Back when Obama was elected, I was still an A-list blogger, and had some access. We advised Obama and the Senators creating the new financial laws that the correct action was to take over the banks and break them up, while bailing out Main Street. Criminal charges should be laid against bankers under RICO statutes for fraud, to ensure nothing like this happened again.
If they did not follow our advice, we warned that it would eventually lead both a strengthening of the populist right and to civil unrest.
Of course, they didn’t take that advice, and given who Obama chose to run his administration that should hardly have been a surprise. Indeed, it was Obama who pushed TARP through after it failed the first time–Pelosi was not going to pass it if Republicans would not vote for it in equal percentages, and they wouldn’t. Obama twisted arms, and the reports I received were that the threats were absolutely savage. TARP was, though most Democrats will not admit it, ultimately Obama’s bill, whether it was originally Bush’s or not.
It is after the 2008 financial crisis that American pathology starts going off the charts: We start seeing declining life expectancy among the working class, the opiate crisis spreads to poor and many middle class whites, and so on. It takes years for jobs to return, and inequality soars; it was worse under Obama than any other previous president. Yes, this is a continuation of trend, but Obama could have stopped it, simply by enforcing laws as written.
The response to the financial crisis set the standard: Bail out the rich, fuck the poor people–they receive some crumbs. This was repeated when Covid-19 hit, with multi-trillion dollar bailouts for the rich, and a single $1,200 check for everyone else, with some technocratic fixes around the edges. Billionaires gained control over more of the economy, small businesses were and are being gutted, and crisis capitalists are waiting to snap up billions in distressed businesses and properties.
The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
Meanwhile the neoliberal playbook, which was always about making the rich richer and everyone else poorer and about gutting the middle class the New Deal order built, kept the poors down by locking them up and with routing police brutality. Incarceration soared under neoliberal rulership, and Joe Biden was one of the architects, though you can see the trend starts under Reagan.
And so here we are, with protests and riots throughout the US. This was a long time coming, and it came because the lords and masters in the US refuse to throw anybody but the rich more than scraps. They funnel gold and caviar to the already wealthy at every opportunity; cat food to everyone else. They beat down anyone who acts uppity, giving cops massive license to be brutal, arming them with military weapons, and having them taught by Israelis whose experience is in beating down Palestinians in the occupied territories: people with no rights, regarded by Israelis as subhuman (no, don’t even pretend otherwise).
The cops see violence and brutality as their right. Any challenge to their authority is met with cruelty and abuse of power. They are fundamentally cowards, because they don’t believe their victims have any right to fight or even talk back. (Their essential cowardice has been proven when they are threatened, and is a weakness which could easily be exploited.)
Right now there is no reason to believe than any of the new Covid-19 bills will do more than give crumbs out. Food stamps are under threat of further restriction and, in New York, Governor Cuomo (whose popularity has increased despite his complete malign incompetence in handling Covid-19) used the crisis as part of his excuse to cut Medicaid, while keeping non violent offenders locked up in prison so that Covid could kill them.
Long and short, neoliberal elites don’t know how to give. They don’t have the instinct that New Deal elites, for all their flaws, had, that the job of government is prosperity for the masses. They know it is prosperity for the few, they feel in their bones that anyone who is poor doesn’t deserve more than a little bit of pity charity, and their instinct is punitive; the poor and middle class are undeserving and if they get uppity, what they need is a good smack.
Covid is not going to go away this summer. Multiple states have reopened without getting it even remotely under control. Testing has been reduced, but even so numbers show only minor decreases.
So we have a pandemic, a population nearing 30 percent unemployment, people who can’t pay the rent, and 40 years of impoverishment and brutality.
This summer has been a long time coming, and it’s only starting. Even if this wave of protests is crushed, or dies down, the smart money is that it isn’t the last wave.
And that’s a good thing.
Because as long as your lords and masters know they can only give you scraps and feed themselves at gold plated troughs, that’s how it’ll be.
If you are reading this, understand that this dynamic means that there can be no peace while the current ideology rules. The only possible peace is the peace of impoverished serfdom, of people beaten so far into the ground that they simply accept that everything will keep getting worse for them while the rich feast.
There is no good future for the US if neoliberalism, and neoliberal elites, continue to rule.
Take that into account in your planning.
And get ready for that long, hot summer.
The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.
Z
This says it well …
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/06/02/treason-ruling-class
Z
Z
Our rulers are bringing out the Head PR Man for the Point Zero One Percent tonight to address the nation, on cue now that the cops have got to be pretty worn I’d imagine. Another bail out of the rich by Obama, maybe.
I hope that this is the beginning of the blacks in the U.S. holding this fraud accountable, at least reputation wise. I hope they start questioning what exactly he did during his 8 years in office to help them and their cause, which was worse than nothing because they were worse off after him than before he came into office, which was what you would expect since he worked for their enemies for 8 years.
Z
Plowhard
You are witnessing the death of scientism. Covid was the wake up moment for the masses. Everything “science” said to believe in fell apart in the light.
