Some visits to Zuccotti Park (the Wall Street occupation)

New York City--Me and my girlfriend paid a couple of visits to the Wall Street occupation over the last couple of weeks (on September 30th and October 7th), two days with marked contrasts for the site. September 30 was brimming with occupiers--as many as between 700 to 1,000 core individuals from New York were present (exact numbers are difficult to come by since how one defines an occupier can slippery at best), it was literally standing room only with "visitors" like myself.




It's my opinion that as this is a mostly symbolic action, "visitors" are just as worthy of being counted among the occupiers since we all share the same views about Wall Street and the bailout of the biggest American banks. We have come from all over the nation, from all walks of life and from a variety of age groups, a variety of demographics. What all of us share is that we're working class and that we're getting screwed by the economic sector and the political class. We know that working within the political process isn't going to bring about reform.




This occupation could go on record as the most photographed and recorded political event in American history to date, not even the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968.



Contrary to the contentions of early mainstream coverage, the occupiers aren't all twenty-somethings and they have a solid focus on why they're there and what their demands are: radical reform of the financial sector.

Also on that September 30 came some of the first representatives of American labor--the Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 100--and we were present, recording the event...along with an NYPD surveillance pod on a crane and nearly everyone else there. The TWU has sued the City of New York for commandeering five MTA buses to arrest Wall Street occupiers crossing the Brooklyn Bridge and lost, the cops can arrest them if they refuse to allow the action. Interestingly, police on the curbside began enforcing pedestrian codes, as if on cue once the TWU showed, but I leave it to the reader to draw their own conclusion. Had the cops not rioted again two nights earlier, beating and pepper-spraying occupiers once again, I wouldn't be so suspicious of their motives.

A number of plainclothes detectives were on hand as well as select NYPD who were photographing and videotaping everyone in the crowd. But many of the cops I've encountered were simply doing their jobs. An "us vs. them" mentality should be applied when brutality and extralegal behavior are present, but not as a default, my opinion.

There have also been unsubstantiated rumors that police planted among the occupiers were arresting individuals on the 5th of October--they have yet to be proven out. It's not the first of such rumors either that has been making the rounds. My own conclusion from both visits is that the core of the occupiers is well organized and know what they're doing. They're resourceful and could be ready for the long haul when the occupation itself ends and the real work of organizing begins, and a beginning is what this is. Right now, the police shenanigans at the Brooklyn Bridge and the resumption of extralegal brutality on the 5th of this month have seemingly thinned the ranks. That's if you only count them and leave out us visitors...

From September 30th:

Above: The TWU arrives on site, Sept. 30.

Above: Speeches by occupiers, not leaders. As no bullhorns are allowed by NYPD, every few words are relayed across the crowd by selected individuals, spaced-apart, so as to reach the farthest boundaries of Zuccotti Park.

All images the intellectual property of Matt Janovic and Isabel Martins. Copyright 2011.

Marcus Schrenker, evil genius

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"--W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming (Slouching towards Bethlehem)."

Indiana--We've topped the 1920s in every respect. Once, dumb formerly-rich people used to jump out of windows, off of ledges, or off of bridges. This was fine, and it had the dignified sense of not leaving such a mess. Schrenker wasn't from aristocratic-stock--he couldn't be, he's leaving too much of a mess.

Things are more complicated these days: Now, crooked and unlucky businessmen get into a plane, radio in a false distress signal, bail-out (pun intended), hit the chute, then somehow head North 225 miles to a pre-picked location in Alabama...to a waiting, rented motorcycle at a rental storage shed, and they disappear. See simple jumping-off a ledge is? They were smarter in "good-old-days." This guy wanted to be Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, to be able to enjoy the fruits of being dead without all the hassle. Who can blame him when it's "fight or flight"?

Having lost a Federal District case against one of his wealth management firms in Maryland, and knowing his assets were going to be frozen after December 31st, the time had come to face the music. Maybe read Twain in High School, but I'd imagine the lessons were lost on him. Anyway, his wife wisely left the schmuck before the events that began on Sunday...

This guy reminds me of all the morons I had to endure in college, and not people that I knew directly back then, but the business majors and that curious species known as the free market advocate, the Young Republican, the Chamber of Commerce cardholder, but really, the eventual businessman. Schrenker was this last sort of individual, a real card, no doubt, and he never really became a "real"one. Being stupid hurts, and Schrenker appears to have been "the stupidest guy in the room."

