I normally save the non-political posts for the weekend, but this can't wait.
On October 3, Gustavo Dudamel -- a young Venezuelan genius -- conducted the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven at the Hollywood Bowl. Now, the Bowl was never the classiest of venues. (Decades ago, I had a summer job there. Any place that would hire me must have a high tolerance for riff-raff.) But in the old days, things weren't this bad.
The audience applauded wildly every chance it got. At every movement break. In the middle of the fourth movement. And we're not just talking about applause: They shouted WOOOOO WOOOO, as if attending a taping of the old Arsenio Hall show -- in mid-movement!
If you're new to the world of real music, let me clue you in: This ain't rock. This ain't hip-hop. This ain't interactive.The concert is not about you. You don't express yourself; the composer expresses himself.
These days, most people think that all of life is an endless episode of The Me Show. That's why those cretins kept applauding: They felt compelled to insert themselves into the proceedings.
Speaking as a connoisseur of the higher pleasures, I say fuck that. If you want to appreciate great art -- of any kind -- you must learn to follow one simple rule: Do not exist.
Be passive. Turn off your mind. Just soak it in. Do not exist.
Most Americans cannot follow that rule -- due, perhaps, to their daily intake of caffeine, sugar, cocaine or meth. Or maybe they are simply too damn insecure to go two consecutive hours without shouting "Me! Me! It's all about ME!" Such people should not attend classical music concerts. Neither should they visit museums or libraries.
The proper time to applaud is at the very end of the piece, after the last note has fully died away. (Granted, this can be a little hard to determine, especially with a work such as the Mahler Fourth.) And even then, if you really want to show your appreciation, hold off on applause for a long, breathless moment, as if entranced. That period of awed silence is the greatest compliment a musician can have.
If you must vocalize, go with "Bravo!" instead of "WOOOOOO!!!" And if you must act like a rube, don't show up.
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Happily, quite a few well-known classical performers -- and all but the last 100 or 150 years of concert-going experience -- disagree. The discouragement of applause (up to and including "woo! woo!") is a relatively recent anomaly intended primarily to underscore the differences between those of a class capable of appreciating high art and the unwashed masses. In classical music, as in the rest of life, the appropriate time to applaud is when something merits applause, not when a self-anointed cultural elite says it's OK to applaud...
posted by Mazoola : 4:18 AM
I would generally agree with you re: the applause. However, this guy is going to breathe new life into classical music in this country. And the entire Venezuelan Sistema project is extremely important. As someone who makes their living partly in the classical music realm, it's a very good thing to bring new people into the fold. The number of symphonies has been declining with every decade.
Didn't Stravinsky's music once cause a riot amongst the audience?
And---ok, I know this isn't an example of "high brow" but it's an example of crowd inspiration---one of my most memorable movie experiences was seeing Dr. Seuss' only live action film, The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, at a restored vintage theater. After the orchestral piece in the middle of the movie, the entire *movie* audience got up and gave a standing ovation.
In general, I agree with you, Joseph...I detest audience members who ruin a listening experience. But, for me, anyway, that means self-centered twits who whip out their fucking glowing cell phones every five minutes to compulsively text someone...not people who are wrapped up in the performance.
posted by Zee : 6:10 AM
You know, this is quite interesting. In my younger days I collected Pink Floyd bootlegs. The ones recorded in Britain or Europe, the applause always came a couple seconds after the last note (or sound effect) died away. The entire performance of each song was completely free of audience noise. However, the recordings from the USA almost invariably featured loud, raucous crowds throughout pretty much every second of the performance (though not on the really early recordings...anything before 1973 or so, when they became superstars).
But really, as a musician myself, I appreciate applause (or even Woo Woo!) whenever it happens. For listening, I admit, I usually prefer it if applause is reserved for the end of a piece.
posted by Gus : 8:24 AM
Years ago, my husband was fried to a crisp after a project. A woman friend, who was an opera singer, invited us over for a dinner party where she arranged to have two gifted and popular sopranos perform for him. The basic idea was that they would sing, within reason, whatever arias he requested and he would understand that some of them wouldn't have been rehearsed. So, the time came and she sat him in a comfy chair in the middle of the room. The two singers stood before him and began their spell. These were world class singers who had just returned from a tour of Europe. Not 25 feet away from these magnificent women, the other guests chattered on as they sang. They couldn't even be bothered to take it outside.
Mostly, I think this is the impact of the VCR. People have gotten used to chatting during performances and are carrying it into venues where it is inappropriate.
If they were singing just for him, as you implied, why did it matter that other people were talking?
traditionally people would hire musicians to play at their social gatherings, and nobody was required to sit there in rapt attention. It was considered background music, something pleasant to have on, not something that you had to sit and stare at.
And also: what Mazoola said. I've attended operas in Europe and it's wonderful to see how emotionally wrapped up people get in the performances--yes, even the great unwashed in the (government-subsidized) cheap seats.
Now, people talking or texting during movies -- that's unbearable.
posted by DancingOpossum : 12:11 PM
From the wonderful link Mazoola posted (THANKS MAZOOLA), I especially liked this comment:
"When people clap between movements at our concerts, I always celebrate it becuase it’s clear they are newcomers. The last thing we want to do is scare newcomers off by chastising them when they try to show their enthusiasm. A year or so ago, when we performed Scheherazade (R-K not Ravel!) our concertmistress finished one of the big violin solos and someone from the audience started yelling and whooping like it was a rock concert or like someone had taken a jazz ride. It was actually fun. I think what we most need is to encourage more excitement and engagement at our concerts"
posted by DancingOpossum : 12:13 PM
Mr. Cannon - you are absolutely correct. And exactly for the reasons you have already mentioned. Classical music is not about "you".
Throughout my 19 year career as a symphony musician the Classics audience (as opposed to "pops") applauded only after the end of the last movement. Of course there were a few exceptions, such as the trick ending in Sibelius' Symphony No. 5. This was in the cultural center of the universe - Tulsa, Oklahoma. So step up people of LA - if Tulsan's can appreciate the music and still show the respect expected, you can too.
One of our music directors had a little trick. If someone started to clap before the end, the conductor would remain facing the orchestra, but extend a hand in back to wave off the premature applauder. It always worked, and it helped to train classical audience newcomers that it was not appreciated.
In classical music pieces are generally meant to be experienced as a whole; it's far less often that there are even places to applaud (right after solos is a notable exception).
Some small applause between movements I can possibly see. Same goes for after solos. But whenever you feel like it?
Opera is a special case, as it is a mixture of music and the theatre. One can laugh, gasp, in general react as if one were watching a play. That is not what Joe is speaking of here.
(And it's not a "class" issue. Jazz is a "lower class" music and yet people only applaud -at least, in my experience - after each "solo" and at the end.)
DO -
If they were singing just for him, as you implied, why did it matter that other people were talking?
In this example, the other people should have behaved as proper guests are expected to...and respected the wishes of the host.
Sergei Rostov
posted by Anonymous : 8:59 PM
[Update: Upon reflection, firmed up my opinion from above comment -SAR] [Cross-posted at Mazoola's link; quote is from said link - SAR]
If this is all OK at he opera, why should we sit silently by as Evgeny Kissin or Yefim Bronfman finish a movement of Rachmaninoff or Tchaikovsky which should bring us to our feet, and gets a few coughs and rustles instead?
Opera goes according to the rules of theatre. One reacts to the drama of the story (by laughing, gasping, etc.) , to notable exchanges, or to notable soliloquies (such as arias).
If you don't want the audience to hear the flow of each movement to the next, or to have a pause for reflection (a large part of most classical pieces), let its members know they can applaud bewtween movements and so not hear that. If you want them to applaud between movements and so have you lose the mood and your own sense of the contrast between those movements let them do so. Go even further: be you a soloist or an orchestra or anything in between, if you want them to miss all the nuances of your unamplified performance (which is the whole point of having different performers play the same piece in the first place), then let them know they are free to make noise at any time and so miss all the subtleties you worked so hard on. But in that case the audience is not hearing what YOU are playing, but is really either hearing just parts of it, or relying on some generalized/generic idea of the piece rather than hearing YOU playing it. So you may as well have a computer play all your pieces for you, and save yourself the effort of actually performing.
Here's a brief further thought inspired by the previous post. The U.S. government spends a bit over two-and-a-half trillion dollars per year. If the government socialized the financial services industry -- and nothing else -- would the profits cover the budget? In other words, would there be any need for taxes?
(The financial services industry includes the insurance companies, so that solves the health care thing right there. Incidentally, the Wikipedia page on financial services is really, really bad.)
In other economic news:Robert Fisk reports that oil will soon be so over dollars. Thank you, Dubya! Maybe the time has come to re-think the economy from the ground up...
I'd certainly support nationalisation of the banks, without any equivocation, but the word 'socialising' kind of sounds peculiar when mooted with regard to the financial services industry as a whole. Even bearing in mind that nationalisation under the capitalist state isn't full-blooded socialism, I'd kind of want the government to whack most of this industry out of existence right after seizing it.
