Bush's Last 10 Days, Part 1: Recipe For Fiscal Disaster

By Manifesto Joe

As the countdown to Bush as ex-"president" begins, it might be good to put into context why some Americans, even some U.S. historians, regard Il Doofus as the worst "president" of modern times.

The federal deficit for the current fiscal year is being projected at $1.2 trillion. That's more than the entire national debt was at the time Jimmy Carter left office in January 1981.

The Congressional Budget Office report lays much of the blame for this spike on lower tax revenues due to the recession, and on $400 billion spent to bail out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and various financial institutions amid the mortgage crisis. Bush policies did a great deal to contribute to all of the above, but that's another post. For now, let's stick to the budget.

The deficit for fiscal 2007-08 was about $455 billion, consistent in real dollars with what was being run annually during the Reagan and Bush I presidencies. It's not too shocking, until you consider that Bush II inherited what had been the largest surplus the federal government has ever run, some $230 billion in fiscal 1999-2000, from departing President Bill Clinton's administration.

The surplus decreased to $158 billion during fiscal 2000-01, which Bush presided over some of. Bush apologists have tried to make an end run out of this, saying that declining revenues due to a briefly sour economy were responsible. They've also pointed out that the Clinton surpluses occurred even though federal tax cuts were passed in 1997, an apparent argument for supply-side policies.

That's fair enough, up to a point. But by 2001-02, the federal government was in the red again, and that continued year after year until the aforementioned $455 billion deficit was reached. How did this happen?

Bush spent the first months of his presidency pushing tax bonanzas, mainly for his rich friends, through the Congress, along with scraps from the rich man's table for the rest of us, amounting to $300 per person. His economic plan basically rolled back the relatively modest Clinton tax increases on the wealthy, passed by the narrowest of margins in 1993.

Students of fiscal policy know that it's anything but simple, but a few policy effects during this administration seem clear. It didn't take long to turn surpluses into deficits, and arguments that this isn't related to tax policy are, at the very least, unconvincing.

Then, after 9-11, Bush the "decider" decided to take the country to war(s). The first one, in Afghanistan, seemed and still seems like a defensible action, despite the toll on the Afghan people. The second, the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, was in hindsight clearly elective. Aside from being an act of aggression, it turned out to be one of the most expensive mistakes a U.S. administration has ever made.

According to a July 2008 update, military operations alone in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $872.6 billion. Some $661.1 billion of that was for ops in Iraq. Source: Congressional Research Service data.

Even conservatives need to put this into perspective. Would Winston Churchill have held fast to big tax cuts for the wealthy during an expensive war, and even have audaciously pushed for more such cuts?

George W. Bush did. And in so doing, the U.S. was set up, and knocked down like bowling pins, for the $1.2 trillion annual deficit we now face. Now tell me that, as a "president," this buffoon didn't suck great big green ones, with warts on them. His decisions were consistently the worst that could have been made, and yet he stubbornly continues to defend them. I don't think future generations will find his defense convincing.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

'Mister Roberts': A Wonderful Allegory On Fascism

By Manifesto Joe

Have you ever worked for a boss who seemed more than a bit like Mussolini?

The American classic Mister Roberts (novel, 1946, followed by the Broadway play in 1948 and the movie in 1955) would have to strike a familiar chord if you have. "Fascists" live and work all around us, every day. It's a state of mind. All that most of them lack is the opportunity to practice it on a grand scale.

The fascist in Mister Roberts is Capt. Morton, played most memorably on screen by the late James Cagney. (See the attached trailer.) Morton, the captain of a cargo ship operating in the Pacific during World War II, doesn't kill anybody. But what authority he exercises is that of a six-bit tyrant, so he's toxic to a lot of human spirits.

The guy who actually runs the crew and the ship is Lt. Doug Roberts, portrayed in a signature performance on stage and screen by Henry Fonda. He's a good intermediary between the inept swine of a captain and the crew below, but he's bored and anxious to actually get into the fight during the waning days of the war.

I've seen the film version of Mister Roberts a few times, and it reminds me of employment situations, time after time. Ultimately, it's fun to watch -- but it drives home the sad point that there are plenty of Mortons out there, basically just cancers festering on or near the tops of businesses or government agencies. There's an exchange in which Capt. Morton gets to explain to Roberts how he came to his malignant point of view. (" 'Hey, boy -- my friend seems to have thrown up on our table' ... I took it. I took it for years. Now I don't have to take it no more!' ")

What the novel, play and film depict is a microcosm of what tragically takes place from time to time among nations, on a broad and murderous macro scale. Most of us have known several Mortons -- and potential Mussolinis.

Here's an old-fashioned trailer, from 1955 -- in Cinemascope.



Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

A Little Night Music For New Year's Eve

By Manifesto Joe

Jazz has been called "America's classical music." There's been a wealth of material there for over a century, and it actually benefits in many cases from smaller musical combos, more so than Euro-classical usually does.

This video shows four musicians doing quite a bit of justice to a 1966 Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn composition, Mount Harissa. I had never heard these musicians, the Alexandria Kleztet, before; the Ellington album is a late big-band jazz classic (Far East Suite).

By the way: Duke Ellington (1899-1974) hasn't lacked for recognition, obviously; but his frequent collaborator, and a composer by himself of many standards (Take the A Train, for one) is now largely forgotten. Do a Google search for Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967). Great musical genius.

Enjoy.



Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Cheney Not Merely Evil, He's A Confessed War Criminal

By Manifesto Joe

Now that Christmas is over, so is my brief spirit of holiday forgiveness. Some things are unforgivable. "Vice President" Dick Cheney is one of those things.

It's obscene that this man isn't in prison by now, let alone that he's still in office. It's not a mystery, though. The abilities of, and inclination for, investigation of the executive branch for high crimes and misdemeanors have been greatly diminished.

Cheney has essentially admitted that he lied the U.S. into the Iraq invasion, which resulted in over a million deaths. So he's now a confessed mass murderer.

Here's video of Keith Olbermann on this subject, plus the vicious beating of the shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist. (So much for nation-building.)



In this second video, also from Olbermann's Countdown on MSNBC, constitutional law Professor Jonathan Turley indicates that not only Cheney, but Il Doofus himself, could perhaps be vulnerable to prosecution for war crimes in their authorization of waterboarding. Cheney has just about flatly confessed:



I'll be blunt. I understand it's going to be hard to get a lot of people excited about bringing this rogues gallery to justice in coming years. Memories are short. Also, the vast majority of people who were victims of these policy decisions were brown-skinned and not Americans.

But, to quote Professor Turley, what has been undermined in the past eight years has to do with who we are, as Americans. The Obama administration should put prosecutions of this kind on a burner, even if it has to be a back one.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

A Couple Of Laws Might Curb Food Waste At Hospitals, Nursing Homes

By Manifesto Joe

The holiday season is as good a time as any to bring up a little-noticed scandal: the mind-boggling amount of food that is wasted in hospitals and nursing homes. And it's time to raise an angle on this problem that is generally not discussed -- that nutritionists and their staff members simply don't know or care what to serve to sick, old people.

I'm not going to present readers of this post with a lot of stats -- if you've ever had a relative stay in a nursing home, or spent any time in a hospital, you've seen the many untouched trays, three times a day, day after day. The waste must surely amount to billions of dollars over time. And a little legislation might be an answer.

I will present only one statistic, unattributed. It's estimated that about 10 percent of all waste that comes from hospitals is food. Think of how much this adds to the cost of health care in America -- it must be significant.

And it isn't simply that some sick people can't eat much, or that the food is unappetizing (although it often is). Quite often, what the staff brings to individual patients or residents is totally inappropriate.

One relative of mine who has been in nursing homes and hospitals for years is a colostomy patient. In other words, she shits into a bag, in the front, because inflammatory bowel disease made the surgery necessary. She's also lactose-intolerant.

So, what have we seen them bring her over the years? Plates with such offerings as lasagna (with plenty of acidic tomato sauce, and lots of cheese), lightly steamed broccoli, barbecued chicken on the bone with lots of sauce, crispy tacos and other Tex-Mex fare, all manner of raw salads, beans, milk-based pudding -- you get the idea.

It's all very tasty if done well, and also reasonably nutritious. But there's one big problem: She can't eat any of this stuff. She couldn't eat most of it even before she underwent a colostomy.

We supplement her diet, so thankfully she isn't starving. She would be if she had to depend solely on the tender mercies of these institutional kitchens. And there are many sick old people who do have to depend on them. There are alternative trays, substitutions, between-meal snacks and so forth, but often they aren't an improvement in digestion for the infirm. Salami sandwiches and Fritos don't do the job any better for these folks.

