General thoughts to fill up the weekend hole and the gaping hole in my life!

Politics has completely invaded my life this summer. I find it it a very interesting development that I am this immersed in the politics of America, a country where I am still officially statusless. That is literally my status - waiting for a status change, awaiting a green card and in between many uncertainties of life and immigration. Let me tell you, my readers, that it is a strange position to be in life - to be unrecognised so to speak. My sympathy for the many millions of illegal immigrants also stems from my own position. As I extend my opinion on the social and political happenings of the land I am besieged by questions of belonging and of whether I have a right to take part in this debate. The question of who I am becomes even more strained and greyed because of my legal status. What is my definition? Bureaucracy decides that. It is a cold place to reside in but I have decided after a full 6 years here that I have to start acting as if the matter has been decided or that that decision does not matter so much. I have decided to be proactive. A man has to make a stand sometimes, regardless of what he is recognised as.

Besides the years that I have spent here have been full, fuller than even the years I spent being born and growing up in India. I have spent the mature years of my life here after all. The major choices of my adult life have been made here. It has been a weird time here. I have made mostly bad decisions. I have jousted unhappily with the law and had a rough time trying to fit in with society at large. My first couple of years were in Los Angles(misspelled intentionally) in a big university where I lost myself in the worst ways and the best. My intellectual sparring partner from the inceptive stages of this blog, joeoverkill might remember me as a very green freshman; he will certainly remember struggling to understand my thick accent and eccentric classroom positions. It took a while to make myself be understood and a lot longer for me to understand the rich culture that I was thrown into. At the time I joined college I felt mostly disenfranchised from the culture around me. In a certain sense I fit in perfectly but in other ways I was lost, holding on to a plank in the middle of the sun scorched southern cal sea.

I remember other peers, mid westerners and east coast refugees just as homesick and lost as I was. USC is no representation of the country I learnt much later. The war on Iraq started in the spring semester of my freshman year in Trojan hall, the second dingiest dorm on campus(the honour of worst dorm of course belongs to Marks hall, that festering outpost of perpetually horny, loser overachievers! Us Trojan hall residents had them to thank for making us look slightly better. Magnoliafan, if you get an offer at SC, avoid both dorms). I remember my red headed neighbour, an awoved republican - something I would have completely been ignorant of in my freshman, foreigner complacency if not for his subsequent actions - put up fliers around the dorm. The fliers called for some kind of weak, soda and chips party(typical for the deans halls residents who were too scared of regulations to have a real party with booze) in the common hall to celebrate the declaration of war. All I had observed of my neighbour thus far was that he had an elaborate manner about him that seemed to hide a complete lack of personality and a horrible taste in music. This is just an observation of his general mode and not a critique of the war supporters. He just happened to be a zero so far in my eyes and his actions had the effect of raising my eyebrows and forcing me to notice him and the political atmosphere that I was so far ignorant of.

I remember being angry, very angry, upon reading his fliers. I left an obscene message on his dorm door chic whiteboard criticising his jingoistic missive. A few hours later I was hauled up by my epitome of chill RA for a heart to heart in the cluttered basement supplies room. This guy had passed me by several times as I hauled giant, brown paper bagged cases of coronas and Mickey's green 40's past his live and let live gaze. A real mensch and a true American spirit - a spirit that Joe's libertarian soul will find much to approve of. Ask rupey and the analyst, both of them have enjoyed the fruits of my fruitful, never carded because I am brown, expeditions to the 32nd street market. I enabled many a Trojan hall black out and bathroom puke disruption. So this guy(remind me of his name analyst or rupert, wasn't it pete?) took me to task that afternoon and told me that he could not have that kind of disruptive and divisive sentiment clog up the love pipes of his air conditioning free dormitory(I am still mad at you SC). That was one of my first encounters with the limits of political discourse. I think that was a very important discussion. My RA wanted me to apologize to my nemesis and I returned to my room angry and also forced to confront the source of my anger.

Why was I so angry with the posters Scarlet had put up? That nickname by the way fits my erstwhile nemesis appositely, for his mindset was just as ancient as his hair was red. As I composed my apology I realised that what had irked me most was not his support for an opposing position supporting the war. What troubled me most was his call for a celebration of a war - a silly, cheap, carbonated drinks and fried potato affair to commemorate and goad forward the certain death of American soldiers and Iraqi combatants and civilians. I refused to apologize to him and expressed my critique of his call in my letter. Now that I look back at that moment I am struck at the prescience of my anger at his attitude. I could never have guessed at the extent of mismanagement and carnage that the war would unravel into. At that time of my stay in America, I was a complete political novice and my only reason for opposing the war was a distrust for the hubristic, runaway nationalism epitomised in my neighbour. The celebratory(fascistic one could say), carried away by post 9/11 anger and desire for revenge is what allowed the mismanagement of the first 3 years of the war. That running down a hill energy, opposed to any heed for caution or critique is what allowed this catastrophe to happen. Irrational anger is a lot more obvious to outsiders than to someone who is caught up in a patriotic moment. Why did the Bush administration not give any heed to opposition within international bodies like the UN?

