The joy of watching the politicians (and pundits) frightened

Washington D.C.--Yes, the bailout is utter bullshit. Yes, we've all been had. No, it's not a "coup d'etat," but that's the message I'm getting from much of the reactionary left as well as the right.

A message to you all: you couldn't me more off-the-mark, but that's because of your ignorance of American history, a result of our wonderful consumer culture where we only fixate on one thing at a time, living in an eternal present without any past or future. How many times do I and others have to tell you that this economic system doesn't work? But on to other irrational notions held by those who should know better...

This absolutely idiotic, baseless notion that we're experiencing a "coup" (too late! that was 2000, you seem to have missed it) is more than a little belated. What it has to do with the fact that the GOP, the White House, and congressional Democrats have wrecked the economy because they could and now don't know how to fix it without giving the public something in-return, escapes me. When you see those in power losing control of things and you start shouting "coup," it obvious you get nothing about our history or the political situation anywhere. It suggests no viable framework of thinking, assuming there's one there.

One thing is certain--most of you out there just don't get it at all. This--I believe--comes from buying into various hollow values that come with having some kind of a stake or a perceived share in this irrational mess of an economy. Luckily, I don't share in this, and have never wanted a stake in what can only be described as a festering pile of bullshit and lies. Fine, continue lying to yourselves that "they're taking over" and that you don't own a share of this stinking-mess. You do. Panicking: It's not going to change anything or what happens next. It will only make matters worse. There are alternatives...

The first is to admit that the free market system doesn't work anymore and that a new day is dawning in America where "business as usual" won't cut it. This means a new work ethic where work is meaningful, not wasteful, and has some logical use for people. It means "ownership" of commodities, agricultural-tracts, mineral wealth, and all the others means of production in America, need to truly be owned by the "little guy," not corporations. It means an end to letting corporations exist legally as "private individuals."

Additionally, it's time that Americans were finally paid a living-wage, had a single-payer health care system, progressive taxation where the rich finally pay their share (or get out), and a nationalization of the major business, banking, and financial industries who cannot be trusted any longer in the same role in our economy. They have all been irresponsible for too long, and it's over. Reform is coming if you want it. If not, panic with the rest of the morons out there and accomplish nothing, be demoralized, give-up. You must be used to it, so why change now?

None of this is to suggest that we shouldn't be bailing-out home owners--we should be, and it should be the first and tallest of orders in Washington right now. As we know, the Republicans are damned if they do and damned if they don't on this, and will vigorously fight any social agenda or social dividend. If they bailout the banks and the financial institutions, they get stuck with the socialism label. If they bailout home owners, their ostensible backers, bitter boot-straps conservatives, and the rest of the wacko right-fringe will hit them over abandoning conservatism.

Actually, in both cases, the GOP's representatives are going to be accused of abandoning conservatism, which is more than appropriate. They literally don't know what to do except to hand the windfalls of a bailout to the private sector...except that the public isn't having it, not even their normally supplicant voting base.

What they're up against in Washington--and everywhere in America--is something they haven't seen in 100 years: a broad-based Populism that knows no ideological boundaries rather than the usual division Washington's political elites are used to manipulating. The game has changed radically, and overnight. Thanks George, thanks GOP. Those of us on the genuine progressive-tip couldn't have done it without you.

A coup? They cannot agree on Capitol Hill exactly what the bailout is even going to look like. If it's anything, we're seeing the collapse of a political culture under it's own weight and paradoxes. At no point has anyone shown me anything of the remotest credibility to show that this current order is anything but on-the-ropes right now. Give me a break. Honestly, if you're that frightened, move to Sweden or Australian (somewhere soft), they've beaten you down with fear so much that you don't know any other reaction these days. There's only one word for this kind of thinking, and that's cowardice in the face of victory for the average person. You really do fear real liberty, and it's sad.

Yet, today, I'm watching the Republican minority leader surrounded by his posse, having their press conference on the Hill--and there's that same look of fear in their eyes. OK, the wackos are shitting themselves that "There's a coup, there's a coup!" and then we have these very frightened politicians who have that deer in the headlights countenance, saying that "The Democratic leaders ganged-up on us at the White House meeting [over the bailout agreement]," and you see that they're all part of the same cowardly American mindset.