Obviously some of this can be written off to human stupidity. Poorly paid staff members simply don't read the diet cards, or don't care anyway. You run across one occasionally who is almost unspeakably stupid ("I didn't know there was milk in cheese.") But much of it rests with a kind of organizational insanity.

The professionals involved, the dietitians, are trained to deliver nutritious food to the old and the sick; but they're sending out food that's mostly appropriate for people with healthy digestive systems. That doesn't serve most of their clientele.

In other words, the stupidity goes all the way to the top, as usual.

My wife and I, both advocates for sick, elderly parents, have been fighting this battle for years, with few if any results. The scrubs just don't get it, no matter how much you point out such obvious imbecility to them.

Regrettably, it's going to take a couple of laws to improve things here.

(1) Dietary standards for the sick and elderly.

It's time to put an end to a "one size fits all" approach to food for people in hospitals and nursing homes. Blenders and food processors are cheap. They would pay for themselves if the infirm got food they wouldn't have to chew and could actually digest.

And the institutions should be liable for malnourishment of people who have special problems such as diabetes, food allergies or lactose intolerance. A couple of class-action lawsuits would probably make those dietary cards required reading.

(2) Recycling requirements. Some food waste from these institutions is inevitable, but why does it all have to go to the landfill?

In my innocent youth, I assumed that all that food that sick and old people didn't eat eventually ended up in barnyard pens, as hog slop. That would make sense. (Sorry, Jewish, Muslim and vegetarian friends -- some of us carnivorous Gentile infidels still eat those filthy animals.)

I don't remember when it was, but I was told that, no, that food just gets tossed. I recall mention of health regulations that require that it be thrown away. How f*****g stupid can society be?

At the very least, this food could be recycled for compost. And in the case of food that obviously hasn't been in contact with anyone's saliva, why the hell couldn't it be ground up and sold, or even given, to pig farmers to feed to their swine? Sounds sort of like a green solution to me.

Contrary to the conception that libertarians and conservatives have about liberals and progressives, many of us have indeed met a rule or a regulation that we didn't like. They are certainly not desirable for their own sake.

But there are times when law is the only instrument to stop insane behavior. We have a couple of examples of that here.

I hope someone in Washington, or in Austin and other state capitals, cares enough about this scandal to file a couple of bills and try to end it.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

RIP, Dock Ellis: 1945-2008

By Manifesto Joe

Former major league pitcher Dock Ellis died Friday at the age of 63. Dock was a one-time All-Star who won 138 games in 12 seasons -- a very good pitcher, but not remembered as a great one. He won't make the Baseball Hall of Fame, not by a long shot.

Even if his career stats had been more impressive, Dock would have had a tough time making the Hall anyway, for one big reason. He's mainly remembered for an evening in June 1970, when he pitched a no-hitter -- high on LSD.

It apparently wasn't premeditated. Dock had a few days off and flew back to his home turf in the Los Angeles area, where he partied insanely with friends, as he was apt to do when off the mound.

In the morning of one of those days, he took a hit of acid. He appears to have lost track of the time, but his girlfriend happened to pick up the morning paper and reminded him: Hey, Dock, aren't you scheduled to pitch tonight in Pittsburgh? (Dock was in the Pirates' starting rotation.)

Oh, shit, he must have said. So Dock was on a plane before long, and made it back to Pittsburgh before the game.

It was described as the ugliest no-hitter ever. Dock didn't tell any sportswriter until years after his retirement that he was blasted on acid, but he admitted to recalling only bits and pieces of the game amid his euphoria. He walked eight batters and hit one with a pitch. (He usually had good control.)

But he said that he focused on that catcher's mitt -- I'll bet it was glowing. Anyway, nobody got a hit, or scored, for the opposing San Diego Padres. Bill Mazeroski and other Pirates teammates made stellar defensive plays. And Willie Stargell hit two home runs. The Pirates won, 2-0, and Dock got his no-hitter, even though he started talking about it in the dugout, which violates a taboo in baseball.

Dock was known for his antics, and for being erratic and combative. He wore curlers to a game once, apparently in response to sportswriters' comments about his changes of hairstyle. He said the gel would help him throw his spitball. He beaned Reggie Jackson once so badly that Reg had to be carried off the field. He chased a heckler in the stands decades before Albert Belle. He threw at a succession of Cincinnati Reds batters before being pulled from the game.

He somehow had a couple of great seasons, and several good ones, but was through at age 34. He was doing booze and coke in frightening amounts, he himself said. In 1980, he went through rehab and reportedly stayed clean thereafter.

But before passing any judgment on Dock, or others of his generation -- pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee once told a reporter that if the commissioner was going to fine all players who smoked pot, "He'd be a very rich man" -- let's fast-forward.

Give me Dock Ellis or Bill Lee over any of the steroid beefcakes who have been setting tainted records in recent years. The older guys were doing what they were doing mainly for pleasure, and largely at the long-term expense of their careers -- not setting juiced-up records.

These guys may have been colorful in the wrong way. But Barry Bonds always came off like a calculated business plan in the form of an athlete. He will be remembered that way, like an automaton.

Yeah, the Babe never did acid. That's probably because it hadn't been discovered yet.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Even Conservatives Should Hurl Shoes: Bush Is A Waste Of Skin

By Manifesto Joe

By now, I'm sure everyone who has a TV set has seen the Iraqi journalist throw his shoes at Il Doofus at the Baghdad news conference. I understand he also called Bush a dog. That seems insulting to canines, known in Western cultures for loyalty and unconditional love. But I also understand that in Arab culture, dogs are ill-regarded, considered unclean animals.

While thinking about what to post about the incident, it occurred to me that a former friend of mine, a staunch Texas-bred conservative, would lament about seeing an A-Rab insult our president. He would lament further about how liberal Democrats are set to take control of most of the federal government. How could this have happened?

I hate to sound like fellow Texan Ross Perot, of whom I am no fan. But to paraphrase him, it's this simple.

Conservatives: You folks blew it. It's that simple.

You blew it when you bet the farm on a man who is, arguably, the most pathetic waste of skin ever to sit in the Oval Office.

Let's forget Il Doofus' penchant for butchering English, his broken Spanish, his prodigal youth, his utter lack of intellectual curiosity, his smirking conceit, and on and on. One can't expect perfection of anyone, and some might even regard Bush's human idiosyncrasies as endearing.

Let's just stick to measurable results. It's hard to think of one sound decision Il Doofus has made in nearly eight years in office. This is a man who cut taxes deeply for the wealthy, threw a few scraps from the table to con the middle class into thinking they were getting something, then pursued a stunningly expensive elective war.

The result is an annual deficit that could approach $1 trillion for his final budget.

This is a "president" who doggedly stuck with the ideology of deregulation, even as a meltdown of subprime mortgages was imminent, and years after the chicanery of Enron and Arthur Andersen was evident. Now the taxpayers are stuck with a financial bailout of shocking proportions, and in the middle of a recession.

Back to the war: It's not hard to understand why millions of Iraqis would loathe Il Doofus. Those millions would not include the estimated million or so who have died as a direct result of Bush's unnecessary war. It's said that dictator Saddam Hussein was responsible for the deaths of a million Iraqis. Some sources say that Bush, in his own bungling way, has got Saddam matched there.

"He (Bush) has ruined the Republican brand," lamented one conservative officeholder. Well, it's not completely Bush's fault, although largely. Conservative Republicans have long been known for economic ideologies that reward the wealthy and punish everyone from middle class on down. It's an approach that tends to work only as long as there is general prosperity, and as long as there is a powerful propaganda apparatus to persuade lots of people to vote against their own interests.

The right has also been characterized by a might-makes-right foreign policy that has made the U.S. a target of hate the world over. This went on all through the Cold War, but at least then there was arguably a reason for it, since even paranoids can have enemies. But the entire planet, at least the part that thinks, knows now that Saddam Hussein didn't have shit for WMDs and was being contained. Even the Bushies had to admit at some point that the "intelligence" was bad.

I'll speculate that the "intelligence" was irrelevant to Il Doofus, as any intelligence has generally been. He thought his elective war was going to be easy -- that Iraqis would not be throwing shoes, but rather rose petals at American feet. (And then, there would be all that wonderful oil!)

Even conservatives need to face it. This man has been King Midas in reverse. Everything he touches turns to feces. Even if one considers the limitations of conservative ideology, Bush has pursued some thoughtless sort of "conservatism" so artlessly that he makes the likes of Ronald Reagan look shrewd in comparison.

