Herman Cain admits/denies sex harassment

I don't really care much about this big scoop on Cain's past sexual harassment. Unless it's going to lead to a wider discussion of harassment of women in the workplace in general, these scandals generally seem to end up hurting the victims more than the perps.

And I'm not gleefully anticipating this will end Cain's current winning streak either. I think it's more likely he'll end up using the alleged "harassment by the librul media" as a fundraising tool. Hell, it worked for Palin and Cain fans are the same kind of blind loyalists. Also people seem to forget, that the sort of folks that love Cain for his proud ignorance on important political issues generally think all women lie about harassment. Or make too big a deal out of some "good natured funning."

But all that being said, the internets do love a scandal, so the story is all the buzz today. Actually found Cain's presser on the harassment amusing in a sick sort of way.

He said his candidacy would not be stopped by the allegations. And he renewed his vow that he had not sexually harassed anyone and said no additional allegations would be discovered. If they are, he added, “I assure you people will simply make them up.”

You see what he did there with the pre-emptive denial and shifting the blame to the victims? He knows he can say anything right now and his fans will love him cause he's such a fun guy.

After an hour discussion about his tax plan, Mr. Cain paused before walking off the stage, saying, “By the way, folks, yes I am an unconventional candidate.”

“Yes, I do have a sense of humor. Some people have a problem with that,” Mr. Cain said. With a broad smile, he added: “Herman is going to stay Herman. Thank you very much.”

Apparently, this includes singing. No sure where that happened but the twitter machine lit up with snark in the last few minutes over it. I'm certain a hilarious youtube will surface soon. But for myself, the funniest part of the linked post was the correction at the end.

No spoilers. Go read it. A little Freudian slip in the spell checker. It made me laugh.

Blessed Samhain

Not really doing much for Halloween myself this year. Have an early dinner date and then plan on having a quiet mediation in the spirit of All Soul's to see if I can peer through the veils and reach my Dad.

Haven't carved a pumpkin in years but I love the way carving has evolved into an amazing art form. Love these Space-o-Lanterns:

More at the link. And my friends Rich and Flo are master carvers, who turn out incredibly artful pumpkins every year. Scroll down at that link to see their archives. But my favorite pumpkin may be the annual Knoller-o-lantern, apparently carved by a co-worker at CBS. Perfect likeness.

I also have a great fondness for vintage cards. My pal, Erin O'Brien found the best Flickr gallery of old Halloween cards ever. There's pages and pages but this one was my favorite.

And if you need help getting in the spirit before your party, here's an old Disney cartoon from 1929, The Skeleton Dance. Disney was really edgy in those days. No one will ever convince me those cartoonists weren't hanging around the studio doing drugs.

And of course no Samhain is complete without witches, so check out my two favorite witches in this world, Maeve and Hecate.

If you're going out to celebrate tonight, be careful out there. I'm told the Zombies are really bad drivers.


Addendum: Almost, check out my friend Marcellina's soul cakes.

Truly bizarre - Updated 2X

I saw this video mentioned in passing on the twitter machine. Surprised it hasn't circulated more widely but maybe I just missed the buzz. In any event, this is surely the most bizarre Rick Perry speech I've ever seen. I'm with the consensus that he comes off as pretty well drunk. Or drugged. Or just having a nervous breakdown. Or something.

Too hard to embed it, so watch the video here. What do you think? Other than, "OMG, please tell me this man won't ever be President."

Update: Now it's getting some buzz. And to be fair, it's obvious, but I should mention the vid is a bunch of edited clips. Still -- very weird.

Update two: The full 25 minute Perry speech. I didn't watch it. Barely made it through the clips in the first place, but I hear it doesn't look any better in context.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Oh Wow!

I was moved by the loss, in recognition of how much he changed our world, but I didn't get all emo when Steve Jobs died. However, his sister's eulogy in today's NYT just brought me to tears.

Not going to excerpt it at all. It's not long and it needs to be read in full to get the full impact. If you read nothing else today, read this. It's a celebration of life rather than a mourning of loss. Something that really resonates with me this week as I continue to struggle for acceptance on losing my Dad.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

The GOP Playbook

I've been saying this for a long time but now it's confirmed by an insider. Quote of the week from Republican strategist Ed Rogers.

Even though Cain won’t be the nominee, his candidacy tells us a lot about the psychology of GOP activists. Our team wants someone authentic, creative, fresh, bold and likeable. And we don’t have much tolerance for too many facts or too much information. In politics, a bumper sticker always beats an essay. Cain’s 9-9-9 is a bumper sticker; Romney’s economic plan is an essay. Perry’s rationale for giving the children of undocumented workers in-state college tuition rates is an essay. No hand-outs for illegal aliens is an effective bumper sticker.

This is how the GOP maintains that (give or take) 30% base of loyalists. Doesn't matter if their guy is lying his face off. As long it sounds truthy and comes with a bumper sticker soundbyte, they're buying it. [Via]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Don't you mind people grinnin' in your face

In honor of the OWS movement which continues to awe and inspire with its determination and longevity, this from my pal Mike Finnigan, extraordinary musician and former blogger at Crooks and Liars. He finds the best videos:



[If you can't see the embed, direct link here.]

Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. (March 21, 1902 - October 19, 1988) was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music.

House was an important influence on Muddy Waters and also on Robert Johnson. A seminal Delta blues figure, he remains influential today, with his music being covered by blues-rock groups such as The White Stripes.

