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When I began this blog, I swore to keep it up until a certain thing happened. It happened. I have to stop now.

Many thanks to the supportive readers, especially to the ones who contributed.

I will leave the blog up for at least a week, just in case people want to download older posts. After that, I will hit the "Delete blog" button.

No comments will be posted. None will be read. No questions will be answered. Permalink

After all, the right is trying blame the Wall Street debacle on hippies. So anything is possible.

Apparently, the flower children invaded Goldman, AIG and Merril Lynch, and then forced those companies to issue wacky CDOs. Then they spray-painted "Acid is groovy! Kill the pigs!" on the walls.

The film Generation Zero, which pushes the inane Hippies-on-Wall-Street meme, is now being advertised on Cannonfire, via the Google ad system. I can't choose the ads, alas. But you ought to check out the film's website. Yes, Fox is promoting this thing, big time. As the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers once said: "Outtasight comedy!" Permalink

The post below about Bunning's belligerence confirms everyone's suspicion that the overall GOP plan is to wreck the American economy under Obama's watch. The idea is create a Democratic version of Herbert Hoover, who will then usher in a couple of decades of unassailable Republican dominance. (Oddly enough, Obama himself seems to be down with this.)

But in order to make that trick work, the Republicans are going to have to repair the economy -- at least to some degree -- once they get back into office. The only ideologically permissible jobs program will involve military Keynesianism, funded by yet more massive debt. That's how Reagan did it.

Of course, the right will need to prepare the way for that course of action with a propaganda barrage designed to portray America as militarily weak. A similar barrage flooded the media starting in 1977-1978.

If my suspicions are correct, then you should expect the new barrage to hit at some point during 2010 and 2011. The propaganda blitz will start with a flurry of alarming reports from the Army War College and similar institutions. These reports will pretend that the American infantry is still using muskets, the Air Force is still flying King Kong-style bi-planes, and the Navy is still sailing three-masted frigates. "And that's why we need to double our investment in weapons development now now now."

Or so we will be told. Watch it happen.
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Republican Jim Bunning of Kentucky is getting the credit for single-handedly blocking the unemployment benefits of 1.2 million jobless people. This recession is going to feel like a Depression once those benefits run out.

And that's not all that Bunning has been up to: He is also shutting down much of the transportation department, blocking states from receiving highway and transit funds.

I understand the strategy here. Any misery inflicted by Bunning will be blamed on Obama and the Democrats. All of this is reminiscent of the Clinton era, when the Republicans won majorities in Congress and then overplayed their hand by shutting down the government. The public blamed the Republicans, and Clinton benefited politically. But now, the Democrats are the majority party, and they -- fairly or otherwise -- will take the blame.

Or...maybe Sean Hannity will tell those 1.2 million people to blame hippies.
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We're all stunned by the reports and images coming out of Chile. An 8.8 earthquake is unimaginable to me. There is talk of a tsunami; California residents have been urged to avoid the shore.

Although we're all stretched pretty thin, soon we will have to contribute to charities which can help the victims. We have no choice but to be as generous as possible.

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I'm not convinced that many readers share my interest in Gerry Posner, so I won't post as much information about him as I would prefer. But don't be surprised if, very soon, you see an article (not written by me) detailing plagiarisms and quote alterations in his most recent book, Miami Babylon. I hope the piece will be published in a "real" periodical, because Wikipedia won't cite Cannonfire, even if the facts are inarguable.

So what is Gerry up to these days? Rumor has it that he has retreated into a deep seclusion, following advice given to him by his spiritual teacher, Yaqui shaman don Juan Matus. But don't worry -- he'll still keep busy on various projects. I hear he'll be editing the recently discovered autobiography of Howard Hughes and authenticating the diary of Jack the Ripper. He also plans to tell the story of his own harrowing boyhood experiences as a Holocaust survivor who walked 1900 miles in search of his parents and lived, for a time, with a pack of wolves. Word has it that a new film about Gerry's plagiarisms will blame the problem on hippies.

I'll confess it: Wikipedia's refusal to cite this blog sticks in my craw. The policy is new -- Wikipedia entries have referenced Cannonfire posts previously. And Wikipedia won't scrub citations of works by Gerry Posner, even though he is what he is.

Something strange seems to have happened behind the scenes at Wikipedia: See the tale of "Slim Virgin" here. Turns out that Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales is an Ayn Randroid. Yet another libertarian! They're freaking everywhere!
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We're still haunted by the ghosts of 1968.

Not many days ago, the right began to push the insane meme that the Wall Street crisis resulted not from deregulation and deception but from the "hippie ethos." Now we have this L.A. Times piece which claims to show us the true face of the Tea Party movement, based on the results of a recent CNN poll:

Neither "average Americans," as they like to portray themselves, nor trailer-park "Deliverance" throwbacks, as their lefty detractors would have us believe, tea partyers are more highly educated and wealthier than the rest of America. Nearly 75% are college educated, and two-thirds earn more than $50,000.