The intersection of the political and the personal is my one overwhelming concern. Without the aggregation of persons, the body politic is but a ghost that concerns and addresses abstract causes. Why is it that I am so much more concerned about politics today than I was 4 or 5 years ago. Part of it of course is my strange status. I had to live here for this long to start caring enough about the political system that controls us all, whether we voice our opinions or not. Far too many people are not represented by their representatives because they choose not to express their voices. Freedom of speech also means freedom not to speak. I realised over the last 5 years that even though I could not vote( and probably will not be able to for the next 10 -15 years until I become a citizen, if i do at all become one) there are other ways to express my opinions.

Certainly, going out to try to register voters for the PA democrat primaries has helped me feel closer to the heart of this beast they call the democratic process; a beast that is for the most part distant from individual concerns or opinions. The more one engages in it the closer it comes to you however. In the absence of a true, one to one democracy, the closest one can get to real representation is to take part in the dreary process of representative democracy. If my language reminds you of a college civics geek, then you are right. I am a dumb, drunk college geek in the way I relate to politics, and all the better for it. When I was a reprobate(guess I still am!) and an average, muddleheaded statusless worker(clinging to my beer bottle and my penis since I had no gun or bible to cling to!) I had no chips in play. Now I do and I am betting on change. The game is in session and I am playing. Rupert, history is a shit pile and we will plant our flags on it.

great moments in racism history: john mccain

from feb 18, 2000:

Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to apologize yesterday for his use of a racial slur to condemn the North Vietnamese prison guards who tortured and held him captive during the war.

"I hate the gooks," McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live."

---

"I was referring to my prison guards," McCain said, "and I will continue to refer to them in language that might offend some people because of the beating and torture of my friends."

McCain made it clear that his anger extends only toward his captors. As a senator, he was one of the leaders of the postwar effort to normalize U.S. relations with Vietnam.

i guess i can relate. i got no beef with mexicans, but i hate those god damned beaners that stole my bike (not really). if you're offended, but still want to vote for him, just imagine him as christopher walken in pulp fiction:

Mclellan Unpopular with GOP, Walking Dead

Bob Dole has been sending emails (WTF NO WAY).

Bob Dole does not like Scott McLellan anymore.

Bob Dole thinks McLellan is just trying to make a buck.

Bob Dole is just as surprised as everyone else that he's not fucking dead yet.

McCain/Dole '08: AKA "The Early Bird Special"

caption contest!

i was thinking how to caption this picture, but was drawing a blank. this could be fun...what do you guys got?

what's the best part about the gas crisis?

soon i'll be able to work in my underwear.

The federal government has offered four-day workweeks to eligible employees for years as part of a flexible work program that also includes telecommuting.

But the surge in gasoline prices is pushing more private employers as well as local governments to offer a four-day week as a perk that eliminates two commutes a week.

In America's struggling automaking heartland, the shorter workweek offers employers a way of rewarding employees when the budget does not allow a salary increase, said Oakland County, Michigan, executive L. Brooks Patterson.

solid.

thiiiiiis is ouuuurrrrr couuuuuntryyyyy

if you've ever watched a single quarter of nfl football in the last two years, then the title of this post may have made you cringe already. for those of you that aren't aware, this is the john mellencamp song that chevy has been using to sell trucks to the great american hick. check out this offensive one right here:



incidentally, this is not a bad song if you listen to the whole thing. the lyrics are all about centrist populism, patriotism not jingoism, and post-bush reconciliation. unfortunately, all i can think about now when i hear it is how much some asshole in detroit wants to sell me a 10 mi/gal silverado so i can wave my big american dick in the air like the star-spangled banner itself while singing 'thiiiiis is myyyyy peeeeeniiiis'.

the fine folks who bought out all of our private streetcar companies just to close them down and force people to drive use our shared memory of vietnam, rosa parks, and (jesus fucking christ) 9/11 to sell us cars. in symbolic move of solidarity, what is gm doing to give back to its countrymen that have supported them?

buying out their employees so they can hire new people and pay them less! from royturrs:

All of GM's roughly 74,000 U.S. factory workers had been eligible for early retirement packages and buyouts intended to clear the way for hires of lower-wage workers under a deal negotiated last year with the United Auto Workers union.