Love the old Delta blues the best. These guys are the real roots of every musical genre that came after.

When up means down

By Capt. Fogg

The Mayans were far less pessimistic about 2012 than the people who fill my inbox with prophecies of economic doom every day. Actually doom is too mild a word and so is apocalypse if one is trying to set a mood so terrifyingly descriptive of what is happening now and is about to happen, thanks to that Obama. Of course these people are selling investment strategies which I'm sure include buying things they're desperate to get rid of like the gold they bought at $1900 an ounce, but any way the market wind is blowing, they make money from the seminars and newsletters and from screaming like Chicken Little. There's a lot of money in the doom business.

Most of the people I talk to seem convinced that everything is getting worse and won't get better until we "get rid of" Obama in 2012; replacing him no doubt with someone who thinks managing a worldwide economy is an easy task for someone who once managed to save a pizza business by firing everyone, and yet has the nerve to talk about being able to "create jobs." Not to change the subject, but it's truly stunning to see the seamless segue from "government can't create jobs" to "elect me and I'll create jobs, jobs, jobs."

I guess it's no less stunning than Fox News' and John McCain's embarrassing assertions that the 2008 economy was "robust" as we all marched unwittingly off the cliff like a certain cartoon coyote -- and of course, that because "Liberals" were warning us about the inevitable collapse, they "hated America." Not like those forward thinking optimists that modern conservatives are.

We can expect, now that the next presidential election is a year away, that the howling and wailing and rending of garments will grow louder and angrier and numbers will appear proving that calamity awaits us all, no matter what actually happens. It's far too soon to be sure, but this chronic pessimist and a few others with more credible credentials are noticing that our Gross Domestic Product After adjusting for inflation, climbed to $13.35 trillion last quarter, topping the $13.33 trillion peak reached in the last three months of 2007.

I hate to make too much of it, particularly with the Filibustering Vandals doing everything they can to sabotage the economy until November 8th, 2012, but the reality is not quite what the pseudo-conservative chorus is chanting. At least for the moment, things are looking less down. Unemployment is still high, of course -- just a bit above Ronald Reagan levels and we can expect the screamers to keep screaming about that while refusing to do anything about it. We can expect Tea Pissers like Tom "Looney" Rooney (R-Florida) to keep meeting with "Job Creators" and telling us that business owners will hire more employees, irrespective of demand, if we cut their marginal rates even more -- and we can expect that if things do recover steadily and noticeably, he'll find a way to take credit for it because after all, they kept that O-BAH-ma from doing anything for four years while lambasting him for doing nothing. If there is anything these Doomsters are optimistic about it's that they'll always have someone to blame.

HIPPIES!

By Capt. Fogg

With the Florida Coven of the Republican Party making the Visigoths look like Cub Scouts these days; arguing that a prohibition of "Dwarf Tossing " is destroying American jobs, I think I'm more than justified in a certain lack of restraint when describing the moral character of that party as having everything to do with gaining power by any and all means, and having nothing whatever to do with making the US a real Democracy. These days it's as much about making the news a series of passion plays meant to obscure and often reverse the facts as it has been about suppressing votes and Gerrymandering.

The practice of dirty tricks has come a long way since Richard Nixon. Tricky Dick used the media to convince us that the media was lying and that the vast and silent majority was a small and unpatriotic minority. That hasn't changed. What has changed is the confidence level that allows them to strongly support something one day and denounce it in hyperbolic tirades on the next according to tactical needs.

It's possible to denounce Wall Street brokers and banks; insist that we let them die and scream about it in the streets with tea bags stapled to three-cornered hats, yet support the same corrupt and unpunished entities passionately by denouncing the same sentiments; associating them with "hippies" in fine old 1968 style two generations after the last real hippie got a haircut and went to work on Wall Street.

And yes, you're damned right that Fox News is the Joseph Goebbels of the new Right. You'll remember how ACORN was smeared and destroyed by patched together video, You'll remember fake video made to look like millions were at Republican rallies, but you're less likely to remember that fake video was used by Brit Hume to denounce Iraq war protesters in 2003 as "hippies" -- Protesting the Protesters documentary and other fake documentaries like Indoctrinate U that was intended to show how righteous "conservatives" were being censored at those hotbeds of hippieism, the Universities. You may then not be surprised that the same saboteur behind those atrocities, one Evan Coyne Maloney, has been at work on the sidewalks of New York, handing out rolling papers with pictures of Che Guevara and bongs so that the recipients can be filmed with them and another invidious documentary can be patched together so that we can be Foxed again.

Never mind that the streets are filled with veterans and economists, businessmen and others who demand respect and deserve to be heard, Fox wants them out of the way and can think of no better way than to dredge up hoary straw men in tie-died T-shirts. Look! that investment banker, that war veteran, that Nobel Prize winning economist: HIPPIES! COMMIES! DRUG FIENDS! HATERS OF OUR SACRED CAPITALIST VALUES!

Has any nation been able to stand; been able to avoid catastrophe, been able to maintain the illusion of freedom under such an internal assault?

All part of their plan

When we're to trying to figure out why the GOP clings to unpopular positions, at least outside of their core base, it's useful to remember the Republicans' long term goal is to convince the public that the government is not working. And that part of their decades long plan is working for them very well:

Not only do 89 percent of Americans say they distrust government to do the right thing, but 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track and 84 percent disapprove of Congress — warnings for Democrats and Republicans alike.

