As our ultimate goal is self-improvement, it has been decided that the best way for the political articles to prosper is for them to be housed on a blog focused entirely on the political stuff. Thus, Politisink was born! The domain was an older, failed attempt to do a politics blog back in 2006 that I abandoned when I went to grad school. I am sure maybe two people in the world know that, and one of them is married to me. Now, Politisink is repurposed as the new site that will keep an eye on crazy mofos and the crazy stuff they want to do to our country. The Wingnut Web and other political articles will now be posted there (though what has appeared here will remain as I am far too lazy to move everything over) while the TarsTarkas.NET Blog will go back to posting cult movie news, Karen Mok photos, Battle Beast things, and other weird stuff that I see fit (until some other random article balloons up into a cultural phenomenon and takes over the blog again!) Don’t worry, there will be plenty of cross-promotion so those who don’t start checking Politisink out right away can catch up, and for those of you who will skip right by this article because it doesn’t have a picture of a hot chick or posts from morons on message boards in it. Actually, let’s just throw in crazy picture for old times sake!

Frog King not care for your freedoms, only tasty flies!

That’s better! Now, the writers here will be joining us at Politisink, both dm and skiplogic are already contributing away. Soon I’ll try to add on a few more, because, why not? That’s how you become an internet powerhouse and

So in conclusion, check out Politisink.com, where politics circles the drain!

EDIT: Okay, I rewrote part of this because it sucked!

First of all, the draconian Immigration Bill was passed, basically making it legal for cops to demand proof of citizenship from anyone they suspect might be an illegal immigrant. Which means anyone brown. Telling people to “show me your papers” is sooooooo American.

Then we find out the bill was co-written by a lawyer for an actual Nazi! Lawyer at FAIR’s Immigration Reform Law Institute Kris Kobach was the co-author of the Arizona law. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)founder and current board member John Tanton is a noted Nazi propaganda distributor.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has a lot of neo-nazi fans, he even poses with them for pictures!

Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration raids have made him a hero, he even briefly considered running for governor before he realized that was a fast track to getting charged with crimes from the investigations now underway.

Oh, and he also forced a woman to give birth while in shackles. No wonder the teabaggers love him!

Repubican Arizona State Senate Majority leader Chuck Gray has been caught following Stormfront and a second hate group (ScarecrowWPWW) on Twitter. He claims to have no idea how that could have happened and is now unfollowing them. Right. Does anyone believe anything Republicans say anymore?

What America needs is Blues Brothers 3: I Hate Arizona Nazis.

1 - Confederate History Month x2 - Both Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour have declared Treason In Defense Of Slavery History Months. I mean, Confederate History Month. So all those Patriotic Americans are flocking to support this celebration of treason. I am sure this is doing wonders for the Republicans trying to look not-racist. And neither governor bothered to mention slavery at all, which is odd, since it was the whole point of the war. The backpedaling then began…

To me it’s a sort of feeling that it’s just a nit. That it is not significant. It’s trying to make a big deal out of something that doesn’t matter for diddly.

Let’s celebrate Sherman’s March by reenacting it each year! You see, our cultural heritage is important and your feelings don’t matter for diddly….

2- Report about tea party shows that many of them seem to think that blacks and latinos are lazy. And the richer you are, the more you think blacks and latinos are lazy!

Approximately 45% of Whites either strongly or somewhat approve of the movement. Of those, only 35% believe Blacks to be hardworking, only 45 % believe Blacks are intelligent, and only 41% think that Blacks are trustworthy. Perceptions of Latinos aren’t much different. While 54% of White Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be hardworking, only 44% think them intelligent, and even fewer, 42% of Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be trustworthy. When it comes to gays and lesbians, White Tea Party supporters also hold negative attitudes. Only 36% think gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt children, and just 17% are in favor of same-sex marriage.

For some happy news, the Tea Party is rating less popular than the IRS! (pdf link) – Suck it, teabaggers!

3- New York Teabagger backed Governor candidate Carl Paladino sent racist emails for months before someone bothered to alert anyone. Meaning all his teabagger buddies were perfectly fine with the constant stream of racist crap. And the bestiality! But it is all the Democrats’ fault!
Overview of the email forwards at WNYmedia, with more here and here

Don’t the the Teabaggers tell you that Carl Paladino (who has also fathered a child out of wedlock) isn’t a tea party endorsed candidate, as he was speaking at their rallies as little as April 8th and getting good press on FR!

