Is There Any Point Talking About Herman Cain Anymore?

So now his mistress of 13 years, who he precipitously dumped earlier this year in preparation for his egotistical Presidential run, has come forward. Her stated reason was distress at Cain's contemptuous smearing of the 3 [known] women he molested/harassed. Which is indicative of his poor social judgment and callous insensitivity to others. As a corporate boss, he could get away with such an existential strategy, as he never experienced any negative consequences from his boorishness and mistreatment of others as objects. The need to be sensitive to other beings was never a factor in his life before (at least not for decades, outside of whatever corporate politics he engaged in to advance himself).

We are reduced to hoping that he drops his farce of a campaign. This is the only way the corporate propaganda system (aka "the media") will stop shoving him in our faces and lavishing attention on every tiny twist and turn he makes. The fact that they won't stop treating him as a person of major importance (merely because he's one of 8 or 9- it's easy to lose count- nearly ideologically identical reactionaries vying for the GOP Presidential nomination) and putting him on TV daily, is revealing of the hidden political agenda of that media- to assiduous, year after year, push the U.S. as far to the right as they can.

When Ralph Nader ran for President, he was virtually invisible in the corporate propaganda media version of reality. Nader was and is a brilliant (unlike dolts like Cain, Perry, Santorum, Bachmann, e.g.), systematic thinker with a cogent, well-articulated political and economic critique, who had explicit, specific plans for policy. (Not shallow napkin slogans, like Cain's "9-9-9" "tax plan," for example.) Since Nader was a threat to the established order of corporate oligarchy, he was ignored. (He was also prevented from getting on the ballot in various states, and had to fight tooth and nail, diverting time, energy, and resources from actually running, in most states he did manage to claw his way onto the ballot in.)

On the other hand, any lamebrain reactionary is given excited, wall to wall coverage. The "vote" of a few thousand aging rural white reactionaries paying to enter caucuses in Iowa is treated like an event of gigantic significance.

"The Seven Dwarfs" [sic] was a term of ridicule and belittlement pasted on a past field of Democratic candidates by the corporate media. (It's still invoked today, referencing Democrats, never Republicans, such as by that smug and insufferable member of the D.C.unelected nomenklatura Cokie Roberts a few weeks ago on NPR.) Somehow the corporatchiks of the media never see a parallel with the GOP field, which repeatedly features large numbers of reactionary clones with almost no national following. The swarm of rightwing idiots who try to outdo each other in extremism are always treated with utmost respect, each and every one, as serious people of stature.

Which brings me to another example of rightwing crackpotism: they think the aforementioned media is "liberal." Go figure. But then, the establishment propaganda system treats most of the far right's delusions as reasonable, so their delusions are daily reinforced by the "liberal" media they despise.

Is Obama Incompetent or Duplicitous?

The Republicans who apparently control Congress (even where they’re a minority, in the Senate) are already vowing to welsh on the agreement that, in the event of the (predictable and inevitable) failure of the “supercommittee” of Congress to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in budget cuts (over ten years), automatic budget cuts would kick in starting in 2013, divided between the gigantic military budget ($500 billion less than the massive increases they were expecting) and the so-called “discretionary budget” (everything else sans Social Security and debt interest) and thus double-crossing the Democrats by exempting the war money cuts.

Obama on November 21 came out in public with a forceful statement that he would veto such a doublecross attempt. On the same day, his Secretary of Offense, the loathsome Pentagon groupie Leon Panetta, squealed that budget cuts to the military would “hollow out” the “services” and leave them as weak as kittens, unable to fulfill their “missions.”

So here we have a cabinet Secretary undercutting his President, blatantly, openly, directly. (Panetta’s been shrieking about “hollowing out” ever since Pentagon “cuts”- i.e. less gigantic increases- have been bruited about.) Can you imagine this happening under Lyndon Johnson? Or Richard Nixon? Loathsome as they were, they knew what being President requires. Strength.

So the question is: is Obama pathetically weak? Or is he duplicitous? Was his statement just another in an endless series of reelection ruses aiming at tricking people into voting for him, as he did in his first Presidential race? Could be either, based on his past behavior. An interesting problem to try and solve.

