Our jumping point will be a loss for all humanity (observed by me here): former Czech President, playwright, poet, author and “dissident” leader Vaclav Havel has passed away at age 75. Havel, of course, wrote extensively of the lies associated with communist propaganda, and ultimately proceeded to lead the so-called “Velvet Revolution,” which is credited with non-violently ending communist rule in Czechoslovakia and ushering in (as it were) democratic rule in both Czechoslovakia and its successor countries (Slovakia and the Czech Republic, the latter of which he served as its first president). In some sense, as a professional story-teller, particularly...

Former Czech President and playwright and leader of the so-called “Velvet Revolution”Vaclav Havel has passed away at 75. His country, Czechoslovakia, was bigger than its two current-day off-spring (the Czech Republic and Slovakia), but, of course, was a Soviet satellite, and the subject of a Soviet invasion in 1968, in response to the “Prague Spring,” which, rhetorically at least, was the inspiration for the ongoing “Arab Spring” and its world-wide counterparts.

That would be the passage by the Senate, and seeming inevitable signing into law, of a Defense Dept. authorization bill that pretty much codifies the body of “law” (including executive practice as rubber-stamped by a collaborating judiciary) pertaining to detention of terrorism suspects that has all but eviscerated the Bill of Rights. [Shorter U.S. government: GTMO for you if we feel like it, bitchez.] Obviously, the President, back when he was Candidate Obama, promised to do the mirror opposite of everything in this bill. Of course, now he’s pretty much pledged to sign this codification of everything he ran against–...

Well, in these troubled times, we can take some solace in a successful government program– indeed, one so successful, that it is achieving a new record of success. Unfortunately, that program is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or “SNAP,” better known as “food stamps,” which now serves a record 46 million Americans. At this point, I think it’s fair to say that neither political party has a particular clue as to how to restore much of anything in this economy, other than a continuation, if not an acceleration, of the status quo. Alas, the status quo has led to environmental...

Another day, another central banking gimmick (in this case, a proposal to puportedly ease central bank borrowing in U.S. dollars) and another central bank-induced goosing of markets, in this case, nearly a 500 point rise in the DJIA. Supposedly, this will “ease” the European banking crisis. Or, more likely, simply kick the inexorable financial disaster… to some time next year. And of course, when Europe goes… don’t think we’ll be unaffected. But hey… this is what governments, and central banks, and Wall Street banks, all of whom work for the same team… the Wall Street banks… do. While the reality...

Rationally, we should make today a day of national fasting and somber spiritual reflection… a recognition that our status, at least collectively (though less and less so as individuals) as the world’s richest nation (and in resource depletion and waste, we are, to be sure, NUMBER ONE! AMERICA, FUCK YEAHHHHH!!!!)… has attached to it, some, you know, responsibility. As if. And so, instead, the Thanksgiving Holiday now serves as an excuse for gluttony, in a country where something like the majority of our population is overweight, with huge numbers actually obese, and of course, today is the precursor-day to “Black...

What Michael Berube said. Michael, of course, as the Paterno Family Chair holder in English at Penn State, has a unique perspective on the unfolding tragedy. Perhaps the gravest crisis we as members of a society are now in is the utter collapse of trust in just about everything, particularly because of the integrity-failure of otherwise long-trusted institutions, be they things like faith in the integrity of the commodities/futures industry, now probably forever shattered by loathsome scumbag Jon Corzine and the MF Global fiasco, the breakdown of trust in virtually all other financial and governmental institutions now energizing the “Occupy”...

It seems that Lord Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s girlfriend Diana L. Taylor just happens to sit on the Board of Directors of Brookfield Properties, the “owner” of Liberty Plaza Zuccotti Park. Amusingly, the original date for “eviction” of October 14th was before thirty days of occupancy and, you know, the requirement for actual judicial process would have attached. Funny all that.

The OWS movement marked two months today with an impressive array of protests, including over 200 arrests in New York City alone. For a fascinating “gestalt” view, Sandy Krolick hits it out of the park, by observing among quite a few other things that the genius of the movement to date has been its utter refusal to express banal demands of any kind, and its refusal to even negotiate with a dehumanizing system… Efforts to pin an agenda on the movement have thus far at least, failed. May they continue to do so. Of course, in pondering the “eviction” from...

All hail the conquering hero, Mike Bloomberg and his now-deployed-as-mercenaries-for-the-banking-sector New York Police Department, for their daring middle-of-the-night-raid to roust and evict Occupy Wall Street from Liberty Plaza Zuccotti Park. I confess that amidst my seasonal-never-ending-cold induced insomnia, I was actually thinking about heading over to my office (yes, it’s across the street from OWS, conveniently located at the center of everything between the NY Stock Exchange, NY Fed, and WTC construction site) to look at (and maybe even participate in) the mirth and merriment that a middle of the night Move On.Org e-mail advised me was underway… in this...