Short Current Essays

What If Citizens United Isn't Really the Problem?

2012-01-23T13:12:00.001-07:00

Consequences, Symptoms and Causes

The difference between the "consequences, symptoms and causes" can become quite blurred when sought from a reactionary baseline. We can be so engrossed in "reacting" that important, "bigger picture" issues slip by us. For one thing, there is the matter of time. Generally, time must pass between the initiation of causes and the resulting consequences -- especially when social or cultural issues are hosting the developments.

As for "symptoms," although often quite material, perhaps the most notable quality of symptoms is that they are the precursors of the actual consequences. While very durable consequences are maturing in the background, the symptoms are the "canaries in the coal mine" which notify us that things are changing.

MeanMesa thought that we might need this short, hyper-academic, conceptual interlude to set the foundation for the arguments which follow in this posting.

It's actually quite easy to become reactionary when considering the Citizens United ruling, its consequences, its symptoms and its causes, but let's take the effort to transcend even that, more or less, all encompassing viewpoint. MeanMesa thinks that the most interesting truth of the matter resides in the arena which hosts Citizen United, that is, the environment which serves to lend weight to its consequences, symptoms and causes.

If the thing were no more than carelessly abandoned debris left on some deserted New Mexico mesa somewhere, doing nothing but catching an occasional tumble weed, its grave threat to American democracy would be nothing more than a theory.

Citizens United -- as a "Symptom"

It started in our public schools.

Now, we have to look at precisely the advantage that Citizens United has delivered into the hands of those rich enough to utilize the ruling. The first thing which comes to mind is the "discovered legality" of the process of unlimited spending to manipulate the political process. Sure, there are a few rules, but toothless, unenforceable ones -- rules perhaps best described as "voluntary disciplines" which were made to sound workably given the strong, patriotic ideals and honor of those likely to test them.

Most Americans used to learn how to run our government. (image source)

However, all this stuff amounts to a pile of symptoms. Yes, these are the immediate injuries the democracy faces, but a more sinister culprit lurks deeper down -- in the foundation of exactly why Citizens United works.

Remember. It wouldn't matter if it didn't work. But, it does.

Stripped of all the decision's judicial outrages, Citizens United has everything to do with education. There is a largely unexamined "body of knowledge" in the mind of an American voter as he makes his way to the polls. Further, that "body of knowledge" has a very shadowy definition and an even more shadowy set of sources.

In past days, one important source of that "body of knowledge" was the education which provided the essential literacy of the nation. Way back then, every student in a US public school studied the mechanism of American democracy in a civics class and accumulated some sort of knowledgeable world view from the common history lessons taught in every school named after a President from Vermont to Alabama.

Another traditional source of that "body of knowledge" was provided by actual media reporting. Radio stations, television stations and news papers caused plenty of mischievous bias in those days, but they competed with each other -- they competed with each other for credibility and objectivity. And that competition for a reputation of "truth telling" enjoyed eager consumers.

Does the name "Walter Cronkite" ring a bell?

A "Body of Knowledge" and an "Informed Electorate"

All this has something to do with the US Constitution.

By the time elections rolled around, a huge part of the "body of knowledge" accompanying voters as they went to the polls originated in either public school education or the media's reporting or both. Of course, the "other part" of that "body of knowledge" came from the politicians. The exact ratio of how much came from the first source and how much came from the second source is anybody's guess but, we can still see the results of those choices in elections.

In MeanMesa's 70 trips around the sun, precisely this serves as an example of the now hardly known requirement to operate our government called "an informed electorate." The founders considered the idea important for the democracy, and they referred to the concept often in our founding papers. They intended for the "informed electorate" to make informed choices in our democratic elections.

It's time for an example.

Walking around in today's United States, it's relatively easy to find a voter who is blankly terrified with the current combination of Iranian belligerence coupled with Obama's proposed defense spending cuts. The point made here is not an opinion on the issues involved in the argument, but with the "body of knowledge" that voter is "using" to make his very questionable decision at the polls.

The ratio between information sources mentioned above has changed. In fact, even the sources have changed. Our voter has been convinced that he dare not lend any particular credibility to media reporting, and he has never been exposed to enough history or civics to pique his curiosity about what he "knows."

So, where is our voter getting the information he will need to be part of an "informed electorate?" Now, we are finally arriving at the "prize on the table" which has inspired so many billionaires to "indulge themselves" with the new legalities made possible by Citizens United.

The stakes are high -- sky high.

Even Cheaper Than "Bread and Circuses"

A thousand watt station versus a thousand loaf bakery

The Roman plutocrats of the Imperial period had to fork over some major cash to sway the electorate of the day. Those old Romans were a bit pickier than modern Americans. The more modern crowd will cave in quickly with just a few, well engineered, incendiary talking points. However, the point remains the same.

Pompeii - distribution of Roman bread.

Just as the oligarchs' demariae flowed in ancient Rome, modern cash will still purchase what is needed to win elections now. The difference is that the old Romans literally bought votes with their gifts while the modern oligarchs spend money to very carefully manufacture largely unexamined "mind sets" which can be trusted to behave properly in the voting booths.

"Mind sets?" Yes, "mind sets" is a generous, collective term describing many little pieces and bits of "motivators" which are patiently and relentless implanted, day after day, election season or not, into the consciousness of the willing. Citizens United money is now free to do precisely this -- without limit. The scope of the wealth of those providing the cash for such endeavors is fundamentally incomprehensible to those who consume the product.

Further, although the Citizens United ruling was about a film criticising Clinton, the money need not always take such an identifiable form. 30 and 60 second toxic commercials are favorite media purchases -- by the hundreds. Extremely mediocre books are written then purchased by such money for free distribution as the "sales" elevate them to "best seller" status and fame.

The Clinton film was an example of a "big piece." The wars in the election booths will be won by an immense myriad of "small pieces." Further, the broadcast of these "smaller pieces" is cheaper, faster and more efficient than anything the Romans dreamed of accomplishing with their loaves and circus tickets. Considered as a whole, Citizens United has turned over the task of educating the "informed electorate" to the highest bidder.

In earlier days, any political platform had an "unmanageable ally" in the settled history of any issue. Voters had learned about such things in public school. They might be swayed by political rhetoric during a campaign, but what was being "swayed" amounted to persuasive adjustments to mere details of knowledge attached to the much larger bodies they had learned about in school.

Did You Notice
that Politics Were Getting "Jumpy Wild?"

Further, the "distance issues could be swayed" -- the "swaying" aspect of campaigns -- was much smaller. Political discourse was much more centered on tangible plans compared to the modern focus on ideology -- along with some the lingering, darker sides of American opinion. For example, the race baiting and arrogant classicism of modern politics would have been unthinkable during the Eisenhower campaign. The result was discourse much more attuned to the challenges and opportunities which were material and "on the table" -- the plans and promises of a typical campaign by either party.

To make Citizens United worth anything, the vacuum left by a failed public education system had to be in place first. To an "informed electorate" many of the incendiary gambits which are quite saleable today would have amounted to tasteless sarcasm. Few millionaires or billionaires would have reached into their pockets to publicize such ineffective material.

In 21st Century America there is no longer even a "comparable memory" of a functioning media. Not only has aggressive, competitive reporting ceased long ago, the contaminated "news" presentations no longer even fear being called editorial, an indictment which would have incited terror on the city desks of the 50's and 60's. The vacuum of objectivity which is the predictable result of such a pervasive failure might have caused market corrections back when networks competed with each other for reporting objectivity.

Now, however, that vacuum can be very efficiently filled by decidedly commercial sources -- examples of which abound as we review the media purchases of the Citizens United crowd. "Commercial?" Yes. Citizens United media investments are all part of a marketing scheme, directed by specific goals of influence on voter turn out and all with an aim which includes profit somewhere down along the line -- very often in the redirection of tax money or other legislated advantages.

Modern politicians are not only generously sponsored by those whose interests they intend to serve when elected, they have become actual surrogates for those interests. The protection offered by Citizens United money is paid for -- compensated by legislative actions which could not have previously survived the eye of an "informed electorate."

One thing leads to another. Stupidity turns into cash.

Evidence of the educational vacuum has really been front and center in the conduct and statements of candidates in this Republican Primary. For example, one famous gaff of then front runner Bachmann placed Paul Revere's route in New Hampshire.

An early map of the 2012 New Hampshire Primary (image source)

However, of note here, is that this ridiculous gaff didn't lower Ms. Bachmann's approval ratings among Republican Primary voters. Still think that an "educational vacuum" is a mere exaggeration?

Some Americans think that the only proper response to Citizens United is to strike back, that is, do to the oligarchs what they tried to do to us.

This won't work.

So long as the "prize" remains on the table, either Citizens United or something similar will continue to operate. The only way to drive a stake through the heart of this monstrosity is to remove the "prize." Should the American electorate become, once again, somewhat informed, Citizens United will die the death it deserves, a slow, confounding demise driven home first by a dwindling credibility, then finally, by a profound lack of interest.

It turns out that there is very little difference between uninformed and uninterested.

Finally, a short note from MeanMesa.

Short Current Essays

Never Intended To Report the "News"

It's all opinion.

Oh sure, MeanMesa has -- very occasionally -- scooped news stories as they were approaching. In the first days of the Tunisian uprising, Short Current Essays predicted that the Arab Spring was poised to roam far and wide through the Middle East. [January, 2011: Over Estimating the Distance to Tunis ] When President Obama shuffled Panetta, Patraeus and Gates, MeanMesa predicted a very substantial cut to US DOD "defense spending." [April, 2011: Part 1: The Most Serious Military Campaign in US History and, May, 2011: Part 2: The Most Serious Military Campaign in US History ]

Citizens United: Oh Dear. It Wasn't Supposed To Be Like THIS!

2012-01-10T13:37:00.001-07:00

So Much For "Activist Judges"

Under the American Constitutional design of the process, laws originate in the law making branch of the three part government -- the legislature. The Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court made quite a departure from this more traditional idea, ironically, a departure often lamented previously by the most reactionary voices in that very same legislature.

It was essentially a "perfect storm" for the "up is down" folks who will say and do practically anything to keep their base aflame. After lamenting for decades about Supreme Court "activist judges" making incendiary decisions which undercut legislative extraction schemes, the reactionary corporatists have now turned the tables. Literally out of the blue, a tedious First Amendment case which began with a Citizens United dirt video about Hillary Clinton was transformed into a nightmarish decision in the hands of the high court.

There were plenty of other things about the Citizens United ruling which were equally troubling.

For starters, there was no precedent. The ruling was not a mere "adjustment" to some sort of legislative gaffe or ambiguous decision of the past. In fact, most of the scope of the final decision was never even particularly an element of the case. In fact, the fundamentals of the ruling were virgin; they had never been before the Court in any similar, recognizable form whatsoever.

It was a dreamy "wish list" sort of pay back which had never seen the light of day beyond the drunken fantasies of ruthlessly power hungry media corporatists. Chief Justice Roberts and his Supreme cronies scrounged up enough bold judicial backbone to take the odds for such an over reach.

This gang was even prepared to be satisfied with a temporary victory which would last only long enough for a more reasoned legislature to officially vaporize their momentary hubris. The corporatists could accomplish a great deal with their new freedom under Citizens United cover if it could be sustained just long enough. Both the billionaires and the Supreme Cronies decided that the oligarchy's time table for the complete economic take over of all power was close enough to fruition. Albeit risky, the stakes were sky high, but the moment for action had arrived.

Unanticipated Consequences

Almost immediately from the time of the decision through the subsequent months the predictable tsunami of anti-Obama "creative art work" emerged. Every sort of bizarre imagery from outright falsehood to laughable fiction, each one lubricated with almost endless corporate resources, rushed onto the already smelly "fact fog" of the corporate media swamp. The only subtle part of the show was the total absence of a single name in the "paid for" credits.


The menu of the moment is ANYTHING -- especially if it's already dead.	(image source)

Viewing Citizens United in the hard light of day.

Everything was rolling along "roses, simply roses" until the oligarchs realized that this snake could crawl up hill just as easily as it could crawl downhill. When the anticipations of "the night of long knives" materialized into the very sharp fangs of a grotesque clutch of desperate GOP Primary candidates, it was the equivalent of a UPS same day delivery of ammo to a circular firing squad.

The Romney gang dismembered Newt in a week with a multi-million dollar "history lesson" about the Speaker during the Iowa caucus. Gingrich, never one to slink out of a fight, counter attacked, trimming the low hanging fruit off the Romney bandwagon in New Hampshire before the band could even catch up. Worse, the Gingrich gang had already contracted a smell factory in Las Vegas to finance a 30 minute "infomercial" [http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2012/01/gingrich-super-pacs-anti-romney-film-features-florida-company.html] about the ground up corpses left in the wake of the Massachusetts governor's corporate "rendering plant," Bain Capital.

There were plenty of other examples, too, but those attacks were funded less than the really bloody ones financed by the big boys. As usual, the Republicans made their traditional misperception error. The damage was coming from their records, not from media manipulation.

Darn. All of this was supposed to be happening to the President.

"Not my doing. The out-of-control 'gangs' did it all."

But, who were the "gangs?"

Thanks to Citizens United all these miscreant "sore losers" walked away from the mud fest absolutely unsoiled. "Unsoiled?" Let's just say, "Largely unsoiled." A tiny majority of the Republican Primary voters [less than half of the Republican base has a high school diploma] were discerning enough to begin to place blame -- even in the cognitive confusion of a well engineered, media induced "evidentiary vacuum."

The "gangs" were super PACS's [political action committees] where heavy weight oligarchs could offer up vast, raw cash to promote their personal agendas. We can see the visible fervor of such efforts by simply looking back at the Iowa caucus.

In a race with no -- absolutely none, = 0, not a one -- delegate votes in the Republican Convention, the eager beavers among the cash laden billionaires ponied up tens of millions of dollars from their respective super PAC's -- on all sides. The "crush Newt" operation was funded with millions. Later, the "crush Mitt" operation was funded with even more millions.

The Roberts' decision for his corporate masters contained a single, lingering sort of toothless "limit" on the freedom it granted. The caveat? There could be no direct association with the products of Citizens United money and the candidate they were supporting. Amid the tearful accusations, the comedy began with each of the benefactors claiming total ignorance of -- and control over -- the actions of his PAC's.

Lasting, Irreversible, Intuitive Brand Damage

Granted, the "hearts and minds" of the Republican base are distressingly akin to the lumps of coal Santa places in the Christmas stockings of bad children, but there is still the remnant of the now road weary GOPCon talking point claims about "smaller government," "lower taxes," "family values," "less borrowing" and the like.

Before the Democrats have even scratched the little crosses in the ends of their cartridges and rubbed them with garlic, the GOPCons are literally tearing each other to shreds like a team of Komodo dragons salivating over a rotting hippopotamus somewhere in the jungle. Republicans have recently had a real problem with thinking ahead, and the embarrassing frenzy of this latest bunch is no exception.

Sure, all this blood letting may deliver a state or two in the Primary, but what's left in those "hearts and minds" for the General election has been permanently tarnished. Whatever candidate they select after this torturous process will still have the baggage these Citizen United attacks nailed to his back in Iowa, South Carolina or elsewhere.

As for the all important Independent voters, they are horrified.

MeanMesa is feeling better about the 2012 everyday.

Learning: Citizen United's First Year

2012-01-01T13:53:00.001-07:00

Everybody Doesn't Win, but Everybody Learns

It's been a year since the Citizen United decision appalled most of the country in January, 2010. There were a few Americans with enough Supreme Court savvy to dislike the activist nature of the thing or, perhaps, be unsettled by the striking break with precedent. There were a few who found themselves unnerved by the hubris of the fascist, Bush strewn remnants of the court.

