Wrong side of capitalism, cont.

Zizek/Counterpunch:

""

One often hears that the true message of the Eurozone crisis is that not only the Euro, but the project of the united Europe itself is dead. But before endorsing this general statement, one should add a Leninist twist to it: Europe is dead—ok, but which Europe? The answer is: the post-political Europe of accommodation to the world market, the Europe which was repeatedly rejected at referendums, the Brussels technocratic-expert Europe. The Europe that presents itself as standing for cold European reason against Greek passion and corruption, for mathematics against pathetics. But, utopian as it may appear, the space is still open for another Europe: a re-politicized Europe, founded on a shared emancipatory project; the Europe that gave birth to ancient Greek democracy, to the French and October Revolutions. This is why one should avoid the temptation to react to the ongoing financial crisis with a retreat to fully sovereign nation-states, easy prey for free-floating international capital, which can play one state against the other. More than ever, the reply to every crisis should be more internationalist and universalist than the universality of global capital......."

In the words of the immortal Ed McMahon, I did not know that.

Mo' Zizek!

e-Bay chicken ranch

LATimes/Brown/Whitman

"""In a blistering final debate, Democratic candidate for governor Jerry Brown apologized to his Republican counterpart Meg Whitman on Tuesday for a slur directed at her by an associate, an apology that Whitman did not explicitly accept as she cast his campaign as insulting to all Californians.

                      "Kitty Whitman"

"""Brown continued to insist that Whitman was seeking office to enrich wealthy Californians such as herself, while she derided Brown as a "same old same old" politician who helped lead California into its present straits and said she represented a fresh start for the beleaguered state.

specs sheet

We here at Contingencies sort of respect Mr. Obama for representin' on his bicycle, in the city streets no less (instead of Dubya's little CIA protected forest rides).

Bukowski at the Huntington

Contingencies Kultur kontinues!

"" The Bukowski exhibit, which is organized roughly chronologically, includes photos, letters, drafts and redrafts of his writing, first editions, original artwork, foreign translations, movie memorabilia and other ephemera, including a racing form.


" was his sanctuary, and this was mine," Linda Lee Bukowski, his widow, said of the Huntington. When Bukowski was gambling at the track in nearby Arcadia, she visited the library and gardens.


She arranged for his papers to come to the institution and saw the exhibit for the first time Friday.


"It's surrealistic," she said. In the foyer, in a class case, sit Bukowski's typewriter, wine glass, pens and boom box, a little dingy, arranged just as they were in his office. Linda Lee Bukowski explained that she's left his office just as it was, going in twice a year to dust. "It's like home," she said, looking at the case. "I'm walking into this room at the Huntington, and it's like home."

CA Demopublicans on Prop 19

Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman both oppose Prop. 19. Senator DiDi Feinstein, California's own Margaret Thatcher, also opposes 19, and recently joined hands with LA Sheriff-Jefe Baca and other CA crimefighters to   once again proclaim how much Prop. 19 pisses her off. Nearly all the leading Democrats oppose Prop. 19, as does the GOP--whether Yacht-club, or Evinrude club.

"Ignorance is Strength"

Admittedly, Proposition 19 may have some problems. For one, the primary backers tend to be entrepreneurial types--head-shop owners, in brief-- who stand to make a buck selling paraphernalia, marijuana "education", so forth were Prop. 19 to pass--f*ck them. Furthermore, local governments could still regulate pot use to such an extent as to make it nearly impossible to grow or use (imagine cops stopping by every few days to inspect your small crop).


Proposition 19 would, however, allow some home cultivation and use of cannabis. In effect 19 would eliminate the dealers, large growers, and...mobsters from the pot trade (there are rumors that pot growers and possibly mafiosi actually have ordered Democrats to oppose the law). Prop. 19  would also raise some needed tax funds to help rebuild the post-Ahhnuld CA infrastructure.   Additionally, citizens found in possession of small amounts of pot would not be subject to criminal charges.


Maybe those citizens who favor Prop. 19--and who object to nanny state tactics, regardless of which political party enforces them-- should simply not vote for any candidate who opposes 19, Demo or GOP, instead resorting to the tried and true political tactic of DFV (Don't F*cking Vote).

