Every Man For Himself!

The Ik, an African people studied and described by Colin Turnbull best typify the kind of thinking that the radical right wing tea party Republicans idealize: Everyone is out for themselves.

Of course, the Ik were starving much of the time Turnbull lived with them as a "participant observer." They were hunter-gatherers, who depended for most of their protein on the game, big and small, that lived on what had become national parks and wildlife preserves. They were forbidden to hunt for the game, and there was effective enough enforcement of the no hunting ordinances, that the Ik found it difficult to survive. They resisted agriculture.

Curiously, the Ik didn't band together for redress, or for common economic activity, like learning how to raise their own food. Everyone was out for himself, except for the children, who organized themselves into loose bands of age cohorts. They gathered what food they could find, but sometimes it was food they ripped out of the hands of aged members of the tribe, who had found something edible, but were too feeble to defend themselves.

Turnbull witnessed only one wedding, while he was living with the Ik (over a year), but daily instances of the above predatory behavior.

How is this relevant to the current campaign between Democrats and Republicans? The two parties really do represent two different ways of looking at the world, and the "I'm in it for myself and everyone is on his own," is only a little less radically sociopathic than the Ik.

Then, there's the apparent inability of Republicans to recognize the contribution of workers, as opposed to "job creators:" anything even mildly smacking of collective action they opposed. Anti-unionism may be natural to the GOP, but even Democrats who are antagonistic to unions, wouldn't think of celebrating Labor Day the way Majority Leader, Erick Cantor articulated it on a twitter message this September: "“Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.” Nothing about workers, only about entrepreneurs.

The kind of radical sociopathology demonstrated by the Ik, and only a bit less radically, by the GOP, is a symptom of deep distress in society. In the case of the Ik, it was loss of their sources for survival, and Turnbull recommended that the society be forcibly disbanded before it infects others.

In the case of Republicans, the sociopathology may be a reaction to the imminent loss of a demographic majority: whites are fast diminishing as a proportion of the population, and Republicans depend almost exclusively on whites, largely white men. They can't appeal to them without alienating others, and they can't appeal to others (minorities) without losing their appeal to white men.

That may be the major reason for all their attempts to queer the vote.

The relevance to Rome's collapse? The Ik may well be remnants of an even more ancient empire than the Roman: their language appears derived from ancient Egyptian!

906 in Truman's 'Do Nothing Congress', 176 in 2012

Those numbers are for laws passed by the respective Congresses: 1948 and 2012. Truman, who had been given little chance to win the 1948 election, because of the stalemate in Washington, made a nation-wide whistle-stop campaign (trains worked in those days, before the Interstate Highway system), successfully running against the "Do Nothing Congress."

That gives you an idea of how dysfunctional our national political system is today. Congress has been unable to pass major pieces of legislation, and has passed "stop-gap" measures just to "keep the lights on."

Obama is not to blame, and if he had a personality like Harry Truman, he could easily run against the "Do Nothing Congress" of today. Obama does make the point that Congress, specifically the Republicans in Congress, have played an obstructionist role.

The Republican House of Representatives has passed bills, but most of them were only statements of their agenda, with no expectation that the Senate's Democratic majority could accept them, and they haven't. The Democratic Senate, on the other hand has been stalemated by the Republican Senate minority's routine use of the "filibuster," rendering the 41 Republican Senators the controlling bloc, while the less unified and more diverse 59 Democrats (including two independents) have been unable to advance even a portion of their agenda.

A few Republicans have attempted to compromise with Democrats, to bring something workable to the floor, but, like Senator Lugar, they have been defeated in their party primaries, defeated by the accusation of "Republicans in Name Only," or RINO's. No Democrats have lost primaries for similar reasons.

Long ago, when I taught Political Science in Florida, a colleague exclaimed he'd just proven, beyond a doubt, that Democrats and Republicans in Congress voted more frequently along party lines than they did with the other party! In those days (the 1970's), this was a fairly significant finding, because Democrats and Republicans did what is now unthinkable: they worked together on important pieces of legislation. Votes were often not along party lines. Now, among Republicans, it is almost unthinkable for them to vote for any policy proposed by Democrats, even if many, like Obamacare, were originally proposed by Republicans. Democrats break ranks more often, but much more rarely than in the 1970's.

Today we have a Congress that is probably as stalemated as the Congresses that preceded the Civil War. The Republican Senate minority has been open about what they intend: to do anything possible to prevent Obama's re-election, even if that drives us back into the Great Recession and immiserates their constituents. They can always blame everything on the Democrats.

Rome's Senate in the fifth century was even less functional: the Emperors, meaning, their advisors, and Senators as office-holders, made the only meaningful decisions--usually for their own self-interest.

An Empire or Not?

So, the US has sent 200 Marines to Guatemala. So, US arms sales total 78% of global arms sales. So, we have drones in all sorts of unlikely places in addition to Afghanistan and Pakistan--like Australia!

We spend $902 billion a year on so-called 'Defense,' and yet we've effectively lost every major war we've embarked upon after Korea in the 1950's.

Who 'won' in Vietnam? Who 'won' in Iraq? Who's bound to be at least a major party in the government of Afghanistan when we leave? Did you guess the Taliban? We didn't even win in Korea; we fought to a draw, and as a consequence, North Korea is a "rogue nation" that's still very much around. And "our man in Iraq," Nuri el Maliki, Iraq's PM, is tentatively neutral, but actually supportive of Iran vs the US, possibly because of his Shiite connections.

And yet, the US is involved militarily almost everywhere in the world. When a problem erupts, like the Syrian civil war, the first instinct of many Americans is to send in US troops, or air power, or sea power. Progressive hawks (there are many among Democrats) are often even ahead of the GOP, as witness those Marines in Guatemala. They're hunting drug cartels, an example of how we militarize police problems.

At the moment, an "armada" has been assembled in the Persian Gulf, led by the US, of course, but also including the UK and probably some of our Arab "allies." The assembly of the 'armada' could be relatively quiet, apparently, but it has been brought together to confront an enemy that often defies international laws and treaties.

Why? An article I refused to read in the Economist asserted in the first sentence that the US would have to step up vis a vis Syria, because it was supposed to 'police' the world.

Why is our Nobel Peace Prize President, Obama, overseeing so many acts of war all around the globe?

Why do Americans consent to pay such huge defense bills ($902 billions in 2012)? Over 58% of defense money spent by the top ten military powers in the world is spent by the US. And our military complain when China increases its budget!

Defense spending employs relatively few for the money it pays out--war Keynesianism is notoriously inefficient, yet Romney wants to increase spending (to 4% of GDP), possibly because he has no use for diplomacy. He was recently discovered saying on an outrageous video that there was no possibility for an Israeli-Palestine peace agreement, because "the Palestinians don't want peace."

