The Last Gasp of the Winter---


The negative variance response is slightly stronger in magnitude for Tmin than for Tmax; however, its spatial cov- erage is similar for both variables. The location of the strongest response in Tmin varies from the Northern Plains in winter and early spring to the South- east in summer and early fall. The location of the strongest negative vari- ance response in Tmax also varies sub- stantially by month, but is most promi- nent in the Plains, Mountain, and Southeastern states

http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr2002/22/c022p205.pdf


Economics

http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr2002/22/c022p205.pdf

Benjamin Franklin’s Solution

Benjamin Franklin’s Solution


Nationalization has traditionally had a bad name in the United States, but it could be an attractive alternative for the American people and our representative government as well. Turning bankrupt Wall Street banks into public institutions might allow the government to get out of the debt cyclone by undoing what got us into it. Instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul, flapping around in a sea of debt trying to stay afloat by creating more debt, the government could address the problem at its source: it could restore the right to create money to Congress, the public body to which that solemn duty was delegated under the Constitution.


The most brilliant banking model in our national history was established in the first half of the eighteenth century, in Benjamin Franklin’s home province of Pennsylvania. The local government created its own bank, which issued money and lent it to farmers at a modest interest. The provincial government created enough extra money to cover the interest not created in the original loans, spending it into the economy on public services. The bank was publicly owned, and the bankers it employed were public servants. The interest generated on its loans was sufficient to fund the government without taxes; and because the newly issued money came back to the government, the result was not inflationary.7 The Pennsylvania banking scheme was a sensible and highly workable system that was a product of American ingenuity but that never got a chance to prove itself after the colonies became a nation. It was an ironic twist, since according to Benjamin Franklin and others, restoring the power to create their own currency was a chief reason the colonists fought for independence. The bankers’ money-creating machine has had two centuries of empirical testing and has proven to be a failure. It is time the sovereign right to create money is taken from a private banking elite and restored to the American people to whom it properly belongs.















http://www.globalresearch.ca/credit-default-swaps-evolving-financial-meltdown-and-derivative-disaster-du-jour/8634

Might be what was rejected was the blatant use of lies & money.

Told their lies so well they gravely believed them,
and repeated roundabout,
they found that they had lied to themselves when the numbers became a bit more real.

Mconnell being petulant.
Boner waiting for the prez's first move.
he said revenue is on the table
but later he may have to deny he said it.

Heard some pundit say the country has chosen a clear path to destruction
soon as he gets the data he'll let us know what that entails
Rove will have to enter the witness protection program,
live on the dole. keep his head down anyway.

"The Obama administration keeps an informal list of possible Supreme Court nominees; Experts see six women, two men in pool of potential ...,

"and meanwhile lame futurists weep into Spengler’s
prophecy, will the world be over before the races blend color?
All color must be one or let the world be done—
There’ll be a chance, we’ll all be orange!
I don’t want to be orange!"

--America Politica Historia, In Spontaneity by Gregory Corso

Buk's Ghost after Rumors Of A Lakers' loss

what's that little slip of a girl
doing with them basketball players
their dicks are as long she is
what she doing there anyway?

its a goddamn basketball game.

little thing spouts soap opera
while Kobie has a Sprain

I'd turn the damn thing off
but then what,
write a poem with a dead arm
around the corner from the grave
be more interesting than this game
and that little slip of a girl
talking nonsense when I got skin in the game.

Armageddon!

Wanted:someone to sell the UN to take over the world, sounds Gabriel's horns, swell republican ranks, hires someone to start a war. starts the wrong one. ignites a searing blast. Keep the lid on Jesus amen. They had an actor already. This one fits the role like tv wrote the script back in the sixties, or Heinlein before that. question is what effect a collective unconscious might achieve. Is the crisis sharper than the ideological one which in reality has not been decided only kicked down the road.

in the popular parlance. twixt the twins, at the bottom of which is the light and the dark. with a preacher in charge it won't be much fun, what with praying, and going to Hell. I don't suppose people like me would be of much use in a world like that. Bishop Rumney doncha know, but he ain't the one.

Stonewall, way back down the road aways.

Muttley not doing too well. Fails the empathy test, fails even the economy test. Bishop Romney, some say. Fallen into the clutches of the far right, some say; no doubt owes tithes that will need be repaid after the looming disaster. One lie over the line, sweet Jesus, seeps even into the TV patriarchs, and they alternate between the coming doom and their new savior, apparently Mr. Ruin, rather than Bishop Muttley. Every time he opens his mouth, the good Bishop, that is, it is as if Alaric crashes thru Rome again, or Rogers takes a beating in the first half against Seattle, an Armageddon of words wreck our wise Odysseus on an isolated shore. I'd advise the President to be presidential and keep the glad handing down to a minimum. Save some money. Paul Ryan? "Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights: Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous." My candidate for the latest & greatest Anti-Christ. Peruse the litany, cut aid to dependent children, cut taxes on the oligarchy more war and more rumors of war, let us look together, once again, out over the the valley of Megiddo where the blood will flow as rivers. God preserve Israel for the coming fury of the Messiah and his mighty horde. Someone should ask Ryan if he would support the rebuilding of the temple on the Temple Mount. Would he celebrate Cassius's action or would he join Anthony in condemning him? So like Jesus, we would seek to trap, but nimble like a night thief he would dance away. Ah, well-my own off shore investments consist of tossing tomatoes out in the backyard in the hope of few strays next spring.

