It's not going to be OK

[Nebula]

Sarcasm is sometimes lost on forums.

[peaceseeker]

Nader Was Right: Liberals Are Going Nowhere With Obama

Posted on Aug 10, 2009

by Chris Hedges

[peaceseeker]

It's Not a 'Free Market' System When Taxpayers Are Financing the Profits

by David Sirota

Published on Thursday, August 27, 2009 by Open Left


Thanks to both the focus on health care and the storm over President Obama's comments on Henry Louis Gates, few bothered to note a deeply troubling moment during last month's White House press conference in which the president displayed genuine stupidity, willful ignorance, intelligence-insulting dishonesty - or some combination of all three (I bring this up now, because it's the very same argument we're going to hear from supporters of Ben Bernanke in his renomination process). Referring to the recent news that banks like Goldman Sachs reported big profits, he said:

"What you're seeing is that banks are starting to make profits again. Some of them have paid back the TARP money that they received, the bank bailout money that they received. And we expect more of them to pay this back. That's a good thing...And we also think it's a good thing that they're profitable again, because if they're profitable that means that they have reserves in place and they can lend. And this is America, so if you're profitable in the free market system then you benefit." (emphasis added)

Yeah, sure - economically speaking, it's a great thing when a business makes a product or delivers a service and is able to make a profit from that endeavor in a free, unsubsidized market. However, that's not what's going on in the financial industry...at all.

As Matt Taibbi noted a full week before Obama's press conference, "this is not free-market earnings but an almost pure state subsidy." In a TrueSlant article that followed his original Rolling Stone gem, he breaks down all the subsidies and handouts the financial industry engineered for itself outside of just the TARP bailout. He concludes:

One of the most hilarious lies that has been spread about Goldman of late is that, since it repaid its TARP money, it's now free and clear of any obligation to the government - as if that was the only handout Goldman got in the last year. Goldman last year made your average AFDC mom on food stamps look like an entrepreneur...

Taken altogether, what all of this means is that Goldman's profit announcement is a giant "f**k you" to the rest of the country. It is a statement of supreme privilege, an announcement that it feels no shame in taking subsidies and funneling them directly into their pockets, and moreover feels no fear of any public response. It knows that it's untouchable and it's not going to change its behavior for anyone. And it doesn't matter who knows it.

So in light of the evidence Taibbi lays out - evidence that has been reported in the business press for the last many months - it's clear President Obama's claim that the big banks are back to being "profitable in the free market system" is stupid, willfully ignorant, or dishonest, because they're quite obviously operating inside the opposite of a "free market system." Their profits are a direct taxpayer subsidy.

Is that a "good thing?" Well, I guess it's a "good thing" that after all the subsidies, the banks didn't report more losses. However, I'd prefer the phrase "the absolute least that should have happened" to "good thing." Why? Because the idea that they did something right or smart or brilliant or moral or newly responsible by generating their recent profits is absurd.

Had they been given so much taxpayer cash and not reported a profit - that would have been an embarrassment. Put another way, there was almost no possible way for the banks to report anything other than profits when they were the recipients of so much taxpayer cash. The president praising them for being "profitable in a free market system" is like him signing legislation transferring $1 million from the U.S. Treasury into my bank account, and then a month later, sending me a letter of commendation for having mustered the brilliance and hard work to earn $1 million.

OK, fine, you get that this isn't a free market. But you're still wondering about motive. Why would Obama go on national television and tell the American public that big bank profits are a "good thing" like any other endeavor that is "profitable in the free market system?" What motive might he have? I'd guess defending Wall Street and the ongoing subsidies/bailouts.

Remember, Obama is the guy who raised more campaign cash from Wall Street than any other candidate in American history - and he was the guy who played a pivotal role in passing the bailouts in the first place. And while, sure, it's seems like a positive that Obama wants financial "reform," we don't really know what "reform" means. It could mean nothing - or, based on administration proposals to actually put more power into the very secretive agency that allowed the mess to happen, it could mean an even worse regulatory system.

So it's entirely possible - if not probable - that Obama is just doing his part to tamp down popular anger at financial firms and the bailouts so as to help prevent any kind of serious regulatory reform and/or political backlash against Wall Street. I mean, the guy is a smart guy - he of all people knows that the banks are not earnestly generating profit in a "free market." The fact that he can't even bring himself to acknowledge that and provide some straight-talk to the American people about such an obvious reality suggests an ulterior motive.