It took Rome a couple centuries to discover it couldn't maintain pax Romanum over the 'known world.' How long before the US exhausts itself in a similar effort? I give us less than 20 years; the explosions over all the Muslim world inspired by a stupid video are only another sign: the US cannot police the world, and shouldn't try.

99%,1%,47%,13%

If you pay no income taxes and receive Social Security and Medicare, both of which you paid for over a long history of work, then you are, according to Romney, one of the 47% who expect government to take care of you--he has no use for you.

What if you've paid $12,000 in property taxes, and have income of no more than $36,000? You are paying an effective tax rate of 33%, but you still pay no income tax, so you're one of the 47%. What if you earn $40,000, on which you pay payroll taxes of 7.65%, and you also have a property tax bill of $10,000. Then your effective rate is about 32%.

Mitt Romney says he paid "about 13%" of his income in "taxes," but didn't specify which taxes. The one tax year that he deigned to show us included a $77,000 tax write-off for what someone referred to as a "dancing horse" and he paid just over 13% on income taxes. While most people in the middle-income brackets pay at about that rate, Romney's no middle-income taxpayer.

In any case, the video revealing his statement about the 47%, brings up the question: is he one of the 47%, as well as one of the 1%? Many corporations pay no income tax, including GE, for example, and like the average for the bottom quintile of income earners, it had a negative rate of tax--it received subsidies that more than cancelled out any taxes due.

More than ever, Romney should release his past tax returns, if he wishes to appeal to more than a minority of American voters. But maybe he can't, because those returns would reveal either: a felony, like voting fraud--claiming Massachusetts residence to vote and California residence for tax purposes in 2008; or he paid no income taxes in some of the past years, despite multi-million dollar incomes.

Is he a member of the 1%? Certainly. Does he get it that most people struggle? No. He sees them as dependents on government (a projection?), and apparently would treat them that way.

He's a true Roman Senator, although instead of owning slaves and serfs, he's had no compunction driving workers from their jobs, and forcing others to accept dramatically reduced incomes, while he made millions.

The fact that he's ready to double-down on his 47% statement is even more eloquent. It demonstrates that he believes he can--and should--win election with only white males, only those who ascribe his statement to 'others' (minorities, especially), and only those who believe they "made it" on their own. It's a piece with Republicans' "we built that" misinterpretation of Obama's reference to government's role in creating the infrastructure necessary for wealth-creation.

If, despite all this, Romney manages to buy and/or steal the election, anyone not in the 1% will get a government that is actively opposed to their interests.

"Apologies"

Terrible, isn't it that America has to "apologize" for a crude youtube movie! Uhm, an embassy spokesperson, in the Egyptian embassy about to be surrounded by protestors, rightly distanced the US from a rancid anti-Muslim piece of propaganda for which America was not responsible.

Romney called this statement an apology and his politicizing a foreign event has blown up in his face. But it's not as if this is a new position for him. He's previously gone around the nation claiming that Obama apologized rather than standing up for America, so he interpreted the sensible statement of the US Embassy in Egypt in terms of his own campaign propaganda. He was reflexively reacting to Obama's famous speech in Cairo.

What Obama attempted, in that famous speech, was to reach out to Muslims worldwide, to demonstrate his understanding of their concerns and to attempt to move US-Muslim relations forward. He said, "There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground." If that were an apology, then the only alternative would be war---for which Americans have no appetite, after two failed wars in the last ten years.

So, it's not just that Romney demonstrated his ability to put his foot in his mouth, especially on foreign affairs; it's that he has shown an inherent inability to see other people from any but his own perspective.

What's Romney's perspective? Much has been made of his flip-flopping on abortion, on global warming, on health care policy and on war policy. But on the latter, he was for the Vietnam War before he was against it (when campaigning for the Senate in Massachusetts), to paraphrase John Kerry, and now is apparently for any war in prospect. He has consistently advocated a "tough" foreign policy, as in adopting Netanyahu's "red line" on Iran's nuclear policy, thereby justifying an immediate attack, identifying Russia as our primary antagonist and vowing he'd name China a currency manipulator (and initiating a trade war) on his first day in office.

So, Romney's perspective is to see any nation not allied with us as against us, and to discount any concerns other nations have, by saying that any attempt to understand them is "apologizing for America." His unconsidered statement about the Egyptian Embassy attack was consistent with his articulated foreign policy--such as it is.

If Rove's and Saudi Arabia's money still wins Romney the election, the United States might embark on a whole series of "wars of choice," which would also be consistent with Romney's insistence that the Pentagon budget not be cut, but increased to 4% of GDP.

So, every other government program would be cut, people would be left without support and the US would be hollowed out by wars, just like the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. Not a pretty prospect, but still a possible one.

Do We Develop or Recover?

Romney says drill more; Obama says push oil, gas and alternative energies.

The differences between Economists Paul Krugman and Jeffrey Sachs come down to whether the above matters. Krugman stresses the need to increase demand, and advocates deficit spending--any deficit spending--in order to "grow" the economy. Sachs points out that what you spend the money on makes a difference.

Krugman would agree that spending on Defense, for example, is not going to increase the nation's long-term wealth the way spending on new technologies like alternative energy and infrastructure modernization would. Smart grids and high-speed trains would improve the economy, not just add to it.

One of the greatest barriers to recovery, however, is the huge amount of debt tied up in real estate that has lost value (28.6% of all mortgages owed by homeowners are underwater). Student loan debt is $914 billion, though credit card debt has fallen from over $800 billion last year to $626 billion now. The overhanging private debt deflates increases in demand created by the Fed, or government stimulus funds--regardless of public debt.

Sachs posits that in order for people to have more money, the economy can't just recover to what it was before, but must develop into something different, because the world economy has changed. People need new skills, businesses need new technologies and both need better infrastructure, from those smart grids and universal broadband, to better roads, rails and vehicles.

One of the unexpected growth spots in this otherwise slack economy is an old-fashioned oil and gas boom, unleashed by the environmentally damaging newish technology of fracking. Some of US growth is from cheap natural gas and (not cheap) domestic oil, not from burgeoning wind and solar power. (Oil isn't cheap, because prices are set in the world market, regardless of where it's pumped). Low natural gas prices make solar and wind less attractive.

It's an energy revival led by dinosaurs. The booms are not only environmentally destructive, they will delay necessary development needed for the US to lead as an advanced economy--unless the money they generate is taxed away to create incentives for alternative energies, smart grids and skills.

If we simply revel in the sudden abundance of fossil fuels, while Germany, China and Japan pursue alternative energies, we insure that global warming intensifies. We'll also fall behind technologically and in creating a sustainable future. We'll be like the Spanish Empire, which drowned in the gold and silver it extracted from the Americas, unable to make anything, able only to buy things--until the gold and silver so inflated the world's currencies that Spain became the poor man of Europe.

