Fecal Cliff

Again, from the Latter-day Pamphlets;

  " For, in fine, the tragic experience is dimly but irrepressibly forcing itself on all the world, that our British Parliament does not shine as Sovereign Ruler of the British Nation; that it was excellent only as Advisor of the  Ruler; and has not, somehow or the other, the art of getting work done; but produces talk merely, not of the most instructive sort for most part, and in vortexes of talk is not unlike to submerge itself and the whole of us, if help come not!"

  "The beginning of all business everywhere, as all practical persons testify, is decidedly this, That every man shut his mouth, and do not open it again till his thinking and contriving faculty have elaborated something worth articulating, Which rule will much abridge the flow of speech in such assemblies! ... and this, alas, is precisely the rule which cannot be attended to in constitutional Parliaments."

Whither Hence, "American Conservative"?

Has anyone found any alien pods under the desks of the new "crop" of bloggers at the American Conservative? Is Ron Utz devoting too much of his attention to his vanity projects? Is there an editor in the house? This is just unreal. According to Scott Galupo, Republicans are going to resist letting the Bush tax cuts expire and instead are okay with eliminating all deductions and loopholes, because that won't be "raising taxes". Sounds weird, right? How about some quotes? My brackets...

     "The House GOP has signaled it’s not ready to budge on those rates. So we’re left with that big pot of tax expenditures, which, via the Romney-Ryan campaign, Republicans have tacitly committed to tackling." [If that's true, we're extra-lucky Romney lost!]

    "So here’s what I’m thinking could be the outline of a fiscal cliff-averting deal. Call it the Romney-Ryan plan without the rate cuts. It would give Obama the revenue he wants, [Oy!] and Republicans could at least claim not to have raised tax rates." [Sounds very Clintonian to me.]

     "Perhaps I’m overly optimistic, but I think it’s a deal that both sides could live with. Even more important, I think it would be good for the economy." [No, you're not - both sides could live very well with it,  its not important what you think, let alone more important, (editor!), and it would kill whatever is left of the economy. Quadruple Oy!]

     "Barack Obama and Speaker John Boehner are the two most important people in America right now. My prediction: they will do the right thing, and we will get a deal." [Billy the Kid made a deal with Bill and Ted, too, "Whatever I win, I keep. Whatever you win, I keep." "Sounds good, Mr. the Kid!" said Bill and Ted and Scott Galupo.

Let's see if I can recreate my comment from memory, since they didn't run it for some reason;

"Wrong! Sorry liberal "conservatives" - although, you didn't mention what the taxpayers would get out of the deal (or the Republicans, for that matter), every penny would be spent, and trillions more would be borrowed, monkey business as usual would continue until the wheels fall off the wagon, and then they'll send the goon squad around like the Sheriff of Nottingham, looking for hoarders and tax-evaders. Respectfully [hah!], you're seriously deluded."

Here's a representative quote that they did publish;

Scott Galupo says;
Deduction limits can be structured in such a way that the wealthy [fucking bastards and crooks] take the biggest hit —> http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/10/18/study-deduction-cap-would-raise-1-3-trillion
And honest liberals [Hahaha] concede that middle-class taxes will probably need to go up at least somewhat.

Church of the Latter-day Pamplets

Thomas Carlyle, Latter-day Pamphlets, "Stump-Orator" - 1850 (fer chrissakes!)

"Probably there is not in Nature a more distracted phantasm than your commonplace eloquent speaker, as he is found on platforms, in parliaments, on Kentucky stumps, at tavern-dinners, in windy, empty, insincere times like ours. ... Alas, he is in general merely the windiest mortal of them all; and is admired for being so, into the bargain. ... Not empty these musical wind-utterances of his; they are big with prophecy; they announce, too audibly to me, that the end of many things is drawing nigh!"

"While the many listen to him, the few are used to pass rapidly, with some gust of scornful laughter, some growl of impatient malediction; but he deserves from this latter class a much more serious attention."

"If speech is the banknote for an inward capital of culture, of insight and noble human worth, then speech is precious, and the art of speech shall be honoured. But if there is no inward capital; if speech represent no real culture of the mind, but an imaginary culture; no bullion, but the fatal and now almost hopeless deficit of such? Alas, alas, said banknote is then a forged one; passing freely current in the market; but bringing damages to the receiver, to the payer, and to all the world, which are in sad truth infallible, and of amount incalculable."

Cicero (106-43 B.C.) is quoted as saying, 'Ut imago est animi voltus sic indices oculi' (The face is a picture of the mind as the eyes are its interpreter). Nailed It!

