Thank you Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson, for saving us all

Washington D.C.--The man who looks a lot like he's headed for multiple-strokes (and why not) misspoke this week. No, he wasn't lying about some crime he had direct-involvement in...OK, I guess he did, but that's not the point.

Earlier this week, Paulson said we "have turned the corner on the economic crisis...and averted a financial collapse." Wow, does he like tempting the fates and the goddess called Providence.

Today, we're seeing the market react rationally to his Mesopotamian comments: the market's DOW Jones industrial standard went down below 8,000, or 7, 997.28, the lowest in at least five years. Yep, those comments are really having an effect on the market alright.

Consumer spending has hit a monthly-low in October with the biggest drop since 1947 (see the article a few posts below on lame-duck President Bush's comments on this at Federal Hall last week for yucks), a stunning 1%. Thanks Hank, keep talking, and see your doctor about your health, you look like shit. Such are the permutations of history overwhelming the scoundrels who have been on our necks for ages.

Maybe he'll hit some luck and contract Lou Gehrig's disease, but I heard it died with him. Were I Paulson, I'd emigrate somewhere very remote before Americans start burning him in-effigy. "But why not burn him in Washington?" says my cat. Indeed, why not?

Bush attempts human speech--as opposed to Cthuloid--at Federal Hall:

http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2008/11/bush-ruminates-on-failure-of-60-years.html

The Indiana GOP's Laughable Obama Mailer on William Ayers

South Bend, Indiana--What do you do when your party has nothing to offer the public except more of the same corruption, pederasty, whore-mongering, ethical-lapses, and an unbending loyalty to the rich at the expense of the rest of the public? You keep beating the same drum, over-and-over again because you have no new ideas or agendas and never did. In that moronic indefatigable spirit, Indiana's GOP sent this piece-of-paper to me.

This isn't to say Barack Obama is perfect by a long-shot, but the connection to former Weathermen leader Bill Ayers is stretching things more than a little bit. The truth is, it's a blatant lie meant to squeeze the rest of that 9/11 fear out of a frightened minority of the public.

Recall that this piece is coming from someone who doesn't intend to vote for Barack Obama, but for Ralph Nader (a write-in, Madonna's...well, Madonna, though Mickey Mouse is a real person). That said, I don't have a problem with the majority of the Weathermen bombings, though the truth be known, their core leadership (people like Ayers and Dohrn) were all rich kids throwing a tantrum over their parents' war. Like their parents, they had--and probably still harbor--a lust for power, which they got a good taste of during their rampage.

But the United States was committing genocide in Southeast Asia at that time, violence against Black Americans over the Civil Rights movement was appalling and widespread, and the nation was in flames and divided as it had been during the Civil War. Today, one could argue forcefully that we're doing the same things in slow-motion in Iraq, and that the GOP is doing their best to neglect and disenfranchise Blacks. One would expect similar activitites as the Weathermen today, but welcome to the post-9/11 and Oklahoma City bombing world. Today, domestic terrorism is unlikely to come from a leftward-direction.

If you're an individual who sees these things for what they are--unspeakable crimes against humanity committed by our government for the benefit of giant corporations, you have some options.The choices are few and difficult: you could just try to go on with your life knowing what's really happening in another country in your name. If you have a conscience, this isn't going to be easy, but never underestimate the power of rationalization, it worked wonders in Germany under Hitler. One of them is what Ayers and the rest of them did during the Vietnam war, though I don't recommend doing so.

Another option is to back what's happening wholeheartedly, eventually becoming a party to the slaughter, if only indirectly. This is the easiest route, since most of society and its institutions are going to tell you constantly that this viewpoint is not only valid, but necessary for "the maintenance of our way of life." And isn't our way of life wonderful? You'll be rewarded for doing what's wrong in most cases, but it's even money you won't be punished...at least not by Americans.

Yet another option is to take the route of nonviolent civil disobedience to the war, not even allowing for the application of violence against property that serves the war's expediencies--property that makes the war possible at all, like supply-dumps, recruiting centers, military bases, defense research labs, defense contractors and their facilities, defense research labs at public universities, and-so-on. These were the kinds of targets that the Weathermen targeted, and their main goal was to destroy property only, not to target human beings. But they did want to instill fear and terror in those who supported and expedited the war in Southeast Asia, making them terrorists. They wanted to "spread the love," which I don't find morally wrong.

