It seems almost rude to nitpick so rich an essay as Austin City Limits. Nonetheless, it should be noted that there was nothing discreet about the bribery that went on when the railroad barons passed out $100 bills on the very floors of Congress at a time when a hundred bucks was real money.

Posted by: Meteor Blades | Jul 29 2005 10:59 utc | 4

Billmon;
What is wired is a domestic terror incident.
Prior to Elections 2006. Subway bomb, dirty bomb in the port of LA or Seattle. Blow up an airplance over Texas.
Cheney has martial law well set up; watch the timing when it — he will slap the cuffs on us a full hour before the bomb goes off.
He gets these ideas hanging out in his Undisclosed Location.
It’s a real place. With very little reality in it.

Posted by: Antifa | Jul 29 2005 11:41 utc | 6

Its very late out here right on the fringes of empire and I read the reports of corruption in the Curia with a certain resignation tinged with fear.
The fear is from the knowledge that before the Capitol is sacked the rape and murder out in the Territories will have reached fever pitch.
Of course Haiti has been left out of CAFTA because the vandals haven’t been bought under control but it is rather close to the recently ‘civilised’ lands that are in CAFTA so roman rule must be enforced.
” Evidence is mounting that United Nations peacekeepers shot and killed unarmed civilians, including children, during a recent raid in Haiti.”
The use of mercenaries (bluecaps) is pretty much SOP but one wonders how long before the troops demand citizenship on completion of their tour of duty. What a hassle that will be. Yet another migrant classification since these new ‘citizens’ will have to be discouraged from actually settling in Rome, whilst encouraged to slurp from the barrel of patriotism out in “The New Territories’
However I’m sure the original empire didn’t have to tolerate the impertinence of video:
The footage of the aftermath of the 6 July raid in the Cité Soleil slum was taken by a team led by Haitian-based journalist Kevin Pina. Pina said: ” Numerous witnesses said the victims were killed by UN forces ­ the Haitian National Police (HNP) were not even there. I think the fact the UN did not bring a single doctor or ambulance with them on this mission is extraordinary ­ surely you would do that whether you were targeting criminal gangs or civilians?
And then there is the problem of treason:
But other independent witnesses support Pina’s evidence that civilians werealso killed. David Welsh, of the US Labour/Human Rights Delegation to Haiti, was at a conference in Port-au-Prince that weekend. Delegation members interviewed witnesses and filmed the bodies of victims. He described the shooting as a “massacre”: “Based on witnesses’ testimony and the number of bodies we were able to confirm, we believe that at least 23 people were killed,” he said.”
The treason thing can only get worse. The citizens of Rome have too much time on their hands. This is due to the movement of the manufacturing base to the New Territories in a lame attempt to play catch up with the growing Chinese Empire. Citizens have become inured to the attraction of circuses and more aware of the falling quality of their bread.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 29 2005 12:50 utc | 8

First time in this joint (visualize tip of tin foil Stetson and order of a cold Schlitz if ya got it). Looks like a place where the great James Agee and Walker Evans would have dearly loved to knock back a few rounds in respite from the Black Belt they chronicled nearly 70 years ago this summer. Agee certainly appreciated avaricious rednecks as a particularly brazen subspecies. Indeed, from Snopes to Boss Hogg they’ve fueled the literary imagination.
But, if I may say so as a interloper, let’s not bullshit ourselves. SHAFTA II doesn’t make it without some Dems bellying up to the counter at Speaker Denny’s diner. Chris Bowers was straining to make some wispy distinction in a post I crossed yesterday between Blue Dogs and Members of the DLC (how many Blue Dogs are not also DLC members Chris? seems ex officio to me) in an effort to explain to the LumpenKosetariat that they really shouldn’t be so angry at the DLC all the time-“its the Blue Dogs”. Well, at least one Blue Dog, Charlie Melancon (LA-5 I believe) danced to the Virginia reel called by the big sugar daddies of his district rather than gorging on the goodies being handed out by the Sugarland Express. Now I know that usually reliable Dem corporate whores like Ellen Tauscher,Brad Sherman and Artur Davis were balky on SHAFTA II, but methinks that’s only because they smelled blood in the water. If Hillary were pushing the bill as President, we’d be gettin a smug-ass lecture from them and the likes of Kos, DHinMI, and Armando that it’s we stiffs who don’t understand trade cuz we don’t live within sniffin distance of Marin County or once shared a cocktail with Prof. Delong that need to shut up and focus our anger only on who they tell us to focused on. If Simon Rosenberg ever replaces his mentor Al From at the DLC, you can bet your ass Kos will pull a 180 on Dems for the Leisure Class faster than his personal Sid Blumenthal’s DHinMI and Armando fan out to call dissenters “corrosive” and “paranoid.” Besides, Armando and Kos have lots of friends, as Billmon learned, who are “corporate lawyers” and they also might have favored SHAFTA II. And maybe they even have “friends” or more likely junior partner’s in the firm deciding on whether they make senior associate and keep the dream of an equity piece and the Vineyard alive or get a fat in-house counsel gig if’n they don’t who are in the DLC or New Dem Network (as different from the DLC as Buick from Pontiac). We wouldn’t want to upset any of them.
As to the Harper’s link…I’m afraid, what we got hear son, is a failure to com-mune-kate. Boss Kos done told you ain’t no fraud in Ohio, so what’s that dirt doin’ in his yard? If the epidermis is ever ripped back off the stenching gangrene that is the body politic of the Buckeye state, I don’t wanna hear one goddamn squeak from the Politburo over there. Because it will have been entirely in the face of a gutless, craven stampede to “respectable discourse” or “reality based” whatever” orchestrated by Kos and his inner circle that brave, independent journalists and activists, given consistent application of Kos’s standards for “legitimately” charging fraud, will blow the lid off this thing if indeed that day comes. If Sy Hersh came forward with anything short of Ken Blackwell saying, “Yeah, we stole it and hear’s how…” (before he would die of fast spreading “cancer” or a mysterious one car accident) Kos would call him a “fraudster” if he thought it might make Rahm Emanuel more likely to cut him in on the big time action.