New York Police Trample Court Order

Ignoring a court order allowing protesters back into Liberty/Zuccotti Park, the NYPD barricades the approaches and arrested people. Video at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/nov/15/occupy-wall-street-zuccotti-park-video?intcmp=239

Obama Regime FBI Coordinates National Raids On Anti-Oligarchy Protest Camps

Police in Denver, Colorado, Salt Lake City, Utah, Oakland, California, and New York City, just launched nearly simultaneous raids on the protest camps of the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

Just a coincidence, I’m sure. I wouldn’t want any Establishment types to brand me “paranoid”!

Actually it’s standard operating procedure for the main domestic political secret police force, the FBI, to coordinate this type of nationwide repression. They’ve been doing it ever since the Palmer Raids and mass deportations of socialists right after World War.  J. Edger Hoover organized that for then-Attorney General Palmer.

First the FBI incites the hatred of the local police with libelous “intelligence reports” on the targeted victims, branding them terrorists, communists, anarchists, violence cop-killers, whatever. That primes the attack dogs to do the dirty work of busting skulls, Macing, teargasing, pepper-spraying, false-arresting, destroying personal property, and so forth.

[During the government drive to wipe out the Black Panther Party, the FBI arrange for murderous police raids by local police on Panther offices in cities including Chicago and Los Angeles, for example.]

Somehow all the Mayors in these various burgs hit on the same sanctimonious excuse for their brutal repression: their tender concern for the welfare of the protesters their goon squads attacked, citing “health and safety.”

Can you get more cynical than that?

Well yes, you can.

At the outset of the 1 am [Nov. 15] raid on Liberty Park (nee Zuccotti Park, named for a local member of the corporate nomenklatura John Zuccotti who has spent his existence cycling between high ranking unelected NYC government posts and grossly overpaid private sinecures) hundreds of police in their armor suits and extra-long batons for smashing bodies surrounded the encampment and thrust leaflets at the protesters titled  "Notice of requirement to remove property from Zuccotti Park."  This pseudo-official document gave the protesters to clear out with their belongings. It stated they could reclaim their property at noon at the Sanitation Department garage “with proper ID.” Then the police proceeded to do their usual beating, punching, pepper-spraying, and roughly shoving people to a distance of several blocks away. Then Sanitation Department workers piled all the belongings on the site- tents, the kitchen, the library of thousands of books- into a pile and threw it into garbage trucks, which compacted it all for transport to landfill.

Kind of reminds one of Syrian Government pronouncements, claiming to be having a “dialogue” with the people they’re murdering, pretending to be abiding by a deal with the Arab League to withdraw its military and release prisoners, while it murders hundreds more people and sends its army to attack the city of Homs.

Or Rockefeller’s assault on Attica prison, during which a helicopter flew overhead proclaiming to the helpless prisoners below “You will not be harmed” while the State Police gunned them down.

Of course, the rulers haven’t killed Occupy Wall Street protesters yet. At least not many. There have been some mysterious deaths in some of the encampments, and given the numerous provocations by police and their infiltration, we cannot rule out state homicide. And it’s pure luck that saved the lives of the two military veterans the Oakland police almost killed, one shot in the head and brain-damaged by a “non-lethal” projectile, the other savagely clubbed for walking down the street, lacerating his spleen and leaving him in a cell for 19 hours until someone posted bail and got him to a hospital- he could easily have bled to death thanks to his sadistic jailers.

But rest assured, if their rule was really threatened, they wouldn’t shrink from mass murder. Take a look at U.S. history if you doubt that.

The media is doing its part by ignoring  the police violence and callous destruction of personal property- the first step to dehumanizing their victims. It always starts with assaults on the belongings of victims, and physical violence, before culminating in murder. The establishment propaganda system covers up police brutality with the dishonest word “clashes.” There were “clashes between protesters and police” whenever the police assault people.  Or “violence” “breaks out.” No, you ordered your goons to attack people. You sicced your attack dogs on people. That’s what happened.

