This email came in from our Deceiver-in-Chief a few days ago, and it really toasted my buns, especially since I’d seen these charts been called ‘bullshit’ in no uncertain terms here and there online.
“Over the past eight years, we’ve made incredible progress in our economic recovery.
Our businesses have created more than 15 million new jobs since early 2010. Twenty million people now have the security of health coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Together, we’ve turned around an economy in freefall and put it on a stronger, more durable course.
This is Progress.
And last week, we got even more great news: the policies we’ve put in place since the recession have started to pay off in real ways for American families. Take a look at these charts. (I won’t embed the bogus US Census Bureau charts nor the rest of his self-congratulatory drivel, me hearties; follow the link.) Except for this extra rubbish:
“We lifted 3.5 million people out of poverty, including one million children — the largest one-year drop in almost 50 years. Poverty went down across all racial and ethnic groups.
By so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than it was eight years ago.”
So I toddled over to Naked Capitalism to grab this link to TRNN: ‘Don’t Celebrate Just Yet: Median Household Income In a 20-Year Decline’; Recent statistics from the US Census Bureau show improvement from 2014-2015, but in reality, wages are in a real decline and no mechanisms have been put in place to prevent another crash, says economist Richard Wolff
(the transcript‘s easier)
His key message boils down to: ‘You can’t fix capitalism, nor do we have the mechanisms to control capitalism’s instability.’ He left out a few things commenters noted both at TRNN and NC such as: yeah, some folks are working two or three of those low-wage, no bennies jobs…
“The government doesn’t claim the average US household income is $56,000. That, as you say, is ridiculous. The government claims the median US household income is $56,000, which is completely compatible with 300 million Americans living below the poverty line while 30 million are obscenely wealthy.”
“Excellent point, add little Bill Gates to a room full of McDonalds servers and they all become millionaires using the “median”.”
“Remember the old saying: there are lies, damn lies and statistics.”
“Also, if you don’t know the average number of people in the household from year to year, you can’t really determine if the growth in median household income is significant–or just the result of larger households as people move in together to save expenses.”
“So from 2010-2014 the price inflation indices had been paring down any puny median income gains. In 2015, the deflator (at least the one the Census uses) had a miniscule increase and not much paring occurred. A series of fortunate events for the PR peeps.”
But let’s look a little further into the Craptastic Good News from The WH and the BoS (some may be redundant, some give different figures). ObombaDontCare? Ha; such a death spiral it’s in now that Big Insurers like Aetna are pulling outta the ‘exchanges’. Naked Capitalism has been rigorous narrating the ACA from the beginning until the present.
US Homeless/Poverty Statistics Sept. 2016, data from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty
| Number of homeless people in the US | 1,750,000 |
| Average monthly income for a homeless individual | $348 |
| Percent of homeless that do not get enough to eat daily | 28 % |
| Percent of homeless that did paid work during the past month | 44 % |
| Demographic make-up of the homeless population | Percent |
| Single Men | 44 % |
| Single Women | 13 % |
| Families with Children | 36 % |
| Unaccompanied Minors | 7 % |
The other stats are chilling as well.
‘Hunger in America: 2016 United States Hunger and Poverty Facts’, worldhunger.org Okay, published in 2016, their stats are largely from 2014, but the trends and reasons are inescapable today.
‘Who Are the Low-Income Childless Adults Facing the Loss of SNAP in 2016?, February 8, 2016
“Some 500,000 to 1 million childless adults will be cut off SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly the Food Stamp Program) over the course of 2016 as a three-month limit on benefits for unemployed childless adults returns in most areas of the country. This paper addresses some basic questions about childless adults aged 18-49 without disabilities who may be subject to the time limit based on a review of research in the nearly 20 years since it was first imposed as part of the 1996 welfare law.”
‘45 million Americans rely on food stamps, 1 million about to lose them – report’ RT, 4 Feb, 2016
[The bipartisan] ‘Crapifying Medicare with the New MACRA Program’, Lambert Strether, Naked Capitalism It’s an excellent deconstruction of the program, and alarming as hell.
