It's Not the 1% Especially, It's the 0.1% & Mish Says: Perfect Storm the Most Likely Scenario; Is Europe Set to Declare a Chapter 11 in Early 2012?

Panic is spreading says Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank. Steen eyes the perfect storm including a potential "Chapter 11" call for European banks.

Via Email:

This morning there is too much bad news.

US Super Committee failed to find the 1.2 trillion US Dollar needed to stop the automatic spending cuts being initiated from 2012, but the more acute problem being the expiration of the payroll tax and the emergency benefits by year-end 2011. It now looks less likely a deal can be struck as Congress now have even less incentive to find common ground ahead of next year US election.

The immediate impact could be a full one percent slower growth in the US – Goldman Sachs provided this excellent graph detailing the potential negative impact: The number could be -2.0% to -0.5% in first two quarter of 2012 – again underlining our believe in an economic perfect storm as the most likely scenario:

Effect of Federal, State, and Local Fiscal Policy

The debt crisis is taking a new negative turn – as seen in prior liquidity crisis’ the EMG Europe bloc comes under attack and this morning there are two extreme worrisome news pieces out:

Hungary seeks Aid from EU, IMF: Hungary have submitted formal request to the EU and IMF for help. Hungary feels this is needed to secure risk-free growth for the economy – talks should be concluded in early 2012.

Austrian banks told to limit lending to the east: Basically, they need and want to protect their AAA and they seems to believe, rather naively, that the best way is to cut lending to the their EEC bloc lending. Again the credit-cake is getting smaller.

Finally, another core country Belgium may lose its caretaker PM – Belgium been without elected government since June 2010! – the political landscape in Europe getting slightly concerning:

• Greece – Technocrat – non-elected Government – Opposition still refuses to sign EU letter.
• Italy – Technocrat- non-elected
• Spain – new majority government, but on the basis of big no to austerity from prior government, not exactly vote of confidence to fiscal restraint.
• France- Election next year – Marine Le Pen could surprise in the polls, as the French election is two rounds. She is making heavy anti-EU noises and starting to raise her campaign
• Belgium – Belgian chief government negotiator asks to quit.

Keep an eye on Belgium rates today – they have risen from 3.6% in early October to now close to the magic 5.00 which spells trouble, with capital T…

Conclusion

Market bounced of the 1180-00 target for now, but a test still looks like on the down-side as 2012 more and more looks like one big perfect storm both politically and economically. This is not the time to be brave. This week will see dramatic revisions to US growth based on Super Committee failure, and same for Europe as PMI will show lacking confidence. This is now full blown “confidence crisis” – there is increasingly a need for my call for "Chapter 11" for Europe.

Safe travels,

Steen Jakobsen | Chief Economist

Chapter 11 in early 2012?

On his blog, Steen asks Is Europe set to declare a Chapter 11 in early 2012?

Europe may need to pull a Chapter 11 – a US-style bankruptcy, which would permit a market shutdown and Euro Zone reorganization before reopening for business.

The EU desperately needs a break from market pressures in order to allow the political apparatus to really gather its forces and finally move Europe and its debt crisis ahead of the curve. Here we are just a couple of weeks after the feeble attempt to apply an EFSF plaster on the problem and we’re already back to Square One: the EU debt crisis has reached the point at which none of the readily available tools or institutions are sufficient to match the magnitude of the crisis. This dictates the need for an out-of-the-box solution.

EU policy makers played the extend and pretend game for as long as they could - but now the writing is on the wall: popular outrage is on the rise and putting increasing pressure on the political process - as we are seeing increased demonstrations and grass-root activity taking over both the political agenda and the media. And markets are now balking as empty promises and now a real lack of funds are seeing bond yields beginning to spike out of control. The self-reinforcing cycle of downgrades and austerity and recession are taking us to the very brink of a full scale Crisis 2.0.

It’s important to point out that politicians will only do something drastic in a true state of emergency, so one catalyst we’ve yet to see to prompt action is a serious drop in the stock market.

The extend-and-pretend policies that have continued through 16 EU Summits have only led us to a Catch-22 in which everything that is done with good intentions (or not) is to the detriment of something else.

So what form might a Chapter 11 for the Euro Zone take? It is increasingly likely that some kind of total “bank holiday” is enforced to put a stop to market pressures – and then to reinforce and relaunch a stricter EU Growth and Stability Pact as a price for cranking up the ECB printing presses to full speed.

Before accusing me of lunacy on my idea of a market holiday, it’s important to point out that banking holidays are not without precedent. In 1933, President Roosevelt declared a bank holiday that ran for an entire week in March of 1933, during which he passed the Emergency Banking Act and the Federal Reserve moved to supply currency to banks.

After 9/11 we also had a “forced” bank holiday. The banking panic of 1907 saw massive illiquidity and bank closings as can be seen in this excellent link. The main point for 1907 however remains: The biggest and most solvent banks survived, the small ones failed – 73 banks failed but it created a rebirth which catapulted the stock market higher.

Germany and Northern Europe understand that printing money at the ECB will not solve anything, as it would only throw more debt on an already back-breaking load. But if this bloc countries wants to buy time to implement stronger constitutional changes, the most path is a quid-pro-quo solution in which Germany gets a stronger Growth and Stability Pact implemented, not only into EU law, but also ratified as part of a new standard for restrictive fiscal policies with built-in debt breaks for all individual countries. Germany gets it “discipline leads to growth” for the long term, while the Keynesians get their “liquidity fix” from the ECB.

In short, the main issues are the following (in no particular order of prioritization):

• Time is up – the market needs solutions, not plans for plans. The timeline for Political Europe is way too slow for market comfort.

• Interbank funding is starting to freeze over. Every day sees risk factors pointing higher and a systemic liquidity crisis could develop at any time.

• Financing gap. EFSF has 440 EUR 440 billion (though it has never been funded). Some estimate that Italy and Spain need EUR 400-500 billion per year to refinance and recapitalize its banks – per year! Talk about mismatch of supply and demand.

• Lack of constitutional frame-work to establish or enact changes.

• Democratic and constitutional rights are close to being violated, if not in the letter of the law, then certainly in the eyes of the voters.

As we head into 2012, I am increasingly convinced that we have an almost perfect economic and political storm brewing on the horizon.

Germany Will Not Go Along

The obvious flaw in the idea of a Europe-wide bank holiday is Germany.

The German supreme court has ruled there must be a voter referendum for these kinds of changes. Would Merkel risk putting the German Supreme court to that test? I highly doubt it.

Individual countries, notably Greece, are another matter as I have mentioned a couple of times recently. For further discussion, please see...

• History Suggests Greece Will Freeze Bank Deposits, Exit Euro by Christmas; Spain and Portugal to Follow Next Year; What's the Rational Thing to Do?
• Eurozone Breakup Logistics (Never Believe Anything Until It's Officially Denied)

Greece is at the breaking point now if they do not get the next tranche of money, and it still is not clear they will get it. If Greece left would Portugal be far behind? It's hard to say for sure.

Might Italy decide on a bank holiday? Yes, that is possible too, just not as likely, at least right now. It may be a different matter after the next election.

The ideal solution would be for Germany to leave. Might that involve a Eurozone-wide bank holiday? Certainly, just not yet.