However, the complaints and laments of 2010 were of an academic nature. The theory of the new possibilities was troubling, but the decision's future, material ramifications still amounted to nothing more than terrifying Constitutional hypotheticals. Americans were far too toughened by the steady stream of outrages since the 2000 election to "waste time" worrying about as of yet unrealized future judicial calamities.

In fact, the same bunch who were secretly salivating at the prospect of actually buying an entire Presidential election in 2012 had effortlessly reduced the country to a desperate, nearly coast to coast poverty, extracted the wealth which had taken decades to secure and successfully remained untouchable behind the cover of their now subservient media. Interestingly, MeanMesa heard no voices publicly speaking in support of the judicial concept of the decision.

That silence was a clue. Someone must have like it. But silence, nonetheless.

One might have imagined that bottom feeders such as the Armeys, Roves, Kochs or the WalMart Waltons might have let slip something positive about Citizens United, but nothing. Perhaps such conversation and opinions were carefully reserved for Country Club salons where no spoken word has ever escaped.

quod est necessarium est licitum

"What is necessary, is lawful."

Our Latin omits just a few pregnant questions, but especially the question of "necessary." Necessary to whom? Why necessary now?

Those in power were compelled to make the Citizens United decision. Both the flavor of prevailing circumstance and breathless perspiration of this moment in time demanded that risk be taken, gauntlets cast down and all chips placed in ante for the game approaching. There is, actually, a game in progress. It is not a game that we here at the bottom might ever glimpse until it's final, bloody, last hand has closed, but the result of its very soiled consummation will be a "free horizon" for the oligarchs, opportunity, raw, soulless and completely unfettered -- unfettered by anything in the world.

Estimates at the time of this posting place the Citizens United "war chest" in the $4 Bn range as it gorges itself in preparation for the 2012 election.

Of course, the rampaging avarice for power has become cash. Even Citizens United leaves a few, perfunctory "rules" in place, tattered shards of the old democracy, but such temporary obstacles are not permanent. According to the plan, they will simply be left on the "to do" list until the takeover moves closer to completion.

Citizens United was necessary, given the stakes of the current political game. The scheme to transform the republic into a modern oligarchy has made a significant, durable progress, but it is progress which still has foundation problems. The conspirators have, indeed, increased tension during the Obama Presidency at an explosive rate, but neither the schedule nor the path has not been well managed.

In fact, those "increases in tension" have not turned out to be all that steady. Yes, the hill billies and the bigots in the reactionary base have literally "gobbled up" the pablum, but that success was also supposed to ensnare more rational voters who weren't paying enough attention to the details in the flood of misinformation, voters who could be drawn into the maelstrom for no reason any more compelling than the number of reactionaries who were already there.

Like the teasing near orgasm of a drunken bus station whore, the feverish pitch seemed moments from "victory" six months ago, but in the ensuing time, every pain of the Great Republican Depression of 2008 has patiently settled in like an enduring toothache. The pain is no longer theoretical or conveniently ideological. The pain has become far too material to lend itself to the cheap redirection the scam enjoyed before.

Over Funded, Over Reaching

and Under Sophisticated

MeanMesa stood both horrified and despondent during the scheme's early successes. It seemed that the entire country had become even more illiterate, uniformed and uninterested over night. The daily barrage of propaganda victories of the early campaign was supposed to saturate progressives with a strangely pervasive yet ambiguous hopelessness, and it did.

The 2010 election played its part in revving up the hopelessness, but it also signalled the effects of the scheme's early strategy to dishearten voters. The oligarchs' Congressional scheme of total obstruction lent itself well to the popular but synthetic, horror fantasy "that all politicians are alike, that both parties are alike, and that the President is ineffective."

However, the recent developments were not all bad. What we had expected from Citizens United in our darkest moments never materialized, at least, never materialized in the form of the hideous juggernaut we had at first anticipated. The takeover scheme was churning along at full throttle for a while, but as time slipped by, interesting pieces of the evil plan began to fall off the machine.

We progressives gradually realized that we had over estimated the sophistication of the uber-rich but not their cynicism. Emboldened by their early successes, the oligarch strategists immediately over reached. Their ambitions drove them mindlessly, miles too far from their own carefully constructed supply lines. Their "supply" of impulsive and determined base followers faltered.

Their tea bags slowly lost their fervor as more and more of the corporate spine of that movement was illuminated. Their nationwide voter suppression moves caught the attention of the Justice Department. Literally millions of Americans rose up against state capitols which had been considered unassailable bastions only days before.

Governors and State Senators were being recalled. Reactionary, class based legislation was going down in flames in electorate initiatives. Not even the corporate media could downplay the gravity of these events, although they tried mightily. The spigots for more and more Citizens United cash were opened wide, and the psychology departments of the think tanks flew into "fix it" mode.

And trouble for the oligarch class didn't stop there.

Their own fierce cynicism had assured them that American voters would be unable -- or unwilling -- to discern the distance between obvious truth and their glacier of propaganda. The stock of the "lie catching business" began to rise as fact checking progressive enterprises took advantage of the eternality of modern video and internet technologies. Poorly prepared and poorly designed [i.e. too stupid] reactionary candidates began to encounter the worst, most embarrassing possible parts of their own history on a regular basis -- on television.

The ghostly block of Republican unanimity cracked in "debates" and negative ads from other Republicans. Even worse, the audiences at GOPCon "debates" began to routinely humiliate themselves with jeers at active military men, cheers for executions and an immoral disinterest in everything from health care to women's rights, birth control and an affordable end to military colonialism.

No amount of Citizens United money could fix that. No amount of Citizens United money could keep such things a secret. These events had been engineered and financed by Citizen United money.

The bizarre over reaching began in earnest. Candidates without campaigns -- Cain, for example -- were created with a straight flow of cash rather than any of the traditional enthusiasm of voters. Arcane "throw-aways" such as Perry were inflated to momentary importance with huge amounts of oligarch dollars in the expectation that if only a candidate "looked like" a candidate, the zombies would elect him.

The oligarchs had actually created a "supply side" political problem for themselves. Their problem was that there was simply not enough of a "supply" of zombies to keep the game going. Further, they were gradually discovering that -- even with a Citizens United check book in hand -- their purchasing agents were reporting back that the "shelves were bare." They had already purchased -- and consumed -- the entire supply of malcontents and idiots.

No amount of Citizen United cash and no amount of meat handed, adolescent political incendiaries seemed to be able to refill the ranks. The public opinion polls finally began to sag. There was no more excitement to be had, just the toothache.

The Beached Whale

The Citizens United "coup d'etat" (image source)

The beached whale will smell awful by November. And, the toothache will remain more than a fleeting memory.

Almost anything else will smell better.

GOPCons: Governing by Hostage Taking

2011-12-23T11:13:00.002-07:00

The Legislative Path to Keystone XL

What it would look like if we weren't in denial about the US House

The most recent -- and most convenient -- example presenting the point of this posting can be seen in the "poison pill" inclusion of the Canadian pipeline authorization which is added to the House proposal. By insinuating this otherwise un-associated provision into the legislation as a condition for the extension of the middle class tax cuts and unemployment insurance benefits, we can hardly miss another glaring repetition of similar, past, bad behavior.

We've seen it before.

And, we have not only seen it before, we have seen it quite recently and quite frequently from both the tea bags and the even more grotesque "nova Republicans" who are now imitating their bad example.

["Nova Republicans?" These would be the latest, opportunistic, hybrid spawn of traditional "old school" GOPCons, a heavily soiled mix of the old corporate "bite and grab" crooks with the more modern, truly thuggy tea bag ideological gangsters.].

A bill like the one authorizing the pipeline would normally be authored by sympathetic Congressmen with constituent districts which could, presumably, benefit from the project. Also, some of the "forward defensive tackling" would have been handled well before such a bill took its final shape.

For example, US agency opinions would have been investigated. The domestic market would have been analyzed. Price impacts would have been calculated. Environmental impact difficulties would have been anticipated. Perhaps, a few of the farmers with fields which would have suffered when the thing plowed its Juggernaut style easement would have been interviewed.

MeanMesa calls such a process a "causal vector swarm." To visualize such a concept, just imagine a cork with thousands of needles stuck into it. Each needle is another one of the predictable "multiple constraints" inherent in such an undertaking, that is, each needle amounts to another "ox to be gored." The final conclusion about the workability of such a project would amount to totalling up all the "pro's and con's" to see how many -- and whose -- oxen were still standing.

When one has the ambition to create a gigantic, multi-billion dollar result, it's usually a good idea to have hammered out a "good idea" before one begins spending the money, much less, pissing off voters.

However, when political realism is added to the mix, you have to make sure you have enough needles, that you have examined each one carefully and that you are ready to hand over all the dead oxen to your election opponent. More and more gaseous, essentially irrelevant tests will be added as you watch in horror, yet, in a Republic like ours, this torturous route remains the map of the journey.

In the end, the final product will be far from the purity of its engineers' original dream, but it will make sense. This highly modified new design will have successfully merged individual interests with corporate interests in a way which, more or less, satisfies both parties. Lyndon Johnson famously said that if a bill passed with more than one vote, too much had been negotiated away during the process.

The Nature of GOPCon Hostage Taking

The American people have spoken. The legislation has wide popular support. (image source)

The Keystone XL pipeline project is only the latest "burning question of the day" so far as hostage taking examples go. Let's look at a conveniently short list of other recent examples.

A well-informed MeanMesa visitor might, at this point, simply sigh and lament "So, what's new?" However, let's try to glimpse the "big picture" of what's actually going on here.

Normal governance would suggest that each of these expenditures would be debated, run through the process of Congressional "ox goring" and, finally, either fail or be passed. Part of each plan adopted would be figuring out a way to pay for the expenditure without further increases to the national debt.

Americans understand that we have to pay for things we need or things we want.

Paying for things which we need or want includes collecting the taxes when necessary. Raising taxes is part of the package -- unless you can slip by this step by holding something desirable or necessary hostage. When the "hostage" course is taken, the "ransom will be paid" by lowering the expenditures on something else

The scheme can best be described as watching a kidnapper "holding a knife to your daughter's throat" while demanding that you turn over your house's heater. At the moment, saving your daughter is paramount, but after she is returned, both of you are sitting through the winter in a cold house.

Why not just govern the regular way? Collect taxes for what is needed and then buy it?

If you are a Congressman, this would make perfect sense if raising taxes were a choice you could actually make. However, when that prospect is "off the table," you have to take the heater in payment.

Americans are getting close to a point where they have no more heaters to sacrifice. 1/6 of the population is now below the poverty line. 1/5 of the population is unemployed. 1/4 of American children are food challenged.

Meanwhile, there is the matter of debt coming due. To avoid taxes during the Bush autocracy, more and more money was borrowed -- from anyone stupid enough to lend it to us. The daughter was returned, but, since the parents borrowed the ransom money, the house's heater remained in place.

This worked great for a little while, but plans like this one have a habit of falling apart as time runs along.

Obama, again in the "big picture" view, is now trying to lead the nation back to the regular scheme. His proposals connect the revenue derived from increased taxes to the urgent necessities now facing the nation, urgent necessities such as jobs, infrastructure challenges and economic recovery.

Where Do Spending Cuts Go
When They "Grow Up?"

Okay then, where does the hostage ransom go

after the daughter comes back home?

Spending cuts, according to the prevailing myth, become tax cuts. Spending cuts mean, ridiculously, that less money will need to be borrowed. The "ridiculously" part enters the equation due to the very, very flimsy reasons that most money is borrowed in the first place. These reasons become flimsy when they are joined with comments and pledges about not "wanting to drown our children in debt."

The more the national debt is reduced in this way, the lower the interest payments required to service that debt will become. If the flow of tax money is sustained at the same levels it flowed before the spending cuts, the debt is repaid with the surplus. The "foot of brass" foundation of the entire Spending Cuts - Lower Debt - Lower Interest - Lower Taxes scam might have actually worked, theoretically, at some point in the distant past, but those days are long gone now.

The tax reductions which are the constant, atmospheric promise of modern spending cuts are. of course, mostly described by the old adage: "To the victor go the spoils."

Further, all spending cuts are not exactly the same. In fact the motivation behind any specific tax cut separates them into categories. Needless to say, the motivation in many cases is sheer opportunistic looting, but the other choices are also interesting.

As we look at the design of the spending cuts now being offered in the legislative process, the distinctive differences are usually disguised as a "blend" of two or more of the varieties shown in the diagram (above). However, there are a few fundamental questions about spending cut proposals which "sort them out," making the picture a little clearer.

1. Will the benefits of spending cuts be benefits to all the tax paying base?

2. Do the spending cuts actually make any sort of sense when it comes to hard numbers in the budget?

3. Do spending cuts target the relaxation of regulations which have been previously generally accepted by the electorate?

4. Can the spending cuts be classed as either "demand side" or "supply side" benefits?

5. Are the increased "profits" made possible by spending cuts actually taxable themselves?

A Reminder About Exactly Who
Is An "Expert" On Spending

A Reminder About Job Creation

A MeanMesa Christmas Gift Suggestion

For Your Republican Relatives

MeanMesa's compliments to the President.

PBS NewsHour Judy Woodruff Fights Back: Obama Will Lose 2012

2011-12-13T11:38:00.001-07:00

If you think this is shocking, join FOX News! They do too!

MeanMesa: Exhibit One

Judy Woodruff and Experts "Agree" That Obama Has NO CHANCE

The purpose of this MeanMesa posting is to provide an up to the minute example of the incredible bias we now find daily on the previously credible PBS NewsHour. What must be done next is a careful presentation of the evidence of of EXACTLY what we are talking about here.

First, let's have a look at the streaming video of the NewsHour from December 12, 2011. Following this link will take you to the NewsHour site for the video of today's "news performance." Once you see the video load on your screen, skip ahead to 13:30, 13 minutes, thirty seconds into the shot.

Dec. 12, 2011, PBS NewsHour - video

Judy is "interviewing" Stuart Rothenberg and Susan Page about the almost inescapably dismal chances that President Obama has to win the 2012 election. Rothenberg is a "yuck, yuck" elitist with the equivalent of a conservative blog called The Rothenberg Report from a previous decade. Page is the Washington Bureau Chief for CNN.

Judy must have organized this little tea party to promote the image of her famously "two sides to everything" faux objectivity. However, after spending a minute or two with video, we see that what's left of Judy's career reputation for being "NewsHour objective" is now little more than "cold, morning after cinders" at the Bonfire of the Vanities.

MeanMesa: Exhibit Two

What It Looks Like When FOX News Is Stunned

Ooops. The bleach blonde accidentally told the techs in charge of the FOX Reich Bunker to show the wrong poll results. No problem, what would have, otherwise, been little more than, well, more drool, was frantically lubricated with the frenzied refrain of the FOX News pundits'

"*!!%SHOCKED@!!"

chorus.

Once the "sting" had been so artfully removed and the talking points generator re-started, everything returned to "normal" quite nicely. Take a look at the FOX News clip by following this link:

The Accidental FOX Poll

The naked wrestlers and the sheep strangling parts are tasty, but the "face time" of the couch residents is still priceless by itself. The sudden, couch wide palor is far too Santorum-like to qualify as good FOX broadcast. The video link is courtesy of addictingifo.org.

Okay, the stage is set. PBS is celebrating Obama's inevitable loss in the 2012 election while FOX News is lamenting his landslide victory. Can anyone still question the President's tactical political prowess?