They're convincing the low info voters the government is broken, by breaking it themselves. If they can destroy the democratic republic, they have the mechanism to install a new feudal society run by the wealthy all ready to go.

On a related note:

With nearly all Americans remaining fearful that the economy is stagnating or deteriorating further, two-thirds of the public said that wealth should be distributed more evenly in the country. Seven in 10 Americans think the policies of Congressional Republicans favor the rich. Two-thirds object to tax cuts for corporations and a similar number prefer increasing income taxes on millionaires.

So if the GOPers can prevent the will of the people from being realized in the Congress -- well -- mission accomplished.

Meanwhile, although I've seen media claims that OWS isn't registering in the public consciousness, the poll shows:

Almost half of the public thinks the sentiment at the root of the Occupy movement generally reflects the views of most Americans.

Which brings us to the wildly overblown police response to the OWS protesters. This is not helping restore a functioning government. If anything, it just further advances the GOP meme that the government has run amok. Particularly disturbing is when Democratic mayors are urging on such crackdowns, as Rahm is doing in Chicago. It just feeds the meme that there's no difference between the parties. And frankly, when this happens, it is hard to see the difference.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Conservatives exploding

Since I was barely blogging while I was dealing with the first wave of grief over losing my Dad, I was late in posting about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Lately, I've making up some ground on that and one clear effect of the ongoing protests is conservatives are getting very angry about it. The comments on my posts at DetNews are extra cranky and I've had an unusual number of my readers there send very angry emails to my personal account.

Now, I'm not saying this is directly related, since we don't know who did it, but clearly somebody was mad enough to throw a bomb into an Occupy Wall Street encampment.

Portland police are looking for the person who threw a chemical bomb at the Occupy Maine encampment in Portland during the early morning hours on Sunday.

Sgt. Glen McGary said police responded around 4 a.m. Sunday to an explosion in Lincoln Park at Congress and Pearl streets.

Though no one was injured, McGary said the homemade bomb, which consisted of chemicals poured into a plastic Gatorade container could have caused serious injury.

More from Athenae, including a report from the Occupation website. They were very lucky no one got hurt.

Meanwhile, conservatives generally appear to be getting more and more unhinged of late. This Tea Party resoultion urges businesses to refuse to hire anyone, simply in order to bring down President Obama, and any economic recovery with it. You might think self-professed patriots would want the economy to succeed and our country to thrive no matter who's running it. Apparently you would be wrong.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Americans ready for direct democracy

I try to avoid posting about polls, but this one is worth mentioning. It's a sentiment that predates the debacle of the 2000 election and is now gaining traction even with Republicans. A majority of Americans want to eliminate the Electoral College.

Nearly 11 years after the 2000 presidential election brought the idiosyncrasies of the United States' Electoral College into full view, 62% of Americans say they would amend the U.S. Constitution to replace that system for electing presidents with a popular vote system. Barely a third, 35%, say they would keep the Electoral College.

The EC is a relic that was originally enacted to appease those who didn't want direct elections by the people at all. It's long outlived any utility, if indeed it ever had any. The President is elected to represent all the people. It only makes sense that this office be determined by a majority vote. In fact, if we had a truly representative Congress, it would have eliminated long ago.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

On the radio

Was just reading about a very successful house party for Elizabeth Warren in my old hometown of lovely downtown Northampton. Pleased, but not surprised, to see my old friends and employers are supporters but the big news is, one of them, has a new radio talk show on the local station. The Bill Newman Show. Check it out. The podcasts are only ten minutes long.

I'd also note in passing, this is the same town where Rachel Maddow got her start in show biz with a similar talk show.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Hey Brother

Mark Herschler isn't my brother by blood, but our connection is as strong as blood family. We even look enough alike that for years many people thought we were blood relatives.

Mark is one of the most versatile and under-celebrated musicians in the country, playing in a multitude of styles. One of my favorite genres is his flamenco pieces. The video sadly doesn't really do his talent justice, but good music for a Sunday nonetheless.

Mark Herschler from Heather Goff on Vimeo.

More videos here. And more audio clips of his original songwriting at his website. Enjoy.

The history of income inequality

I've been meaning to link to an oldish Business Insider post for a while now that charts the many ways income inequality has grown over time. In the interim, they published seven more charts to get angry about. This with the earlier series of charts on income inequality document everything from the stagnant wages of the 99% to the obscene rise in CEO salaries and corporate profits.

Good Sunday read and well worth archiving for future reference if you have a blog of your own.

Ignorance is bliss for GOP base

In a sane world, Hermann Cain would have been ejected from the GOP race by now. It's hard to imagine a less qualified person for President. But somehow, in the clown car that is the GOP field of candidates, Cain is winning the polls precisely because he is the best clown.

He has no understanding of how government works. He boasts of his ignorance on foreign affairs. He proposes policies of ruination. And the base, who fear and loathe intellectualism love him for it.

He preaches his ignorance with the eloquent bombast of a televangelist. He speaks a language they understand. A dialect that reflects and validates their own hates and prejudices. And as long as they can take comfort in the simple words, nothing else matters.

No jobs in the GOP jobs plan

Well here's a shocker. An independent analysis finds no jobs in the GOP "jobs" plan.

House Republicans’ proposed jobs package would not reduce unemployment or spur the economy’s growth in the next year or two, according to a leading economic forecasting firm that has predicted that President Obama’s plan would achieve both goals.

