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May 25, 2006
OT 06-45
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What/who is behind the attempted(?) coup in Kongo?
Congo Holding 3 Americans in Alleged Coup Plot
Three Americans were among at least 26 security workers arrested and jailed last week in Congo on suspicion of plotting a coup in advance of national elections in July, officials and news services reported Wednesday.
Fifteen of the suspects are employed by a South African security company, Omega Security Solutions, whose parent company has offices in Pretoria, the South African capital. A company official said the detained Americans work for two U.S. companies that are arranging security and logistics for the campaign of a presidential candidate in Congo. The other suspects are Nigerians.
…
Officials from Omega said employees from its Congolese subsidiary were working with two American companies employed by the campaign of Oscar Kashala, a Congolese presidential candidate who holds both U.S. and Congolese citizenships.
Kashala, a Harvard-educated physician, recently moved to Congo from his home in Massachusetts. The three arrested Americans were consultants who were handling security and logistics for Kashala, said Christo Roelofse, an official with Omega International Associates, the parent company based in Pretoria.
The U.S. State Department confirmed the arrests of the three Americans but declined to release details about them.
I have said many times, we are in an ideological war and until we deal with this kind of thing there is no hope of ever counter acting the vanguard myth bakers.
Until some heavy hitters, deep thinkers, pedagological paradigm shapeshifters, are able to syntheses the meta-think or meta-narative of the Stagecraft of these twisted Greek tragedy characters we will play the entropy game Sisyphean or perhaps to our doom.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 25 2006 8:21 utc | 2
I think this falls under the general heading of “spreading democracy and free trade”.
Posted by: ralphieboy | May 25 2006 9:24 utc | 3
I have just spent two hours or so reading the Iraqi blogs. And have come away more disturbed and puzzled than ever. (Besides fear sadness outrage at the carnage.)
These bloggers are educated. Several hold down jobs, are professionals, or were. Others are in school. All of them are smart. They are all pretty social – get around, talk to people. They read books. Thought Riot, for example, is 18 and quotes Churchill and Bismark. She is mystified at the amounts spent by the US on defense and the fact that they can’t control thugs. She shows clean hands by stating that ‘she is not into conspiracy theories’ and then goes on to wonder what or whose agenda is served by the ‘Iraqi Swamp.’ She has insight, as well: she calls Chalabi childish and funny, which is apt. She thinks Muqtada is as brainless as the melon she ate an hour ago.
But as a group, they are clueless. Besides fresh horror stories not reported in the press (e.g. reported by Treasure of Baghdad: Health workers showing up a the door, questioning if any babies in the home, ordering it to be vaccinated against polio; two hours later the baby is dead..not an isolated case it seems…) They don’t know what is going on in their country. They are mystified. They talk critically and coherently about the Government, mention (or not) that the Gvmt is itself implicated in killings (militias, etc.) and address or describe some of the problems in their work/expertise area, but in a very local, circumscribed way.
Of course the media is shit. And the newspapers must be terrible or non-existent, none of them mention any newspapers at all.
Some mention incidents like seeing policemen who seemed menacing (or even shot someone right in front of their eyes) and not knowing if they were ‘real policemen’ or not.
How is it possible that these people don’t know who is fighting whom (besides the endless mention of ‘sectarian killings’) and for what? How come they don’t tell us that there is an industry in police uniforms? How come they are not suspicious of health workers who show up at the door? Well those last two questions are a bit mean, I only intend to suggest that as a group they show little street smarts, and don’t possess even the beginnings of a general framework that would serve to explain the events around them. I’m not being critical of them, I’m worried sick.
Could this be a class thing? The bloggers are all middle or upper middle class, and the ones I read write at least partly in English. Are they all just imitating Riverbend, the very successful star blogger, latest in a long list of ‘girls who write diaries while in a war situation’? Riverbend is very politically correct and careful – the genre does not in fact require it, but pushes towards it through its narrow focus that transmutes to universality through empathy (and thus guarantees its commercial success.)
My vague comparison standard is WW2 and stories from parents and relatives, reading, etc. On the ground, that was quite complicated in occupied countries, not the simple affair of goodies and baddies that the history books tell us. Yet, people knew which faction was what, who looked like what, who knew whom, who was going to do what, who wore fake uniforms or not, what different groups were trying to attain.