Wah! Those nasty Dems made me send the Horse Porn!

4- Speaking of racist teabaggers, controversial tweets on the Twitter page of the local Springboro Tea Party have “triggered cancellations by several local and statewide candidates and elected officials”

This tweet:

Sent by a guy with a half-Latino son! The guy is Sonny Thomas, and his ex says: “Basically, it’s like he’s saying he hates his son,” said the mother of Thomas’ son, Alana Turner. Sonny Thomas is a classy guy who just got visitation rights back for said son after losing them for domestic violence shenanigans. Sonny Thomas is also blaming his racism on the Bee Gees! Yes, seriously! –

“As I am a lifetime music lover of all genres, I always have some sort of song that can fit almost any occasion or situation. Coincidently the song “Spicks and Specks” by the Bee Gees had been on my player. I made the reference to the song not stopping to think of the era that it was produced and taken out of context could be offensive to some people.“

Notice the pattern of blame here? It is never their own fault. Party of personal responsibility my butt!

5- Ohio teabaggers have been given their marching orders – don’t be racist! Also, don’t be drunk and don’t throw money at sick people.

6- Oklahoma lawmakers want to set up a Teabagger Militia! I am sure that won’t result in another federal building in Oklahoma with a big smoking hole in it.

7- Victoria Jackson is still crazy

8- In non-racism but just stupid news, the OnlineTaxRevolt is sending out emails begging for money so they can pay to get their April 15th march on TV.

Oh, and remember, all these many, many, many, many incidents are just a few bad apples!

GG: Let me ask you about that, then. If a president can find, as a president always will be able to find, some low-level functionary in the Justice Department — a John Yoo — to write a memo authorizing whatever it is the president wants to do, and to say that it’s legal, then you think the president ought to be immune from prosecution whenever he breaks the law, as long as he has a permission slip from the Justice Department?  I mean, that’s the argument that’s being made.  Don’t you think that’s extremely dangerous?

CT: That could be dangerous, but let me tell you this: Is it healthy for our reputation around the world – and this I think is that we have TO do what other countries do more often than not, so-called democracies that struggle with their democracy, and sit there and always PUT the previous administration on trial – you don’t think that we start having retributions on this going forward?

Look, I am no way excusing torture. I’m not excusing torture, and I bristle at the attack when it comes on this specific issue.  But I think the political reality in this, and, I understand where you’re coming from, you’re just saying, just because something’s politically tough doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.  That’s, I don’t disagree with you from 30,000 feet.  And that is an idealistic view of this thing.  Then you have the realistic view of how this town works, and what would happen, and is it good for our reputation around the world if we’re essentially putting on trial the previous administration? We would look at another country doing that, and say, geez, boy, this is–

GG: So what do you think happens – I think what has destroyed our reputation is announcing to the world that we tolerate torture, and telling the world we don’t –

CT: We have elections, we also had an election where this was an issue. A new president, who came in there, and has said, we’re not going to torture, we’re going to do this, and we’re going to do this–

GG: What do you think should happen when presidents–

CT: Is that not enough? Isn’t that enough?

This conception of “democracy” by someone in a high position in the media is as revealing as it is typical.  Elections are not just a necessary condition for democracy, they’re sufficient.  Elections are democracy.  Gore Vidal has been calling attention to this state of affairs for decades:

In 1972, I begin: “According to the polls, our second principal concern today is the breakdown of law and order.” (What, I wonder, was the first? Let’s hope it was the pointless, seven-year–at that point–war in Southeast Asia.) I noted that to those die-hard conservatives, “law and order” is usually a code phrase meaning “get the blacks.” While, to what anorexic, vacant-eyed blonde women on TV now describe as the “liberal elite,” we were pushing the careful–that is, slow–elimination of poverty. Anything more substantive would have been regarded as communism, put forward by dupes. But then, I say very mildly, we have only one political party in the United States, the Property Party, with two right wings, Republican and Democrat. Since I tended to speak to conservative audiences in such civilized places as Medford, Oregon; Parkersburg,West Virginia; and Longview, Washington, there are, predictably, a few gasps at this rejection of so much received opinion. There are also quite a few nods from interested citizens who find it difficult at election time to tell the parties apart. Was it in pristine Medford that I actually saw the nodding Ralph Nader whom I was, to his horror, to run for President that year in Esquire? Inspired by the nods, I start to geld the lily, as the late Sam Goldwyn used to say. The Republicans are often more doctrinaire than the Democrats, who are willing to make small–very small–adjustments where the poor and black are concerned while giving aid and comfort to the anti-imperialists. Yes, I was already characterizing our crazed adventure in Vietnam as imperial, instead of yet another proof of our irrepressible, invincible altruism, ever eager to bring light to those who dwell in darkness.

