Why the financial institution bailouts don't matter

OpEd News--That Ukrainian-born Larisa Alexandrovna is doing more of her defeatist ranting over at Rob Kall's defeatist-o'-rama site this week, this time over the bailouts being "part of the plan." What plan would that be exactly?

What we're seeing the results of short-sighted economic-philosophies with the crashing of various banking and financial institutions. That's right, the business mentality transplanted into the halls of the federal bureaucracy once again, with the predictable results.

The pathetic-part of it all is how the public, investors, and the like are all massing around former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, current Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson, and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke as though they were Mesopotamian Priests, the guys "with the answers." All they have are short-term answers.

Just as in the 1920s, the Republicans and Democrats gave the business and lending sectors what they wanted, and the results have been predictable. How is this "a plan," when it's really about profoundly corrupt and ignorant businesspeople and politicians repeating history? You don't plan to do that, especially when you're repeating history to save an already dying power structure. It's semantics, word games.

In her editorial, "Welcome to the Final Stages of the Coup," Alexandrovna tells us what most of us already know about "the Business plot" from the 1930s when various members of Wall Street (including a Senator Prescott Bush, though behind the scenes) attempted to seize power by paying-off WWI veterans and military leaders to take Washington by force and to make a puppet of executive branch.

Sure, it's relevant to now...but?

Now, if you do not yet understand that the Wall Street crisis is a man-made disaster done through intentional deregulation and corruption, I have a bridge in Alaska to sell to you (or Sarah Palin does anyway). This manufactured crisis is now to be remedied, if the fiscal fascists get their way, with the total transfer of Congressional powers (the few that still remain) to the Executive Branch and the total transfer of public funds into corporate (via government as intermediary) hands. ("Welcome to the Final Stages of the Coup...," OpEd News, 09.20.2008)

Congress has done all of that willingly and now they're all just trying to survive this whole debacle politically, if not legally. It's just my opinion, but I think Alexandrovna's characterization of the bailout is wrong, and that what we have here is a system that--no matter which way it turns-out--has nowhere left to go except towards substantial reform or a collapse that would take the rest of the developed world with it. Sure, we're all being ripped-off. How is this new?

That's right, even Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Australia, Canada, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya, The European Union, the UK, all of it, all fall down as a result of an American economic collapse.

That's not Alexandrovna's take, however. For her, this is all going to work and it was all calculated and not a matter of gross-incompetence, negligence, greed, and short-sighted stupidity. That's a common misreading of American history that I believe will be proven wrong in the next few years. What we already know is that this was all facilitated by both parties in Congress, and that it comes out of a culture of corruption. Much of this is due to the inaction of the citizenry--the voting and non-voting public--though it took a lot of beating-down to get them to the point of apathy they now inhabit. Remember that for her argument to be true, the bailout has to "work," whatever that means. By-all-appearances, it's not going to work for very long, if at all.

What will all that bailout money be worth then? Why put worthless paper in an offshore account? Where will the guilty (the CEOs, bankers, lobbyists, the White House, and Congress) have to run? Nowhere, that's where, and that's why this is really about their survival, not a power-grab. Political and economic elites have had almost unchallenged power for decades domestically and on the world stage, just to bring Ms. Alexandrovna up-to-date.

Alexandrovna and others contend that this all puts more power into the hands of the executive branch than ever before. Sound familiar? That's exactly what was being yelled from the mountaintops when FDR was "handed" unprecedented power to intervene in the economy during the Great Depression, but holders of the "coup" viewpoint ignore the fact that these are very real emergency measures done out of desperation, albeit advocated and authored by those who created the current "man-made" economic-mess.

The administration proposal would be the biggest government intervention since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It would dole out huge sums of money to financial firms to purchase their holdings of bad mortgage-backed securities so that these firms can resume normal lending operations. The bad mortgage debt has been at the heart of the current credit crisis which hit more than a year ago but erupted with special ferocity in the past two weeks forcing extraordinary government actions.