Final Thoughts on the District Convention

I attended mainly to support Ron Paul and secondly to witness the reaction. This largely confirmed my original notions that this Republican primary has been all about beating Ron Paul. That's why they ran the seven dwarves, desperate to find a non-romney, non-paul. One by one, they "took one for the team" and showed the inevitability of the Presumptive Romany. But the presumptive romany has one hand tied - he is unable to mention any position on any real issue, because at some point in the past he has said the exact opposite. So, he must run an issueless campaign against Paul. and lo, he is winning. It turned out to be a good strategy against Paul; he intends to use the same against Obama, and he will fail, because the press doesn't have to pretend that there is no Obama, To further confirm this theory. I got a four-page fund-raising letter from Romney, asking me several times to donate, that never mentioned policy at all; just that we need to defeat Obama and Obama care.

Running against Obama will lose, and that's all they got. I'm sure he doesn't care that he's taking the noble loser role from thomas dewey, gerald ford, bob dole and john mccain. Both parties have shown total consistency on squelching reform, all the way down to the district level, and there is no shortage of those "taking one for the team". It is completely obvious that both Parties are happy to take turns drinking deeply of the sweet river of taxpayer honey. Whatever it takes to divert attention from anyone who may possibly threaten it.

Paul Gottfried;
"Nisbet said that what he called the “sociological tradition” owed a great deal to conservative critics of the French Revolution. These enemies of progress had analyzed the value of hierarchical relations and the link between community and custom. But Nisbet, who was an old-fashioned Taft Republican in American politics, did not believe this conservative legacy was alive and well in the US. And it wouldn’t seem from anything he wrote that he thought that either the conservative or traditional liberal legacy had much to do with the American present.

One can learn from Nisbet’s work on conservatism more than one ever could from the made-to-order GOP polemics that pour out of the Rupert Murdoch empire. One does not draw significant ideological distinctions by accusing the Democrats of not playing fair in the communal sandbox. Getting paid for throwing back sand at the other toddlers is a nice gig but hardly a scholarly activity.

I am amused to learn that Democratic sociologists imagine that Republicans are suffering from some mental disorder. I had hitherto assumed that Republicans were people addicted to zombie-like centrist presidential candidates, all of them resembling Bob Dole. Perhaps the “psychopundits” have something to teach us after all."

So no. I wouldn't try to work for anything within the formal party; it is carefully constructed and tended to promote and perpetrate various frauds on it's own members and the taxpayers, and would be destroyed if it ever really threatened the gravy train. I could see some possibility of success outside of this area where the entire economy is directly or indirectly based on Federal spending. Bushco wrecked the Republican party; it is now the rump opposition to the Great Society, stuck forever lost somewhere in Viraq-namistan, cursing hippies.

Can you "work within" the borg? If the Republican party were reformed completely along favorable lines, and became an effective force for good, it would then, be somehow bent back to serve the insiders, or negated. The convention is the last chance to prove loyalty and crush the Paultards. Will they sacrifice everything else? Bill Kristol assures us they will, and I believe him. It's just a shameful irony that after all Dr. Paul's work and our money spent, the next president will be Gary Johnson.

Ron Paul really was your last chance, Americans. You blew it. Now chew it.

WOOF - White,Old, Overweight and Frightened

I held my nose and waded into the Virginia Republican 11th District convention yesterday to support the Ron Paul delegates to the National convention (two were running, one was elected). The only surprise for me was how many Paul supporters were in attendance, as Fairfax county, being one of Mordor's bedrooms, may be one of the least freedom-friendly venues in the U.S. The overall theme was probably Cognitive Dissidence on Parade, with detectable overtones of fear and loathing, kicked up a notch with smug self-satisfaction and sublime hints of nostalgia and wishful thinking.

Overall, the 2012 candidates from dog-catcher to President, are running against Obama. Not his policies, because those are virtually identical to those of Bush, Jr. (a personage completely unmentioned, yet whose presence hung over the affair like the Holy Ghost). Barack HUSSAIN! Obama, is not only the Worst President Ever, but also the Worst Guy Ever, who, aided by the LIBERALS! is DESTROYING the Economy and the Country and Perverting such of our Youth who are unABORTED only by the grace of God and the constant vigilance of our good Republican Women of both sexes. Also, SACRED Marriage is between a Man and a Woman, although divorce and serial marriage are evidently okay for those that can afford it, or at least not spoken of. The sole purpose of Government is to provide Security and a STRONG DEFENSE. Never forget that OBAMACARE will destroy the greatest Health Care System in History and send us all in pain to an early death. Also, Republicans should Reach Out to Minorities, especially Asians who are much like us and struggling to raise their children in a godless, business-unfriendly environment, probably because of OBAMA. Nary a mention of the Banks, TARP, bailouts, Foreign Aid, subsidies, Federalism, the Bill of Rights, the FED, Waste Fraud and Abuse, or really anything else of substance. On the credit side there was no mention of Romney, the Aunt in the attic. Hence, the cognitive dissidence. Because I was under cover in a suit with a fresh haircut and no RP regalia, I did hear some mutterings about "those Ron Paul People", hence, the fear and loathing. I love it!