And a central piece of the Republicans’ plan — a balanced-budget amendment to the constitution — “would quickly destroy millions of jobs while creating enormous economic and social upheaval” if implemented soon, said Macroeconomic Advisers, a St. Louis-based firm that has done work for the Federal Reserve. ...

As the kids say, this a feature -- not a bug. If they actually did something to create jobs, the economy would get better. Can't have that. It would ruin their campaign strategy.

It's long been clear Republicans don't want to actually create any jobs. They just want to create a catchy slogan about jobs their ovine base can put on a bumper sticker and use to maintain working levels of willful ignorance.

Talking about the Occupation

If you're still wondering what Occupy Wall Street is accomplishing, this is one of the best explanations I've seen so far:




Via Doug J, currently posting as Dougerhead.


[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Distinction with a difference

The twitter machine tells me almost 2,000 non-violent Occupy Wall Street protesters have been arrested at this point. Then I saw this on Facebook.

So, why the difference? Yes, that's a rhetorical question.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Giddy as a school girl

When I first started blogging, back in the stone age of the medium, I used to obsessively check my referrals about every hour or so. I followed every single one to see where it came from. I was awestruck by the realization that complete strangers were reading me. Of course, I only had one blog and more time then.

These days, I rarely check but last night I took a peek and discovered to my everlasting joy, Charles P. Pierce put us on his blogroll. I'm not one to boast about such things, but I was so flushed with excitement, I immediately posted it on Facebook. I mean, our little obscure blog, listed up there with a bunch of big, important bloggers. On Charles P. Pierce's blog. At Esquire. Just wow.

Hoping it's because he likes my odd style, but thinking he may have added us because he appreciates Fogg's eloquence as much as I do. But for whatever reason, it was nice to feel that old thrill again, so if you're really reading us Mr. Pierce. Thanks. Appreciate the encouragement.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Lindsey Graham goes for the black gold

I remember when the very serious people mocked the hippies for saying American imperalism in the Middle East was about the oil. But the Republicans aren't even pretending it's about something more noble anymore. Take for instance, Lindsey Graham's reaction to the killing of Gadhafi today. He criticizes Obama for not having a stronger US troop presence in the action.

Let’s get in on the ground. There is a lot of money to be made in the future in Libya. Lot of oil to be produced. Let’s get on the ground and help the Libyan people establish a democracy and a functioning economy based on free market principles.

Graham is concerned we haven't built an infrastructure in Libya to "help" the Libyans. When asked why he wants to spend money building in Libya when he votes against spending a cent on rebuilding our own nation's fraying infrastructure, he justifies it thusly:

"I would say this is a loan, not a gift," Graham said. "It is in our interest to get their oil back online, so we can have more supply, which will help our consumers, it is in our interest to get their economy moving forward, so a vacuum won't be filled by extremists, and we will get the money we invest back. We have $34 billion in frozen assets we can draw from, it is in America's interests for Libya to turn out well. It is in America's interest for Libya to get back to producing oil to help the world's oil supply. we'll be now getting oil from a friend rather than a foe."

Is it me, or is this pretty much exactly what these guys told us about Iraq? Except they pretended their main goal was birthing democracy. How did that work out for us? I'm hearing the Beverly Hillbillies theme song in my head. Black gold. Texas tea...

Killing him slowly

By Capt. Fogg

There simply aren't words adequate to describe Rush Limbaugh unless we quote his own. I'm tired, to tell the truth, of trying to match polemics with him, tired of denouncing him and of course the ears of his acolytes are deaf to such things anyway.

I admit that I don't actually listen to him any more and that's been true for many, many years. I simply can't trust myself in the presence of so much evil, so much hatred of the kind of America I hope for, but at the bottom of it, I can't stand to hear some sinister thing that the law requires us to treat as a human being and citizen, so incapable of reason, so bereft of any human feelings and so unable to feel any kind of shame, so full of hate.

But as I say, his followers can listen to him demanding harsh treatment - even death - for drug users while knowing he's a long time abuser of opiates who has had his employees risk their freedom by buying drugs for him. His hangers on can quote his self contradictions without pause and will smile and nod when he wishes disaster on our country if disaster is what it takes to promote Republicans and destroy any Democratic president. Who but Rush, after all, can call Obama an ineffectual "empty suit" and a tyrannical demagogue at the same time; tell us he was born in Kenya and Indonesia simultaneously and not instantly be dismissed as casually as one flushes a toilet.

Certainly not Limbaugh's ignorant army. They surely applauded his latest verbal atrocity; telling us how that evil Obama sent troops to Africa to help kill Christians: The Lord’s Resistance Army. They certainly aren't going to notice or care or believe that the LRA are a genocidal terrorist group who has murdered, raped, kidnapped and terrorized tens of thousands over many years. They've killed some Muslims, you see and that makes them Christian Soldiers, marching as to war.

They aren't going to be shocked at the way Limbaugh assembles scraps of misunderstood or non-existent or invented stories without any concern for truth or decency or patriotism or anything but the potential to destroy Barack Obama. No, not as long as he keeps up the endless supply of nasty little lies they can tell their friends over a beer and at the barber shop where Fox plays on the TV, where the stupid go to get their wisdom confirmed and hate is in the air.

"Hey didja hear how Rush called Oh-BAH-ma an empty suit? He sure got that right!"