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/covid-19-surgisphere-who-world-health-organization-hydroxychloroquine
All the news you read is corporate. Wake up.
anon
I knew Obama would not be good for the country. However, in 2016 I just thought Obama was an empty suit running on empty promises of hope and change. I underestimated him. He definitely turned out to have an agenda that was neoliberal, dangerous, and destructive. Obama is a smart man who did all the right things for himself, his family, and his wealthy buddies. He continues to be destructive for the progressive movement as we have seen the tactics he used behind the scenes during the Democratic primary to prop up Biden. What is worse is that the vast majority of Democrats still love him. If we had an actual progressive president after Obama, maybe people would have been able to easily contrast the major differences between a bad neoliberal president and a good New Deal president, but instead we got Trump, who has made everyone from Obama to George W. Bush and Andrew Cuomo look good.
terrorist lieberal
Thanks Ian for the info on Obama had advice from A-lister’s regarding Tarp and such !! I was aware that he shut out everyone on the health care bill, but never remember reading such on the financial mess ?? Should have known, but didn’t !!
Now from what I seen this ass is making a speech tonight ?? How’s that come to be ?? It’s truly disgusting that a majority of dems think this man is worthwhile listening too when I’d think they’d have enough sense to see he’s part of the reason doofus was elected in the first place ?? Of course Hillary was primarily responsible for her defeat, but with dems like the Clinton’s, Obama and Biden there was enough evidence for all to see !!
Thanks again for enlightening me further !!
Willy
That Obama went from ‘humble’ community organizer to wealthy Wall Street speaker living in a mansion next to the rising seas should be telling enough. He’s just another corporate player.
The incidence of marches, protests and riots does seem to have increased over the last few years. Maybe the technological bread and circuses which the elites dole out aren’t able to keep up with the populist angst anymore.
But I have no way to measure where the lines cross though, where the critical mass of populist revolt actually begins. It’s hard to measure just how much pain large groups of humans can bear for long periods of time.
NR
Hey Plowhard – please do feel free to go infect yourself with COVID, just to show all of us that it’s not the big deal “science” claims it is.
Z
Obama will do what his sponsors want him to do: to make the protests all about race probably with little mention about the economic issues that are also fueling the anger. He’ll try to placate black anger to divide the movement and leave the people who are also rioting about a bunch of other issues as well to fend for themselves without black support.
We’ll see if they fall for it or if finally blacks in the U.S. will hold him accountable for the charlatan he’s always been.
If Obama would have done something for the black community while taking a bit from the rich, or even from middle class whites, I would think a lot better of him, at least he would have shown he was for more than himself. Blacks in the U.S. have gotten f*cked over so bad for so long, I’d think OK, they deserved to get a lift when they been pushed down so much. I could have accepted that. But of course he never did that and he worked for their enemies and pushed them and the entire working class further down to boost himself to unimaginable wealth and celebrity.
I’d love for the blacks outside of the political class, who are pretty much hopeless because they are of the same mindset as him, to hold him accountable and point out that here is a guy that has preached accountability to blacks and yet he hasn’t taken any accountability for where we are after his administration stomped on Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and the American Indian Standing Rock protests about the pipeline while doing absolutely nothing to address their underlying causes.
If the protests lose momentum and divide over a speech from this vacuous, dishonest jackass it is going to be disappointing and depressing.
-Here’s a great article from Matt Taibbi about Obama’s sellout to Wall Street, though it goes easy on him at the conclusion and asks the reader if it is our fault for expecting too much from him to be different than other politicians and brushes over the fact that he ran on “Hope and Change” and completely betrayed that promise:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2009/12/13/obamas-big-sellout-president-has-packed-his-economic-team-wall-street-insiders
Z
someofparts
more of this please
https://twitter.com/RebeccaWSMV/status/1267618739727499264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1267798912548700160&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2020%2F06%2Flinks-6-3-2020.html
Z
Just as you would expect, Keith Ellison raised the charges for Chauvin and charged the other three officers for a lesser charge. It’s all coordinated. Now comes Obama to close the deal.
Again, they bring in Obama, just like they brought him in to close on Biden, to close the deal and push the “let’s all move on” bullshit. Obama the great deceiver.
He’ll give his pretty speech tonight, not giving one flying f*ck for anyone but himself and his family, and if it works, Wall Street and the rest of the corporate U.S. will reward him with a plethora of $400K speeches.
But I doubt that if it works that it will last long with 40M recently unemployed people, many of whom are facing future eviction, running loose in the streets and the sweet taste of rebellion still on their tongue and a bleak future on the horizon if things don’t change for the better in a major way.
Z
Feral Finster
Kvestion: what savage threats did Obama make to get congressmen to vote for the TARP?
I completely believe you, BTW, but any ammunition against those who still believe in St. Obama would be helpful.
Z
Know this: the threats from Obama almost certainly emanated from Robber “Vito” Rubin’s henchman Rahm “Sonny” Emanuel.
Z
Mark Pontin
Willy wrote: “But I have no way to measure … where the critical mass of populist revolt actually begins. It’s hard to measure just how much pain large groups of humans can bear for long periods of time.”
