the defeatists!

Fuzztopia Nominee for Garage Rock of the Year Song

If you go to Fuzztopia.com and you go to Underground Garage's site, you'll see a lot of similarities. Go to Wicked Cool Records site, and more so. All three have something to do with Little Steven. Anyway, I was reviewing the site and noticed more rants than music links. That's a shame. So, here's one of the nominees, and I'll add more as we go on. In order to qualify for me to add it, you have to have a Garage/Punk/Alt feel. Only reason I'm not banning totally appearance on a Top 40 is this one...Chrissie Hynd and the Pretenders...from Break Up the Concete, Boots of Spanish Leather, revisited...

Conscious and Conscience...

Paul Krugman should probably be Secretary of the Treasury. I don't think he'd accept it, or Commerce, or the FED, but he's probably the best example of a Conscious Economist with a Conscience operating in the public view these days. He's not a "maverick," whatever the fuck that is that's worth having. In the west, a Marverick was a steer without a brand. Steers are castrated bulls. Get my point?

Anyway, Krugman is a mainstream economist, in the tradition of Heller, Samuelson and JK Galbraith. He writes well, which is rare for an economist and guy who first got wealthy in the textbook writing scam. However, he has a rare gift for a Nobel Laureate in the dismal psuedo-science of economics. (All Social Science is Psuedo-science, in that the conditions can never be totally replicated and the results always have more than random variation, or else the experiment is probably rigged. However, that's a rant for another place.) He has some humility. Today's column is an exemplar, sort of...It's also an evisceration and a call to arms. He begins with humility...

He begins with a confession, and although he gives some credit, before damning the bastards for being corrupt, stupid, stupidly corrupt or corruptly stupid. I think those are the only available choices. Of course, delusional is another option...he skips that one. Blind and ignorant are also skipped. They are distinct possibilities...

When I first began writing for The Times, I was naïve about many things. But my biggest misconception was this: I actually believed that influential people could be moved by evidence, that they would change their views if events completely refuted their beliefs.

And to be fair, it does happen now and then. I’ve been highly critical of Alan Greenspan over the years (since long before it was fashionable), but give the former Fed chairman credit: he has admitted that he was wrong about the ability of financial markets to police themselves.

But he’s a rare case. Just how rare was demonstrated by what happened last Friday in the House of Representatives, when — with the meltdown caused by a runaway financial system still fresh in our minds, and the mass unemployment that meltdown caused still very much in evidence — every single Republican and 27 Democrats voted against a quite modest effort to rein in Wall Street excesses.

He then does a marvelous job summarizing how we got where we are, and belling various cats. He remains somewhat hopeful, although guardedly. The welfare of the Republic and its future now rests on the ConservaDEMS who are perfectly capable of going DIXIECRAT on the mess and refusing to play. Do a Liver-man on the whole deal. (Does Joe Lieberman have a place to sit in the caucus after that display this weekend? Do Connecticut voters have access to the recall? Why is Ben Nelson still a Democrat? Seriously, there could easily be a third party in the Senate. The far right nutcases, the hypocrites, and the Democrats. Lieberman and Nelson and a few other sellout to insurance and banking and financial fat cats would be a great starting place to sell out on the road to a new economic serfdom...if we were to dig up JP Morgan and Jay Gould, we'd be better off than today.) However, Krugman takes off the gloves and lays into the conservatives in their bizzaro world and that alone is worth the price of admission. Which, since it's on the webs, is really just time. A shame, I guess but still...

Oh, and conservatives simply ignore the catastrophe in commercial real estate: in their universe the only bad loans were those made to poor people and members of minority groups, because bad loans to developers of shopping malls and office towers don’t fit the narrative.

In part, the prevalence of this narrative reflects the principle enunciated by Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Frankly, as a guy who prides himself on having that understanding, it can be damn near fatal. None the less, Krugman nails it, them and us -- we the people elected those idiots -- and leaves the denouement to the imagination. Back to the future...barter. 

