Capitalist ideological cheerleaders have been subjecting us to years of bullshit about "emerging economies." Just about any despotic, corrupt, backward third world nation is suitable material for being hailed as "rapidly developing" with "tremendous potential." Could be some African kleptocracy with lots of oil, or a Persian Gulf sheikdom with a 14th century social structure and values- it's all good! (Hey, invest here now!!)
One of these tropes that we have been subjected to ad nauseam is the so-called "BRICs," Brazil, Russian, India, China. Supposedly these countries represent The Wave of the Future. (Brazil of course still has a huge majority of dirt-poor people, near-anarchic social conditions, massive destruction of the Amazon rain forests by rabid loggers and ranchers who murder anyone who gets in their way, and a host of other ills. Russia- Russia! Is that a joke? A nation with a shrinking population, a male live expectancy of 57 or 54 (it keeps dropping), an AIDS epidemic ignored by the government, and the world's worst alcoholism problem. Oh, and massive environmental pollution, vast areas destroyed by pollution and radioactive contamination. Did I mention the authoritarian regime headed by a former secret policeman, name of Vladimir Putin? (But he's ok, George Bush checked out his "soul" by looking into his eyes. And I always thought that was the retina in there!) China- ok, they're an economic powerhouse, and their oppressive one-party dictatorship is pretty clever and much better strategists than their idiot counterparts like the U.S. and Europe, which basically hand over their technological crown jewels (and what it doesn't hand over, China steals). Even Japan has been snookered and robbed by China. And did I mention the massive number of stock frauds perpetrated by Chinese hustlers in the U.S. stock markets? (The SEC didn't do squat to stop it, and still does what the SEC always does- bullshit symbolic actions to pretend it's regulating, just going through the motions.)
Now India is experiencing the world's largest electrical blackout by far. As if this writing, 22 of 28 regions are blacked out, leaving about 700 million people (more than half the entire population) without lights, transportation in many cases, and various essentials of living. (I just hope the hospitals have reliable backup generators. How much you want to bet many don't?)
Of course, the idea of India as being "modern" has been a ludicrous fraud all along. It shouldn't have taken this event to show it. The huge majority of the people there live in poverty- many in squalor. Their noxious "caste" system, a system of rigid, super-exploitive class imprisonment, is still in place. Vicious crimes against women- hurling acid in their faces, burning them alive, and of course rape- are routine, and routinely unpunished. Officials are thoroughly corrupt, and have a habit of assaulting and murdering citizens who speak out about it. (Rather, they have goons do their dirty work.) Naturally those crimes go unpunished too.
India has a tiny urban "elite," and a small class of rich people, and a bunch of English-speaking drones to staff their companies that service Western corporate interests. (Like providing terrible "support" for Western consumers of tech products.) A low-wage reserve pool of labor to "outsource" U.S. jobs- i.e. pull the rug out from under American workers- is India's actual attraction to the capitalist shills of the media and "investment" commentary. Most everybody else in India is a subsistence farmer or small trader, and there's a class of landlords lording it over most of the geographical area of the country.
More and more, the great New Age of Triumphant Capitalism after the defeat (really, the collapse) of the Soviet Union, is looking like a Potemkin village.
By the way, "advanced" Europe, Japan, and the U.S. aren't doing so hot the past few years. Spain has 25% unemployment. Media propagandists call this a "recession." Huh? Recession? None dare say the "D" word.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
How Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke Are Like Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier, et al
The Penn State pedophile protectors Joe Paterno (dead "legendary" football coach) cashiered "University" President Graham B.Spanier (it's really a sports franchise/business masquerading as a university) and their other accomplices, like canned campus police chief Gary Schultz athletic director Tim Curley- the latter two facing criminal charges for lying to a Grand Jury, and failing to report the asssaults- are guilty of aiding and abetting serial child rapist Jerry Sandusky by hiding his crimes- not merely failing to report, but hushing them up. (A janitor who caught Sandusky in the act of one of his rapes had the good sense to keep his mouth shut, correctly intuiting that he would be fired if he reported it. And we know what happened when on another occasion an assistant coach caught Sandusky anally raping a boy- he told Paterno, who passed it along in a fuzzy manner to Curley, and a coverup when into train, which lasted for years.*)
Geithner and Bernanke did something similar with the LIBOR-fixing scandal by the megabanks whose servants and protectors they are. They kept quiet. They hushed it up. For years. But Geithner now points to a cover-his-ass email he sent to UK regulators, and thinks that gets him off the hook.
