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Our phony economy
By Jonathan Rowe
Harper's Magazine June 2008
From testimony delivered March 12 before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce. Rowe is codirector of West Marin Commons, a community-organizing group, in California.
Suppose that the head of a federal agency came before this committee and reported with pride that agency employees had burned 10 percent more calories at work last year than they did the year before. Not only that–they had spent 10 percent more money too. I have a feeling you would want to know more. What were these employees doing when they burned those calories? What did they spend that money on? Most important, what were the results? Expenditure is a means, not an end, and to assess the health of an agency, or system, you need to know what it has accomplished, not just how much motion it has generated and money it has spent. The point seems obvious, yet Congress ignores it every day when it talks about “the economy.” The administration and the media do it, too. Every time you say that “the economy” is up, or that you want to “stimulate” it, you are urging more expenditure and motion without regard to what that expenditure is and what it might accomplish, and without regard to what it might crowd out or displace in the process.
That term “the economy”: what it means, in practice, is the Gross Domestic Product–a big statistical pot that includes all the money spent in a given period of time. If the pot is bigger than it was the previous quarter, or year, then you cheer. If it isn’t bigger, or bigger enough, then you call Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke up here and ask him to do some explaining. The what of the economy makes no difference in these councils. It never seems to come up. The money in the big pot could be going to cancer treatments or casinos, violent video games or usurious credit-card rates. It could go toward the $9 billion or so that Americans spend on gas they burn while they sit in traffic, or the billion plus that goes to such drugs as Ritalin and Prozac that schools are stuffing into kids to keep them quiet in class. The money could be the $20 billion or so that Americans spend on divorce lawyers each year, or the $41 billion on pets, or the $5 billion on identity theft, or the billions more spent to repair property damage caused by environmental pollution. The money in the pot could betoken social and environmental breakdown–misery and distress of all kinds. It makes no difference. You don’t ask. All you want to know is the total amount, which is the GDP. So long as it is growing then everything is fine.
I am not talking about an obscure technical measure. This is not stuff for the folks in the back room. I am talking about what you mean when you use that term “the economy.” Few words induce such a reverential hush in these halls. Few words are so laden with authority and portent. When you say “the economy” is up, no news is better. When you argue that a proposal will help the economy or hurt it, then you have played the ultimate trump card in your polemical deck, bin Laden possibly excepted.
This, by the way, is not an argument against growth. To be reflexively against growth is as numb-minded as to be reflexively for it. Those are theological positions. I am arguing for an empirical one. Find out what is growing and the effects. Tell us what this growth is, in concrete terms. Then we can begin to say whether it has been good.
The failure to do this is insane. It is an insanity that is embedded in the political debate and in media reportage, and it leads to fallacy in many directions. We hear, for example, that efforts to address climate change will hurt “the economy.” Does that mean that if we clean up the air we will spend less money treating asthma in young kids? The atmosphere is part of the economy, too–the real economy, that is, though not the artificial construct portrayed in the GDP. It does real work, as we would discover quickly if it were to collapse. Yet the GDP does not include this work. If we burn more gas, the expenditure gets added to the GDP. But there is no corresponding subtraction for the toll this burning takes on the thermostatic and buffering functions that the atmosphere provides. (Nor is there a subtraction for the oil we take out of the ground.) Yet if we burn less gas, and thus maintain the crucial functions of the atmosphere, we say “the economy” has suffered, even though the real economy has been enhanced.
With families the logic is the same. By the standard of the GDP, the worst families in America are those that actually function as families–that cook their own meals, take walks after dinner, and talk together instead of just farming the kids out to the commercial culture. Cooking at home, talking with kids, walking instead of driving, involve less expenditure of money than do their commercial counterparts. Solid marriages involve less expenditure for counseling and divorce. Thus they are threats to the economy as portrayed in the GDP. By that standard, the best kids are the ones who eat the most junk food and exercise the least, because they will run up the biggest medical bills for obesity and diabetes.
This assumption has been guiding our economic policies for the past sixty years at least. Is it surprising that the family structure is shaky, real community is in decline, and children have become petri dishes of market-related dysfunction and disease? The nation conceives of such things as growth and therefore good. It is not accidental that the two major protest movements of recent decades–environmentalist and pro-family–both deal with parts of the real economy that the GDP leaves out and that the commercial culture that embodies the GDP tends to erode. How did we get to this strange pass, where up is down and down is up? How did it happen that the nation’s economic hero is a terminal-cancer patient going through a costly divorce? How is it that Congress talks about stimulating “the economy” when much that will actually be stimulated is the destruction of things it says it cares about on other days? How did the notion of economy become so totally uneconomic?
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The story begins in Ireland in the 1650s. British troops had just repressed another uprising there, and the Cromwell government had devised a final solution to put its Irish problem to rest. The government would remove a significant portion of the populace–Catholics in particular–to remote parts of the island. Then it would redistribute their lands to British troops, thus providing compensation to them and establishing an occupational presence for the benefit of the government in London. The task of creating an inventory of the lands went to an army physician by the name of William Petty, a quick study and a man with an eye for the main chance. He classified much land as marginal that actually was quite good. Then he got himself appointed to the panel that made the distributions and bestowed much of that land upon himself. Petty’s survey was the first known attempt in Western history to create a total inventory of a nation’s wealth. It was not done for the well-being of the Irish people but rather to take their land away from them. It was an instrument of government policy, and this has been true from that time to the present. Governments have sought to catalogue the national wealth for purposes of taxation, confiscation, planning, and mobilization in times of war. They have not designed these catalogues to be measures of national well-being or of quality of life. Yet that is how the national wealth inventories have come to be used, especially the GDP. Somehow the tool has become the task. This part of the story begins with the Great Depression.
In the early 1930s, as the United States sank deeper into an economic slough, Congress faced an absence of data to help guide the way out. It didn’t know exactly what was happening and where. There were no systematic figures on unemployment or production. President Herbert Hoover had dispatched six employees from the Commerce Department to travel around the country and file reports. These were anecdotal and tended to support Hoover’s view that recovery was just around the corner. Members of Congress wanted more. Senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., a Republican of Wisconsin, introduced a resolution to require the Commerce Department to develop a spreadsheet–as we would call it today–of the economy with its component parts. La Follette was a Progressive in the original sense. He believed in “scientific management and planning,” and the resolution was to produce a tool to that end. It passed in 1932, and the work fell to one Simon Kuznets, a professor who was working at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York. Kuznets knew that he was producing a policy tool and not a measure of living standards or well-being. As he put it later in his clinical prose, the goal was to help understand the “relations and relative importance of various parts of the productive system and their responsiveness to various types of stimulae as shown by their changes in the past.” Kuznets had a tiny staff and virtually no budget. Data sources were fragmentary. But about a year and a half later, Kuznets, with brevity and candor that are rare today, laid out for Congress the limitations of the accounts he had constructed. He took particular pains to tell you why you should not use these accounts the way you–and the press–have come to use them.
For one thing, the national accounts leave out a crucial dimension of the economy–the part that exists outside the realm of monetary exchange. This segment includes both the ecosystem and the social system–the life-supporting functions of the oceans and atmosphere, for example, and work within families and communities that is not done for money. So when the monetized economy displaces these elements–as when both parents have to work, or when forest clearing eliminates the cleansing function of trees–the losses are not subtracted against the market gain. Kuznets was under no such illusion. “The volume of services rendered by housewives and other members of the household toward the satisfaction of wants must be imposing indeed,” he wrote. There is also the question of what he called “odd jobs,” or what we would call the “underground economy.” He knew these played a large role in the economy. He also grasped, more broadly, that the quality and importance of a function do not depend upon the amount of money paid for it–or whether any money was paid at all. The care of a mother and father is not inferior to that of a day-care worker just because they do not charge a price for their services. This recognition undercuts a basic assumption behind the GDP–namely, that the contribution of an activity can be gauged solely by its market price. But there is a practical problem, Kuznets observed. Accounts require data, and there is by definition little data on the underground economy and on nonmarket exchange. As a result, the national accounts include only the slice of economic reality that falls within the bandwidth that economists are able to grasp–recorded expenditures of money.
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Then there is the thorny question of constructive versus destructive activities within the realm of monetized exchange. Once you have decided to count only that which is transacted through money, do you make the further assumption that everything transacted for money counts on the plus side of the ledger? The mentality that lies behind the GDP assumes that you do. We all are “rational,” so any choice we make in the market is by definition one that makes our lives better. Kuznets focused on one obvious exception: activities that are generally illegal, such as gambling and selling drugs. To assume that such expenditures add to the national well-being would undercut the rationale for making them illegal in the first place. The GDP is an instrument of the state, after all, so Kuznets drew the line there. He was aware of how arbitrary this line is from an economic standpoint. Why exactly does legal gambling add to well-being if the illegal kind does not? Or what about alcohol? Given the assumption that legality confers benediction, the economy received a huge boost at the end of Prohibition, simply because the drinking that formerly was illegal now was deemed permissible. But booze still was booze. If the government can increase the growth rate by jiggering the metrics in this way, that does not increase confidence in the validity of measure. But legality is the easy part. Just beneath it lies a deeper issue–the assumption that every purchase is beneficial simply because someone has paid the purchase price. The exclusion of illegal activities, Kuznets said, “does not imply… that all lawful pursuits are necessarily serviceable from the social viewpoint.” He left the question there, a chasm that honest inquiry has to plumb.