Always the big question.
One instance of how elites can maintain the most cruel, murderous level of control was the case of France during WWI. In the war’s later years, French soldiers were marched into battle while making baaing noises like sheep in mass protest at the fact that in all likelihood they were being marched to their slaughter.
Why did they still march into battle? Because, banally, if they refused the strong possibility of dying or being wounded in battle, they faced the absolute certainty of being pulled out of line and shot dead as mutineers, as Kubrick’s old movie PATHS OF GLORY depicted.
And that’s the banal equation underlying it all when elite propaganda to gain the consent of the ruled fails.
Of course, an elite’s ability to reduce the thing to that equation depended in the French case on the soldiers failing to communicate and cooperate en masse to resist the superimposition of such oppression. So everything depends of the oppressed majority’s capability to communicate and cooperate. Meanwhile, for elites maintaining control ultimately depends on *their* capability to disrupt and repress the masses’ communications and cooperation.
In the U.S. this raises the question of elites’ ability to censor and disrupt the internet. While we may see such a clampdown become obvious later in the year, we’re also witnessing the intra-elite competition typical of a late-stage empire as it fails (see Peter Turchin on this). In particular, Trump is a pathologically incompetent — in fact, deeply stupid — individual who’s disliked by the (relatively) more competent oligarchs. Being pathologically incompetent, he’s also managed to piss off the U.S. military by and large.
This isn’t to say there won’t be careerists or ambitious individuals in the military or LE who’ll accede to Trump’s flailing and raging as protests continue. But, overall, events in the (erstwhile) U.S. may proceed as they did in the former U.S.S.R. as that collapsed, if on a more protracted and bloody basis because U.S. elites have much more personal wealth and power to lose.
If matters aren’t resolved by 2020’s end, the most propitious thing may be for Trump to be re-elected and his flailing incompetence to continue. On this front, the Democratic “opposition” have managed to select for their presidential candidate Biden: a figure so incompetent and corrupt even before his senile dementia that he manages to (a) make the gerontocrats of the Gromyko-Andropov late-era U.S.S.R. look good by comparison and (b) be capable of losing to Trump.
Overall, as Ian writes, U.S. elites have managed to create a situation where there’s a pandemic, a population facing 30 percent unemployment, people who can’t pay the rent, and 40 years of immiseration. The United States as it’s been is done and you can stick a fork in it, though its elites will be the last to acknowledge this fact.
Seattle Resident
Z
For blacks outside the political class, check out the Black Agenda Report for critiques of Obama and Black Establishment politics in general:
https://www.blackagendareport.com/
Obama is being put up there to cool the street action.
As far as the Ellison charges, lets wait to see how this plays out. He probably feels that 2nd degree murder, while not up to the severity of what we saw, may provide a more realistic opportunity for conviction than first degree. We will be waiting a long time for the trial – very likely after the 2020 election. If a trial ends up in acquittal of Chauvin, our recent riots will be spring training compared to what we will see, particularly if Trump steals re-election, for he will push for a serious paramilitary assault on the protesters.
bruce wilder
. . . instead we got Trump, who has made everyone from Obama to George W. Bush and Andrew Cuomo look good.
What has been wonderfully clarifying for me are all the people who have held up Obama, Bush, Cuomo as admirably “normal”.
The criticism of Trump — from some quarters, fact-free narratives like Russia,Russia,Russia and sometimes just fake outrage over Trump saying something sarcastic or somehow not-saying some soothing official cliche soon enough — has been very revealing, not about Trump, but about the ethics-free practices of Democratic politicians and major “news” organizations.
And, then putting the neoliberal’s neoliberal up for President and touting his progressive bona fides while ignoring his dementia — that is very revealing of the moral bankruptcy of the political classes.
Z
Seattle Resident,
Thanks for the info.
Z
GlassHammer
“their instinct is punitive” – Ian
A deeper truth might be that the institutions that develop our elites (Colleges, Board Rooms, DAVOS, Think Tanks, etc…) produce only malformed humans.
All those institutions have a competition based model at their core. Perhaps spending ones entire life inside a sorting apparatus makes human life appear valueless. Afterall, these institutions can’t assign much value to the ones that lose (that would cheapen the role of the winner). So post competition the defeated must become things (assets) for the winner to use. At best you get Elites who answer the defeated with either “I made it, so why can’t you?” Or “You deserve what you have and nothing more because I won.”
Ché Pasa
Obama!Obama!Obama!Obama! How he rules this country to this day! What utter horseshit, as David Sirota would say.
Yes, in 2008 — 12 years ago — many of us were saying the way out of the financial collapse was to fund from the bottom up, put whatever money it would take into paying off household debt, and set up massive public works and infrastructure programs funded with whatever money it would take and lasting as long as necessary.
Obama went the other way, covering the gambling losses of the elites (sometimes at more than 100%) and finding only the tiniest little scraps for the rabble — who “qualified.”
