White Man's Burden

From Reuters via Yahoo! News (and thanks to Bob in Prague)

US Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) reacts to almost heading the wrong way off the stage after shaking hands with Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) at the conclusion of the final presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, October 15, 2008. REUTERS/Jim Bourg (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008 (USA)

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Separatists Hold Canada Inches From Evil

Bushist neocon Stephen Harper and his so-called "Conservative" Party emerged from Canada's federal election Tuesday with another minority government, but in a stronger position than before the election. A record number of Canadians slept through the festivities.

The Conservatives now hold 143 seats, up 16 from their previous 127, but still 12 short of the 155 they would need to ram their evil agenda through the 308-seat Parliament. In other words, a similar gain in the next election would be the end of democracy in Canada -- not that it seems to matter much to the Canadian voting public.

Harper's agenda, which the Conservatives have tried very hard to keep secret, surely includes allowing Canada to be swallowed up by the United States in a North American Union. It's a far cry from the nationalist conservative philosophy which most Canadians think of when they see the "Conservative" banners waving. This discrepancy speaks volumes about the American-style militarization of the Canadian "news" media.

The primary opposition party, Stephane Dion's Liberals, lost 19 seats to fall to 76. The Liberals have been standing firm against some of Harper's policies, but caving in on others. It's difficult to imagine that a stronger Conservative government and a weaker Liberal opposition could lead to anything other than an increasingly Bush-style government, with Harper and his henchmen railroading more and more unpopular policies through a mostly stunned Parliament, even though they only have a minority.

And yet, in the few minutes of Canadian television coverage I managed to catch, I heard a pundit wondering, "whether Harper will now change his approach to Parliament, which some critics have described as bullying".

It's "news" American-style: They don't get it. They don't get it on purpose. They're paid to not get it.

Of the remaining 89 seats -- just 12 of which would spill Canada over the neocon brink -- 50 were won by the Bloc Quebecois, led by Gilles Duceppe, which represents the nationalist-separatist sentiments of mostly-rural French-speaking Quebec. It is altogether fitting and proper that people who don't even want to be part of Canada should stand in the way of Canada becoming part of the US.

Two of the remaining 39 seats were won by independents, and the other 37 were taken by the New Democratic Party, which opposes virtually everything the Conservatives stand for, most notably Canada's participation in the war crime in Afghanistan. For all their strenuous opposition, the NDP gained only seven seats -- a pittance in light of the Liberal losses.

Given Harper's record over the past few years, it is impossible to look at these results -- with the Liberals declining, the NDP not gaining much, and the Conservatives gaining more seats than any other party -- especially in view of the record low turnout -- without wondering, "What is wrong with the Canadian people?"

But the answers are quite obvious, and they're just about the same as the answers to the question I ask myself much more often, namely: "What is wrong with the American people?"

• Too much propaganda and not enough education
• Too much trivia and not enough reality
• Too much pro sports, and pro religion, and sports as religion, and religion as education, and not enough civics, or politics, or foreign news, or domestic news
• Too much short-term self-interest and not enough concern for the rest of the world or the future
• Too much blind trust in the government and established media, and too little time or respect for the people who are actually telling the truth
• And both the electoral system and the system of "governance" are all screwed up
  

But other than that, they're fine.

Really.

Go, Leafs, Go!

Amen.

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Obama Gaining Strength Where It Counts

Support for Barack Obama has been rising among two segments of the American electorate whose support the Republicans usually count on: the rich and the filthy rich.

Reuters reports on a close race between the two candidates, even at the highest levels of the American kleptocracy:

Jim Taylor, vice chairman of the Harrison Group, a market research and strategy firm in Waterbury, Conn ... who produces a quarterly "Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America," said the wealthy were once a solid Republican majority. "It's not anymore," he told the Reuters Wealth Management Summit on Tuesday, citing the findings of his latest survey of 614 affluent individuals taken September 19-23.

That showed McCain had 40 percent of the "affluent and wealth vote," compared with 33 percent for Obama, and given the recent stock market slide Taylor says he would be surprised if Obama's support hadn't risen further in the past few weeks.

In the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, in contrast, about 80 percent of the wealthy supported the Republican nominee, Taylor said.

The Republican nominee happened to be George Bush, but people who support Republicans -- the people who did the most to put him in a position of power -- avoid mentioning his name whenever possible these days. Big surprise.

The collapse of Republican support is even more dramatic among the filthy rich:

For the wealthiest American households, who have at least $1.6 million set aside each year for discretionary spending, McCain was favored over Obama by 49 percent to 28 percent.

"That may sound like a lot but but there was a time when it was 100 to zero percent," Taylor said.

That may sound like a lot? Actually, what sounds like a lot is $1.6 million discretionary spending, minimum, per household.

Even among the most ambitious discretionary spenders, the notion that a Palin-McCain administration would hold the line on taxes and thus provide greater prosperity is not flying particularly well these days:

"Everybody believes that taxes are going up ... no matter who gets elected," said Timothy Vaill, chairman and chief executive of the wealth management arm of Boston Private Financial Holdings, a money-management firm.

So now it boils down to other things, Obama is looking more appealing all the time, especially abroad:

Some wealthy foreign investors with big investments in the United States are unnerved by McCain's running-mate, Alaska governor and self-described 'hockey mom' Sarah Palin, said Charles Lowenhaupt, chairman of St. Louis-based Lowenhaupt Global Advisors, which advises ultra-high-net-worth families.

"The non-U.S. wealth-holders I've talked to, in India for example, were feeling very negative on Obama. And all of sudden the Palin thing has flipped that because as naive as Obama looked they think Palin looks more so," he said.