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And if I know the $30,000-40,000/yr-guy watching this on the newscast, he's not going to care much.

He'll only wish he were a part of that 0.1% (and then quickly check the lottery winners cause it's bound to be his lucky day).

Friday, November 25, 2011

"We Should Really Be Focused on the 0.1%"

"We Should Really Be Focused on the 0.1%"
By David Atkins

"Paul Krugman has a great op-ed today with a reminder that it's not just the 1% that is the problem, but the upper one tenth of one percent of Americans who constitute the biggest problem. It's an issue that Hacker and Pierson have covered at some length, as has Matt Taibbi. The rewards of our skewed economy increase exponentially as you approach the top of the income chart. 

“We are the 99 percent” is a great slogan. It correctly defines the issue as being the middle class versus the elite (as opposed to the middle class versus the poor). And it also gets past the common but wrong establishment notion that rising inequality is mainly about the well educated doing better than the less educated; the big winners in this new Gilded Age have been a handful of very wealthy people, not college graduates in general.

If anything, however, the 99 percent slogan aims too low. A large fraction of the top 1 percent’s gains have actually gone to an even smaller group, the top 0.1 percent — the richest one-thousandth of the population. And while Democrats, by and large, want that super-elite to make at least some contribution to long-term deficit reduction, Republicans want to cut the super-elite’s taxes even as they slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the name of fiscal discipline.

All of the goodies have gone to the top one tenth of one percent: The recent Congressional Budget Office report on inequality didn’t look inside the top 1 percent, but an earlier report, which only went up to 2005, did. According to that report, between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted, after-tax income of Americans in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. The equivalent number for the richest 0.1 percent rose 400 percent. For the most part, these huge gains reflected a dramatic rise in the super-elite’s share of pretax income. But there were also large tax cuts favoring the wealthy. In particular, taxes on capital gains are much lower than they were in 1979 — and the richest one-thousandth of Americans account for half of all income from capital gains.

And they're not really contributing much to the economy: Still, don’t some of the very rich get that way by producing innovations that are worth far more to the world than the income they receive? Sure, but if you look at who really makes up the 0.1 percent, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that, by and large, the members of the super-elite are overpaid, not underpaid, for what they do.

 For who are the 0.1 percent? Very few of them are Steve Jobs-type innovators; most of them are corporate bigwigs and financial wheeler-dealers. One recent analysis found that 43 percent of the super-elite are executives at nonfinancial companies, 18 percent are in finance and another 12 percent are lawyers or in real estate. And these are not, to put it mildly, professions in which there is a clear relationship between someone’s income and his economic contribution. Executive pay, which has skyrocketed over the past generation, is famously set by boards of directors appointed by the very people whose pay they determine; poorly performing C.E.O.’s still get lavish paychecks, and even failed and fired executives often receive millions as they go out the door.

Bottom line? So should the 99.9 percent hate the 0.1 percent? No, not at all. But they should ignore all the propaganda about “job creators” and demand that the super-elite pay substantially more in taxes. It's pretty obvious, and conservatives don't really have a good answer for these facts and figures. If we had a decent media in this country, this stuff would be all over the airwaves.”

Mike Gravel? Who's He? They Are Soooo Thankful! (The FIX Is In TIGHT) BREAKING: Egyptian Students Tell Old Military General "Go Away!"

[Breaking News: Egypt's Military Won't Take "NO!" For Answer?]

Remember how quickly they got rid of this guy?

Sheesh!

Mike Gravel was intelligent, well-educated (a dream candidate for the progressives), not afraid to make his opinions known and my favorite Senator when I was in college, but just another nightmare to be disposed of for the powers that be. As a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee throughout his Senate career, he took a "leadership role on every major piece of environmental legislation dealing with air, water, waste, and energy that emerged from the U.S. Congress during this period." Among his many accomplishments as both a member of the Alaska House of Representatives and its speaker, as well as a U.S. Senator:

Six months before Henry Kissinger's secret mission to the People's Republic of China (PRC), Senator Gravel introduced unpopular legislation to recognize and normalize relations with the PRC, in the hope of bringing about a re-examination of our outdated policy towards the Chinese people.

. . . The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was the first major political settlement of aboriginal claims, which were customarily dealt with what came to be recognized as a biased process. Senator Gravel co-authored the legislation and provided outspoken leadership for some of its important, but less popular, land-use features in the Settlement Act. He was responsible for removing the federal government's paternalistic role in the management of native economic affairs once the settlement had been approved by Congress.

. . . In an effort to broaden the ownership of capital in our society, Senator Gravel authored and secured the passage into law of the General Stock Ownership Corporation (GSOC), Subchapter U of the Tax Code. With the hope of first using this law in Alaska, he brought about a ballot initiative in the state's general election of 1980 on the creation of an Alaska General Stock Ownership Corporation (AGSOG). As part of this effort, he negotiated a tentative agreement with the British Petroleum Company to sell its interest in the Alaska Pipeline to the AGSOC. The electorate failed to approve the AGSOC initiative. BP now considers its pipeline interest to be one of the most profitable of its Alaska holdings. Had the AGSOC been approved and the purchase consummated, it would be paying out dividends of several hundred dollars annually to every citizen/shareholder in Alaska.

Unfortunately, he was in Alaska (ring a bell?) and could be gotten rid of and replaced by a corporate-sponsored suit in a heartbeat without even a thud in the night to America's consciousness.

And if you think the Tea Party "primarying" of so-called progressive opponents (see Mike Castle's for an example) is a new rightwing tactic, you'll be surprised to hear as Senator Gravel:

became nationally known for his forceful but unsuccessful attempts to end the draft during the Vietnam War and for putting the Pentagon Papers into the public record in 1971 at risk to himself. . . .

He was defeated by a movement within his own party (Republicans) by Lisa's Dad, (Frank) Murkowski!

In the video below we hear Gravel speak about what we have come to under the phony banner of "American Exceptionalism." He also advises us to "leave Iran alone." He brings in Iran's political history saying that he believes they will rebuild their own type of democratic government like they had when the Brits and U.S. replaced Mossadegh, an elected leader, with the Shah in a bloody coup.

November 22, 2011

America Exposed by US Rep Mike Gravel

I haven't heard one man, or woman, tell me what's wrong with America, expose the Corporate ruling of America, and what hope there is for a solution. That is, until I listened to the below RT America video where former Alaska Representative Mike Gravel weighs in.


Mike Gravel campaign button image [found here]

Text with video found here. (and duplicated below):

Homeland Security equals armed occupation. The TSA is tyranny. Corporations own America. Corporations need to be regulated, not in charge. Are the corporations that run the US aligned with Israel out to bomb Iran? Mike Gravel is an insider with the answers. Gravel isn't going along with those who have sold their souls to the international organized criminals, banks and corporate owners.

Why are American taxpayers paying for so many wars? Why have so many citizens died in the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc., for no good reason? Why do most Americans do nothing when citizens are targets for being outspoken?

James Corbett of the Corbett Report talks about the US/Iran situation in video here.

To show corporate owners and banksters, the US isn't about international organized crime, New York City Mayor Bloomberg should be arrested and prosecuted for judge shopping to try to squash the Occupy Wall St. Movement, OWS.

 

Does the UN own the Statue of Liberty?