Posted by: cap’n redneck | Jul 29 2005 13:35 utc | 10

I disagree with the conclusion that they are acting with confidence about the fix in 2006. (how’s that for a GOP slogan?) This has the smell of a frat house having a blow out before eviction.
How did Guatamala get into CAFTA without joining the coalition of the damned like Costa Rice, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic? Strongman Efraín Ríos Montt turned his daughter over to serve as beard to Illinois congressman Jerry Weller. We’ve got some real winners serving as colonial governors.
Next up is Plan Puebla Panama. Paving over Southern Mexico and Central America.

Posted by: ! | Jul 29 2005 14:44 utc | 12

In 1896, when Huntington lobbied Congress for (if I remember correctly) an extension on the repayment period for federal loans that would essentially convert them into a gift, Ambrose Bierce was sent to Washington by the then-still-young Hearst organization. The story is told that Huntington accosted Bierce on the steps of Congress and asked point blank, “How much will it cost to call off the dogs?” Bierce is said to have replied that Huntington could pay the sum he had borrowed into the US Treasury and all would be square.

Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Jul 29 2005 14:54 utc | 14

I remember reading some right-wing theory that said that Republics would always fall because the citizens of the Republic would vote themselves too many perks to sustain the society.
I don’t think that we commoners vote ourselves so many perks. WE are always the last on the food chain. It seems to be the ruling classes that push unsustainable perks.

Posted by: la | Jul 29 2005 15:26 utc | 16

The secret to sustainable governance is to know how much to skim. Much as with the blood letting of cows, sustainable as long as one doesn’t take too much, but take to much and one kills the beast. The very worst thing we see is when they sell the cow and spend the cash. Skimmed distributed to the poor as patronage etc. is more sustainable while skimmed to the rich often results in catastrophic mass murder of the rich by the poor.

Posted by: ken melvin | Jul 29 2005 16:04 utc | 18

Cap’n Redneck:
Just finished the Snopes triology and it is a very illuminating work considering the situation that we now find ourselves in. I suggest that anyone that wants to understand today’s events, right down to Karl Rove and the Swift Boat Veterans, read Faulkner’s Snopes trilogy. I wonder if there is a Ratliff somewhere in the USA today? I sort of doubt it.
Re: Kos, etc. The ruling class does stick together, don’t they?
Repeat after me: “trade is good,” “trade is good,” “trade is good.”

Posted by: la | Jul 29 2005 16:21 utc | 20

My preferred analogy would be the French Monarchy – I think we’ve passed Louis XV and are right into Louis XVI/Queen’s Necklace times.
As I said previously, the US is no longer a closed system. China and all the people who hate America in the world will take the country apart in the next 5 years or so, just as the USSR was taken down.
Don’t matyter what we do anymore, no more than I think Louis XVI could have saved his head.
Enjoy Versailles while it lasts.

Posted by: Lupin | Jul 29 2005 16:37 utc | 22

or Cheney as McCarthy’s Judge from Blood Meridian. all white and hairless.