It was idiotic and Hooveresque. That’s why I took to calling him Barack Hoover Obama even before he was inaugurated. His was a banker’s solution to the financial problem that literally impoverished millions upon millions and enriched the already wealthy. Guess what? Dude was raised by his granny, who was a bank vice president. He didn’t turn from being a man of the people into a corporate whore. He was raised that way. And he telegraphed what he would do in office every step of the way.
That was a long time ago. Now there’s been someone else in the White House, believe it or not, and he and his team of rivals are outdoing one another to be worse, much worse. And still, it’s all about Obama.
Crazy.
Z
I hope the protestors don’t let off on those cops.
Make them sweat, they are in full riot gear and it’s summer. In a few weeks, if not sooner, they will be falling apart.
Keep on them, make them work.
Z
Ian Welsh
Without Obama there is no Trump.
And Bush Jr. killed far more people than Trump, far more, plus put in place most of the police state apparatus Trump is using: apparatus which Obama also used and did not get rid of.
Trump is a worsening symptom in the disease, not the disease.
bruce wilder
Hey, NR
Surgisphere.
Mark Pontin
‘Active-duty troops deployed to DC region start to leave’
https://apnews.com/e0e783dcbb316887f4fac5a4dbe92563
‘Esper says no military for protests as standby troops leave’
https://apnews.com/41d80cc063a7199f75fb28cc34713f0c
The U.S. military isn’t going down with the fat fool.
S Brennan
Biernhardt at Moon Over A asks:
“[why aren’t] the Democrats out in front demanding that more be done to create new jobs? They seem to have totally vanished from the scene?” – b
My reply used in previous threads;
I can already hear the DNC chorus; “but if we can just hamstring Trump for 5 more months…neoliberalism will flourish under the DNC’s control…oh what a beautiful world that will be…if you want an omelette, you gotta break a few eggs”
Ché Pasa
And before Obama was the Ultimate Evil, Clinton (WJ) was, and Bush Jr was only following Clinton’s lead. The current (R) occupant — whoever it is — never has agency, it is always (always!) the Dem predecessor’s stage setting that lets the Rs — whoever they are — run wild.
As for how many brown people have been exterminated and displaced since Trump came to office, I’ll leave that to history but many villages, towns and cities have been destroyed, millions set to flight as refugees and many tens or hundreds of thousands have been killed. Drones are used more to exterminate more, in more places, more often. Threats of annihilation are routine under Trump. And on and on.
At some point, it’s got to occur to more people that it’s a systemic problem, not so much a problem of the individual in the big chair. Surely the current disappointment in Sanders is clue enough that he, too, is part of that system, just a Trump was and is part of the same system of rule. He has been for decades. He’s a particularly unpleasant part, but it’s an honest and ugly reflection of that system.
Obama didn’t “cause” Trump, any more than Clinton (WJ) “caused” Bush, Jr. The system produces all of them — and celebrates them.
If we really want change, and we aren’t at that tipping point yet, then it will require serious systemic change, not putting yet another pretty or ugly face on the rotten and failing system we have.
NR
Hey bruce wilder,
One company doesn’t represent all science.
metamars
@Plowhard
Good link. Particularly funny was the following, re Surgisphere employees:
“An employee listed as a science editor appears to be a science fiction author and fantasy artist. Another employee listed as a marketing executive is an adult model and events hostess.”
I am pleasantly surprised that WHO has now resumed their clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine. France and Italy have moved against hydroxychloroquine, even as the Spanish FDA were defending it, and India was still solidly on board with it.
Silly me, I thought that the fact that “pure garbage”* studies appeared in the (formerly?) prestigious Lancet meant that a grand conspiracy was being executed. Although I’m still sure there’s lots of conspiracies being pursued, they’re not quite so grand, or coordinated.
Gain-of-function Fauci must be having a sad.
* as Dr. Chris Martenson would say
bruce wilder
One company doesn’t represent all science.
But, one company did reveal more of the empty pretensions of the medical and public health establishment.
5 days ago:
Ranked #1 For Machine Learning-Powered Data Analytics — Surgisphere Corporation
All the buzzwords, and so-called scientists grabbed the so-called data and ran with it. Lancet. New England Journal of Medicine. Major policy decisions at the clown show known as the WHO.
Even if we take some comfort that a corrective impulse came along, after all the previous failures on high in this epidemic, it constitutes a pattern of systematic incompetence that ought to give pause, not occasion tribal braying.
Z
The content was what I expected, hit heavy on the racism, completely ignore the economic misery, but I was surprised at how uninspiring of a performance it was by Obama.
He must have gotten off the shit, probably Modafinil. I have never taken it, but the little that I believe that I have observed of people on it, it can hollow you out and make you a husk of a person.
He looks old and beaten, like a man who has spent a lot of time looking in the mirror and has realized that he doesn’t like who’s looking back at him. He shouldn’t.
Z
krake
The population of the US isn’t ready for insurrection. Certainly not for partisans, recapture of the commons, seizure of the means, or the decisions which ecological collapse mandate.