MeanMesa: Closing Argument

So Much For GOPCon Attacks on the "Liberal Media"

If we look closely, we can detect Judy's thinly disguised delight as she peers through her faux matron-esque authority to herald the black man's political demise. This is the daily course on the "objective" PBS news menu now that the show has garnered the sponsorship of some of the worst corporate bottom feeders in the country.

The daily PBS anti-Obama innuendos cluster like flies on a sun drenched potato salad.

MeanMesa could have included hundreds of other examples of this similar, quiet bias if the blog didn't suffer from such a geriatric, technological incompetence. The photo of the FOX poll, for example, was taken with a web cam pointed at the MeanMesa computer screen.

Questions about corporate media bias are one thing, but questions about the publicly supported Public Broadcast Service are even more sinister. There is no bar low enough to make the sub rosa contamination any "prettier" than simply another case of 1% control issues.

"Supply Side" Disaster in Durban

2011-12-12T10:49:00.001-07:00

The "News:" How Much Do YOU Know?

The following quiz can be taken in the privacy of your own home. Test results are your property and need not be shared in situations which might be embarrassing or otherwise compromising.

The quiz:

What Happened At The 2011 Durban, South Africa,

Climate Change Conference?

a.) Nothing.

b.) More of the same.

c.) About the same as the previous conferences.

d.) All of the above.

If you answered "D," congratulations!

Is this because the climate change problem has tapered off and isn't such a pressing threat any longer? Were all the hysterical predictions actually much worse than turned out to be the case after all?

Rather than start off on another ranting and raving tirade, MeanMesa will offer just a couple of interesting "news" facts.

1. Carbon dioxide and Methane Levels

Carbon dioxide and methane levels for the planet have increased much more than expected. So have methane levels. Turning to an ultra-liberal, generally hysterical source (The New York Times, read the article here.), we find this report. [There are thousands more...]

Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, the principal heat-trapping gas, are continuing to rise at an accelerating rate, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported. And after a decade of stability, levels of an even more potent heat-trapper, methane, rose as well. The agency said atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide reached nearly 385 parts per million last year, up from 280 in 1850 and an increase of 2.6 parts per million from 2006, chiefly from the burning of fossil fuels. The methane situation is less clear. Methane is produced naturally by swamps but also by activities including burning fossil fuels. The issue is important because climate experts have long worried that if Arctic permafrost thaws, the process would release potentially catastrophic amounts of methane into the atmosphere. In a statement, the agency said the most likely causes of the methane increase were economic development in Asia and emissions from Arctic wetlands. It said it was “too soon to tell” if the increase signals an Arctic thaw.

This article is from April, 2008. Most folks who have looked at the Arctic ice lately don't believe it's "too soon to tell" if it's melting.

Since 2008, the date of the article, the follow has happened.

See the little red dots? They're going to eat us alive. (data source)

2. Climate Change Denial

Rises With Green House Gas Levels

A few hundred postings could be generated by the tsunami wave of climate change denials being trotted out daily in the corporate media. (The paper linked below speaks of "media sobriety.") So, rather than dredge out dozens of examples, MeanMesa will present only the following. It sets the stage for all the rest for anyone interested in an upset stomach.

Here is Senator Inhofe, R-OK, from DemocracyNow (Read the whole article and watch the video here. )

Republican James Inhofe, R-OK

"While no members of the U.S. Congress attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma recorded a video message that was aired at a press conference of climate change deniers here at the summit on Wednesday.

"Tossing out any remote possibility of a U.N. global warming treaty is one of the most important things we can do for the economy," Sen. Inhofe said. "I’m making this announcement from Washington, D.C., where I am confident that the only person left talking about global warming is me. The message from the Washington to the U.N. delegates in South Africa is this, this week, could not be any clearer: you are being ignored."

The final statement by the conference's head pretty well sums up the results.

"The grim news is that the blockers lead by the US have succeeded in inserting a vital get-out clause that could easily prevent the next big climate deal being legally binding. If that loophole is exploited it could be a disaster. And the deal is due to be implemented 'from 2020' leaving almost no room for increasing the depth of carbon cuts in this decade when scientists say we need emissions to peak," said Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director.

"Governments departing the UN talks should be ashamed. When they return home we wonder how they will be able to look into the eyes of their children and grandchildren. They have let us down and their failure will be measured in the lives of the poor, the most vulnerable and least responsible for the global climate crises."

(Read the whole article from AllAfrica.com here.)

We Won't Know What Hit Us

In the admittedly over dramatic cinema, 2012, a program management approach was taken to meet the challenge of the catastrophe which was going to fall on the planet. Although any precise account of the money involved was, tastefully, omitted from the script, the story pictured gigantic ships, capable of surviving the worst of the holocaust with enough humans on board to repopulate what was left.

Of the seven, eight or nine billion people on the Earth at the time the movie depicts, perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 survived the calamity aboard the giant vessels. The ships had to be built in China with a massive amount of foreign money. The project could not, according to the story, have been accomplished fast enough in the democracies.

Looking at the scope of the story presented in the film, we are able to take a few "pot shots" at the fictional project's budget. Of course, there is little prospect of making a really accurate estimate of the cost of half a dozen megalithic ships like the ones in the film, ships which have never actually been designed, estimated or built, not to mention the additional expense of establishing a global police state overnight to suppress the violent desperation of seven or eight billion people facing an inevitable death sentence in a few days or weeks.

However, MeanMesa has never strayed too far from diving right into the middle of issues with such a "little prospect."

Let's say that the ships in the film cost, maybe, $3 to $5 Tn. For this price, a couple hundred thousand humans survived.

We must probably add that such a "cash price" would seem quite reasonable, since the value of cash after the calamity would be reduced to basically nothing. In terms of "paying the bill," the global police state would also, most likely, be quite helpful.

So, are numbers such as these -- 200,000 survivors at a cost of $4 Tn -- sensible? The movie did a great job with them, but that story doesn't really map out any sort of reasonable plan for the actual planet and its likely catastrophe.

What we see in the film is a definite project management problem. The screaming failure is one of scope, but the underlying causes are exactly the same ones which doom thousands of lesser undertakings daily: cost and schedule.

Managing Global Warming Solutions

Of course, all sorts of innovations have managed to creep forward in spite of the constant onslaught of the petrogarchs and the coal mine owners, but the cultural priority to actually "run" with one or more of them remains morbidly absent.

MeanMesa uses the term, "morbidly," because we are talking dead people here, lots of dead people.

In the 2012 movie, the death toll was about 99.99%. In real life, should we continue on our present path, we'll do quite a lot better than that, maybe only around 40%. Right up to the very end, it looks like we will still remain resolutely, steadfastly determined to pursue the prospect of "saving all the money" we might have otherwise wasted on managing -- or even partially mitigating -- the inevitable collision.

It's very unsettling to see the pilot of your jet liner running to the rear of the plane in hopes of living a few seconds longer.

Yes, you guessed it, MeanMesa has resurrected the old "Managing Global Warming Solutions" post from June of 2008. The original has been revisited with greatly improved graphic diagrams and a few -- but not many -- editing changes. The old diagrams were a product of changing computers and graphics which didn't bear up under the burden very well. Now, visitors can actually read the content of those bar charts.

An example of the improved graphics in the revised paper.

Visitors can now read the content of those bar charts and think about it.

The post describes a scenario where the problem of climate change can be entirely corrected at a cost equivalent to the total number of dollars which got plowed into the financial gizmos which caused the current depression. The loss of human life, under the plan there, would be reduced from 3 billion to around half that number.

Perhaps even more important, the future course of human life on this planet would be irrevocably altered. There would be no more impending ecological disasters, and homo sapiens could finally get down to the business of normal development, real improvement and expansion.

It's clear that we don't know how to solve the climate change challenge -- especially not painlessly. On the other hand, we do know how good management practices have solved other immense challenges in our history as a species. This is no time to quietly allow screaming mimmies or out of date corporate fascists to sign our collective death warrant.

As humans, we have a remarkable record of solving problems, even big ones that seem insoluble when we first start to work at them. MeanMesa's discomfort here comes from the dismal reality that we seem quite unwilling to start actually working to solve this one. There are far too few voices speaking of a permanent, complete solution amid the overly popular hand wringing and moaning.

So, if you've read this paper before, visit it again -- especially the improved graphics. If you've never read this paper, settle in on a long winter's night and read it. Give yourself a break. Enjoy a little real hope for a change.

Managing Global Warming Solutions

GOPCon Debates - Re-Igniting The Orthodoxy of Saint Reagan

2011-12-11T12:28:00.002-07:00

When a Republican "Debate"
Becomes a Snake "Kissy"

Is This The Donald Kissing The Newt? (image source)

Okay, which one's the dummy and which one's the snake?

Don't try this at home or in a voting booth.

After watching the December 10th [You know, the day which was notable for the lunar eclipse, right?] 417th ABC Republican Debate [yawn...] for around 6 minutes, MeanMesa is completely prepared to offer a few conclusions about the grotesquely unusual goings on.

The corporate "news" pundits had been absolutely breathless for the days approaching the "debate." The American penchant for reducing all political discourse to foot ball analogies was at full steam, and the GOPCons rose to the challenge.

"The Newtster gonna' clean thet Morman clock! Jest yew watch! Chraust 's gonna take 'er bah 6 'r 7 points!"

"We'll be seeing a little of the blood once Mr. Nice Guy Mitt takes off the, uh, mittens, uh, the gloves!"

Instead of all this, what we watched with our jaws dropping was everyone being nice to each other! Of course, the "reputation" of the hard hitting debates didn't suffer much, it simply switched from rabid FOXite talking points to a snake kissing festival.

How could this have happened? What could it mean?

This is where MeanMesa's internationally renown credentials for careful, thoughtful reporting swings into action.

"Roughing Up" Romney

The billionaires who own the Republican Party have already decided that Mitt will be the nominee. The problems these long suffering corporatists "saw on the horizon" derive from the man's, yawn, utterly two dimensional image. The candidate needed a bit of street scrapping to toughen him up enough that he could, well, fit into the base's football analogies.

The GOPCon version of the "intellectual challenge" approach wasn't working. No matter how persuasive the "debates" became, the meat eating base in the audience kept cheering for all the wrong things. Mittens had neither executed enough people, threatened enough foreign countries nor allowed an adequate number of 30 year olds to die from lack of health insurance.

Clearly, what was needed was a toothless opponent with a populist waistline and equipped with plenty of feathers, fury and fangs. The problem grew worse, however, when the GOPCon base fell in love with the gaseous platform and policies of Gingrich while injudiciously overlooking his genetic, general election, sex flaws.

Now, their favorite boy, Mittens, is covered with bruises, and the evangelicals in the unruly audience base are cheering for Newt's Biblical infidelity.

"Gosh durnit, Whoo'da thunk?"

St. Reagan's "11th Commandment"

It turns out that the "11th Commandment" had significantly more "staying power" than the first ten. For years we have watched the Congressional GOPCons fall in line lockstep with their leadership as if they collectively suffered from having the same brain.

Of course, we know that they haven't really had the same brain so much as they have all received phone calls from the same bosses. Ronnie Raygun's "11th Commandment" held sway right up until the day the tea bags arrived in the House after the 2010 election.

The 11th Commandment

"Thou shalt not criticize other Republicans."

Given the "snake kissing" interlude before the punches started flying at the last debate, we have to conclude two things. First, the bosses didn't like the unorganized "fly bys" which had characterized the previous debates and the collapsing public imaging of the party's candidates and brand. Second, the whole lot of these "debaters" had been called to a "meet Jesus" moment by those in charge, a "meet Jesus" moment where the "11th Commandment" was read like a riot act.

Naturally, the "riot act" had everything to do with the check books in the back pockets of these very same billionaires.

The mandate was straightforward. Somewhere in the early minutes of the "debate," each of the flagging candidates would heap praises on another, citing specific examples of how the praised candidate had beneficially influenced the political savvy of the praiser in the past.

The result was a sickening, televised mix of the hysterical and the horrendous.

No problem. Within nanoseconds after the "snake kissing" had been completed, the whole thing had lurched back into its normal Bronze Age mode with the "frenzied fists of favoritism flavored fascism" [i.e. "F5"] flying right and left just like a brawl over whores in a lumber camp.

The Oligarchs' "Next Dilemma"

The very best, most heart warming examples of "unanticipated consequences" come from the cases where the effort and engineering of the bad decisions reaching fruition in the process were lengthy, painful and expensive.

The precise "unanticipated consequence" in this case is going to a little matter of comparison, that is, not a comparison of candidates or platforms, but rather a comparison of processes.

The whole nation watched the torturous democracy unfolding in the primary debates between Obama and Hillary Clinton. Everyone saw the passion which was to be the foundation of the later choice for the candidacy. Everyone saw the issues which were debated -- including the off-debate jabs and parries which went with them. Everyone saw the depth of the primary candidates in action.

Now, however, the parallel process will occur on the Republican side. In this case, everyone will get to see Gringrich and Romney go through the same blood soaked, "winner take all" process. The horribly unfortunate prospect facing the oligarch's in charge of herding the Republican base to the "right" decision rests squarely upon the terrible image problem which will inevitably accompany the comparison of the two processes.

A comparison which may very well become a comparison of the two parties.

Even to the heavily challenged, burping and scratching, "late night at the American Legion beer bar crowd," these GOPCon candidates will, correctly, look unavoidably "little."

The Myth of Growth

2011-12-10T06:44:00.001-07:00

What Does "Fixing" the Economy Mean?

Anyone who has heard anyone reporting on the US economy has heard a "common theme" running through the stories. To validate any of the media's myriad forms of economic fear mongering, we find a common thread: growth. Gosh, if we just had more economic growth, every possible aspect of the economy would be all fixed up in nothing flat!

We might pause for just a moment here, delaying our descent into the actual economic growth issue -- remember, we've been told growth is everything -- to discuss what is meant by "common theme." And, exploiting one of MeanMesa's "tried and true" big picture literary gimmicks, we shall explore this "common theme" from the unquestionably objective point of view of an alien race observing the situation from a carefully sequestered space ship in orbit above us.

An Alien View of the Planetary Economy

After analysing all the media traffic about how bad things are, our thoughtful aliens, all very well respected members of IHOPPPES [the "InterPlanetary Harmonious Office for Primitive Planetary Populations Economic Subcommittee"] immediately held a large conference of all the most highly esteemed, most experienced, very "top line," best thinkers among them. The conclusion of this scholarly, orbital symposium was that it would be necessary, as a first step, to carefully form a conjecture of exactly what this planetary economy would be like if it were not the "worst possible thing since the Great Depression."

The orbital IHOPPPES conference. (image source)

That is, "If what was being observed was how the economy should not run, what would be observed if the economy were running the way it was intended to run?"

Being the product of advanced cultures from each of their respective advanced home planets, the subcommittee members were not at all misled by the flurry of "supply side" solutions being suggested by those in charge of the disaster on the Earth below. Everyone unanimously agreed, right off the bat, that what they were seeing was definitely a "demand side" problem.

Further, the Subcommittee quickly "sized up" the basics of the planetary economy which had now begun failing so miserably.

In its normal state, the parameters of the system were clear to them. Human babies were created at a rate which more than compensated for the planetary death rate. These babies were then nurtured into a predictable adulthood at which point, each of them would begin to work for "discretionary money" which could then be spent to create the demand required to sustain the planet's economy.