© OpenLeft 2007-2009

David Sirota is a bestselling author whose newest book is "The Uprising". He is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network-both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is at http://www.credoaction.com/sirota.

[peaceseeker]

The War on Language
Posted on Sep 28, 2009

By Chris Hedges

'There is a scene in “Othello” when the Moor is so consumed by jealousy and rage that he loses the eloquence and poetry that make him the most articulate man in Venice. He turns to the audience, shortly before he murders Desdemona, and sputters, “Goats and monkeys!” Othello fell prey to wild self-delusion and unchecked rage, and his words became captive to hollow clichés. The debasement of language, which Shakespeare understood was a prelude to violence, is the curse of modernity. We have stopped communicating, even with ourselves. And the consequences will be as extreme as in the Shakespearean tragedy.

Those who seek to dominate our behavior first seek to dominate our speech. They seek to obscure meaning. They make war on language. And the English- and Arabic-speaking worlds are each beset with a similar assault on language. The graffiti on the mud walls of Gaza that calls for holy war or the crude rants of Islamic militants are expressed in a simplified, impoverished form of Arabic. This is not the classical language of 1,500 years of science, poetry and philosophy. It is an argot of clichés, distorted Quranic verses and slogans. This Arabic is no more comprehensible to the literate in the Arab world than the carnival barking that pollutes our airwaves is comprehensible to our literate classes. The reduction of popular discourse to banalities, exacerbated by the elite’s retreat into obscure, specialized jargon, creates internal walls that thwart real communication. This breakdown in language makes reflection and debate impossible. It transforms foreign cultures, which we lack the capacity to investigate, into reversed images of ourselves. If we represent virtue, progress and justice, as our clichés constantly assure us, then the Arabs, or the Iranians, or anyone else we deem hostile, represent evil, backwardness and injustice. An impoverished language solidifies a binary world and renders us children with weapons. '...

continued here

[AlanH]

Just thought I'd better post so you don't come off looking like some wing-nut that posts things that nobody reads.

[peaceseeker]

War Is a Hate Crime

By Chris Hedges
Posted on Oct 26, 2009

'Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is wrong. So is violence against people in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in the bizarre culture of identity politics, there are no alliances among the oppressed. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the first major federal civil rights law protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, passed last week, was attached to a $680-billion measure outlining the Pentagon’s budget, which includes $130 billion for ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democratic majority in Congress, under the cover of protecting some innocents, authorized massive acts of violence against other innocents.

It was a clever piece of marketing. It blunted debate about new funding for war. And behind the closed doors of the caucus rooms, the Democratic leadership told Blue Dog Democrats, who are squeamish about defending gays or lesbians from hate crimes, that they could justify the vote as support for the war. They told liberal Democrats, who are squeamish about unlimited funding for war, that they could defend the vote as a step forward in the battle for civil rights. Gender equality groups, by selfishly narrowing their concern to themselves, participated in the dirty game. '...

continued here

[steelrules]

See forum topic
Is there a thought police on Castanet.

Hey Peaceseeker, are we near a full moon? The 3 amigo's (Writerdave, Captainawsome and Roadrunner24K) who love take certain subjects and take them way off topic and ridicule! I read old posts by them and what a waste of everyone's time. Like I don't thing any of them can actually carry a conversation. But then again I wonder why they like doing that. I could imagine what their motives are. Oh that's a conspiracy!

[peaceseeker]

The Economic Crisis and What Must be Done
by Richard C. Cook

[peaceseeker]

Addicted to Nonsense
By Chris Hedges
Posted on Nov 30, 2009


'Will Tiger Woods finally talk to the police? Who will replace Oprah? (Not that Oprah can ever be replaced, of course.) And will Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the couple who crashed President Barack Obama’s first state dinner, command the hundreds of thousands of dollars they want for an exclusive television interview? Can Levi Johnston, father of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s grandson, get his wish to be a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars”?

The chatter that passes for news, the gossip that is peddled by the windbags on the airwaves, the noise that drowns out rational discourse, and the timidity and cowardice of what is left of the newspaper industry reflect our flight into collective insanity. We stand on the cusp of one of the most seismic and disturbing dislocations in human history, one that is radically reconfiguring our economy as it is the environment, and our obsessions revolve around the trivial and the absurd.' ...

continued here

[Queen K]

I have to say, it is too strong to characterize the trivial as "our obsessions". Some of us, okay me, are horrified at the trivialization of everything and everyone. Especially those who have a messege oft labelled as "doom and gloom." Is it not possible they are right?

