the defeatists!

Finding meaning in the meaningless sprawl

Possibly the most important thing I have ever written, as edited by the incomparable Erica Wissinger. In fact possibly the most important thing that has ever been written since...writing! 

 

And then, there's this. Buddy wrote a book, it's great, guitar manufacturers are stupid and private equity is total insanity...got it. 

And, just for the record, Beyonce is one of the best cover artists for blues and soul music that has ever picked up a microphone.

Grace and God Part II

The news that the United Auto Workers lost a union election at a Nashville VW plant has sent the labor movement into something of a what the hell just happened spin. Unfortunately, I think that the results were preordained, back in about 1863. We have an interesting history in this country of well meaning northerners going into the backward and dirty south to enlighten these poor sons and daughters of Dixie, and it just doesn't work because the Northerners aren't trusted and the track record hasn't been all that great.

Hell, the post-union industrialization of the South wasn't by VW but it was by Northern Manufacturers who realized that they could make a lot more money moving steel from Pittsburgh to Birmingham and screw the workers in Birmingham a lot less than they were being screwed by their own boss class, but screw them a lot more than they were screwing over their own workers in the North. One might write an interesting history of American Expansion and Exception as a race to exploit the more easily exploited at cost to the somewhat less exploited. Now, the industrialization of the South screwed over a lot of people, and the big companies took the blame; it was possible to find Southern bosses and they did. Reconstruction ultimately turned out OK for the Southerners although not ideal from their point of view; hence the 100 year affiliation to the Democratic party although not necessarily the party of Roosevelt and Johnson but something else entirely.

 

King Harvest (Has Surely Come)

Corn in the fields.
Listen to the rice when the wind blows 'cross the water,
King Harvest has surely come
I work for the union 'cause she's so good to me;
And I'm bound to come out on top,
That's where she said I should be
I will hear every word the boss may say,
For he's the one who hands me down my pay
Looks like this time I'm gonna get to stay,
I'm a union man, now, all the way
The smell of the leaves,
From the magnolia trees in the meadow,
King Harvest has surely come -- Robbie Robertson, the Band

Billy Yank and Johnny Reb compare resumes There's a wonderful moment in Gettysburg when an Officer of the 2oth Maine is talking with some Southern prisoners, primarily with a private. It's pretty interesting in that I think it's incredibly real and captures something that we miss at times. They ask each other where they're from, and the Rebel says, "Tennessee. How about you?" The Yank says, "Maine. I've never been to Tennessee." The Reb says, "Don't reckon I've ever been to Tennesse either." The Yank officer says, " I don't mean no disrespect about you all fighting, but I have to wonder, what are you fighting for?" Reb private responds, "What are you fighting for?"  Yank responds, "Why to free the slaves, of course. Preserve the union." Reb says, "I can't talk for anyone else, but I don't care about no darkies one way or the other. I'm fightin' for my Raaattts." Yank has no clue what he means, and says "What?" Rebel says, "My Raattts. That's what all of us are fighting for." The conversation continues, they agree that the war is an awful thing, they wish it was over and the Rebel admits to some acceptance that since he's a prisoner, he'll get to sit the rest of it out. They wish each other good luck and say "See you in Hell, Billy Yank." "See you in Hell, Johnny Reb." And one marches off to prison camp, and the other to Little Round Top.

 

If people like the UAW realized what that private was telling us and them, and what the scene was telling us, they might have been far more successful. First of all, we have radically different understandings of why we do things and what we're doing. Lots of reasons for that, and I've talked about  some of them before. But, we don't understand each other -- the UAW can talk about industrial democracy and having a way to influence the company through the union; the Southerner doesn't understand Industrial Democracy (Of course, neither does the UAW) and since he knows his bosses, he trusts them. The VW plant management may not have been actively opposed to the union drive, but they've treated the workers well and haven't lied to them too much. The workers want to be left alone and allowed to work and be treated fairly. The Germans have done a good job of that. So...

Now, I've had a checkered career, and have talked to a lot of people over the years in a lot of professions, including those in State Workforce Development Programs. A few years ago at a Conference, I was chatting with fellow Vet who a honcho in the Alabama Workforce Development Department and a guy who was working in the South Carolina Workforce Development. They told both told me that BMW in South Carolina and Mercedes Benz in Alabama had far lower turnover, fewer problems, lower unemployment insurance rates and lower employee incidence of lawsuits than the Honda and Nissan plants in both states. The Alabama guy said the same thing about the Koreans and Hyundai. Far more success than Honda with their workers. The reasons were simple; the German and the Korean attitudes toward the workers and the resulting culture were really far more attractive. At Mercedes, the workers all basically dress the same on the floor -- the blue lab/worker coat that those of us who've spent time in Germany are familiar with. There is no reserved parking for the bosses, it's all first come/first serve except for handicapped parking. The example that they both shared vigorously was the subject of litter -- at the German and Korean plants, if one of the bosses passed some litter, he'd stop and pick it up, either put it in his pocket or toss it in the trash. No big deal. At the Japanese plants, it was the opposite; before a Japanese manager would pick up a piece of litter, he would go find an American to have him pick up the litter.

Consider that. As an occasional management consultant, I can tell you that outsiders offering opinions about all the crap " you all are doing wrong" doesn't work well -- "It's the stranger with a stopwatch, brief case asking to borrow your watch so they can break it"- syndrome built large.So, the UAW goes south. They pick a plant that generally has good relations with the workers and where the company sees a union on the German Works Council model as a way to have better relations and produce higher quality. However, the company wasn't doing the organizing drive; the UAW was. I trust Bob, but who the hell are you?

So, while the Republican party did their people at the Nashville plant a major disservice by lying about the impact of the effort to organize on future industrial growth and continued production, the real disservice had to do with strategic stupidity on the part of the UAW. Go for the low hanging fruit, not the one's where you need to build a crane to pick at it. Or a step ladder. Go after the people the workers don't like, not those they more or less are indifferent to or actually like and trust. Next, the scene referenced above is interesting because the accents are so telling although a rural Maine accent is in a lot of ways not that different than a mountain Tennessee pattern. But, make certain the folks doing the organizing are "from around here." After forever in the Army, I consistently talk in a way that makes people think I'm from 100 miles or so south of them unless I'm in the south where they figure I'm from 100 miles north. If you're not driving a Ford or Chevvy, Pickup or a  VW Golf GT, why were you in Nashville as an organizer? If not, at least drive a 5.0 Mustang or a Five Liter Charger if you're headed to a Japanese plant. Get people who drive those sorts of cars, who like country music, and can sing along to Freebird and Sweet home Alabama.

The key thing about the South is the importance of family. Since they've been so embattled over time and so battered by various outsiders who mean well, the importance of "kin" among working class Southerners is a key thing. I was trying to enforce some simple Army regulations and found myself accused while in exile with the Reserves in Texas of being " a goddamned outside Yankee agitator." I made a point of being culturally nonsensitive despite which I still managed to make some friends for whom I still care deeply. Last time I cried over someone's death who wasn't family was when I heard that the S3 Secretary in the Brigade I was assigned to died from cancer. But, I was there long enough to lead by example and develop some expert and referent power. Just show up and start preaching, especially about what "the union is going to do for you..." without that and the native Texan or Alabamian or Tennessean hears some Yankee saying, "We're gonna take your women, corn and horses, and there's nothing much you can do about it." If the meaning of the message is what the receiver hears, well, nothing much you can do about it by shouting it louder.

