By Manifesto Joe
The problem is, how would we know that it wasn't a fake?
I guess that means that "The Donald" and all the rest of us will have to see the bullet-riddled body. But if the face has been shot to pieces, how would we know that Special Forces didn't just dredge up some 6-foot-4, skinny Arab for target practice? How would we know that Osama isn't actually still alive, scarfing hummus and falafel and advising that closet Muslim in the White House?
Well, by now I suspect you get the point of this sarcasm.
Any credit here for Obama?
Barack Obama seemed downright presidential Sunday night while announcing this big score of scores. But will he get any credit? If you watch Fox "News" during the next week, I'll bet that Il Doofus gets much more credit than Obama will. And Bush 43 couldn't get this guy for over seven years -- in fact, Bush diverted U.S. attention away from bin Laden and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region with his rogue-nation invasion of Iraq. That cost this country countless billions, some of which should have been focused on a terrorist network that actually attacked us. And according to some estimates, it cost over a million Iraqi lives.
I hope that the American people have sense enough to know that this day should have come much sooner, and likely would have, if the country's priorities hadn't been grotesquely and viciously distorted by ruthless, self-serving people.
This post is going to strike some people as irreverent and brutal. Sometimes honesty has an unfortunate way of sounding like that.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Monday, October 18, 2010
From Joe's Vault, 9/21/08: This Is One Time I Sincerely Wish I'd Been Wrong
An Era Of Re-Regulation? Progressives Shouldn't Celebrate Too Soon
Sorry that the links didn't copy. You can find them on the original post.
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.
Sorry that the links didn't copy. You can find them on the original post.
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.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Obama's Vacation: Have The Republicans, At Long Last, No Sense Of Decency?
By Manifesto Joe
It's not enough that Republicans oppose anything and everything that might address the country's socioeconomic ills.
President Obama can't even go on vacation. The minute he and his family landed at Martha's Vineyard, these ludicrous hypocrites started calling him "the Clark Griswold president" -- a reference to the character played by Chevy Chase in the National Lampoon vacation movie series.
I suppose that if one is a ruthless, disingenuous, opportunistic gob of political pond scum, it's a good gamble that the American people, at least enough of them, are this stupid and also suffer from amnesia. Given the huge success that the right wing of the Republican Party has had at the polls over the past 30 years, there must be some truth to this.
But how many of us have forgotten Il Doofus, and how much time he spent on vacation in that prairie oasis of Crawford, Texas? Not everyone, and certainly not me.
In the first place, anybody who would want to spend an August vacation in Central Texas has got to be a drooling idiot. Where I live in Texas, today it was something like 110 in the shade this afternoon. I had to spend some time outdoors earlier, and it felt like a sauna out there. I sweated out a fresh shirt in less than an hour. At least the Obamas have the good sense to go up north to Martha's Vineyard in August. That's evidence of their intelligence.
Then, let's look at the numbers. This is from a Washington Post article:
Veteran CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, a fastidious keeper of presidential statistics, has kept count. By his tally, Obama has embarked on nine "vacations" since taking office, bringing his total days off to 48. Some of those trips lasted a day and some, like his Christmas holiday in Hawaii, more than a week.
By comparison, Bush had visited his ranch in Crawford, Tex., 14 times at this point in his administration and spent 115 days there. And yes, Democrats let him have it, too, complaining that he was a chronic vacationer.
White House advisers made clear in the days leading up to this getaway that a president, especially a wartime president overseeing a country in the grips of economic distress, is never really on vacation.
Here's a link to the entire article.
There are plenty of grave political issues to argue about right now. This isn't one of them. But this illustrates how low, slimy and contemptible the Republican right wing has become, that they would begrudge a president of the opposing party a few rounds of golf, reading time, and some precious time with his family. Il Doofus was on vacation on Aug. 6, 2001, when he was warned that a terrorist attack on U.S. soil was imminent. He stayed in Crawford for a month after that. Funny how the Republicans never mention any of that.
The world suffers from the staggering number of people in it who are stupid, or lacking in moral character, or both. And, unfortunately, there are also a good many who have plenty of moral character on a personal level but have trouble thinking their way through a grocery list.
As long as there are all of the above in America, there will be a Republican Party. And that's sad, because the U.S. needs a responsible conservative political party, and a responsible opposition party. Right now, it has neither.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
It's not enough that Republicans oppose anything and everything that might address the country's socioeconomic ills.
President Obama can't even go on vacation. The minute he and his family landed at Martha's Vineyard, these ludicrous hypocrites started calling him "the Clark Griswold president" -- a reference to the character played by Chevy Chase in the National Lampoon vacation movie series.
I suppose that if one is a ruthless, disingenuous, opportunistic gob of political pond scum, it's a good gamble that the American people, at least enough of them, are this stupid and also suffer from amnesia. Given the huge success that the right wing of the Republican Party has had at the polls over the past 30 years, there must be some truth to this.
But how many of us have forgotten Il Doofus, and how much time he spent on vacation in that prairie oasis of Crawford, Texas? Not everyone, and certainly not me.
In the first place, anybody who would want to spend an August vacation in Central Texas has got to be a drooling idiot. Where I live in Texas, today it was something like 110 in the shade this afternoon. I had to spend some time outdoors earlier, and it felt like a sauna out there. I sweated out a fresh shirt in less than an hour. At least the Obamas have the good sense to go up north to Martha's Vineyard in August. That's evidence of their intelligence.
Then, let's look at the numbers. This is from a Washington Post article:
Veteran CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, a fastidious keeper of presidential statistics, has kept count. By his tally, Obama has embarked on nine "vacations" since taking office, bringing his total days off to 48. Some of those trips lasted a day and some, like his Christmas holiday in Hawaii, more than a week.
By comparison, Bush had visited his ranch in Crawford, Tex., 14 times at this point in his administration and spent 115 days there. And yes, Democrats let him have it, too, complaining that he was a chronic vacationer.