Mockery can't marginalize Occupy the World

You can tell the 99% movement is making an impact by the conservatives and their media lapdogs increasingly desperate attempts to discredit Occupy Wall Street. They frantically dig for any marginally related development to cast doubt on its authencity. They tsk, tsk about the lack of a coherent message. But for all their desperate scrambling to minimize it, the movement grows. Here was a protest in Madrid the other day:

It's a global movement now. They say on that one day, there were protests in 900 cities around the world. Further, I'm told at least 1,500 cities just in the US have held protests.

The cons are desperate to make this a fringe movement. As I said before, the messages in every different protest may be mixed but its underlying message couldn't be more clear. All over the world, the people are finally rising up against the oligarchs and shouting, "We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore." Yeah, pretty much just like in the movie...

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Why I would marry Charles Pierce

I avoid Brooksie like the plague. I often don't even read the myriad of posts that eviscerate his latest idiotic punditry, but when Charles Pierce bashes David Brooks, it's just too delicious to resist. In my next lifetime, I want to write like this:

Actually, no. He does, however, interview some very well-spoken poll results, and proceeds to interpret them in ways that make you wonder if he's dropped in from Alpha Centauri. He notices that poor people are having fewer babies, which makes him sad. But, things are looking up! People have stopped using their "bank-issued" credit cards as much. (These would be the cards they used so as to support the overstuffed suburban lifestyle that David Brooks so celebrated in his earlier, funnier work.) This means, to Brooks, "Quietly but decisively, Americans are trying to restore the moral norms that undergird our economic system."

Jesus H. Christ in a fking Volvo, no, it doesn't. It means people are broke. People are broke because the end product of 30 years of economic theorizing and political action that you supported has resulted in a shattered middle-class. People are broke because the Wall Street casino that your politics created and celebrated and enabled finally broke the entire country and took the rest of us down with it. People are broke because you and the rest of your "conservative" pals latched onto a crackpot scheme called supply-side economics, married it to a deregulatory frenzy and free trade, and then pitched it to the Bobos as economic liberty. You got rich. You got important. Now people are not using their credit cards because they can't afford to buy the overpriced, Chinese-made crap that you once proposed as the new staple of American society. That is not a conscious mass moral choice. You've got to be on mushrooms to believe that.

The world is such a better place now that Charles is blogging. He often speaks the simple truths we already know, but his command of the language is so gorgeous. I put him right up there with our own Capt. Fogg.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

The Nine Percent Solution

By Capt. Fogg

A flat rate income tax, a national sales tax and a flat rate corporate income tax and all fixed at 9%. Is it the number of the Beast standing on its head?

Why not 8, why not 10? Is it because Nein, Nein, Nein sounds like standing up to something bad, or because it's easier to chant? Certainly there wasn't a lot of mathematics behind Herman Cain's arrival at this Goldilocks level and those who have done some arithmetic, like Melissa Labant, an accountant with the American Institute of CPAs, say that since Warren Buffet's income is mostly in capital gains, the billionaire investor would pay no taxes. The poor fellow trying to support a family on 25 to 30 thousand a year? That 9% means some painful choices have to be made particularly if he has to pay for medical care out of pockets with holes in them.
That national sales tax will certainly diminish already taxed disposable income and harm those of us who spend all of it just keeping the family fed and housed. Yes, this is a simple plan indeed -- simply disastrous unless you're rather well off, like Herman Cain. Sounds great on paper though, just like Communism and some other really disastrous isms.

Would there have to be exemptions for those for whom 9% of income and another 9% of necessary consumption would be ruin? Probably so, but then we're back where we started with loopholes, exemptions and deductions and with almost half the country paying nothing, a situation the simple minded tea bag wavers are making much of in a rather confused way -- as if it was a situation Barack Obama were responsible for. Still the plan offers hope to those for whom paying taxes is a serious burden even though it's false hope that promises to make us more of a country of many serfs and a few lords.

We love simple ideas because life is complex and scary and Herman Cain, although far from the first to propose such regressive tax structures is simply tapping into the power of simple mindedness; maintaining that he wouldn't, as President, sign a bill of more than three pages. It's a good thing that idea wasn't popular when the country was founded. It's hard to envision our already terse constitution being reduced to something acceptable to the minimalists and reductionists looking for a free ride and to people who think the complex global economy should be run more like Godfather's Pizza where you keep firing people and closing stores until it all looks good -- on paper.

All the shallow things

By Capt. Fogg

"If this be treason, make the most of it."

What a different line that would be without "if." It would become an admission of the crowd's charge of treason rather than Patrick Henry's defiant stand for the law it was.

"Thou hast said it."

Is that an affirmation or a denial; or a refusal to answer the question?

"If I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness. . ."

How would that statement differ if the 'if' disappeared? That's a question being asked today about one of the inscriptions on the new Martin Luther King memorial being dedicated in Washington, where the 'if' does not appear as it did when it was spoken at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta in 1968:

"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all the other shallow things will not matter."

The 'if' matters. It matters a great deal because without it King is assuming a mantle and with it he is not; that it is not about him but about Justice, peace and righteousness. Is this a shallow thing or insignificant? I don't think so. I think it speaks of the way our heroes are elevated, to become, in death, a 30 foot tall man expressing stern, stony determination rather than just a man struggling with a mission, struggling with himself, struggling with a stupid, angry and vengeful world that will continue to be just that long after he is gone. The quote on the monument is not phrased as part of a question and that raises many questions.