But oh, my. From the White House two days ago came a message from Congressman John Lewis says in part of his sincere appreciation of the NMAAHC (on Twitter, too!) :
“And as we look at the exhibit dedicated to an African American who now leads the free world from a White House built by black slaves, we can better understand the unshakeable optimism that has defined his belief that — with dedicated work and a little good trouble — we can help create a society that is more fair and more just, which benefits all Americans.”
Sigh. I know, I know; he’d old now, and one of the early civil rights greats, there’s even a display case for him, but still I hafta ask:
Like this black citizen, perhaps? 10/24/2016: ‘Baltimore man who called 911 for help dies after being punched by police’; According to an incident report, Tawon Boyd attempted to enter two police cars, ran to a neighbor’s house and shouted: ‘Help! Call the police’, the Guardian, and on the same day his email came in, fer chrissake.
Back to the New Museum that will save the AA community:
But oh: ‘What a Game Changer’ and ‘not a moment too soon’ said the Rev.Jesse Jackson says of the new African History Museum in DeeCee, (via RT).
“The Museum of African American History will open on Saturday, following a week of protests over two highly publicized killings of black men by law enforcement officers. The museum will open with President Barack Obama ringing the “Freedom Bell” that was provided by the First Baptist Church in Virginia”
When you think Freedom™, isn’t Barack Obomba the first person you think of? Yeah, me too.
Looks more like a derelict factory than a ‘traditional Yoruban crown, doesn’t it, ? And not to look a corporate-funded (h/t jason) gift horse in the mouth, but David Swanson takes note of: ‘The African American History Missing from the Smithsonian’
“The New York Times informs us about the new museum: “Above ground, the museum departs from the chronological narrative to examine African-American achievements in fields like music, art, sports and the military. Visitors can tour these brighter third-floor and fourth-floor themed Culture and Community galleries without venturing into the harsher history sections below.”
Get it? War is part of a well-rounded liberal life alongside music and sports, unlike those “harsh” bits of history. The new museum’s website promotes “Military” as a category of exhibit item. Click it and you’ll find 162 things including smiling portraits of soldiers in uniforms, medals, letters, hats, binoculars, propaganda posters, etc. If you search the site for “Peace” you find one photo of an unidentified man wearing a peace sign necklace and one photo of unidentified men holding up a giant peace sign.
We know that Marin Luther King Jr. is to be found in the new museum, but we don’t know if he’s the corporate-approved Martin Luther King Jr. who opposed racism but never noticed war. We know that Muhammad Ali shows up in the sports section along with his head-gear and gloves. We don’t know if his reasons for refusing the Vietnam War draft are included.”
Indeed we don’t, and my guess is with all the black military displays, those who resisted war won’t be featured. Now whether or not it’s the title of the museum, or just what the authors mean it suggests, the title of the Times photo essay is ‘I, Too, Sing America’. The corporate funders just might not want a bunch of Commie-Pinko war resistors featured. As for other radical blacks, who knows, although there’s this Tweet at the RT piece: “My grandmother was an original black panther in 1968”, she’s now in the African-American Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.”, although looking at her Twitter account, perhaps the fruit dropped far from the tree.
But my stars; look at all the love on #NMAAHC on Twitter! Oprah! (Well, $20 million buys a hella lot of love, no? #Freedom Sounds on the Gil Scott-Heron stage (the Revolution will be televised!, including Public Enemy! What, no Boots Riley and the Coup?
It’s like a hotwire, baby
When we put it together
When the sparks fly
We’ll ignite the future forever
This is the last kiss Martin ever gave to Coretta
It’s like a paparazzi picture when I flash my Beretta
I got scars on my back
The truth on my tongue
I had the money in my hand when that alarm got rung
We wanna breathe fire and freedom from our lungs
Tell Homeland Security
We are the bomb
(the rest of the lyrics)
late edition: O.M.G.
