QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Cops Again Shoot Innocent Dog While Owner Watches

Remember the cops in Tennessee who shot a family dog while the owners watched and freaked out last January? Well, I certainly do, and it really pisses me off that it's happened again, this time in Milwaukee:

At the time of the shooting, she and her dog were in the backyard around 2 a.m. Saturday waiting for police, but when squad cars arrived, Sprite bounded toward the officers.

Seconds later, the 6-year-old, 38-pound Sprite was shot in the head.

"He fell over and flinched,'' said Mueller, who was standing about 10 feet behind the dog when the officer fired. "To see him fall over flinching and die right there, it's just hard to explain.''

The incident happened when police responded to the 911 call reporting a man contemplating suicide. By the time officers arrived, the man, Mueller's friend, had calmed down.

"I told them, 'The dog is harmless, don't hurt the dog,''' said Dave Williams, another friend of Mueller who witnessed the shooting. "Three seconds later, they shot the dog."

For more, click here.

All I can do is repeat some of what I said about the dog killing back in January:

I now realize that when I read about police brutality toward humans (that is, as opposed to dogs) I get angrier in my head than I do in my heart. I suppose the image of uniformed men with guns blowing away a family pet while the helpless family freaks out is, at the very least, difficult to digest. But what about the countless individuals, human beings, most of them ethnic minorities, that have been brutalized, harassed, and beaten by the police? Things are much, much worse than the sadistic killing of a dog might suggest. I ought to be angrier in my heart.

Increasingly, I am.

American police culture is out of control. (I say “culture” because I believe that there are lots of well-meaning, good individuals that are cops. But many of those “good cops” end up doing bad things or remaining silent when they witness acts of corruption and brutality performed by their less well-meaning cop brothers.) Newspapers report HUNDREDS of instances of police misconduct every year but miss the big story: THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF KNOWN INSTANCES OF POLICE MISCONDUCT EVERY YEAR! How many Richard Jewells and David Koreshes must it take? How many murdered dogs? When will mainstream (that is, white) America wake up and realize that it is no longer such a gross, radical exaggeration to say that we’re not too far from Nazi Germany? (That is to say, Arayans equal whites; Jews equal non-whites...hey, there really is a comparison there!) The only thing out of the ordinary about the killing of the Smoak family dog is that the Smoaks are white. People of color know the score but lack enough clout and power to address the injustices. Whites, for the most part, live in ignorant bliss—when a white American gets screwed by the cops it is viewed as an “isolated incident” that is not representative of the overall situation.

Of course, that’s a lie. Authoritarianism and violence are simply a big part of what cops are. I hate cops. Because, you see, cops really are pigs.

'Nuff said. (for my full post on cops from January, click here.)

Thanks to J. Orlin Grabbe for the link.

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REAL PAINTING

I happened on a cool art site earlier today: WebMuseum, Paris. I don't know much about the site, yet, but I do know that I'm going to be linking to it a lot in the coming weeks and months. Why? Because they have a pretty incredible collection of great paintings in web form. My blog is called "Real Art," after all. So, why not offer a link to a cool painting every few days?

It's my blog, and I can do whatever the hell I want; so shut up, wise asses!

On to today's painting:

La Musique by Henri Matisse, 1939.

Enjoy!

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HELEN THOMAS LASHES OUT
Media Obsession with Presidential Sex

The long time AP White House reporter (who recently declared Bush to be the "worst President ever") is a columnist these days:

Why didn't you write about President Kennedy's love affairs?

I have been asked that question countless times in the years since JFK was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. The question usually implies that reporters were covering up for a popular president.

As a White House wire service reporter back then, my response typically varied from saying that I had only heard rumors, to "dead men can't defend themselves."

In those days unless the personal activities affected the official responsibilities and duties of a public figure, such gossip was usually considered off limits by the mainstream press. It simply wasn't pursued.

But times have changed. Now, the lives of public officials and celebrities are an open book and considered fair game by the news media. The sanctity of personal privacy no longer exists. Everyone is wired and on camera.

For more, click here.