Are we making him what he was not and apparently did not wish to be? If we make his life about him, then we can opposes him more readily than we can argue against justice and we can make the movement he participated in, a mere matter of quotes and formulae if we like him and personal failings if we do not. Perhaps some can ask his stone idol for guidance and support for their own objectives and pretend he is not gone and will magically return some day. As always happens when our heroes die, we are making his life something less than it was and something more about our lust for leaders, prophets and even gods and we do it to preachers and prophets; polemicists and presidents when we put our desires into their acts and words and thereby worship ourselves.

Occupational Hazard

By Capt. Fogg

I first heard of it a few days ago from a blogger noted for outrageous claims, but I have been late to pick up on the ploy, even though it has been used against liberals and liberal causes for some time. Similarly overbearing "conservative" commentators once assured me that of course Bill and Hillary Clinton were obvious anti-Semites and if you're old enough to read this you'll remember that Barack Obama was of the same racist, intolerant and bigoted stripe and perhaps even a Hitler Sympathizer and Muslim terrorist.

Of course there's always an anecdote, a selected collection of irrelevant or even fabricated 'facts' to prove the point -- and of course and strangely, those making the claim aren't often Jews. I've learned to discount these attacks, of course, you should pardon the metaphor, for many reasons including the observation that the accusations most often come from iron fisted defenders of a faith only they call Christian and who have only suddenly and temporarily stopped accusing Jews and other infidels of persecuting them. ( Sorry Muslims, you'll have to wait your turn for forgiveness.)

So for now, this week only and especially for you, I'm offering 99.99% off (what a deal) on the notion that the Occupy Wall Street people are really there to express their anti-Semitic notions about bankers and brokers and not their antiestablishmentarian anger at those who accepted massive and expensive rescue only to continue their shoddy practices to the detriment of the public and national survival.

That's a sentiment strangely similar to the Tea Party disdain for government bailouts, and the strange bed-fellowship implied here is difficult to sweep under the rug for those who need to look like the only ones discontent with the status quo on Wall Street. So how do you make the Tea Party look good and other people with the same idea look bad? You find something or someone atypical or irrelevant and promote it or him as the prototype.

The Jewish Journal today reminds us of the infamous "protocols of the Elders of Zion" that was used by Czarist supporters to identify the feared and hated Jews with socialism, a practice not unknown to this day and a book that was printed by "Christian" organizations around the world until recently -- if indeed they've stopped. I certainly remember the promotion of Abbie Hoffman to leadership of the many disparate and mostly respectable protesters in Grant Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. I was there and I'd never heard of him until I heard on the news that he was my leader, but of course it was enough to taint the many clergymen, Vietnam veterans and business leaders with the yellow star.

The fear of being labeled a racist of any stripe is, I think, being used quite deliberately to downplay the legitimacy of this protest. It isn't enough to play up the numbers of people who are making a mess of the city and its public and private facilities, particularly for a party trying to wear the mantle of some 18th century destructive, anti-Government protesters. It's hard to convince us that they're really secretly Mexican illegals or African Americans demonstrating their disdain for enterprise and civility, but anyone can be a Jew, or at least accused of it and so the sudden concern by the Religious right that their best friends are being offended on these holiest of holy days, by those unwashed, free loading, anti-Semitic hippies who seem to be gathering around the world calling for regulation.

And of course President Obama we already know to be a Jew hater and if he tries to impose regulations on the Jew-Dominated financial and banking interests, we have additional proof that regulation equals bigotry and not just Communism - just don't think about it too carefully and you won't notice the absurdity -- and if you do, the Tea Party will turn on you too, you bigot

Changing the narrative

Heavy travel schedule. Been too exhausted from the road to blog. Barely stay awake long enough to read some of the news. I see it was a busy day yesterday but I have no time to talk about the idiot Senate GOPers at the moment.

But just read in my old local rag that Ministry of Truth was on the bobbleheads on Sunday and debated George Will. Please tell me there's a youtube of this.

[Thanks to Doug J at Balloon Juice for digging up the video and the hat tip.]

"Leering at the attractive 20-year old girls"

What an idiot. Patrick Howley, an assistant editor at the ultra-conservative American Spectator boasts about sabotaging an Occupy Wall St action. He infiltrated a subgroup that was protesting drones at the National Air and Space Museum and admits instigating a confrontation at the door in order to discredit the group and the greater Occupy Wall Street movement.


Apparently, his cover required "leering at the attractive 20-year old girls.'” What's up with that? I thought these guys claim there are no attractive women on the left. But that aside, it still proves the old rule. Anything a Republican/con accuses the other side of doing, is something they're either doing, or thinking of doing, themselves.


But the fact is, Howley publicly admits he commited an illegal act. Shouldn't he be arrested for that? More at FDL.

We're all hippies now

This is a little surprising. Via Thers, posting at Eschaton, there's a Fox news poll asking, Do 'Occupy Wall Street' protesters represent your views about the nation's economic problems?"

When I voted, a little over 62% said, yes, yes they do. So much for their alleged messaging problem. It seems most ordinary Americans identify with "We Are the 99%."

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Ten million people in the streets

Since I've been preoccupied with grieving the loss of my Dad, I haven't talked about the Occupy Wall Street movement much, but I have been following since day one. And from the first day, the purpose of the protests seemed clear to me. It's not about presenting a list of demands, or issuing some kind of grand manifesto. It was simply about getting people to get off their ass, stop bitching on the internets to each other and get into the streets.

