"Libertarian" Islands?

Now yesterday I was talking up the link between risk-taking and innovation.  But when use an ideological rather than technical motivation you stop pushing the envelope and instead claim the envelope doesn't exist because it conflicts with your ideology. Which leads to the Whack-a-loon idea of the day: Pay Pal founder Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to the Seasteading Institute to create floating libertarian countries in international waters. Is Somalia full or something?

I hate to tell them, but international waters are not lawless regions. If they were to be anchored, they would likely be on the continental shelf and in some nations EEZ.  If free-floating they would be essentially vessels and subject to search from any nation, particularly if they become centers of smuggling.  They would actually only be sovereign if other nations recognized their sovereignty.  The whole scheme sounds like a juvenile Randian inspired fantasy by some people lucky to be in the right place and time to make gobs of money. Never will happen anyway, and it will take more than $1.25 million investments. These people would have to pour their whole fortune into it.

Finally there is the sea itself, which do not treat arrogant people favorably. Methinks none of these folks lived on the New England coast in the winter, let alone sailed through the NW Atlantic in the same season. They wouldn't be so sure about their engineering plans then.

The Coming Perfect Storm of Wingnut Lunacy

I think I’m like most Americans in that the best description of my politics is “mixed”, as I independently choose what I think is the right answer to a problem based not a rigid idealogy set by others but on my own experience and values. For this reason I tend to avoid overarching labels based on an overly simplistic left-right spectrum.

That said, I cannot ignore the fact that an uncompromising myopic reactionary group, the self-styled “Tea Party”and fellow travelers have taken over the Republican Party and are so certain their anti-Enlightenment and internally contradictory philosophy is the only answer that they will take us all over the cliff. They’re like the people who ignored warning signs and climbed over railing in Yosemite, laughing and encouraging their children to join them before they, surprise, surprise, slipped in and went over the falls with a look of shock on their faces.  Within the past few weeks o perfect storm of converging events has occurred to show us the depths of their disdain for others and reality. A perfect storm that may crash the political and economic system of the US. Andrew Sullivan declares, correctly IMHO, that Republican are engaging in what he calls in the title a "cold Civil War"

I longed for Obama to bridge this gulf in ideology. But he cannot bridge it alone, especially when the GOP is determined to burn the bridge entirely, even when presented with a deal so tilted to the right only true fanatics could possibly walk away from it. And so the very republic is being plunged into crisis and possible depression by a single, implacable, fanatical faction. Until they are defeated, the country remains in more peril than we know.

First we have the phone hacking scandal in the UK. Nobody has done more to poison political discourse in the English-speaking world than the Murdoch NewsCorp empire.  Now despite what some on the left believe, this media empire does not convert people, instead it speaks to an audience that already existed. But this was an audience that refused to accept reality and Murdoch gave them “news” that fit their world view. It also allowed the Republicans to fill the vacuum created when the Democratic party and liberals/progressive arrogantly discarded populist messaging. News Corp has been able to set the news agenda not only by feeding their audience, but by their competitors greedy desire to co-opt NewsCorp's message and following. The hacking scandal revealed that not only is their message vile, but that they will stoop to any level to get information they can use to manipulate emotions and public opinion.

Then we have the continuing extreme weather, which has produced continual record breaking temperatures and drought in Oklahoma and Texas and caused one of the worst heat waves on record in the East. This after two unusually stormy winters, continued Arctic warming and anomalous temperature and precipitation patterns. But rather than rethinking their position on climate change they’ve doubled down on it, to the point of Limbaugh mocking the very idea of their actually being a heat wave.

Another thing about this reactionary group is their use of fear, particularly Islamaphobia and ant-immigrant sentiment (Ground-Zero Mosque! Border Fence!).  This sentiment exists in Europe as well and is the motive behind Anders Breivik’s terrorist attacks in Europe. Breivik’s views are indistinguishable from those espoused by Beck, Coulter , Limbaugh and Fox News in general.  Based on comments from reactionaries on news stories related to this I detect a doubling down on this rhetoric while dismissing a Breivik as just a lone-nut with no political motivation.

