The thought awoke me out of a deep REM state - George W. acts just like a Pop Tart, just like Britney and Lindsey and Paris have. None of these young women was about to alter their selfish behaviors until they were made to by a power greater than they, no matter who got hurt in the process. So it is with Dubya.

The San Diego Union Tribune published an article concerning the Royal Visit to the Witch Creek Fire which inconvenienced both fire fighters and victims. Dozens of tired firefighters had to wait for overdue showers and food because of presidential security measures to protect Hiz Behindness from Al Qaeda terrorists lurking about in the flaming chapparal.

"I'd just as soon eat,” complained a fireman.

“The president picked a bad time to come,” said one burned-out homeowner. But of what concern is it when there is a media opportunity available to further the pretence that The Deciderer even cares?

John Van Doorn writes for The North County Times published in the affected region, and he put it like this:

Politicians tend to fly to disaster areas, cluck a bit, look saddened for the photo op, and fly away. The pols aren't needed. If they're going to send help they've already set that in motion. And they could see more by staying home in front of the television set, flipping the remote.

When do you think the average German realized that he or she was living under a fascist dictatorship?
- Chris Rowthorn

When the truth about our country’s policy becomes clear, can we summon the courage to address it from a moral perspective? The Germans left it up to the churches; the churches collaborated.
- Ray McGovern


First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for the sick, the so-called incurables, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't mentally ill.

[When They Came... Rev. Martin Niemoller]



When they came for ... the blacks, I turned away
When they came for the writers and the thinkers and the radicals and the protesters, I turned away
When they came for the gays, and the minorities, and the utopians, and the dancers, I turned away

[Hue and Cry in a song recorded in 1991 at Cirque Royale, Brussels.]


They put away the dealers to keep our kids safe and off the streets.

Then they put away the prostitutes to keep married men cloistered at home.
Then they shooed away the bums, then they beat and bashed the queers,
turned away asylum-seekers, fed us suspicions and fears.
We didn't raise our voice, we didn't make a fuss.

[Re-gaining Unconsciousness by NOFX]



When They Cracked The Whip, Nothing Was Said
When The Flames Burned, Nothing Was Said
When They Notched The Barrels, Nothing Was Said
When The Bays Opened, Nothing Was Said
When The Dogs Were Set Loose, Nothing Was Said
When The Colors Run Red, Nothing Was Said
When Innocents Cried In The Face Of The Guilty
No One Said Anything


[White Noise by Corrosion of Conformity]


Now I'm scared to whistle 'swanee'
'Cause they'll ask me for my spit...

[Madame Guillotine" by Legendary Pink Dots]



Then one day they came and they took me
And I could say nothing because I was as guilty as they were
For not speaking out and saying that all men have a right to freedom
On any land

I was as guilty of genocide
As you
All of you

For you know when a man is free
And when to set him free from his slavery

So I charge you all with genocide
The same as I

[Don't Let It Happen Here by Charles Mingus on the album Music Written for Monterey, 1965 Not Heard...Played Live in Its Entirety at UCLA," re-released on September 26, 2006.]


Chris Rowthorn:

"In 2007, the average American is in exactly the same position as the typical German, Japanese or Italian citizen of the early to mid-1930s. Unless you happen to be a Muslim, a left-wing political activist, or a regular reader of left-wing political websites or journals, you could be forgiven for thinking that it's business as usual in the United States of America.

"Consider the factors that could easily unleash outright fascism in the United States: the accelerating collapse of the US dollar; the follow-on effects from the subprime loan debacle; soaring energy prices (peak oil); catastrophic weather events caused by global warming; and, of course, the one thing that Bush's entire foreign policy seems almost guaranteed to bring about: another large-scale terrorist attack on American soil. Any one of these by itself could trigger outright fascism. Combine two or more, and American fascism is 100% certain.

"History teaches that there is a point of no return in the evolution of a fascist state. Once that line is crossed, there is no turning back until the country lies in ashes and millions lie dead both inside and outside the country."