White House advisers made clear in the days leading up to this getaway that a president, especially a wartime president overseeing a country in the grips of economic distress, is never really on vacation.
Here's a link to the entire article.
There are plenty of grave political issues to argue about right now. This isn't one of them. But this illustrates how low, slimy and contemptible the Republican right wing has become, that they would begrudge a president of the opposing party a few rounds of golf, reading time, and some precious time with his family. Il Doofus was on vacation on Aug. 6, 2001, when he was warned that a terrorist attack on U.S. soil was imminent. He stayed in Crawford for a month after that. Funny how the Republicans never mention any of that.
The world suffers from the staggering number of people in it who are stupid, or lacking in moral character, or both. And, unfortunately, there are also a good many who have plenty of moral character on a personal level but have trouble thinking their way through a grocery list.
As long as there are all of the above in America, there will be a Republican Party. And that's sad, because the U.S. needs a responsible conservative political party, and a responsible opposition party. Right now, it has neither.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Do You Miss Chimpy Yet?
By Manifesto Joe
THE GHOST OF IL DOOFUS STILL WORKS HERE.
I have a right-wing relative who provided me with this priceless photo of Il Doofus. It has been circulating on e-mail among right-wingers. It's odd -- I couldn't have gotten a better favor from a left-wing blog bud.
The main problem I have with Barack Obama is that he's been entirely too nice. So far, he's erred mainly on the side of good manners. As so many Democrats have unfortunately done over the years, and decades, he brought a pair of boxing gloves to a knife fight.
But, even with Obama's early foibles -- do I miss The Monkey Man? Do I miss being crudely lied to, fleeced in taxes for a war that would have been ludicrous had it not been so deadly for so many? Do I miss the wholesale looting of the country for the benefit of the superrich? Do I miss cringing when I hear a man who is supposed to be our president, and he can barely speak English?
The answer, quite unequivocally, is NO, NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO!
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
THE GHOST OF IL DOOFUS STILL WORKS HERE.I have a right-wing relative who provided me with this priceless photo of Il Doofus. It has been circulating on e-mail among right-wingers. It's odd -- I couldn't have gotten a better favor from a left-wing blog bud.
The main problem I have with Barack Obama is that he's been entirely too nice. So far, he's erred mainly on the side of good manners. As so many Democrats have unfortunately done over the years, and decades, he brought a pair of boxing gloves to a knife fight.
But, even with Obama's early foibles -- do I miss The Monkey Man? Do I miss being crudely lied to, fleeced in taxes for a war that would have been ludicrous had it not been so deadly for so many? Do I miss the wholesale looting of the country for the benefit of the superrich? Do I miss cringing when I hear a man who is supposed to be our president, and he can barely speak English?
The answer, quite unequivocally, is NO, NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO!
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Advice For Obama About Iraq: Voices From The Past
By Manifesto Joe
President Barack Obama has made clear that, while he isn't going to do anything rash, he intends to make a clean break from many Bush administration policies, and in particular those regarding the Iraq war. That sounds like great news to me.
But, I'm a believer in history, and in the lessons of context that it teaches. It's a good idea to listen to voices of experience, from the past, and Obama should heed them. Here are a couple:
"If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein, you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's current there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?"
Then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, in 1991.
"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq ... Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different -- and perhaps barren -- outcome."
Former President George H.W. Bush and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, in their book "A World Transformed" (1998).
It all seems a bit confusing. But I am hopeful that President Obama is a student of history and can learn from it. Clearly, our rulers of the past eight years have been astonishingly oblivious to its lessons.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
President Barack Obama has made clear that, while he isn't going to do anything rash, he intends to make a clean break from many Bush administration policies, and in particular those regarding the Iraq war. That sounds like great news to me.
But, I'm a believer in history, and in the lessons of context that it teaches. It's a good idea to listen to voices of experience, from the past, and Obama should heed them. Here are a couple:
"If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein, you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's current there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?"
Then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, in 1991.
"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq ... Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different -- and perhaps barren -- outcome."
Former President George H.W. Bush and former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, in their book "A World Transformed" (1998).
It all seems a bit confusing. But I am hopeful that President Obama is a student of history and can learn from it. Clearly, our rulers of the past eight years have been astonishingly oblivious to its lessons.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Bush's Final Days, Part 4: Doo-fus! Doo-fus! Doo-fus! ...
By Manifesto Joe
Get those extended-forearm salutes up, loyal subjects. Il Doofus has spoken, ostensibly for the last time.
I have to admit that, in his Thursday night farewell address to the nation, Bush and his speechwriters put the best possible face on myriad historic disasters. (See attached video of some of the speech, from MSNBC.) It almost made the manure palatable. Fortunately, not everyone's memory is that short. (See second attached video.)
During the debates on Bush's role in history -- like, is he the worst U.S. president of all time? -- there were comparisons made with presidents who were generally regarded as ineffectual. Such officeholders would be Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and a couple of others.
I can't find who it was, but one historian said that being ineffectual was never Bush's problem. Il Doofus, he explained, has really been quite effective -- at pursuing disastrous policies. Over and over. And over again.
And then, I will add, proclaiming them successes.
It's past 11, but here's the film anyway:
Now, for equal time, here's Scotty McClellan on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC Countdown show, at long last being something resembling an honest man.
Four days to go.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Get those extended-forearm salutes up, loyal subjects. Il Doofus has spoken, ostensibly for the last time.
I have to admit that, in his Thursday night farewell address to the nation, Bush and his speechwriters put the best possible face on myriad historic disasters. (See attached video of some of the speech, from MSNBC.) It almost made the manure palatable. Fortunately, not everyone's memory is that short. (See second attached video.)
During the debates on Bush's role in history -- like, is he the worst U.S. president of all time? -- there were comparisons made with presidents who were generally regarded as ineffectual. Such officeholders would be Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and a couple of others.
I can't find who it was, but one historian said that being ineffectual was never Bush's problem. Il Doofus, he explained, has really been quite effective -- at pursuing disastrous policies. Over and over. And over again.