This also parallels the extractive conquest model of the Roman Empire. It ripped off the "known" world until it could expand no further. Impoverished by contraction, it finally "fell," when it could no longer swagger even down the Italian peninsula.

Who Holds the Power?

Political conventions are mostly to activate the base these days, since the selection of the nominee has taken place long before. That's when Romney bought the primaries, through his superior funding, the support of Rove's Crossroads GPS and Wall Street.

Of course, Obama, as incumbent didn't have to fight contested primaries; the nominee had been selected by his previous election, although there was some opposition and lack of interest, especially among activists

If you look at the two conventions as venues to gin up the activists, the Democrats were far more effective. Obama was by far a better speaker than Romney, and the GOP has no one like Bill Clinton, who gave one of the best speeches of his life. The Democratic convention was much more integrated and the many other speakers created a meaningful whole, climaxing with Obama's speech.

It probably wasn't his best, but it was inspirational for anyone listening, by the climax, though it started out slowly.

Former supporters who had cooled to the President, said in the convention's aftermath, "He's doing the best he can, maybe the best anyone can--and I'm going to give money, and/or I'm going to do something for his campaign."

I hope many saw parts, at least, of the two conventions; apparently, not that many did. From my vantage point (admittedly biased towards Democrats, but wary of its Wall Street wing), they did seem to differ, the way Bill Clinton encapsulated it: the Republicans stressed on-your-own-individualism, while Democrats demonstrated, as well as advocated, for a society in which everyone-is-in-it-together. The second model seemed to work for Democrats. Republican stars hardly gave a nod to Romney in their speeches.

Another expression of this difference was the GOP's insistence that the wealthy already paid too much, and should get tax cuts, while Democrats said they should pay their fair share, meaning higher tax rates, above the top rate of 35% as of now, at least back to Clinton's 39.6% (the top rate was 91% under Republican President Eisenhower). The wealthy are already paying the lowest rate since 1931 (only the 20's had a lower rate--25%) and we know where that led.

Some surprises from the conventions: Democrats came across celebrating the military and national security (the execution of Osama bin Laden), Obamacare, the auto bailout, as well as the partial recovery from the economy's depths in 2009, after Obama's inauguration.

Republicans totally missed any military celebration, entertained warnings from neo-cons that Americans should take on Syria, Iran--or threats anywhere--and complained that Obama had failed abroad, and at home with the recovery.

Neither party focused on financial sector abuses, or impunity, indicating that both are heavily beholden to Wall Street--AG Holder just dropped all suits against banks and banksters.

Even if Obama and Democrats win, the selfish class, our Roman Senators, firmly hold the reins, even though it's clear: most of them would prefer Romney. He's one of their own.

Chaos

It's what happened in the Fifth Century, well ahead of the "fall" of Rome, and it can happen here, especially if Romney is elected. Even if he isn't, as long as this nation remains so polarized, it's almost inevitable: we'll have chaos, as in large segments of society no longer acting as if they belong to it.

One of the more poignant quotations coming down from the early Sixth Century: the monasteries reporting they had little time for learning, because of the omnipresence of "war bands," that ripped off whatever of value the monks and their neighbors had managed to gain.

As I've pointed out before, the dream of Grover Norquist is realized in Somalia. There is no government: "war bands" roam the countryside. Government was "drowned in a bathtub." Moreover, different war bands roam the seas: we call them 'Somali pirates.'

Seriously. If the obscenely wealthy gain even more power and wealth, by buying the election, or at least government stalemate, then the working class (which no one mentions anymore) will be even more desperate. The middle class will bifurcate into the few 'successful' and the many even more desperate than the working class--because children of the middle class don't expect to be poor.

I taught Revolution as a Political Science class. One of the leading theories for why revolutions emerge, and why some succeed: the leaders came from the disaffected, but highly educated, middle class. That's even true if their class is a small portion of society, like Mao's rich peasants and Castro's private school elite. Roman bandits came from this class.

Chaos will come if Romney is elected, because his policies make no sense: they'll generate a new depression. Even a new war with Iran would only make it worse, but the very rich will get even wealthier. Romney's tax plan, reportedly, would reduce his tax rate from his claimed (and outrageously low) 13% to 1%.

Okay, here's the recipe: depression, increasing misery, savage cuts to income maintenance programs like Food Stamps, skyrocketing medical costs, by repealing Obamacare, government support for breaking unions, cutting wages and raising taxes on everyone but the wealthy; the wealthy clearly flourish. What do you get?

Perhaps Syria is the model for our future. The peaceful reform movement there was brutally repressed, thereby stoking desperation and violence, which eventually led to civil war, maybe it will lead to revolution, once Assad is ejected.

Leftists, don't take heart. Not all revolutions are leftist: Hitler and Mussolini were revolutionaries. The US could go either way and given past history, Americans have tended to blunder right, not left. FDR and Lincoln were outliers.

So, chaos: even if Obama wins--unless he carries his party's progressives with a real mandate to slash unemployment, control the banks, and radically reduce inequality.

How likely is that? Well, maybe if Elizabeth Warren were the Democratic convention's keynoter, there could be cause for optimism. But she won't be.

Comments? See below and scroll down.

Mitt's Debut

"This president can tell us it was someone else's fault. This president can tell us that the next four years he'll get it right, but this president cannot tell us that you are better off today than when he took office." Mitt Romney's convention address 8/30/2012.

Like much else that Romney and Ryan said, this statement is factually wrong. Things aren't great, but we are better off than we were when the financial system was imploding with the housing market. Further, although unemployment rose after Obama was inaugurated, it fell in response to his policies--just not far enough. The problem was that his policies were too timorous, in part because Obama made attempt after mistaken attempt to compromise with the GOP minorities in both the House and the Senate: mostly the Senate, where the latter wielded its filibuster veto.

His attempts were mistaken, because Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader, had made it very clear that his party would do almost whatever it could to insure that Obama would be a one-term President.

Neither Romney, nor Ryan, nor any of the other so-called leaders in the GOP, are willing to admit it now, but they are at least as responsible for the parlous state of the nation as Obama. They blocked whatever initiatives Obama attempted to bring about a recovery of the economy their (and Clinton-Rubin's) extreme laissez-faire policies had brought to the brink.

The GOP's hypocrisy is extraordinary, so the string of falsehoods promulgated by Ryan and then Romney at the convention should not be surprising.

What I do find surprising is the lack of "message control" on the part of the most prominent participants in the Republican Convention. Only the lesser lights, like Susana Martinez and Ann Romney stayed on message: to promote Romney as their standard bearer. Aside from the disastrous "address" of Clint Eastwood, Republican stars like Chris Christie, and even Paul Ryan appeared at best lukewarm in their promotion of their putative nominee.

This leads me to wonder: perhaps Mitt isn't even the super-manager he claims, or perhaps the GOP isn't really uniting behind him, after all. Ron Paul hasn't endorsed him, Clint referred to him as "the other guy" and many others seemed to treat him as an afterthought.

