Chrysler Goes Broke

Not that long ago, it was unimaginable to most Americans that Chrystler would go under, never mind GM, which only hasn’t filed for bankruptcy yet. My family gave up on American cars in the mid-70’s, and except for trucks, I’ve gone overseas for cars. Here’s an interesting exercise; cars I’ve bought in my life.
9 Saabs, 2 Porsches, 2 Suburbans, 1 Ford F-150, 2 VW’s, 2 Toyotas, 1 Mazda and 1 Audi.

The loss of jobs by the thousands of autoworkers is a microcosm of the contraction we are all going to see. American society is currently living an unsustainable lifestyle, and the rest of the world wants it too. That’s not going to happen, but the disconnect will be an ugly thing. Every generation of Americans has expected to live a better life than their parents, but it’s unlikely that the current set of kids will see that happen. How will we handle extreme hardship is the question for our time. Nobody is talking about it. The economic collapse caught them by surprise. This is looming, but undiscussed.

With 25% unemployment, and oil at $300 a barrel, many things will have to change. We’ll be more focused on food production than we’ve been in decades. Our current agribusinesses are much too dependent on fossil fuels to keep cranking out cheap processed foods. I can’t say I’ll miss the parking lots torn up for agriculture.

Well Written Look at America Soon

Somewhat long, but THIS is a really interesting look at a posteconomicapocalyptic vision of the future. Tomorrow will be nothing like yesterday

Getting Rid of the RINOs

It’s really just too damn easy to shoot down those silly Republican, but as long as writing continues to be therapeutic, I’ll just have to keep it up. The latest rant on talk radio is all about “good riddance” to Arlen Spector (R>D:PA) and any other “RINOs” that want to leave. They have somehow come to believe that the reason they got voted out in droves is that they weren’t conservative enough. I’m not making this up!

After 8 years of GWB and his wasted trillions on Iraq and bankers, they get their panties in a knot about $800+billion that at least goes to America and Americans. You have to love the logical gymnastics that goes like this.

Criticism of Bush is “blame America first”.
Bush ran the government.
Government is bad.
Criticism of government is good.
Repeat as needed.

Sheesh.

As has been pointed out, it is difficult to compare the outcome of a fair and (small d) democratic election with tyranny. Define tyranny: a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator, not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition, etc. Has anyone put forward an argument that somehow the Democrats are ruling outside the constitution? I remember voting last fall, and there was a full-throated opposition.

Again, it’s not the hate, it’s the stupidity. Like trying to tie Al Qaeda with Fascism, which is a real hoot if you look up the definition of Fascism.

Basically the minority party expects the Dems to do what they want, thus making America long for the warm, comforting embrace of George W. Bush and Darth Vader. People can be scared, and they can be lied to. One thing is for certain. Great Depression II is going to be no place to oppose single payer (government paid) health care, a better social safety net and tax cuts for the rich. The “raising taxes” bogeyman is such a load of crap. If my taxes went up $17,000 a year, I would still be saving money on health care.

Try telling the coming generation that you’re in favor of crushing student loan debt, health care denial by insurance companies, bailouts for bankers, no help for home owners and a bankruptcy law that looks a lot like debtors prison and let me know how that works for you.

Republicans and Torture

So now, the right wing has their panties in a bunch over release of the now infamous “torture memos”. I’ve heard everything from how damaging this is to our security, demotivating for the CIA and a gift to terrorists everywhere. This from the same assclowns who preach that the ends don’t justify the means. Unless we’re scared. And man, they can spread fear like nobody’s business.

So here we have another example that shows the Christian/Right WingTM coalition is all about what the wealthy guys want rather than what their namesake (JC) would have to say about it. JC was severly tortured before being killed. I can infer two things from that; one, he’s not real keen on capital punishment, and two, he’s not a big fan of torture, having been a victim of each.

It’s disturbing that the issue has come down to whether it worked, rather than is it legal, moral, ethical or something we wouldn’t mind having done to our troops. America’s moral sense of goodness has been pretty trashed by the last eight years. Taking torture off the table would be a good start to shining it up a little.

Sean Hannity Defines Assclown

So I’m driving around Metropolis, Illinois (home of Superman. Really.) and I’m bored so I give the AM dial a spin. Who pops up but Sean “I am SO an assclown” Hannity spewing his usual nonsense, bile and lies, when he comes up with this winning question to ask each of his knuckle dragging guests, “How many Americans will die because of Obama’s actions this week?” Huh? Exactly what actions is he speaking off? The release of the torture memos from the CIA.