AXE's corollary to Kristofferson's Theorem...

Kris Kristofferson was on his way to a drunken early grave when he sobered up -- Johnny and June probably had something to do with it someplace -- turned to club soda and lime as opposed neat Tequila and, reflecting on his marriage to Rita Coolidge, opined, "Never sleep with someone crazier than you are." Well, I'm not sure on that one. I'm reflecting the list of women I've slept with, and except for the former nun, they were all crazier than I was. Oh, and the unannounced lesbian liberation theologian. (Weren't they the same? I don't think so, but AXE is old, old, old...) But all the rest have been crazier than me. Spouse, significant other, various other encounters -- all fits.

However, Mr. Kris probably has far more to reflect on. However, I believe that this is definitely a true statement...Never divorce your wife to sleep with someone who's less than half your age when her IQ ties your age. In spades if she's less than your age.  As Clarkson says, "Why are you still alive?"

Enough? Not enough? Too much? There there be monsters...

The news that the President has decided to prepare a dog's breakfast for Bo out of the lives of American Soldiers and Marines and their families is not surprising. If it turns out to be less than 40K, that will be interesting. The challenges of supply and support in Afghanistan make it difficult where in Iraq it is not so difficult. Not that it's easy in Iraq -- it's just that the challenges are not driven by terrain, altitude and weather on a daily basis. If you have a sandstorm in Iraq, everything stops until the sand stops blowing. It's always very hot. It's always very humid. Our shit works fine there. It's generally flat, although in some places there is terrain that looks a lot of Nevada. Or, Fort Irwin.

Afghanistan is a whole 'nother country, and it's not Texas. The weather varies from hot and dry to wet and rainy to "MOTHERFUCKER, IT"S MOTHERFUCKING COLD, MOTHERFUCKER. The terrain is largely vertical. And the bad guys are a lot more ferocious than the bad guys in Iraq. So, if there are 30 thousand combat and direct support types on the ground, there are going to be a lot of indirect support types keeping them fed, watered, healthy and supplied. The ratio is smaller than it used to be, but it'll probably be 2:3 grunts/supporters.

That said, is this enough to win? Well, somebody needs to define win. Good luck with that...the win was going to be getting bin Laden. It's now morphed into something undefined, perhaps indefinable. And, Mr. Nuanced Civility is going to try to measure up to the MacArthur "the Corps...the Corps...the Corps" tradition. An old friend of mine from Europe had been a cadet at West Point at the time they filmed Gregory Peck doing that speech, and he said that people were in tears and the enthusiasm of the applause and everything associated with it was incredible. Well, this will be a bit more complex...

Now, lest anyone think I'm implying that the cadets at West Point aren't bright, you are obviously not getting it. They're incredibly bright. As a senior NCO, I preferred dealing with West Pointers as opposed to ROTC types most of the time, although the tail end of my career was spent largely with ROTC -educated logisticians.  The are lots of dumbasses in uniform, just as there are in all fields. And, the automatic Republicanism of the corps is not something that can be counted on. I suspect at the moment most soldiers are moderate conservatives and the corps probably mirrors that. Since there are no Republican moderate conservatives, most of them are probably classifying themselves as Independents.

No, if Obama sat down with a bunch of First Class Cadets, seniors as it were, and discussed his vision and plans, they'd get it. They might not agree with it, but they'd get it. In this case, he's going to be addressing the nation, using the Corps as props. I resent using soldiers as props. The nation is fucked up enough that there are 20% of the people who think Sister"Gosh darn it, I'm special, not as special as Trig, but I'm still special enough to be President!" is fit for office. Hell, 15% of the people in the country supposedly approve of Mitch McConnell. Town hall rally types oppose federal health care at the same time as they draw Medicare. There are a fair amount of people in this country who are dumbasses...and, then there are those who are entirely too bright. They'll want more nuance, and more nuance...trigger points and firewalls.

