Welcome to the Terrordome

Once in a while I'll venture onto one of the social networking sites and attempt to catch up with acquaintances. I'll be honest; I'm half-assed about these sites because knowing Bridget ate a tart at Ago that made her orgasm doesn't do a thing for me or my orgasms.

I mention the inanity of this exercise because once in a bit I'll see a comment that will tempt me to add my thoughts. Today was one of them. The setup was my friend Shawn's page, and he'd posted about the loony bin who'd flown his plane into the IRS building, yet he's not considered a terrorist. Someone commented that Tim McVeigh's "the worst" to which I said:

i disagree; tim mcveigh's a shithead, but what congress, the exec & judicial branches as well as the regulators (sec, cftc, et al), not to mention the jerkoff bankers, analysts and ratings agencies have done is no less than genocide on millions - worldwide. and the most astounding thing? this system is STILL intact and doing the SAME exact things that produced the meltdown IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! in fact, while the rest of us are on our knees, goldman sachs of shit ceo lloyd blankfein is taking "ONLY" a $9 mil bonus this year...

so the REAL question of our time is:

WHEN will the american people WAKE THE F UP?

the overs/unders on that are never/as long as they have mcdonald's, cable tv & suvs.

and the report card on barack/his admin? so far, D- over F. and i supported him over mccain [didn't vote for him though]. but enough's enough.

make no mistake; this is not a financial coup, it is genocide....

In true Freudian subconscious play, one of the things about stream of consciousness and free association is that every once in a while things will really come to the fore. This is one of them, because up until now, I really hadn't - in Frank Luntz or Tom Friedman style - named EM08 beyond "EM08" as a utilitarian label.

"Financial coup d'etat" is a start in the right direction, although it's still a bit too martial for my taste, yet it does have a place. "Genocide," however, is loaded, although it is - again, taking a cue from Luntz - being broadened from a specific race or ethnicity's targeting to class. So, the econ elite's war on all else, with the financial coup being an instrument in order to accomplish the goal of theft. Genocide is the result.

I don't use the term "genocide" lightly, either. To the contrary, I think it is perfect in application here, with the element of speed needing to be illumined. Meaning that Native Americans were wiped out in one form or another or Jews were shipped to camps en masse. That is easy enough to see because it is happening in a very systematic and rapid manner. Also, it was very clearly intentional, which I'll address shortly.

With EM08, this systematization of tyranny is far more sophisticated (albeit unwieldy and with more variables and yet, a much greater head start and range of camouflage and protections for the econ elites now) to the Native American or Jewish exterminations, however, what is aiding the banks, their government jackals and associated other hitmen (mass media/fourth estate, analysts, regulators...) is the sheer scope and size so as to render them invisible. There's the scope and size, the unwieldy aspects again. But because of common interests and economic imperatives, it's like a grand perversion of Smith's Invisible Hand mating with La Cosa Nostra and producing their baby, Uncle Scam.

Then there's speed. If President Jackson orders masses of Natives off of their sovereign land because he wants their gold and instigates the Trail of Tears, that's fairly concise and immediate in impact. But let's look at one element of EM08; the first phase of the real estate bubble in order to see why "genocide" will not popularly be applied to what's going on. Here's a simple fact:

*** There were many players; banks, hedge funds, ratings agencies, insurance companies, regulators, politicians, mass media, analysts.

That so many were involved, to greater or lesser degree, obscures the fact that people - not "corporations" - did this and in some relationships with outright knowledge of fraud and conflict of interests. Yet, this is never brought to light by our politicians, congressional inquiries, much less in our bought off overly conglomerated mass media. But because the first phase of the real estate bubble took decades to pop, it's purported to be (by some) and perceived (by some) as "an economic cycle" much like fall after summer, or the melting of our polar ice caps as having nothing to do with man's scarfing down oil like it was his last meal.

In other words, the sheer size and scope of EM08 works to "their" advantage. For the average American, brought to their knees by any number of EM08 pressures, understanding EM08 is like trying to read Manufacturing Consent while riding a Tilt-A-Whirl.

Last, the issue of conspiracy. Whether there is or isn't really isn't the point. It's like talking about whether someone is or isn't racist based upon their intentions, ie, a white person who calls Toyotas "rice burners" isn't racist, they're just being funny. Such talk obscures real racism - in hiring, college admissions, buying or renting a home, number of police inquiries/arrests, imprisonment.... The key is noting what people who wield power as societies and institutional structures do.

With EM08, so what if there wasn't a cabal of evil white men who were led by a sneering Dick Cheney plotting world domination? The fact that they had common interests and the resources to play the way they wanted led them to the same results. The answer is to not get sidetracked by deflections like conspiracy arguments and, as Krishnamurti said, stick to what is.

