Middle East - a color coded graphic badly needed

This is a strange situation. The US is now rushing off to 'punish' an evil dictator for something another evil dictator 'walked" on. As we know Saddam Hussein blatantly gassed several hundred Kurds before he became  an 'official enemy' - and nobody did jackshit. Yet ironically we want to 'punish' but not remove from power this chin-less wonder, Bashir Assad. It's only harassment and "degradation of his military capability" but not defeat because if he were actually defeated, it might mean our currently 'official enemy', the (ever multiplying) "El Qaeda 'affiliates," might take over.

It is alarming (to me) that when the leadership of the Republican and Democratic parties finally agree on something, it's something bad - that it's a good idea to again stick our arm into a hornet's nest.  Recall that most of the recent bad decisions by Congress (Iraq War, NDAA, Patriot Act) came with this kind of coalescence of Demo and GOP 'opponents. '

One almost needs a color-coded interactive graphic to begin to make sense out this complex geo-political mosaic mess. The Muslim religion is engaged in a internecine four-way war with moderates Muslims vs. reactionary Muslims vs. reactionary Shia vs reactionary jihadist Sunnis, and both vs. the "infidels in the West." And the Mid East states (along with Pakistan and Afghanistan) is the main battlefield.

 First you have the Syria involved in a bloody civil war with a brutal regime that may or may not have used nerve gas as a weapon. Then you have Iran, one of our current 'official enemies' which is actively pro Assad, Next you have Iraq (now almost a failed state courtesy of a US invasion a decade ago) with its besieged Shia government presumably pro-Assad while its bellicose terrorism-prone Sunni opposition actively anti-Assad (and sending fighters to Syria.) ,  Lebanon is the home of the Shia Hezbollah and the bane of the Israelis and who successfully forced the Israel Defense Force out of Lebanon.  Hezbollah, is now actively and effectively helping Assad militarily. Then there is the oil-rich Gulf States including Saudia Arabia all Sunni and actively supporting the anti-Assad forces including the Al Qaeda factions. Ah yes, and then there is the big bear, Russia, a long time ally of Syria going back to the Cold War days, who is also actively supporting the Assad regime with modern weapons (and along with China blocking any UN sanctions against Syria.) Turkey, now run by Sunni Islamists, is actively supporting anti-Assad forces and is constantly cajoling the US to become more involved. On the sidelines is the post Arab Spring Egypt, that volitile "ex-democracy” now army-run, presumably  on the side of secular anti-Assad forces but their now persecuted democratically elected opposition, the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood one would assume would also be supportive of Sunni anti-Assad forces.  Into this caldron of doom the US under Barack Obama now wants to jump in feet first and prior to any proper independent UN investigation of the facts.  And, of course, Israel, perennial enemy of Syria and now Iran (and everybody else in the neighborhood), quietly cheering on the US as it wades into another dismal swamp without a compass. 

As horrible a precedent as using sarin gas is (if that's what really happened) as a new way to 'drain the swamp' of insurgent supporters, its use should still is not be used as an excuse for the US to get involved in yet another regional war – or worse. It could become an assassination of Archduke Ferdinand kind of moment. There are too may power players, too may hot headed Jihadists, too many unknowns. Even the US military advised against getting involved (until ordered to cooperate by their Commander and Chief) who hemmed himself in with loose talk about crossing red lines.

Moreover the US assuming the role as global enforcer of 'proper' warfare standards seems a bit hypocritical to say the least what with our use of drones, cluster bombs, land mines, depleted uranium shells, white phosphorus, napalm, Agent Orange and nuclear weapons. Just because a given horrific weapon has not been formally designated 'illegal' does not mean its use is not cruelly effective and as grimly horrible as other 'legal' ones. 

I wish Obama would could wriggle out of this but he's committed now.

