New York Times reported that at U.S. instance and request the Security Council had unfrozen $1.5 billion in seized Libyan assets in order to provide "aid" to the country.

So it was with some bemusement that we read in the New York Times today  [2] that,

"The State Department is considering positioning additional food and medical supplies in the region and is studying how to dismantle the raft of American and European sanctions against Syria quickly to allow investment to flow in and business to resume, avoiding further deterioration of life for ordinary people. "

One has to be an incurable moron not to realize the game afoot. What is amusing, in a contemptuous way,  is how the Western "leftishts" fall a-sucker over and over.  It apparently suffices to label the targetted ruler an ogre, a tyrant, a monster who stockpiles weapons of mass destruction, oppresses women and tortures dissidents for the left  to line up like good dumbfucks cheering on the latest Crusade for Democracy (and Reproductive Rights).

The United States has gotten quite good at this game, given that its own indpendence was foisted on  the world by twittering "Committees of Correspondence" waxing indignant over contrived atrocities such as the "Boston Massacre."  The United States honed the technique in Hispanic America where it was always able to find some corrupt "liberal-minded" prestanombre ("name-lender") who could recite Jeffersonian talking points by heart and who just needed a few companies of Marines to mow down "bandits" and "insurrectionists."  Why, just last month, the United States engineered a 48 hour impeachment of Paraguay's President Lugo.  Within weeks the "raison de coup" became clear: Monsanto was given the permission which Lugo had denied it to wreak an ecological holocaust on Paraguay with genetically modified seed and pesticides.  

But the Spontaneous Impeachment in Paraguay was child's play -- a mere trip down memory lane -- in comparison to America's newly honed and droned technique for "freeing up" a target country's assets. 

We recently wrote [3] that the core strategy of the U.S. "security wars" is to promote chaos and civil degradation so as to create perpetually fluid conditions for exploitation and control of resources. The strategists and leaders of the "First World" have realized that it is no longer necessary to go through the trouble and expense of installing despot puppets like Augusto Pinochet. It quite suffices to destroy whatever national authority exists and to negotiate contracts with whatever tribal or urban gangs (passing off as a "transitional government) are nearest to the bananas we want to pick.

As Rome created a desert and called it peace, the National Capitalist United States creates chaos and calls it freedom.

©Barfo, 2012

[1] http://barfos.blogspot.com/2011/08/transparency.html


[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/world/middleeast/state-dept-and-pentagon-planning-for-post-assad-syria.html

[3] http://wcg-journal.blogspot.com/2011/06/mining-harvesting-and-civil-carcinogens.html

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The Nut Crackens

    

It would seem the United States has perfected the technique of invisible invasions.  Today, all of a sudden, the Guardian UK has started referring to the "Free Syrian Army."  What began several months ago as "democracy protests" (which were, of course "brutally suppressed") then metamorphosed into "armed resistance" aided and abetted from it was never very clear where.  But now at least the egg is hatched and we have a Free Syrian Army.

The difference is diplomatically important because, whereas every government has the sovereign right to crush insurrectionists whithin its borders, foreign governments don't have the right to assist rebels until they have gained enough ground that they can reasonably be considered co-belligerents.  In other words, the importance of a "civil war" is that outsiders can intervene whereas no one can intervene in a domestic disturbance. 

What the United States has perfected is agitating domestic disturbance with tweets and NGO grants until they ripen into a civil war.  From the Ukraine to Libya the technique has been honed and perfected.  To be sure, the United States is happy when it need go no further than suborn a majority in the National Assembly, as happened last month during Paraguays "28 Hour Impeachment" of a "left-leaning" and "pro-peasant" president who managed to offend  land holding "oligarchs" including American corporations and the Bush Family.  But Syria is a tougher nut to crack; but cracked it will be, into an ethnic bantustan of mutually loathing factions that will be unable to resist anything Israel or the United States wants.

Israel?  Look at a map of the Euphrates and trace the route of any pipeline from that great and essential aquifer.

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Nunc Pro Clunk

     

Well... it might be a fun summer after all, what with Obama holding Romney's feet to the fire over his role in Bain Capital's massive "export" of American jobs between 1999 and 2002.   Of course, the whole and entire purpose and intent of a company like Bain Capital is to make a profit by selling off assets and reducing labour costs. Nevertheless, Romney claims that he left the company in 1999 and had nothing to do with the gutting operations thereafter.  Alas, his SEC filings with the government list him as Man In Charge as of 2002.  

Seeking to stem the avalanche of bad publicity falling on Romney's head, campaign spokesman Ed Gillespie has bravely claimed that Romney had "retroactively retired" in 2002.

???

This might not be as odd as it seems.  In lawyer-land, it is a known and accepted procedure to back-date documents -- nunc pro tunc -- or now for then -- to reflect either what really existed or what really should have taken effect on an earlier date.  We suspect that in non-lawyer land this will go over as nunc pro clunk.