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2013/02/riddle-me-this-batman/
“whenever labor’s share of income rises a bit, they hold a recession.”the
the staging of economic “good news” is part of upholding the facade of electoral charade. but pix are worth thousands, and the last pic may be worth millions. to Mrs. BHO, that is.
well, it sure pissed me off, but it may be more legacy shopping as well as a reason to vote for the Red Queen, yes?
and that chart is food for thought, although the numbers were so faint in pale grey i had trouble reading them. the mother jones charts were good, too. i saw a Fred chart that claimed that the *average* USian worker makes in the neighborhood of $28 an hour; is that credible?
ooof; what a gaggble photo, but it tells quite a story, no? solidarity among our leaders!
Classic Fadda Smith cutting through bs through the replacement of a simple verb.
that’s where i first encountered you, i believe. or maybe ioz.
in his fine essay ‘Killer Cops and Capitalism’, herb dyer quotes george jackson today from his ‘blood in my eye’:
“George Jackson’s warning and direction was aimed at all people of good conscience, but most particularly at the now nearly 50 million black folks caught up in “the belly of the beast”:
the final quote makes one’s throat close up a bit.
“Finally, Jackson spoke of not just the legacy that our Black Struggle must leave, but of the meaning of revolution itself, of what a world cleansed of materialism, militarism and racism would mean…would actually be:
danny haiphong at BAR (iirc) wrote about him last year; when i have time i’ll look for it. on edit: worker’s world has it.
I’m actually watching the debate – no – harangue, and I have to say there’s nothing there for would be Bernie supporters in Trump’s arguments on the domestic front. Less taxes for corporations and less regulation – huh?
I’m very much afraid that Hillary is sailing through this – and I think Trump is letting her. Don’t think I can stand much more – Trump making all sorts of faces and playing the patsy- ugh!!
Gotta quit now. Done my dooty. Thumbs down on the charade. Sorry to be a killjoy but we are really going downhill – dumb, dumb, dumber. The back drop though is interesting “…Right of the People. . .”
I’m going to bed.
bless your masochistic li’l heart, juliania. i reckon this is all i cared about tonight in the end. thank you for causing me to dig it out.
sleep well; you went above the call of doooooty. ;-)
truly theater of the absurd meets the theater of cruelty. i listened for an hour on what used to be the toob, the radio, and felt myself growing stupider by the minute. i wanted to hear only the FP discussion but my stamina for dummkopfs wore out after an hour.
The two-three jobs bit brings to mind Bill Jeff Bubbya’s big mac economy, propped up as it was by low wage McJobs and subprime McLoans. And, of course, inegalitarian McPrison sentences, whose contribution to the McOnomy is immeasurable in more than one sense of the McWord.
i’d written a graph or two about other things wolff had left out, partially pinging his sentences about the great depression. but in the end he really hadn’t even alluded to the pecora commission that did at least trigger some failsafes to criminal bankster behaviors.
but to extend your metaphor, what the 3-day angelides McHearings brought was the sole thing allowed to stand by the WH: the McDodd-Frank bill. No break up of the McYuge banks, no rewind of the CFMA, no reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, no fraud prosecutions by the McDoJ, no reparations to esp. blacks for those subprime loans when they deserved prime, McWall Street bailed out to the tune of at least a trillion bucks, still no jobs plan by the Fed, just negative rates so McWall Street can buy back their own stocks on the cheap.
quite a system. and no, Miz McKlein: this did not change everything; capitalism will never be “McFettered” again. pfffft. trillion bucks a year to keep the darkies and dissidents in McPrison? cheap at twice the price, and hey…it’s just bidness.
somewhat OT, somewhat not, but a tonic for anyone who endured any of that “debate” last night, st. clair w/ at least 4 cylinders firing high octane:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/27/idiot-winds-at-hofstra/
and trump is taking over the old national post office bldg? ugh. there goes the neighborhood. one of the few kinda interesting buildings in this quasi-fascist architectural hymn to Rome known as DC. much of the architecture tends toward the severe(ly awful) “bureaucratic brutal” style whose nadir is, of course, that swastika in stone known as the pentagon. a walk around L’Enfant Plaza, where most of the gov’t buildings are, or on the mall w/ many of the museums (not the Old Smithsonian of course) is a blitzkrieg on the senses w/a tyrannically all-devouring, overwhelming architecture embodying nothing but ineluctable managerial efficiency. none of the pagan Roman acknowledgement of other gods & realms, none of the cheeky whimsy of the medievals, any sense of art as play crucified on rigid, perfect, 90 degree angles. Lord, lord, give us the Kremlin any day.