The population of the US is barely capable of seeing past four functionally meaningless indictments.
The US has been prepared, sometimes quite meticulously, for a soft balkanization, where the state and national fictions are maintained, but where whole regions are abandoned to direct corporate control, or alternatively, fallujahfication. If you live in northern New England, or greater Columbia, you will probably be fine for the rest of your expected lifetime. If you live in a municipality with a techno-specific workforce, you will probably be fine, if you maintain your subscriptions. If you live and work in a competitive merit zone, like Manhattan, parts of Atlanta, San Francisco or the posher sections of LA County, you’ll pay a much, much higher access cost, and if you can afford it you’ll be fine. Occasionally interupted by surplus-body outbursts, but mostly fine.
The rest? Fecked. Well and truly fecked. You are being triaged. You will continue to be triaged. You will be miliced, and fed to the Spectacle. Your existence is already criminal. You are surplus, and not even natural allies will step up to help you, because many of them have swallowed the ‘overpopulation’ poison, or other kinds of eco-fascist delusion.
Fascism is inevitable, because it is already rooted; it has conquered the republics of the West. It just doesn’t look like the first iterations of the corporatist-falangist revolution. It doesn’t wave flags; its leadership has learned to loathe them.
Trumpism is authoritarian, but it is not fascist. It is a third-rate nationalism, but it isn’t corporatism. It is Christian identitarian, but it is not traditionalist. Trumpism is a personality cult. It is the abortive movement of the smallholders, the petite bourgeoisie and the lumpenprole cast-offs of deindustrialization. What makes it dangerous is that the actual fascists, many quite publically, have used Trumpism as a crude, blunt instrument.
What comes after Trumpism is what we must fight, ready or not. It promises the ruination of all, so that a vanishingly small number of victors can literally ascend into the sky (colonize space) and conquer death (extend life for hundreds of years, or ‘upload’).
Zachary Smith
After a Google News search I have found the solution to this problem – a person favored by the Power Elites.
Klobuchar.
A May 8 Letter to the Editor the Google boys pushed to page 1 of the name search: With Biden, Klobuchar can unite our polarized nation
May 26 story at Warmongering Post: Why Amy Klobuchar is Biden’s best bet
No mention of George Floyd, and that’s a little problem which must be addressed.
Fox: Sen. Amy Klobuchar Announces Additional Charges Coming in George Floyd Case
Fox: All four former officers involved in George Floyd’s killing now face charges, Sen. Klobuchar says
A person could easily get the impression the wonderful white-woman Senator Klobuchar was personally responsible for those ‘additional charges’.
And ALWAYS keep in mind, none of this was her fault.
Amy Klobuchar Wasn’t Involved In 2006 Case Involving Derek Chauvin, Hennepin County Attorney’s Office Says Surely we can trust any announcement from Hennepin County.
Whoever gets the VP nod is nearly certain to be the next POTUS of the US of A. Klobuchar is the dream candidate for the Apartheid state. Random stuff:
* Klobuchar was the only Democratic presidential candidate to vote in favor of the recent anti-BDS bill, which “codifies $38 billion in defense assistance to Israel and which provides legal cover to states that target the boycott Israel movement.” Other Democrats have expressed concerns that the bill could hamper free speech.
* While criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to order the killing of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, Klobuchar said of Iran: “They are now announcing that they’re going to start developing a nuclear weapon and move toward busting through the cap on uranium enrichment.” (not true)
* “Using chemical weapons is an atrocity. These missile strikes targeted the air base used to launch the chemical attack, and it is right to show Assad that he will be held accountable. Moving forward, the Administration must consult with Congress.”
* In 2011, Klobuchar supported American military intervention in Libya.
* In January 2019, following Juan Guaidó’s self-declaration as interim President of Venezuela, Klobuchar told HuffPost that she supported the opposition to Nicolás Maduro.
Warmongering White Woman who is really, really sad about the death of George Floyd, and who had nothing whatever to do with that death.
What’s not to like.
Hugh
What I find interesting is just how out of touch the police are with their communities. It seems that as a group they are doing everything they can to destroy their legitimacy. Without the legitimacy we accord them they’re just another armed gang.
I have heard the argument that the police represent the state and the state has a monopoly on violence. I find this hopelessly naïve. Violence is everywhere in our society, and it is the rich and the elites who are responsible for most of it. Only when they do it, they don’t call it violence. For them, it’s the business cycle, fiscal responsibility, free markets, private enterprise, competitiveness, free trade, patriotism, MAGA, hoocoodanode, never their fault.
bruce wilder
Charging all four officers when it is apparent from first accounts that the rookie, Lane, did try to do the right thing, makes this indictment of all four a sop to the mob. This is not right.
krake
Bruce,
He might have been a rookie, but he is also a 36 or 37 year old man. Old enough to know that he has a responsibility to stop Chauvin more directly, no?
Z
Something to keep in mind is that a lot of these cops came from the military in the last ten years or so, so they treat citizens probably a lot like they treated the civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq: with distrust and a sense of collective superiority.