Molester Cain Totally Flummoxed By Question About Libya

Herman Cain was asked during an interview by the news staff of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel his opinion on Obama’s handling of Libya. Like all GOP candidates, his doglike conditioned instinct is to attack Obama- but apparently he couldn’t think of anything negative to say. [Of course all the GOP candidates, who are militarists and imperialists (save for Ron Paul, the isolationist Libertarian), are in bad faith when they attack Obama for using military force, although some stretch and attack Obama for not using enough violence.] GOP candidates are like Pavlovian dogs- their kneejerk attacks on Obama are slavishly rewarded with wild whoops and applause by any GOP mob in the vicinity. Thus they receive reinforcement for their mindless, mendacious negativity.

Anyway, here was Cain’s well-thought-out response:

 “O.K., Libya,” he said.

“President Obama supported the uprising, correct?” he asked.  [Does this moron live under a rock?] “President Obama called for the removal of Qaddafi — just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing before I say ‘Yes, I agree,’ or ‘No, I didn’t agree.’  ”

Then Mr. Cain of course said he disagreed with the president’s approach “for the following reasons” — and couldn’t think of any.

“Nope, that’s a different one,” he said. “I’ve got to go back and see.”

He added: “I’ve got all this stuff twirling around in my head.”

[Like what, thoughts of breasts?]

But that’s not important. As Cain said in the interview:

 “Some people want to say, ‘Well, as president, you’re supposed to know everything.’ No you don’t.”

Or know anything, apparently. Except how to sing a few gospel songs and grope women.

Naturally, Cain's campaign immediately attacked the newspaper, claiming they somehow used trick editing to make Cain look bad. Blame The Media is what reactionaries always do when they reveal what jackasses they are. In fact, the corporate media usually bends over backwards to legitimize these reactionary cretins.

Unbelievable, the incompetent wackjobs who can run for President and be granted massive coverage.

On the other hand, a highly intelligent and articulate candidate like a Ralph Nader was practically an unperson when he ran for President, despite drawing rallies of tens of thousands of supporters.

Guess ideology and the class interests of the corporate oligarchy have something to do with it.

To check out even more bizarre Cainisms, see “Herman Cain: "Manly" men like more

pizza toppings,” where he discusses “sissy” toppings and other matters, at

http://www.cbsnews.com/2102-503544_162-57324204.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody

Immoral Tea Partiers Support Sexual Harasser/Assaulter Herman Cain

Cain got a rousing reception in Michigan from immoral Tea Party reactionaries fired up by Cain's bald-faced lies in the wake of four (so far) women revealing he harassed, assaulted, or tried to extort sex from them. [See link to article on title.] The more powerful and specific the evidence becomes, the more shameless Cain and his henchmen demagogue and lie about it, blaming the media, Rick Perry's campaign, and the Democrats. Taking a page from Clarence Thomas' counterattack at his Supreme Court nomination hearings, which worked and got Thomas onto the Supreme Court, Cain is mimicking Thomas by feigning outraged innocence.

Since reactionaries are shameless and unethical, this is working fine with his base. Cain is already boasting of the INCREASE in campaign donations, and he has not fallen in polls of GOP voters. Thus does America slide deeper into moral degeneracy. Joseph Biden helped open the door to making it acceptable to appoint known sexual miscreants to positions of power when he rammed through Thomas' appointment to the Supreme Court as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee overseeing the confirmation hearings.

Yes, that Joe Biden, Obama's Vice President.

Missing The Point In RIck Perry's "Gaffe"

In the latest GOP "debate" (rote reiteration of their shallow, tired ideological bullshit and blaming Obama for everything on earth) Rick Perry demonstrated once again that he's of sub-average intelligence. It was beyond him to remember which 3 Federal Department he'd (supposedly) targeted for extinction. The corporate media made a big stinking deal out of this, like it was some monumental blunder, death to his campaign. The fact that the third department he would erase from existence is the Energy Department elicited no critique or even comment.

The Energy Department is the Department that builds nuclear weapons. It is also the Department that decommissions them. As the U.S. is constantly processing nuclear weapons, how is it that no one wondered why Perry considered these functions inessential and wasteful? And this with the GOP demanding that Obama build MORE nuclear weapons in the coming decade (a demand that the predictably spineless Obama acceded to).