- posted by The Stark Raving Viking

And who should be giving the most thanks during this season right now in corporatedom?

From Kenny's Sideshow:

Criminals Count Their Blessings on Thanksgiving

The Wall Street 'elitists' are so thankful that most of them have not been indicted this year and that the OWS folks are a kinder and gentler group than they are that they will raise a toast with a few glasses of imported champagne for their luck to continue.

The top boys at MF Global give thanks that they can enjoy their turkey while the U.S. Attorney’s office decides whether or not the missing $1.2 billion was just sloppy bookkeeping and that they didn't really intend to steal the money. Jon Corzine's appearance before a US House of Representatives Subcommittee should clear it all up as he reminds them that they are all really brothers in the big scheme of things.

Members of congress are especially thankful that this was not an election. year and they've got a little time to counter the 'throw them all out' talk and co-op those pesky protesters. The end of the world was starting to look good to them.

Jack Abramoff counts his blessings instead of cellmates as he tours the country hawking his book and getting interviewed by all the media, even NPR who now calls him a Washington reformer. He's an expert in corruption and Jack is hoping that his 'confessions' will lift the public's perception of him as slightly better than Newt Gingrich. He doesn't speak of his possible 9/11 connections and a great number of people are thankful for that.

Most folks don't realize it but Israel celebrates Thanksgiving wholeheartedly although it's with a sneer for having to kickback some of the U.S. contributions they receive and they resent the costs of their blackmail campaigns. They seem to feel that it's all owed to them, perennial victims you know, so any thanks they may give is relative.

What might be some of the ways Israelis should be 'thankful?'

From The Council for the National Interest:

American taxpayers give Israel over $8 million per day

Additional financial costs: $3 trillion

On top of this are the costs of the Iraq war: hundreds of thousands of lives & over $3 trillion

Special-interest lobbying.

Israel partisans in the U.S. government and media

Campaigns by pro-Israel funders to engender Islamophobia: to create fear and hatred of Muslims

Israeli-centric news reporting by the U.S. media

Hollywood movies and television shows, which often play a significant role in shaping attitudes and beliefs.

All this and it's still never enough. It's hard to imagine just what it would take for them to say 'thank you.'

The Trolls of  Hasbara have had a good year and should be very thankful for their jobs. With the increase in anti-Israel, anti-zionist talk they have been busy and they should celebrate because the coming year will see even more opportunity for their 'work.'

Bush and Blair are extremely thankful that they have been found guilty of war crimes by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal instead of in their home countries. They won't be vacationing there anytime soon.  

Obama pardons a couple of turkeys and gave thanks in hope that whoever is the next president will show the same mercy on him for his crimes against humanity. 

Military contractors have had a big year and so it's expected that they party down in thanks. Lots of their products got used up. The talk about cuts to their business have been fake. They continue to be number 1 in the world with exports on the rise.Their 'toys' are big sellers every season.

Big pharma is grateful that ONLY every 14 minutes, a person is killed by prescription drugs. Yippee, pass the pie!

The industrial prison system is blessing counting that the number of those incarcerated in the U.S. is going up, up, up. 2.3 million and rising. No end in sight. A big shout out to the neverending 'War on Drugs' is always in order.

The U.S. nuclear industry is overwhelming thankful that it was Fukushima and not one of their own. Despite the initial flush of reports of danger, the industry thanks the media and government for dropping the subject and for telling us thousands of times how deadly deep frying turkeys can be.

Last but not least, the mainstream media thanks congress and state legislatures for once again not passing any laws prohibiting them from lying about anything and everything they want to and are paid to do. 

For the rest of us just being alive and having friends and family to share some time and a meal with is about all we have left. Although we're thankful for that we still have this urge to shout for something better.

IT'S OVER FOLKS! Are the Last Fools Finally Jumping Ship?

I've said it myself for so long that even I began to doubt that the last folks would ever catch on . . . but when these guys know  . . .  everyone knows.

Jersey Cynic at Blondesense reports that:

We're done folks.

CNBC is reporting that there are now clients running out of the markets entirely because they do not believe their customer funds are safe.

That's the end of it. The belief that there are more MF Globals has now taken hold. The thieves have pushed it too far and now we've got the start of a global liquidity run, and with good reason.

The authorities both in the regulatory side and on the prosecutorial side have refused to put a stop to the thievery and now the risk factors have turned into realized risk.

The market is done folks. You can be right but if you make your bet in the markets, are right, and then get screwed anyway when someone steals the money and nobody goes to jail there comes a time when people begin to understand that it can happen to them and will unless they depart the market.

We're there folks.

Oh sure, there will be rallies and there will be selloffs. But there is no longer a market, there is no longer a thing to trade, and there is no longer a reason to believe that superior analysis will lead to profit or even safety.

This isn't just about speculators - it is also about farmers, shippers, airlines, manufacturing concerns, everyone in business who has a need to hedge.

More than four years ago I said that the government had to step in and demand that both off-balance sheet games be ended permanently and in all forms and that all derivatives had to be put on an exchange, without exception, and that every dollar of underwater position had to be backed by an actual dollar of capital in real money, held and known to be safe.

The regulators refused and now it appears that what was put up on a regulated exchange was effectively stolen.

Well folks, then none of your investment accounts -- not your IRA, 401k, not even your bank account -- is safe.

Diversification is a strategy but the risk remains. It is up to you to decide how much you're willing to risk losing to a crook. If the answer is "none" or you cannot reduce the at-risk portion of your assets to what you're willing to lose to fraud then you can no longer participate in the market at all, in any form, nor even do business with a bank.

That sucks, but it is what it is and if this meme spreads - and it will until it's stopped - we run the risk of a "sudden stop" economic event.

I hope you're ready for it - I am to the best of my ability, and you ought to be.

Via Blondesense ("Thanks!")

found at Yobaba

Also from Yobaba:

Hope you are participating in BUY NOTHING on Black Friday!
_______________

Buy NOTHING To Show Them You Mean BUSINESS? (Mittens Says Give VA $$$ To Private Voucher Interests and Gingrich Says Abolish CBO (Numbers Too Scary!!!)

Over the holidays we learn that Romney the Mittens Man thinks vouchers (so private interests get to skim off the cream) are the way for the Veterans Hospitals to be more ably administered.

And Newton the Great (Thinker) wants to:

Gingrich: Abolish 'Socialist' Congressional Budget Office

I guess if they don't come up with the figures that sell your sour premises, you can just get rid of the accountants.

That'll show'em. (Just like they got rid of the Congress.)

I like the existential statement (reply to the challenge?) of buying nothing on certain days to demonstrate that consumers, poor and misused as they are, still have some clout - at least in the dissemination of capital to those who actually support their lives.

How about you?

Lifted gently from the Wily Coyote:

"You’ve been sleeping on the streets for two months pleading peacefully for a new spirit in economics. And just as your camps are raided, your eyes pepper sprayed and your head’s knocked in, another group of people are preparing to camp-out. Only these people aren’t here to support occupy Wall Street, they’re here to secure their spot in line for a Black Friday bargain at Super Target and Macy’s.