Capitalism is anti-social, essentially so, but most of its financial "industry" is extremely and especially so. If our rulers decide to cut the world's population by half, this is unlikely to be done by a faction whose main interests lie in industrial production. Finance capital is in the saddle to a much greater extent than it was in Marx's day or Hilferding's day. I think 2008 marked a big jump 'forward' in the march of finance capital, comparable to 1973.
One place that came to mind when I read your piece was Monaco. No income tax; the State gets huge revenues from the casino. Which could be rephrased: "the Grimaldi family gets huge profits from laundering drug money and other mafia funds"? Anyway, what's wrong with taxes? The more progressive an income tax, the better. America and Britain currently both have governments of loansharks' runners.
So the Google barcode contrib was too batty? :-) Seems to start 0100011 from the left hand side, taking the first two bars, with space between them, as a non-standard start pattern. That's for the digit 4, if it's UPC. Followed by 0100100, which means?? Not a digit, if we're in UPC anyway. b
posted by b : 7:05 AM
Boringly, the Washington Post says it just means "Google" using 128 rather than UPC, adding:
"It would be safe to assume that Google used their own open source barcode project, ZXing, to generate the barcode. The same library is used in Android for barcode recognition."
Yes, I'm sure that was safe to assume. Can't go wrong if you just cut and paste corporate puff. The Post even added:
"We had to double check that the barcode in this instance was correct (some of the geeks here insist the barcode isn't 100% correct), since Google has previously messed things up when they try and talk geek dirty.
Yes, it's not like it's PR or anything - a news item on what one of the world's biggest companies is using as a logo today - and a company which is developing barcode software too. Open source. Right. How altruistic of them.
You would have thought Google could get a string of a few dozen binary digits right. I'd kind of like to hear more about what the geeks had to say, and who overruled them if it wasn't other geeks.
Haven't checked it all yet myself. Got too much on today! Maybe someone else could take a look at this? b
posted by b : 7:20 AM
What I find disturbing is that as the middle east cooperates with China to undermine the US by abandoning US currency our anointed one quivers like a bowl of jello at the feet of Hu Jintao.
I think the fact Obama canceled the meeting with the Dalai Lama and told him to get to the back of the bus (unlike all the other European leaders) to kiss the ass of China is one of the most embarrassing things the US has done in a long time.
When Obama meets Hu someone should tell Hu to wear a fancy ring and see if he can get Obama to kiss it. It would make a great utube video.
posted by snowflake : 6:34 PM
What about the US isn't embarrassing? Another admission of weakness will be the holding-on-to helicopter-skids evacuation from Afghanistan. Notice how the Taliban statement that they don't want war with any other country has been pushed in the western media. Yeah right. Who invaded whom? Who's losing? Who's winning? When Mullah Omar rides back to Kabul, it's going to be portrayed as victory for American taste and good sense. (Of course, that's better than the invaders staying). War is sold to the home population as if it were a computer game nowadays.
Meanwhile, by trying to avoid pursuing the issue of the Gaza massacre in the UN arena, Abbas's vile Israeli-American stooge government has lost whatever legitimacy it still managed to cling onto after its leaders were exposed as taking a percentage from the cement for the wall (which is what caused Hamas to get elected in the first place).
Well thy do say that every Snowflake is different....
AT last here's something Barak has done right... by prostrating to Hu and not the Tibetans, he probably helped stave off the sale of Greenbacks.
Do you really think if Mr. Didn't-close-Guantanamo, Secret-wire-tap got all preachy with Hu about the Deli Lamas, that anything would happen? Hu buddy, I know we're as bad as you nowadays, but could you help the Dalai (of whose politics we understand nothing in the west)
The way you say it, it was China's idea and the Middle East is co-opoerating with them. You really think they were sitting around saying "Hey, how can we wipe out the value of this two trillion dollar holding we have??"
According to the Globe & Mail; "At the same time, China, as well as other major U.S. dollar investors such as Saudi Arabia, have tried to support the greenback and criticized measures that would weaken the currency."
So thank Barak for once for doing something right. If O met with Lhamo Döndrub, rally, you think things would be "better" for Tibetans? Or would that add fuel to the fire of getting away from US Currency?
...and FWIW pre'59 Tibet wasn't a fou fou fairy candy-coated shangri la. Unless you consider getting tortured with mideval irons, and having your tongue pulled out-- for stealing a clump of food--- fun. None of the hippies i've talked with (bedeckd with tibetan peace flags) could explain the difference btween the Kagyu and the Gelug (the Glug won, killed off the Kagyu and destroyed or stole all of their monastaries)...
Döndrub was just a kid, but when he left Tibet in the late 50s, he left behind "185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen" The head of teh Army ha4,0,000 square km of land and 3,500 serfs. Now that's ascetic.
Read up on what serfs have said about Tiber before and after '59. Sure it sucked for those who were the ruling theocratic fudal lords, t yalall's are mang a s serious mistake when playing the "holier than thou" game with China.
(one last tidbit, who do you think it was who installed the very first Dali Lama? It was a Chinese emperor. You can't really separate the two.
Oh and you know what else Tibetan peasants get now (as opposed to getting rapid and tortured)? They get an education, and [eek] HEALTH CARE. The Yellow Hats never gave them shit, except the promise of a better 'karma' in their next life...
LOL. I think you would be easier to understand if you spoke in your native Chinese.
Just for your information and peace of mind, the Dalai Lama has about 1 billion supporters at present. About ten years ago there was a conference in Dharamsala of a lot of influential intellectuals who were supposed to discuss how to bring peace to the world.
The end result of the conference was that when they reported to the Dalai Lama they proposed organizing a worldwide boycott of China to crush the country and bring it to its knees until it withdraws from Tibet.
The Dalai Lama said he had an obligation to all people including the people in China and refused to sanction it.
I suspect that given China's inability to act in a civilized manner that eventually this plan will be launched and then-for all those people who have been abusing the poor man for 50 years-well- I expect the consequences will be ...severe.
As far as China pulling its money out of the US-let them. The US can then impose huge tarrifs on all their goods and well see who comes out on top. I doubt the Chinese Government would survive the social unrest that would ensue. The US on the other hand has safety nets in place and a flexible government. Wanna place a bet?
So there's this guy in Florida running for the Democratic nomination for governor. He has a plan to eliminate property taxes, create a million new jobs, provide free health insurance and free college for all residents, and lots more.
His plan hinges around a proposal to create the Bank of the State of Florida, which will pay 6% for CDs and make mortgage loans at 2% and other loans including small business loans at 3% and make billions for the state. How is this possible, you ask? Using "fractional reserve banking" just like every other bank, except using the profits for the public good.
Dr. Farid A. Khavari says he is "an economist, not a politician," and he can make all of this happen. He is also the author of a book, "Towards a Zero-Cost Economy - A Blueprint to Create General Economic Security in a Carefree Economy" that describes an economic system called "carefreeism," which he compares to capitalism and socialism here. You can download the book for free.
In a previous post, I said that, during this crisis, Obama is in a position to offer much more aid to California (a state which routinely gives more to D.C. than it receives in goods and services), because the federal government can literally make money. But the truth is that banks make money, through the fractional reserve system. So why shouldn't a state -- Florida, California, whatever -- own a bank?
Let's think bigger. What if Uncle Sam owned (and ran, and profited from) Goldman Sachs and the rest of that bunch?
I have no idea who this Khavari guy is. I strongly suspect that, once I learn more about him, he'll turn out to be a crank. Let's face it -- "carefreeism" is the stupidest name for an ism in the history of isms.
But the basic idea...? I'm intrigued. Not sold -- intrigued. I'd like to hear counter-arguments.
The Friedmanites and Randroids will probably cry "socialism!" at the thought of a state-owned banking system. But think about it: The bank makes money only if it loans money to entrepreneurs. Thus, in order to bolster its coffers, the government would need to encourage as much free enterprise as possible.
(About an hour's time separated the writing of the stuff above from the writing of the stuff below.) Okay, I've started to research Khavari. And I don't like much of what I've seen.
Although he seems to fit nowhere on the standard left-to-right political map, Khavari is an admirer of the former Shah of Iran, one of the worst despots in history. That, my friends, is un-put-up-with-able. The guy also runs something called the Environomic Research Institute, which looks like it could be a scam or a front. On the other hand, one of his earlier books has been cited approvingly by Jeremy Rifkin -- a good sign.
Right now, I'm leaning toward tossing the guy into my crank file.
Not only that. The notion of turning banks into public utilities has been championed before, by a rather shocking personage: Gottfried Feder.
And who, you may be asking, was Gottfried Feder? Well, he was a very strange and disturbing fellow. In 1919, he gave a lecture which enchanted Adolf Hitler and enticed him to cast his lot with the fledgling Nazi party.
In the 1920s, Feder was a leading member of what has been called the "left wing" of the National Socialists. Yes, the Nazis did have a left(ish) wing, or at least an anti-capitalist wing, during the party's gestative years. If you don't believe me, read a few books about the early days; start with Putsch! by Richard Hanser.