For those who want to see it again, here's YouTube video of the shoe-throwing incident:



Included is Il Doofus' moronic reaction, consisting mostly of snickering and smirking and stupid jokes.

I'll say it once more: Conservatives, you blew it. Now, from all sides, let the size 10s fly.

Postscript: That journalist is a pretty good pitcher. Too bad that back when Bush was frontman for the Texas Rangers, the team didn't have an extra dude with that much control and velocity.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

It's Over: Chicago Sit-Down Strike, Final Chapter

By Manifesto Joe

They didn't get what they should have -- that would have been their discarded jobs back. But workers at Chicago's Republic Windows & Doors factory have voted to end their sit-in after winning a partial victory. A $1.75 million deal will give them their legal severance and accrued vacation pay.

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., helped broker the deal, according to The Associated Press report. For the workers, Gutierrez said, it works out to about $7,000 each.

Here's the news link to this development.

They shoulda done better. But there are times when you gotta take what you can get.

I guess this won't be like the Flint sit-down strike -- but maybe it's a start.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Labor Wins A Round: Bank Of America Oinkers Make Credit Concession

By Manifesto Joe

It ain't over till it's over, but the workers staging a sit-in at Republic Windows and Doors appear to have won a big round in their fight for fair compensation. Bank of America, the financial monolith that got $25 billion of the federal government's financial bailout, appears to have felt the heat.

The Associated Press reports:

A resolution appeared closer Tuesday when BOA announced that it sent a letter to Republic offering to "provide a limited amount of additional loans" to resolve the employee claims.

Here's a link to the entire report.

It's hard to embarrass swinelike people, but seeing that BOA has taken so much bailout money from the taxpayers, it seems to me like they ought to extend Republic's credit enough to for the company to reopen the factory and save 250 jobs.

Instead, BOA oinkers had the audacity to act like they at least partially side with the protesting workers, "expressing concern" that Republic hasn't offered to pay the workers their legal entitlements. Looks like a laughable diversionary tactic to me.

Meanwhile, the sit-in continues. Stay tuned.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Workers Take Over Chicago Factory, Blame Company's Bailed-Out Creditor

By Manifesto Joe

This is an example of why a bailout, any bailout, is fundamentally a no-win situation for the taxpayer.

You may have heard news that workers at the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago occupied the building and began a sit-in after the factory shut down Friday on three days' notice. Last time I checked, they're still there.

The workers say the factory was closed in violation of a law that requires a 60-day notice for a shutdown. They say they won't leave without assurances that they'll get severance and vacation pay.

What you may not have heard is the reason for the abrupt shutdown. The company's creditor, Bank of America, canceled Republic's line of credit. Republic's sales have tumbled in the sour economy, and with no line of credit, CEO Rich Gillman said the company had "no choice but to shut our doors," The Associated Press reported.

This is the same Bank of America that got $25 billion of the federal government's $700 billion financial bailout. That's over 3.5% of the total package. And they can't afford to extend a line of credit so that 250 mostly Hispanic wage earners in Chicago can keep their jobs?

SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH, "FREE" MARKET BUGGERY OF THE POOR

The Associated Press also reported that Bank of America, in a statement Saturday, said that it isn't responsible for Republic's financial obligations to its employees.

Exactly for whom, and to whom, is Bank of America, sucking at the federal tit to the tune of $25 billion, responsible and accountable?

It's in the public interest that people can get and hold jobs. These people can't pay taxes when they're in the unemployment line. Since this largess is coming from the taxpayers, we've got a perverse situation of collectivist capitalism for the bankers, and the icy sidewalk for the faceless mass of suckers who put up money for the bailout.

WHITHER THE BAILOUTS?

Along with many other people, I held my nose and voiced support for the bailout as a necessary evil. But this case illustrates why taxpayer-funded bailouts end up being no-win situations. It's a sort of blackmail -- the national economy would fall into a downward spiral of Depression proportions if financial institutions the size of Bank of America were allowed to go under. They seem to know this, and their behavior is commensurately unaccountable.

Chicago will easily survive a loss of 250 jobs at Republic. But multiply that scenario across the country, with many hundreds of struggling companies and overextended creditors, and you get a mental picture of what the U.S. economy is
facing.

This is an example of why bailouts need to have many strings attached to them, and very sturdy ones. In exchange for that $25 billion, the federal government ought to have pretty much leverage over what Bank of America uses it for. Republic operates at the level of a few million dollars per month, not in the billions like BOA. This is a microcosm of the kind of abuse that the many have endured, at the hands of the few, for decades.

A UNION SUNRISE?

A bright spot is that this incident may become a rallying point for the revival of a union movement in America. Here's more from the AP report:

"Across cultures, religions, union and nonunion, we all say this bailout was a shame," said Richard Berg, president of Teamsters Local 743. "If this bailout should go to anything, it should go to the workers of this country."

Outside the plant, protesters wore stickers and carried signs that said, "You got bailed out, we got sold out."

Leah Fried, an organizer with United Electrical Workers, obliquely compared the sit-in to the landmark 1936-37 General Motors sit-down strike in Flint, Mich., which helped unionize the auto industry. (Yeah, I know, there's the automakers bailout. That's another post.)

"We're doing something we haven't done since the 1930s, so we're trying to make it work," AP quoted Fried as saying. She pointed out that the occupying workers have been shoveling snow and cleaning the building during the sit-in.

Realistically, the financial bailout is a bitter concoction we're going to have to gulp down. But that doesn't mean we have to like it. And, for a dramatic change from '80s and '90s stupor, a lot of Americans seem to be waking up from virtual date-rape drugs and realizing who's been carrying out the assault on working people for many years.

I hope the 53-46% mandate for Barack Obama was only the beginning. Republic should trigger a reborn union movement in this country. Against the kinds of monolithic entities we now face, like Bank of America, lots of people getting together again is the only chance we have.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Madness That Somehow Perseveres: Austin's Own Roky Erickson

By Manifesto Joe

By the way, it's pronounced "Rock-ee," not "Roak-ee." (His given name was Roger, so I can understand why he lost it.) The singer/guitarist who fronted the Texas late-1960s psychedelic cult band the Thirteenth Floor Elevators has been back on stage in recent years. By all accounts, he still gives a great show for a dude who is diagnosed as schizophrenic and likely did way, way too much acid back in the day. Roky spent long stretches in mental hospitals. He is reported to still need his meds and lots of supervision.

Here are three videos from YouTube:







The more popular California-based psychedelic bands of the '60s had nothing on this one. Groovy, Roky. Your comeback is an inspiration.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Trample Me Elmo: With 'Black Friday' Rush On New York Wal-Mart, A Fatal Stomping Of A Clerk

By Manifesto Joe

My previous post contained a morbid fantasy scenario about how the Mr. Hyde side of me might (no, not really; it was a fantasy, those of literal minds) want to deal with certain types of swinish American consumers. Namely, it was about the kind who actually camp out in tents in front of stores in order to rush the door at 5 a.m. on "Black Friday."

I provoked a couple of negative responses, including one comment that was too moronically insulting to dignify with publication. I would urge those taken aback to ponder, in view of today's events, just how far Swine Nation really has gone.

Here's one news link to the incident at a New York Wal-Mart store. A witness said a door was torn off the hinges by the crazed mob, and another said that literally hundreds of shoppers trampled on an employee named Jdimytai Damour, 34. It was also reported that police who were trying to resuscitate Mr. Damour were jostled by frenzied shoppers. Mr. Damour was the clerk who was essentially murdered by this brainless mob of greedy fools.

There have been a lot of Black Friday incidents over the years resulting in injuries. This is the first I can remember that culminated in a death.

And this is supposed to be Day One leading up to a holiday that marks the birth of Christ -- you know, the fellow who drove the money-changers from the temple, the one who was habitually on the side of the needy underdogs. The Jesus that few seem to know anymore.

True, as a mere mortal, there's a Mr. Hyde side to me. But any literal-minded person who thought my reaction to the Black Friday "campers" was excessive needs to ponder just what human excess really is. Take a close look at the criminal stupidity that occurred yesterday. Considering that my post preceded this Wal-Mart tragedy by just a few hours, I'd say I probably have a fair eye for judging human excess.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Black Friday: The Wrong Kind Of Tent City, Populated By Swine

By Manifesto Joe

I'm a night-shift worker, and my wife isn't working right now for family reasons. After midnight, when I got off work, we went out in the wee hours after Thanksgiving to feed a cat belonging to a friend who's out of town.

Cruising back to our house, we passed a neighborhood electronics store. There was a small mob scene there at 2 a.m., with cars all over the lot. People were lined up in front of the store. Folks had brought pup tents and other amenities for camping out.