From what I have read about, say, Somalia, to take a contemporary example I believe (?) things there are more like WW2, and that the carnage on the ground is readily understood, interpreted by the people who are the victims of it. Were there to be Somalian bloggers, I think, the narrative would be different, as the various actors and protagonists would be identified, named, explained.
The murderous chaos of Iraq today has a quality that I can’t grasp. It does have, at this distance, a definetly American shading, but that is perhaps natural, as the bloggers, when blogging in English, enter a US culturally dominated world. The best way I can describe it is that the ordinary preoccupations, disasters and attendant interpretations of Americans (or, more generally, people in ‘developed’ nations, but the Japanese are quite different from the French…) such as dogs that get run over, a child who has a high fever after a vaccination, a job lost, an unwelcome election result, a new ruling, a corruption scandal, etc. etc. and their various rationalisations and interpretations -some of them conspiratorial- have been transposed to explain the most barbarous behavior imaginable taking place on a day to day basis on the doorstep, in the backyard, the home, the traffic crossing, the local hospital…
That is really frightening.
What am I missing? What am I not reading right? Is this kind of chaos really new?
—
[I have lifted this comment to a thread. Please respond here.
b.]
Posted by: Noisette | May 25 2006 16:01 utc | 5
Jury Convicts Enron’s Skilling and Lay
A federal jury today convicted former Enron chairman Kenneth L. Lay of each of the six counts with which he was charged and convicted his protege Jeffrey K. Skilling of 19 of 28 counts, holding the top executives accountable for fraud on their watch.
…
After the verdicts were read, Judge Simeon T. Lake III also found Lay guilty of four counts of bank fraud.
warning, moonie times
Murder charges likely in Iraq raid
Defense attorneys expect the Marine Corps to file murder charges against one or more Marines who conducted raids in Haditha in November that resulted in the deaths of more than 20 Iraqi civilians, according to sources close to the investigation.
The sources said agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS) have been interviewing members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Attorneys there are mobilizing for the possible defense of a dozen Marines.
Posted by: annie | May 25 2006 17:49 utc | 8
Just went shopping and the shops were closed. Hmm – we have a holiday? Yeah it is a holiday here, one of those Christian days that I tend to forget about (secular country?). But it is also Towelday. So I will carry it to the Greek restaurant at that corner and have some soup. No napkin needed, thanks.
Interesting article over at Salon on fundie child-rearing.
Quite a read:
Don’t Spare the 1/4 inch CPVC
Posted by: Groucho | May 25 2006 18:37 utc | 10
Can I hold a wire hanger in my hand (hook extended) wrap my towel around my arm and talk like a pirate?
Arrrgh.
Posted by: beq | May 25 2006 18:40 utc | 11
b,
Happy Himmelfahrt! It’s also Father’s Day in Germany. Vestiges of an ancient Germanic pagan custom in which the menfolk of the village visited the local holy sites and blessed them (and themselves) with copious amounts of alcohol.
Check out the last chapter of Hesse’s “Unterm Rad” (Beneath the Wheel) for an uplifting description of an early 20th century Fathers’ Day outing.
Posted by: ralphieboy | May 25 2006 22:02 utc | 12
Just Watching Bush and Blair Press Cinference on Iraq.
It’s on at least the cable networks: I’m watching MSMBC.
You ought to post a full transcript B, when it becomes available.
IT IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE.
Posted by: Groucho | May 26 2006 0:11 utc | 13
hold on a second… lay & skilling are scheduled to sentenced on sept 11?
Posted by: b real | May 26 2006 2:21 utc | 15
The agenda that Prime Minister Maliki has outlined demonstrates that Iraq’s new government understands its duty to deliver real improvements in the daily lives of the Iraqi people.
The formation of a new government represents a new beginning for Iraq and a new beginning for the relationship between Iraq and our coalition. The United States and Great Britain will work together to help this new democracy succeed. We’ll take advantage of this moment of opportunity and work with Iraq’s new government to strengthen this young democracy and achieve victory over our common enemies.
bla bla, do i have to read it?
Posted by: annie | May 26 2006 3:11 utc | 16
OK It’s now official, you’ve heard it from Dubya and Bliar so it must be true.
That is that now Iraq has a ‘democratically elected’ government, whatever problems occur in Iraq, are the fault of the Iraqis themselves.