Discontent goes to Rio (and everywhere else)

For me the incoming daily news is mostly an unpleasant mix of confusion and disappointment. Yet one thing seems to be increasingly apparent, a new generation of discontents is coming on the scene. They are out in the streets everywhere most recently in Turkey, Brazil and now again in Egypt. Moreover there seems to be, simmering beneath surface, discontent everywhere. In Europe the attempts of the Eurozoners to placate the bankers further immiserates the hapless citizens - especially those of the southern European countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain. In China thousands of small protests occur every year but are ignored by those outside the country.

Here in Obamaland as his second term settles in, the discontent is mounting. His weak centrist program of trying to placate the right has only served to emboldened it. If he really had wanted to take on the post Reagan energized hard right with his so-called “Audacity of Hope” and confront its reactionary agenda, he would not have continued it by filling his cabinet with establishment neoliberal Wall Street hacks like Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner. Yet the worse was mitigated. A relatively successful (but unacknowledged by many) Keynesian fiscal stimulus did arrest the plummeting GDP and prevent a rerun of the 1930s. Beyond that it's difficult to discern what might have been possible. Suffice to say so far the legislative accomplishments have been minimal – zero real progress on confronting global warming (the real crisis of our time) and a complex, controversial health care reform package that addresses some of the problems. But the jury is still on its actual success. The Repubs of course want it to fail and are trying their damnedest to make that happen, and only because he's not one of them. The template for Obamacare came straight from a conservative think tank. And of course the "war on terror" continues, having morphed into an amorphous, pointless war no longer on Al Queda but mainly on the Pakistan/Afghan Taliban and their warlord allies.

The new pisser is this perchance for a seamless airtight security states sanctioned by Obama & Co as well as Congressional leadership in both parties. So now, surprise surprise, we find that the post 9/11 4^th Amendment negating "national security state" embodied int the so called Patriot Act engineered by Bush/Cheney was not only kept in place by Obama & Co but further fortified. The military-industrial complex  now has for-profit contractors joining with the already existing 14 government intelligence agencies, most notably the shadowy National Security Agency (NSA), into a huge Orwellian surveillance state. The idea apparently is to use all available technology to lock the place down. Since the technology now allows it, let's do it! Let's save every banal, routine, personal piece of verbal bullshit that anyone types or utters and save in a massive, ever growing petabyte scale database out on some giant server farm in the Utah desert. The US government apparently intends to collect and save every blurt, blab or giggle, every dumb joke, every careless stupid comment, every racist or politically incorrect aside, every personal confidential disclosure, every insurrectionist fantasy. every fucking thing that goes into any phone or over any Internet connection over much of the planet is save in perpetuity just in case it might be needed later in a some future "terrorism investigation." 

 

But, alas, one person out of the one million or so of loyal acolytes with top secret clearance went rogue and blew the whistle on this whole monstrosity (not that many didn't expect it existed.)  Now all hell has broken lose. Even the Germans, control freaks as they are, are up in arms. The seamless link between the two US political parties has finally been exposed. They may disagree on how much they should tweak and fuss with a capitalist economy that is running on less than eight cylinders, or what should be done for those left out for whatever reason, the old “widows, orphans and poor” question, but they are absolutely in synch when comes to keeping track of miscreants who can now conveniently be called “terrorists” or “would be terrorists.” This while always making sure the definition of terrorist is conveniently open-ended. Edward Snowden like others before him, most recently Bradley Manning and most notably Daniel Ellsberg, is an America hero. The truth will make you free..

Is NY Times' columnist David Brooks a stealth Obamanista?

I started this as a comment to a recent a David Brooks column in the NY Times. But it was too late and the Comments were closed. So I expanded it 'a little.'