There are so many examples of expenditures that go into the GDP that have a questionable claim to the stature of growth and good, even from the standpoint of those who make them. For example, much consumption is compulsory, in that buyers have little choice. There is fraud, such as the way seniors are cheated in reverse-mortgage scams. There are also products that are designed to lock buyers into an endless stream of high-priced replacements, such as inkjet-printer cartridges that are designed to resist refilling. There are car bumpers that are designed not to bump, so that a mild fender bender turns into a $5,000 repair bill. There are the usurious charges and fees built into credit cards. Not all Americans confronted with these expenditures regard them as “consumption choices” that propel them further up a happy mountain of more.
The toughest case for the economic mind is addiction. The GDP assumes, as most economists do, that people are inherently “rational.” What they buy is exactly what they want, and so their purchases must make them happy in exact proportion to the prices paid. Yet addiction has become pervasive. It has metastasized far beyond the usual suspects–gambling, tobacco, alcohol, and drugs–and spread to such things as eating, credit cards, and shopping itself. Also neglected is what economists call “distribution.” The GDP makes no distinction between a $500 dinner in Manhattan and the hundreds of more humble meals that could be provided for the same amount. A socialite who buys a pair of $800 pumps from Manolo Blahnik appears to contribute forty times more to the national well-being than does the mother who buys a pair of $20 sneakers for her son at Payless. “Economic welfare,” Kuznets wrote, “cannot be adequately measured unless the personal distribution of income is known.” As included in the national accounts, an accretion of luxury buying at the top covers up a lack of necessary buying at the bottom. As the income scale becomes more skewed, the cover-up becomes even greater. In this respect the GDP serves as a statistical laundry operation that hides the suffering at the bottom. Another problem has to do with work and the toll it takes on those who do it. Kuznets called this the “reverse side of income, that is, the intensity and unpleasantness of effort going into the earning of income.” That earning comes at a cost of wear and tear upon the body and psyche. If the GDP subtracts depreciation on buildings and equipment, should there not be a corresponding subtraction for the wearing out of people?
What about the loss in the value of their skills as one technology displaces another? In the current accounting, this toll often gets added to the GDP rather than subtracted, in the form of medications, expenditures for retraining, and day care for children as parents work longer hours. Most workers would regard such outlays as costs, not gains. Had Kuznets been writing today, moreover, he probably would have added another kind of depletion–that of natural resources. It sounds incredible, but when this nation drills its oil and mines its coal, the national accounts treat this as an addition to the national wealth rather than a subtraction from it. The result is like a car with a gas gauge that goes up as the fuel tank empties. The national accounts portray a nation getting richer when it is in fact draining itself dry. Kuznets concluded his report with words that ought to be inscribed on the wall of every office on Capitol Hill and over every computer screen within a twenty-mile radius: “The welfare of a nation can, therefore, scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined above.”
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Congress and everybody else have done exactly what Kuznets urged us not to do. The malpractice began with the gradual seep of the new accounts into the political arena. In his 1936 reelection campaign, Franklin Roosevelt noted that the economy–as defined by the national accounts–had increased under his watch. It was a number: who could resist? The likely source was FDR’s close adviser Harry Hopkins, whose office was a hub for the young economists who came to Washington to join the New Deal. But in the passage across 15th Street from the Commerce Department to the White House, Kuznets’s numbers were turning into precisely what he said they should not be. Then came World War II, when the national accounts played a central role in the mobilization effort. A bitter debate erupted in Washington over the nation’s production goals. Corporate leaders insisted that the mobilization must come out of the existing level of production. They did not want to be stuck with excess capacity when the war was over. Kuznets and others argued to the contrary that the United States had vast troves of untapped capacity; they used the national accounts to prove it. FDR sided with the “all-outers,” as this group was called. They appealed to his belief in the energizing effects of challenges; Roosevelt took their high estimates and made them even higher, the better to make his point. (The planners then had to shift gears to argue the case for system limits, which the national accounts also helped them do.) Then the accounts helped to coordinate the war production so as to prevent bottlenecks. By 1944 war production goals alone had surpassed the nation’s entire output just ten years earlier.
It was as close as the nation has ever come to pure economic planning, and though much reviled, it helped to win the war. Postwar surveys revealed that Germany had no such planning tool, and Hitler’s production program had been greatly hindered as a result. America had become the “arsenal for democracy” in part through a top-down approach made possible by the national accounts. As the war was winding down, the accounts served again to guide the economy back to peacetime without relapse into the dreaded Depression. Consumption was essential; the Cold War, with its Pentagon spending, was not yet in prospect. As war production diminished, shoppers would have to pick up the slack. The national accounts showed exactly how it could be done. As John Kenneth Galbraith put it in Fortune, “One good reason for expecting prosperity after the war is the fact that we can lay down its specifications.”
The new Keynesian economists such as Galbraith were now the Merlins of prosperity, and the national accounts were their magic wand. Consumption itself was taking on a heroic stature; the returning troops were handing off the mantle of national purpose to the shoppers who would replace them in keeping the industrial machinery in motion. (The heroic imagery persists in the press today, as when we read that consumers will provide the “engine” for recovery, or that they will “pull” the nation out of its recession.) In this atmosphere, it was perhaps inevitable that the map of the nation’s capacity would become a totem to its economic success. Simon Kuznets watched it happen with increasing dismay. (Galbraith came to have second thoughts as well.) Kuznets was a quiet academic who was loath to mount a soapbox. But he asserted over and over that those who had seized upon his handiwork had missed the point. In 1962 he wrote in The New Republic that in evaluating growth “distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between its costs and return, and between the short and the long run…. Goals for ‘more’ growth should specify more growth of what and for what.” If you are going to “stimulate” the economy, in other words, could we at least have a little debate over what exactly you are going to stimulate?
The purpose of an economy is to meet human needs in such a way that life becomes in some respect richer and better in the process. It is not simply to produce a lot of stuff. Stuff is a means, not an end. Yet current modes of economic measurement focus almost entirely on means. For example, an automobile is productive if it produces transportation. But today we look only at the cars produced per hour worked. More cars can mean more traffic and therefore a transportation system that is less productive. The medical system is the same. The aim should be healthy people, not the sale of more medical services and drugs. Now, however, we assess the economic contribution of the medical system on the basis of treatments rather than results. Economists see nothing wrong with this. They see no problem that the medical system is expected to produce 30 to 40 percent of new jobs over the next thirty years. “We have to spend our money on something,” shrugged a Stanford economist to the New York Times. This is more insanity. Next we will be hearing about “disease-led recovery.” To stimulate the economy we will have to encourage people to be sick so that the economy can be well.
Posted elsewhere today:Mr.Swami it is. i actually have become most confrontational with posters who have a general view of things in common and have intelligence that i consider pretty keen.
Regards "Dark Matter":physicist/cosmologist more and more admit it is a misleading term, as the dark needs be now understood as "unknown", but it got embedded in minds as "Dark Matter" as it was first presumed it was simply cold regular matter--it took years to destroy that view.
On message boards one, if wanting to teach something, is withOUT chalk/pointer/"blackboard" and use of your voice and body language to communicate nor can you see who you are communicating and note if they are getting interested.
Due to what i believe to be one of the great moments in science history a group of astrophysicist noted two galaxies in a head on crash . They deduced that they could possibly , through gravitational lensing and colorizing, see how "dark matter"(non-elemental mass) behaved relative to elemental mass when the huge forces were unleashed in Galactic Collison, they were succesful!
The photo was first released, if i remember rightly, August 2006.
This was something i was emotionally involved in, so when i saw the photo, like a Marv Albert i shouted "YES!!!"
The "Dark Matter " moved along as if nothing was happening while that, that was thought as everything was ripping itself apart and slowing down as the massive "traffic accident " was happening.That "Dark Matter" was revealing it was simpatico to itself where elemental mass was showing that is of course NOT and two galaxies colliding is catastrophic for elemental mass.
This was BIG and i am bubbling over, so i got upset i wasn't being heard--rather than say, O' in 50 years this will all be common knowledge que sera,sera.
*************************************************************
i admire the Amazin' Randi for exposing frauds, i have always championed his crusade against that megalomaniac con man Yuri Geller.
And exposing that Roswell is based on a fabrication.
And that The Bermuda Triangle is a myth that was created by an unscrupulous writer, whose name i think was Berlitz.
But there is a point where skepticism becomes destructive of Knowledge, there must be balance.But Randi should stick to what he does best, expose fraud.He seems one prejudiced to anything outside the realm of hardcore materialism.
*********************************************************
Sagan was a promulgator of the "consensus wisdom" and went to sarcasm and rude dismissal when ideas that would upset his certainty were intruding.
If he lived on to see what has transpired over these recent years, maybe he would shock me, and be writing excitingly of it now, but my prejudice is he would be "scoffing"
************************************************************
A most excellent writer for laymen on Physics/Cosmology , is Paul Davies, once the head of mathematical physics at the University of Adelaide --i do not know where he is now.
16 years ago, in 1992 he wrote a visionary book, drawing on his own work and others, in which the opening chapter is entitled The Death of Materialism, the title of the book "The Matter Myth".
i believe Carl Sagan would have simply cast it aside and PONTIFICATED, "rubbish."
************************************************
Truth is this book's projections are getting major confirmation.
So what the hell, being chained to the limits of messageboards, i tossed a couple grenades--i am adept at that.