Posted by: slothrop | Jul 29 2005 16:45 utc | 24

Austin City Limits are quite wide – even wider than the US borders
The Price of an Ambassadorship

Germany’s new ambassador has no obvious qualifications or abilities to repair the deeply strained relationship with one of America’s most important allies for the last 50 years. However William Timken Jr., an Ohio industrialist, does have one big claim to the job: he raised at least $200,000 for the president’s re-election campaign in 2004—ranking him among the elite class of fund-raisers known as the Bush Rangers. In January, the Timken Co., where Timken is chairman of the company’s board of directors, contributed $250,000 to fund Bush’s Inauguration festivities.
A White House spokesman says Bush tapped Timken for the Berlin post because he’s an “experienced executive.” Yet Timken has no diplomatic background, and, according to his spokeswoman, does not speak German.
..
Timken is the eighth $100,000-plus Bush fund-raiser to be nominated for an ambassadorship since January. On Wednesday, the White House nominated Al Hoffman, a Florida developer who has raised $300,000 for Bush’s presidential campaigns, to be ambassador to Portugal. Last month, Bush appointed Robert Tuttle, a California car dealer, to be ambassador to the United Kingdom, while Ronald Spogli, a California financer who was Bush’s classmate at Harvard Business School, was named the top diplomat in Rome. Both men were Bush Pioneers in 2004—having raised at least $100,000 for the campaign. In April, the White House named David Wilkins, a South Carolina state representative who raised $200,000 for the 2004 campaign, as the ambassador to Canada. That appointment raised concerns north of the border when Wilkins admitted that he’d only visited Canada once—more than 30 years ago on a trip to Niagara Falls—and that he didn’t speak French (Canada is officially a bilingual country).
All told, more than 30 of Bush’s top fund-raisers in 2000 and 2004 have scored ambassadorships.

Posted by: b | Jul 29 2005 18:35 utc | 26

All told, more than 30 of Bush’s top fund-raisers in 2000 and 2004 have scored ambassadorships.
Very imperial-Roman.
Of course the Imperial Brits used to do it based on whose son or cousin you were…

Posted by: DeAnander | Jul 29 2005 19:19 utc | 28

re: Faulkner
I would add Skirmish at Sartoris (or “Cousin Drusilla Gets Appointed Election Commissioner”) from The Unvanquished as a memorable facet of Southern political culture.

Posted by: alvin | Jul 29 2005 21:19 utc | 30

Faulkner? As I Lay Dying…so many narrators, even the dead get to speak. After all, Faulkner did say “the past isn’t dead…it isn’t even past.” And don’t forget Flannery O’Conner. And Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man about the black migration from rural to northern city, and Peter Taylor’s A Summons To Memphis for the past bumping into the present.
But those are the undead from the past. The undead from the present in the south live in suburbs created out of farmland (if they’re middle class) with mega churchs that have the equivalent of a country club attached where the ladies bring desserts called “Death by Chocolate (because they don’t want to use the other name, “Chocolate Orgasm” ..they could try le petit mort, I suppose around the preacher) …but if they’re not in New Orleans, they’d have to make sure they didn’t pronounce in correctly, and they gather in the mega malls, while the rich remain in the and older, inner, ivied suburbs with older country clubs that still have “servers” in white gloves and “french maid” outfits and shop in NYC.
It was always amazing to me how all these church girls would have big hair and lots of make up…a “subdued” version of Tammy Faye, but she was their future if they couldn’t get into management at the mall store.
Roosevelt lifted the south out of the most abject poverty, created a middle class, and in thanks, they voted for Reagan, who, with his continued presence via the neocons, stills work to undo their gains.
But, as right to work states, they were the ammunition Reagan needed against unions.
Interstates and suvs with ac are required, and if you’re in Texas, you’re “close” if you live on a feeder road that leads to an interstate. And, as far as the south goes, Texas is still its own country, no matter that they gave up the claim out loud.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 29 2005 22:12 utc | 32

Andre, you may say (and believe) things like Bush “does manage to do ‘their’ (the liberals is the fixed phrase in the US right now, isn’t it?) job for them pretty well”. To my mind, this kind of thinking is completely clueless as to the loss of goodwill the US suffered throughout the world in the last four years. You may choose to disregard that loss, but I think it will create enormous problems for your country (which I, to make myself clear, like immensely).
As to the status of the US as an economic superpower: We will see over the next five to ten years where the US will end up. My guess: Far, far worse than at the moment. And it is not the people of the Bush end of the social scale that will be hit the worst.
I for one will be relieved if the US refrains from using tactical nukes over the next years, e.g. after another terror attack.

Posted by: teuton | Aug 1 2005 17:36 utc | 34