It's been very difficult to come up with a decent topic to write about lately. Everything that merits attention - Iraq, the Blackwater attack, the impending nuking of Iran - would take up far more time than I've had available. In addition, my real-world employment has been a jungle!

I will at some point soon regain my footing, and produce something worthy of your attention. Until then, as a now-deceased commentator for Pacifica used to sign off his show, "Persevere!"

I’ve been getting mail from my regulars for the last week or so, and I haven’t been able to respond due to a change in the SMTP policies of my ISP. What this means in clear American language is that I can receive emails, I just can’t send them.

This has me a bit suspicious, in that the stated claim for the instigation of the tighter email transmission policies is to reduce the amount of spam being disseminated, and yet spam - for me at least - isn’t much of a problem. I got a few as we all have, but it hasn’t dominated my inbox.

Rest assured, dear Regulars, that I will - as soon as my real-world occupation ceases its monopoly on my time - make arrangements be become responsive again.

I just wish that was the limit of the communication problems I face. I fear there is more.
There is the timing of the email policy changes.

Shortly after Chertoff’s “gut feeling” concerning another terror attack, right as it’s clear that the Bush administration is losing the sync lock on the American media, right as we all await the admission that the Oil War is yet another Rovian failure, we who watch for subtle changes note that Trent Lott was quoted as telling Congresspersons not to be in the Capitol during Labor Day week. Clamping down on communication among Americans would certainly assist whatever machination is afoot, and play a role in keeping a lid on the reaction, whatever it happens to be.

I was reading in the Canadian media about the protests in Quebec concerning the conference of the continent’s leadership, and how some Agents provocateur were inhibited from creating an ugly incident there (sorry - no link available. My data file got erased by my employer’s IT department before I could save it and I’ve had no time to locate it again.)

I lived through the Democratic Convention of 1968, and I knew cops’ kids, who told me the most hair-raising tales of what their fathers were facing at the protests. I found these tales hard to believe, and based on the most recent incident in Quebec, maybe I was right to question authority back then. We would certainly be right to question it now, before that right is terminated.

As bad as these things are, it’s only the Fat Lady warming up. I saw another headline (again, no time for linking) that described how over 40,000 have lost their relatively well-paid jobs in the home mortgage field. This will have secondary effects on the economy, as stores begin laying off staff due to reduced sales. Wal-Mart’s president already mentioned this reality just last week, and sent the stock markets into decline.

As people realize that they have been had by the false Bush “booming economy”, they are going to be angry, and at that point the police will be released to perform their true purpose - protecting the wealthy from the rest of us. They will be no nicer than the recently late (and unlamented) Leona Helmsley, who infamously exposed how the wealthy truly feel about the rest of us and had to spend some time in the cooler for crimes far less serious than Ken Lay’s for not remembering her place.

The wealthy hate us, as anyone who has been paying attention since 1980 knows. We are merely toys for their amusement, and we are to be subjected to whatever their whims desire. It’s all OK, for their needs are far more important than our own, and if we don’t like it, their paid bully-boy graduates of The Asshole School (ask your police friends) see to it that we don’t get too close to bringing an end to that cushy arrangement.

History tells us that this situation cannot last. The problem is that when it goes, it takes everything with it. The America we knew and loved now belongs to the ages. That which is coming will be much uglier than we ever thought would happen. The best most of us can hope for is to get through it to experience calmer times again.

It will never be even this good again in our lifetimes.

Too many Bush supporters are like the lead character of Annie, always sure that "the sun will come out tomorrow" and everything will by just Warbuck-y! Unfortunately, reality doesn't support that particular fiction. The sun will certainly be out in Cibola tomorrow, but the heat isn't going to be comforting.

The Arizona Star of Tucson, Arizona reports that one of their biggest employers, First Magnus Financial Corp., gone "from boom to bust" in just three weeks, a catastrophe for more than 6000 employees - 99% of the total workforce - about to be laid off as the company considers seeking bankruptcy protection.