Motive? i think this is something momentous.
enough yada yada.Max/otraque
P.S
BTW, some cosmologist/physicist are having career anxiety, that if "Dark Matter" proves to be The Wall they have stated, at ages in their late 40s and early 50s, they will looking for another career.
IF LHC does confirm the existence of Higgs Field/the Higgs Boson but not more, they remain at The Wall of "Dark Matter"(and perhaps also regards Dark Energy).
Mr.Swami it is. i actually have become most confrontational with posters who i have a roughly general view of things in common and have intelligence that i consider pretty keen.
Regards "Dark Matter":physicist/cosmologist more and more admit it is a misleading term, as the dark needs be now understood as "unknown", but it got embedded in minds as "Dark Matter" as it was first presumed it was simply cold regular matter--it took years to destroy that view.
On message boards one, if wanting to teach something, is withOUT chalk/pointer/"blackboard" and use of your voice and body language to communicate nor can you see who you are communicating and note if they are getting interested.
Due to what i believe to be one of the great moments in science history a group of astrophysicist noted two galaxies in a head on crash . They deduced that they could possibly , through gravitational lensing and colorizing, see how "dark matter"(non-elemental mass) behaved relative to elemental mass when the huge forces were unleashed in Galactic Collison, they were succesful!
The photo was first released, if i remember rightly, August 2006.
This was something i was emotionally involved in, so when i saw the photo, like a Marv Albert i shouted "YES!!!"
The "Dark Matter " moved along as if nothing was happening while that, that was thought as everything was ripping itself apart and slowing down as the massive "traffic accident " was happening.That "Dark Matter" was revealing it was simpatico to itself where elemental mass was showing that is of course NOT and two galaxies colliding is catastrophic for elemental mass.
This was BIG and i am bubbling over, so i got upset i wasn't being heard--rather than say, O' in 50 years this will all be common knowledge que sera,sera.
*************************************************************
i admire the Amazin' Randi for exposing frauds, i have always championed his crusade against that megalomaniac con man Yuri Geller.
And exposing that Roswell is based on a fabrication.
And that The Bermuda Triangle is a myth that was created by an unscrupulous writer, whose name i think was Berlitz.
But there is a point where skepticism becomes destructive of Knowledge, there must be balance.But Randi should stick to what he does best, expose fraud.He seems one prejudiced to anything outside the realm of hardcore materialism.
*********************************************************
Sagan was a promulgator of the "consensus wisdom" and went to sarcasm and rude dismissal when ideas that would upset his certainty were intruding.
If he lived on to see what has transpired over these recent years, maybe he would shock me, and be writing excitingly of it now, but my prejudice is he would be "scoffing"
************************************************************
A most excellent writer for laymen on Physics/Cosmology , is Paul Davies, once the head of mathematical physics at the University of Adelaide --i do not know where he is now.
16 years ago, in 1992 he wrote a visionary book, drawing on his own work and others, in which the opening chapter is entitled The Death of Materialism, the title of the book "The Matter Myth".
i believe Carl Sagan would have simply cast it aside and PONTIFICATED, "rubbish."
************************************************
Truth is this book's projections are getting major confirmation.
So what the hell, being chained to the limits of messageboards, i tossed a couple grenades--i am adept at that.
Motive? i think this is something momentous.
enough yada yada.Max/otraque
P.S
BTW, some cosmologist/physicist are having career anxiety, that if "Dark Matter" proves to be The Wall they have stated, at ages in their late 40s and early 50s, they will looking for another career.
IF LHC does confirm the existence of Higgs Field/the Higgs Boson but not more, they remain at The Wall of "Dark Matter"(and perhaps also regards Dark Energy).
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
Ted Spread still rising, now 1.34.(eom)
Superb:Sade live, doing 8 min version of "SmoothOperator"---my "to understand Obama understand this."
This is where the sick ugly obscene joke starts with rubbish like this from POWERFUL THINK _TANK "Realist" i quote "Eventually, the administration will have "basically no choice" but to exit, according to Iraq expert Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"Iraq is a sovereign nation. The United States has repeated that point constantly. This is a government in Iraq that makes its own choices, and the US will have basically no choice," he said.>> i LAUGH at his statement-HaHaHa.
He actually thinks U.S. will abide by international rules.
At least i am aware i live in an evil country.
It seems so few can get it into their heads and understand WE ARE A FASCIST NATION, and we will remain that way, as Obama has shifted to his REAL SELF--A NEOCON/NEOLIB HYBRID.
A couple months ago i suggested to understand Obama, just listen to Sade's "Smooth Operator".
i suggest that again.
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
Merrill Lynch analyst, with out his appoval, stated Bernanke will recommence to slash rates and go to 0 if need be based on ONE STRATEGY: make the non returns for those not in the market, to invest in the Market out of desperation , and say "to hell with risk, i don't care as i can't survive on negative returns versus inflation"(a PHONY inflation number,btw, inflation being likely 10% perannum as U.S.Government INTENTIONALLY lies to U.S. Public)
Bernanke taking this action is catastrophic, the USD will utterly collapse in time.
This strategy will also just drive commodities up and up.Max
Marc Faber has called Bernanke terminally incompetent.
He called Greenspan a criminal, a big time criminal.
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
Posted on ZTTP:i don't care, i will write in who i wish regardless if that person is or is not on the ballot.
My key point is anyone the votes for Obama or McCain are casting a rightwing pro imperialism/empiricist vote.
If you vote for either one of these men you are voting against the Spirit of Mark Twin and voting for The Imperialist Bully Bully of Teddy Roosevelt.
Thus your vote will define who you are.
i believe Mark Twain to have a Great American, i consider Teddy Roosevelt to be blustering damned fool, a person that LOVED WAR that LOVED IMPERIALISM, was the very essence of the fanatic "Manifest Destiny/American Exceptionalism".
i know where i stand, i stand with TWAIN.
All those that think they like Twain, but vote for Obama or McCain have revealed they don't really give a damn about Twain/Samuel Clemens, and are naught but rightwing imperialist, as your vote will DEFINE who you are.
Boycotting is a well respected form of protest against the Status Quo, where the powers have eliminated a choice.
Your choice with Obama and McCain for american imperialism and fanaticism of American Exceptionalism.
Just know that if you vote McCain or Obama you are FOR IMPERIALISM and you are for American Exceptionalism(a mutation of a racial supremacy nation.)
It is that simple. Max
i don't care, i will write in who i wish regardless if that person is or is not on the ballot.
My key point is anyone the votes for Obama or McCain are casting a rightwing pro imperialism/empiricist vote.
If you vote for either one of these men you are voting against the Spirit of Mark Twin and voting for The Imperialist Bully Bully of Teddy Roosevelt.
Thus your vote will define who you are.
i believe Mark Twain to have a Great American, i consider Teddy Roosevelt to be blustering damned fool, a person that LOVED WAR that LOVED IMPERIALISM, was the very essence of the fanatic "Manifest Destiny/American Exceptionalism".
i know where i stand, i stand with TWAIN.
All those that think they like Twain, but vote for Obama or McCain have revealed they don't really give a damn about Twain/Samuel Clemens, and are naught but rightwing imperialist, as your vote will DEFINE who you are.
Boycotting is a well respected form of protest against the Status Quo, where the powers have eliminated a choice.
Your choice with Obama and McCain for american imperialism and fanaticism of American Exceptionalism.
Just know that if you vote McCain or Obama you are FOR IMPERIALISM and you are for American Exceptionalism(a mutation of a racial supremacy nation.)
It is that simple. Max
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
This Swenlin report from 7/3 remains a quite valid CAUTION
Very Dangerous Market by Carl Swenlin
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=30508104
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
BOYCOTT the WARPARTY don't vote McCain/Obama
An article that documents Obama is doing Giant Steps to the far right and becoming one with THE WAR PARTY.
Again i say be FREE and prove it to yourself by NOT voting for Obama nor McCain.
Ron Paul or whatever but neither Obama nor McCain.
AVOID THEM.otraque/max
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Article
Worse Than McCain? - Delusions About Obama
author: By MIKE WHITNEY
Every four years, liberals and progressives are expected to set aside their beliefs and stand foursquare behind the Democratic Party candidate. This ritual is invariably performed in the name of party unity. It doesn't matter if the candidate is a smooth-talking politician who's willing to toss his pastor of 20 years overboard for a few awkward comments, or whether he refuses to defend basic civil liberties like the 4th amendment's right to privacy. All that matters is that there's a big "D" following his name and that he shows he's willing to engage in some meaningless verbal jousting with his Republican opponent.
For nearly a year now, the public has been treated to regular doses of Mr. Obama's grandiloquent oratory and his sweeping "Follow me to Shangri-la" promises. These flourishes are usually followed by "clarifications" on the central issues which identify Obama as a center-right conservative with no intention of disrupting the status quo. CounterPunch co-editor Alexander Cockburn summed it up like this in a recent article on this site:
"There have plenty of articles recently with headlines such "Obama's Lunge to the Right". I find these odd. Never for one moment has Obama ever struck me as someone anchored, or even loosely moored to the left, or even displaying the slightest appetite for radical notions, aside from a few taglines tossed from the campaign bus."
Obama-boosters on the left simply ignore the facts because the thought of the unstable John McCain in the Oval Office with his stubby fingers just inches from the Big Red Switch is too much to bear. So, they throw their support behind Obama and hope for the best. But Obama has done nothing to earn their vote and there's nothing to indicate that he has any interest in restoring the republic or putting and end to US adventurism. He's just a one-term senator who doesn't want to rock the boat. That's it. He'd rather keep his position on the issues blurry and rattle off lofty-sounding platitudes than state plainly how he feels. Unfortunately, when he's pinned down and has to give a straight answer, he quickly swerves to the right where he feels most at home.
