Liam McGonagle
Bethlehem Battle: Clergymen Clash At Birthplace Of Jesus
For once the police are called to a Christmas brawl and none of my relatives are implicated. From Bernat Armangue at Huffington Post:
BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The annual cleaning of one of Christianity’s holiest churches deteriorated into a brawl between rival clergy Wednesday, as dozens of monks feuding over sacred space at the Church of the Nativity battled each other with brooms until police intervened.
The ancient church, built over the traditional site of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, is shared…
Pope Benedict Peace Message Calls For Wealth Redistribution
Wait a second — does this make Paul Ryan and Newt Gingrich a couple o’ them “Cafeteria Catholics”? From Francis X. Rocca at the Huffington Post:
VATICAN CITY (RNS)— Noting a “rising sense of frustration” at the worldwide economic recession, Pope Benedict XVI said that a more just and peaceful world requires “adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth.”
The pope’s words appeared in his message for the World Day of Peace 2012, released on Friday (Dec. 16) at the Vatican.
The message laments that “some currents of modern culture, built upon rationalist and individualist economic principles, have cut off the concept of justice from its transcendent roots, detaching it from charity and solidarity.”
Authentic education, Benedict writes, teaches the proper use of freedom with “respect for oneself and others, including those whose way of being and living differs greatly from one’s own.”
Worker-Owners of America, Unite!
Gar Alperovitz chimes in on the re-evolutionary convergence of capitalism and socialism into a hybrid paradigm in a recent article in the NY Times:
The Occupy Wall Street protests have come and mostly gone, and whether they continue to have an impact or not, they have brought an astounding fact to the public’s attention: a mere 1 percent of Americans own just under half of the country’s financial assets and other investments. America, it would seem, is less equitable than ever, thanks to our no-holds-barred capitalist system.
But at another level, something different has been quietly brewing in recent decades: more and more Americans are involved in co-ops, worker-owned companies and other alternatives to the traditional capitalist model. We may, in fact, be moving toward a hybrid system, something different from both traditional capitalism and socialism, without anyone even noticing.
Some 130 million Americans, for example, now participate in the ownership of co-op businesses…
Apocalypse Tao: Austerity Hits the Export Economies
Agence France-Presse, via MSN News, calls our attention to the typically under-stated way in which the 2nd trumpeter plays his solo*:
Large-scale strikes have hit China in recent weeks, as workers resentful about low salaries or lay-offs face off with employers juggling high costs and exports hit by lower demand from the debt-burdened West.
Politburo member Zhou Yongkang said authorities needed to improve their system of “social management”, including increasing “community-level” manpower.
“In the face of the negative impact of the market economy, we have not formed a complete system of social management,” Zhou said in a Friday speech to officials reported by the state Xinhua news agency at the weekend.
“It is urgent that we build a social management system with Chinese characteristics to match our socialist market economy.” China’s economy grew by 9.1 percent in the third quarter, down from 9.5 percent in the previous quarter. Manufacturing — a key engine of growth —…
The Gift That (We) Keep(s) on Giving: Through January 2013
“Demand a property tax on idle wealth. Demand it NOW.” —Liam McGonagle
“Seriously, do you expect a better opportunity to extract concessions from your enemies than when they lay begging, bleeding at your feet?” —Liam McGonagle
In case you were in the washroom when ‘Jersey Shore’ was interrupted with this late-breaking newstory: Ben Bernancke just committed the U.S. to provide the European Central Bank (”ECB”) with an unlimited line of credit.
That’s right, a brand new bailout. Structurally along the lines that Business Insider had warned us about in September, but much more ambitious; that article had postulated a trifling $1 trillion, not the bottomless pit we’re actually being presented with.