The Constitution says: "1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; 2: To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;" They have been running away from that Power ever since. "...every citizen should quietly consider each point, then talk it over with his friends, and, finally, bring forward for public discussion any additions or subtractions which seemed desirable." (cf. Liv. III 34)

actual numbers that can be looked at!

The Gears

Old Ben said if you give up liberty for security, you're screwed--
well, he didn't say it quite like that, he lived in a more refined age.

Ours is one of self-appointed Messiahs who preach the doctrine of the dollar supported by the Christian God against all enemies, foreign & domestic--the president of course being all three is particularly demonized--

not to put too great a spin upon it--the Republic has always been fractious, splintered, divided & savage but the electronic media in league with a primitive ideology is a dangerous new brew for the production of demagogues; once the seed is planted in the mind of the gullible it is hard to remove. Thankfully, most of those subverted are aged and apt to pass away in the next 20 years or so, we are left to ponder on just much more power the oligarchs can accrue to themselves and how much the next generation will become accustomened to their rule in that span.

One must bear in mind that the State has been elitist since its inception--the plebs have made inroads here and there but the basics remain in place. Underneath the noise is an erosion of this aristocracy in the face of a new multiculturalism that is driving the Messiahs to ever greater dementia & frustration. The most visible manifestation of that change is the Man in the white house--it should be noted that they have come to tolerate women as long as they maintain the status quo, that is, Eve as helpmate to Adam--(Bachman-Palin Syndrome)but those that step out of it and claim equality or God forbid primacy are to be assumed to be agents of the Devil, the Clinton-Pelosi syndrome.

Caesar was killed not because he was a tyrant (that question is not answered by History) but rather because he threatened the wealth of the oligarchs--as was true of the Gracchi--rarely are the oligarchs themselves dispatched, but it has occurred generally under the guise of a "new" government as in Britain & France--the elite prefer assassination it seems for shall we say continuity,--the Kennedys, Martin Luther King. Just as an aside consider why would a communist murder John Kennedy, a liberal democrat with an ambitious program for social reform that moved the country towards equality--that he did I have no doubt, but the motivation seems skewed to me. Maybe the textbooks in Texas could enlighten me as to how that all worked out.

I am hopeful we will stumble on for another hundred years or so, until the factions becomes so polarised they can no longer be kept from each other's throats, the institutions break down by even more glaring incompetence than we see now, and the system of checks & balances erode to the point that we acquiesce to the first Man in Rome--someone like Boehner who waits quietly for the opening, the crack in the facade.

Might be worth remembering he will step forward to "save the Republic," not just fix it.

First Part Of An Open Letter to Karl Rove:

preface to the Lie itself:

We speak for free markets and free people, the principles, if you will, marked in the watershed year of 1776 by Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations." So over the past century and into the next, the Journal stands for free trade and sound money; against confiscatory taxation and the ukases of kings and other collectivists; and for individual autonomy against dictators, bullies and even the tempers of momentary majorities.

Manifesto of Wall Street Journal.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123984928625323721.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123862834153780427.html#mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular



Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."--Karl Rove




One wonders which of those positions is closer to the view held by Jesus? It's rather amazing the ignorance which can be uncovered by a policy of lies, fear & hate. One wants it all to make sense, but the schemes force the data to be manipulated, and the money changers gossip on the temple steps--a tale a congresswoman should read as she frets about the fate of the almighty dollar, and its brief waltz upon the stage.

the larger Ideals are lost on these petty little men, ambition reduced to the angles in the next deal, firewalls, blind alleys, and connections, same as it was in Ur, it may be imagined, as thus the city grew. Upon this cusp, the forces drawing to a point, it is easy enough to deplore their selfish schemes. It could be recalled, should one wish to, Paul, how much of his time was spent in keeping them from falling away, oh, into one idolatry or another--children as we are, despite our pretensions, happy with our toys, our absent pleasures. Pleasantly unaware that bullies do not mature, they simply age. And Paul? the Wisdom he has acquired, he mostly keeps to himself, as like Simon Magus he is bent on acquiring more, though nothing, as we should have learned by now, will buy us one second more. A worrisome bit of news that, all in all. Spun in Gossamer these new little Napoleons, unwrapped;
nothing is to be found at all. Old Will, finding smoke and fading voices in the sound & fury, as he waits through the next commercial with his Ovaltine, product placement doncha know, none of us are immune, nor particularly healthy all in all. The words all run together, the elegies, the prophecies, the wills and the contracts.

The sermons all get a bit stale, at the point where one can stare through them at the lies and the hypocrisy. One notes that charismatic is costume jewelry and blinking lights. Criticism nothing more than a bath in a bloated vocabulary: "Daylight obscured in the fog of our exhalation". The testaments pile up in the sunlit dusty room, arcane, obscure--paranoid, the currents drifting in history ignored in favor of green slimes crawling on the insides of the mind, the rot produced by (insert fav adjective here) society; just another day at the beach, watching each other carefully for signs of imperfection, the undertow of communication in the isolation. Gets to the point that there should have been a spark in all the connections, something in the way the car was parked, or a wrinkle out of place in the rumpled blankets on the bed, nothing shakes loose though, nothing occurs; maybe it was just a failure in the current observation, might be good to turn Hope over and kiss her ass, or wait for a messiah to start another crusade with poppies growing over the killing fields. What then when it stares directly into the eyes? The last wall of illusion crumbling away?