Some Obamaniacs admit to feeling troubled from time to time. They worry that behind the rhetorical fanfare, Barack is just an empty gourd; a well-spoken pitch man with no moral core. Could he be another Slick Willie, they wonder; another self-promoting politico as eager to sell out his working class supporters as chase a frisky intern around the Lincoln bedroom? No one knows, because no one has figured out exactly why Obama is running. Does he really want to lift the country from the muck of 8 years of Bush misrule or does he just want to gad about on Airforce 1 and make pretty speeches in the Rose Garden? What really drives Obama? It's a mystery.
But don't be fooled, Obama could turn out to be worse than McCain, much worse. No one doubts that he is brighter and more charismatic than the irritating senator from Arizona. And no one underestimates his Pied Piper ability to galvanize crowds and stir up national pride. But what good is that? Obama works for the same group of venal plutocrats as Bush; a fact that was made painfully clear just last week when he voted to approve the new FISA bill that allows the president to continue spying on American citizens with impunity. Obama is a constitutional scholar; he understood what he was voting for. He was sending a message to his supporters that they don't really matter; that what really counts is the small gaggle of powerful corporatists who run the country and believe the president is above the law. That's what his vote really meant.
So, why vote for him? We don't need a glamor boy to trash the Bill of Rights. And we don't need another paper-mache president who tries to conceal America's war crimes behind stuffy-sounding pronouncements about "Islamofacism" and other terrorist mumbo-jumbo. What we need is someone with enough guts and moral fiber to shake up the political establishment, put an end to the wars and covert operations, and clean up Wall Street.
Obama has dazzled the media with his easy manner and his savoir faire, but he's not the right man for the job. He has surrounded himself with ex-Clintonistas who will continue the global onslaught with even greater ferocity than Bush, although much more discreetly.(After all, this is the empire's A Team) And just like Clinton, who bombed the bejesus out of Belgrade for 87 days without batting an eye; Obama will keep the war machine chugging along at full-throttle. No thanks.
What the world really needs is a five or ten year break from the United States; a little breather so people can unwind and take it easy for a while without worrying that their wedding party will be vaporized in a blast of napalm or that their brother-in-law will be dragged off to some CIA hellhole where his eyes are gouged out and his fingernails ripped off. That's what the world really needs, a temporary pause in the imperial violence. But there won't be any sabbatical under Field-Marshall Obama; no way. As Bill Van Auken points out in an article on the World Socialist web site, Obama may turn out to be the point-man for reinstating the draft:
Obama has "lamented the failure of the Bush administration to issue "a call to service" and "a call for shared sacrifice....There is no challenge greater than the defense of our nation and our values," said Obama. We "need to ease the burden on our troops, while meeting the challenges of the 21st century," which, according to Obama, will require an "increase US ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines.'" ("Obama continues lurch to the right on Iraq war and militarism" Bill Van Auken)
Is that why the political establishment is so enthusiastic about Obama, because they need a better recruiting sergeant than the uninspiring McCain?
No one has followed Obama's rightward drift with greater interest and bemusement than the editors of the Wall Street Journal. They have faithfully chronicled all the vacillating, obfuscating and backpedaling and they've made up their minds; Obama is marching straight towards the welcoming arms of the Republican Party. That's right; he's gradually embracing the conservative platform and abandoning any pretense of liberalism. Two weeks ago the WSJ ran an editorial that summarized Obama's metamorphosis in an article titled "Bush's Third Term":
We're beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously against the prospect of 'George Bush's third term.' Maybe he's worried that someone will notice that he's the candidate who's running for it.
Most Presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn't merely 'running to the center.' He's fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he's embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush's policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?
That's fair enough. Obama has changed his position on his "support of a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies". He has wormed his way out of a definite commitment on withdrawing the troops from Iraq. (which was a real lesson in Clintonian triangulation) He's backed off on his promise to rewrite the NAFTA free trade agreement. He's thrown his support behind Bush's "faith-based" social programs which provide state money for religious organizations. He's sided with the majority on the Supreme Court on gun rights and whether to ban the death penalty for rape. How can anyone support a candidate who is on the same ideological side of legal issues as Antonin Scalia?
In the past few weeks, Senator Switcheroo has blasted Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while, at the same time, heaping praise on our "good friend" Israel. Obama even has a two paragraph commentary on his campaign web site lauding Israel's devastating attack on Lebanon a year ago which killed 1,500 civilians and reduced much of the country's vital infrastructure to rubble.
Still think the "peace candidate" does not have the warmongering bone fides to do the empire's dirty work?
Think again.
Many of us who have criticized Obama are being dismissed as cynics, but that's nonsense. The truth is that the left Obama supporters have projected their own values onto their candidate and are trying to make him out to be something that he is not. They put words in his mouth so they can continue to hold on to the crazy notion that the system really isn't broken and that it can be fixed by simply pulling a lever on election day. This is just the lazy-person's way of ignoring the real work that needs to be done to restore American democracy; the organizing of groups and networks, the building of labor unions and working coalitions, the focussed determination to root-out corruption and entrenched corporate power. The system has to be rebuilt from the bottom-up not the top-down. It'll take a revolution in thinking and lots of hard work. There's no quick fix. Freedom isn't free anymore; deal with it. Voting for Obama and keeping one's fingers crossed, is not a sign of hope. It's a sign of self-delusion.
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the
BOYCOTT the WARPARTY don't vote McCain/Obama
An article that documents Obama is doing Giant Steps to the far right and becoming one with THE WAR PARTY.
Again i say be FREE and prove it to yourself by NOT voting for Obama nor McCain.
Here is an edit remark i made to post 114.
If that doesn’t undermine the case for war, then nothing will.In any case, what’s interesting here is that the Obama campaign is more belligerent and concerned with putting the Iranians in their place than the Bush administration.(edit: Obama or McCain, you got two crazies---repeat after me the world is rational,and proceeds rationally. If you believe that i am ready to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge--max:) While divided on Iraq, the bipartisan Washington consensus on Iran is clear enough: Tehran must be brought to heel, either by "coercive diplomacy" or pure coercion bereft of diplomatic pretense.
************************************************************
Article
Worse Than McCain? - Delusions About Obama
author: By MIKE WHITNEY
Every four years, liberals and progressives are expected to set aside their beliefs and stand foursquare behind the Democratic Party candidate. This ritual is invariably performed in the name of party unity. It doesn't matter if the candidate is a smooth-talking politician who's willing to toss his pastor of 20 years overboard for a few awkward comments, or whether he refuses to defend basic civil liberties like the 4th amendment's right to privacy. All that matters is that there's a big "D" following his name and that he shows he's willing to engage in some meaningless verbal jousting with his Republican opponent.
For nearly a year now, the public has been treated to regular doses of Mr. Obama's grandiloquent oratory and his sweeping "Follow me to Shangri-la" promises. These flourishes are usually followed by "clarifications" on the central issues which identify Obama as a center-right conservative with no intention of disrupting the status quo. CounterPunch co-editor Alexander Cockburn summed it up like this in a recent article on this site:
"There have plenty of articles recently with headlines such "Obama's Lunge to the Right". I find these odd. Never for one moment has Obama ever struck me as someone anchored, or even loosely moored to the left, or even displaying the slightest appetite for radical notions, aside from a few taglines tossed from the campaign bus."
Obama-boosters on the left simply ignore the facts because the thought of the unstable John McCain in the Oval Office with his stubby fingers just inches from the Big Red Switch is too much to bear. So, they throw their support behind Obama and hope for the best. But Obama has done nothing to earn their vote and there's nothing to indicate that he has any interest in restoring the republic or putting and end to US adventurism. He's just a one-term senator who doesn't want to rock the boat. That's it. He'd rather keep his position on the issues blurry and rattle off lofty-sounding platitudes than state plainly how he feels. Unfortunately, when he's pinned down and has to give a straight answer, he quickly swerves to the right where he feels most at home.
Some Obamaniacs admit to feeling troubled from time to time. They worry that behind the rhetorical fanfare, Barack is just an empty gourd; a well-spoken pitch man with no moral core. Could he be another Slick Willie, they wonder; another self-promoting politico as eager to sell out his working class supporters as chase a frisky intern around the Lincoln bedroom? No one knows, because no one has figured out exactly why Obama is running. Does he really want to lift the country from the muck of 8 years of Bush misrule or does he just want to gad about on Airforce 1 and make pretty speeches in the Rose Garden? What really drives Obama? It's a mystery.
But don't be fooled, Obama could turn out to be worse than McCain, much worse. No one doubts that he is brighter and more charismatic than the irritating senator from Arizona. And no one underestimates his Pied Piper ability to galvanize crowds and stir up national pride. But what good is that? Obama works for the same group of venal plutocrats as Bush; a fact that was made painfully clear just last week when he voted to approve the new FISA bill that allows the president to continue spying on American citizens with impunity. Obama is a constitutional scholar; he understood what he was voting for. He was sending a message to his supporters that they don't really matter; that what really counts is the small gaggle of powerful corporatists who run the country and believe the president is above the law. That's what his vote really meant.