He said wealthy individuals in India are highly critical of Obama's willingness to strike against terrorists in Pakistan without approval from Islamabad.

"They would say 'oh, Obama is terrible.' I just kept running into that when I was there. But when McCain chose Palin, they said 'oh Palin.' They just don't understand the whole culture around her, the 'hockey mom' idea."

Reuters won't mention it, but Obama's status among the well-to-do is certainly not damaged in any way by the fact that he owes his soul to Wall Street.

Congratulations, Barack. You're a real white boy now!

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TV Debate Blues

I went down to the vomitorium
thought I'd watch some of the puke-a-thon
yeah I went down to the vomitorium
thought I'd watch some of the puke-a-thon
but my stomach couldn't take it, baby
I switched it off soon as the sound came on

[repeat and fade away]

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It's Too Soon, And It's Too Late

I wouldn't want you to miss a terrific piece which Jimmy Montague has posted at Winter Patriot dot com:

It's too soon, and it's too late.

In "A Bill That Can Never Be Paid," WP asks how come the American people don't rise up in anger. It's because they can't imagine what's coming down on them. They think this isn't going to be any worse than, say, the S&L screwing they took during the '80s.

Then there's the fact that the Reagan Revolution is now thirty years old. Those of us over 30 years of age are living with an entire generation that, collectively, have no memory of the world that was before Reagan. So far as they're concerned, we haven't lost a thing and they don't yet understand what we older folks are all upset about.

Reaganism, so far as I can tell, has succeeded beyond even Rappin' Ron's wildest hopes. Between GOP liars, talk-radio hate merchants, and free-market mythology, the political landscape is changed so that electing liberals is impossible. Democrats have been forced so far to the Right that the two parties are now effectively one and that one is Reaganite conservative. Politicians no longer squabble over ideology. They squabble over loot.

Beyond the fact that the population now has less money and less leisure than they formerly had, changes to date have had little to no impact on the overwhelming majority. They are hunkered down around their television sets, hoping things are already as bad as things can get and waiting for the "all clear" to sound. Having never heard of noblesse-oblige, having no memory of the Great Depression, having no memory of responsible, accountable leadership or of constitutional government, and having had no PERSONAL experience of third-world poverty and police-state brutality, they lack any frame of reference.

Many older Americans know what is coming and fear it. They are preparing for it now. The rest of the country, totally unprepared, will be aroused when it finally gets here (in a few more weeks or months).

Younger Americans will be told by their masters that it's all the fault of the aged, the sick, the disabled. It is the aged and the sick and the disabled, after all, who draw the bulk of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and other so-called entitlements. We will be the Jews of the New Reich that is howling down upon us. Our personal destruction, the theft of our property, the consumption of our goods will consume the energy of the mob for several years. By that time, the government will have work for them in the armed forces.

Those with eyes to see now know where this is going. Those who don't see are those who will help do the killing. I've said enough.

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Multiple Meltdowns Simultaneously

In Iraq, "nervous negotiators" are trying to create an alternative pretext to "justify" the continuing war crime our "leaders" would prefer to describe as "liberation". And the Iraqis have "opened bidding" on contracts to develop the oil fields; these contracts were supposed to have been awarded on a no-bid basis to a handful of big American-multinationals, but the ungrateful Iraqis, still smarting from their liberation, nixed that bit of "political reconciliation".

Meanwhile, the "legal" proceedings at Gitmo have been revealed to be even more of a farce than we ever imagined, as

defense lawyers and human rights advocates charge that the fairness of the most significant proceeding at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is routinely undermined by incompetent interpretation.
...

The lawyers asked the court to order the government to produce an Arabic transcript of each hearing -- a motion military prosecutors are resisting.

And yet another Gitmo prosecutor, Lt. Col. Darrel J. Vandeveld, has resigned in protest; saying key evidence was being withheld from the defense. We already knew "incriminating evidence" was being fabricated; so this is no surprise.

On the home front, it appears that yesterday's market upswing was not a harbinger of prosperity returning, but a reaction to Henry Paulson's announcement that the big banks will be allowed to dictate the terms of the agreement by which they steal more of our money than we even have.

And my favorite team is now on six-game losing streak. But at least their meltdown won't affect the future of humanity.

A Bill That Can Never Be Paid

They were gambling on the riskiest of "investments", building worthless portfolios whose values just kept increasing; and lured by the awesome power of greed they forgot the most basic rules of the market: [1] Don't gamble with money you can't afford to lose, and [2] It ain't worth nothin' if you can't sell it.

So they put everything they had into building imaginary wealth, and when the wages of their sin came due, they handed the bill to you. It's a bill that can never be paid.

Instead of admitting that they had done wrong and going to the wall with some semblance of honor, they said to the governments of the world, "Without our cooperation, your society would turn to chaos overnight."

And the governments said, "What do you want?"

And they said, "Buy all these worthless portfolios from us, at the prices we used to imagine they were worth."

"But we don't have that kind of money. Nobody has that kind of money. All the money in the world wouldn't pay that bill."

"But that's not our problem!"

It was terrorism at the most basic level, and now you and your descendants have been saddled with a burden you cannot possibly carry.

And the terrorists are still at large and much more powerful than ever before, and they don't see how anything can stop them from doing it again, as many times as they want to.

And the only questions that remain in my mind are [1] How many times are you going to let them get away with it before you do something that gives them the pretext for gunning you down in the streets? and [2] How long is it going to take for that to happen?

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