Fitzwalkerstan, Cracks in the Facade

While not one inclined towards optimism the past week seems to hold some hope that the charade of lies, BS, and general criminality may be showing signs of fracture in the once great state of Wisconsin. The Journal Senntinel for once gets it right:

Gov. Walker's rockiest week since the recall culminated with the release Thursday of documents containing allegations by prosecutors that he was part of “a criminal scheme” to bypass state election laws. But the story that in the long run may represent a more fundamental political challenge for the governor was the batch of new jobs figures also out Thursday painting an unflattering picture of Walker’s first three years in office. Wisconsin ranked 35 of 50 states in private-sector job growth between 2010 and 2013, trailing all its closest Midwest neighbors — even Illinois, the state the governor has repeatedly bashed for having a hostile business climate. This wasn’t just another mundane jobs report. It contained the most accurate and thorough pre-election portrait we’re going to get of how Wisconsin’s job performance compares with that of other states during Walker’s first term. Between these two “bad news” stories for Walker last week, the allegations about illegal campaign coordination were a lot more sensational. They made national headlines, thanks to Walker’s status as a possible 2016 presidential candidate. They raise real issues about how campaigns are financed. But where they lead is anyone’s guess. No actual charges have been filed. The legal questions are complex and fiercely disputed. And the investigation is tied up in court and may never be completed.

I would like to be optimistic but living in Fitzwalkerstan the reality of a unitary one party state leads me to belive this is yet another oppurtunity for the Democrats to lose. We don't so much live in a country as much as a collection of competing scams masquerading as a super power. Sergei Shnurov has an accurate , if Russian, take on things.

The Hysterics Never End: America and Ukaine

The hysterics are never ending with apocalyptic warnings of a new cold war from those who should know better regarding the Ukraine. An interesting comment comes from Jack Matlock, former ambassador under George Bush the Elder:

Ukraine: The Price of Internal Division Posted on March 1, 2014 by Jack With all of the reports coming out of Ukraine, Moscow, Washington, and European capitals, the mutual accusations, the knee-jerk speculation, and—not least—the hysterical language of some observers, bordering on the apocalyptic, it is difficult to keep in mind the long-term implications of what is happening. Nevertheless, I believe that nobody can understand the likely outcomes of what is happening unless they bear in mind the historical, geographic, political and psychological factors at play in these dramatic events. The view of most of the media, whether Russian or Western, seems to be that one side or the other is going to “win” or “lose” Ukraine. I believe that is fundamentally mistaken. If I were Ukrainian I would echo the immortal words of the late Walt Kelly’s Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” The fact is, Ukraine is a state but not yet a nation. In the 22-plus years of its independence, it has not yet found a leader who can unite its citizens in a shared concept of Ukrainian identity. Yes, Russia has interfered, but it is not Russian interference that has created Ukrainian disunity but rather the haphazard way the country was assembled from parts that were not always mutually compatible. To the flaw at the inception of an independent Ukraine, one must add the baleful effects of the Soviet Communist heritage both Russia and Ukraine have inherited. A second mistake people make is to assume that when a given government adopts a particular policy that policy is in the true interest of that country. In fact, as often as not, policies made in the heat of emotion, by leaders who feel personally challenged by opponents, are more likely to be counterproductive than supportive of a country’s true interest. Political leaders are not computers weighing costs and benefits or risks and rewards in objective fashion. They are human beings endowed with their full share of human weaknesses, including especially vanity, pride and the felt necessity of maintaining appearances, whatever the reality. Some Basics 1. The current territory of the Ukrainian state was assembled, not by Ukrainians themselves but by outsiders, and took its present form following the end of World War II. To think of it as a traditional or primordial whole is absurd. This applies a fortiori to the two most recent additions to Ukraine—that of some eastern portions of interwar Poland and Czechoslovakia, annexed by Stalin at the end of the war, and the largely Russian-speaking Crimea, which was transferred from the RSFSR well after the war, when Nikita Khrushchev controlled the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Since all constituent parts of the USSR were ruled from Moscow, it seemed at the time a paper transfer of no practical significance. (Even then, the city of Sevastopol, the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet, was subordinated directly to Moscow, not Kiev.) Up to then, the Crimea had been considered an integral part of Russia since Catherine “the Great” conquered it in the 18th century. 2. The lumping together of people with strikingly different historical experience and comfortable in different (though closely related) languages, underlies the current divisions. That division, however, is not clear-cut as it was, for example, between the Czech lands and Slovakia, which made a civilized divorce practical. If one takes Galicia and adjoining provinces in the west on the one hand and the Donbas and Crimea in the east and south on the other as exemplars of the extremes, the areas in between are mixed, proportions gradually shifting from one tradition to the other. There is no clear dividing line, and Kyiv/Kiev would be claimed by both. 3. Because of its history, geographical location, and both natural and constructed economic ties, there is no way Ukraine will ever be a prosperous, healthy, or united country unless it has a friendly (or, at the very least, non-antagonistic) relationship with Russia. 4. Russia, as any other country would be, is extremely sensitive about foreign military activity adjacent to its borders. It has signaled repeatedly that it will stop at nothing to prevent NATO membership for Ukraine. (In fact, most Ukrainians do not want it.) Nevertheless, Ukrainian membership in NATO was an avowed objective of the Bush-Cheney administration and one that has not been categorically excluded by the Obama Administration. 5. A wise Russian leadership (something one can no more assume that one can a wise U.S. or European leadership) could tolerate a Ukraine that modernizes its political and economic systems in cooperation with the European Union so long as (1) this is not seen as having an anti-Russian basis; (2) Russian-speaking citizens are granted social, cultural and linquistic equality with Ukrainians, and (3) most important of all, that the gradual economic integration with Europe will not lead to Ukraine becoming a member of NATO. 6. So far, Ukrainian nationalists in the west have been willing to concede none of these conditions, and the United States has, by its policies, either encouraged or condoned attitudes and policies that have made them anathema to Moscow. This may be grossly unfair, but it is a fact. So where does this leave us? Some random thoughts: a. It has been a mistake for all the parties, those in Ukraine and those outside, to treat this crisis as a contest for control of Ukraine. b. Obama’s “warning” to Putin was ill-advised. Whatever slim hope that Moscow might avoid overt military intervention in Ukraine disappeared when Obama in effect threw down a gauntlet and challenged him. This was not just a mistake of political judgment—it was a failure to understand human psychology—unless, of course, he actually wanted a Russian intervention, which is hard for me to believe. c. At this moment it is not clear, at least to me, what the ultimate Russian intent is. I do not believe it is in Russia’s interest to split Ukraine, though they may want to detach the Crimea from it—and if they did, they would probably have the support of the majority of Crimean residents. But they may simply wish to bolster the hand of their friends in Eastern Ukraine in negotiations over the new power structure. At the very least, they are signaling that they will not be deterred by the United States from doing what they consider necessary to secure their interests in the neighborhood. d. Ukraine is already shattered de facto, with different groups in command of the various provinces. If there is any hope of putting it together again, there must be cooperation of all parties in forming a coalition at least minimally acceptable to Russia and the Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens in the East and South. A federation with governors elected locally and not appointed by a winner-take-all president or prime minister would be essential. Real autonomy for Crimea will also be required. e. Many important questions remain. One relates to the principle of “territorial integrity.” Yes, that is important, but it is not the only principle to consider. Russians would argue, with some substance in the argument, that the U.S. is interested in territorial integrity only when its interests are served. American governments have a record of ignoring it when convenient, as when it and its NATO allies violated Serbian territorial integrity by creating and then recognizing an independent Kosovo. Also, by supporting the separation of South Sudan from Sudan, Eritrea from Ethiopia, and East Timor from Indonesia. So far as violating sovereignty is concerned, Russia would point out that the U.S. invaded Panama to arrest Noriega, invaded Grenada to prevent American citizens from being taken hostage (even though they had not been taken hostage), invaded Iraq on spurious grounds that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, targets people in other countries with drones, etc., etc. In other words, for the U.S. to preach about respect for sovereignty and preservation of territorial integrity to a Russian president can seem a claim to special rights not allowed others.