LA Times/marijuana/

sabado gigante

Cal Tjader......Shoshana



++++++++++  ++++++++++

Nobel prize/Mario-Vargas-Llosa

"""""The amazing thing about "The War of the End of the World" is that it looks at religious cults and end-of-the-world figures in such an insightful way that the reader comes from the novel feeling as though the last word has been said about this subject. Perhaps the greatest pleasure of the novel is that men and women of all types -- soldiers, criminals, landowners, housewives, beggars, intellectuals, priests, believers -- and all social classes are viewed with compassion and interest. No character is dismissed or overlooked, and the result is a tragic celebration of a very human thing, the sweep of an avid belief through a society, and the change and damage it leaves behind. Is the Savior figure in this novel meant to represent Jesus? Or Jim Jones? Vargas Llosa isn't saying, and that makes it all the better."""""

End of Summers.....

Chronicle/Larry-Summers--

""""Consider: As a rising economist at Harvard and at the World Bank, Summers argued for privatization and deregulation in many domains, including finance. Later, as deputy secretary of the treasury and then treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, he implemented those policies. Summers oversaw passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Glass-Steagall, permitted the previously illegal merger that created Citigroup, and allowed further consolidation in the financial sector. He also successfully fought attempts by Brooksley Born, chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the Clinton administration, to regulate the financial derivatives that would cause so much damage in the housing bubble and the 2008 economic crisis. He then oversaw passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which banned all regulation of derivatives, including exempting them from state antigambling laws.

Over the past decade, Summers continued to advocate financial deregulation, both as president of Harvard and as a University Professor after being forced out of the presidency. During this time, Summers became wealthy through consulting and speaking engagements with financial firms. Between 2001 and his entry into the Obama administration, he made more than $20-million from the financial-services industry. (His 2009 federal financial-disclosure form listed his net worth as $17-million to $39-million.)




Summers remained close to Rubin and to Alan Greenspan, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve. When other economists began warning of abuses and systemic risk in the financial system deriving from the environment that Summers, Greenspan, and Rubin had created, Summers mocked and dismissed those warnings. In 2005, at the annual Jackson Hole, Wyo., conference of the world's leading central bankers, the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Raghuram Rajan, presented a brilliant paper that constituted the first prominent warning of the coming crisis. Rajan pointed out that the structure of financial-sector compensation, in combination with complex financial products, gave bankers huge cash incentives to take risks with other people's money, while imposing no penalties for any subsequent losses. Rajan warned that this bonus culture rewarded bankers for actions that could destroy their own institutions, or even the entire system, and that this could generate a "full-blown financial crisis" and a "catastrophic meltdown.""""

Summers appears to be headed back to Harvard though a few reasonable humans have suggested Sing Sing or Leavenworth as alternative destinations.

Don't let the door hit ya.....

AlexCockburn--Emanuel's exit

""""By the time Obama hired him, Emanuel already had a proven record of toadyism to corporate America and the neocon lobby. Emanuel was a relict of all that was sleazy in the Clinton White House. Among the body blows that have brought the Democrats to their present ebb, the passage of NAFTA in 1993, with consequent destruction of the American industrial economy, must count as among the most lethal. Key to that passage was Emanuel, who directed the Clinton White House operation to get the treaty passed by any means necessary.


Following his departure from the White House in 1998, Emanuel headed to a well upholstered post in a Chicago banking firm before he won election to Dan Rostenkowski's old Chicago seat. By 2005 he headed the Democratic National Campaign Committee. As such, he decided which candidates for the House should get money and other support from the national party. As Andrew Cockburn and later John Walsh described on this site at that time, Emanuel did his best to recruit candidates, preferably rich ones, guaranteed to eschew vocal opposition to the Iraq war, which Emanuel, a veteran of the Israeli army strongly favored. """"

"Legado latino en conquista del espacio"

Desde La Opinion:

""" El legado de los hispanos va más allá de la exploración de nuevas tierras en Estados Unidos desde hace casi cinco siglos y hoy en día también forma parte de la historia de la conquista del espacio.

Además de recorrer territorios inhóspitos y dar nombres a ríos, montañas o ciudades, los hispanos han vencido también todo tipo de obstáculos hasta graduarse de carreras como ciencias, matemáticas o ingeniería que les han abierto la puertas para conquistar sueños ambiciosos como llegar al espacio.

Sueños que en muchos casos empezaron ante el asombro de las imágenes del primer hombre en luna, o la curiosidad despertada por un logo entonces desconocido, como fue el caso del ingeniero Guillermo González, quien encabeza un grupo de ingenieros que trabaja en el diseño de sistemas de aborto de lanzamientos espaciales en el Centro de Investigaciones Langley, (LARC) de la NASA, ubicado en Virginia.