Unless it's rape or wantonly spreading AIDS or something, Presidential sex is irrelevant. Period. But try telling that to a nation who's head is in a fog of sexual extremism from both exploitative capitalists and Puritanical fundamentalists. It's maddening...

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EXPOSING THE INNER WORKINGS OF AMERICAN POLITICS
The Screwing of Cynthia McKinney

The only member of Congress to question the Bush administration in the dark days following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 was duly punished for her sins:

The New York Times’ Lynette Clemetson revealed her comments went even further over the edge: “Ms. McKinney suggest[ed] that President Bush might have known about the September 11 attacks but did nothing so his supporters could make money in a war.”

That’s loony, all right. As an editor of the highly respected Atlanta Journal Constitution told NPR, McKinney’s “practically accused the President of murder!”

Problem is, McKinney never said it.

That’s right. The “quote” from McKinney is a complete fabrication. A whopper, a fabulous fib, a fake, a flim-flam. Just freakin’ made up.

Click here.

Another kickass expose by the journalist that's so good that he has to work in England, Greg Palast.

Thanks, again, to my buddy, Matt.

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A BRILLIANT IDEA
Let the People Speak Early

MoveOn.org PAC, the progressive online political organization, has turned the political system on its head by rapidly launching an online grassroots political primary long before the political establishment has weighed in on the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

When MoveOn surveyed its members, 96.3 percent of the 186,000 respondents said they were eager to jump into the process early.

The 1.4 million MoveOn members and new joiners are eligible to vote for one candidate from the field of nine in the primary scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday. MoveOn announced that the top tier of contenders, according to a straw poll of its members, are Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean and John Kerry. In response to members' interest in the three, MoveOn is giving them an assist with a special focus email.

Arguing that "the real choices in the presidential sweepstakes are made long before the real primaries," MoveOn hopes to give insurgent candidacies like Kucinich and Dean a chance to be competitive with the more established, well-funded and media anointed candidacies of John Kerry and John Edwards.

Click here.

One of the most depressing things to me about American Presidential politics is the so called "wealth primary." That is, months before the actual and irrelevant primaries, presidential candidates must grovel at the feet of the wealthy in order to fill the all important campaign "war chests." This is the stage of an election run that actually determines who has a fighting chance at winning: without the blessings of wealth, no candidate can even fantasize about taking the Oval Office. The ultimate effect is to render meaningless the voting process--the ruling elite decides on a short menu of candidates who are acceptable (that is, candidates who reflect the views of the super rich), and presents this menu to America as some kind of "democratic" choice. In the 2000 elections, McCain, Bush, Gore, and Bradley were all deemed pro-corporate enough to make it into the final four, the joke primaries. Either one of them would have worked from the point of view of the wealthy, but because there were four candidates, most Americans actually felt like voting for one of them constituted "democracy." In reality, presidential elections just don't matter, anymore, as far as issues that are important to rank and file Americans are concerned.

Remember the dozens of times that Gore and Bush agreed with each other during the "debates?"

That's one of the big reasons I voted for Nader: because both parties are now willing slaves to wealth and the corporate system, there is now "not a dime's worth of difference" between them, to quote Texan progressive, Jim Hightower. This MoveOn tactic sounds like a good gambit for circumventing the "wealth primary" and, perhaps, making the actual, irrelevant primary more fair, less rigged. I've heard recently that the Greens are not going to run a Presidential candidate this year in order to throw progressive support behind some, as yet, unknown Democrat that could conceivably unseat Bush.

I guess it's time for me to start looking at Democrats, again...

Thanks to my old pal, Matt, for the link.

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The Media Politics Of Impeachment

From ZNet:

As a political weapon, impeachment will be used to the extent that the president's foes believe they can get away with it. While the Constitution speaks of "high crimes and misdemeanors," that provision offers scant clarity about standards for impeachment. In recent decades, we have seen it utilized as an appropriate tool (against Nixon) and as an instrument of political overkill (against Bill Clinton). In both instances, the media climate determined the possibilities and impacts of impeachment.

