Governor Richard in the last of many debates among Democrats running for their party's nomination for the presidency, spoke the truth when he said, 'experience counts'. Senator Hillary Clinton reinforced the message by say, 'it takes hard work to get things done'. But you wouldn't believe it by the repetition ad nauseum of hope and change and change and hope. And what's more, it's great to feel good again as Americans. And there in a nutshell we have the touchy feely individualism which is fed to Americans from the cradle to the grave.
If the package has shiny wrapping paper and tied with a nice big red, white, & blue ribbon...well what more do you expect. Much more that the pious beating of breasts and the mantra of change which reminds you of those seeking the holy grail.
Let's face it. The American people deserve much better than the 8 years of Bush's engineered war and croneyism and impoverishment of everyone but his class of super rich blood suckers.
Senator Edwards is a practical man, and he has set forth a programme worth supporting. Senator Obama has a smooth tongue, but has rebacked his old speech which he delivered at the last Democratic party convention when Senator Kerry was nominated. He is full of pieties and fine words. He is not one to pull punches but when all is said and done he is as much a social conservative or perhaps slightly more than Governor Huckabee.
If Edwards says Clinton represents the same old, same old. Voters should look at the advisors to all the Democratic candidates. And surprise, surprise...they are the same old boys and girls networks from yes the Carter and Clinton administrations. If that ain't the same old, same old, 18Brumaire doesn't what is!
We need a solid programme for domestic ills--health care, jobs, education, environment, taxing the bloated rotting fish of millionaires, billionaires who get away with murder on the irs charts, and tax the corporations which export jobs abroad; on the policy front, the us has two wars on its hands--we are not speaking of the proxy wars it supports in Somalia, for example--no Democratic nominee can escape being a wartime president, but judging by what Senator Obama says, he will have a nervous finger on the nuclear button, and will engage in pre emptive war as did mini mouse Bush.
Posturing won't bring about change, experience and hardwork will. And until that message sinks in with the electorate, heaven help us all!
Monday, January 7, 2008
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Bush the incompetent and the new South Korean president elect Lee
Look at pro business president elect Lee of South Korea. Not sworn into office, he is already saying how's he's going to deal with mortgage deliquency in South Korea. He's going to do something about it, and his government is going to step in and bring relief to beleaguered South Koreans who have fallen behind in mortgage payments or defaulted. Look at George Bush, he's hardly lifted a finger in the maelstrom of America's subprime meltdown and mortgage defaults. The handwriting was already on the wall with his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He was badly brought up by his mum in caring about other people. Remember what Barbara Bush said about all those dirty people from Louisiana who crowded into Houston for relief. They made a blight of clean scrubbed Houston. Thus in a nutshell we have a strong thread of the lack of concern and disdain for those not from the Bush's class and regatta set be they in Newport or Houston or Arizona or on Park Avenue. Only one thing counts and it is them and their rotting coupon clippers.
Bush ponders and the economy slides into recession
Newspapers showed a picture of George W. Bush in a pose of studied vacuity as he pondered whither the US economy. In a twangy imitation of Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss, the economy had strengths, it was doing well despite some minor setbacks. In short, everything was business as usual. But was it? The floor sank under the New York Stock Exchange as the Dow fell 256,64. The market has not been able to shake off the 2008 blues; in fact the S&P and Nasdaq composite sank, too. Why? The government reported a hike in unemployment in December--a holiday month which should have seen an increase in workers taken on by employers. The pundits predicted some 70.000 new jobs but it turns out that around 18.000 found new employment, which, translated in to per centages which bean counters like very much, means off the mark by more than 70 per cent of the predicted figure! So if you didn't think the US was slipping into recession, and it is and has, these numbers weigh heavily on that assertion. And Bush looks muddle into the middle distance as to what to do. Not very much. He's not handled the subprime meltdown well. His genius of a Wall Street whiz kid at the Treasury Hank Paulson believes in voluntary measures. Read the fat cats of finance ain't going to do much unless you hold their uncalloused feet to the fire. Bush & his crowd of fat wallets think only of what's good for them, and the little people and the country go to the dogs which is going at a clip which the blind economists cannot see. Bush's crowd is made up of cronies, incompetents, the parvenus rich, the scam artists, and the ideologically committed to 18 century solutions. So Bush contemplates his navel as the American economy falters. Already the rotting fish of Wall Street are selling black souls of theirs to foreign countries and banks; as for business, take chemicals, very few of America's chemical makers are owned by Americans. Everything is for sale. And jobs, well they are outsourced abroad, and now the manufactured goods are coming to the US from there to. But the factories unsurprisingly, are outsourced American arms. Consumerism Mr Bush is dead now, everyone is scrambling to pinch pennies for higher oil and food and health costs. And there you are comfortable and cosy sitting on inherited wealth thinking of what's to be done. Another war? Your guns have brought little butter to American tables. Now Americans have a vague taste of what it was to have an incompetent like Herbert Hoover in the White House as deep recession than depression hit the US and the world. Where has FDR, our Joe Damaggio gone?
