"... a fucking disaster ..."

There is a critical point that I fear the commentariat is just not getting. In my darker moments I fear that some of my fellow economists aren’t getting it either but we aren’t going to go there.

...

I've been thinking this for a long time. For those who don't know, my dad was a defense contractor. During the Vietnam War, he had more work than he knew what to do with. He subcontracted to Grumman, Republic Aircraft, and several hundred machine shops that were working 3 shifts. His place was unionized and so were all the corporations and shops he dealt with. He went out in 1984, Grumman and Republic left soon after and now, I only know of 3 of those machine shops still in business and they're closed by 5 pm. Shit, these folks helped put a man on the Moon.

...

This is a failure of our basic institutions of production. The job of the market is to bring together willing buyers with willing sellers in order to produce value. This is not happening and as a result literally trillions of dollars in value are not being produced.

Let me say that again because I think it fails to sink in – literally trillions of dollars in value are not being produced. Not misallocated. Not spent on programs you don’t approve of or distributed in tax cuts you don’t like. Trillions of dollars in value are not produced at all. Gone from the world entirely. Never to be had, by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Pure unadulterated loss.

...

Not being an economist, or even good with money, I defer to experts, but to me it seems like we're turning into one big "unemployed nation". Everything we buy (nearly) is made somewhere else. I get parts from the Ford dealer and the box tells you where the part was made. Shit, I'd be surprised if the box itself was made in the U.S. Half of our military aircraft are made in another country. How do we get those jobs back when those in other nations will do them for less, with less benefits? How do we get the American people (as a whole) to pay a little more for "American made" when they can barely squeak by on their low salaries (or unemployment checks) buying Chinese or Vietnamese shit at Wal-Mart? I don't see how it can be done.

It's one of the reasons I fear this nation is in an irreversible decline.

Thanks to Mr. Philadelphia for the link.

Chicken? Egg?

Our pal D-cap has an excellent essay up on the state of "journalism" today:

Which came first - journalists turning into to a bunch of sideshow barkers because the only thing Americans want is to be entertained or Americans losing any semblance of reality because the once noble profession of journalism has turned into nothing more than a conduit to sell Tide and Toyotas?

...

The politicians have beaten the journalists at their own game - the politicians know it, the public knows it - only the journalists haven't quite figured it out. Journalists used to be savvy about their strategies and smart about their tactics when they went looking for the story. The victory was uncovering the truth, not selling the most Toyotas. Today people like Palin, Romney, Paul, Rubio, King, Boner, and McConnell have been taught to master anti-journalism skills and make the press work for them. They have been able to stack the deck and play the journalists to their advantage.

Truth has taken a back seat to revenue and any control we might have had over our government is long gone. If a person gets their news solely from the TV, they have no clue about how things work.

Trumka: "Most Crucial Election in 75 Years"

Truthout

Many unionists are frustrated as usual by the lack of a viable progressive alternative to the Democratic Party. But they'd best beware, as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says, of the serious consequences of being less than enthusiastic supporters of Democratic candidates in November's elections.

"The Republican Party of NO doesn't want our vote," says Trumka. "All they want is for us to stay home. They want us to feel hopeless and disgusted so they can come back by default." (my em)

When patience and enthusiasm don't work, fearmongering might. Right out of the Repug liebook, only I'm not lying. Be afraid. Vote.

1938 in 2010

Paul Krugman with a history lesson:

I had hoped that we would do better this time. But it turns out that politicians and economists alike have spent decades unlearning the lessons of the 1930s, and are determined to repeat all the old mistakes. And it’s slightly sickening to realize that the big winners in the midterm elections are likely to be the very people who first got us into this mess, then did everything in their power to block action to get us out.

Third plunge of the dagger

Read this piece at Words of Power.

Dissed and Marginalized by POTUS' Inept Inner Circle, Progressives Must Rally (Again) to Save POTUS & the Democrats? Yes.

A coupla terrific paintings and a few words about how the current Dark Ages started in California and are fixin' to maybe get darker from there in a coupla months.

Starting to get the fuller picture of what has happened here?

As California goes, so goes the nation. Remember, the Reagan Counter-Revolution came to power here first.

So will the battle for Senator and Governor here signal the end of all hope, or the beginning of the reversal of the illness that has seized the US body politic?