Two weeks ago, the government seized control of the nation's two largest mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and then last week, it took control of the country's largest insurance company, American International Group Inc.

The measure that the administration sent up to Congress on Saturday is a mere three pages in length. ("Paulson resists calls for added help in bailout," AP , 09.21.2008)

And this is all great as well--create a situation where the runaway borrowing can commence again, unhindered. How long can that last? Not very long, because it was borrowing that got us into the mess we're in right now. Admittedly, economics is a quicksilver that often eludes the understanding of the brightest among us, though this writer contends that nobody truly understands its real machinations due to the limitations of human perception and comprehension. That's right, the rest is bullshit and polish.

While it's true that Ms. Alexandrovna was raised much of her life in the United States, she should understand that our history isn't the Ukraine's. Are there troubling-aspects in America's history that tend towards violence? Yes, but not that of Europe or Asia's tendencies towards outright bloodbaths. That's not to say that it "can't happen here"...

Alexandrovna and others should look to the period that led to the collapse of Tsarist Russia for some answers: this is what happens when a system is ending, when it is collapsing. There is repression. There are police state measures passed. Rights become tenuous and are rolled-back, and then, after a time, it ends and things tend to quiet down and "normalize" as much as they can and a new order emerges. Without a sincere solidarity and restraint, you get the Soviet Union, you get tyranny. Sometimes they occur regardless of what we do.

Yet these systems inevitably end, and nobody can do anything about this. But we have options as players on the historical stage. The shape of future orders is determined by how we act now and when things begin falling-apart. Strong-relationships are the glue of any viable society. Go make a friend, a real friend. It will be up to the American public to decide whether we end-up with chaos or community. Resorting to senseless and wanton violence will never build a better society. We have to use our heads and do what's constructive. That doesn't rule-out self-defense against repression.

I don't personally believe that there was some kind of a real "master plan" here--that's overestimating the intelligence of the members of the Bush administration and their allies, famous for their delusions of adequacy. No, they're corrupt and they and the interests they represent would have sank-into-oblivion sooner rather than later without their war on terror and their bizarre economic policies.

What we have are hollow economic arguments hitting-up-against cold, hard reality, it's that simple. They aren't alone in failed-theories and constructs, as we have creatures like Alex Jones and Larisa Alexandrovna telling us that all is lost. What's really happening is that the obvious limitations of their own theories and historical perspectives have also played-out, just as those of the neoconservatives. What will they all do without each other when a coin needs two-sides? At best, all these so-called "progressives" accomplish is the demoralization of the rest of us into either a wild panic or an apathetic resignation to the great events of our time when they should be making constructive suggestions as to what to do next. That's exactly what the powerful want, and it's time for Americans to start thinking for themselves, my own humble suggestion.

The sky is falling, but it doesn't have to mean a total catastrophe. That's up to us within certain parameters. If handled with a cool resolve, constructive-thinking and action, and a dedication to cherished values of friendship and solidarity, it could mean a very real move towards democracy unlike ever before witness in human history. The opportunities are there, and they're being missed and/or ignored by the likes of everyone from the totally irresponsible Alex Jones to the sad Larisa Alexandrovna.

Believe in yourselves, think before you act, and do what's right for yourself, your families, and your country. There's no reason to stop there--people throughout the world need a better life, and they're out there waiting to take our hands as brothers and sisters in troubled times. Friends are everywhere, but beware, and use your head. Alexandrovna strikes me as a would-be power broker who fears the voice of the people. She can speak for herself and leave the rest of us out of it.

"Welcome to the Final Stages of the Coup...," OpEd News, 09.20.2008: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Welcome-to-the-final-stage-by-Larisa-Alexandrovn-080920-541.html

"Paulson resists calls for added help in bailout," AP, 09.21.2008: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20080921/48d5c6c0_3421_1334520080921173871715

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

Venezuelan and Russian interests begin to intersect

"[The United States is confident that its own relations with Western Hemisphere countries] "will in no way be diminished by a few, aging Blackjack bombers visiting one of Latin America's few autocracies." --Sec. of State Condaleeza Rice on the imminent death of the Monroe Doctrine, Ap, 09.18.2008

Caracas, Venezuela--Blackjack, or Applejack? As a point of fact, the "Blackjack bomber" Tu-160 isn't as old as our still-operational B-52 bomber (deployed after 1952), having first been deployed in 1987. The Tu-160 was stationed in the Ukraine, and by its appearance, was a response to the development of the American B-1 bomber. One look at it tells you that it works and that it's a worthy weapons platform, Rice's overblown rhetoric aside.