As much as I sympathize with the Ukrainian experience of nondemocracy, living in Fitzwalkerstan I'd settle for a return to democracy at home and an end to American Oligarchic Kleptocracy.

Anarchy Counts

Organizing Revolt from the stimulator on Vimeo.

SOTUS: Slouching to Irrelevance

So in an act of coincidence I finished Andrew Bacevich's "The Short American Century", which by the way, is a must read for anyone interested in the deeper meaning of collapse, and caught some of the President's State of the Union Speech. I could not be struck from the following from the book written in 2012:

"Obama's fulsome homilies enable Americans to postpone an inevitable disenchantment with their "blessed way of life" for the decline of imperial hegemony will be the pivotal episode of the twenty-first century. The horsemen of of this apocalypse are already visible and galloping at an accelerating speed, with mounting levels of personal, corporate, and government debt; military over extension that cannot be maintained without unpopular conscription, further fiscal indenture, and greater damage to an already disfigured world image; ecological destruction whose repair is routinely subordinated to the imperatives of business; and an economy whose injustice and indignity become ever more glaring and pernicious. Still profoundly enchanted by empire as a way of life, Americans and their leaders may try- with pecuniary ingenuity and perhaps great violence- to prolong the imperium of consumption. Yet even if they appear to succeed, their victory will be brief and Pyrrhic, for they will have purchased their triumph in the currency of fear, denial, and death."

Food For Thought

The Lost Continents Presidential Endorsement with Excuses

Well it is now time to announce the highly unsought Lost Continents Presidential Endorsement however before doing so let us take time to ruminate on the words of an undisputed expert on flawed, opaque, fraudulent elections, Vladimir "The Magician", Churov:

"The U.S. presidential election is not direct, not universal and not equal, and it does not safeguard the secrecy of voting," Churov, who heads Russia's Central Election Commission, wrote in the government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta's online edition. "The electoral system and electoral laws in the United States are far from perfect. They are contradictory, archaic and do not correspond to the democratic principles the United States has declared as the basis of its foreign and domestic politics." He cited a long list of shortcomings such as U.S. methods for registering and identifying voters, vote monitoring which he said was inefficient and mechanisms for casting ballots which he described as questionable."

Having put the election in its proper perspective, choice of who to vote for is not an easy one. President Obama is clearly a representative of the Oligarchic Kleptocracy who has no interest in due process, supports extra judicial assassinations, has deported more undocumented people than George Bush ever thought about, and made whistle-blowing a high crime just for starters.

His opponent from the other half of the duopoly if anything is even worse on these matters with the added attraction of belonging to the Mormon Church which is the equivalent of the Alawites of Islam, a secretive paranoid group whose most visible representative is Bashar Assad of Syria. The other major turn off is the undisguised racism of the followers of the Republican party who are demographically doomed.

There is of course the option of the multiple third party candidates of whom Jill Stein of the Green Party is probably the leading example. I agree with about everything the Greens stand for however their lack of actual governing experience is unnerving and they lack a certain sociopathic viciousness which seems to be necessary to succeed in American political life. If Citizens United is ever overturned there may be a future for Dr. Stein and her party. In the meantime they need to battle it out in city councils and state legislatures. Besides being from Wisconsin I am sick of lost causes.

So in my final analysis my vote is based on a calculus of suffering and who is likely to inflict the least. It may be a nebulous approach but if you are someone who isn't killed, denied healthcare, or imprisoned it is a big difference. Obama has gotten my nauseated, jaundiced stamp of approval.