 

This isn't any different than the spirit that grows up in military units -- there's me, my team, my squad, my platoon and my company. Everybody else is the damn enemy until proven otherwise.

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Workers Choose Not to Turn Tennessee into Detroit

Workers Choose Not to Turn Tennessee into Detroit

Cynical Cyclicals

The Times has an interesting article this morning on the conflict between the Japanese concept of lifetime employment and the whole Milton Friedman "Shareholder value is not the most important thing, it's the only thing!" approach.  The UAW had negotiated a similar package for its members in the 50s and while it cost money, it did keep the social fabric in places like Detroit and Flint and Gary and other places devastated by the goat rodeo that was the auto industry in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s. As that program was downsized and ultimately eliminated by through contract negotiations, bad situations got worse. Similar approaches were used by other firms, including professional firms, where "excess" engineers, planners, business managers and so on would be assigned to social programs or to nonprofits to help the recipient organizations cope with their challenges. I assume the corporation was able to write off that time on taxes as a charitable contribution, although I do not know. It certainly showed community involvement and was effective PR.

Basically, SONY offered its affected employees at one plant buy-outs and early retirements. They offered a 54 month buyout for early retirees, for example. However, a number of them refused the buy-out and so are sent to "Career Design Rooms" which the employees call "The Boredom Room." Basically, the company sends the employee there in the equivalent of sending a useless NCO off to issue basketballs in the gym or count the holes in the chainlink fence around the installation. In other words, until shame and boredom forces the employee to quit, the company expands and has a need for the now disgruntled and stale employee or the employee dies. Win/Win for every one.

Well, of course, that's the whole myth of the employment relationship. I work for company X; I can quit at anytime while they can fire me at any time. Called "At-will employment," this is a common law concept that "an employment contract of indefinite duration can be terminated by either the employer or the employee at any time for any reason; also known as terminable at will." There's an underlying assumption here that there's a general power balance between employer and employee. Well, that's obviously insane in the modern world and as a result in most countries there is a requirement for "good cause" or "just cause." The US is the only G20 nation that still has this on a national level which shows some of the benefits of a parliamentary system, I guess. In the US, only Montana is a "just cause for termination" state.  Now, if a firm is unionized or provides some other contractural assurances which can pop up in the oddest places, there are some protections; however, it appears that Japan business community which seems to include the elected government. wants to change it's system of guaranteed lifelong employment to an At-Will system. 

The standoff between workers and management at the Sendai factory underscores an intensifying battle over hiring and firing practices in Japan, where lifetime employment has long been the norm and where large-scale layoffs remain a social taboo, at least at Japan’s largest corporations. Sony wants to change that, and so does Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. As Japan’s economic recovery slows, reducing the restraints on companies has become even more important to Mr. Abe’s economic plans. He wants to loosen rigid rules on job terminations for full-time staff. Economists say bringing flexibility to the labor market in Japan would help struggling companies streamline bloated work forces to better compete in the global economy. Fewer restrictions on layoffs could make it easier for Sony to leave loss-ridden traditional businesses and concentrate resources on more innovative, promising ones.“I have a single wish for Japan’s electronics sector, and that’s labor reform,” said Atul Goyal, a technology analyst at Jefferies & Company.

On the other hand, the Japanese work force isn't quite as docile and ready to do a Banzai! charge over a cliff as the government or SONY and other companies might hope. This is probably an even stronger tendency after Fukashima  I suspect. Nothing like being systematically lied to and rapidly learning about it to make people not so believing the next time around.

 Critics of labor changes say something more important is at stake. They warn that making it easier to cut jobs would destroy Japan’s social fabric for the sake of corporate profits, causing mass unemployment and worsening income disparities. For a country that has long prided itself on stability and relatively equitable incomes, such a change would be unacceptable. “That’s not the kind of country Japan should aim to be,” said Takaaki Matsuda, who leads the Sendai chapter of Sony’s union. 

Oddly, the Times seems to take the position that there is something horrible about the Boredom Room. I mentioned this to the guy who made me aware of the article, and his response was "I'd give a lot for a moment or two of boredom. Frankly, while I understand that the boredom factor is a negative, the traditional large firm expectation in Japan  is still a helluva lot more humane than just laying people off in our somewhat ludicrous unemployment system and down economy. What does it say about the US, that the last best hope of mankind is ready to toss away 20% if its workforce like dity Kleenex?  What's I like to see is a restructuring of our system where the unemployed are offered suitable opportunities for re-training and community service while maintaining a reasonable income. Probably require an interesting adjustment to taxes but in much the way the California Disability Program works, it could be tied to the employee so that if longer term unemployment becomes the norm, the employee has alternatives besides hopelessness.

 

Philosophically, I think contemporary American capitalism puts most of us into boredom rooms most of the time. If not, there wouldn't be so many games of solitaire being played on company time! People don't play computer solitaire because they're dodging meaningful work. They're looking for a less soul-crushing and boring equivalent.

Damned right Japan doesn't want to be a company that allows employers to discard employees like waste and condemn it's workforce to cyclical  anxiety, boredom and despair. Which is what the US is, and we're paying some prices for that. Pity the unemployed in America trying to find work -- they're in effect in the waiting room for US economies boredom room.  

 

Pterodactyls and Carmel and Michelle Bachman's Bra and Marginal Tax rates

                John Boehner delivers Alternative Proposal to the White House

"Where have you gone Abbie Hoffman, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you..."

 

My friend, occasional collaborator in the pursuit of intellectual no-good and anarchist philosopher and professor, Crispin Sartwell has a piece up at Chesse it, the Cops that in a wry way points to the existential void of current American politics.  I'm talking about, of course, the great moral issue of our time, the proposed increase in the top marginal tax rates. (Cue Jaws Music!) It's an important problem, and it is pretty much what Crispin ironically says it is about -- "what sort of country we want to be" and also, and sadly, "symbolic, I guess." Crispy does it with some panache, using Martin Luther King's "I have a dream speech" to provide a rhethorical center and highlighting the wonkishness of the current world contrasted with King's vision in a marvelous little bit of praeteritio and understatement.

"No, no, we are not satisfied, and will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." and this mighty stream consists of 35% to 39.6% in the marginal tax rate..."

Profound irony, isn't it? So many serious issues confronting us, and this somewhat trivial technocratic twist  is the sine qua non of our national existence and political discourse. I'm thankful to Crispin because it made me go to the speech and re-read Dr. King's masterpiece of rhetoric and moral passion. And if you substitue the words "ordinary people" for Negro, it is obviously applicable to us all. And, while I don't know if my cynically subtle idealist co-conspirator meant to inspire that awareness, he certainly achieved it. The issue is not the goddamned deficit -- and I am not being blasphemous there at all, because the deficit is a satanic ruse to keep our eyes off the prize. It is in fact the issue of what sort of country we want to be. Despite the professed love -- nay idolatry -- of Ronald Reagan, the right has taken his appropriation fo the phrase from Winthrop who was actually preaching from The Sermon on the Mount and taken it somewhere else. For Matthew's Jesus was talking about the Christian Community that he was willing into being as setting an example and setting a very high bar for success. We seldom read the whole thing -- I know that as a Jeffersonian anti-theist, I seldom revisit the bible. But I probably should revisit the Jefferson bible more often.