It's only logical that a nation will begin arming itself because a neighboring country has been illegally invading and destabilizing other nations and has become interventionist again, and that's exactly what Venezuela and Russia are doing these days. They aren't alone in this.

Iran and China are also entering into economic relations and blocs with nations like Venezuela. With American military aggression under the administration of George W. Bush and the last few sessions of Congress at a fever pitch, who could blame any nation for a defense buildup? The American press, of course:

Russia's economic influence is clearly expanding in the Americas. Bolivia announced Thursday that it would sign an oil and natural gas exploration deal with Gazprom. Terms of the deal weren't immediately disclosed.
And Sechin announced that five of Russia's biggest oil companies are looking to form a consortium to increase Latin American operations. State-controlled Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom Neft, Surgutneftegaz and TNK-BP hope to build a US$6.5 billion refinery to process Venezuela's tar-like heavy crude, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported. ("Venezuela-Russia ties deepen despite US pressure," AP, 09.18.2008)

Your point? The community of nations has good reason to think that such interventionism will not end with the Bush administration, even with a "President Obama." There are numerous historical precedents in American foreign policy history to believe this, and it has its beginnings in the years before our first great expansion westward.

In his December, 2nd, 1823 speech to the Congress, President James Monroe enunciated the three tenets of what would become known as the Monroe Doctrine, still an inherent-part of the State Department's doctrine towards the Western Hemisphere.

As anyone but Sarah Palin knows, this has meant--in practice--that the United States considers this hemisphere as its own backyard to do with as it will, high flown rhetoric aside. But Monroe wasn't exactly being coy about it. That's because he didn't have to be euphemistic at the time he made his comments. Attitudes have changed some since then, though not in ruling circles, and today the interventionism and the meddling has to be sold to the public in a softer, gentler tone, especially when they're in no mood for yet another intervention at their expense.

Like all land-grabs, it didn't take much for the Monroe Doctrine to embolden immigrants and pioneers to begin streaming as never before past the Appalachians. We can romanticize these folks all we want, but it was all fundamentally illegal and transgressive. In that same 19th century spirit, we look at Venezuela and Bolivia as part of our back yard, just as we still do with Cuba, Haiti, and the rest of this hemisphere. This is finally eroding, but are we are entering a new Imperial age with different players? My own hunch is no, at least in the case of Russia in this region, if not around the Caucasus mountains. However, that part of the world is of great interest to the State Department.
 

The Putin regime shows more of a tendency at reconstituting the traditional Russian Empire, not the global-wide interventionism of the American State Department. At this point, there is no "Putin Corollary" or a "Putin Doctrine" other than this reconstitution. The record of American foreign policy in this era is interventionist in a way that has no corollary currently.

As Sarah Palin should have known, the Bush Doctrine after late-2002 is to preemptively strike nations deemed a threat by our government, namely decided within the executive branch. This isn't very different from the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine of 1904, where the 26th president expanded the original doctrine to interventionism.

You don't need a Bush Doctrine in South America, invading Venezuela has already been covered withing the bureaucracy for over 100 years. Roosevelt wrote:

All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may lead the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

Of course, it was all rhetorical rubbish. We wanted our own sphere of influence rather than to spread democracy in throughout the domains of the old empires. At that time, we'd been meddling in Cuba, Venezuela, the Caribbean, and much of the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Once "the apple had dropped from the tree" of European influence, we went right for it, and boldly in the Spanish-American War. Untold atrocities were committed in the name of American Enterprise and Manifest Destiny that are continuing into the present.