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July Fourth's Unsung Prophet

MEMORANDUM FROM THE COUNT  OF ARANDA TO  HIS  MAJESTY KING CHARLES III ON THE INDEPENDENCE  OF  THE  ENGLISH  COLONIES  IN  AMERICA. (1783)

SIRE,

The love which I profess for Your Majesty ... [continue reading]

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Another Tantrum at Foggy Bottom

       

"The US has accused Tehran of arming Syrian government forces." -- BBC News - 9 June 2012

Uh huh... and?  Has the US "accused" Germany of arming Israel with nuclear-capable submarines?  Of course not.  Not only because the United States would never accuse anything of benefit to Israel, but also because there is nothing illegal in one sovereign state selling or giving arms to another.  In fact, the United States does it all the time.  So what is there to "accuse" Iran of, other than throwing a petulant tantrum?

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The Iron Dumpling

      

Move over Maggie!  Europe has a New Iron Chancellor.  Merkel may look like a frumpy dumpling, but she's tuffer than walnuts.  The broken teeth of the G(7) are proof of that.

Whistling through the gaps, the G8 communique informed the rest of us that its member states (firmly) committed themselves "to take all necessary steps to strengthen and reinvigorate our economies and combat financial stresses, recognizing that the right measures are not the same for each of us." 

Barely a tissue to cover the shabby.

The issue is simple.  Germany (or more precisely, German banks and "private investors") are insisting on their pounds of flesh, which means that Greeks must commit themselves to eating beans for the next half century or so.  It was this kind of "commitment" (aka the Dawes Plan) that once brought Hitler to power, and the Greeks are rightly not eager to put their country up for sale while committing themselves to penury.

But if Greece flips the "Eurozone" (i.e. Germania Redivivus) the bird what of the other PI(g)S? The prospect of a round of wholesale Argentine bird-flipping makes "investors" skittish, which means it costs Spain and Italy and Portugal higher and higher interest rates to borrow money which in turn require greater proofs of "creditworthiness" (ie. austerity) which only fuels the spiral downward to stagnation and poverty.

The only way out is to pump up the economies with a lot of hot air (aka inflation). Dollars and Euros and Yen may be worth less overall, but what counts is circulation.  When money circulates, people buy things and when people buy things other people produce them -- and everyone is happy even if Keynes Koins are little more than gold tinsel chocolate dollars.

The United States in particular is hot to dust off ol' Maynard, because until she completes her volt face toward the Pacific, American goods still seek European purchasers and if the Old Worlde is eating beans, that doesn't bode well for the New.  Next to Merkel, Obambi is positively socialistic!!  But the Iron Dumpling is having none of it.  Smiling and Frumpy she stood her ground; stalwart proof of what comes from being weaned on salted herring.

©Barfo, 2012

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Obama Takes A Ride

in memory of Rosa Parks..... 

 

yeah sure.....

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Thank God for Old Enemies

Speaking of Syria, Defense Secretary Panetta told Congress yesterday: "I think it's clear that the only way that the United States would get involved militarily is if there's a consensus in the international community..."

Translation: "Thank God, Russia will save our butts from having to go in...."

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Fracking the Homeland.

The Obama Administration has approved new guidelines on the Government's collection, retention and use of information on American citizens. The new rules will allow the National Counterterrorism Center to drag-net personal data from any and all sources, public or private, even when there is no suspicion that the individual is connected to terrorism. As reported by the New York Times, the data can be retained for up to five years and data mined "to search for patterns that could indicate a threat" or as the NCC puts it, "that might relate to a potential attack."

Ah yes... once again grammar; that pesky little technicality toward which Americans are so indifferent. They key words here are: "might," "could" "potential" and "threat". Could is the present conditional tense of "can" meaning "susceptible to" or "capable of". It denotes a potentiality; something which is latent but not active or which is not present but might, with some uncertain degree of probability, realize itself. A threat is "the expression of an intention to inflict evil or injury on another; the declaration of an evil, loss, or pain to come." (Websters, 1913 Ed.) By extension, the word "threat" has come to mean the existence of an evil to come; i.e., a potential injury or loss. Used in this sense the word "threat" is equivalent to "danger" wherein both words refer to an injury or loss which could occur.

And so, we have entered the realm of the potentially potential  Once we take cognisance of the meaning of words, we can understand that the Government has asserted the power to plow through personal information to search for patterns that might point to a person's potential or capability to inflict harm. Once such a pattern is detected, it follows that the Government can effect a preemptive strike in order to neutralize the person presenting the potential threat.

Where have we heard this before? We have heard it in the Bush Administration's assertion of a right to effect a preemptive strike against nations that could present a threat to the United States.

The policy of pre-emptive "power-projection" was first articulated in then Defense Secretary Cheney's 1992 Defense Planning Guide which redefined the America's military mission as "precluding the emergence of any potential global competitor." (Planning Guide Memorandum, 18 Feb. 1992, I 91/28291, p. 4.) "Preclude emergence" or in simple English, "killing weeds before they sprout."

Eight years later, the same zio/con cabal which was involved in Cheney's opus, banded together to come up with a think tank whitepaper called Rebuilding America’s Defenses published by the defense-industry funded Project for a New American Century (PNAC). The PNAC paper formulated the strategy of "full spectrum" action to prevent "potentially powerful states" from being able to either challenge the United State or even expand their own regional influence. Result? Iraq, Afghanistan and now possibly Iran.