13 But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.

14 Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.

15 Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.

16 ¶ Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?

it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

17 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

18 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

19 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

20 ¶ Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

21 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

22 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

23 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of thescribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

(Matthew 5;13-23, from the King James Version as transcribed in Thomas Jefferson, The Life and Morals of Jesus, Chapter XI, vesrses 13-23)

So, summing up, Jesus, Wintrhop and Reagan were calling for an exemplar of the best for the illumination of the world. Although the concept is modern, it's a call for inclusion and

                                                     Boehner, McConnell, Hannity, Norquist and LaPierre Class Picture

charity. In the days of Jesus, all cities had gates; even Rome had gates. Only the most open and secure cities kept the gates open; what Jesus is calling for, what Winthrop, Kennedy and Reagan were calling for, was that lighted exemplar for the world where not only do the gates never close, there are no gates. What the Republicans and Tea Party and the American Right are calling for, demanding, and screaming for is not an open, fair and just community but a gated community, complete with barbed wire, wage slavery and vast disparities in wealth, education, access to justice and freedom. The Christian Right -- including any Catholic Bishop or higher who endorses this -- is calling for it in the name of Jesus; the libertarian Right is calling for it in the name of Adam Smith -- who thought corporations were not only unhuman but potentially and probably evil -- and Ayn Rand whom Jesus would feel sorry for, Winthrop put in the stocks and then send her off to Rhode Island with Roger Williams and the other nuts, and whom Reagna would give a jelly bean and then tell Nancy to "Please sweetheart, keep the mean crazy woman away from me..."

Not that we're looking a lot smarter on the left. People like Howard Dean and Sherrod Brown get it, but the irony is astonishing. We have a president who is articulate and smart and who, if he lets himself go with his soul, can be an inspiring and mesmerizing figure.  However, most of the time he makes like Woodrow Wilson and delivers a technocratic and someone delphic pronouncement. There are a lot of ways to respond to the absurdities underlying the Ryan and the Boehner budget proposals and "fiscal cliff" rushing toward us. Referring to the stupidity of this plan, it's inherent unfairness, intellectual dishonesty and disingenuousness, and silliness as "not balanced" is just playing the game on Boehner's turf. There are big issues confronting us, and due to the last 32 years of wealth concentration at the top of the economic scale, those issues must be confronted as what they are -- fundamental questions of justice, economic fairness and levelling. Yes, the re-distribution of wealth and the re-allocation of assets.  

DREAM BIG, WORK HARD OR GO HOME!!

 I find particularly interesting the fact that we're harkening back to the Clinton tax era as some kind of golden age of equity and fairness and kum by ya! I don't recall it that way...for a lot of Americans it was kind of disappointing. Less disappointing than waking up today and facing this environment, but still...we're facing the conundrum of one of the corrollaries to Murphy's Law -- Before you can do anything, you have to do something else. But, if you want to do big things, dare to demand big things as a standard and an outcome; then find the methods that get there; then figure out the resources needed and get them. Don't change the outcomes based on the resources. If you have a desired outcome, and you have a workable method, then add resources and do whatever is necessary to get the resources.  Screw Clinton's tax rates, you use them and validate the Republican position. USE THE MARGINAL RATES AT THE END OF THE EISENHOWER ADMINISTRATION. Certainly that rate marked something of a high water mark in terms of post World War II recovery and the explosion of American wealth, influence and potential. Scientific, educational, social and economic potential was unlimited, and the government was focused on doing things that the country needed to have done. Highways, infrastructure, power, education and so on. At 39.6% as a top rate, we're looking at less than half what they paid in any of those watershed years where the current rate is less than the second bracket in any year but 1964. This indicates a retreat: this enshrines greed.

Year	>$10K	>$20K	>$60K	>$100K	>$250K
1956	26%	38%	62%	75%	89%
1958	26%	38%,	62%	75%	89%
1960,	26%	38%	62%	75%	89%
1962,	26%	38%	62%	75%	89%
1964,	23%	34%,	56%	66%	76%

As Rock says, stand for something!

The irony is pretty amazing to me. I'm not harkening toward some new version of America. I'm advocating the American at the height of the Pax Americana only with re-allocation of the resources to world-buildind as opposed to bigger holes to hide in and the capacity to produce bigger wholes than the other guy. Greeters and Escorts for Republican Fashonistas in the Beltway -- Making them feel welcome...

This is where Warren Buffett and Bill Gates could help. They can afford it, and the government couldn't spend money for this. It is political in impact, but it's a-political in intent. SHAME THESE BASTARDS. Here's a thought -- have mimes follow the perpetrators of the Bush tax cuts and the "we can go to war if we have more tax cuts" and just do this thing. Liz Cheney, Ann Coulter and Jan Brewer show up at the Mall, and there's a mime troupe doing " deficits don't matter!" Boehner goes to the links, and there's a troupe of mimes in the parking lot and following his party around the links miming the great "Hell no you don't!" speech.At least, do something to shame this jingoistic, ignorant and moronic twits. Or hordes of Sinatra impersonators with boombox karaoke machines, doing his version of Mrs. Robinson whenever one of these fools raises his/her/its/their heads...

 

Dear god, get the idiots to stop shouting!

Persona aside, I tend not to pick fights over politics with strangers. If they’re saying things that are totally batshit, well, I probably will not be able to convince them otherwise and the sake of argument is to convince the other person. If I want to just babble insanely, I can do that in the bathroom; or, on a blog. Why risk the aggravation?

However, a few weeks ago I was sitting with my wife who has added macular degeneration to colon cancer as reasons to be happy for modern medicine or to curse getting old. Or both – it’s a fine line. However, we were waiting to see the ophthalmologist and the inner waiting room was filled with seriously old people and on a big screen TV they were showing FOX NEWS. I almost didn’t go in but decided that was stupid. She needs my support and so on and so on. Well, the gentleman sitting next to me was in his 70s and both he and his wife were there for some cataract work and possibly some Lasik. All covered by Medicare, which is a great program and should have been extended for all. Of course, the insurance companies and other interests including big Pharma would have gone bat shit. However, given what happened in 2010, how much worse could the whole Tea Party thing have been? Anyway, the guy started talking about how Obama was looting Medicare to pay for Obamacare and…and I couldn’t take anymore when he started in on the deficit. “Sir, like me you’re old enough to do the arithmetic yourself; do it.” I then enumerated the factual errors behind nonsense. The only medical benefit not paid for through taxes or deductions in any program – Medicare, Medicaid or Obama care is the cost of the prescription drug benefit. That simple. Want to know why we have a deficit? Two wars, unpaid for prior to 2010; a galloping bureaucracy called Homeland Security also largely not paid for; tax cuts with no offsets based on the absurd idea that a budget surplus projected over 10 years should result in massive reduction in tax cuts in year ZERO. The conversation was civil, and the guy listened. I’m sure I’ve figured in some local Bircher conspiracy theory, but what the hell…

I do not find that metaphorically shooting fish in a barrel puts me in the same league as Hemingway’s Fisherman; arguing with this guy didn’t make me the equivalent of Patrick Henry or Clarence Darrow. I decided to drop the proselytizing. However, on the next visit, I refused to go back in that room if that was on TV. My wife was grateful because it was making her angry to. One thing the two of us are not about to complain about is health care that we have – the health care available to others, on the contrary, deserves nothing but condemnation. Not the medicine but the absolute BS that surrounds it.