...

GM, like the other two Detroit-based automakers, reached an agreement with the UAW that allows it to hire new workers for some jobs starting at $14 per hour, or about half the current average hourly wage.

funny, i wonder if the ramos arizpe factory (the home of the saturn vue!) is having the same problem.

this all reminds me of a henry ford quote: there is one rule for industrialists and that is: make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible. so what does that make gm, a company that makes expensive pieces of shit and pays their employees pittances?

it makes them a failure.

Notes from the Right-Wing: Military Spending Bill

I'm Joeverkill, and these are some Notes from the Right-Wing.

From Reuters:

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a $601.4 billion defense spending bill despite a veto threat by the White House...
Rep. Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who chairs the committee, and the ranking Republican, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, argued that lawmakers needed flexibility to add weapons to the budget that had been forgotten by the Pentagon."We've put in systems that save lives that the Pentagon did not think about," Hunter said on the floor of the House, citing added funding for armor for Army trucks, greater use of unmanned airplanes, and equipment to defuse roadside bombs.

So to recap, the Democrat-controlled Congress is adding money to a defense bill to pay for stuff that the Pentagon didn't ask for. The federal government is $9 trillion in debt, and the Democrats -- who have repeatedly accused the Bush administration of starting a costly and irresponsible war -- are tacking extra cash onto a military funding bill, just because they feel like it?

Can anyone say "kickbacks?"

This is the sickening thing about our so-called "2-party system." Neither side seems interested in curbing spending, and neither will acknowledge that we have a federal debt crisis on our hands.

Some smaller things that piss me off about this bill...

The White House also cited objections, but no veto threat, to the addition of $3.9 billion for 15 additional Boeing C-17 cargo planes and $523 million as a down payment on 20 more Lockheed Martin Corp F-22 fighters in fiscal 2010.

Do we really need more F-22's? Really? The Air Force's website claims that "The F-22A cannot be matched by any known or projected fighter aircraft." I once read an article in the Florida Today in which an Air Force captain claimed that a single F-22 with a skilled pilot could dismantle the entire air combat capability of most sovereign nations. And we're ordering 20 new ones. Just for this year.

The veto threat also covers provisions that would require the videotaping of all intelligence interrogations and would ban private contractors from carrying out interrogations, a job lawmakers said should be reserved for the government alone.

So Bush is threatening to veto accountability. Nothing new about that.

The White House said cuts to funding to start building missile-defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic could jeopardize U.S. security and delay the fielding of weapons meant to protect against an emerging missile threat from Iran.
The Democratic-controlled House approved $10.2 billion in funding for missile defense, $719 million less than the Pentagon requested, but $212.6 million above the current level.
The Senate Armed Services Committee bill fully funded the administration's plan to start deploying up to 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a tracking radar in the Czech Republic.

Missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Someone should note that these sites would not serve to protect the United States from missile attack. It would protect our European allies, our military bases in Europe and Western Asia, and Israel. The only countries with missiles that could hit the mainland U.S. are definitely not going to launch them at us. When people hear "missile defense," they think of a big scary nuke randomly flying into their town, when in reality that would never happen. Not by missile anyway. The government would serve citizens better by spending that money on port and airline security.

I could go on about this, but I won't. You guys get the point. Your tax dollars are being wasted by both sides of the aisle here.

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been Notes from the Right-Wing.

gop bbl rofl

while a lot the talk in primary politics has been about the democratic party being unable to keep itself together, it seems doomsday predictors were calling it for the wrong party. the republican party is in serious danger of complete self-destruction this year.

i read an interesting interview with mike huckabee on huffpo today, in which he assessed the general political status of the evangelicals, gave a postmortem on his campaign, and drew a distinction between his ideas and those of other members of the party:

My experience in Arkansas was, a lot of the so-called conservatives said "Let's cut the budget." But they wanted to add prison sentences, they wanted to eliminate parole, they wanted to have harsher sentences for various crimes. And I said "OK, that's fine, but that's going to be expensive. So which do you want?" You can't have both, or you do what the federal government has done, and this is where I think Republicans have been especially irresponsible. Their approach has been [to] just kick the can down the road and let your grandkids pay for it.