The basic deal is that we hand dollars over to the ECB in exchange for Euros, the value of which, has become highly dubious to say the least. The ECB will in turn invest those dollars in large corporate banks to bolster balance sheets they themselves…
The Wind that Shakes the Parley: Police Voice Concerns about Being Used to Stifle Legitimate Protest
This past week has tacked on more examples of politicians using law enforcement to stifle dissent among unsatisfied constituents. NY’s Mayor Bloomberg, for instance, was quoted referring to the NYPD as his “own army”. “But other facets of this story have been developing behind the scenes. Could Operation SHIELD and Ray Lewis raise the “wind that shakes the parley”? Chris Faraone writes in the Boston Phoenix:
As Occupy camps from coast to coast face evictions — and in many cases have already been pushed out of parks and plazas like so much human trash — it’s clear that the institutional response to the movement is escalating dangerously. Likewise, relations between police and activists seem to be deteriorating, as non-violent protesters continue to be arrested almost daily.
But as tensions build between Occupiers and Big Brother, what’s also true is that individual officers are increasingly concerned about their role in combating Occupy. Even in cities where the…
President Pardons Thanksgiving Turkey; Murders U.S. Citizen Without Trial
Talk about your empty gestures. For seriously now, Eli, how do you expect to retain your own credibility after tolerating shenannigans like this?
More heedless heresy, from the usual suspects at: Dystopia Diaries
Who Will Protect the Protectors?
“What bullsh*t, Liam. If your lot really thought they [i.e., the police] were part of the “99%”, you’d be doing something to protect them, too,” Sorcha Nic Congail
Well, it has to be admitted that my cousin Sorcha has a point. A powerful point. Not the sort of thing that I would have been inclined to explore on my own unbidden. But that’s what friends are for, I guess. To prod you along some paths you would never have even considered, left to your own devices.
Here’s where the hole ugly mess began:
Photo, allegedly of the dog Parrot moments before being shot to death by police.
I received a copy of this photo last weekend from an FB friend and as a dog lover was immediately horrified. As a kid I grew up with dogs — lots of dogs. Probably the best, most loving and loyal animals on earth. I’d long ago come to…
An Undifferentiated Mass of Human Dignity
Occupy: Social Supernova?
It’s an anti-capitalism thing. No, it’s an anti-war thing. No, it’s a civil rights thing. No, it’s a desert topping. No, it’s a floor wax.
Ever since the Occupy movement began garnering mainstream media attention there has been an energetic, maybe even desperate, debate to define the significance of thousands of people from all over the nation spontaneously gathering in America’s large urban centers, decrying the rapacious criminality of the establishment — all sans identifiable figureheads or fixed policy programs.
Yes, from the start it was clear that, in its broadest outlines at least, this thing was a passionate rebuke to parasitic Wall Street types. Whatever that may mean in actual practice, it’s definitely not a formulation consistent with laissez-faire economics a la the Koch brothers’ Tea Party. So not surprising that most right wing analyses approached the topic with a dismissive laziness. They’ve crafted fear into a formidable electoral weapon and are…
Poll: Is Tim Geithner A Fatal Liability for Obama?
The past few weeks have not been good ones for Tim Geithner, Obama’s Treasury Secretary. On Tuesday, Ron Suskind’s book, “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President”, came out detailing behavior that could be most generously interpreted as gross insubordination, if not an outright unconstitutional usurpation of executive power by an political appointee.
Nor did Geithner do himself any favors by openly proclaiming before European finance ministers: “He [Obama] ’s not in charge; I am”.
Has this rendered Geithner a political “toxic asset”? Should he be given his walking papers immediately? Should Geithner be let free when soldiers refusing to serve 2nd, 3rd or even 4th tours of duty in Afghanistan are jailed for years? In deciding a response, which is most important to you: enforcement of the United States constitution, Obama’s personal reputation, the Democratic Party’s electoral viability for 2012 or polemical use of the issue to further Republican partisan aims? …
Great News, Everybody: A New (Secret) Bailout!
The Parable of the Blind. Pieter Bruegel (1568)
In Business Insider, scuttlebutt that German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be softening up Obama, Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for yet another round of bailouts for the incompetent multinational financial elites.
Awesome! I was afraid that the next round of bailouts would require “patriots” like representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) to take to the floor begging again. I feel so relieved now, knowing that the whole thing can proceed quietly without anyone having to jeopardize their campaign funding.