So, last night we went to dinner at a place I haven’t been since she was in the hospital. Owner had our table, and she made some sly digs about not having seen me lately; after the second one as she bent over to refill my tea, I said, “I got the digs…it’s ok.” Which elicited a laugh. Nice place. Anyway, it was a little louder than usual and people were raising their voices a bit so I felt like I was in the conversation at the next table, where this braindead idiot started accusing Candy Crowley of having set up Mitt Romney, that she and the President were in on it and how else could she have known what the President had said about the Benghazi attack being an act of terrorism? This time, the argument would have been unfriendly and impolite and would have probably included language my young lady friend the owner would not have wanted in her semi-upscale Bistro. Then the fool started in on Voter Fraud. Then, they left…so, no political homicide last night by Crusader AXE of the Lost Causes.

THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR MY KARMA. IT IS NOT GOOD FOR MY BLOOD PRESSURE. IT NEEDS TO STOP. I AM SOOOOOO COMPLETELY READY FOR WHAT SEEMS LIKE A FOUR DECADE ORDEAL TO BE OVER!

 

Dr. Dennis Leary, author, Bon Vivant and Worcester native who did not go to Holy Cross wrote a classic piece of American poetry entitled “Life’s Gonna Suck”. That’s kind of the way I feel about this election – regardless of what happens, life will continue to suck for most of the world and actually, compared to what the potential situation was compared to what is, for most Americans. I feel grateful, of course, that this isn’t Darfur, or Bosnia, or Syria or Ukraine or Mogadishu or Mumbai or any number other locations, hell holes to havens, Nigeria to Norway and beyond. But, while I try to stay based in the reality world as opposed to imaginary world loved by Karl Rove and the Republicans, every now and then I’m overwhelmed by the desire to have things actually be good for once. Truth, justice, freedom, fairness, great schools, great infrastructure, the babies well fed, the young educated and optimistic and the old warm and secure. And, despite my laughter at my Defeatist and Malcontent brothers and sisters over their disappointment with the Obama Administration to actually, you know, what for what it believes in, I envy them this – they aren’t willing to be satisfied with a quarter cup of satisfaction and a promise of tomorrow. So, I am pretty sure that whether Romney pulls it out, Obama bitch slaps him, or fuck it, Gary Johnson somehow, in some universe is going to win, life will continue to suck. More with Romney, less with Obama but still gonna suck.

I’m not the only one who believes this. Muy Amor Maureen Dowd, for example, finds the idea of contrast between Obama and Romney less stark on the human level. Romney, like Obama, is probably a great father. He’s probably good to his wife. He probably doesn’t go down and poison pigeons in the park. He’s got no reason to be president except that the Republican party is bankrupt of leadership and it’s his turn using what seems to be their system of nominating in the next general the guy defeated in previous primaries, based on the idea I guess that candidates need to age, like fine wine or really foul cheese. But, they’re not that different in some regards –

Much was made of the alpha tone of the second presidential debate. But it was more like a parody of alpha, a couple of pampered, manicured Harvard princes kicking up “gorilla dust,” as Ross Perot calls it. In a truly commanding performance, you don’t jab fingers, invade space, bark interruptions. Obama put aside his disdain for jousts and woke up from the “nice, long nap I had in the first debate,” as he wryly said at Thursday’s dinner. But he was overcompensating for the first debacle, and he still didn’t have a vision or memorable zingers or a knockout punch for a rival who hides in plain sight. Obama’s contempt for Romney gleamed through as Mitt got all O.C.D. with Candy Crowley about the rules, and rambled on about his weird retro worldview, where women in binders have to bound home to make dinner, where the problem of too-easy access to assault weapons could be helped if, gosh, we just tell “our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone.”

The problem is that Romney doesn’t really care about governing, he cares about being elected. I envision him winning, turning domestic policy over to Ryan and foreign policy over to Paul Wolfowitz or someone of his ilk and then spending his days at one of the various Eastern, Western, Mid-Western, Mid-Eastern White Houses he’ll have to have. One with a ring where Ann can use her service animal, the Horse who shall not be named, who will be taken care of at taxpayer expense because, after all, the Horse is a service animal. You know, I still people with service animals like Vietnamese Potbellied Pigs and Ferrets kind of odd…(Meet Jake, my Service Animal Python?) But, a horse?  After all, he’ll need to visit the Mormon Tabernacle frequently to be applauded; he’ll need to ride up and down in the elevator so he can exercise his cars in California and then there’s boating in New Hampshire and petting his money at Bain Capital. The dude will be busy.

Now, Maureen Dowd points out that Obama really isn’t that interested in politics; the things you have to do to get elected or re-elected either irritate him or amuse him wryly. He’s interested in actually governing; and, he has problems with people who think they are entitled to office because of their royal status (Bush, Republican Royalty: McCain, Navy Royalty; Romney, Mormon Royalty.)  Being very much an actual self-made man, he doesn’t get the idea of having power solely to do what, exactly.

There’s a famous quote from Jack Kennedy about a formal dinner at the White House for the American Nobel Winners. Now, JFK appears to have actually enjoyed the social aspects of politics and the give and take of what you need to do to get elected as well as govern. He was friends with people like Barry Goldwater; he liked going to state dinners; his sense of humor was generally directed at himself or at the pretensions surrounding him, the White House or personalities. In his speech to honor the laureates, Kennedy said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together in the White House -- with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." Same sensibility, different attitude toward the process that got him there. He appreciated the irony but reveled in it. Consider these other quotes:

 "Those of you who regard my profession of political life with distain should remember that it made it possible for me to move from being an obscure lieutenant in the United States Navy to Commander-in-Chief in fourteen years with very little technical competence."

"Politics is an astonishing profession. It has enabled me to go from being an obscure member of the junior varsity at Harvard to being an honorary member of the Football Hall of Fame."