Many USuk citizens will accept this deeply flawed reasoning because even if it is ‘stretching things a bit’, it will allow them to sleep a little better.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 26 2006 4:30 utc | 17
Had a bit of a skype earlier with an old drinking partner who covered Deputy Sheriff John Howard’s trip to Disneyland a week or so ago.
She says she’s seen nothing like it. They usually roll out about a Grade two red carpet for the Prime Minister of Oz.
Fitting him somewhere in the schedule between a mid-ranking Saudi Prince and a European foreign minister.
This was a complete head of state grand tour.
Little John is the political boss but he’s not the head of state who is technically the Queen of England, in her role as Queen of Australia, but because that doesn’t play well with Australians. Australia’s head of state is regarded as being her representative in Australia, the Governor General who at least is is an Australian.
Anyway Johnnie got the full treatment, state dinners, joint press conferences etc. Did he get to speak to Congress? I forgot to ask. Thing is the Australian Under-boss visits are generally kept low key because although USuk are incredibly dependant on Australia’s vast mineral resources, it’s best not to let any lieutenant get too big for his britches.
My friend’s feeling was that the whole nine yards were rolled out for Dubya’s benefit more’n Deputy John.
Being the Supreme Leader of the free world hasn’t been a barrel of laughs lately and most of the ‘facilitators’ from the personal aides down to the lowest flunkey appeared very concerned not to ‘arc’ Dubya up.
Like they were tip-toeing past a sleeping grizzly. It’s the only way out of the cave so it must be done, yet one false move and life as they knew it would be over.
Having brown-nosed Johnnie for a sleepover, means mommie will cook up a treat and dad may even take em to DisneyWorld.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 26 2006 5:14 utc | 18
Debs, don’t forget that Chinese premier was just here. He asked for “the whole 9 yards” – Full State Dinner blah blah…Bu$hCo refused. He just got a luncheon, complete w/a dissident screaming in his face what a brute he is! It’s called rubbing it in the face of the Chinese dude who is really Important over yonder in the Asian Pacific 🙂
Posted by: jj | May 26 2006 6:45 utc | 19
oh , why not, a little hardball anyone?
“Everything ends up at Dick Cheney’s desk. His right hand man is indicted, he’s intimately involved in the Niger allegation with the weapons of mass destruction. He’s the one who seems to have instructed Libby. The biggest question is not whether he will be called as a witness, but why he wasn’t a co-conspirator.”
the appetizer? Experts says Cheney can’t avoid testifying
Posted by: annie | May 26 2006 9:00 utc | 20
Bar snack! [holiday weekend for some of us]
It took place, as most epiphanies do, in the bedroom. It was evening, one of those weird warm balmy ones that San Francisco gets about as frequently as a politician gets a conscience, with a hint of spring rain in the air and a breath of new life in the world, a time when you have the windows open just a little and the air smells like a trademark urban admixture of fresh growth and divine hope and SUV exhaust. You know the kind.
Posted by: beq | May 26 2006 11:04 utc | 21
Enron bosses ‘shocked’ at verdict
I have to admit I haven’t laughed from my belly in a long, long while, but that was my spontaneous response to that headline.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | May 26 2006 13:49 utc | 22
I almost had the same response, JF. But then I remembered that Lay and Skilling will undoubtably be sent to some minimum security country club type of affair for the next two years to wait until Bush the Younger gives them an 11th hour full Presidential pardon on his way out in ’08. Then they will make millions on the rights to some ghost-written tell-all book deals that present their side of the story.
This is merely an intermission from the trough for these particular porcines. Lots of huffing and puffing going on, but nobody has really blown their houses down.
Posted by: Monolycus | May 26 2006 15:10 utc | 23
the bit of enron theater justice shows us, once again, the way in which our law can condemn the particular actions of a few capitalists while protecting the universal interests of a whole rotten class.
and even if rove goes down, the same lesson.
Posted by: slothrop | May 26 2006 15:40 utc | 24
Lay-Skilling bares rises to level of a show trial. “Pardon” is a foregone conclusion. Greg Palast has the most knowledgeable commentary on this. Check out Democ. Now today & his website.
The system is still intact, Lay-Skilling were not indicted for their massive crimes, all of their co-conspirators skated, Lays political contributions to bush in Texas were illegal, but Feds. have just indicted the law firm that went after Enron – Milberg Weiss.
As for the stuff that matters most –
Palast: “What we’ve done is decriminalized the rip-off of the consumers.”