Bernanke, "explaining" at a Congressional hearing why he did nothing (and didn't even SAY anything PUBLICLY) says he had no authority to do anything about it! Of course, if he had merely made a PUBLIC STATEMENT about the fraud, or if Geithner had, that would have ended the game right there. Which they understood. Which is why they said nothing. Because their job is to aid and abet never-ending growth in profits for the biggest megabanks and oligarchic financiers.
In both scandals, aiders and abetters were effectively accomplices by throwing a protective blanket of secrecy over the miscreants.
*More sickening details: the criminal cabal at Penn State investigated Sandusky for molesting two boys in their showers in 1998. After that they paid the child rapist Sandusky handsomely to just go away. (But not too far away. He went on to rape at least 9 more boys in the same university showers, AFTER 1998, for which he has just been convicted.) The Freeh investigation uncovered the facts that Mr. Sandusky, upon his "retirement" after the 1998 investigation/coverup, received both an unusual compensation package AND a special designation of “emeritus” rank that carried special privileges, including access to the university’s recreational facilities. (Including his favorite rape spot, the showers.) Spanier, the president, approved a payment to Sandusky of $168,000. The silent janitor spotted him raping again in 2000. And who knows who else knew something- perhaps many people, who now protect their own reputations by keeping their mouths shut. ["Abuse Scandal Inquiry Damns Paterno and Penn State," NY Times, 7/12/12.]
Geithner and Bernanke did something similar with the LIBOR-fixing scandal by the megabanks whose servants and protectors they are. They kept quiet. They hushed it up. For years. But Geithner now points to a cover-his-ass email he sent to UK regulators, and thinks that gets him off the hook.
Bernanke, "explaining" at a Congressional hearing why he did nothing (and didn't even SAY anything PUBLICLY) says he had no authority to do anything about it! Of course, if he had merely made a PUBLIC STATEMENT about the fraud, or if Geithner had, that would have ended the game right there. Which they understood. Which is why they said nothing. Because their job is to aid and abet never-ending growth in profits for the biggest megabanks and oligarchic financiers.
In both scandals, aiders and abetters were effectively accomplices by throwing a protective blanket of secrecy over the miscreants.
*More sickening details: the criminal cabal at Penn State investigated Sandusky for molesting two boys in their showers in 1998. After that they paid the child rapist Sandusky handsomely to just go away. (But not too far away. He went on to rape at least 9 more boys in the same university showers, AFTER 1998, for which he has just been convicted.) The Freeh investigation uncovered the facts that Mr. Sandusky, upon his "retirement" after the 1998 investigation/coverup, received both an unusual compensation package AND a special designation of “emeritus” rank that carried special privileges, including access to the university’s recreational facilities. (Including his favorite rape spot, the showers.) Spanier, the president, approved a payment to Sandusky of $168,000. The silent janitor spotted him raping again in 2000. And who knows who else knew something- perhaps many people, who now protect their own reputations by keeping their mouths shut. ["Abuse Scandal Inquiry Damns Paterno and Penn State," NY Times, 7/12/12.]