Z
Benjamin
@Ché Pasa
Actually Clinton was only following Reagan’s lead; solidifying neoliberalism as the new normal. The George W. Bush regime (mostly Rumsfeld and Cheney) very much did have agency and did its own thing. Obama solidified Bush’s changes.
Trump to a large degree literally doesn’t have agency. There has never been a US government more ineffectual and inept on even the most basic levels, and Trump himself absolutely does not know how to lead. He’s a rich buffoon who has spent his entire life being surrounded by well paid sycophants. He in fact doesn’t understand the first thing about ‘the art of the deal’.
Zachary Smith
Headline I saw a few minutes ago:
Trump slams North Carolina and says he’s moving GOP convention elsewhere
Suppose the Trumpies find another state willing to break all the rules against close-quarter screaming for hours on end. Presumably the delegates won’t be wearing masks, for that was one of the ‘deal breakers’ in North Carolina. (Anyhow, at this level of exposure, I doubt if the best of masks would save many people.) Here is a tidbit I found about the 2008 conventions:
I think we’re about to find out how many of the Republican Delegates are willing to get extremely ill, and quite possibly die for their Trump. After late August, data about the numbers of suicidal old knuckleheads in the upper ranks of the “R” party ought to come into existence. And as things stand at the present time, their suffering will have been for nothing.
**** Get Really Sick and Maybe Die For Trump, Then Lose the Election. ****
How many of the elderly delegates will buy into this? Will the Governors, Senators, and House members also be willing to lay down on the railroad tracks to bravely show their defiance of the oncoming freight train?
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/02/north-carolina-governor-rejects-gops-demand-for-full-fledged-convention-296566
Hugh
LBJ was the last American President who was a real product of the New Deal. I am not sure what Nixon was. Certainly, he was moving away from it. It was really with Carter that you really see the first significant steps toward neoliberalism: moves to deregulate industries, weaken unions. And of course he named Volcker to head the Fed.
Obama was to the right of Nixon and at least as conservative as Reagan. So was Clinton.
It’s June 3rd. Summer doesn’t start until the 20th. I agree it’s going to be a long, hot summer. It is one of the contradictions we live by that even as the powers that be decry violence and call for peaceful protests, they only respond to violence
metamars
HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE KILLS ….. THE CURVE
(MAYBE)
Caveat 1: The following might be very significant if 100% of covid-19 patients got hydroxychloroquine. While I believe hydroxychloroquine is generally used in Turkey and Costa Rica, I don’t know the percentages, and certainly don’t know the percentages in other countries.
Caveat 2: There are a lot more countries than what is shown…
Caveat 3: No mention of zinc, the most important co-factor of hydroxychloroquine. Hmmmm.
Caveat 4: I believe there has to be a major confounding factor of latitude, which is obviously not teased out. That’s because of the sun exposure/vitamin D factor. Consequently, only the South Korean data might be readily comparable to the US. (The data I recently posted from Indonesia show about a 20 fold difference in mortality, based on measured blood vitamin D levels, between very insufficient, and “normal”.)
Caveat 5: Obviously, not everybody in the US is giving hydroxychloroquine late. E.g., Dr. Zelenko.
NOTE THAT this is the SORT of data (though still very insufficient) that should have been gathered (by both government and media) and extensively reported on, on mainstream media. It’s just this sort of data that’s needed to make rational decisions, by policymakers, even in the absence of platinum standard, double blind, placebo controlled studies. As I have noted on my Vit D ‘thesis’ I am writing, we have SYSTEMIC FAILURE evident in the federal government, relevant federal agencies, as well as each and every state. Plus, we have obvious media failure.
From the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
Where’s the Evidence on COVID-19 Treatment?
@ https://aapsonline.org/evidence-hydroxychloroquine/
Country Death/Million Use of Hcq
====================================
India .6 early and prophylactic
Costa Rica 1.0 early and prophylactic
Australia 3.0 early and prophylactic
South Korea 5.0 early and prophylactic
Brazil 20.0 early and prophylactic
Israel 23.0 early, some prophylactic use
U.S. 167.0 Late, in hospitalized patients
bruce wilder
Old enough to know that he has a responsibility to stop Chauvin more directly, no?
As a rookie, still on probation and possibly in training, necessarily uncertain of the situation, his duty unfortunately is to defer to the 18-year veteran and senior officer. I doubt that any rule of policy or procedure would countenance a confrontation between officers in the field over control of a suspect who had been difficult to arrest.
I would like to see some effort to reach management types on their responsibility for retaining the psychopath and on the department’s policy regarding holds responding to prisoner distress.
Tom
HCQ with Zinc works. In fact any Zinc-channel opener plus Zinc works.
Remdesivir has failed two double blind trials while HCQ is not even given any double blind trials.
Nations that got Covid-19 under control are giving people HCQ plus Zinc early and landing on the problem like a ton of bricks.
Problem is, HCQ’s patent ran out long ago, and Fauci who is personally invested in Remdesivir is pushing a failed drug for personal profit.