Maybe, the huge financial advantage Republicans have gained from Citizens United and their billionaire "super-pacs" has made them careless. After all, Sheldon Adelson has said he'd spend "whatever it takes" to defeat Obama, so, why worry? They'll just smother the airwaves with their lies.

I hope enough people tune out their distortions, but this is a classic case of the selfish class attempting to take over what had been at best a limited democracy. If their class succeeds, the US, and the world, will look increasingly like the last, fumbling years of the western Roman Empire.

Rapists for Romney-Ryan

Rapists: just think, if the GOP wins the White House and Congress, then the women who carry your babies will just have to have them, hah, hah! You can go around the country forcing women to have your sons and daughters. Won't that be fun? Oh, you might have to go to prison, but that's a small price to pay. And just think, if the nasty woman you’ve impregnated tries to "get rid of it," she'll end up in prison, too!

And think of it this way: you're carrying out God's plan to be fruitful and multiply. Maybe the GOP will pass a law that your rap-ee will have to marry you, sort of like the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Hey, as far as Afghanistan goes, the only thing wrong with their social policies, from a Republican point of view, is that they're justified by the Quran, not the Bible; it's like going back to the Fourth Century, when the Catholic Church even humiliated Emperor Theodosius the Great!

Some Republicans, like Michelle Bachmann, are worried that the US will be governed under Sharia law, if Obama is re-elected, but really, if the Republicans are elected, maybe they'll re-institute stoning: it's in the Bible, after all.

Anyone who thinks it would have been much nicer in the Dark Ages, should vote for Republicans. Just think: if the GOP swept away all the regulations they enjoy complaining about, we could be re-visited by the Black Death, since basic sanitation would have to be left up to the "Free Market," meaning no one would do anything about accumulating garbage, unless someone paid them to: What! The Government? No, no! They'll have "drowned it in the bathtub."

Now, if you’re a billionaire, you should also vote Republican because you'll get at least $250,000 more to piss away any way you want to, instead of being subjected to the indignity of having to give it to the Government. You can spend it on ermine pillow covers instead of Govmint spending it on all sorts of ridiculous things, like job training, early childhood education, or even Food Stamps so some un-enterprising slobs don't go hungry at night! Or maybe they'd spend it on those awful women, who seem to think they should get birth control for free, probably, even if they're raped.

If women don't want to be raped, they should pack an automatic, or just don't go out anywhere, unless they have an escort, preferably male and over 6 feet tall--or, or hold an aspirin between their knees.

That's why women should really stay home, you see. Again, the Taliban have had the vision to create the glorious future that Republicans are only now beginning to realize--if it's Christian, of course.

What Is To Be Done?*

I despair the politics of this era, the lies and distortions that impel it, the money that drives it. Mitt Romney is its perfect symbol; Paul Ryan is the embodiment of its deceptive promises of reaction snake-oil.

The Economist asks, 'Who, really, is Mitt Romney?' I doubt he can answer, except: he's determined to win the Presidency; he has no goal, other than winning it. He's been both a moderate liberal as governor of Massachusetts, and an "extreme conservative," (his own words), while running for President, even after winning the nomination. He was pro-choice, and now, he'll run on a Republican platform in which even rape and incest are not exempt from its absolute ban. He insists, after Akin's blooper, that he'd allow abortion for either reason, but who knows whether he would, or could, given his party.

Romney even threatens a Gold Commission to investigate returning to the Gold Standard--presumably to mollify Ron Paul supporters.

Then Senator, George McGovern, wrote an awful forward to The Promise of the Coming Dark Age: McGovern touted the Khmer Rouge as a beacon! If Mitt is able to buy the Presidency--that's what it would be, a purchase, costing several billion dollars--then the Dark Age could be upon us: the Roman Senators of old couldn't match the callous disregard the elite bear today for the rest of us. Romney would cut services (Food Stamps, Medicaid) for the desperate and cut taxes for his (lightly taxed) class of multimillionaires and billionaires. He'd also increase Defense spending, possibly for fighting another war: Iran, probably, although he'd also start a trade war with China the day he's inaugurated.

Romney appears to have chosen "extreme conservative" over moderate liberal, although he's still claiming he lives in Massachusetts (there is a question whether he did, when he filed taxes and voted in Massachusetts, claiming residence in his son's basement, a possible felony). But Romney still resists political, as well as geographic, definition.

His party tries to rally natives against immigrants, whites against blacks, men against women--its absolutist anti-abortion position is only a small part of that--but all is subsumed in the general war against all who are not owners of significant capital.

Capital is the contemporary version of the gold, land and slaves controlled by Roman Senators in the fourth and fifth centuries. Unlike the wealth of old, however, capital is expandable, and radical. Roman Senators could do only a small fraction of the damage that can be done, is already being done, by our contemporary elites, from eviscerating the safety net, environmental pollution and impoverishing the non-rich, to global warming, global immiseration and buying this election.

Can sanity stop them? Even the sitting President, Obama, doesn't have the money to beat back their misinformation, smears, and outright lies: example, their claim that Obama is reviving welfare.

What is to be done?

*Lenin used the same title.

Democracy Needs Wikileaks

It's not just disturbing, that the US, UK and Sweden are ganging up on Julian Assange, and Ecuador.

You can be sure that none of the first three nations are concerned about the rough sex accusations made against Assange (the charges are not for rape, but for a kind of sexual aggression only prosecuted in Sweden; but he's not even formally charged: the extradition is only for questioning).

So, the UK threatens Ecuador's Embassy, and despite the threatened action being a breach of international law, the US and Sweden both make encouraging noises.

Why, because under Assange's leadership Wikileaks published thousands of US diplomatic and military documents, classified from NOFORN to Secret. Newspapers all over the world published articles about them, and even Americans now know a lot more about what our nation is doing to the rest of the world. Wikileaks enabled one of the US's most crucial freedoms--freedom of information--to be dramatically, if temporarily, expanded.

Wikileaks sympathizers claim that the US is pressuring both the UK and Sweden to extradite Assange to the US. They say the US intends to try him for espionage, which is punishable by death. Of course, the three principal nations deny everything. But note what the US is not saying: it's not saying that Britain should honor Ecuador's grant of asylum to Assange; it's not saying that Britain shouldn't threaten Ecuador and it's not saying that it won't prosecute Assange for espionage.

Meanwhile the UK denies him safe passage.

All three nations boast about their freedom of the press. Ecuador has only recently had such freedoms: its media was privately owned, in bed with dictators and staunchly opposed to Rafael Correa's government, which has not repressed it.

But the Obama administration appears as zealous as the former USSR to crush dissident Assange; and Romney, if anything, would try to outdo Obama. US media say Ecuador's President has attacked his own press, but that appears to be a distortion.

