Mothers for Perpetual Safety Strike Again

The News: It did not take long after the latest “senseless high school killing” for the harpies on the False Issue Left to raise their quills and voices to demand more effective gun control. Leading the charge for Perpetual Safety were: John Rosenthal of the Christian Science Monitor (”Had Enough Gun Violence? 20 Feb 2006) and New York Times (“Packing Heat in the Parks” Editorial 20 Feb 2006)

The Note: The United States doesn’t need more gun control but less. In case anyone hasn’t figured it out yet, the Second Amendment was designed to insure political empowerment (the one and only true kind). Simply put, it enshrines the right to revolt. This was understood quite clearly at the time. In fact, it almost went without saying.

The Bill of Rights of 1688, had guaranteed the right of all Protestants to “have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.” The right was enumerated in order to guard against catholic subversion which, from the protestant perspective, was a true and real threat.

Before that suffice to say the barons at Runnymede (1215) sure as hell were not leaning on their quills when they forced King John to cease and desist from undermining the independence of the English Church and courts,

Understanding the purposes of the Second Amendment leads to the ineluctable conclusion that rather than limiting the types and circumstances under which arms can be borne, the Amendment needs to be expanded so as to cover as broad a range of armaments as is reasonable for the purpose intended.

The plain fact of the matters is that hunting rifles and .45’s really won’t do much against the array of armaments in possession of the Government. Waco was a demonstration of the kind of armaments which are adequate to intimidate and oppress ordinary citizens. Since then, the Government has elaborated even more sophisticated “crowd control” armaments including: Mass-tasers, Sonic Beams and Slippery Jelly.

The tasers are laser beams that create excruciating “burning sensations” in the “subject” . Like waterboarding which only “simulates” drowning, these beams only “simulate” burning. Only a few old folks who were going to die anyway would croak.

The sonic beams are the auditory equivalent. They fill the air with such stunning hyper sound that you literally cannot think, but simply fall to ground in paralyzed stupefaction.

Lastly, in case you could possibly get up...there is Slippery Jelly which makes it impossible to do so. So... in mind-numbed stupor and excruciating burning agony, you will meekly allow yourself to be cuffed and carted off by some State Thug encased in Kevlar.

Hollywood fantasy? Nope. Your Total Safety Society brought to you by the Mothers of Perpetual Safety -- senawhores, congressoids and their pimps in the press whose vision of US-America is a “secure” camp -- from sea to shining sea.

The Second Amendment at the very least, protects the right of every citizen to possess and bear his own Slippery Jelly dispenser.

There will doubtless be those who will make the usual argumentum ad horibilis. ... trucking out a parade of horribles, all of which, when stripped of code words, boil down to: Eeeek! You mean let the Darkies have MORE weapons?

In fact, your average, road-raging suburban Blimp-in-a-Ram-Charger is probably more of a real and present danger to most people than your ghetto rapping crack dealer, who after all is really just in the “business-decisions” business.

But either way, the other cardinal fact to remember, just in case anyone forgot, is that the Bill of Rights and Our Form of Government presuppose a certain level of social sophistication and circumstance. Madison said as much in Federalist Ten. The bottom line is simple: the Constitution is a magnificent legal edifice but it is not free standing. In the last analysis, law stands or falls depending on the social subsoil. Simply put, the Constitution is meaningless among apes.

The right the bear arms presupposed a certain level of burgertum: a, broadly speaking, literate, more or less “liberally educated”, society of middle class farmers and homeowners and merchants none of whom were too different or distant from one another culturally or economically. You didn’t fear your neighbor owning a weapon because he was not likely to use it against you any more than he would come at you with his scythe, or axe, or any other number of ordinary deadly household utensils in use at the time.

If we trash the Second Amendment because we fear our neighbors and fear our own fellow-citizens having weapons, then we have simply confessed the utter failure of US-American society. And, if US society is dysfunctional, then the Constitution is irrelevant anyways.

©WCG, 2008
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Why Hispanics Should Despise Clinton

The News: The wisdom floating on the pond of public discourse is that "Clinton has the Hispanic Vote." As surface sheen goes, the wisdom is true enough. The more important question is: why? Why would any self respecting, non-Cuban Hispanic slurp up to Clinton?

The Note: I recently copied an old news-clip video of Clinton to DVD. The clip was shot shortly after NAFTA had been approved and while Poison Pete Wilson was whipping his jingoid base into an anti-immigrant fervor. Currying favor with the rabble that passes for the California electorate, Clinton came to town -- San Diego to be precise -- stood on the border, wagged his finger and said in all piety that we had to do something "to stop these illegals from coming here and taking jobs away from Americans."

Gag.

More than anyone else, Clinton can take the shameful credit for dismantling the U.S. industrial infrastructure and shipping jobs out to Mexico, San Salvador, Thailand and China. For this pious panderer to blame hungry Mexican campesinos for stealing our jobs, is an hypocritical outrage .... surely sufficient to earn him an English knighthood but not one iota of approval from any self-respecting Ibero-American.