over the course of the primaries, it has been telling to see members of these varying parts of the republican party squabble amongst themselves and rarely actually agree on solid policy prescription or true ideology. while the reagan revolution was able to bring together several disparate parts of the american ideological spectrum, their connection these days is extremely tenuous. this is especially manifest in the continued distrust of mccain from a significant portion of the party. that being the case, these are what i see as the growing constituent parts and their possible fates:

neo-libertarians (figurehead: ron paul) - these are the 'live and let live' conservatives. no taxes, no wars, no victimless crimes. i have an interesting feeling that as this movement grows in power and influence, the moderates and hard-liners will start to get really sick of one another. the hard-liners will likely defect toward the libertarian party and boost its ranks. the moderates are up in the air - i see this bloc as the one with the largest third-party potential, especially with the way ron paul is doing in primaries (he took 24% in idaho).

fiscal conservatives and the wealthy (figurehead: mitt romney) - until they can balance the budget, lower gas prices to 3 cents a gallon, and prove that most of them aren't greedy capitalists, good luck seeing these guys wielding that much clout anywhere in washington (besides through lobbying firms).

war hawks (figurehead: john mccain) - these folk ain't going anywhere, unless barack obama develops paranoid schizophrenia and decides to start nuking countries based on throwing darts at a world map. look out, french guyana!

christian nationalists (figurehead: george bush? that hagee dude?) - i think the fringe right of christian-oriented politics has seen its best days. it's possible we may see less of their chest-thumping after the release of the so-called 'evangelical manifesto,' but they'll continue to harp on 'family values' issues and our policy in israel.

christian socialists (figurehead: mike huckabee) - expect to see this bloc grow as christians nationwide continue to wake up from their collective 'who would jesus bomb?' mindset and start realizing that jesus was down with helping the poor, turning the other cheek, and non-ethanol-based green energy solutions. definite third-party potential here, as well, but more likely to switch to the dems. expect them to butt heads consistently with the paulites over just about everything. i wouldn't be surprised if mccain's running mate came from this group, to stop these types from jumping to obama.

neo-conservatives (figurehead: mephistopheles p cheney) - don't expect to see these guys in a position of power ever again. all the other groups listed above have realized that these jackasses are for the most part just greedy sophists and propagandists with flawed ideology sustained only by good public relations.

whatever happens, it's going to take a long time before the republican party is going to be able to put itself back together again. the gop, for the foreseeable future, is a headless chicken. until it finds a new single goal for large portions of the american people to cling to (because war and deregulation just don't cut the mustard these days), they're going to see some really hard times.

War for Oil Just Might Work

We talk a lot of trash around here. In fact, I'd say you could make the case that we're all pretty far up each other's assholes about how much we read the news and know about stuff. Mino called us out recently.

As of yet, I haven't had the time nor the inclination to offer up a rebuttal to his (extremely necessary) challenge. However, I now have the inclination, so I believe I'll take the time before lunch here to talk at length about the oil Iraq may be able to provide in the coming years.

I call the Bush Administration a lot of names. I have engaged many times in discussions that often lead up to the idea that my friends and I could have done a better job running this country. This line of reasoning is based on the assumption that the men in question are somehow so ridiculously inept that anyone could have achieved more success than these apparent mongoloids.

That line of thinking is as dangerous as it is ignorant. Let me state now, for the record, that these men are not stupid. While I'm sure many "yes-men" were instated strategically throughout the executive branch and beyond as per the orders of those on the inside, said yes-men were typically not in any position to advance any meaningful legislation of their own accord.

These men were puppets, and were it not for Hurricane Katrina, much of the horror they inflicted upon this country would still be hidden in the shadows, known only to single-minded activists who keep up with the number of acres of national park land we still protect (not a lot) or how many lobbyists there are in Washington D.C.(a lot).

The great illusion put forth in the fourth quarter of the Bush presidency has been a masterstroke of mindlessness. The way these men have bailed on the President has been likened to rats from a sinking ship. Once again, we all love the idea that these men have somehow failed. We like the thought that they are now backbiting at one another. We love to entertain the notion that they may soon be going down. This gives us all a sense of justice.

We also love to see our possibly-retarded President doing little shuffle step dance numbers on the way to his press conferences and the like. We love watching him tell the Pope "awesome speech" on the Daily Show. We love this because it once again reinforces our original ideas about the man. It allows us to be correct, which gives us a sense of pride and helps assuage our righteous anger.

But back to my first point.

From the Economist:

One significant exception [to the rule that many oil-producing nations are producing at capacity] is Iraq, which holds (at least) 10% of the world's proven reserves, but accounts for only 2.5% of total production. Iraq has the potential to furnish a long-term solution to the oil market's long-term supply problem, but it will need to improve dramatically on its recent performance before buyers of oil futures will be convinced that it can deliver.