At 38, Marcus Schrenker is a creature I've met and know all too well. If you've ever had the misfortune of working for someone like him or entrusted your investments with his used car salesman (future politicians) ilk, you have my sincere sympathy and condolences. I'm sure you want that part of your life back too. Schrenker is that special kind of Midwestern jackass--the boss and petit bourgeois personality who thinks that they're a god after they've made their first $1,000,000 (after taxes). Frequently, they start out in fast food, but that's a story for another time.

Yes, yes, I'm "just jealous"--it's true--but these folks know everything. Just ask them, but it's going to take a time machine to do it now, the hang-dogs. That's just how the market crashes, that'll learn ya'.

Time machine? No problem. The Republican Party has violated most human laws, so why not the laws of physics? They appear willing and able. Yes, some people have a "funny" way of not thinking, and it's not just me. But hey, Schrenker (say it fast, win a prize!) could fly an airplane, he just couldn't run a sustainable business, that's all, no big deal. Perhaps he might have focused on his flying-abilities as a career--just a thought--but the former-business aspirant is at least getting more air and sunlight and experiencing some self-actualization.

Funnier still, I'm familiar with the city he took-off from--blessed Anderson, Indiana--which is not exactly the kind of town fit for human life (nearby Muncie isn't either), but a great place to build a Church (CHOGS occupy the town), discriminate against a Black person on the way home from work, or burn a cross on those hot weekends when the nits are biting. That the people there have almost no real culture, personality, taste, or intelligence, is a given, but not atypical of Indiana. Hey, at least it's a place where one has plenty of time to contemplate. But Anderson is a squalid town in a squalid part of the Hoosier state. Expect it to die almost entirely with the American auto industry along with a whole string of similarly stagnant Midwestern towns.

As is well known by now, Marcus Schrenker's Icon Group ( along with his other "wealth" mismanagement "firms") was under an Indiana Securities Fraud investigation, partly because the fun is over with George W. Bush and most of the GOP leaving office, the other part because what goes up, must come down when you're selling lies and air. He chartered an airplane and flew it out of Anderson on Sunday, January 11th, ostensibly to fly down to Destin, Florida. Schrenker radioed a distress signal over Birmingham, Alabama. Unsurprisingly, he'd already rented a storage shed in Harpersville on that Saturday and placed a Yamaha motorcycle with loaded saddlebags. Maybe he's in Mexico by now.

Unlike during 9/11, military interceptors had actually been sent up promptly to--uh--intercept his plane; they got close to the aircraft before its crash, noting that a side-panel door was open and that nobody was inside, fancy that. FAA authorities authorized that the plane be safely put onto autopilot so that it could crash in an unpopulated area, God bless them. It was just one more mess left by the business community that law enforcement authorities are going to have to clean-up, an era of the lie. Lies are what this story is all about.

Like most of his life--and the lives and values of the average Indiana businessman--it was all a sad lie. He probably lied about the orgasms too. Schrenker wrote his neighbor Tom Britt: "I embarrassed my family for the last time. By the time you read this I'll be gone. ..."Hypoxia can cause people to make terrible decisions and I simply put on my parachute and survival gear and bailed out. [I] just made a 2 million dollar mistake...I did not tell them [the Alabama Police] about what happened as I was embarrassed and scared." You could take the email at face value, and his comments to Britt are still going to be ridden with half-truths and outright lies. Of course he'll embarrass his family again. No, this not is amazing, and the full original must read like a Burroughs-Gysin cut-up thanks to its twisted logic.

What's not amazing is that Schrenker is clearly a pathological liar who cannot stop lying whether it benefits him or not, even in an ostensible "suicide note." He premeditatively bought the rental shed, put an also rented motorcycle in it, and is presumably riding it right now after his escape from the very stupid Alabama Police whom he earlier lied to, telling them he'd been in a canoe accident. Exactly how do you get into a canoe accident and only end-up wet up to your knees? I would have noticed this, but I'm just being observant here. Unfair, I know. At that previous moment in Childersberg, he was 225 miles from the scene of the plane wreck in Florida.

Schrenker bailed-out (pun intended) of his plane D.B. Cooper-style (Cooper was smarter) and probably landed in a Florida swamp thanks to a trusty parachute he'd packed. There's every reason to believe he had some kind of vehicle waiting down there as he did in Alabama. The problem is, he didn't figure-in the fact that the FAA would take it all very seriously, or the fact that those investigating him were going put the word out there on him, that he was fleeing. Now, Federal Marshals are looking for him and he's left a very good trail for them to follow.