"Qué es eso, NASA", fue lo primero que preguntó a sus padres el ingeniero González, en su humilde vivienda en su ciudad natal de Ponce (Puerto Rico).

"Tenía once años y observé lo que luego supe era el logo de la NASA mientras veía la transmisión de las primera llegada del hombre a la luna y desde entonces quise dedicarme a las ciencias", explicó a Efe el ingeniero puertorriqueño.""""

sabado Gigante (con convidado....JP Sartre!)

from "Existentialism is a Humanism"

""""First, [Existentialism] has been reproached as an invitation to people to dwell in quietism of despair. For if every way to a solution is barred, one would have to regard any action in this world as entirely ineffective, and one would arrive finally at a contemplative philosophy. Moreover, since contemplation is a luxury, this would be only another bourgeois philosophy. This is, especially, the reproach made by the Communists.""""

                                          Zut! 

""From another quarter we are reproached for having underlined all that is ignominious in the human situation, for depicting what is mean, sordid or base to the neglect of certain things that possess charm and beauty and belong to the brighter side of human nature: for example, according to the Catholic critic, Mlle. Mercier, we forget how an infant smiles. Both from this side and from the other we are also reproached for leaving out of account the solidarity of mankind and considering man in isolation. And this, say the Communists, is because we base our doctrine upon pure subjectivity – upon the Cartesian “I think”: which is the moment in which solitary man attains to himself; a position from which it is impossible to regain solidarity with other men who exist outside of the self. The ego cannot reach them through the cogito""""

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



"Les feuilles mortes"

e-Meg, Mitt, Mormonics

the Angel Moroni opposes Big Government too....

"My friends, today I stand before you with Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts and candidate for the US President. Like Mitt, I am firmly opposed to liberal bureaucrats and to big government in all of its forms. We are also in agreement in regard to the perils of illegal immigration and are dedicated to fighting our enemy south of the Border, and across the globe if need be. Mitt and I have similar management styles too.  And like Mitt I also believe in the precious freedoms cherished by our American forefathers, and I believe in the NRA and the right of free enterprise, and in combating terrorism. Like Mitt I believe that honest hardworking Americans now face a moral crisis. Mitt and I might differ a little in some of our views, but like most Mormon people he's a hardworking American who cherishes the precious freedoms that our forefathers fought for."


"Mitt's been a very successful CEO and brought the Olympics to Salt Lake City. He knows what it takes to operate a successful business. He knows that like a business, the Government also needs to be held accountable to the shareholders, which is to say, held accountable to hardworking American property owners. We need to view govt. as an asset, rather than liability, and make it turn a profit, instead of costing us an arm and a leg."


"Mitt also understands the values of thrift and prosperity and the dangers of waste and decadence. Joseph Smith, the LDS church father also battled against what he perceived to be the moral ills of his day. Smith was an early supporter of family values. He envisioned a society dedicated to prosperity, to motherhood, and to moral goodness, and to strength. The Angel Moroni visited Smith, and brought him an American message of freedom and moral integrity, of family values, and the right of prosperity and property ownership. Moroni did not support the evils of Statism, that's for sure! "


"So today I ask you my friends to keep those moral messages of Moroni, and Mitt Romney, and our forefathers in mind. We face stiff opposition on all sides. The statists, the union bosses, the loony lefties and malcontents want us defeated. The powers of darkness want us to fail. But fail we shall not. We shall persevere, and our values, and our families, and our management styles shall prevail. Thank you and may God bless each and everyone of you here today."

spam ala Steve Jobs

"""A Long Island University student received a rude email.....

allegedly from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
.... .....
She called six times, but there was no answer from Apple's PR department.

So, she managed to find an email address for Steve Jobs himself, and fired off a message.

Lo and behold, Jobs wrote back, but was less than friendly.

Our goals, he said, do not include helping you get a good grade.

And thus began a war of words with the corporate titan, worth $5.5 billion.

Chelsea responded: "If you get a message from a client or a customer isn't it your job to return the call? That's what I always thought, but I guess it's not one of your goals."

He wrote back, "Nope, we have over 300 million users and we can't respond to every single request, unless they have a problem of some kind."

And then the kicker...

Jobs wrote, "Please leave us alone."

It's not exactly the mark of civility from the father of the iPad.""""

f*ck that untalented, uneducated dyslexic pedazo de mierda. Soon, Stevie iPad,  sweatshop owner, you'll be...finito.
--------- --------
That reminds us!
Soundgardenocracy

ah shot my love today...would you cry for me.........