We were on the eve of "Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving, when many stores open extra-early for early Christmas shopping and offer big discounts on limited supplies of certain items.

At this electronics store, apparently people were camped out to get first dibs on the latest Blackberries, Ipods, and half a dozen other types of electronic horseshit that I don't know about and really don't care to.

It was rainy and a bit cold in the early-morning hours in this city. And here were these people, seemingly without lives other than this (or perhaps to root purposelessly for the Dallas Cowboys).

I started asking my wife if she would pull our Honda Civic Hybrid up next to the line of pup tents, where I would yell, "You fucking fools!" She didn't think that was a good idea.

I gave up quickly on the idea of doing anything like that. Fools are normally determined to remain so. But I got to fantasizing about things it would be wonderful to do.

It would have been good to go down to Homeless Row, in the worst district of this city, with big pots of hearty stew for everybody. Then, after everybody has eaten and feels better and stronger, we pass out magnums of malt liquor to anybody who wants it. Let's get everybody loosened up a bit.

Then, we pass out the ax handles. And bring in the trucks. And we go visit the tent city in front of the electronics store. We clean the area out, much like 1930s vigilantes would have cleaned out one populated by hapless vagrants.

Yeah, it's just a fantasy. But please understand, we've got the wrong kind of tent cities in America right now, especially in times when so many people are being put out of their houses and are sleeping in cars. Yes, I understand that two-thirds of the U.S. economy is fueled by consumer spending.

But why do so many Americans have to behave like imbecilic swine about it?

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Hey, Y'all, And Youse Guys -- Enough Stereotypes

By Manifesto Joe

Normally, I try to be as supportive as possible of any lefty blogger out there. "Viva la causa," as certain Tejanos say. But I'm seeing too much depiction of Southern whites, especially us Texans, as being irredeemably ignorant. My experience is that ignorance is very much an equal-opportunity employer.

This is only one example of such plowboy-bashing. One will do. Here's the link. See the piece titled, "Lincoln Screwed Up -- Let's Fix It."

I've lived among necks vermillion long enough to understand this sentiment. But I've also known people from many other backgrounds who had all the same problems, and perhaps a few more.

Here was my response in the comments:

Not only do Yankees harbor a lot of stereotypes about us Texans –

– Your pot roast and bean soup are bland enough to serve in jails or a college cafeteria (you all seem to have gotten the notion that chile peppers really will eat holes in your stomach).

– In the (Republican) Dakotas and points east of there, you still have people who sound like, "My name is Yon Yonson, I leeve in Visconsin, I vork in a lumber mill zere!" They guzzle a lot of something they call "pop" that we call soda water or soft drinks down here. I know all this from having attended a Lutheran college.

– You have places up there like Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I think they still have active chapters of America First. And Indiana was the state with the biggest Klan membership back in the '20s. One of the most stupifyingly bigoted Religious Right types I have ever known was from Minnesota (that's "Meene-soat-a" up there). He was definitely acquainted with the "N" word, and believed quite sincerely that any person who had ever heard the name of Jesus even mentioned, and did not immediately convert, was damned to everlasting perdition.

– Bush and Cheney are not native Texans. Cheney is from Wyoming, the heart of Red-state Yankeeland, and Bush was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and "educated" mostly at blueblood Yankee schools. His Texas accent is reputed to be largely an acquired affectation.

Anyway, enough with all the stereotypes, Southern or Northern, yours or mine. In post-Bush America, let's try to live peacefully without them.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

We're Long Overdue For Some Weekend Music Here

Tift Merritt is quite something. Check out I Know What I'm Looking For Now:



Enjoy -- MJ

Don't Hold Your Breath Waiting For Texas To Turn Blue

By Manifesto Joe

Amid Democratic/progressive/liberal euphoria, most understandable after the past eight years, there's been talk that even states like my home sweet home Texas could possibly be flipped for the Dems, and soon.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Texans to turn blue. You'll literally turn blue long before. We've got another generation to go here before the demographics of this very distinctive but chauvinistic state will change that much.

The percentage breakdown (all figures courtesy CNN Politics) was 55% McCain, 44% Obama, 1% all others. That was promising, surprisingly good at 44% for a mixed-race liberal Democrat in a state that still has so many Dixiecrats.

The urban areas are where you can see the changes that are eventually coming. In Dallas County, Obama kicked McCain's ass shockingly, 57-42%. Travis County (home of dear old liberal college town Austin) it was 64-35% Obama!!!

Obama pulled out Harris County (Houston, America's 4th-largest city), 50-49%. There, the African-American vote, 95% for Obama, was the clear difference. He won Bexar County (San Antonio) by a decent margin, 52-47%, and that's in a place with a big military vote. The dominance of Obama in Hispanic Texas was most obvious in El Paso County, 66-33% -- and there's a big military vote there, too. He also took most of deep South Texas, my old stomping grounds.

Even in Tarrant County, which has become Texas' answer to California's right-wing Orange County, there was good news for Democrats. Fort Worth delivered for Republicans much as it has in recent years, making the county breakdown the very same as the state's, 55-44% for Big Mac. There's a lot of old oil and gas money there that more than offsets the minority voting blocs. But the Dallas-FortWorth midcity of Arlington, home of centrally located amusement parks and sports stadiums, split 50-50%. The demographics there are definitely changing.

But there was plenty of discouraging news. Nueces County (Corpus Christi) is largely Hispanic, but went 52-47% for McCain. There must still be lots of priest-ridden Catholics down there. And when you track the vote out into the boondocks -- East Texas, outlying central areas of the Hill Country, the South Plains, the Panhandle, the rest of the west ... well, McCain just cleaned up.

Candidly, the story is just this simple. McCain and the other Republicans held on to the redneck vote.

It's discouraging, in that the Democratic Party actually fielded a fine candidate for U.S. Senate, state Rep. Rick Noriega of Houston. Noriega polled just about evenly with Obama in a race against one of the most vapid (but well-funded) members of the Senate, Bush cheerleader John Cornyn.

What is clear from the results is that there is still a deeply ingrained "rube" vote in this state, the kind of people who would never, ever have given Obama any decent hearing, let alone serious consideration. I will refrain from using any stronger language about them.

Significantly, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram recently reported that many voters in Wise County, some of them Democrats, voted the straight GOP ticket because they wouldn't vote for any Democrats on a ticket headed by Obama. In so doing, they elected a guy to the office of constable who is affiliated with the Minuteman vigilante organization, devoted to chasing real or supposed illegal immigrants around the state.

Change can eventually come to places like my home state. But sadly, it is often glacial in pace. I got used to being in the beleaguered minority many years ago, so I can live with it for now. I hope, along with the optimists among progressives, to see it change before I die.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Republicans Who Call Obama A Socialist Are Showing Either Ignorance Or Desperation

By Manifesto Joe

In the demented spirit of a godfather of American fascism, Joe McCarthy, plenty of Republicans, led by McCain attack dog Sarah Palin, are hurling the dreaded "S" word at Barack Obama. It's right-wing regurgitation, like projectile vomit.

The dreaded word in McCarthy's time was "communist." Now it is "socialist," and the far right bases this on Obama's clearly stated intention to enact very limited income redistribution for the benefit of working-class and middle-income Americans.

This misnomer reveals the stupidity of those who use it with any sincerity, and the desperation of those who actually took political science and economics in college and surely know better.

Socialism defined

Here's a basic definition of "socialism," from Webster's New World College Dictionary:

1. any of various theories or systems of the ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution by society or the community rather than by private individuals, with all members of the society or the community sharing in the work and the products.

Please note that the crucial part of the definition has to the with "the means of production and distribution." I am unaware that Obama has ever advocated nationalization of industries, Israeli-style kibbutzes or anything else that characterizes bona fide socialism. He is clearly, like almost all other American progressives, a welfare capitalist. He favors a system of private ownership, but with restraints, checks and balances, and limited intervention in the public interest.

Many conservatives, being ignorant, disingenuous, or both, have greatly expanded the definition of "socialism" to include any and all kinds of income redistribution that works for the benefit of those roughly at or below median income. To broadly paraphrase one of their heroes, Adam Smith, the richer people among them say nothing of their own gains; they complain only of those of other people.

Any time any public entity, whether a local hospital district or the federal government, makes any decision about taxation and/or appropriates money for anything, income is redistributed. It's a question of to whom.

What Americans have seen for about 35 years, more rapidly at times but always steadily, has been socialism for the rich, certainly by the "broader" definition of the right. A federal tax structure that was once progressive, and remains so on paper in some senses with the retention of brackets, has been gradually rendered impotent by the fine scalpel of legislators and tax lawyers. Most corporations now pay little if any income tax, and the very wealthy have myriad shelters with which they happily dodge responsibility for upkeep of the infrastructure, or even for bankrolling the latest war meant to increase their profits.