Another bedlam of words, another dusty testament, fraught with error, something to be tidied up, edited and collated, and placed carefully atop the pile, storage for another bit of poison, an act of muttering. Nothing more--even the loud voices are muted in the din; those that sing of greater things beyond the rim shouted down, and beaten with sticks. Something to answer the need, the throb and rhythms of another pestilence, a palanquin from which coins may be thrown into the streets to subdue the ennui, some fair tower from which to mock the dying city, and the fools marching in tidy rows against an onrushing tide of fire, umbrellas folded beneath their arms.

These learned fellows expect recompense, for that which survival demands, failing that they steal...





In the wake of faux tea party, the principles of Mr. Goebbels applied directly to the body politic, the Lie repeated often enough, it becomes increasingly difficult to untangle the truth from the web; and few in the weariness have the energy to try.
Tomorrow it all begins anew. The sturdy peasantry whipped into new frenzies of fear by the oligarchs, the promise of the old republic kindled in their hearts, the myth of "what was" scribed upon the tablets-- the voice of opposition seems plaintive, the whine of a chained dog, that which was the Law in another time, now, a favored toady, lost somewhere in the endless words its teeth pulled. Slowly the lie pulls on the populace, the honey in its tone as sweet as the devil's own words, insidious is transformed into spontaneous, hatred becomes love--the old song sung from the temple steps, the promises dipped in a sweet wine; words woven to suit the moment. The chained dog whimpers, sniffs the stale air; content with despair, the occasional bone tossed from the banquet table.


Come now! Should we not believe these promises? The nightmare from which we have recently emerged prove their worth. Slander, innuendo, torture, the bodies stacked in the city squares, the Lady clothed in oil and tossed into the sewer.

The question hanging in the air: "Are you revenged as yet?"--the years that slip into decades, the blood carried in buckets by the children at the behest of pudgy little men issuing directives to conceal the actual aims of their schemes. The false prophets permit hate, and promise power--they know that Adam is always innocent and full of desire. The prophet that counseled love as a harder road and that the meek shall inherit the world is put on a war horse and sent to slaughter all those who will not obey. "We are a Christian Nation!" they tell you, and the boys come home in caskets swelling the coffers of the rich--in truth they war upon the wretched and the poor, and preach to you the spreading of the truth, when behind the facade there is only the lie.

Time stands still in the new gospel, we do not walk from place to place, we do not climb the hill. It is always yesterday when we were better than we are; new words are uncrated to explain that what happened didn't really; or that the founders meant to say what they didn't really, and upon that we should all agree or be cast into the outer darkness. The minions of the dark lord counsel conciliation, reconstruction, peace, choice, the progress of the soul--nay nay nay they tell you, we must beat our plowshares into swords and wage war against such infidels as though their blood will expiate our sins. Happy we are in the Lord, yet who profits from our faith? Who is it, in fine clothes, who preaches the doctrine of the righteousness of the rich: has it not always been the priests who take the finest cuts of meat from the altar? Has the king not always paid handsomely for their smooth words?

It is not God who is the disease, but his servants, and they twist the words to serve their own pursuits. God becomes their lackey, and they sell him to the king. Uriah is put in the forefront of the battle, David puts on sackcloth and bows, and Bathsheba's son inherits the throne; with God's blessing.


You have only to open the book to look upon the future of their lies:


15 For behold, I will make you small among the nations,
despised among mankind.
16 The horror you inspire has deceived you,
and the pride of your heart,
you who live in the clefts of the rock,
who hold the height of the hill.
Though you make your nest as high as the eagle’s,
I will bring you down from there,

declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 49


****

An open Letter To Glenn Beck

Dear Mr. Beck;

One notes your claim that you are a libertarian--

lib·er·tar·i·an
n.
1. One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.
2. One who believes in free will.

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

"the belief that human behaviour is an expression of personal choice and is not determined by physical forces, Fate, or God," or Free Will.

Much of what you know is predicated upon that which you think you know, The Greeks defined that as Hubris--which is neither here nor there as you earn a living by preying on fear; another tool in the hands of the demagogues who would strip you of all that which you claim to hold so dear--and when it comes down to it what is that but the size of your bank account--the arbiter of your "safety".


"Tonight, America, here is what you need to know. We have got to make a choice. We are either capitalists or we`re not. We either believe in the free market system or we do not. We can`t play both sides."

::::::

Progressive Democrats instead favored a reserve system owned and operated by the government and out of control of the "money trust", ending Wall Street's control of American currency supply. Conservative Democrats fought for a privately owned, yet decentralized, reserve system, which would still be free of Wall Street's control. The Federal Reserve Act passed Congress in late 1913 on a mostly partisan basis, with most Democrats in support and most Republicans against it.

In 1999, the Financial Services Modernization Act overturned the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. The Act effectively barred banks, brokerages and insurance companies from entering each others' industries, and separated investment banking and commercial banking. The law was enacted in response to revelations of gross corruption and manipulation of the market by giant banking houses that organized huge corporate mergers for their own profit, leading to the collapse of the stock market in 1929.

The Wall Street Journal celebrated the agreement to end such restrictions with an editorial declaring that the banks had been unfairly scapegoated for the Great Depression. The headline of one Journal article declared, "Finally, 1929 Begins to Fade."

::::

The unleashed and deregulated financial services sector boomed, bringing us the speculative boom that in turn gave us the temporary budget surplus of the late 1990s and the finance-led booms and busts since then. The hedge fund was not invented in the 1990s, but it was under Clinton that they were transformed into their modern form, with the Clinton White House cheerleading that transformation. In 1998, when the hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management, collapsed, leading to federal intervention, the president established the Working Group on Financial Markets. In February 2000, it concluded that hedge funds needed no regulation.