Ultimately, I don't advocate what Ayers and others in the Weathermen Group did during the 1960s-70s. They and a group that became the PLP (the ineffectual Maoist People's Labor Party) splintered the most effective progressive student political organizations, SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) America has likely ever known. That's not the issue. The issue is Obama's connection to Ayers, which is practically nonexistent. Times have changed, but the GOP doesn't appear to have noticed.

For example, the generation of new voters never lived through the red-baiting of the Cold War years, scarcely knows all the details of the 1960s, and doesn't really care at all. They just know things are fucked-up and that they don't make enough money to live on. No "socialism" there, just common sense by ordinary people. The kids don't want to hear about Bill Ayers. Neither do the majority of Americans who want to hear about what McCain and Palin plan to do to "fix" the economy and to stabilize it. Reform is in the air, but all candidate McCain can do is talk about Ayers. This is because he has no "plan" and no vision, and neither does the rest of his obsolete party (who said they were ever good? not I).

Imagine that: all the GOP has to sell is fear. That's not a good platform for needed change that the vast majority of the public now wants and is going to start demanding before long. But please, please keep banging that same drum until the bitter end. I know you will. In one week--at-minimum--you're going to lose a lot of seats in Congress. And, oh yeah: thanks Indiana GOP, I needed kindling to burn the rest of my trash out here in the country. Thanks.

If Bill Ayers was a threat to anyone during the 1960s-70s, it was himself and the rest of the Weathermen, a cop, and a janitor. He and his wife Bernadine Dohrn helped splinter most of the New Left, making it essentially impotent in-the-face of an escalating war under President Nixon. It's all reminiscent of what Pier Paolo Pasolini said about the student riots in Paris during the Spring of 1968. "It's an internecine struggle." said the radical Italian Communist, poet, philosopher, movie director, and general polymath. Pasolini was right about Europe--and unwittingly--about people like the Weathermen. Ayers and Dohrn came from privileged-backgrounds. While underclass radicals went to prison in the 1970s-80s, Ayers and Dohrn were allowed into academia. Maybe that's why they do so much community work today. They should for the rest of their lives, they owe us and their comrades in our prison system.

This Republican mailer below omits quite a bit. If you were ignorant of the facts--as most Hoosiers are--you'd think Ayers met Obama right after he stopped bombing and turned himself in alongside his wife in 1980. Obama was a blip at that time, a nobody.

Barack Obama a radical Leftist? Take it from someone who actually is: that's a laugh. If only he was a Fred Hampton, a Malcolm X, or a Martin Luther King Jr. The fact is, he isn't. If....

If Obama becomes president-elect

A'murka--Look, you have no idea how thrilling the idea of a Black American president is to me. The only single group of Americans that I've consistently had respect for besides Jews are Black people. Not Poles, not German-Americans, not anyone else.

But the problem is, we're probably all going to hate Obama after he's done very little in the social agendas we all need expedited. We're going to have to fight and pressure him to do what's right. Even if the Democrats somehow win a veto-proof and filibuster-proof majority in both houses of Congress, most of them are going to do their best along with the Republicans to derail any substantial social-dividend.

That's right: I'm saying that if Obama wins, in three-years you're all going to hate him and think he's the same kind of son-of-a-bitch that's leaving office on January 20th, 2009. Why do I think this? My knowledge of American history and its trends and cycles, especially regarding the last 30 years. That said, I wouldn't dissuade many voters from casting their votes for candidate Barack Obama, and would never advocate them voting for a Republican in any lifetime. Obama's record is hardly sterling or pure on a social agenda, let alone on the wars in the Middle East, nor regarding the obvious crimes of the Bush administration.

Obama has voted for funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without exception, and there are troubling-signs elsewhere. For a former professor of constitutional law, he has some very peculiar viewpoints on what's acceptable behavior by a presidential administration. He has not called for the prosecution of a patently criminal administration, let alone for its impeachment. While it's true that he didn't vote for the authorization of force in Iraq, it's even money that he would have, his only out being that he wasn't a member of Congress at the time.

Mark these words: you're going to hate this man if he wins, and in a very short time...unless you apply extraordinary pressure on him and Congress to push for a more social agenda for all, a genuine redistribution of wealth that's unprecedented in our history. Only then can we be a viable nation that can compete on the world stage, bringing-back a nation that was once an innovator in so many areas.

This requires breaking the logjam of concentrated power, that greatest threat to ingenuity, spontaneity, and inventiveness that really did make this a great nation at one time. My feeling is he's going to blow it because he's going to be told to by his handlers. He shows all the warning-signs. I'm voting Nader/Gonzales so I can sleep at night.