We love to think of these men as idiotic buffoons. It shields us from the hidden truth that no one really wants to think or talk about.

These men are rich, powerful, intelligent, well-connected and evil as fuck. Every brilliant man in the world is given his chance - at some point or another, in some form or fashion - to join this class, and we must all make a decision at some point or another as to whether our allegiances stand with the men or with the supermen. We must decide whether we place more value on our personal comfort or the greater good.

These men have made their decision. Many of them made it long ago. Some of them only made it very recently (and a few of them are even coming to regret their decision). However, the fact remains that they chose their course of action very carefully. In doing so, they have killed more than one million people in an effort to control what may be the world's largest as-yet-mostly-untapped supply of oil.

We supported these men in this mission, and therefore we are all very quick to label them nitwits, fuckups and all manner of other put-downs. But the truth of matter is far more difficult to swallow. These men are swindlers of the highest order, and we allowed them to deceive us. They are profiteers, and we were eager to accept their narrative of easy victory if that indeed was what it took to preserve a quality of life we felt was being threatened.

They care very little for the world at large, but their own safety and comfort has always been amazingly important to them. In this way, these men are their very own microcosm of the modern America. It was so important that they save this world they had created for themselves - and they were so singularly-minded in their plans to do so - that they were willing to carry out any task to make it happen. They were willing to look beyond the lies they had to tell. They were willing to look beyond the careers they would have to destroy. They were even willing to look beyond every innocent man, woman and child they would have to kill (or maim, or leave brotherless, fatherless, motherless, sisterless - in short completely and totally alone) on their way to carrying out their most important objective.

If you think I'm speaking in hyperbole, or that I haven't a clue what I am talking about, I would direct you to read this article about former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's newly released memoirs, in which he casts a scathingly harsh spotlight upon the goings on inside the White House throughout the three years (03-06) he held such an unpopular yet privileged position.

I consider myself extremely well-informed. I had, up until this point assumed that these men went to war for oil, and that they only muffed the numbers. It was simple for me to believe that these men could screw up something easy like the amount of oil left to pump in Iraq, given the way a nearly constant string of mistakes has seemed to plague this administration from the beginning.

I see now that it was I who was mistaken. These men are monstrous capitalist swine. They had these numbers, surely long before I did. They made the decision to become the powerful elite, and therefore they have the insider information.

I am now forced to conclude that these men were not wrong. They were not men with dubious intentions and a lack of strategic ability. They were correct in their assumption that Iraq may hold the key to propping up this failing 20th century model of industry. They then took a look at all that would be involved in securing this region.

And they chose to sacrifice life by the millions in an effort to line their pockets with money in similar denominations.

May God have mercy on their mortal souls.

And may He also have mercy on ours, for while this is but the most recently visible blight on America's record of crimes against humanity gone unchecked by the citizenry, it is not remotely the first. It will not be the last, either.

I wonder at times if we are only carrying out a dance that must be done by all creation. I wonder if this just the way of things. The big fish eat the little ones. The strong rule the weak.

History tells me I am wrong to believe we can do any better than this.

Hope tells me history is full of shit.

nuremburg redux

john bolton, bush crony and former american ambassador to the united nations, is taking a trip to wales today, where people are planning to arrest him for misleading the world on the war, and other miscellaneous douchebaggery.

don't know john bolton? let me get you up to speed.

from rightweb: Bolton has criticized the United Nations, lambasted U.S. efforts to diplomatically resolve the standoff with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, and berated the "weak" international response after Iran apprehended several British soldiers for allegedly straying into Iranian waters, which he argued "emboldened" Iran, whose 'government today is a theological revolution on the march'. (note: seriously? don't pull that 'theological revolution' crap if you back a guy who supports intelligent design.)

among his other accomplishments are: leading in the 'successful effort to rescind the UN resolution from the 1970s that had equated Zionism with racism', 'being a a prominent participant in some neoconservative groups such as the Project for the New American Century [those neo-con 'new pearl harbor' wingnuts],' and 'derailing a 2001 biological weapons conference in Geneva convened to endorse a UN proposal to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.' (source: wikipedia)

so yeah, this guy's basically one of the masterminds of the brilliant bush foreign policy that has made the rest of the world pissed off at us to the point that some welsh people at a faggy book festival are going to drop a citizen's arrest on him.

keep an eye on wales tonight - some crazy shit could go down. i'd love to see that precedent set up, so we can start taking down the big dogs.

obama = rubber, you = glue.

remember that whole snipergate thing?
how hillary made some shit up about taking sniper fire in bosnia, when it turns out she was just coming for tea or some nonsense?

or that time when mccain said something dumb?

anywho, i know nobody's immune, and i've been waiting for obama's big time, campaign-ending gaffe. i thought i saw it today with the reuters headline: "Obama admits reference to Auschwitz was wrong".

intrigued, i followed the link, which told me the following:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama admitted on Tuesday he was wrong to say his uncle helped liberate the Nazis' Auschwitz concentration camp after Republicans said Soviet troops freed the camp.