Although these interventions were all justified as the response to an alleged "attack" on the United States, the events of 9/11 merely provided the spectacular cover for a policy that rejected response-based strategies in favor of pre-emptive action against possible threats.

In the 10 years since 9/11 virtually no one (and certainly no one in the American mudia) has focused on the import of "could" or the meaning of the word "potential". What more or less modern industrialized nation could not present a potential harm to the United States? Virtually all modern states are capable of inflicting harm or loss on another state. Any state presents a potential threat to the United States.

Anyone who thinks this is an exaggerated interpretation, need only remember the talk that was bandied about prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It was repeatedly urged as a casus belli that Saddam had a "weapons-of-mass destruction program" and that we needed to remove his "capacity" to inflict harm on his people or neighbors (i.e. Israel).

Needless to say, everyone forgot the substantive object of the phrase (i.e. "program") while the pseudo Boolian adjectival string (WEAPONS MASS DESTRUCTION) clanged around in the bell of the collective brain.

In the run up to that trillion dollar disaster, the U.S. mudia repeatedly barraged the American public with images of U.N. inspectors being turned away from complicated looking machines at "installations" that turned out to be fertilizer factories and the like. The key point here is not that a fertilizer factory was falsely passed off as a weapons center but that fertilizer factories and the like represent the industrial "capability" to create weapons of mass destruction should that be the intent of the government.

The Western regime of sanctions against Iraq was simply aimed at reducing an emerging industrial nation to the state of undeveloped, impoverished third world country. When Saddam Hussein refused to voluntarily return his country to the stone age, we blasted it back for him.

That was the policy against Iraq; it is the policy in Afghanistan and it is urged as the policy against Iran. It is the policy of preemptive power projection or, in plain Anglo-Saxon English, the policy of bully-boy ass kicking around the world.

This is the reason the Graham/Lieberman bill pending in the Senate seeks to mandate preventing Iran from being "capable" of manufacturing a nuclear weapon.

At the risk of repetition, let us make sure the point is driven home. There is no evidence that Iran is making a nuclear bomb. All the talk from Israeli and pro-Israeli propagandists is whether Iran has decided to embark on a nuclear program -- i.e. whether it "intends" to make a bomb. Of course that is only dubiously knowable and so the policy ends up insisting that we need to cut off a man's hands because, since that we can't know if he will punch us, we might as well make him incapable of doing so should he want to.

That dis-abling is what the so-called "war on terror" is about and the war on terror has also finally come home. The same paradigm that is applied to nation states is applied to American citizens, with the same arbitrary and destructive results.

What person is not potentially capable of presenting a threat to the government? No one. All of us by are very existence are potentially dangerous. This blog warned about it when we wrote over ten years ago,

“What the Government will have to presume is that everyone is at least a potential terrorist. In the most fundamental sense that is a presumption which is entirely antithetical to the concept of civil friendship, i.e., societas."

We also warned about it when we explained that under the concept of data mining, all information is guilty information because all of it is of potential significance.

In traditional military or criminal intelligence there is always a specific suspect and question in mind. But in the world of data mining no specific information is sought. What counts is the possible relation between apparently unconnected and insignificant pieces of data. Since any person in the security zone can possess such a piece of connect able data no arrest is “arbitrary” and every one is a potential “suspect” in “possession of potential information” .

In line with the PNAC white paper, the US military has explicitly applied these concepts to so-called "security zones" such as Iraq. But of course, as the Government's policy papers never cease to remind us, the "core" security zone is the "Homeland" itself. And so now, inevitably, the same drag-net data acquisition and mining that was applied to those Iraqi's and those Afghans, is now to be applied to us, Murkans.

The question will become not what is prohibited, but what is allowed.

But it does not and will not end there. Once we realize that Iraq and Afghanistan serve merely as the experimental phases of what will inevitably be applied in "the Homeland" the end comes into clear and fearsome focus.

As summarized by the PNAC whitepaper, the U.S. military's "full spectrum" strategy included "shaping the security environment" with "acquisition and management of information" and the use of "organic intelligence units". In simple English, data-mining on the one hand combined with the use of moles, undercover operatives, entrappers and agents provocateurs agents on the other. What this means is that "shaping the security environment" includes provoking the incident responded to -- creating the reality of ongoing instability requiring ongoing "heightened" response.

It has to be this way because the only way to neutralize a potential is to destroy the very forces which make it effective. In other words, the policy calls for a kind of civic fracking which destroys the living force within society by rendering people suspicious of their neighbors, afraid of themselves lest they betray a pattern of potential threatfulness, misinformed, ever unsure of everything.

We are blithely creating our own living hell.

©Barfo, 2012

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Pope Benedict Mistakenly Corrects Himself

As readers of this scroll might know, we have long been impressed by Pope Benedict’s erudition, kindliness and (very dry) wit. It has seemed to us that Benedict has been unfairly libelled by a materialist-liberal press out to destroy his moral authority and animated by a long standing ideological hatred of the Catholic Church.    ... [continue reading]

Holmberg's Mistake as Policy

In his provocative study of pre-Columbian AmerIndian civilizations (1491), historian Charles C. Mann discusses what he calls Holmberg’s Mistake.