But the rhetoric isn't all that different today: we're just always just trying to bring freedom to others, the American lot and "the white man's burden" of spreading a Westernized commerce and civilization. This might have washed with people in other countries 100 years ago as the old European colonial system was disintegrating, but it's laughable today, and why Venezuela and Russia are conducting some very pointed commerce of their own.

Rice's comments on Russian weapons platforms is telling, and can be viewed as a kind of commercial for American weapons contractors. Russia and China are now becoming very competitive at the arms trade, but anyone with even a little knowledge understands that the efficiency of the Ak-47 and the RPG is in how cheap and effective they are on the battlefield against more sophisticated and expensive weaponry. Over a year ago, Venezuela purchased 100,000 Kalashnikovs and is being aided by Russia in constructing a plant to manufacture more of them in the next few years.

These types of cheap and low-tech systems have kept us on our toes in Southeast Asia, Africa, Iraq, and everywhere else America has intervened. War brings-out an untapped ingenuity possible under no other circumstances. The Improvised Explosive Device (IED) is a startling example of this, and there have even been examples of exotic weaponry (gold-tipped RPGs) and tactics are being field-tested successfully against the American war machine in the Middle East.

Then, I have to look back at Rice's comments regarding Russian weapons systems: we have a strange way of combining our commercial culture with our political one. We sell expensive-junk weaponry, which is why you have to ply those representatives with so many gifts, meals, drinks, drugs, and women, that they say uncle and give-in to the demands of the war-profiteering sector. So does the press. Why else would be hearing endless stories about the Litvinenko affair, the so-called unilateral "invasion of Georgia," and-so-on. Our crimes simply don't exist. It doesn't matter.

None of this affects the reality on the ground very much these days (just ask the Treasury Secretary), and it's one where the guns are now being pointed-back, a lesson we're trying not to learn from 9/11. We've been bad, so very bad, and the check is coming due. Nations have a right to defend themselves, and we're the initiators of a new arms race. It's our fault, and a few decades of isolationism and a military drawdown would do us a lot of good.

The Roosevelt Corollary (1904): http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trmdcorollary.html

"Venezuela-Russia ties deepen despite US pressure," AP, 09.18.2008: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20080918/48d1d240_3ca6_1552620080918-1991993179

The Tupelov-160: http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/bomber/tu-160.htm

"Ridiculing Ralph," from the Nader/Gonzalez 2008 campaign, Sept. 17, 2008

September 17, 2008 www.votenader.org www.officialnaderstore.com

In a letter to Congress on July 23, 2008, Ralph Nader warned that the federal government's bank insurance fund may be insufficient to handle the developing crisis in the banking industry. The day after Ralph sent out his warning, he was ridiculed in Congress. One member, Spencer Bachus, at a Congressional hearing, mentioned Ralph's letter and said point blank "Our banks are well capitalized, our deposit insurance fund is sound. There's absolutely no factual basis for saying that there's not money there to pay." Fast forward to September 17, 2008, today, less than two months after Ralph sent his letter. And now we have an Associated Press story, featured prominently right now on the Drudge Report, with the headline "Federal bank insurance fund dwindling." Here's the opening sentence from the AP report today: "Banks are not the only ones struggling in the growing financial crisis. The fund established to insure their deposits is also feeling the pinch, and the taxpayer may be the lender of last resort." The reality is that the Democrats and Republicans have screwed up royally. They have screwed up because they are under the thumb of the big corporations. The big corporations said -- weak regulation, weak law and order for corporations. And the Democrats and Republicans delivered for their corporate paymasters. The rest of us -- taxpayers and workers alike -- will now suffer the consequences -- through either increased taxes, lost jobs -- or both. For his entire career, Ralph Nader has been sounding the alarm about the dangers of deregulation, about the dangers of a hands off approach to corporate power. Time to listen up. Reassert the public will. And get behind the one Presidential candidacy that has the track record and will power to set things straight. How? If you haven't donated yet to Nader/Gonzalez -- do it now. We're really close to meeting our goal of $80,000 by midnight tonight. Donate now, whatever you can afford -- $10, $20, $50, $100. And help push us over the top. If you give $100 or more now, we will send you In Pursuit of Justice, the 520-page book of essays by Ralph Nader -- essays on corporate power, the Constitution, and transforming our country. If you donate $100 now, we will send you this historic collection -- autographed by the man himself -- Ralph Nader. (This offer ends at 11:59 p.m. tonight.) Together, we will make a difference. Onward to November. The Nader Team

The 1980s: "You're just jealous."