Socialism for the rich

As for socialism for the rich, I won't even go into corporate welfare, intrinsic advantages of the rich in the legal system, the system of legal bribery we call campaign finance, etc. I'm just sticking with their definition -- redistribution of income. The distribution of wealth is more unequal than it has been since 1929. (Remember what happened that year?) And this hasn't happened by accident. The '80s supply-side economists led by Arthur Laffer and David Stockman were quite above board in their intention to favor corporations and the rich in taxation, in the apparent belief that such policy would spur investment, create jobs, actually increase tax revenue, and result in "trickle-down."

For the most part, with some interruptions during the Clinton administration, the program of socialism for the rich was put over, and with accompanying indoctrination against anything faintly liberal or progressive. The New Deal was ancient history; and in the minds of many, the opportunistic right succeeded in perversely melding it with the failure of Soviet socialism, or with anything that strayed in the very least from a laissez-faire, supply-side party line.

I stopped being a fan of Ralph Nader after he ensured the presidency for an apocalyptic buffoon like George W. Bush. But Nader said something on a debate show that has stuck with me since: "They (the big corporations) want to socialize their losses and privatize their profits." Never was anything truer said.

Obama, though merely bringing a rather mild bourgeois liberalism back to the table, faces the wrath of fools conned by this right-wing economic nonsense, and the venom of those who would use ignorant "fellow travelers" of the far right to stay in control of the wheel.

But, with two days left until the deciding moment, history appears to be tilting toward Obama. Americans have had 28 years to endure "upscale" socialism. Many who don't listen to frothing-at-the-mouth rhetoric know firsthand what such policies have done to them. Indications are that a large turnout of such folks will hugely favor Obama.

Here's a link that shines more light on the subject. There aren't many real socialists left in America, but here's what their presidential candidate thinks about Obama. And, here's one more from the MSM, its own nasty self.

Meanwhile, "this one" voted early -- and I suppose it's not hard to guess that "this one" voted for "that one." I urge anybody who hasn't done the same yet to get to the polls Tuesday. We don't want to see the future postponed for another four years.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

A Week To Go, And The Kooks And Psychos Are Out In Force

By Manifesto Joe

To follow is a video of James David Manning, chief pastor of ATLAH World Missionary Church in New York, in which Manning makes comparisons of Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler that are, to say the very least, extremely broad.

This kind of demented propaganda is still making the rounds over e-mail, and it's gotten a lot of views on YouTube. It's been out there for a while, but it won't hurt to remind readers about the kind of kooks who are on the loose.

Analogies of this kind usually have to have a lot more behind them. For example, if Obama had, before this crucial point in history, led an attempt to overthrow the government; spent time in prison and written a book there advocating racism and genocide, among other things; and led a militant political party that engaged rivals in bloody street fights -- well, then the analogy might hold up better.

From what I can tell here, the analogy is based on only one thing: Adolf Hitler was a charismatic public speaker, and so is Barack Obama. What a striking coincidence!

In the tradition of Looney Tunes, on with the show, this is it:



I learned a few things from this. Pastor Manning refers to the "Roman and Jewish press" printing lies about Jesus. Wow. I didn't know they had printing presses back when Jesus was "hung" (Manning's word for it).

And, perhaps Manning himself has more in common with Hitler than he's likely to let on. According to his Wikipedia bio:

As a younger man, Pastor Manning burglarized homes, mostly on Long Island. He spent about three and a half years in prison in New York and Florida for burglary, robbery, larceny, criminal possession of a weapon, and other charges before his release in 1978. While in prison, he became a devout Christian.[1]

It's funny how people like Manning manage to find some sort of mask, and being born again is among the common ones. I'd say he's picked up on a new and better kind of larceny. It's cooler when you don't have to carry a gun or face jail time.

A final note: Do you detect a hint of jealousy?

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

30 Years Too Late, Greenspan Learns The First Great Economic Lesson Of The 20th Century

By Manifesto Joe

This hasn't been a popular opinion for a while, but here goes. The 20th century offered two great economic lessons: (1) Underregulation of markets is a very bad thing, and (2) overregulation of markets is also a very bad thing. The first lesson should have been abundantly clear in the winter of 1932-33. But by the '70s, the second lesson was prominent, so much so that many economists just plumb forgot about the first.

Among the most influential of these economists was Alan Greenspan, later to become a longtime chairman of the Federal Reserve. I found it disturbing, reading about his background way back in the '80s, that the Span Man actually bought into the crackpot economic notions of the late Ayn Rand and her quasi-solipsist cult.

But among economists, such was the climate of the '70s and '80s. The welfare-state excesses of the '60s and early '70s had suddenly made the reforms of the New Deal era irrelevant, and the pre-1929 mind-set had returned with much vindictiveness.

But Greenspan, appearing before a House committee this week, made a startling admission. He conceded that he was "partially wrong" in trusting financial markets to police themselves. Here's the link.

Sadly, the Span Man ran the Fed mostly as a "free" market ideologue for 18 years. By the time he left the post, most of the damage had been done. Now it's going to be up to younger Americans -- Mr. Greenspan is 82 -- to clean up the mess for generations.

Let's revisit the two great lessons. In the early '30s, it was a no-brainer that the greed of players in the financial markets had contributed greatly to the worst economic meltdown in U.S. history. And so, general economic thinking was dramatically altered. It should have been clear that, left so unregulated, greed is NOT good. It leads to unsound practices, skewed income redistribution, social irresponsibility, shortsightedness; and in the end, everybody gets hurt. Au contraire, Gordon Gecko. Unregulated greed is BAD. Greedy people do not police themselves; quite the opposite, they do their best to rig the game. We have seen repeatedly in history that unregulated greed ultimately DOES NOT WORK.

But, by the '60s, we had the Galbraith-dubbed "affluent society," in which so much could seem to be taken for granted. We sort of became victims of our own success. The welfare state tried to do a little too much -- though in the U.S., it paled in comparison to the largess of other societies that spent far less on their war machines.

By the '70s, we had the symptoms of "stagflation" and demand-pull inflation that tend to show up in societies that are overregulating and overtaxing. Unfortunately, this opened the door for the economic quackery that has characterized the "supply-side" and "trickle-down" (tinkle-down, I sez) thought of the past 30 years. Many economists, secure in their own tenure and advisory posts, conveniently forgot about what happened in the first half of the 20th century.

Now, at last near the end of our second Gilded Age, Alan Greenspan is compelled to humble himself before Henry Waxman, and admit that he's had to rethink his ideas of the past 40-plus years.

Pardon me, little fish that I am, that I take a moment to gloat a bit. I was warning about this in 1984. I couldn't get many people to listen back then, mesmerized as they seemed by the foolish platitudes rising through Ronald Reagan's 70-ish turkey neck.

Don't worry, Mr. Greenspan -- you'll have plenty of dignified company in the online history books. Now just fade away, and leave the cleanup to sadder but wiser generations.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

From Joe's Vault: Log Cabin Republicans Are Like Chickens For Colonel Sanders

By Manifesto Joe

This was originally posted Oct. 30, 2006, on BeggarsCanBeChoosers.com. I think it's still relevant for the gay community, especially since religious-right darling Sarah Palin is McCain's running mate. Let's go back a couple of years:

In the 1960s, the Democratic Party lost the South because of its leaders' support for civil rights. Barry Goldwater won several Deep South states even while losing badly almost everywhere else. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, announcing that he was switching parties, said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. It left me."

It's too bad that gay and lesbian Republicans can't see, in an inverted way, the same thing a bigoted philistine like Thurmond could.

The Mark Foley scandal has put this GOP minority into the spotlight, albeit in an unfortunate way. Foley's misbehavior certainly isn't representative of the gay community.

But many Americans are now aware of something I don't think they'd given much thought to before: There are surprisingly many gay and lesbian Republicans.

My question is: why? Why would people of those sexual orientations continue to vote for and donate money to candidates of a party mostly composed of people who regard them as, at best, sick freaks, and at worst, hellbound sinners?

The most high-profile organization that gives these GOP outsiders something of a voice is the Log Cabin Republicans. Their home page describes them as "loyal Republicans" who believe in things like:

* Low taxes. (So they'd rather live in Central America than in one of those socialist nightmare regimes in Scandinavia. Have they read anything about the state of gay rights in Guatemala lately?)