Occupy gave the world a new way of thinking about the fat cats and financial pirates on Wall Street. Now let's give them a new way of thinking about the holidays, about our own consumption habits. Let's use the coming 20th annual Buy Nothing Day to launch an all-out offensive to unseat the corporate kings on the holiday throne. This year’s Black Friday will be the first campaign of the holiday season where we set the tone for a new type of holiday culminating with #OCCUPYXMAS. As the global protests of the 99% against corporate greed and casino capitalism continues, lets take the opportunity to hit the empire where it really hurts . . . the wallet.
 

On Nov 25/26th we escape the mayhem and unease of the biggest shopping day in North America and put the breaks on rabid consumerism for 24 hours. Flash mobs, consumer fasts, mall sit-ins, community events, credit card-ups, whirly-marts and jams, jams, jams! We don’t camp on the sidewalk for a reduced price tag on a flat screen TV or psycho-killer video game. Instead, we occupy the very paradigm that is fueling our eco, social and political decline. Historically, Buy Nothing Day has been about fasting from hyper consumerism – a break from the cash register and reflecting on how dependent we really are on conspicuous consumption. On this 20th anniversary of Buy Nothing Day, we take it to the next level, marrying it with the message of #occupy . . . We #OCCUPYXMAS."

    "Shenanigans begin November 25!"

Start today friends.

TODAY!

Amen.

James Murdoch Steps Down at News Corp.

Not really the announcement that anyone should have been expecting from this ménage in order to try to clear their name, but the PR can't hurt. It strikes you as a positive for about a minute or two . . . until you read the whole article.

He is looking for another dream job though.

He'd run for President except for that tricky birth certificate thing.

But as they said at Crooks and Liars:

Nobody ever truly leaves the mafia, do they?

Happy Thanksgiving! (War On Syria Next Up?) China and Russia Think Bad Idea! Wake Up One Percenters! (99-Percenters Not Going Away - They're ANGRY And Are NOT Going Home Without A Fight!))

So, another holiday will be celebrated with flashing lights and bombs? Watch out Syria! (And a little later, Iran?)

How many out there, like I, have thought many times about how early in his first term Obama said quite clearly that he wouldn't mind being a one-term President as long as he had made the tough choices? Anyone else remember?

I only know that it never occurred to me at the time that the "tough choices" would be to eviscerate the safety net programs like Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid/Disability and to continue the Bush/Cheney Wars Against Independent Middle Eastern Countries.

But I was on my watch for what those choices might be.

From the highly esteemed Washington's Blog:

Is the U.S. About to Invade Syria . . . and Pick a Fight with China and Russia?

November 23, 2011

Is the U.S. Gearing Up for a Syrian War?

CBS reports:

“The U.S. Embassy in Damascus urged its citizens in Syria to depart “immediately,” and Turkey’s foreign ministry urged Turkish pilgrims to opt for flights to return home from Saudi Arabia to avoid traveling through Syria.”

Military analyst Statfor reports (as summarized by Zero Hedge):

For the first time in many months, CVN 77 George H.W. Bush has left its traditional theater of operations just off the Straits of Hormuz, a critical choke point, where it traditionally accompanies the Stennis, and has parked . . . right next to Syria.
***

Zero Hedge noted yesterday that a No-Fly zone over Syria – the first concrete step towards war these days – may be imminent.

The American People Don’t Want War . . . But a Syrian War Was Planned 10 Years Ago

I noted in August:

While the U.S. is doing its best to try to whip up support for a war against Syria (a war planned at least 10 years ago), a new Rasmussen poll finds:

Just 12% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the United States should get more directly involved in the Syrian crisis, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Sixty-six percent (66%) think the United States should leave the Syrian situation alone.

Are We Picking a Fight with China and Russia?

This is even more dangerous because China has warned the U.S. against attacking Syria, and Russia has reportedly moved warships into Syrian waters to defend Syria from a U.S. attack.

Relations between the U.S. and Russia have degraded recently. See this and this. This is largely due to the U.S. threatening war against any nation which becomes an economic rival.

May cooler heads prevail.

Aircraft Carrier CVN-77 Parks Next Door To Syria Just As US Urges Americans To Leave Country "Immediately"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/23/2011

Yesterday we reported that the Arab League (with European and US support) are preparing to institute a no fly zone over Syria. Today, we get an escalation which confirms we may be on the edge. Just out from CBS: "The U.S. Embassy in Damascus urged its citizens in Syria to depart "immediately," and Turkey's foreign ministry urged Turkish pilgrims to opt for flights to return home from Saudi Arabia to avoid traveling through Syria." But probably the most damning evidence that the "western world" is about to do the unthinkable and invade Syria, and in the process force Iran to retaliate, is the weekly naval update from Stratfor, which always has some very interesting if always controversial view on geopolitics, where we find that for the first time in many months, CVN 77 George H.W. Bush has left its traditional theater of operations just off the Straits of Hormuz, a critical choke point, where it traditionally accompanies the Stennis, and has parked . . . right next to Syria.

And how are those One Percenters responding to the Occupy movement?

From the seat of well being at Forbes Magazine:

Memo To "One-Percenters": Look Out Your Limos

The message from our nation's financial elite is pretty clear: They just don't get it.

By John Cassidy 


 

FORTUNE - Just two months after taking over Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, Occupy Wall Street has mushroomed into a national movement, with offshoots in cities from Miami to Seattle. With winter coming on and some local police departments moving to clear out the demonstrators, it isn't clear where the protest goes from here. In one sense it doesn't matter. Regardless of what happens to the 99ers and their encampments, American business leaders need to take seriously what the lessons are for them.

The anger that fueled Occupy Wall Street's rapid growth isn't going away. Polls show that up to half of Americans support the demonstrators or at least believe they reflect public opinion. In many ways the 99ers are drawing on the same popular sentiment that gave rise to the Tea Party: a perception that business and politics are rigged in favor of a privileged clique of insiders, particularly those connected to Wall Street. Extremists on the left and the right exaggerate that picture, but it rings true enough to provide the makings of a political swing against big business that could sweep up the two main parties. Instead of criticizing the Obama administration's modest efforts to reform Wall Street and rein in excesses, the Jamie Dimons and Daniel Loebs of this world should be looking out of their limos at what is happening in America.

For years ordinary citizens looked on impassively as their incomes stagnated, their jobs were shipped to China, and a few lucky folks made out like medieval crusaders. Every year journalists (myself included) would point to the latest Census Bureau data showing that the top 1% of earners were taking a bigger and bigger share of the national pie. (Between 1979 and 2007, says a new Congressional Budget Office study, it went from less than 8% to 17%.)

And nothing would happen. The U.S. seemed to be defying the historical truism that rising inequality eventually leads to social and political unrest. Not anymore. With the financial crisis, the bailouts, and the Great Recession, inequality has finally emerged as a potent issue. Increasingly members of the 1% are being asked where they got their sacks of gold.

Most Americans don't begrudge great riches to anybody who works hard, takes real risks, and creates things of value. As evidenced by the positive outpouring for Steve Jobs, great entrepreneurs are still celebrated. But there is an implicit social contract that links rewards to effort and accomplishment. If many people now believe that corporate America has violated that contract, is it surprising? At many big corporations, the senior managers have seemed more interested in stuffing their pockets than building for the long term. Gargantuan pay packages are only the start of it. Think boards of directors packed with patsies, books cooked to juice earnings, potential whistleblowers silenced, golden parachutes, and finally taxpayers obliged to save expensively tanned hides. The thing that is really surprising is that it has taken this long for public anger to well up.