Whitman Brown. Brown Whitman.

"Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least." Robert Byrne

LATimes:

"In a blustery and vigorous first debate, gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown dueled Tuesday over their differing solutions to California's dire problems, with Whitman slighting Brown as a tool of labor unions and Brown excoriating her as a billionaire running for office to benefit the rich."

Jerry, the tool of labor unions vs. e-Meg the billionaire, non-voter, and G-sachs insider. Put on ye old booth-respirator and vote...Moonbeam.

Fiorina goes Rogue

Carly Fiorina recently told Republican students at the University of San Diego that out-of-control government spending continues to "suck out your future from your pockets and into a vast and unaccountable demonic bureaucracy in Washington D.C."


Fiorina continued--"I think that if we do not start taking apart the massive liberal belt-way bureaucracy TODAY then you will be completely and truly fucked, my friends. We either get government spending under control or we'll be saddled with humongous mountains of debt that we'll never repay in our lifetime. The liberal shits might as well put us in debtor's prisons."

                                           Siegheil!

"To that end, I propose eliminating taxes--all of them, income, capital gains, property--for those of us making serious bank--say, at least 10 million a year or so. Who cares about losers? We don't. Furthermore, we'll eliminate any and all social programs, eco-crat slushbuckets and porkbarrels, and ...mark my words---end welfare. The darkies, the wetbacks, the fat mamas on dope and their disgusting gangster offspring, yea, all the shiftless little cretins who have sucked up OUR money for decades: fuck them."


"The only government function remaining will be the US Military, God bless 'em. And I propose transferring funds--millions in fact--from the useless, bleeding heart social programs--the byatch programs-- into the US Military for research and development. As HP CEO I supervised the propeller-heads of the R & D department, my friends, and I paid them well. We need new weapons. New gear. New supercarriers, and new stealths, drones, and supersonic jets. The enemy never rests."


"In addition, I am going to reduce the federal work force to like 1900 levels. We'll freeze the pay of federal civilian employees--that is, the few remaining-- and hire one civilian employee for every ten who leave government service--which is to say, those bureaucrats we pink-slip ASAP. The only exception will be for those patriotic American men and women working in areas of national security--which I intend to upgrade, in honor of J-Edgar Hoover, a great American patriot."


"Any questions, pussies? Fine. Let's set to work. By any means necessary, my friends--and that means you, Diebold boys."

No on Prop. 23

LA Times/Prop. 23:

""""Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere, warming temperatures on land and in the oceans, according to scientific studies. California has begun to feel the effects, with rising sea levels, the disruption of habitats for plants and animals, and diminishing mountain snowpacks that are critical to the state's water supply.


California's global warming law, also known as AB 32, is the most sweeping in the nation, requiring greenhouse gas pollution to be slashed to 1990 levels by the end of the decade, and setting a goal of an 80% reduction by mid-century.


Over time, the law would affect nearly every industry and household in the state, with regulations to cut the carbon intensity of gasoline, require auto companies to build more fuel-efficient cars, force electrical utilities to switch to solar and wind energy, make buildings and appliances more energy-efficient and encourage denser development with access to public transportation.

Vote NO on 23.

Sharron Angle plays...the Vagina Card

We here at Contingencies were thinking of writing something on the far-right Nevada GOPer gal Sharron Angle and her pussy but a New York scribe beat us to the punch. What's more, the scribe hints at Miss Angle's opposition to Sen Reid's  misogynistic violence (alleged) as well--forgetting that violence is the prerogative of any oppressed people, according to Zizek.

""""What to do when you're Sharron Angle, one of the most far-right Senate candidates in the country — someone who wants to deny abortions to 13-year-old girls raped by their fathers; calls the BP victims' compensation fund a "slush fund," floats the possibility of armed rebellion; wants to abolish the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the EPA, and the IRS; and even disagrees with the legal status of alcohol — and your opponent, Harry Reid, insists on informing people about your extremist views? You stand up for yourself and defend your positions, and let the battle of ideas take its course! Or, you could just try to attract some of the sympathy that people feel for bullied and battered women.""""

Politics and..... the M-word

Masturbating on the Edge of the Apocalypse/ALEXANDER COCKBURN:

""""The Democrats keep the focus on O’Donnell, somehow hoping that, thus primed, voters across America will come to the conclusion that Republicans are unfit to govern, and reject them on November 2. It’s a very foolish strategy. Tea Party candidates promoted by Sarah Palin are doing well in some states. Not O’Donnell. It’s sadly clear that Delaware’s voters are now concluding that O’Donnell’s true vocation is on Bill Maher’s Show or as a follow-on from Bristol Palin’s appearance on Dancing with the Stars. She lags behind her Democratic opponent by 15 points in the race for Joe Biden’s former senate seat.