It's about changing the narrative. Or maybe I should taking charge of the narrative. Wresting control of the message from our useless media and bringing it directly into the public square.

And damn if it isn't working. GOPers are running scared.

The conservatives have spent the last 4 decades building a message machine at great expense. These kids who showed up on Wall Street a couple of weeks ago threw a big fat money wrench into the works. The only reason the 99% messaging is complicated is because there's so many problems to solve.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Amerika Über Alles

By Capt. Fogg

Mitt Romney is hard to figure out, partly because his most salient feature is the love of ingratiating himself dishonestly with any group he thinks is worth ingratiating himself to. So I have to wonder if he really thinks the United States is the nation chosen of God to lead the world as he told cadets at the Citadel yesterday or whether he just assumes that people embarking upon a military career are dreaming of imperial glory. I have no way of knowing whether these cadets have Napoleonic dreams or are attracted to arms because of some sense of personal weakness and humiliation, but I'd hesitate to bet that many really think that US history isn't filled with mistakes at home and abroad or that we aren't a better, more moral nation than once we were. Of course I don't mean to say we shouldn't strive to be a good influence in the world, but being a good influence doesn't mean command, doesn't mean control, doesn't mean we're the infallible and mighty hand of some invented Lord as Romney would be implying if there were any implications beyond opportunism in anything he has ever said in public.

But as I say, you never know what Romney thinks, particularly if your assessment is derived from listening to the man. You certainly can know that he's willing to put some strange interpretations on events to bolster his imperial and messianic aspirations whether or not he believes them. President Obama's "apology tour" for instance; Mitt would like to make the psychorabble feel important and loved by associating honesty with apology and apology with weakness and weakness with Jonah-like abdication of a divine mission. Of course Obama never went on an apology tour, but what black man has ever not been in danger from Godly Americans when someone accuses him of winking at a white girl. Where there's smoke, there's fire, we say, forgetting that where there's smoke there may be a smokescreen and there may be arson.

That Obama portrayed American history in a poor light by admitting that we have sometimes been guilty of arrogance and have sometimes made mistakes is a big fish to swallow, to invert the metaphor and it clashes with Romney's carefully crafted humble demeanor. There's nothing humble about him and there's something disturbing about the belief in divinely ordained male control of family life his religion seems to demand, at least to an outsider like me.

"An eloquently justified surrender of world leadership is still surrender"

said the man who is more frightening for his benign smile. To me there is no one more dangerous than a man who can call upon a sufficiently established god to justify world domination and I don't think I need to offer examples. No one more dangerous unless, of course, we add the photogenic charm and the forked tongue. What Mitt really is saying is that America is chosen to be the priest and caretaker of the planet and what he is implying is that by being its ordained leader, he's God's agent on Earth. Where and when have we heard this before? Certainly not from the founders of our Republic who took up arms against God's own chosen King.

I've often been told that Obama "went over there and apologized to them" by Fox News victims totally ignorant of where there is or who said what. It's a lie of course and a big one but it isn't going away even if Romney never says another word about it or is magically transported to another world for him to rule, as apparently he thinks he will be. Lies, like cancer cells, are all but immortal. Truth and decency and the hope for a world not run by pompous and powerful thugs in expensive suits and plastic hair are as fragile as a dream.

Universe works in mysterious ways

Didn't make it to my target destination tonight. A 16 mile traffic jam ended right before an exit that was totally off of my route but I took it as an omen and left the road early anyway. Drove 10 miles out of the way to find a hotel here in the middle of nowhere in a town I've passed a dozen times but never stoppped in. Ended up at a Best Western, which I generally avoid. Turned out to be a great hotel and the best unexpected travel encounter I've had in years.

Original plan was to settle into the room and blog. But the place has a lounge and they give you a dollar towards a drink. Who could resist the retro novelty of that? The only people there were me, the bartender and her boyfriend. They were Irish. And fun. So the plan for one quick drink turned into two drinks and a two hour conversation. Love when that happens. But the pour on the second one was big. Which means I'm not going to blog tonight.

Arrogant SOBs

For obvious reasons, I haven't written about Occupy Wall Street though I've been following since the first day. But by now you know the protests have expanded across the country and even overseas. A lot has been said about the amorphous nature of the protests but the one unifying slogan that has clearly emerged is "We are the 99%."

This week thousands were marching in Chicago and the new Galtians' response to the protesters illustrates the genesis of the protests perfectly.

Yes, they are the 1%, the producers of economic mayhem, who stuffed their pockets with taxpayer bailout bucks and built it into new fortunes for themselves even as they continued to screw over the 99% with their fancy algorithums and other underhanded trading tricks.

This
companion piece happened about a week ago when Occupy Wall Street was still just a relative handful of hippies being ignored by the legacy media.



How entitled the wealth holders feel, lolling on their balconies, secure above the crowds, not unlike upper class Romans sneering down with amusement at the gladiators in the arena and feeling oh so superior to the hoi polloi in the stands. It was this arrogant class that brought down the Roman empire with their vainglorious excess. But as the 99% movement grows, we can perhaps hope history will not repeat itself.

zen

By Capt. Fogg

So I hear these two guys talking on the radio. It's a conversation on the Amateur Radio 20 meter band, so half the world could be listening if conditions are right.