Lately some corporate leaders have shown they understand what is driving the outcry. Warren Buffett said he should pay higher taxes. Vikram Pandit, the CEO of Citicorp, offered in a Fortune interview to meet with the protesters, acknowledging a lack of trust in Wall Street. Citi and other big banks wisely chose not to follow the lead of Bank of America (BAC) in imposing fees for using debit cards. But too many people in finance are acting as if it were 2007. Whether it is investment bankers griping about Obama being a closet socialist, Wharton MBA students chanting "Get a job" to OWS protestors, or the Chamber of Commerce, once a moderate voice, using its money and clout to try to preserve George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich, the message conveyed is the same: We don't get it!

For an economic elite whose perquisites ultimately depend on the acquiescence of everybody else, it is a silly and dangerous pose to strike. If only for its own sake, the 1% needs to show a bit of nous.

-- John Cassidy is a Fortune contributor and a New Yorker staff writer.

This article is from the November 7, 2011 issue of Fortune.

Acquiescence? Nous who?

That ship has sailed.


________________________

Oh happy day.


T'is So Much Joy

’T is so much joy! ’T is so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty!
And yet, as poor as I
Have ventured all upon a throw;
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so
This side the victory!

Life is but life, and death but death!
Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
And if, indeed, I fail,
At least to know the worst is sweet.
Defeat means nothing but defeat,
No drearier can prevail!

And if I gain,—oh, gun at sea,
Oh, bells that in the steeples be,
At first repeat it slow!
For heaven is a different thing
Conjectured, and waked sudden in,
And might o’erwhelm me so!

- Emily Dickinson

Much Madness

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.

’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.

Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,— you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

- Emily Dickinson

__________________________________________

Remembering JFK By OccupyWallStreet Occupying Washington, D.C. (Interview With James Douglass, Author of JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters and Son of E. Howard Hunt)

Posted at 10:54
Occupy Wall Street Marchers Arriving in D.C.: Live Updates

By Katie Rogers

 
 
Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement leave Zuccotti Park and begin a highway hike to Washington, D.C., on Nov. 9. (Spencer Platt - GETTY IMAGES)

Tuesday, 10:37 a.m.: Occupy the Highway, a tiny, mobile offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, is set to finish its two-week sojourn from New York’s Zuccotti Park to the District within the next hour.

With 230 miles under their belts, the group of about 50 marchers were aiming to arrive the day before a congressional “supercommittee” was supposed to vote on a bipartisan debt compromise. Unfortunately, the supercommittee officially announced its failure to reach compromise a day before protesters arrived.

The Post’s Tim Craig is waiting for the marchers to arrive at the Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood Metro station, where they’ll continue their march to give a news conference at Occupy DC’s McPherson Square headquarters. A news release from the group indicates that it will temporarily occupy an area near the reflecting pool on the National Mall.

Read Craig’s live tweets here:

I've mentioned several times before that I read James Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters and how unexpectedly erudite and all-embracing a history tome it was. Here's an interview between Kevin Barrett and James Douglass and the son of E. Howard Hunt, who confessed to being a part of the murder of JFK (supposedly) before his death:

Monday, November 21, 2011

JFK Day Special: My Interviews with James Douglass and Saint John Hunt

Tuesday, November 22nd, 11 a.m. to noon Central (9-10 Pacific) on NoLiesRadio.org here a few hours after broadcast). (archived)

In honor of the 48th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by the CIA, in a plot okayed by LBJ, No Lies Radio will broadcast my interviews with James Douglass, author of JFK and the Unspeakable; and Saint John Hunt, custodian of the confession of his father, E. Howard Hunt.

Read Oliver Stone's review of JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.

Read the transcript of my interview with Saint John Hunt: Part 1 Part 2

And don't miss Jim Fetzer's talk "Who Killed JFK?" on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Details here.

Much, much more via Coyote Prime at Running Cause I Can't Fly.

Happy Days are definitely not here again.

Goldman Sachs/Trilateral Commission/Bilderberg Rules! (You Do Realize That The Technocrat Placed In Charge of Italy's Finances Is From Goldman Sachs and Bilderberg?)

(If throwing a contribution Pottersville2's way won't break your budget in these difficult financial times, I really need it, and would wholeheartedly appreciate it. Anything you can afford will make a huge difference in this blog's lifetime.)

If you couldn't figure out at the beginning of the European bad news cycle about how Goldman Sachs could also be deeply involved in their very bad international financial decisions, we learn now that Italy's new President is from Goldman Sachs, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg group.

No wonder Obama was told to rehire them.

The more things change . . . .

Goldman Sachs Conquers Europe

November 21st, 2011 
 
Via: Independent:

The ascension of Mario Monti to the Italian prime ministership is remarkable for more reasons than it is possible to count. By replacing the scandal-surfing Silvio Berlusconi, Italy has dislodged the undislodgeable. By imposing rule by unelected technocrats, it has suspended the normal rules of democracy, and maybe democracy itself. And by putting a senior adviser at Goldman Sachs in charge of a Western nation, it has taken to new heights the political power of an investment bank that you might have thought was prohibitively politically toxic.

This is the most remarkable thing of all: a giant leap forward for, or perhaps even the successful culmination of, the Goldman Sachs Project.

It is not just Mr Monti. The European Central Bank, another crucial player in the sovereign debt drama, is under ex-Goldman management, and the investment bank’s alumni hold sway in the corridors of power in almost every European nation, as they have done in the US throughout the financial crisis. Until Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund’s European division was also run by a Goldman man, Antonio Borges, who just resigned for personal reasons.

Even before the upheaval in Italy, there was no sign of Goldman Sachs living down its nickname as “the Vampire Squid”, and now that its tentacles reach to the top of the Eurozone, sceptical voices are raising questions over its influence. The political decisions taken in the coming weeks will determine if the Eurozone can and will pay its debts – and Goldman’s interests are intricately tied up with the answer to that question.

Related: Chairman of the European Branch of the Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg Member Becomes Leader of Italy

Ya think?

The Hollow Man or the Clever Politico? There's No There There: Our Hollow President Obama (The Horror and the Pity)

Yes, there are plenty of people who defend our "progressive" President as doing the best that can be expected and getting the best deals he can in the face of the rightwingnutters' unabated opposition (er, unless they win on all points, and then it abates). And hey! He got us health coverage for everyone (okay, not really, but close . . . supposedly . . . as long as everyone has a job and money to pay for it).

And the SuperCommittee has failed as a venue (an extra one, apart from the representatives in Congress who were hired for such tasks but can no longer be bothered) within which to identify new revenues and fraud, waste and abuse (remember this Rethug catchphrase?) program cuts, due to the Rethugs' refusal to consider any tax increases on the SuperWealthy. The SuperCommittee was also another of the grand compromises aided, abetted and presided over by our "change" liberal/progressive/new Democrat/fill-in-the-blank President.

Read the details of the 18% of the Federal budget slated for 50% of the domestic cuts here (it's a lulu!). Any further wonders to be wrought on the way to victory? Those of us awaiting a job tide are thirsting to death.

Read a fine essay on this subject via 3QuarksDaily.