On the other hand, the fact that Herman Cain sexually harasses and now we learn assaults women just seems to roll off Cain like water off a duck's back. The cowards on CNBC only dared mention it just once, and the mob of GOP fanatics that CNBC chose to use as a studio audience (to create the illusion of popularity for far right wing extremists I guess) lustily booed the question and cheered Cain's sickeningly self-righteous response.

Why Google Sucks

Lots of reasons. One is their cooperation with secret police agencies all over the world, especially in the U.S.

Second is their disgustingly phony slogan, "Don't Be Evil."

Third, they let government agents and Chinese creeps and various sleazeballs steal your email accounts, which has happened repeatedly to me. Contacting them about this is always useless- if indeed it is actual people and not a machine that replies. Since I get identically worded refusals to return my accounts to me, I suspect it's a machine. How high-handed is that? They are literally unapproachable, like some ancient despotic Emperor.

Oakland Police Viciously Attack Another Veteran For Protesting

Apparently loyalty is a one-way street to the Establishment. Even people who put their bodies on the line fighting the rulers' wars for them are subject to maiming and even death if they dare to exercise "the freedoms they fought to defend." (What a piece of propaganda mythology that is!)

Not satisfied with damaging the brain of Marine vet Scott Olsen a week ago (2 tours in Iraq) and leaving him unable to speak, they just brutally clubbed another veteran so badly that his spleen is lacerated, reports the UK Guardian. He needs surgery to repair it and to staunch internal bleeding.
[Link to article on post title.]

The police imprisoned their victim, Kayvan Sabehgi,  for 19 hours afterward so they could sadistically enjoy his suffering, apparently, and "teach him a lesson" (don't get involved in protesting, being the Syrian-style lesson, as Sabehgi was walking away from the protest at the time he was attacked by a gang of state goons). Sabehgi, who was posted to Iraq and Afghanistan, was eventually transferred to a hospital, where he's in intensive care.

AThe Oakland PD Chief has justified his thugs' assaults in the name of "health and safety" concerns and the lack of medical care for protesters (!). Is the man a cynical connoisseur of perverse irony? A cruel man who enjoys being sarcastic? Perhaps his sick statements add a fillip of mental cruelty to his repression, sort of the icing on the cake for him? Who knows...all that is clear is that he's the gangster head of a criminal organization  trafficking in faux legitimacy as a "law enforcement agency."

Obama’s Latest Crime Against Humanity

46,000 parents with U.S. citizen children were deported in just the first 6 months of 2011. At LEAST 5100 children have been dumped into foster care limbo.

Hey all you liberals, still putting your “hope” for “change” in Obama? Figured him out yet?

Nah, you’re still pining for him to be your leader! (Cf. The Nation, e.g.) 

The GOP Double Standard On Adultery

It’s becoming more obvious that if he didn’t commit adultery as head of the Restaurant Trade Association in Washington, Herman Cain sure was angling to. He bluntly propositioned women and mad crude sexual comments in public places in front of witnesses that made them unconfortable. His family lived far away at the time.

But Republican extreme reactionaries apply a double standard, as they cynically do in all matters of “morality.” They go into a frenzy over adultery by a Democrat like Bill Clinton (personally I think his rape of Juanita Brodderick was a far graver offense, but for some reason no one ever talks about that, despite NBC airing a lengthy interview with her and her husband about the rape) or even a “liberal” Republican like Nelson “The Butcher of Attica” Rockefeller, who was despised by neofascists for being twice-married. By the way, Ronald Reagan was also twice married. How come it only counted against Rockefeller, but not against Reagan? No one even asks that question. The media always took it for granted that it was a handicap for Rockefeller, but not for Reagan, never pointing out the glaring contradiction. The corporate propaganda system always runs interference for the neofascists.

And now the neofascists are powerful enough to burn the establishment. Too bad they didn’t learn from Germany how badly wrong things can go when capitalist oligarchs try to use fascists. When the fascists get off the leash, it ends up badly. Because fascists aren’t so much attack dogs as rabid dogs. Which means those who think they are their masters can’t really control them.

Cain Victimized A Third Woman - AP Discovers

And who knows how many more. Since this victim is afraid of retaliation even now, she doesn't want to be identified.