* Limited government. (Do they mean the kind that can't respond to natural disasters like hurricanes? Or the kind that gives the president semidictatorial powers to, for example, define what constitutes torture?)

* Strong defense. (Like the kind that, after the U.S. is attacked by Al Qaeda, decides to attack an adversary of theirs in Iraq? And then doesn't send enough troops to secure the borders, the precious oil fields, or bring any semblance of order to the country? But still stretches our military so thin that it likely wouldn't be able to respond to a real threat from, say, North Korea or Iran? And somehow manages to create a virtual terrorist training ground in Iraq? Can you say Larry? Moe? Curly Joe?)

* Free markets. (Do they mean the kind in which contractors like Halliburton, with incestuously close ties to the "vice president," get no-bid contracts worth well over $10 billion?)

* Personal responsibility. (Do they mean the kind that George W. Bush and Deadeye Dick Cheney have demonstrated during their adult lives?)

* Individual liberty. (Do they mean the kind the Texas Republican Party endorsed in its 2004 platform, in which it opposed legalization of "sodomy," and also advised candidates that a risk of not supporting the entire platform would be withholding of state party funding?)

I understand that what Log Cabin Republicans have in common with politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mary Bono and Lincoln Chafee is that all contemporary Republicans, "moderate" or otherwise, are economic royalists.

It's not hard to understand how someone would want their human rights and the trust fund, too. They basically want the little people to pay the bulk of the taxes, and then much more; and they may even sincerely believe, for whatever misguided reasons, that they should. I'll save that argument for another time.

But as the radical right extends its already decades-long dominance of the GOP, these "moderate" politicians are looking almost as irrelevant now as James Eastland and Lester Maddox appeared among Democrats in the Sixties.

Log Cabin Republicans, you didn't leave the party, but it left you -- 25 or 30 years ago. Maybe it's time you gave some thought to something you regard as unthinkable -- to follow the lead of Media Matters for America founder David Brock, and back Democrats, at least for a while. The only way "moderates" (I'm old enough to remember when they were called conservatives.) are ever going to retake the GOP is for the radical right to start losing elections. A lot of them.

MANIFESTO JOE IS AN UNDERGROUND WRITER LIVING IN TEXAS

'Joe The Plumber' Isn't Even A Plumber, He Owes Back Taxes, And He's Related To Charles Keating

By Manifesto Joe

John McCain, he of the many smirks on C-Span split-screen TV, invoked "Joe the plumber" many times during Wednesday night's debate, doing the best he could to source some kind of game-changer.

Turns out that Joe isn't exactly the sort of guy Big Mac was betting on. He's not a licensed plumber. His hope of buying the business he works for is, by his own admission, a long shot. He owes just under $1,200 in back taxes. And even if he were to miraculously reach the income bracket that he was referring to in his silly exchange with Barack Obama, analysts say it's doubtful that he would owe much at all in extra taxes. In the Obama plan, he certainly won't owe any more in his current bracket, and would likely get a cut.

Let's have a closer look at "Joe," courtesy of Yahoo! News:

Here's the link.

There's more about "Joe" apparently. He appears to be related to one Charles Keating by marriage. You know, of the Keating Five, back in the 1980s dregs of John McCain's legislative past. Here's a link to this tidbit. And then, there's some kind of Alaska sled dog connection rumored ...

McCain is obviously doing anything he can to pull this one out of his anus, and failing horribly by not doing any homework. I'll stop short of the allegation that this man was a crude Republican "plant." I don't want to smell that one, either. And, by the way -- if the Palin selection, and then "Joe the Plumber" as a final debate centerpiece indicate what kind of judgment McCain would exercise as president ...

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Evidence That Sarah Palin Was Herself An AIP Member?

It's old news that Todd Palin is a former member of the radical right, secessionist Alaska Independence Party. Now some evidence has surfaced that Klondike Hottie herself may have been a member. This video, posted on YouTube today by mtaa11, certainly seems to indicate a cozy relationship between the governor and this subversive group:



One thing the woman certainly has is chutzpah. If she didn't, she wouldn't be on the campaign trail bashing Barack Obama over alleged buddying-up with long-ago Weatherman Billy Ayres.

John McCain's VP choice is clearly a disaster of many dimensions, and this is one more. I won't suggest that she should sign a "loyalty oath," but it would be appropriate for her to either repudiate what the AIP stands for, or resign her vice presidential candidacy. I guess there's no reason she couldn't carry on as governor of Alaska. Some of the kooks up there seem ready to re-elect the likes of Ted Stevens to the U.S. Senate. Palin continuing as governor wouldn't seem too shocking. -- MJ

Fundamental Pettiness Of Palin Doesn't Escape Attention of Panel In Her Home State

By Manifesto Joe

The image of a barracuda may sit well with certain voters -- the right-wing fringe, the kind whom John McCain has generally been indulging amid their outbursts of "Kill him!" and "Terrorist" at the rallies, in reference to Barack Obama. But that image apparently didn't sit well with members of an Alaska legislative panel.

The chief investigator of that panel concluded Friday that Sarah Palin, as Alaska's governor, unlawfully abused her power by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper.

Here's more from The Associated Press:

Investigator Stephen Branchflower, in a report to a bipartisan panel that looked into the matter, found Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain.

The inquiry looked into her dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, who said he lost his job because he resisted pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce and custody battle with the governor's sister. Palin says Monegan was fired as part of a legitimate budget dispute.

Monegan's firing was lawful, the report found, but Palin let the family grudge influence her decision-making — even if it was not the sole reason Monegan was dismissed.

"I feel vindicated," Monegan said. "It sounds like they've validated my belief and opinions. And that tells me I'm not totally out in left field."

Here's a link to the complete AP report.

I think we're seeing more that has resulted from the abysmal failure of the McCain campaign to vet his vice presidential choice. The problem here was clearly part of Palin's record in Alaska for many months, yet the McCain campaign had no figurative mine detectors out.

Let's skip thoughts about Sarah Barracuda, as a prospective VP, for just a moment. What does this say about John McCain's fitness to be commander-in-chief? Would he choose his Cabinet, his judicial appointees, more astutely?

Granted, Joe Biden is an old face, all too familiar to viewers of Sunday-morning talking-head TV. But Obama, even with his just-under four years in the Senate, has made a vastly better choice for an understudy. Even if Biden is old news, I would feel a lot safer with him having the nuclear codes than someone like Sarah Barracuda.

I'd say Obama could be trusted to make many more good choices. McCain made a shockingly bad one, and the news gets worse every day. It might be a wise decision for him to urge Palin to step down and try to get, say, Mitt Romney as a late replacement. But it's so late in the game, I don't think he could be persuaded to do anything of the sort.

Bring on Nov. 4. I just hope there isn't some new and ingenious way for the Republican machine to steal this election.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Palin's Appalling Ignorance Keeps Surfacing, This Time On Oil Exports

By Manifesto Joe

It matters whom a presidential nominee picks for a running mate. It says quite a bit about their judgment. After all, John McCain is presuming to be the person who will appoint a Cabinet and many federal judges. If he can't pick a good vice presidential running mate ...

Sarah Palin has shown herself to be someone with barely enough of an IQ to do OK with coaching and preparation. (As does McCain.) But when it comes to off-the-cuff knowledge of the issues, she's been losing every round since she was chosen. Today, the subject was oil exports.

The Associated Press reported today:

WASHINGTON - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, touted by GOP presidential candidate John McCain as his expert on energy, seemed to have problems Thursday explaining whether the government bans oil exports — especially from her state's North Slope fields.

A questioner at a town hall-style meeting in Wisconsin said he had heard that at least 75 percent of the oil drilled in Alaska was being sold to China and said, if true, he would like to know why.

"No. It's not 75 percent of our oil being exported," Palin said, suggesting some of Alaska's oil, in fact, may be going abroad but not that much.

"In fact," she added, "Congress is pretty strict on, um, export bans of oil and gas especially."

No Alaska oil has been exported since 2004, and little if any since 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Research Service.

And Congress has never imposed outright bans on oil exports. Congress prohibited exports of Alaska oil in 1973 when the Alaska oil pipeline was built. But that ban was lifted in 1996 when there were large volumes of Alaska oil coming down from the North Slope and U.S. demand was soft.

The Alaska ban has never been reinstated.

So this is Big Mac's expert on energy issues?

This is a person clearly trying to play far out of her league. But here's a scary thought: George W. Bush, Il Doofus himself, has been "president" for nearly eight years. Now, we're in two wars with no foreseeable end, the economy has been wrecked, and the Constitution has been sullied beyond understanding.

Bigger mistakes have been made -- perhaps.

(Here's a link to the whole AP article.)