To be clear, I am white, (kind of) old, (slightly) overweight guy, and I agree with much of this, except that I don't give a rat's ass about Obama, abortion, health care or marriage, gay or otherwise. The Democrats really do suck. These things are not of concern to free people. We can take care of ourselves and families if we want to, and in fact we must, because no one else can or will, even if they want to, because we are beyond broke. That parrot is dead; has gone to the choir celestial, it has ceased to be. Some mention was made of this fact in passing, but the speaker was roundly booed (and will probably lose the primary) for mentioning that the problem is of long standing and bipartisan agreement. Nope - it is the fault of OBAMA and the LIBERALS. I love the old Republicans, God bless their dotty heads, and I'm drawn to the nuttier types - one old guy had a voters' guide that excoriated one candidate for being a "free-mason". As a Jacobite, I'm glad to see the old gods still walk the land, however unacknowledged. D____d Quakers and Jesuits. Ha! [I'm halfway through Mason and Dixon, by the demi-god Thomas Pynchon (highly recommended), and I'm starting to think and write 18th century, which seems like a paradise, (except maybe for the filth, disease, murder and republicanism - some things never change.) compared to the present age of stupidity. Long live the Stewarts!

I would like to say a few words about the younger "conservatives" in their huge suits and sour demeanor. The guys with the lexus SUVs and the pretty wives; Santorum supporters probably, you know the type. A little advice, if I may; knock off the carbs, turn off the TV, and for God's sake, get to the gym. If you can, crack a book or two. Then go fuck yourself. Chumps.

Grandpa out...

Oh, you wanted a PONY for Christmas. Sorry!

                                              RU kidding? I luv these guys!

My niece was kind enough to send me a link to the Kony2012 video that's become so popular (I haven't and probably won't watch it, being able to spot a propaganda campaign from a mile away). I was impressed that she was able to recognize this on an instinctual level - "Regardless of whether or not this video is a "scam"...". Although she was touched on an emotional level she knew something was not kosher, and I'm so happy she is developing the jaundiced view of human nature that is going to become so necessary to Americans in the future. If you know you're going to have to walk through the cattle yard, put on your high boots. As I explained as best I could,

"You would be even more upset if you knew why the LRA "child soldiers" came into existence:
basically the Ugandan army massacred all of the adults, the boys escaped into the bush, regrouped, rearmed and took the fight to the army, and WON!* You're right though - it is a huge scam; propaganda designed to generate support for the expansion of "western" neo-colonialism in western Africa, which just coincidently (not) has almost unbelievably huge mineral resources, ripe for the taking except for those pesky Africans. You might wonder where the funding came from to support this giant scam, and you would be on the verge of taking the red pill, (or the blue, I forget which was the one that exposed the matrix.)

My suggestion is to fix America before we straighten out the rest of the world."

p.s. - since it occurred to me that what I knew was from 2002, I did a little more research (haha - wikipedia - the shortcut to knowledge!). Yoweri Museveni is the enemy of the LRA, not a good guy, although there are probably no living good guys in western Africa; typical to turn on the people who put him in power. I've been very focused on this since the Rwandan genocide, literally mountains of skulls - economic and religious warfare on top of tribal warfare, but the friend of my enemy is my enemy as they say.

"His presidency has been marred, however, by invading and occupying Congo during the Second Congo War (the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo which has resulted in an estimated 5.4 million deaths since 1998) and other conflicts in the Great Lakes region. Rebellion in the north of Uganda by the Lord's Resistance Army continues to perpetuate one of the world's worst humanitarian crises."

