Thousands braved the Russian winter to protest the inevitable election of Vladimir Putin back to the presidency of Russia in Moscow, forming a near human chain along that city’s Garden Ring road. Where was the pepper spray, the sonic weaponry or the tear gas and flash grenades? It’s about confidence, in some sense… the Russian people are confident that their government won’t open fire on them, and Mr. Putin is reasonably confident, he’ll win his election even without [the inevitable] fraud. In the US of A, by contrast, the status quo senses its grip beginning to slip, and hence, it...
Continue reading...The Talking Dog "Sure, the dog can talk…but does it say anything interesting?" He ain't The Man's best friend
Sadomonetarism
That’s pretty much the only thing you can say about insistence by the Germans European financial authorities that already depression-ridden Greece lower its minimum wage some more and other pointlessly draconian austerity measures in order to secure yet another bailout (of mega-banks, of course). Of course, there are those who contend that this is about actual sado-masochism— German popular insistence that other (swarthier) people suffer as a price of German taxpayer bailout while Greece itself (its elites, anyway) enjoy the pain of still being in the euro, when pulling out and just defaulting would, in the end, result in far...
Continue reading...Souper Bowl, Bread, Circuses, etc.
Sorry to be my usual downer self… Hey, I’m as pleased as any New Yawker to see the scrappy N.Y. Giants triumph over the more arrogant (though still brilliant) N.E. Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI (the last place we still use Roman #’S!) as anyone… but I do note that the route of the inevitable ticker-tape (sort of) parade scheduled for tomorrow goes, as usual, right by my office building, which means it also goes right past the Occupy!-free Zuccotti Park (which I assume will be extra clean for the occasion!) The D.C. Occupy! is under some extra “tent cleaning”...
Continue reading...If Iran the Circus
Alrightie then: this from WaPo’s Judy Greg Miller, in which the Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, Jr. suggested in prepared testimony that Iran is planning on terrrrrrrrorist strikes within our precious bodily fluids the Amurkan homeland, in retaliation for proposed unilateral American aggression in service of the Likud party possible military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. Well, our uniformed personnel are out of Iraq now (though, of course, an American taxpayer funded mercenary force will remain)… we can only bog down so many of them in Afghanistan… so… time for another war… somewhere! Of course, the only real...
Continue reading...YOU… make the call
Honestly, the Grey Lady, in juxtaposing two articles, one in which it evidently decries former Republican National Committee Chairman and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour’s remarkably generous granting of pardons on his way out the door, and Republican Presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and his longstanding financial ties to Goldman Sachs, invites the immediate comparison of “which one is more troubling?”, It is necessary to observe that , at least in the 2008 election cycle, three of Barack Obama’s ten largest contributors were Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup, and that since Barack Obama took office, virtually...
Continue reading...First thing we do, let’s kill all the leakers
And so it continues. The war on whistleblowers. Famously, of course, Bradley Manning (recently recommended for court-martial…). Now, CIA agent John Kiriakou. Six such prosecutions in all… more than all prior American administrations combined. Kiriakou, allegedly, disclosed some of the horrific tortures associated with the abuse of Abu Zubaydah, KSM and others. Note that the actual torture is of no concern to this Administration– the disclosure of the waterboarding and other egregious torture, however… that is the highest crime of all. Because… The “crime,” of course… is embarassing the Empire. This is reminiscent of the Abu Ghraib perps: that they...
Continue reading...It’s news to me
World War III edition? Let’s see… plans for Israeli/USA false flag attacks on Iran? Check. Do we have our “war on” with Iran? Er, check. Is the Grey Lady out there with its Judy Miller-style propaganda, making sure the USA public will be well-behind the coming mega-war? Checkarino. And of course, is all this really about propping up Israeli-domestic-political and internal-American-political-diversion (not to mention generating uber-profits for the usual suspects), because what would actually work to bring down the Iranian regime would be dialing down the World War rhetoric thereby letting oil prices crash and hence bankrupting the Iranian regime?...
Continue reading...Be there. Aloha.
That would be The World Can’t Wait’s dance event on Sunday, January 8th, right here in NYC. [Specific details for those not clicking}: January 8, 2012 4pm 3-D Laboratories 29 West 26th Street New York Your talking dog is proud to be one of your hosts for this event, part of the acknowledgment of ten years of Guantanamo Bay (quite a legacy for our nation); Andy will also be there, discussing his tireless work on the subject, quite literally a resource for all humanity. So Give Generously. Alrightie then. Because, as I constantly try to remember, and to remind the...
Continue reading...Happy new year. Nothing to see here folks… move along.
I’m losing track of just which dictatorial measure gets signed into law exactly when, but “it is being reported that” [my college classmate] the President used the occasion of his vacation in Hawaii and New Year’s Eve to sign the massive Defense Authorization Act that authorizes indefinite detention of suspected terrorists, though he used a signing statement to quibble with restrictions on the executive’s “flexibility.” As we enter this year of 2012, in which we will see at least three quadrennial events, to wit, a February 29th, a summer Olympic games (in London this year) and the USA Presidential election...
Continue reading...Resistance just might NOT be futile
As regular readers of this blog know, I tend not to be pollyannish about much of anything– indeed, I might actually have, what’s that word… a “following…” if I weren’t such a damned downer most of the time… and yet… I’m pretty much in agreement with this somewhat upbeat assessment by the great Charles Hugh Smith. As 2011 showed us, really for the first time I’ve been cognizant of (I was a small child back in the ’60’s), actual on the street protests (particularly, when that street is “Wall Street,” albeit technically Broadway about two blocks from Wall Street, though...
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