American Electoral Auction, Coke vs. Pepsi

The horrible electoral auction is mercifully drawing to an end. The outcome however may be worse than the actual contest. The so-called debates were notable for the lack of content regarding a future discussion of European financial collapse, climate change, the so-called Mexican Drug Wars, and immigrant rights. May I quote Liu Xiaobo :

"For too long we've leaned upon the bayonet's lies, shamelessness, selfisheness, weaknesses, so that we've wholly lost both memory and time-life numbed, unceasingly and interminable, from zero begins to zero it ends: what qualifications can we claim for our mighty nation? None with the least merit."

The Duopoly of Power Debates Itself

After watching the so-called debate this past Wednesday the word that stuck with me was pathetic. The candidates seemed to go out of their way to show how similar each was to the other in an appeal to the nebulous "center" of American politics. They are essentially interchangeable cogs of the duopoly of power. Chris Hedges in his usual fashion lays it out.

"Political Fraud" by ClassWarFilms

tell me again-- who are you and why am I here?

Let Your Life Be a Friction to Stop the Machine

As we get closer the the denouement of the fiction of democracy we have to realize we are not in a democracy but an oligarchic kleptocracy and everything flows from that.

Janesville/ Bainport

I spent part of the afternoon today in Janesville WI visiting with some folks from Freeport IL who are having their jobs outsourced to China courtesy of Bain Capital. The gathering took place at the now defunct GM plant which is quite literally the smoldering crater of what was Janesville's once vibrant economy. It was a spirted if somewhat short rally which ended when the police "suggested" we move along...nothing to see here..The Downward Spiral has the gruesome details of the Romney induced calamity and is well worth reading.

Mitt Romney as a creation of Monty Python

Willard Romney is truly the gift that keeps on giving. After his most recent fiasco-video it occurred to me that I'd seen him somewhere before...in a Monty Python sketch..where he rightly belongs.

Fighting Bob Madison WI 9-15-12

The 11th annual Fighting BobFest was held in Madison Wisconsin at the Alliant Energy Center. The speakers that I saw included Jim Hightower, Gwen Moore, Juan Cole, Phil Donahue, Mike Papantonio, Norman Solomon, and Greg Palast. Also caught part of the breakout with Bill McKibben. All and all a very revitalizing experience made even better by talking with fellow attendees and realizing the interconnectedness of seemingly unrelated struggles. A common theme was the angst of what to make of President Obama. I think Jim Hightower expressed it best when he described re-electing Obama as trying to carry a sack of concrete over the finish line. A note about the venue; I realize Baraboo was off the beaten track for some but it had a certain agrarian-populist charm. The Coliseum (Alliant Energy Center) has a much weirder vibe which comes in part having an essentially anti-corporate gathering in a corporate owned public place. Enjoy The Raging Grannies and the Solidarity Singers, two musical-cultural institutions who sustained us throughout the Wisconsin Uprising.

The Last Labor Day

I wish I had something inspiring to say about this, potentially our last, Labor Day. Maybe it will be renamed Ride Your Harley Day or Freedom From Unions Day or more likely Monday. We are so fucked.

A Normal Shooting Incident

The Guardian reports on the shooting near the Empire State Building in NYC:

"A laid-off clothing designer killed his former manager before being shot dead by police in New York on Friday after a workplace dispute escalated into a shootout near the Empire State Building. At least nine people were wounded during the attack, in one of the most crowded areas of Manhattan. Some of those injured may have been shot by police as they shot at the gunman, who pointed his handgun at them but is understood not to have fired. The shooting led to panic in the tourist-heavy streets around the Empire State Building, with fears that another mass shooting was under way. However, it became clear that it was not a random attack when police revealed that the victim had been targeted... Police named the suspect as Jeffrey Johnson, a 58-year-old who had been employed for six years as a designer of women's accessories at Hazan Imports, a business that operates from premises in midtown near the Empire State Building. New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly said during a press conference that he was laid off as part of a downsizing at the firm. Kelly described the gunman as a "disgruntled former employee" who came back to confront his former manager. "He shot and killed the former co-worker, striking him three times," Kelly said."