Fauci needs to be fired and stripped of his medical license for gross ethical violations and for authorizing and funding Gain of Function Research plus outsourcing it to China. In fact Fauci needs to be charged with Negligent Homicide for each Covid-19 death.
S Brennan
Hang in there Metamars, eventually even the most ideological will succumb to science…they just won’t admit to it.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13618460-600-vatican-admits-galileo-was-right/
capelin
“The U.S. military isn’t going down with the fat fool.”
fat shaming, one of the few remaining “acceptable” descriminations among the woke.
Zachary Smith
I have to look up that “woke” business every time I see it! This time the search engine turned up an article titled “How the word ‘woke’ was weaponised by the right” with the definition appearing to be:
The word seems to date to 2008 when used in Erykah Badu’s song “Master Teacher” OK, I don’t think I need to add this word to my vocabulary, so no doubt I’ll have to look it up again next month. Since I’m not very politically correct, especially in “political” issues, it’s obvious to me Trump is a fat fool. I can see how ordinary use of the phrase would be hurtful in many non-political cases.
So what progress has been made in describing the fat fool which are more “PC” and which won’t trigger censor software in blogs like this? A quickie search found a neat little essay published in the UK last year.
UK: The Best Description of Trump I’ve Read
That’s a 2020 reprint, and the site tosses in a nice little image of The Leader holding up a text of “I don’t need a facemask because I only talk out my ass.” But so as not to overexercise the electrons at Mr. Welsh’s site, here is a small sample of the text of the original.
I skipped the stuff the author said about the Orange Oaf’s fans. It might be best for that bunch to avoid the link.
NR
https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/03/hydroxychloroquine-does-not-prevent-covid-19-infection-in-people-who-have-been-exposed-study-says/
The first clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine has found that it doesn’t do anything.
“Approximately 12% of those given hydroxychloroquine developed Covid-19, compared to 14% who were given the vitamin folate as a placebo. There was no further benefit among patients who chose to take zinc or vitamin C. Nearly 40% of patients on hydroxychloroquine experienced side effects such as nausea, upset stomach, or diarrhea. However, the study did not see a significant increase in disturbances of heart rhythms, or an imbalance of deaths.”
Zachary Smith
Veteran Military Helicopter Pilot On Why Hovering Over Protestors Was Dangerous And Stupid
This piece at a neocon watering hole surprised me not so much by what was in it, but that it was published at all. The site owners – whoever they are – generally cherish rah-rah kick-ass military stuff.
Obviously most military helicopter pilots aren’t morons, but the lesson seems to be that in a pinch a few such specimens can always be dredged up.
bob mcmanus
Hugh: “Without the legitimacy we accord them they’re just another armed gang.”
Littlefinger: “Legitimacy (knowledge) is power.”
Cersei Lannister: to bodyguards “Cut his throat. Oh, wait”
“Power is power.”
Are we at the point or approaching the point where whoever wields the most effective, sustained and intense, violence wins? Yes, cops need the State but violence-by-cop, like much violence, is self-legitimating. Political Violence, like Revolution, neither has or needs prior justification for it creates its prior justification in its present atrocities.
Von Neumann in Behemoth defines fascism absurdly simply:
1) Street violence, on thug initiative not leader orders
2) Cronyism
Stirling S Newberry
Lonely people
Picks up window door
Waiting sermon belong
Were do hear darning
Died the church
Wiping dirt hands
Lonely people
Wedding has been
The grave
Is it good Norwegian wood?
Z
One of our rulers’ deceitful tricks is to portray their street enforcers (cops) as protectors of the public when they are in fact oppressors and on the front lines of enforcing our rulers’ vicious economic system on us.
We’re starting to enter into a very dangerous stage of this movement. Our rulers are getting desperate because their street enforcers are wearing out and losing legitimacy with the public and our rulers’ intelligence agencies have had enough time at this point to scheme and put in place plans to attack protestors and keep their fingerprints off of it.
Z
metamars
@S Brennan
Thanks. You express good sentiments.
Unfortunately, I am a small frog in a relatively small pond. What is necessary is widespread availability of good information, preferably through main stream media. The MSM is so corrupt, that that can’t be an immediate goal.
However, aggregating and propagating such information through the internet is – and has been – a viable goal. The extreme ‘incompetence’ of our government and media is mirrored by the ‘incompetence’ of activists, who should be spearheading such an effort, given that government has failed us. The incompetence of activists was the theme of a series of blog posts I wrote, which contained the string “The plutocrats are laughing at you”. A couple of these still exist.
My observation about the lack of readily available, pre-digested, comparable information between countries is nothing new, and hardly limited to dealing with a pandemic. To get the flavor of what should be readily available, see the PBS Frontline video “Sick Around the World”. The narrowness of the dumbed down, main stream media presented, D/R talking point constrained (non) ‘debate’ about healthcare then becomes obvious.