In general, the punditocracy is averse to the option of impeachment and reflexively dismisses any such suggestion. Misuses of presidential power -- and outright mendacity in the service of policy objectives -- are political realities, accepted or even avidly supported as long as they remain within vaguely customary limits. Few editorial writers or other commentators want to risk seeming too far ahead of the media curve by suggesting that the latest presidential deceptions might rise to the level of impeachable offenses.

In other words, the corporate media probably won't be leading the charge toward removing our thief-in-chief; in fact, they'll probably be quite condemning of any serious impeachment movement that might arise. This isn't too hard to belive: the essay also points out that numerous Reagan administration officials, including our current President's daddy, got away almost scot-free with the Iran-Contra scandal back in the 80s. Removing from office and jailing Bush and company will not be an easy task.

Click here.

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REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL
SCANDAL HEATS UP
Democrats ask Justice Department to look
into Westar donations to GOP

In Missouri, Democratic Party spokesman Michael Kelley suggested that one reason Ashcroft is reluctant to proceed with the case is because of his long ties to Koupal, who now heads a Topeka bank.

Democrats said Koupal's ties to Ashcroft extend to 1976, when Koupal managed Ashcroft's successful campaign for Missouri attorney general.

Koupal also managed Ashcroft's winning campaign for governor in 1984, served as Ashcroft's transition director and worked in Ashcroft's Cabinet as the state's director of economic development.

"The reason John Ashcroft refuses to do anything is because (Koupal) is an old crony of his and he doesn't want to put his buddy in harm's way," Kelley said. "He wants to protect his friend."

Click here.

Thanks to Eschaton.

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REPUBLICANS AGAIN FLEX TEXAS MUSCLES
New battle brews over redistricting

Gov. Rick Perry reignited a partisan fire Wednesday by calling a June 30 special legislative session on congressional redistricting, an issue killed by Democrats last month when they staged a walkout that shut down the statehouse for four days.

If Republicans win the high-stakes political battle in special session, the balance of power could slip away from the Democrats in the Texas congressional delegation and help the GOP lock control of the U.S. House after next year's elections.

White House political adviser Karl Rove contacted at least one state senator this week and told him passage of the Republican redistricting plan "could be important to the president."

Not only are Republicans evil, they also have no sense of fair play. The bastards may very well pull this one off. Click here.

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HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER
RECOGNIZED FOR BEING BUTTHOLE:
DeLay makes Texas Monthly's worst legislators list

And he's not even a Texas legislator...

Under the heading "Pest," DeLay is criticized for pushing the Texas Legislature to take up a congressional redistricting bill late in the 140 day, biennial session. The bill prompted state Democratic representatives to head to Ardmore, Okla. for nearly a week and an ensuing manhunt that involved a federal anti-terrorism agency.

"He's a member of the House of Representatives, all right, but it's the one in Congress, not the one on Congress Avenue," Texas Monthly wrote. The Texas Capitol is on Congress Avenue in Austin.

DeLay spokesman Jonathan Grella declined comment today.

Heeheehee. Click here.

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REAL THEATER

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

150 troopers called to help quell riots in Michigan city

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. -- State police sent 150 troopers into this city Wednesday after two nights of rioting touched off by a deadly police chase in this community, plagued for years by poverty, high unemployment and racial tensions.

City officials also said they would aggressively enforce an overnight curfew already on the books for those 16 and younger, saying those are the ones causing the trouble.

And

Residents complained that they have long been harassed by the 25-member police force.

However, Harris said Wednesday on ABC's Good Morning America: "We're basically predominantly a black community. Many of our police officers are white, but I seldom have complaints of the racial nature."

Benton Harbor, a city of 12,000 people situated on Lake Michigan about 100 miles east of Chicago, is 92 percent black, according to the 2000 census. Boarded-up buildings dot the community, and the unemployment rate last year was 25 percent.

For the full story, click here.