As a side note, that little adventure had been started by JFK, LBJ simply escalated it.  Nixon, the last to arrive at the party, escalated it even further before finally bringing it to a close.  The whole affair, just like Afghanistan and Iraq today, were extremely bipartisan affairs.  The notion that has been put forward that the Democratic party was opposed to the Iraq invasion in particular is extremely dishonest.

Which brings me back to Chuck Todd: “Is it healthy for our reputation around the world – and this I think is that we have TO do what other countries do more often than not, so-called democracies that struggle with their democracy, and sit there and always PUT the previous administration on trial – you don’t think that we start having retributions on this going forward?”   The examples of “retributions” that come to mind are the trials of the former members Central and South American junta regimes for things like forced disappearances, which are condemned by many “so-called democracies” but for which the United States offers bipartisan support:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday.

Human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying that continuing the practice, known as rendition, would still allow the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture. They said that promises from other countries of humane treatment, called “diplomatic assurances,” were no protection against abuse.

“It is extremely disappointing that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration practice of relying on diplomatic assurances, which have been proven completely ineffective in preventing torture,” said Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, who tracked rendition cases under President George W. Bush.

His insistence that he was “not excusing torture” is ironic because his indignation when confronted with the possibility that it would be the consequence of his actions was certainly genuine.  Mark Danner, one of the few reputable mainstream journalists to take this issue seriously, wrote a brilliant essay on those consequences:

Scandal is our growth industry. Revelation of wrongdoing leads not to definitive investigation, punishment, and expiation but to more scandal. Permanent scandal. Frozen scandal. The weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist. The torture of detainees who remain forever detained. The firing of prosecutors which is forever investigated. These and other frozen scandals metastasize, ramify, self-replicate, clogging the cable news shows and the blogosphere and the bookstores. The titillating story that never ends, the pundit gabfest that never ceases, the gift that never stops giving: what is indestructible, irresolvable, unexpiatable is too valuable not to be made into a source of profit. Scandal, unpurged and unresolved, transcends political reality to become commercial fact.

But the “political reality” is that the arcana imperii, those critically important state secrets, have been stripped away and their purpose has been laid bare for all to see.  The issue here isn’t ambiguity, it’s clarity where those who continually insist that their status is justified by their responsibility and integrity are afraid to look.

Jason Leopold reports,

Now, in a sworn declaration obtained exclusively by Truthout, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell during George W. Bush’s first term in office, said he would be willing to state, under penalty of perjury, what top Bush officials knew and when they knew it.

He claims that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others knew the “vast majority” of prisoners captured in the so-called War on Terror were innocent and the administration refused to set them free once those facts were established because of the political repercussions that would have ensued.

“By late August 2002, I found that of the initial 742 detainees that had arrived at Guantánamo, the majority of them had never seen a US soldier in the process of their initial detention and their captivity had not been subjected to any meaningful review,” Wilkerson’s declaration says. “Secretary Powell was also trying to bring pressure to bear regarding a number of specific detentions because children as young as 12 and 13 and elderly as old as 92 or 93 had been shipped to Guantánamo. By that time, I also understood that the deliberate choice to send detainees to Guantánamo was an attempt to place them outside the jurisdiction of the US legal system.”

He added that it became “more and more clear many of the men were innocent, or at a minimum their guilt was impossible to determine let alone prove in any court of law, civilian or military.”

For Cheney and Rumsfeld, and “others,” Wilkerson said, “the primary issue was to gain more intelligence as quickly as possible, both on Al Qaeda and its current and future plans and operations but increasingly also, in 2002-2003, on contacts between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s intelligence and secret police forces in Iraq.”

“Their view was that innocent people languishing in Guantánamo for years was justified by the broader war on terror and the capture of the small number of terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 attacks, or other acts of terrorism,” Wilkerson added. “Moreover, their detention was deemed acceptable if it led to a more complete and satisfactory intelligence picture with regard to Iraq, thus justifying the Administration’s plans for war with that country.”