Finally we have the debt ceiling crises. Though the Republican establishment is using it as leverage against raising taxes on the rich, the Teabaggers* doubt want it raised under any circumstances. They would rather have the country default than borrow money to pay its bills.  They mock warnings that default will have dire consequences, Coulters response to Moody’s warning that they will lower the US rating was to call for an investigation of Moodys!  Mediaite reports:

On last night’s Follow the Money, host Eric Bolling appeared skeptical of the idea of Moody’s reducing America’s credit, and, sharing his “conspiracy theory” that Moody’s is colluding with Democrats to Ann Coulter, found her in complete agreement, calling for a House investigation if the credit rating falls.

As I write the news is that the markets, yes the great symbol capitalism that they proclaim to love, are becoming skittish.

In the end, this reactionary alliance of Teabaggers, enablers and sympathizers are behaving like smokers who respond to a lung cancer diagnoses by suing the doctor and doubling the number of packs they smoke.

The public is becoming repulsed by the Teabagger philosophy, but the response is yet unorganized and unfocused.  Obama has been the adult in the room, but his party is cowardly and the progressive/liberal activists who rail at them are largely upper-class ineffectuals. Our institutionalized two-party system does not allow other voices to be heard.  

Something will happen in this storm, what I cannot say.

·         *I use the derogatory Teabagger because it was initially used by them and I find their attempts to associate themselves with American Revolution vile.

Saturday Santorum...again

Ricky has been on a tear this week:

Santorum thinks he has an advantage in the presidential race because a dog once pissed on him, or something. Hey, I have to pick-up dog poop every day, I'm as good as elected!

The Rickster also wants to "make America America again", well at least until he found out that pro-union, pro-immigrant and anti-racist Langston Hughes wanted to as well. What's even more fun is that many believe Hughes was gay. One thing about wingnuts is their short attention span; John Kerry used the line in '04 and was attacked for it based on the beliefs of Hughes.  You can read the poem here.

Our man is also on-board with Beck on the danger from leftists and Islamic fundamentalists establishing the "caliphate". Just like the way they cooperated in Afghanistan in the 80s, right?

You have to admire (ok you don't) Santorum's unwavering faithfulness to his fellow wingnuts. Instead of just hiring the most competent political operative-mercanaries, he sticks to his with his principles, thus hiring neo-Prohibitionist Sharon Angle's finance director.  Appropriately enough, she is named Amanda Kornegay.

The Rickster also went after Rep. Ryan's" kill the weak budget" because it's not Randian enough, saying, "My big argument with Paul Ryan is that he doesn’t apply a lot of these programs to the current generation of seniors..." Yes, many of today's seniors will happily eat dog food and drop dead while working $1/hour jobs.


If you were up super early today in Somersworth, PA you could've attended "a miniature golf tournament featuring Sen. Rick Santorum on Saturday, April 16 at the Hilltop Fun Center," Wow, now that IS fun it and even better registration started at 7 AM!

Talking about fun, here is a classic Santorum story from last February: "Sen. Rick Santorum.... blasted President Obama for siding with Egyptian protesters as they press for democracy, instead of the American-friendly authoritarian Egyptian government of President Hosni Mubarak." Never forget, that damn democracy cost the Rickster his cushy Senate job.

BTW, is Stephen Colbert Santorum's long lost twin?

As George Carlin once said, "Makes you think...or maybe it don't."

Saturday Santorum

A new feature here on Notes. A weekly roundup of all the nonsense spewed by the once and never more senator from the Keystone state.

The Rickster is one of those conservative Catholics who seem to ignore every teaching but those on abortion, which they then tie to everything. So its no surprise that he blames abortion for Social Security's fiscal problems.  Wow, where to begin...nevermind.