Now, in this, the final week of the Bush II administration, the SEC and numerous other state, municipal, and federal law enforcement investigators can untie their hands for the first time in eight years and actually start shooting all the ducks in the mostly GOP-constructed barrel.

Schrenker is just a footnote, but his behavior has made him a noteworthy coda to an era of unparalleled business corruption under the Republican Party's stewardship. He is a clown, but he's not the only one wearing a suit-and-tie and doing the ordering. Marcus Schrenker isn't likely to kill himself, he's too much of an egomaniac, he loves his ass too much.

Postscript, 01.14.2008: Told you so. He couldn't carry it out properly, and he embarrassed himself and his family again. Yes, he tried to kill himself by cutting his wrist, but you cannot be half-pregnant, he failed again. "dual personality" my ass, he was liar who led a double life, end of story. Good riddance to Reaganism, it's over folks, praise God.

$$$ In hoc signo vinces. $$$...

"Schrenker's wife issues statement," WTHR (NBC), Indianapolis, 01.14.2008:

http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=9672899&nav=menu188_2_8

"Delta filings unveiled adviser's shaky record," AP, 01.14.2008: http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/01/14/planeside.html

"Wanted pilot's life had been falling apart," AP, 01.14.2008: http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/01/14/planecrash.html


The statement from Michelle Schrenker's counsel:

"Michelle first contacted me this past summer to discuss a divorce from her husband because he was having an affair. At the time, she wanted to work on reconciling with her husband. However, he continued his affair and, as a result, on December 30, 2008, she filed a petition for dissolution of her marriage to Marcus Schrenker. Her decision to file for divorce was based on her husband's infidelity and in no way was based on the investment fraud of which he is accused. In fact, Michelle first learned of the allegations against him when, on December 31, 2008, the police and investigators came to her door to search her home. To Michelle's dismay, at the time her home was being searched, Marcus was in Florida with his girlfriend.

Clearly, Michelle and her three young children are victims of this man's deceitfulness as well. She is not guilty of anything other than trusting her husband of 13 years. Everyone should remember that Michelle and her children are suffering through a terrible time right now. Through no fault of their own, they are having to deal with the repercussions of this man's behavior and will be doing so for a long time to come."

Porn industry wants a bailout

WWW--You gotta be kidding me. OK, I assume as everyone else does, that pornographers tend to be moral imbeciles with no sense of how corrupt and disgusting they really are, granted. But this is something: Larry Flynt and "Girls Gone Wild" owner Joe Francis want part of the bailout money. Will they get it? Get real.

I'd like to thank Larry Flynt for doing virtually nothing in assisting the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey. He didn't need to prove to me or anyone else that he's a greedy little creep who exploits women for their bodies, and in every way he can get away with. That he's scum is a given.

Francis is a little turd with tiny dick and no brains. Word has it that Larry once fucked a chicken--at least according to Al Goldstein, yet another pornographer, although he hit-the-skids ages ago around 2002. Compared to Larry Flynt, Al's a fucking aristocrat, a gentleman. At least he read Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave," and even understood it! Flynt? Francis? Forget it.

In the words of Al: "Eat a leper, fuck you," Larry Flynt.

"Porn industry seeks federal bailout," CNN, 01.07.2009:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/07/porn-industry-seeks-federal-bailout/

Michael Moore's plan to save the auto industry

WWW--Michael Moore's proposal makes sense--nationalize the auto industry, make it create mass transit, and get us off of oil entirely. Very good, I endore this one.

Sign if you agree: http://bravenewfilms.org/petitions/show/32-support-michael-moore-s-plan-to-save-the-big-3

Here's the plan:

Friends,

I drive an American car. It's a Chrysler. That's not an endorsement. It's more like a cry for pity. And now for a decades-old story, retold ad infinitum by tens of millions of Americans, a third of whom have had to desert their country to simply find a damn way to get to work in something that won't break down:

My Chrysler is four years old. I bought it because of its smooth and comfortable ride. Daimler-Benz owned the company then and had the good grace to place the Chrysler chassis on a Mercedes axle and, man, was that a sweet ride!

When it would start.