"I heard one of these protesters said he was there because 'Capitalism was taking over Wall Street' -- like it hasn't been Capitalist for over two hundred years! What an idiot!"

Well I'm assuming this guy isn't an economist any more than he might be a historian, and I'm assuming he got the information about what the "typical" loony-left and ignorant protesters are from some artisanal propaganda source like Fox News.

Yes, of course, there were protesters baring their breasts and preforming other charming acts having little to do with constructive criticism of laissez-faire Capitalism. While I'm the last person to discourage such acts, I'm also the last person to believe that this kind of New Yorky opportunistic revelry has anything to do with the reasons more qualified critics like Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz would lend support by their presence: reasons having to do with Wall Street practices, their relationship to the market crash, the credit crunch and the dire state of the world economy -- subjects the people who script and sculpt the news would rather mock, would rather have you mock, than discuss intelligently.

For someone who suffered through the late 1960's as an adult, the techniques political enterprises use to dismiss well grounded movements hold no novelty. I remember quite well how anyone openly questioning the benefits and reasons for maintaining an unwinnable war in Southeast Asia was told to "get a job" and had his personal hygiene questioned as well. Easier to dismiss someone, albeit clad in Brooks Brothers attire and obviously gainfully employed, as a silly, radical and stupid "hippie" than to answer disturbing questions as why killing peasants, bombing millions and stifling free elections was preventing the 'lights of freedom from going out in America' as was wrongly claimed by the Right. Then, as now, the real struggle was to keep the lights of reason off and it was fought with the same kind of smugly simplistic and fatuous fallacies the powerful always use to crucify the good.

But the dishonest selection of unrepresentative examples and illuminating them as "typical" is ancient and not the property of right wing extremists. It's the sort of thing our foul species does to advance our cults and parties that want to keep us in squalor and ignorance and the occupation of Wall Street isn't about the irrational or Communist inspired hatred of freedom or free markets, as you know, or you wouldn't have read this far. It's about corruption and the lack of rules and oversight that promotes private exploitation of free markets to the detriment of all. The occupation of Wall Street is just another station of the cross where the sidewalks are filled with mockery and abuse.

That unwitting clowns are flopping about in over-sized shoes, honking horns and mocking, is inevitable, given the well-fed smugness of the stupid. Their invisible rulers are very good at making them eager participants in their degradation and suffering; but failure isn't inevitable. It's tempting for old-timers like me to opt out of the circus, but perhaps there's hope, unlikely as it may seem, that enough people can be made to see how they're protecting the practices of the looters, pillagers and vandals on Wall Street and in Washington to do something about it. There's hope, but I'm not yet ready to bet on it.

Suck. On. This.

Always loved him, but Sam Seder's great moment in television just put him on my hero for life list. I only regret he didn't enunciate the phrase a little more strongly, and slowly, when he threw it in little Tommy Friedman's face. Still. Total win. Can't easily embed those videos so, click the link to see it live.

Meanwhile, if you need some context on the origins of suck on this, well click that link.

Passivity has consequences -Updated

I really do hate polls, but it's worth noting this new CBS survey shows "nearly 7 in 10 believe President Obama has not made real progress in fixing the economy." This isn't shocking because it's true.

The reason he hasn't made any progress is because in an doomed from the start strategy of going for what was possible under the mistaken notion that voters would reward "bipartisan" results, President Obama adopted the GOP policy prescriptions rather than fight like hell for policy that restored the Democratic party's former populist stance.

People voted for Obama in 2008 because they thought he would fight for FDR style New Deal programs. That he would fight for the working people rather than the corporate oligarchs. Until recently that didn't happen.

But it's not too late. His newly aggressive narrative is resonating. All he has to do is follow through and not let the GOP and Blue Dogs bully him into passive acceptance of bad choices. The jobs bill will be a big test. If he stands his ground and accepts no less than an up or down vote on the full bill, his re-election would likely be assured - regardless of the outcome of the vote on the bill.

Update: Forgot to add there were more questions in that poll. Most important to the question at hand, a majority favors raising taxes on millionaires to ease the deficit. This, of course, reinforces numerous previous polling on that question.

Unintended consequences

Normally I might say this was dereliction of duty, but in this case it seems like a blessing in disguise that Michele Bachmann hasn't voted in the Congress since early August. In fact she's only "voted 54% of the time since announcing her presidential bid June 13 -- missing 150 votes..."

Which makes me a bit sad that her campaign is heading for an early crash and burn. Anything that keeps her off the floor can only be a good thing.

First you scream No

Working my way through the grief cycle. I knew it was trouble when the caller ID showed the folks' phone number so early in the morning. I thought, oh no. Dad fell and broke a hip this time. Of course, the news was much worse and completely unexpected.

First you scream -- No! It can't be true. It's a terrible mistake. Then you deal with the immediate aftermath. The arrival of the nearby family members. The hugs. The tears. Softly murmured recollections of good times. The sound of heart wrenching sobs from a behind a closed door. Sometimes they're your own.

The funeral home. The insensitive funeral director trying to talk Mom into a more expensive option than they had already paid for long ago. Gratefully, Dad made his preferences clear. A speedy cremation. No public viewing. A private strewing of the ashes.

Oddly the most comforting moment was when we got home again. The very religious neighbor came over to ask if it would be okay to mow the lawn. Then he asked if he could say a prayer. He prayed for us. The heathen survivors. To find peace. Somehow it helped.