1980s A'murka--The only thing to miss about the 1980s is that the nightmare had only begun, that Reagan's policies wouldn't hit us until right before he left office in 1987, around the time of that other stock market crash.

Then, there was the lurid-spectacle of Iran-Contra going on in the backdrop of all of this, where Reagan and his group in the basement of the White House ran a secret government to pay for an illegal war in Nicaragua that involved gun-running and maybe even some drug trafficking. Who said any of it ever ended? Look at how much heroin is flowing out of Afghanistan since we got there. It was virtually extinct under the Taliban.

When we accuse Venezuela of "not cooperating in the [our] war on drugs," we're only underlining our own "extralegal" (illegal) activities. Why do you think there are so many banks in Panama capital city? That darned Chavez, I tell ya.'

Yet, Chavez is really just jealous, so we won't trouble our minds with him.

By the end, Reagan looked as empty, haggard, and intellectually vacant as the current system does today. That's because he was--as writer Paul Slansky put it--"An actor was playing the president." Little has changed since then, except for the observation that in-retrospect, Reagan faked it better as a former Hollywood actor. By the end, Reagan looked like he did when he first entered office: a washed-up, sad little man who also happened to be senile. Regardless of how much Reagan comforted us with his grandfatherly voice of authority, he wasn't FDR, and his time in office was a disaster. Like now, it was an embarrassing time to be an American.

When you criticized the way things were in the 1980s you were either called a communist, being "political" (whatever that meant), and the catch-all, "You're just jealous."

That's right. You're...just...jealous.

It has an incredible ring of intelligence, no? I didn't think so either. "I'm just jealous," I would say to myself as a mantra for yucks, walking home from high school hoping I wouldn't be mugged. There was an incredible logic to the phrase that still escapes me, but I think sometime in the 1990s I figured out what all those smart people were trying to tell me: "Matt, sell your soul for some poorly-made petrochemical consumer products that are going to be out of fashion in ten years like us, you're making us look bad." No thanks, I'm full.

Therefore: "You're just jealous." Got it? Me either! OK, so the other part I figured out was that if you have a lot of money, people become jealous of you and want to be exactly like you. That's right, even that balding problem and your inability to achieve an erection. Or, you know, things like holding the opinion that "Top Gun" was the best movie of all time, ever. I mean ever. And they also say that Randy "Duke" Cunningham was "framed." These accusers were just jealous, especially when the Dukester man proclaimed that "I never smoked marijuana," so how bad could he be for taking bribes and demanding hookers as payment for defense contract earmarks? You're...just...jealous. Got it now? See how easy that works?

It's really simple--if you criticize the way things are in America, you're just jealous and we're going to keep stonewalling you with this yammering catch-phrase until you say 'uncle.' Yeah, that was the eighties, just a smothering conformism that choked-out all light. Somehow, there were still good movies and really original underground music then. I don't know how, but these cultural sparks did a good job of hiding themselves until I heard the Butthole Surfers one fateful night in the fall of 1986 (their cover of "American Woman").

Don't get me wrong, I'd already heard PiL, DEVO, Killing Joke, and the Talking Heads by that point. As you can imagine, all this countercultural stuff...well, it made me feel--jealous. I was as confused as one of those screw-ups in a Jack T. Chick comic book.

Jealous? Today? No-no-no, we're not jealous. Alright, maybe just a tad, but we'll get over it and pull-up our bootstraps...shit, no, that's not going to work any more. We must nationalize our banks and scrap our speech on the economy that had all that "free market" B.S. peppering it, and our conservative smokescreen just isn't cutting it these days, so it's spent. Welcome to the inevitability of Socialism.