Whether this is enough really depends on the Afghans. Given their track record, the AXE is not sanguine about this policy, or that policy, or any other policy. Define victory -- if it's Jeffersonian democracy and the establishment of a branch campus of Mount Holy Oak in Khandahar, it's not going to happen. If it's a somewhat restrained narco-kleptocracy, well, that's possible. It's also what they had after Russia pulled out before the Taliban took over. What would have been victory was the capture of bin Laden and the boys, although I personally would have preferred they all died. We'll see how this turns out.

So what is victory? What are the Afghans going to do? Obama owes the cadets, who will largely be fighting there, and the rest of us a definition and a reasonable expectation of a thus defined success. I suspect that we're headed for victory lite. That's the best anyone has ever done in that hellhole.

Well, he probably doesn't care all that much, but...

Albert Camus died in a car accident and was buried. The guy who wrote The Stranger and supposedly inspired George Bush to buy an dictionary so he could read it so he could pretend to have some depth, and who along with Holden Caufield inspired a generation of Catholic high school intellectual wannabes, and who looks better philosophically every day, wrote novels, articles, and philosophical treatises.  By all accounts, he was a decent guy. A good writer. A honest man. He split with Sartre and Le Temps Modern over all that commie crap. He was neither left nor right...a true libertarian.

And now Sarkozy wants to dig up the poor bastard and move his grave to the Pantheon, the great mausoleum of French Intelligentsia. Jean Camus, the son, thinks it's a lousy idea and would piss off the old man; the daughter manages the estate, and it's ok with him. Sarkozy supposedly is really in favor of it, and is waiting for the family to tell him to bring in the bulldozer, and the French are being French. In a good way...

“What do we have to do to transfer Camus to the Panthéon?” asked one reader on the Web site of Le Figaro, a daily that is generally supportive of Mr. Sarkozy. “The son doesn’t agree: It’s Sarkozy who proposed it, so it’s suspect! Ah, the day that the left proposes it, then it will be different. Let’s leave Albert where he is while we wait.” Jean Daniel, editor of the newsmagazine Le Nouvel Observateur, told Le Monde: “The crushing character of the consecration appears contrary to the ideas for which Camus is famous.” “For me, Camus is the author of ‘The Rebel,’ who spoke of the heroism of moderation,” Mr. Daniel said. “I don’t see the Panthéon glorifying that kind of heroism. Camus was totally libertarian. Never did the rejection of totalitarianism lead him to join either the center or the right.”

Well, the AXE has a slightly different take on this. I believe that Camus would find it ironic and absurd. If he were to be sitting around in the Elysian Fields overlooking the left bank with Sartre, Malraux, de Beauvoir, Kierkegaard, Jim Morrison, John Lennon and Edith Piaf, smoking Gauloises and cigars, drinking Pastis and espresso, they'd probably be having a good old time talking about it and laughing. Lennon and Piaf would be doing a chorus of Working Class hero while Morrison and and de Beauvoir dance and Sartre, Kierkegaard, Malraux and Camus argue about God, Life, and so on. Levi-Strauss might wander in for a chat, bringing along some raw and cooked stuff to snack on. Celine might wander in, glance around, and when they all stop talking, stare scarily until Piaf goes over and leads him to back, where she gives him a blow job. Lennon then offers guitar lessons...

The only real reason to move the guy is to increase the sale of books and memorabilia. "Je suis allé au Panthéon et tout que j'ai obtenu était ce t-shirt moche de Camus." While glancing at some of them, I came on these things, and they sum it up for me quite well...
and this one...

And this...which was on a flimsy T-shirt but if you wanted a good shirt, the price went up very fast. I think the man would have appreciated the irony...and, of course, an unsupported mime...

Freedom is nothing but the chance to be better...

So, AXE's take is simple...it's always better to do nothing than something unless you need to do something. In this case, let the bones rest; put up a plaque at the Pantheon on an empty tomb, saying something along the lines of

"Camus a diminué, se sentant il avait été jeté hors de meilleurs endroits que ceci…"

Seek to maximize the insolence zone...