But where do our other, prospective “leaders” stand on this topic? Hard to say. Irrelevance and opacity seem to be the primary tenets of the major candidates’ PR machines. Here’s what I mean.
Ron Paul’s heart may be in the right place regarding the need to end counterproductive wars and pointlessly intrusive social wedge issues, but his knack for failing to identify urgent priorities remains unequalled. Witness the most recent…
The One Big Reason You Should Not Celebrate 9/11
Are you the kind of sick pervert that celebrates the murder of 3,000 civilians? More than likely the answer is “yes”.
“Hold on a minute, A-h*le,” you may counter. “It’s not a ‘celebration’. It’s a ‘commemoration’. It’s one of the few things that can bring divided America together as a nation. Mourning a shared tragedy, a loss of innocence. Expressing gratitude for the selfless courage of the first responders. Building community.”
Ah, not so much. In reality, it is a masterful manipulation of the complementary moral and intellectual weaknesses of the both extreme wings of the American body politic, a satanic appeal to our vanity and invitation to the destruction of our democratic institutions. Stupid right wingers love the 9/11 narrative because it’s a simple authoritarian parable providing clearly delineated foreign villains and glorifying nativist military authorities. Spineless left wingers love it because they get to light all their coolest scented candles around…
Congressman Paul Ryan Hands Cold War Victory to the Ruskies
Well, there it is folks. Plain as day: Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap to Ruin” austerity program sh*tcanned the U.S. Spaceshuttle program and left us dependent upon the charity of ex-KGB chief Vladimir Putin.
No you wouldn’t hear much about that from the Fox News(tm) Politburo. Seems that we have to rely on our Aussie cousins to get the scoop.
It’s true. Now without an independent space program of our own, we’ll be at the tender mercies of the apparatchiks in Moscow to support our telecommunications satellite infrastructure.
Now I don’t have definitive proof yet that Paul Ryan is a sleeper agent for Uncle Vanya, but all signs point to yes. In debt ceiling talks this week his lot are trying to force American-born grandmothers to give up their cat food money in order to support the vodka habits of his Wall Street buddies like Frenchman “Fabulous” Fab Torre.
Do You Smell The Chum?
Well, this past Tuesday certainly was freaky. In case you hadn’t noticed it, a massive disturbance rippled through the Force with enough power to knock the shoes off of anyone paying attention. It’s unclear to me precisely what it all adds up to, but I suspect that the universe just passed through a Paradox Inflection. Just possibly the forces of Right Wing Corporatist Perversion have actually begun to turn on themselves. Here’s just three examples of what I mean:
1. Rupert Murdoch retreats on his big to monopolize Britain’s largest satellite service BSkyB. In the wake of the recent phone hacking scandal where person’s in the employee of Murdoch’s flagship publication News of the World was forced to close up shop for illegally eavesdropping on the survivors of terrorist attacks and bribing police officials. Many initial reports saw that as a savvy move to divert attention from Murdoch’s attempt to acquire…
Millions for Defense; Not One Cent for Tribute
Oh how the times have been a changin’ since Robert Goodloe Harper coined that gem in 1798. In the 21st century, apparently, patriotism means stealing hundreds of billions from the U.S. Treasury to bailout incompetent bankers, as “minute man” [1] Paul Ryan begged the House to do on September 29, 2008.
Okay, so as a nation we’re totally cool with recasting tribute to greasy financial fat cats as “investment” — even if it doesn’t exactly pay a huge return. [2]
But since “far left socialist” Barack Obama proposed cutting Social Security benefits during recent talks to increase the nation’s debt ceiling (to much Republican enthusiasm), making sure Granny gets her catfood money has also been redefined as “wanton profligacy”. Ah, sure, the ol’ gal only had another ten years left in her TOPS anyways, right?