Poor, you don't need to be jealous no more, we'll all be equal in the leveling. They're gonna be playing "St. James Infirmary" in the streets of America again, and we'll all be jealous together. America has gone too long without a spectacularly public tarring-and-feathering. That time has come because we're obviously just that jealous.

RNC delegate sees whore, is robbed of $50,000, then whines to the police and press, both of whom take the bait...

Minneapolis, Minnesota--This must be why they're downsizing all these newspapers lately (as well as creating these kinds of stories as a result of no support-staff).

Do I think his story is straight? Nope. What it has is the appearance of a dorky Republican attorney who tried to get laid with a hooker, was ripped-off, and then concocted some dumb story to cover his ass so he could report the theft.

El cheap-a-dora:

The delegate gave police a detailed description, but investigators had no suspects, Palmer said. He stressed that investigators don't believe Schwartz did anything wrong.

"It's embarrassing to admit that I was a target of a crime," Schwartz said in a statement Tuesday. "I was drugged and had about $50,000 of personal items stolen."("Tryst turns in $50K robbery for RNC delegate, AP, 09.16.2008)

And it's also embarrassing to be caught having sex with a woman for money while intoxicated, because that's the only reason any of them ever would have had it with a schlubb like Schwartz anyway. Why the hell would it be embarrassing to "admit [you] were the target of a crime"?! Because he had to pay for sex, then to add-insult-to-injury to his monolithic but equally-fragile ego, he was finally ripped-off by a hooker. You're just jealous. It's true, I am. Wouldn't you be?

The story is utter crap and Schwarz is lying. He was drugged alright--by his member, and possibly a toot. But if some lady of the night actually did this to a Republican Party delegate, good show, they've got it coming from prostitutes this year and from everyone else. Somehow, somewhere, Deborah Jeane Palfrey has gotten her tiny piece of revenge in another woman. Who needs reincarnation when we keep making the same stupid mistakes over-and-over again? Why bother? I tip my hat to the woman in the story--if she exists--and I wish her well. With luck, Schwartz won't be able to write it off on his taxes, the stupid schmuck.

It's good to see that the Minneapolis Police Department has calmed down enough from their police riots against war protesters to investigate something as important as this. Their indefatigable will to protect the incredibly unpopular couldn't be more American, just not in a good way, and they went too far as American policemen have traditionally done. Don't spend it in one place, lady, but spend it soon, before it's devalued again. So much for Minnesota nice, it's officially dead.

"Tryst turns in $50K robbery for RNC delegate, AP, 09.16.2008: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20080916/48cf2f40_3ca6_1552620080916-725458355

An open letter to dumb women who are going to vote for Sarah Palin because she's a dumb woman too

The Campaign Trail of Tears--Ladies, nobody wants to date a fascist--well, except you. Face the fact that you're all mental midgets and female reactionaries. Your great-great grandmothers voted for Warren G. Harding because he was vaguely rugged and handsome to them, he was a former football player, and he was as stupid as they were.You have become banal reincarnations of these women, and the dumbos who thought Dan Quayle was "cute" (they thought Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump was too though, which is telling).

The reality is, you just have a perverse streak with a dash of dumb, that weird little thing that you gals sometimes engage in when you're bored: "Something might happen--no wait, I'll make something happen. Besides, I'm hungry for a problem. Hmmmm. Why not help men ruin the world some more and vote for this woman because she's a woman for no logical reason?"

But why shouldn't there be women leading softer, gentler lynch mobs, endless wars, insane interventionism, and an inevitable economic collapse? Why, indeed, should men be the only ones to destroy brown people in other countries? Look, you even let a Black woman do it first in the State Department, killing thousands from a desk no less, and women were not even allowed to oversee sexual torture at Abu-Ghraib prison, it's not right, it's wrong. Glass ceiling that. And why can't a woman endanger the world as President John F. Kennedy did, bring us the Cuban Missile Crisis? Again, unfair.