And yet, it can even be worse. Just allow John Boehner to replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, and send Carly Fiorina to Beltwayistan and Meg Whitman to Sacramento, and you will see how much worse it can get, and how fast. Right now, it is very bad, but we have some leverage and a place to stand. If we lose the House or are further weakened in the Senate, or if POTUS fails to be elected to a second term, and the 5-4 corporatist edge on SCOTUS is institutionalized for another generation, well ...

And those of you who think it might be better to stay home, and let it all turn back to the Greedy Oiligarch Plutocracy (GOP), in order to hasten some more radical change, you are as deluded as the tea-baggers who are following Beck and Palin over the cliff into a hell-realm.

Just as an aside, and I throw those in anywhere, Mrs. G says GOP stands for Greedy Obstructionist 'Phobes.

Which side are you on? Yes, it is another moment to choose sides.

Vote in November, and influence everyone you can to vote in November. We must buy ourselves more time.

I know that we're not particularly fond of the Democrats right now, but the alternative is far worse. Cheney was right when he said the American people get their chance to be heard every four years, or in this case, every two years. As distasteful and arrogant as that is, it's absolutely correct. If you still your voice by throwing away your vote, either by voting for unelectable third-party candidates or staying home in disgust, you are helping the Forces of Darkness who seem poised to turn out in record numbers.

I'm not voting for Rahm or Axelrod or any of the other Dems I'd like to punch in the nose, or Obama this time, and I actually like our Dem candidates out here in California, but if I had to hold my nose to vote for them, I'd still do it in a heartbeat.

If you remember the apt right now old joke about the people in Hell up to their necks in shit, if the Repugs get back in control, coffee break's over. Back on your knees.

So ...

I'm off to work. I hope I remember how to fix cars. Righty-tighty ...

Why do they hate our troops?

Another crazy Jesus freak preacher and his sheeple think it's big fun to stage a "Burn A Koran Day". Don't forget, these are the same people who were rah-rah, gung-ho, kill the ragheads and "support the troops" during the run up to war. Now, they don't seem to care about those same troops they been supporting.

The top US commander in Afghanistan has warned that troops' lives will be in danger if an American church sticks to its plan to burn copies of the Koran.

Gen David Petraeus said the action could cause problems "not just in Kabul, but everywhere in the world".

Pastor Terry Jones, of the Dove World Outreach Centre, has said he will make a bonfire this week on the anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks.

...

I don't see anything in the way of "outreach" or "dovishness" from these people. If it weren't for the suits and ties, you wouldn't be able to tell the American Taliban from the Afghan type.

Fuck Rahm ...

And if you wonder why the White House runs the way it does (and Barry will probably be just another one-term President), you just have to look to the Chief-of-Staff. Rahm Emmanuel is nothing but a double-dealing slime mold and it's come back to bite them, and the Dems, in the ass.

Michael Moore, via Digby, on Rahm's disregard for the base:

Dear Rahm Emanuel:

Happy Fuckin' Labor Day! I read this week that — according to a new book by Steven Rattner, your administration's former "Car Czar" — during White House meetings about how to save the tens of thousands of jobs that would be lost if GM and Chrysler collapsed, your response was, "Fuck the UAW!"

...

Nonetheless labor unions did create a middle class for the majority (even companies that didn't have unions were forced to pay at or near union wages in order to attract a workforce) and that middle class built a great country and a good life. You see, Rahm, when people earn a fucking good wage, they spend it on stuff, which then creates more good paying jobs, and then the middle class grows fucking big. Did you know that back when I was a kid if you had a parent making a union wage, only one parent had to work?! And they were home by 3 or 4pm, 5:30 at the latest! We had dinner together! Dad had four weeks paid vacation. We all had free health and dental care. And anyone with decent grades went to college and it didn't fucking bankrupt them. (And if you ever used the F-word, the nuns would straighten you out in ways that even you couldn't bear to hear about).

Then a Republican fired all the air traffic controllers, a Democrat gave us NAFTA and millions of jobs were moved overseas (hey, didn't you work in that White House, too? "Fuck the UAW, baby!"). Unions got scared and beaten down, a frat boy became president and, like a drunk out of control, spent all our fucking money and our children's money, too. Fuck.