Between 1940 and 1942, anthropologist Allan Holmberg went to live among the pre-historic Sirionó of Bolivia . . . [continue reading]

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Dissipation

Dennis Kucinich has been gerrymandered out of his congressional seat.

No loss. Kucinich betrayed progressives when he caved into Obamba on health care. In fact, just like Obama, he talks nice but runs scared in the end. Kucinich should have been beating the war drums with the OWS movement. Instead he was looking desperately for a safe-seat... even as far as Washington State if it would have him (it said no) so long as it would get him back to Washington D.C. Kucinich? Who needs him.

The same holds true for Bernie Sanders. His progressive bluster last Fall has now tweetled down to decrying the "crisis in dental care." Of such stuff are great statesmen made!

Well surely there is Barbara Boxer? Surely not. Perusal of her web page will show that when she is not sounding off loud and shrill about abortion or the evils of smoking, she is blowing Israel's war horn; and when she is not doing that, she is pandering to California's military establishment. As head of the Senate's environmental sub-committee her accomplishments are on the order of mandating bio-degradable poop bags in national parks..

The sad fact is that there is not a single progressive leader who has emerged to speak for and galvanize the 99%. The predictable result is that the wave of mass discontent will crash and dissipate on the rock of the 1%.

Welcome to the Era of Orwellian Austerity.

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Daughters of America

American painter Grant Woods (1891-1942) and news photographer Josh Haner capture an abiding American animus.

©Barfo
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The Irony of Germania

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff, stated that "Germany has been the winner in the globalization process" because it "has an innovative industrial sector whose high quality products are very much in demand in emerging economies."

Ah, the ironies!

In 1943, SS Brigadefuhrer, Otto Ohlendorf wrote a memorandum concerning the global economy in the post war era. Ohlendorf was interested in the analyses of Ludwig Erhard, a civilian German economist, who had written a lengthy but secret manuscript examining the transition to a post-war economy after the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Ohlendorf was opposed to the American-style, mass-production techniques introduced into Germany by Reichminister Albert Speer. In Ohlendorf's view Chaplinesque assembly-line bolt-torquing was incompatible with the uplifting role expected of labour in Aryan society. It was a Meistersinger kind of thingie.

Besides, on the field of mass-production, there was no way Germany could compete with Japan and the United States. Let those countries take care of producing mass-consumer crap, Ohlendorf wrote. To Germany, the niche economy of high-quality crafted goods (think Leica) that only German skill could produce.

And so it was. German industry rose phoenix like from the ashes It's no longer called Germania but Europa.

Ohlendorf was hanged upon conviction of mass-murder in the Ukraine; Ludwig Erhard went on to be come Chancellor of Germany.

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Teapot Tempest

As if the American political vaudeville were not DaDa enough, the president has now deftly managed to stir up a teapot tempest over the Sanctity of Flow.


Let the starting point be clear. Having thoroughly betrayed every intimation of progressive change he puff talked in 2008, Wall Street's Mr. Fetch n' Shuffle is now trying to curry favor with those same progressives by frantically scrounging up whatever chicken feed he can find to throw at them. Thus, last year's uptick in Veteran's benefits and minimalist pseudo relief on student indebtedness and this month's Bank Immunity Act paid for by nominal foreclosure relief for a the qualifying few. Given these Herculean efforts in the cause of Progressivism, it was hardly surprising that Obama should now scrounge up free morning after pills for women working at Catholic hospitals. What cheaper way to appear the valiant progressive ever forging onwards in the fight for full and equal validation for women?

But in his eagerness to appear progressive, Obama forgot that, when it comes to crumbs from the table, no one excells the Roman Catholic Church.


No sooner had Obama pronounced than Cardinal Dolan pounced. And, from the looks of it, when Dolan pounces the floor boards tremble. To high hoist was the Banner of Freedom run up amid roars about the Sanctity of Conscience and Life's Natural Flow.

To be fair about it, the Catholic Church's sexual doctrine is not quite the monstruousity it is made out to be by its liberal opponents who wax and roar indignant over any embarrassment to the Sanctity of Personal Pleasure or to the Equal Right of Womyn to Sex without Consequences. The Church's doctrine is grounded in an existential world view that prizes the full spectrum of life as sacred, from the alpha to the omega. That may be overly philosophical for some, but it is a fully respectable position which is by no means exclusively Catholic.

The Church's hypocricy, equal to Obama's, is that it calls for Jihad over minute alphas while contenting itself with pro-forma "position papers" on the omegas. Where were the cardinals when Romney gallically shrugged off the poor with the remark, n'ont pas les pauvres de brioche?

Where is the Church's outrage over the millions who don't have health insurance at all and over the 40 millions of now structurally unemployed and homeless? It is all well and good to trumpet the sanctity of life, but that does not end with sperm, it continues on with what the Church itself calls God's preferential option for the poor. (See Luke 1:46-55)

Ever being fair, the outrcry was not raised only by the Church. "We are all Catholics now," intoned Mike Huckabee, the Baptist politico of the last electoral season. Alas, no rabbi echoed the sentiment. Au contraire. "Not us! Not us!" cried the High Priests of 42nd Street, who studiously buried mention of the fact that equally irredentist and conservative Jews had joined the chorus of protest. After all, in the New York Time's liberal cosmology of things the Catholic Church is the bete to be beaten even if Jews or others indulge the same passions or beliefs.