David Brooks' NY Times column of 3/19/13 with his reasonable style, amiable manner and beguiling title (The Progressive Shift)  hid a devious purpose. By castigating the Democratic party's Congressional Progressive Caucus's budget (a plan that if ever presented to the American public by Democratic Party officially would go over quite well), is by default giving credibility to the Paul Ryan and Republican Party's brutal, reactionary and economically unsound budget proposal. The Republicans as usual would like nothing better than the weak recovery to falter and collapse. What they offer is counter to sound economic policy. They(as usual) want to attack, undermine and if possible eliminate all social spending programs while pretending to be concerned about the Deficit (which is now going down) and at the same make sure the recession kicks back in - right in time for the midterms. It's all so transparent.

What most people don't realize is that Keynesian ('pump priming' by the government spending to initiate consumer spending and hence more investment, jobs, etc.) has been used effectively by both parties since the FDR days. But we use a variation of its original version, 'Military Keynesianism', but for better or worse it works. While Europeans were able to use it properly, mainly on social spending (as John Maynard Keynes intended), here in the US we have to add our Keynesian social spending on top of our military (over) spending. And it is a medicine abused by both parties. It is intended as a counter cyclical response by a government to a business cycle downturn – restoring demand for goods and services. But it has become like an antibiotic ever less effective due to overuse. Yet it still works somewhat. What do you think got us out of the plummeting GDP numbers in 2009?

Republicans in their heart of hearts know it works it, too. That's why when they get in the Deficit is suddenly not a problem, and they spend like there is no tomorrow. Obama inherited the worse economic downturn in 80 years (and debts from Bush's II's  criminal irresponsibility) and suddenly the Deficit mattered again. Of course it always mattered but it supposed to be paid down in good times. Clinton in the 1990s at least moved in that direction. The very worse thing to do now is go into an austerity mode – exactly what we seem to be headed for what with the sequestration idiocy and Obama's move towards 'splitting the difference' with Repubs. Always keep in mind the Repubs love  hard times with a Demo is in the White House. The Progressive Caucus's budget has zero chance of passage but it should have been used to be define Obama's starting point in the bargaining process. Yet only 84 Democrats in the House voted for it. Instead Obama is talking bout 'chained CPI' and other initial concessions – typical of Obama.  David Brooks appears to be a is a closet Obama supporter. His column blasting the Progressive Caucus's budget proposal effectively is a roundabout way of supporting Obama's caving into the premises that feed Republicans' position on the economy.

But on a deeper level, that is globally, we are in more serious trouble than most people realize. While Keynesian counter-cyclical spending worked to pull us of the nosedive of our recent Great Recession and is still indicated with lingering high unemployment, globally there are troubling currents at play. Deficit spending can forestall a single developed capitalist economy from its main internal contradictions – over overcapacity. But what if we are approaching global overcapacity? How can you have Keynesian deficit spending globally? There will never be an inadequate demand for the necessities (food, water, housing,medical care) not with a large portion of the world's population living in abject poverty. But how much discretionary income driven consumption can there be on (planned perpetually obsolescent) electronic devices, consumer durables like cars and washer/dryers, etc. or the real biggie, housing, if the global oligopolies continue to keep driving down wages battering the only socio-economic class that both wishes to and can afford to buy beyond there absolute need? Besides possible overcapacity in China, globally we are still reeling from the banker/middle class real estate speculation that pumped up the huge housing bubble in southern Europe and the US. But now we discover the Peoples Republic of China, the poster child state-capitalism, cheap labor and skyrocketing growth rates in fact has been pumping up a huge real estate bubble themselves. It appears to be all a house of cards!

Could it be that very rich have given up on capitalism, too? And their dysfunctional policy nostrums (government austerity in midst of recessions, insistence on tax cuts that further drain the already depleted government coffers leading to further infrastructure decay, destruction of the middle class through anti union and labor outsourcing) are only a means accumulate enough wealth to survive some coming apocalypse. This as the oligarch sponsored US Republican Party stands firmly in the way of dealing with catastrophic fossil fuel related climate change. Could be that they only pretend to believe their naive libertarian laissie faire nonsense that they incessantly spout, and they really are just trying to amass enough wealth to build fortresses to survive the coming global environmental, social and economiccollapse they see (and are helping bring about) coming?