Doubtless, those who acquire their consciousness from the US mudia will scratch their heads, call me nuts and think that Clinton's Big Handout of Good Paying Jops to Mexicans explains why they love the Clintons. It's all a question of lick yer chops jops. Actually not.

Yankee Americans stuck into their self-righteousness that most of them haven't a glimmer of a notion as to what the neo-liberal agenda has done to Mexico and other Hispanic American countries. The general opinion in the US is that them illegals are overcome with near-religious adoration of our way of life and that's why they are coming here to steal our goodpayingjops. What these folks are oblivious to is that NAFTA has actually destroyed towns, families and sustainable jobs in Mexico.

Huh?

Well... it might not be found in "All the News that's Fit to Print" but the "other part" of NAFTA is that the US gets to dump agri-industrial maize on the Mexican market, prohibiting Mexico from providing agricultural supports for its peasantry while allowing the same (under another name of course) for Big Food. The result? US Big Food has destroyed the economy of countless villages. When the economy of villages is destroyed so too are "family values." Demoralized men, turn to drink or wander the continent away from their families looking for same piece-of-scrabble-job to survive. The Mexican countryside is fast acquiring the spectre of the deserted panorama of the 16th century.

No doubt, Mr. Cheez-O, will munch his petroleum based snax, and "think" to himself that, the destruction of the Mexican peasantry is no doubt the result of good-honest-market-forces in that Big Food can provide Lots of Corn on the Mega Cheap and therefore "the average Mexican" comes out ahead. Yuk Yuk. What else more could they want aside from cheap tortillas? Crunch munch. Again, actually not.

Big Food does not provide Lots of Corn on the cheap... quite the contrary. NAFTized market forces being they are, the price of tortillas has soared.

Nor did NAFTA provide such "goodpayingjops" to Mexicans as would make up the difference. The plague-like effect of NAFTA is not limited to the countryside. It has wrought devastation on the entire economia politica of Mexico. It has done so, because trashing labor laws, skirting environmental protections, forcing reductions in government subsidies to people while mandating them for business is the entire rotten core of so-called "free-trade." (See e.g., the linked articles by David Bacon, at end). The entire maquiladora regime was nothing but a government paid bonus to Big Business allowing them they can set up shop on the other side of the border, getting all sorts of tax breaks while paying hapless workers some pathetic sub-survival pittance.

The only beneficiary of this satanic scheme, is Big Plunder ... and if Monica was sucking off Bill, we know whose dick Bill had in his mouth.

The neo-liberal regime has been a disaster for the ordinary people of Ibero-America. It was that disaster which was the subject of protest and condemnation from presidents Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Hugo Chavez, at the Ibero American Summit late last summer. Of course, what the US mudia reported on was the King's Short Fuse... The dismal reality of so-called "free market" plunder was buried under a ton of titillation.

The New York Times intones loftily that Hugo Chavez's reforms lack transparency. But when it comes to reporting transparently on the effects of NAFTA on Mexico, the Times suddenly acquires a penchant for black cloth shrouds, and now reports (matter of factly and as if it were obvious why) that Hispanics Luv Hillary.

Putting aside the Elian-obsessed, there is absolutely no reason why any Hispanic should react to the Clintons with anything other than nausea. They are subservients to am economic regime which has brought misery on a macro-scale to ordinary people on both sides of the border.

But the Clintons are not alone, proving that in politics, at least, every whore has her own minions -- like the Hispanic DNC party leadership in California... the Art Torreses, Fabian Nuñezes, Villraigosas, and host of other crypto-Republican Taco Bell Chicanos that support insurance company withheld health "care" . . . and Hillary.

On the issues, Obama is not that much better than Clinton. His main advantage is that he might be do whereas we know how little a Clinton will do for ordinary people. But whatever Obama's defects might be, they are not sufficient to warrant affirmative support for the Clintons who have done nothing for Hispanics north or south of the border.

©WCG, 2008

Links to article by David Bacon
www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080806P.shtml
www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/5.09/990429-miners.html
www.thenation.com/doc/20080211/bacon
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Dignity

The News: Der Spiegel reported that "some commentators" were questioning whether Bill Clinton's hawking for Hillary was beneath the appropriate dignity for an ex-president.

The Pause: Dignity? DIGNITY? D*I*G*N*I*T*Y ????? Bill Clinton !?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Gasp!!!

Wheeeew!!!

Oh gawd that was a bellyfull....

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Rambo Endorses Wacko

The News: Yakking it up on Fox Sylvester Stallone spouted: “I like McCain a lot. A lot. And you know, things may change along the way, but there’s something about matching the character with the script. And right now, the script that’s being written and reality is pretty brutal and pretty hard-edged like a rough action film, and you need somebody who’s been in that to deal with it.” John McCain chimed in: “I’m going to Philadelphia and running up the steps.”

The Note: Well that pretty much sums up the Amurkan mindset. A bankrupting trillion dollar debt for a trumped up and useless war is a brutal-script and we need a brute who’s been there to tough it out with some hard-on action tracking down a diabetic rag head for the next 100 years as the economy and civil liberties and the environment go down the toilet. Awwww fuck man.... only wussies worry about shit like that.