If President Obama had really wanted to nail this, he would have quoted another JFK line continuously since taking office and finding out what a debacle he had inherited. "When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were." (May 27, 1961)

Now, the interesting thing is that should the undesirable unthinkable happen and we wake on the morning of the day after election to find Jackbooted Mormon Missionaries parading through the streets demanding our allegiance be demonstrated by listening to them preach, taking a copy of their book, and letting them do our dishes and wash our windows, things will be a lot better than Romney, Ryan et al have  been claiming. The economy could be better—Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz and hell, Martin Wolff over at The Economic Times and anyone with half a brain can explain why. But, my dad was very clear with me 35 years ago or so when he said, “Nothing happens in the economy until somebody buys something…” Car elevators aren’t quite the same as 35 people buying cars; a $500 dollar bottle of wine is not the same as 80 people each buying a $5 bottle of wine. Keynes explained this, and it continues to ring through. Get a lot of people buying lots of stuff, that will increase demand which will increase jobs while business works to fill inventory.  As there is more money flowing from more sources, there will be more innovation in things like logistics, design, efficiency and effectiveness. (Different things, by the way. It’s most efficient to put 100 kids in a classroom with one teacher – it just isn’t effective at all. ) If the demand is for luxury good, there is no multiplier. Well, unless the Romney-class is buying Ford Focuses and Sharp TV sets at an exponentially greater rate than they are buy Bugattis and factories in China, giving more money to the rich will in fact depress the economy futher.

The main point, however, is that the Romney team is willfully, nakedly, distorting the record, leading Ms. Reinhart and Mr. Rogoff — who aren’t affiliated with either campaign — to protest against “gross misinterpretations of the facts.” And this should worry you.Look, economics isn’t as much of a science as we’d like. But when there’s overwhelming evidence for an economic proposition — as there is for the proposition that financial-crisis recessions are different — we have the right to expect politicians and their advisers to respect that evidence. Otherwise, they’ll end up making policy based on fantasies rather than grappling with reality. And once politicians start refusing to acknowledge inconvenient facts, where does it stop? Why, the next thing you know Republicans will start rejecting the overwhelming evidence for man-made climate change. Oh, wait.

As Krugman has pointed out repeatedly, this is not rocket science, although rocket science would do a lot for an economy in Florida and Houston and Shelby Mississippi and California where there are a lot of out of work rocket scientists, engineers and blue collar folks. But, it is a variation from the Gospel of Reagan economics and therefore a lot of people will run screaming from the room that the idea is unclean. Barrack Obama doesn’t get this – he’s a rational man who may have lived a chaotic youth but has no affinity for chaos. He thinks rational people should work from agreed reality, not fantasy. In comparison to his clown-college opponents Obama wants to be a philosopher king. Well, the track record of philosopher kings isn’t all that great –Doing policy that is meaningful demands realizing that he’s a political entity and has to do the things he doesn’t like that seem unworthy of the office. Mitt Romney wants an ascension, not accepting that he’s not going to have any room to move and will be merely a ceremonial figurehead.

The news that there may be an agreement in principle for the Iranians to sit down directly with the US and negotiate the nuclear question is fascinating to me; Romney is a salesman, Obama is a Wilsonian figure. Romney will be all about the deal and any deal will be a great deal; Obama will want a deal but he’ll want a decent deal that’s reasonably fair to all the stakeholders. Certainly there are enough of them in the equation – if you’re in the same time zone as Iran, you’re invested in the outcome of those talks. Who gets the better deal – the guy who’ll be desperate to prove he’s worthy of being president and knows nothing about foreign affairs except for what John Bolton tells him; or the guy who channels Lincoln and selected his greatest rival to be secretary of State but is super-willing to assume good faith on the part of people who can’t spell it.. Of course, the White House now says that there will be no talks soon…I’m not sure that has any meaning anyway, given the glacial way in which US-Iran relations have staggered along since 1979.

The news that there’s been another mass shooting, this time in Wisconsin in a Spa is somewhat intriguing at this point despite being a run-of-the mill domestic violence case gone even further off the tracks. Obama has never, to my knowledge claimed to have anything to do with guns as an individual; Romney has claimed to be a life-long hunter shooting “varmints.” Of course, this example of wanton murder and excess is undoubtedly due to…what, exactly? Violent video games? Birth control? Abortion? Poor childhood nutrition? Lack of social services? Jobs? Depression? Fear? Socialism? At the end of the day, there is no one explanation for evil, but my guess is that abortion and birth control issues are pretty remotely connected, unless the guy shot up a Planned Parenthood office. But one thing that I do know is that if guns are less available, it will be harder for OCD people to fixate on them because they’ll be harder to get. In this case, it turns out the guy had a restraining order filed by his wife, was under orders to stay away from her and to not possess firearms. Yet, there he was.  Certainly in Scott Walker’s beloved Wisconsin there are enough laws to control domestic violence and it has to be the fault of the unions somehow, right? No. Not enough cops, not enough controls and too easy to get guns. Be interesting to know where he got the gun – guns show at a church; from someone at a parking lot? His mother?

 

 

Educated Arrogance

Among the many abominations foisted on us is the merging of Lincoln's Birthday with Washington's and calling it President's Day. Frankly, we need more holidays, and Federal Holidays should be made mandatory paid holidays. Like in civilized countries – double time for workers and everybody else is off doing their thing. Now, celebrating Lincoln and Washington makes a lot of sense – but, Jerry Ford? Grover Cleveland? Warren G. Harding? John Tyler? James Buchanan? Seriously, give us back our holidays and make the bastards give them to workers…

There is method in my madness, by the way. Reduce work hours and you'll spur hiring to maintain productivity. It's a fairly simple idea and works very well especially when you're trying to maximize employment. If you have an idle assembly line, well, if you need a hundred employees to run it, and you cut the hours of 1000 employees enough to reduce productivity to where profit is affected, it will make economic sense to hire more workers. It probably does on a macro scale anyway – as Paul Krugman and other non-Friedmanesque economists keep saying, it's demand, stupid. No demand, no need for supply to keep up. No money, no demand…why is this hard?

I was wandering through various interweb sites this morning and discovered a number of things at places I don't always visit. Probably the best way to be exposed to new thought and new thinking is to just go out and look. I recommend Twitter for that – follow some of the links that are twittered and be prepared to be amazed, enlightened and generally entertained.

Spit on statistics -- it's what you measure and how, not the results

 

WILL WRESTLE YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW FOR A BUCK!--Homeless Guy's Sign, Trust Stop Near Barstow

So, the unemployment rate has dropped below 9% to 8.6%. Why is the AXE less than excited by this? The unemployment rate is based on the number of people who are considered to be in the workforce, so if you eliminate people from the workforce who are unemployed, the percentage employed is skewed to teh right. In other words,  So, most of the drop is due not to the imaginary job creators of Republcian lore, legend and myth, but due to people giving up after months of trying, running out of unemployment benefits and falling off the grid and under the bus. In other words, a historically low number of workers are doing less badly, while there's an increase in people who are literally just waiting to die. 

American governments at all levels continued to bleed workers, for one. And the decline in the unemployment rate had a down side: It fell partly because more workers got jobs, but also because about 315,000 workers dropped out of the labor force. That left the share of Americans actively participating in the work force at a historically depressed 64 percent, down from 64.2 percent in October.Even excluding these hundreds of thousands of dropouts, the country still had a backlog of more than 13 million unemployed workers, whose spells of unemployment averaged an all-time high of 40.9 weeks. “They say businesses are refusing to look at résumés from the unemployed,” said Esther Perry, 59, of Bedford, Mass., who participated in a recent report on unemployed workers put together by USAction, a liberal coalition. “What do you think my chances are? Once unemployment runs out, I don’t know what I will do.”