But for Democrats to fixate on O’Donnell is like focusing on the “threat” of Little Red Riding Hood instead of taking a close look at the true threat lurking in the woods. This is a general popular fury with incumbent politicians, most particularly Democrats, since they control both houses of Congress, with a Democrat in the Oval Office. As a roadside sign I just saw in southern Oregon put it, put it, “Remember to throw out the trash. Vote on November 2.”

witchiepoo


It’s becoming clear that by the end of Election Day Democrats could be reliving the terrible double punch they endured back in 1994 after two years of Bill Clinton: the loss of not only the House but the Senate. The House is surely going Republican. Democrats can count on 192 certain seats in the next Congress, Republicans 205, with what the Real Clear Politics (RCP) site - crunching the numbers - says are 38 seats “too close to call”. You can bet that this year more of these will tend to fall the Republican side of the line.

In the Senate Democrats, according to RCP, can count on 48 seats, Republican 46 with 6 too close to call. Of these six at least four could go to Republicans, starting with Tea Party star Sharron Angle in Nevada and heading east through Colorado, Illinois to West Virginia. And in this year of Throw Out the Trash, Democrats can’t count on “safe seats” to be truly safe.""""

The thoughts of a potential victory by the likes of evangelical Tea Party-zombie Sharron Angle in Nevada definitely should send tremors of fear up the spines of any and all semi-rational, non-conservative humans in the western US--whether they be democrat, green, libertarian, or old-fashioned Ted Kaczynski-style anarchists.

Mike Huckabee on pre-existing conditions

Mike Hucklebilly recently offered an analogy explaining why insurance companies should not allow pre-existing conditions:

"It sounds good, and it's a warm, bleeding heart message to say we're not gonna deny anyone with a preexisting condition," Huckabee explained at the Value Voters Summit today. "Look, I think that sounds terrific, but I want to ask you somethin' from a common sense perspective. Suppose we applied that principle [to] our property insurance, like for our houses, or our vehicles. And you, say Jed can call your insurance agent and say, "I'd like to buy some insurance for my house." He'd say, "Tell me about your house." "Well sir, it burned down yesterday--it ain't even there, 'cept a few 2 by 4s--but I'd like to insure it today anyhoo." And he'll say, "I'm sorry, Jed, but we can't insure it after it's already burnt down." If you had a wrecked car, it'd be the same. They wouldn't insure it. Well, it's just the same for humans, as it is for ruined houses and wrecked cars. You don't get no pre-existing conditions. When you're already sick, you're damaged goods, burnt down, wrecked, so to speak. No businessman in their right mind would lay a bet on a diseased, old dying person anymore than they would on a burnt-down house or piece of junk car. That's the long and short of it. Bad business. Next question, folks, and then let's say a prayer for our men and women in uniform."""

nada mas que baptista-masonica-basura

++++++++++++++++++++++

amiamo verde

Mafia goes Green:

""""On Tuesday Italian police seized Mafia-linked assets worth an unprecedented €1.5 billion from a Sicilian businessman known as the ‘Lord of the Winds’.


The seizure of holdings from 43 mainly renewable energy companies included land, sports cars and bank accounts. It signifies a shift in operations for Italy’s mafia; from the illegal dumping of toxic waste to the laundering of money through solar and wind power projects. According to members of the Italian press, this transition has been going on for years.""""

Whaa, you no likea the solar power, or photovoltaics, paysano? Hey we mighta jus breaka yr kneecaps and toss you in the Passaic. Fuggetaboutit.

"""the oppressed affluent""""

Krugman/NYTimes:

"""""Tax-cut advocates used to pretend that they were mainly concerned about helping typical American families. Even tax breaks for the rich were justified in terms of trickle-down economics, the claim that lower taxes at the top would make the economy stronger for everyone.


These days, however, tax-cutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case. Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it. Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.


And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it. “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes — but that was a long time ago.


The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way. Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.""""""

Krugman tries, at least. 

(a hint, bozonius: read through this a dozen times or so and practice writing some prose sans your usual phony, pseudo-liberal pathos.  Maybe, just maybe in a few years you could actually get your letters to the editor published in Podunkville Times)