Correa's government faced a hostile, partisan private oligopoly dominating Ecuadoran media; his supposed "assault" is his government's attempt to nurture a fairer press. Ecuador has promoted public and cooperative outlets, so they could compete with private media.

It would be as if Obama promoted NPR and MSNBC. Oh, he has?

So, why are Assange and Ecuador the new bad-guys to three supposedly democratic governments?

Both bad-guys have defied the American Empire. If they prevail, The Empire looks weak. So, it doesn't matter that the New York Times and WaPo, co-publishers with Assange, are just as culpable as Assange himself. They're connected to power; Julian isn't.

"Hang the bastard!" parallels Rome's response in its declining years. The Fifth Century Empire tortured and "slow-burned" its opponents, but still it lost control, long before CE 476.

Reporters and Corruption

Everything is for sale, including our supposedly representative government. What I find almost worse is the market of public information--and what, apparently, is not for sale.

Fox News, the most popular (faux) news channel, is despite its slogan "Fair and balanced," an unabashed propaganda mill that actively disseminates half-truths that become, momentarily, lead stories in the rest of the news.

Supposedly, on the other side, is NPR, which Congressional Republicans and candidate Romney both want to cut off from the public teat. NPR may favor Democrats, you see, because it's just as wishy-washy as they are. It's not hard-line for tax cuts for the wealthy, but it takes no position and attempts to present a 'fair and balanced' presentation of the issue.

NPR listeners are better informed than Fox watchers, or those of MSNBC, but none of the above present serious analyses of an issue, like reasonable rates of taxation. Even on NPR, the tendency is to parrot whatever one side said, and then how the other side responded: a he-said-she-said model that requires of the reporter no thought or research.

Will the Watergate break-in, and the investigations that issued from it, be our last really serious and effective investigative journalism?

Fewer and fewer news bureaus have reporters on the ground, either around the nation, or around the world. A worker-police massacre in South Africa is reported on by a journalist in Nairobi, 1780 miles away. If something happens in Minnesota, the reporter may be sent in from Chicago.

And more and more reporters only report: recording what the official, and/or his opponent say, without any reflection like: What the hell is "legitimate rape?" Or, damn, is that how contraception works: "the woman's body" somehow knows how to get rid of it--no abortion needed? Should I report that Congressman Akin don't know nothin'?

Maybe Akin made even the laziest reporters sit up and realize: they can't just report; they've got to base their reporting on facts.

Maybe. If extremists--who seem to be overwhelmingly on the right during this period--keep on attempting to present fiction as fact and fact as fiction, ever more wildly, maybe a more responsible information system will emerge. I hope it will finally allow most people to really know what's going on, and why it affects them.

On the optimistic side: people do help each other, and given a choice, most people will lend a helping hand when needed. Factual and analytic reporting would help people.

On the negative: fear is probably our most powerful emotion, and the one-percent, ably represented by Fox and Limbaugh, are backed by much more money, because our moneyed Roman Senators only want more money, and think in zero-sum terms: if they pay workers more, or protect us more from their pollution (pay their own external costs), they'll get less. Their strategy: keep'em scared and angry.

Will fear and anger work?

Romney-Ryan Can Win by Losing

It's more likely Romney won't win the Presidency, having named Paul Ryan. Ryan defines Romney, clarifies that he's not some "compassionate conservative," as W pretended to be--until he was elected.

But winning appears to be less important than changing the conversation.

Radical reactionaries won't meet the fate they did with Goldwater in 1964. Then, conservatives had neither think-tank brainpower, nor the financial power unleashed by Citizens United. Goldwater went down hard, because Democrats/progressives dominated the conversation.

It wasn't until Reagan that conservatives gained a second chance, but they won only a toehold.

The reactionary, Ayn Randian ideas of Paul Ryan are far more extreme than Reagan ever dared. They represent an aspiration to turn American political society back to the Robber Barons, before not only the New Society (Medicare-Medicaid), New Deal (Social Security, fair wages, labor union power), but even before the Anti-Trust Progressive era, when governments began to regulate and tax corporate and personal excess.

If Democrats/progressives/liberals/labor are able to get the word out, a slim majority of voters in "contested battleground states" will probably vote for Obama, and maybe even for a Democratic Congress and Senate.

That's a big if, since Ryan's name has drawn over $3 million to Republican coffers in just two days. Self-interested moneybags will mobilize to send much more--not just to the GOP, but to the so-called super-pacs, to spend on bile against Obama, or anyone to the left of Attila the Hun (I wrote Attila's autobiography, which you can buy here: http://www.amazon.com/Attila-Told-his-Scribes-ebook/dp/B00855M90G).

Still, there are ways incumbent Presidents can get the word out. But the election is only part of the story, perhaps the least likely part. Ryan is important even if he and Romney don't win: the right wing will have succeeded in shifting the conversation far to the right in their favor.

The great failure of Goldwater was that LBJ's landslide shifted political ideals and policy leftward. But with millions to billions of dollars mobilized against Obama and Democrats by Ryan's candidacy, Obama and even other Democrats might still win, but the election will probably be close.

So, the ideas put forward by Ryan and the Tea Party, will not only NOT remain unthinkable, they will become The Alternative, if nearly half the electorate supports Romney-Ryan-Republicans.

Romney has never, until now, allowed himself to be defined in policy terms: he's run away from his one signal accomplishment as Massachusetts Governor (Romneycare), but by naming Ryan, he becomes dependent upon the Tea Party and its radical corporate base: addled activists subsidized by Robber Barons.

So, today's equivalent of Fifth Century Roman Senators will attempt to control virtually all levels of government--and, of course, their own serfs. That's why they're willing to spend (100's of) millions of dollars against Obama.

Conspiracy

I never used to believe in conspiracy theories as a way to explain our world: the Bilderbergs, or Illuminati, the Communists, or aliens, Satan or the Anti-Christ. When I muttered darkly about climate destruction, a health foods store proprietor told me about contrails: "They're destroying the atmosphere, so we'll all have to buy their food."

"Who?"

"The Government."

That was a new one. Or maybe not so new; I saw it mentioned online the next day, and remembered that the health store lady had whispered "contrails" years before.

But what is happening in Congress, in election campaigns, in dismissals of bank fraud charges, in watered down or canceled regulations, in timorous actions by Obama and his administration--and other governments even more so, well, it does look more and more like a grand, if informal, conspiracy by a small group of people to grasp firm control. Rising inequality, the international power of corporations and Billionaires International--the richest man in the world is Mexican, though more billionaires hail from the US than anywhere else--does begin to look like a kind of conspiracy.

It's backed by billions of dollars (to protect trillions); it's international in scope: the US, Canada, most European nations excepting Greece, seem to have been taken over by this global elite, as have the white nations down-under. Russia, China, Korea, Japan, India and maybe Brazil are joining up, as well.