Do the Occupied folks stay in the Workforce? Probably not -- while they're doing their thing, exercising their constitutional rights and getting pepper sprayed and beaten and shot with rubber bullets and so on, they're not looking for work or, conversely, they are working, just not getting paid. See how much fun this is? Statistics measure what you measure -- basing policy decisions on them or making political decisions on them -- THE PRESIDENT"S CHANCES FOR RE-ECLECTION IMPROVE AS UNEMPLOYMENT DIPS! -- without asking some structural, almost existential questions about what these things mean is really stupid, and I'm sure we'll do it soon, 24/7 on cable news, blogs like this one and talk radio. 

So, here's the test -- who do you know who's unemployed and you don't understand why? When they get a job, assume that the unemployment rate may be going down. Whom do you know who hates their job -- trick question, the stats that I have seen are pretty straight and seem confirmed by reality, just about everybody hates their job. However, pick someone who's dramatically underpaid, overworked and unhappy...see when they get a raise. Or feel comfortable quitting their job to look for a new one. Then what's happening is an actual increase in employment, as opposed to an artifical decline in a rate.  

 

Too much of nothing is too much...

 Some of us have more problems with heroes. Steve Earle comes to mind -- he often tells the story of playing a gig early in his career in Houston, and his hero Townes Van Zandt showed up and sat in front. He then proceeded to heckle Steve for the rest of the evening. "Play Wabash Cannonball. You call yourself a folk singer but you don't know Wabash Cannonball." It wasn't a zen moment; Townes, when drunk and off meds could be a real asshole. While touring in support of his TVZ album, Steve touchingly says that after years of thinking about it, the main reason more people don't know Townes Van Zandt was Townes Van Zandt. 

 Steve also tells the story of leaving a tour during his drug days, driven by the sudden need to hitchhike off at Thanskgiving time and see William S. Burroughs. Not that he knew the guy, but Burroughs was a hero of his too. So, with two guitars -- one wouldn't be enough -- a gun, a stash and a roll of money he took off. He showed up, and Burroughs was the sort of host an insane junky crashed in Lawrence Kansas would be expected to be.. Burroughs was not the sort of guy to feel comfortable with a left-leaning country singer in the early 90s...do ya think?

 

Steve had better luck with people like Guy Clark, Emmy Lou Harris and Johnny Cash. But, those stories are not so funny. I'd be curious to listen to a conversation about writing and meaning between Steve and Bob Dylan. That would be interesting. 

I just saw a thing that Jabba Hut Lindbaugh has an annual Thanksgiving story about how socialism almost killed the early pilgrims. Not exactly. And, as usual, he's a total dipshit about it. It's true that the pilgrims had an agreement at first to have all thing in commons. However, they departed late with one ship instead of the two that were planned, and did not finally get to Plymouth until December. They looted some graves of corn left as offerings for the dead, but they were in coastal New England during what we know to have been a particularly cold cycle in the world's climate and they were short of supplies to begin with. 

Pure socialism is as stupid a system as pure capitalism. However, it wasn't the communitarian living plans that almost killed these folks -- it was bad navigation, poor planning, insufficient supplies and insufficient knowledge of what to expect. The Pequot tribesman who actually helped them lived in a communal arrangement that worked really well until disease, warfare and Protestant Christianity did them all in. 

Regardless of system, scarcity is the problem. If there is not enough and Jesus hasn't provided the receipe for multiplying wine, fish and bread, any system can be stressed to the near breaking point. Interestingly to me, the retreat from a communal to a more traditional structure occurred after a supply of food and goods was secured. Dylan summed this problem up very well --scarcity is the problem. 

 

As I said, it would be interesting to listen to Dylan and Earle and Clark talk about songwriting. We know that Dylan and Cash spent a lot of time together, so I suspect that some of the others have also been at Cinnamon Hill or at Hendersonville for a guitar pull or two. 

About as unclear on the concept as we are...Part I

Is it impossible to get a cup of coffee-flavored coffee? You can get every other flavor except coffee-flavored coffee! They got mochachino, cappuchino, frappachino, Al Pacino, what the fuck? www.what the fuck.com! --Denis Leary

 

Starbucks has a new blend, Iced Coffee Blend. I guess they Blend it so it will make really good Iced Coffee when blended. Anyway, while I was waiting for Sonny the Anorexic 20 something to get me my Americano, she offered me a sample. In a plastic Starbucks Shotglass. Of Hot Iced Coffee Blend. Obviously, they are unclear on the concept...about as unclear as we are on the debt limit debate, the deficit and why the US can't afford not to borrow and build and grow the infrastructure, American industry and hope for the future. 

Now, the debt limit is about as artifical a piece of idiocy as we can expect from the Republicans. Greenspan, ole Al hisself, has said in the past that he doesn't understand why the government goes through this drill. The other developed nations don't do it. Most businesses do this -- they borrow short term and long term, and play with the floats to keep going. The problem is not the borrowing -- rather, the problem is when you can't borrow anymore. 

While those who claim we are no longer capable of paying off the debt and therefore should massively contract and give up on the dreams of economic justice, industrial democracy and the old "establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare" piece of the American ideology are dominating the debate, there are alternative visions. Those visions are better morally, poltically, economically and historically. Given mankind's ability to screw up sure things, I'm not sure that I can be too optimistic here, but I'll try. 

The market -- the money market, the bond market -- is eager to lend the US money by purchasing our debt through T-Bills. They -- the bond market, the Germans, the Chinese, the US Banking Industry -- are willing to do so because we're the best game in town historically and economically. The cost of this borrowing, the interest, is at historic lows. There's a reason for this, which should be almost like a Saint Paul falling off his horse on the road to Damascus moment to the Ayn Randian-Supply Side- Debit Hawks. The market, which they have raised to a level of sanctity exceeded only by the angelic choruses, the thrones and dominations and all the rest of that choir, isn't worried about the US debt. They see it as the preferred cost-benefit-risk investment. Since the whole "let the market decide" nonsense is based on the idea that the market is rational, well, the deficit hawks are disregarding their own ideology. 

So, from their point of view, the market is rational so long as it does what they think it should. Since it doesn't, they'll run around and compare the US economy to Bob's Burger Palace and Beer Emporium in Incest Hollow, Kentucky. There are problems with that, of course. Like it's a totally insane comparison. Or, comparing the US economy -- which is the basis for the debt -- to the Rand Paul household. 

Now, how do we screw this up? There are a number of ways. The first and the one that makes the world the most nervous, is the possibility of US default on debt. If you can't get the cash to meet current obligations, you ultimately are bankrupt. When you have to start stiffing your suppliers, things are bad; ask any government contractor and that's been happening around the edges for a while. When you start stiffing your lenders by not being able to stay current and having to decide whom you're going to pay, you're insolvent. Now, the market wants to let us borrow more -- we aren't Greece, we aren't Argentina, we aren't Russia. They know that and all these people who babble about American exceptionalism ought to remember it. We're still the greatest -- most prosperous, most inventive, most productive -- country in the world. 