More than a dozen times in these years, the car has simply died. Batteries have been replaced, but that wasn't the problem. My dad drives the same model. His car has died many times, too. Just won't start, for no reason at all.

A few weeks ago, I took my Chrysler in to the Chrysler dealer here in northern Michigan -- and the latest fixes cost me $1,400. The next day, the vehicle wouldn't start. When I got it going, the brake warning light came on. And on and on.

You might assume from this that I couldn't give a rat's ass about these miserably inept crapmobile makers down the road in Detroit city. But I do care. I care about the millions whose lives and livelihoods depend on these car companies. I care about the security and defense of this country because the world is running out of oil -- and when it runs out, the calamity and collapse that will take place will make the current recession/depression look like a Tommy Tune musical.

And I care about what happens with the Big 3 because they are more responsible than almost anyone for the destruction of our fragile atmosphere and the daily melting of our polar ice caps.

Congress must save the industrial infrastructure that these companies control and the jobs they create. And it must save the world from the internal combustion engine. This great, vast manufacturing network can redeem itself by building mass transit and electric/hybrid cars, and the kind of transportation we need for the 21st century.

And Congress must do all this by NOT giving GM, Ford and Chrysler the $34 billion they are asking for in "loans" (a few days ago they only wanted $25 billion; that's how stupid they are -- they don't even know how much they really need to make this month's payroll. If you or I tried to get a loan from the bank this way, not only would we be thrown out on our ear, the bank would place us on some sort of credit rating blacklist).

Two weeks ago, the CEOs of the Big 3 were tarred and feathered before a Congressional committee who sneered at them in a way far different than when the heads of the financial industry showed up two months earlier. At that time, the politicians tripped over each other in their swoon for Wall Street and its Ponzi schemers who had concocted Byzantine ways to bet other people's money on unregulated credit default swaps, known in the common vernacular as unicorns and fairies.

But the Detroit boys were from the Midwest, the Rust (yuk!) Belt, where they made real things that consumers needed and could touch and buy, and that continually recycled money into the economy (shocking!), produced unions that created the middle class, and fixed my teeth for free when I was ten.

For all of that, the auto heads had to sit there in November and be ridiculed about how they traveled to D.C. Yes, they flew on their corporate jets, just like the bankers and Wall Street thieves did in October. But, hey, THAT was OK! They're the Masters of the Universe! Nothing but the best chariots for Big Finance as they set about to loot our nation's treasury.

Of course, the auto magnates used to be the Masters who ruled the world. They were the pulsating hub that all other industries -- steel, oil, cement contractors -- served. Fifty-five years ago, the president of GM sat on that same Capitol Hill and bluntly told Congress, what's good for General Motors is good for the country. Because, you see, in their minds, GM WAS the country.

What a long, sad fall from grace we witnessed on November 19th when the three blind mice had their knuckles slapped and then were sent back home to write an essay called, "Why You Should Give Me Billions of Dollars of Free Cash." They were also asked if they would work for a dollar a year. Take that! What a big, brave Congress they are! Requesting indentured servitude from (still) three of the most powerful men in the world. This from a spineless body that won't dare stand up to a disgraced president nor turn down a single funding request for a war that neither they nor the American public support. Amazing.

Let me just state the obvious: Every single dollar Congress gives these three companies will be flushed right down the toilet. There is nothing the management teams of the Big 3 are going to do to convince people to go out during a recession and buy their big, gas-guzzling, inferior products. Just forget it. And, as sure as I am that the Ford family-owned Detroit Lions are not going to the Super Bowl -- ever -- I can guarantee you, after they burn through this $34 billion, they'll be back for another $34 billion next summer.

So what to do? Members of Congress, here's what I propose:

1. Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address. And because we are facing a massive economic, energy and environmental crisis, the new president and Congress must do what Franklin Roosevelt did when he was faced with a crisis (and ordered the auto industry to stop building cars and instead build tanks and planes): The Big 3 are, from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil and, more importantly to build trains, buses, subways and light rail (a corresponding public works project across the country will build the rail lines and tracks). This will not only save jobs, but create millions of new ones.

2. You could buy ALL the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion. Why should we give GM $18 billion or $25 billion or anything? Take the money and buy the company! (You're going to demand collateral anyway if you give them the "loan," and because we know they will default on that loan, you're going to own the company in the end as it is. So why wait? Just buy them out now.)