Right. We admit in writing to what everyone in the world already knows and that amounts to dooming Americans to death. Gotcha. What‘s it like living in bizarro world? Here’s a document very similar to the “torture memos” from a different era, but one that has echoes of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft:

Confidential!
To: Chief Public Prosecutor in Düsseldorf .
Subject: Mistreatment of Political Prisoners
Meeting at the Reich Ministry of Justice on June 4, 1937
It has been recognized by government leaders at the highest levels that more rigorous interrogations are necessary and indispensable. In such cases, it would be nonsensical to prosecute the officers carrying out the interrogation for exceeding their authority. However, public prosecutors must carry out the letter of the law and have no possibility of choosing to prosecute or not as they may judge fit ... At present, we thus have a situation which cannot continue: a deficient sense of what is right on the part of judicial officers; an undignified position for police officers, who try to help matters by foolish denials [that torture has taken place in court proceedings]. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the possibility of relevant limits. There followed a discussion of individual questions:
Question 1: For which offenses are more rigorous interrogations permissible?
There was general agreement that, in principle) interrogations of this kind may be undertaken in cases where charges involve the immediate interests of the state. ... chiefly treason and high treason. Representatives of the Gestapo expressed the opinion that a more rigorous interrogation could also be considered in cases of Jehovah's Witnesses, explosives, and sabotage. ... It was unanimously agreed that charges under paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code [that is, charges of homosexuality] should not be considered as grounds. A more rigorous interrogation is, as a general principle, never permissible in the case of foreigners. ...
Question 2: Nature of corporal punishment?
As a general principle, in more rigorous interrogations only blows with a club on the buttocks are permissible, up to 25 such blows. The number is to be determined in advance by the Gestapo (see Question 3). Beginning with the tenth blow, a physician must be present. A standard club will be designated, to eliminate all irregularities.
Question 3: Who may order a more rigorous interrogation?
As a general principle, only Gestapo Headquarters in Berlin. Local state police stations must obtain permission in advance from Berlin. Without permission a more rigorous interrogation may not be conducted.
...

Question 5: What assurance exists that innocent persons will not be interrogated with the more rigorous measures?
This question is answered by the measures named under Question 3.


Question 6: How are judicial officers to deal technically with cases:
(a) in which permissible corporal punishment has been inflicted under the terms stated above? If an office of public prosecution receives a complaint, it contacts the state police and confirms that permission was granted (by the Gestapo Berlin). If said permission is shown to have been given, no charges are pressed, and a formal announcement should be made: "Investigation has shown that a criminal act was not committed."
(b) in which corporal punishment has been inflicted that is not permissible under the terms stated above?
If it transpires that permission was not obtained, commence investigation immediately and report at once to the Central Office of Public Prosecutions [in Berlin]. ...
The Gestapo will receive a copy of [this memo] from the Ministry [of Justice], whereupon it is to act on them immediately ... and issue instructions to state police stations. The Ministry of Justice will for its part then issue instructions to public prosecutors.

Nice company to be hanging with, guys.

Alcohol and the Church

Maybe it’s different from when I was coming up, but one of the key features in the lifestyle of Evangelicals was abstaining from alcohol. I remember the little plastic shot glasses of Welch’s grape juice and cubes of Wonder Bread for Communion. Even at that age, I couldn’t figure out why none of the people in the church drank beer, but all the neighbors did.

If drinking was so bad, why did JC actually produce the stuff miraculously? Once again, the disconnect from these people’s practices and the alleged source of them could hardly be farther apart.

American Evangelicals and the Poor

One of the most repeated concepts in all four gospels is that JC wants his followers to help the poor. Most of his admonitions were about helping the poor. Damn near the only thing He said that all four gospels agree on is, “If you want to be perfect, give all that you have to the poor and follow me.”

Okay, so the real important items that most Evangelical assclowns follow is to have a HUGE megachurch building, fight homosexual rights, protest abortion, fight for lower taxes and get rid of welfare. Why the fuck would an eternal, all-powerful God need a new house? I’m pretty sure a guy like that would be protected from the weather by other means. I go kind of apeshit seeing a HUGE church in an area that has homeless people. Any allegedly Christian church that has a building (used a few hours a week MAX) that doesn’t also run a food kitchen and a homeless shelter is a complete fraud. That would be most of them, of course.

So, anyway, these are the sheep that have been co-opted by a rapacious Right WingTM and basically are doing damned near zero that their deity asked for, just following the will of the Republican task masters. What the hell is wrong with American Christians?

More Fun with Christians

Okay, there are a lot of things Christian in the US rant and froth about that the Big Guy never mentioned. We’ve covered abortion and gay marriage in that context. But the Republicans did such a great conflation and confusion of Republican virtues and biblical ones that most US Evangelicals oppose paying taxes, even though the Big Man said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” in direct response to question about whether taxes should be paid.