Feder was, first and foremost, a vicious racist -- a detestable individual. That fact must never be forgotten, rationalized or minimized. Yet he also favored some ideas which we would now consider far-left -- welfare, labor unions, state-funded health care and a government-guaranteed right to a job.
Feder drafted the 25 point Nazi party program, discussed on this Wikipedia page. Ten of those points are pro-labor; the rest is vile. Hitler gave the program lip-service while running for office, but ignored it as he inched closer to power. In 1931, Hitler tossed Feder "under the bus" (as we would now say) when Feder's anti-capitalist rants began to frighten the industrialists whom Hitler wanted to woo. The economy was turned over to Hjalmar Schact, who thought that Feder was a nut.
In a nut's shell: Feder emphasized the distinction between industrial capitalism and finance capitalism -- between the folks who make shoes and the folks who loan money so that a shoe factory can be built. In his scheme, industrial capitalism = good; finance capitalism = bad. Thus, Feder advocated the creation of a nationalized central bank, to be distinguished from something like the Federal Reserve, which is a private/public hybrid. In American terms, he wanted to hoist the red flag over Wall Street but not over Main Street. Those who lived on "unearned income" -- the Gordon Gecko types -- were to be treated mercilessly.
Oddly enough, Feder was probably influenced in all of this by the American populists of the 1870s-1880s.
Modern fascists have a mixed view of Feder. Some seem attracted to his ideas, and have attempted to re-package them. (Khavari may be in this tradition.) Most of today's goose-steppers sneer at Feder as a commie.
Is Khavari a covert Federist? Does Feder have value? Can his economic notions be considered separately from his racist and nationalist claptrap?
I honestly don't know.
But I can say this: On an instinctive level, I would still prefer to see Uncle Sam take over the "too big to fail" banks instead of handing trillions of dollars to private institutions. Using the banks' profits to help fund the government strikes me as -- if you can forgive my quoting Ollie North -- a neat idea.
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posted by Ken Hoop : 2:50 PM
The post office used to operate as a savings bank as well. Seems like a good idea to me.
posted by Hoarseface : 3:27 PM
Sounds great, but I don't see how this would succeed. How much does the State of FL spend every year from its tax collections? All the banks would lobby against this. It's also interesting that this guy supported the Shah of Iran, given that Muslims shun usury (certainly not to imply that individuals of any faith can't and don't stray from the ideological roots of their respective folds.)
When I lived in Edina MN there were only two places to buy booze, and it was the two booze stores run by the Edina Public schools that used the proceeds to fund their operations.
Great school system with lots of money from that, believe me!
National Socialism WAS left wing. The Nazis and Soviet Union's Communists were very much alike; they just couldn't get along because each wanted 100% and was just looking for an opportunity to shaft the other.
Labor can't produce anything without Capital providing the funds to hire labor, buy raw materials and equipment, transport and sell the product.
North Dakota has a state owned and run bank. Some attribute the state's quite strong performance economically to influences from that bank. (I think they are one of only two states that remain in budget balance or surplus.)
While unemployment has increased there, it is still in the 4%s range iirc.
XI
posted by Anonymous : 8:09 AM
I think that in Japan, the Post Office still does operate as a bank, or did until recently.
Khavari may well be a crank -- money cranks are, I imagine, as sure a sign of depression as "the rules don't apply" is a sign of a market top.
That said, the idea of "narrow" or "boring" banks is just this side of mainstream, with DFHs like Krugman, Simon Johnson, and (IIRC) Willem Buiter supporting it. And if you ask yourself what the most boring possible business could be, it's something like your local gas company (unless Enron got hold of it, of course).
The briefest look at Khavari's state-owned bank proposal (1 page and a 2-minute video www.khavariforgovernor.com ) shows the average Florida family would save about $400,000 in a working lifetime--by direct savings of $190K on a $200K mortgage, plus earning 6% interest on it from the state bank for 15 years--not to mention savings on insurance etc, also part of Khavari's plan.
But the state would earn BILLIONS per year providing 2% mortgages, 6% CD's etc. Watch the video.
KHAVARI AND SHAH OF IRAN-- Those of us who lived through that period of world history know that for many years the Shah was the best friend America ever had in the middle east. Carter's diabolical (though effective) move to block Soviet hegemony with Africa--he simply turned his back on the Shah and ushered in the lunatic Khomeini--who then murdered hundreds of thousands of Christians, Baha'is, suspected communists, intelligentsia, and the usual--including Khavari's father, who was a well-loved leader of the Baha'i faith.
Khomeini started an 8-year war with Iraq which killed millions of people on both sides, greatly reducing the future population of the 2 countriess. That was when Saddam was our friend and we sold him all the weapons, remember?
Khavari has written 9 books. If you want to know his opinion of Islam, just whom the U.S. put in power in Iran in the 1970s-80s, and understand why Iran is the problem it is today, look at his prophetic 1987 book OIL AND ISLAM--THE TICKING BOMB.
You don't have to be a Moslem to hate usury. If you have to work 15 extra years to pay for your house, that is slavery. It is one thing for the banks to make some money--after all, they literally do "make" out of thin air $9 for every $1 of reserves they have--even more with credit cards which typically have no reserve. Should they really charge 30% for that money which costs them nothing but costs our society that 30%? Isn't it odd that the banks collected hundreds of billions in debt insurance on their bad mortgages-- and then they get to keep the houses, too?
If the water company raised its prices, cut its supply, changed the due date on your water bill and then charged you $39 for paying late, and then there's no water at all, you might start thinking. If the government gave the water company all the water they wanted, but they used it to fill their execs' swimming pools while you were on half-rations----MAYBE you would think a municipal water company COULD BE A GOOD IDEA.
Ditto for insurance slavery, another Khavari target.
Don't dis the person, until you at least consider the objective validity of his ideas.
Ignoring Khavari for the moment -- Bob, you're really starting to piss me off. The Shah was a monster. Did you ever speak to someone who lived under his rule? I have. As vile as the Islamic Republic is, the Shah's regime was even worse.
Carter did not stab him in the back -- Carter supported the Shah until the bitter end, even after most members of the general public had figured out that the regime's days were numbered.
The CIA stabbed Carter in the back, incidentally, by not telling him that the Shah was doomed. (They knew about the state of his health.) I have little doubt that the CIA aided Khomeini -- otherwise, the nation might have gone socialist -- but I have no reason to believe that Carter had any inkling of it.
Joseph-- I didn't mean to piss you off. Of course I know plenty of Iranians who lived under the Shah and bailed out. Khavari is one of them. Also some who didn't bail out and got killed for staying with Khomeini. I meant to address the implication that Khavari is Moslem, which he is not (Baha'i).
I thought the real issue was the banks and the benefits of a state-owned bank. The Shah has been dead for 30 years, but the United States-- and the states--are in deep trouble and this guy's plans can make a big improvement, in FL or any other state.
It's really strange to look at a proposal to fix the economy with such suspicion when the people who destroyed the economy are screwing you every day.
Khavari's proposal makes perfect sense. I don't need to know his politics or his affiliations, he is a gubernatorial candidate with a plan that makes sense.
I started hitting this idea hard in May of last year on my blog, and Ellen Brown way before that, on behalf of her state.
Besides cynicism, what have "you all" got to offer???
Beware. You're being "Millered" again. You're being force-fed another helping of yellowcake.
Many people have reacted with fear and anxiety to this New York Times story by William Broad and David Sanger. They want you to think that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” nuclear weapon. This conclusion is based on an alleged "secret report" of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog group. (IAEA spokespersons officially tell a very different story.)
Is this information reliable? Consider the source. Broad and Sanger both worked closely with the NYT's infamous Judy Miller when she was ginning up evidence for war with Iraq. They have a history of using the New York Times to push neocon agit-prop.
Moreover, this is old stuff repackaged to look like new stuff.
It all goes back to 2004, when U.S. intelligence acquired the so-called "laptop of death." Most of the scare stories about Iranian nukes that you've read over the past few years trace back to documents discovered on this laptop, which supposedly belonged to an Iranian government insider.
This report (pdf) makes clear that everything -- everything -- in the NYT story traces back to the infamous laptop. Although Broad and Sanger link to the report, their article deceptively refuses to mention the role played by the world's most notorious portable computer.
And that's a serious omission. The laptop documents have been questioned -- indeed, many would argue that they have been thoroughly debunked.
U.S. intelligence considers the laptop documents authentic but cannot prove it. Analysts cannot completely rule out the possibility that internal opponents of the Iranian leadership could have forged them to implicate the government, or that the documents were planted by Tehran itself to convince the West that its program remains at an immature stage.
CIA analysts, some of whom had been involved only a year earlier on the flawed assessments of Iraq's weapons programs, initially speculated that a third country, such as Israel, may have fabricated the evidence. But they eventually discounted that theory.
Heh.