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

McCain-Keating-Palin '08: The Real GOP Ticket

If there is any remaining doubt about John McCain's connection with the deregulation debacle facing the country now, let's go back 20 or so years, to his "palling around" with one Charles Keating. Obama is only slightly acquainted with Billy Ayres, and was 8 when the bad behavior took place. Whither Charles Keating, Big Mac? (Fries with that, hon?)

http://www.keatingeconomics.com/

Or:

There are technical problems, but one or the other approach will get you there. -- MJ

Bailout Is Unsavory, But Doing Nothing Is Worse

By Manifesto Joe

There's plenty of blame to go around now, and yours truly is going to be among the first to point a finger. Back in 1984, I had a political opinion column for a short time (until we got a Republican owner) for a small-town daily paper. I was forecasting 24 years ago that the trend toward deregulation was a recipe for disaster.

OK, I told you so. Now we've got an economic train wreck, though, and blame should be sorted out later. Let's clean up the damage first.

Today the U.S. House defeated the proposed $700 billion financial markets bailout, 228-205. To set one piece of the record straight, the opposition was about two-thirds of House Republicans and about 40 percent of House Democrats. Call me distrustful, but I suspect that the House Republican opposition had less to do with small investors and borrowers on Main Street and more to do with big campaign contributors on Wall Street.

I don't enjoy seeing the latter bailed out any more than anyone else with a populist streak. But it's times like these when Americans should see clearly what it means to be a "community." Rich or poor, or in between, we sink or swim together when it comes to national survival. Irresponsible wealth is mostly to blame for this. But as one of those small investors and borrowers on Main Street, I can tell you that my future, and that of others like me, will be the likely price of inaction.

There will be no way for lawmakers to work out an ideal solution for this. But this bill sounded somewhat reasonable, based on general descriptions available since yesterday.

Congress returns to session Thursday. If there was ever a time to call and e-mail your congressperson, this is it, and in favor of action, not inaction. These louts have pensions and health care for life -- they don't have to worry about where their food and medicine are coming from. Let's get them back in Washington and at the table, to forge an acceptable compromise.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

An Era Of Re-Regulation? Progressives Shouldn't Celebrate Too Soon

By Manifesto Joe

So, deregulation in America is supposed to have died last week? Not so fast. Laissez faire, historically, is one of those economic notions that's sort of like Jason in those bad splatter movies -- it keeps coming back.

I don't doubt that, no matter which candidate is elected president in November, deregulation will be a somewhat untouchable position for a while, where financial markets are concerned. Until several years pass, and the $700 billion payoff at taxpayers' expense is complete, we won't hear much about it.

But this is a zombie that's a re-animator's dream, having risen from rigor mortis again and again. It's a toxic idea has always served the interests of the moneyed class in most societies. Even after being repeatedly discredited by financial crises such as this one, and many before, it only takes a generation or two to resurrect it with as much "credibility" as ever.

As a one-time college textbook editor, I worked with economists, and found them to be largely a priesthood of ideologues. Their ideas don't have to bear strong resemblance to events of the real world. Among many, if not most of them, the "free market" is a quasi-religion, to be challenged only at the questioning of one's intellect and/or sanity.

Interestingly, most of them, even the "free-market" disciples, agree that the looming $700 billion taxpayer bailout of the U.S. financial system is necessary, though perhaps a necessary evil.

We come back to a condition of humans never liking to admit they are wrong. We also come back to old wisdom that one shouldn't bite the hand that feeds one. Most professional economists have "invested" a big stake in "free-market" theory, and their sources of income -- universities, "think" tanks and such -- generally expect them to maintain a certain ideological purity.

When current events fade into history, don't be surprised if we have a lot of economists, and compliant lawmakers trolling for right-wing votes, who want to start deregulating everything yet again. To broadly paraphrase the poet Santayana, most people do not remember the past, and they are therefore condemned to repeat it.

I'll steal another line, this one paraphrased from Citizen Kane: You're going to need more than one lesson, and you're going to get more than one lesson. In this case, the "you" is the American people.

What happened during the past 30 years was widespread economic amnesia, even among the alleged experts. What was forgotten was people's natural inclination to grow greedy and behave badly when not subject to certain restraints.

It's easy to blame the people who signed on to unsound subprime mortgage loans, who ran up vast credit-card debt, and so forth, if you look at the situation in just one dimension. What about the predatory lenders who offered them all this credit they could never have gotten 30 years ago?

I remember being quite impressed in the spring of 1978, as I approached graduation from college, at being offered my very first gasoline credit card. It was a big deal. "We believe that people about to graduate from college are good credit risks," I was told. Years later I was offered an actual Visa card, and the line of credit was pretty modest.

Now, all you need is a pulse. My 81-year-old mother, in assisted living, is getting solicitations. It would be possible for her to obtain one of these cards and run up a $10,000 tab in a hurry, then default. What would they do? Ruin her credit? Garnish her Social Security check?

The fault ultimately lies with greedy lenders. The great unwashed are always an easy target for blame, but the people in the suits don't have to make such absurdly generous offers to hapless people. This go-round, they approved loans and gave out other credit like it was lunch, with no thought for when the bills came due and they had to actually collect.

A wonderful analogy came from Kathleen Day, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer-oriented research group. In a Monday piece from McClatchy Newspapers, she commented on the regulatory lapses:

"The job of regulators is that when the party's in full swing, make sure the partygoers drink responsibly. Instead, they let everyone drink as much as they wanted and then handed them the car keys."

Here's the link to the complete article.

It is important to note that Bush, possibly the Herbert Hoover of this generation and much worse, has nevertheless planted seeds for an eventual revival of the old market mentality. One couldn't expect a mediocre-at-best product of privilege to do otherwise. Here's some of what he had to say, as reported by The Associated Press:

The president favored government intervention even though it opened him up to criticism from financial conservatives who are raising their eyebrows at the pricetag of the bailout plan. "Look, I'm sure there are some of my friends out there saying, `I thought this guy was a market guy. What happened to him?'" Bush said.

"Well, my first instinct wasn't to lay out a huge government plan," he said. "My first instinct was to let the market work until I realized, upon being briefed by the experts, of how significant this problem became."

In other words, this is supposed to be an anomaly, not the logical outcome of unregulated capitalism, even though we've seen it in history over and over. Here's the full AP article about Bush's take on this, if you can stomach it.

It would be desirable in many ways to just let the avaricious fatcats go under amid this excess, but that can't be. There are dogmatic libertarians who actually think Americans could be that stupid, both individually and collectively. But we can't afford that. It comes to a kind of economic blackmail -- the risk is too great for too many people who had nothing to do with the bad decisions on either end of the credit process. So, the fatcats will be bailed out.

The hope, against hope, is that "we won't be fooled again." That they won't be able to sell this bill of goods to the next generation in 20 years, and that our own generations of today won't forget. That the libertarians will finally learn that their naivete assumes marketplace self-policing that neither people nor institutions will ever do.

Maybe, just maybe one day, we'll learn. Keep a close watch on your retirement investments in the meantime. Here's one more thought-provoking link by Steve Fraser that I urge the reader to ponder.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Latest Gaffe: McCain Apparently Thinks Spain Shares A Border With Venezuela

By Manifesto Joe

This is a little scary, sort of like having the ignorance of Bush and the senility of Reagan both rolled into one overage candidate. During an interview, John McCain doesn't appear to have caught on as to who Spain's leader is, apparently confusing Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez or Bolivia's Evo Morales.

This is part of a transcript from an interview on Miami Spanish-language radio, as reported by Sam Stein of The Huffington Post:

QUESTION: Senator, finally, let's talk about Spain. If you're elected president, would you be willing to invite President Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero to the White House to meet with you?

MCCAIN: I would be willing meet, uh, with those leaders who our friends [sic] and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion, and by the way, President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very very tough fight against the drug cartels. I'm glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan. I intend to move forward with relations, and invite as many of them as I can, those leaders, to the White House.

QUESTION: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government, to the president itself?

MCCAIN: I don't, you know, honestly I have to look at relations and the situations and the priorities, but I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America.

QUESTION: So you have to wait and see if he's willing to meet with you, or you'll be able to do it in the White House?

MCCAIN: Well again I don't, all I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us, and standing up to those who are not, and that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America, and the entire region.

QUESTION: Okay... what about Europe I'm talking about the President of Spain?

MCCAIN: What about me what?

QUESTION: Okay... are you willing to meet with him if you are elected president?

MCCAIN: I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom, and I will stand up to those that do not.