Friday, January 4, 2008
Indecent bonuses & Goldman Sachs
It is estimated that the average bonus for 2007 for Goldman Sachs employees is us$370.000. Of course this is the average and since all pigs are not equal, the division of the spoils in the year of market turmoil and subprime mortgage scams and failures, is not and never is equal. Blank[en]fein the CEO pocketed us$67m, a rising of more than 15 per cent above what he took home in 2006. And down the pecking order of senior manage the millions spent on luxury goods diminished in millions granted in bonuses.
Goldman Sachs makes money. They are clever and by half. They smelt the subprime meltdown, and so to lessen their exposure, they repackaged their cdos, sivs, and the like, to other greedy investment banks and moneybags, and in the end wrote off paltry billions from their warchest.
They represent the rot and the decadence of the power elite running the US today. Were our elected officials not in their pay, had they backbone and stiffen wet spaghetti spines of courage, they would tax Goldman Sachs & their band of theives at fair market value and curve rapacious appetites feeding on the nation's ratepayers whose take home income has greatly diminished, who are struggling under heavy debt, and who are facing an old age of neglect and poverty. A call for economic justice should be on the lips of all candidates running for president. But let's not hod our breath that these rich people running for office really care as a class!
Goldman Sachs makes money. They are clever and by half. They smelt the subprime meltdown, and so to lessen their exposure, they repackaged their cdos, sivs, and the like, to other greedy investment banks and moneybags, and in the end wrote off paltry billions from their warchest.
They represent the rot and the decadence of the power elite running the US today. Were our elected officials not in their pay, had they backbone and stiffen wet spaghetti spines of courage, they would tax Goldman Sachs & their band of theives at fair market value and curve rapacious appetites feeding on the nation's ratepayers whose take home income has greatly diminished, who are struggling under heavy debt, and who are facing an old age of neglect and poverty. A call for economic justice should be on the lips of all candidates running for president. But let's not hod our breath that these rich people running for office really care as a class!
The Iowa Caucuses & Hope & Not Staying the Course
Yesterday's Iowa Caucuses are a celebration of so called participatory democracy. It reminds 18Brumaire of small town 4 July parades with its floats, cheer leaders, marching bands, and much hoopla. Iowa kicks off the season of America's tribal rites leading up the nomination of a candidate for the presidency of the US. It magnifies the myths, the call to service to the nation, and re affirms the country's commitment to democracy. And Iowa began on the right foot on this every 4 year crusade for electing a president.
Barak Obama came in first among the Democrats elbowing for the top office, distancing his two rivals Hillary Clinton and John Edwards by a good 7 points. He spent us$9,7 million dollars on his campaign in Iowa, and his money paid off. Obama on one hand broke the taboo that a black man could be elected to the highest office of the land, as does Hillary's campaign as a woman running for the same position. John Edwards is the embodiment of the American dream, that a poor boy with cheek can overcome odds, improve his lot, and become president yet remaining true to his roots.
If Iowa says something, it is this: Americans want change; they no longer support the Bush staying the course. And change was on the lips of everyone among the Democrats running for their party's ointment as candidate for president. Change too was heard from Mike Huckebee the Republican winner who trounced the rich, soap cleaned hand Mitt Romney, who like weather vane on an old barn tuned his message to the shift in the wind, and who stood squarely for business as usual.