So, the way we go insolvent is to artifically truncate our ability to meet current obligations -- not raise the debt limit as needed. Hell, establishing a debt limit is an artificial construct. It doesn't control anything. So, what happens if we aren't able to meet current obligations? What happens if we default? 

Well, things change. The world will become nervous about our stability and our reasonableness. There are concerns in Russia that Vladamir Putin is their version of Robert Mugabe. Since we are a Democratic Republic as opposed to a kleptocratic autocracy, our version of Mugabe will be John Boehner and Mitch McConnell reinforced by Rand Paul and ilk doing their Facism as 100% Americanism Fan Dance. Irrationality triumphs because they don't understand their own goddamned ideology, economic theory or how to act in the best interests of the country, or since they purport to believe in this stuff, their immortal souls...

Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal 

fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For
I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was
thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and
you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me
no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not
care for me.

...
Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one
of these least ones, you did not do for me. And
these will go off to eternal punishment, but the
righteous to eternal life.

(Mt. 26: 41-43; 45-46)

 

Obama is not much help here. He's been so busy triangulating the Republican position, the Progressive Democratic position and the public opinion that he can't do anything. He's done a lot of good things, but no great things because he lacks the willingness to be as dynamic a communicator with the bully pulpit of the presidency as he was in pursuit of it. While Madeline Albright's point was perhaps off, when she questioned why we needed the greatest military in the world if we were never going to use it she asked a question that someone ought to ask Barrack Obama...why exactly did you want to be president anyway? To slow the descent of the Republic into something worse? Or, to continue to make the country great...

When I was in college, we had dances on campus. These "mixers" were really mating rituals, where the various Catholic Girl's Schools sent busloads to Catholic West Point to see and be seen by the next generation of the rising Catholic middle class. We had beer, and there was music. Some of it was actually very good music -- a little known Boston band called JAY GEILS and HIS Rhythm Kings featuring Petey Wolfe or somebody like that I recall doing covers of various R&B stuff. 

The problem,as pointed out in Harry Potter and the Goblin of Fire is that girl's tend to travel to these things in herds while the men travelled in packs. Some male had to brave the herd, some member of the herd had to agree to brave the man and the process might start. The way this was done was with the question, "Would you like to dance?" Most of the time, the answer was yes. However, the fear of rejection was great...unfortunately, we were a bunch of drunken egocentric assholes in those days. (Based on my samples of our class population and my own experience, we still largely are egocentric assholes, of course who drink less.) And, what do you do when you risk everything and the answer is no? 

Well, one of my buddies had a way of either overcomming the resistance at best and at worst getting some of his own back. (We Irish are great at that. Starve us into economic slavery and disaspora, and we'll sing three choruses of The Wild Colonial Boy and burn down a pub. By good, showed the bastards...) When rejected, Franny would say " You don't want to dance? Then why'd ya come here?"

The "constitutional option" on the debt is something the Prez doesn't want to talk about which is insane. The 14th Amendment is very clear on this -- we're not in 2nd Amendment territory here, we're dealing with the fact of government and the requirements of governing...

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. (AXE emphasis) But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

So, while I dislike admitting it if only on aesthetic grounds, Mitch McConnell actually has a pretty good idea. I'd like there to be a more blanket approach, where this becomes what it is, a business practice, maintaining liquidity and solvency. As for the phrase "authorized by law" the debt becomes authorized when the Congress passes an appropriation bill and the President signs it. If Congress doesn't want to incur any more debt, they should just go the hell home...if there are no more appropriations, then there will be no new debt, just the continuing cost of governing at the current level. ) Of course, same question -- if you don't want to dance, why'd ya come?

 Now, since I regard the Republican Leadership in Congress as a wholly owned subsidiary of our insect-alien overlords (GE, the Koch Brothers, Pfizer, Merck, Boeing, JP Morgan-Chase, BOA, Goldman Sachs, the Vatican, the Templars, the Illuminati), I keep waiting for the adult leadership to recognize that their minions are about to drive their economic interests off the cliff...the problem that I see is that they're so intellectually inbred of such bad genetic stock (Ron Paul is a harmless old coot/Cult Figure in Congress; Rand Paul is one of 100 with the power to delay if not stop just about anything...) that their hearing is not acute enough to hear the dog whistle. McConnell and Boehner are old stock and can still hear their Masters' voices, but the Tea Party and the Randians and Rick-Bachman-Pawlenty-Overdrive and the rest are deaf to reason, national interest and enlightened self interest.  Since the Democrats are only partially owned by the same interests, well, they can still hear. They snap back about some stuff, but they aren't idiots. The Tea Party/Boehner-McConnell Republicans appear to be lemmings; most of the Democrats appear to be sheep. And, the Shepard appears to be interested in playing basketball as opposed to doing what he went into the field for. 

Next Time, why Taxes are a good thing and why the Stimulus didn't work better than it did. 

 

 

Well, it's been a weird week...out on Highway 61

 

I've been quiet lately. Posted some crap at Facebook and Twitter that I found other places and figured either didn't need or deserve my comments. I've been toiling away at a few things, and have no excuse. Of course, between the budget deal and the Ryan Budget and the Obama budget and Libya and Michele Bachmann and Donald Trump and such, there really hasn't been a lot to write about. However, got a few things to at least refer to...

Larry Kirwan is an Irish immmigrant and now citizen who wandered into the Brnonx with a Telecaster, an excellent Irish education from the schools of Eire, a collection of adventures and the attitude that allowed him to form, with friends, Black 47. Unlike a lot of Celtic Rockers, they have a strong reggae influence and have actually got a bit of hip hop in the closet. However, he's in the best of the Irish-Catholic-liberal-working class tradition, and Black 47s political stuff can be as exciting as the best rock stuff, and sometimes they overlap. Anyway, he had the opportunity to speak and play at a Labor Rally commemorating the Triangle Shirt Fire recently, and that led to an excellent discussion of how impossibly hard it is to keep us focused on what's important.

“You don’t say,” says Your Man up in Pearl River. “We didn’t think you were performing at a Sarah Palin Rally!”  I do have to admit that it was a thrill to stand on the same stage where a rather more stellar Republican, Abraham Lincoln, gave one of his greatest speeches. Besides, Sarah is auld hat now. Everyone and their granny knows that Michele Bachman is the new inheritor of Margaret Thatcher’s mantle. (AXE comment.  Thatcher looks like Elizabeth I compared to the US Bachmann-Palin-Coulter Underdrive. However, she stayed too long, and that gave the British Tony Blair and David Cameron. Reagan-Thatcherism, the gift that keeps on giving -- venereal disease.)

Kirwan is well worth reading on this and listening to as well. I dislike a lot of the Black 47 Ballads. That said, I have most of their CDs because they have fantastic up-tempo stuff. The ballads suffer from the Irish "Oh, Danny Boy" syndrome...we can't help it...like Danny Boy, it's a legacy of the British occupation and cultural rape. Like venereal disease. But, he can rise above it --and I think he sums our situation up well here.