Obama's campaign said the candidate meant to say that his great-uncle, Charlie Payne, had helped liberate a part of the Buchenwald camp, not Auschwitz.

MR. OBAMA, HOW DARE YOU LIE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE LIKE THAT?
ADMIT IT!
you were WRONG to say that about auschwitz!

Obama has a Full Blown Aid (Possibly from all the Castro Love?)

When you're popular among a demographic generally better known for buying baggy pants than voting, then you might want to shy away from the vote from the guy people in America dislike very much.

On that note, and since I'm too pressed for time to offer up real insight on all of this (new project at work has me extremely screwed over when it comes to free moments), I have some new Barack Obama campaign slogans I've been kicking around.

Barack Obama: El Presidente (de los Estados Unidos) de Siglo XXI
Barack Obama: The President that Pisses Off Your Parents
Barack Obama: Proving that All Young White Intellectuals Wish They Were Black(re: Cool), One Vote at a Time
Barack Obama: We Got It 4 Cheap
Barack Obama: Islamerica. Just Kidding.

you think YOU got it bad?

as much as i love sky-is-falling alarmism, let's put a little perspective on our own plight for a second.

"MIANZHU, China (Reuters) - New aftershocks toppled 420,000 houses and injured dozens in southwest China on Tuesday, heaping destruction and fear on a region struggling to recover from the country's worst earthquake in decades."

---

The official death toll from the 7.9 magnitude quake that struck Sichuan province on May 12 was raised on Tuesday to 67,183, but it was certain to rise as 20,790 were listed as missing. The quake injured nearly 362,000 people.

an entire nfl stadium's worth of people dead, the equivalent of the city of long beach injured, and enough houses to hold citizens from multiple rocky mountain states destroyed in an aftershock.

and we went to war over 3k dead civilians, have lost 4k+ more since, and we're treating it like it's the end of the fucking world? i'm a little confused.

america remembers how to make shit

just when you thought america had completely forgotten about heavy industry, manufacturing, and all our other blue-collar jobs that don't involve flipping burgers, peter g gosselin from the los angeles times disagrees.

turns out, all that increasing demand for industrial goods from former mud-hut-dwellers worldwide, coupled with old fixed price deals, allows us to make goods like steel on the cheap. take that, china!

"We're in the midst of 2 to 3 billion people around the world rising out of abject poverty and demanding they have a better living standard," said Daniel R. DiMicco, head of Nucor Corp., America's largest steel company. "That means we've got a 20- to 30-year bull market in basic stuff."

industrial and agricultural profit margins are booming: "Foreign demand has helped drive U.S. Steel from a loss of $420 million five years ago to a nearly $880-million gain last year. Mining giant Freeport-McMoRan's profit is up 1,539%, from $181.7 million to nearly $3 billion. Fertilizer maker Mosaic Co.'s earnings went from $54 million for all of 2003 to $521 million for just the three months ended in February."

meanwhile, the tech boom we've found ourselves in is deflating a little bit, and companies are starting to consolidate as the industry matures - and, i speculate, as our crazy bullshit anti-brown-folk homeland security laws start scaling back that 'brain drain' of ours, making america collectively dumber.

while this will fuck over the coastal states, it bodes well manufacturing-heavy flyover states, whose personal income has risen "6.5% in the last five years. The rest of the country has managed only a 5.4% pace, according to government statistics assembled by Moody's Economy.com." incidentally, this would be awesome if this year's real inflation wasn't 10%.

does this mean we'll pull ourselves out of the recession quickly, and we'll start making a bunch of more money once our nation's economic style turns and runs back to the 1950s?

oops! read the fine print...there's one huge catch:
"While the heartland's revival is producing lots of new revenue and profits for old-economy companies, and while it's marginally pushing up the incomes of their employees, it's not generating lots of new jobs."

so no new jobs are created, the middle class are getting ever-so-slightly richer than other middle class (but still actually getting poorer via inflation), and corporate profit margins are reaching for the sky?

what this says to me is that the economy still sucks, but that this summer, one great american is going to get to fill his special swimming pool up to the brim:

Making war by making babies, the Eeevil insidious plot to displace the first world.