Be since we are all Catholics now or since only Catholics are dastardly enough to protest against Obama's chicken feed, we can safely cast the issue as a fight to the finish between between the Administration and the American Conference of Catholic Bishops.

What we have been treated to in the end is nothing but a colossal mud wrestle over a peanut by two sumi wrestlers larded with hypocricy.

©Barfo, 2012
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Moats in the Other's Eyes

In what can only be described as a work of art, Amir Eshel, Israel's newly-appointed Air Force commander, warned that a nuclear Iran would lead to proliferation across the the Middle East.

Uh... let's get a grip here. Who started the proliferation if not Israel? If Israel did not want to see nuclear proliferation she should not have acquired nuclear weapons.

Is this sort of palaver cheek or an ingrained cognitive defect of some sort?

Of course, Israel's supporters will truck out the old hobby horse of an "existential threat." This hardly serves as an excuse given Israel's track record of soundly defeating opposing forces. The fact is that nuclear weapons create existential threats for others. But that, apparently, is of no account.

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Plus Faux

Obambi is going to do a Faux Impression of Teddy (Roosevelt) . Sum and End of Story. Snore

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Faux Again

From the New York Times:

"[T]he question [is] how far governments must bend or even bow to the power of markets.

"Mr. Obama sees retaining the stability of markets and the confidence of investors as a primary goal of government and a prerequisite for achieving any major changes in public policy.

"Mrs. Merkel views the financial industry with profound skepticism and argues, in almost moralistic fashion, that real change is impossible unless lenders and borrowers pay a high price for their mistakes." [ 1 ]

Simple and candid truth; from the Times nonetheless! There is a Santa Claw after all.

We had thought there was something faux about Obama's rediscovered "New Nationalism". Herbert Croley's The Promise of American Life (1909), from which Theodore Roosevelt cribbed the main points of his Osawatomie Kansas speech (1910), had been inspired chiefly by the Great Otto von Bismark's progressive social compact which put in place the foundations for the present European social state.

The essential idea of that compact is that the two principal economic classes of the state must be coordinated for the good of the whole social fabric. Bismark's compact did not abolish private property, nor did it suppress labor; it imposed social responsibility on Capital and Labor, requiring both to work cooperatively for the good of the State.

Because it steered a course between free-market Liberalism and proletarian Socialism, Bismark's compact has been described as the "Third Way". It has also been called "fascism," "state-socialism," "national-socialism," and "social-democracy." As Bismark famously said, "Call it socialism or what you will, it's all the same to me."

In the United States, thanks to a cunning equivocation by Franklin Roosevelt, half-steps down the third way is called "liberalism" (as in "generous") -- which is why Americans are the most politically disoriented people on Earth. But, whatever it is called, the idea is the same: social and economic discipline is required of the worker; social and economic responsibility are imposed on corporations. As Herbert Croly put it,

The national economic interest demands, on the one hand, the combination of abundant individual opportunity with efficient organization and, on the other, a wholesome distribution, of the fruits.

In Croley's view the French and American notions of "autonomy" and "souverainité" and "individualism" led to disintegration, inequity and chaos. "American, democracy," he wrote, "needs above all to be thoroughly nationalized."

Croley went on to found the Atlantic and the so-called "Progressive Movement;" Theodore Roosevelt went on to play the Bull Moose who roared in Osawatomie Kansas,

"The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures attempting to treat national issues as local issues. . . . It is still more impatient of ...[the] legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to bring national activities to a deadlock. . . . [T]his means that our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests."

T.R. went on to decry corporations "who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will." He called for "prohibition" of all corporate funding of political purposes, for the "publicity of corporate affairs" and for "a graduated income tax on big fortunes". TR concluded,

"The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man's making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it."

Does this sound like Obama?

In Osawatomie, Obama cribbed copiously from Roosevelt's "fair shake" and "fair deal" rhetoric; but he studiously omitted even the contours of Roosevelt's Bismarkian New Nationalism.

At least the Times got it right, albeit mirabilis dictu. Obama sees the role of government to be the assuaging of Capital and the coddling investor interests. The real "progressive" (or whatever name you choose au gout) believes that private capital is the "servant" of the commonwealth.

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An Act of Assymetrical Caution

It was reported today that Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, has ordered the repatriation of his country's gold from storage in European vaults.

No doubt scrinched up sphincters like Senator Mitch McConnell will decry the act as the dastardly deed of an asymetrical terrorist, lunatic. But we wonder...

It certainly seems beyond the pale of short term probability that the United States is intending to invade Venezuela. So why would Chavez apprehend that the world's Righteous Constable would bring intense pressure to bear on its European allies to embargo Venezuela's gold, as they recently embargoed Libya's? One word: Iran.