However, this particular planet had imposed an unusual "extra burden" on the very most basic idea of what "sustaining the economy" meant. This was the commonly held infatuation with "growth." In order to "sustain" itself, the planetary economy had to perpetually grow larger and larger.

In fact, every media story about "what's wrong with the economy" relentlessly presented this very issue, that is, the "growth" issue, as "the burning question of the day."

Having supplied themselves with this very comfortable and very available idea of limitless growth as an absolute necessity for their economy, the Earth humans very naturally looked at this foolish idea as the only possible way to ever possibly get their planet's economy "on the right track" again.

Although the economic mess had completely dumbfounded the Earth's planetary economic experts, the immediate solution was clear to the more technologically advanced members of the IHOPPPES council. Literally only a few minutes later, all agreed that the simplest, most trustworthy solution would be to increase the rate at which babies were being produced on the planet below.

To this end, the IHOPPPES High Committee authorized the space ship's captain to saturate the entire surface of the Earth planet with the ship's FEAR system [the "Fecundity Enhancement Assistance Ray"]. At once, enjoying the "enhanced fecundity" of the ray's influence, millions and millions of "extra" babies would be born to happy couples all around this troubled world, each birth bringing with it a tiny part of the necessary increase to the economic "demand" side of the equation, and, in this way, completely correcting the planet's "demand side" deficit.

In the council chamber a great feeling of well deserved "pride of accomplishment" flooded every member present. The council chairman, in fact, ordered the ships galley to prepare a special celebratory feast of the intergalactically famous IHOPPPES strawberry pancakes, each one drenched with the very best, very pure Vermont Maple Syrup for every member present.

As the great space ship departed Earth orbit for its next economic recovery mission, spirits were high after another, such highly satisfying, successful intervention. All the diverse aliens in the council "high fived" each other and sang "See? Everybody wins!"

A Cooler, Colder Look at "Growth"

If we continue to look at the present economic calamity with more realistic eyes, we see countries all around the world now horrified that they have "suffocated" growth with too much debt. Although at the "first taste" this proposition just "glides" down one's throat like a bite of a strawberry pancake drenched in Vermont maple syrup, a closer scrutiny begins to reveal some unsettling facts.

Perhaps there is, after all, a "Vermont guppy" in the batter.

In theory, any Earth bound nation will unavoidably enjoy a certain level of "investment surplus" emerging from the work and products of its economy. It is precisely this "investment surplus" which will, when properly applied, result in the gradual refinement and growth of improving conditions in such a nation's conditions of life.

Considering such a system as the rational approach for a country's efforts to gradually improve its condition, just where does all this debt enter the picture? Why borrow money to accomplish those things which such a system will otherwise gradually accomplish anyway? That is, gradually accomplish in a more "organic" manner, one which is financed by the "investment surplus" at a realistic rate rather than by borrowing?

At a "realistic rate" which can be sustained without borrowing?

The answer to such questions is sickeningly simple: "cultural and political impatience." The gradual application of a country's organic investment surplus, at least in modern times, does not meet the popular speed commonly desired for improving conditions.

For this reason, often called the "growth requirements" of a social culture for such improvements, economies find themselves needing to borrow money to finance critical projects such as roads, schools, hospitals and the like. However, this borrowed money is often diverted to what are painted as day to day expenses and used "to make ends meet."

Of course, all this borrowing may be often be disguised as nothing more than a national version of a local "bond issue," but there seems to be an avoidable problem which always "crops up" as such programs unfold. The problem arises from the fact that borrowing money is much more politically popular in most countries than raising taxes -- much more popular -- regardless of the story that goes with the explanation of why the money must be borrowed.

Naturally, the organic surplus can be overwhelmed by sudden expenses such as tsunamis, wars and other catastrophes. In such cases, borrowing often determines whether a state will survive what confronts it. In such cases economies cannot otherwise meet the cash requirements necessary. Also, in such cases, the population whose name is "placed on the note" is usually quite aware of why the borrowing took place and in strong agreement with it.

When Debt Becomes Goliath

Such practices, in more stable economic times, disappear below the radar with the folks whose names are on the note. The visible reality of social improvements -- again, schools, bridges, sewer plants and the like -- are normally enough to placate even the stodgiest conservatives among such voters. In many cases, good arguments had been made that the new bridge to Shelbyville would benefit the local economy -- and it turns out that it did.

However, absent the war and tsunami case and floating far above the local "bridge bond" sale, we find borrowing practices which are best left far from the light of day. Throughout all of this misery, the excuses for the terrifying, accumulated debt remain the same: slow growth and too much spending.

The facts, however, cast a condemning shadow of these reasons. It is usually the case that no reasonably possible rate of growth would have met the expectations accompanying the decision to borrow. Further, the spending cuts seem to be targeting areas quite disassociated with the debt they supposedly address. And, finally, there are no new bridges, water plants or school repairs -- just debt.

The "Meth Addict" Economy

When a nation desires to "consume the future" at a rate which is "faster than the actual passage of time," all sorts of undesirable consequences are "just around the corner."

Not only is there a sudden flow of money which is not yet produced, the spending of that "future money" grows sloppy. Tax payers are, generally, quite interested in the spending of their tax money, but they may be somewhat less interested in the spending of money borrowed on their signature but based on future prosperity rather than current resources -- resources which would have, otherwise, appeared in their grocery carts or on their kitchen tables.

The infatuation with "growth" introduces an unusual irony. From the mouths of these tax paying voters we hear a constant reluctance to "bathe their children in debt," but from the spending policies of the officials they continually to elect, the message is a polar opposite.

Theoretically, all this "extra meth" would work out just fine, but that theory is one fundamentally based on the prospect of a faster and faster monetary velocity through an ever growing economic pie. Economists forgive the world's population for its incessant expansion, but they apparently do not consider the possibility of a limit to the size of the world's economy.

We're leaving out the forthright looting which usually accompanies the application of borrowed money to "specially designed projects" and other expenditures which seem to perpetually line the pockets of the policy makers who propose them. The fleeting euphoria of our new bridge blinds us from any moment of clarity with respect to limits which should have been imposed on our borrowing rate.

Further, our creditors, like meth dealers, are gleefully uninterested in any discussion of rational limits. They live in a world where the single question is "Can they pay?"

The unhappy, end result is that every dollar spent on such "special projects" is devalued by its interest because it is a borrowed dollar. The price of every program is automatically increased by the interest rate of the money borrowed to create it.

We quit "getting our money's worth" long ago in favor of "getting our money's worth. less interest and looting."

"Good" Versus "Growing"

Through the years of manipulating our economy toward an unceasing state of growth, we have neglected what is, perhaps, an even more important question. Even our language betrays our thoughts.

I'M DANCING AS FAST AS I CAN! (Image Source)

Of course we can keep it up!

We just have to keep GROWING!

An exaggeration?

How often we have heard ourselves speak of "better times" for our children, and how infrequently we have heard ourselves speak of "good times" for our children? Do we really think that there is no limit on how much "better" things will get? Especially with thoughts mature enough to understand that the economic "system" within which we live has, wait for it, limits?

Even though we have essentially ceased spending money on infrastructure in favor of financial gizmos, we have also quit worrying about any possible, upper limit on our planet's economy no matter how many hydroelectric dams, hospitals and highways we might ultimately build across the planet in hopes of reaching the "Star Trek" dream world.

The lament of the environmentalists has been focused on the physical capacity of the planet to support our habits, but those well reasoned cautions have largely omitted the raw economic correlate. Inebriated with the myth of perpetual growth, we have never subjected our synthetic optimism to such a test.

The herald of our future calls us to reconsider our incomplete fantasy of possible, ultimate future states. We will need to have more thoughts about a "good" economy to replace our now unstoppable visits to the "dealer" for a "growing" economy.

Researchers on the topic of meth addiction have adopted a chilling terminology: "anhedonistic." In their definition the state presents when all the pleasure hormone, dopamine, has been consumed, leaving the addict without any prospect of his normal, hormonal sponsorship of pleasure of any sort. From such a low point, his future ambition becomes limited to pain reduction, not the blissful euphoria which had been possible earlier.

We can increase our "borrowing load" to a similar place as we frightfully pursue our insatiable appetite for growth without limit. As we "consume our future" at an ever increasing rate, the actual, material productivity of the money we borrow dwindles precipitously until the advancements we dreamed of making are finally converted entirely to interest payments with a "little bit" left aside for the looters.

A MeanMesa Fiction - "The Candidate"

2011-11-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

The Story's "Quick Intro"

MeanMesa isn't the only one sitting in a state of horror while watching the now famous, relentless, endless, Republican "debates" on the old tele. Public opinion for the GOPCon party brand has not yet mortally "crashed and burned," but only because viewers are too shocked to answer the phone calls from the pollsters.

So, what could be more fun than a little "comic relief?" Let's tell the tale of the latest GOPCon candidate on the morning he discovers that he's lurched forward in GOPCon Primary Voter Appeal to "first place!"

Well, perhaps we have all wondered just what it would feel like to suddenly be thrust to the number one position. What could possibly ruin the wonderful day when the entire GOP field became a "cherry on your tree?"

Let's spend a few minutes with "the candidate" on the morning that the great news rolls into the executive office of his campaign. It wouldn't bother MeanMesa in the least to just go ahead and attach a name to "the candidate," but if that were done, it would permanently date the whole story because they change so often.

The Candidate

Saturated with an over spent luxury only possible with a giant Citizens United PAC money war che$t, the full executive staff of the campaign was milling around excitedly, waiting for the candidate to arrive from his pent house suite on the floor below.

Finally, the bedraggled Republican tottered into the room, immediately receiving a cup of morning coffee from his overly beautiful administrative assistant, Ms. FullBlossum-Eagerly. Her ever so slightly post teen age face was sparkling and excited as she breathlessly informed him that the campaign's manager was waiting for him in the candidate's palatial office -- waiting for him with some great news!

As predicted, the campaign manager stood as the candidate entered his executive office. The candidate absent mindedly punched the red button at his expansive desk, activating the anti-bugging electronics and shutting off the automatic recorder his largest campaign contributor had insisted on wiring into the place.

He settled in the $5,000 chair behind his desk and took the first sip of his morning coffee.

"Okay, Smithers, what's come up now?" the candidate asked with the woeful expectation of being confronted with the latest political crisis.

"Good news, sir. In fact, spectacular news! The latest polls of Republican Primary Voters are in, and, and, we're on top! We moved up 6% points over night, and now we're 3% ahead of the old front runner!" Smithers exploded gleefully.

"Oh NO! We're at the head of the pack??!!" (image source)

His face suddenly stone grey, the candidate thumbed his intercom switch to Ms. FullBlossum-Eagerly's desk in the office outside. "Put in an emergency call to my therapist, Dr. Calmer."

Slowly returning to consciousness, the candidate mechanically turned to face Smither's. "Christ almighty!! How could you let this happen, Smithers? Has Rove or someone put out a hit on me?"

"How could you let this happen??!!" (image source)

Coursing through the candidate's mind were images of all the other Republican candidates who had, at some unfortunate point in their campaigns, arrived at precisely the same horrible place. He was a man squarely facing the deathly prospect of being the next victim of the meat grinder.

The candidate knew all too well the only outcome possible for a "front runner" when the wheel chair riding serial killer tea baggers got their first, unapproving glimpse of his new status.

"Smithers, you know we decided that we wouldn't take this chance until we were inches away from winning the primary! Now, here I am, pitched out like raw pastrami in the waiting line to the candidate cemetery!" yelled the candidate, now sobbing.

"Some of these people were my friends, Goddammit. Now look at them! Hell! Now look at me? How long do you think we're going to last once those impossible conservative purity tests start rolling in?" the candidate murmered in a disconsolate mumble. He placed his head in his hands as his thoughts became even darker.

The candidate's special, secret, safe place.(image source)

"They're going to eat me alive. Josef Goebbels couldn't get through something like this. Smithers, they cheered when they brought up the executions! They cheered when they decided that the sick 30 year old guy had to die because he didn't have health insurance!" the candidate lamented.

"Dammit! I've done a lot of savage, brutal stuff during my political career. I always thought that it would be enough to satisfy them, enough to keep me safely under the horizon long enough to maybe win the primary. But no! They want blood -- pure neo-con blood -- and they won't settle for anything less!" the candidate continued. Smithers was beginning to look worried.

The candidate stood, staring pensively across his office.

"Maybe if I were to just flip-flop on a few issues that meant nothing to our contributors, the polls would break back, returning us to second or third place. We could creep back up from there just in time for the first few state primaries." he mused.

"I'm afraid it's too late for that. Once news like this hits the airwaves, it spreads like wildfire. And, once they've heard your name, the tea bags will be happy and relieved for a few minutes, then they'll start in on you. You know how this works." Smithers offered.

"They won't remember anything about you or the campaign once they hear that their cousin or some right wing bartender doesn't like you. They won't know why, but once the killer instinct is aroused, they won't quit until the next front runner falls into the trap." the aide turned to the door of the office because of the growing noise outside in the staff room.

"What's going on out there? What's all that noise?" the candidate asked in a blank sort of dejected monotone.

"That's the media. By this time the entire place is packed with paparazzi. FOX News might have been there first, but by now every network has shown up with a camera. We won't be able to get out of here without facing them and their questions." Smithers grumbled, looking worried. He noticed that the candidate had become totally fixated, his empty eyes staring at the 13th floor window behind his desk.

"Why doesn't the staff shut them up? Why hasn't security thrown them all out of here?" the candidate asked desperately.

"The staff is gone. They all had jobs lined up in case this happened. The only two members of the campaign still left are me and Ms. FullBlossum-Eagerly. She's only here because she was too stupid to run for it. Plus, she was probably emailing the last of my resumes when the reporters broke through." Smithers answered.

"I wouldn't worry about her, though. She's a knock out, and she'll find a home somewhere in no time now that she's got experience." the aide added nonchalantly.

A new thought was clearly moving into the candidate's mind. His constant stare at the picture window was beginning to be quite unsettling to his campaign manager.

"It was Gingrich. They resurrected that old corpse from his sepulchre after they got so freaked out by Romney. He set this up -- it's just like him! The old bird fired up the dirty tricks squad, and they did this to me! God, how did I miss it? I should have seen it coming." the candidate muttered, his eyes bulging as if they were on fire -- the only remaining sign of life on his now morbidly sallow face.

The Gingrich grave had been opened -- again.

Smithers was almost amused that his old boss had taken so long to see through the scheme. In fact, he was smiling broadly as he opened the door to the outer office.

"The candidate will see you all now." he announced matter-of-factly to the mayhem awaiting access to the latest front runner. Stepping aside quickly, he could see the candidate struggling to lift his executive office chair high enough to break out the window.

Deep behind those bloodshot eyes, a final thought coursed through the candidate's last moments. "Maybe I should have called my wife."

Keeping Your "Occupy-Self" Safe

2011-11-22T13:16:00.001-07:00

Responsibility and Apologies

The videos have hit the net in a delightfully viral frenzy. Millions of Americans have watched in horror as the UC Davis "police" sprayed sitting Occupy protesters with pepper spray. Millions of Americans have watched the ever so sincere Chancellor of UC Davis (Where did this woman come from, anyway?) "apologize" for the "incident."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv4wrl8AmEw&feature=related

Happily, as can also be seen on another viral internet video, the Occupy and students gave UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi a profoundly moving "silent treatment" as she walked to her car.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvnWShJp_2A

Well, Chancellor Katehi, "responsibility" means "responsibility."