Appears that Oprah and HH got it going on...Fisting and drug use while bystanders cheer

Both got entourages and both got stuff happening...only a matter of time til it all comes out in The Enquirer or the News of the World... Or, was Richard "Gervais" Gere says being the highly incensed type he is, "I can't believe you're asking me that,' the Hollywood actor said brusquely."

Fuck at a funeral...

You know, the concept of shooting fish in a barrel implies that even an idiot can do it. So, when you lob questions to John Cleese...it's sort of like putting the world's greatest trap shooter in Seattle's Pike's Place Market with the world's greatest shotgun and having the said WGTS stand appropriately and then shoot at the fish thrown by the fish throwers...hilarity can ensure, but it's just too fucking easy for the shooter...

As politics gets more childish, does satire get harder for you?
Yes. Take Sarah Palin — so many Republicans love her. I suddenly realized that in order to actually understand that someone is not very bright — or to be brutal, that they’re rather stupid — you really have to be more intelligent than them. Most Republicans aren’t smarter than Sarah Palin. It’s true.

Well, the Ignobels are probably a lot more fun than the other one...

Read about this one on Paul Krugman's blog, Intellectual Sex Toys for the Brilliant but Misunderstood amongst us...

Dr. Elena N. Bodnar couldn't be more serious about her research. The trauma and risk management specialist was in her native Ukraine during the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and helped children cope with its aftermath. Tonight, as she accepts the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize for public health, she won't mind laughter when she demonstrates "in a very elegant way, without removing any clothes," how an ordinary brassiere can be transformed into a pair of gas masks."I think the Ig Nobel is not just a funny thing," she said in an interview this afternoon. "If it makes people first laugh and then think, my discovery fits perfectly."

 I think the laugh, then think mantra is something that as a Defeatist, I can completely endorse. Unfortunately, most either don't think or think, then laugh. Or, we laugh bitterly and think about how it was all supposed to work. And didn't -- here is Professor Krugman's contribution to the festivities which he explains, demonstrates and gets the accounting wrong.

But last night I participated in the Ig Nobels, where I gave one of the 24/7 lectures. These are 24 seconds of impenetrable jargon, followed by a 7-word explanation of your field.

24: Given decentralized constrained optimization by maximizing agents with well-defined convex objective functions and/or convex production functions, engaging in exchange and production with free disposal, leads, in the absence of externalities, market power, and other distortions, there exists an equilibrium characterized by Pareto optimality.

7:Greedy people, competing, make the world go round.

So, Malthus, Gingrich, Toynbee and Spengler go into a bar and meet Triple H and Deathdealer...again

I

Is there something else in the water? The AXE has been so busy this week that I'm just now getting around to reading the papers from the past week. And, I gotta tell you, things are not looking up all that much. I noticed that somehow my money market part of the IRA was up to about $60, so I decided to invest in some penny stocks --GM, Chrysler, BOA -- and I couldn't find the damn things. Sorry, no can buy. I probably could have bought BOA since they hold my mortgage and even at that price, it would be like giving a vote of confidence to the guy who sold you aluminum brake rotors and pads. Oddly, my Ford Stock is doing wonderfully.

However, Paul Krugman appears to have nailed what's troubling me on the MACRO level...and I really wish he bitchslap Tom Friedman every time the guy starts ranting about getting Kumquats from Kabul or Lemon Vodka from France in tones better suited to a pot-bellied preacher gushing and sweating about the Hore of Baby-lon and the fucking rapture. Krugman has actually read some books, and has so perspective and got his degrees from real universities that make people think. Or used too. Newtie Toot Toot is such an intellectual that Republicans on the egg-head fringe of the party worship him, and he talks nice about Sarah --you can see Russia from Alaska --Potato-head. Krugman is the real thing...
of course, they rarely give Nobel prizes to people who got their minds in a Walmart Warehouse Store.