The General Welfare Clause


"Revolution of 1937."




Hughes prevailed on Roberts to desert the Conservative camp, swing over with him and join the three liberals in declaring the social security cases [Steward Machine Co. v. Davis (301 us 548, May 24, 1937)] Constitutional.[4] [P.56] This Roberts did, and by so doing, took the wind from the sails of the President's court packing plan. It went back to committee and died. one Administration official called the court's action, "the switch in time that saved nine."

This decision said in effect, Congress would no longer be held to enumerated powers but instead could tax and spend for anything; so long as it was for "general welfare."

But the words "General Welfare" in the introduction to the enumerated powers of Article I Section 8 were never intended to be an object for extension of the power to tax and spend; and up until the cases noted above, no court ever so averred.[Appx. 1]

The supreme court surrendered to the new deal on the most fundamental of constitutional issues. "it is scarcely conceivable that Chief Justice Hughes and Justice Roberts... were unaware of the political implications of their move. the President had lost a battle but won a war. In a remarkable series of decisions . ..the Court executed the most abrupt change of face in its entire history..."-

:::::::::::


...as tho the nation exists only in the moment of your latest adolescent eruption, that free market you prattle on about--is and always has been, manipulated to suit the needs of the few, not the many. Caesar, Crassus & Pompey--whose petty pauper are you--? Sweet swindles, as they divide the world; as if this nation you whine about actually exists--other than as a faction in the global chaos, and you a sop to the Mob milling about in the forum, Caesar's tame tribune spilling earnest lies.

Oh, how fierce your indignation, at these petty politicians with painted faces, puffing up the Senate steps, papers tucked under their arms, stuffed with peacock wings, and fine wine chilled in the Apennines, bought and paid for, their votes nothing more than an abject acquiesce to the highest bidder in the triumvirate.

Fool, to think your useless prattle matters to the rabid Mob that cares for little more than the next circus or the next sensation in the scheme of things.--

Heinlein:

For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome."
(To Sail Beyond the Sunset, 227)

The ebb and flow transcends the antiquated nation state; Caesar conquers Gaul to add to his coffers;--some years later Charles is crowned in Rome; just before Hamlet the Armada runs aground; new monsters roll across the Ardennes redefining the extent of the civilization, and today sit perched on desolate hilltops surveying a bleak landscape, the Last redoubt against the Beast; and you prattle on about "earmarks" which your master decides should be your latest diatribe to put coins in his basket.


BRUTUS
Be patient till the last.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my
cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me
for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that
you may believe: censure me in your wisdom, and
awake your senses, that you may the better judge.
If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of
Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar
was no less than his. If then that friend demand
why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer:
--Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved
Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and
die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live
all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him;
as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was
valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I
slew him.




ANTONY
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.

:::::::::::::


What then, my friend? Honor or Ambition? How long will it be before the fables are allowed to die? What will you choose as your newest alcohol? How will you know the difference, in the prison of your delusions? Will you champion Sparta, or sleep with oligarchs in Athens? In the end it will not matter much, your lips pressed against the ass of your latest suitor; nor will you, as he strokes your hair, spinning the web of your newest despair; some new whimperings to delight the drunken mob.

Even so, such pretentious preaching will only serve the mob so long, its addled attention soon drawn off to some new atrocity, your mendacity nothing more than the graffiti scrawled upon the wall--the temple was profaned when Gilgamesh was just a boy, or when Achilles sulked in his tent as Agamemnon fondled Briseis as her father moaned to absent gods. Take your meager knowledge to the market to impress young girls--they are always wide eyed at the sight of Heroes, even when they do not know what they are:

from The Sixth Elegy

The hero is strangely close to those who died young. Lasting
doesn’t contain him. Being is his ascent: he moves on,
time and again, to enter the changed constellation
his risk entails. Few could find him there. But
Destiny, that darkly hides us, suddenly inspired,
sings him into the tempest of his onrushing world.
I hear no one like him. All at once I am pierced
by his darkened sound carried on streaming air.

Rilke

The Case for a Fascist society

It seems to me a natural outgrowth of declining Imperium. A loss of control sociologically combined with the most powerful armed force ever known on the planet, and an economy on the verge of complete collapse--makes for a compelling scenario...





We note some differences in the modern Fascism of the Repukes and Neo-Cons--

The first is the largely Jewish makeup of the shadow leadership of the movement: although I am perplexed over whether that has any material relationship to the actual events which seem to be transpiring. Guess that will have to be left to the more paranoid of the conspiracy theorists; they could just as well be Baptists, Presbyterians--more about preserving an aggressive foothold in the Middle East than any thing else, I suppose.

The second is "the use of "champions of law, order, Christian morality, and the sanctity of private property" as ploys rather than principles--as a means to power, propaganda to advance the merger of economics & politics.

the third and most important point where they diverge is in the emergence of "The Leader" principle, until that transpires, that is, until they find a Charismatic leader they cannot move forward. Everything in the Fascist State must revolve around a leader, Fascism cannot function by committee.


________________________________________________________________________________




"Forerunners of fascism, such as Georges Boulanger in France and Adolf Stöker and Karl Lueger in Germany and Austria, in their efforts to gain political power played on people's fears of revolution with its subsequent chaos, anarchy, and general insecurity. They appealed to nationalist sentiments and prejudices, exploited anti-Semitism, and portrayed themselves as champions of law, order, Christian morality, and the sanctity of private property."








