2011. Wall Street’s super-rich spend billions to control Washington.
2012. Super-Rich gain absolute power over Washington.
2013. Pentagon’s WWIII global commodity wars accelerate for 2020 peak.
2014. Global population bubble accelerating, wasting commodities.
2015. Gilded Age globalization implodes America’s Global Empire.
2016. Wall Street capitalism self-destructs, crashes, mass bankruptcies.
2017. Middle-class revolution: Buffett’s rich class loses, overthrown.
2018. Reaganomics capitalism collapses, Glass-Steagall reinstated.
2019. WWIII commodity wars spread, cost trillions, kill hundreds of millions.
2020. Patriarchy ends: male dominance declines, women leaders rise.
He had me right up until 2020. The Jeremiah, Paul B. Farrell, is penning his prophecies not on the digital pages of Some Left Review but on the Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch, which should cause pause, yes? He follows up the above with four time bombs:
1. Wealth gap: Super-Rich vs class wars, death of democracy.
2. Wall Street’s doomsday capitalism vs rule by anarchy.
3. Pentagon’s perpetual war machine vs America’s budget time bomb.
4. Global population explosion vs resources, jobs, better lifestyles.
Corporate is investing in advanced soft-kill solutions and purchasing politicians who will write laws undermining your civil liberties (and/or won't protest Executive orders undermining your civil liberties). Corporate will destroy the fucking world before it'd consider less profits. Do you know why Corporate's abusing Bradley Manning only 40 miles from a White House occupied by a Democratic president? To show you they fucking can. To remind you to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.
Bwarg! Good thing I'm done wringing the micro for the moment (though peace to all) so I can begin ringing the macro, with hyperventilation, again, cwcf.
- Any questions? President Obama signed an executive order Monday that will create a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who continue to pose a significant threat to national security. The administration also said it will start new military commission trials for detainees there. The announcements, coming more than two years after Obama vowed in another executive order to close the detention center, all but cements Guantanamo Bay's continuing role in U.S. counterterrorism policy.
- Collective yawn.
- He's in his reelection campaign war-room, that's where the fucker is.
- I'm asking: Manning could be imprisoned anywhere within the military penal system, yes? He doesn't have to be at Quantico by some military law, yes?
- Say it ain't so.
- Broke and blind.
- The empire strikes out.
- What the fuck is "ethnic understanding?"
- Fantasy politics.
- More establishment assholery.
- Realism, idealism, and social media.
- UPDATE! Krugman doesn't read this shitty blog either.
- Think like a fist.
- On copyright.
- An argument against unions in general and teachers' unions in particular.
- Zik zik zik.
- Activism 0, Capitalism 1.
- World gone oink.
- UPDATE! Oopsy! Commence pigstorm in 3, 2, 1....
- A trip to the mall.
- ICC! Heh.
- Poor tax.
- Wheaton! See that green, red, and white awning? Marchione's Italian Deli - best tuna salad sub in MOCO!
- Four managers on how Arsenal can eliminate Barcelona.
- I reread Dick Gibson Show half a year ago and am rereading Gravity's Rainbow now (it's an unofficial book club Kind of thing, you can play too if you want) and I just finished the Dodo scene - it's interesting in regards to this post that both Elkin and Pynchon thought to use the senseless slaughter of Dodos as tropes.
- New Coover short story.
- A nihilist's believe in truth.
- I haven't read James Purdy in two decades. Time to fix.
- I want to see the bright lights tonight.
- Motherfucking terrible news.
- Darkblack's Sunday Overnight.
- UPDATE! Holyfuck, I've no idea why this just popped in my head - it has to be 20 years since I'd heard it - but be in yours.
- solosolos.
- Westerberg.
- Matapedia.
- Mickey Dolenz is sixty-six today.
THE BURIAL
Lynn Emanuel
After I've goosed up the fire in the stove with Starter Logg so that it burns like fire on amphetamines; after it's imprisoned, screaming and thrashing, behind the stove door; after I've listened to the dead composers and watched the brown-plus-gray deer compose into Cubism the trees whose name I don't know (pine, I think); after I've holed up in my loneliness staring at the young buck whose two new antlers are like a snail's stalked eyes and I've let this conceit lead me to the eyes-on-stems of the faces of Picasso and from there to my dead father; after I've chased the deer away (they were boring, streamlined machines for tearing up green things, deer are the cows-of-the-forest); then I bend down over the sea of keys to write this poem about my father in his grave. It isn't easy. It's dark in my room, the door is closed, all around is creaking and sighing, as though I were in the hold of a big ship, as though I were in the dark sleep of a huge freighter toiling across the landscape of the waves taking me to my father with whom I have struggled like Jacob with the angel and who heaves off, one final time, the muddy counterpane of the earth and lies panting beside his grave like a large dog who has run a long way. This is as far as he goes. I stand at the very end of myself holding a shovel. The blade is long and cool; It is an instrument for organizing the world; the blade is drenched in shine, the air is alive along it, as air is alive on the windshield of a car. Beside me my father droops as though he were under anesthesia. He is so thin, and he doesn't have a coat. My left hand grows cool and sedate under the influence of his flesh. It hesitates and then... My father drops in like baggage into a hold. In his hands, written on my stationery, a note I thought of xeroxing: Dad, I will be with you, through the cold, dark, closed places you hated. I close the hinged lid, and above him I heap a firmament of dirt. The body alone, in the dark, in the cold, without a coat. I would not wish that on my greatest enemy. Which, in a sense, my father was.