Why shouldn't a Republican woman do the same for our contemporary relations with Russia when we came so close with North Korea under Bush/Cheney? Let's be honest that it's never been done before, therefore it should be done, if for no other reason at all. Nevermind that, we're just itching to end that goddamned anxiety that we created in our culture from dropping "the atomic bomb" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You see, since that time, we know that we've had it coming and that it was just an arbitrary action to keep the Soviets out of Japan...uh, OK, and for power, money, cheap skilled labor, and a lot of permanent military bases there.

And Mrs. Palin is pro-life alright: she decided to have sex and conceive after she was 42, raising her chances of giving-birth to a child with down's syndrome almost exponentially. No, that wasn't selfish at all, not in any way whatsoever when you already have three kids.

And she doesn't talk like a taxi driver from Minnesota, or a prostitute from Anchorage, not at all, those are just nasty rumors. Her voice is so eloquent the Bard would be jealous, the pansy, and I like so believe in dragons, unicorns, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus, I think. And clearly, sex education for dummies should be the Palin campaign primer. Stupid people can be national politicians, just look at the last eight years. And yeah.

yours-in-Christ, Matt Janovic

The Nader/Gonzales campaign on the current economic downturn and Black Monday

September 15, 2008 www.votenader.org www.officialnaderstore.com

On this momentous Monday, September 15, 2008, we make a simple request. Donate $15 to Nader/Gonzalez. The prudential choice for 2008. We woke up this morning early. Turned on C-Span radio. And heard Brian Lamb quoting Ralph Nader. From years ago. With Ralph warning about extravagance, recklessness, and excessive compensation on Wall Street. Warning years ago about the undue influence of Fannie and Freddie on Democrats and Republicans alike. Warning about the failure of our government to protect small investors. Throughout his career, Nader has strong been a strong advocate for due diligence. For protecting shareholder rights. For prudential regulation. And strict oversight of the markets. While the Democrats and Republicans have bent to the whims of their corporate masters and Wall Street's bottom line imperatives. Nader has been steadfast in his advocacy for safety, regulation, and protecting the little guy. Unfortunately for the nation and for investors, his warnings have gone largely unheeded. On this momentous Monday, as we watch the fallout from the failed policies, greed and extravagance of the corporate political class unfold, we make this simple note. Due diligence, prudential regulation, and strict oversight of the markets -- Nader-style -- would have gone a long way to averting the disaster currently hitting Wall Street. Instead, it was short-term fast and dirty profits, muzzled politicians, and throw caution to the wind. And so now, the American people are learning the hard way about the consequences of a reckless corporate dominated political economy. But thanks to your hard work, we are in a position to give America a choice in November. For prudence. For strict oversight. For regulation. Right now, we're in the stretch drive of our $80,000 fundraiser -- to help fund our get out the vote drive. To get Ralph Nader into the presidential debates. To let the American people know that they don't have to settle for corporate rule. There will be a choice in November. But first, we need to reach $80,000 by September 17th. We're at $50,000. We have three days to reach $80,000. We haven't missed one fundraising goal yet. And we don't plan to start now. So, please, drop $15 now on Nader/Gonzalez. Help shift the power. From Wall Street and the corporate giants. Back into the hands of the American people. Together, we are making a difference. Onward to November The Nader Team

From the Blough family vaults: A dirty postcard to a mistress

Kansas, 1907--It seems my great-great grandfather liked to screw-around on his wife. This is close to 101-years-ago, when the dead are scarcely a memory any longer. If you want an idea of how much you're going to be remembered--if at all--this is a good lesson.

But be wise, dear friend, and be sure to destroy all of the physical evidence that might fall into the wrong hands of, say...a historian. Then, they, your descendants and others in the future, could accidentally discover what a fool, a coward, and a scoundrel you were. One ancestor forgot to burn a pile of his post card collection, the majority-of-which were written to his mistress. Oh, it was a very different America, and yet the it's still the same. There was Populism them with all its own internal-contradictions just as there is today. Some of my ancestors were prairie Populists.

