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Today's headlines (photo: Jack Delano, Lib. of Cong.)
Lot’s of things flying apart, center not holding. Strange beasts slouching towards Bethlehem?
– The debtor Euro nations and half the world’s economists are pleading with the European Central Bank to stop the runs on the Euro countries and banks by doing what a central bank is supposed to do: be the lender of last resort. But the new head of the ECB refuses, foolishly worrying it might hurt the central bank’s credibility. That means the Euro financial system and economies could crash and pull the US economy down too. Paul Krugman: “In short, the ECB could be in the process of destroying not just the euro, but the world.”
– The Washington Post is dismayed that the Super Committee is about to fail and blames that for declining markets. Uh, don’t think so; everyone’s watching Europe blow itself up for doing to itself what the Post wants Congress to do to the US. The Super Committee never came close to doing anything positive. The sensible part of the world is breathing a sigh of relief that our Congress is so dysfunctional it failed to agree on hurting the US economy even more.
– Spain just elected a center-right party to replace the Socialists, in the understandable belief it takes someone new to fix the economy. Unfortunately the new party, like the new “technocrats” installed in Italy and Greece, is stuck in the austerity mindset and has no clue what to do.
– It’s now over 30 people who have been killed in Egypt where tens of thousand gathered at Tahrir Square to protest the military’s grip on the emerging government. Siun has more.
– Apparently, the GOP presidential candidates held a religious forum yesterday in which each candidate got an opportunity to make Jesus weep.
– Nascar fans think it’s okay to boo the First and Second Ladies. Yes, those two women are responsible for everything that’s wrong in their lives.
– California is saved! An new panel of experts bankrolled by a billionaire is proposing that the way to solve California’s budget woes is to cut taxes.
– Meanwhile the Lt. Pepper Spray’s image has become the symbol of the attitude of the world’s leaders. If you won’t address real problems, spray the protestors, or anyone; it doesn’t matter.
So, is there any good news out there?
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Zed. For old times sake.:)
Good morning SC
Further proof that
is the winning ticket at election time.
I guess the republicans will get their torches, oil and football equipment based body armor fantasyland sooner rather than later.
Those NASCAR fans are really classy.
On a happier note, I see that the article by Shin (cited above by Krugman)treats a topic that I and two colleagues addressed 35 years ago in my first published article: viz., how overseas US dollar balances create a virtual shadow banking system outside the regulated sector We didn’t use the terms, and the article sunk like a stone because we didn’t dress up the argument in the higher math, but the substance was there, and still is.
Did you catch Pike’s windup before he started spraying the students? Wonder home much time he spent practicing that in front of the mirror.
No.
Politics of Nope.
Hey, it was a slow day on the track and there was no carnage to cheer about.
Good news; we have rain here in N.TX.
What we are seeing now in Europe is another episode of the cyclical suicidal frenzy that has periodically gripped that continent for at least the past century (WW I and II and now this). The 1% in Europe is behind these episodes, and unfortunately, because Europe is a deeply heirarchical, class based society (even today), the 99% either can’t resist or become willing stooges. Not so different from here.
Iran sanctions bill to prevent anyone from doing business with U.S. if they do business with Iran speeding thru senate.
No, because of what they went through in the 30s and 40s, and because the ruling elite never tried to disguise what they are, the European 99 percent are actually better organized to fight for themselves than Americans. Their unions and social networks are better organized, and have local roots. They are (still) not as susceptible to mass advertising as Americans. UK being an exception to the last point. Except in Greece (and hopefully not Spain), the fascists are weak.
While I watched the video, I thought it looked like a training exercise…”first, shake well…”
If it actually gets to the point where it might be law, the lobbyists will put so many holes in it, you’d think it was banking legislation.
It sanctions Iran central bank and it will ruin Iran’s economy. You are right that the Halliburton’s will figure out ways around it by doing business in cash and taking advantage of spikes in oil prices.
Unlike here at the lake, where it is becoming increasingly popular to boo veterans.
Its NASCAR fans in Florida! The same place where they booed a gay soldier at the Republican debate recently in Orlando. I live here and let me tell you, there are a lot of right wing screw balls in this state!
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go find some good news. You’re the right person to do this. This post will self destruct in 10, 9, 8, . . .
Uh, speaking as one vet, we don’t boo vets.
It’s soooo depressing.
any good news out there?
maybe. maybe we are witnessing the beginning of the beginning of the end of late capitalism. because the economic and social catastrophe that is brewing will wake up the publics thus affected and cause them to rid themselves of these jokers once and for all.