Peter Elkind, on D-N- w/Palast, author of bk. on Lay/Enron, said workers have gotten nothing.
Elkind also said there’s a strong chance for overturn on appeal based on judge’s instructions to jury, which led to overturn of similar case.
But then, that’s why one turns to MoA – to get the story behind the headlines…unlike the silly stuff on the FluffsterBlogs, errrr I mean the “lefty blogs” 🙁
Posted by: jj | May 26 2006 17:42 utc | 25
@ beq
that was great! I laughed so hard afterwards my guhl fiend had to see what I was laughing at, and by the time it was over, about 10 people read it lastnight…she wound up reading it outloud and e-mailing it off to the housefull of guests we had over. Reminded us of Tom Robbins. Thank-you.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 26 2006 19:20 utc | 26
hmmm , wayne madsen
May 26, 2006 — On May 24, the National Security Council contravened US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad and ruled out direct negotiations with Iran that were promised by Khalilzad after the appointment of a new Iraqi government. However, State Department sources report that there are direct negotiations taking place between Iran and the United States. However, the American side is not represented by the U.S. government but by Halliburton. The oil company, with long ties to Dick Cheney, is negotiating with Iran on potential contracts to refurbish Iran’s aging oil production infrastructure. The saber-rattling from the Bush White House over Iran is either a smokescreen to draw attention away from U.S.-Iranian oil talks or represents a new fracture between the neocons in the Bush administration: the financially-motivated vs. the politically-motivated necons. This fissure may represent the first discernable break between Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Posted by: annie | May 26 2006 20:47 utc | 27
Came across a pretty disturbing story in today’s local fishwrap.
It’s about a company called Rakon industries here in NZ. It started as a typical garden shed NZ operation by an old bloke who used to hand make crystals for radio receivers.
As technology changed so did demand for his product but he and his sons persevered at making the most stable quartz crystals they could. Crystals are vulnerable to temperature fluctuations at both ends; heat or cold, they struggle to vibrate at a consistent frequency.
Anyway Rakon products became so much more reliable they became the crystal of choice in the limited numbers of high end products that still used quartz crystals.
Then along came GPS (Global Positioning Systems). Smart bomb manufacturers such as Rockwell decided to switch to GPS systems after Gulf War One, because the visual navigation systems were ineffective in the smoke of battle.
Rockwell went to Rakon and from there NZ industry got caught up in the manufacture of the weapons slaughtering people around the world.
So far it only seems like one company and although NZers imagined exporting such products from NZ was illegal Rakon claim that they aren’t breaking the law. Of course if that is the case why didn’t they keep it secret and try to deny what they were up to?
There are a plethora of issues raised by this mornings revelations. Some of them are that it is likely that Rakon products have gone into Depleted Uranium weapons. There has been a history of the TSXO failing “temperature-compensated crystal oscillators (TCXOs)” . . .”TSXO, temperature-sensing crystal oscillator, is an adaptation of the TCXO” . . .
So when a completely innocent family got blown away instead of Saddam’s cousin’s wife’s father’s family, it make have been because some bloke had a few too many the night before at the “Flying Jug”(The Mt Wellington Tavern). That doesn’t sit very well.
Israel has been one of the end user nations!
NZers can’t even be sure that these products aren’t being used in nuclear weapons.
So the issue is what to do about it? If the government had been making sure that they didn’t really know what was going on, that story is now untenable, so it will be interesting to see how they try and worm through this one, because right now they will be copping the heavy breathing phone calls from over yonder.
The truly interesting part is going to be what happens if Rakon (who have only just publicly listed, interesting in itself, prior to a couple of weeks ago they were a privately owned enterprise) can no longer export these products to the US, Israel or anywhere else the end user takes delight in blowing humans to smithereens. There will be a number of intellectual property matters at issue here I’d reckon if whatever moles Rockwell or US defence have got into the factory, have managed to glim the process. It’s difficult to conceive they wouldn’t have, and one scenario may even be that it is Rockwell et al who have leaked the documents.
Of course though this will only be a temporary hiccup in the butchers’ blueprint for nihilism, but it will be interesting watching the contortions they go through to justify breaching Rakon’s intellectual property rights, considering US govt attitudes to nations who breach their intellectual property when US export controls don’t allow a component be supplied to, say, Iran.