Heh heh. Hee hee hee. Ho ho. Heh. Ha. Heh heh heh heh Hee heee hohohoho ha haha ha hee hehee hee HAHAHAHA HEE HEE HEE HA HA HA HO HO HO...
(Excuse me a moment. I'm going to go take the dog for a walk.)
(Okay, I'm back. Sorry. While walking the dog, I was laughing so loudly I woke up the neighbors. I think it's out of my system now.)
Where were we? Oh yes: The laptop of death -- which we may henceforward call the LOD. This response to the 2006 Washington Post story is worth quoting:
Second, all the information on this and other "shocking revelations" released over the last year and more have come from a single laptop which was provided by "an Iranian opposition group" - which in BushSpeak means the utterly nutterly Mujahedeen e-Kalqh.
I ask you, what's the chance of even a top Iranian scientist having information on adapting missiles, building a nuclear test site and uranium refining when standard security precautions would suggest compartmentalizing it?
Now what's the chance of this hypothetical scientist being allowed to keep all that information on a laptop which can be pinched by some liberty-loving second storey man, then given to another freedom-loving Iranian who then "walks in" on U.S. spooks and hands the whole thing over? All Iran's nuclear secrets just there for the asking, like Hagrid being handed a dragon's egg by a stranger down the pub.
Marcy Wheeler had a lot to say about the laptop of death. She found that much of the "evidence" available on this laptop was later proved wrong:
So that's the laptop. A set of documents with dodgy providence, the contents of which have been partly debunked in the interim period.
And we're to believe that one person had evidence of three different aspects of Iran's nuclear development program on one laptop. Having studied Iraqi WMD scientists a bit, I can think of maybe five people in Iraq who would have even had access to information from these three unrelated areas. But those people certainly wouldn't have had the blueprints for all these areas on their laptop. But hey, who knows. Maybe those "crazy mullahs" are just more loosey-goosey with their intelligence that Saddam was?
(For "providence" read "provenance.") Marcy also notes a suspicious coincidence:
As a side note, at the same time as this laptop was first made public, the People's Mujahedeen also claimed--to apparent Franklin-AIPAC leakee Steve Weisman (link to come), among others--that Iran "had bought blueprints for a nuclear bomb." We now know, thanks to James Risen, that that blueprint came from US intelligence as part of the botched Merlin program. Which raises serious questions about where the rest of their information comes from.
Here is another indication that the laptop is every bit as fake as those Italian "yellowcake" papers which helped to mire us in Iraq:
Other problems with the laptop: Julian Borger reported in 2007 that everything on the laptop is in English. That makes sense for technical details, since English is sort of the lingua franca of science. But as one official put it to Borger, "at some point you'd have thought there would be at least some notes in Farsi."
Investigative reporter Gareth Porter did some follow up work. Check this out: These alleged top secret military documents contain no security markings of any kind. Official letters lack government seals.
In a lame attempt to give credibility to the LOD (laptop of death) documents in the face of this damning evidence of fraud, an IAEA official suggested to Porter that
the states that had provided the documents might claim that they had taken the markings out before passing them on to the IAEA. It is not clear, however, why an intelligence agency would want to remove from the documents markings that would be important in proving their authenticity.
The laptop came to us by way of Germany's secret service, the BND -- who got it from those wacky MEK guys, who got it from we're-not-sure-where. And the German motive for removing the classification markings would be...what, exactly?
Since these are digitized documents stored on a laptop, surely there would be a time stamp telling us when the file was created or altered.
At this point, it is important for us to pause and contemplate this tableau. Ace investigative reporter Gareth Porter, while checking out the laptop story, comes across serious evidence of forgery. Immediately, an IAEA official -- one with a view very different from that of most other IAEA officials -- comes forward and peddles (anonymously, always anonymously) a bunch of bullshit. He hopes that this bullshit will pacify Porter and make the LOD seem believable.
I'd like to know this guy's name. I want his story. Someone within the UN nuke agency has an agenda. He's out to sell something. Fortunately, most others in the IAEA ain't buyin'
I'll bet you a dozen donuts that Porter's anonymous official source is the same person who cooked up the "secret" IAEA report which was leaked to Broad and Sanger.
Crucially, and always unmentioned in reports by Broad and Sanger, the IAEA have never been allowed to keep copies of the documentation upon which the "secret annex" is built so that they can attempt to determine authenticity. IAEA officials confirmed to Gareth Porter on his recent trip to Vienna that they've been shown the originals once, and since then have had to rely upon sanitised copies provided by the intelligence agencies which produced them. Nor has Iran been provided with enough data on the contents of the Laptop and other allegations to be able to offer definitive rebuttals.
So who is behind this new attempt to foment war based on a forgery?
MEK didn't come up with this scheme -- the MEK guys would have tossed in some Farsi. Besides, they're goofballs.
CIA? Nahh. They take pride in getting things like the security seals right.
Conceivably, the LOD could have been cobbled together by one of those ad hoc groups operating out of the Pentagon. You may recall their mischief-making during the Iraq debacle.
The yellowcake fraud was amateur stuff put together by an Italian con artist. In some respects, the LOD forgery is amateurish -- but the how-to-build-a-nuke information suggests a state actor.
Frankly, I think that this thing has Mossad written all over it. The Israeli spy agency has longstanding ties to MEK. Mossad is famed for audacity -- which has, in recent times, given way to smugness and sloppiness. To me, the LOD is an obvious Mossad operation.
And for chrissakes, don't believe everything you read in the New York Times.
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I don't think Mossad is behind it, either. If anything, they're even more obssessive about getting the details (seals, classification, etc) right than the CIA is. This is *way* too half-assed for them. In fact, it's probably way too half-assed for any real intelligence agency.
Joseph, coincidentally, I was mindlessly walkng around the house this weekend and listened to some familiar rhetoric coming from the TV in the living room. I peeked in and couldn't believe what I was seeing. There was Judy Miller telling us about the iminent danger and Israe on FOX news. I mentioned to the spouse that I can't believe what I was seeing/hearing. He asked why. I said Judith Miller is at it again. He said who is Judith Miller? We are doomed.
Well, it was Tony Blair the last time, "sexing up" the report on Sadam WMD in Iraq, pushing the USA into an invasion and occupation of Iraq with all its inhuman and geopolitical consequences--yesterday's news to far too many people.
The Hutton commission shut down the investigation of the murder of Dr. Kelly.
Judy Miller back at it on the once-public "airwaves"? I believe you Glenn, and that is unbelievable!
So the Mossad is involved in a conspiracy, and the trail stops there... is that your view Joseph?
All this is happening in the context of a vast--and somewhat rushed--reorganization of the world's monetary-financial system, upon which the lives of billions of human souls depend. Chaos is being created by intent. The power (insofar as it remains) of nation states to regulate transnational imperialist financier operations is under attack.
In the "What shall we teach our children and look to for a way out of this accelerating descent into hell" department, I'd have to put the Declaration of Independence and Constitution pretty high on the list.
Gary, I think Mossad tops the list of suspects, and so did Gareth Porter, the guy looking into this on the scene. I'm open to other possibilities. But NOT to any LaRouchian ravings about the Brits-Who-Control-Everything.
Joseph, I hope you understand that I never try to trick you. (First, I almost certainly couldn't, and second, that's not the kind of person I am.) I simply try to act appropriately according to the rules of your site here.
If you have posted previously on the subject of what "intel" is, or the relationships between intel agencies, I'd be interested to see where you're at on that, so links or search terms I could use at your site I would appreciate. I'm trying to find common ground here.
To be clear, for starters, I most certainly do not think the people of the U.K. or the majority of its government are the "Bad Guys." I would think that goes without saying, but for starters.
Further, I don't believe the royal family is a nexus necessarily worth discussing as a priority; plenty of rotten eggs outside of that circle.
I'm not thinking that I--or trying to pretend that I--know it all. I DO know I have nowhere near the ability to express myself that you have. I'm a guest walking on eggshells here.
Leaving aside interpretations of history, discussions about science or art, Lyn has, I think, put forward excellent proposals for dealing with our current predicament(s). That discussion of them--even on their own merits--as soon as the name of the guy who originally proposed them, or as soon as a link related to him which can explain more without me having to type out a 2,000 word transcript seems to be banned here, is unfortunate, in my view. If I were living on a pension and/or wasn't struggling to support wife and child, I suppose I could project myself differently.
By no means am I demanding any sort of response to these words. This is just my best effort, in a (more or less) public forum, to say my piece/peace.
Joe, I understand that Israel is your personal bête noire, but I think it's pretty unlikely that Mossad is responsible for this. Mossad is widely renowned for the quality of their document forgeries, and they certainly would've remembered to "toss in some Farsi" (as would the CIA). They just wouldn't have done something like this. If this had been a Mossad plant, Ahmadinejad himself wouldn't have been able to spot the flaws.
This is an amateur operation, probably originating with domestic neocons or perhaps oil futures speculators. No intelligence agency worthy of the name would do something this clumsy.