My only major quibble with this essay is when the writer says Obama "sucks as the leader of the Democratic Party." He doesn't. Inside of the reformulated Rethuglican-Democratic Party, which we have become more than familiar with since its abandonment of all safety net programs, he's a perfect fit. I couldn't have made him up any better. Wonder whose creation he was?

November 21, 2011

There's No There There: Our Hollow President Obama

by Evert Cilliers aka Adam Ash



Just what exactly does President Obama whole-heartedly believe in?

It's not Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. He was prepared to whittle away at all three of them in order to make a Grand Bargain with the GOP about our debt.

It's not peace: he's still fighting for no good reason in Afghanistan.

It's not the rule of law or habeas corpus: he's still got the extra-legal prison obscenity at Guantanamo Bay going.

It's not transparency: his administration goes after whistle-blowers like no other.

It's not a humane immigration policy: he deports more immigrants than any administration.

It's not justice: he didn't go after the Bushies who promoted torture, nor did he prosecute the fraudsters of Wall Street who ruined our economy.

It's not gay rights: he still doesn't agree with gay marriage.

It's not the labor movement: he never pushed for Card Check and he ignored the grassroots fight over union negotiating rights in Ohio and other heartland states (what if he had marched with them as he promised in his campaign? just imagine the galvanizing effect on labor, the Dems and himself).

It's not basic progressive principles, like Medicare for all, or at minimum a public option to give folks a real healthcare choice. 

It's not even his own progressive base, who worked hard to elect him, and whom he and his acolytes disdain as "the professional left."

It's not anything. In fact, it's nothing. President Barack Obama has a shell, but not a core. He's not a man of principle. He's a man of expedience. A so-called pragmatist.

In other words, he's our first thoroughly post-modern president. There is no objective truth: everything is relative, plural and contextual. Obama mistrusts ideology from a very unique perspective: he has no ideology of his own.

1. OBAMA BELIEVES IN A FAIRY TALE

If he believes in anything, it is the paragraph that made him instantly famous:

"Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there's the United States of America. The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

Now just stop and think for a moment how utterly meaningless this is. It sounds awful good, but it's less factual than most actresses' tits. 

There's a reason we have two parties in America: the Republican Party, who disdain the poor, and the Democratic Party, who feel sorry for the poor. There's a reason the Republican Party gave us the Iraq War (which the Democrats never would have), and the Democratic Party gave us the New Deal (which the Republicans never would have). 

We have the party of the clenched fist versus the party of the open hand. This is our traditional political divide.

But if you're Obama, you see no such divide. So you see no real struggle over first principles. Anything is negotiable. Republicans believe they're negotiating principles, because they have them: so they don't back down, on principle. It's easy for Obama to back down: he doesn't think he's negotiating principles, because he doesn't have them. He thinks he's negotiating details. 

2. OBAMA DOESN'T FIGHT FOR ANYTHING

The reason Obama is not a fighter is that he doesn't believe in anything worth fighting for.

The other reason is that believes he has no enemies to fight against.  

Yep, President Obama doesn't think he has enemies. Really, he doesn't. A great line from Shakespeare's Richard III springs to mind: "Hast thou not spirit to curse thine enemy?" Think of the great spirit with which his enemies curse Obama: you weren't even born in America, you alien socialist. Think of how Obama curses them back -- never. 

Listen to FDR fighting for his re-election:

"For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace -- business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."

There's some spirit for you. That's some excellent cursing. Now listen to Obama fighting for his party in the 2010 mid-term elections:

“The other side drove the economy into the ditch, and we’ve been down there and putting on our boots, and it’s muddy, and it’s hot, and there are bugs swarming, and we’ve been pushing and shoving and sweating, trying to get this car out of the ditch. And the Republicans have been standing there, sipping on a Slurpee, watching us and saying, you’re not pushing hard enough, or you’re not pushing the right way. Well, come down and help. No, no, no, you go ahead. Finally, we get the car up on level ground, and it is -- it’s kind of dinged up. I mean, it wasn’t good for the car to be driven into the ditch. And it needs some body work, it needs a tune-up, it needs a carwash, but it’s moving.

Suddenly we get a tap on the shoulder and the Republicans say, ‘We want the keys back.' You can’t have the keys back. You can’t drive. That’s why we were in the ditch. And as soon as they get into power, they will throw that car right back in reverse. There’s a reason why, when you want to go forward, you put it into ‘D,’ and when you go backward, it goes into ‘R’.”

This is so good-natured, it's kind of moronic as an election strategy. You don't win elections by poking gentle fun at your opponents. You don't whip up election fervor with witty banter. Politics is a bloodsport, not a comedy slam. 

FDR understood politics. Obama doesn't. He thinks deep-down, everyone is like him, with a core of sweet reasonableness. He doesn't hate his enemies.

3. OBAMA CHOSE NOT TO CRUSH THE GOP

Obama's biggest problem is his charm. He is the original Prince Charming: his charm -- pretty smile, pretty words -- got him all the way to the White House, and he thinks he can corral everyone with it as he tries to govern. 

Not the GOP, buddy. Poor sap Obama doesn't recognize unreason. If he did, he would have gone to war with the Republicans from day one as President, like they did with him. If Obama understood politics, he could have used his first year in office to crush the Republican Party for 20 years. They were down and out and thoroughly discredited, and a few good stomps of the boot could've settled their hash for decades. Reagan never tired of running down Carter, and it got him re-elected.

Obama could have labeled the GOP as stinkers again and again, demonized them to hell and gone, and he would have cut them like a cancer from our body politic. He could have eviscerated Fox News. He could have branded the Republicans forever as the big spending party. The wasteful people. The selfish people. The nuts. The crazies. Heck, even more than two years on, America still blames Bush, and not Obama, for our bad economy. Obama could have been a force for good in this world if, besides being President, he had acted like the leader of the Democratic Party, and used his pulpit to eviscerate the GOP on his party's behalf.

But instead, Obama went to bat for the memory of his Mom. She had had a lot of trouble with our healthcare system in her last years so, against the advice of all his advisors, he put all his energy into healthcare reform (a Republican reform plan, in which he negotiated away the public option immediately even though he acted as though he were pushing for it). After that, he had nothing left. He won one for his Mom, and shot his whole wad. That was the end of it. He'd emptied his gonads.

4. HE ACTED LIKE A DEMOCRAT ONLY THREE TIMES

I can remember only three occasions where I thought Obama acted like the semblance of a progressive, and all three of them turned out to be meaningless.

The first one was after Republican Scott Brown took Ted Kennedy's safe Massachusetts seat, and in a panic, Obama trotted out Paul Volcker and said he was going to institute the "Volcker Rule," i.e. separate conventional banking from investment banking, i.e. build a wall between those who lend out money to fuel business and do something socially useful, and those who borrow money to speculate and do something useless. Didn't happen.

The second time was when he said, during the disastrous 2011 debt ceiling negotiations: “They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that’s paid for by asking 30 seniors to each pay $6,000 more in health costs? That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I am president.”

Wanna bet? You really believe it's not going to happen on his watch? You really believe the GOP can't come up with some harsher demand that will make Obama happily "negotiate" an extension of the Bush tax cuts?