And then, I will add, proclaiming them successes.
It's past 11, but here's the film anyway:
Now, for equal time, here's Scotty McClellan on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC Countdown show, at long last being something resembling an honest man.
Four days to go.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Bush's Final Days, Part 3: On Katrina Response, Stunningly Delusional
By Manifesto Joe
Il Doofus held his final D.C. press conference Monday, and used the occasion to try to rewrite history per the events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. People who were paying attention back then remember this as a turning point in public perception of Bush. He certainly wasn't exposed as incompetent for the first time, but that time was somehow most telling. FEMA's resources had been slowly gutted over years, and he had put unqualified political hacks in charge of a crucial agency.
Here's video from last night; and mind you, this is coming through the MSM looking glass. From Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN:
Another thing to remember is the role of the National Guard during natural disasters such as hurricanes. Because the U.S. has relied heavily upon Guard troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Guard wasn't exactly prepared to respond to a disaster as incredible as Katrina. Let's take a trip back to 2005, courtesy again of the MSM:
And, long after the initial destruction, things just didn't seem to get much better in New Orleans or surrounding parts of the Gulf Coast:
Now -- here's what Il Doofus had to say to the Washington press corps in his final conference with them, as reported by The Associated Press:
"Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there were 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed. ... Could things been done better? Absolutely. But when I hear people say the federal response was slow, what are they going to say to those chopper drivers or the 30,000 who got pulled off the roof?"
Well -- judge for yourself. Delusional, or just a common liar?
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Il Doofus held his final D.C. press conference Monday, and used the occasion to try to rewrite history per the events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. People who were paying attention back then remember this as a turning point in public perception of Bush. He certainly wasn't exposed as incompetent for the first time, but that time was somehow most telling. FEMA's resources had been slowly gutted over years, and he had put unqualified political hacks in charge of a crucial agency.
Here's video from last night; and mind you, this is coming through the MSM looking glass. From Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN:
Another thing to remember is the role of the National Guard during natural disasters such as hurricanes. Because the U.S. has relied heavily upon Guard troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Guard wasn't exactly prepared to respond to a disaster as incredible as Katrina. Let's take a trip back to 2005, courtesy again of the MSM:
And, long after the initial destruction, things just didn't seem to get much better in New Orleans or surrounding parts of the Gulf Coast:
Now -- here's what Il Doofus had to say to the Washington press corps in his final conference with them, as reported by The Associated Press:
"Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there were 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed. ... Could things been done better? Absolutely. But when I hear people say the federal response was slow, what are they going to say to those chopper drivers or the 30,000 who got pulled off the roof?"
Well -- judge for yourself. Delusional, or just a common liar?
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Bush's Final Days, Part 2: Shoulder Massages And Instant Nostalgia
By Manifesto Joe
One of the stated purposes of my blog is to remind everyone that Bush isn't really from Texas. Not that our bragging rights down here have ever been all that great, but it would be good for the rest of the country to know that not all genuine Texans are that dumb.
This was originally posted April 2, 2008. It's a concise reminder of how Bush, that Yale and Harvard grad with the frat-rat manners and oilfield-trash affectations, embarrassed Texas, the nation, and most of all, himself. And this was just one of many examples.
There's been a news report that German Chancellor Angela Merkel does not plan to attend the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing because of China's human rights record.
George W. Bush, the report said, plans to be there. It's my theory that Merkel isn't going to show because she doesn't want another of those shoulder massages like Bush gave her a couple of years ago at the G-8 Summit.
I wonder, did he call her Merkie-Merk? -- MJ
One of the stated purposes of my blog is to remind everyone that Bush isn't really from Texas. Not that our bragging rights down here have ever been all that great, but it would be good for the rest of the country to know that not all genuine Texans are that dumb.
This was originally posted April 2, 2008. It's a concise reminder of how Bush, that Yale and Harvard grad with the frat-rat manners and oilfield-trash affectations, embarrassed Texas, the nation, and most of all, himself. And this was just one of many examples.
There's been a news report that German Chancellor Angela Merkel does not plan to attend the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing because of China's human rights record.
George W. Bush, the report said, plans to be there. It's my theory that Merkel isn't going to show because she doesn't want another of those shoulder massages like Bush gave her a couple of years ago at the G-8 Summit.
I wonder, did he call her Merkie-Merk? -- MJ
Saturday, January 10, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, December 15, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Thanks To Bush, U.S. Has Little Moral Authority To Lecture Russia Now
By Manifesto Joe
Morally, it was easier, before Bush. The U.S. never exactly had a spotless record on international (or domestic) aggression, but there were usually ample rationalizations to which one could point. In 2008, there are few rationalizations left, so it sounds ludicrous for American officials to try to scold Russia over the invasion of neighboring Georgia.
Until Il Doofus and the Neocons engineered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were usually at least some convoluted reasons trotted out as to why the U.S. did certain unsavory things, and the reasons even held up as folklore. (Yes, I know there are still plenty of morons who think Saddam Hussein was behind the 9-11 attacks, but for now let's confine the debate to participants who can actually think.)
Let's review some history. War with Spain in 1898 was supposed to have been precipitated in part by the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, though in hindsight it's far-fetched that Spain had anything to do with that. Cuba was very near, and home to many U.S. interests, so with an insurrection there was a great opportunity to kick Spaniard ass and steal some colonies. We made a casino/plantation/whorehouse out of Cuba for 60 years, and killed a million Filipinos while subjugating their country.
Later, our Marines were in Nicaragua so many times, chasing Sandino and his ilk around, that they should have just renamed the place Camp Lejeune South. We violated sovereign territory down that direction as often as United Fruit Co. could think of a reason.
There are those who think of the Vietnam War as a flat-out invasion of Vietnam by the U.S. The rationale was, of course, that it was part of the larger Cold War against communism. That was the argument that die-hards still cling to today -- the reason it was supposed to be OK to prop up a succession of puppet autocracies in the south, doggedly pursue a war that killed some 3 million Vietnamese, poison the countryside for generations and divide our own country for -- yes, generations. We wuz a-fightin' common-ism.