" It was while at high school that he became a born-again Christian"

"he studied economics and political science and became a Marxist, involving himself in radical pan-African politics. While at university, he formed the University Students' African Revolutionary Front activist group and led a student delegation to FRELIMO territory in Portuguese Mozambique, where he received guerrilla training. Studying under the leftist Walter Rodney, among others, Museveni wrote a university thesis on the applicability of Frantz Fanon's ideas on revolutionary violence to post-colonial Africa.<sup>"

(born-again communist, THAT can't be good)


"</sup>By July 1985, Amnesty International estimated that the Obote regime had been responsible for more than 300,000 civilian deaths across Uganda, although the CIA World Factbook puts the number at over 100,000. The human rights organisation had made several representations to the government to improve its appalling human rights record from 1982. Abuses were particularly conspicuous in an area of central Uganda known as the Luweero Triangle." (that's when he was aligned with the LRA)

" Abandoning his Marxist ideals,[yeah, sure] Museveni embraced the neoliberal structural adjustments advocated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)."

(absolutely damning, especially with this from the world's most evil woman...) "In official briefing papers from Madeleine Albright's December 1997 Africa tour as Secretary of State, Museveni was called a "beacon of hope" who runs a "uni-party democracy,"  (just like the USA!)

"Troops from Rwanda and Uganda plundered the country's rich mineral deposits and timber. The United States responded to the invasion by suspending all military aid to Uganda, a disappointment to the Clinton administration, which had hoped to make Uganda the centrepiece of the African Crisis Response Initiative."

"Museveni was re-elected on 20 February 2011 with a 68% majority with 59% of registered voters having voted. The election results were disputed by both the European Union and the opposition. "The electoral process was marred with avoidable administrative and logistical failures", according to the European Union election observer team."

In short - call or write your congressperson and urge them to butt the heck out of a complex situation that most of them couldn't understand if they wanted to.


* "That’s the lesson of the 20th century: If you want to kill a few people and get bad press, then go ahead: dress in black, drink blood and talk about how you love torture like Amin, Bokassa and Hitler. But if you’re serious about wiping out whole populations, wear a dove of peace and talk about progress and love. That’s what Stalin and the US did, and between them they killed a dozen for every one Hitler got.
Obote was smart; he knew he needed that “moderate” label if he was going to wipe out all his enemies. So he smiled a lot and wore suits and talked progress…and then went to work. When a densely-populated Bantu zone called the Luwhero crescent gave him trouble, his soldiers went in and killed every **** human being in the place. Ever hear about it? No, you didn’t, because the respectable papers didn’t want to know. Amin was good copy; Obote was too “moderate.”

The survivors of Luwhero, mostly kids too young to be worth killing, formed up in a kind of bush army and kept fighting, even when their leader Museveni said “**** it” and hightailed it to London. And to everybody’s surprise (including Museveni) they won. Obote’s soldiers fled north still picking people-meat from between their teeth. Museveni flew home in time to celebrate his victory and resume command. He is now the official ruler of the land. Ta-da!
A real Cinderella story, Central-Africa style.
The LRA gets backing from Sudan, which uses them to massacre other Christians like the Dinka, who are rebelling against the Arabs of the North. The North/South, Muslim/Christian war in Sudan is another of those meatgrinder wars that just doesn’t interest the Western press. It’s inland, and the reporters don’t like getting too far from the beach hotels; it’s hot and malarial country; the victims are nobody’s poster boys."

(Don't) Go Tell the Trojans

There seems to be a lot of skepticism concerning Rand Paul's Primary win in Kentucky and a lack of enthusiasm for his campaign based on a perceived lack of libertarian purity. It's true that he doesn't stress the more unpopular and controversial issues that might (would) make him unelectable in a majority stupid state (all of them). That's because he wants, and we need him, to win. Ron Paul is a brave, smart and principled man who is able to win and hold an elected office without lying or evading critical issues; a rarity if not sui generis. I give great credit to his constituents who may be uniquely principled for Americans if not Texans, but the few Kentuckians I know are some otherwise independent and intelligent (tax avoiders, pot smoking immigration/welfare haters), but Bush-/War- supporting, Obama and furriner-hating yahoos of the first water. Ron Paul, principled, consistent and up-front would get nowhere with these folks. If Rand wants to visit these folks, he's going to get metaphorical and real mud on his boots.