"The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all of his own initiative; neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace - to his leader he shall direct his eye and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matter he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals . . only if he has been told to do so, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it."

-Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol I The Spell of Plato, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969, p. 7



* "The Cult of Tradition", combining cultural syncretism with a rejection of modernism (often disguised as a rejection of capitalism).
* "The Cult of Action for Action's Sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself, and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
* "Disagreement is Treason" - fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action.
* "Fear of Difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
* "Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class", fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
* "Obsession With a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often involves an appeal to xenophobia or the identification of an internal security threat. He cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
* "Pacifism is Trafficking With the Enemy" because "Life is Permanent Warfare" - there must always be an enemy to fight.
* "Contempt for the Weak" - although a fascist society is elitist, everybody in the society is educated to become a hero.
* "Selective Populism" - the People have a common will, which is not delegated but interpreted by a leader. This may involve doubt being cast upon a democratic institution, because "it no longer represents the Voice of the People".
* "Newspeak" - fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.

Umberto Eco; Essay, "Eternal fascism;" 1995



Thus, the Communist Third International published the following definition:
“ Fascism in power is the open, terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, the most chauvinistic, the most imperialistic elements of finance capitalism.

The historic function of fascism is to smash the working class, destroy its organizations, and stifle political liberties when the capitalists find themselves unable to govern and dominate with the help of democratic machinery. ”

— Leon Trotsky, Fascism: What it is and how to fight it



1. Right Wing: Fascists are fervently against: Marxism, Socialism, Anarchism, Communism, Environmentalism; etc – in essence, they are against the progressive left in total, including moderate lefts (social democrats, etc). Fascism is an extreme right wing ideology, though it can be opportunistic.
2. Nationalism: Fascism places a very strong emphasis on patriotism and nationalism. Criticism of the nation's main ideals, especially war, is lambasted as unpatriotic at best, and treason at worst. State propaganda consistently broadcasts threats of attack, while justifying pre-emptive war. Fascism invariably seeks to instill in its people the warrior mentality: to always be vigilant, wary of strangers and suspicious of foreigners.
3. Hierarchy: Fascist society is ruled by a righteous leader, who is supported by an elite secret vanguard of capitalists. Hierarchy is prevalent throughout all aspects of society – every street, every workplace, every school, will have its local Hitler, part police-informer, part bureaucrat – and society is prepared for war at all times. The absolute power of the social hierarchy prevails over everything, and thus a totalitarian society is formed. Representative government is acceptable only if it can be controlled and regulated, direct democracy (e.g. Communism) is the greatest of all crimes. Any who oppose the social hierarchy of fascism will be imprisoned or executed.
4. Anti-equality: Fascism loathes the principles of economic equality and disdains equality between immigrant and citizen. Some forms of fascism extend the fight against equality into other areas: gender, sexual, minority or religious rights, for example.
5. Religious: Fascism contains a strong amount of reactionary religious beliefs, harking back to times when religion was strict, potent, and pure. Nearly all Fascist societies are Christian, and are supported by Catholic and Protestant churches.
6. Capitalist: Fascism does not require revolution to exist in capitalist society: fascists can be elected into office (though their disdain for elections usually means manipulation of the electoral system). They view parliamentary and congressional systems of government to be inefficient and weak, and will do their best to minimize its power over their policy agenda. Fascism exhibits the worst kind of capitalism where corporate power is absolute, and all vestiges of workers' rights are destroyed.
7. War: Fascism is capitalism at the stage of impotent imperialism. War can create markets that would not otherwise exist by wreaking massive devastation on a society, which then requires reconstruction! Fascism can thus "liberate" the survivors, provide huge loans to that society so fascist corporations can begin the process of rebuilding.
8. Voluntarist Ideology: Fascism adopts a certain kind of “voluntarism;” they believe that an act of will, if sufficiently powerful, can make something true. Thus all sorts of ideas about racial inferiority, historical destiny, even physical science, are supported by means of violence, in the belief that they can be made true. It is this sense that Fascism is subjectivist.
9. Anti-Modern: Fascism loathes all kinds of modernism, especially creativity in the arts, whether acting as a mirror for life (where it does not conform to the Fascist ideal), or expressing deviant or innovative points of view. Fascism invariably burns books and victimizes artists, and artists which do not promote the fascists ideals are seen as “decadent.” Fascism is hostile to broad learning and interest in other cultures, since such pursuits threaten the dominance of fascist myths. The peddling of conspiracy theories is usually substituted for the objective study of history.[24]

---Fascism entry in the Encyclopedia of Marxism

Armageddon

Everywhere there is the call to Action; yet the great mass does not move. It seems frozen in place. Waiting. The crisis, if upon us, seems hollow, distant. When will it come we say, looking at the darkening sky. though we know it to be so, and feel it in our bones we will not believe that it is so; do The Nobles not play at dice before their crackling fire? The wheels appear to turn. Here and there an odd man reads the paper unconcerned by its deceits, the scores are true, and who has murdered whom, the name of the stars might change but they are still luminous, the pipers play a happy tune.

Some might see the shadow of a Man, he has his own name, but he has gone by many in the past, when the fires descend, when there is ruin, more often then not, some say, he leaves death in his wake.--No-one listens to dreamers, do they? Not in this day and age when we have surpassed all that our fathers ever dreamed of...