Basically, Christian tax resisters and tax cutters are working in direct opposition to what their own god said in their own holy book. But the Republicans have such a tight grip on them that they disavow their own god’s words in order to reduce taxes on the wealthy, who, incidentally, are also condemned by the same god.

Once again, the younger ones seem to not be as rabid for the most part, but honestly, taking apart this religion is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Opposed to Gay Marriage?

If you haven’t seen the video making the rounds, it’s a hoot, if unintentionally. Another set of Evangelical activists have put on a scary ad about how much gay marriage is harming the nation and every American. It uses the usual fatuous nonsense about the “biblical” ideal of a family. Biblical? Have the read that book they keep thumping?

Here are a few snippets from the good book:

Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words.

so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.

Give me my wives and children, for whom I have served you, and I will be on my way.

Then Jacob put his children and his wives on camels,

Esau took his wives from the women of Canaan:

the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.


And that’s just a quick glance through Genesis, never mind the rest! So we have one verse among ceremonial laws that can be read as opposing homosexuality, there are countless stories of men with multiple wives. David was alleged to have seven hundred!

Now would somebody please with a straight face tell me where Christians get cover for their anti-gay phobia from the Bible? A couple of centuries back, they used it to deny women their rights, not to mention slavery. The entire Southern Baptist Church, the largest protestant denomination was created for the sole purpose of keeping out them darkies!

The good news, as with most good news involving the scary right-wingers, is that they are fewer with every passing election cycle. They are a group based on old, white, southern, angry men. And they’re dying off.

Good riddance.

PS Apparently the same idiots who brought you "teabagging" without googling it first have now given us "2 million for marriage" which they choose to hiply call 2M4M. Ever read a personal ad section and seen M4M?

Priceless.

This I Believe

I’m listening to This American Life on NPR (of course) and the topic is, “This I used to believe”. This leads me to need to repeat a rant that I’ve given live many, many times.

I’ve offered this up to dozens, possibly hundreds of Christians, and I’ve gotten no answer more satisfying than, “I never thought about it that way.” American Christians seem to have issues that drive them nuts. They loathe the idea of abortion. This is pretty consistently held across most Evangelical groups and exploited by Republicans. Abortion is murder. Period. Always wrong, never acceptable, forbidden by God, Jesus and Mary.

Nobody is pro-abortion. Abortion is required as a correction of a mistake. If no mistakes were ever made, no abortions would be needed. But humans are flawed and always have been. The word “prostitute” occurs hundreds of times in the bible. You have to assume prostitutes frequently became pregnant, and it’s also safe to assume that pregnant prostitutes get very little business. Given no contraception at the time that we know of, they must have practiced abortion, whether by some mix of herbs or falling down a staircase.

And yet, the issue of the evil of abortion, so important to many Christians that it is their single issue in all political choices is never, not once, called out in the bible as a problem. Why is that? Jesus hung with hos and never called them on it. Not once. Never. What is wrong with these people? Shouldn’t your most important political issue be at least mentioned in your holy book?

Right Wing and Hating America

If you want to get depressed about the level of political discourse in the country these days, just pop on over to the delightful Hannity forums, and read a few. The moderator (the MODERATOR mind you) of the site opens a thread called. “Is it time to shut it down?” The idea is that democrats in general and President Obama in particular have so thoroughly ruined America that we need to shut down all businesses in the US until we can remove all of the duly elected Democrats are replace them with real Americans.

Bad enough for the moderator to open it, but the 750 posts in the next 24 hours contain outright threats on the life of the President, a call to armed insurrection and much talk of violence. As Jon Stewart put it so well, “You’re confusing tyranny with losing.”

These people somehow can’t manage to see that they lost an election, actually quite a few, and when your party loses, you can’t just called for a revolution and claim to believe in democracy. It just doesn’t make sense. One of the unintended funny comments echoed GWB’s preemptive war strategy, “We have to take out Obama for what he might do in the future!” Here’s another actual quote, “Obama is the greatest threat to this nation that it has ever faced.” Really? Not Hitler? Tojo? The Civil War? (These are the type of assclowns who call it, “The War of Northern Aggression”.)

Huh? No wonder these guys lost.

The Republican Party is in real danger of falling off a cliff, and as it’s aging, dwindling membership loses moderates and independents, the remaining folk become more and more toxic, and more and more marginalized which will make them madder and madder. This can’t end particularly well. And their own little media circus of Sean and Rush and Ann and Michelle Glen and all their lesser wannabees are fanning the flames of this desire to harm, hurt or destroy those who’s opinions vary from theirs.