Lastly despite the dishonourable way that these people have allowed themselves to become corrupted to the point where they willingly participate in the slaughter of others for financial reward, it is pleasing to see that there may be at least one person in a relatively senior position in the Rakon organisation who did see the horror and leaked all of the company’s most sensitive documents.
It is to be hoped that NZer’s force the cessation of this ugly business because it is wrong, rather than those of us who know it is wrong having to point out that a small installation in a mixed residential and industrial suburb in NZ’s most populous city has become a target for the victims of these butchers.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 26 2006 21:57 utc | 28
HUAC’s Happy Housewives: The Female Witness and the House Committee on Un-American Activities
master’s thesis
HUAC’s Happy Housewives: The Female Witness and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Los Angeles, March 1953. University of Oregon, 1997.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 27 2006 1:09 utc | 29
Floyd trounces the Demlicans but good ! :…And the horse you rode in on, Democrats! Go floyd go! love the way he smacks the dkos crowd.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 27 2006 1:19 utc | 30
FluffsterBlogs, errrr I mean the “lefty blogs”
They only listen to themselves talk JJ, and only the banal, PC,
etc, gets mentioned. Really pathetic commentary there also. Self-importance is the height of importance, don’t you know.
Posted by: Groucho | May 27 2006 1:32 utc | 31
Scam:
I will tell you a real story about the DKos “fluffster” crowd tomorrow, and the usual fluffster suspects.
Meanwhile, I request that Bernhard get the transcript for Keith Olbermann’s Countdown show for Friday–the lead story–and post it.
And tomorrow I will tell you children a story, and mighty bored you’ll be.
Posted by: Groucho | May 27 2006 1:57 utc | 32
Caution: this may make some of our vietnam vets blow a gasket, but, Kissinger told China communist takeover in Vietnam was acceptable.
So my father never came home for what exactly?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 27 2006 2:05 utc | 33
Iraq Official Says Iran Has Right to Atomic Power Goal
The Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, on Friday endorsed the right of Iran to pursue the “technological and scientific capabilities” to create nuclear power for peaceful purposes, but shied away from the subject of uranium enrichment, which the United States says could allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon.
Mr. Zebari’s statement, made at a news conference on Friday after a meeting with the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, appeared to be deliberately ambiguous, and reflected the delicate position of Iraq, which is caught between the United States and Iran.
b, this is what they (the U.S.) have essentially asked for, is it not? Sooner or later they’ll have to take the finger out of the dike and allow the pan shiite equileibrium to manifest. Look out saudi arabia.
Posted by: anna missed | May 27 2006 8:37 utc | 35
Look out saudi arabia
The Saudis do/will finance a Sunni resistance in Iraq to keep the war in Iraq and away from themselfs. But that is not a long term strategy…
Uncle,
If you are implying that your father did not return from Vietnam, then I praise your own efforts to see through the glass darkly — as for like myself, I can only wish in retrospect, for the foresight that I now know. That history and archeology exceed the moment along with the sacrifice, and what may look like mere blood on the highway should never be discounted as such, as your efforts and commitment are a sure testament.
Posted by: anna missed | May 27 2006 9:11 utc | 37
Yawn……well, it is 3 am here…but
The precipitous falls in equities markets across the world this week are raising concerns whether, after years of central-banker complacency, the global economy could be headed for a real crisis. They could be simply hiccups, but if they are, they are vicious ones. …
…
At issue are fears that while the world’s biggest central banks – the US Federal Reserve Bank, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank – have been watching out for interest rates and money growth, they have been ignoring, or at least been complacent about, the rapid proliferation of derivatives and the soaring price of gold and other commodities such as oil and copper. The Indian and Chinese governments, both of which have tame central banks and concerns about restive populations, have kept monetary policy relatively loose as well. Now, some economists believe, the sharp global market falls in both commodities and equities over the past few days could be the start of an economic nightmare. The central banks may have waited far too long to try to control inflation.
For instance, Dr Jim Walker, the Hong Kong-based economist for CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, told investors in a private newsletter this week, “We are possibly in the most dangerous period for global financial markets in my working life.” Global economy headed for danger
Do any of the ec. literate barflies care to translate this for the ec. illiterate?
Posted by: jj | May 27 2006 10:22 utc | 38
Spying has beena beddy beddy good to me…
Lets here it for privatised spying!
PRIVATE JIHAD
How Rita Katz got into the spying business.