Prophets are a dime a dozen, poets even cheaper, it's too easy to string together words, to make dire thoughts. I have lived in a cold clime, and the warmer weather suits me just fine, I have no need to worry about old men in fine suits who walk under sunny skies discussing the weather...as yet I do not see the smoke from distant fires, but the merchants are wringing their hands and moping about.--

How is it they have become bedfellows with the politicians? Surely this was not always so? Something is amiss in the cosmos. The world moves too slowly, bodies are ground to a fine powder and sold as fertilizer, grease for the wheels, they say, mumbling of their poverty; yet all is well as they will have saved us once again, some say, by selling the beggared children into slavery for the glory of our bright tomorrows. We will be well and prosper--though the dreamers, and prophets and the poets would not have it so; tinkering with our madness as if all we know is just an illusion, or a bit of paper emblazoned with cartoon saints stabbing themselves.

Still! there is that need, deep down, that something wants to be done, and still the great Machine groans on raping the stripped earth. We die quietly in its path hugging our hoarded wealth; though always in the end we are left with nothing more than our bloated skin.

The consolidation of Disparate Positions

Here is another voice crying in the wilderness.

The Republican Party is on the verge of Collapse--but it needs a push.

The Democratic party no longer has an ideological center--it needs a spur--

--and you guys in the baby parties are all running around without a snowball's chance in hell of ever getting anywhere in the pursuit of the office of "The Big Cheese", (currently occupied by Mr. Paulson by virtue of the senatus consultum currently being passed by congress), and consequently none of your supposedly innovative ideas will ever see the light of day.

Yeh well-you dimwits, this is supposed to be a Democracy, wherein compromise and coalition are weapons the people should be able to use as a bulwark against elitism. Holy corporation, Batman, we're fucked again.

Why's that? Well, everybody wants to be the big cheese.--and the only two (besides Mr. Paulson, may his reign be long and prosperous) who have a chance for that; are big on platitudes but mired in cookie cutter personalities who all want a piece of the action. Which sucks pond water as far as the future of the republic is concerned. I don't really see that changing, we've gotten too big for our britches (we've got Aircraft Carriers, for Gods Sake)--and we have to be first in everything, all the time. Even if serious consideration were given to my proposal, (which I haven't given yet, were adopted: fat chance) there you'd be wanting to be Secretary of this or that, huffing and puffing about, forgetting where you came from and all that, as if you might actually be better than someone else--which has gotten us into all this trouble in the first place.

America, dudes.

Now me, down here at the bottom of the heap; just waiting for the electric to get turned off, or the sheriff to finally catch up to me for my various indiscretions in the matter of survival has a different point of view. I got no property, I don't have no stinking job where some witless yahoo is telling me what to do, my lover is married to some other dude, and for a career path I have chosen to write poetry which by way of remuneration earns nothing but ridicule in this the best of all possible worlds.

Not to worry, I get by--just don't ask me no questions. The fact that your world is falling down about your ears worries me not at all. I gotta kitten on my lap, and my lover plans to slip away today, despite the stock market's imminent fall. "Been down so long it looks like up to me," he said warbling an old song--

Ah! But you guys you ain't so lucky. You gotta a long ways to fall when the wells run dry. The Free Money dropping out of the sky won't fall so far. And like as not you're going to get buried in the crop dust. 9/11 and the holy wars take a seat on the back burner, the gas is turned off anyway, how do you get the point across?

Simple, really. Have yourselves a cabal, I suppose you'll have to invite yourself, just to make sure nothing goes wrong, no-one in my generation ever wanted to miss a party anyways--a consortium: agree not to disagree so vehemently for a while--toss your names in a hat, then do it again for a number two. What have you got to lose?

America, dudes?--Aircraft Carriers rusting at the pier.

shortly after the birth of a New American Party, a man said this:

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this."


I would submit to you that democracy is a constant battle, your decision rests not on your petty ideas of Left vs Right, or in the constancy of your ambitions--rather, it is the very survival of the republic that is at stake. Whine all you want about your goddamn principles and the fact that you are right and they are wrong, put your name in the hat. It is altogether possible that within a small span of years, indeed it may already be impossible, that such a coalition will not be viable--you will be deemed "illegal" and a threat to the Empire. Recall the death of Cicero, at the hands of a nervous Octavian--the punishment of patriots is often cruel.

Economic Expectation

The essential component of the Market is expectation. Heretofore, that expectation has been toward expansion, and a blind belief in growth; that expectation, at a basic level, within the Market has changed. However they might wish to disguise it the means of exchange must in the end be based on something of real value. The era of the petro-dollar is rapidly drawing to a close, and the ability of the American dollar to find, develop and exploit that resource is rapidly diminishing. The basic strength of the American Market, is and always has been in her ability to produce food, but that industry has now allied itself so closely with oil in all her stages of development that here again the dollar is losing ground.

Heavy industry save for a few pockets is gone, the high tech industry is stagnant, and will soon be eclipsed by countries with a greater stake in its present development. Our present infrastructure in based on the distribution and storage of foreign manufactured goods and our own agricultural products. This system also relies on petroleum throughout its operation. The nascent green technology will, without massive government infusion, take many years yet to develop.