...

One day, before I die, I'd like to see a Dem in the White House who is a true Lefty (Obama & Co. would be considered raving conservatives in Europe). Ain't had one of them since LBJ. Alan Grayson, maybe?

Too little, too late ...

So, we're pretty much assured of a Dem disaster this fall. They pretty much have themselves to blame, from Barry on down. He should have been giving speeches like this from the get-go.

The Barack Obama who showed up in Milwaukee today is the one I remember from 2008 who seemed to disappear over the past year or so. If he keeps this tone between now and November, I'll bet on the press narrative changing from "Dems are hosed" to something far more positive. With a mix of humor, sarcasm and a generous dose of fire, Obama put Republicans on notice: Their days of obstruction are numbered.

...

What the Dems don't seem to get is that the campaign season doesn't start 2 months from Election Day. The Rethugs are always campaigning, in one form or another, constantly throwing shit against the wall to see what will stick and the Dems need answer, and ridicule it. They can't wait until a few weeks before the election to mount a counterattack.

Unfortunately, after this election, the obstruction, with a Rethug majority, will become weapons-grade.

Moonbeam! Finally!

LATimes

Jerry Brown launches his first ad in California gubernatorial campaign

His rival, Republican Meg Whitman, has been pummeling the candidate with a barrage of advertising over the summer that questioned his record. Brown could not afford to advertise over the summer, but labor unions did on his behalf, questioning Whitman’s qualifications. But this marks the first ad making a pro-active case for why voters ought to support Brown.

The ad, which will begin airing on television later this week, says that during his prior two terms as governor, Brown eliminated waste and luxuries, balanced budgets, cut taxes and created 1.9 million jobs. “California was working,” says the announcer.

Brown them introduces himself and names three priorities that keep in mind voters’ frustration with government –- frugality, local control and only raising taxes if voters agree.

My only question for our current Attorney General and next Governor is "What was it like boinkin' Linda Ronstadt?". Enquiring minds wanta know...



JerryBrown2010

Headline of the Day

California pot legalization ‘could end Mexican drug war’

Swell. I hope it takes a big chunk outta our drug war in the process.

The Poodle Speaks

I watched Christiane "Still A Babe!" Amanpour interview Tony Bliar on This Week yesterday. Once a poodle, always a poodle, this time yipping mightily with a book to sell. Look in 'fiction' next to Bush's book.

MoDo

He says he does not regret serving as the voice for W.’s gut when the inexperienced American princeling galloped into war with Iraq. As for “the nightmare that unfolded” — giving the lie to all their faux rationales and glib promises — Tony wants everyone to know he has feelings.

So do the families of the hundreds of thousands whom you enabled to become dead and injured, arsehole.

There is no apology, but Blair sounds like a man with a guilty conscience.

He concedes that the invasion of Iraq was more about symbols than immediate security, about sending “a message of total clarity to the world,” after 9/11, that defying the will of the international community would no longer be tolerated.

Unless, like us, you're big enough to get away with it. How's that workin' out?

Blair did not want to be W.’s peripheral poodle. He wanted to “stand tall internationally” with Britain’s main ally and not “wet our knickers,” to use a Blair phrase, when the going got tough (or delusional).

You don't always get what you want. Blair and Bush were both Cheney's little fixed poodles. Either one of them could have stopped it before it happened.

It is criminally naïve, given the billions spent on intelligence, that Blair and W. muffed the postwar planning because they never perceived what Blair now acknowledges as “the true threat”: outside interference by Al Qaeda and Iran. So the reasoning of the man known in England as Phony Tony or Bliar amounts to this: They had to invade Iraq because Saddam could hypothetically hook up with Al Qaeda. But they didn’t properly prepare for the insurgency because they knew that Saddam had no link to Al Qaeda.

He knew Dick Cheney had a grandiose plan to remake the world and no patience for “namby-pamby peacenikery.”

“He would have worked through the whole lot, Iraq, Syria, Iran,” as well as “Hezbollah, Hamas, etc.,” Blair writes of Cheney, adding: “He was for hard, hard power. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. We’re coming after you, so change or be changed.”