More likely to be white and male than the general population, tea partyers also skew toward middle age or older. That's the tell. Most came of age in the 1960s, an era distinguished by widespread disrespect for government. In their wonder years, they learned that politics was about protesting the Establishment and shouting down the Man. No wonder they're doing that now.

Hold on thar. We need at least two more tells: Region and religion. The great nationwide tea party is lot more caffeinated in Mobile, Alabama than in San Francisco, the acknowledged capitol of Hippieland.

Still, there is some truth to the observation that the anti-war rhetoric of 1969 segued neatly into the Milton Friedmanite revolution of 1979 and beyond. The Vietnam-era student protesters shouted "Don't trust the government!" And then came Reagan, who shouted back: "Yeah, don't trust the government! Trust the corporations instead!" The right-wing revolutionaries needed only to convince the populace that Big Biz and The People were one.

That's when they discovered that endless propaganda can work wonders.

Alas, as the years progressed, many American businessmen discovered that their companies could not survive without a middle class customer base, a base which the previous Keynesian consensus had created and protected. Not that you could ever get those businessmen to admit that thirty years of Friedmanism destroyed the middle class. Businessfolk have been propagandized too. Libertarian ideology is hardwired into their brains.

Despite the concessions I've made above, I have serious problems with the L.A. Times' "blame the hippies" analysis:

The partyers are essentially replaying the '60s protest paradigm. (We're aging boomers ourselves, so we know it when we see it.) They fancy themselves the vanguard of a revolution, when in fact they are typical self-absorbed, privileged children used to having their way -- now -- and uninhibited about complaining loudly when they don't. It's the same demographic Spiro Agnew called "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."

In a flashback of "turn on, tune in, drop out," the partyers reject mainstream culture, don the equivalent of Che T-shirts that say "Don't Tread on Me," and join sects with trippy names like Oath Keepers, Patriotic Resistance and Freedom Force. Instead of getting themselves "back to the garden," they get off the grid and, like the Bill Ayers crew, indulge in fantasies about armed rebellion against the establishment.

I would not be so quick to dismiss the "fantasy" of armed rebellion. That's my quarrel with Ian Welsh's recent prognostications: He dismisses the possibility that the current dark talk of guns and seccession might soon result in the actual discharge of firearms on a mass scale.

I think we came close to that hideous flash point during the Clinton years. Even though times were good, relentless propaganda caused rampant anti-government paranoia, which gave way to sporadic violence. Now, times are bad, and they may get worse. I fear that we may soon see another Oklahoma City. Worse, I fear that many Americans will sympathize with the home-grown terrorists.

Propaganda. My biggest problem with conventional analysis of the Tea Party movement is the refusal to acknowledge the role of propaganda. That's also my problem with conventional analyses of the Reagan revolution and the Clinton-era militia movement. All pundits insist on operating under the delusion that these things arise spontaneously.

They don't.

We don't like to admit that propaganda plays a decisive role in American politics. We don't like to admit that most of our fellow human beings are ambulatory MP3 players who emit whatever sound files have been programmed into them.

If we allow ourselves to confess the fact -- to me, the obvious fact -- that propaganda is both ubiquitous and effective, then we must also confess the existence of propagandists. Hidden manipulators, if you will. But if we acknowledge the existence of such manipulators, we enter a realm parlously close to conspiracy theory. Hence, the very thought is impermissible.

Mainstreamers have a phobic reaction toward anything that reeks of conspiracy theory. Outside of the mainstream, the paranoia junkies refuse to admit that they are the most easily manipulated group in the country.

The birthers and teabaggers and the trannies all like to think that they can think. In fact, all of those people are really just ambulatory MP3 players. True, they've been programmed with what they consider an "alternative" playlist. But it's not a real alternative, since the songs still convey a Friedmanite message. The tea partying paranoids are puppets who operate under the delusion that they have cut the strings. They think that they are are free, but their subculture has been firmly under control from the start.

I'm not impressed by CNN's alleged poll results indicating that the baggers went to college. I visit college campuses often, and I see quite a few "ambulatory MP3 players" marching off to class. Indeed, collegiate ambulatory MP3 players put Barack Obama into office.

Beans: Propaganda can convince the masses of pretty much any proposition, however foolish. It's just a matter of determining how large a budget you will need -- $10 million, $10 billion, some figure in between.

I'm very serious when I say this: If you have enough money, you can convince a large sector of the population that pinto beans cure lung cancer.

Consider: With enough money, you can buy scientists who will get fake pinto bean studies into respected, peer-reviewed journals. (That sort of thing is more easily done than you may believe.) You can trumpet those studies in the popular media using purchased assets. You can have a brigade of radio propagandists blare the message daily.