SF Climate Rally - and so it goes

Climate scientists believe the 'next generation' oil sources, such shale and tar sands, must not become the new standard.  Therefore the planned XL Keystone pipeline, which will deliver tar sand oil from Alberta Canada all the way down to Texas, must be stopped. Otherwise it will be nearly impossible to ever hope to bend downward  the rising curve of polluting greenhouse gases. If this engineering monstrosity goes in as planned, it will signal that it is acceptable everywhere to use high carbon content tar sands and shale as a new energy sources – and as leading climate scientists James Hansen says “ If the pipeline goes in, it's games over.”  So all of the environmental groups are pulling out all stops to oppose it -  hence the big 'Climate Rallies' February 17th.

Last Sunday (2/17) I trooped into the city to attend a rally held in conjunction with the big February 17^th Climate Change event in DC.   As we arrived expensively produced heavy card stock signs were available (although if you didn't bring a stick to mount it on, you had to awkwardly hold it up by hand.) The signs said things like “Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline” and “It's Time to Cut Carbons”(of course the real activists brought their own homemade signs.) The people flooding out of the BART station for the rally were predominately gray haired, middle class Sierra Club types, or ex hippies who had settled into responsible professional lives (like me) and gotten old and gray in the process. There was a sprinkling of college kids but virtually no blacks, few if any Latinos or Asians or any of the hodgepodge of other non-white whatevers who more and more make up the Bay Area demographic. And where were all the high voltage scruffy radical Occupy movement types? Where were the rancorous pierced and tattooed X Generation skateboarders and punksters? No militant unruly Black Bloc types were in evidence, and I saw only one smiling Anonymous Guy Fawkes mask. It was mostly the upper middle class people who fund the eco groups - the organizations that send me emails every day at almost a spam volume with petitions to sign, donations to make and environmental bad news to report.  In most of the big anti-war marches I have been to the SF Tac Squad is all lined up along the way with their 2 ft long truncheons ready and waiting for an excuse to wade in and bust a few heads. This was not one the case yesterday. Only sprinkling of regular beat cops stood along the way looking bored with little to do.

So as we all arrived we were directed to parade around the the block and then funneled into the big concrete area that makes up north side of the Embarcadero Plaza. There we listened to some well meaning but  boring boiler plate and uninspiring speeches and the usual Greenesque rigmarole like Native American chanting and such. A couple of high school kids spoke as well as a SF Supervisor. There was talk about next time  calling on people to let themselves be arrested.  Unfortunately if there is no police action, it never makes the news in any meaningful way. Maybe 5000-6000 people were there, a good turnout but NOT NEARLY ENOUGH!! Hey, this isn't just another liberal/left   identity politics, anti-war, anti-US imperialism, anti Reagan/Bush/Obama lost cause campaign against the status quo. This it it!  If this issue is not taken very seriously very soon, we are all toast.