So, why vote for him? We don't need a glamor boy to trash the Bill of Rights. And we don't need another paper-mache president who tries to conceal America's war crimes behind stuffy-sounding pronouncements about "Islamofacism" and other terrorist mumbo-jumbo. What we need is someone with enough guts and moral fiber to shake up the political establishment, put an end to the wars and covert operations, and clean up Wall Street.
Obama has dazzled the media with his easy manner and his savoir faire, but he's not the right man for the job. He has surrounded himself with ex-Clintonistas who will continue the global onslaught with even greater ferocity than Bush, although much more discreetly.(After all, this is the empire's A Team) And just like Clinton, who bombed the bejesus out of Belgrade for 87 days without batting an eye; Obama will keep the war machine chugging along at full-throttle. No thanks.
What the world really needs is a five or ten year break from the United States; a little breather so people can unwind and take it easy for a while without worrying that their wedding party will be vaporized in a blast of napalm or that their brother-in-law will be dragged off to some CIA hellhole where his eyes are gouged out and his fingernails ripped off. That's what the world really needs, a temporary pause in the imperial violence. But there won't be any sabbatical under Field-Marshall Obama; no way. As Bill Van Auken points out in an article on the World Socialist web site, Obama may turn out to be the point-man for reinstating the draft:
Obama has "lamented the failure of the Bush administration to issue "a call to service" and "a call for shared sacrifice....There is no challenge greater than the defense of our nation and our values," said Obama. We "need to ease the burden on our troops, while meeting the challenges of the 21st century," which, according to Obama, will require an "increase US ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines.'" ("Obama continues lurch to the right on Iraq war and militarism" Bill Van Auken)
Is that why the political establishment is so enthusiastic about Obama, because they need a better recruiting sergeant than the uninspiring McCain?
No one has followed Obama's rightward drift with greater interest and bemusement than the editors of the Wall Street Journal. They have faithfully chronicled all the vacillating, obfuscating and backpedaling and they've made up their minds; Obama is marching straight towards the welcoming arms of the Republican Party. That's right; he's gradually embracing the conservative platform and abandoning any pretense of liberalism. Two weeks ago the WSJ ran an editorial that summarized Obama's metamorphosis in an article titled "Bush's Third Term":
We're beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously against the prospect of 'George Bush's third term.' Maybe he's worried that someone will notice that he's the candidate who's running for it.
Most Presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn't merely 'running to the center.' He's fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he's embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush's policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?
That's fair enough. Obama has changed his position on his "support of a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies". He has wormed his way out of a definite commitment on withdrawing the troops from Iraq. (which was a real lesson in Clintonian triangulation) He's backed off on his promise to rewrite the NAFTA free trade agreement. He's thrown his support behind Bush's "faith-based" social programs which provide state money for religious organizations. He's sided with the majority on the Supreme Court on gun rights and whether to ban the death penalty for rape. How can anyone support a candidate who is on the same ideological side of legal issues as Antonin Scalia?
In the past few weeks, Senator Switcheroo has blasted Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad while, at the same time, heaping praise on our "good friend" Israel. Obama even has a two paragraph commentary on his campaign web site lauding Israel's devastating attack on Lebanon a year ago which killed 1,500 civilians and reduced much of the country's vital infrastructure to rubble.
Still think the "peace candidate" does not have the warmongering bone fides to do the empire's dirty work?
Think again.
Many of us who have criticized Obama are being dismissed as cynics, but that's nonsense. The truth is that the left Obama supporters have projected their own values onto their candidate and are trying to make him out to be something that he is not. They put words in his mouth so they can continue to hold on to the crazy notion that the system really isn't broken and that it can be fixed by simply pulling a lever on election day. This is just the lazy-person's way of ignoring the real work that needs to be done to restore American democracy; the organizing of groups and networks, the building of labor unions and working coalitions, the focussed determination to root-out corruption and entrenched corporate power. The system has to be rebuilt from the bottom-up not the top-down. It'll take a revolution in thinking and lots of hard work. There's no quick fix. Freedom isn't free anymore; deal with it. Voting for Obama and keeping one's fingers crossed, is not a sign of hope. It's a sign of self-delusion.
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
O yes Swami Go-Litely Into The Night:)Max
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
Down side of having "keyboard chained" in suspension on SI. i can't respond to anyone, either publicly or via private message.
<<hello max. Are you well? regards, C.>>
<<do you ever delve into the possibilities of your real ancestry?>> Well that is a big subject, no?:)
Another time:) Max
Note to Feminist: The Heroine here is Vera Rubin, and because she was a woman her intuitional hypothesis proposing "dark matter" as something far beyond Zwicky 's notation in the 30s was laughed at, she was thought WEIRD--and that was in 1953!!!
Vera, became to be mocked.
She had go silent!!! For fear of being pushed out her field, this "goofy woman".
But on the side she kept working on it and then convinced a respected male scientist to partner with her when she presented her paper.
And he did.
So in 1974 she published.
While the likes of Sagan could give a damn(not right that,it is me Sagan, that know it all, i am the POPE of Cosmolgy), a few actually realized this study of hers of the weight of galaxies was DYNAMITE!!!!!
And slowly it gained momentum so here we are 34 years later.
But still everybody knows Carl Sagan's name but very very few knows Vera Rubin.
To me, i say to feminist, you want a hero look to Vera Rubin.
MAX
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
This dedicated to all you dinosaurs that think Carl Sagan matters anymore.
Great new SHORT Dark Matter video, less than 2 minutes.
It was put on UTube yesterday.
It takes a MAJOR swipe at Carl Sagan.
This in less than 2 minutes makes feel SO FANTASTIC, that their are REAL SHARPIES out there on top of this and know it is something to stuff down the incredibly puffed up pretentious of the know it all mediocrity Carl Sagan(the "imagine everything you think you know is WRONG is directed directly at SAGAN, because it is his insufferably snotty "i know it all " beliefs that are getting attacked by the new cosmology
The Gore Vidal of Cosmology is Sagan--that noxious tonality, and the sense his underwear was too tight.LOL! Love it.
In my collecting of really intelligent life on this planet i add the makers of this video they are INSTANT new members of SHARP MINDS.
otraque/max
Edited:!WOW!!WOW! Great new SHORT Dark Matter video, less than 2 minutes.
It was put on UTube yesterday.
i must have been sensing this-LOL! Because it takes a MAJOR swipe at Carl Sagan.
This in less than 2 minutes makes feel SO FANTASTIC, that their are REAL SHARPIES out there on top of this and know it is something to stuff down the incredibly puffed up pretentious that know it all mediocrity Carl Sagan.(The "imagine everything you think is WRONG" is directed directly at SAGAN, because it is his insufferably snotty "i know it all " beliefs that are getting annihilated.
The Gore Vidal of Cosmology is Sagan--that noxious tonality, and the sense his underwear was too tight.LOL! Love it.
In my collecting of really intelligent life on this planet to the makeers of this video you are INSTANT new members of SHARP MINDS.
!WOW!!WOW! Great new SHORT Dark Matter video, less than 2 minutes.
It was put on UTube yesterday.
i must have been sensing this-LOL! Because it takes a MAJOR swipe at Carl Sagan.
This in less than 2 minutes makes feel SO FANTASTIC, that their are REAL SHARPIES out there on top of this and know it is something to stuff down the incredibly puffed up pretentious the know it all mediocrity Carl Sagan.(the imagine everything you think is WRONG is directed directly at SAGAN, because it is his insufferably snotty "i know it all " beliefs that are getting annihilated.
The Gore Vidal of Cosmology is Sagan--that noxious tonality, and the sense his underwear was too tight.LOL! Love it.
In my collecting of really intelligent life on this planet to the makers of this video: you are INSTANT new members of SHARP MINDS INDEED.otraque/max
Early futures indicate they have been working over the weekend-- hard rally could commence even before the bell tomorrow. They opened SPX at +10 NDX +14 DOW +84. If PPT is at work we will have a MAJOR GAP UP even before trading starts.
PPT primary weapon is to jam options .
It is possible the powers have been informed in advance of some major FED action. If so, that will occur at likely 8:30pm edt, the perfect time to cause automatic massive jump in the futures.
Same game plan as with Bear Sterns.
Also possible speculators are betting on FED announcement this morning.And they will be wrong.
Whatever, you can be sure GS,JPM, BAC already know, one way or the other and wil be positioned accordingly.
FED is really only an appendage to the likes of GS and JPM.Max
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
On the day of the moon landing one network started the day with a guest panel of Sagan, Clark and Vonnegut.
They were ask at the start what was there feelings about the day.
Sagan and Clark first gave there salivating excitation at this MOMENTOUS event, the triumphh of The Human, and got their applause, in "we humans are great day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Moon Landing Day.
Vonnegut's turn and he said "He didn't much care. It was just another hype event for man to be in love with himself and his addiction to materialism" Kurt Vonnegut was NOT present after the commercial break, they didn't even admit that he was missing----Vonnegut was ERASED for NOT playing the conformist.
****************************************************
Einstein said intuition is the greatest source of his knowledge.
Einstein was working as clerk in patents office because he was considered weird, arrogant and always on another page no one could understand.Max
p.s. i would say 90% of physicist today grew up on Sagan, idolize him. All these scientist WILL RESIST the implications of Dark matter and Dark Energy, that is a guarantee.
It is that other 10% that will however win the day.
First thing one must remember about scientist, they are just another group of people that breaks down into the conformist and the renegades(the major minority).