Let's see -- there were CIA-engineered or CIA-aided regime changes in countries like Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973) and others. There were invasions of Panama, Grenada, Cambodia, Laos ...
So far, I'm just hitting "high" points that go back to 1898. It goes back further. There was a war with Mexico that made it possible for me and my forebears to reside in this paradise of the Lone Star State, under American protection. And then, there were those pesky Comanches who once lived just about where I sit, long before Hernando Cortes was a gleam in his daddy's eye. You generally have to drive up to Lawton, Oklahoma to see a live Comanche now, and they look pretty damned depressed, what's left of them.
Not to belabor this -- but the U.S. really didn't have all that damn much moral authority on the world stage B.B. (Before Bush) Arguably, we had our own holocausts, our own wars of conquest, our own slaughters and subjugation of peoples. I won't even start on slavery.
But, at certain points in the 20th century, America seemed to stand tall. We led the alliance that defeated German Nazism, and also Japanese and Italian fascism. The folly of Vietnam aside, we led a very long fight against Stalinist communism in an eerie new kind of war, and won. After a century of post-slavery Jim Crow, we reformed this society's racist heritage to such an extent that our next president may be a man of mixed race. There is much to be proud of here.
A lot has changed since 2003. When Il Doofus and his accomplices manufactured reasons for an invasion of Iraq, they all but destroyed what was left of U.S. moral authority on the world stage. A lot of people recalled that Saddam Hussein was our ally in the '80s, and that we even supplied him with the WMDs he used on the Kurds. Just what made Saddam so alarmingly evil to us, 15 years after? Perhaps it was all that oil he was sitting on, and that we couldn't get to as long as he was there.
That was an invasion of a sovereign nation, albeit a dictatorship, with flimsy rationale that have been discredited and perhaps even exposed as deliberate lies. About a million people and counting have died as a direct result, and the number of refugees can't be accurately estimated.
Now, George W. Bush musters enough chutzpah to say something like, "Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people."
First, one could question whether the latter part of that sentence even describes the contemporary United States. But given the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the continued U.S. occupation, can a sane, reasonably informed person think that most of the world even begins to take him seriously?
One thing is certain: Vladimir Putin and his puppet successor as Russian prez do not. I've been convinced for years that Putin and his wife tell Bush jokes in private. Just imagine what the jesting is like now.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Morally, it was easier, before Bush. The U.S. never exactly had a spotless record on international (or domestic) aggression, but there were usually ample rationalizations to which one could point. In 2008, there are few rationalizations left, so it sounds ludicrous for American officials to try to scold Russia over the invasion of neighboring Georgia.
Until Il Doofus and the Neocons engineered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were usually at least some convoluted reasons trotted out as to why the U.S. did certain unsavory things, and the reasons even held up as folklore. (Yes, I know there are still plenty of morons who think Saddam Hussein was behind the 9-11 attacks, but for now let's confine the debate to participants who can actually think.)
Let's review some history. War with Spain in 1898 was supposed to have been precipitated in part by the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, though in hindsight it's far-fetched that Spain had anything to do with that. Cuba was very near, and home to many U.S. interests, so with an insurrection there was a great opportunity to kick Spaniard ass and steal some colonies. We made a casino/plantation/whorehouse out of Cuba for 60 years, and killed a million Filipinos while subjugating their country.
Later, our Marines were in Nicaragua so many times, chasing Sandino and his ilk around, that they should have just renamed the place Camp Lejeune South. We violated sovereign territory down that direction as often as United Fruit Co. could think of a reason.
There are those who think of the Vietnam War as a flat-out invasion of Vietnam by the U.S. The rationale was, of course, that it was part of the larger Cold War against communism. That was the argument that die-hards still cling to today -- the reason it was supposed to be OK to prop up a succession of puppet autocracies in the south, doggedly pursue a war that killed some 3 million Vietnamese, poison the countryside for generations and divide our own country for -- yes, generations. We wuz a-fightin' common-ism.
Let's see -- there were CIA-engineered or CIA-aided regime changes in countries like Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973) and others. There were invasions of Panama, Grenada, Cambodia, Laos ...
So far, I'm just hitting "high" points that go back to 1898. It goes back further. There was a war with Mexico that made it possible for me and my forebears to reside in this paradise of the Lone Star State, under American protection. And then, there were those pesky Comanches who once lived just about where I sit, long before Hernando Cortes was a gleam in his daddy's eye. You generally have to drive up to Lawton, Oklahoma to see a live Comanche now, and they look pretty damned depressed, what's left of them.
Not to belabor this -- but the U.S. really didn't have all that damn much moral authority on the world stage B.B. (Before Bush) Arguably, we had our own holocausts, our own wars of conquest, our own slaughters and subjugation of peoples. I won't even start on slavery.
But, at certain points in the 20th century, America seemed to stand tall. We led the alliance that defeated German Nazism, and also Japanese and Italian fascism. The folly of Vietnam aside, we led a very long fight against Stalinist communism in an eerie new kind of war, and won. After a century of post-slavery Jim Crow, we reformed this society's racist heritage to such an extent that our next president may be a man of mixed race. There is much to be proud of here.
A lot has changed since 2003. When Il Doofus and his accomplices manufactured reasons for an invasion of Iraq, they all but destroyed what was left of U.S. moral authority on the world stage. A lot of people recalled that Saddam Hussein was our ally in the '80s, and that we even supplied him with the WMDs he used on the Kurds. Just what made Saddam so alarmingly evil to us, 15 years after? Perhaps it was all that oil he was sitting on, and that we couldn't get to as long as he was there.
That was an invasion of a sovereign nation, albeit a dictatorship, with flimsy rationale that have been discredited and perhaps even exposed as deliberate lies. About a million people and counting have died as a direct result, and the number of refugees can't be accurately estimated.
Now, George W. Bush musters enough chutzpah to say something like, "Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people."