well, i suppose a ginormous “Trump Hotel” neon sign on the Old Post Office bldg doesn’t mean that much in context. it’s like putting a gigantic, hideous shopping mall right next to the Pentagon and calling it, aptly enough, Pentagon City.
okay. that was hilarious. and newsworthy, too. ;-)
what’s the dylan line? “..everything from flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark…it’s easy to see w/o looking too hard that not much is really sacred.” a buddy of mine had to go to Vegas for a conference. he was quickly disgusted, and not his 1st time to visit there. the disney-fication of everything. the pro’s as Minnie Mouse. it’s so very, very American to take a place whose top 3 income streams are gambling, booze, and the sex industry and make it look like Disney World.
oddly, i don’t remember that dylan line. but i was fortunate enough to travel thru vegas in the wee small hours every time. omg: the squalor, dust and trashing blowing around on the sidewalks, the big lights pale in the first light. never mind the staggering people. what a lesson hah: once i was on a bus full of nichiren shoshu buddhists, heading for a big fete in santa monica. the contrast? well, yay-uss.
(i tho’t i’d posted this this a.m. stupid internet.)
some nonsense lyrics…and some blunt as Thor’s hammer!!!! lyrics are w/the video.
…….
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred
…hi wd
…Have not been doing much in way of commenting or comments anywhere on/across inet-electronverse since the dissolution of FDL post 2012 but still follow/read several sites of which cafe-b is one ..;-)
…Asi it was/is with demise of FDL it seemed a good idea/time to get off the comments/commenting train and just watch the train(s) stopping/passing by …;-) …After watching The Donald vs. Hillary Show last night which was a steaming pile of USian PhonyBaloney national UniParty politics with enforced exclusion of all USian WH candidates not doing UniParty R vs. D junk politics I am feeling my oats this Tues AM so will drop a comment in here at Cafe-b …;-)
…Was/Is incredible to see/ponder these two USians seen last night are who/what the USian rotted out UniParty R vs. D regime now is actually presenting/offering here in 2016. Since 1980 or 1960 or 1950 or 1912 the USian Empire has been steadfastly careening towards what seemingly now is coming/approaches post 2016.
…As a USian I have very little hope anymore that we USians will/can step up and confront/dismantle what USian Empire is and does via what USian Militarism always was and has now become post 1945.
… It will likely be Russia and/or China now being forced by relentless USian Empire hydra headed dogma of USian Exceptionalism and USian Militarism driven Imperial subjugation/death-dealing and destruction to respond in kind.
…We USians were largely spared what WW1 and WW2 wrought upon Europe and East Asia lands and peoples and surely have not been on the getting/taking end of post 1990/2000/2010 Planet Earth USian Done Terror+Mayhem/ and Drone Death Dealing.
…So who is going to stop WashDC and USian CIA-Pentagon-MICC cabal? Those who can and will.
…Was/is the tragedy of USian ” history ” that Native Amerians were unable/did not stop USian Empire expansion at the Mississippi River during early to mid 19th century. Too bad the Mexicans, the Spanish or Germans or Japanese were unable to stop/bound USian Empire. Looks like it will now come down to Russia and/or China to do so.
…Evidently the UniParty D’s want a closet Goldwater Girl to now pick up where Barry Goldwater left off in 1964. Barack Obama played some awesome UniParty junk politics back in 2008 which let him do his ” not looking back ” at Bush/Cheney in 2009 while doubling down on what Bush/Cheney had been doing since 2001. Barack Obama is a War Criminal- WarMonger who has been sowing death and mayhem since 2009 in ways Gaddafi, Saddam or Assad never could.
…. The Big USian Militarism/Empire Lie is a very insidious Big Lie that the German Hitlerians of the 1930’s/WW2 era likely would have been quite approving and very envious of.
Far too many USians not seeing/getting this here in late 2016.