This is bad, but it gets worse. USA Today reports that the crisis initiated in the mortgage industry are spreading to other sectors of the housing industry. The profits of housing builders are getting slammed by reduced sales. It doesn't stop there.

Columnist Robert Kuttner writes that major retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot are admitting that sales are down, and presents a case that today's home mortgage crisis is the step-child of the 1980's S&L debacle - which just happened to involve a shady character whose patronym was "Bush".

Just like in the 1980's, the government is about to spend a whole lot of "Your Money" to bail out a vital domestic financial system stripped to the chassis by well-connected crooks who need a diversion to make their getaway.

Initially, investors sought safe havens in Federal securities, but, to those with some understanding of market vagaries, it should come as no surprise that Treasury bills went down in price after the Fed announced the protection of the guilty parties through a reduced bank-only interest rate.

But even the captive and tamed domestic business media isn't sure this slight-of-hand will be sufficient, with most economists contacted by CBS MarketWatch stating the opinion that Fed Chairman Bernanke and his band of Merry Money Men have much more work to do before they can return to Not-So-Sure-It-Would Forest.

Sympathetic members of the captive and tamed domestic propaganda mill loudly trumpet that Bernanke stands for Truth (as the White House sees it), Justice (for the Havemore investors), and the American Way (to scandalous wealth), but others members who should be sympathetic are asking financial disaster.

Some more directly affected by yet another scam are less-than- diplomatic about the sub-prime crisis, calling the Fed's action "a classic Ponzi scheme", and quoting Chris Johnson, chief investment officer at Johnson Research Group, declaring, "It's a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound."

Jim Cramer, the host of a cable TV investing show Mad Money and a man who made his fortune as a hedge fund manager, recently emulated reggae legend Bob Marley, using Marley's Redemption Song as a metaphor for those investors who see, as Scotland on Sunday does, that there is only one way for the markets to go - DOWN!

The Financial Times is less agitated about the immediacy of doom, but they grudgingly admit that the Fed will be judged on investor panic levels. This alone is a mighty Augean Stable for our neo-confidence Hercules to clean out, but he has much else yet to accomplish. He dare not cease his mighty labor, for the alternative is already clearly dire. A "major financial institution" might be about to fail, or- worse! - the economy may slow and risk blowing away the cover of a Bush "booming economy" like a Jamaican palm frond buffeted by Hurricane Dean. The Times of London sees Bernanke as sailing uncharted waters in such a tempest, seeking a passage to solve problems that aren't evident to most of us - or himself - yet.

But the crews of the Nino Scalia, the Exploding Pinto, and the Satanic Marina aren't so sure that this captain knows his heading. The Economist opines that a "climate of suspicion" has arisen among investment bankers, and with whispers of the dreaded 'R' word being issued in the darker holds of the leaking ship, Captain Bernanke has no choice but to stay the course, even into the eye of the storm: a deeper housing recession, weaker employment and eroded economic growth.

The anchor is often the first thing cast overboard, and the very thing that keeps foreign investors in the mortgage markets - the interest rate - will be so dispatched if Friday's bailing fails to stem the flow. This is seen as likely by some observers, for fear of the storm continues unabated, and the weather eye see more storm signs ahead. Against such concerns, it's quite difficult to say "Don't Panic!"

But this isn't The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy - it's more like Star Wars - Reality Strikes Back, according to Swiss central bank president Jean-Pierre Roth. He says, "The origins are in cheap credit. What happened is unbelievable."

He concluded, "There will be victims."

With more U.S. hedge funds likely to crumble in '07, and with confidence at low ebb, and with the analysis showing the Fat Lady isn't even warming up yet, it's no wonder that the financial balast is being shifted about to improve boyancy while the eye of the storm provides a moment of calm. The Old Salts see a change of course ahead despite sighting the high-flying Loonie off the Cliffs of Dover.

One has to sail past the treacherous shoals before one can enter the safe harbor and weather out the gale.