Writing in 1919, the great British economist John Maynard Keynes described the world economy as it was on the eve of World War I. “The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth ... he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world.” And Keynes’s Londoner “regarded this state of affairs as normal, certain, and permanent, except in the direction of further improvement ... The projects and politics of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions, and exclusion ... appeared to exercise almost no influence at all on the ordinary course of social and economic life, the internationalization of which was nearly complete in practice.”

But then came three decades of war, revolution, political instability, depression and more war. By the end of World War II, the world was fragmented economically as well as politically. And it took a couple of generations to put it back together.

So, can things fall apart again? Yes, they can. (AXE Commentary and emphasis: And will, from my negative-Neo-Hegelian point of view. Or, as I said in a conversation with another manager this week who made the mistake of reading books as opposed to doing whatever the hell it is the normal corporate drones did to get where they are, "Gresham was right -- Bad drives out good. The reverse doesn't work. Oh, and I don't know if the play on the Obama campaign was intentional but if it wasn't it should have been. )

Now, I'm not feeling prescriptive this week, but the first thing that we probably need to do is re-visit the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Whaaa? Well, the Soviets had a lot more advantages going in, in a realpolitik kinda way; and, after a long time and the loss of a lot of men, money and meaning, got their ass handed to them. I'm reading a book called The Great Gamble by Greg Feifer of NPR's Moscow Bureau that has "fucking bad idea from the gitgo!" as an underlying theme.

Browse Inside this book Get this for your site

He cites Gorbachev's first meeting as a member of the Politboro about Afghanistan where after the usual optimistic bullshit from the generals, in that case from a hero of the bloody battle of Kursk! and the capture of Berlin! Slightly different war...And given the doctrinaire attitude of the Soviets toward change, they were still waiting for the Totenkopf Tanks at least in a spiritual sense to come over the hill in 1985. Gorbachev simply said something to the effect that they needed to get the fuck out of there soon. That stretched to a year, and then in a discussion with Reagan, to four years. Immediately would have been better, of course, but "reality intruded." No, actually, it really would have been better; I get confused sometimes about the idea that you need to keep shifting the endgame further to the right in time when there's no upside to doing so. Same for health care. Why pretend that the Republican party wants health care reform? They don't. Individual Republicans do, but like lemmings overcome by peer pressure after a bad night's drinking, they can't help themselves. Pass the damn Kennedy bill now! Or fail to pass it, and blame it on the arcane Massachusetts deal about six months to replace Ted Kennedy, and do it through reconciliation. But, if health care reform is necessary, and it is unless we want to all work for Walmart so we can send all our money to the international health cabal, then it's necessary now. In a discussion with the union bargaining rep, I presented a grim alternative yesterday: "Fuck with me on this, and I can never do that again. We can either keep trying to use good faith, judgment and common sense to handle these issues, or not." He agreed with me completely, and we worked out a reasonable solution. Over the phone in ten minutes. But, we were talking in a common continuum; they're not.

There are an infinite number of these sort of issues. Bush and Cheney were pretty effective at implementing really bad ideas because they were bold ideas and they wouldn't listen to reason. (By the way, am I the only one who occasionally thinks of D2(Dubya and Dick) and gets a visual of a family gathering in Arsenic and Old Lace?)

Roosevelt was able to implement generally good ideas because he was at least as charming as Obama, connected at least as well, would listen and smile and do what the hell he wanted to do somehow. Johnson threatened to have Hoover leak his files on black mistresses and gay relationships involving Senators to pass civil rights. Great ideas, ruthless execution...if we are to survive and accomplish anything worthwhile, well, we need to have ruthless execution of great, bold and smart ideas. Compromise -- Gorbachev, Roosevelt backing away from the New Deal in 1936, TARP, etc. are the equivalent of painting a sinking ship. The paint may be waterproof and fresh, but all you're going to have is pretty looking site for future ocean archeologists to explore and wonder at it's shine.