… Seeing that photo of Michelle Obama hugging G.W.Bush ? This is essentially how fellow USian War Criminals now shield/cover up for each other for being in the USian WH doing what they have done and keep doing since 1900 or 1950 or 2000 or 2010. How could/can all this USian political maleficence and malevolence now done or still being considered doable have a nice or good ending?
… It Should Not. …..Can Not. …..Will Not.
Best wishes always to you wd…until again …take care…sta ;-)
welcome to da café, arrow; ya couldda knocked me over with a feather when i saw your comment via email. whoa, nellie, it’s been a long time, and now you show up w/ such a far-reaching comment.
that your having watched the joint press conference last night caused you to comment is great. but i admit to being blown away that anyone could watch, much less any on the radical left. y’all are insane masochists, imo. 297 at NC’s live debate post last night? Ooof! and whooosh!’
i’ve never heard trump speak past an ad or two i don’t get turned down quickly enough waiting for a youtube to commence, but then i can’t watch the Red Queen nor O any longer (unless for O i do it in prep for a diary, the war criminal con man). crazy that we collectively let it get to this, isn’t it? but yeah, ever since r2p libya, maybe before that in kosovo, libruls learned to love war, and to love US-exported democracy for some™, yes?
china and russia want a multi-polar world; the USA will not abide that, and may die trying to keep it from happening. is WW III in the offing? hard to imagine it, but we have seen that HRC has gotten her marchng orders from the deep state players.
i’m so glad you were feeling your oats enuff to drop by; please don’t be a stranger. we are small, but we are mighty! or something. love to you and your partner,
wd
Pass that feather on to me, wendye – but it just goes to show we are more than we know we are, and your site, your energies, shine in the midst of squalor descendant, if I may be so bold to say it.
I have watched none of the preliminary do-ray-me’s this election cycle, and seeing some folk advocating for Trump, I wondered why any Berniebot would think he was the next best thing, not giving Jill Stein a howdedoo. (I understood your horror at her invitation, always felt she knew in her heart he wouldn’t/couldn’t bite). But staying away did make me curious – saw enough of him last night to last me a lifetime – (admittedly and thankfully I’m at the tail end of that.)
Lovely to see shootthatarrow from the old gang. My feeling is, sta, the regime is gradually becoming as toothless as I am, so let’s hope it crumbles into its own footprint. And just bury me on the lone prairie – I’ll be happy with that.
Thanks, wendye, for links above!
you may indeed be so bold, ww. i may have said before, but i get a lot notifications of site ‘Followers’ via email, and am constantly amazed by the relative dearth of commenters. of course, it seems i’ve even caused other authors to skedaddle, nomad for one, big al for another, but i guess that’s life on the intertoobz. the many various claims about geo-engineering are a bridge too far for me, though. ;-)
some folks i see advocating for trump simply want to poke a stick in the Ovian Queen’s eye; others like reality checker really blow me away (walls, jobs for amerikans, no politically correct verbiage,’fuck safe spaces’ etc. i guess i consider myself more of a world citizen rather than a USian nationalist somehow. er…the image i see of the trump is his lips stretched out as though he’s about to…well, never mind, lol.
love your tweak on ‘bury me not on the lone prairie…’ they play it a lot at cowboy funerals here; let’s hear it, okay?
I promise I’ll get off the debate train now, but an unexpectedly concise and amusing bit from commondreams is worth a plug:
http://commondreams.org/further/2016/09/27/bringing-incoherent-cheeto-knife-fight
Gave me a chuckle anyway.
i was just about to email this re: NZ to you, but you know me and emails, lol. this is far simpler for me. seems lots of folks wanna talk debate; is this the only social-political site online that didn’t do a lve blog during it? ack!
Thanks wendye – gotta run, but I scanned it – can’t believe that of Greenpeace even the wimps they seem to be politically speaking – maori parties have more vigor. But I’ll return and examine further.