3. None of us want government officials running a car company, but there are some very smart transportation geniuses who could be hired to do this. We need a Marshall Plan to switch us off oil-dependent vehicles and get us into the 21st century.

This proposal is not radical or rocket science. It just takes one of the smartest people ever to run for the presidency to pull it off. What I'm proposing has worked before. The national rail system was in shambles in the '70s. The government took it over. A decade later it was turning a profit, so the government returned it to private/public hands, and got a couple billion dollars put back in the treasury.

This proposal will save our industrial infrastructure -- and millions of jobs. More importantly, it will create millions more. It literally could pull us out of this recession.

In contrast, yesterday General Motors presented its restructuring proposal to Congress. They promised, if Congress gave them $18 billion now, they would, in turn, eliminate around 20,000 jobs. You read that right. We give them billions so they can throw more Americans out of work. That's been their Big Idea for the last 30 years -- layoff thousands in order to protect profits. But no one ever stopped to ask this question: If you throw everyone out of work, who's going to have the money to go out and buy a car?

These idiots don't deserve a dime. Fire all of them, and take over the industry for the good of the workers, the country and the planet.

What's good for General Motors IS good for the country. Once the country is calling the shots.

Yours,
Michael Moore

The AP: Defining Bush so you don't have to!

Washington D.C.--The hacks at AP just seem to want to anger me and the rest of America with their constant insults to our collective-intelligence (admittedly low). Today's movement came over Bush's legacy. But the AP's Ben Feller seems to have inhabited another world than the rest of us since 2000, making some odd observations that probably contain editorial distortions (his boss made him write other contradictory lines into it):

Yet there is time left to shape how Bush's tenure will be defined. No matter how much his administration raised warnings about risks in the financial system, no matter how much the private sector is the one that went off the rails, one of the biggest financial crises in generations still happened on Bush's watch.("Analysis: Bailout blues may help to define Bush term," AP, 09.24.2008)

We must have missed all of those warnings. Was it "code red" on Fridays? Who can remember? If this financial disaster spawned by changing financial regulations and laws and weakening government regulation of the market was the only thing that "happened on Bush's watch," we'd all be a lot freer, safer, and saner. But it isn't. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 should be viewed in the same light as the market crash that was fostered by other Bush II administration's inaction and negligence.

Add to this the warrantless surveillance program now legalized retroactively by Congress just a few-months-ago, all of the endless military appropriations by them for the pointless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the illegal kidnapping and torture of terrorism-suspects, Guantanamo Bay, Abu-Ghraib, ENRON, the still-classified 2001 Energy policy meetings, the Plame scandal, Mark Foley, Randall "Duke" Cunningham, "Hookergate,"David Vitter, Jack Abramoff...getting tired reading the list yet? The list of GOP wrongdoing is unimaginably long, twisted, and perverse in every sense.

The ostensible president will be attempting speech again tonight. He won't have anything of any substance to say. Watch porn. Watch Rocky Horror for the 100th time. Eat. Pick your teeth. It doesn't matter what he says, only what he's done. George W. Bush allowed this mess to become what it has, and now he wants us to let him off-the-hook. We likely will--being the cowards that we are as a nation--do just that.

The problem is, the bailout's not likely to work, though we're probably going to see some forestalled justice here as a result. Some frontier justice sounds good, but this all has to be aboveboard, otherwise we become like the criminals we're now witnessing the downfall of. Events have a way of their own, and not even corruption can stop the inevitable crashing of a hollow ideology against the real world.

This current economic chaos is reminiscent of the Soviet Union's system which collapsed because of similar distortions in its "core-tenets" (collectivization, but really an authoritarian forced-production based partly on Frederick Taylor's "scientific management") that had formerly--and barely--worked for a time. The same could be said of this system. The problem is more fundamental. Eventually, the anarchy of power pushes most systems to the brink, so they do end. Contrary to former belief, the men and women of Wall Street aren't gods. But forget those assholes--the aftermath is what's important, and it's up to the average person to do their best to ensure that we all stay within the law and to keep pushing for what helps the common good. Continued lying isn't going to help these scoundrels anymore, but they've had help in that area for ages.

Not even the media are going to put Humpty together again. Perception only goes so far until the reality on the ground corrects everything.

On that note, the press has done a terrible job in informing us about this corruption and protecting us from it by sounding the alarms. Rather, they have fed the misinformation of the public and still are. Yet, we were always going to find-out in the end, and keeping us in the dark won't work these days. It's one of those rare historical moments where the scales fall off of the eyes of the people. What we do with this knowledge is what counts the most. We weren't warned and accountability wasn't there.