As far as I can tell from the accounts, my great-great grandfather was a very wrong-headed small businessman who owned a hotel for a time. It burned-down around the time of this card. A petty bourgeois, some of the worst among us, and I believe his own father was a barber and leather-worker in the Old West. Since the Revolutionary War, some of the Bloughs have worked closely with horses, and we're a vast surname. I have my great-great-great grandfather's Old West Bible. You have to wonder whose hair he cut during his time living in 19th century Kansas. He died in the 1890s of poor health, possibly tuberculosis or pneumonia.

On December 25th, 1907, his mistress felt it important to mail him saying that her ride on the railways had gone well. Wonderful, at least they were satisfied, though I doubt Mrs. Blough was. If you think everything nowadays is new, unique, and that you're the first person to have sex...you must be under the age of 30. That's right kids, you're not the first people to discover illicit-fucking, I hate breaking it to you. Most of you are as boring as you suspect, so try to work on that one. Your parents are full-of-shit too, so why imitate them so much?

My point is, I reject a lot of things in my family history. Many people do, or like to think that they do. I'm not mistaken in my assertions, but all Americans of every color harbor bigotry and racist conditioning, it's inherent to our culture.

While these lily-white slobs were playing house, thousands of Native Americans were being herded into the reservations, thousands were being forcibly-sterilized for being "different" or troubled, millions of workers were being exploited and flogged like slaves, while blacks were being lynched from the highest-trees and still worked as slaves when they weren't being hounded under vagrancy laws; and while our military was slaughtering untold thousands of Filipinos, these ancestors--not the mistress--of mine were screwing in their ignorance. Such are the lives of the middle class.

It's a funny little card from an unfunny little era, not so different from our own. It was yesterday, and I reject the racism and the hypocrisies of that time and this era. Why is reincarnation necessary at all?

Postscript, 09.18.2008: There are what appear to be remnants of writing along the left-margin of the postcard. Yes, some of them are stains from deterioration, very perceptive. I'm guessing it's a reference to the spurned- wife.

Nader Campaign Newsletter, Sept. 14, 2008

September 14, 2008 www.votenader.org www.officialnaderstore.com

Dear Nader/Gonzalez Supporter, We need your help to promote the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign's "Open the Debates" Tour! Since 1988, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has sponsored every presidential debate. Since its inception, the CPD has always been headed by two former chairs of the Democratic and Republican parties. In 1987, the League of Women Voters refused to sponsor any more presidential debates, "because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter." The Nader/Gonzalez Campaign is on a mission to open these debates for third party candidates, and bring back democracy to American Voters! If you cannot make it to these rallies, please help us spread the word by forwarding these events: September 17th, 3pm "Rally" New Orleans, LA Tulane University, Freeman Auditorium # 205, Woldenberg Art Center 6823 St. Charles Ave. (Take Willow to Newcomb Place) Suggested Contribution: $10/ $5 students More Info: (414) 755-0585 or events@votenader.org September 17th, 7:30pm "Rally" Baton Rouge, LA LSU School of Music, Coral Room #115 Baton Rouge, LA 70803 Suggested Contribution: $10/$5 students More Info: (414) 755-0585 or events@votenader.org September 18th, 1pm "Rally" Tulsa, OK Oklahoma State University, North Hall Auditorium 700 North Greenwood Ave. Tulsa, OK 74106 Suggested Contribution: $10/$5 students More Info: (630) 947-5708 or events@votenader.org September 18th, 6:30pm "Rally" Fayetteville, AR University of Arkansas, Kimpel Hall #102 280 Ozark St. Fayetteville, AR 72701 Suggested Contribution: $10/$5 students More Info: (631) 208- 4687 or events@votenader.org September 19th, 6:30pm "Rally" Louisville, KY University of Louisville, Swain Student Activities Center, Suite W310 Louisville, KY 40292 Suggested Contribution: $10/$5 students (312) 208-4687 or events@votenader.org