It may be cliche to say take a lesson from those who talked about watching the Nazis come for the artists, intellectuals, homosexuals, gypsies, and Jews but doing nothing. Yet, as we all watch "helplessly" as millions are being destroyed that is the current situation. Nothing convinces me otherwise.

Flappin' Their Yaps

It was with a raised eyebrow greeting that I heard of Barack's "Job Summit" along with the word, "bullshit." More stage show, so "they" can appear as if 1. They care, and 2. They're doing something pragmatic, let alone relevant.

If anyone believes that something with teeth and traction emerges from this taxpayer funded way off Broadway show, I'm setting the over/unders at 2 years and let's be generous; let's say they employ 10% of the real number of (approximately) 20% under & unemployed,(~*~) including those who have fallen out of the system and those who've just given up. Now, I don't know what that number is, and maybe no one really does, but if we say there's 300 million here, then it's 60 million and 10% of that is 6 million jobs. Anyway, I have such faith in the ability of politicians and the American System's abilities to only really work for the elites, that I'll give 4 to 1 on the bet. If anyone's serious, closing's a week from now.

This should also illustrate something to the very vocal critics of the government and politicians, from the high, such as Peter Schiff, to the low, such as certain friends of mine who subscribe to the "government just mucks up everything" because they're idiots, incompetent, etc., etc. etc.

But this is yet again looking through the wrong end of the telescope; it's just a matter of perspective. I actually think government is too efficient. People need to step away from how events boil down to themselves and look at the effects in the world around them; hey, news flash, but EM08 didn't happen by accident, and that includes the bailouts without stipulations. Bailouts, lest we forget, that happened really, really fast and efficiently and that went against public consensus. Sounds pretty efficient to me - for elites.

For starters, there's my wheel house; conglomeration/concentration. Despite anti-compete/trust laws, elite money interests are conglomerated everywhere in America; oil, healthcare, mass media, autos, insurance, cell phones, retailing (with the largest conglomerate in the world), food production, electricity, water....

Then there's the American System's great facility at going after "the bad guys" - the real bad guys. Remember, I agree with Frank Luntz and marketers even before him who, in turn, was/were before Tom Friedman who is currently running around saying, "You name something, you own it." In this next example of the American System's efficiency, look at how it effectively eliminates or minimalizes counter views, again, from high to low. Look at the methods, appropriate again, from high to low. Eliot Spitzer, who had AIG (his heat was a huge factor in nailing Hank Greenberg) and investment banks in his sites, is taken out by the "sex scandal" bullet, while Dick Cheney prospered. Cheney, who has clear conflicts of interest and even treason following his sluglike slime trail in the form of the Plame Affair.

And right on time, on the "low" level, it's the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Chi-town BPP Chairman Fred Hampton, as hard, revolutionary and charismatic as you wanna be. That cat was as electrifying as Malcolm, he was that bad. As is said by Caine about O-Dog in the Hughes Bros. Menace II Society, "He's America's worst nightmare; a nigga that don't give a fuck." (I of course wouldn't say worst; that's reserved for the devils, but, you know...) Hampton didn't give a fuck, but in this case it was what uncle scam thought. So of course, uncle scam couldn't have that, and basically bought off an informant - I won't mention the sucker by name cause he's not worth it - in order to get the layout of Hampton's apartment. At that point Hampton was just bum rushed in his own bed with his 8 month pregnant mother of his unborn son next to him (she survived) and assassinated him in cold blood! Of course, the spin afterwards was that it was instigated by Hampton, despite overwhelming forensics to the contrary, such as 90 shots going in and one that was fired by presumably Hampton's bodyguard straight up. By the way, among the rounds, some of it was machine gun fire.

Then of course post their cold blooded murder, uncle scam lied about everything, stating the "viciousness of the Black Panthers" and how the popo was basically reacting to Hampton's aggressiveness. Just remember that bullet ratio of 90 to 1.

Better than I is a word from my fellow American to put this "high and low" point in order; don't know his name, but I want to praise him. I was listening to some of NPR's take on the Job Summit, and the usual roundelay of experts from right and left. But then, the clouds parted and the sun broke through in the form of taking it to the streets with some "man on the street" takes.

The gem was what sounded like coming from an older black brother, and I paraphrase:

When the banks cried out that they needed help, they went ahead and gave them billions real fast. But now that there're millions of people out of work, they wanna talk about it.

This is the EM08 comment of the year, if you ask me.

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(~*~) Let's also be honest - at least - and admit to ourselves that if the real under/unemployment numbers are near 20%, for black and brown peeps it's way higher.

In other words, a recession for all is a depression for people of color.