Congress has also failed in this key area, and so has the Supreme Court. All the AP article today attempted to do was to limit the parameters of the debate and how George W. Bush is defined. They failed.

"Analysis: Bailout blues may help to define Bush term," AP, 09.24.2008: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080924/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_bailout_blues

AP: "Bush says government role essential to ease crisis," as the death of extremist conservatism forces Norquist into hiding

"We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals-and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship."--Grover Norquist, stating a political modus operandi that's lost its effectiveness among rednecks.

Washington D.C.--Mission accomplished. Yet the GOP slithered into the White House and Congress saying (yep, especially when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House): "Government is bad. Government isn't the answer to our problems--it is the problem. " Except that it isn't, the business community is the real problem.

Then, there's this extremist wacko named Grover Norquist, who said we should shrink government "to the size that we [the business and financial sectors] can drown it in the bathtub," and that tax cuts are an absolute, even if it means we cannot fund things. Congratulations, Mr. Norquist, the mess you always wanted to create is here, and it's about to bite you and your ilk in-the-ass.

The market is crashing thanks to runaway financial deregulation that the GOP and her backers wanted and there was nary a Democrat in Congress to effectively oppose it. You're correct--GOP--this shouldn't be a partisan issue since both major parties are to blame for the current mess:

"This is a pivotal moment for America's economy," Bush said in his most extensive remarks this week on the crisis. He said that a financial contagion that began with low-quality home mortgages had "spread throughout our financial system" and frozen many financial transactions.

The president said the federal government should interfere in the marketplace "only when necessary," and that this is one of those times. "Given the precarious state of today's financial markets, and their vital importance to the daily lives of the American people, government intervention is not only warranted, it is essential," he said. ("Bush says government role essential to ease crisis," AP, 09.19.2008)

You want fries with that? Now he and the rest of the parrots in the GOP are going to start backtracking by saying, "We only meant there are a few cases where government intervention in the economy is necessary," which is just going to exacerbate the public's anger at them. This is because everyone knows that it's their fault, their mess, and we're bailing them out of it. It's the death of conservatism.

Who got bailed-out? Why, the crooked financial institutions and major shareholders, that's who. Not homeowners, not the unemployed--not anywhere that it's going to create a long-term fix of the economy, to stabilize it and to make it sustainable. All they've done in Washington D.C. and the right wing think-tanks is to buy some more time before the elections. Too late. But sustaining the situation until the elections are over is exactly what both parties have in mind.

Talk, talk, talk, and almost no walk for the public at all. That was always part of the plan for the so-called "neoconservatives" and the rest of the holders of "conventional wisdom" regarding the economy--a group more closely-related to extremist Libertarianism than anybody wants to admit. Their goal has been to keep the government from providing any social services or relief to the working-class, relegating it to servicing defense contractors, the corporations and the banks, and little else. John McCain tows this line, and regardless of what he might contend, he will have to raise taxes. He's also not going to be ending Roe v. Wade anytime soon either, but that's another fish to fry for another time.

It's a twilight moment for the followers of the Mystery Cult of Grover (sexy name, no?) Norquist: they've gotten what they wanted all along, but now the political-costs are mounting in ways they never imagined. Their only way out of their current catastrophe of objective-reality colliding with their Alice in Wonderland economic, antisocial, and political philosophies which have hit that wall that was always waiting for them at the end is to lie and to hide.

You see, here's the problem for anyone who would give Norquist and his "leave us alone" coalition any credence: if you want social services after a natural disaster, if you want bail-outs of your financial institutions run on hokum and paradox, your wars, money for schools, municipal-spending, roads, airports, highways, drinkable water, breathable air, police, a National Guard, a competetive workforce, a future and an actual society--you have to pay taxes, and taxes naturally rise over time. There is no solution to this problem except progressive taxation, namely taxing the wealthiest and making them pay their share as part of social responsibility in a civilized nation.

This peculiarly American idea that "you don't have to pay taxes" is utterly wacko in its scope and conviction, and is not only self-serving rubbish, but has no objective merit whatsoever. This is why we're seeing the bailouts under one of its greatest presidential-adherents. If it was true at all, we wouldn't see these bailouts.