While I'm sure that race is probably the major cause of this riot, the sense of extreme poverty (which is associated with race, anyway) as a contributing factor made me think about my favorite musical, The Threepenny Opera, by playwright Bertolt Brecht and composer, Kurt Weill. I had never really heard of Brecht until I studied theater history in college. I loved him almost immediately. Here's why (taken from the Brecht bio link above):

Brecht experimented with dada and expressionism in his early plays, but soon developed a unique style suited to his own vision. He detested the "Aristotelian" drama and the manner in which it made the audience identify with the hero to the point of self-oblivion. The resulting feelings of terror and pity he felt led to an emotional catharsis that prevented the audience from thinking. Determined to destroy the theatrical illusion, Brecht was able to make his dreams realities when he took over the Berliner Ensemble.

The Berliner Ensemble came to represent what is today called "epic theater". Epic theater breaks with the Aristotelian concepts of a linear story line, a suspension of disbelief, and progressive character development. In their place, epic theater uses episodic plot structure, contains little cause and effect between scenes, and has cumulative character development. The goal is one of estrangement, or "Verfremdung", with an emphasis on reason and objectivity rather than emotion, or a type of critical detachment. This form of theater forces the audience to distance itself from the stage and contemplate on the action taking place. To accomplish this, Brecht focused on cruel action, harsh and realistic scenes, and a linear plot with no climax and denouement. By making each scene complete within itself Brecht sought to prevent illusion. A Brecht play is meant to provoke the audience into not only thinking about the play, but into reforming society by challenging common ideologies. Following in the footsteps of Pirandello, he blurs the distinction between life and theatre so that the audience is left with an ending that requires social action.

Brecht wanted audiences to think, rather than to be simply entertained. In other words, he wanted theater to count, to be relevant to society. Until the point when I discovered Brecht, theater and acting had been, to me, a fun thing to do to make people experience emotion, to purge sadness, or to uplift and make happy. Even though these are noble pursuits, the strong political aspect of my identity had not yet found an artistic voice in the theater--for me, at that point, politics had only been a part of my songwriting; Bob Dylan's influence had made that a certainty. Truly, Brecht and The Threepenny Opera opened my eyes: all the arts could be, should be political; without a social dimension, the arts are simply diversion. Brecht allowed several aspects of my identity to merge; as I grew older and further to the left, Brecht's love of Marxism excited me all the more (while I am not a communist, Marxist criticisms of capitalism are still quite poignantly valid today). Brecht created theater to provoke thought: more importantly, Brecht created theater to change society.

That brings me back to the issue of the Benton Harbor riots. The town's sense of total indigence is striking. That such impoverishment is allowed to exist in a nation as wealthy as the United States is utterly appalling. Poverty should be ended because it is just to do so, and the US has the ability to do it. However, to go beyond considering the simple moral dimension of allowing the existence of abject squalor, society has an interest in ending poverty because it is a good idea for keeping the peace. Sociologists have known for decades that there is a clear, undeniable, statistical link between poverty and crime. But anyone with half a brain and an ability to see through the "conventional wisdom" could tell you that. In fact, The Threepenny Opera, by and large, examines this relationship between crime and poverty--the play was written and performed in 1928, while sociology was in its embryonic stages.

Here's an example:

What Keeps Mankind Alive?

You gentlemen who think you have a mission
To purge us of the seven deadly sins
Should first sort out the basic food position
Then start your preaching, that’s where it begins

You lot who preach restraint and watch your waist as well
Should learn, for once, the way the world is run
However much you twist or whatever lies that you tell
Food is the first thing, morals follow on

So first make sure that those who are now starving
Get proper helpings when we all start carving
What keeps mankind alive?

What keeps mankind alive?
The fact that millions are daily tortured
Stifled, punished, silenced and oppressed
Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance
In keeping its humanity repressed
And for once you must try not to shirk the facts
Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts

True words.

But you've gotta hear it. Here is some streaming audio of Tom Waits singing my favorite version of "What Keeps Mankind Alive." To get the best effect, imagine you're in a smoke filled caberet in Weimar Berlin while you listen.

UPDATE: Well, I woke up this afternoon and found that the Tom Waits link wasn't working--the website hosting the audio claimed too much traffic. Instead I found this segment of the song. It's not as good as the Tom Waits version, but it gives a pretty good idea of what the Brecht/Weill sound is all about...