Most people are cowards when it comes to speaking out against wrongdoing, especially when it involves challenging power. That's too bad, because it makes the world a terrible place.

Cain tried to lure this woman to his love-nest corporate apartment.

To show just how unchastened Cain was by the Restaurant Association being sued by his two prior victims, he made his moves on the third one at the same time the Association settled with and paid off the first two. Hey, why not? They were being muzzled, and it didn't cost him a dime. Apparently the Association's policy was to aid, abet, and protect sexual harassment by its head. Maybe he figured the third time's a charm. (Assuming that was the third, and not the 10th, or 20th.)

Cain says it's all just a "smear campaign." So the victims are liars. Thus does this lout victimize his victims yet again, smearing them, as he shamelessly pursues his political ambitions, stepping on anyone who gets in his way.

At least he shows he's callous and ruthless enough to be U.S. Emperor.

Typically of reactionaries, Cain displays a persecution complex, playing the victim, claiming darkly that "There are factions that are trying to destroy me personally, as well as this campaign." Another lame attempt to change the subject.

In (non)response to the latest revelation of Cain's loutishness,his campaign manager, Mark Block, stonewalled "No comment." He wouldn't even deny it. No doubt his aides aren't willing to destroy their own credibility by sticking their necks out for the constantly lying Cain at this point.

Cain Victim Asks To Be Freed From Confidentiality Gag To Refute His Lies

One of Herman Cain's victims has asked through her lawyer that the permanent ban on her right to speak contained in the settlement agreement she had to sign to get compensation for Cain's mistreatment of her be lifted since Cain has been lying about what happened.

Oh, and Herman was slightly off about how many months of salary they paid his victim to go away. It wasn’t 3 months’ salary. It was 12 months. Only off by a factor of 4. But I’m sure his math on his “9-9-9” tax plan is right. After all, he carefully figured that one out on a napkin during a plane ride. Hey, you’re only talking about major tax and economic calculations for a $15 trillion economy there.

Now, do you pay a year’s salary to settle a nuisance suit? Hard-nosed blustery businessman Herman Cain, who “did nothing wrong” and “never harassed” anyone? (He was never even accused a couple of days ago, to hear him tell it then.)

Cain says he was “falsely accused” and the complaints were “baseless.” So the very pugnacious, aggressive Cain caved like a meek kitten and settled for a year’s pay!  

And contrary to disinformation put out by the Cain campaign and various reactionaries running interference for him, it wasn’t a one-time “incident” that was a “misunderstanding” because the gregarious Cain likes to put his arm around people. It was a pattern of harassing conduct over a period of time. Obviously. ONE INCIDENT is NO BASIS FOR A LAWSUIT.  There has to be a “hostile environment” created, or retaliation against the victim.

On the friendly forum of Murdoch’s Fox “News,” Cain hid behind his lawyers, saying he couldn’t comment about the woman’s lawyer’s contradiction of his account or the demand to unmuzzle his victim so she could speak [which would impinge on his freedom to lie], saying his campaign had to consult its lawyers. Ooh, decisive, bold leadership! Confident decision-maker! Hide behind your lawyers and handlers! (In fact he was on Fox TV both Monday and Tuesday. That I know of. He’s probably on every day.)

Meanwhile, the Restaurant Association’s chief flack (which Cain headed when the settlement for hush money was made in 1999) coyly says they would “respond as appropriate” if the victim’s lawyer requested they waive the lifetime speech ban on the woman designed to silence her unto the grave. Take a guess what their “appropriate” answer will be.

Cain is calling the whole imbroglio a “smear campaign.” What, there wasn’t a settlement? Cain has lied and said there wasn’t. In fact, he started off saying he knew nothing about even any accusations against him of harassment. He never harassed anyone, was one of his initial lies.

Like most reactionaries, Cain is an unethical, amoral sleazebag. Thus he never hesitates to lie. That sometimes trips up sociopaths- normal people hesitate before lying, and this hesitation saves them oftentimes from telling untenable lies. Cain changes lies like changing a shirt- just put on a new one every day, or even several a day. He’s so in love with himself, so narcissistic in his conviction that he’s a great salesman, he just wings it, figuring he can talk his way out of anything.