Oh yes, John McCain is going to keep saying "we shouldn't be doing this," and most Americans will agree, though they actually mean it.

But what do you suggest as an alternative? Norquist doesn't have one, though some Keynesian Democrats are already suggesting New Deal style progressive taxation of the rich. Conversely, Norquist and his ilk still want to defund all government at all levels, and while he's getting his wish, it's clear that he and the other adherents of their ridiculous pseudo-ideology intuitively understand that the fallout from a public that expects government services isn't going to tolerate the kind of world they want. Ugly confrontations are coming soon.

If you go to Norquist's site, "Americans for Tax Relief," you'll see that there isn't one article, link, or comment directly addressing the recent bailouts of IndyMac, AIG, the demise of Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan's buyout of Bear Stearns, the nationalization (that's Socialism, folks, the kind that Libertarians and so-called "conservatives" think is alright) of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Bank of America buyout of Merrill-Lynch, or any of the other lending institutions that were allowed to take things this far over the cliff. If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have proven anything at all it's that privatization doesn't work, especially when it's unregulated by government agencies with real oversight powers.

But that's what regulations are for, so we won't mention the obvious fact that they--neoconservatives and wackos like Grover Norquist--birthed this unprecedented crash by creating the proper preconditions for it, actually demanding it for years. It couldn't have happened without incredibly powerful backers, however.

In 1997, Reason magazine fawned over Norquist in an interview that makes plain his Libertarian credentials:

... Reason: You have worked with the Libertarian Party in the past. When and why?

Norquist: In the 1978, '79, and '80 races I ran a group called the Tax Action Coalition. Ed Clark [the 1980 L.P. presidential nominee] was the chairman. I've found that Libertarian Party activists make the best tax activists because they never get involved in the silly questions about which tax is preferable. They understand that the total tax burden is the total amount of freedom taken away from you, and it needs to be reduced as quickly and as completely as is humanly possible.... ("Happy Warrior: Republican AgitatorGrover Norquist on building a 'leave-us-alone' coalition," Reason, Feb., 1997)

No questions here, but the Libertarians have to be loving the presidency and Congress of George W. Bush right now, since he's hitting all of their notes. But hey, they want to legalize pot...and vigilantism, more runaway deregulation where corporations can poison and exploit you with impunity (and not pay taxes at all), where children shoot their parents with easily-available assault rifles, and where we're left with a nation where basically no law and order exists anymore. Sounds great, right? I didn't think so either.

Segments of the public will swallow some of this out of fear and stupidity, but in the end, the New Deal programs and protections are holding-strong. But what's Norquist's reaction to all of these bailouts? We don't know. As expected, he's going to have to do a lot of back-peddling, flip-flopping, and being cagey, common traits of this era of the elevation of the little man coming to power politics (and the predictable abuse of the term "genius" when the economy is running "strong").

Grover Norquist was the designer and architect of the Bush tax-cuts that came in 2001, a rollback of the New Deal's progressive taxation that kept our economy reasonably stable for over five decades--the same amout of time that the GOP couldn't achieve concurrent majorities in Congress.

That should tell you something: as the WWII generation has died-off, the lessons that they learned over 70 years ago have been going with them. "Victory" leaves Norquist in a strange place that he never expected--what to do next.

As anyone could have predicted, wacked-out little men like Grover Norquist will have to take their brand of snake oil to the state and local levels where the tax-crunch is being felt the strongest. Their chances at making any real inroads are very poor. The public also expects social services at these levels, yet another byproduct of the New Deal policies that continued their expansion into the Johnson years. The expectation of social services being provided by the federal goverment have become engrained into the public mind and aren't going-away.

But it's always 1928 to the GOP and her allies on the far-right, and that's saying something in one of the more right wing nations of the developed world, the red-haired stepchild called America. And so Norquist and others have decided to keep below the radar down at the state level as their handiwork explodes at the national level.

Isn't it great to agree with oneself? Yes it is, so the Big business-backed right wing has created the Caesar Rodney Institute in Delaware.

Norquist was their for the birth:

"What we're really stressing is policies that give people the ability to exercise individual initiative and to take personal responsibility for it," said Bergh, a Brandywine Hundred mathematician and economist, who is an information technology consultant. "Those are the kind of things that will lead a government that is very open and appropriately limited. We want government to be outcome-focused."

He said the organization wants to build bridges between the political parties.