Also, did you realize that Brecht and Weill wrote "Mack the Knife" (performed by everyone from Louis Armstrong to Bobby Darrin to McDonald's commercials) and "Moon of Alabama" (performed by the Doors on their first album)?

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: The Tom Waits link is back up. Go check it out.

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LONGTIME NSC COUNTERTERRORISM EXPERT
QUITS IN DISGUST, GOES TO WORK FOR
KERRY CAMPAIGN TO DEFEAT BUSH

Washington Post via Eschaton:

In a series of interviews, Beers, 60, critiqued Bush's war on terrorism. He is a man in transition, alternately reluctant about and empowered by his criticism of the government. After 35 years of issuing measured statements from inside intelligence circles, he speaks more like a public servant than a public figure. Much of what he knows is classified and cannot be discussed. Nevertheless, Beers will say that the administration is "underestimating the enemy." It has failed to address the root causes of terror, he said. "The difficult, long-term issues both at home and abroad have been avoided, neglected or shortchanged and generally underfunded."

The focus on Iraq has robbed domestic security of manpower, brainpower and money, he said. The Iraq war created fissures in the United States' counterterrorism alliances, he said, and could breed a new generation of al Qaeda recruits. Many of his government colleagues, he said, thought Iraq was an "ill-conceived and poorly executed strategy."

"I continue to be puzzled by it," said Beers, who did not oppose the war but thought it should have been fought with a broader coalition. "Why was it such a policy priority?" The official rationale was the search for weapons of mass destruction, he said, "although the evidence was pretty qualified, if you listened carefully."

He thinks the war in Afghanistan was a job begun, then abandoned. Rather than destroying al Qaeda terrorists, the fighting only dispersed them. The flow of aid has been slow and the U.S. military presence is too small, he said. "Terrorists move around the country with ease. We don't even know what's going on. Osama bin Laden could be almost anywhere in Afghanistan," he said.

As for the Saudis, he said, the administration has not pushed them hard enough to address their own problem with terrorism. Even last September, he said, "attacks in Saudi Arabia sounded like they were going to happen imminently."

Within U.S. borders, homeland security is suffering from "policy constipation. Nothing gets done," Beers said. "Fixing an agency management problem doesn't make headlines or produce voter support. So if you're looking at things from a political perspective, it's easier to go to war."

Click here.

In addition to probable illegal connections to the energy industry, election fraud, and killing thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of Americans in a bogus war, the President should also be impeached for ordinary incompetence. He really is as big of a dimwit as he seems. For all we know, he could simply be the dupe of his daddy's former thugs, a Forest Gump gone horribly wrong.

I wonder which is more dangerous, Bush the stupid manipulated good guy, or Bush the stupid evil killer? It's hard to say...

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EGAD!

"US FORCES FOUND WMDs IN IRAQ"
and other lunatic beliefs of the American people

A third of the American public believes U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. And 22 percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons in the war. Before the war, half of those polled in a survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001.

The facts:

- Such weapons have not been found in Iraq, and were never used.

- Most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. None was Iraqi.

Click here for signs of American brain damage.

Yet another one from This Modern World.

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CANCER ON THE PRESIDENCY

Just moments after posting my comparison of Bush and Nixon below, I found this:

On March 21, 1973, at a meeting in the Oval Office, John Dean warned President Richard M. Nixon, "We have a cancer close to the presidency that's growing."

Dean's warning went unheeded and Nixon's presidency was consumed in scandal. For his own role in the Watergate cover-up, Dean, Nixon's White House counsel, spent four months in prison. Three decades later, Dean says Americans are witnessing "the first potential scandal that could make Watergate pale by comparison."

Writing for the Internet publication FindLaw, Dean says President George W. Bush must answer for launching a war against Iraq on the basis of numerous un equivocal statements that Saddam Hus sein harbored weapons of mass destruc tion when, in fact, no such weapons have been found.

Click here.

The truth is that there has been a cancer on the this current presidency from the very beginning, when Jeb Bush stole the election for his brother down in Florida, back in 2000. Either way, the President needs to be behind bars.

Thanks again to This Modern World.