Well, there goes the Koch Bros business plan.
And guess who’s already written a post about this.
Not at all. Read emptywheel’s post linked in 23.
We have to make our own good news. I’m getting off the grid – does that count?
Link.
A kind of good news story in a gallows humor kind of way.
Wait. That’s a trick question, right?
If you’re a NASCAR fan, you got a LOT more wrong with your life than first ladies.
The First Lady and the Second Lady getting booed at a Nascar race should have shocked no one!
Obama, and the rest of the Democratic fools in DC, are the only people on the planet earth that think GOPers are intelligent beings.
Paul Krugman says it best only Fools and Clowns follow the GOP
USA corporate media does an AWESOME job tricking people into thinking the GOP is made up of intelligent life. it is not! the same can be said about some Democrats
David Plouffe had to know the 1st lady and 2nd lady were going to get booed? Plouffe should have sent Leon Panetta or some Generals
Okay, here’s some good news:
Progress on cancer
Boxturtle (In other good news, my two pair bluffed out a full house last night)
Thanks for the post Scarecrow! You’re my hero.
Good news?
The failure of the ruling class, something virtually everyone here has discussed, perhaps for decades, has reached its near end-game point.
This is a surprise to anyone here?
The post which eCAHN links to, that of Emptywheel, lays out the factual situation of the moment. “Capital” has fled to its promised land, where the foxes and the wolves call all the shots and reign supreme.
The institutional systems, be they “economic”, as exemplified by the ECB, or “educational” as evidenced at Penn State or at UC Davis, or “legal”, as shown by the judge-shopping of Bloomberg and his “enforcers” … cannot do what is just, right, or proper, only what is “expedient” or “pragmastic”, witness Obama or the US Congress …
Frankly, to call what is occurring “bad news” is to hold to some absurd “belief” or withered “understanding” the “notion” that the power and money elite give a damn.
“Good news” … is that there are those human beings, more of them, of us, every single day who understand the truth of things.
Is it “news” of ANY kind, that great suffering and deadly cost lay before the human species?
Will wars and conflagrations, poverty and dire privation, even starvation … now face the human race?
How could it be otherwise, given what has gone before?
Sweet reason is a ways away …
Sometime after we all come to realize that we are NOT, all, equally “to blame” …
We did not get “here” by accident, by honest mistake, or through simple poor judgment.
Is there good news?
Yes.
We have each other.
And some time.
Might I suggest that “good news” is to be found in the numbers reached at Southern Dragon’s delightful place … Caturday? For that is the sort and kind of measure that reflects reason, love, and understanding.
The ubiquitous “bad news” reflects the absence of those things.
What is in your heart?
Do you feel good or bad about it?
DW
May I suggets you peruse this thread, which is but one of several posted in the past week or so. A title like “Veterans Day: ‘so sorry you volunteered or were forced by poverty to take part in an immoral bloodbath on behalf of our greedy empire” should provide a clue. I subnit that thsi comes really close!
It was replete withthe old sayings:
I really don’t require castigation by those who are more ethical, much smarter, incredibly more courageous, and just generally all around better people than I or my babykilling brethern.
There’s already been an executive order on the books forbidding this, but of course the companies that do business with Iran (like Dick Cheney’s Halliburton) have laughed at it for nearly two decades.
Haliburton is not a US company. That takes care of that pesky EO. Just move to Dubai.
“David Plouffe had to know the 1st lady and 2nd lady were going to get booed? Plouffe should have sent Leon Panetta or some Generals”
—————-
As incrdibly stoopid as the GOP and their followers are, I’m not sure the WH is significantly smarter for the reason you mention.
“The failure of the ruling class, something virtually everyone here has discussed, perhaps for decades, has reached its near end-game point.”
Yes! And we have in OWS a movement above and beyond what anyone’s reasonable expectations could have been. It fills me with hope each day.
Like Ron Paul said the leaders of IRAN probably figured out a long time ago, the only way to deal with the USA was to have a lot of NUKES
Libya gave up their Nukes, look what the USA done to them.
the USA supported SADDAM’s IRAQ and their war against IRAN, look what happen to Saddam
North Korea does all kind of crazy shit, and all the USA can do is yell and make a lot of noise
Pakistan the most dangerous place on the PLANET, everyone knows Pakistan will probably use their NUKES one day, the USA does nothing here
Pakistan kept Bin Laden safe for years
Yes the leaders of Iran learned nations with Nukes need not fear the USA
Iran could care less about USA sanctions, does anyone think China and Russia will stop doing business with Iran? No
Old Japanese saying…”At least we ain’t got locust.”