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP UGGAH UGGAH THUMP MURKA MURKA MURKA THUMP THUMP UGGAH MURKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUH

©WCG, 2008

Holospeak

The Blurb: Written by Helen Berr, the daughter of a wealthy French Jew. According to Der Spiegel “It has been described as a publishing sensation. Helene Berr was a young French student murdered in a Nazi concentration camp....” [¶] ...” Helene died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 just a few days before the camp was liberated.”

The Huh? Since when the fuck dying of disease = being murdered?  Well Der Spiegel could care less, lurid tales from the Nazi past is all they care about. The rag is little more than an historical crime blotter.

©WCG, 2008

Hillary Clinton's False Promise

The Speech: "Making change is not about what you believe,” Hillary Clinton said. “It’s not about a speech you make. It is about working hard.” And in a direct attack on Mr. Obama’s theme of inspiring hope in Americans — and perhaps on Mr. Edwards’s many promises of reforming government — she said, “We don’t need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered.”

The Translation: Hillary will work for that kind of change that does not involve delivering more than the system currently delivers.

Lesseee.... take health care. At present it is a private-for-profit business, the lion share of costs (in your premiums and cost of treatment) goes to pay insurance companies. There is NO dispute as to that core fact by anyone. So...... Edwards and Obama propose a modest change by (1) requiring everyone to buy private insurance, and by providing some measure of government help for those who can’t afford it; i.e. extend a bad system to everyone in the hope it will somehow work better that way. There is virtually no regulation of the medical/insurance industry. No cap on premiums, no requirements as to what has to be covered, and so on. It is a very very very very modest proposal that some might rightly call bullshit. But for Hillary this minimalist “reform” is a false promise of what can be delivered. What can be delivered then? Nothing.

One can only wonder what is too much to expect concerning planet-survival (the "environment") Iraq and homeland liberty ("Patriot Act")


©WCG, 2008

The Trouble is ...

The News: Ever the runner for Capital, in an article on oil wealth, the New York Times reports that :

“In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez is pouring oil proceeds into a socialist revolution, creating free health care, free education and cheap food; enabling heavy public spending that has helped fuel four years of economic growth.

“The trouble, said Theresa Paiz, a Latin American director for the Fitch ratings agency, is that “it’s not really clear how the money is invested.” Mr. Chávez’s government is steering large chunks of money to development funds and state owned companies not subject to audits.”

The trouble is that The Fitch is just another pimp for Big Plunder. Ever hear The Fitch whining about the transparency of the Seven Sisters? How about sub prime lend n’ sell? Well ... let’s hear what The Fitch has to say about that:

" As earlier discussed, Fitch is in the process of reviewing its rating methodology and model assumptions for all new issue CDO ratings.

"For CDOs collateralized by structured finance securities, the review includes a reassessment of subprime vintage performance and associated loss severity and correlation. Also, and more broadly, Fitch is reviewing its core VECTOR modeling assumptions and methodology that could impact ratings of all CDOs, including corporate bond or corporate loan collateral.

In other words, our transparency champion really could give two hoots about clarity when it comes to Big Plunder... at least not until it turns out that what everyone thought was the deep cookie jar turned into a deep end meat grinder and the financial equivalent of blood and bits was splattered all over the damn place.

Of course, The Fitch wasn’t particularly troubled when Chiquita Banana Co. invested monies into hiring gangs of “guards” to murder Indian laborers and farmers. Nor was The Fitch hand wringing for transparency when Presidente Salinas steered large chunks of state owned Teléfonos de México to a pal for a pennies on the peso... making Carlos Slim the richest man in the world.

As recounted by the Arizona Republic (2007/11/7) Slim, “searches for businesses that are undervalued, infuses them with cash and uses the size of his holdings to overwhelm the competition.” (Got that? “undervalued”) "[I]n 1990, Slim made one of his most controversial purchases.

“The Mexican government was auctioning off several state-owned enterprises, including Teléfonos de México, the state-run telephone company, also known as Telmex. Slim and his partners, ... paid $1.76 billion for a 20 percent controlling stake. ...Since then, the market value of Telmex stock has rocketed from $7.39 billion to $41.2 billion. ..."

[Remember ... “undervalued”]

"Members of the opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party alleged that Slim underpaid for Telmex and demanded that then-President Carlos Salinas de Gortari be impeached for negligently selling Telmex at less than market value. A congressional committee, controlled by Salinas' party, later found no evidence of wrongdoing, ... "

No kidding! But where was The Fitch? In fact where was the Times? Transparency was apparently no big deal when the people -- the real people -- of a country were being murdered or ripped off on a colossal scale.

Instead the Times manages to find some “trouble with” a president who is using oil proceeds for “free health care, free education and cheap food” No, No, NO! Much better to have the money go into some oligarch’s off shore sink hole to be spent on keeping his polo ponies and pedicured bitches in style.

I read the Times in the afternoon. I couldn't bear to puke with my morning coffee.

©WCG, 2007

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