Oops, no sooner said than I break my word – no hope for me, (but you knew that already .) Here is what I just put up at MofA:
“Forgive me if this is a repeat, but it wouldn’t hurt if so, since so rarely does a third candidate get mentioned. Amy Goodman did the American public a great service by publishing the transcript of the debate, with Jill Stein’s answers (had she been permitted to attend) within the transcript – you really, really all should read this:
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/27/expanding_the_debate_jill_stein_debates ”
And that really is the end of it. Just her first response was worth a look.
i just came back to show you that. i’d peeked in earlier to see if amy had anything on the deecee ‘world beyond war’ conference. i might stick up what i found n case anyone’s interested. might look at the transcript, i still don’t wanna hear the other two honk honk honk. ;-)
1. Politicians politick. Black politicians use African symbology to politick. White politicians go downhome and working class. We’ve just never had a black President before. It is a bit of a shock that they’re not Huey Newton.
2. A museum of African-American history is bound within the limits of current American history. Historians have just within the past decade sorted out the evidence that nails the origins of capitalism in the management techniques of Carribbean sugar plantations of the 1600s. Of course they’re at the gift of gumbo and yams and fried and peppery foods stage. Heck 50 years ago, the 20-year-old book my Melville Herskovits about the contributions of Africans to American culture came as quite a shock where it was known. Well, honey chile, who did you think made all of that Southern cooking at the plantation house? Did you not ever wonder why they didn’t eat baked beans all the time?
3. The sectors of the economy that have done comparatively much better are the result of the few economic policies that have been proposed and made it through. And increased residential segregation has provided wider retail jobs for African-Americans in the widening changing older suburbs. And African-American communities have traded internally so as to optimize the economic effects of the jobs they do have. Of course, it doesn’t take much recovery to look dramatically better than six years ago. That said. We are still in the midst of Coolidge-Hoover policies and possibly heading for another recession as a result. Pick your overinflated bubble asset to collapse. Oil industry equipment, shipping container ships are two in the news, commerial real estate, multifamily rental housing. And then there is the bubble of private (especially leverage business) debt to magnify any collapse.
Get ready for the annual budget follies. Government by continuing resolution returns, probably wasting some more money in a shutdown. The question is what spending will be cut to sacrifice to the elephant this year.
obama hadn’t used african symbology (dinnae know that was a word) in the email; he’d used bullshit, and the snapshot charts were also highly political and deceptive, imo. and swanson’s point was that “War is part of a well-rounded liberal life alongside music and sports, unlike those “harsh” bits of history.” yes, likely the corporate approved black male warriors all the way.
the early radical blacks certainly seemed to know about slavery as the basis for capitalism, as the indigenous knew about genocide, sociocide, and manifest destiny as the same, didn’t they? but as they say, ‘history belongs to the winners’, so it’s good that some more honest history is being penned. and that first americans are now writing, producing their own films, telling their own stories, including some of the most painful ones.
on another thread jason told about the american indian museum, and after looking at the photos in the Times, we decided this can’t be nearly as awful, including ben frighthorse campbell’s jewelry store, lol. wiki said that he’d been adopted into the cheyenne tribe; can that be so? well, i reckon so.
yves smith featured a used car loan bubble, seriously; i was amazed. but you’re so right, any or all of them could burst at any time, eh? two of my faves from this admin i’d deleted before posting were lanny breuer’s (that his name?) ‘deferred prosecutions’: “so much more system stability if a bank promises to behave from that point on!” and McFake (davidly) stress tests for the big banks. zounds, none ever failed, as i remember it. kewl. shipping container bubble; wow, really? thanks for the tip. and on the CR budget; i’d forgotten. song: ‘who will be the next in line for heartache?’ the rabble, apparently. i can’t say i understood all of it, but strether’s MACRA exposé was scary.
p.s. on edit: when i’d asked about ‘your sources on syria’, and you gave the list, i’d forgotten to say that i figured you might have your own Syrian Deep Throat, and the thought of it made me chuckle.
p.p.s on second edit: “It is a bit of a shock that they’re not Huey Newton.” one of lenny bruce’s bits on record was close to: Voice from the oval: “nixon, send in seale”.
I stand corrected. Of course Kansan-Hawaiian Obama can’t appropriate African or Afican-American symbology because of the last time a photo of him in African garb was published.