America, you are a pack of perverts. [3]
Luntz and Counter-Luntz: The Word You’re Looking for Is “Dissent”
In recent weeks I’ve had number of interesting discussions with friends, Facebook and otherwise, about the bizarre shift towards totalitarianism in American politics. Of course, no political movement is possible without a corresponding cultural alignment, and the most lamentable trend in this regard seems to me to be the ascendancy of misanthropic polemical whores like Frank Luntz, who function more or less as the shock troops against the American tradition of anti-ideology, perverting our traditional inclinations into a cult of Mammon.[1]
Wisconsinites, whom I believe to be reasonably typical victims of Luntz et alia, demonstrate some pretty mixed reactions to the word “protest”, judging by some friends’ anecdotes surrounding pre-recall canvassing going on in this state. One friend’s story particularly resonated with me: a man who angrily turned a canvasser away from his door saying that he was tired of all that protesting going on in Madison, and thought the “Wisconsin 14″ had shown bad…
Happy Bloomsday, America!
Hand drawing of Bloom by Joyce
June 16th is the annual celebration of Leopold Bloom’s doomed wanderings through Dublin in 1904, as chronicled in James Joyce’s classic novel “Ulysses”. And in the 21st century, reality finally catches up with and overtakes fiction.
In 1921 a U.S. court banned Ulysses on the grounds that some of its graphic depictions of nudity and sexuality constituted pornography under the Postal Code. And while that decision was reversed in 1933 by a judge who could only have failed today’s more rigorous selection processes for illiteracy and cretinism, the private sector came to the rescue of public morals when Apple banned an online illustrated version from its iStore last year.
However, that victory had an even shorter half-life. A couple months later, presumably realizing that it would lose it’s investment completely if it maintained the ban, and that nobody would likely access anything remotely smacking of literary merit anyway, Apple decided…
Foghorn Leghorn Speaks On Matters in Wisconsin
Is it possible to channel a fictional character? Specifically, the Southern-gentrified blowhard from the Warner Bro.’s 1960’s “Foghorn Leghorn” franchise? Based upon experiments performed over the weekend, I can report a firm and conclusive “yes”. But the ritual requires copious volumes of an obscure Sri Lankan stout called “Lion“. And Mr. Legohorn seems to have quite a bit to say about Wisconsin people and places . . . .
“The behavior on display before us in this instance constitutes a perfect SCANDAL in the eyes of our sacred parliamentary traditions. This method of proceeding cannot call to mind words any loftier or more noble than “poltroon” and “knave”. I understand that the accepted standards of comportment may not be all they could in some of the darker corners of the great state of Wisconsin, but I see no reason to drag them into the sacred halls of our legislature.”
—Regarding the extraordinary violation of…
Washington Vs. Jefferson — Winner: Franklin By TKO
In the buildup to the 2012 elections, we can anticipate candidates attempting to appropriate inaccurate depictions of the legacies of the Founding Fathers. But when it comes to real history, pound for pound, and in any fight between Jefferson and Washington, I’d put my money on Ben Franklin.
In one recent article posted to disinfo.com, and the attendant readers’ comments particularly grabbed my imagination: “Dancing at the Memorial of a Slave Owner“, an examination of the events following the arrest of five persons for dancing near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Of course the real importance of the article bears upon the current state of civil rights and free speech in the United States, not on Mr. Jefferson’s personal stance on slavery. The impression the piece left with me was a reinforced sense of America as a declining cultural as well as economic and military power, clinging desperately onto past imagined…
Through the Eye of a Needle …
Via Dystopia Diaries:
Some unexpected good news here: A Wisconsin judge has ruled that the passage of Governor Scott Walker’s aggressive union-busting bill’s, engineered late in the night without the statutorially required 24 hours notice or the quorum necessary for a budget bill, is a violation of the state’s open meetings law. An injunction is now in place to prevent the bill’s enforcement.
You may recall the raucuous buildup to the April 5th Wisconsin Supreme Court election which was widely seen as a referendum on that un-precedented (and now apparently un-lawful) powergrab, an Orwellian abuse of rhetoric and procedure whose only certain purpose was to destroy any group to politcally organize outside the orbit of his Koch brothers patrons. David Prosser, the Republican incumbent was and still is regarded as strongly in favour of Walker’s dubious scheme, whereas his opponent, Madison-based JoAnne Kloppenberg ran on the ticket of the Democratic party who not unnaturally opposed it.
But if the buildup was a barn-burner, the prolonged…