"Poor Old 'Joe the Plumber' " line being parroted by mainstream press

WWW--Yes, "poor" old Sam is getting his ass kicked all over the terra because he felt compelled to make inane comments towards Barack Obama, on taxes, lied about his occupation and name, and why he has such a stupid haircut. The abuse came, as it tends to, from the late night shows like David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, and the Tonight Show.

So what? You knew the cameras were around, and you knew your own past...or did you? Get over it. Grow-up. "Sam the plumber" deserves no defending whatsoever, and he decided to open his big mouth, chasing-down the candidate and the news crews with his predictably unimportant comments on the state of America. With luck, he and others like him will never vote again if they plan on it always being for the GOP.

Lesson: people with storied pasts should watch what they say regarding issues like taxation when they have their own questionable behaviors surrounding said issues. Wurzelbacher is a 34-year-old blowhard and a tax-cheat.

Nuff said, but even (even?!) CNN's Lou Dobbs is out there asking with unbelievable temerity: "Has Plumber Joe been treated unfairly by the media?" No. How about asking yourself, Lou? Stupid, just stupid. Quit embarrassing me, America. Nice try, GOP, it didn't work. Pathetic.

Joe (really Sam, but "Joe" sounds more iconic, so he ran with it) the plumber butt

" 'I’m kind of like Britney Spears having a headache. ...Everybody wants to know about it.' ” --Faux Ohio plumber Samuel Wurzelbacher shooting his mouth off again on Thursday. (AP)

Holland, Ohio--Poor Joe. He won't pay his taxes, he doesn't really have the legal right to work as a plumber in and around Toledo (making him an unqualified scab), and he couldn't stop and think about these facts when he opened his big mouth towards presidential candidate Barack Obama. This would all be due to the fact that he's clearly unintelligent, making him a Republican by-default.

The Obama campaign was doing door-to-door meetings with voters in Joe's neighborhood, and it was entirely coincidental--but very likely, it being Ohio--that they brushed-up against a very silly and stupid man named Samuel Wurzelbacher, who likes to go by the name of "Joe." Or was it a coincidence?

Wurzelbacher finally had his "chance" at his own fifteen minutes of fame, and now he wishes that he hadn't taken it. He's now ducking any and all media outlets. But all the lapdog press has been doing is balancing him with the reality of his statements about the candidate, his platform, and Wurzelbacher's claims about himself. Unsurprisingly, they don't match-up with objective reality, but since when has that ever stopped a wrong-headed American from shooting their mouth off in a way that can only hurt themselves? Ahem.

As we all know by now, Wurzelbacher questioned Obama's tax plan, echoing baseless GOP attacks that we're all--all of us--going to be taxed higher, even the rest of us who make under $250,000 a year, like "Joe." Except "Joe" doesn't make what the rest of us do, he makes significantly more, at least $100,000-a-year. Yes, I feel so sorry for everyone who makes that much a year, but they shouldn't be so afraid of Obama, he's got their tax-cheat backs more than they or Wurzelbacher might suspect. Even the late DC Madam paid her taxes properly.

Not ever wanting to look into someone's background, as in the case of VP candidate Sarah Palin, John McCain's campaign grabbed for any straw man they could. McCain went on to mention that he was fighting for "the Joes out there" during the final presidential debate, the name being a kind of catch-all for the "everyman," the working man.

The problem is, it's not 1951 anymore, and by that point the ladies were part of the workforce anyway. Women don't figure highly in the McCain campaign's rhetoric, Palin aside, and the implications that they favor a male-dominated nuclear family as a social model are obvious. "Joe" (Sam) personifies this ossified model of wrong-headed patriarchal pacification of the rest of us. Hasn't it worked wonders for the economy and our rights these last eight years? How about the breadth of our history?

Never mind all that, Joe doesn't want to pay taxes, and he told Obama this squarely: “Do you believe in the American dream? I'm being taxed more and more for fulfilling the American dream. ...I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes $250,000 to $280,000 a year. ...Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn’t it?” [emphasis added] Yes, it's hard to feel sorry for someone ostensibly poised to make a quarter million a year who doesn't want to pay their share of taxes. These were just some of the loaded questions in which Wurzelbacher neglected to provide the full-context of who he is and where he's been--he's practically a partner in the "firm" he works for with one Al Newell, and that's for starters. Do both of them split the money evenly? We don't know. I don't believe in the American Dream, that's a myth, it's crap.

Even if they did split their business's income previously, Obama's tax plan wouldn't cause a rise in their taxes, and Wurzelbacher knew this when he hit the candidate with the question. It gets worse regarding taxes for Sam.