"Pinto beans cure lung cancer! Go ahead and smoke all you want, because now we have a cure for cancer -- beans!"

Of course, propaganda works best when it contains a kernel of truth, however small. In this case, one could argue that pinto beans are fat-free, and that people with low fat intake are much less likely to develop gastric reflux problems, which can cause cancer of the esophagus and lungs. Ergo, pinto beans cure lung cancer.

That's an inane argument, of course: There's a difference between prevention and a cure, and there are innumerable other ways of reducing fat intake. But most people are too stupid to notice nice distinctions. A tiny kernel of truth is all you need to make your $10 billion pinto bean campaign into a raging success -- if you have $10 billion to spend on such a foolish project.

In all of the political propaganda blitzes that have afflicted this nation since 1979, there have been kernels of truth, sometimes very large kernels. For example, the Savings and Loan system really did need regulatory reform when Reagan came into office. That was the kernel of truth which allowed Reagan to do away with regulation altogether, thereby inviting sharks into the swimming pool.

Are there kernels of truth in the slogans shouted by the Tea Partiers? Of course.

That's what makes the baggers so easy to manipulate. That's what makes their movement so dangerous. Permalink

It has been an interesting news day for Vampire Squid hunters.

First, we have this insider account of how AIG works. Two former female vice presidents who worked for the derivatives unit have come forward to say that the company is rife with age and gender bias.

In a lawsuit filed Monday in the New Haven, Connecticut federal court, Susan Potter and Deonna Taylor alleged that AIG misled them about the existence of a salary cap, and paid male employees and younger employees more for comparable work.

The women also said the defendants "fostered a 'boys club' atmosphere," and that 96 of AIG's 108 vice presidents worldwide were men. They further alleged that Joseph Cassano, who once led AIG Financial Products, preferred to attract younger workers to give AIG "curb appeal," and once remarked that he did not want any employees who looked like his aunt.

This is the way the world ends: Drowning in a vat of debt and testosterone.

Meanwhile, the right is now publicizing a multi-media propaganda blitz devoted to the hilarious thesis that the economic meltdown resulted not from a lack of regulation but -- get this -- the "hippie ethos."

In other words, Bossie and Co. have concocted the perfect fantasy for right-wingers in denial over the complete, fully manifested failure of their approach to governance -- one that lets them, once again, blame those dirty hippies for everything wrong with America. No wonder it was so popular at the National Tea Party Convention and at CPAC.

The AIG story above reveals that the atmosphere within these financial institutions had far more to do with Reagan-era boy's clubbiness than with the flower children of 1967. The culprits resemble Gordon Gecko a hell of a lot more than they resemble Abbie Hoffman or R. Crumb.

The right wing propagandists have become so arrogant that they now feel they can sell the public on any proposition, however contradictory to common sense. What's next? Is Sean Hannity going to blame the Haiti earthquake on Robert F. Kennedy?

Meanwhile, former Goldman Sachs chairperson Jon Corzine says that the only reason why people dislike Goldman is "envy." That's a very Nietzschean attitude, eh wot? Sounds like something Hitler might have said in 1941 to explain why so many people disliked Germany.

(Screw Godwin's law. New rule: Godwin's law is dead.)

"Envy" isn't the word I'd use to describe how people should feel toward a company that buys politicians, changes laws and places the entire world economy at risk by selling unfathomable new financial instruments, mis-rated as AAA and based entirely on crap. These are the guys who robbed your retirement accounts, forcing you to work into your 70s. Are you merely jealous of those bastards, or do you feel that you have a legitimate beef?

Nevertheless, I expect the Tea Partiers to pick up on this "envy" meme. Soon. And the moment they do, you'll know who is paying for whom.

I think it is very telling -- very very telling -- that the people now screaming loudest in favor of high Wall Street compensation are the teabaggers. (If you object to my use of the term, don't bother sending me the usual complaints. I will no longer print or read them.) The Tea Party movement now wears a "Property of Wall Street" label. In fact, I would say that the baggers no longer wear that label hidden on the inside collar. The message is in huge white letters on the front and back of the jacket.

That last assertion may seem counterintuitive to those anti-Obama writers who have argued (as I have argued) that Obama himself was and is shamefully compromised -- and funded -- by Goldman and its cohorts. But look at the facts on the ground:

1. The Tea Partiers want no pay caps for the Wall Street executives whose firms survived based on governmental bailouts.

2. The Tea Party movement originated in a successful effort to stave off a HOLC-style bailout for people with bad mortgages. (More about this soon.)

3. The Tea Partiers use pseudo-populist rhetoric to justify growing income inequality and low taxes on the ultra-affluent.