Let's see how this works, Chancellor. You were the one who signed all the checks to buy those police of yours their fancy "soldier" outfits, including the super-gigantic spray cans of "crowd control chemicals" they used on your fellow citizens. You are also the one who clearly happily sat by while your police department saturated themselves with toxic FOX drivel as the gradually transformed into anti-democracy thugs who thought such actions were "just fine."

You were the one who these "little soldiers" of yours thought would roll over in their defense when they sent along the criminally falsified report that they "were surrounded." Hmmm. How did your little soldiers ever get an idea like that?

In fact, Chancellor, it's really a "bad turn of luck" that you decided to go "thug" the same week that the Seattle police thugs pepper sprayed and roughed up a pregnant Occupy protester, causing her to miscarry her baby.

The gosh darned "little people" in the United States have a really unfair, bad habit of consolidating stories like these all into one big stinky thing.

Which it is.

The MeanMesa Solution

Of course, all this complaining could not merit its own MeanMesa posting absent some plan to mitigate future, similar outrages for our visitors.

So, if you, valued visitor, have plans to do a little Occupy protesting, MeanMesa would like to invite you to join our national staff! You job duties will require basically nothing -- the bar is, obviously, quite low here at MeanMesa. And, of course, your pay checks will be just as gaseously immaterial as your work requirements.

However, you will get your very own MeanMesa PRESS PASS! You can flash this baby at just the right moment and -- maybe -- avoid one of those now famous, anti-democracy beatings.

Just open up the jpeg below, insert a nice photo of yourself, fill in your name and print it up on a bit of card stock. Scrawl your signature in the "issued to:" line and laminate it with tear gas proof plastic. The preprinted form of this beauty is already signed by the NM Director of News Management, Ms. Pepper Spray.

Downloadable MeanMesa Press Pass

Of course it's a bold faced forgery of a document which doesn't actually exist, but it might give you that all important "moment of hesitation" in the mind of the guy who is getting ready to beat your brains out for America. Feel free to offer copies to your Occupy friends so that they can individualize their own PRESS PASS with their own photos and name!

Have fun!

A Cold Look at Perhaps the Media's Last November

2011-11-20T21:08:00.000-07:00

Why Keep Commenting of the US Media Sell Out?

Long before this post had reached even its "zygote" stage, literally volumes had been written about the disastrous state of the US "Fourth Estate." The media wide collection of irrelevant gobbledy-gook vomiting out of the last, stinky remnants of the commercial media cadaver during this month may be a salient, morbid reminder of precisely what happens when your news corporation -- probably along with the lost souls who used to be the editors -- is finally bought out entirely by the oligarch class.

"I said clean that mess out of the studio. The next network news editor is here, and we have just received today's facts. By the way, where's my peacock?"" (image source)

Clare Higgins in Clive Barker's HellRaiser

Of course, all this "victimhood-style" complaining is nothing new -- or rare. Americans have already moved quite a way beyond the cheaply disguised "objective credibility" sham of the domestic networks. However, once again -- darkly -- MeanMesa will climb back on the broken down horse for one more visit to the discouraging subject.

"News Bending" By An Obedient Media

Rather than simply ranting and raving with arms full of more gaseous generalities, maybe it would be fun and educational to consider some specifics. Although a complete list of such examples would easily exceed the band width limits of a little blogspot like this one, here are a few of the most recent cases.

1. Taking the Republican "debates" and the Republican "candidates" seriously.

Naturally, such a news extravaganza could not be ignored completely, but hour after hour of self-immolation and embarrassment? The Republican strategists are jumping out the windows while the 2012 Republican hopefuls just keep staggering forward through the land fill they've already created for themselves, feet in mouth. Not even the usually effective chit chat about the liberal media is working.

2. Pretending that a majority of American voters are actually "moving to the right."

How many times have we heard this bit of nonsense being injected into pundit analysis on a different topic? The majority of Americans are wounded. Not only this, that majority knows what happened, who did it to them and why no one reasonable can fix it.

3. Constantly promoting the idea that domestic austerity has anything to do with anything.

The official GOPCon line is that the 99% must volunteer for even more suffering. They know that they can't govern and can't make good on their promise to create jobs or help the economy. They know that their record is the ultimate, toxic candidate killer from hell in a general election. MeanMesa estimates that the recent PR "spending cuts" gizmo has persuaded 5% of the voters who didn't need persuading anyway.

4. Down playing everything which could possibly lend credence to the Occupy movement.

For example, even the usual "marble in a mayonnaise jar" BBC treatment of American news included an interview on November 18 with some plucky Brit "expert" who categorically announced that the Occupy was already dissolving and that it would amount to nothing by spring. MeanMesa, always anxious to help out the BBC, suggests that this interview be saved on a hard drive for future reference.

5. Pretending that the "super committee" on debt reduction was ever expected to actually reduce debt, much less help the economy.

Wringing their hands like the parents of a fourteen year old girl out on her first date, the media has spent hours with the "Oh dear, will they, or, won't they?" question, trying to instill even a tiny bit of relevancy -- or interest -- in the issue in the minds of jobless Americans who are losing their houses this week. Worse, any time the public response to this effort becomes too discouraging for them, the story immediately descends to the Greek and Italian debt crisis. Yawn. The "super committee" was never intended to do anything. It will probably succeed with accomplishing that "low bar."

6. Medicare and Medicaid are routinely imaged as irresolvable conflicts for the budget which must now be sacrificed.

Both programs were initially funded just fine. Since then, Republicans have "followed orders" from the bosses who have always thought that Medicare and Medicaid money belonged to them. When the autocrat loaded Medicare's heavily sabotaged Part D Pharmaceutical borrowing -- plus interest -- to the mix, both were destined to bankrupt themselves while his friends were salivating over privatizing the $2 Tn trust fund. There is nothing wrong with either program which cannot be fixed. Social Security contributes absolutely nothing to the national debt. It is totally funded for years.

7. There are always "two sides" to everything, and the paralyzing Republican obstructionism is only criticized for political reasons.

This line probably worked for a while. At the time of this posting, polls show 76% of voters no longer buy it. Even a majority of Republicans answered "yes" to the poll question: "Are the Republicans purposefully sabotaging the economy to win the 2012 election."

8. There is absolutely no mention of the amount the Republican "spending cuts" have reduced the national debt or the number of jobs the Republican "jobs plan" have helped create.

The answer to both questions is not surprising. Republican "spending cuts" have been primarily "drive by attacks" on ideological targets. The amount of real debt reduction amounts to peanuts.

As for jobs, the number of jobs is zero. The Republican "jobs plan" has not created a single job. In fact, no one who pays attention to anything beyond FOX News can even tell you what the Republican "jobs plan" actually is.

Opinion polling suggests that voters are slowly realizing both facts. The media has meticulously worked to counter this growing realization, either articfially contradicting them or simply avoiding any mention of them.

9. Reporting about the Occupy Wall Street Movement always contains right wing talking points, over reporting of usually "perpetrator incited" incidents and conclusions that Occupy is basically without merit and meaningless.

These are some of the most expensively repeated and cheaply uniform talking points in any campaign conducted recently, both signs that the "people" who can place specific "words" into otherwise banal news stories are quite concerned. The BBC "reporting" on Friday, November 18, is a good example.

The BBC "expert" brazenly reported that "very few" protesters remained active in the movement, that it was quickly dying off and that it never meant anything in the first place. On November 17, there were more than 12,000 protesters in New York. That figure is from police estimates, but neither Reuters, CNN/US, The Examiner nor The Washington Post included that number in their reporting.

Instead, all these "news" services noted that 300 protesters had been arrested. MSNBC used the word "thousands" in its description of the Day of Action.

10. The "uprisings" in Wisconsin and Ohio are routinely characterized as ineffective "labor movements."

Of course, labor unions are involved in the protests in both places, however during the show down in Madison, well over 100,000 Wisconsites appeared at the Capitol in Madison. Equal coverage was given to 300 tea bags who were bussed in by the Koch Brothers' American for Prosperity money funnelled through Dick Armey's California Law Firm, Freedom Works.

It will be interesting to see the orders for media treatment of the successful recall of the Koch Brothers' Wisconsin Governor, now officially under way. The recall petitions took in 60,000 signatures during the first 48 hours.

The election in Ohio merited the chortled smile of PBS NewsHour's Judy Woodruff. She was "shocked, I tell you, shocked!" It was, no doubt, discouraging to Judy to see all of her efforts at such a careful bias falling to ashes before her face. The actual facts of the story rose up in highly visible contradiction to an election which had been continuously presented as a "non starter."

11. Media reporting constantly downgrades the scope of carefully engineered voter suppression and preparations for election fraud in states with Republican governments.

The anti-democracy tea bag "backlash" is easily visible in the draconian addition of registration and identification obstacles put in place in nine states so far. Although there is no evidence of wide spread voter fraud, hundreds of thousands of legal voters are being disenfranchised with the new requirements. The media dutifully repeats the lie that voter fraud is a gigantic problem.

In Texas and a few other states, Republican redistricting plans which would eliminate voting blocks of minority Hispanics and blacks are all headed directly for court action established under the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Oooops.

12. Language: Pay attention to how often the word "trying" is attached to reports of President Obama's efforts to do anything.

We had to have at least one example of the contextural bias which is being so artfully inserted in "news" stories. The one selected here is the word "trying." When the President undertakes any effort whatsoever, his actions are described by adding the word "trying" to the reporting.

The President is trying to move his jobs bill through the Congress. The President is trying to convince European leaders to establish a bail out fund. The President is trying to restore the economy. After listening to literally hours of "trying," the FOX talking point that the President is ineffective is tediously reinforced, creating a stronger and stronger, shadowy foot hold in the subconscious minds -- even the minds of those viewing the commercial media.

Of course, cheap tricks such as the "trying" gimmick are never challenged by sources more concerned with their image than MeanMesa is. Should a reasonably adept reporter take note of such a sinister, cheezy subtlety, he would worry that either no one would understand his point or that a hired chorus of FOX monkeys would manage to embarrass him.

MeanMesa suspects that the relentless over use of this word probably won't end until November of 2012. The language based propaganda examples are legion. The commercial air waves, now with FCC licenses unfettered by the annoying old "public good" clause or any detectable interest in honest reporting, manufacture these little things in hordes -- like fleas in a puppy mill.

(A MeanMesa note: the yellow background was selected for these examples in keeping with a design format for "yellow press.")

The Conclusion: A One Liner

The Democrats can lose the 2012 election to the media.

MeanMesa's Occupy Sign

2011-11-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

Responding To the Police Attacks

Of course we have all heard the careful admonition from the General Assemblies concerning non-violence. Unhappily, the local police are too busy dressing up like soldiers to attend.

So, MeanMesa has designed a simple little sign which can be revealed after the local police act badly.

Further, the same idea can be incorporated into cards which are small enough to hand to individual policemen "after the aftermath" of one of the attacks.

Take care of yourselves. Don't get hurt fighting for the wrong hill.

How 99%'ers Can Add "Faces" to the "Story" of the 1%

2011-11-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

Are Oligarchs an "Urban Legend?"

Are they like the cinematic vampires and demons or do they represent actual people walking among us? Of course, they are not "walking among us." They are nibbling arugula and baby spinach sandwiches locked behind the gates of all sorts of cozy, private places.

Let's just assume that "walking among us" means that they are on this planet somewhere. To them, "among us" only means close enough to continue to extract what's left of our wealth and deposit it in their tax protected cash bunkers in the Bahamas.

Why the Sacred "Mystery of Wealth Inequality"

Is Not An Urban Legend

From MeanMesa: An American Oligarch Watches the Arab Spring

All this, including an admittedly cheap plug for a previous MeanMesa post, is "yesterday's news" thanks, largely, to the work of the Occupy. However, the ghostly corporate and oligarchic villains in the tale remain faceless. We may talk about "them," but we know only a few of the names which go with those faces.

How could the rest of this crowd of economic sociopaths be illuminated?

MeanMesa has a suggestion. It is fast, simple and essentially fool proof.

Two easy steps:

1. Let the Dow Jones careen back to 6,000.

2. Don't bail them out.

The "walking wounded" of the wealthy will show up at our front door in no time, hats in hand, deposit slips for banking our tax money at the ready. Remember, no matter how tragically plaintive these cries of "wealth trauma" may seem as we listen to this inevitable chorus of impending doom and well practised, desperate, ideological hysteria, this bunch of the rich are not that way as a result of capitalism.

It is also no feature of capitalism about which they will be complaining. Instead, the theme of all this crying will have everything to do with injuries to their imagined entitlements, the gaseous myth that they deserve all this money by the modern version of the old "divine right."

Whether blessed by Great Nature with the good fortune of emerging from a $12 digit uterus or simply enjoying the immense, grotesque pay back from all the hard work they've done purchasing the Congress, there remains not a whisper of free market legitimacy in those bulging bank books.

The oligarchs will take care of Step 1. A Democratic Congress could be persuaded to take care of Step 2.

When it's Time for Occupy to "Kiss the Girlfriend"

2011-11-17T12:32:00.000-07:00

The Political Nobility of A Movement's Adolescence

One of the most exceptional, yet predictable, attributes of the 99%'ers who are currently investing their time and effort in the movement is their stringent abhorrence for politics as usual. They have gained very little from the institution of government, far less than they could have reasonably expected.

Now, we find them absolutely determined to never be "co-opted" into a political campaign, hypnotically exploited by a political party or artificially infatuated by a political candidate. All this is understandable. All throughout history, the "waiting line" at a poisoned well is usually rather short.

In fact, it is nothing less than a monumental irony when cosmically detached candidates such as Mitt Romney, Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich attempt a descent from their class atmospherics in attempts to excite and attract voters such as the ones we find in the Occupied Areas. It is too reminiscent of the old allegory: "...two mules standing in a mud hole, arguing the price of oranges..."

So, we can conclude that, at least for the moment, the Patriots of Occupy are fundamentally separated from American electoral politics. If they were to see a connection, no matter how flimsy, between their complaints and the possibility of a responsive Congress, the protest's dynamic would change quickly and noticeably.

In the worst case, an explanation of this may lie in a matter of "political literacy." Given a firmer footing in the rudiments of the US representational system, some might finally detect this remnant strand between the two, that is, between the complaints of the Occupy protests and the Congress which should be responding but isn't. However, in their view, US representative democracy is a wreckage. Further, they do not hold such a dark idea in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary, either.

The "facts" of recent history -- at least the visible ones -- support the logic of the Occupy's refreshingly heady nihilism.

A Quick Look at Occupy's Strategic Position

Yes, the brash political cynicism of the heavily soiled Congressional incumbents has managed to strangle any real prospect of a government which responds to the plight of its citizens. Yes, the glaring evidence of this reinforces itself daily. Yes, the gravest insults are perpetrated by elected officials who revel in "not being that bad."

So, who can really be surprised with the withering distaste for representational democracy expressed in the words of the protesters when they are interviewed? The words may be jumbled, but the prevailing thoughts which drive those words are not. Although perhaps not resolved in the literary sense, the understanding of the Occupy is crystal clear.

Perhaps the most troubling of these thoughts is the realization that decades of voters with a "low interest" in running the democracy have delivered the shambles of that democracy to this low point.

Well, MeanMesa predicts that the "low interest" epoch has ended. The Occupy protests may be a little chaotic at the moment, but no one can characterize their participants as "low interest." That's over.

The next question is "What's to be done now?"

These first two months of the Occupation have been a "muscle flexing" period not dissimilar to the bare chested puffing just before a fist fight in the parking lot of a tavern. Occupy has shown both its energy and its durability. Now it's time for the fists to begin their work.