... And Mr. Wurzelbacher has provided only vague information on his and the company’s finances since talking to Mr. Obama. But if the plumbing business remained a two-person company and the net proceeds — after deductions for business expenses — were shared by the two men, both incomes would most likely fall well below the top tax brackets on which Mr. Obama wants to raise rates, as would the company itself.

... According to public records, Mr. Wurzelbacher has been subject to two liens, each over $1,100 [Ed.--According to Ohio state websites, his state income tax lien is $1, 182.98.]. One, with a hospital, has been settled, but a tax lien with the State of Ohio is still outstanding. ("Real Deal on 'Joe the Plumber' Reveals New Slant," The New York Times, 10.16.2008)

Why would Mr. Newell and Wurzelbacher be so coy about their financial arrangements? Questions directed at candidate Obama were by "Joe" were skewed and loaded regarding his own actual situation, which begs numerous others.

Even if the faux-plumber buys-out Newell's share of the plumbing firm it's unlikely that he'll be paying more taxes under the Obama plan, and he probably understood this when he confronted the presidential candidate. Perhaps he just had a lot to hide? There are other facts regarding the business he works for that he wasn't exactly upfront about, though it's becoming clear that he has problems with mathematics (don't we all?) in many areas.

According to an analysis by Dun & Bradstreet on Wurzelbacher's employer, A. W. Newell Corp., the plumbing and heating contractor has annual sales of $510,000.

If Wurzelbacher bought the company, by the time he took proper business deductions, Bankler said, he'd be left with between $150,000 and $200,000 in taxable income and wouldn't be affected by Obama's proposed increase in the top rates. (" 'Joe the Plumber,' Obama Tax-Plan Critic Owes Taxes (Update 2)," Bloomberg, 10.16.2008)

And so, either Mr. Newell isn't being forthcoming with his "employee," Wurtzelbacher is simply poor at math, or one or both of them isn't being very honest. To be sure, we'll all be finding out very soon who he really is and what their company is really up to.

Then, there are other troubling possibilities, such as the fact that Wurzelbacher lived at 1960 W. Keating Dr., Mesa, Arizona, part of a sprawling apartment subdivision (Dobson Ranch) constructed during the 1970s by the Savings and Loan corruption scandal figure of almost twenty-years-ago. Keating is connected to McCain from that time, and even earlier, and Wurzelbacher's connections to the former perp could be quite intimate.

Maybe these are just coincidences, but one fact is particularly bizarre: it appears that Wurzelbacher purchased his current residence in August of this year. It's either one of an incredible series of coincidences, or it isn't, yet it has all the markings of a Karl Rove job, including possible past break-ins and/or infiltration of the Obama campaign by various GOP operatives. It's possible that Mr. Wurzelbacher is one himself.

At the very least, his 13-year-old kid, his ex-wife, former in-laws, and every person he's ever snubbed or offended now have a new stick to hit Wurzelbacher with for the rest of his natural life. When Obama suggested he wanted to "spread the wealth," Wurzelbacher retorted the standard line of "That's Socialism." Why yes, it is, and it's coming, Sammie. Not tomorrow, but today, now, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. That's how history works sometimes.

" 'Joe the Plumber,' Obama Tax-Plan Critic Owes Taxes (Update 2)," Bloomberg, 10.16.2008: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aC4j3T5.s_eQ&refer=home

"Real Deal on 'Joe the Plumber' Reveals New Slant," The New York Times, 10.16.2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/us/politics/17joe.html

More on (moron) Sam J. Wurzelbacher (might need to be pasted): http://www.privateeye.com/Search/SearchResults.aspx?vw=people&input=name&fn=Samuel&mn=&ln=Wurzelbacher&city=&state=OH&criteria=Samuel;;;;Wurzelbacher;;;;OH;;;;;;

Wurzelbacher's August 2008 purchase of his current residence: http://apps.co.lucas.oh.us/areissummary/report.aspx?Parcel=6562411

Robert Craig 'Evel' Knievel (October 17th, 1938 -- November 30th, 2007

"Women are like buses. Good to ride on for 15 minutes. But they forget that if you get off, there will be another one along in 15 minutes. And another one, and another one. ...You know, women are the root of all evil. And I know, I am Evel." --Evel Knievel, as told to journalist Kevin Smith, September 1998.

USSA--It's amazing that Evel Knievel lived to be 69, it really is. It's known from the journalistic work of Kevin Smith (no, not that one) on Knievel in 1998 that his long-term ailment was Hepatitis-C.