That’s only because in the past the people he lied to were either underlings who didn’t care contradict him, or people with no motivation to cross swords with him by letting him know they knew he was bullshitting.

But in terms of the GOP “grassroots,” this makes them support him even more strongly- because they are sexist dogs, for one thing, they hate “women’s lib,” which to them imposed the oppressive standard that one shouldn’t direct lewd comments at women or proposition employees, and they cynically have no moral standards, but just a permanent war standard- Us against Them. And “Us” are Good and “Them” (anyone not a Republican) is Evil. They think it’s fine to, say, Impeach Clinton because of a dailliance with Monica Lewinsky, or drive Anthony Weiner from office for tweeting saucy photos of himself to women recipients, but even MENTIONING Herman Cain’s sexual harassment is a “high tech lynching,” a plot, a conspiracy, an unconscionable assault by political enemies. They have  no moral or ethical standard they apply neutrally to people regardless of political affiliation. There’s the people on Their Side and there’s The Enemy. (Or Enemies, of which there are many: Democrats, gays generally, feminists, “liberals,” “bureaucrats” except police, Muslims, ecologists, and on and on.)

Herman Cain Squirming Like a Worm In Sex Scandal

Herman Cain is giving different stories and contradicting himself in his sexual harassment scandal in just a single day. He says:

-he was unaware of any settlement [“I’M NOT AWARE OF ANY SETTLEMENT.”]

-he signed a settlement

-he “recused” himself from the matter

-his legal counsel kept him informed

-there was no sexual harassment and he was vindicated

-they settled for 3 months severance pay, he thinks.

On the same day that he denied he knew of any settlement when he was CEO of the restaurant association, he verbally tap-danced around the question, saying there was an “agreement,” then he split hairs over semantics of whether “agreement” and “settlement” are the same. No man, you were SUED and you SETTLED the suit.

Well, gee, he’s a busy man, with more important things to think about, like saving the country. You can’t expect him to remember such nitpicking details, can you?

The New York Times, polite to a fault to all reactionaries, says Cain’s story “evolved” during the day. (Contrast the kid glove treatment rightists always get with how they savaged Keith Olbermann, for example, repeatedly running different versions of the same character assassination article over and over. Or their respectful treatment of the crackpot “conspiracy theories” of Newsmax, a rabidly deranged website. Said theories including that Vincent Foster was murdered, and that Clinton’s Commerce Secretary Ron Brown was shot in the head before his plane crashed, killing all on board. A suicide assassin, I guess. Otherwise “conspiracy theory” is a term of abuse applied to actual truths the Times wishes to discredit without having to actually disprove them.)

Predictably, Cain’s supporters shot the messenger, attacking the corporate media for its alleged “liberal bias,” as delusional reactionaries always do. (They live in an alternate universe, you see. Apparently physicists are right, there really are parallel universes. Either that, or we need to start building a lot more mental hospitals, pronto.)

As rightists always do when caught out in some scam/crime/scandal, Cain played the aggrieved victim, saying he was the victim of a “witchhunt.” (Ironic coming from these redbaiting witchhunting bastards, eh?) Fascist harridan Ann Coulter leapt in with both feet, as usual, screeching that “This is another high-tech lynching,” invoking the outrageous counterattack of that other black reactionary sexual harasser, Clarence Thomas, at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing. The Clarence Thomas who worked against victims of racial discrimination as head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The Clarence Thomas who despises “quotas” and affirmative action, the Clarence Thomas who by his actions and ideology is the sworn enemy of blacks. He had the nerve to pose as a victim of racism. (Guess Anita Hill was secretly a KKK member or something.) This after the book on the Thomas confirmation by Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson [Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas] proved definitively that Thomas was a serial masher. But like I said, reactionaries live in their own universe, where facts are, to quote Saint Reagan, “stupid things.” Hey, Thomas’ wife recently contacted Anita Hill to tell her to apologize! These people are shameless and without the capacity for guilt. Unrestrained by conscience or modesty, they are amoral and dangerous. They believe the ends (their self-aggrandizement and grabbing of power, for the imposition of their twisted ideological demands on the rest of us, a la the Taliban) justifies the means (any means necessary).