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Bush Blasts 'Revisionist Historians' on Iraq

ELIZABETH, N.J. (Reuters) - President Bush countered those questioning his justification for the invasion of Iraq on Monday, dismissing "revisionist historians" and saying Washington acted to counter a persistent threat.

"Now there are some who would like to rewrite history; revisionist historians is what I like to call them," Bush said in a speech to New Jersey business leaders.

Click here.

The President seems to be starting to feel the heat. An interesting parallel springs to mind here: Richard Nixon's demeanor during speeches and press conferences became gradually more defensive as the Watergate scandal slowly unfolded in the early 1970s. Is Bush starting to privately freak out about the missing WMDs?

I wonder...

Thanks to This Modern World.

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REAL MUSIC (about politics and culture)

A rejection of my indoctrination.

All the Jesus Freaks in Texas

Down in Texas, they tell me that I'm going to Hell,
'Cause I no longer think that the Bible is the word of the Lord.
I don't bow my head anymore.
I'm not a Christian anymore.
I'm completely pro-abortion, and they don't like that.

Down in Texas, they tell me I'm away from the Lord.
'Cause I quit being such a good little Southern Baptist boy.
I don't go to church anymore.
I don't "witness" anymore.
I'm completely pro-evolution, and they don't like that.

All the Jesus freaks in Texas, they all love me, so I'm told.
All the Jesus freaks in Texas, will torment me 'til I'm old.
All the Jesus freaks in Texas, want me to buy their pot of gold.
All the Jesus freaks in Texas, won't bring me back into the fold.

Down in Texas, they tell me that I'm such a big sinner
Because I'd rather smoke dope and play rock and roll music.
I don't feel guilty anymore.
I don't pass judgment anymore.
I'm completely pro-fornication, and they don't like that.

Down in Texas, they tell me that the Lord is my shepherd
'Cause if I follow him, you know, I won't have to worry 'bout my own life.
But I'm not a sheep anymore,
And I'm not in the "Army of the Lord."
I'm completely pro-self determination, and they don't like that.

All the Jesus freaks in Texas, they all love me, so I'm told.
All the Jesus freaks in Texas, will torment me 'til I'm old.
All the Jesus freaks in Texas, want me to buy their pot of gold.
All the Jesus freaks in Texas, won't bring me back into the fold.

Written by myself in the early mid 90s. I still feel pretty much the same way. Click here for MP3 download, or here for streaming audio (which takes a moment or two to load).

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THE NEW PLEDGE

I pledge allegiance
to the wars
of the United States of America,
and to the lies
that make us proud:
one nation,
under the wrathful God,
hypocritical,
with fear and loathing for all.

From an idea by Jello Biafra with a bit of help from my wife, Becky, and spiritual guidance from gun nut, Hunter S. Thompson.

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MORE DEFLATION FEARS
Wholesale prices decline again

The back-to-back declines in wholesale prices come in the aftermath of recent warnings by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues about the possibility of the country facing deflation.

Although Fed policy-makers say the chance of that happening is remote, the Fed still must be alert for deflation because of its potential to wreck the economy, they said. While the country experienced limited bouts of falling prices at the end of the 1940s and in the mid-1950s, its last serious case of deflation was during the Great Depression.

In a bad case of deflation, prices fall for goods, services, stocks and real estate. Businesses, watching incomes and profits shrivel, lay off workers and cut salaries of those who have jobs. Individuals and businesses find it harder to pay off debt. Bankruptcies rise.

Click here

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THE RISE OF CONSERVATIVE THINK TANKS
AND THE MARGINALIZING OF ACADEMIA

Leah, member of the new Team Eschaton, helping out the vacationing uber blogger, Atrios, while he's in Europe, makes a fantastic post meditating on the gradual decline of university influence on American politics and culture, and the how the now pervasive influence of right-wing think tanks helped to cause that decline in the first place. This is a pretty informative essay, probably the best thing posted on Eschaton since Atrios slowed down his input.