All of us, Left, Right and Center, are being manipulated by that top 1%. It’s just that we’re so busy trying to keep our heads above water we don’t have time to stop and think about it.

Consider this! Back in the bellbottom 70’s manufacturing workers were pulling in $15-20 per hour. The recently negotiated UAW contract guarantees new hires $14 per hour. Thirty years of progress!

That great American ineluctable right – or rather assumption – that one can make the middle class is now a mere pipe dream for much of the population.

Many who lost their jobs in the recent financial debacle stand scant chance of regaining their standard of living, for those decent union jobs of 30 years ago have been replaced by low paying service industry positions, if at all. The great factories that I once drove past on Route 80 are now boarded up shells. Buffalo, Toledo, Detroit are graveyard cities, their populations declining by the year.

How did this come about? Well we trusted venal politicians in the pocket of lobbyists employed by the top1% oligarchy. Meanwhile, we allowed ourselves to be divided by a media more interested in selling ads than seeking the truth; and the sad part is - nothing has changed.

There is a great moment in the Scorses film about Dylan where Joan Baez says that after 40 years, she doesn't expect Dylan to show up at any "movement" function. He isn't about that stuff anymore. Hasn't been for over 40 years. Probably wasn't then -- she advises people to get over it, and appreciate him for what he is. Although he'd probably blanche at the comparison, for the AXE, Dylan is Kierkegaard in Leather, with a Telecaster swung over his shoulder and an XM radio. He doesn't really show up, he just is there sometimes. In the first Farm Aid concert, there was a moment when he was playing with his band, and he glanced up and saw Willy Nelson jamming away -- he was taken aback, and Nelson shrugged and grinned. That's the way to appreciate Dylan -- he goes where he goes and does what he wishes. And then he does a tour in China and Vietnam, and it's seen as a betrayal?  

I've expressed my love and contained lust for Maureen Dowd in this space for years. However, she can get very irritating. Her attitude toward the Dylan show and it's set list shows a number of things, including that she isn't really a Dylan fan. There is nothing in the Dylan songbook from the protest period that would be controversial in the Chinese Communist Party mind. Hell, they could start chanting Mao, Mao, Mao and waive their Little Red Books in adulation of the old fat bastard and be right in sync... There is nothing universal about Master's of War or Hurricane -- they're American songs about America. When a poltical song becomes specific, it loses it's universality. So, the Chinese apparachniks could actually have felt at home with With God on Her Side...because it's about the problems of American aggression, based on a tune stolen from Dominic Behan called the Patriot Game. And, Blowing in the Wind isn't all that optimistic and positive..."The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind."I think Jerry Jeff Walker put it well in it's proper place in the American songbook when he sang "The answer my friend isn't pissin' in the wind, the answer is pissin' in the sink..."

The stuff that Dylan got to sing was a helluva lot more subversive than the stuff Dulcinea Dowd wanted him to play, and she has the balance to quote people who point out that Dylan is not the guy with the old Martin guitar and workshirt anymore. Anyway, here's the setlist. If "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" isn't subversive enough, as another commentator put it, Highway 61 really speaks to the Chinese...meaningless slaughter just because sure sounds like Mao; exploitation for the manufacture and sale of crap; and, of course, war and militarism. From another point of view, the most subversive song Dylan ever wrote, the one that changed popular culture, music and the way a lot of people thought was the first encore...Like a Rolling Stone. Maureen probably doesn't really get Dylan. Remember, we're roughly contemporaries, and I'm sure she was into Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, the Beatles and Laura Nyro over at Catholic University. Hell, I could picture her feeling daring drinking a 3.2 beer and singing along to "Danny Boy" on St Patrick's Day. Or that fucking Unicorn thing...

Then there's the dueling budget issues. I wish Obama wouldn't be so damn subtle...his speech that got Boehner and Ryan and Fox News all upset about his tone was what we need to hear him say about most stuff, and needed to have him say during the whole first two years. Hey, collegiality is nice, but calling bullshit and backing the call with facts is critical to the survival of the any Civil Society. And, the Ryan plan is bullshit. The delays in changing programs are sops to a special interest group -- old bastards. Like me. My wife. My sister. Our friends...to paraphrase the President when the mic was left on -- do we really think that was an accident -- do they think we're stupid? Well, yeah, they do. And, in general, we've justified that...the Tea Party consists of ignorant old farts who are confused about the government role in things like Medicare and Social Security, funded by people who'd just as soon go to a world run like the unpublished and lost fouth volume of Ayn Rand's Atlas saga,  Atlas Jacked Off a Mongrel Dog and Swallowed the Cum, where poor people were taken to rendering plants when they're dying for dog food and the human version of whale oil. The Republicans have encouraged not only the plutocrats, but the goddamn loonies to excess...People like Barbara Boxer, Anthony Weiner, Barney Frank and the branding iron-toting governor of Montana are peforming a great service by being vocal and direct, but the Bully Pulpit belongs to the President. As long as he's trying to be vague, collegial and inspirational, the Fox News gang is able to be crazy...and asshats like that clown from Texas who's had a career now ranting at people about how much he hates the American Flag from the steps of the capital in Austin need to be answered. I'm actually amazed that nobody has pistol whipped the clown and his compatriots yet. Where the fuck are Walker, Alex and Trevette when you need them? Or, Tom FUCKING Landry?

You know what I'd like to hear? Someone like Jim Clyburn of South Carolina or maybe Eugene Robinson say what they're really thinking, and what most of us are feeling. Every time somebody says Obama and birth certificate and Kenya what we hear is "Nigger." That's really what it is...why are we kidding ourselves. Everytime someone claims that all Muslims are evil, what we hear is "Nigger..." Everytime someone talks about Eastern Elites, what we're really hearing is "Kike..." Abortion complaints, unintended to be factual statements about Planned Parenthood, and similar nonsense about Gays -- all should be understood in one simple way -- "Eine Partie, eine Stadt, eine Volk! Seig Heil..." Look, the Celts in this country have been there -- NO IRISH NEED APPLY and No-Nothingism is as American as toxic waste and as corrosive. We just forget, a lot. We need to remember, say what we're thinking, stop being silly and get focused and stay goddamn focused.

If you're not rich, you need to get your ass to the polls and vote Democratic. If you're a soldier, sailor or Marine, you need to get your ass to the polls and vote Democratic. If you're a woman, you're gay, you're in a minority, have a job, have children, have parents, want the roads to work, the sewers to work, the power lines to work, the food to be edible, people to have jobs, people not to lose their homes and on and on and on and on...you need to get to the polls and vote Democratic.

If you're a Democratic lawmaker, you need to pass laws that are punitive to those who hurt the nation. We don't need a goddamn Flag-Burning Amendment. We need an Amendment to the Constitution stripping corporations of the legal fiction of them being people. If a kid selling or possessing a rock of crack cocaine can get 10 years to life, a bank executive who led his company on a spree of fraud, deceptive and predatory lending, and the destruction of lives and hopes and jobs and aspirations needs to do 10 years to life. Mandatory sentencing for white collar crime...similar to that for drug possession. I wonder how many years Countrywide Executives would be looking at ...