Imagine how the political situation would change if, every year, the government mailed us a healthcare “cost of living” comparison report. What does a CAT scan cost if you’re an average US citizen (out of pocket + insurance + taxes) vs. Sweden vs. Finland vs. Taiwan vs. Canada vs. ……. What about total costs of the top 50 cancer drugs/top 50 diabetes drugs/etc.? IMNSO, if Trump really wanted us to be “great”, he work to get our per capita costs to be the lowest of any other 1st world country, and our outcomes the best, also.
While it’d be nice to have slick video productions (and maybe ultimately necessary, from a propaganda/educational point of view), what’s first necessary is to have the information aggregated, in charts and tables.
BTW, Dr. Chris Martenson has made the point that relevant covid-19 data should be collected and aggregated, by the government, but has not been.
S Brennan
NR, do you do anything but read headlines that confirm your biases? Read this out loud and tell me you are proud of your post?
“outside researchers saw significant limitations. The study was conducted in an unusual way: over the internet, without patients being seen by study doctors…”The fact that patients self-reported their data and that one in five did not take all their doses of the study drug, as well as the study’s small size, made him less than confident. Poor quality data does not help it only confuses the world. That’s exactly where we find ourselves, in a state of confusion”…the study, which was far cheaper to run than conventional clinical trials…with four days of uninterrupted work time, he set his team bought $5,000 worth of hydroxychloroquine, and borrowed the self-reporting methodology from randomized studies that have been run in the social sciences…Robert Califf, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner who now works at Alphabet, said there were “lots of flaws” in the study”
NR, I expect better from you.
=============================
Good point Tom
PHARMA-cist in Chief, Mssr. Fauci is actually at the root cause of the disease itself, he is the last person who should be in charge.
Benjamin
@capelin
Stop being fat. It literally is unhealthy and is killing people.
Now, the correct response would be to realize and acknowledge this, and then try and address the systemic problems (so much of our food is crap, poor people live in food deserts and have no choice) that have led to there being so many fat people (there weren’t anywhere near this number of fat people forty years ago. There just weren’t).
The performative woke response, of course, is to to whine about fat shaming and promote ‘body positivity’.
NR
S Brennan:
Did *you* read anything except the part *you* wanted to read? Even if you discard 20%, this is still a decent sample size.
Of course more data is needed, but as the first clinical trial of hydrochloroquine, it’s still significant.
metamars
Reference page: “Select state laws, regulations, executive actions relating to boards
of pharmacy, executive decisions or other new rules/guidance” @ https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/2020-04/board-of-pharmacy-covid-19-prescribing.pdf
This is linked via “Distributed Denial of HCQ to COVID-19 Victims” by Leo Goldstein, @ WattsUpWithThat.com
Benjamin
@metamars
Why am I not surprised to learn that you visit a major climate change denialist website?
capelin
@Zachary Smith. I meant woke as in “precious and faux”. Uh, we’re all electrons.
Trump’s physical attributes are meaningless. What if he were hunchback, or only had one leg? “…amputee fool? ” See? What’s that got to do with it. Nothing, it’s just shit.
Biden’s senility, on the other hand, does have something to do with his legitimacy. Or lack thereof.
metamars
@Benjamin
Since you appear to be sufficiently brainwashed as to be incapable of disambiguating climate change from catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, it doesn’t surprise me that you would ask such a question.
The Lancet – considered a prestigious medical journal – has now retracted the craptastic retrospective study which relied on garbage Surgisphere ‘data’. This has been used as pretext for suspending clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine (now reversed, in the case of WHO).
The question remains, though, as to how this junk ever made it past peer review. Also, why did the media, including some Foxnews personalities and their main web site, just parrot this science fake news, with no recourse to expert, scientific fact checkers?
People like you don’t care about questions like this. BTW, I doubt Fox will be much better than you, and address the question of whether or not the Lancet scandal is the tip of the iceberg, and the scientific enterprise is systemically dysfunctional. They could easily delve into this matter, but won’t. They have to keep their pharmaceutical ad revenue to consider, after all. Fox, like all MSM, is poor at addressing systemic issues, from science to politics.
I have a very modest attempt to document some of the ubiquitous dysfunction in science and, in the case of ‘climate change’, concomitant fake news regurgitation (see LaFramboise reference), at a sub-reddit, /r/bad_science_culture.
The dysfunction evident in many areas of science is an old story, including ‘climate change science’.
Benjamin
@metamars
You’re literally parroting the second stage of climate change denialism. The first stage is denying it’s happening at all, the second stage is conceding it is happening, but insisting ‘climate is always changing’ and it’s not caused by humans.
different clue
testing . . . testing . . .
different clue
@Benjamin,
Metamars has moved beyond the second stage of global warming denialism. He is at the third stage now.
The third stage is to concoct the diversionary concept of ” catastrophic” man-made global warming. The goal is to detour people into hamster wheel of debating about what is “catastrophic” global warming as against what is “merely incovenient” global warming or “not quite catastrophic yet” global warming. The third-stage denialists’ definition of ” catastrophic” is an infinitely malleable ever-shifting set of goalposts. All designed to buy more time for the Merchants of Fossil to sell every last lump and barrel.