"Kissing the Girlfriend"


When the time comes, there's nothing left to do but kiss her. (photo source)

Occupy's "problem" exists at two tactical levels. Because the root of the problems which have incited Occupy to its present state reside in the Congress, and because Occupy, although it has already revealed its growing "muscle," remains determined not to be involved with obvious hypocrisy of that Congress (including the irrelevant democratic mythology of how to elect them, how to influence them, etc.), the next step is now defined.

The first level amounts to the Occupy's psychological journey from denial to acceptance. Occupy must move beyond its well founded distaste of the process and its results to a new place where dominion over that process and its results becomes the next destination. Dominion? We're talking votes.

The second level amounts to Occupy's problems with candidates. There are almost no current candidates for either the US House or the Senate which sincerely represent the ideals of the Occupy.

We can anticipate efforts by "not really that bad" candidates to attempt to exploit the Occupy in campaigns for the next election. However, "not really that bad" or "just a little better than the opposition" candidates won't cut the mustard. Occupy will either have to provide its own candidates or accept more the mindless mush we have now -- even on its best days, it remains mindless mush.

Occupy is not interested in "just a little, tiny bit more" democracy fighting its way through the corporate suffocation in the Congress. Occupy has in mind LOTS MORE democracy bubbling up to the surface in those decrepit halls. Further, Occupy is not going to be satisfied or even mildly placated by a gradual, "orderly" transition to this new promising state, either.

"Gradual and Orderly" will mean that the same anti-democratic miscreants who control everything now will end up still controlling everything then.

So, Occupy, get past your vomitous dislike of the prospect of being political as soon as possible. The answers to your complaints lie in exactly this arena. This doesn't mean "play ball." This means "take over."

And, "taking over" doesn't mean simply sifting through the old, worn out, gutless wonders who will automatically be appearing on the primary ballots. "Taking over" means putting your candidates on those ballots.

Then electing them.

Where are Occupy's New Candidates?

They are standing among the crowd at your general assemblies. Their names will emerge when someone asks your general assemblies if anyone has an idea for a candidate. The Patriots you seek are not that far away from where you are right now!

The countering voices will be heard right away.

They will say that you need millions of dollars to run a candidate. You don't. You have people power.

They will say that candidates have to come from somewhere in the existing system. They don't. Your opinion of the existing system is essentially -- and profoundly -- accurate.

They will say that candidates have to be "connected." Your candidates will be. Your candidates will be connected to you.

They will say that your candidates don't have enough experience. Experience at what? Being sincere, patriotic Americans? Or, experience at disguising skanky political money?

You get the idea.

Start thinking big.

Start looking for your candidates.

Start planning to elect them.

The 2012 election where all this will be settled is 12 months away.

Making Black Friday a Little Blacker

2011-11-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

Black Friday, An UnAmerican Tradition

A quick explanation from the friendly Wiki: (Read the article here. )

Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, many retailers open very early, often at 4 a.m., or earlier, and offer promotional sales to kick off the shopping season, similar to Boxing Day sales in many Commonwealth countries. Black Friday is not actually a holiday, but many employers give their employees the day off, increasing the number of potential shoppers.

It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005,although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate, have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.

The day's name originated in Philadelphia, where it originally was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. Use of the term started before 1966 and began to see broader use outside Philadelphia around 1975. Later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that "Black Friday" indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are "in the black."

So, having firmly dislodged the idea that the day's name arose from the famous Friday when the Black Plague began its scourge of Europe, exactly what, pray tell, could be "Un-American" about all the retailers in the country peddling enough Chinese imports to finally be "turning a profit?"

Of course, it's the "Chinese" part. The latest version of the Black Plague is an economic one. It is the scheme to curtail any gains in middle class income levels, prepare cheap "knock offs" of what had previously been American made goods and then sell all this stuff on credit to the jobless middle class public.

The facts of the scam are crystal clear. The junk can be produced at slave labor wages in China, designed to look remotely similar to the incredibly better quality domestic products it's replacing on store shelves and then sold for a few pennies less. The "shoppers" will be listening to some think tank denizen explaining the benefits of the "new global economy" while they drive home, deeper and deeper in debt.

What Can Be Done?

The answer proposed by MeanMesa in this posting is simple.

Buy Nothing.

At least, don't buy anything new. It's time for parents to have a bold, loving, heart-to-heart talk with the kids. Explain the Occupy Wall Street movement to them. More importantly, explain to them the importance of supporting the patriots in that cold weather place who are fighting for their futures as middle class teen agers, middle class students, middle class workers, middle class citizens and middle class adults.

Explain to them that this Christmas is going to be a little different from past Christmases. Explain to them that it's time to understand what is happening in the country and the part they can play in it. To kick things off, an American made American flag on the Christmas tree might be a good start.

Hold a Christmas Ornament Breaking Party. Take a close look at all the stuff your family has been hanging on the tree for the last few years. Does it really mean anything to you? Or, is it just another pound of baubles and other junk that rolled out of a slave labor factory in some unfortunate country overseas?

Ask yourselves and your family, "Is this stuff really something that we want to hang on our Christmas tree?"

If you can afford a green tree, junk the old plastic one (hmmm...why not take it to the thrift store?) and buy a live American tree, grown here and sold here by your neighbors. If the family finances won't bear a live tree, let your family's spirit decorate the one you have instead of just making another mindless trip to WalMart.

Do you buy your family's electricity from private, corporate supplier? Cut the number of lights in your decorations in half.

Kids hate clothes for Christmas anyway, so why not take them to the thrift store -- Chinese is okay if it's used. New presents are fine if they are made in the United States. If the kids ask why they didn't get something, simply tell them that it's not made here and some of your neighbors need jobs.

Delivering Santa's List? (photo source)

Turn off the television -- especially the commercials designed to sell even more junk to your kids -- and make decorations with crayons and poster board at the kitchen table while you're listening to Christmas carols on the stereo.

Explain to them that very bad people have tricked Mom and Dad into buying -- on credit -- all the junk the kids see on television. Explain that the money the family saves can be used just the way that Jesus said in Matthew.

This means give cash -- start a savings account at a credit union for the young ones. And, tell them why. For relatives, maybe the best present is a cashiers check to help pay for something special to eat or a dentist or medical bills or utility bills -- or rent.

It IS the thought that counts, and it's time that we started thinking.

MeanMesa Authorizes Citizens Arrest Warrant for 18 Mayors

2011-11-15T21:05:00.001-07:00

Citizens Arrest? Mayors?

Yes. Over the last weekend (November 10 - 15, 2011) the commercial media has presented visible evidence that mayors of 18 US cities have willfully and knowingly conspired with unknown parties to deny Occupy protesters the rights of citizens protected by the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution.

Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression.

Ratified 12/15/1791.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In case the "redress" part is puzzling anyone,

Redress
redress v. 1. To set right, remedy or rectify. 2. To make amends for. n. 1. Satisfaction for wrong done; reparation. 2. Correction.

Of course, there is little to be gained by actually detaining the criminal mayors. And, there are specific limitations on the act of making a citizens arrest. (Read the whole article here.)

The citizen’s arrest has an aura of mystique and urban legend. The phrase may conjure up images of cowboys in the Wild West taking the law into their own hands. In fact, most people today, lawyers included, don’t have the first clue about the law surrounding the citizen’s arrest.

The law of citizen’s arrest defines the enforcement of criminal law by citizens not acting in an official law enforcement capacity. The citizen’s arrest has always been a pragmatic necessity; law enforcement agents cannot be everywhere all the time and society relies on the aid of private citizens for crime prevention. The law of citizen’s arrest provides those individuals who take it upon themselves to issue a citizen’s arrest with protection from civil and criminal prosecution– but there are limitations to this protection.

In the United States, the law of citizen’s arrest varies, sometimes significantly, from state to state as it is governed by state law. While nearly all jurisdictions have adopted a statutory provision for the law, a few states (such as Florida and New Mexico) continue to rely on common law.

In all states, save North Carolina, a private citizen has the right to arrest someone who has committed a felony in his presence. In some states, the citizen only needs a reasonable belief that a felony has been committed to conduct a citizen’s arrest. Additionally, in some states, when the citizen witnesses a misdemeanor that constitutes a breach of the peace, he can also make an arrest.

A number of states have carved out additional scenarios in which a citizen’s arrest is allowable, including shoplifting, trespassing, and disorderly conduct.

Just as the circumstances under which a citizen’s arrest is permitted varies from state to state, so does the proper procedure for carrying out such an arrest. Generally, the arresting citizen must notify the suspect that he is being arrested and the reason for the arrest. The arresting citizen must also use only a reasonable amount of force to apprehend the suspect.

However, after watching credible visual evidence of this week end's police actions, executed on the direct orders of the mayors to violate Constitutional rights of peaceful, unarmed citizens exercising their lawful rights of assembly for the purpose of the redress of grievances, failure to take quick remedial action would be inexcusable.

Additional citizens arrests should be made on police officers who are complicit in the illegal acts of the mayors. Presumably, these officers, after being placed under citizens arrest, would be grateful for the intervention of citizens to prevent them from committing further Un-Constitutional, criminal acts.

Other Citizens Arrests

While we're at it, two more notable names emerge, also requiring citizens arrest.

Alleged Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Thomas were the dinner guests of the law firm representing the parties desiring to argue the Un-Constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Law before the Supreme Court. This event occurred on the night before the Supreme Court decided to hear the case.

Both should be placed under citizens arrest. The morning after these arrests, we will all notice that the air over the United States smells better, that is,

more Constitutional.

(image source)

What's YOUR future worth?

American Oligarchs and Their Policemen

2011-11-14T10:30:00.001-07:00

Take 6 Minutes for a Clear View of Our Future

Watch This Video

Decorated US Marine Sergeant, Shamar Thomas (image source)

http://rt.com/usa/news/us-sergeant-thomas-people-639/

Memo to Mayors, Police Chiefs and Policemen

in Occupied Cities

Watch the video. You may not have seen any of this if you habitually watch Fox News or even some of the corporate media. So, watch it. Now.

A quick check with YouTube at the time of this posting shows 2,700,000 viewers for this video.

MeanMesa would like to suggest a couple of things for your consideration.

First, there is an unmistakable, inner decency in the eyes of the policemen directly closest to Sergeant Thomas. You may consider this visage to be counter to the image you were hoping to create in the faces of the policemen you ordered to attack the Occupy protesters, but MeanMesa thinks that perhaps you should get used to it.

Why is this memo directed to you in the first place? In fact, who, exactly, is the "you" we're talking about here?

"You" are the folks in charge of responding to the Occupy protesters in your city. "You" are the ones who got the phone calls from the "very best quality, very most upstanding citizens," telling you to do something about the mess that the highly visible Occupy groups have made -- right out on the curb where everyone driving by can see them.

Of course the protesters have impacted your city's urban beauty and order. This is the goal of their action. Of course this impact has made some of the local folks cranky. Of course the "beauty and order" comments are a gas cloud of a far less provocative, far more genteel nature than the ideology involved.

It's time for "you" to accept the fact that some part of the population that elected you is isolated in the endless fear mongering of FOX News -- but not all of them. It's time for "you" to look at how much FOX News surrounds and isolates "you." It's time for "you" to take a look at how much FOX News has wormed its way into the decisions that you are making, especially decisions about the "right" way to handle the Occupy protests.

It's time for "you" to think about whether or not what "you've" been doing -- the orders "you've" been giving to the police -- are really a good idea given the reality of "your" local politics. It's time for "you" to size up just how much of "your" political career and political responsibilities "you" are ready to bet "your" job on what Sean Hannity is saying about "your" local constituents down there in the local Occupy.

"...they are skin head, Nazi psychos..." Sean Hannity on FOX.

There may be a time in the future when the votes cast by those "very best quality, very most upstanding citizens" who called "you" on the phone can overwhelm the votes cast by all the other people living in "your" city, but that time hasn't come yet.

That time is probably not coming before the next local election, either. Meanwhile, "you" should count on the Occupy bunch showing up like starving hedgehogs headed for the bramble berries in that next election, not to mention all of "your" constituents who are quietly nodding in agreement with the protests.

The radio knobs are slowly turning away from FOX. If "you" doubt that politically, review the nation-wide election results from the mid-term balloting this week.

Things Are Going To Get Worse For "You"

There's a "new sheriff" in town -- most likely, thousands of them. Worse, every one of them is going to vote in "your" next local election for mayor or police chief. Worse again, they are all going to be thinking about whether or not they want their mayor or their police chief to be acting this way, giving these orders.

Since "you" have adopted an essentially military policy to suppress the Occupy, a few military similarities are relevant. Rebels such as those in Aceh Bendi and Eastern Pakistan always wait for good spring weather before continuing. On the other hand, famous Russian generals such a Zhukov exploited winter's harshness to host their famous counter attacks in WWII.

With respect to the Occupy protesters, winter will be kind to "you." Spring, on the other hand, won't be. It's not surprising that "you" have decided that reactionary suppressions will be best conducted under the frigid cover of dwindling protest populations.

MeanMesa is sure that "you" are presently inebriated by the historical possibilities of simply "waiting them out." In a dream, all this will devolve to a toothless anecdote if "you" just "hold the thin blue line" for a few more months.

Now we can return to Sergeant Thomas.

By spring time 40,000 more "Sergeant Thomas" types will have returned from the Bush Oil War in Iraq to a jobless homecoming. An unusual "blending" is fated to occur by sheer proximity between the returning soldiers and marines and the Occupy folks. Sergeant Thomas will be on the front lines everywhere.

Worse, when the warm spring rains begin to fall, the millions of Americans without jobs, with evacuated pension and 401K accounts and with underwater mortgages will still be there, this time even more invigorated by the hubris of "your" local supporters and their anti-democracy, federal leadership.

The memory of "your" anti-Constitutional winter suppression at the hands of fully festooned riot police facing unarmed American civilians will still be fresh. Some of the Occupy "criminals" who were denied their right of free assembly will still be limping and wearing bandages from "your" violent, winter "restoring order festival."

Returning to the military similarities, all the world is, at the time of this post, waiting for the inevitable fractures among the murderers masquerading as "security forces" in Syria. "You" are likely to have this same problem. "You" and "your backers" haven't been treating policemen any better than anyone else through this winter of attacks on unions, reductions in benefits and, of course, the insults.

So, MeanMesa can offer the following advice to "you" mayors, police chiefs, and city councilmen with such a remarkable appetite for "order at any cost." Eat well. Get plenty of sleep. Think about looking for a job.

Spring is coming.

If Popandreou is Not Pericles, How About Berlusconi?

2011-11-09T14:03:00.001-07:00

It turns out that George Papandreou is not Pericles (image source)

Just a Little Recent Greek History

The beginning of the "Greek situation" came when bond holders invested in Greek bonds at a low risk and a modest interest profit. Because of dozens of fairly ridiculous mis-management problems, the Greek government was falling short of tax revenues and wanted to invest with more government spending in order to boost the local economy.

The "government spending" side was, in fact, one of the "dozens of forms of mis-management." The money got spent all right, but the beneficial economic effects didn't materialize as planned.

Here, we have to be just a little understanding about the mess. The Greek government employed a "notably patchy" policy of collecting taxes. Corruption cycles were so traditional that some of them probably saw their beginning during the ancient wars with Sparta. The modern Greek economy had become a festival of oligarchy and savage wealth inequality.

Only a fraction of the "investment money" raised by Greek bond sales ever got close to the task of actually growing the Greek economy. Having plenty of this "bond" cash at their disposal, the Greek Parliament found it too attractive to simply continue on a failed path of palliative measures with pensions, benefits, ineffective public project spending and the like.