So, your point about FDL is something written by a diarist?
yes, progress on cancer is good news.
Well, you know, if you want good news, count your blessings and add one. :-)
So let’s see, because it is a kinda so-so day for me too. Well, the first snow fell this weekend here in Rochester, Minnesota. Just a dusting, but it’s a start, though I’m sure this winter will be very cold. I suppose they could use the snowballs and ice right now more in Oakland than here, but since that would take a miracle or two, it’s time to start working and praying I guess. :-)
How much more “evidence” needs to be gathered, how many more facts need to be “marshalled” until the underlying and overiding patterns of power, as it is “exercised”, today, are understood, by all of us, for what they truly are?
Outrage is appropriate, but is surprise, really, any longer a realistic or even a rational response?
Consider that in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead that we shall all witness even greater injustice and horrors which we cannot now even imagine.
Is there anyone who truly considers that this will not be so?
Until and unless, the many fully comprehend that these “things” are real and will not “go away” without a great and terrible cost, is it not the height of folly to pretend, or even to hope, that somehow “things ” will right themselves … and everyone may go “back” to life as “normal”.
When shall enough “evidence” have presented itself for human beings to fully realize that “change” is up to them, as individual beings, personally and painfully?
The notion of some “leader” stepping in, or “up”, to the lead the way and save the day … is not merely empty nonsense, and part of the very thing that has brought us to this place, but one of the very things that impedes the acceptance of genuine human responsibity.
The truth is that we, each and everyone of “us”, is responsible for the quality and the nature of what our world and our time MAY become. We are not “to blame” for conditions in the world, today, at this moment. However, what our world, our time, and “we” become, from now on, is the rightful responsibility of every one.
DW
SC, you know I have been here for a long time. I have been taken aback by the vitriol directed towards us by some. The fact that these posts are joined with such gusto by others is very disconcerting. When the same folks conduct recurrent attacks upon us, I have to believe that the sentiments expressed are in some way agreed with among many among the membership. Not all, mind you, but many, judging by the incidence of these types of posts. I had mistakenly thought that that we had somewhat of a common cause.
Like it or not, the blog is characterized by what is posted here. You can bet these posts make their way around sites with somewhat different priorities. Either way, there’s nothing that says “Community” like calling out people as sadistic, psychopathic killers without conscience.
Or do you believe that I am overly sensitive to this issue?
“The truth is that we, each and everyone of “us”, is responsible for the quality and the nature of what our world and our time MAY become. We are not “to blame” for conditions in the world, today, at this moment. However, what our world, our time, and “we” become, from now on, is the rightful responsibility of every one.”
—————–
YOu are on a roll today DW. I’d like to nominate you for the monthly “Thomas Paine Common Sense” award.
NOw, if we can just gete enough people to pull their head out of the sand, it will be Boston Harbor all over agian.
I told you the three-cornered hats came in, right???
Mein hut it has three corners … three corners has mein hut …
Triangulation just ain’t what it used ta be, ncg.
;~DW
I feel good about it. Caturday was amazing was it not?
Yes, I read, though, as is, sometimes, the case, I did not comment, popyeye.
The same is true of your most recent post, which I read, appreciated, and recommended, btw.
Time … there is not enough, sometimes … (and it goes so fast, these days, except when it doesn’t …)
DW
I think the fact we have a close knit family and respect and concern for one another speaks for itself. The people at Caturday have made me feel an accepted part of the family. It is my honor to be associated with FDL. We have made a difference in the communities where we live. As Southern Dragon says it is a marathon. *g*
:~DW
Should I take the silence as my reply? Apparently, there are few here who feel differently from the respondents on the post I cited. Your support is very gratifying…
No, silence is not consent or approval. I can understand you and others may be offended by the views you linked to. My only point is that you can’t assume views expressed in diaries (or comments) necessarily represent either my views (a Vietnam war vet) or those of FDL. I believe vets should be treated with respect. But I also don’t think everything that some have done in wars or have been asked to do is right.
I consider, nonplussed, that you, personally, as a human being, are never diminished by what others may think or say.
You have conducted yourself with honor and integrity throughout your life when doing what you considered to be fulfilling your responsibility.
You are responsible for your path, as others are responsible for their own, personal, path.
As you may know, or not, I refused induction into the military, during the undeclared war in Vietnam, risking imprisonment and other consequence. I have never judged those who went, those who served, and am proud to call many who did go, who did serve, to be my friends and my brothers. I am even more proud that they return that friendship, and, I like to imagine, the respect and appreciation I extend to them … and to you.