Moving on, Santorum also informs us that Obama is a puppet of the evil UN, with dem furriners pulling his strings on Libya.

I'm sure that as long as the Rickster wants attention, he'll provide enough material to make this a weekly feature.

The War on Democracy: News from the Front

Watching the "Tea Party" backed Republicans in action, I've become convinced that rather than a shadowy monolithic conspiracy, they are an amalgam of reactionary social conservatives, economic supremacists and narcissists, which consciously or subconsciously seeks to create a rigid stratified society run by a subset of wealthy people.  This society would be throwback economically to 1870s America and politically to 1830s France. It would be obtained by the disenfranchisement of much of the population and shifting the from a government answerable to elected representation to services and regulations run by private entities.  More simply, they're anti-democracy.

Today in Ohio, the Republican-controlled House labor committee voted 9-6 to forward a bill to limit collective bargaining rights for 350,000 public workers, including police officers and firefighters

The senior citizen lobbying group AARP is suddenly under attack from Republicans due to its support for not just health care reform, but existing Medicare.

The Wisconsin Union-busting bill has been held up in court, nevertheless the Authoritarians have declared it to be in effect by publishing it in a public record, Legislative Reference Bureau. The LRB itself however declares that their record does not constitute putting a law into effect. As a result, the judge who issued the original stay reiterated in no uncertain terms and threatened sanctions for non-compliance.  However, the Republicans are making noise that they may still ignore the court order.

The Republican House Speaker in Pennsylvania thinks there's too much representation in the Commonwealth, so he wants to cut the size of the lower house by 50 members. Sam Smith of Jefferson County says, "We would be a more efficient body if the House of Representatives was smaller,"  Constitutional scholar Bruce Ledewitz of Duquesne University says the legislature was increased in size in 1874 to help prevent corrupt lawmakers from passing bills favoring special interests and corporations.  Similar bills have been proposed in other states.

The new governor of Florida, Rick Scott, is under fire for his shenanigans regarding the health care company Solantic. Scott was on the board of directors until this past January, but rather than divest himself to avoid a conflict of interest, he instead shifted his holdings to his wife. As Kris Boughton points out, the company may stand to gain form the new free-market health care and drug testing programs that Scott is pushing.

Corbett is as bad as the Midweatern Govs.

Natural gas industry employee Tom Corbett has take time off from slashing the budget and giving tax breaks to his bros in the gas industry to choose Sam Katz for the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, which oversees Philadelphia's finances.

Not being from around these parts, I never heard of him. Well my resident attorney provided me with more info:
"Perennial Philadelphia mayoral candidate Sam Katz must repay $2.1 million he obtained from three business partners by allegedly fraudulently misrepresenting information about the viability of skating rink development projects.
The Delaware Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling in a civil lawsuit over a private business deal that Katz tried to keep from the public during his third failed run for mayor last year...
... the dispute arose from Katz's effort to obtain financing for the development of skating rinks, with construction partially funded by municipal investments and then managed by a Katz affiliate. He attracted several investors, who collectively contributed $2.1 million to the project...
The court said the litigation revealed that Mark Robbins, the man Katz hired as COO and touted as a highly experienced businessman, was in fact an experienced felon who was convicted of drug smuggling, armed robbery and assault.
Vice Chancellor Strine said even the most rudimentary background check would have revealed that Robbins misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars from his own family. Instead, the vice chancellor said, Katz set him to work on preparing feasibility studies, which the two promoted to investors as independently produced."

Yeah, just the type of person to you should have overseeing municipal finances, unless your plan is to falsely accuse the city of being unable to run itself in order to strip away local democratic authority.

Is the Midwest in America Anymore?

With all the natural and manmadee disasters occuring in Japan, we cannot forget the assualt on AMerican Democracy occuring by newly elected "Tea Party" Republicans. It really sticks in my craw that these Authoritarian-Narcissists have the audacity to associate their astro-turf movement with the American Revolution.  Despite their continually blabbing about the American Revolution, it is obvious that Authoritarians neither know or understand much about it. Case in point: Michele Bachmann's twice stated belief that the Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought in New Hampshire. The details are not important, the co-opting of patriotic symbols by the ANs to deceive the ignorant and fearful is.