Obama's going to get reelected: Agreed.
ReplyDeleteCorporate's best scenario is the same (Obama will give them more than any Gooper they could put in his place): Agreed.
Cheers! (It's not too soon to start drinking, is it?)
~
Excellent opening salvo, Sir! Totally agree it's nearly shocking that such Cassandra-ism would be seen on the WSJ... but think of this: print media are dying (despite the wishes of grouches like me), thus even the Old Stodgy Bastards are shifting into Shrieking Weirdness, to attract peepers in a last-ditch attempt to save the sinking ironclad. Remember the Monitor! Remember the Merrimack! Our heavy armor will not sink or scuttle us!
ReplyDeleteAnd a new Coover? Cripes, I still have The Babysitter etched into my brain from the first read when I was ...what... 17? Almost as big an impact on me as Barthelme's The Glass Mountain.
PS: Marchione's is a true pot o'gold at the end of a rainbow (oops, mixing my ethnicities there!) and I can still picture its insides even though it's been probably 15 years since I was last there.
ReplyDeleteOf course BF Saul will destroy it. That's what BF Saul does. And of course it does so under the cover of a "town square" sold as "increasing a sense of community". Yeah, the Saul Family community of economic domination!
Someone should burn down the offices of Linowes & Blocher, the velvet stilettos who do economic hit man work for Saul... but then another Hit Squad LLP will step in... never mind my absurdist fantasies!
(disclosure: I have shares in WRIT so I'm a fargin' hip-o-CRIT... my wealth increases while the DC metro area's livability decreases!)
Rip It Up and Start Again!!! That song title is my mantra.
ReplyDeleteThe dodo scene was a major watershed moment in my Gravity's Rainbow, uh, journey. I had been enjoying it before then, but that was the part where I was like "OK, I'm going with it."
Slothrop and Narrisch and von Goll just got to Peenemunde, if you're curious.
Oh, and that stuff you started with? Fucking weird. Fucking really weird, too weird.
ReplyDeleteI don't buy Farrell's timetable, though I do tend to see the trajectory of events in his prophecies of the clusterfuck as believable. I have ultimate faith in the utter ruthlessness of Corporate - if they can't win, nobody wins.
ReplyDeleteI've been predicting America will be Serbia by 2030 - it wouldn't surprise me if it's sooner.
I'm still in Beyond the Zero - life be busy...
Quantico is the location of the Marine Corps' maximum security brig. All government classified documentation is owned by the marines. If you have sworn to protect classified documentation and you are stupid enough to declassify this information without proper authority, you should expect to get to know the Quantico Brig very well. Bradley Manning is not a political prisoner, he is a fucking idiot.
ReplyDeleteThe Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America:
ReplyDeleteExcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted, except in cases of fucking idiots, who shall be held indefinitely and tortured before being charged with any crime, after being charged with whatever we feel like, before trial, and most certainly after trial, and may God have mercy on the fucking idiot soul, although we all know how God hates fucking idiots.
That timetable's a bit speedy for the inevitable slide into abject misery we're all currently on, but hey, technology, prove me wrong.
ReplyDeleteWell, who I thought was anonymous claims he wasn't anonymous - it occurred to me that blooger comment skeeviness might have eaten the name or something, and who I thought it was has never been shy.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, why anonymous (as opposed to pseudonymous) worries about anonymity I don't know. If anyone at NSA cared what anybody said at this shitty blog they could figure out the identity of anybody they wanted to, and besides, what did anonymous say that would meet the disapproval of anyone at the NSA?
Anonymous wasn't me, I only hit this site once a week or so. However...
ReplyDeleteIt is true that if you have a clearance and you view classified information that you have no business viewing, or disseminate ANY information - regardless of classification level - without proper authority, your ass belongs to the Marines, you will go to Quantico, and they can hold you for as long as they want and do whatever they want to you.
Ethan - the Constitution has nothing to do with this. UCMJ is the authority in this matter, whether you like it or not. I take my TS clearance very seriously, I signed the same contract Manning did.