I really am glad that no one is phoning in news from Syria; imagine what the questions would be about that. No, it’s mostly a matter of multifocal vision of diverse sources trying to make sense of the weird elephant in the room.
then you did mean visual symbology/symbols, rather than nonrealistic statistics (your white-flight suburb reasoning notwithstanding, cuz ‘income’ almost never translates to ‘wealth’ at the Rabble level). daishiki barack is a bit hard to swallow, but i’ll be it brought out the birther crowd again, didn’t it?
even w/ multi-focal vision of various sources, i remain as ever…confounded about the truth, the lies, the propaganda…now it’s: ‘the dutch have decided the rooskies’ hardware shot down M17; didn’t many say that of course those (man?)pads (whatchacallem) were already in western ukraine?
on edit: power and boris johnson said at the UN that russia used bunker buster bombs and incendiary devices on civilians in aleppo. it’s easy to call bullshit on that, as some do, but mainly use ‘hypocrisy’ as their metrics. i certainly don’t want to believe it. any corrections on that accusation that you’ve seen?
and what in the most beautiful woild in the woild (harry nilsson) are you doing here in the daytime?
First of all, there is a great book out on race in America. Actually it is about class in America. Nancy Isenberg, White Trash: the 400-Year Unknown History of Class in America. It is indeed a narrative from primary sources of the squatter, crackers, mudsills, and other epithets of the betters’ view of the lower classes, who seem to be the most beyond the capitalist economy. It is an excellent overview and pairs well with Howard Zinn’s The People’s History of the United States and Allan Gallay’s Facing East from Indian Country. More likely there is a history of African-Americans that will pair with these as well. I’m keeping my eye out for that.
What occurred to me in reading this book is that Obama’s reference to his half-and-half heritage as being a mongrel is more psychically loaded for lots of people that we had imagined. A lot of people still are as scandalized by miscegenation as they are about same-sex relationships and marriage. And willing to get violent about it.
I don’t know what idiocy is driving Anglo-American policy in the Middle East, but Samantha Power’s shock that the Syrian government is trying to exert control over the entire territory of Syria was pretty mind-boggling, almost as much as Gary Johnson’s ignorance about foreign affairs and the necessity to at least learn something.
I think the best debate at this point would be to put Jill Stein up against Hillary Clinton. The other two have disqualified themselves as being capable of understanding diplomacy.
Rarely have we had such outsiders to government as to know understand what typical Senators and Congressmen know (and even these have gotten worse with influx of business owners).
it would be extra-good if when you find that AA companion book it’s written by an african american. ;-) yes, headlines have made johnson seem almost willfully ignorant about world affairs; nothing even got into his head by osmosis? ay yi yi.
here’s gregory barrett at CP writing from germany looking underneath this hippie-blather from john kerry:
“US Secretary of State John Kerry said at the UN Security Council a few days ago that he “felt like he was living in a parallel universe” after hearing the Russian Foreign Minister’s remarks on the bombing of a relief convoy in Syria, for which the USA accuses Russia of being responsible with absolutely no evidence.”
debate between the queen and stein? can’t even begin to imagine hrc would even contemplate it. one between their veeps might even be better, though. yeah, i love ajamu.
p.s. on edit: you may be right about miscegenation being akin to same sex marriage for far too many; it hadn’t really occurred to me. isn’t it true that ‘mongrels’ are often more resilient and stronger in many ways according to science?
It IS Bush$traps – Global Research makes sense of It ALL, Volks : http://www.globalresearch.ca/political-succession-and-the-bush-clinton-nexus-permanent-criminal-state-a-clinton-white-house-guarantees-war-with-russia/5547656
ach, 2L2Read 4 now, bruce, but what a hella compilations of flashes from the past. my stars. hope you’re doin’ okay, stranger. as an aside, when i’d read a comment about poppy bush endorsing the Red Queen…i swear i thought he was already DEAD. (sorry, poppy.)
That is much too short an article and as yet lacking substantial amount of evidence. A good investigator with good FOIA skills should get to work on this line of narrative and turn out what is essential a legal brief about the way the deep state has propagated itself through people like Poppy Bush. There does seem to be a process of initiation into a network of operatives. Don’t forget that Bill Clinton came to the attention of Sen. William Fulbright, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when Bill Clinton was a Senate intern, having been screened by the academics at Georgetown University.