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
This link to the LHC Countdown.I see they have AGAIN moved out the day they flip the switch---
Now 25 days and yada yada
http://www.lhcountdown.com/
Continuance of post i am responding too,
Higgs Field/Boson, so much has been put into this LHC for so damned a long time, the dark matter and dark energy factors that have come forth fore since in a way ruins the party.
But so so so much has been poured into this, if The Boson is found, out of sheer tension relief they WILL PARTY as it is understandable they just can't have dark matter/energy ruin the party.
If they find the Boson, they will have completed the standard model.
The standard model equation has all been filled except for that damned:) H(Higgs Field).
Find it, and they will have done it, but those really FOCUSED will realize they have ONLY completed the standard model for the elemental universe--sub-atomic particles all the way to a bat hitting a baseball, and explains ONLY what had been believed as EVERYTHING, but now is seen as only 4%.
Already there are the old guard materialist , that rule science, going around they don't believe in the unknown stuff even though it has been circumstantially proven.
By and large the mystery that has been presented has intimated science, i am sure Carl Sagan would denounce dark matter--all hard-core materialist are essentially bigots.
And they rule science.
What needs be remembered before ever great new revolution, the old guard ,almost to 90%, denounce the new.
One thing though the LHC as far more energy power needed to find the Boson , if they don't find it they will have to accept their equation for the standard model is wrong, but given all other factors in the standard model have been found, i would be surprised they don't find it.
As Higgs himself says "I would be surprised and quite confused"
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
Regards NYMO its 10/20/50 ema have all hit levels LOWER than in July 2002.
This screams rally. So yes we rally this week or CRASH.
But crashes are VERY RARE.
Biggest down move in past in a week since the crash of 1987 was 24% on the COMPX and NDX in 5days 4/10/2000-4/14/2000
Because of new "close market" triggers we will not see a 1987 event again. Market closes when DOW hits down of 10%.
The oversold on NYMO is so acute, i can not rule out another 10% down before rally IF we start this week WEAK.Max
****NYSE McOsc Chart 6.6 years
NASI:chart
QLD:chart
chart:mvv
FXP:ultrashort chart
Chart ultra long DOW:DDM
Dead Souls is NOT just a song.This is NOT a game,it is REAL.
This NIN cover of Manchester's legend IanCurtis/JoyDivision song "DEAD SOULS"and video from The Crow, a story of just revenge.
My life will be complete when i complete such a revenge.
Dedicated to Shell/Rochelle
collecting post where i refer to Twain/Vonnegut and/or Einstein.
Highlight this quote ""Science and TECHNOLOGY being put in the hands of Governments is like putting an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal" Albert EINSTEIN.
<<To: Webster Groves who wrote (64731) 3/22/2007 2:27:55 AM
From: GONE1001 1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) of 81424
i have never heard so much noise by non-hispanic americans WHINING about something so trivial of << press 1 for english>>.
How petty can a human be? Seems to be no limit.
Lanquage wars be just another example of why TWAIN wrote a book of essays called The Damned Human Race.
A pox on all intolerance. Max
p.s. It is no surprise the membership in the KKK has been rising since Lou Dobbs and his English Only Police started this as a crusade on his TV show.
***********************************************************
From: GONE1001 8/26/2007 2:10:15 PM
Read Replies (2) of 2554
The War Prayer (From the "Mysterious Stranger", who his family blocked by begging , its publication until his death, where Twain, who had recorded himself reading it, had played At HIS FUNERAL. A final "In your your face you Damned Human Race", by Samuel Clemens.
Dictated by Mark TWAIN [Samuel Clemens] in 1904 in advance of his death in 1910.
During his writing career, he had criticized perhaps every type of person or institution either living or dead. But this piece was just a little too hot for his family to tolerate. Since they believed the short narrative would be regarded as sacrilege, they urged him not to publish it. However, Sam was to have the last word, and even the word after that. Having directed it to be published after his death, he said,
"I have told the truth in that... and only dead men can tell the truth in this world."
- William H. Huff
http://lexrex.com/informed/otherdocuments/warprayer.htm
<<The War Prayer
by Mark Twain
It was a time of great exulting and excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest depths of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast doubt upon its righteousness straight way got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came – next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams – visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! – then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation:
"God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory – An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside – which the startled minister did – and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:
"I come from the Throne – bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import – that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of – except he pause and think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this – keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer – the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it – that part which the pastor – and also you in your hearts – fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory – must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them – in spirit – we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with hurricanes of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it – for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."
[After a pause.] "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."
************************************************************
To: rivelazione12212012 who wrote (986) 9/19/2007 12:50:29 AM
From: GONE1001 of 2554
9/18/2007 This thread is now closed permanently, as the darkness has moved in, my light now under a pitch black layering ******
i will close with quotes from Kurt Vonnegut's last book, for those that were convinced he was an "we can do optimist"(they were so wrong)
"Life is no way to treat an animal" He wanted that quote to be his epitaph.
When asked how the american public could be so stupid?
Vonnegut related his answer "I told him that if he doubted that we are demons in Hell, he should read ,MysteriousStranger, which Mark TWAIN wrote in 1898, long before WWI.In the title story he proves to his own grim satisfaction ,and to mine as well, that Satan and not God created the planet earth and 'the damned human race'." Kurt Vonnegut, jr--2004.
also i add an aside
And to the great one, that said "I am not of this world" and "Be in the world but not of the world"
In these times when the darkness comes strong around me squeezing hard on me, i think on those words: i think that only through death one can escape this Prison Planet, called Earth.
And Kurt last written statement on his beief system said "i am nan Agnostic that BELIEVES in the man Jesus"
i say people that can't separate the real Jesus from the Prptestant or Roman Catholic Dogmas and Creeds have just plain LAZY MINDS.
i state as fact Jesus NEVER intended to start a new religion and all the passges of his counsel to sread his message to the four corners of the earth is was placed at later date, an artifice.
Thomas Paine believed Jesus was the greatest man that ever lived.
******************************************************
My guideline
i Max recognize no flags , i am my own government , to be ruled only by my conscience and the force of EMPATHY.
i take full responsibility for what i am , if i do something wrong, i must be my own judge and make amends to whomever i , in weakness, hurt in someway.
i never make excuses.
Max
*****************************************************************
<<To: coug who wrote (2021) 10/23/2007 3:38:21 PM
From: GONE1001 Read Replies (1) of 2933
Coug since you were so self righteously cock-sure you understood Kurt Vonnegut,jr. i post this.
Just read Man Without a Country, and face facts.
My statements regards Vonnegut views were written NOT based on "Man Without a Country", i just knew for reason's that are my business.
In my life i found people are nice UNTIL you dare prove them wrong.
So i close with this, given the last book of K.V.,jr. gives me the written evidence of what i already knew, but could not prove.
from another post: <<i will close with quotes from Kurt Vonnegut's last book, for those that were convinced he was an "we can do optimist"(they were so wrong)
"Life is no way to treat an animal" He wanted that quote to be his epitaph.
When asked by one of his readers "how the american public could be so stupid?"
Vonnegut related his answer "I told him that if he doubted that we are demons in Hell, he should read ,Mysterious Stranger, which Mark TWAIN wrote in 1898, long before WWI.In the title story he proves to his own grim satisfaction ,and to mine as well, that Satan and not God created the planet earth and 'the damned human race'." written by Kurt Vonnegut, jr--2004.
*****************************************************************
To: stan_hughes who wrote (357195) 2/13/2008 3:47:58 AM
From: GONE1001 1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) of 371228
<<although narrowly based>> imo, it goes far beyond the individual trader playing the dip.
The base now involves big money armed with super computers that buying dips even without human intervention.
The huge hedge funds that churn the market will , all computer calculated, short side derivatives in place to protect them if a dip buy some how crashes.
Dip trading is now an intimate part of a world industry.
Given that the market shutsdown if DOW goess -10% on the day, i suspect the worst possible case in one day would be -10%.
The worst case, a colossal exogenous event, that would set a worldwide chain financial disaster, that is the huge question: how would it handle it today(we are talking well beyond a 9-11, in which the market closed because of actual physical damage)as opposed to 1914.
The outbreak of WWI was NOT anticipated, the view was a hard-core "It will NEVER happen--ever". Yes, believe or not, in spite all the storm warnings the financial markets REJECTED such an event would ever happen.
And when it happened all hell broke loose, a financial meltdown world wide, so they then closed the market worldwide. Stopped/Closed, and for months.
In the case of the DOW, it was closed for 4 months, when it opened 4 month later it opened down 30%.
**********************************************************
Some one stop that max, get out the tools, quick!
**********************************************************
Now the view is , the world is far more rational, it knows how to kill efficiently and confine hell holes of atrocity in contained pockets of warfare.
Humankind has , through the the gentile process of science and technolgy, learned to cause death and destruction and living hells in a manner more acceptable to the world markets, this is called civilization marching ahead onward and upward, glory glory halleluah, verily, i say unto to you this is progress.
So the , Masters of The Earth need not worry about the what if a WWIV? Like are we not men????
So let's discard that nasty what if? As we are now so civilized--and gawd knows we have G7 watching over us.
Wonder what Albert Einstein's View of Man's grand progress through science and TECHNOLOGY be: Hmmm what is this?? "Science and TECHNOLOGY being put in the hads of Governments is like putting an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal" Albert EINSTEIN.
i can't imagine what he could have been thinking, i have seen no such evidence, the damned idiot. signed; Max Lobotomized, mellow bot, i want to be like the rest
*******************************************************
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
Those that can't handle the "Jump Da Fuck Up " video and can't grasp what it is about are already DEAD--Bourgeois Calttle, of Ruling Class Machine Bots, the killer bots of an evil people.Max
A fellow that a one very very nice and very very very tough dude said of me.