Freelance spying. How and why Rita got into the counterterrorism business, running and publishing
SITE, where she and her researchers mine online sources for intelligence, which they translate and send out by e-mail to a list of about a hundred subscribers.
Through continuous and intensive examination of extremist websites, public records, and international media reports, as well as through undercover work on both sides of the Atlantic, the SITE Institute swiftly locates links among terrorist entities and their supporters. Once a potential terrorist entity is identified, either through SITE’s ongoing internal research or via a client’s specific query, SITE conducts a comprehensive investigation on the target and entities affiliated to it, scouring corporate records, tax forms, credit reports, videotapes, internet newsgroup postings, and owned websites, among other resources, for indicators of illicit activity. Such research has often yielded important leads that have been, and are continuously being, forwarded to pertinent law enforcement or government agencies, and/or information that has been used for government investigations, raids, and prosecutions, in the U.S and abroad.
There used to be a routine on “Saturday Night Live” where… in a thick Dominican/Hispanic accent, played by Garrett Morris that, “Basaball has been beddy beddy good to me.” …skit mocking an immigrant baseball player in a way that reminds me of the above…
I guess Americans in general really don’t get irony… – now is that an analogy or a simile or a metaphor? 🙂 geez…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 27 2006 12:20 utc | 39
I second jj’s request for a translation of that Asia Times article into econ-dummy speak. Any takers?
Posted by: Monolycus | May 27 2006 14:13 utc | 40
I’ll try to get through that ATOL piece later.
—
Weird piece in the NYT:
U.S. Is Debating Talks With Iran on Nuclear Issue
The Bush administration is beginning to debate whether to set aside a longstanding policy taboo and open direct talks with Iran, to help avert a crisis over Tehran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, European officials and Americans close to the administration said Friday.
Then the article points out that Cheney and Rumsfeld are opposed and Rice has listen to the Europeans but is opposed too.
There is not one person in the administration named or hinted to in that article that might favor talks.
I wonder who did write the first graph and the headline. Both are not based on the content of the rest of the piece.
some priceless stupidity from national review’s top 50 conservative rock songs.
did yhou know the sex pistols’ ‘bodies’ is an ‘anti-abortion’ rant?
really, you didn’t know? sheesh.
Posted by: slothrop | May 27 2006 16:11 utc | 42
@slothrop – hilarious!
35. “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Written as an anti–Vietnam War song, this tune nevertheless is pessimistic about activism and takes a dim view of both Communism and liberalism: “Five-year plans and new deals, wrapped in golden chains . . .”
Being sad that these plans and deals are chained is a dim view and qualifies for being conservative! Black is White!
They left out several conservative rock songs: pat Benatoar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”, reminiscent of Busah’s “Bring ’em on” speech.
Duran Duran with “Hungry Like the Wolf”. What song better describes neocon military and economic policies?
The Hollies with “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” – the relationship between Jeb and Dubya, especially in light of Florida in the 2000 elections.
Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” – contains clear references to a marriage between a man and a woman, as God intended it to be.
Posted by: ralphieboy | May 27 2006 21:13 utc | 45
The Georgia Satellites “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” is a morality play? And here I always thought it was about a horny guy who was frustrated because he couldn’t get laid. And “I can’t drive 55” is a protest song against the nanny state? I thought Sammy just wanted to drive fast. Wonder how Miller would feel about Hagar ripping through his neighborhood at 80 MPH. He’d probably call some nannies. And he thinks “Heroes” takes sides in the old East/West ideological divide rather than taking love’s side against ideological divides?
Why does everything have to pressed and squeezed to fit into their teensy, constrictive little intellectual and emotional chastity belts? They would have us drain life of it’s meaning and then worship it’s shell. Most of us like oranges for their juice, John, not the rinds.
Posted by: lonesomeG | May 28 2006 12:41 utc | 46
Lynrd Skynrd’s “Free Bird” can be seen a tribute to Dick Cheney’s private ranch, where quails are regularly set free for him and his hunting buddies to shoot at.
And this bird you cannot cha-ay-ay-ay-ange!
Posted by: ralphieboy | May 28 2006 12:47 utc | 47
I was just sent a link to what I think is a pretty good primer on conservatism written by Philip E. Agre who is an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. It may be old news to many but this is quite well laid out and offers suggestions on how to counter conservatives.
I found this interesting.