 The third time was the so-called "American Jobs Act" speech in September 2011, when Obama combatively promised to veto anything that doesn't include tax increases for anyone making over a million a year, the so-called "Buffett Rule." He said: "And I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare BUT does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations to pay their fair share.” (See how he's willing to trade cuts in Medicare benefits for taxes on rich people.)

Well, the "Volcker Rule" didn't happen -- so are you expecting the "Buffett Rule" to happen?

We have to face the fact that smart as he is, Obama can be awful dumb. He let the Tea Party frame the conversation about his health reform plan, for chrissake. How dumb is that? He lets others frame the game. A smart politician doesn't play the other guy's game. He changes the game. He makes his game the only game to play. Obama promised us change, and what did he do? Instead of changing the paradigm, he slotted right into it, like a prisoner raising his hands to the handcuffs. 

Because of Obama's dumb political instincts, we now live in a Tea Party world. Can you imagine that? Obama let a bunch of crazies hijack the political conversation. 

Obama is not the strong, bold leader we thought he would be. He doesn't lead at all, not from behind or anywhere else. Our country is rudderless.

Don't look to Obama for actual big bold action. Look to him for big bold gestures, and big bold speeches, for sure, but when it comes to on-the-ground results, he's a ninny of an incremental inch-by-inch timid cautious bent-over fuck-me-hard-don't-worry-I-won't-fuck-you-back pussy-footing pragmatist pushover. As Machiavelli argued, “fortune more often submits to those who act boldly than to those who proceed in calculating fashion.”

Truth be told, we're living in George Bush's third term. Obama is doing everything George Bush would've done. He hasn't changed a damn thing. The few health insurance changes (no more pre-existing conditions, no more kicking you out when you get sick) haven't even kicked in yet. Change you can believe in? Give me a break. What we have is no change nobody believes in.

5. OBAMA LIVES WAY UP THE BUTTS OF OUR ELITE

OK. So far I've been pulling punches. Now let's get down to two really bad things about Obama.

He's so stuck up the asses of the elite he hardly remembers how his mother worked hard for the poor in Indonesia. He has basically shat on her memory. If she were alive today, she'd give him what for. His whole life has been a classic suckup. He never had to fight for anything. He charmed himself into the elite, and he's very happy to be ensconced there. He's one of those guys who climb to the top by sucking up to everyone. Another Wall Street Sell-Out Apparatnik.

Obama has Bill Clinton's problem: he's a struggling boy whose ambition, brains and work ethic got him co-opted into the rich man's club.

Unlike some other presidents -- FDR, JFK -- Obama was not born rich and privileged. Though he did have a white grandmother and grandfather who doted on him and got him into Hawaii's most pukka high school.

FDR knew how to fight the elite, because he was born insider-privileged; they were his own kind. In fact, FDR relished taking on the smugness of his own class. Like when he said in that speech I quoted before: "They are unanimous in their hate for me. And I welcome their hatred!”

Obama can never enjoy that special relish, because he was born outsider-struggling and aspirant. It's difficult for a kid like him to start fighting the guys who only a few years ago welcomed him into their exclusive club. The born-struggling guy is inclined to be their house slave forever, like Bill Clinton is. Stymied by his gratitude to them, relieved at his escape from his struggling origins, a guy like Clinton or Obama is happy to wear golden handcuffs.

Believe you me, before Obama launched his presidential campaign, many rich people had him over to their houses to make sure this bright young hope would serve their interests first and foremost if he ever got to be President. Goldman Sachs didn't become one of his biggest funders out of idealism. They checked him out. They had him over. He was vetted by the elite. He had to sing for his supper in the homes of the privileged. It was quid pro quo all the way. And with that many quids funneled his way, a lot of pro quos were expected and subsequently delivered.

Psychologically, Obama's up-from-nothing origins might have damned his fighting spirit. He may have used up all his fight just to get into the club.

It's not so easy to remember your community-organizer days when you're hitting the links with the rich and famous and knocking back highballs at the clubhouse. It's much easier to suggest a change in the wallpaper of the club than to move the whole damn club into the ghetto next door where the club members might actually do some good for society.

Can Obama break out of his golden prison, maybe in a second term? Can his gray childhood memories of the poor in Indonesia trump his more recent golden years at Harvard or the chewy taste of power in Washington?

Ain't happened yet. His record so far includes big victories for our embedded plutocracy, and teeny crumbs for our would-be democracy.

Basically he played us. And with his American Jobs Act, and promising to tax the rich, he's playing us yet again.

6. OBAMA IS THE BEST BULLSHITTER SINCE JESUS

Let's face it, Obama is the greatest bullshitter of them all. Remember his campaign? All that hope and change BS?

When it came to bullshitting the American people, Obama was a master.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying he's a lying son-of-a-bitch or a hypocrite or a megalomaniac or an utter phoney (if he were those things, which his enemies believe he is, then he'd be mirroring who we are as a nation; and you wouldn't want to think that now, would you?). 

In fact, Obama appears to be a fairly decent chap who is intellectually quite honest, if blinded by the privileged he moves among and has himself become. At the same time, however, he's an arch-bullshitter. One can be a figure of some moral probity and still be a worldclass bullshitter.

Moreover, I mean to go further than simply say that Obama can bullshit about how great our country is, and how decent our working people are, and what heroes our troops are, blah, blah, blah. All politicians lay these banal cliches on us like gravy on meatloaf, and none better than Obama.

I mean to say this:

Put your brain in drive and ponder the fact that Obama could go on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show in his campaign days and smile that wonderfully boyish and angelic smile of his, and without dropping a blip of sweat, he would instantly corral the often-cynical Jon Stewart and the audience in the studio and viewers all over the world into his warm aura of cosy and mutual to-and-fro ping-pong Donkey Kong we're-all-in-this-together bullshit.

Obama cast a mocha-miasmic spell of benign nudging and winking, of being really self-effacing, of being in a mutual admiration society with everyone, of being quite meta about his appeal and the way we soak up his appeal, and then after those few minutes of being touched by the gift of his presence, of being bathed in the meta of his charm and his smile and his eloquence, and forgetting all your cares in those moments of being beguiled and seduced, you go away with a little warm glow lighting up your insides, and then maybe you send his campaign some money, or you go and vote for him, or you believe in the greatness of your country more than ever, or you go and share your little glow with a loved one or a stranger, because with a disarming smile like that, and a self-awareness like that, with both you and him consciously or subconsciously aware that he's pulling your chain ever so gently, with all that, you are pretty sure in your happy little glowing head that yes oh yes, Obama is the one to lead us all to the promised land awash in Cherry Garcia ice cream, where the rain is made of Hershey Kisses and where happy penguins sing us all to sleep, and you indulge yourself in this cheery fantasy even though most of it is bullshit, because it is bullshit that you really WANT and NEED to believe in, that you are willing to suspend all your habitual disbelief to believe in, because what with all the shitty bullshit around it's a relief to swallow such ENJOYABLE bullshit, and that's the whole point.

Yes indeed, Obama's hope-and-change mantra was powerful bullshit.

I was one of the millions who cried when I first saw him in action on TV: delivering a speech to a rapt audience. He spoke to my heart; he restored my hope in America. I had immigrated to America 30 years ago from apartheid South Africa, choosing the US over Canada, the UK and Australia. Then the Supreme Court gave the country to Bush-Cheney, and it turned out that their country was not the country I'd picked.