I read an article today that had the curious effect of first making me shake my head in disapproval and then slowly turning that sideways nod into a up and down head bob of assent. By the end of the article my head was doing circles and I looked like Linda Blair from the exorcist. Immediately I felt that I should post about it. Anyone who has been following the post just below by the analyst and the string of impassioned comments that follow should find this piece very interesting. It touches on many of the talking points from his post and the comments.

Entitled - How Birthrate Is Turning Modern Conventional Warfare on Its Head, the author Gary Brecher(who is also writing a book called "The war nerd") argues that the most effective method of modern warfare is to simply out breed the opposite side. He makes some very far fetched claims in the article about the conscious efforts of Kosovo Albanians, the Palestinians and the Northern Irish Catholics to out breed their enemies, the Serbians, the radical Zionists and the Protestants, respectively and thus oust them from the lands being disputed. In making this argument he invokes the Nazi policy of Lebensbraum - extermination of the Slavic, Polish and Russian people from the east to secure land for the German born pure bloods to flourish.

In making this comparison he completely ignores the ground realities that persist in the three countries mentioned. He actually implies that the Kosovars were responsible for inciting the Serbians to genocide and that they somehow used the United States as an unofficial army faction on their side. The west's weak minded awoval of violence and support for the autonomy of poorer, smaller states is being used by these states to their advantage according to his sneaky logic. His argument is as far fetched and ludicrous as that of the most far fetched conspiracy theorists. According to him the west's squeamishness(the very same that led to WW1 and WW2) makes them vulnerable to the alarmingly high fertility of the rabbit like Africans, Asians, Arabs and Catholics. As we sit here gently discoursing from our ivory towers, the Huns and Moors are copulating away in a frenzy of nationalist fervour so as to topple our weak walls of immigration laws and peace keeping forces, foolishly kept on a tight leash.

Is breeding a tool of state - yes, it has been infrequently used. The Palestinians in refugee camps and the radical Zionists both propagate the idea of out breeding the other. As the article shows, both groups have laughably similar birth rates that end up cancelling each other out, if rocket attacks don't do it for them. I can hear Joe's teeth grind(and with good reason) at their myopic logic and attitude that reeks of feudalism. However there is a huge logical fallacy in this theory that the only reason repressed groups have so many children is to defeat the other side, his presupposition that Catholics, Kosovars and Palestinians breed as an expression of nationalistic strength and expansion. Firstly why can one not suppose that people breed more because of higher mortality rates in the war zones mentioned?

Brecher himself provides the facts to topple his tottering argument by stating that, in a strange paradox, these very same people who bred in such huge numbers when they lived in slums abandon their profligate breeding as soon as they become middle class citizens. He shows us the case of the Catholics whose breeding rates have dropped as they near a historic majority over their Protestant brethren in Ireland. It seems to me that the obvious conclusion one draws is that as the prosperity and education levels of the Irish Catholics increased and as birth control techniques became more effective and more commonly accepted their growth rate naturally declined.

He doesn't really make much of an effort to show how the two imperatives, of state and of necessity both play a role in determining birth rates. It's either one or the other, depending on the case he is trying to make. This is my problem with the first half of the article. I could by now see where he was leading us in his heavy footed and discursive way - why to the topic of immigration of course. Sure enough he drops some big bombs with the invasion rhetoric that he insists on marrying into his overall thesis on immigration- "As far as I know, nobody’s claiming the Latino immigrants decided to have a lot of kids as a way of reconquering Texas and California, the way the Israeli settlers are doing. La reconquista, if it happens, will be an unforeseen result of rising birth rates and falling death rates for countries like Mexico that are just moving up from the third world to, say, the second-and-a-halfth. " Go on, Brecher says, it's ok to say that they planned this all out decades ago, these Mexicans who are descended equal parts from Conquistadors and the poor Mayans and Incas who were conquered by them. They have the conquering mentality of the Spaniards but it is mixed with the submissiveness of their native forefathers so that the only technique they may to wage war is this passive aggressive invasion.

His next statement is truly startling - "By 1970, Mexico was at that dangerous stage where there’s just enough basic medical care to keep people alive, so death rates are falling sharply, but people are still poor enough to want a lot of kids." Dangerous? Dangerous to whom? So it is dangerous to us that they can save lives and propagate. The self centred, extreme North Americans first nature of that statement is abhorrent to me. The author persists in looking at things solely from the point of view of the effect it has on America or the west. His neo - colonialist outlook is about 50 years behind the norm.