The religious Blair fancied himself a conviction politician who had intervened for good in Kosovo and Sierra Leone and would do so again in Iraq. So he did not, as he said others did, “reach for the garlic and crucifixes” when Dick hatched his sulfurous schemes.

Fuck the garlic and crucifixes. Someone shoulda reached for a big pointy wooden stake and driven it through where The Dick's heart would be in a human being and at least pinned him to the ground so he couldn't move.

If he had challenged W. and Cheney instead of enabling them, Blair might have stopped the farcical rush to war. Instead, he became the midwife for a weaker Iraq that is no longer a counterweight to Iran — which actually is a nuclear threat — and that seems doomed to be run one day by another brutal strongman.

Yep, did the wrong thing, then did the thing wrong, and all for naught. Countless lives and money and Iran wins and we lose when we didn't have to even go and shouldn't have gone in the first place. And the best part? We will be paying for the failed* neocon wet dream for generations.

You fucked up right along with Bush and Congress, Blair, and all the spin and smoke and mirrors in the world won't change that.

*Actually, the neocons may have succeeded all too well. They always really wanted to make war on Iran. When Iran claims Iraq as its spoils, that might make it easier for them to beat the war drum to retaliate against Iran for undoing all 'our brave troops' and contractors did in Iraq.

Our only defense is to not let the Repugs hijack the country again.

You want to go to war with Iran? Don't vote.

Update:

From MoDo to MoJo. Heh.

In his new book, the former British prime minister asks for a fair hearing on the Iraq war. But he ignores a key meeting where George Bush suggested they con their way to an invasion.

Gotta leave out the inconvenient parts of history that would make him look like the poodle and war criminal he is. It's his own memoir after all.

Out with the old, in with the new

AP/MSNBC

BAGHDAD — Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.

It was the first exchange of fire involving U.S. troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that American troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting.

Well, the "end of the combat mission" didn't last very long, did it? Maybe it was the end of the old combat mission and this heralds the start of the new combat mission. Yeesh.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

U.S. Combat Troops Leave Iraq While Government Stuck In Factional Gridlock
Iraqi government not doing too well either.

Blackwater Created 30 Shell Companies to Get Big Government Contracts
Millions paid out to Bluewater, Blankwater, Belchwater, Bleepwater and 26 other phony fronts.

Glenn Beck Launches Own News Site
Faces stiff competition from RavingParanoidNews.com, NutcaseNewsNetwork.com and The Wackington Post.

Federal Appeals Court Rules “Ladies Night” Promotions Constitutional
“Free Jell-O Shots for Babes” also passes legal muster.

Labor Day Music Blogging ...

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band - Feel Like A Number

Fuck off ...

Why do these fucking southern Jesus freaks have to bring their traveling circuses to NYC?

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Florida televangelist Bill Keller began the first service of his new 9/11 Christian church at ground zero on Sunday.

...

"If they want to go there [the 'Ground Zero' Mosque] and preach the lies of Islam, I can come and preach the truth of the bible," Keller said.

Keller spoke before roughly three dozen supporters, with support of varying degrees.

...

Like the Muslims at the Mosque, this guy has every right to preach and build his own church. Unlike the Muslims at the Mosque, this clown is nothing more than a demagogue.

It gives me faith in my fellow NYers that there are a million people who live within walking distance from this guy's 'church' and only 36 of them showed up.

Fuck off and go home, asshole.

Quote of the Day

Ol' Fez:

...

Ooh, Lindsey Graham too! So not just Herpes, but a nasty case of Chlamydia as well.

Shopping ...

My British buddy Dave calls me a "sloppy dick" because I get all romantic with the Mrs.; I get that way about the dog(s) too. We went shopping today and bought new harnesses, bowls, and a 2-by leash. Did I mention I got two doggie coats from Queen Mary 2 (Like this one.)?

Sloppy dick indeed!

Another Choo-Choo pic. Heh ...

Why Glenn Beck Ought to Be Repeatedly Cock-Punched (National Archives Edition):

Other than just on general principles?

The Rude Pundit

You see that? That's the first page of George Washington's Inaugural Address. It's got eight pages. Fox "news" host and Jim-Jones-without-the-guts Glenn Beck did not hold a single page of it. He didn't even hold the clear box that it's preserved in. Why? Because it's George Washington's Inaugural Address, fucker, and no one gets to touch it because it will fucking fall apart and then America will be destroyed by angry Revolutionary War zombies. Such is its power. The only upside is that they would eat Beck first and we'd at least get to see that on YouTube.