This definitely looks like the work of the United States CIA. I think that after Iran decided to announce that they would no longer like to use the Dollar and instead would be taking on the Euro, the US started then immediately starting attacking Irans programs. Can we say Saddam pt 2? I think Obama is going to bring us right into a painful and unforgettable war with Iran, that will change the world (and not in a good way). They are going to walk us right into a Facist/Communist world government without sovereignty.
Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood is spreading the story that Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story has failed at the box office. Actually, the film made more than Sicko did on its opening weekend, although (as Firedoglake neglects to mention), it did so on twice as many screens. By documentary standards, the film will be a success -- I predict a worldwide boxoffice of $20 million -- although it won't be in the same league as Moore's previous two efforts.
The title was a big mistake. Moore should have chosen something which capitalized (excuse the pun) on the public's antipathy for Wall Street bankers. That approach would have vastly widened the audience, since many on the populist right share that antipathy. But if Americans think you're mounting a challenge to the capitalist system per se, they'll presume that you're a church-burning Bolshie. Most Americans can't see anything or anyone standing between Milton Friedman and Vladimir Lenin. The public yearns to have an angry-but-funny populist translate financialese into plain language; they're not ready for the red flag.
(Distinguishing between industrial capitalism and finance capitalism might have helped.)
Actually, from what I understand -- I have not yet seen the movie -- Moore does not wave the red flag in his film. That is to say, he does not come out in favor of any variant of socialism. So his self-defeating title creates the wrong impression.
Having said all that, there is great, HUGE value in this movie as an emotional, populist polemic for the left, something I've been screaming about since the beginning of the financial crisis. It's extremely disheartening to see the administration and so many Democrats in congress completely ignore the political and policy ramifications of failing to engage in fundamental financial reform and fiery populist rhetoric at a time like this. This teabagger movement is happening in a vacuum created by a lack of interest in this topic by liberals who are so enamored of being members of the new "creative class" and the like that they aren't paying attention to the cynicism and anger that's reaching critical mass among average working stiffs out there. It's easy to dismiss it, but very, very foolish. The issues Moore raises in this film will be answered on the right with authoritarianism, militarism, immigrant bashing and violence. It's a recipe for disaster unless the left takes this on in direct, political terms.
Joe, I review movies for one of the 25 largest newspapers in America. I have seen "Capitalism" twice and am confident in guessing that you will dislike it, as I did. After all of its righteous anger about systemic inequities, it rolls over at the feet of the new guy, dramatizing his election-night victory with soaring strings and images of weeping supporters. I recently interviewed Moore, whom I have considered a legitimate progressive and a personal hero, and he said that the new prez is "on notice." But you won't notice any of that skepticism in the movie, even though Moore was still working on it in August, when anyone who was doing their homework could have added two plus two.
posted by Trojan Joe : 9:06 PM
T Joe........... ...Digbys response(not the part Joseph mentioned) also criticizes Moors nostalgic/let's not throw the new prez under the bus just yet...............and Joseph, doesn't the title more or less reflect your point about America,s lack of readiness to examine capitalism,s shortcomings, as in blinded by love?
posted by beeta : 1:08 AM
Moore is practicing the same poor judgment he had on display when he said there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush with his support for Obama. When will the kool-ade intoxification wear off?
posted by MrMike : 7:35 AM
The embrace of the Catholic hierarchy in the film (something like 3 priests and bishop are interviewed) is a contradiction with Moore's professed love of democracy. But, it does fit in nicely with his general sense of sentimentality and 50's era nostalgia.
I've written MM every time he emailed me. I pointed out - among many other things - that he was in favor of Bush's original bailout plan (you remember, the one that gave everything to the big banks and nothing at all to the little guy, how he was by far the top recipient of monies from Big Finance (and had a history of doing the opposite of what he promised publicly after taking bribes from the relevant corporations).
I hoped he might include criticism of Obama in his film. I every much doubted he would, but I had to try...guess I was right to doubt it. Another indication? One of the ads for the film even ends with the single word "Change." Sigh.
Arnold Schwarzenegger did not destroy California, although a lot of people now blame him. In truth, he has handled the state's crisis more-or-less responsibly.
This piece in the Guardian attempts to address the question: What happened to California? I advise you to skim the article and focus on the bizarre responses from alleged Californians. Examples:
You trace all Californias problems to liberal ideas and socail programs, high taxation and tree huggers activity. even bad law foisted on Americans can trace its roots to The Golden state.
Contrary to the author's opinion, it is precisely liberalism that has destroyed California. As a Californian who has lived here for nearly my entire life, I remember the great days of California. Once the liberals and hippies took over in the early 80s and implemented their nonsensical environmental and liberal policies, we started our steady dive to the bottom.
"Liberals and hippies" took over in the 1980s? The decade when Californians voted for Ronald Reagan for president?
This state -- an alleged bastion of liberalism -- has had a Democratic governor for only four of the past 26 years. Back in the 1970s, under Jerry Brown, California was incredibly prosperous; recessions that flattened the rest of the nation barely touched us. (Incidentally, Jerry Brown (now 72) is currently favored to regain his job.)
The afore-linked Guardian piece evinced a number of other comments which hit the same absurd right-wing talking points in exactly the same language. I find it difficult to believe that so many raging reactionaries read The Guardian.
If you want to know what really happened to this state, see this piece from last June in the New Republic. "Supermajority" requirements prevent the majority of legislators from accomplishing anything, because budget resolutions and tax increases require an impossible two-thirds majority.
The system, in a way, is rigged against the party that wants government to do things. If the legislature can't agree on a balanced budget, the state effectively comes to a standstill: it can't pay its bills, can't provide social services, can't really do anything (except, of course, issue IOUs). Now, nobody is particularly fond of this situation, but it's far less objectionable to Republicans than it is to Democrats. If you don't want government to do very much, you're not going to be that devastated when fiscal paralysis prevents the state from doing anything. It's sort of like the old saying about mud wrestling with pigs--you should try to avoid it because all that happens is you both get dirty and the pig likes it.
Even as one-fifth of Los Angeles county falls below the poverty line, even as the tent cities increase, even as poor children have health care yanked away from them, even as our colleges shed working class students, even as Californians discover that they can't walk from car to shop anywhere without encountering homeless panhandlers, Republican legislators maintain that the state is too generous to the less fortunate. Those Republicans are intractable. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger can't reach them.
Those who would blame an imaginary liberal conspiracy never talk about Bush's ruination of our economy. This state's woes were created not be a fantasized cabal of Hollywood liberals but by Republican deregulators in Washington. They authored the current banking crisis, which resulted in a wave of foreclosures that hit California especially hard.
If TARP funds had gone toward Hillary's proposed new HOLC -- a federal agency devoted to helping people stay in their homes -- there would have been fewer evictions and fewer homes selling for reduced prices. More happy homeowners would have meant more people paying their property taxes, resulting in state solvency.
The solutions?
Well, in the short-to-medium term, we need more federal aid. The federal government can print money; the state cannot. (Inflation is not a problem right now.) So far, the Obama administration has spat in Schwarzenegger's face. How about a federal jobs program devoted to fixing California's crumbling infrastructure?
More importantly, we need to reform the way things get done in Sacramento -- and that means changing our state constitution via a constitutional convention. That's a risky move, but we must take it. We must get rid of the supermajority requirements. Let a simple majority rule. If the politicians screw up, if they overtax or otherwise annoy the citizenry, they will be tossed out at the next election.
We need to put a cap on the initiative process. We need to put an end to gerrymandering, which makes the "red" districts into extremely red places where only the most extreme, barking mad Republicans are voted into office. Finally, we need to rid ourselves of term limits. Our legislators now spend most of their time preparing for post-legislature gigs as lobbyists.
Would legalizing and taxing marijuana help solve our problems? Yes, but not to the degree that many suppose. Such a move would bring in a billion dollars in tax revenues. Freeing those imprisoned on pot charges would save two or three billion. Those numbers are nothing to cough at. But don't kid yourselves -- Californians can't smoke their way out of this one.
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That wasn't the Guardian's premise. That's how most of the Guardian's reader commentary went. I was a little surprised to see that so many liberal-bashers in California read the Guardian.
This article has been featured at TheWeek.com as Best Opinion - Check it out! - http://www.theweek.com/article/index/101196/Is_California_a_failed_state
posted by Anonymous : 8:39 AM
Wow. Does ENRON/rolling blackouts ring a bell? Arnold sat in on those "secret" Enron meetings. How soon we forget. They released the tapes of them openly laughing at Californians.
Ken Lay and Arnie were a part of those meetings. I also remember Cheney going to court so he didn't have to release any Energy Policy paperwork.
Why aren't we RECALLING Arnold yet?
Nevermind.
posted by Anonymous : 12:27 PM
Anon: Jeez, I never said I LIKED Schwarznegger, although I kind of dig his movies. Haven't you followed what I've said about him over the years? I've done nothing but rake him over the coals. And I've talked about the Enron tapes lots of times.
Why the hell are you talking as though you can take me to school on this? I was there way ahead of you.