Documents have been released over the past year that showed how in 2002 several high-value detainees were tortured and forced to make statements that linked Iraq to al-Qaeda and 9/11, which the Bush administration cited as intelligence to support its invasion of the country in March 2003. But the confessions were utterly false.

This is billed as the First-Ever Virtual Protest of Current U.S. Tax System – I bet Second Life already did it, and it was filled with Furries.

This looks to be the brainchild of Ken Hoagland, a flat tax champion who loves the flat tax so much he married it. Marriage void in 47 states. There will also be an in-person march in Washington DC on April 15th using real, live people! How exciting! I am sure that these people, marching on public property paid for by tax dollars screaming about how they don’t want to pay tax dollars, will see the irony of the situation and go home instead. Ha ha ha!

More from OnlineTaxRevolt.com:
There is a massive rejection of the established powers taking place in our country. Americans are mad as hell and we are not going to take anymore. The Online Tax Revolt is about sending a clear message to Washington that we are a growing and vocal movement that is calling for real change.

“The Online Tax Revolt is open to every American who believes taxes and spending are out of control, harmful to our country and a threat to our nation’s future,” said Campaign Chairman Ken Hoagland. “Our economic future and that of future generations is at stake. We need taxes that are lower and a tax structure that’s fair.
“We’re in serious trouble and it falls to us to get the nation back on track. This march is a wake-up call to everyone in Washington that the American people won’t be ignored any longer,” said Mr. Hoagland.

The web page:

Let’s have a look!

Here is the high-tech Google map of the marchers heading to DC!

Let’s join the march, because I have a compulsion to join Right Wing groups. My fake identities are probably on several FBI watch lists just because they’re members of groups on FBI watch lists that I am watching myself.

Marcher WheresThe BirthCertificate from Beverly Hills, 90210 is ready to march!

I am this athletic Black female who goes jogging in a skirt for some reason…

Wait, this avatar means I am a working family!

I guess it is better than being Zombie Reagan With Finger Glued To Forehead!

Next I get to pick which team I want to join. Look at all these teams…

Where is Team Jacob? So I joined Dick Armey’s Army, because I love being a member of the Dick Army.

I have never been so proud to be revolting!

As you can see, I have a long march ahead of me. Luckily, as a member of the working class, I an afford to take a month off of work to wander around the country to head to DC for a protest so I’ll pay higher taxes. Rank has its privileges.

Now some fun! OnlineTaxRevolt has some leader boards!

Check out these disturbingly accurate avatars of the leaders of the Flat Tax March Revolt Thing!

Ken Hoagland, the scum in chief!

John McCain has never been more accurately portrayed in any medium

Joe the Plumber is now Joe the Methhead or something. What happened???

Neal Boortz, idiot.

Saul Anuzis, I don’t know who he is, but he looks like someone who ties women to railroad tracks…

Mike Huckabee! Wait, I thought everyone hates Mike Huckabee because he’s a socialist…

When Dick Armey isn’t being an astroturfing kingpin with FreedomWorks, he’s being rendered in pixel form for online astroturfing action!

Grover Norquist, giant crybaby who hates America

Herman Cain is listed here probably because they needed a Black guy to break up the White Parade, but how come this black guy has Pink Lips???

Lew Uhler must have had an accident where he was photocopied again and again and is now a 54th generation copy of himself…

How come my avatar ain’t giant and blue?

EDIT: I should let you all know that Ken Hoagland has responded to this article, I’ll post more when I have more time to go over his very long email.

Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing the ISAF role in combating the Taliban because of women’s ability to speak personally and credibly about their experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the future, and their fears of a Taliban victory. Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share their stories with French, German, and other European women could help to overcome pervasive skepticism among women in Western Europe toward the ISAF mission.

What makes this even more awful than it is on its face is that conditions have not improved for women under the occupation.  Indeed, the Karzai government is currently looking at bringing Gulbuddin Hekmatyar into the government.  RAWA, an Afghan feminist organization that predates the 1979 Soviet invasion/Islamist insurgency offers this description of his past:

Hekmatyar’s fighters killed tens of thousands by deliberately shelling Kabul. They kidnapped, tortured, raped and killed countless civilians in ways so gruesome that many Afghans, especially Kabul residents, flinch at the mention of Hekmatyar’s name to this day. (An Afghan refugee once described to me Hezb-i-Islami fighters entertaining themselves by pouring hot oil on a freshly decapitated body to make it flail involuntarily.) When Hekmatyar was done with Afghanistan’s capital city, it looked like Hiroshima, and it will still be recovering decades from now.