3. And now, the Tea Partiers lead the battle against any financial regulations which pose the danger of returning the world to fiscal sanity.

It's a battle that they will probably win.

That's why I have posted the excellent video clip above, featuring Elizabeth Warren. Watching this video will require an investment of seven-and-a-half minutes of your life -- and right now, that's the wisest investment you could make.

Pay special attention to her comments at the end. The bit about the war chest. If you don't think that at least some of that money is going to the baggers, grow up.

Why would the big bankers toss money at both Barack Obama and his Tea Party opponents? Let's compare Team Obama to a Manila folder. That's an apt comparison: On the rare occasions when this administration tries to do something decent or liberal, the O-folk soon fold under pressure. And not much pressure is needed, because the damned thing was designed to fold.

By investing so heavily in the Democrats, Wall Street put the crease in the folder. That crease is what makes the turnover so effortless.

By investing in the Republican tea partiers, Wall Street provides the hand which will do the actual folding. Permalink

In this post, myiq2xu links to yet another article indicating that Wall Street has shifted from backing Obama to backing Republicans. This, no doubt, is a tactic designed to weaken proposed new regulations: "If you try to pass new laws reigning us in, we'll turn off the money spigot."

Myiq adds this parenthetical comment:

I’m guessing the next media darling won’t be a Democrat either

That barb got me thinking. Who will play that role? Who will be trumpeted as the man on the white horse? Who will be the focus of innumerable planted press stories designed to transform a mere pol into the stuff of myth?

Republicans dig Messiahs. That's why some of us were so pissed off by the cult of personality that grew up around Obama in 2008: Such cults are usually a Republican thing.

Reagan became the officially designated White Horse Guy (WHG) circa 1979. Throughout 1993 and 1994, it was clear that there was a behind-the-scenes decision to make Newt Gingrich the WHG. Fortunately for democracy, his negatives -- especially all of those stories about how he treated women -- knocked him out of the saddle.

GHWB, Bob Dole and John McCain were mere political candidates. They were not White Horse Guys, although one of them became a White House resident.

Dubya, I would say, functioned as a WHG for a long time, especially within the Jesusland alternative media. But he assumed that role only after the election; in 2000, he was just a candidate. His is an interesting case study, since he achieved mythic status (for a certain proportion of the population) only after 9/11. The "Mission Accomplished" photo op was a classic example of how Republican propaganda can transform a mere politician into a WHG.

There were a few desultory stabs at turning AH-nuld into a WHG, but that was never going to go anywhere. Right now, Huckabee has WHG potential for the wacko rightists. Romney? No way.

Who else? Permalink

Thirty years ago, Friedmanism replaced Keynesianism. Thirty years ago, we were the most prosperous nation on earth. And now...well, this story speaks for itself.

Here's a list of the top 10 industries expected to lose the most jobs by 2018 -- and what to do if you're working in one of them:

1. Department stores: Projected to lose 10.2 percent of the 1.56 million jobs they had in 2008.
2. Semiconductor manufacturing: Projected to lose 33.7 percent of the 432,000 jobs it had in 2008.

3. Motor vehicle parts manufacturing: Projected to lose 18.6 percent of its 544,000 jobs.

4. Postal service: Projected to lose 13 percent of the 748,000 jobs it had in 2008.

5. Printing and related jobs: Projected to lose 16 percent of its 594,000 jobs.

6. Cut-and-sew apparel manufacturing: Projected to lose 57 percent of its 155,000 jobs.

7. Newspaper publishers: Projected to lose 24.8 percent of its 326,000 jobs.

8. Mining support jobs: Projected to lose 23.2 percent of its 328,000 jobs.

9. Gas stations: Projected to lose 8.9 percent of its 843,000 jobs.

10. Wired telecom: Projected to lose 11 percent of its 666,000 jobs.

Because so many different types of manufacturing jobs are disappearing, it will not be easy to simply get another manufacturing job. You may need to develop some completely new skills.

To do what?

I'm beginning to think that it's no wonder the Republicans have made the Socialist bogeyman into a hot issue. Although Barack Obama is no socialist, events will soon convince many that laissez-faire capitalism has failed. If things do not improve, the spirit of rebellion will awaken. If our incessantly propagandized populace continues to view socialism as the Great Unthinkable, then what form will the coming rebellion take?

As long as we're talking big picture stuff: At the CPAC conference, conservative superstars had no qualms about lumping liberals and progressives in with Stalinists. Believe it or not, the right considers the ghost of Uncle Joe to be a very real danger. Yet if a liberal brings up the threat of resurgent fascism -- a far likelier threat -- said liberal will be disparaged as a sensationalist, a hyperbolic silly-billy, and a shameless violator of Godwin's law.