Bill McKibben of 350.ORG is behind this full court press to get across the board cooperation from the full spectrum of the environmental movement (and he has) and the hopefully eventually the entire 'the liberal/ left', and to develop something approaching a critical mass. Time is running out. Barack Obama is a Democratic Party politician but not an environmentalist. He is juggler of left center issues. Yet an important component of his base are the 'Greens.' So he can't ignore them but he can disappoint them – and has in the past.  Left to his own devices re: Keystone he would probably would have already let it sail through. The august opinion makers in the NY Times for instance have noted that even if the US doesn't let that shale oil pipeline run through the continental US, Canada will just pipe it over to their West coast and send it to China w/o the US getting a cut of the profits or the oil, and the high carbon content gases will wind up in the atmosphere anyway. So their advise: let it be built. And of course the Repubs will skewer Obama if he blocks it. Oh, the jobs lost! Oh the “energy independence'' we might have had! And besides the whole climate crisis is a monumental hoax, just a rich source of fat government grants for academic liberal Greenies! Besides most Americans above all else want cheap plentiful gasoline. Note all of this is coming to a head just as gas at the pump again is hitting in the $4.00 a gallon range. So again  the oil companies have conveniently discovered they need to shut down refinery operations “for maintenance.” And/or the oil speculators are at again it. So between the global banks and global energy companies we are totally screwed. All we have on our side are the wimpy and bought off (many are from coal dependent states) Democrats. Yet Obama must know it is now or never on addressing Climate Change. He even brought it up in his State of the Union speech. He is well enough informed to know a slow boiling crisis when he sees one. Yet nearly half the country is against him on this – remember 47% voted for anti-action on the climate Mitt Romney. The US is the only industrialized democracy in which their major conservative party is totally opposed to confronting global warming. But all are controlled in the final analysis by global capital. That's why Kyota and Copenhagen never led to anything but changes around the edges. Only the US, the leading (gluttonous) per capita consumer of fossil fuels as well as a major producer, can set the right example. Forget about China they are separate dimension to the problem. The US must lead.  And it must happen while the Demos are in or we are literally cooked.  Rejecting the siren call of shale oil is only the first step but it is crucial.

The underlying problem is the never ending riveting array of short term yet acute crisis's: economic imbroglios (brought on by the deepening crisis of global capitalism with its stranglehold on the entire planet), wars, political upheavals, the ongoing reactionary Muslim jihad with the West (and each other),  plus hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and mass shootings, and on and on. All of this drama is brought to us 24/7 by our friendly corporate media that feels it needs to entertain rather than inform. So nothing is ever put in context just a series of disconnected provocative random events. This noise distracts and blinds us to the coming doomsday scenario of an overheating planet moving inexorably into crisis mode.

A case in point. Today (Feb 18) in the two key leading US media newspapers the DC Climate Rally was not even mentioned. No pictures, no articles, no editorials, nuthin!. The only indirect reference was a Washington Post story about a hedge fund billionaire who spoke at the DC rally and who 'could be' the new Sec. of the Interior. Sure, after Harry Reid allowed the phony-baloney closure vote- filibuster process to survive intact. Get real! The Repubs know well how to say no.

Since the liberal media is downplaying the anti-XL pipeline movement I am guessing they are setting for Obama letting it happen. I hope I'm wrong!

 Obama letting it happen. I hope I'm wrong!

"Fiscal Cliff," Fall off or Stumble over

How can the people we elect to to the three branches of government do such a supremely shitty job? Or more to the point how did it get this bad? This whole 'fiscal cliff' is total bullshit. That we are in these desperate straits now at the cusp of a new year is the direct result of a last ditch bargain to get out of the entirely manufactured crisis of a refusal to raise the Debt Ceiling. Recall centrist Democrats led by Barack Obama and the crazed Tea Party ultra right nut case infiltrated political party that calls itself “Republicans” decided to getting into a pissing contest over doing something they had to do anyway – raise the debt ceiling so the previously run-up bills could be paid.  In what any objective observer would consider sedition the US House of Representatives, which is supposed to originate all spending measures, suddenly decided to hold the entire nation hostage to their deluded demand that Obama begin dissolving all the elements of the government that they don't like: social services, the regulatory apparatus and so-called entitlement programs. Of course this meant keeping their beloved bloated waste-a-thon Defense (read Offense) Dept intact. This position on "Defense" is an article of faith with this pack of chicken hawks. While ideologically demonizing Keynesian counter cycling spending on our bedraggled infrastructure, they are all for 'Warfare Keynesian' spending especially since a lions share of the defense industry is now located in their Republican controlled Sunbelt and Old Dixie States but it is also strategically spread out elsewhere.