McCain's campaign is trying to cover their collective ass by making out that their 72-year-old candidate meant to say this, apparently spanking Spain for doing mean things to the U.S. like pulling their military contingent out of Iraq and such. Here's the Huffington Post link that gives the McCain campaign version of things, along with the transcripts and the broadcast. (Notice that the McCain spokesman refers to Zapatero as Spain's president, rather than the prime minister.)

A big problem with that explanation is that McCain talks like he thinks Spain is part of Latin America. Or maybe not -- the radio reporter didn't get that impression. Anyway, nobody seem to know exactly what kind of fool McCain is here -- a senile Reaganesque one, a natural successor to an inflammatory fool like Bush, or some of both.

There was more foolishness in the interview. McCain's suggestion that the Calderon government in Mexico is a friend of the U.S. is a bit of a stretch. The right-leaning Mexican governments of recent years, unwilling to undertake desperately needed economic reform, have proved more than willing to export their unemployable people to the U.S., to maintain an arrogant economic oligarchy that creates that situation, and then to characterize Americans as xenophobes and bigots for questioning that condition. With friends like those, give me Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales anytime.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have a standard-bearer who can't seem to function well without a teleprompter. And he chose a shockingly unqualified small-state governor as a running mate in an obvious bid to placate the GOP fundamentalist right wing.

All this reminded me that I have a couple of good recipes for gazpacho. I hear they make it mighty tasty down in Bolivia.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

James McMurtry And Peter Anderson Tell It Like It Is: 'We Can't Make It Here Anymore'

Great award-winning song by Austin resident James McMurtry, with a 2006 video by Peter Anderson that does it justice. Posted on YouTube. -- MJ

Ever Notice There Aren't Many Libertarians After A Hurricane?

Manifesto Joe Interviews A Libertarian

Question: When natural disasters like hurricanes occur, doesn't this show the need for a reasonably strong federal government, strong in the right kinds of ways, to help those who have lost virtually everything?

Answer: A government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also powerful enough to take away everything you have.

Q: I'm talking about people who no longer have anything. It was the hurricane that took it all away. Their houses are gone. Their possessions have been swept away. To whom do they turn, if not government?

A: Themselves. This country was built by independent, resourceful, self-reliant people. The weak ones died off, and the strong survived. The pioneers weren't crybabies, whining for a handout, after locusts destroyed their crops. They tightened their belts and survived until the next crop came in.

Q: Historians say a lot of homesteaders had to go back East after catastrophes like that. And then, I doubt that they did well. We have no way of knowing how many starved or died of disease. Would a little disaster aid from a bigger federal government have been a bad thing then?

A: Those people knew the risks when they staked claims as homesteaders. Besides, remember that the land was given to them by the government. Just about anything government does, beyond the bare basics, turns out badly. And again, I'm just not concerned about weak people. Let them die off. Then, they're not a burden on taxpayers like me.

Q: This seems to have less to do with people being strong or weak as it does with people being lucky or unlucky, regarding hurricanes, locusts and such. What's your take on luck?

A: Luck has nothing to do with it. Successful people simply know how to work hard. They make their own luck.

Q: It's pretty challenging to work hard when you haven't eaten. If a swarm of locusts eats up your crops, and you have little to eat, doesn't this put you at a natural disadvantage versus someone who's "luckier"?

A: We obviously disagree about luck. Bad luck is a delusional excuse for failure. I don't know anybody who hasn't had some bad luck in their lives, but the strong work hard and overcome these obstacles. That's their natural advantage.

Q: So you're saying that some people are just naturally superior, and they deserve to survive and ultimately prosper because of natural selection? The social Darwinist thing?

A: Quite so. I have no time or money for the weak, or even the mediocre. Excellence should be the thing we cultivate. And that's best done in free markets.

Q: Back to the hurricane victims. There were a lot of swank subdivisions wiped out entirely by Ike. These were fancy homes before the storm. Aren't a lot of those folks the strong, successful ones you laud? And now back to luck. Wouldn't you say that theirs was pretty bad this time?

A: They don't need to whine about it, and I dare say many won't. They'll just rebuild.

Q: With government help?

A: In some cases, yes. But that's just people naturally taking advantage of opportunities. America is, after all, the land of opportunity.

Q: Hold the phone. You're saying it's OK for an upper-middle-class family, left homeless by a hurricane, to accept government help? Does that mean it's OK for the poor to accept it, too? According to your view, shouldn't they all be "self-reliant" and turn it down?

A: In a perfect world, that would be true. But you may have noticed that this world is far from perfect. In a perfect world, no government of any kind would be necessary.

Q: So you're admitting that government is at least a necessary evil?

A: Yes. And the best government is that which governs least. It limits itself to just taking care of the basics.

Q: Does that include disaster aid, for rich and poor alike?

A: If the aid is there -- in an imperfect world, it makes sense to take it.

Q: Did you go to college?

A: Yes.

Q: How did you pay for it?

A: I worked at part-time jobs.

Q: And that was all?

A: Well, there were student loans. I paid them all off. No thanks, of course, to the onerous tax burden from the federal government.

Q: These loans were available thanks to government programs. Legislation was passed, and funds were appropriated. This happened by design, not chance. If this hadn't happened, how would you have paid for college?

A: I would have found a way. The strong overcome obstacles.

Q: Like hurricanes?

A: Yes, to name only one kind.

Q: But you say very little good ever comes from government. Would you say that government lending you money for college resulted in something bad?

A: Even a blind sow finds an acorn now and then. There were a few people like me who took the loans and turned out well. Many just squandered the money. I saw it.

Q: I took the loans, plus grants and scholarships, paid the loans off, and haven't done badly, either. Looks like more than a few of us did well enough, paid the loans back, and got into a higher tax bracket so that we could help the next generation of less fortunate people like us. And we can also afford to help hurricane victims. But, back to education -- I've talked to young people who have told me that a lot of the college aid programs that our generation benefited from aren't there anymore. The programs were slashed again and again, and now there's not much money left. Shouldn't today's less advantaged young people have the same opportunity?

A: It's a hard world. Our generation was ...

Q: Lucky?

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

Not Only Does Palin Kill Bullwinkle, She Spends Taxpayer Money To Slaughter Wolves And Bears

By Manifesto Joe

Stated upfront, I'm not anti-hunting. In my home state of Texas, the November-December ritual of deer hunters coming out to waste Bambi does serve an ecological purpose. The land can't support all the deer here, so annual culling actually helps.

So, it didn't shock or dismay me to hear that Klondike Hottie and her family are moose hunters. But what you are about to see on this video is disturbing. As Alaska governor, Sarah Palin has a record of supporting and bankrolling, with taxpayer money, barbaric aerial hunting of wolves and bears. This was posted on YouTube by defendersactionfund:



I know this isn't going to persuade very many people who were prepared to vote Republican anyway. The modern GOP isn't known for its empathy for wild, feral animals, unless you count Ann Coulter.

But to anyone who might still be fence-sitting, take note: Sarah Palin is a public official who may not even recognize that animals feel pain. And even if she does, she obviously doesn't give a wolf's ass.

To donate to Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, here's a link. They're trying to finance the airing of a TV ad about Palin's record on this issue.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

It's Worse Than I Thought: Inside Sarah Palin's Real Church, And This Is No Joke

In my previous post, I was making sport of Sarah Palin's holy-roller roots with the snake-handling images and such. But as details emerge, the real picture isn't funny at all. It's downright frightening. The Pentecostal church she belonged to, and basically grew up in, is linked to the "Third Wave" movement that has long been condemned by even the main line of Assemblies of God as heretical.

This was posted on YouTube by bruceewilson:



And, here's a link for more on the subject. -- MJ

Inside Sarah Palin's Church: They Believe Prayer Can Convert Gays Into Straights

By Manifesto Joe

You read it right. Yahoo! News ran a piece from The Associated Press delving into Sarah Palin's background in organized religion. She used to be a Pentecostal (Assemblies of God).

You know -- it's that highly emotional Protestant denomination that is OK with speaking in unknown tongues and faith healing. Where I come from they are often referred to as "holy rollers" because of their habit of writhing about in the aisles when possessed by the Holy Spirit.

A few years ago she sort of switched to an "independent evangelical" church. (I thought that was basically what Pentecostals are.)

But, her current church embraces -- pardon the choice of words -- the Focus on the Family program that stresses prayer to help homosexuals become heterosexual. (But not practicing hetero until after marriage, of course.)

My question is: After this miracle of conversion, do they still have to handle the snakes?



There are subgroups among Pentecostals, mainly those in the South and Appalachian regions, that are into handling venomous serpents. Members have also been known to drink strychnine as a demonstration of faith.



Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.