And that's why the Overton Window is so far to the right. Permalink

The always-interesting Joseph Trento offered up a must-read piece earlier this month. The subject is Fox News, and its noteworthy major investor: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the nephew to the Saudi king.

Forbes lists the Prince as the 22nd richest person in the world. He also owns large chunks of AOL, Apple and MCI -- not to mention a famous yacht which once belonged to Adnan Khashoggi. (You may have seen this vessel in the film Never Say Never Again.) None of these investments are as unnerving as Prince Alwaleed's major stake in Fox. Murdoch's News Corp. also owns a large chunk of the Prince's Saudi media conglomerate, Rotana.

As you will recall, this same Prince had, back in 2001, offered $10 million to 9/11 relief efforts, only to be spurned -- loudly and obstreperously -- by Rudolf Guiliani, who thereby garnered some welcome publicity. (The Prince, even as he offered the donation, had said harsh words about Israel.)

It's interesting to note how times have changed. I don't think that any of today's leading Republicans would try to score political points by getting into a public tiff with a member of the Saudi royal family.

That said, there are those within the conservative movement who view the Fox-Saudi alliance with alarm. One person sounding the alarm is Joseph Farah, of the ultra-right WorldNet Daily. He is, of course, a Fox competitor. (He is also a long-term resident of Planet Loopy.) Keep his possible bias in mind as you ponder his words about the Prince:

Well this guy owns a very significant percentage of the News Corp and has let the world know that he can get things taken off Fox News when he finds them objectionable and has in the past. And I really believe this is really dangerous for America.

Fox will tell you, of course, that Prince Alwaleed does not determine news content. Joseph Trento has a differing opinion.

Trento had appeared on Fox, where he was interviewed by Steve Doocy. Trento was surprised to learn that clips of his commentary did not appear on the Fox website, as had previously been the case.

It was not until a few days later that I learned what may have been behind the absence of a video clip on the Web site. I had said to Doocy that Saudi Arabian money was still financing Al Qaeda.

Much of Trento's article takes a pro-Israel stance which I don't share. That doesn't concern me at the moment. Right now, I'm looking for the answers to three very basic questions:

1. All of the well-known Fox on-air personalities are, of course, staunchly supportive of Israel. Yet the network is largely owned by a Saudi prince. Can anyone explain this situation to me?

2. What would the right-wing propaganda infrastructure have said if someone like the Prince had heavily invested in Air America or MSNBC? Why are such financial linkages permitted on the right but not on the left?

3. Is it true that Saudi money still funds Al Qaeda, as Trento claims? (He has good sources.) If so, just what is Al Qaeda?

In light of question #3, I would like to divulge and discuss a claim given to me in private some weeks back: Osama Bin Laden is alive and well and living in Saudi Arabia.

My source made this startling assertion in the wake of the December 6, 2009 Cannonfire post, "Where is Osama Bin Laden?" That piece quotes then-CIA Director Porter Goss as saying (in 2005) that he had "an excellent idea" where Osama is. He further offered these barely-scrutable words:

But when you go to the very difficult question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states, you're dealing with a problem of our sense of international obligation, fair play.

Just about everyone, including myself, took this as a reference to Pakistan. But what if Goss meant Saudi Arabia?

More recently, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that he has no idea where Osama Bin Laden is, and that he has had no good intelligence on that matter for years.

So, how reliable is the Osama-in-Saudia Arabia assertion? Frankly, I'm not sure.

I trust my source, a person involved with the film community. My source, in turn, learned of Osama's whereabouts from a friend who, until rather recently, worked for a non-American -- but friendly -- intelligence service. Apparently, the former operative blurted out this revelation while in a heated conversation with (of all people) Michael Moore. The former operative said that he knew to an absolute certainty that Osama Bin Laden was living in Saudi Arabia.

I know no more.

Obviously, you should not accept such a statement without verification. However, do ponder the idea. Keep it in mind as you weigh future news stories which discuss Bin Laden's fate. Today's single-source claim may turn into tomorrow's multi-sourced fact.

And as you ponder, consider also that fundamental question, a question which we shall address in future posts: What is Al Qaeda?

(Postscript: Experience has taught me that this topic tends to send some readers straight into Annoying Personage mode. Please do not harrumph and guffaw as you tell me: "Osama is dead. Don't you know that, Cannon?" No, I do not know that, and neither do you. I also do not know that he is alive. Surmise and opinion are fine, but don't mistake them for agreed-upon facts.) Permalink

I usually save the non-political posts for the weekends. But right now, I would like to pass along a life-saving tip -- one with no political implications whatsoever.

Over the past week, I've had to deal with a major toothache, accompanied by a major lack of cash: There was enough moolah to yank the tooth, but not enough for anything fancy like a root canal. I really want to save this tooth, or at least keep it in my head until I have sufficient cash to deal with it properly.