But it isn't a tight conspiracy, maintained by communication and central control; that's why it's so successful. This amorphous elite has socked away anywhere from $30 to $60 plus trillions, according to estimates by various sources, hidden in ways that are difficult for governments to trace--or certainly to tax. That's at least several times the GDP of the largest economy in the world: the United States.

Where is this money?

It's parked in low-wage countries outside of US, or other nations' control, largely in banking havens, where no one asks questions. Mitt's overseas accounts are emblematic.

Mitt isn't anywhere near the wealthiest, nor most powerful of this elite, but he represents their most overt attempt at gaining control. It isn't as if Obama has stood resolutely in the way: he's not one of them, but people around him, like Tim Geithner, probably are.

It's possible that many of this elite would rather the GOP and Romney didn't make their project quite so obvious, but Citizens United has so stacked the deck in their favor that it's difficult to stop.

Think of all the services, education, training, infrastructure and jobs that could be bought by the US portion of that $60+ trillion--without raising taxes on anyone else! Occupy made a valid point.

Even if Romney loses, we are on the cusp of the takeover by a global elite even more dominant than Roman Senators in Fifth Century Rome. Who knows how long it could last--until a popular explosion/revolution, or a global environmental disaster.

Celebrity-itis

As in disease. I wonder what percentage of Americans are in the grip of it.

In my last blog, I pointed out that Batman of Dark Knight Rising is a billionaire, who, like most billionaires, according to the new GOP religion, is a hero, whose "job creation," or other heroic action, is essential for our society to function. That's why they and multimillionaires should get tax breaks, so that their share of Americans' wealth will become even more extreme than it already is, paying even lower tax rates than they do now: less than half the rate of the middle class, earning a middle class income, working a 50+ hour week.

But then, after all, billionaires are heroes, job creators.

And celebrities? Celebrities are the ones who keep the stupid slobs' attention, so they don't even think about how they're being ripped off, every day.

It's like a crime team. The billionaire is the thief, who hoists your wallet when you're not looking. The celebrity is the reason you're not looking: he or she diverts your attention: they're the con man's partners, so they share in the loot: that's why they're paid so much.

Most people are persuaded not to bother even looking. Cynicism about politics may be justified, but it enables the thieves, and disables a politics of community, or sharing power and wealth. It doesn't have to be this way, but we're taught that it does.

Our whole culture, created by corporate hype, has been unsubtly taken over by the likes of Jamie Dimon and the Koch brothers. They've sunk millions (mere change to them) in think tanks, media outlets, shows, movies, even colleges and universities, to persuade us: only the very wealthy should be free--that's what freedom means. Freedom to be rich, a celeb, so you can do anything--buy elections, or pollute, and not pay damages you impose on others. That's freedom. You can break laws and then change them, like Sheldon Adelson, who's apparently 'investing' $100,000,000 so a Romney administration will change (or ignore) the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Then he'd avoid a trial, maybe jail(!), for million-dollar bribes in the Chinese gambling capital of Macao!

What about freedom for the poor slobs who aren't multi-millionaires/billionaires? Too bad. You don't have enough money to buy freedom: you'll have to work even harder: 60+ hour weeks just to pay the rent and groceries. And if the billionaires' party gets its way, it will privatize Social Security and Medicare--and get even richer, but poor slobs will have to work until they collapse--in the street.

Like the serfs in the fifth century Roman Empire: yet the Roman Senators lived well--until the whole edifice collapsed.

Billionaires Will Save the World

Or not.

Let me get this straight: Batman is a billionaire named Bruce Wayne, but when Wayne drops out, everybody suffers. You see, it's what the billionaire does that creates profits, and without profits from his company, the world begins to fall apart--because he doesn't care. When he does care, everyone prospers; when he doesn't, poverty and misery extend over the land, because 'socialists' take over and enforce 'equality,' which in the vision of Dark Knight's Director, Jonathan Nolan comprises expropriation, not creation. And, of course, it's the bad guys who are socialists and egalitarian, and the good guys are for the "free market."

Never knew that's why there are billionaires, did you? They’re heroes, you see, who carry the world on their shoulders: that's why they have so much money!

The "free" market is hardly free, when there are billionaires like the Walton (Walmart) family, who underpay their employees--and their developing nation suppliers--so they can amass the largest (combined) fortune on the planet. The market isn't free, because large agglomerations of capital give firms oligopoly and monopoly power, enabling them to skew market prices to their own advantage, and laws and government "regulations," as well.

By mis-delivery, I received World magazine, which seems to be a mouthpiece for evangelical Christianity. I'll put it back in the mailbox tomorrow, so it can be correctly delivered to its addressee, about a mile and a half down the next road. The above came from World's review of Dark Knight Rising: it fell open to that page when I picked it up.

The review, and editorials and other articles reminded me of the ravings of Salvian, a fifth century priest, who denounced almost anything secular, or of the panegyrists, like Ausonius and Claudian, who recited their paeans to the powerful of their day: rising Senators, as well as the Emperor, "God's Vice-Regent on Earth."

Jonathan Nolan, especially, appears to parallel the fifth century panegyrist who went on for hundreds of verses about the virtues of Emperor Honorius, Heaven born: Honorius was clearly of below normal intelligence; he preferred to play with his roosters (one was named Rome), than attend to affairs of State. While Batman is not an identified present ruler, or candidate for office, it's easy to see him representing someone like Romney, or Bloomberg; his heroism and centrality to making Gotham work is almost a caricature of Romney's whole raison-d'être: I'm so wealthy because I know how to make the economy work.

In a way, that's true: he knows how to make it work for him, but not for the rest of us. He and his kind know how to skew the rules to favor themselves: as he says repeatedly, he didn't break any laws when he evaded taxes. Of course. His class, his fellow wealthy, paid for those loopholes fair and square.

The Paraguayan Model

On June 22nd, Paraguay quickly impeached its leftist President, Lugo, and installed vice President Franco (from a right of center party), as the new President. A month later, the new President's government pushed forward negotiations with Rio Tinto Alcan for building a huge aluminum plant on the Parana River. It offered $700 million in infrastructure to enable the plant's construction, and agreed to thirty years of subsidizing its electricity supply from its two hydroelectric facilities, enough power to provide electricity to 9.6 million people, while many Paraguayans go without. All this for 2,500 jobs at a cost of about $560,000/job up front..

Former President Lugo had blocked Rio Tinto.

The former President had also blocked Monsanto's application to plant GM. Franco approved it, meaning that large-scale agriculture will continue to dominate the country, in tandem with Monsanto; the majority of landless peasants will continue to be excluded from landownership.