DW
FWIW I am not one to do much posting on the political/military articles. But my opinion is that those people who commented as they did are misguided. To not honor veterans is simply wrong. When you put your life on the line you should receive honor for that. It is the administrations who should be called out. My 2 cents.
i think the proper time and place to discuss and criticize was on that thread.
You know from previous postings, being #6 in that first ever lottery, that I refused to participate in or support that invasion lacking a declaration of war or a direct attack.
To try to respond to a list of comments taken out of context of their place in an intelligent conversation is unfair and rehashing what was hashed out on that thread.
Like I said in a comment over there that you didn’t quote” I wish you peace’
Get a grip. I’m a veteran too and I completely get where this person is coming from. They disagreed with the war and with war in general. From a JudeoChristian standpoint they have it right. There is no little post script after Thou shalt not kill.
“I’m not calling veterans names, I’m saying what they did in Iraq and Afghanistan is morally wrong. They should have made the morally right choice and not ‘served’. They didn’t and I’m asking them to face up to that wrong choice. But, more importantly, I’m asking the rest of us not to honor the recent veterans but instead to honor the recent non-veterans, those who made the right choice — despite the bad economy, despite the lack of a future for many young people.”
Reread that paragraph(particularly the part where they specifically say they aren’t calling veterans names) and then BUCK UP. Your purpose, as a soldier was to defend their right to speech which includes things you may disagree with such as the above. It’s called free speech. Instead of whining about the fact that they disagree with the military you should have offered up the position that without people willing to fight and die for concepts such as free speech that they wouldn’t even have the right to question the position of the government in military theaters like Iraq or Afghanistan.
Good Lord I’m tired of whiny people who insist that they must be honored without even understanding WHY they would deserve honor(and I’ll give you a hint it ain’t cause we “freed the Iraqis.”).
Second that.
A little good news – it’s been raining a little in Austin. What with the on-going drought, it’s a relief.
I’m quite sad that you have been offended by my continuing to be offended. I furhter apolofize for my poor choice of fora. I will make no argument to your admonishment. Steadfastness to principle is impressive, I admire it-a lot. So for the terrible times you spent as a fugitive, I tell you.
Congratulations! You were right!
The cowardly (moral fortitude, lack thereof), and the craven (see for yourself), will have no peace, save eternal. But I am pleased you have found some, cherish it.
You don’t even know what is going on here, so I’ll excuse the whiny comment.
But, waltz, do you think I’m simple? WTF? Don’t attempt to make things appear as something they are not. I want nothing save some peace. Not some sort of bs or anything else. And, Sir, I would appreciate if you skipped the lectures related to whining.
It’s not over, the country was cleaved in two for the war criminal leadership of nixon, kissinger and mc namara.
That they rested easy says all you need to know. henry is still moving sand shaking the world instead of the prison kitchen.
Speaking as a vet, we don’t boo veterans.
On edit, I should have read the rest of the thread. I would have written, I was a ROTC officer 68-70, sent to Turkey for some unknown reason. I don’t boo veterans, or question the choices made by anyone as to whether to serve, with the exception of chicken hawks, those who refused to serve and cheerlead wars for others to fight.
Hey, I’m a NASCAR fan, and a true progressive, and I detest Obama for his sellouts and betrayals.
I’d boo Jill and Michelle, too. (Although probably for different reasons.)
First, I’m not a sir.
Second, you ARE whining about a single post on a site because SOME people(not all and from what I have seen certainly not a plurality) have not wrongly pointed out that being a soldier means that your job during war is to kill people(and some of those people do happen to be children, there is no special magical force field that protects innocent civilians from death when you drop bombs on them). They don’t believe that killing should be lauded. They are entitled to that opinion. You are entitled to disagree. Welcome to America where we put people in uniform to DEFEND those principles.
As someone pointed out above the appropriate place to whine about that post was in that post. Using it as a deflection and excuse for a bunch of NASCAR nutballs who weren’t even smart enough to recognize that the first lady and Mrs. Biden were there to honor MILITARY FAMILIES smacks of irony on so many levels.
Michelle isn’t her husband.
I know people tend to think women and men who are married are interchangeable, they aren’t.
I feel fairly confident that Michelle would prefer you judge her on her merit or lack of. Frankly, while I wouldn’t call her the best first lady ever. I do think her let’s move initiative or her attempt to honor soldiers’ families is far less bothersome then her husband’s policy positions.