debt, default, and the doctrinaire ( with accent on debt )

the media have announced that the great compormise has been reached...

and , no doubt, the doctrinairians in the house freedom caucus and the congressional progressive caucus are whining, if not plotting procedural sabotage of something that doesn't meet their stringent, dogmatic standards...given the conservative tilt in goverment these days ( where, one wonders, is the new "tail gunner joe"? ) the thoughts of sabotage are likely more prevelant in the freedom caucus..and why? the few detail i have about this compromise entail more stringent work standards for those receiving food stamps and aid under the assitance for needy families program...ah..targeting the already underprivileged...nothing new in swamptown about that...yes, defense, social security , and medicare are shielded...no conservative is going to cut military spending and, say what you like, the whores still fear the boomers as voters and rightly so...i am a boomer and the neocons can go pound sand...social security is not a handout...i paid for it all my working life ( and am still paying into it ) and medicare is not free either ( and , yes i am ranting but this is a fucking rant blog and i did not force you to come here so shut the fuck up or leave )...however social spending is the target...throw in cuts to the irs budget which biden expanded, allegedly, to go after wealthy tax cheats...a fine idea..i pay taxes, so should they...and the "streamlining" ( read rubber stamping ) of the permitting process for "major" ( define Major ) energy projects and you can see that the burden of the "compromiise" is going to be shifted onto the less economicaly advantaged...why? i said "with accent on debt" in the header for a reason...and let's start small and work up...the "major retailer"i work for ( and we could get off on a whole seperate rant about the retail world and the second law of thermodynamics ) relentlessly sweats its salespeople to flog its pricey credit card...why? they want people to incur debt and, hopefully ( for them ) to carry a balance and service the interest...prefferably making the "minimum payment" to extend the indebtedness in perpetuity because interest on debt is the only thing that creates "new money" all the other financial shenanigans simply move wealth around...and retail is so sloppy it needs all the money it can get..now extrapolate that out to the great "compromise" and ponder if that will ease or exacerbate the debt of the "lesser kind"...i continue to come back to debt as the national political agenda in a congress ( and, by extension, an entire political system ) dominated ( or wholly owned ) by capital...debt penury in perpetuity for as much of the polity as possible because greed drives the machine and congress is owned by the top tier of greed...to borrow one from chamfort "it's easier to make something legal than to make it legitimate"...whatever these people do it is not done in your interest or mine...old samuel langhorn clemens had it right.

can you say "irrelevant"?

if you cannot, the times can do it for you...

one wonders ( and wonders at ) who, aside from the east coast elite, would be all that concerned about a "tablescape"

gail collins is in a snit

“political or military commentators, like astrologers. can survive almost any mistake because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts, but for stimulation of…loyalties.” george orwell form “notes on nationalism”______________________________________

well gail, so am i…it is true that third parties have never fared well in this country…mostly because they were an expression of a minority opinion…however they did once serve to alert the major parties to significant discontents among a fair number of the polity which they could choose to address ( or not , being politicians )…that said i must admit that since, say, h. ross perot they have been mostly expressions of megalomania ( except for the randist stench emanating from the libertarians )…still, i refuse to heed gail’s call to suck it up and vote for biden because he is the lesser of two evils…one wearies of the continuing political necessity of making a negative choice…that. However, is a result of the ruling elite’s lack of concern for the needs and/or desires of the mass of the polity…they represent wealth and power and present the interests of their donors ( owners…handlers…take your pick ) as the interests of the polity at large and that is patent falsehood…there needs to be an expression of dissent external to the two wings of the political status quo…in today’s column gail goes off on a rant about third party voters costing hillary Clinton electoral votes in pennslyvania, michigan, and Wisconsin…well gail I live in a winner take all state and even the half bright governor knew don was going to kick hill to the curb and my vote ( providing i did not vote for don ) was negated…disenfranchised by law…what about that? and i am not remotely convinced that hill would have been any less venal than don…they are both of the elite…

both self- interested narcissists ( as are politicians as a class )…from here she goes off on a rant about “no labels” and lieberman and his poor debating prowess...who cares about a washed-up political hack gail? not me…if I find a third-party candidate that even remotely reflects my needs and/or interests guess where my vote is going? This state will go trump in ’24 and there isn’t much any opposed voter is going to be able to do about that, much less gail collins…orwell was correct…gail and her column and the new york times and the rest of the biased media will survive no matter what the electoral outcome is…

okay, so i voted...

"both parties require a good deal of watching...there is not prodigious difference between the moral characters of the one and the other." james thompson callender. richmond recorder 1 novenber 1802.__________________________william safire maintained that callender was slime because he put paid to an idealized, consensus vsion of the "founding fathers" while callander said he was doing "whatever was in my power to give a candid account of what went on in that place." ( specifically he was writing there of his tenure as a stenographer in the house of representatives...however his political reportage went well beyond the house )...well...safire was a nixonite speechwriter so i feel justified in calling him slime and the "founding fathers" were trysting long before there was a swamptown if you actually look into it...power hates those who present it with its less than noble actions so callender has been maligned and marginalized for reporting what he saw...politics in this country has always been a sleazy business and no less so on this election day...admittedly a local primary election with virtually no interest to virtually anyone given the turnout i witnessed this morning at the poll...

of little interest or not i have made an effort to vote in every election i am eligible to cast a ballot in since the above mentioned nixon stomped george mcgovern flat in 1972 ( and we all know what that led to, right? )...so i wandered down to the polling place this morning where i was completely outnumbered by poll workers, much less the shills, sycophants, and actual political hacks that were outside bombarding me with literature,screaming names, or, like one aged hack, creatively openeing his coat to flash a "vote for____: ( i am not going to shill for this bozo ) in gold letters on a red tshirt...perhaps the "committee to elect_____" was desperately short of cash this political season...who knows? moreover who cares? my main motivation in voting is that politicans don't like a turnout...it makes them nervous...if more people voted they just might have to pay a bit more attention to the polity's needs rather than serving their owners ( did i write "owners" instead of "donors"? or did i just think it? )...gerrymandering ( ah...elbridge gerry...one of those "founding fathers" ) is, after all, simply an attempt to make elections more predictable by selective disenfranchisement of those whose needs the political machinery wants to marginalize or completely ignore...as usual it was a negative choice...i went to vote ( past discomfiting the pols ) to make an effort to keep one specific dingus off the autumn ballot ( which entailed actually declaring a party allegiance...if politicans can be deceitful so can i ) and so off the city council...the municpality has enough trouble functioning as it stands...they don't need to complicate matters with someone who wouldn't make a good dogcatcher...and in doing so i ensured my name would remain on the roll of registered voters so i can, at least, try to make them think about what they're doing come november...possibly a forelorn hope but, to borrow one from alexander dubcek, hope dies last.