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Poliovirus Has Ally In Islamofascists
The deranged Islamic totalitarian medievalists who are taking over increasing areas of the world (they've just taken over northern Mali: see for example "Jihadists' Fierce Justice [sic] Drives Thousands to Flee Mali," NY Times, 7/17/12) are effectively allies with one of humankind's enemies, the poliovirus. The three countries where polio cases still occur (striking children) are Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. In all three cases, it's because Islamofascists block polio vaccination programs. (One excuse/paranoid delusional "reason" they do so is they think the vaccines are actually a secret plot to sterilize the population. Actually if someone could sterilize these maniacs it would be a good thing! Since they are traitors to the human race by allying themselves with our enemies, and since they viciously attack human rights whenever and wherever they can, they obviously need to be wiped out.)
The Islamofascists in Pakistan just shot an African doctor working for the UN in a polio vaccination program there. ["Gunmen Attack UN Vehicle in Pakistan, Wounding Polio Doctor," NY Times, 7/17/12.]
And of course the Islamofascists are vandals of civilization with a nasty habit of destroying our common cultural heritage. They do this in many ways, large and small. Two of their splashier acts of cultural vandalism occurred in Afghanistan, when they blew up the magnificant, giant Buddha statues, and now in Mali with the destruction of Islamic tombs. These barbarian scum have no respect for anyone or anything except their only extremely narrow, fanatical ideology and their power-mad leaders, no tolerance for anything or anyone slightly different from their demented selves, and no appreciation or respect for human rights or anything of value.
They are patently pernicious, deadly enemies of all humanity.
The Islamofascists in Pakistan just shot an African doctor working for the UN in a polio vaccination program there. ["Gunmen Attack UN Vehicle in Pakistan, Wounding Polio Doctor," NY Times, 7/17/12.]
And of course the Islamofascists are vandals of civilization with a nasty habit of destroying our common cultural heritage. They do this in many ways, large and small. Two of their splashier acts of cultural vandalism occurred in Afghanistan, when they blew up the magnificant, giant Buddha statues, and now in Mali with the destruction of Islamic tombs. These barbarian scum have no respect for anyone or anything except their only extremely narrow, fanatical ideology and their power-mad leaders, no tolerance for anything or anyone slightly different from their demented selves, and no appreciation or respect for human rights or anything of value.
They are patently pernicious, deadly enemies of all humanity.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Who's Guaranteed To Win The Summer Olympics? The Secret Police.
In the lead-up to the 2012 Summer Olympics, being held in London, we can already discern a clear winner: the secret police of "Great" Britain, and to a lesser degree their foreign partners, "other Western intelligence agencies." (Of which the CIA and FBI are first and foremost.)
Before the Olympics even begin, we're getting a steady stream of pro-secret police propaganda, planted by them in the corporate media, about foiled "plots" and "security preparations." The British domestic secret police, MI5, and overseas secret police, MI6, are assiduously working the UK media- with spillover into U.S. media, like the NY TImes- to burnish their image and position themselves ahead of the Olympics.
There are only 2 basic possibilities vis a vis "terrorism" at the Games: Number One, no "major terrorist incident" occurs, or a "plot" is "foiled," or only minor incidents occur. In that case, the gestapos will boast or their great prowess and competence, while also making the point that there is still Great Danger and thus a need for vigilance (and big budgets and lots of repressive powers for the secret police). This propaganda message will be dutifully transmitted to the public by their stooges in the establishment media, the reliable aiders and abettors of the
secret police state. (The secret police might even create some "plots" to "foil," for propaganda use. Years later, the "cases" can be quietly dropped, with little media notice. The losers will be the pawns who spent a few years in jail.)
Possibility Number Two: there is a "major terrorist incident." Does that then prove the opposite, namely the incompetence of the secret police?
Not at all, you simplistic thinker you. It "proves" the need for yet more "resources" - money, and, especially more repressive power for the secret police.
That propaganda message will then be dutifully transmitted to the public by their stooges in the establishment media, those, yes, still reliable aiders and abettors of the secret police state.
It's heads they win, tails we lose.