He does, however, have a friendly past with U.S. and Pakistani intelligence services.

Unfortunately for those of us who love the country and want to see it succeed (not secede like these Tea Party “patriots”) no matter who is in charge or what legislation they aim to pass, the populist violence party that used to be contained on the internet is now frothing up and spilling out onto the streets irl. Springboarding from my post a few days ago, I thought it would be appropriate to jot down all the real ACTUAL violence, threatening phone calls, vandalism, and other ironically “patriotic” acts that no doubt those who identify with the Tea Party, Birther, Militia, Oathkeeper, White Nationalist, and other movements are behind. It’s been less than a week since the vote on Healthcare Reform so what you’re going to read here are just the juvenile beginnings of what will prove to be a really ugly time in American History (as if everything since the election of President Obama wasn’t bad enough).

1. Sen. Bart Stupak’s threatening phone calls from loving concerned Christians who wish on him ass-bleeding cancer:

It’s great to hear from these angry God-fearing Christians who value the lives of other people’s unborn children so much that they wish death, anal cancer, beatings, bleeping bleep bleep, and other fun things on a fellow Christian. Its no use trying to talk or reason on a theological level with these people, it’s a wonder what they learn at church every Sunday. I don’t even think God himself could come down from the clouds and convince these people that they are the literal embodiment of brain-curdling migraine-inducing irony.

Rep. Louise Slaughter also received threatening phone calls indicating that snipers would kill her and her family. Oh and speaking of Louise Slaughter…

2. Bricks thrown through the office windows of Rep. Louise Slaughter and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords:

Nothing says “populist rage” like people throwing bricks through the windows of Democratic representatives offices. Incidents of window smashing was reported in New York, Arizona, Kansas, and Alabama, with some possibly linking the Alabama incident to a blogger in that area. Republican Whip Eric Cantor also reported that apparently someone had fired a bullet through the windows at his offices in Richmond, VA but it’s doubtful how true this is seeing as Cantor is a Republican and voted against Healthcare Reform. But hey, Virginians love firing those guns.

3. Gas line cut at Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother’s home

This one is not as big of a deal on the surface. Reports would suggest that Tea Baggers dug through the man’s backyard and severed a natural gas pipeline or something, but in reality they disconnected the propane tank from the man’s outdoor grill and let the gas escape, maybe hoping for God to throw down a lightning bolt and ignite the whole thing.

The fucked up thing about this item however is that Tea Partiers posted online the home address of what they though was Rep. Tom Perriello’s house and encouraged their community members to go to the man’s home address and express their discontent over Healthcare Reform to him personally. I guess “express yourself” to these people means “fuck with that guy’s shit”. If I get a brick through my front window in the next few days I’ll know it’s from these same people with poor address skills.

4. Rep. James Clyburn receives faxes of nooses

The same guy who the same tea partiers were calling “nigger” on the steps of the Capitol building a few days ago are now faxing the offices of of Rep. Clyburn, a man who fought alongside the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s (another movement that was wayyyyy unpopular with the Republican party), receiving images synonymous with lynching and death. Keep it classy Tea Party!

5. “White Powder” sent to Rep. Anthony Weiner’s office in Queens

This one is sort of breaking today, a suspicious package containing white powder was sent to the offices of Rep. Anthony Weiner in Queens. The news isn’t confirming if this is like the many many incidents of people just sending flour through the mail to create some chaos at a government office or if it’s like those two cases of Anthrax or other poisons being sent to a government office in order to kill people (but those were terrorists who did that, these Tea Party “patriots” would never stoop to the actions of terrorists, right?). We’ll see how this one plays out.

But yeah, pretty much those fuming mad Tea Partiers who are fuming mad that their tax dollars might go towards public programs that help other people (unlike where their tax dollars have been spent on years), are now turning their internet rage into real life rage and throwing bricks and threatening people and all the rest of it. It’s unclear who exactly are perpetrating these crimes, but we here at TarsTarkas.net are pretty sure that they follow and post on the same networks as Resistnet.com, TeaPartyPatriots.org, and the same ilk who would love to abort all those lawmakers who helped pass Healthcare Reform.

And the kicker? Those lawmakers on the side of the Tea Parties aren’t condemning any of this. They love it! They support it! They want to see these people throw bricks and threaten and hurt people because it’s good for their politics. Not quite good for the country, but when have guys like John McCain cared about “Country First”?