A two party system is probably a healthy thing, so the disappearance of the Republican Party would likely be an ugly thing. Personally, I’d like to see a parliamentary system, which coalitions and a Prime Minister, but that would require a constitutional conference, and THAT would be really, really hard to pull off in the current atmosphere. Imagine not having to pick the lesser if two evils, and actually join a Socialist or Nihilist or Populist or Libertarian or Agrarian or Green or Muslim or Christian party? Works for me.

American History

Sorry to not write today, but is the funniest damn thing I've seen in forever, especially in light of the recent teabagging absurdity.

(Sorry but blogspot decided to mess with my head and the tags won't work.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLzo9pOXa-s&feature=player_embedded

Really Red State Territory

We’re here in Barkers Crossing, Georgia, which means I tend to shut my mouth and open my tailgate. From the graphic above, you can see that I appear vaguely partisan to the passing driver and have gotten some dumb shit yelled at me over the years, but at least there are a few advantages to being most of two meters tall and a hundred kilograms. Somehow, they never actually take a swing. Go figure. Anyway, with the tailgate down, it’s a lot quieter and more peaceful which the dear wife appreciates.

I’ve been reading the follow-ups to the whole Tax Day Grass Roots (Really Not Funded By The Usual Republican Billionaires) Tea Bag Day Event, and it strikes me what a bunch of ignorant angry idiots there are in our fine country who can be so easily swayed.

My current favorite is Right WingTM outrage over DHS reporting (ordered by the GWB administration) that extremist groups might target veterans for membership and recruiting to carry out terrorist acts (anyone remember Tim McVeigh?) Without pausing for breath, they go on to call for the violent overthrow of the US Government in a revolution. Do these people have any inner monologue? Hello? Is this thing on?

Honestly, the fact that these idiots got their candidates elected and reelected in the last decade makes me wonder what a great idea democracy really is. Democracy if we win, revolution if we lose. Sounds sane to me. NOT.

Republicans Losing It

You know, you just can’t make this stuff up. The whole “tea party” thing is pretty funny, but the best part is how they make themselves look increasingly lost to the young. They are promoting these things on Fox News, and Hannity, Limbaugh, et al are talking up teabagging as the great new Republican stand for the common man. Teabagging will be just the trick to reach out and grow the base!

One small problem. Before betting the house on it, you think one of these geniuses would google it. Apparently, anyone under 30 is fully aware that “teabagging” refers to scrotal/facial contact, often while the facial contributor is passed out or asleep and the scrotal contributor has a camera. There’s also a large gay fan club of the practice, which is just icing on the, er, nutbag.

C’mon Republicans! Let’s go teabagging!!

Next, this great piece in the WashPo has determined that Rush Limbaugh is the leading cause of the growth of socialism and socialist thought, especially among America’s youth.

I love it. Twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, “socialism” just isn’t the boogey man it once was. It’s more like, “European style socialism!” leads to kids looking it up on line and finding that in “European style socialism” education and health care are damn near free, life expectancies exceed our and they get 6 weeks of vacation to start. Where do I sign up?

Anyone under 40 today knows that communists are either crazy North Koreans, bullied people in Cuba or the people who make all the stuff we buy at Wal-Mart. They are likely much more pissed about some 27 year old on Wall Street making more in a year than their entire extended family will in their lifetime, after a taxpayer funded bailout. Now THAT’S where the populist rage is pointed, and the Republicans are having a hard time keeping a straight face talking to anyone but bankers and the mega wealthy.

WHEN WILL THIS DEPRESSION END?

(With thanks to Jal S. Desai)
Please tell me good friend,
When will this depression end?
When will the homeless have a roof over their head?
When will the starving have money to buy bread?
When will you stop being part of a mob
Desperately looking for a job?
When will the good times return?
When will people have money to burn?
When will all this misery end?
I'll tell you, good friend.
When compassion fills the human heart,
Then this depression will depart!
Things will change at the hour
The rich think of helping the poor.
When the wealthy think it proper
To share their wealth with the pauper.
Everything will become all righty
When we all live in an egalitarian society!

Day Three on the Road with Harvey

Well, there were fewer open restaurants in the Keys this winter, a good five within a half mile of my house. Tourist oriented businesses have a low life expectancy, so it’s not a huge surprise. But driving into Kissimmee, Florida today, neighbor to Orlando, holy crap! So many shuttered and “for sale” posted businesses, and not just the Mom and Pop variety. Today we saw a shuttered Shell station, also Waffle House, McDonald’s, KFC, Sears and a load of closed motels and restaurants.

I’d been waiting to see what the economics would look like on Main Street, so the next six weeks travel through small town America should be instructional. I’ll try to post daily.