CBS played up, however, Franco's claim of issuing 79 land titles to landless people in his first 15 days in office, while the former government issued only 3 in six months, but it was the dispute over land reform that did in the former President. He had favored land reform, but had been unable to implement it, because of opposition by large landowners, including foreign corporations. The opposition blamed President Lugo for a confrontation between police and land occupiers in which seven police and 11 occupying peasants died. Lugo was impeached by Congress one day and expelled from office by the Senate the next, giving him only two hours to defend himself.

Large multinational corporations benefited from the change in government almost immediately. At the same time, Latin America's Mercosur governments, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and applying member, Venezuela have all denounced the "coup" and withdrawn their ambassadors.

The US pretends to be neutral, just as it was in Honduras, before recognizing the coup regime there, also a pro-business takeover.

Land ownership in Paraguay is even more extreme than the US's unequal distribution of wealth. Much of the land held by the elites was expropriated (sometimes violently) from campesinos who had lived and worked it; they held no legal title: it had been common land, or traditional landholding. Large tracts have been converted into agribusiness holdings, with widespread use of GM soy and intensive spraying of pesticides and herbicides. The toxins have literally driven out neighboring campesinos.

In both Honduras and Paraguay, their takeovers put a small elite, backed by foreign corporations, back in control after a short-lived challenge to their power.

Will the US do something similar through unlimited billionaire and corporate campaign funds? Paraguay looks more like Fifth Century Roman society than does the US, so the parallels between the US and Paraguay highlight US similarities to Roman Senators' takeover of all wealth and power prior to Rome's fall.

Climate Disruption and Global Warming

It's no coincidence that we've lost power (electric) three times in the last month due to "violent" storms. Since over 60% of the US is suffering from a severe drought, the corn and soybean crops even for the upper Midwest are in the process of being lost, and the west is going up in flames, we consider ourselves lucky.

Bill McKibben of 350.org fame, has pointed out that there is an easy way to explain our problems: through three numbers (Rolling Stone, 07/19/2012).

The one thing the failed environmental conference in Copenhagen agreed to in 2009, was that a global rise in temperature of more than 2 degrees Celsius had to be avoided. Considering that global temperature has only risen about 0.8 degrees Celsius, and we have seen dramatic changes already, that 2 degrees Celsius agreement looks overly indulgent.

It is the 327th month that global temperature averages have been higher than global averages in all of the 20th Century. In addition, the US had the warmest Spring ever recorded, by a huge margin, a third of Arctic summer ice has disappeared, the oceans are 30% more acidic (threatening much marine life) and the atmosphere over the oceans is 5% wetter, opening the world to severe flooding.

Yet the Rio environmental summit this Spring was not attended by any important national leader, and the issue of global warming, or "climate change," seems to be a non-issue in the Presidential and Congressional/Senatorial campaigns in the US, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases driving global warming.

Two other figures sum up our global predicament. The first, McKibben identified is 565 gigatons of carbon, the amount the world can add to the global atmosphere with a four in five chance that we won't exceed the 2 C target. One in five chances, however, says that even this figure is too high. This may especially be true, since the amount of carbon already released has not yet been fully realized in the 0.8 degrees rise in global temperature. Global climate changes have a lag time. 565 gigatons means the amount of additional coal, oil, gas, methane and burning forests the earth might be able to sustain, before we exceed the 2C limit. Yet, except for the recession year of 2009, the world has been pouring out more and more carbon into the atmosphere every year.

The third figure, however, is the most devastating. It is 2,795 gigatons, the amount of carbon contained in the proven reserves of all the oil/coal/gas companies and countries, (Venezuela to Canada). Why devastating? This number represents the assets of producer countries and companies. If they're not allowed to burn it, their "investments" become worthless. That's why Exxon and others spend hundreds of millions to persuade us there is no global warming.

The economic system will destroy the planet for most humans--by orders of magnitude worse than the Roman Empire's desertification of the Mediterranean world in the fifth Century.

Crony/Cartel Capitalism

Rachel Maddow made a case (07/16/12) that Sheldon Adelson, the $25+ billionaire pouring over $100 million into Republican campaigns, has something very specific to buy: immunity from criminal prosecution for violating the US's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He made his money on a huge gambling enterprise in Macao by buying Chinese compliance, probably with million-dollar bribes.

The same week, the LIBOR scandal broke, revealing that global big banks have been fixing borrowing rates to their advantage: the market is not operating freely; a cartel was manipulating it. The Justice Department is reportedly building a case to prosecute the LIBOR collaboration; defendants might include regulators as well as bankers.

This same week, Romney has been caught claiming one thing--that he retired from Bain Capital VI in 1999, to run the winter Olympics in Utah--while official filings with the SEC said another: that he was sole owner, CEO, President and Chairman of the Board until 2002, when Bain was bankrupting companies and outsourcing workers. Actually, it was also doing that before 1999.

Pressure is building on Romney to release his income tax returns going back 20+ years, instead of the 2 he's so far revealed. It's not only Democrats, including Obama, who are pressuring him, but conservatives like George Will; he hopes the release might contain the damage.

We already know that banks found all sorts of creative ways to wrest billions from ordinary people--homeowners, investors, you name it: from shepherding credit-worthy minorities into high-cost subprime loans, talking others into deceptive balloon mortgages, to selling toxic bundles of mortgage securities and betting against their own products that had been designed to fail. In addition, HSBC just admitted to massive money laundering of Mexican drug billions.

The financial industry, authors of these frauds, was bailed out by US taxpayers. Now, Wall Street is funding Republicans over Democrats, in the election campaign, because Democrats passed the Dodd-Frank "reform," which though extremely watered down, does, at least, make an attempt to regulate the financial industry.

Other businessmen, represented by the Koch brothers, abhor regulation, and are willing to pay millions to avoid it. They want to be free to pollute, while society pays the price, and to run unsafe plants, again, while society pays the costs they incur on workers and environs. So, they push millions on super-pacs, hoping to bury Obama and Democrats in negative ad-hysteria. Their aim: to elect Romney and a Republican Congress, both of which will be expected to do their bidding.

This is the world that Citizens United has unleashed. It is not "free enterprise." It is not market capitalism. It is crony/cartel capitalism, dominated by a few extremely wealthy, who want laws to permit their corruption. It is a coordinated effort by the selfish class, like fifth century Roman Senators, to dominate the US, and then "the known world," just like the Roman Senators of old.

br>Buy Attila's autobiography here http://www.amazon.com/Attila-Told-his-Scribes-ebook/dp/B00855M90G.

Romney and a Two-Class Society

In Fifth Century Rome, there were two sets of laws: one for honestiores and the other for humiliores. As you might guess from the words, the former were Senators and a few others: not slaves or serfs; the latter were slaves, serfs, non-citizens and everyone else.

It seems that we are now developing a similar system: Romney may well have committed multiple felonies (on taxes and SEC filings), yet no charges have been filed, and probably won't be. Further, even if he did not commit felonies, it's startlingly obvious that the "carried interest" loophole, which allows him to file his income as if it were capital gains (15% instead of 35%), is comparable to the kinds of privileges enjoyed by the honestiores--and he has enjoyed many others.