* Benchmark the Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal’s opinion page is the most important conservative publication, and it is often described as a bulletin board for the conservatism. A better metaphor, however, would be a war room. Day by day, the Wall Street Journal’s editors detect liberal arguments coming over the horizon, and immediately they gather up and distribute the arguments that conservatives will need to rebut them. Since the retirement of its late editor Robert Bartley, the Journal’s opinion page has become more sophisticated. The crude lies and belligerent irrationality of the Bartley era have not disappeared, but they have certainly been attenuated. Daniel Henninger in particular does something interesting with clouds of associations that are subrational but not quite fallacious.
Liberals should not imitate the antireason of the Journal or other distribution channels of conservative opinion. Instead, as part of the hard work of inventing democracy, it will be necessary to tell the difference between methods that liberals ought to be applying in their own work, such as the day-to-day rebuttal of arguments, and methods that liberals need to analyze and place in the same category as the priesthood of Egypt.
and this too will likely upset a couple of posters here……
* Ditch Marx
Post-sixties, many liberals consider themselves to be watered-down Marxists. They subscribe to a left-to-right spectrum model of politics in which they, as democrats, are located in some hard-to-identify place sort-of-somewhat-to-the-left-of-center, whereas the Marxists have the high ground of a clear and definite location at the end of the spectrum. These liberals would be further out on the left if they could find a politically viable way to do it. Conservative rhetors concur with this model, and indiscriminately calling liberals communists is back in style. This is all nonsense. Marxism is not located anywhere on a spectrum. It is just mistaken. It fails to describe the real world. Attempts to implement it simply created an ugly and shallow imitation of conservatism at its worst. Democracy is the right way to live, and conservatism is the wrong way.
Being somewhat a pragmatist, I especially like this piece, the only issue I have is that he continues to believe that the Democratic party will be different.
Posted by: dan of steele | May 30 2006 3:47 utc | 48
@jj,
Not an expert but as I understand it:
In the past, controlling inflation was the central banker’s economic goal and hiking the interest rate to reduce spending was the central banker’s method.
Recently, unrealistically low interest rates have fueled huge debt spending sprees. Spending sprees fuel inflation and we’ve got one hell of a spending/debt hangover; so the Fed has begun increasing interest rates again to curb the inflation rate.
However: simultaneously declining world oil supply is jacking up oil prices – which also fuel inflation because all economic growth is based on the premise of cheap energy. This oil price situation is predicted to worsen over time. Economic growth fuelled by cheap energy is over.
So the Fed can’t control inflation no matter how high they hike the interest rates: High interest rates + high inflation = Stagflation.
No wonder everyone wants to buy gold: paper currencies do not hold value in inflationary times. So the price of gold is skyrocketing.
So the author of your Asia Times article sees the price of gold going up up; they see the price of oil going up up up; they see the inflation rate going up up; they see the banks sending the interest rates up up in vain to stop it. And they see the worst financial crisis of their lifetime.
Now, what I left out of the equation is the criminality behind the banker’s cyclical monetary policies. I’ll leave that lesson to the next ‘expert’ poster.
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Personally, I think we are headed for a **permanent** Great Depression. The economic collapse of oil dependent nations will bring joblessness and the highest rates ever of home foreclosures resulting in mass homelessness; the breakdown of the oil-dependent food supply chain resulting in widespread starvation; and the return of indentured servitude/ slavery systems to service the extremely wealthy. The patriot act, the bankruptcy elimination, the new prisons and the new militarized border wall, the new selective service rules, and the eminent domain policies will back up the elitist system wherein those who cannot pay off thier Debt to Society will just have to work it off.
Google ‘Peak Oil’ to find out more and good luck to you.
Posted by: gylangirl | May 30 2006 15:27 utc | 49
@gylangirl:
Dunno if we’ll have a permanent Great Depression. Once oil prices go way up, the world’s population is going to undergo what would be called, if it were a stock market number instead of a human statistic, a “correction”.
Remember, “sustainable” farming is called that precisely because it doesn’t depend on oil. Once the oil runs out, food prices will escalate, disease will run rampant as people’s immune systems are weakened by hunger and populations condense into cities looking for food. After a couple of unbelievably unpleasant decades, if we haven’t had a nuclear (or other) holocaust by then, things will right themselves.
I’m not defending this process, just pointing out that, if you accept that the current oil-based farming system is unsustainable and that the current levels of population are dependent on food from that source, this is inevitable.
Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | May 31 2006 15:56 utc | 50