Is this a whiff in the wind of Zio-Con desires to invade Iran? We hardly need clues from Chavez as to that; and that can hardly have been news to Chavez. But Iran and Venezuela do have commerical and military ties, agreed upon several years back. Of course, we can count on the U.S. press (and its stepinfechts in Europe) not to connect the dots. They, along with the senatorial sphincter, will palaver hotly about what a crazy man Chavez is.... made crazier of course by the chemo... But given the sanctions and pressure that have been brought to bear on Iran and which were this past week announced by the Great Obambi himself, the level-headed man in the equation is in Caracas.

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Blundering Goons Strike Again

One good outcome of the Occupy Wall Street protests is that Americans are (dimly) coming to understand the true face their rulers. This weekend another video went viral, as it showed a cop in riot gear blasting pepper spray into the faces of seated protesters at U.C. Davis, California

Explaining the use of chemical force, Charles J. Kelly, the lieutenant who wrote the department's use of force guidelines, told CBS News that pepper spray was a "compliance tool" that can be used on subjects who do not resist, and which is preferable to simply lifting protesters. "When you start picking up human bodies, you risk hurting them," Kelly said. "Bodies don't have handles on them."

Where exactly on the DSM-IV axis does Kelly’s mental disorder fall? What would anyone call a parent who used a “compliance tool” on a child that was not “non-compliant”? “Sack of Shit” is what comes to my mind, although it doesn’t sound very clinical.

To make matters worse, Kelly blandly proffers up a “rationale” that itself qualifies as pure bullshit. Does Kelly think normal people will fall for this crap? He does. Why not? Judges lap it all the time, in case after case on a daily basis.

Anyone who has any doubts need only attend a Fourth Amendment suppression hearing, (if any are being held anymore). If sober minded, impartial, professionally trained magistrates and Supreme Court justices find such justifications to be “reasonable” why shouldn’t the public?

One of the most constitutionally destructive statements ever uttered was Justice Cardozo’s moronic statement that excluding illegally seized evidence means "the criminal is to go free just because the constable blundered." (People v. Defore (1928) 242 N.Y. 13; 150 N.E. 585.)

There was no “blunder” in Defore. In that case, the officer arrested defendant, in a public place, on suspicion of petty theft (for which he was later acquitted). Without a warrant, he then entered and ransacked defendant’s private quarters as a result of which he seized an illegal blackjack.

Although intoned in the context of an illegal search, Cardozo’s Stupidity quickly entered American lore. Our police, ever valiant and ever true, don’t do evil or sadistic things ... they just ...uh... blunder.

They blunder on the stand. They call it “testilying”. They blunder in sworn affidavits. It’s called “mis-omissions.” They blunder into murder, “confusing” the grip of their gun for their tasers.

And when they cannot think up of a blunder on their own, the appellate courts of the country are there to help them conjure up fantasy “safety rationales” and other excuses aimed at justifying unrestrained police prerogative and brutality.

The public lapped it up too, never missing a chance to jump for a hobgloblin which proved the cheapest way for politicians to gain votes. The cry went up: “Don’t shackle the police!” After all, the Constitution is too good to “waste” on criminals.

A culture of indulged and excused brutality permeated our para-militarized police forces which increasingly saw themselves as a society unto themselves. Even judges, who ought to have known better, didn’t bat an eye as police referred to ordinary, lesser citizens as “civilians”.

Here’s a clue: police are civilians too. When they cease to be civilians, society is ruled by de facto martial law. That day already arrived. The grunts doing their basic “full spectrum” training in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, who do not succumb to PTSD, will be tomorrow’s “blundering constables” kicking ass on American streets.

The corporate-bankster police state is prepared. Although the snivelling, stepinfechit press doesn’t report on it, police departments around the country are armed with spy and killer drones. They are armed with slippery goo that reduces all friction and makes it impossible to stand or even sit. They are armed with sonic cannon that make such brain blasting sounds you can’t control your own bowels. They are armed with laser beams that cause “intense” agonizing burning sensations. And if anyone thinks that cops have a shred of even animal decency that would embarrass them from using these “compliance tools” on you, think again.

Photo: AP/Thomas K. Fowler

A Sha Nah Nah Revolution?

One of the truly amazing things about capitalism is its ability to trivialize anything it touches.

We never thought much of Flower Power as a political force; but we thought even less of daisy-decals stuck onto beetles, which metamorphosed into sunny smiley faces which in the end became the Walmart logo.

Similarly, we have not been very sanguine about the ultimate prospects of the Occupy Movement, the collective impulse of which strikes us as being counter-historical and slotted for failure without or without a strategic program.

Nevertheless, we would like the movement to have a fair crack at its paragraph in history even if it yields no more than les evenements of '48, '72 or 68.

Instead, the Occupy Movement has been reduced to the level of fracas at the frat house. Will Bloomberg evict the occupiers? Will the occupiers re-takey Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza? Whose panties will get stolen this time?

You can bet your last doughnut that the cops have been ordered not to do something stupid, outrageous and escalatory like blasting a rubber bullet into some pretty coed's eye. They have no doubt been issued strategic doses of prozac to keep their aggro levels in check. The kleptocracy wants to keep things as "sha nah nah" as possible -- good clean tussle-fun between our dear raucus kids (learning all aboout democracy) and our stern but patient campus constables.