Norquist said Delaware was in need of an independent research and education think tank like the Pioneer Institute in Boston, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Mich., and the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix, Ariz. Mackinac pushes individual choice and free markets, said Michael Jahr, spokesman for Mackinac.

"Ideas communicated with other people that are dramatized and explained can change the world. That's why the Caesar Rodney Institute is important," Norquist said. "You can change the world from Delaware." ("Free-market advocates open for business," Delaware Online, 09.17.2008)

We'll be sure to keep it isolated to places like Delaware, but thanks for the warning. Their rhetoric all sounds reasonable until you realize that they don't actually mean it when they speak about accountability for all. If they did, they'd be out defending their past-arguments on how the economy should be run (no regulation by the "mean old government" with their inconvenient "laws" and "regulations").

Freaks like Norquist aren't doing any defending, and it's a telling admission of defeat--not that any journalists are going to be confronting them on it anytime soon, just another byproduct of a dying pseudo-ideology and economy.

The fixes aren't going to have a long-lasting impact without--say it--greater regulation of the financial and business sectors of the economy, and more laws to do so if required. Taxes are also going to be raised, especially for the wealthiest. It's coming. Without this logical rise in tax- revenues, the entire American--and "global"--economy will go into total insolvency. Some pundits and supporters of Norquist have crowed over the years that this is exactly what the plan was: bankrupt the government to get them off-the-backs of the average American, namely wealthy businessmen and bankers. Toronto writer Jeff Berg notes:

Another winner in this battle of ideas over very big money are those like Grover Norquist whose self-professed goal over the last two decades has been to “shrink it down to a size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” It being the U.S. government. The only way to do this of course is to bankrupt it first. Reagan had a good go at it but his “legacy” has been left in shade by the outsized profligacy and recklessness of Bush and Cheney. As he has so very often Gore Vidal turned the most memorable phrase about this tickets unerring abilities: “Everything Bush touches turns to poo like King Midas in reverse.” ("the Banks Get Their Presidential Pardon-You and I Bail Out Wall Street," GNN.tv, 09.18.2008)

The problem with Berg's argument is that all of this undescores the failures of the current conservative ideology and its application. What next? Where's all the crowing over their "great victory"? There is none, because there is no "great victory," only an underscoring that their so-called "ideology" doesn't work in the real world. What they want and have gotten only leads us towards another crash, another bank failing and having to be bailed-out--then what? What next?

Then the banks and business and tech sectors have everything...and the global economy collapses, and all of that capital they've hoarded is now worthless. Perhaps we can assume they advocate a police state after that, since it's the only thing that would save them and the remnants of their wealth and power. "Conspiracy"? Hardly, this was all a mainstream deal, policy.

Granted that there is no other choice in nationalizing these private lenders and brokers, but remember that the bailouts and the resultant debts and social spending will all have to be serviced through a pronounced progressive taxation and a solvent government. These extremist elements aren't going to get their way in this area, and many of them don't genuinely want to. Without those preconditions, none of the current economic order works or is possible at all, what with its predictable and cyclical excesses.

Of course, there will be a lot of grumbling over the inevitable rise in taxes. None of it will matter.

But what could we expect if taxes weren't raised on the wealthy? A crash that would eclipse 1987's, and would likely compete with 1929. Nobody knows, ultimately, but it won't be good. And so now you know why extremists on the right want to pretend it's 1928 forever: They're nuts. They have no clue, and neither do those who stupidly believe a word they write or say.

Most of this mindless insanity begins with the Reagan administration (under which Norquist served as an adviser), but its cultural and political-roots go far back to the asinine resistance to the New Deal back in the 1930s. Soon, very soon, people will begin a decades-long cursing of Norquist, Rove, Bush, and all the rest, just as they did with the impotent and inactive Herbert Hoover. Frankly, I'm enjoying the show and all of the scrambling--and I haven't even mentioned the mounting-debt from the wars in the Middle East.

"Free-market advocates open for business," Delaware Online, 09.17.2008: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080917/BUSINESS/809170353/1003

"Happy Warrior: Republican AgitatorGrover Norquist on building a 'leave-us-alone' coalition," Reason, February, 1997: http://www.reason.com/news/show/30147.html

The utterly wacko Fifth columnist "Americans for Tax Reform": http://www.atr.org/

"Bush says government role essential to ease crisis," AP, 09.19.2008: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20080919/48d323c0_3ca6_15526200809191995788214