Oh yeah, and Sarah Palin is declaring open season on hunting Blue Dog Democrats, here PAC releasing this map targeting the congressmen’s home district locations with rifle sights. No one would ever interpret this in terms of guns, right?

SUPER EDIT:

It seems as though I missed a few incidents in my initial post, so here are a few extra Tea Bagging tricks to update you about.

6. Coffin placed on the front porch of Rep. Russ Carnahan’s Missouri home

A coffin is substantially harder to propel through a window than a brick, a concept I don’t think the people behind this act initially realized. Coffins are expensive though! I wonder if this was just a simple pine box that some proud Missourian built or if some lout decided he’d rather die on the battlefield with his Tea Party brothers rather than be buried in the coffin he bought for the coming 2012 apocalypse.

An update to item #3:

The administrators at the Danville Tea Party seem to be the ones responsible for posting the incorrect address of Rep. Tom Perriello’s house where a gas tank line was severed. The AP spoke to the Tea Party group’s leader, Nigel Coleman, who had the following words of remorse:

Nigel Coleman, chairman of the Danville Tea Party, said he re-posted the comment that originated on another conservative blog, including the address, Monday on his Facebook page. The posts were taken down after the mistake was discovered.

“We’ve never been associated with any violence or any vandalism,” he said. “We’re definitely sorry that we posted the incorrect address.”

Thank you Gawker for the updated information and for pointing me to this excellent map of violent outbursts of populist rage that Talking Points Memo has created. There’s a war goin on outside folks!

From Deadheads in Davos to Nobel-laureate economists, from paleoconservatives to New Democrats, American leaders in the nineties came to believe that markets were a popular system, a far more democratic system than (democratically elected) governments….in addition to being mediums of exchange, markets were mediums of consent.  Markets expressed expressed the popular will more articulately more articulately and more meaningfully than did mere elections.  Markets conferred democratic legitimacy; markets were a friend of the little guy; markets brought down the pompous and the snooty; markets gave us what we wanted; markets looked out for our interests.

Except when they didn’t, especially starting in 2008.  A different Nobel-laureate economist, Joseph Stiglitz, said of the economic crisis, “In this sense, the fall of Wall Street is for market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for communism….This moment is a marker that the claims of financial market liberalization were bogus.”  This is not the first time the ideology has been discredited either.  In 1926, three years before the onset of the Great Depression, John Maynard Keynes wrote about a “disposition towards public affairs, which we conveniently sum up as individualism and laissez-faire,” that sounds all too familiar, right down to its origins:

Nevertheless, that age would have been hard put to it to achieve this harmony of opposites if it had not been for the economists, who sprang into prominence just at the right moment. The idea of a divine harmony between private advantage and the public good is already apparent in Paley. But it was the economists who gave the notion a good scientific basis. Suppose that by the working of natural laws individuals pursuing their own interests with enlightenment in condition of freedom always tend to promote the general interest at the same time! Our philosophical difficulties are resolved-at least for the practical man, who can then concentrate his efforts on securing the necessary conditions of freedom. To the philosophical doctrine that the government has no right to interfere, and the divine that it has no need to interfere, there is added a scientific proof that its interference is inexpedient. This is the third current of thought, just discoverable in Adam Smith, who was ready in the main to allow the public good to rest on ‘the natural effort of every individual to better his own condition’, but not fully and self-consciously developed until the nineteenth century begins. The principle of laissez-faire had arrived to harmonise individualism and socialism, and to make at one Hume’s egoism with the greatest good of the greatest number. The political philosopher could retire in favour of the business man – for the latter could attain the philosopher’s summum bonum by just pursuing his own private profit.

Ten years later, he published his greatest work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, which revolutionized economics until the 1970′s when our leaders decided to try the magic markets thing again.

What I’m getting at is how strange it is that this remarkably stupid doctrine keeps managing to come back with disastrous consequences. Concerning the market–the one that’s rebounded to bring us a “jobless recovery” despite increasing unemployment and underemployment–public relations legend Edward Bernays noted in 1928:

…[I]t would be rash and unreasonable to take it for granted that because public opinion has come over to the side of big business, it will always remain there. Only recently, Prof. W. Z. Ripley of Harvard University, one of the foremost national authorities on business organization and practice, exposed certain aspects of big business which tended to undermine public confidence in large corporations. He pointed out that the stockholders’ supposed voting power is often illusory; that annual financial statements are sometimes so brief and summary that to the man in the street they are downright misleading; that the extension of the system of non-voting shares often places the effective control of corporations and their finances in the hands of a small clique of stockholders; and that some corporations refuse to give out sufficient information to permit the public to know the true condition of the concern.