And anyway, pity the poor secret policemen, because, as they are regularly quoted in the media saying, year after year, mantra-like, "we have to succeed every time, the terrorists only have to succeed once." I.e. expect terrorist attacks to occur, and don't blame us the guardians if they do. Thus does the media inoculate the public, with regular booster shots, against thinking the "security services" should be held responsible for their failures. (Much less for attacks they deliberately allow to occur, like the seminal 9/11/01 attacks that birthed the never-to-end War On Terror, which is the second never-to-end war on human rights being waged by the bourgeoisie, joining the War On Drugs. (Really, the war on getting high. There's certainly no war on the products of the pharmaceutical industry, which are frequently dangerous and/or ineffective and fraudulently and corruptly marketed.)
Now why does the establishment media so assiduously safeguard and promote the interests of the secret police? Well of course both media and secret police are arms of the same system. That is the most basic reason. While there are occasional conflicts, which sometimes even rise to the level of "scandal," for the most part they are allies, if somewhat wary ones. (By the way, the monstrous crimes of the secret police, programs of mass murder and torture, are never the scandals, but are in fact kept hidden, briefly noted, and buried in the memory hole. LIke the Phoenix mass murder program in Vietnam, overseen by one William Colby, who later was ironically drowned by his former colleagues for telling too much to Congress, in their eyes. Gangsters killing gangsters- it happens a lot in crime organizations.)
Typically for a power structure, the corporate oligarchy needs secret police organizations to guard and advance its interests domestically and globally. Note that notorious coups have occurred in the interests of large transnational corporations, such as in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973 (ITT unnecessarily tried to bribe the U.S. government to overthrow Allende), and so on. A secret police state keeps the populace in line, monitors any incipient resistance to their rule or to particular policies/crimes they carry out, infiltrates dissident groups and movements to misdirect, subvert, and destroy them, and generally acts to prevent the development of groups and movements that corporate capital finds noxious. Hence the need for a Total Surveillance State, to nip in the bud any germinating seeds of opposition and resistance.
Abroad, the secret police are part of the structure of force and violence to check, deter, and exterminate external enemies- whether or not those "enemies" realize they are enemies of the corporate oligarchy. (Naive democracy advocates and various labor and human rights workers and their lawyers frequently fall into this category and are exterminated. Oh, and academics who think bad thoughts. And "communist" church people- i.e. real Christians who understand Christ's gospel as meaning standing with the poor. And since U.S. power is the friend of the rich everywhere and enemy of the poor everywhere, this means they too have to be eliminated. And since most people on the planet are poor, being the enemy of the poor means that the U.S. is fundamentally an enemy of humanity. Wow, does that truth ever conflict with official propaganda!)
So why exactly should the establishment media, the voicebox of corporate oligarchy, not support ever increasing powers for their secret police? Is it not the interests of the oligarchy that the secret police serve? Well, sometimes the possibilities of the secret police trampling on bourgeois privileges (which are called "rights" or "freedoms" or "liberties," but they're really privileges, because only some people have them) makes elements of the propaganda system a tad nervous. So they try and draw lines with editorials "warning" the secret police not to go too far. It's rather like tectonic plates bumping up against one another, forces pressed together in intimate contact. Mostly there is gradual shifting, sometimes an abrupt movement.
One more, somewhat minor point. The expansion of secret police repression largely bypasses right wing terrorists. Such as the recent case in Germany, where a neoNazi group was allowed to murder Turks for a decade, and even a policewoman. The day after it all blew up, the German secret police were burning their files on the group! (Reports BBC. Didn't see that in U.S. media.) Or the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The government had advance notice from its informers, and allowed the bombing to occur, then covered up the extent of the conspiracy, pretending it was the doing of just two men. Right. Or the mostly free rein given to anti-abortion terrorists. There are numerous other examples that could be cited.
Before the Olympics even begin, we're getting a steady stream of pro-secret police propaganda, planted by them in the corporate media, about foiled "plots" and "security preparations." The British domestic secret police, MI5, and overseas secret police, MI6, are assiduously working the UK media- with spillover into U.S. media, like the NY TImes- to burnish their image and position themselves ahead of the Olympics.