Without a solid, universally accepted basis for the manufacture of currency, exchange must be based on a constantly changing assumption of where the true value lies, given the above deficiencies, property became the most attractive proposition which the fewest downsides upon which the market could derive a favorable evaluation of the dollar. It was a hedge against the inevitable fall, no more than a holding action--it main purpose was to allow the expectation and illusion of growth to continue. But there was no real growth, there was only inflation. As the demand grew, prices rose but the real value of the property remained the same. No other outlet arose which would alleviate the pressure because every other avenue was closed by the fuel-dollar equation which made investment an inevitable loss. The bubble thus had to be expanded by any means necessary to preserve expectation. Basically, that's what they were selling, expectation of an ever expanding economy, which no longer exists. When that became evident to the Market, prices began to fall. The new expectation is retrenchment, defensive positions against contraction. Credit becomes cautious, debt must be paid down; interest must be earned as the primary source of profit rather than speculation.

Against such a backdrop, the infusion of a finite amount of cash, no matter how large will be quickly absorbed in bolstering those defensive positions, rather than changing what is by now an unalterable position. The American economy, until basic outlooks are once again changed, and in the present climate that is unlikely, has nothing to offer the world by which she can show a profit, and is contracting. It is, at the present time, lurching towards a new equilibrium.

It is not the bottom of the real estate market that is the problem, but rather the bottom of the market itself, the bottom of expectation, that place where we will reside in the new economic order of nations. As noted above the infusion of money into a system with such an expectation is futile--however, the infusion of cash into reorienting the system and revaluing the dollar upon new infrastructure might allow for a shorter duration to the now prevalent inward looking expectation.

The Meltdown

Well, isn't this a fine mess.
A new emperor in fine clothes! But its a bit chilly for those.

700 billion.

For the frat boys in fine suits who got caught with their pants down, my momma used to say there was no such thing as free money.

Problem is, them boys never listened to their momma.

Dwindling resources equals the end of the gravy parade--So the dudes with the real cash, that paper not backed by the mystical machinations of credit for credit shut off the faucet.
--oopsers. Bound to happen. Tipping point. "Please, Mr. Bush, give us some more money so we can continue to roll in the dough--"

Probably happen too. Problem is that government money is worth no more than a handful of snow, and melts right through the hand. Bingo the bunko bankers go, give us more, and they will, cause everybody got their hand in the trough one way or another but strapped for the cash to pay the Wal-mart credit card, and that's mostly owned by China too. Everybody go Boo-hoo.
With no pain, the Corporate State can slip right through--which Mr. Rove knows, since Mr. Cheney told him so back in the day when they began building the paper castle with credit cards and bank machines--computers to track the interest rates and multiply the multiples--I guess in the end they forgot about the American propensity for the quick buck, now they are up against it and we'll have to see how far they are willing to go and just what they are willing to risk. They like to keep the untidiness on foreign shores but they will do what they have to do. Seems to me, the bankers like wars, but find riots to be most unprofitable.

All in. Us & them both. Us? we got a two and a three in the hole, and the first card turned up is a suicide king. If we let the bailout go through they get to play in the sand box for a while, if not, the shit hits the fan for a good bit, things get re-adjusted to a more realistic level, but Jesus knows there will be Hell to pay, and in the end they just move back into the dusty offices where the paper get pushed along. Its a good thing rednecks like to play dress up and wear gaudy uniforms with shiny medals, else ways they might have to hire Hessians to come in to keep order. As it is, homegrown blackshirts will have to do, at least they got some practice in at the RNC, bashing heads and doing the paper work, processing is a good word, sorta neutral in the scheme of things; at least when people disappear.

Time to pay the piper, people.--one way or another. Greed is good til the pot boils over and the revenooers come to take the truck; and you have to sell the cow for a dime on the buck. Happy go lucky has called the shell game and the pea has rolled off the folding table and is headed towards the gutter.

Notes on Salutrean/Clovis debate.
But the surprise was that about 3 percent of the Native Americans tested had mtDNA from a different haplogroup, called X. Some populations, such as the Ojibwa from the Great Lakes region, have a high concentration of X - 25 percent.
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1406/features/dna2.htm

The name Ojibwa (pronounced oh-JIB-wuh), along with its variations, Ojibway, Ojibwe, Chippewa, and Chippeway, means “puckered up” and probably refers to a puckered seam in the style of moccasins tribal members wore. Their native name Anishinabe (pronounced ah-nish-ih-NAH-bay) means “first people.”


Some hold to the doctrine that Nanabozho created the animals for the food and raiment of man; that he caused those plants and roots to grow whose virtues cure disease and enable the hunter to kill wild animals in order to drive away famine. These plants he confided to the watchful care of his grandmother, the great-grandmother of the human race, Mesakkummikokwi, and lest man should invoke her in vain she was strictly forbidden ever to leave her lodge. So, when collecting plants, roots, and herbs for their natural and magic virtues, an Algonquian Indian faithfully leaves on the ground hard by the place whence he has taken the root or plant a small offering to Mesakkummikokwi.