What's happening in Michigan underscores the real nature of the Authoritarian-Narcissist Axis.The new GOP governor is following the lead of King George III and pushing a law allowing him to suspend local government and remove elected officials! One of the things that set off the Revolutionary War was George and his ministers suspending the classic form of direct democracy, the New England town meeting.  He is also cutting aid and raising taxes on the most vulnerable in society while at the same time giving 1.8 billion is subsidies and tax breaks to the big businesses that paid for his election.

You see, the only right these people believe in is the absolute unfettered right to wealth and property, that is the initial right in their eyes. They believe that all other rights flow from that one and it follows that in their eyes that the extent of your rights is dependent on your wealth. This is the attitude to liberty held by Medieval European nobles.  When they say they are for limited government but then govern as authoritarians they are not being hypocritical, just disingenuous.  They believe in government alright, just not a democratic one.

The Democratic Party has been largely useless in realizing this and fighting it. The liberal activists have been up in arms and angry at the Dems, but only on the internet.  Seriously, do you think the snarketariat over at Wonkette, the hand-wringers at Huff-Po and Democratic Underground, and the easily spooked at Firedoglake really are any threat to the ANs?

Fortunately, the actual working and middle-class have taken things into their own hands, even farmers are joining the protests in Wisconsin.  The firefighters are starting to take their pension funds out of banks that fund the ANs' campaigns. The unions are far from perfect and still have problems with corruption and overpaid bureaucracy, but at least the rank and file is doing what they need to do. And some of those I bashed above are helping to some degree, but what they mainly give is the same moral and political support that the homefront provides to soldiers in the field.

1919?

In Dennis Lehane's The Given Day, we are shown a picture of  the lives of ordinary working Americans at the end of World War I. The story revolves around the struggle of Boston policemen (public servants) to obtain a living wage and work conditions. Their work situation was unthinkable by modern standards: wages frozen at 1905 levels despite massive wartime inflation, 75-83 hour work weeks (and no overtime), no money for uniforms or equipment, overnight on-call duty periods in run-down, unsanitary stations, no compensation for those felled by the flu and no collective bargaining rights. The police finally did strike, and consequently were labeled Bolsheviks and anarchists, even though they were just ordinary working Americans who wanted a fair deal for dangerous work that included dealing with real violent anarchists. It would take many decades for public servants and other Americans to be given decent pay, benefits and working conditions they tried unsuccessfully get then. Looking at life back then who the hell would want to return America to 1919?

The so-called "Tea Party", that's who. For 1919 was a time when rights and protection of the law was determined mainly by wealth (the antithesis of the Enlightenment ideals the country was founded on). Their tactics are the same used in that time period, strike fear into the bigoted and stupid by associating any reasonable request by groups of workers to the most extreme elements around, manufacture budget crises,  demonize the opposition and use violent rhetoric and tough guy posturing, the last two are characteristics of authoritarian personalities BTW.

We are told by Wisconsin Governor Walker that the state faces a huge deficit due to to overpaid government employees who refuse to give up lavish salaries and benefits. BUT, it turns out that Wisconsin public employees make less than privately employed counterparts. How about that? And the projected budget shortfall there is not simply due to the economy, the tipping point was tax cuts the gov and new legislature enacted. Of course those cuts are what the majority of people who bother to turn out to vote wanted, of course those people probably also believe that taxes are higher than ever and there's not enough jobs cuz the Mex-a-cans take them all.