However, the worst part of the article was over. Here came the surprising part where I found myself actually agreeing with Brecher. He echoes my sentiments about assimilation expressed in some comments on analyst's post. He says that after a couple of generations the descendant of the average immigrant is going to be more Americanised than say a 7Th generation Quaker(I have no clue how many generations ago those guys got here but they have been around a long time so I picked them). In fact they are going to be so Americanised that they will be complaining about the need for border fences and their social security benefits being eaten up by the infernal newcomers from down south.

He argues - "This is one point where people’s anxiety over these slow, demographic conquests splits according to their real fears: do you just not want to see that kind of face when you go outside, or do you not want to import the culture of the immigrants’ home country? The whole debate right now is so censored, so totally dishonest on both sides, that nobody will come clean about which it is. I suspect for some people it’s the faces: they want the faces on their street to be the same shape and color they were when they were growing up." I have to agree with both analyst and with Brecher about this point. Forget the whole issue of social security benefits or the effect that immigration has on the medical infrastructure and focus for a moment on all the people whining about the effect immigration has on the cultural landscape of America. Think for a second about the fudged statistics about immigrants bringing their diseases(and the implication that by extension they bring with them their corporeal and moral squalor) and degenerate criminal ways. The tenor of those arguments is irrefutably racist. One needn't even make those points in order to argue against immigration. I respect Joe's points about the economic points and may even be someday convinced of the seriousness of some of the issues he brings up. However the invasion rhetoric that so many of the news pundits and everyday Americans use sets me on edge.

One telling example is of Pat Buchanan whose racial views are prehistoric to say the least. He has stated - "Any man or any woman, of any color or creed, can be a good American. We know that from our history. But when it comes to the ability to assimilate into a nation like the United States, all nationalities, creeds, and cultures are not equal. To say that is ideology speaking, not judgment born out of experience." If that does not qualify as white supremacist talk I don't quite know what does. That however is the ultimate meaning of what so many Americans mean, but dare not say aloud, when they discuss immigration. The funny thing is this is far from true. Even if it was true however, isn't there room enough within America for divergent cultures to co - exist. Will there be occasional tensions- sure. Is it worth our while to deal with those issues on a day to day basis and go on with our lives - I think so. Did the LA riots mean that the city should be forcibly segregated - Hell No. Haven't racial divides improved and healed somewhat since then?

The very last section of the article explains the idea of immigrant assimilation succinctly by using the example of a sailboat filled with Congolese immigrants moving to Paris. The idea expressed, that immigrants move to another country to escape the strict cultural and social confines and also the disorganised state of affairs of their home countries is absolutely spot on. They move as much to absorb the advantages of the host county's work culture and order as it's immediate financial incentives. Immigration, people seem to forget, is not just a physical move that immigrants undertake hastily without any thought for the future and with only an eye on the magical honeypot of dollars lying 5 miles north of the Rio Grande. It is a big decision that is made with the future interests of their families in mind. With that kind of mindset, there is no incentive to commit crimes or harm the host country.

I can identify with the analogy of the boat completely. Let me give you an example. When my family drives to Jersey to pick up supplies from the ubiquitous Indian grocery stores situated there, I sometimes go with them. One or two visits to the interiors of the shops however were enough to satisfy my curiosity and since then I usually wait for them in the car blasting the AC and the stereo with the album - 'Speak English or Die' by Stormtroopers of Death. I love this seminal grind core album of right wing, anti immigrant nuttery and hysteria for it's speed, musical brilliance, campyness and over the top values - including racist jokes about Indian shop owners in S.O.D's native NY. The irony of my situation in the Indian store parking lot listening to this album puts a huge grin on my face - especially when harried looking, older Indian fathers and mothers stare at me curiously as if I was some new species of fish or fungi.

I hate going inside the stores because it reminds me of the utter, unnecessary chaos of grocery stores back home - Aisles too narrow to fit two way cart traffic, rudeness, selfish disregard for other shoppers, in short provincialism of the narrowest order. I hate to, but am forced to admit that there is some correspondence between the rants of singer Billy Milano and the scenes within the store. However that store is a little slice of India; pretty or not it represents some aspects of what living there can be like. It does not threaten America, it simply exists as a little outpost of another culture. The people shop there and conduct some aspects of their lives through the goods they buy there. However come Monday, they will be seated in offices performing tedious corporate tasks that keep the wheels greased for the machinery of commerce and globalisation. In short what the fuck is the big deal? Five generations from now, the Hispanics and miscellaneous brown people are gonna be most of the code monkeys and cops - symbols of conformism and corporate slavery.