This stance is reactionary, cowardly, irresponsible, and not constructive. At its core it's childish, as one would expect from the average pampered American asshole.

But I have to love it all too. Watching the congressional GOP's incumbents eying those used car lots that they're all going to be returning to is going to be worth 100,000 Hoovervilles. If you saw the potential of their return to permanent minority-status for another five decades as I and others do, you wouldn't be so "scared." I don't think it's going to end there, though.

Both major parties could take a major-hit over this, which offers an opening for third parties to come in. To waste that opportunity would be irresponsible, but it appears more of us are getting this point. Ralph Nader's popularity is constantly growing, and other third party candidates are going to benefit from the current political climate. This climate isn't going to end anytime soon. The real losers will be the Republicans.

What I'm saying is that the Republican Party is going to be destroyed by this economic crash. The best part is that they're going to take several notable Democratic Party incumbents who were involved with this extraordinary corruption down with them. We almost got this with "Hookergate" and the Palfrey scandal, but this time it's going to stick (and Palfrrey is going to continue to deliver from the grave). Why is that?

Because not one plan that they float out there is going to work. Why? Neither party wants the public to experience a real windfall from any of this, and that's what all of us are poised to do if they bailout the American homeowner. That would mean a very real "New Deal," which is the opposite of their and their wealthy backers' agenda.

There will be some minor-bailouts of homeowners and some judicial and exectuive revisions of mortgages statutes to buy them some more time. That's not going to be enough either. The only answer will be giving these homes to people and creating a new generation of American homeowners. That can only be good for the economy. Otherwise, there's no "disposable income," just a mass population of people who not only cannot fill their tanks to get to work, but tens of millions of them without any income at all. Sound sustainable?

The politicians know this. They know that no matter what they do, the public will benefit in some way from it. This is why the GOP won't commit to any version of the bailout legislation yet. Conversely, they have no real choice and have lost one of their most powerful rhetorical-weapons in the legislative process: that the Democrats are dragging the process out. We all know it's the GOP, they can't hide this fact anymore.

If you don't see the mess that the people with power and privilege are in right now, you cannot see the opportunities that are there, waiting to be exploited by a steady, committed, informed, and reasonable populace. My feeling is that this reactionary crowd who are crowing that "it's a coup" are in-the-minority. We had better hope so, because without cooperation, trust, and solidarity, we're lost. These folks will shoulder a lot of the blame of any failure. Democracy: it's not for cowards.

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

Obama invokes the late, great Wild Bill Hickok as an ancestor

Springfield, Missouri--Obama's claim of descent to James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok (where he engaged in a duel, possibly during the Civil War) today is an interesting one.

The Democratic presidential candidate came to this town on the edge of the old West on Wednesday and laid down a challenge for his GOP rival.

"If Sen. McCain wants a debate on taxes in this campaign, I'm ready," Obama said, noting that Hickok is said to have fought a duel here. "I'm ready to duel John McCain on taxes right here, quick draw," Obama said before closing the loop with Hickok.

"The family legend is that he is a distant cousin of mine. I don't know if it's true but I'm going to research it." ("Political Play: Obama claims link to the Wild West," AP, 07.30.2008)

He doesn't need to, a noted genealogist named Chris Child has confirmed it. Never mind that-- 25% of everyone roaming the Wild West was Black (it's true). Obama went to the heart of the matter, to one of the legends, Wild Bill.

And he's correct: he is descended from Wild Bill, a distant cousin. But does he really want to make a comparison? Perhaps. But his challenge of a dueling debate over taxes in Springfield with John McCain doesn't bode well when you look at how Wild Bill ended his days, but people settle their differences in other ways nowadays. Nonetheless, there's an even more intriguing fact about the Hickok family that few will recognize:

Wild Bill Hickok James Butler Hickok in Troy Grove, Illinois on May 27, 1837 to was born William Alonzo Hickok and Polly Butler Hickok. Bill had four brothers and two sisters and his parents were God-fearing Baptists who expected Bill to keep up his chores on the farm and to attend church every Sunday. Bill's parents also operated a station along the Underground Railroad, where they smuggled slaves out of the South. It was during this time that the lean and wiry young man got his first taste of hostile gunfire when he and his father were chased by law officers who suspected them of carrying more than just hay in their wagon. ("Wild Bill Hickok and the dead man's hand," LegendsofAmerica.com)

And so, James Butler Hickok came from very upstanding Americans, from people who saw Black Americans as human beings when few bothered to care. On top of this, they risked their lives, and so did Bill. He was a real man. But then, we should remember that there's that other side of America, where Republicans and sell-out Democrats dwell. It's the domain of the Coward Jack McCall, the world of the back-stabbing scoundrel and the yellow-belly.