In reality the "....unions agreed to cuts in health care and retirement benefits that could reduce take-home pay for many workers by about 8 percent, and it was time for the Republican governor to compromise."  Amazingly, in the commentsbelow  immediately the article I link you to,  some yahoo (whose avatar is a Obama as a monkey) writes, "Where is the cry for democrats to compromise and work with Republicans? I guess only Repubs and independents are supposed to always give in to the democracks, but it's never the other way around." Reading comprehension is not these folks strong suit, and the willful ignorance, bigotry, poor education (evidence by bad spelling and grammar), blustering posture and admiration for tough guys who put people in their place is classic authoritarian "Tea Party".

Anyone who reads this blog knows I have no patience for corruption, knee-jerk anti-Americanism, and laziness and incompetence in the field of education. My rant here then is not some unthinking reflexive response from a dilettante academic leftist. Ultimately this is not about unions and pensions, its about taking away rights of ordinary Americans. Many TP authoritarians would love to eliminate the 40 hour week, benefits, safety regulations and minimum wage laws, even child labor laws. Stripping unions of collective bargaining is the first step, the next is to overturn the laws on the state and then federal level. This affects everyone, not just unionized public workers.

The question then is not just which side are you on, but do you want to move ahead in the 21st century, or back to 1919?

Wingnuts Can't Divorce Themselves From Their Past Rhetoric

I know a few people who are complete racists, yet emphatically deny it even as they use racial slurs in casual conversation. Being good authoritarian followers, they repeat the mantra of those they trust (e.g. Rush) that accusing them of being racist is itself racists, and anyway all the blacks and "liberals" themselves are racist.  The thing is they're not fooling anyone, and so the goal of their denial is as ridiculous as its logic.

And so it is with the wingnut response towards calls to tone down the rhetoric in the wake of the attempted assassination of Rep. Giffords. Although Jared Loughner was not a TP member (and may be schizophrenic IMHO) there is no denying that violent rhetoric and images have been a staple of the so-called Tea Party movement from the get go, and bringing guns to rallies and angry confrontations at rallies are one of their hallmarks. Furthermore, Loughner's ramblings do take pages from various paranoid right-wing beliefs. Some conservatives claim his flag-burning "proves" he's a left-winger. I hate to break it to them but some of their allies believe that the Stars and Stripes is actually not the "true" American flag, so hostility towards the flag is not confined to left wingers.

There have been calls on the conservative side for a more civil conversation. Tea Party Express Chairwoman Amy Kremer relased a statement that reads in part, "Spirited debate is desirable in our country, but it only should be the clash of ideas." However, Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips declared "The left is coming and will hit us hard on this. We need to push back harder with the simple truth. The shooter was a liberal lunatic. Emphasis on both words."
Similar claims are echoing throughout the blogosphere, many comments  echoing these sentiments on Yahoo are peppered with violent language and even threats towards "liberals" and "leftists"!

Update: Just seen this on the Wikipedia page on the group: After a Tea Party Nation member posted a reply to Phillip's post criticizing him, Phillip's responded: Did you bother to read what the left said yesterday? The wounded were not even to the hospital when the started the attacks. What would you prefer we do? Stick our heads in the sand? Perhaps we should just let the libs shut us up? Maybe you would prefer that. The left is going to use this to blame the Tea Party for the murder. I am not going to let them get away with it and I suggest you wake up and help with the fight.

FYI, it is a war. the left wants to take over our country and destroy the freedoms that we have.


Just like the racists I described, they're fooling no one, especially moderates and independents. Even if Loughner is not one of their own, they have trouble accepting this turn of events as a moment to pause and reflect on their vitriol. Even though the media is failing to note this, this is the narrative that is taking firm root in the public's mind. The wingnut denials and attempts to spin it elsewhere appear as desperate moves to "shift blame." Ironically this will reinforce the meme that their rhetoric is indeed at fault in the public's mind.

The truth is they can't tone it down and drop the hate and ridiculous claims of persecution anymore than they can stop breathing, it is an intrinsic part of their being. The Tea Party Express that issued the "tone it down" is of course a main-stream conservative republican group co-opting of the TP movement. Ironically they are probably more about the TP's stated goal of lower taxes than the actual movement, which showed its true stripes by its focus on guns, gays, mosques and immigrants rather than fiscal conservatism. By not abandoning their hate at this moment (and instead doubling down on it), they will come to be seen as a liability rather than an asset to the GOP.