Just because the media is shoving this trivia at me, doesn't make me obsessed. I wonder how many others are equally horrified, because it can't just be me.

[steven lloyd]

I have to say, it is too strong to characterize the trivial as "our obsessions". Some of us, okay me, are horrified at the trivialization of everything and everyone. Especially those who have a messege oft labelled as "doom and gloom." Is it not possible they are right?

That’s the real scary thing. I don’t want to be a “doom and gloomer” but when I observe how many posters here prefer to adopt either the “head in the sand” or “bums up position” that doesn’t provide much fuel for optimism. I recognize we have some younger posters now (ben, dickie, static, etc.), however, it is still really incredible how naive some people still are when it comes to union issues, social service issues, etc.

My old signature used to read something like “Social, economic and political evolution is inevitable. We will either evolve as a species or we will become extinct as a species”.

Extinct may have been a strong word. I do believe we are resilient as a species. However, if we continue to follow the path we are on I can only say I am happy I won’t be here to be living in those days. I'm glad I won't have to explain it to my grandchildren other than to leave a note saying "I voted for someone else. Good luck and God bless."

[peaceseeker]

I have to say, it is too strong to characterize the trivial as "our obsessions". Some of us, okay me, are horrified at the trivialization of everything and everyone. Especially those who have a messege oft labelled as "doom and gloom." Is it not possible they are right?

Just because the media is shoving this trivia at me, doesn't make me obsessed. I wonder how many others are equally horrified, because it can't just be me.

You're not alone Queen K...many are equally horrified. The majority of public do not seek the latest 'goof' made by a celebrity. Unfortunately, the mainstream media prefers to exploit these happenings to the fullest in effort of keeping us distracted from the realities of our world.

[Queen K]

I have to say, it is too strong to characterize the trivial as "our obsessions". Some of us, okay me, are horrified at the trivialization of everything and everyone. Especially those who have a messege oft labelled as "doom and gloom." Is it not possible they are right?

Just because the media is shoving this trivia at me, doesn't make me obsessed. I wonder how many others are equally horrified, because it can't just be me.

You're not alone Queen K...many are equally horrified. The majority of public do not seek the latest 'goof' made by a celebrity. Unfortunately, the mainstream media prefers to exploit these happenings to the fullest in effort of keeping us distracted from the realities of our world.

Distract to the non-thinkers. Act as a balm to the deep thinkers. Only it's not a balm. It's more sinister. We are in a quagmire of consumerism, stop consuming and the economy tanks. Build better mousetraps and equipment dates and becomes nothing better than boat anchors or recycling. Recycle electronics and someone in a Third World is exposed to dangerous elements with no union to speak up for their human rights. Try starting a union there and have the bodies show up somewhere in a ditch as a warning. Try creating jobs in the First World, only to find that the profits per shareholder are vastly inferior to profits if the company moves off-shore. Be severely criticized for moving jobs out of North America, or to Mexico. Use recycled glass for countertops, only the countertop is VASTLY more expensive than Granite (saw that yesterday and how crazy is that?). Keep ourselves drugged out with booze, drugs, gaming, videos, tv, Castanet, escapism reading, DVDS and anything NOT reminding us once again that Global warming is real. And on and on. Tiger cheated....the tv bubbleheaded bleach blonde, Dirtly Laundry, etc.

[Nebula]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The glorification of idiocy or the desire from the public to see it/watch it/read it/experience it?

There is only reason why TV shows/news shows/newspapers/magazines are rife with everything Tiger Woods right now: because it sells. If the corporations weren't making money off it, we wouldn't be seeing it/reading it. It's really quite that simple.

The mainstream media, as far as I can tell, has no agenda to spew this tripe in order to keep anything from anyone. If everyone suddenly became completely disinterested in celebrity crap, media would slow down reporting it and focus on other subjects. On need only look at the sheer number of celebrity-based magazines and rags available to understand that people who want to make money are simply filling a need that the public (and in part the media) has created. If people stopped buying the celebrity rags, those companies producing them would stop printing them.

[steelrules]

Nebula
The beginning of subliminal control
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4iMwEZ8_-s

The dumbing down of society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbtYBTavMOI