Bob Lord

Posted by Bob Lord

In Orwell's 1984, the Party would revise history in the moment and the public would not notice. Oceania could transition from always having been at war with Eurasia to always have been at war with Eastasia in the middle of a Party member's speech, without the masses noticing.  

Here in America, in 2013, our elite, through their puppets in Washington, channel the Party from 1984. 

We're still clearing the wreckage from the financial crash of 2008-09, when jobs were vanishing at a rate approaching one million per month. The unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, and that does not take into account all the part-time workers seeking full-time work and those who have stopped looking. 

It seems like only yesterday the mouthpieces of the elite were blaming the lack of jobs on all those taxes being imposed on the job creators.

No longer. Practically in mid-sentence, a la 1984, the meme has changed. No longer is the problem the lack of jobs; it's the poor character of the jobless. In a speech to a local chamber of commerce, Huffington Post reports, Representative David Joyce of Ohio explained to the crowd that there are three million jobs out there and employers can't find workers capable of filling them:

Posted by Bob Lord

If you've ever stayed up at night wondering how our casino capitalism causes wealth to concentrate at the top, this post is for you.  

Start with Dean Baker's piece from a few days ago, The Big Silicon Valley Super Powerball Lottery. Baker explains how Silicon Valley has become the Wall Street of the West, where vast fortunes are created overnight for those whose start-up companies hit it big:

However in some cases there will be jackpots. Most of the time, it will prove fleeting, but our lucky Silicon Valley Powerball winners may still be able to walk away with hundreds of millions or even billions from their bet. In rare cases a company may survive, but even then, the market value after an initial flash may be just a fraction of its prior peak. This means that Silicon Valley lottery winners would have an opportunity to dump off their stock at grossly inflated prices before saner eyes bring the price back down to earth.

The same phenomenon occurs on Wall Street, where star traders or hedge fund managers achieve vast wealth over a very short period. And we've re-defined the American Dream to match our casino economy. No longer is the American Dream the chance for any American who works hard to live a good life. Instead, it's the infinitesimal chance of acquiring vast wealth if the stars align just right. We've decided it's more important to us that one person get a billion dollar windfall than it is for thousands of us to live comfortably.

Posted by Bob Lord

It's hard to quote Chris Hedges selectively. Every paragraph, every sentence, virtually every word is so compelling. His post today, Bradley Manning and the Gangster State, exemplifies this. So click the link and read the entire post. But if you're in a hurry, here's my lame attempt to capture the heart of it:

State power is to be, from now on, unchecked, unfettered and unregulated. And those who do not accept unlimited state power, always the road to tyranny, will be ruthlessly persecuted. On Wednesday we became vassals. As I watched the burly guards hustle Manning out of a military courtroom at Fort Meade after the two-minute sentencing, as I listened to half a dozen of his supporters shout to him, “We’ll keep fighting for you, Bradley! You’re our hero!” I realized that our nation has become a vast penal colony.

Posted by Bob Lord

I'm generally not a fan of New Yorker, but this week's issue has a great piece of investigative journalism by Sarah Stillman, Taken, about civil forfeiture in states, cities and small towns. The bottom line is that civil forfeiture laws, which were intended to allow the ill gotten gains of drug kingpins and other high-flying criminals to be put to good use, are being used primarily to rip off ordinary people at traffic stops. Highway robbery by another name.

It's a very lengthy piece, but well worth the read. The policy behind civil forfeiture laws was a recipe for disaster, the results of which have been, well, disastrous. In most cases, the local law enforcement agency has a direct stake in the forfeited property. It's not even uncommon for bonuses to be paid from the proceeds of seized property. Of course, this reduces the financial burden on taxpayers, with the benefit of the reduced cost flowing mostly to wealthy taxpayers. 

And, yes, the article includes a story about Maricopa County, although it appeared to involve the Phoenix police, not Arpaio.

Posted by Bob Lord Maintaining an empire becomes damn complicated.  A case in point: The dilemma over the American Empire's aid to Egypt.  When Obama danced around describing the Egyptian military's actions as a coup, the effect of which would to cut off the flow of aid, I figured his motivation was to preserve the … Read more