You could never have a better and more loyal and good a friend as Max, but i warn you, if ever he turns to and say "You MOTHER FUCKER!" you will feel it to your bone, you will know he he totally means it--you are his enemy.
SI and iHub, the vast majority are dead people, the "civilized dead" i call them.
They really deep down, don't care about anything.
They are The BOURGEOIS.
The posters coug and Stockman Phil on SI are good lessons in love me i am liberal, that are worthless pollyanas with the inner conviction and strength of papier mache.
Max
To hell with the human race, let it destroy itself.
Franz Kafka(a jew) was ask if he felt a closeness to the jewish people said, " i don't feel a closeness to the human being , and jews are just humam beings.i feel alienated from the human race. i don't even feel i a part of the human race."(i am a Franz Kafka(who was deep into Buddhism before his death).
i hideaway on this thread as i truly feel alienated by the vast majority of all.
i was , in real life, born with all the charm, and social graces, and smarts, and humour , so i can hide my disdain in real life, and people can think what a neat guy. But in this hideaway i can let out my real thoughts.
NO question i love animals more than humans.
When did this start. i best i remember it was on the asphalt playgrounds of Philly, i don't romanticize children as i was amongst them, i was child also, and the playgrounds revealed children are just beast in some hideous specking order.
i watched the NOT "quite right" get bullied relentlessly.
i was lucky, a natural athlete,and i had superfast quickness,so in first grade,when, because of my INNATE sweetness , was attacked by 5 boys(all at once, a savage wolf pack), it was to end with each boy having his face ground into the asphalt, each with a high pain choke hold across their throat, and my saying "Say Uncle!" and each one saying "Uncle!Uncle!Uncle!" I had thru sheer inner will exploded all 5 at once off my body as i was on the ground being pummeled(i remember still thinking" These beast are going to be taught a lesson that will not forget")i can still see their fear at the ease i threw them off me and then tracked each one down, and even the one twice my size(The King of The Hill Bozo), in a flash of movement i had them on the ground in a death grip choke hold
i was never attacked again.In fact i became a benign alpha wolf.
i once saw the kids squashing worms, i, by sheer alpha power, i had all the kids picking up the worms and carrying them back to the grass where they had been flooded out.
i be long to another breed.
These are of my breed.
Peope like Corey Taylor ans Max Cavalera, and i got bad news for all you Bourgeois, we are going the distance.
We will not cause your world to destroy itself, but we will stand and watch, go the distance watching this miserable race destroy ITSELF.
And all you Pollyanas, the life is good, we have a purpose , i will watch your beliefs get annihilated, it is the only way---you all have believed in a dirty little hoax too long, this sideshow circus is doomed.
And we will go the distance in not doing anything to help you.
You have proven, that as a race, you are not worthy, you are an inferior being, you suck.
So to those that realize this and don't want to be of them i say "JUMP DA FUCK UP!"
Corey Taylor and Max Cavalera(from Sao PauloBrizil, now lives in near Flagstaff Arizona, a special area)
i ready to to go ultra long if we go down more to start week.
But near term rally may commence starting monday, and i will then have to wait to go ultra short around 1330 area--perhaps. Max
link to TSR's buy list for a quick rally stocks --swing trade play ONLY.
Oversold is so profound, that a any strong sell off driving VIX to 35 area would be very likely an intermediate bottom.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cq?d=v1&s=pdo+iphs+inc+eac+nls+ioc+wti+sohu+syna+egy+mea+gdi+big+cmi+vltr+pxd+cbr+gifi+ncty+trlg+zeus+netl+whq+occf+npk+ois
IMB:Crisis Deepens as Big Bank Fails
IndyMac Seized
In Largest Bust
In Two Decades
By DAMIAN PALETTA and DAVID ENRICH
July 12, 2008
IndyMac Bank, a prolific mortgage specialist that helped fuel the housing boom, was seized Friday by federal regulators, in the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history.
IndyMac is the biggest mortgage lender to go under since a fall in housing prices and surge in defaults began rippling through the economy last year -- and it likely won't be the last. Banking regulators are bracing for a slew of failures over the next year as analysts say housing prices have yet to bottom out.
The collapse is expected to cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. between $4 billion and $8 billion, potentially wiping out more than 10% of the FDIC's $53 billion deposit-insurance fund.
The Pasadena, Calif., thrift was one of the largest savings and loans in the country, with about $32 billion in assets. It now joins an infamous list of collapsed banks, topped by Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co., which failed in 1984 with $40 billion of assets. The second-largest failure was American Savings & Loan Association of Stockton, Calif., in 1988.
The director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, John Reich, blamed IndyMac's failure on comments made in late June by Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), who sent a letter to the regulator raising concerns about the bank's solvency. In the following 11 days, spooked depositors withdrew a total of $1.3 billion. Mr. Reich said Sen. Schumer gave the bank a "heart attack."
"Would the institution have failed without the deposit run?" Mr. Reich asked reporters. "We'll never know the answer to that question."
Mr. Schumer quickly fired back.
"If OTS had done its job as regulator and not let IndyMac's poor and loose lending practices continue, we wouldn't be where we are today," Sen. Schumer said. "Instead of pointing false fingers of blame, OTS should start doing its job to prevent future IndyMacs."
IndyMac had been troubled for months, and investors were concerned about its possible downfall well before Sen. Schumer's comments. It specialized in Alt-A loans, a type of mortgage that can often be offered to borrowers who don't fully document their incomes or assets. The company sold most of the loans it originated, but continued to hold some on its books. As defaults piled up, IndyMac's finances deteriorated.
The bank will be run by the FDIC and reopen Monday. The FDIC typically insures up to $100,000 per depositor. IndyMac had roughly $19 billion of deposits. Nearly $1 billion of those deposits were uninsured, affecting about 10,000 people, the FDIC said.
IndyMac's arc -- rapid growth, followed by an even more rapid descent -- is a microcosm of the mortgage industry. It boomed in the first part of this decade, as investors were willing to fund loans on ever-looser terms, then hit hard times when the housing market began to turn down in late 2006.
Small mortgage lenders started going under quickly, with the number of failures climbing into the hundreds. Now the fallout has spread world-wide, bringing down some of America's largest financial institutions. Bear Stearns Cos., which suffered losses on mortgage-related investments, underwent a meltdown in March and had to be rescued by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
Countrywide Financial Corp., at one time the nation's largest mortgage lender, saw its stock price plunge this year and was forced to sell itself to Bank of America Corp. at a firesale price.
IndyMac, in a last-ditch effort to fend off collapse after it failed to raise fresh capital, said this past week it was firing more than half its work force and closing most of its lending operations. While its shares had been tumbling since early 2007, the move was nonetheless jarring for a company that ranked as the ninth-largest U.S. mortgage lender last year in terms of loan volume, according to trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance.
IndyMac is one of the few federally insured banks to fail in recent years. Banking regulators are bulking up their staff of bank examiners and taking a tough approach toward banks that are seen as risky.
Mr. Reich, the thrift regulator, noted that the IndyMac case had some "unique" features, including the involvement of Sen. Schumer and the rapid fall in its deposits. Officials said most of the recent withdrawals came from depositors at branches, rather than those making deposits at IndyMac's online bank.
IndyMac was set up by Countrywide in 1985, but the two companies severed ties in 1997 and became direct competitors. The company's name stands for Independent National Mortgage. It was created to specialize in jumbo mortgages -- those that are too big to be sold to government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In 1997, under the direction of Chief Executive Michael Perry, a protege of Countrywide chief Angelo Mozilo, IndyMac set off on its own.
The company grew quickly, pioneering the issuance of so-called Alt-A mortgages to people with blemished credit histories. The loans have gained notoriety as an example of the type of lax lending that came to characterize much of the mortgage industry.
Early last year, Mr. Perry remained optimistic about IndyMac's future, insisting that the company had the resources to remain independent. At the time, IndyMac's stock was trading for about $45 a share.
But the combination of the frozen credit markets and mounting defaults on IndyMac loans steadily sapped investor confidence in the company. In February, IndyMac reported the first annual loss in its 23-year history. By this week, its shares, which ended last year at less than $7 each, were trading for 28 cents apiece.
The company was desperate for more capital but couldn't find investors willing to put fresh funds into what looked like a crippled institution.
The failure could be felt across the entire banking industry, as the FDIC will likely have to raise insurance assessments for all banks to build up government reserves. "It takes a big chunk out of the FDIC insurance fund," said Chip MacDonald, a banking lawyer at law firm Jones Day. He said that if the FDIC hikes insurance fees, that will add to already-intense pressure on bank profits.
The OTS and FDIC didn't secure any outside firm to acquire the bank's assets. The FDIC will temporarily run the bank through a new bank it has created, called IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB.
Write to Damian Paletta at damian.paletta@wsj.com and David Enrich at david.enrich@wsj.com
Iran:Justin Raimondo at his sarky best(J.R. is a gay anti-war libertarian)
July 11, 2008
Iran and the Photoshop Threat
Tehran isn’t hiding its weapons of mass digital manipulation
by Justin Raimondo
The Iranians just don’t get it. What they’re supposed to do in response to the superheated rhetoric coming out of Washington – and the full-scale dress rehearsals for a bombing raid on their country coming out of Israel – is cower, downplay their own military prowess, and hope for the best. But – no. Instead, Tehran is puffing up its chest, issuing hair-raising threats of its own – and even Photoshopping its military arsenal to make it look more fearsome.