So to reiterate this Fiscal Cliff debacle is a direct result of the GOP refusing to do what they did routinely annually for George W. Bush as he was running the national debt through the roof with unpaid for wars, expanding the size of the government (Homeland Security) and Part D Medicare. It was Obama's last ditch deal with the devil that created this “Fiscal Cliff” mess. The idea was that they create a outcome so dire that both parties would be forced to compromise, something so disastrous and over-the-top that both political parties' bases would be livid with rage. And furthermore the entire (nascent and  weak) recession recovery would be kicked in the nuts. The thinking was that the new Prez and a 'lame duck' Congress would be forced to put together a spending package that could pass the reactionary ideologue controlled House.

This agreement passed because each side was counting on winning the 2012 Presidential election. Now the Demos have won, the Repubs still want to demand their pound of flesh. The Repubs, whose bargaining position should have plummeted, somehow think they still weasel out a deal from Obama who they believe in his is his 'heart of hearts' is a closet moderate Republican (as was Bill Clinton.). No such animal as a "moderate Republican" now exists in the extant Repub Party. They call 'em RINOs and excommunicate them.  Their ploy as always is to maneuver the Demos into doing their dirty work – remember it was Clinton who finally cashiered AFDC.It was under Clinton that Glass Steagle was jettisoned. It was Clinton who balanced the budget by reigning in the social sector side of the government accounts.

As I write this a stopgap deal has passed the Democratic Party controlled Senate w/o the  Republicans  filibustering it, and is now awaiting a vote in the House. It delays the worst elements of Fiscal Cliff, the recessionary tax hike for the middle class while it levies a modest tax increase on the top tier Richie Richs (annual incomes over 450K) of 4.5%., and it keeps the Fed unemployment extension going. But  allows the big spending cuts to be postponed. In short it kicks the can down the road. The deal was cooked up with Republican participation (Repub Senate leader Mitch McConnell) so it will probably pass with enough bipartisan votes as John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, was probably in on it by phone. All he has to do is allow it to be voted on.  

We shall see ...

What will happen today? Quite a soap opera.

CPI Unchained

It was very disappointing to read that Obama's present offer to the GOP to avoid  'falling off' the so called 'fiscal cliff', contains a really ugly 'cave in' to the deficit hawks - his innocuous sounding offer to 'chain the CPI'.  This means that the Cost of Living Allowances (COLA) that kicks in every year based on 'official inflation', the Consumer Price Index (CPI),  will be lowered.  First of all the CPI, as far as most people are concerned, understates the real rate of inflation they experience daily especially with regard to expenses on necessities like gas and food, commodities whose prices fluctuate greatly.  If  'chaining CPI' will save the government money, it means that the computation for COLAs have to be smaller - so they are really unchaining it to inflation. Another case of Orwellian doublespeak.  They will be rigging the CPI computations even more than they already do. This means COLAS will lag ever further behind actual inflation - not good! This will be especially painful if inflation comes roaring back as some predict. Some of the poorest people in the US are the elderly who rely solely on their Social Security checks to survive. So as time passes they will become ever more desperately poor.  Also all Federal government workers, whose morale is already in the toilet, will slowly loose ground as their pay is subject to annual COLAs as will retired Federal workers. It's not clear who will and who won't be affected. Will the the poorer SS recipients, disabled veterans, SSI recipients be spared and receive a higher COLA? Will this lead to means testing on those receiving SS benefits? Not good!

Going on over the "dreaded" Fiscal Cliff would be better than a sellout especially if the Repubs can be made to take the hit for the failure to reach an agreement. Obama's offer already sucks and buys into the right's devious intentions, and the Repubs still hate it. They hate it  because 'their boyz,' the gazillionaes, will get their tax rates raised back to the rates they paid in the 1990s, a tax rate that allowed most of them to get obscenely rich anyway!!  

A lot is at stake here. Many are unhappy with this concession by Obama and offer alternatives. Will he remove this odious offer or will more concessions follow? Or will Obama stand up against these crazed maniacs?  We shall see..