Yet people continue to invest in it despite being more or less told to piss off when they complain about the absurd pay going to executives that should theoretically be going to them:

Group Inc.’s board of directors has received several demand letters from shareholders relating to compensation matters, including demands that Group Inc.’s board of directors investigates compensation awards over recent years, take steps to recoup alleged excessive compensation, and adopt certain reforms. After considering the demand letters, Group Inc.’s board of directors rejected the demands.

Still, they never learn.  In a recent column about the prospects of shareholder activism, the “executive director of the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at the Yale School of Management” was quoted as saying, “Up until now, it’s been sort of a Soviet system…We have been operating in the United States under the myth that boards have been accountable to shareholders.”  What does this have to do with the Soviet Union? Its collapse didn’t bring about any magic change according to the population.

Update:

It would also be nice to see something new on this front:

You may recall the Kabul embassy guard scandal [1] that broke last fall—the photos documenting drunken, lewd behavior by embassy guards—all to the embarrassment of the U.S. State Department. Shortly thereafter, the Department fired [2] eight guards and announced it would not renew [3] the contract of ArmorGroup North America after it expires in July, but that it would grant the contractor a six-month extension “to allow for an orderly transition between contractors.”In the meantime, since ArmorGroup is still on the job until the end of this year, the State Department wants to toughen its oversight of the private security contractor, and it intends to do that by hiring another contractor [4] to oversee this one.

First the small point. I keep my television off for many good reasons, rarely turning it to C-SPAN when something really neat is happening like Congress passing Healthcare Reform, but if you need even more reasons to hate your digital set, especially in an election year, you have to look no further than Carly Florina. She is running for the Senate in California and if you haven’t already heard her name you’d surely recognize her campaign from their crazy ridiculous Demon Sheep TV ad. It’s a retarded ad to begin with, but even more so the people behind its production, Fred Davis III of Strategic Perception Inc., understand that in today’s viral video-obsessed internet world the more bizarre and weird the videos you produce are, the more people will talk about how their weird and bizarre your videos are and the person(s) attached to that video, thereby getting people to talk about the person the ad campaign is promoting.

What’s that mean for the American TV watching audience? For one it means you’ll probably be talking to your friends a lot this summer and fall about all the utterly stupid, nightmare inducing, repugnant, fact-less, commercial hallucinations you were seeing on television every day until you decided to put a shotgun to the screen so you could end the madness. Already the Florina campaign has a new epic 10-minute spot where they depict Senator Barbara Boxer’s head as a floating doom zeppelin of bitch coasting through the cities and green valleys of California (presumably where the Demon Sheep graze) to find her next meal in the form of a newborn Republican baby. Maybe this weird political campaign Florina is running is just a product of us wacky Californians and the chemicals in our drinking water, but what if every candidate with as much money as Florina talked to Fred Davis III and asked to get an equally batshit retarded TV campaign going? This balloon ad will not be the weirdest part of a political campaign we see this year, mark my words.

But on to my second and much graver point. With the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Committee it was established that corporations can use as much money as they please to fund political campaigns and candidates for elected office. When a business incorporates and becomes a “corporation” they become legally recognized as a “business entity” instead of a company owned by a bunch of people. This incorporation protects the individuals who run the company if someone happens to sue them, the lawsuit is instead directed to this incorporated “person” and the money derived from the lawsuit comes out of the “pockets” of the corporate “person”, the income and revenue of the business not the business owners.

This idea of corporate personhood has now been stretched so far that under the Citizens United ruling the “corporation” is now basically considered to have all the same rights as an average living breathing American citizen, including the right to throw their money around in any direction they choose, and as much money as they choose. In short this means that big business will now be directly influencing politicians and their campaigns to an even more exponential degree than they were before. Rulings like this will make damn sure that Carly Florina, an ex-CEO from a variety of big tech companies, will definitely have the funds to keep making her epic multi-million dollar feature-length campaign ads. A victory for political theater!