Nobody here seems to get that simple fact that explains it all... It's not the content of the information that matters, it's not about whether someone gets hurt or killed or embarrassed because of it, it's the fact that he swore to protect that information and he didn't. There is no government plot to get him, he broke the rules that he swore not to break. I would expect the same treatment if I were so stupid as to do what he did - it's in the contract we signed.
According to UCMJ, they can hold him for as long as they want to pre-Court Martial, whether charges have been filed or not (although the initial charges were filed last fall). They can hold him and put off his Court Martial for years if they want to. That's just the way it is. If you don't like it, don't obtain a security clearance. Me? I'll take the cushy jobs and fat paychecks and do my part to maintain the integrity of the classification system, thank you.
The difference between me and Bradley Manning: I sleep naked by choice, he sleeps naked because he IS - in fact - a fucking idiot. Good call, Anonymous.
Way to give us the real beta, General Patton.
ReplyDeleteOr, wait... was that General LeMay? Perhaps General Petraeus? Or Commandant Amos? Dang, you guys are all so ...different, what with your different uniforms and categories of hierarchical position!
I once looked at a "top secret" binder at the US State Department. It was all so... important... weighty... materially significant to our nation's security. I nearly ate a bullet after realizing I'd just breached Security Protocols, but then I remembered it wasn't my gaffe -- I wasn't the one who left it laying about casually for any dish-pit dunderhead to peruse, so I hadn't really breached any security protocols. Someone else had. But wait... since I didn't blow the whistle, does that make me a treasonous bastard?
ReplyDeleteAs I understand things, when you join the military - and please correct me if I'm wrong - you *do* consciously sign away many of the civil rights civilians (purportedly) maintain. I don't dispute your assertion that Manning is subject to a different - and harsher - criminal code than civilians are. I was aware of that in everything I've said about Manning's incarceration and treatment. It doesn't change the points I've been making.
ReplyDeleteAs whether he's stupid or idealistic, the answer is of course there are no either/ors.
I didn't make the rules, I just agreed to follow them.
ReplyDeleteI guess I should mention that I don't believe in God either, not that it matters.
ReplyDeleteUgh, anyway, it's not about what Bradley Manning expected, and besides if you read the chat logs it's plain that he expects to be arrested. Regardless, torturing people for breach of contract is not particularly justified, no matter what rules people have made up.
ReplyDeleteHow is he being tortured? He's in prison. Never been there myself, but I'm pretty sure it's not much fun.
ReplyDeleteMilitary personnel swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. That's their first obligation: to the essence of what is the USA, the organic charter, the idea.
ReplyDeleteIs a soldier's obligation now devolved to simply "following orders" even when the orders contradict the Constitution?
What's the purpose of the oath? To help dupe the soldier into believing his service is noble and for some higher purpose?
What higher purpose?
Ahhh... just shut up and follow orders! You're being insubordinate, Oxtrot!
I have a great informal operational guideline for the US Military:
the deader the brain
the better the soldier
I know absolutely nothing about the military or oaths that they swear to. I deplore violence and I have never even touched a gun in my life. I also have a really bad attitude towards authority, a smart ass attitude, and a strong leftist bent, which would probably get me dishonorably discharged rather quickly.
ReplyDeleteBut I was talking about people who carry a security clearance, not soldiers. The vast majority of soldiers do not have a clearance or access to classified documentation.
E7's arguments sound strange to one who doesn't recognize the legitimacy of the government's claim of absolute authority over what information it will allow its subjects to be privy to.
ReplyDeleteappeals to things like clearances, authority, law, the rules, agreements, contracts, oaths, and so on, aren't in the least compelling to me. every case is a rule unto itself. people aught to be free to adapt and react to their situation without feeling hindered by such fictions.
the wrongs of Manning's detention, (solitary confinement is torture,) by far outweigh the violation of security clearance, or whatever occurred.
as always, thanks for linking, BDR!
Why do people on here (Ethan) think that Manning hasn't been charged with a crime? He hasn't been CONVICTED of a crime because he hasn't gone to trial yet.
ReplyDeleteHe's 99% certain to be convicted though. It's not like he's been denying what he did.
Anonymous, I didn't say that he hadn't been charged with a crime--I said that he had been held for a long time before being charged, implied that he had been charged with a number of outlandish things, and then progressed into my prediction of the future. I can maybe see that it might have been a bit unclear. Thanks for making me plural, by the way.
ReplyDeleteE7, prolonged solitary confinement and humiliation are torture techniques.
Ethan,
ReplyDelete1. Manning is not in solitary confinement. He's in a cell by himself. He has visitors. Learn the difference.
2. Jail IS humiliating. Spread you check and cough??? Oh well.
3. Manning's own comments about suicide (and the subsequent posting of it by his lawyer Coombs on his Blog) are what lead to Manning clothes being taken away.
4. "who shall be held indefinitely and tortured before being charged with any crime" (quote from Ethan) He was arrested 26 May 2010 and charged on the 5th of July. I guess that's "indefinite."