There are only 2 basic possibilities vis a vis "terrorism" at the Games: Number One, no "major terrorist incident" occurs, or a "plot" is "foiled," or only minor incidents occur. In that case, the gestapos will boast or their great prowess and competence, while also making the point that there is still Great Danger and thus a need for vigilance (and big budgets and lots of repressive powers for the secret police). This propaganda message will be dutifully transmitted to the public by their stooges in the establishment media, the reliable aiders and abettors of the
secret police state. (The secret police might even create some "plots" to "foil," for propaganda use. Years later, the "cases" can be quietly dropped, with little media notice. The losers will be the pawns who spent a few years in jail.)
Possibility Number Two: there is a "major terrorist incident." Does that then prove the opposite, namely the incompetence of the secret police?
Not at all, you simplistic thinker you. It "proves" the need for yet more "resources" - money, and, especially more repressive power for the secret police.
That propaganda message will then be dutifully transmitted to the public by their stooges in the establishment media, those, yes, still reliable aiders and abettors of the secret police state.
It's heads they win, tails we lose.
And anyway, pity the poor secret policemen, because, as they are regularly quoted in the media saying, year after year, mantra-like, "we have to succeed every time, the terrorists only have to succeed once." I.e. expect terrorist attacks to occur, and don't blame us the guardians if they do. Thus does the media inoculate the public, with regular booster shots, against thinking the "security services" should be held responsible for their failures. (Much less for attacks they deliberately allow to occur, like the seminal 9/11/01 attacks that birthed the never-to-end War On Terror, which is the second never-to-end war on human rights being waged by the bourgeoisie, joining the War On Drugs. (Really, the war on getting high. There's certainly no war on the products of the pharmaceutical industry, which are frequently dangerous and/or ineffective and fraudulently and corruptly marketed.)
Now why does the establishment media so assiduously safeguard and promote the interests of the secret police? Well of course both media and secret police are arms of the same system. That is the most basic reason. While there are occasional conflicts, which sometimes even rise to the level of "scandal," for the most part they are allies, if somewhat wary ones. (By the way, the monstrous crimes of the secret police, programs of mass murder and torture, are never the scandals, but are in fact kept hidden, briefly noted, and buried in the memory hole. LIke the Phoenix mass murder program in Vietnam, overseen by one William Colby, who later was ironically drowned by his former colleagues for telling too much to Congress, in their eyes. Gangsters killing gangsters- it happens a lot in crime organizations.)
Typically for a power structure, the corporate oligarchy needs secret police organizations to guard and advance its interests domestically and globally. Note that notorious coups have occurred in the interests of large transnational corporations, such as in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973 (ITT unnecessarily tried to bribe the U.S. government to overthrow Allende), and so on. A secret police state keeps the populace in line, monitors any incipient resistance to their rule or to particular policies/crimes they carry out, infiltrates dissident groups and movements to misdirect, subvert, and destroy them, and generally acts to prevent the development of groups and movements that corporate capital finds noxious. Hence the need for a Total Surveillance State, to nip in the bud any germinating seeds of opposition and resistance.
Abroad, the secret police are part of the structure of force and violence to check, deter, and exterminate external enemies- whether or not those "enemies" realize they are enemies of the corporate oligarchy. (Naive democracy advocates and various labor and human rights workers and their lawyers frequently fall into this category and are exterminated. Oh, and academics who think bad thoughts. And "communist" church people- i.e. real Christians who understand Christ's gospel as meaning standing with the poor. And since U.S. power is the friend of the rich everywhere and enemy of the poor everywhere, this means they too have to be eliminated. And since most people on the planet are poor, being the enemy of the poor means that the U.S. is fundamentally an enemy of humanity. Wow, does that truth ever conflict with official propaganda!)