Obama and Huckabee spoke of hope, and the crowds cheered. [Huckabee like Bill Clinton comes from Hope, Arkansas.] Aside from the pieties of hope, a new wind, and change, when you scratch the surface Obama's hope and Huckabee's hope vary little. The two utter a prayer for a change without the hungry electors wanting to know more. Scratching the surface, in spite of minor differences, Obama and Huckabee are social conservatives and will tilt towards slightly more flexibility in domestic and foreign policy without rocking the boat and courting the establishment, the monied special issues, and the general status quo. Americans do want change; they hope that the Bush years will simply go away, but Americans are generally enthusiasts and naive, dare we say ignorant as cabbages, as politics. They intone slogans and think like Obama and Huckabee chanting a mantra of and for hope and change will like the magician's wand pull the rabbit out of the hat, and then everything will be hunky dory again. There is such a disconnect between the tribal practices of electing officials and the lives of the ordinary man and woman on main street that the soap bubbles of hope and change evaporate before their eyes after elections; these ordinary guys and gals then simply shrug shoulders and utter a pitiful cry, 'you cannot change city hall'...and slog on till the next presidental elections when hope and change are born anew and engage in the myths of yore with renewed enthusiasm.
Barak Obama came in first among the Democrats elbowing for the top office, distancing his two rivals Hillary Clinton and John Edwards by a good 7 points. He spent us$9,7 million dollars on his campaign in Iowa, and his money paid off. Obama on one hand broke the taboo that a black man could be elected to the highest office of the land, as does Hillary's campaign as a woman running for the same position. John Edwards is the embodiment of the American dream, that a poor boy with cheek can overcome odds, improve his lot, and become president yet remaining true to his roots.
If Iowa says something, it is this: Americans want change; they no longer support the Bush staying the course. And change was on the lips of everyone among the Democrats running for their party's ointment as candidate for president. Change too was heard from Mike Huckebee the Republican winner who trounced the rich, soap cleaned hand Mitt Romney, who like weather vane on an old barn tuned his message to the shift in the wind, and who stood squarely for business as usual.
Obama and Huckabee spoke of hope, and the crowds cheered. [Huckabee like Bill Clinton comes from Hope, Arkansas.] Aside from the pieties of hope, a new wind, and change, when you scratch the surface Obama's hope and Huckabee's hope vary little. The two utter a prayer for a change without the hungry electors wanting to know more. Scratching the surface, in spite of minor differences, Obama and Huckabee are social conservatives and will tilt towards slightly more flexibility in domestic and foreign policy without rocking the boat and courting the establishment, the monied special issues, and the general status quo. Americans do want change; they hope that the Bush years will simply go away, but Americans are generally enthusiasts and naive, dare we say ignorant as cabbages, as politics. They intone slogans and think like Obama and Huckabee chanting a mantra of and for hope and change will like the magician's wand pull the rabbit out of the hat, and then everything will be hunky dory again. There is such a disconnect between the tribal practices of electing officials and the lives of the ordinary man and woman on main street that the soap bubbles of hope and change evaporate before their eyes after elections; these ordinary guys and gals then simply shrug shoulders and utter a pitiful cry, 'you cannot change city hall'...and slog on till the next presidental elections when hope and change are born anew and engage in the myths of yore with renewed enthusiasm.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Lust, Caution, an Ang Lee film
Ang Lee won his second 'Leone d'oro' for 'Lust, Caution' at the Venice Film Festival 2007, in three years. Nigel Andrew the Financial Times of London film high priest snidely called it a 'shagfest'. Readers of this excellent paper will find his review of the film in the 3 January 2008 of a finer and different appreciation, worthy of 5 stars. Ang Lee is a superior film maker who with his collaborators turn short stories into major, majestic films. In 'Lust, Caution' he has taken Eileen Chang's 60 page story, and transformed it into a 153 minute film, so rich and dark that it rivets the viewer to his seat. The chemistry of love is difficult to distill but here Ang Lee turns blind passion and will into the gold alchemists dream of. The passion is highly physical and intense and brutual, serving the intrigue during the Japanese war against China, between a collaborator and a radical student young woman who with her friends seek to kill him. One is reminded of the song Marlene Dietrich sang in 'Der Blaue Engel' [the blue angel], 'Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss auf Liebe angestellt' [I am made for love]. In 'Lust, Caution', the metaphor is not that of a moth to a flame, but one of a Chinese song of the 1930's, of a needle and a threat, but the denouement is nonetheless tragic. The ending is otherwise, but 18Brumaire suggests his readers see Lee's film. Eileen Chang knew of what she wrote, having survived a husband who collaborated; her writing career suffered because the grand high priests of China studies, like the old men in Mao's Beijing, dismissed her work as 'reactionary' and 'anti patriotic'. She died a broken woman but her small literary legacy is truer to the times than the Potemking novels which routinely followed Mao's footprint of literature and art for the workers and peasants. Chang was true to herself as Lee is true to her in his great film!