In his new self-serving piece of worm shit website, The Blaze, a Beck ball-washer named Scott Baker writes, in a pretty much incomprehensible article, that he was there with Beck: "Did I 'hold' it? That depends on what the definition of 'hold' is. Perhaps I 'hold' it closer in my heart for having gazed upon it? Perhaps I 'hold' it in greater esteem for having pondered the care and craftsmanship of the author." Umm, Scotty, if you say, "I held my balls," that means you were cupping your sack. If you say, "I held my balls in my heart," that means you spend too much time jerking off. But, oh-ho, oh-ho, how libtarded we are, caring that "words" actually "mean" "things."

However, Beck didn't just mention the holding in passing. The Rude Pundit watched the entire day of Beckturbation. Beck made a big deal about it. He put out his hands, as if they were sanctified by their contact with the holy papers of our past. He used the image to separate himself from the unworthy masses (who couldn't call a member of Congress for a private trip to the Archives). He was transforming himself into an apostle of a white American Christianity. The proximity to the relics made him holy. Is that too far? Is that hyperbole? Then you weren't paying attention.

Beck's followers won't care, you know. They'll just dismiss it as shitting on their parade. Why should a man like Beck be held to the truth? The truth is just so many chains to the earth. The faith shall set you free. And sometimes faith requires a leap over the dissonance of facts.

Sometimes, shit. Always, to the pseudochristers.

Freedom’s Just Another Word*

*From Me and Bobby McGee. The rest of that sentence is the operative part.

Daddy Frank on Obama's tepid speech on Bush's War:

What was so grievously missing from Obama’s address was any feeling for what has happened to our country during the seven-and-a-half-year war whose “end” he was marking. [...]
...

Yet most everyone, regardless of age or calling or politics, is at war — not with terrorists, but with depression, with their consciences and with one another.

I hope anyone who supported that criminal war and now realizes how wrong it was never again has a good night's sleep.

Americans are less forgiving. In recent polls, 60 percent of those surveyed thought the war in Iraq was a mistake, 70 percent thought it wasn’t worth American lives, and only a quarter believed it made us safer from terrorism. This sour judgment is entirely reality-based. The war failed in all its stated missions except the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

For this sad record, more than 4,400 Americans and some 100,000 Iraqis (a conservative estimate) paid with their lives. Some 32,000 Americans were wounded, and at least two million Iraqis, representing much of the nation’s most valuable human capital, went into exile. The war’s official cost to U.S. taxpayers is now at $750 billion.

That's the official cost. The people in the know who claimed the real cost will be $3 trillion are now saying they low-balled it. I have no cites for this. When it all gets added up in a coupla generations, they probably did.

Bacevich also wrote that “common decency demands that we reflect on all that has occurred in bringing us to this moment.” Americans’ common future demands it too. The war’s corrosive effect on the home front is no less egregious than its undermining of our image and national security interests abroad. As the Pentagon rebrands Operation Iraqi Freedom as Operation New Dawn — a “name suggesting a skin cream or dishwashing liquid,” Bacevich aptly writes — the whitewashing of our recent history is well under way. The price will be to keep repeating it.

Don't worry, we will. One of the things this country is not at all good at is taking long hard looks at ourselves. When stuff starts showing through the new coat of whitewash, we just slap on another coat. When that one inevitably fails, we just don't look at it.

And yet here we are, slouching toward yet another 9/11 anniversary, still waiting for a correction, with even our president, an eloquent Iraq war opponent, slipping into denial. Of all the pro forma passages in Obama’s speech, perhaps the most jarring was his entreaty that Iraq’s leaders “move forward with a sense of urgency to form an inclusive government that is just, representative and accountable.” He might as well have been talking about the poisonous political deadlock in Washington. At that moment, there was no escaping the tragic fact that instead of bringing American-style democracy and freedom to Iraq, the costly war we fought there has, if anything, brought the bitter taste of Iraq’s dysfunction to America.

Swell. Thanks again, Georgie.

Much more. Pops lets it fly.