You seem to have read things into this post that I did not write. Read it again. Calm yourself, try to be objective, and read the actual words, without paying attention to the voices buzzing in your head.
What I said was this:
"Arnold Schwarzenegger did not destroy California, although a lot of people now blame him. In truth, he has handled the state's crisis more-or-less responsibly."
If you can mount a comprehensible argument that he DID destroy California, let's hear it.
What killed us, in my view, was the collapse in property values, which led to a collapse in property tax income. That was caused, ultimately, by banking deregulation on the federal level.
I make that point very clear in my piece.
And yes, he HAS handled the crisis as well as it can be handled. Surprised the hell out of me. I expected him to act differently. I expected him to side with the obstructionist Republicans. But he has not.
This is not a game of shirts versus skins (if I may steal Bob Somerby's term).
I tend to think of Enron as the beginning of the end for California. They never fully recovered from that financial blow .
k
posted by Anonymous : 5:42 PM
The CA legislature has been controlled by Democrats since the 1970s, with the exception of two years. It was that gerrymandering which prompted the passage of Prop. 11 in 2008. (You should see the odd shape of my district!) The Bay Area has hundreds of thousands of Republicans but, in fact, NOT ONE SINGLE representative in the CA legislature. And you expect this to break up Republican control? WHAT REPUBLICAN CONTROL??? There isn't any. As far as I'm concerned, it's taxation without representation. They've made sure my vote will never count.
The governorship of California is much less responsible for California's fiscal mess than is the legislature. In CA, the budget is written by the legislature, which can ignore any and all of the Governor's budget suggestions.
This mess is complicated by CA voters who have voted for nearly every bond initiative that's ever been on the ballot - with very few exceptions - and who are absolutely oblivious to the fact that bond = tax. (It's just not as direct.)
One of your solutions is to print money because there's no inflation right now? Printing money CAUSES inflation (amongst other things).
I tend to agree with you about putting some limits on the initiative process, especially when it comes to bond measures. That said, we'll just end up with the same problems we had before the initiative process was instituted - unaccountable legislators who don't have to worry about reelection because of gerrymandered districts.
If we can't trust legislators to run the state's finances and we can't trust the voters who appear not to understand the problem, I don't see how this is going to help because either way, there's no one to trust.
I remain skeptical whether Prop. 11 will accomplish any real reform in this regard - who will control the commission? Independent? That's doubtful at best.
As for federal bail outs, the Feds didn't create the problem, so why should they fix it? I know we've had bailout mania lately, but I'm completely opposed to ANY bailouts. They make matters worse, not better because there are no consequences (failure) for stupidity. The money is usually ill spent. ($529 million in bailout monies to Al Gore's car company that produces luxury hybrids - in Finland - that sell for $89K each? Are you kidding me?! Who can spend $89K on a car (other than Al Gore's buddies)??? Where are the American jobs?
One last thing: I'm old enough to remember Governor Moonbeam, though I didn't vote for him. (I was in high school.) I seriously doubt he will regain the Governor's office for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is the perception that he does his own thing and not only refuses to enforce the laws that the people have voted for but actively works against them.
You gotta admire Marc Faber: He's the Roland Emmerich of economists. He lusts for the Apocalypse. If Armegeddon were a woman, he'd kiss it. With tongues. Hell, he'd do unmentionable things to her while pulling her hair and making her call him Daddy.
Right now, he's proclaiming to the world that the U.S. economy -- and capitalism generally -- is doomed. The following comes from his euphoniously-titled Gloom, Boom & Doom report:
The future will be a total disaster, with a collapse of our capitalistic system as we know it today, wars, massive government debt defaults and the impoverishment of large segments of Western society.
If Philip Glass were to set those words to music, we'd have the ultimate in Debauched Art.
My (layman's) problem with Faberism comes to this: He thinks that the America-killer will be hyper-inflation. Do you see any hyper-inflation around here? A lot of people are saying that the real problem right now is worldwide deflation.
Actually, I've thought for a while that a controlled degree of inflation would be a good thing. Emphasis on controlled. If prices and wages rose generally, your staggering house note would suddenly look a lot more payable, and the burden of debt owed to foreigners becomes far less burdensome. Inflation is a destroyer, especially of savings, but it does make old debts smaller.
Inflation need not segue into Weimar-esque hyper-inflation. Nations have been able to turn off the spigot at just the right moment. As I once noted in an earlier post:
A system of wage/price controls can apply the brakes. This has been done successfully in the past -- the Wassenaar Agreement in the Netherlands in 1982 provides one example.
If the Netherlands could do it, why can't we?
Printing money has, in fact, been going on for about a year. Okay, they're not literally printing it, but it is still being conjured out of nothing. They call it quantitative easing. That's how Japan made some headway against its ten-year slump.
Still, the path is dangerous. Hyper-inflation seems like a far-off possibility right now, but it could happen -- and today's ideological constraints may make wage and price controls impermissible, even in the most dire of emergencies. So. If Faber is right and capitalism is doomed, what comes next?
The few remaining Come-comrades-come-rally types may be thinking: "Aha! Now is our chance! We must seize the historical moment!" Oh, grow up. No media or intellectual infrastructure serves the left-of-center alternatives. Fred the Red don't know when he's dead.
But there is a massive underground infrastructure serving the fringe right. I'm talking about what we might call the "Alex Jones" right -- the guys who see conspiracies everywhere, the reactionaries who see the GOP as a bunch of pinkos, the Illuminati-spotters, the wackos.
That's why I've always considered the so-called "fringe" to be worthy of close study. When everything turns to shit, they'll be the only ones with their shit together.
Can they solve our economic woes? Of course not. Many of these guys are libertarians at heart, which means that they'll try to put out our financial fires by pouring on the gas. That trick won't work.
But they can end democracy, if they have a Pinochet lurking amongst their numbers. I think they do.
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"But they can end democracy, if they have a Pinochet lurking amongst their numbers. I think they do."
Who, [a name,] do you think they have? I want to be forewarned.
posted by Anonymous : 5:46 AM
From Bhutanese monks:
Shakyamuni Buddha predicted that, due to the inevitable degeneration of the times, his own teachings would last just five thousand years before disappearing from this world. People will grow more immoral and their lifespan will gradually decrease, as will their health, stature and fortune. While such delusions as miserliness, hatred and jealousy gain strength, the world will go through prolonged periods of famine, disease and continuous warfare until it eventually resembles a vast battlefield or graveyard. Thereupon Maitreya will appear, not in his fully evolved buddha form, but as a person of regal bearing.
Hyperinflation does seem remote at this point, but you have to remember that we may nonetheless see currency inflation, the dollar being overvalued even at currently depreciated levels.
Commodity prices, for example, are high for a recessionary period, which in part reflects depreciation of the dollar. And it's very hard to know what's going on in the gold market at the moment. A good indicator of what's to come -- high inflation and a steep drop for the dollar -- or just another bubble?
Today is another "fun with Google Earth" day. Once again, we find ourselves looking for oddities in the wilds of Nevada.
The "ground sculpture" pictured to your left can be found roughly 23 miles south of Area 52, a.k.a. the Tonopah Test Range. (Coordinates: 37.253943, 116.510285.) Area 52, like Area 51, is a very mysterious place -- you can read what is known about it here.
They fly MiGs around here, or at least they used to. They also test Stealth Fighters and even more exotic craft against radar systems.
This "airfield" is about 1.5 miles across. I call it an airfield because one can see (if one zooms in close) that aircraft have been parked throughout the facility -- even though the dirt "runways" do not seem to be usable as actual runways. If this airfield is a bombing target, then I can only presume that the aircraft have been retired.
The curved thingie in the lower left corner appears, on closer inspection, to be a train. One cannot see any tracks. Again, I can only presume that the railroad is a dummy constructed for bomb target practice.
But is this just a place to heave bombs? The craters would suggest so. However, the cross at the bottom has buildings around it -- fairly tall ones, to judge by the shadows.
What I find truly odd about this airfield is neither the airplanes nor the craters nor the choo-choo train nor the overall goofiness of the design. And I'm not particularly bothered by the giant star of David wittily inscribed into the ground just to the southwest. What bugs me is this:
Why did they build two of these things -- nearly the exact same shape and size?
If you zoom in fully, you'll note that the [presumably] target airfield to the Southeast is littered with numerous junked aircraft. (The appearance of which leads me to wonder if there isn't already a conspiracy site out there announcing this 'proof' of directed-energy weaponry.) The airfield to the Northwest, however, contains only a few aircraft --some of which look, to these untrained eyes, as if they might be drones.
I guess that once you trash an airfield, it's easier to bulldoze out a new one than to put away your old toys.
(The train *does* appear to be on a track that winds its way through the field of craters to the North.)
posted by Mazoola : 8:41 PM
At what point will we finally realize that somebody - somewhere - is having a great time with photoshop.
Maybe they're being paid to mis-direct attention, seeing's how just everybody can snoop nowadays from satellites.
Forget my above about the co-ords...Google earth mis-dirented me.