Now, you can't walk into the doctor and ask "Will you just write me some scrip for a goddamned opiate-based pain reliever?" The doc will take that as an indication that you're looking for happy pills, even if he can see clear signs of inflammation. Nowadays, even if you are obviously in severe pain, most dentists will simply prescribe ibuprofin, which is available over the goddamn counter.

So I scoured the internet looking for every home remedy and OTC treatment available. They all ranged from ineffectual to sorta-kinda-semi-effectual. None of them did the trick: Not Ambusol, not cloves, not gargling with salt water, not vanilla (although that one did help more than most of the others), not apple cider vinegar (although that worked even better than vanilla did).

At last, I found the answer. Instant relief. Root canal in a bottle. A doorway out of Hell.

Peppermint extract.

It is strong. It smells foul. The fumes will annoy your housemates. But daub some extract on the affected tooth with a Q-tip, then place a few drops -- no more -- on your tongue and swirl the liquid around the throbbing side of your mouth. Soon, you'll be feeling no pain.

I'm not kidding. You never know when you'll have to suffer through a really bad night. That's why you need an emergency supply of peppermint extract in your house. Combine that stuff with about 1000 mg of Ibuprofin, some Aspirin and some Naproxen, and you just might regain your humanity.

Of course, if we had a Euro-style health system, we wouldn't need to worry so much about home remedies. I guess this is a political post after all. Permalink

Note to readers who enjoy offering comments: Nearly all of you have taken to heart the rule about not insulting the proprietor of this blog. However, many recent comments have been marred by readers insulting each other -- harshly and needlessly. In the past, I've tolerated these displays of opprobrium. I will continue to do so to a degree. That degree is smaller now than was previously the case. Some waspish comments have been deleted. If you can't keep it at least somewhat civil, don't be surprised if your words go unpublished.

I, on the other hand, will continue to be my usual asshole self. As Kenneth Mars says in The Producers: "You are za audience! I am za author! I OUTRANK you!" Permalink

Marshall Auerback has written what I consider the best single piece on the Greek disaster, which is really a carry-over from the American disaster (which is having disastrous consequences: See the chart at left). A few excerpts:

Maybe Greece should secede from the European Union and default on its euro debt? Or go hat-in-hand to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to beg for loans while promising to clean up its act? Or to the stronger Euro nations, hoping for charitable acts of forgiveness? Unfortunately, all of these options are going to mean a lot of pain and suffering for an economy that is already sinking rapidly.

Here’s a more appropriate action: declare war on Goldman Sachs and other global financial firms that created this mess. Send the troops, the planes, the tanks, and the ships. Attack every outpost of the saboteurs on European soil. Blockade the airports and ports. Make Wall Street traders and CEOs fear for their lives, or at least for their freedom to travel. Build some Guantanamo-like facility to hold these enemy financial combatants until they can be tried, convicted, and properly punished.

Ok, if a literal armed attack on Goldman is too far-fetched, then go after the firm using the full force of the regulatory and legal systems. Close the offices and go through the files with a fine-tooth comb. Issue subpoenas to all non-clerical staff for court appearances. Make the internal emails public. Post the names of all managers and traders on Interpol. Arrest anyone who tries to board a plane, train, or boat; confiscate their passports; revoke their visas and work permits; and put a hold on their bank accounts until culpability can be assessed. Make life at least as miserable for them as it now is for Europe’s tens of millions of unemployed workers.

Lest anyone believe that Goldman’s executives were somehow unaware of bad deals done by rogue traders, William Cohan (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/the-great-goldman-sachs-fire-sale -of-2008) reports that top management unloaded their Goldman stocks in March 2008 when Bear crashed, and again when Lehman collapsed in September 2008. Why? Quite simple: they knew the firm was full of toxic waste that it would not be able to continue to unload on suckers—and the only protection it had came from AIG, which it knew to be a bad counterparty.

From 2001 through November 2009 (note the date—a full year after Lehman) Goldman created financial instruments to hide European government debt, for example through currency trades or by pushing debt into the future. But not only did Goldman and other financial firms help and encourage Greece to take on more debt, they also brokered credit default swaps on Greece’s debt—making income on bets that Greece would default.

Of course, as far as Greece goes, the claim now is that these types of off balance sheet transactions in which Goldman and others engaged were not strictly “illegal” under EU law. But these are precisely the kinds of “shadow banking transactions” that almost brought down the global financial system 18 months ago. Literally a year after the Lehman bankruptcy – MONTHS after Goldman itself was saved from total ruin, it was again engaging in these kinds of deals.

And it wasn’t exactly a low-level functionary or “rogue trader” who was carrying out these transactions on behalf of Goldman. Gary Cohn is Lloyd “We’re doing God’s work” Blankfein’s number 2 man. So it’s hard to believe that St. Lloyd did not sanction the activities as well in advance of collecting his “modest” $9m bonus for last year’s work.