I compare his (Rand's) strategy to getting on a jury where the voir-dire process is specifically designed to eliminate any potential juror with any intelligence, expertise, interest or knowledge of the case. Generally, the only real requirements for a U.S. Senator are great personal wealth and/or a superhuman ability to lie out of both sides of the mouth. The Senate is a snakepit of corruption and the only possible way to gain entry is to provide at least the appearance of corruptibility. That said, the gate-keepers would be well advised to allow him into the Senate and bottle him up for six years rather than risk creating an attractive AND intelligent (sorry, Sarah) candidate for TP leadership, especially if there is any of the usual Republican slimyness in helping to defeat him in the general election. I am related to a pretty big Country Club Republican, thoroughly liberal and statist who has admitted they would rather destroy the Party rather than admit Ron to the inner circle after they went to all the trouble to purge the Birchers. I love Ron Paul, but both Parties hate and fear an uncorruptible man. We can't destroy Troy (no pun intended) if we can't get them to accept the horse.

Farewell to Alms

http://www.goldmansachs666.com/

I saw this site featured on two very different sites, (exiledonline and counterpunch,), and thought it might be of some interest. They are looking for volunteers and running a "webinar" (stupid, dorky term, imo) Wednesday - April 15th at 6PM Eastern. I'm going to check it out, although I'm more interested in bringing down the public-sector criminal enablers than the gang-bankers themselves, what with the revolving door, the distinction is not that clear.

Eliot Spitzer, please call your office. All is forgiven and revenge is best served cold, no?

[UPDATE - I went to Spitzer's wiki page just to get his photo, but noticed this. In a nutshell, why he had to go.]

"He most notably pursued cases against companies involved in computer chip price fixing, investment bank stock price inflation, predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders, fraud at American International Group, and the 2003 mutual fund scandal. He also sued Richard Grasso, the former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, claiming he had failed to fully inform the board of directors of his deferred compensation package, which exceeded $140 million."

Lucky thing for him they got him for boinking a prostitute; beats sleeping with the fishes! Also from the wiki;

"Later in the month, The Washington Post published a Spitzer opinion piece conveying his analysis of the financial crisis of 2008 and suggested remedies. Spitzer concluded the piece by saying that he hoped the Obama Administration would make the right policy choices, 'although mistakes I made in my private life now prevent me from participating in these issues as I have in the past.'"

Come back and fight, Eliot, nobody wants to live forever.

You Say Potatoe

The recent shooting of fish in a barrel in Gaza has managed to push our own barbarism in Iraq down the memory hole. I've been labeled a " paleo dilettante " for comparing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to that of the Hutus and Tutsis.

(She nailed me as a dilettante, but I'm not really a paleo, having no romantic attachment to a world that has ceased to be, and can probably never be recovered). It is an intra-tribal dispute going back to pre-history, and discussions of who hit who first are pointless. Ilana favors the Tutsi because they are "tall and better looking" and I favor them because I loved the Orlons. Whatever. She also links to a manly man...

There, I’ve said it: Afrikaners make the most spectacular paleos. “The modern Boer,” wrote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the popular British writer of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, is “the most formidable antagonist who ever crossed the path of Imperial Britain.”

And the modern paleo Boer is Dan Roodt. Roodt recently paid tribute to his Afrikaner ancestors’ “miraculous victory over the Zulu forces of Dingane during the Battle of Blood River on 16 December 1838,” when “450 Afrikaners defeated an army of at least 13,000 Zulus without any losses in their ranks.” Roodt’s coda:

“The Day of the Covenant should be internationally celebrated among all those who believe that our Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian civilisation is still worth fighting for.”

No (unmanly) weirdness there.

Maybe, but it seems sort of strange that he would remember the slaughter of a large contingent of over-confidant natives armed with spears and hide shields and forget about the treatment of the Boers by the British, pioneering the modern technique of anti-guerilla warfare by rounding up and starving the Boer civilians until the fighters gave up, a bright marker on the road to the end of the "West". Generals Sherman and Custer, call your office. Again, whatever.

 As an American I'm far more concerned with our own moral and strategic blunders. America, like Israel, has an enemy within that is lazy and parasitic, resentful and dedicated to our destruction and is much more numerous, powerful and better armed than the Palestinians. To avoid any confusion, I speak, of course, of the U.S. Government.

Senate Good Guys

The following Senators voted against the BBBBB (Dodd amendment to HR1424).  Again, you should vote to defeat any Senator who is NOT on this list.

Allard  Barrasso  Brownback  Bunning  Cantwell  Cochran  Crapo  

DeMint  Dorgan  Dole  Enzi  Feingold   Inhofe   Johnson  Landrieu  

Nelson, Bill  Roberts   Sanders   Sessions   Shelby  Stabenow  Tester   

Vitter  Wicker  Wyden

Most of these deserve to be defeated because of their support for the Iraq war, but that was then. We have an opportunity to link the next election to this vote and send a clear message that unconstitutional theft under the color of law will be punished.