So why exactly should the establishment media, the voicebox of corporate oligarchy, not support ever increasing powers for their secret police? Is it not the interests of the oligarchy that the secret police serve? Well, sometimes the possibilities of the secret police trampling on bourgeois privileges (which are called "rights" or "freedoms" or "liberties," but they're really privileges, because only some people have them) makes elements of the propaganda system a tad nervous. So they try and draw lines with editorials "warning" the secret police not to go too far. It's rather like tectonic plates bumping up against one another, forces pressed together in intimate contact. Mostly there is gradual shifting, sometimes an abrupt movement.
One more, somewhat minor point. The expansion of secret police repression largely bypasses right wing terrorists. Such as the recent case in Germany, where a neoNazi group was allowed to murder Turks for a decade, and even a policewoman. The day after it all blew up, the German secret police were burning their files on the group! (Reports BBC. Didn't see that in U.S. media.) Or the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The government had advance notice from its informers, and allowed the bombing to occur, then covered up the extent of the conspiracy, pretending it was the doing of just two men. Right. Or the mostly free rein given to anti-abortion terrorists. There are numerous other examples that could be cited.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Governor Etch-a-Sketch Changes His Tune On "Obamacare"
It's great to be flexible. Let's you be as opportunistic as you wanna be.
Mitt Romney, the Republican President-wannabe, used CBS as a platform to suddenly complain that the Obama Health Care bill just given the green light by the Supreme Court constitutes an onerous "tax" on the sainted "middle class." As recently as two days ago, the position of him and his campaign was that it imposed a "penalty." [Romney, you see, didn't want it said that his virtually identical Massachusetts health care mandate imposed a "tax." And the GOP/reactionary attack on the law pre-Supreme Court ruling didn't take the tax tack because their offensive was premised on a Commerce Clause argument. Complaining it was a "tax" would have been hopeless as they'd have had to argue that Congress has no right to tax anyone! Reactionaries used to argue that when trying to overturn the Federal Income Tax a century ago, but apparently they're not ready to try and overturn taxation before they roll back the New Deal first.]
It was his own campaign manager who publicly characterized Romney's shifting positions on everything under the son as like an "Etch-a-Sketch." You just erase all the reactionary vomit he spewed to win the neo-fascists, religious fanatics, Confederates and racists who vote in GOP primaries, and dial in new positions to appeal to "the center," the political sweet spot in the minds of the U.S. punditry.
Given how square, stiff, and mechanical Romney is, I think Mr. Etch-a-Sketch is an apt sobriquet.
taboo-truths.blogspot.com jasonzenith.blogspot.com
Mitt Romney, the Republican President-wannabe, used CBS as a platform to suddenly complain that the Obama Health Care bill just given the green light by the Supreme Court constitutes an onerous "tax" on the sainted "middle class." As recently as two days ago, the position of him and his campaign was that it imposed a "penalty." [Romney, you see, didn't want it said that his virtually identical Massachusetts health care mandate imposed a "tax." And the GOP/reactionary attack on the law pre-Supreme Court ruling didn't take the tax tack because their offensive was premised on a Commerce Clause argument. Complaining it was a "tax" would have been hopeless as they'd have had to argue that Congress has no right to tax anyone! Reactionaries used to argue that when trying to overturn the Federal Income Tax a century ago, but apparently they're not ready to try and overturn taxation before they roll back the New Deal first.]
It was his own campaign manager who publicly characterized Romney's shifting positions on everything under the son as like an "Etch-a-Sketch." You just erase all the reactionary vomit he spewed to win the neo-fascists, religious fanatics, Confederates and racists who vote in GOP primaries, and dial in new positions to appeal to "the center," the political sweet spot in the minds of the U.S. punditry.
Given how square, stiff, and mechanical Romney is, I think Mr. Etch-a-Sketch is an apt sobriquet.
taboo-truths.blogspot.com jasonzenith.blogspot.com
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