Slouching Towards Oblivion

Thursday, March 31, 2011

The Shock Doctrine


Continue The Bleed

Here's another example of Interstate Job Transfer.  As states continue to struggle to find the revenue necessary to provide services, company execs see great opportunities to leverage their positions to get somebody else to pay the bills.

From The Agonist this morning:
In the business of “let someone else pay for government services”, corporations are the hands-down winners. Corporations use the same roads as everyone else, fly out of airports, enjoy the services of the water, electric, and gas utilities, clog up the courts, get police and fire protection, and if necessary have their overseas interests secured by the military and the diplomatic corps. They just don’t want to pay for it. Fifty years ago corporate income taxes at the federal level generated about 6% of GDP; today the amount is less than 2% of GDP. The difference has been made up in increased taxes on individuals, and dramatically increased federal government borrowing.
It's a free lunch for Corp Execs and Wealthy Investors, because the workin' slobs always pick up the check.

For 30 years, American companies have been exporting jobs to countries willing to offer major concessions in Labor Regulation, Environmental Law, Tax Abatements, etc.  Now the states have learned how to play that game as well, so we should be able to look forward to a new era of fucked-up-ed-ness as one state raids another in search of a few extra taxpayers.

Companies are always going to push down on their costs, and everything a company has to spend on people adds up to every company's biggest cost.  I get it; I understand; it's normal and expected and the way it has to be in business. I grock the situation.

The thing that really gripes me is that we accept this style of hard-ass management as necessary.  It isn't.  We think they have to be strong leaders and they have to make these difficult choices.  They don't.

A strong and able manager almost never has to pull rank or try to dictate terms to his workers.  In my experience, it's always the weakling (or the workplace politician) who is the most authoritarian.

We're headed back to the 18th century, and it's gonna be a really shitty ride.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Right Radicals

The Repubs are just chock full of silliness.  Unfortunately, the rubes eat it up and keep going back for more.

per Andrew Sullivan, here's Newt Gingrich:
"I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9," Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. "I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."
Because, you know - Islam is known mainly for its atheism(?)  How, exactly, is it that Gingrich has the reputation for being the heavy thinker over there?

One of Sully's readers:
According to the hydra-headed GOP, Obama should have unilaterally attacked Libya weeks ago to help Al Qaeda sympathizers assassinate a terrorist tyrant who was recently courted by the Bush administration. Also he should have concluded the mission by now, sent the bill to China and then done the same thing in Syria, Yemen and Iran.
Repubs have had a strong tendency either to ignore history, or to revise it in order to make it fit whatever they think will get them 40 seconds on DumFux News tonight.  Maybe that's why they hate the public school system.  If we know our history; if we know how our government is supposed to work; if we know something about critical thinking - then we know a load of bullshit when we see it.  If we know enough to call it bullshit, then we know too much.  And the Repubs have decided it's bad for them if we know stuff, so they're always working on ways to keep us stupid.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Free Fallin'

Sometimes, somebody else has to cover your tune to get me to appreciate it.


About Libya

As usual, Juan Cole makes a lot of sense.
Many are crying hypocrisy, citing other places an intervention could be staged or worrying that Libya sets a precedent. I don’t find those arguments persuasive. Military intervention is always selective, depending on a constellation of political will, military ability, international legitimacy and practical constraints. The humanitarian situation in Libya was fairly unique. You had a set of tank brigades willing to attack dissidents, and responsible for thousands of casualties and with the prospect of more thousands to come, where aerial intervention by the world community could make a quick and effective difference.
It just always seems so stupid that after a coupla or three million years of hominid evolution, we still can't find a better way to settle our differences than bashing each other over the head with sticks and rocks.

Monday, March 28, 2011

VCU Makes The Final Four

And the riot is on in downtown Richmond for the second time in 3 days. The cops were out in force, but there were no arrests on either occasion, even tho' the kids did get a little destructive - mostly inadvertently.

You can see Nick in the bottom right foreground starting at about 0:18, for about 4 seconds. He's the devilishly handsome young cat with the curly brown hair wearing the black VCU hoodie.

Hippies!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Clay Bennett Cartoon

I can get next to most of what Bennett has to say.  I'm wondering why this particular toon popped up right now.

Also, I wonder if having the "lying Politicians" sign next to the "lying Fox News" sign is coincidence.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Duly Noted

It's completely slipped by the attention of the Press Poodles, but at least WisconsinWatch and Crooks & Liars are alert enough to catch it for us.
“Currently, the media is painting the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest. Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions. God bless, Carlos F. Lam.”
Obviously, it's good that a putz like Carlos Lam is pushed out.  But his 'resignation' was a quiet thing, so I have to suspect his ouster was more a result of his being so open about his suggestion than it was about the dirty trick itself.

When assholes like Mr Lam are brought down loudly and publicly, then maybe we'll start to see a change in the way we do things.  Until then, we can probably expect more of the same.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Costs Of War

Beans, bullets and band-aids is just the beginning. We'll be paying for these wars for a very long time in ways we can scarcely imagine right now.