Quality public management stepped aside. As long as an acceptable ratio of the bond money continued to filter to these wasteful targets the population remained calm and the social parasite class remained well fed. And, the bond holders got their interest.

The world had a full expectation of the Mediterranean, "easy going" habits of the Greeks long before this reached its current crisis point. No one particularly expected Greece to be a "hard hitting," "beady eyed," "tight fisted," "strong willed" example of close national management. Their record as tanned, calm and collected "enjoyers of life" in their beautiful country never promoted such nonsense.

The debt grew and grew. Just like in the United States. Although the spending was there, no new Parthenon appeared on the Acropolis. The money seemed to consistently vaporize while it was stored in the treasury with the doors locked. Every time the levels dropped, more bonds were sold.

Risk and Loss --

the Horror of the "Two Horsemen of the Acropolis"

Of course, there probably are, actually, "Four Horsemen" out there somewhere, but we'll focus on risk and loss because they are the central features of this post.

As far as the investors went, Greece was a bond buyer's paradise. All along the path to financial nobility, buying a few Greek bonds every once in while was roughly as safe as most other possible places to put one's money. European and Arab monied class folks associated a bit of class to the policy while under regulated European banks routinely added the bonds to the low risk side of their investment portfolios.

The interest was low but acceptable and so was the risk. Even though very little has been said about it, there was a ghostly innuendo that, somehow, if "push came to shove," the Greek government could and would guarantee the debts. Even now, the oligarchs have not chosen to share whether or not there was "anything in writing."

The Republican Global Economic Collapse of 2008 exposed just how much investment money had been frittered away by Greece's government, that is, revealed just "how much water had dripped from this leaky bucket" through the years.

"We just need to bail faster!" (image source)

If blame is to be attached to the Greek population, it is the same blame that can be attached to Americans. The fault, quite beyond the outrageous corruption of the governments and the oligarchs, can best be described as a dismal failure of general populations to take any noticeable interest in what was going forth in one's own government. Both we Americans and the Greeks could have done a much more convincing job of noticing "how much water was dripping from the corresponding national buckets."

The Keynesian "Chicken Comes Home to Roost"

Of course, sooner or later the predictable collapse occurred. Amid virtual flurries of the event's re-description as an "act of God" or a routine "economic cycle," Greece's bondholders, now firmly in charge of both the governments and the media outlets involved, decided that a carefully manipulated public opinion campaign could "modify" the bonds' risk -- after the fact -- from very low to none at all.

Well, the "very low to none at all" risk which looked good going in has entered the material world. (See cartoon) The Greece bond investments have been "hoisted on their own petard." All that's left is the possibility of more, new, "monetized" European bonds being issued as a "loan" to bail out the old bonds, except, this time, the low risk side of the investment has turned into a much higher risk, a fact not missed by the Eurozone taxpayers being asked to pony up the cash.

The first chapters of the same story are now unfolding in Italy.

The absence of a "new Parthenon," mentioned above, is also yet another "elephant in the European living room." Finding themselves in a far more sober moment of reflecting on precisely what all this debt has actually purchased for them, the Greeks -- like the Americans -- see essentially nothing. On a smaller scale, the Greeks are as confounded as the Americans in this respect.

Ancient Mysteries Repeated

The Vaporizing Prime Ministers of the Classical World

To wrap up this MeanMesa posting, we can note a remarkable similarity between the political demise of both the Greek and the Italian Prime Ministers in the midst of this chaos. Now that the long game of "bond selling" has reached its inevitable denouement, there are political prices to be paid.

That denouement is a ghastly cake with a cruel austerity as its icing -- foreign imposed austerity, the very least palatable flavor of all.

Knowing that their careers as Prime Ministers have ended, both George Papandreou of Greece and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy have little appetite for administering the social rebellion this new austerity will create in their streets. Each of them, no doubt responding to the last, frantic phone calls from their European bond holders, have agreed to depart on the condition that the bailouts -- and the resulting French and German austerity demands -- be accepted.

Less drastic but grotesquely similar, we see the House Republicans here in the US acting in roughly the same manner. Although they had campaigned on the prospect of creating jobs and garnering the resurrected energy such a success would have delivered to their failing image, they abandoned this potentially ideal solution in favor of the demands of our own country's bond holders with their bizarre spending cut frenzy.

The threat of a Greek referendum, asking Greek taxpayers to foot the immense debt bill of the failed public investments of Greek bond capital, was abhorrent to the bond holders. It would be the same as asking for a huge payment on an empty grocery cart, a distasteful reality best reserved for Papandreou's unfortunate successor.

Berlusconi saw the same plight a little further ahead in his own dwindling future. Without the constant influx of bond sales, he would be left alone to face the burden of actually running the Italian economy. Aside from the relentless fascism, a similar fear lurks deep below the scaley skins of American Republicans.

Stay tuned. These leaking ships have yet to ground themselves safely on the rocks.

Cleaning Up the Blood After Republican Spending Cuts

2011-10-18T12:25:00.000-06:00

One Child Every Seven Hours

To bring this home, we have to indulge in a dark little MeanMesa fantasy, play along.

You are two years old. Your single mother drinks a bit, but her boyfriend has a few other habits, too. He likes for the house to be quiet while he and your mother are spending some "together time."

Unfortunately, at two years old, you have not yet been able to quite understand this. You foolishly assume that your mother will come to help you when you cry. You're hungry, your diapers are wet and you're getting cold because the place is barely heated. In your two year old mind, these are exactly the sorts of things that mothers can solve.

You cry. You can't really talk much, or, for that matter, even walk particularly well. So, you cry.

However, instead of your mother, the boy friend comes barrelling out of the bedroom where you would usually sleep. You look up at him. He is huge.

Worse, he is mad.

He slaps you across the room. You land on your head. He is yelling something at you, but you can't understand him. You cry some more.

This time he picks you by your arm. It hurts all the way across your chest. You are terrified. You cry some more.

Now, he screams at you and slaps you again. This time, your whole head is on fire and your back hurts -- really, really bad. You cry some more.

You see a giant fist speeding toward your face.

Then you see nothing. At first, it's like falling asleep. Then it's over.

Statistics

This happens on an average of every five hours in the United States.

This happens on average 2,500 times each year. Reduced to "incidence per 100,000" children in the United States, the average is 3 time that of Canada, 4 times that of the United Kingdom and 11 times that of Italy.

Annually, the United States creates 4 times more corpses in this manner than two wars do.

Causes and Spending Cuts

The statistics folks have worked out most of the details about why this happens and how it can be prevented. The lists hold no surprises. The statistics are getting worse.

15 million -- 21% of US children live in poverty.

There are 2 million Americans in jail. There are 7 million Americans on parole or probation. Most are men. Some are fathers, some are boyfriends. Most are broke or nearly broke.

The United States accounts for the consumption of 94% of the illegal drugs sold in the world, not including alcohol.

The parents of between 1/4 and 1/3 of US children have no health insurance.

50%+ of the children born by women under 30 years of age enter single parent homes. The poverty rate in such homes is astronomical. 65% of them rely on government assistance of one type or another. About 1 million teen age girls get pregnant each year. About 15% have abortions. In New Mexico, 97 per 1,000 teen age girls will get pregnant each year.

Programs which locate and intervene in child abuse cases are effective. They could be better, but they have shown that they are effective just the way they are. In the current economic collapse, many state child protective intervention workers have 60 or more cases at any given time.

These safety nets are largely conducted as state business, not as uniform federal regulations. Many states have no problem sacrificing child safety for budget cuts and state rights.

The Point?

The Republicans are imposing all sorts of their weird religious agendas in programs exactly like this one, usually disguised as ways to cut spending.

American tax payers want their tax money spent to save children, not given to "job creators."

All Better Now - painting by S.L.B. Hanson (image source)

American Driver? Pay the Nice Man $600

2011-10-17T20:59:00.001-06:00

Really "Good" Government Allows Oil Speculators
to Cost Average Drivers $600/Year

Oh Dear. Isn't "Fascism" A Little Harsh?

Not really.

Oil Speculators Screw You First, Then Big Oil (image source)

Rather than get too drippy on the matter, let's have just a short reminder about what fascism is and how to spot it. For regular visitors to MeanMesa, we have covered this before. However, that's not a good reason to revisit the issue briefly.

The "old" kind of fascism was the result of mixing "national interests" with "corporate interests." The material result was seen in examples such as the industrial complex which grew up to support the Reich during WWII. In fact, the political structure was called "national socialism," or Nazism.

Translating this into modern American terms means that "national interests" have been configured to be replaced by "corporate interests" in return for corporate support for -- and interference in -- national political processes. Legitimate "national interests" have something to do with the interests of the people living in the country, and legitimate government means that protecting these general interests of the people remains a high priority in government policies.

Descending as quickly as possible from these academic hypotheticals, we need to introduce a particularly outrageous example of just what's being described here.

It has everything to do with "regulation."

The right wing mouth breathers actually find themselves cooperating in this MeanMesa explanation. They repeatedly argue that "deregulation" is an essential element of "job creation." Of course, their thinly disguised whining actually amounts to an implied threat to government policy makers. "If you don't eliminate some expensive regulations, we won't hire any employees."

This wouldn't amount to much except that the regulations these "capitalists" want to eliminate have been put in place under the priority of establishing policies which serve the people represented by the government. The "fascism angle" comes in when we consider the peculiar loyalties served by such priorities. In this case, "deregulation" means acting with a policy contrary to the benefit of the people and in favor of a policy which benefits, well, the fascists.

Part of government is usurped, that is, to be converted, usually by merit of lower expenses, into corporate profits. The interests of the corporation have trumped the interests of the people.

Enough theory.

Corporate Fascism and Buying Gasoline

Here we can begin with the idea that one feature of the social economy that our government is responsible for protecting -- for our own interests -- can be classed as "freedom of trade." The opposite of "freedom of trade" is "restraint of trade."

Restraint of trade means that, one way or another, the "free market, capitalistic" nature of something has been subverted in favor of profit. In this case, the "profit" is not resulting from normal "free market" activities, but, of course, instead, from the "restraint of trade."

Now, under a legitimate "free market" system, gasoline prices would amount to the cost of gasoline plus the profit required by the capitalists running the various businesses providing the gasoline for sale. Under ideal conditions, the "gasoline providing" businesses could be expected to be constantly seeking ways to lower the cost of the gasoline.

You know, "free market" stuff.

Likewise, the "gasoline providing businesses" would also be forced to compete with each other, maintaining prices at competitive levels so their products would be, well, competitive. The prospect of adding a few dollars to the price of a gallon of gasoline, thus greatly increasing the profit from its sale, would be attractive, but the competition would instantly ruin the plan by offering a lower price at the station just across the street.

Further, approaching the "free trade" idea as a responsibility of government, if a wealthy gangster were to suddenly appear on the market, purchase all of the gasoline before it could be transported to the gas stations and raise the price a few dollars per gallon, forcing all the gas stations to charge accordingly for their supply, the government would, theoretically, step in to express some legal discomfort with the resulting "restraint of trade."

This scheme would require enough cash on the part of the gangster to purchase all the gasoline as it emerged from the refineries, corner the market and accomplish all this to control the price. This necessary investment cash would, in a sense, simply be a part of doing business this way. However, if the gangster added a little more to this cost by including whatever it would take to "keep the government out" of the business, his scheme could just roll ahead, "roses, simply roses."

Of course, this would be a "monopoly," and we have very distinct laws against such "monopolies."

If we had no such laws against monopolies, we would have corporate fascism where the interests of the corporations would be able to trump the interests of the consumers.

Oil Speculators as Fascists

With the "monopoly idea" off the table, we should probably expect gasoline prices to be fairly rational, that is, routine products of the "free market, free trade" system. After all, monstrosities such as the pre-Sherman Antitrust Act Standard Oil were finally crushed in its earlier, oligarchic, corporate form decades ago for these very reasons.

http://www.newser.com/tag/32528/7/oil-prices.html

However, an important difference marks the comparative tale of then and now. Giant monopolies such as Standard actually owned the entire material components of everything required to utterly control a market, supply, prices -- everything. In the "now version" we find all this control skulking in the nearly invisible world of commodities traders, with respect to this posting, oil traders.

What it has in common with its historical precursors is its amazingly parasitical nature. We are discussing oil speculators, the modern form of the inflationary parasites. The reason we are discussing oil speculators has everything to do with a quiet CNN news story which surfaced today, October 14, 2011. Read the entire article here.

The headline is enough. CNN reports:

"Oil speculation seen adding $600 to your gas bill."

The reason such an outrage is possible, much less legal, is precisely because Congressmen and Senators made it both. If there are 100 million drivers paying this $600 "speculation increment" in their annual gasoline bills, the "total take" will be:

$600 X 100,000,000 = $60,000,000,000 ($60 Bn) per year.

It gets worse. The estimated population of oil speculators, even counting each individual in companies which do such a shady business, is between 200 and 500. The $60 Bn "take" is divided between, being generous, 500 well positioned individuals. The rough income being generated for these 500 individuals amounts to a little more than $100 Mn per year, for each one.

How in the world have these little banksters ever been able to convince the Congress to provide the body of law which made this legal? And, by the way, not only legal but also enjoying a top marginal tax rate of 15%?

Don't kid yourselves. They bought and paid for every letter in every law they needed and received. They still own the laws and lawmakers they need, today. They continue to "take home" this same amount of income, today. They still pay 15% income tax on all the dollars they can't off shore or hide some other way, today.

This is the kind of money that Republicans know is big enough to control the entire government, that is, at least big enough to subvert it nicely.

A "subverted" government which holds a higher loyalty to corporate traders than it does to the people it represents is a fascist government. When such a government is "paid" to sustain such a practice, it is a criminal government.

So, if you are still trying to "get over" this bit of news, spend a little time reviewing Texas Governor Perry's "job plan," announced today.

A Letter to Egypt In November

2011-10-14T11:11:00.000-06:00

A Few More Ideas From an Old American

A Revolution's Growing Pains

First, be constantly certain that everyday Americans are watching your progress. Quite aside from the diplomats and the other faces of America you may see, the people here in the towns, farms, villages and cities are fascinated with the news of Egypt's emergence. Whatever our government may be doing, our hearts are with you.

Notably, your present concern about the continuing role of the Egyptian military comes to the fore.

We all remember the comforting development of "turning over" the remnants of your old government to the military. In our US news media we were told repeatedly that the Egyptian military was respected and trusted by the citizens of its country. We were relieved and heartened when your military declined to impose the violent ambitions of the the old autocrat against the Egyptians during the revolution in the streets.

However, we also see -- now -- your growing suspicions about that same military as the days and weeks of Egypt's efforts to ascend into democracy unfold. This MeanMesa post focuses precisely on this matter.

End the Waiting

The tedious schedule of establishing a government, writing an Egyptian Constitution and transferring social control to civilians seems like a long one. At least, it seems like a long one when viewed from the comfort and security of our American living rooms.

From the most recent events in the streets of Cairo, it clearly seems that Egyptians see it as a suspiciously long one as well. The rate at which the Egyptian military is proceeding is not one which inspires great confidence about the final outcome of the revolution.

There's little argument that instituting all sorts of civil authority and capacity is a daunting task. Understandably, the Egyptian military continues to offer up this explanation as to why things must move so slowly.

When the scope of this undertaking is compared to the comfortably established social structures we see in the US, all the myriad of details and resolutions grows to an almost confounding size. Yet, one thread which runs through the heart of this task is not so complicated, that is, difficult, perhaps, but still remarkably straight forward.