In one version of the prevailing Algonquian cosmogonic story it is said that, before the formation of the earth, there was only water; that, on the surface of this vast expanse of water, floated a large raft on which were the animals of the various kinds which are on the earth and of which the Great Hare was the chief. They sought a fit and firm place on which to disembark; but as there were in sight only swans and other waterfowl, they began to lose hope, and, having no other, they requested the beaver to dive for the purpose of bringing up some earth from the bottom of the water, assuring him in the name of all the animals present that, should he return with only a single particle, it would produce an earth sufficiently spacious to contain and nourish all. But the beaver sought an excuse for refusal, saying that he had already dived around the raft and had failed to reach the bottom. He was pressed so strongly to make anew so worthy an attempt, however, that he took the hazard and dived. He remained without returning for so long a time that the supplicants believed him drowned. Finally they saw him appear nearly dead and motionless. Then all the animals, seeing that he was in no condition to remount the raft, at once interested themselves to take him into it. After examining carefully his paws and tail, they found nothing. But the little hope left them of being able to save their lives compelled them to address themselves to the otter to ask that he make an attempt to find earth at the bottom of the waters. It was told him that his own safety, as well as theirs, depended on the result of his effort. So the otter yielded to their urging and dived. He remained in the depths of the waters a longer time than did the beaver, but, like him, he came to the surface without success. The impossibility of finding a place to dwell where they could subsist left them nothing more to hope, when the muskrat offered to attempt to find the bottom, and he flattered himself that he would bring back sand. Although the beaver and the otter, much stronger than he, had not been able to accomplish the task, they encouraged him, promising even that, if he succeeded in his attempt, he should be the ruler of the whole world. The muskrat then cast himself into the waters and bravely dived into the depths. After remaining therein nearly an entire day and night he appeared motionless at the aide of the raft, belly uppermost and paws closed. The other animals carefully took him out of the water, opened one of his paws, then a second, then a third, and finally the fourth, where there was a small grain of sand between his claws. The Great Hare, who was encouraged to form a vast and spacious earth, took this grain of sand and let it fall on the raft, which became larger. He took a part and scattered it, which caused the mass to increase more and more. When it was of the size of a mountain he willed it to turn, and as it turned the mass still increased in size. As soon as it appeared quite large he gave orders to the fox to examine his work with power to enlarge it. He obeyed. The fox, having learned that the earth was of such size that he could easily take his prey, returned to the Great Hare to inform him that the earth was large enough to contain and nourish all the animals. After this report the Great Hare went over his work, and, on going around it, found it imperfect. He has since not been disposed to trust any one of all the other animals, and ever keeps on enlarging the earth by ceaselessly going around it. The rumblings heard in the caverns of mountains confirm the Indians in the belief that the Great Hare continues the work of enlarging the earth. He is honoured by them, and they regard him as the god who has formed the land.

Caesar On The Rubicon

I don't know.

what's up with all this?

It has been said, that the business of Rome was war, a profitable business a Caesar will attest crossing the Rubicon.--
a report says Saudi Arabia informed the CIA of their misgivings, alas, they too were ignored;

yet why are they now distancing themselves from their old friends? Perhaps lying is anathema to our Islamic allies? or is it something else? The attractiveness of the euro in the face of what will soon become apparent?

In which case, just how far has the cabal sold America down the river? It is not a question of western civilisation falling, rather a fat segment is sacrificed, a holding action--a retrenchment in the face of what has become a liability due to fiscal concerns, intellectual properties shifting in the economic sphere--innovation in production, the technological edge which is the basis of the dollar eroding. The petro economic model changing parameters with the ever increasing demand vs relatively static supply--shift of where the ability to pay resides.

The deflection of blame in the face of the inevitable rising of the east, shift of capital
to ever more hostile markets (self interest dictates loyalty to the "company" but the company seeks long term survival at the expense of the individual, a variant of Jung--the corporate identity resides not in the quest for profit but in survival, an aside, but diversification and expansion serve only longevity, not profit). Markets are not bound by territorial claims, historically the Merchant class is hostile to nation states.

The matter at hand; the matter at hand--

The Company is godless. Ideaolgy is limited to corporate slogans, catch phrases to extol the worker to greater efforts "in service" to the company. It has no need of a separate entity of control, other than itself. The chain of command must end at a finite point.

The Company is not bound, nor has it ever been bound by adherence to a Moral code. It's essential coda therefore is expedience, conservation of time in production, (see Nazi Germany, innovations of Japanese for models)dehumanisation of the individual for the conservation of capital, etc--which obviously does not any notions of the Good, other than definitions which apply to espectations of Quality or methods of production. The company, is exempted, in that sense of being bound by the conventions of what for the most part has been a high-minded but often empty morality, lip service to honor and duty co-opted to coerce the masses to die for the greater good of whatever is necessary for the sake of efficiency.

which is still not the matter at hand!

The corporate model applied to government, first of course, tested by Mussolini and the National Socialists ending in dismal failure (apparently)--due to the exuberance of the "Leader" in spreading the message (see French revolution as corollary) of absolute loyalty and obedience overreaching the limits of the the state as corporation. Reconstituted it finds direct control of political institutions cumbersome, expediency is hampered by dealing with codes of conduct that conflict with its need to survive, it is necessary only to influence local pockets of political control to maximize its interests. It need not be brutal, but it can be ruthless, and it is dictated and predicted by the dialectic.

All of which, he said, finally getting around to the matter at hand, has been found in the current situation which America finds itself.

It is the reason why lies are permitted, why no proceedings of impeachment have proceeded, why the infringement of individual rights have continued to be expanded. The "dominant minority" is entrenched, the creative minority which our republic routinely produced has become (both on the right & the left, designations which no longer have any meaning, other than to deflect the eye of scrutiny from the "real" objectives) marginalized, objects of ridicule: see Ron Paul, Ann Coulter, Naomi Wolf, etc.

The business of America becomes war, (by proxy) and at some point a politician and\or a general will come to shores of the Rubicon.

As to all that, so what?

See the movie: Metropolis,
and after that read Milton's "Paradise Lost"

...if you can tear yourself away from the Bread & Circuses long enough.