First, one could question whether the latter part of that sentence even describes the contemporary United States. But given the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the continued U.S. occupation, can a sane, reasonably informed person think that most of the world even begins to take him seriously?
One thing is certain: Vladimir Putin and his puppet successor as Russian prez do not. I've been convinced for years that Putin and his wife tell Bush jokes in private. Just imagine what the jesting is like now.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, April 28, 2008
World Food Riots: When The 'Free' Market Starves Many Millions
By Manifesto Joe
"Free" market dogma and stereotypes have long portrayed "socialism" and protectionism as ideologies that bring only poverty and hunger to nations. There is some modest historical evidence for that case. Yet now, after decades of globalization, neoliberalism, deregulation, tearing down trade barriers and such, world food prices are alarmingly inflated. Food riots are erupting all over the developing world.
The Bush administration's response to a suddenly burgeoning crisis has been predictably pathetic. Congress has been ineffectual as well. The modern agricultural marketplace, with aggressive and skewed export policies and overemphasis on "free" trade, has brought the U.S. and the world the latest in a cluster of existential crises.
Well-fed Americans can truly no longer just look the other way while many millions around the globe go hungry. World hunger is a threat to our own national security.
Oakland Institute Executive Director Anuradha Mittal, writing for AlterNet, reports:
World food prices rose by 39 percent in the last year. Rice alone rose to a 19-year high in March - an increase of 50 per cent in two weeks alone - while the real price of wheat has hit a 28-year high.
As a result, food riots erupted in Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Mauritania, Mexico, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. For the 3 billion people in the world who subsist on $2 a day or less, the leap in food prices is a killer. They spend a majority of their income on food, and when the price goes up, they can't afford to feed themselves or their families.
Analysts have pointed to some obvious causes, such as increased demand from China and India, whose economies are booming. Rising fuel and fertilizer costs, increased use of bio-fuels and climate change have all played a part.
But less obvious causes have also had a profound effect on food prices.
Over the last few decades, the United States, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have used their leverage to impose devastating policies on developing countries. By requiring countries to open up their agriculture market to giant multinational companies, by insisting that countries dismantle their marketing boards and by persuading them to specialize in exportable cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, cotton and even flowers, they have driven the poorest countries into a downward spiral.
In the last thirty years, developing countries that used to be self-sufficient in food have turned into large food importers. Dismantling of marketing boards that kept commodities in a rolling stock to be released in event of a bad harvest, thus protecting both producers and consumers against sharp rises or drops in prices, has further worsened the situation.
Those policies of marketing boards, of keeping commodities in a rolling stock in the event of a poor harvest, sound a lot like Keynesian economics in principle, do they not? It's analogous to, in government fiscal policy, running a surplus in good times and a deficit in bad. That's classic Keynes.
Regulation and planning, when done judiciously, moderately and in the genuine public interest, are suddenly looking very wise. Too bad so few people have been heeding that viewpoint for the past 30 years.
From The Washington Post, we have a report on what the Beltway People are doing. The report:
The Bush administration and Congress have been caught flat-footed by rapidly escalating global food prices and are scrambling to respond to a crisis that they increasingly view as a threat to U.S. national security, according to government officials, congressional staffers and human rights experts.
(Never mind all those hungry bellies. National security is Job One.)
The White House released $200 million in emergency wheat stores for developing countries last week ...
Top Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are pressing the White House to devote more money to emergency food aid ...
But administration officials and legislative aides acknowledge that they have only recently begun to focus on the severity of the problem, and humanitarian groups fear that assistance from the United States, which supplies about half of the world's total food aid, may come too late to provide much benefit in the near term.
It is an especially horrible problem in Haiti, one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest countries. Local rice production has been gradually undermined by "market" preference for exports from Florida, rendering the nation much less able to feed its struggling population than ever before. The crisis recently cost Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis his job.
Poor people down there are literally eating cookies made partially from mud. I'm not joking; there are stories and photos about this. Impoverished Haitians are really doing anything, and everything, that can be done to fill empty bellies.
Welcome to the New World Order -- it's a lot different from the one advertised 15 or 20 years ago. Most of the world literally got f**ked on the altar of "free" enterprise and globalism.
Mittal goes on to make what seem like very sane suggestions to prevent mass starvation:
First, it is essential to have safety nets and public distribution systems put in place. Donor countries should provide more aid immediately to support government efforts in poor countries and respond to appeals from U.N. agencies, which are desperately seeking $500 million by May 1.
Second, we should help affected countries develop their agricultural sectors to feed more of their own people and decrease their dependence on food imports. We should promote production and consumption of local crops raised by small, sustainable farms instead of growing cash crops for western markets. And we should support a country's effort to manage stocks and pricing so as to limit the volatility of food prices.
To embrace these crucial policies, however, we need to stop worshipping the golden calf of the so-called free market and embrace, instead, the principle of food sovereignty. Every country and every people have a right to food that is affordable. When the market deprives them of this, it is the market that has to give.
Amen, bro. Now try telling that to American Republicans, and in particular to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. You know, one of the three people from among whom we will choose the next U.S. president. That's a chilling thought.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
"Free" market dogma and stereotypes have long portrayed "socialism" and protectionism as ideologies that bring only poverty and hunger to nations. There is some modest historical evidence for that case. Yet now, after decades of globalization, neoliberalism, deregulation, tearing down trade barriers and such, world food prices are alarmingly inflated. Food riots are erupting all over the developing world.
The Bush administration's response to a suddenly burgeoning crisis has been predictably pathetic. Congress has been ineffectual as well. The modern agricultural marketplace, with aggressive and skewed export policies and overemphasis on "free" trade, has brought the U.S. and the world the latest in a cluster of existential crises.
Well-fed Americans can truly no longer just look the other way while many millions around the globe go hungry. World hunger is a threat to our own national security.
Oakland Institute Executive Director Anuradha Mittal, writing for AlterNet, reports:
World food prices rose by 39 percent in the last year. Rice alone rose to a 19-year high in March - an increase of 50 per cent in two weeks alone - while the real price of wheat has hit a 28-year high.