Governance.

If indeed a "mis-step" has occurred, it arises from the subconsciousness inertia remaining after the old, authoritarian scheme of governance. Under that system, Egyptians grew accustomed to "waiting" for the responses of the autocracy. Granted, this "waiting" grew so onerous as to result in the Egyptian revolution, but the habit may have proved to be more durable than first expected.

Now, Egyptians have reverted to this old plan. Now, Egyptians are, once again, "waiting" for the advent of the government they were dreaming of when they risked life and limb in Tahrir Square in January. This latest "waiting" seems out of character for the brave Egyptian revolutionaries.

Interim Government - The Hazard and The Prize

What is proposed here is a rapid establishment of an interim, civilian government as quickly as possible -- certainly on a schedule far faster than what is currently proposed by the military. The first, formidable concession necessary for the idea is that whatever is created this way will be imperfect.

The course set out by the military is, at least ostensibly, a cautious one presented as a plan to retain the new civilian power accomplished in revolution. All sorts of precautions are included to produce a final result which guarantees the civilian nature of the future government. This is the promise which justifies the military's two or three year schedule.

Make no mistake. There is a lot which must be done.

However, there may be an equally important interim task. The Egyptian people should move at once to establish an interim civilian authority which can run concurrently with the military efforts. It is interim because it is temporary, and even the "authority" element can be equally transitive. Nonetheless, there must be a representative voice of the Egyptian people running along side the military effort.

Here, MeanMesa can offer the skeleton of a plan. Happily, it is a plan which will require no more "waiting" for the acquiescence of the Egyptian military for it to move forward. The basic elements of the plan are fairly simple.

First, divide the country's population into local council districts, each with a standard population, say something between 250,000 and 500,000 people. There will be the predictable inclinations to refine such groups into segregated interests, ethnic majorities and the like, but, for the time being, dispatch all these and allow simple geographic boundaries to govern the division lines.

The goal here will be to elect a standard sized council to speak for the district. Remember that we have spoken already about a voice beyond that of the military which can represent the people directly. A good size for such a council might be ten representatives or so.

Next, make a list of those who will vote in each of these districts, and make all the necessary preparations for elections. It is important to start having candidates who are willing to lead such district councils and having elections which will make their positions legitimate.

The authority of such councils will not be given over to them or granted to them by the military. In fact, there is little prospect that the Egyptian military will immediately begin to "follow" the directives of decisions coming from such councils, but what will be accomplished is the voice of electorates. This is what is missing at the moment.

This is the "next step" which is required to break the status quo.

Once in place, the councils can begin to do the job of representing the Egyptians under the beautiful democratic duress of being replaced in the next election. Local problems can be addressed, even if they can't be solved. Resources can be applied to local interests far more directly.

Perhaps even more important, candidates for the new Parliament will emerge. Ideas about the new Egyptian Constitution can begin to move from council to council. Egyptians will begin to grow accustomed to campaigning, serving and voting.

All these things are subject to improvement through practice and experience. It will be precisely this experience which will direct Egypt to its future. There is only so much that even the most determined and democratically inspired military officers can add to the mix. This is not their world.

The End of "Interim"

The coming months of the revolution will see many changes implemented. The origin and inspiration of these "institutional" changes will be deep in the military minds of the many of the same people who served in the late autocrat's oppression of the Egyptian people.

So far, this "arrangement of necessity" has not gone too badly at all. However, what lies directly ahead may be even more critical than what has gone on so far. The electricity of the revolution has calmed a bit, and those with the "old ambitions" have had a chance to quietly consider schemes to either return to that old system or to exploit the new one.

Every Egyptian who votes for a council must understand that the arrangement is temporary, but also, that it is vitally necessary. There is a growing vacuum. Citizens know what they don't want but may need to experiment a little to discover what they do want.

A new democracy is no place for the timid.

You have the highest hopes and the very best wishes for your future from MeanMesa.

Dumping ComCast

2011-10-11T11:53:00.000-06:00

ComCast, The Corporate Bottom Feeder (image source)

A Brief History of ComCast and MeanMesa

Years ago, ComCast was "invited" into MeanMesa Galactic Headquarters bundled as an internet provider and a Spartan, 30 channel cable television service. The monthly bill was around $40 for the internet and another $11 for the basic cable hook up. Because of the "geriatric situation" which dictated MeanMesa's personal tastes, this television arrangement was fine.

The "geriatric situation" amounted to an appetite to watch television instead of running around town in the dark of night which, predictably, increased with age.

The old tele could provide FOX, an on-line shopping extravaganza, all the alphabet networks (except MSNBC, of course) six channels of Spanish language melodramas and another half a dozen dirty shirt preachers from Kentucky asking daily for mail-in "faith blessings."

Those were the good old days.

Looking back through the 2010 ComCast billing history, we see a routine monthly billing reflecting this arrangement.

For example,
Apr 2, 2010 = $51.97
Aug 4, 2010 = $54.22

However, in the cold, dark days of December, 2010, a nice ComCast man knocked on my door. offering a "ComCast special" which, for an additional $29.95 per month would increase my cable service from the "basic" level of 30 channels to an "advanced package" of around 150. After immediately agreeing to this sudden and robust opportunity and "good fortune," the man installed a new box or two, and the old tele "blossumed" into a new state of service and access, one previously almost unimaginable.

Calculating the new monthly bill was simple enough. Starting with the $55 or so of the old bill and adding the cost of the new "advanced package" -- including New Mexico's 7% sales tax -- the new bill would be around $90 per month.

For example,
Jan 7, 2011 = $92.71

Importantly for this posting, the nice ComCast man explained which new channels would be included in the "advanced package," and, in fact, after installing the new boxes, carefully checked to make sure that these new offerings were, indeed, now on the tele. There were plenty of "ComCast advanced package dentritus," but there were also a nice collection of science, history, military and science fiction offerings.

The Letter

However, by June, 2011, ComCast was no longer interested in continuing our business relationship. Bluntly, the Texans in charge of sustaining ComCast profits took a decision to raise rates, more or less, on the "spur of the moment."

The particular mechanism of this "raising rates" process of theirs would begin with a letter to all ComCast subscribers. The content of this letter follows:

Naturally, MeanMesa called the number in the letter and asked about just what would be required to "keep" all the channels which had been "mistakenly" included in the "advanced package" installed by the nice ComCast man a few months earlier. Of course, the precise channels which had been "mistakenly" included all this time were exactly the ones which made the "advanced package" desirable in the first place.

The 24/7 colon cleansing channel, along with the endless infomercials for the soap scum removing bath brush, Pastor McGillicutty's Sin Fighting Pentecostals a relentless offering of cut "gem stones," senior golf and Amish wood stoves would emerge from ComCast's correction of the "mistake" uninjured.

Well, ComCast's remedy to this "mistake" turned out to be quite simple. For an additional $10 per month or so, everything would be returned to its previously satisfying state with no hurt feelings whatsoever. Still, spurred by a lingering suspicion that the whole affair amounted to little more than a cheaply disguised "bait and switch" scheme to raise prices just as ComCast was adopting yet another profit enhancing lunge before changing its name, MeanMesa called them back, telling them to just "shut it down."

There would be no blood money extracted by such a sleezy gambit.

ComCast's New Name

From this point forward, the favorite channels began to slowly disappear.

The Handsome Young Strangers

Although MeanMesa was succumbing to a growing grumpiness from having all these channels deleted, the old stubborn consumer was bearing the travails of the deprivation fairly well. After all, reception still included the local PBS channel along with Rachel Maddow each evening.

Then, one afternoon while returning from the nearby whole foods grocery with a few veggies for dinner, MeanMesa encountered two nicely dressed young men, resting by the postal boxes.

"What's brought you two to the apartment complex?"

"We're here selling DISH network services. Are you interested?"

Of course, in practically no time at all, MeanMesa had transferred the television cable to DISH, receiving in the bargain, lots of channels and a good reduction from the old ComCast price. The two salesmen said they would cancel the ComCast cable service and get a refund on the unused time. MeanMesa suspected at once that ComCast would be acting very much "out of character" to actually do something this ethical and reasonable.

That turned out to be the case -- no refund. Still, the change was well worth it. The sensation of leaving ComCast was similar to escaping from East Berlin.

The young DISH salesmen also said that they would replace the old ComCast internest service with Verizon, further reducing the price of the television computer bundle. This part of the offer has not yet materialized, but, with the prospect of dumping ComCast completely now on the table, it turns out that there are plenty of alternative computer servers.

The Last Roar of the Wounded Boar

The computer problem hasn't been resolved yet, but it will be. In the meantime, ComCast has sent their latest bill, no doubt still smarting from the loss of a customer. It is included here for an example reference. The monthly bill under the new ComCast brand image, Xfinity, has increased from $96 to $142. The new monthly cost of replacement services will be around $70.

Bye, Bye, ComCast. Oh, What a Relief It Is!

Republican Candidates Selling the Dream

2011-10-09T21:00:00.000-06:00

Fantastic Images of Economic Recovery

Go ahead, the first one's free.

Prosperity is, uh, "Just around the corner?" (image source)

With a large percentage of Americans now deeply wounded by the unregulated antics of the autocracy's eight year "looting festival," we can collect a troubling package of "unrealistic expectations" about recovery. Worse, these expectations are already presenting a non-economic reality which may prove even more damaging than what's been done to house prices and 401K accounts.

Although what is revealed in the shadow of that gloomy visitor doesn't have a specific dollar cost associated with it, the cost is still rising.

"Non-economic?" "Cost still rising?"

What are we talking about here?

Since it hit with its full force, the 2008 Great Republican Recession has exposed all sorts of dismal, unexpected things about the American economy. Further, this growing, modern understanding of it has not been simply an education about what it looks like in recession. Instead, Americans have been receiving daily doses of hard numbers reality about what this economy has been all along -- even before the Republican calamity of 2008.

At least, some Americans have been receiving these distasteful new understandings. Importantly for this post, far too many Americans have yet to even begin their education -- both about the recession and about what was transpiring before it.

The "gloomy visitor" mentioned above is neither particularly a new political reality nor an exclusively mechanical economic creature. It is the "collection agent" for an even greater deficit.

After six decades of utter failure, the horrible results of the US educational system have, finally, come home to roost. Even while they face the necessity of voting to rectify this mess, the vast majority of its American victims have no idea about what is actually going on in this latest, massive crisis.

Great Expectations

This conclusion would not amount to much without a bit of evidence to support it.

So, let's look at the evidence.

We see it most clearly in the expectations of those who are presently suffering through this. What do they expect in terms of economic recovery? Perhaps even more disturbing, why in the world are they expecting these things?

These expectations of theirs are derived primarily from an admittedly flimsy view of what has always happened in the past. Recessions are nothing new in a country determined to accept casino capitalism as a necessary part of our traditional system.

The "flimsy view" comes from years of public education which has provided neither the facts nor the logic to successfully interpret what we see before us. The "root" of these problematic expectations comes from the expectation that this recession will "work itself out" in roughly the same manner as the others we have experienced before.

To put it more provocatively, Americans both lack the education to make sense out of this and, worse, the interest to get that education, then make sense out of this. The first casualty of this inadequate analytical capacity is a realistic grasp of the scope of the damage and the gravity of its consequences.

Beginning with this conceptual deficit, the journey to all the false conclusions employed as foundations for ridiculous expectations is "all down hill."

Americans expect that their housing prices will "rebound" when the foreclosure surplus subsides. They expect that their retirement accounts will start to refill themselves once the market recovers. They think that their incomes will once again begin to rise if the just "stay the course." They think that their college educated children will get good jobs and live in a nice, traditional American prosperity.

Unquestionably the most dangerous by-product of such expectations arises in the political arena. Election decisions are, as we speak, being formulated on all this nonsense. Candidates are allowed to relentlessly promise this sort of imaginary recovery as if it amounted to nothing any more complicated than a "walk in the park."

Discerning the Past, the Imaginary Future

and the Real Future

At this point, MeanMesa could start plastering charts and graphs one after another, each time examining one of the various "hot dreams" listed above. However, selecting a salient example to carry the general idea is easy: unemployment.

For decades the US unemployment rate rumbled along at around 5%. In the public schools of the 1950's where MeanMesa learned about such things, 5% was considered "healthy," that is, at 5% folks who wanted jobs could find one and companies who wanted to hire people still had plenty of choices.

At 4%, the economy was getting "too hot," and at 6% the economy was in recession. Further, if unemployment did either of these two things, the economy would almost immediately begin to adjust itself back toward the magic 5% levels. Of course, the nation was, at this time, firmly under the control of a nice bunch of grey haired white men.

In fact, we can share a couple of charts from News Junkie Post dated November of 2009. (Read the entire article here.)

Job Growth and Decline under past administrations.

And,

Over all job creation by administrations of each party.

The information which drove both of these charts in 2009 came from the history of unemployment during recessions which the country had experienced up to that time. However, breathing this historic data into what's happening to us right now is a mistake -- a mistake which the GOPCon candidates are employing as their current "buggy whip" to keep the American Legion bar goers on fire against re-electing Obama.

Even after the "Pearl Harbor-9/11" bombing of the national economy in 2008, these drawling GOPCons still hope to rewrite the contents of the country's recent cultural memory to somehow fit into this latest "shoe box." Exactly what's missing in the minds of the educationally challenged GOPCon base is the information in the chart which follows.

Job Losses and Recoveries of Previous Recessions Compared to This One (data source)

(A MeanMesa Note: This chart was originally broadcast of PBS NewHour, Oct. 7, 2011 See video)

We see that President Obama, despite the obstructionist stranglehold of the House tea bags, has managed to "bend" the job loss numbers back to a positive slope. However, the repeated image coming from the reactionaries on the right suggests that, somehow, he should have already completely remedied the job loss

damage of the autocracy's insatiable and thoroughgoing mismanagement.

We can see a crystal clear image of the results of the House tea baggers efforts to "create jobs" by examining the right half of the current unemployment record. Even worse, the same reactionaries are touting daily that, in fact, they can solve this problem if we would only elect even more of them.

Yet, Republicans are not only running of their horrendous record of instigating the massive unemployment in 2007 (the left edge of the chart), but also on their "record" of job creation since they took over the House of Representatives in 2010. This would be bad enough, made nightmarishly real by the number of American voters willing to extend the carnage, but perhaps the most awful of all is found as an unanticipated consequence in the background of their insane scheme.

Setting Our Sight Squarely on Imagining the Imaginary

Adrift in a swamp devoid of fact, the GOPCons have sought out the imaginary rather than "dirtying their hands" with the real -- or even, the possibly real.

The vast majority of those hoodwinked into pulling the voting level over an "R" will believe that a return to 5% unemployment is "just around the corner." The best estimates of the case suggest that 2014 or 2016 are both still narcotically optimistic, and even then only after a breathtakingly provocative, non-traditional series of previously unheard of economic measures.

The point here is that the prospects of an imaginary, impossible unemployment recovery have been artificially -- and artfully -- incorporated into the Republican platform. As usual, the entire focus is on winning the election at any cost. They assume that the inevitable disaster afterwards can be handled by their media.

They can't govern, and they know it. They've already proved it to us, and now, they are sailing solely on their own denial.

In forty-five days toward the end of 2007 a Republican government sponsored the unregulated extraction of 20% of the entire accumulated wealth of this country since its beginning in the late 1790's. In 2008 the "demand side" of the economy collapsed because so much money had been removed and redistributed.

Job creation responds to demand.