Malaysia and Allah
Were it not so serious, the hardening of the arteries of Malaysia's ulema is a case of advanced backwardness. They judged scandalous bordering on the blasphemous the use of 'Allah' by the Malaysian Catholic press. 'Allah', ruled they, is and can only be used by Muslims. Christian, they further pontificated that the Catholics only had the right to use 'Tuan' for the name of God, not Allah. So ruled the Muslim pooh bahs of religion. This ruling has earned the sclerotic Muslim theologians much ridicule, and the foreign press has had a small picnic in making fun of them.
The Malaysian ulema are a backward lot. They take the tree for the forest, so benighted that they are in reading the letter of the religious law so small betraying a monumental short sightedness. Let's face it, Arabic is not readily at their command, or even it were, they are ignorant as cabbages when it comes to linguistics let alone history. Had they an inkling of the truth, they would have grasped the fact that in Arabic 'Allah' is the name of God, and it is used by Jews, Christians, Druze, Muslims, Bahai, and any number of other religious sects. But as 18Brumaire says, they don't. They may know the 'fatiah', but to them it is a rote formula learnt at the madrassa without deeper meaning. It reminds 18Brumaire of the Arabic texts used well into the mid 20 Century describing humans. As an example, the medieval notion that the heart was located in the stomach was taught in spite of the advances of medicine. This is but an example of the distance in time and mentality that prevailed or prevails still between today's world and the universe of the carved in stone of medieval Arabic knowledge. To save the dark, shadowed minds from themselves and to put a slightly brighter and more modern face of Islam, the Malaysian government had to step in and over rule the almighty and sacrosaint upholders of Islam. Kuala Lumpur reversed the ulemas' judgment and thus sanctionned the use of 'Allah' by non Muslims in the Bahasa Melayiu press! Nonetheless the glaring backwardness of Malaysia's religious authorities is a troublesome sign that more harmful ignorance awaits non Muslims in Malaysia which is becoming more and more intolerant of others in a modern secular like state, tilting more and more towards theocracy and greater disciminations against non Muslims and oppression of Muslims in dress, behaviour, freedom of expression, and the like. The current state of political breakdown in Malaysia may very well hasten such a disasterous trend.
The Malaysian ulema are a backward lot. They take the tree for the forest, so benighted that they are in reading the letter of the religious law so small betraying a monumental short sightedness. Let's face it, Arabic is not readily at their command, or even it were, they are ignorant as cabbages when it comes to linguistics let alone history. Had they an inkling of the truth, they would have grasped the fact that in Arabic 'Allah' is the name of God, and it is used by Jews, Christians, Druze, Muslims, Bahai, and any number of other religious sects. But as 18Brumaire says, they don't. They may know the 'fatiah', but to them it is a rote formula learnt at the madrassa without deeper meaning. It reminds 18Brumaire of the Arabic texts used well into the mid 20 Century describing humans. As an example, the medieval notion that the heart was located in the stomach was taught in spite of the advances of medicine. This is but an example of the distance in time and mentality that prevailed or prevails still between today's world and the universe of the carved in stone of medieval Arabic knowledge. To save the dark, shadowed minds from themselves and to put a slightly brighter and more modern face of Islam, the Malaysian government had to step in and over rule the almighty and sacrosaint upholders of Islam. Kuala Lumpur reversed the ulemas' judgment and thus sanctionned the use of 'Allah' by non Muslims in the Bahasa Melayiu press! Nonetheless the glaring backwardness of Malaysia's religious authorities is a troublesome sign that more harmful ignorance awaits non Muslims in Malaysia which is becoming more and more intolerant of others in a modern secular like state, tilting more and more towards theocracy and greater disciminations against non Muslims and oppression of Muslims in dress, behaviour, freedom of expression, and the like. The current state of political breakdown in Malaysia may very well hasten such a disasterous trend.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
2008 is not 1968
Telly viewers and radio listners you're in for a year of nostalgia and bogus comparisons. 2008 is not 1968 although many will find a lot of parallels. 2008 is different from 1968, and not the least that murder, assassination, a generation of the young worldwide believed in a groundswell which would wash away the old men of the past. It didn't.
The 2008 elections in the United States may bring the Democrats back to White House, but the Reagan revolution has tilted the country towards the very rich and privileged. And money plays a role in everything especially in the wads of Yankee dollars greatly discounted on world markets funding all the candidates war chests. Some pundits talk of the great discontent among the American electorate but where are the demostrations, the outcries, the pulling on the donkey tails in the Houses of Congress for change. Nary a world is heard. The country has turned against Bush's lying war in Iraq, but no one until now--John Edwards--has had the courage as a candidate to say that elected he would bring the boys and girls home. The others play footsy with the issue and Guiliani demogagically is calling for a 'surge' in Afghanistan. With whose bodies pray tell?