Even more egregious, it's clear from the LIBOR scandal, as well as the robo-signing scandals and other bank and corporate misdeeds, that huge thefts were carried out by banksters, CEO's, etc. Yet, so far, no one has even been charged, let alone gone to jail, except for people like Bernie Madoff, who didn't play by the rules, and didn't get away with his multimillion-dollar thefts. The LIBOR, EURIBOR and other rate-thefts, may amount to hundreds of billions of dollars, since they affected interest rates on an estimated $10-600 trillions worth of transactions. Since those thefts affected other elite institutions (banks, municipalities, corporations, even countries), it is more likely that there could be huge civil penalties incurred, but I'll bet practically no one goes to jail.

Yet, consider how easy it is for a young black or Hispanic male to be jailed. All they have to do is walk down a street in NYC with a little bit of pot in their pockets and have a little bad luck. The US now has by far the largest per-capita prison population on the planet, which is saying something, since we're competing with the likes of Russia and Communist China.

Also, consider that police departments in the US have been militarized: equipped with high tech weaponry, and even armored personnel carriers and tanks. This weaponry is not targeted against the Romney's of this world, our honestiores. But it's already been used against the Occupy movement in Oakland, and we'll see it out in force for the political conventions. It could be used against any popular revulsion to elite rule. The same is true of the rapidly increasing surveillance programs.

Attorney General Holder aggressively raids and prosecutes medical marijuana dispensaries and whistleblowers (he wants to catch Julian Assange, too), but he and Treasury Secretary Geithner (both with strong links to Wall Street), have been extremely forgiving of banks and other large corporations--and their leaders.

If Romney and Republicans win control, this pattern will be consummated, but even if Obama and Democrats win, the US will be well along its way towards the two-class society found in Fifth Century Rome.

Run Against Congress!

Even the conservative Chamber of Commerce blames Congress for the US's fiscal inaction! Ben Bernanke has said, many times, that the Fed is only doing what it can with monetary policy, because Congress isn't doing what it should with fiscal policy. So, the Fed puts forward Quantitative Easing, keeping interest rates at rock-bottom and shifting its portfolio from short to long-term assets to drive down the price of longer-term borrowing, as well as "printing" money. But everyone knows that isn't enough.

What is really needed, Bernanke implies, and Economist Paul Krugman has stated repeatedly, is government spending on stimuli, to enliven job markets, plus bring teachers, police, etc., back to work.

Congress is split; it is split between fiscal "hawks" and "doves(?)." The former, dominated by GOP Tea Partyers, claim, like a blindered former friend of mine, that "debt is debt," and The Government must stop borrowing at all costs.

The "doves" don't know what to do, because the conservative-led media has persuaded a near majority that government must cut spending NOW. But the costs really are tangible, and the GOP's solution--cut taxes on the so-called "job creators"--isn't going to create jobs, except maybe in China, only a larger deficit, probably more speculation with the extra money freed for the speculators, and draconian cuts to the programs that allow people to hang on by their fingernails, like Food Stamps.

Krugman agrees that once we are out of this recession/depression, the US will have to begin to pay down its overhanging debt, but now is not that time. Now, the US should borrow money; it's at historically low rates, because the US is the safe harbor for troubled money the world over. Now we should spend money to re-invigorate the economy: spend it on helping states re-hire their laid off workers, spend it on rebuilding and improving our shabby infrastructure and education and spend it on new ventures, like alternative energy industries, all of which will expand the tax base.

Some businesses are not hiring because no one knows what the deadlocked government will do. But why hire if there is no demand for goods and services, anyway? If demand were injected into the economy, companies would hire workers. The Fed can't cause that; only Congress and the President can.

But Republicans are vehemently opposed to any policy that would help Obama's reelection, and vehemently opposed to any further debt. Democrats, on the other hand, are timid, and too many of them are beholden to interests that want deadlock, or little government action--except on their behalf: the selfish class, I've called them.

That's where we stand today. We could go down the road to near-permanent Depression if we choose "austerity" and tax cuts for the wealthy. That's the direction the Roman Empire took in the 4th and 5th Centuries.

Obama should run against Congress, and for a huge new stimulus, instead.

Mormons and Bishop Romney

Joseph Smith, Mormonism's founder, spun a whole saga, spanning about a thousand years of "history," beginning with Eli, a prophet, who led his people out of Jerusalem before the Captivity--he prophesied Jerusalem's doom. He and his son, Nephi, led his people to--the New World! And prophesied the coming of Jesus Christ.

Smith creates a whole alternate history derived from the supposed translation of the golden tablets (by him, with the aid of the angel Moroni). The 'Nephites' depart from the sinners of Israel for the New World (America), but are continually attacked by the descendants and followers of Nephi's evil brothers. The skins of these apostates darken, and they are shown using only stone implements: guess who they are! The tablets, revealed by the angel, were "given back" to him by Smith, after the translation was completed.

This alternate history continues until almost 400 years after Jesus' death and resurrection--his "believers" in the New World receive confirmation of his existence and resurrection-- but later turn wicked, except for Mormon--and Moroni--and all but Moroni are killed in battle. However, the golden tablets survive--to be found over a thousand years later, by Joseph Smith!

Quite a story! Having written a novel of a man's life, who appeared once in an account of a Roman-Greek's visit to Attila's court (I, Zerco, on the website link), I know how such stories can be spun--if you have a good imagination.

Afterwards, Smith, had quite an excitin souri and Illinois (apparently leading rebellions)-- and was killed by a mob as he attempted to escape it, outside his second prison, in Illinois.

Not only did Smith 'translate' untraceable golden tablets, he had continuing revelations, published later. His successor, Brigham Young, cemented Mormons' practice of polygamy (he married about 55 women), but was apparently illiterate. He was also racist: at his instigation, black people were denied priest-hood or sacraments until a Mormon leader abolished the prohibition in 1978, 101 years after Young's death.

Although most Mormons now repudiate Brigham Young's racist teachings and polygamy, Mormonism still is based on an alternative history much like the fiction of Orson Scott Card (a Mormon).

Romney isn't just a believer and large donor: he's a Bishop, possibly equivalent to priest. He's admitted, obliquely, that he baptized dead people, as do other Mormons, one of whom baptized Anne Frank!

Quite aside from his questionable claim that, as a (vulture) financier, he knows how to fix the US economy, do Americans realize the strangeness of Romney's religion?

He's the quintessential one-percenter, figure-head for the corporate/wealthy's coup d'état, and a believer in a fantastic fiction. If elected, he'd mark the takeover of the American Senatorial class, much like Roman Senators' unchallenged dominance in the Western Roman Empire's last century.

And would we all have to become Mormons?