I'd chosen the land of freedom and opportunity, of great tech and constant innovation, of brilliant entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, of magnificent and many-splendored Manhattan where one can hear more languages than anywhere else on the planet, of tough New York City women who don't take the crap from men that women take in other countries and yet give better blowjobs than women in other countries, of can-do American gals and guys who look at a problem that would scare the daylights out of other cultures and say, hey, I've got an idea how we can lick this sucker.

This America, the America I loved, was not the America that Bush-Cheney created, an America of lies and war and torture and paranoia and fraud and no-bid contracts and entitlement and privileged chuckles and macho stupidity. Eight years of Bush-Cheney plunged me into despair about America, and then, wow, here comes Obama! The One! Yes! We Can! Hail the Sweepingness of the New Broom! Watch those Washington Stables Cleaned out More Spic and Span than the Conscience of a Nun! The Time has Come for Change in America!

Obama was the dude who gave me hope and confidence that America could be decent and kind and free and full of opportunity again. I was in such Bush-Cheney despair, I wanted badly to hear another song, and Obama sang that song beautifully, and stole my heart.

That was the core of Obama's appeal: in a time of darkness, he promised hope and change, and delivered his message with a gift of eloquence the world had last seen in Dr. King. Obama fed us warm, comforting, soaring and inspiring bullshit that moved us to the very bullshitted depths of our bullshittingest souls.

Being a nation of bullshitters, we're ready to follow whoever among us proves to be the best and brightest bullshitter of them all. That guy is Obama, the finest spinner of BS since Jesus told the meek they'll inherit the earth.

Here's the thing: I absolutely LOVE being bullshitted by Obama. Today, my biggest beef with him is that he has not laid any really excellent bullshit on me since he entered the White House.

Quite the contrary, in fact. 

That heart he stole from me has, after a great leap forward at the Inauguration, sneaked back into my chest where it's been knocked around and kicked about and elbowed to the right and bumped to the left and bashed to the bottom and booted high in the sky, and I'm still working on how to gather the pieces and what to do when I've rearranged them in a semblance of a heart (I must say, I got a little lift when he made his speech in Tucson after the Giffords shooting, but that was hardly enough to soothe my bereft-of-Obama-BS soul).

7. OBAMA USES HIS BLACKNESS TO MASQUERADE AS A PROGRESSIVE

Here's another thing: part of Obama's disarming charm is that he is a nice black guy.

Yep. Not an angry, demanding, raging-against-the-man black guy. But a thoroughly bourgeois sweet black guy, with a sweet black family.

That accounts for a core quality of his appeal. He makes us all feel good about ourselves, and about America. Hey, here is this black dude running our country. How nice of us to give him the job. He's like Disraeli who got to run anti-semitic England.

I could go so far as to say that Obama cynically uses his blackness to masquerade as a liberal. But that could get me into big trouble. So I'm just putting it out there for you to ponder, that Obama's blackness is part of his con. 

Here's a stupendous irony: do you recall Jesse Jackson with tears streaming down his face in Grant Park, when Obama made his speech after defeating John McCain for the presidency? 

Jesse, who worked alongside Dr King, was looking at a dream fulfilled. But how does Jesse feel now? Conflicted? Hey, Jesse is a progressive. Does he think Obama has furthered the progressive agenda as president? How does Jesse feel about the fact that -- after this impossible dream of a black man as president came to pass -- that maybe Obama is the greatest Uncle Tom who ever lived? 

Come to think of it, Obama has done nothing for his own race, who voted for him 98%. Why? Maybe because he doesn't even believe he's a black man.

When he spoke to the Congressional Black Caucus in September 2011, he admonished them as follows: "I expect all of you to march with me and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We've got work to do, CBC."

He sure is using his blackness there. No white politician would've dared scold his black supporters like that.

But just look at the professorial arrogance he so easily reveals under his black cover. He's talking to his black compadres like he's talking to children. He thinks of his progressive base as balky brats, giving him grief over nothing much.

8. OBAMA'S NEW MEANINGLESS COMBATIVE TONE

And he's so very, very wrong. What has Obama done for progressives? Seriously?

Now he's trying to bullshit us with his American Jobs Act, a puny political patchwork ploy of GOP-friendly pleasantries, packaged with a rallying cry to soak the rich. He's not even trying to make hay about the GOP trying to privatize Medicare with a voucher program. He took that winning strategy off the table when he defined himself as willing to bargain away Medicare benefits for compromises from the GOP. Now he's stuck with doing a "let's tax millionaires" campaign, something he has neglected to do all the time he's been in office.

He's got a new combative tone, the pundits say; he's being ballsy, and side-swiping the GOP here and there. Everyone hails his new posture.

But the man is just full of it. He has always governed to the right, and now, all of a sudden, folks think because of his changed tone, a little campaign bluster, he's all of a sudden putting on a slightly lefty hat like it's supposed to fit right between his big ears, and that this new hat will appeal to his progressive base.

Bullshit. Does he and his advisers think we're stupid?

It's safe to say we can write Obama off as a fighter for the American people. There would be very little difference between an Obama and a Romney presidency, except Romney might be more effective. 

9. OBAMA SUCKS AS THE LEADER OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

One of the worst things is that Obama has totally sucked at being the leader of the Democratic Party. He led his party to defeat in the midterm elections, and I can't think of anything he could do to bring them back to power in 2012. He might save his presidency if his GOP opponent is too crazy (Perry or Cain or Gingrich) or too dull (Romney) to unseat him, but he will let the party down again.

The Democratic Party is stuck with a leader who doesn't believe in or fight for key Democratic Party principles, and is prepared to bargain any of those principles away.

The Democratic Party is stuck with a cypher as a leader, a leader who isn't a leader.

The Democratic Party needs a firebrand, and Obama ain't it.

He never will be. He is the hollow man. He is the slipperiest customer of them all. Try to put your finger on what he stands for, and you come away with an empty hand. He's like candy floss. He looks like something great and fluffy and tasty to bite into, but when you do, he vanishes in your mouth.

That's Obama. Our Candy Floss President.

There's no there there, folks. He's an empty vessel, and whatever you pour in, leaks out.

Poor us. Poor America. Washington is broken, and the cog around which the broken wheel spins, our President, is a hollow core of nothing, a big fat zero sucked into an outer-space black hole. The wheel is spinning around empty air.

It won't really matter who you vote for in 2012, unless the GOP fields one of their crazies instead of Romney. Then it might make a teensy weensy difference.

The hollow man will be better than the crazy one. 

Forsooth, gadzooks and gorblimey: all that talent, all that brilliance,  all that charm, all that oratory, all that fine chocolate covering up a hollow center.

At the end of Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, the compromised figure of Kurtz moans about what he has seen and done: 

"The horror, the horror." As a nation, mired in our own darkness of the heart, we can whisper among ourselves about our oh-so-gifted, oh-so-hollow leader:

 "The pity, the pity."

Posted by Evert Cilliers

Comments

The comments are well worth your time, detailed, on point, critical, almost polymathic.

Enjoy!

Oh! A thrill a day!

I see Newt has come up with an exciting, brand-new campaign idea!

Wonder why the Rethugs haven't thought of it before?

Gingrich calls for private retirement accounts

(/snark)