Greece, Euroland in general, and the rest of the world all need a holiday from the manipulation and destruction of our economies by Wall Street firms that profit from speculative bubbles, from burying firms, households, and governments under mountains and debt, and even from the crises that they create. Governments all over the globe should use all legal means at their disposal to ferret out the bad faith and even fraudulent deals that global financial behemoths are foisting on us.

Yes, I've quoted far too much. This is not a quote blog, most of the time. But this article strikes me as particularly important, and I encourage you to read the whole thing.

For me, the bottom line comes down to this: Obama won't clamp down on Goldman because Goldman has so thoroughly infiltrated this administration that it is hard to determine where one ends and the other begins. But why haven't any European politicians had the courage to name the enemy and to engage him on the field of battle? Permalink

Heh heh. Just messin' with ya.

(Thanks to That's Me on the Left.) Permalink

Today's topic: "How do we get the truth on the record?"

You may think that blogging makes this task easy. No matter what piece of information you seek, someone somewhere will have jotted it down on his or her blog.

Yeah, but: Blogs are not "the record." The record, it turns out, is a strange and mysterious thing. If you have enough money and power and persistence, you can get a fake story on the record -- and you can keep genuine information off.

To see a demonstration of how powerful interests can massage the record, check out Brad Friedman's excellent coverage (here and here) of the "ACORN sting" conducted by James O'Keefe (the guy later arrested for breaking into a Senator's office) and faux-prostitute Hannah Giles, under the supervision of rising conservative media superstar Andrew Breitbart.

Friedman has proven -- and Giles has confirmed -- that the story told to the media was wrong: O'Keefe did not enter ACORN offices dressed in an outrageous pimp costume. Giles has admitted that the pimp footage was strictly "B roll." (That's a Hollywood term meaning "subsidiary footage.")

It turns out that the video was edited and dubbed in a highly deceptive fashion. A later investigation revealed that, inside the offices, O'Keefe was dressed conservatively and told a story which differed significantly from the one which Breitbart reported.

The major media covered the case in a robustly anti-ACORN fashion, after Breitbart and Fox had pressured them into doing so. Brad Friedman's coverage should correct "the record." And yet, oddly enough, you won't see Brad Friedman cited in Wikipedia's entries on O'Keefe or Giles -- and Friedman will probably never be so cited, for reasons which I shall soon explain.

Breitbart has gone on national television numerous times to push his utterly misleading version of events. The New York Times published Breitbart's fake story, citing O'Keefe as a source -- even though O'Keefe is a young, reactionary ideologue with no journalistic credentials.

Our journal of record simply refuses to print the truth. Indeed, when pressed, the NYT announced that it "stands behind" its misleading coverage.

This piece by Eric Boehlert reveals how major media organs can be turned into myth-making instruments:

Friedman has been trying to get the newspaper of record to correct its inaccurate reporting on the pimp issue -- reporting that appeared as recently as last month, following O'Keefe's New Orleans arrest. When one of Friedman's readers contacted the newspaper urging the same request, the reader was informed, via email by a Times senior editor for standards, that because O'Keefe claimed he'd been dressed as a pimp inside ACORN offices, and because O'Keefe had appeared on Fox News and made that claim, the Times did not need to post a correction.

Wrote the Times standards editor: "We believe" O'Keefe. (Yikes!)

That's nuts. It's one thing to be suckered in by Breitbart and O'Keefe's pimp costume tale, it's another for the Times to now defend its erroneous reporting.

Boehlert goes on to demonstrate that CNN, NPR, the New York Post, the Dallas Morning News and many other important news outlets all reported the fake "dressed as a pimp" yarn, yet have not printed any retractions. That's what you call "working the press."

And so it is that, 20 years from now -- fifty years from now, a hundred years from now -- Brietbart's phoney-baloney version of the story will be the one that historians will use to create a portrait of our time. And in our own time, the Breitbart version is the one that has entered into popular consciousness.

The ACORN pseudo-sting reminds me of an (arguably) more important incident in which this humble blog participated: The outing of Case Closed author Gerry Posner as a serial plagiarist. Although Slate writer Jack Shafer published the pieces that deep-sixed Posner, the "heavy lifting" on that story was done by Cannonfire reader and contributor "G," whose first name I have given as Greg.

Alas, much of Greg's sleuthing is still largely unrecognized by that unnerving, amorphous entity we call "the record." Here is the length and breadth of the Posner plagiarism controversy, as per Wikipedia:

Posner was the chief investigative reporter at the Daily Beast. Following the revelation that a number of Posner's stories for the Beast contained portions plagiarized from articles in other publications, Posner resigned from the Beast... According to Posner, the plagiarism was inadvertent and the result of the "compressed deadlines" of the Beast and confusing his assembled research with his own writing in the "master files" he assembled on each story.