If only we could bring back the Everly Brothers...or at least the Kingston Trio. We could turn the "movement" into a post-millenial version of occupying a telephone booth.

The worst thing that could happen to the movement is that it be turned into a cultural artifact... a street version of Beach Blanket Babylon, the "world's longest running musical revue" now going on 40 years of repeat original outrageousness. At that point middle aged couples from Iowa come to Oakland or New York to watch the occupiers do their monthly park takeover.

We have met the revolution and it is ours. None of the world leaders are loosing a night's worth of sleep over indignados or ninety-niners. They are off tete a teteting, trying to figure how much inflation to impose on us in order to save the banks.

Occupiers circa 1959

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Our Daily Belt

A very disturbing video circulating on YouTube captures a Judge William Adams, of Rockport Texas beating his then 16-year-old daughter with a belt, apparently, for violating house-rules on computer use and internet browsing. The video has been handed over to Federal prosecutors who have yet to comment on the matter.

In actuality, the video does not show anything more unusual or outrageous than what takes places cuotidianum hodie in the ordinary, average dysfunctional family unit: Dad wallops shrieking, crying, pleading daughter while a hubby-supportive and self-exculpating wife looks on and explains that daughter has brought this all upon herself.

Speaking to reporters, Judge Adams, says that the video "looks worse than it is." He should know. It's the sort of excuse he must hear every day from criminals up for sentencing.

Plus... we should not forget that supposedly innocent daughter was the one who secretly stashed away a camcorder so as to capture the whole scene... no doubt including her knowing and well-effected dramatic skills. Some victim!!

So Judge Adams yells and screams at his daughter for seven minutes straight and tells her repeatedly to lie on her stomach and (as mother puts it) take her punishment "like a grown up woman." You earned it, now take it. We all get what we deserve. Even Jesus.

Clearly, children can be disobedient, deceptive and manipulative. And when they are so chronically, what's an exasperated parent to do? What judge dipshit doesn't seem to understand is that children are just that: dependents. They are not autonomous. Everything they need, are and habituate to is a reflection of the Dominus Domi. However things got to the point where daughter felt the need to secretly tape dad reacting to whatever violation of house rules took place, the responsibility must of necessity return to source. In law, Judge, it's known as respondeat superior.

The well advised angel hesitates to tread into anyones domestic affairs; and, it is perhaps the case, that the thwacking looks worse than it really was. But it's the ice-berg beneath the surface that is causes the shudders.

If Judge Adams does this to his daughter, what must he do to his dogs?

Brrrrr.

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Flash-Banging the Right to Peaceably Assemble

Scott Olsen, 24, served two tours of duty in Iraq as a U.S. Marine. In July 2011, after returning Stateside, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where he worked with a software company. He also became active with Iraq Veterans Against the War.

On Tuesday, October 26, Olsen joined approximately 1000 other “Occupiers” marching on Frank Ogawa Place, in Oakland.

Earlier in the day, the police had “cleared” the two-week long encampment at the Plaza. At 4:45 AM (Tuesday) hundreds of multi-task force officers marched on the Plaza and ordered to Occupiers to disperse. Five minutes later, the police lobbed “flash-bang” grenades into the crowd

Speaking in de rigueur mili-cop speak, Oakland city spokesperson, Karen Boyd, said "We have contained the plaza, we are in the process of mobilizing the clean-up phase."

Boyd went on to say that “it was apparent that neither the demonstrators nor the city could maintain safe or sanitary conditions, or control the ongoing vandalism" and that "those arrested now face charges for camping or assembling without a permit".

Throughout Tuesday, police and demonstrators contained one another on the streets leading to the park. At this time, protestors splattered the police with paint.

The confrontation continued on into the night at which time things had more or less lulled into a standoff. Videos taken at the scene show protestors standing about in an intersection with the police aligned behind metal barricades drawn across the street leading to the park.

(video by vimeo.com/31187119)

At this time, and without any provocation, the police fired tear gas cannisters and a flash-bang into the crowd hitting Olsen in the head. Olsen fell to the ground and the police continued firing as other protestors rush to his assistance. Olsen is carried away with a bloody gash in his forhead and taken to hospital where he was listed as being in critical but stable condition.

As Olsen was being carried off, President Obama was being broadcast on the Jay Leno Show. Obama says that the protests indicate people are “frustrated”.

The following day (Wednesday) Oakland officials start the usual cover up.

Police Chief Howard Jordan said at a late afternoon news conference that the events leading up to Olsen's injury would be investigated as vigorously as a fatal police shooting. (Yawn)

"It's unfortunate it happened. I wish that it didn't happen. Our goal, obviously, isn't to cause injury to anyone," the chief said. (Yeah, "obviously". )

"We are committed to allowing free speech," he said, "but the First Amendment doesn't allow violence or endangering the public or property." (What "violence"? The potential violence that might have occurred had police not fired into the crowd to prevent violence from occuring?)

As it emerged, on Thursday, that the police had in fact lobbed a flash-bang, officials began back pedalling further.