As a result, food riots erupted in Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Mauritania, Mexico, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. For the 3 billion people in the world who subsist on $2 a day or less, the leap in food prices is a killer. They spend a majority of their income on food, and when the price goes up, they can't afford to feed themselves or their families.
Analysts have pointed to some obvious causes, such as increased demand from China and India, whose economies are booming. Rising fuel and fertilizer costs, increased use of bio-fuels and climate change have all played a part.
But less obvious causes have also had a profound effect on food prices.
Over the last few decades, the United States, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have used their leverage to impose devastating policies on developing countries. By requiring countries to open up their agriculture market to giant multinational companies, by insisting that countries dismantle their marketing boards and by persuading them to specialize in exportable cash crops such as coffee, cocoa, cotton and even flowers, they have driven the poorest countries into a downward spiral.
In the last thirty years, developing countries that used to be self-sufficient in food have turned into large food importers. Dismantling of marketing boards that kept commodities in a rolling stock to be released in event of a bad harvest, thus protecting both producers and consumers against sharp rises or drops in prices, has further worsened the situation.
Those policies of marketing boards, of keeping commodities in a rolling stock in the event of a poor harvest, sound a lot like Keynesian economics in principle, do they not? It's analogous to, in government fiscal policy, running a surplus in good times and a deficit in bad. That's classic Keynes.
Regulation and planning, when done judiciously, moderately and in the genuine public interest, are suddenly looking very wise. Too bad so few people have been heeding that viewpoint for the past 30 years.
From The Washington Post, we have a report on what the Beltway People are doing. The report:
The Bush administration and Congress have been caught flat-footed by rapidly escalating global food prices and are scrambling to respond to a crisis that they increasingly view as a threat to U.S. national security, according to government officials, congressional staffers and human rights experts.
(Never mind all those hungry bellies. National security is Job One.)
The White House released $200 million in emergency wheat stores for developing countries last week ...
Top Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are pressing the White House to devote more money to emergency food aid ...
But administration officials and legislative aides acknowledge that they have only recently begun to focus on the severity of the problem, and humanitarian groups fear that assistance from the United States, which supplies about half of the world's total food aid, may come too late to provide much benefit in the near term.
It is an especially horrible problem in Haiti, one of the Western Hemisphere's poorest countries. Local rice production has been gradually undermined by "market" preference for exports from Florida, rendering the nation much less able to feed its struggling population than ever before. The crisis recently cost Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis his job.
Poor people down there are literally eating cookies made partially from mud. I'm not joking; there are stories and photos about this. Impoverished Haitians are really doing anything, and everything, that can be done to fill empty bellies.
Welcome to the New World Order -- it's a lot different from the one advertised 15 or 20 years ago. Most of the world literally got f**ked on the altar of "free" enterprise and globalism.
Mittal goes on to make what seem like very sane suggestions to prevent mass starvation:
First, it is essential to have safety nets and public distribution systems put in place. Donor countries should provide more aid immediately to support government efforts in poor countries and respond to appeals from U.N. agencies, which are desperately seeking $500 million by May 1.
Second, we should help affected countries develop their agricultural sectors to feed more of their own people and decrease their dependence on food imports. We should promote production and consumption of local crops raised by small, sustainable farms instead of growing cash crops for western markets. And we should support a country's effort to manage stocks and pricing so as to limit the volatility of food prices.
To embrace these crucial policies, however, we need to stop worshipping the golden calf of the so-called free market and embrace, instead, the principle of food sovereignty. Every country and every people have a right to food that is affordable. When the market deprives them of this, it is the market that has to give.
Amen, bro. Now try telling that to American Republicans, and in particular to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. You know, one of the three people from among whom we will choose the next U.S. president. That's a chilling thought.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Blast From The Recent Past: Olbermann Calls Il Doofus A Fascist
I missed this when it came out in February, after that "spontaneous" Republican walkout from the House. It's a good enough comment to do a redux now, many weeks later. This was posted on YouTube on Valentine's Day by CSPANJUNKIEdotORG.
Just how long the media moguls are going to let Keith Olbermann do this sort of thing on MSNBC is a question to ponder. In many places, he would not merely be suspended or fired. He would go to a concentration camp, or perhaps just disappear. The Pinochet regime in Chile had a trick, I've read, where they would just fly a plane off the coast, with a suspected dissident on board, then just eject the person over open water. Like, we'll let the sharks do the rest.
Well, on with the show, this is it. -- MJ:
Just how long the media moguls are going to let Keith Olbermann do this sort of thing on MSNBC is a question to ponder. In many places, he would not merely be suspended or fired. He would go to a concentration camp, or perhaps just disappear. The Pinochet regime in Chile had a trick, I've read, where they would just fly a plane off the coast, with a suspected dissident on board, then just eject the person over open water. Like, we'll let the sharks do the rest.
Well, on with the show, this is it. -- MJ:
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Manifesto Joe's Great Moments In Conservative History, Chapter 7: Bush Turns Masher
There's been a news report that German Chancellor Angela Merkel does not plan to attend the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing because of China's human rights record.
George W. Bush, the report said, plans to be there. It's my theory that Merkel isn't going to show because she doesn't want another of those shoulder massages like Bush gave her a couple of years ago at the G-8 Summit.
I wonder, did he call her Merkie-Merk? -- MJ
George W. Bush, the report said, plans to be there. It's my theory that Merkel isn't going to show because she doesn't want another of those shoulder massages like Bush gave her a couple of years ago at the G-8 Summit.
I wonder, did he call her Merkie-Merk? -- MJ
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Bush's Bully-Boy Antics Cost U.S. Dearly Among Allies In Iraq Run-Up
By Manifesto Joe
Here's yet another signpost of the worst U.S. presidency in 150 years. According to a forthcoming book by leading Chilean diplomat Heraldo Munoz, the Bush administration threatened trade sanctions -- among other things -- against allied governments that, during the run-up, declined to support a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The threats of reprisals, the spying, and all the other little nasties, Munoz wrote in a book due out next month, have cost the U.S. very dearly in credibility, good will, and leadership standing among our allies since war drums started beating back in 2002.