Not much is known about McCall except that he was stupid, cock-eyed, a braggart, and a drunk who had once run with some buffalo hunters, possibly in the Wyoming territory. Kind of sounds like the current president, doesn't it? McCall was from Kentucky while Hickok was from Illinois, but both men wrestled with the beast within. Hickok was a lawman with an itchy trigger-finger. We'll never know how many people Hickok killed, and it's positive we never will with McCall either.

But you know a man by his actions, and we only remember McCall because of one of his last ones when he shot Wild Bill Hickok in the back of the head for beating him at cards.

On August 1, 1876 Wild Bill was playing cards in Nuttall and Mann’s No. 10 Saloon when one of the players dropped out and bystander Jack McCall took his place. McCall kept losing and at the end of the evening was broke. Hickok gave him money with which to buy dinner. The next day, on August 2, Hickok returned to the No. 10 and joined in a game of cards. A few hours later Jack McCall entered the bar and stopped a few paces behind Hickok. He pointed his gun at Hickok’s head, pulled the trigger and shouted, “Damn you, take that!” The gunshot instantly killed Wild Bill. McCall ran out of the saloon and attempted to escape on a horse that was tethered nearby, but the saddle had been loosened, and he fell to the ground. McCall ran down the street and hid in a butcher’s shop where he was captured by a large crowd. ("Deadwood History-JackMcCall," AdamsMuseumandHouse.org)

How is this different from John McCain dropping bombs on innocent North Vietnamese civilians over forty-years-ago, then being captured? Can someone like Obama--coming from the Chicago political machine--embody the morality of what was good about James Butler Hickok and America, or will he unleash the spirit of Jack McCall, John Rockefeller Sr., the Vanderbilts, Andrew Carneige, and the Pinkertons on the world as Commander in Chief?

Will he be a backstabbing assassin like the man who murdered his distant cousin, or will he side with the robber barons, the mine owners, and railroad men of our times? The signs aren't good, but one can hope, since that's all we're left with voting within the two party system. Will Obama be the man from Illinois (Lincoln/Hickok) or the malcontent, booze-swilling long-knife from Kentucky (McCall)?

When a candidate evokes the memory of the Old West in America, it's an important event that carries the responsibility of getting the history right. Yes, it makes him look and sound "tough," but does it make him a hero (McCain isn't one either), a man who can enter his home justified? If Senator Obama decides to stand on the side of the law, he's going to have a lot of cleaning-up to do from the last president. This is mandatory. It should be a part and parcel of his own agenda, because no nation can survive lawlessness for very long.

Just 100-years-ago, Pat Garrett was murdered along a lonely road in New Mexico.

He'd been shot in the back of the head and in the chest. Long before we were arguing over which angle JFK was shot from in Dealy Plaza, parties were arguing the same over Pat's murder. They say a big time rancher named W.W. Cox wanted him dead, and that he wasn't alone. Rich "coyotes" smuggling Chinese immigrants across the Mexican-American border might have wanted to bring them through his Bear Canyon ranch. Had they murdered him for money and power? What side of history is Obama on? We already know about John McCain.

"Political Play: Obama claims link to the Wild West," AP, 07.30.2008: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gyXVIfZ2F2CTuuxH3_93vuTP-ywwD928D6QO0

"Wild Bill Hickok and the dead man's hand," LegendsofAmerica.com: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-BillHickok.html

On the Coward Jack McCall:http://www.adamsmuseumandhouse.org/answers/jackmccall.html

"Surprising New Information on Pat Garrett's Death: Details from the Fornoff Report," by Chuck Hornung, WesternOutlaw.com: http://www.westernoutlaw.com/stories/files/NewInfoPatGarrett.pdf