Furthermore:

"Questions have been raised over the New York police department's handling of a shooting near the Empire State Building after armed officers injured nine passers-by as they pursued a gunman who had just shot dead his former boss. One of those injured by police told the Guardian that officers appeared to fire "randomly" as they confronted Jeffrey Johnson, 58, minutes after a workplace dispute escalated into a chaotic shootout in one of the busiest parts of Manhattan. Reports suggest that while Johnson drew his gun when he was confronted by officers, he did not fire; all those injured appear to have been shot by police."

Oh well what can you say? Thank God it was just some guy who killed his boss and not a deranged mass murderer. Or it was a mass shooting but since the mass shooting was done by the police we can all breath easier. This is so fucked up on so many levels it strains the mind to realize this was a "normal shooting incident". As in a "normal shooting incident" in Iraq or Afghanistan for example.

The Beverly Killbillies capture the general mood:

Almost Gone by Graham Nash and James Raymond

Pussy Riot And The Relativity of Outrage

The above clip from Grani-TV.ru illustrates the strong feelings evoked in Russia by the Pussy Riot case. Counterpunch published closing statements from two of the defendants: Yekatrina Samusevich

"Our sudden musical appearance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior with the song “Mother of God, Drive Putin Out” violated the integrity of this media image, generated and maintained by the authorities for so long, and revealed its falsity. In our performance we dared, without the Patriarch’s blessing, to combine the visual image of Orthodox culture and protest culture, suggesting to smart people that Orthodox culture belongs not only to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch and Putin, that it might also take the side of civic rebellion and protest in Russia. Perhaps such an unpleasant large-scale effect from our media intrusion into the cathedral was a surprise to the authorities themselves. First they tried to present our performance as the prank of heartless militant atheists. But they made a huge blunder, since by this time we were already known as an anti-Putin feminist punk band that carried out their media raids on the country’s major political symbols. In the end, considering all the irreversible political and symbolic losses caused by our innocent creativity, the authorities decided to protect the public from us and our nonconformist thinking. Thus ended our complicated punk adventure in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior."

and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

"We are grateful to all those who, free themselves, speak out in our support. There are a vast number, I know. I know that a huge number of Orthodox people are standing up for us. They are praying for us outside the courtroom, for the members of Pussy Riot who are incarcerated. We’ve seen the little booklets Orthodox people are handing out with prayers for those in prison. This shows that there isn’t a unified social group of Orthodox believers as the prosecution is endeavouring to say. No such thing exists. More and more believers are starting to defend Pussy Riot. They don’t think what we did deserves even five months in detention, much less the three years in prison the prosecutor would like. And every day, more and more people realize that if this political system has ganged up to this extent against three girls for a 30-second performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, it means the system is afraid of the truth and afraid of our sincerity and directness. We haven’t dissembled, not for a second, not for a minute during this trial, but the other side is dissembling too much and people can sense it. People can sense the truth. Truth really does have some kind of ontological, existential superiority over lies and this is written in the Bible, in the Old Testament in particular. In the end, the ways of truth always triumph over the ways of wickedness, guile and lies. And with each day that passes, the ways of truth are more and more triumphant even though we are still behind bars and are likely to be here a lot longer yet."

While one can respect the risk these women have taken I would ask those in the West who embrace their cause where they stand on the case of Bradley Manning who faces life in prison or Julian Assange who potentially faces death for basically acting as an investigative journalist. These cases raise similar issues involving free speech and freedom of information that challenge the notion of freedom and justice in both societies.

Romney Girl

A lighthearted look at the next leader of the greatest kleptocracy on earth.

Yes It Can...Get Worse/ Death To My Hometown

The tune and the graphic go so well together as Americans prepare to screw themselves...again

THE DOORS - STRANGE DAYS (THIEVERY CORPORATION REMIX) Post July 4th Musings

Its been 102 F the last 2 days in Wisconsin/Fitzwalkerstan. For some reason this song seems to capture the mood.