The train, with it's fifteen cars, is apparantly sitting at an "end-of-track" spur, just being stored there, no loading/unloading docks, no vehicle tracks, no warehouses, nada.
So, follow the tracks. They seem to lead to an abandoned Quarry up north, where perhaps loads and loads of dirt were mined, then transported down SW to those odd rectangular fields with the raised earthern walls around them.
Why haul trainloads of dirt there?
Possibly to cover over a now underground facility adjacent to all those nutty photoshopped ground patterns that are blended unto some existing real features. Mix and match, as it were...
Or maybe the train is/was hauling ore of some sort, to a place where it was once refined.
Seems to me something major was once happening there, but now it's all shut down.
Maybe they use these duplicates to test radar systems or confuse personnel during training?
posted by Anonymous : 5:10 AM
Mazoola commented:
"I guess that once you trash an airfield, it's easier to bulldoze out a new one than to put away your old toys."
A close look clearly shows that the lighter pattern - in many areas - is not bulldozed, but overlayed. The terrain is not altered, only changed in color or hue. So much of the pattern is either spray painted on the surface(not very logical), lightly dusted(some of which should show evidence of wind dispersion by now), or photo-shopped and inserted into the google earth files.
The "how" is not nearly as interesting as the "why".
Whatever the method, the lot of taxpayer money has been spent creating these oddities.
I use Google earth to watch the growth in my area. Last year photos showed more homea in our subdivision(but not all) than the photos show today, althought the missing homes do exist.
So today, I am looking at an older photo than last years.
That makes no sense whatever, but thats the way it is.
Sorry; I can't embed the videos into this blog. My advice: If you are using Firefox, acquire the VideoDownloader plug-in and use it to download all three parts to your system, then watch at your leisure. I'm sure there's a similar plug-in for IE.
The third part is the most enlightening. The key points:
1. The crisis was real. Some bloggers have opined that the bankers exaggerated the severity of the problem in order to abscond with TARP funds.
2. Deregulation caused the crisis. You knew that already, of course -- but here in America, we still have a surprising number of people arguing that the root cause of the problem was too much regulation. Libertarianism is a mental disease, and it may be incurable.
3. America's near-religious abhorrence for anything reeking of Socialism -- not to mention our blinkered ignorance of what has worked and what has not worked in Europe -- was the reason we did not take the obvious courses of action: Bailing out homeowners (Hillary's "new HOLC" idea) and nationalizing the banks.
4. Britain played a major role in forcing the hand of the U.S. I was unaware of this aspect of the story until I had seen part three of this documentary.
Again, I urge you watch -- and not to judge until you have watched.
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Well, we have the part-time, but would rather be full-timers...
the already gave up looking
the expats, the early-retirees...
the tool and die maker with 18 years of expertise working at the car wash
and the animals who work in the trading pit at wallstreet
and the pundits on TV, who if God were just, would be greeters at a wall mart or clerks at a fast-food place that serves disgusting crap. (Wouldn't want them at your favorite Mexican food place.)
We're heading into double-digit unemployment and the condition will linger. Like it or not, only further government debt can pull us out of this decline. Robert Reich makes the case here.
Reich offers a distillation of Keynesianism: During times of economic torpor, only federal spending can bring back jobs. Private enterprise can't do it alone, because businesses have neither the credit nor the customers. Federal job creation means running up massive debts, which must be repaid when times are better.
Reaganism made Keynes unfashionable (even unthinkable), even though his policy of "military Keynesianism" illustrated the principle. Bushes 1 and 2 ruined the nation by practicing reverse Keynesianism: They ran up massive debt during flush times. Krugman offers much the same message as he argues for a new stimulus. Didn't we already pass a stimulus bill? Yes, and it failed because little of it went to job creation. The Democratic party must rediscover its mantra: jobs, jobs, jobs.
Conservatives will now argue -- loudly -- that the very idea of a stimulus is wrong-headed (example). And the citizenry will, I fear, accept the conservative argument. Only in America would a father facing homelessness say no to a government jobs program because he does not want to put his children further into debt.
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Don't worry Joseph, the H1N1 flu pandemic will kill millions, so we'll either be dead and our worries will be over or we'll survive and there will be lots of job openings.
This time it might be too late. I don't see the Saudi's or Chinese throwing good money after bad. As you said, if Bush wouldn't have run up the tab we could borrow, but ...
posted by MrMike : 8:35 PM
While I agree the government spending is a necessary condition for economic recovery, I don't see how it is a sufficient condition.
Unless the government returns to FDR-style major public works projects, and becomes an employer of last resort, the return of jobs will be a long time coming.
Government income supports (unemployment insurance, and extensions to how long they last) provide a floor to how low things can go, but that floor is at a subbasement level. Because such supports offer a bare fraction of the income they help replace.
XI
posted by Anonymous : 9:31 AM
I'm torn about this issue. I've dilly dallied with libertarianism this year but it always ends up leaving me cold. Maybe it is a mental illness.
My concern about more spending comes not from America and Americans but from China. How much longer will they buy our empty bonds? My sense is that we are watching the U.S.'s lapse as a superpower with Obama playing the role of Gorbachev.
I have never put a movie trailer on this blog before and never will again. But these five-or-so minutes made me smile on a day when nothing could make me smile. And it works even better if you replace the sound with the really loud bits of the Berlioz Requiem.
Oddly enough, I have little desire to see the actual movie. Anything further could only spoil perfection.
Independence Day is forgiven. Even Godzilla is forgiven. One of these days I may tell you the story of how I played very small role in giving Roland Emmerich his start.
(If you feel inclined to masturbate, remember to use a hanky.)
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Tried and tried, but because I'm "on the road in semi-nowhere Southeast Asia and the internet here is a bit iffy, ... I'll have to wait to experience the much-needed smile. Well, the people here are very nice and we do smile, but ... I wanted to see it.
However, I have stumbled upon another. I think I can guarantee you will find it worthwhile. Just pics, no vid. Amazing. But perfection it is not.
When I grew up in southern California, this scenario was widely bruited about among the kids at school. I guess we all got it from the adults (hard to imagine there was some general Zeitgeist that gave us those thoughts).
So I've been waiting decades to see it, and I am gratified to finally see such a striking realization of its graphic portrayal. Seriously.
However, still having Arnold (? sound-alike, anyway) as governor really stretches credulity, LOL!
XI
posted by Anonymous : 9:29 AM
Finally saw it... by accident it was loading in a window forgotten for some hours.
Who's that guy hangs out with the Queen of England? God, he will **love** this. Oh, yeah, Filup.
If I knew his email address, I'd send it to him with the "If you feel inclined to masturbate, remember to use a hanky."
I wonder if he has a wide screen video in his Sanctum Sanatorium where they do the esoteric masonic highest degree kinda stuff.
Now the City of London. THAT would make me smile. And let's put Charles in the driver's seat. I'd like a shot of Tony Blair falling into an abyss while I'm at it.
No offense intended to the good people of the U.K.
Whaddaya mean, "forgive" Independence Day?! Independence Day is a hoot, and I'm only sorry I didn't discover it in time to see it on the big screen.
2012 looks like Independence Day on steroids, with John effin' Cusack to boot. What's not to love?
As for what the "mystics and statistics" have been predicting about the Big One and most of the West Coast dropping into the drink, I remember starting The Last Days of the Late Great State of California one cold winter night about three months after I'd moved to Los Angeles.
Couldn't put it down, so I read all night. Finally finished about 6:00 the next morning.
24 hours later, virtually to the minute, the earth moved bigtime--or so I thought then (February 9th, 1971).
Imagine my shock when I discovered it was only a medium-sized quake on a previously unknown fault, and the Big One could be 1,000 times stronger. OTOH, I'm sitting pretty here in the Land of Enchantment. I could wind up with beachfront property...
posted by LandOLincoln : 1:01 PM
Okay, now I know what you meant by forgiving Independence Day, having just watched the trailer full-screen on my laptop. I came in in the middle of it last night on television, but I was half-asleep and pretty much all that registered was John Cusack and that it was obviously the ID bunch at it again.
BTW, that shot of the huge slab of coastline tilting up and up is especially effective for someone who's lived next door to the Sandias for the last decade and a half, know that I mean? ;-)
posted by LandOLincoln : 1:33 PM
Found a similar clip on satellite in HiDef and surround. Freaking awesome.
I think we may need a fight over ID4, in which I'm sure you'll bitch-slap me. (Remember the Bill Maher ambush of Robert Loggia?)
As schoolkids, we had frequent rumors that 'this coming Tuesday' (or whatever), California was 'falling into the sea.' Whatever we thought that meant. Now I have a visual.
Never happened so far, even though the 'major earth changes' have been overdue since the '70s. Kind of a boy crying wolf aspect to these warnings, which prompt amnesia as to the prior deadlines' coming and going without incident, only to re-predict the same thing next year.
The 'earth changes' crowd are the new Millerites. Unless it eventually happens in time for humans to see and experience it.
Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was correct about Iraq's lack of alleged weapons of mass destruction. Nevertheless, everyone guffawed at him back in 2002-2003. Now the world has chosen to ignore his words about Iran:
"Here we are condemning Iran for doing its job, declaring a facility, inviting inspectors in. And the conclusion it’s reached from this? That they’re producing nuclear weapons," said Ritter.
"This is politically motivated hype designed to create a situation this coming Thursday that will find the United States unable to reach any sort of agreement with Iran about its nuclear program," he added
Thursday has come and, surprisingly, an agreement has been reached, thank God. That agreement has Charles Krauthammer chiding Obama as a damnable appeaser. If you read his piece, tell me if you can figure out Krauthammer's logic. Damned if I can. When a pundit switches subjects three times in two sentences, you know that argument has given way to bluster.
Remember, this same neocon was a big supporter of the Iraq war -- and he also predicted that Iraq would experience "explosive growth" during reconstruction. (Interesting choice of words, that.) How many times do guys like Krauthammer have to be proven wrong before they are yanked offstage?
By the way, the Qom facility that everyone is talking about was hardly a big secret. Ritter again:
The facility in question, said to be located on a secret Iranian military installation outside of the holy city of Qom and capable of housing up to 3,000 centrifuges used to enrich uranium, had been monitored by the intelligence services of the US and other nations for some time. But it wasn't until Monday that the IAEA found out about its existence, based not on any intelligence "scoop" provided by the US, but rather Iran's own voluntary declaration. Iran's actions forced the hand of the US, leading to Obama's hurried press conference Friday morning.
The Qom plant, if current descriptions are accurate, cannot manufacture the basic feed-stock (uranium hexaflouride, or UF6) used in the centrifuge-based enrichment process. It is simply another plant in which the UF6 can be enriched.
Why is this distinction important? Because the IAEA has underscored, again and again, that it has a full accounting of Iran's nuclear material stockpile. There has been no diversion of nuclear material to the Qom plant (since it is under construction). The existence of the alleged enrichment plant at Qom in no way changes the nuclear material balance inside Iran today.
Simply put, Iran is no closer to producing a hypothetical nuclear weapon today than it was prior to Obama's announcement concerning the Qom facility.
Let us suppose, as a thought experiment, that Iran was making nukes. By what right can we forbid them from possessing such weapons?
"Iran is a rogue state," we hear. "They will use the weapons aggressively."
Really? When was the last time Iran started a war?
What makes you think they would they be mad enough to launch a strike that would surely lead to an annihilating counterstrike? The Russians did not possess that brand of psychosis, and neither, I think, do the Iranians.
But there are people in the world who have descended into that level of insanity. Consider this article from 2003. The whole appalling thing is worth reading, but the following sections are particularly germane to our discussion of what constitutes a rogue state:
An Israeli professor and military historian hinted that Israel could avenge the holocaust by annihilating millions of Germans and other Europeans.
Speaking during an interview which was published in Jerusalem Friday, Professor Martin Van Crevel said Israel had the capability of hitting most European capitals with nuclear weapons.
"We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets of our air force."
Note: The professor's name is actually spelled Martin van Creveld -- and he's enough of an insider that I find him credible when he avers that Israel has targeted Rome, Berlin Paris and London with nukes.
Creveld insists that others in the Israeli government think as he thinks. If so, then the Israelis really do appear to be insane enough to strike without care of counterstrike:
Creveld argued that Israel wouldn't care much about becoming a rogue state.
Our armed forces are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us."
Yes, it's true: If Europe ever tries to prevent Israel from going through with its program of ethnic cleansing, Israel will destroy the Louvre and the Sistine Chapel and the British Museum, along with hundreds of millions of innocent people. "We have the capability to take the world down with us." Israel is willing to engage in a mass murder spree that would dwarf Hitler's, even at the risk of a nuclear Masada. That's how deeply the Israelis care about their long-term plans for genocide. Crevald is explicit on that score, and he's not just speaking for himself.
If anyone of similar authority in Iran ever uttered such words, you'd see outraged headlines around the world.
Thomas Friedman, of all people, offers further enlightenment. He speaks of Israel circa 1995:
I remember the ugly mood in Israel then — a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin, who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords. They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.
And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish nationalist as a license to kill Rabin — he must have heard, “God will be on your side” — and so he did.
So I ask you: What constitutes a rogue state?
Which country has plunged deepest into the tar-pits of irrationality?
Which country has a history of military aggression?
Which country has made the more vile threats?
Which country has a nuke aimed right at the Mona Lisa?Permalink
Joseph, I read somewhere, here perhaps, that Obama was told of this facility by the Bush administration during the transition. If so, why the damning words now? Obama still said he intended to sit down with whats his name for a little talk, perhaps tea. Bet Hillary already knew when she called Obama naive during the debates. I don't think he had the Security clearance before the inauguration to know about the Iranians before all that. Maybe thats why Hillary took the State job. To prevent a big mistake.
Thank you Joseph! Thank you for writing what most all mainstream journalists don't have the guts to say. This is so obvious and referenced, yet it's become a crime to say as much. Just look at the villification of Trafficante this past week. It just defies all logic that all of our media continues to lie about the whole "wipe off the map" misquote. I am really getting tired of all of our politicians being so subservient to Israel and the neocons. And one other thing, doesn't it seem that Obama is getting treated exactly like Rabin was by the rightwing? I wouldn't be surprised if many of the same forces were at work if you consider who was the next prime minister of Israel after Rabin in 96. It was Netanyahu, the same psycho in charge today./
"Let us suppose, as a thought experiment, that Iran was making nukes. By what right can we forbid them from possessing such weapons?"
They signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And as far as anyone can tell, they are abiding by it. But it does say they can't get nuclear weapons.
posted by Eric : 11:25 AM
When I was in Iran back in March(before the whole ugly mess that followed the election) the word on the street was that Ahmadinejad will be elected or selected one way or the other. The logic behind this assumption went something like this: -the economy is on the verge of collapse(unemployment, inflation) -oil revenues are down(virtually the only source of income)and Government expenses are up(Gov tried to get out of some subsidies at the begining of the Iranian calander year-March 21 but backed off in fear of a public revolt) -sanctions would deal a deadly blow to a fragile economy -Obama can be packaged and sold as "other than Bush" to the Iranian people who have had enough with the anti west and pro Palestinian stand of the Gov -Obama in return had given signs that he also favors peace -if there is to be "peace" between the US and Iran, it has to happen when a hardliner was in power in Iran(any future economic improvements can not be attributed to moderates) I don't think back then the people or the Gov predicted the events and trends before or after the election(the level of participation and loathing for Ahmadinejad). So, when it came down to the wire they had to resort to fraud to get Ahmadinejad elected. Two more observations that support the idea that a deal was struck shortley after Obama's election. -Obama adminstration did sit on the fence for a short while after the Iranian elections and the demonstrations that persued to make sure that Ahmadinejad can hold his own before the plan was put back on the table. However, as soon as it became evident that the election would stand, the MSM's coverage (and tone) of the Green Movement in Iran dramatically changed. The Huffpost used to have minute by minute coverage of the Iranian uprising and then puff! it stopped dead with no explanation. TPM used to have a special page covering the Uprising and suddenly it was gone. Last week several tens of thousands(my husband was an eye withness)of American-Iranians had a rally in NY to protest Ahmadinejad's election and there was but a mere mention of it in MSM. The movement in Iran has slowed but not stopped, the media here would have you believe it is dead. -On Thursday right after the US-Iran meeting was over a newspaper in Iran reported that further talks have been arranged for the middle of October. The US had not even had time to report the results of this meeting and had to rush and put a memo out about the October meetings.
posted by beeta : 11:31 AM
beeta, I suspect that reason the TPM and Huffpo coverage changes has to do with the fear of consequence. Nobody likes Ahmadinejad, just as no-one liked Saddam Hussein circa 2001-2003. But the neocons are back and they are serious about wanting war with Iran, even though the consequences will make the Iraq debacle seem like a breeze.
Joseph, Are you saying that further demonizing of Ahmadinejad by Huffpost and TPM would play into the warmonger NeoCon hands? And that they stopped covering the Green Movement in Iran for fear of helping the drive toward War? But that was my poiont. Nukes have been used as an excuse by NeoCons for pushing war. The excuse can be eliminated by signing an agreement and having inspectors go into Iran and declaring everything on the up and up. I would not even be surprised to see us accepting Iran with NUKEs down the road like Pakistan.
posted by beeta : 1:37 PM
During the Presidency of Saddam Hussein, the nation of Iraq used, possessed, and made efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Hussein was internationally known for his use of chemical weapons in the 1980s against Kurdish civilians during and after the Iran–Iraq War. It is also known that in the 1980s he pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program. Maria Recovery Bull Software
Those WMDs were all destroyed during the 8 years of international weapons inspections. That fact was known before the Iraq war; no intelligence agency anywhere in the world (including those in the US) thought otherwise. So what's your point?