You should read it. Click here.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
DPS Documents: More Questions About Killer-D Manhunt

What may have been the quickest police document purge on record was apparently not entirely successful, although what's left is not exactly riveting. The DPS has thus far posted 38 groups of documents, but most are bureaucratic and repetitive legislative rosters or bland internal communications (including those ordering the original document destruction). There are lists of the missing legislators, complete with aliases: "James E. 'Pete' Laney." There are copies of the formal questionnaire provided to troopers who visited legislators' offices in search of the fugitives. "Do you know where Representative Canales is?" asks one. Sergeant Palenque duly noted the staffer's response: "No idea."

But

The DPS postings substantiate what DPS officers have said: They were taking orders from Republican officials, who were nowhere near as "hands off" as Craddick and Perry have claimed. Even more alarming are the materials suggesting that other, as yet unidentified, personnel were also involved in the search: According to notes provided to the DPS by Austin Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, a couple of legislators' spouses were apparently followed or watched by plainclothes operatives of whom the DPS claims no knowledge.

The fallout from the Texas House Democrat walkout continues. Click here.

Thanks to Eschaton.

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FLIRTING WITH ECONOMIC DEPRESSION

The Nation's National Affairs Correspondent, William Greider writes about looming deflation:

Basically, what's under way is a brutal unwinding of the delusional optimism that reigned during the 1990s--excesses like the hyperinflation in financial assets and the swollen ambitions that led investors and companies to wildly overvalue their prospects for future returns. The stock-market bubble was the most obvious expression of excess, but not the most serious dimension. In an era of Internet fantasies and collective self-delusion, business sectors (and their financiers) overinvested on a grand scale and generally used borrowed money to do so. That is, they built too many factories, shopping centers and office buildings--creating more productive capacity than the marketplace could possibly absorb. Consumers indulged in their own version of wishful thinking, borrowing heavily to keep on buying, hoping the "good times" would last long enough to bail them out.

And

That's why there is so little new investment. What company is foolish enough to build new plants when so many existing ones are shuttered? And who would lend them the capital? If consumers run out of capacity to borrow more or can no longer refinance home mortgages, the collapse of aggregate demand will become far worse.

And

If this negative cycle worsens to extremes, only the federal government can interrupt it and push the economy in a positive direction. The basic task, as John Maynard Keynes explained in the thirties, is to get the money moving again. The government does this by borrowing idle wealth from the private sector and spending it or distributing it to taxpayers who will--thus putting the money to economic uses and stimulating business activity. Federal deficits, in other words, are an essential element in the solution--very large deficits if you intend to jump-start a $10.7 trillion economy. Yes, borrow-and-spend therapy increases the national debt, but the renewal of economic growth will handle that. (The alternative--doing nothing--means allowing events to take their own course toward destruction and multiplying failures. "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate," Andrew Mellon advised Herbert Hoover after the 1929 crash. "It will purge the rottenness out of the system.")

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If Milton Friedman is the Darth Vader of economists, then John Maynard Keynes is the Obi-Wan Kenobi. His was the advice used by FDR in formulating the “New Deal” programs designed to lift America out of the Great Depression in the 1930s; for many years Keynes’ theories dominated the field of economics: in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, the free, industrialized world enjoyed slow, stable growth.

That all started to change in the 1970s, as the Vietnam War, Arab oil embargos, and other factors combined to create the perplexing “stagflation” (inflation coupled with economic recession, an unprecedented situation) plaguing America, and, therefore, the rest of the free world. Economists did not clearly see the roots of the problem, and, like the lemmings they are, turned away from Keynes. This created the opportunity of a lifetime for the slick-talking economic sophist, Friedman. The Nobel Prize winning huckster had recently managed to subject Chile to neo-liberal reform—under Pinochet’s bloody rule, everything seemed to be doing well (alas for Friedman, Chile’s economy eventually got to be so bad that Pinochet had to use some old fashioned Keynesian economics to rescue the country—of course, that wasn’t really reported on in the US; Reagan was just too damned popular). Milton Friedman’s wacky philosophy was just the thing the disillusioned Keynesians were looking for. The flock of sheepconomists…um…I mean the field of economics once again followed their old shepherd, now in the garb of neo-liberalism, the tenets of laissez faire.