That didn't take long...

The media loves to build something up and then tear it down, as the Tea Partiers are finding out. A poll that out today shows that most Americans don't share the narrative that discontent and anger is all about the deficit, 56$ worry most about jobs and the economy. That story disappeared pretty quickly, gotta keep the narrative going a bit longer, but eventually they'll find that they're no longer the media darlings.

It also seems the TPs are the jealous type, or more accurately the psycho-bitch Fatal Attraction type.  Seems they're a tad bit upset that the Claremont Institute had an orientation for freshman GOoPers at the same time the TP Patriots were having one, and according to the Hill they decided to harass and threaten their new found love for daring to even look at another interest group. I believe this is what is called narcissistic rage.

Ahh, but they all are firmly united on their goal of balancing the budget by slashing spending across the board, with no exceptions...except this and this and this...

Of course, Matt Taibbi already showed that they're full of shit so none of that should surprise us.

BTW, there's now an interactive tool that you can use to engineer a reduction of the deficit!

I'm sorry to tell you this, but our economy has cancer.

A modern, technologically advanced economy is like a human body. It has many different organs that each perform a task necessary for the whole organism to survive. None can survive without a whole and healthy organism, and this requires a delicate management of the system. The problem for the greedy is that in a properly managed  healthy economy (one that benefits all) the opportunities to become very wealthy can be somewhat limited, as innovation and the success of new products are always uncertain. It isalso difficult to rapidly gain excessive wealth, particularly through non-productive activities of the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) sectors when the economy is working well for all sectors.

In a living body, some diseases occur when some organs fail and others when organs operate improperly. This happens in our body economic as well. We also know that sometimes certain cells go into a malignant mode, reproduce rapidly, perform no useful whole body function, consume bodily resources, overrun their organs and spread; in other words cancer.

In 2010 America we no longer produce much of what we use. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Our health services are still too expensive and out of reach, emergency response is being cut, acquisition and spread of knowledge is a joke, the flow of money to much of the economy is diminished. The FIRE sector no longer serves a productive capitalist market economy, but exists for its own sake. Since the time of Reagan, we have led an lazy, unhealthy lifestyle (sending our productive jobs overseas), concentrated fat in a few places (income disparity), and consumed a monotonous diet of an economic carcinogen (cheap oil).

A malignancy began in FIRE, aided by a hyperactive marketing organ. We embarked on a runaway-feedback loop as rapid suburban and exurban development generated mortgage and other finance activities and associated insurance activity. To continue the beast required further real estate development and the cycle began to feed on itself.  People involved in FIRE moved to the new exploding exurbs and those who in the past would have worked producing goods wound up serving the exurbs as contractors, retail clerks, and landscapers. Thes people needed to live in exurbia, but instead of wages FIRE produced a sweet diet of credit. Exurbia required huge amounts of transportation to grow and survive, which required increasing amounts and dependence on oil. Exurbs took over local farms, requiring us to move food across state, across country, across the seas, consuming more oil. The FIRE metastasized in the government and media and academia. Those organs began to mimic FIRE, producing less while increasing useless administration. The body failed to notice because it was being drenched in the marketing hormone.

We were diagnosed in 2008. Many have balked at the mild (too weak in turns out) treatments prescribed, favoring the tax cut, tax cut and tax cut woo pushed by Tea Party quacks. The marketing hormone and oil addiction are too strong for many. But the cancer is still there, and it will continue to feed.

Political slogan about the Teabaggers

Reading all the poop (literally) on Christine O'Donnell that has come out, I have a new counter TP slogan:


"The Tea Party, getting government off your back and into your pants."

Probably not convoluted and obtuse enough for the Democrats and progressives to use.