The Washington Post report was, in part, as follows:
UNITED NATIONS -- In the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries who withheld their support, spied on its allies, and pressed for the recall of U.N. envoys that resisted U.S. pressure to endorse the war, according to an upcoming book by a top Chilean diplomat.
The rough-and-tumble diplomatic strategy has generated lasting "bitterness" and "deep mistrust" in Washington's relations with allies in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, Heraldo Munoz, Chile's ambassador to the United Nations, writes in his book "A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons," set for publication next month.
"In the aftermath of the invasion, allies loyal to the United States were rejected, mocked and even punished" for their refusal to back a U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Saddam Hussein's government, Munoz writes.
But this schoolyard-bully act couldn't go on indefinitely. After the invasion, when the war situation just kept getting worse, Bush had to wag his tail like a sniveling cur
and suck back up to all the "allied" governments he had pissed off in such a cavalier manner. More from WaPo:
But the tough talk dissipated as the war situation worsened, and President Bush came to reach out to many of the same allies that he had spurned. Munoz's account suggests that the U.S. strategy backfired in Latin America, damaging the administration's standing in a region that has long been dubious of U.S. military intervention.
The U.S. was already running short of friends in Latin America, for reasons that go back over a century in our respective histories. I suppose a hardened cynic might think that those south of the border should be used to American intervention by now. Our Marines have been in Nicaragua so many times, they should perhaps rename the country "Camp LeJeune South."
Anyway, in a time when leftist, anti-American (well, at least anti-Bush) governments are ascendant in the region, the high jinks over Iraq couldn't have helped matters.
You can read the entire WaPo story here.
This administration's problem -- well, one among an infinite number -- is that they keep goosestepping through the pasture in their jackboots, expecting others to follow, and even for the others to do the wiping up after the mess is made.
Most of the world could see the utter foolishness of the Iraq invasion before the fact. Bush, buoyed by pathological liar VP Dick Cheney and groveling high-class prostitute Colin Powell, led the U.S. and some of the rest of the world into this, sound advice be damned.
This is just one more chapter in the travesty. But I hope Munoz's account will circulate and somehow hasten an end to the grotesque chapter in world history that the Iraq war has been.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Here's yet another signpost of the worst U.S. presidency in 150 years. According to a forthcoming book by leading Chilean diplomat Heraldo Munoz, the Bush administration threatened trade sanctions -- among other things -- against allied governments that, during the run-up, declined to support a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The threats of reprisals, the spying, and all the other little nasties, Munoz wrote in a book due out next month, have cost the U.S. very dearly in credibility, good will, and leadership standing among our allies since war drums started beating back in 2002.
The Washington Post report was, in part, as follows:
UNITED NATIONS -- In the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries who withheld their support, spied on its allies, and pressed for the recall of U.N. envoys that resisted U.S. pressure to endorse the war, according to an upcoming book by a top Chilean diplomat.
The rough-and-tumble diplomatic strategy has generated lasting "bitterness" and "deep mistrust" in Washington's relations with allies in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, Heraldo Munoz, Chile's ambassador to the United Nations, writes in his book "A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons," set for publication next month.
"In the aftermath of the invasion, allies loyal to the United States were rejected, mocked and even punished" for their refusal to back a U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Saddam Hussein's government, Munoz writes.
But this schoolyard-bully act couldn't go on indefinitely. After the invasion, when the war situation just kept getting worse, Bush had to wag his tail like a sniveling cur
and suck back up to all the "allied" governments he had pissed off in such a cavalier manner. More from WaPo:
But the tough talk dissipated as the war situation worsened, and President Bush came to reach out to many of the same allies that he had spurned. Munoz's account suggests that the U.S. strategy backfired in Latin America, damaging the administration's standing in a region that has long been dubious of U.S. military intervention.
The U.S. was already running short of friends in Latin America, for reasons that go back over a century in our respective histories. I suppose a hardened cynic might think that those south of the border should be used to American intervention by now. Our Marines have been in Nicaragua so many times, they should perhaps rename the country "Camp LeJeune South."
Anyway, in a time when leftist, anti-American (well, at least anti-Bush) governments are ascendant in the region, the high jinks over Iraq couldn't have helped matters.
You can read the entire WaPo story here.
This administration's problem -- well, one among an infinite number -- is that they keep goosestepping through the pasture in their jackboots, expecting others to follow, and even for the others to do the wiping up after the mess is made.
Most of the world could see the utter foolishness of the Iraq invasion before the fact. Bush, buoyed by pathological liar VP Dick Cheney and groveling high-class prostitute Colin Powell, led the U.S. and some of the rest of the world into this, sound advice be damned.
This is just one more chapter in the travesty. But I hope Munoz's account will circulate and somehow hasten an end to the grotesque chapter in world history that the Iraq war has been.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Five Years And Counting In The 100 Years Iraq War: Thoughts On Bush And Saddam
By Manifesto Joe
Il Doofus, a man with a unique ability to invent his own reality every day, gave a speech at the Pentagon on the fifth anniversary of "Operation Iraqi Freedom." If you take Bush at face value, he's still very convinced of the rightness of his decision. Here's the report from McClatchy Newspapers.
Presuming that we can take this man at face value, let's just, for purposes of argument, do the same regarding the late Saddam Hussein. Saddam seemed quite convinced, to his last hour, that he was the man who "built Iraq." He cussed judges, cussed his guards; he was defiant to the very end. If there was any fear of perdition lurking in the man's heart, he never let it show.
Mind you, there's no doubt in my mind that if there is a hereafter and a God who judges, Saddam is probably in a pretty awful place now. By any objective standard, he was a murderous dictator of the Stalinist type.