This last is really indicative of just how much of a real "threat" the Iranians pose. Here they are, testing medium and long-range Shahab missiles, and releasing photos of the launch –except that only three out of the four missiles shown taking off are real. The fourth has been superimposed on the original photo using Photoshop, a computer program that manipulates digital images.
Are we really supposed to take the alleged Iranian "threat" – which Barack Obama deems "the greatest strategic challenge to the United States in the region in a generation" – seriously? Not unless Photoshop is reclassified as a "weapon of mass destruction."
The brouhaha surrounding the Iran issue has been taken up several notches on account of this missile launch, but let’s look at how much of a real danger it really poses.
We also need to look at it in context: don’t forget that this launch came in the wake of a massive Israeli military exercise – involving more than 100 F15 and F16 fighters – which simulated a bombing campaign against Iran. Israeli helicopters and tankers (bought and paid for by the US taxpayers) traveled 900 miles westward from bases in Israel, about the same distance as that between Israel and Iran's suspected nuclear sites. This display of military capability was meant to underscore months of rhetorical firepower directed at Tehran by Israeli politicians and public officials – such as Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, who openly declared that war with Iran is "inevitable."
What was the reaction to this Israeli war dance in the West? It was merely noted: nowhere was this massive and quite impressive dress rehearsal for war described as a provocation, except perhaps in the Arab media.
On top of that, Israel has been openly urging the US to attack Iran, with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert making a special trip to Washington for the express purpose of warmongering, and the powerful Israel lobby pushing for a naval blockade of Iran that would surely end in war. Yet none of this is considered at all provocative, at least by the American news media, while Iran’s Photoshopped military assets are deemed a deadly threat.
Naturally, John McCain took advantage of the Iranian missile show to display his own bellicosity, stating that "Iran's most recent missile tests demonstrate again the dangers it poses to its neighbors and to the wider region, especially Israel," and reiterating his support for the "missile defense" systems that we have sold to the Poles and the Czechs – about the last countries on earth likely to suffer an attack from the Iranians.
Obama, for his part, repeated his call for "aggressive diplomacy" and stepped up economic sanctions, while falling for the Iran "threat" hoax, intoning: "The threat from Iran's nuclear program is real and it is grave." Yes, the threat is real – except when it’s Photoshop.
The Bush administration, for its part, reacted far less belligerently than the two presidential campaigns, playing down the scope and seriousness of the Iranian display by disputing the Iranian claim that there were two tests. "A senior Pentagon official said news reports that there were two rounds of tests were incorrect," reported the Washington Post, "because all eight missiles were fired on the same day, within hours of one another." Defense secretary Robert Gates characterized the recent flurry of activity by Iran and Israel as "a lot of signaling going on," just as Undersecretary of State William J. Burns went before Congress and testified that "While deeply troubling, Iran's real nuclear progress has been less than the sum of its boasts."
If that doesn’t undermine the case for war, then nothing will.In any case, what’s interesting here is that the Obama campaign is more belligerent and concerned with putting the Iranians in their place than the Bush administration.(edit: Obama or McCain, you got two crazies---repeat after me the world is rational,and proceeds rationally. If you believe that i am ready to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge--max:) While divided on Iraq, the bipartisan Washington consensus on Iran is clear enough: Tehran must be brought to heel, either by "coercive diplomacy" or pure coercion bereft of diplomatic pretense.
Iran’s sin isn’t harboring "weapons of mass destruction" – our own National Intelligence Estimate says they gave up all efforts to build nuclear weapons years ago. Our own CIA denigrates the "intelligence" provided by the Israelis, and the wacko dissidents of the People’s Mujahideen – an Iranian neo-Marxist cult – that supposedly has Tehran about ready to deploy.
Nor is Iran’s real sin providing weapons and training to insurgent groups fighting – and killing – US troops in Iraq, in spite of the administration’s rhetoric. Every time the Pentagon has been challenged to actually produce evidence of Iranian military aid to the so-called special groups, which supposedly are being sent by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards across the border into Iraq, they always come up short.
As for the charge that the Iranians have trained our Iraqi enemies – the truth is that they trained (and armed) our alleged friends, the Shi’ite militias of the ruling parties who support the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. However, it’s far too late to do anything about that. This training, you see, took place during the years of Saddam’s reign, when Tehran succored and gave sanctuary to underground Shi’ite resistance groups fighting Ba’athist rule. Thanks to us, the leaders of these groups are now the rulers of Iraq.
(Edit:This this what is the crux of the matter the biggest issue!--max)***No, Iran’s real transgression is to oppose America’s will: that is the unforgivable sin for which it must be punished without hesitation or mercy.*** In the court of American elite opinion, defiance is a capital offense. Iran must be made an example of – and, in spite of the moderating influence of Gates and the "realists" within the administration, it most likely will be. The point of going to war with Iran is identical to that which motivated the invasion and occupation of Iraq: to show the world what happens when a mid-level regional power stands up to the global hegemon.
That is what being the world’s last remaining superpower – a "hyperpower," as the French would have it – is all about: confronting various regional troublemakers, and bullying them back into their respective corners. Once one such aspiring challenger is allowed to get away with defying the hegemon, then others will soon follow suit – until the US loses its preeminence on account of its inability to confront multiple challenges on every front.
In contemplating the course of American foreign policy since the end of the Second World War – and especially since 9/11 – I find myself drawn back on more than one occasion to the penultimate chapter of Garet Garrett’s 1956 book, The American Story, which opens like this:
"How now, thou American, frustrated crusader, do you know where you are?
"Is it security you want? There is no security at the top of the world.
"To thine own self a liberator, to the world an alarming portent, do you know where you are going from here?"
Those words were written half a century ago, but they are truer today than on the day the prolific and prescient Garrett set them to paper. The bigger and more powerful we become, the less secure we are: ***it’s the imperial paradox, a conundrum that won’t be solved until it’s far too late to do anything about it.*** ( Right on Justin, as we are on the same page--so naturally i am pleased with this article:) max)
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
Oh, and speaking of threats, you won’t want to miss my piece on the threat posed by gay marriage to my own perpetual bachelor-hood.
~ Justin Raimondo
He played his video game night and day.
The MAZE of Death.
But that is the game we all are in, the trick, don't believe it.Get above it all and imagine nothing is what it seems.Kill the machine.otraque
U.S. Consumers Trade Down
As Economic Angst Grows
By GARY MCWILLIAMS
July 11, 2008; Page A1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121573829143444631.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Spurred by economic worries, American shoppers have quickly decided that cheaper is better. They are trading down to store brands from fancy labels, to small cars from SUVs, and to deep-discounters from full-service stores.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which last year returned to its discount roots to try to reverse weakening sales, Thursday reported its best monthly sales gain in four years; it benefited from bargain-hunters seeking deals on the most basic stuff.
Discount stores overall saw sales jump nearly 6% last month, while those of full-price department stores declined. Consumers' use of discount coupons is starting to rebound after a 15-year slide. In June, the lowly Toyota Corolla became the best-selling vehicle in America, a spot held for more than two decades by the beefier (and pricier) Ford F-150 pickup.
Trading down is a common consumer reaction to economic ills. But this time around, the change has come unusually fast and may be touching on the broadest array of goods since the recession of the early 1980s. The combination of historically high fuel prices and soaring food costs, combined with falling housing and stock values and tightening credit, are severely damping the spending habits on which the U.S. economy has long thrived.
The about-face in consumer behavior could bring striking changes to the marketplace, as retailers revamp everything from the size of their stores to the way they stock their shelves, and may force manufacturers to trim niche products in favor of more reliably selling basics.
...
IMB web-site has pulled the plug.(eom)
BREAKING NEWS...INDYMAC SHUT DOWN
IndyMac Bank seized by federal regulators
The Pasadena-based thrift's failure is second in size only to the 1984 failure of Continental Illinois Bank.
By Tom Petruno, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 12, 2008
The federal government said it took control of troubled IndyMac Bank today, in what regulators called the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.
The Office of Thrift Supervision in Washington, the chief regulator of Pasadena-based IndyMac, said it transferred control of the $32-billion bank to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
*
Q & A for IndyMac account holders
*
IndyMac Facts
*
More on IndyMac
The FDIC will reopen the bank on Monday as IndyMac Federal Bank, the OTS said.
"Depositors will have no access to banking services online and by telephone this weekend, but will continue to have access to their funds this weekend by ATM, through other debit card transactions and by writing checks," the OTS said. "Online banking and phone banking services will be available again on Monday."
IndyMac's failure had been widely expected in recent days, as its stock has plummeted to mere pennies a share and some nervous depositors have been pulling their funds.
The bank has been reeling from losses on defaulted mortgages made at the height of the housing boom.
"The OTS has determined that the current institution, IndyMac Bank, is unlikely to be able to meet continued depositors' demands in the normal course of business and is therefore in an unsafe and unsound condition," the agency said in a statement.
IndyMac's failure is second only to the 1984 failure of Continental Illinois Bank, which had assets of $40 billion at the time.
The FDIC said it had opened a toll-free phone line for customers of the bank. The number -- 866-806-5919 -- will operate today from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. PDT and then daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. thereafter, except Sunday, July 13, when the hours will be 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Customers also can go to the FDIC's website http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/IndyMac.html for information.