City officials claimed that the plaza was damaged by graffiti, litter and unspecified vandalism. Police officials implied that perhaps non Oakland police units were responsible for the projectile that hit Olsen, although they did not deny having used flash-bangs earlier in the day.

In a news conference, Oakland major, Jean Quan sought to distance herself from the police action, saying she was away in Washington at the time and had not expected it to unfold the way it did.

The New York Times opined that “stressed out cities” around the country were having difficulty containing the protests. Speaking on the Jay Leno Show, on the night Olsen was hit, President Obama said that while he understood the “frustration” felt by many people he could not condone lawlessness.

The “frustration” people feel is at a corpocracy that does not minimally meet the needs of ordinary people. Democrats and Republicans can log-jam one another all they want neither party meets the needs of ordinary people. President Obama can understand all he want, he chose to help out banks instead of ordinary people.

What stresses out cities is non-existent revenues which are the result of non-existent economies. Last, but not least, what is “lawless” is police firing at people as if they were targets in some cop joy-shoot. No action of the protestors damaged much less “endangered” property. Since when does marching down a street put property “at risk” other than in a fevered imagination? It is precisely to foreclose that kind of repressive excuses that the Constitution guarantees the right to peaceably assemble.

For exercising that right, Scott Olsen was almost killed by a “non-lethal” projectile fired at close range.

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Half a Percent for Ninety Nine Percent!

In the news today, it was reported that President Obama once again used his executive authority to implement a legislative change -- this time, to ease the debt burden on student loans.

According to reports, the executive order moves up the effective date of a previoulsy enacted law which reduced maximum required repayments from 15 to 10 percent of annual discretionary income. Under Obama's order, the law will take effect in 2012 instead of 2014. Obama's executive action will also allow student-borrowers to consolidate their loans into a single government debt, carrying an interest rate that is half a percent lower than at present.

Obama's move is such patent financial demagoguery it is hard not to laugh. Obama is obviously feeling the heat of his own betrayal of the 99 percent. His answer? Shave off half a percent!

This is the third time within the week that Obama has announced an executive action which bypasses the congressional dead end. Earlier in the week he announced a housing re-fi plan and a job-training program for veterans. Needless to say, the Republicans are huffing indignantly about constitutionalism and the End of the Republic!

In all honesty, it would be unfair to accuse Obama of "currying favor" with the demos like kings scattering coin to the jubilant throng or would-be emperors promising donatives to the Praetorian Guard in quid pro quo of electoral support. It would be unfair because such transparent skullduggery is exactly what American democracy is all about. Getting some change to the Code of Federal Regulations is what a thousand-bucks-a-plate is for.

What is scandalous is how cheaply Obama seeks to buy student support. Big Bank, Big Pharma, Big Inc., big anything get small, teensy changes in the law through which billions in profits are siphoned. Rope through the eye of a needle? No problem. But when it comes to buying the support of ordinary people, the small change produces small change.

According to the WSJ, Julie Margetta Morgan, a policy analyst at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, called the Obama plan a step in the right direction, but said that without Congress on board, the White House can't advance "the kind of really big changes we want to see."

The really big change would be for Obama and Congress both to stop thinking in terms of leveraging the profit generator to gear-in some small social or economic change. What students need is European style merit-based university education that taxes only the brain.

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Transparency

Headline (August 22): Rebels Enter Tripoli. (ABC News)

News story shows fresh-faced Twitterites rejoicing.

Headline:(August 23): The Scramble for Access to Libya's Oil... Begins. (NYT)

"Colonel Qaddafi proved to be a problematic partner for international oil .... A new government with close ties to NATO may be an easier partner for Western nations to deal with."

Headline (August 25): European Firms Hoping for Big Business in Libya (Spiegel)

"[Under Qadaffi] it was a difficult country to do business in. State-owned companies dominated most markets,... Now, though, companies are hopeful that the incoming government -- however it might ultimately look -- will provide better conditions for doing business. During [a] meeting with the transitional council, the German economic leaders were assured that the private economy would be strengthened, ..."

Headline (August 26): United Nations unfreezes Libyan Assets (NYT)

"The Obama administration is working to find ways to provide financial assistance to the rebels in Libya, officials said Monday ..." and as a result "[t]he Security Council committee that monitors sanctions against Libya agreed on Thursday to unfreeze $1.5 billion in Libyan assets for emergency aid to the country, where rebel forces that have ousted Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi are confronting a humanitarian crisis as they attempt to establish security and form a new government."

-oOo-

We previously wrote that the Obama Administration had successfully roped in NATO as an adjunct partner in the U.S. global war against terrorism.


We recently wrote (Civic Carcinogens) that the core strategy of the U.S. "security wars" is to promote chaos and civil degradation so as to create perpetually fluid conditions for exploitation and control of resources. The strategists and leaders of the "First World" have realized that it is no longer necessary to go through the trouble and expense of installing despot puppets like Augusto Pinochet. It quite suffices to destroy whatever national authority exists and to negotiate contracts with whatever tribal or urban gangs (passing off as a "transitional government) are nearest to the bananas we want to pick.

©Barfo, 2011.

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