Today the first post-Citizens United corporate funded political campaign ad appeared in newspapers across Texas:

Some Republican for State Representative, sponsored by KDR Development Inc. I can’t find the website for KDR, I don’t know what kind of business they are in, but according to this article on The Economist the president of KDR had run against incumbent Chuck Hopson in a previous election. The ad doesn’t even say “vote for this guy we support him”. It simply says “vote for one of these Republicans over this guy in office cause the guy who runs the company who bought this ad lost out to him in a previous election”. I can only imagine how much more fun this ad game will get.

On a related note, through their interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling, the corporation Murray-Hill Inc. has decided that due to their new found corporate personhood their choosing to back the living, breathing, political figure known as Murray-Hill Inc. Murray-Hill Inc. is running for office in Maryland and part of me really hopes that Murray-Hill Inc. will win the race and be able to enact all that political legislation that Murray-Hill Inc. has worked so hard to get across during his (its?) political career. And just so you know, Murray-Hill Inc. is running for exactly the same reasons you might expect Murray-Hill Inc. to run for public office. Let the mockery that is our brave new corporate-funded political world commence!

Hello, crazy!

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/spingola/100314

Deanna Spingola is a writer at RenewAmerica, a collection of dunderheads unable to get gigs writing at Townhall.com, a website that lets Ben Shapiro write for them, so you know these dudes must be classy! When Deanna Spingola isn’t designing quilts, she’s putting the crazy in crazy quilt with her Obama conspiracy articles!

I recently had the pleasure of talking with Dr. James David Manning

That’s Pastor Manning of We are too stupid to figure out how to use Google so have declared Obama didn’t go to Columbia University fame.

According to Dr. Manning, Obama (born in 1961) enrolled at the very pricey Occidental College in Los Angeles, California in 1979 and was recruited there in 1980 by the CIA which has made it a practice since its inception to recruit college students.

Ah, yes. You might be surprised to learn that there isn’t a link to any evidence for this.

Obama allegedly transferred from Occidental to Columbia University. It is atypical for a student to begin their education in one four-year school and then transfer to another school.

I know many people who would be surprised to learn that they are atypical.

The CIA needed Muslims or others who were fluent in Farsi and who could easily blend into the Muslim environment in the Middle East. The CIA persuaded Columbia University to extend their foreign student program to Obama, now a Columbia student, so that he might travel to Pakistan and enroll in the universities around Karachi in addition to the Patrice Lumumba School in Moscow

All evidence for this is a YouTube video from Pastor Manning

Obama, as an undercover agent, was the lead agent in the arms and money supply for the CIA-trained Taliban Army against the Soviet Army war machine. His actions were integral to the Taliban’s success in their opposition to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Obama trained Osama now?

When Obama completed his CIA operations in the mid 1980s and returned to the U.S. he persuaded the State Department to maneuver his entrance into Harvard Law School; since the CIA, the U.S. president’s personal agency for black operations throughout the world, also has connections to federal and state politicians, they managed to arrange Obama’s entrance to yet another elite school in 1988.

So Obama’s admittance wasn’t affirmative action because he was black, it was covert action because he was black ops. Got it. The fact that Obama was a stellar student had nothing to do with it.

Despite a five-year absence from the rigors of college activity he was accepted at Harvard

Just wait until she finds out it was six years between when I was in school and when I went to grad school! Soon she’ll be claiming I was in the CIA. Sorry, NSA all the way!!

Most of the rest of a column is a rehash of the Obama Columbia University conspiracy that we made fun of before when it was first announced. But then she closes with an amazing piece of wingnut hysteria!

Henry Kissinger said, “Conflicts across the globe and an international respect for Barack Obama have created the perfect setting for establishment of ‘a New World Order.” Allegedly, the upper echelon of Freemasonry were infiltrated long ago the Satanic Illuminati whose objective is world dominance through one-world governance. There are claims that Barack Obama is a 32nd degree Prince Hall Freemason. Certainly, Prince Hall Freemasons, Jesse Jackson and Charles Rangel, supported his presidency. Whether he is a Freemason or not, he might indeed be the chosen vessel of the New World Order proponents unless the citizens call a halt to the scheme. However, there is no doubt that he is a Zionist asset and, that despite his campaign promises, intends to pursue the same Neo-Con policies in the Middle East as the previous administration, as evidenced by his speech before the 2008 AIPAC Policy Conference where he was introduced by his friend, Lee Rosenberg, a fellow Chicago resident.

Freemasons, NWO, Zionist control, Neo-con conspiracies, it’s a grab bag of goofy fun!