This explanation is one that even a child wouldn't buy. Shafer wrote a very amusing follow-up column on the excuses offered by plagiarists.

Read the Wikipedia entry on Posner. Most of it is sheer puff, obviously supplied by Gerry himself: ""After Case Closed, everyone thinks Oswald did it," wrote Newsweek." (This is true, if you define "everyone" so as not to include the vast majority of the American public.)

For a brief time, the Posner entry on Wikipedia offered a lengthier account of the man's journalistic sins. A link went to this Cannonfire post, largely written by Greg, who documents not just Posner's penchant for plagiarism but also his habit of altering quotations.

Wikipedia deep-sixed all of that material and refuses to allow any citations of Cannonfire material. This, despite the fact that Greg wrote to a very high standard. This, despite the fact that no-one has ever mounted a counter-argument to anything he had to say.

Slate's Jack Shafer, considered citable by Wikipedia, worked to no small degree from Greg's material. Greg, speaking for himself, is considered unreliable -- but Greg as filtered through Shafer is considered reliable. Can you explain that situation to me?

Wikipedia's head honchos told Greg that it has a policy against citing non-mainstream sources, such as blogs. This blog especially.

Wikipedia says that it applies the "no-blogs" policy with particular strictness when it comes to entries on living individuals. Actually, I can understand the rationale for this decision: No-one wants Wikipedia to turn into a trash-heap filled with waspish, vengeance-fueled personal attacks.

It is also pretty clear that Wikipedia does not want to cede territory to anyone who believes that JFK was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. Believe it or not, I also have some sympathy for this attitude. Although I am convinced that a conspiracy took place, I also know the JFK assassination "buff" community pretty well. That community is filled with people who are contentious, paranoid and downright obnoxious. If Wikipedia's editors did not keep them on a short leash, the results would be grim.

But Gerry Posner presents us with a special case.

Critics of Case Closed were able to pinpoint at least three instances in which Gerry pretended to have conducted interviews with key witnesses with whom he never actually spoke. Wikipedia's profile of Posner does not mention that outrageous breach of ethics, and the editors will not allow you to rewrite the entry in order to include this information.

That book has many other problems. I am not talking about disagreements over the interpretation of evidence; I am talking about serious issues of journalistic integrity. For example, the hardback edition implies that Posner commissioned a scientific study which was actually conducted for a television program; a lengthy explanatory footnote was added to the softcover edition.

That's why the JFK "buffs" have always reviled Posner in a way they do not revile other "Oswald did it" writers, such as Vincent Bugliosi and David Belin. Although we do not agree with Bugliosi, Gerry Posner belongs in a class by himself.

(Serious questions have surrounded Posner's other works. One of these days, I'll deliver that long-promised piece about his book on Mengele.)

My point is this: If Posner's earlier examples of shoddy journalism had "gone on the record" -- if, for example, Wikipedia's entry had mentioned something about the false interviews -- then The Daily Beast would never have hired Posner. And the publishers of Miami Babylon (Posner's most recent book) might have been spared some humiliation as well. (This blog will probably publish a piece about that book soon.)

Consider this hypothetical poser: Even if Cannonfire were able to prove that Gerry plagiarized portions of his most recent book, how could we get the information into Wikipedia? How can we get the truth onto the record?

Doing so would be difficult.

It's not just a matter of factual accuracy. The facts must be published in an acceptable forum. Anyone amending the Posner entry cannot cite Cannonfire or any other blog, even one that maintains a good reputation. Yet Wikipedia will publish what Posner has to say about himself -- even though Posner is a confessed plagiarist, and even though Posner alters quotes.

All of which brings us back to dear old Andy Breitbart.

Wikipedia, which does not consider Cannonfire worthy of citation -- and which seems to have a similarly dismissive attitude toward Brad Friedman's blog -- has no problem citing Breitbart's Big Government website. Wikipedia also cites Breitbart's other "Big" sites.

Brietbart's sites are not blogs.

Bloggers, it seems, are supposed to bitch and scream from the sidelines; we may never be considered players in the great game. Even if we do original investigative reporting, even if all of our facts check out, even if we dot every i and cross every T, and even if no-one counters our presentation of evidence, we mere bloggers are never considered citation-worthy sources of information.

Yet Breitbart and his minions can get on the record.

The New York Times considers O'Keefe -- but not Brad Friedman -- a reliable source of information.

The Washington Times and Glenn Beck and FOX are also part of "the record." Posner, wherever he ends up, will also surely contribute to "the record." These entities are considered citable.

And what is the difference between Breitbart's media empire and a humble blog such as the one you are perusing right now? Near as I can tell, it all comes down to a single word:

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