Voters may surprise us in the privacy of the voting booth, but that's a good 11 months away. It is time for them to put the feet of candidates and Congress to the fire for change and for sanity in the way wealth is distributed in America and foreign policy is conducted. And boot the neo cons and the Bushies on to the dust heap of history!
The 2008 elections in the United States may bring the Democrats back to White House, but the Reagan revolution has tilted the country towards the very rich and privileged. And money plays a role in everything especially in the wads of Yankee dollars greatly discounted on world markets funding all the candidates war chests. Some pundits talk of the great discontent among the American electorate but where are the demostrations, the outcries, the pulling on the donkey tails in the Houses of Congress for change. Nary a world is heard. The country has turned against Bush's lying war in Iraq, but no one until now--John Edwards--has had the courage as a candidate to say that elected he would bring the boys and girls home. The others play footsy with the issue and Guiliani demogagically is calling for a 'surge' in Afghanistan. With whose bodies pray tell?
Voters may surprise us in the privacy of the voting booth, but that's a good 11 months away. It is time for them to put the feet of candidates and Congress to the fire for change and for sanity in the way wealth is distributed in America and foreign policy is conducted. And boot the neo cons and the Bushies on to the dust heap of history!
Don't cry for the Blackstone Group
Today's [2 January 2008] has a front page headline that the the LBO venture capital group Blackstone is walking away from an us$1,8bn deal: the purchase of the mortgage lender PHH who has done wonders for the banking world in the subprime meltdown.
As an LBO, Blackstone whose chairman Steven Schwartzman spent millions to fete his own 60 birthday in lavish style which mimicked the decadence of the Roman empire, and who took Chinese billions for a non voting share of its ownership, suddenly has no money of its own. Don't you believe it. But as an LBO outfit, it uses other people's money from banks to buy and sell companies for a profit. This time the smart money from investment banks is at a premium and not readily available. Thus, Blackstone's axing what it thought a very profitable plum to mine cheapend mortgages which is turning into junk.
Well guys, you cannot do business as usual till liquidity and what's more, trust have returned to the markets. Of course you can sally forth into ventures but at the risk of using your own fat purse. You won't, since you're greedy thieves.
As an LBO, Blackstone whose chairman Steven Schwartzman spent millions to fete his own 60 birthday in lavish style which mimicked the decadence of the Roman empire, and who took Chinese billions for a non voting share of its ownership, suddenly has no money of its own. Don't you believe it. But as an LBO outfit, it uses other people's money from banks to buy and sell companies for a profit. This time the smart money from investment banks is at a premium and not readily available. Thus, Blackstone's axing what it thought a very profitable plum to mine cheapend mortgages which is turning into junk.
Well guys, you cannot do business as usual till liquidity and what's more, trust have returned to the markets. Of course you can sally forth into ventures but at the risk of using your own fat purse. You won't, since you're greedy thieves.
Horror in Kenya
The chaos following the jiggled elections in Keyna makes the world sit up in wonder. Freud speaks of humans' ability to forget. And certainly, it appears that the human mind forgets quickly, or to put it another way, if it ain't in my hood, it ain't worth worrying about. And yet Shi'ites kill Sunni who in turn pay in kind. Hotel Rwanda brought Don Cheadle an Oscar as Tinseltown patted itself on the back for bringing to the silvver screen yet another horror story. Communal voilence is as old as human history. It is not a labour of Hercules to unearth them easily. The Turks deny the murder of Armenians but get huffy puffy when the French parlement pass a law saying Turkey committed genocide. The Germans at least have had, manu militari, to come to terms with killing Jews, and less so for murdering communists, socialists, Christians who defied Nazism, homosexuals, the mentally and physically disabled, and Gypsies. In the 1990's we have Serbs killing Albanians in Kosovo; Serbians, Croats; Croats, Serbians. And lest we forget to leave off this laundry list of ethnic or confessional or communal or tribal slaughter, the Israelis who kill without blinking an eye Palestinians.
So dear world of wonder, world of surprise, it's no use wring one's soap cleansed hands over these killings, do something if you've the political will
So dear world of wonder, world of surprise, it's no use wring one's soap cleansed hands over these killings, do something if you've the political will
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