Today, Keynesianism is very unpopular as economic theory because it flies in the face of free market fundamentalism: inherent in Keynes’ views is the notion of market interference; that is to say, government should seek to regulate and stabilize the boom and bust cycle of the economy.

The so called “neo-liberal” point of view advanced by Friedman, of course, states that government should stay the hell out of the economy, that government should only provide a military, roads, and defend against monopoly, the less money cycled through the government, the better: business, left alone, will thrive. For over two decades now, neo-liberalism has provided the philosophical justification for Washington’s overly business-friendly climate. Dangerous deregulation of industry, banking and finance, and the service sector are the fruit of this shift in economic theory—“deregulation will stimulate business and create jobs.” Neo-liberalism has also justified billions of dollars of corporate welfare and tax cuts for the rich—again, the cry of “more jobs” is always heard. Neo-liberalism has all but destroyed labor as a force in the American economy.

Of course, neo-liberalism, or “Reaganomics” as I quaintly prefer to call it, is a total failure in the US, just as it was eventually in Chile.

It now appears that stimulating business itself, or supply-side economics, a sort of sub-theory advanced by Friedman, can create, in fact, some short-term economic gains. That’s pretty easy to believe: give companies money and, ideally, they will expand, which, ideally, creates more jobs, and, therefore, more demand, which, ideally, stimulates business further. Wall Street, of course, loves this because finance is so narrowly focused on quarterly earnings—government investment in the business sector taking the form of tax breaks, corporate welfare, and money saving deregulation just keeps on coming in; this drives up stock values. Business is always, in the short term, looking better.

Unfortunately, the long term has now caught up with us.

Keynes theorized decades ago what is now heresy, that capitalism, left alone, is unsustainable. The problem is overproduction and misuse of assets. Greed and high expectation of profits cause capital to flow in ever more risky directions. Even Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, was cautioning against the “irrational exuberance” of investors on Wall Street during the late 1990s. Money, left to it’s own devices, often becomes pretty stupid. For example, Noam Chomsky has pointed out that, before Richard Nixon abandoned the Bretton Woods system of global banking and finance, “about 90% of capital in international exchanges was for investment and trade, 10% for speculation. By 1990, those figures had reversed, and a 1993 estimate is that only 5% is related to ‘real economic transactions.’” That means that most of the world’s money supply isn’t even being used to produce anything or create jobs: gamblers control 95% of the world’s wealth and they’ve been on a betting spree for over twenty years—the casino is about to close, and it's time to turn in the chips.

Keynes believed that a big part of the solution to the economic downturns caused by capitalism's inherent tendency toward self-destruction was to stimulate consumer demand. Alas, American consumer demand isn't in such great shape these days. These long years of pro-business, pro-greed, anti-labor, anti-regulation rhetoric have slowly resulted in an overall degrading of consumers' ability to continue purchasing. The credit industry has managed to artificially extend consumer demand, but that cannot last. In other words, the hopes created by the short term economic gains of neo-liberal reforms have always been false: neo-liberal reforms, in the long run, bleed rank and file Americans dry; without masses of able consumers to create economic demand, the economy must collapse, as it is doing slowly now.

Neo-liberalism is like cocaine. It feels good for a time, but after a while, you’re willing to sell you own mother just to get a few more lines. Once you do, you quickly snort it all up. Feeling like shit when it’s gone, desperately craving more, you look for somebody else’s mother to sell.

Things are going to get much worse before they get better. America is snowblind, and, for now, cannot even conceive of of such antiquated notions as "stimulating demand," or "public works;" it defies the “conventional wisdom.” Economic pain will have to become so intense that our rich leaders feel threatened—by the time that happens, everybody I know will be hurting.

I hope I’m wrong, but I’m pretty much afraid that I’m right. I know the awful truth: wealth cannot be trusted to police itself; left alone, it always turns cannibalistic and eats the nation. We’re in the stew pot right now, waiting for the water to boil...

...what we need is the lost-to-history Jedi economist, Master Keynes, coming to the rescue, battling the dark side economists, in an economic light saber duel with Milton Friedman, Dark Lord of the Sith...

...just indulge me, here...

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