On September 9th, 1974, my fellow first grade classmates and I watched the stunt driver ready his 'Skycycle' for liftoff, ostensibly, to cross the Snake River Canyon in Ohio. This was just a little over a month after Republican President Richard Nixon (another crook from another time, proving nothing changes fundamentally) had resigned in disgrace.

Rumor had it that Evel had attempted to get permission to jump the Grand Canyon itself, but the Department of the Interior wouldn't let him, which was understandable: who would want to be responsible for a nut like Knievel if he crashed and died on live television? What waiver or insurance contract could cover that? None of us watching that day thought he would make it, and he didn't. That was the mood then.

Americans were in weird place at that time, being stunned into numbness by the violence of the 1960s--the urban uprisings, the generational strife, the burning cities, the violent reaction to a basically nonviolent civil rights movement, widespread government surveillance and repression, the war in Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia, the assassinations, the cultural clashes, and-on-and-on. Kinda sounds like now, doesn't it? Nothing much made sense in 1973-1974 either, and into that vacuum came Evel Knievel of Butte, Montana, and he was possibly the greatest embodiment of American wrongheadedness, depravity, and mindless insanity and recklessness that defines this peculiar nation.

While Philip K. Dick was reeling from his yearlong visions of a Roman America, the CIA was murdering people in other countries, and while Patty Hearst was running around with the SLA robbing banks, the rest of us were listening to Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Kiss, Queen. We were watching endless jokes at Nixon's expense on television, and basically witnessing the world's largest tailgate party unfold in-the-wake of Watergate. It was time to party, Nixon was gone. At that time, nobody saw Reagan coming, Gerald Ford (still dead) and Jimmy Carter being incidental non-entities. There was a healthy anti-authority attitude in-the-air. Though he was really arch-conservative, Evel Knievel seemed to fit into this cultural environment. But he wasn't exactly a hero...

For Knievel, being the son of a car salesman couldn't have helped much, and it's likely that his father beat him regularly. A promotional-record that I own a copy of has him smacking a young boy's hands over-and-over, asking him: 'Does that hurt? Does that hurt?' It was part of a strange lesson in heroics and endurance, but it really just sounded like a sick and depraved bully. That was Evel. American culture is barbaric nowadays, but during the 1970s it was truly barbaric and violent.

His parents divorced when he was very young, and Knievel was raised by his grandparents. How did Robert become 'Evel', you might ask? Yes, it really did begin with other children calling him 'Evil,' it's true. He lived-down to this epitaph, working as a safecracker, bank robber, and more. Somehow, he was never busted. We Americans have a bad-habit of making badmen into heroes. Evel was no-exception.

Eventually Knievel quit his life of crime and sold shoddy-cars, just like his father. Arthur Miller couldn't have invented Evel Knievel, only America could. By the mid-1960s he was running with motorcycle stunt gangs, through which he built a name as a 'skilled' daredevil. This was something he really did excel at, and he made a number of world record jumps during his run as a stunt rider. But is Evel remembered for all of the record jumps, or the fact that he broke most of the major bones in his body (making the Guinness Book of World Records a few times)?
No, it was because of his exploits out of the arena of stunts, and into the world of his private life. He'll be remembered for his addictions to alcohol and painkillers and his violence. Another thing he should be remembered for is how unimaginably sexist he was (even for the 1970s), so it's likely that he didn't like his mother very much. Feminists at that time absolutely reviled the man, and his mouth did a great deal of harm to his image as a hero. I come not to praise Evel, but to bury him.

In 1977, Knievel was bigger news than ever: he'd attacked his former publicist Sheldon Saltman with an aluminum baseball bat for allegations in Saltman's book, 'Evel Knievel on Tour.' Knievel would be sentenced to a huge fine and six-months in prison. He was the talk of the town again. In 1979, he claimed he was going to be dropped from 40,000 feet from the bomb bay doors of a B-29 onto a haystack. For those who don't know what a B-29 was, it's the same model of aircraft that dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It seemed appropriate that Knievel would represent America's impotence at the time: He chickened-out. By 1981, he'd done his last jump. At the end, his riches were spent, as was his body and mind. Fame isn't what you might think it is. Welcome to the American Dream. Sleep well, Evel, you earned it. You were a daredevil alright, you cheated death for a very long time, and that's your redemption. And that's the last thought for the now-deceased month of November, 2007.

UK journalist Kevin Smith's original 1998 article (published in 2000): http://www.the-vu.com/Evel.htm