But there is the perverse possibility that he really didn't see himself as an evil man. Could it be that he simply embraced that nasty little idea that making an omelet means breaking eggs? (Yes, it's a bad analogy. But it isn't mine.) In other words, that the ends justify the means?
Saddam was guilty of direct and arbitrary enormities that Bush will never match. I know there are lefties out there who may object to that statement. But the very fact that they are blogging, organizing, and able to do any of the above should illustrate the distinction. Even if the contemporary U.S. can be characterized as crypto-fascist -- I think there's a good argument for that -- at least they aren't summarily executing the likes of me, waterboarding me, or opening camps. (Well, not yet.)
It is apparent, though, that Bush & Co. have been personally responsible for a whole lot of death and suffering. Pointing out the nearly 4,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq is typical U.S. ethnocentrism. It's as though the Iraqi deaths, estimated by some sources as close to 700,000, are secondary.
Yes, Saddam was a homicidal thug. The U.S. foreign policy establishment knew that while they were supporting and arming him in the '80s, during his foolish eight-year war with Iran and his genocidal suppression of the Kurds. It wasn't until he started getting uppity against U.S. interests that anybody appears to have had a problem with him being a career sociopath.
A comparison of Saddam with Bush is a long stretch. It's like comparing a seasoned hit man to a dude in an Armani suit who had an underling hire a few killings, then pretended he just didn't know.
But there is the possibility that both men were firmly convinced of their rightness. After five years of preventable tragedy, that may be the saddest part of the story.
The killing will go on for at least another year. And if McCain is elected ... (see post title).
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Il Doofus, a man with a unique ability to invent his own reality every day, gave a speech at the Pentagon on the fifth anniversary of "Operation Iraqi Freedom." If you take Bush at face value, he's still very convinced of the rightness of his decision. Here's the report from McClatchy Newspapers.
Presuming that we can take this man at face value, let's just, for purposes of argument, do the same regarding the late Saddam Hussein. Saddam seemed quite convinced, to his last hour, that he was the man who "built Iraq." He cussed judges, cussed his guards; he was defiant to the very end. If there was any fear of perdition lurking in the man's heart, he never let it show.
Mind you, there's no doubt in my mind that if there is a hereafter and a God who judges, Saddam is probably in a pretty awful place now. By any objective standard, he was a murderous dictator of the Stalinist type.
But there is the perverse possibility that he really didn't see himself as an evil man. Could it be that he simply embraced that nasty little idea that making an omelet means breaking eggs? (Yes, it's a bad analogy. But it isn't mine.) In other words, that the ends justify the means?
Saddam was guilty of direct and arbitrary enormities that Bush will never match. I know there are lefties out there who may object to that statement. But the very fact that they are blogging, organizing, and able to do any of the above should illustrate the distinction. Even if the contemporary U.S. can be characterized as crypto-fascist -- I think there's a good argument for that -- at least they aren't summarily executing the likes of me, waterboarding me, or opening camps. (Well, not yet.)
It is apparent, though, that Bush & Co. have been personally responsible for a whole lot of death and suffering. Pointing out the nearly 4,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq is typical U.S. ethnocentrism. It's as though the Iraqi deaths, estimated by some sources as close to 700,000, are secondary.
Yes, Saddam was a homicidal thug. The U.S. foreign policy establishment knew that while they were supporting and arming him in the '80s, during his foolish eight-year war with Iran and his genocidal suppression of the Kurds. It wasn't until he started getting uppity against U.S. interests that anybody appears to have had a problem with him being a career sociopath.
A comparison of Saddam with Bush is a long stretch. It's like comparing a seasoned hit man to a dude in an Armani suit who had an underling hire a few killings, then pretended he just didn't know.
But there is the possibility that both men were firmly convinced of their rightness. After five years of preventable tragedy, that may be the saddest part of the story.
The killing will go on for at least another year. And if McCain is elected ... (see post title).
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Latest Bush Flouting Of The Law Is Over EPA Ozone Rules
By Manifesto Joe
The Bush administration's contempt for the law involves a litany that goes back pretty much to Jan. 20, 2001, and even before then, if one includes the presidential campaign and an administration-"elect".
Let's add one more outrage to the long, long list. The Washington Post reports that Il Doofus himself intervened in an EPA ozone rules matter this week in an astonishing way:
The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.
EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.
"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone.
Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard.
So, where was the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency while this was happening?
WaPo again: The effort to rewrite the language -- on the day the agency faced a statutory deadline -- forced EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson to postpone at the last moment a scheduled news conference to announce the new rules. It finally took place at 6 p.m., five hours later than planned.
This is just one more among hundreds of "outrages of the day" that many have observed about the Bush administration from the beginning. But it brings to mind the disappointment of many who see this conduct for what it is. By now I would have hoped that Dick Cheney would be facing impeachment proceedings, and that the hot seat would be dusted off next for Il Doofus hisownself. But we seem to live in an age in which moral courage is lacking in high places, even among those from whom it was most expected.
The Bush administration's contempt for the law involves a litany that goes back pretty much to Jan. 20, 2001, and even before then, if one includes the presidential campaign and an administration-"elect".
Let's add one more outrage to the long, long list. The Washington Post reports that Il Doofus himself intervened in an EPA ozone rules matter this week in an astonishing way:
The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.
EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.
"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone.
Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard.
So, where was the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency while this was happening?
WaPo again: The effort to rewrite the language -- on the day the agency faced a statutory deadline -- forced EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson to postpone at the last moment a scheduled news conference to announce the new rules. It finally took place at 6 p.m., five hours later than planned.
This is just one more among hundreds of "outrages of the day" that many have observed about the Bush administration from the beginning. But it brings to mind the disappointment of many who see this conduct for what it is. By now I would have hoped that Dick Cheney would be facing impeachment proceedings, and that the hot seat would be dusted off next for Il Doofus hisownself. But we seem to live in an age in which moral courage is lacking in high places, even among those from whom it was most expected.
To read the entirety of this particular outrage from Il Doofus and the Gang, go here.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
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