swill bucket

"advertising is the sound of a stick in a swill bucket."-george orwell_____________________i have always admired orwell's take on many things...this being one of them...advertizing is rank manipulation and i know it when i see it...today's new york times is a disappointing two pounds nine and three-quarters ounces in weight...one presumes this will pick up a bit as the "false and commercial festival" gathers inertia...we will be delving into that...forewarned is forearmed...i was curious to see what the cost of all this manipulation was so i went to the n y times advertizing web site and did ab it of research...i looked at full page ads only...mostly because i didn't want to sped the time screwing around counting half and quarter page ads...so the totals for advertizing revenues herein are woefully incomplete...forewarned is forearmed...full page ads in the newspaper itself range in price by section and color/black and white...$214,723 buys you a four color full-page ad in the front section or the business section $178,633 for a black and white..the fine arts section brings up the tail end $107,970 for color and $71,870 for black and white...perhaps out of deference for starving artists...so the three full page beauties pictured fetched the nyt $644,199...but it is the magazines that drive the business and no mistake...full page color in either of the magazines ( the standard weekly or the periodical style ) runs $107,075 and black and white $73,420...today's magazines contain seventy-four full page color ads and six black and white for a total full page income of $8,364,243...and combined with the three full page ads pictured we're up to $9,008,442...add in half page, quarter page column, half column and subscriptions and you can see that there is cash flow here and, despite the whining from the print media about digital, profit as well i'm thinking...clearly news is a secondary part of this and i don't doubt that it is slanted to placate the advertiser's world views...the truth is a flexible thing...we all find different versions..but this alone is valid reason to trust no media. 7:52 p.m. 11-2-2014 just a note to say that my original figures were off...blame age...they have been adjusted downward...that's still no excuse for gross manipulation or gross amounts of cash...it's just an adjustment.

business unionism

i am a third generation union member...doubtlessly not some sort of world's record...but how many of us are left? i grew up in a union household where belief in the positive good of unions was strongly held and imparted...so i am inclined to see the recent proliferation of "right-to-work" legislation in a number of states, including my own, to be an unwarranted intrusion of increasingly unbridled capitalism into the ability of workers to earn a fair living..i have no love whatsoever for the oligarchical tendencies of wealth or the political whores who serve those proclivities...that said let me also say that the union i belong to does a miserable job of protecting and expanding workers' rights in the face of that ongoing rollback by corrupt politicians and their wealthy owners...this may not be entirely their fault...the wagner act of 1935 did not do workers any favors, nor did the interpretation of that law by the courts...essentially it took unions off the street where they had been increasingly effective in gaining concessions by direct action through mechanisms like the now illegal sit down strike ( illegal because it was effective ) and brought them "into the system" and made them reliant on politicians for a "seat at the table" of government...and as a result forcing them to compete for political clout with the seemingly always ( not to here the forces of reaction tell it ) better funded agendas of corporate interests...politicians are notoriously fickle ( and pretty much whores ) and their "friendship" cannot be counted on where the possibility of more cash is in play...labor has fallen into the trap of, among other things, believing that democrats are more friendly to labor's interests...the behavior and voting record of the congressman ( and democrat ) from this district alone should be enough to put paid to that silly illusion...additionally ( and most unfortunately for working people ) the courts interpreted the wagner act as guaranteeing the rights of unions, not workers...so unions effectively became a lesser entity in the department of labor subject to government rules and regulations...add into that the tradition of "business unionism" which sought to limit union activities to seeking financial gains for their membership while limiting politics as a valid subject for unions members to pursue as union members...in other words, no labor party...you were a democrat or republican in your politics and your union served only as a vehicle for economic security...when the political winds began to blow directly in the face of unions this left them bereft of "friends" and replete with detractors...so they find themselves backed into a corner with things deteriorating rapidly and not a bit of political sympathy in sight...right-to-work legislation says union members may opt out of paying dues while still being represented by the union as "free riders"...clearly this is aimed at the slow economic strangulation of unions with their ultimate demise as the goal in an effort to leave working people unorganized and effectively balkanized as a class...well...politicians are whores to a (wo)man and i simply cannot say that enough...aside from the standard wobblie graphic you will find a page from my union's journal...it is a craft union that has never and , seemingly, will never understand industrial production workers...there is no hope here...impossible...it is a page from a section on production news and in the section under the subheading "trane" they have, in bold face type, printed the names of nine members who have "opted out" of paying dues and become free riders ( you may have to click on the image to actually be able to read it )...the editorial staff of "the craftsman" want readership to "encourage them to do the right thing and become good standing union members."...here is a union run as a business clearly concerned with its cash flow...being a "good" union member means shutting the fuck up and paying your dues regardless of the quality of representation that you may receive...their desperation may be understandable but trying to publicly shame individuals that may only be making a statement about the relative value of union membership is hardly a way to build the solidarity unions will need if they can even hope to overcome the current political assault...when i was a member of the steelworkers i was in a union that had stewards and grievers...here i have business agents...a holdover form the old sam gompers days that leaves me thinking union leadership has more in common with management than with me...the more desperate they become the more shrill they will become on this issue...and the more shrill they become the more they will alienate the people they need to survive...the prognosis is not good.

the festival is upon us

eric blair was in the habit of dissecting a page or two of his newspaper from time in his tribune column...reading between the editorial board approved lines to try to find out what was really going on...when i hefted this morning's new york times off the front deck i had my suspicions about what was up...but first i stopped off in the kitchen to weigh the bastard...a shade over three pounds of newsprint and...you guessed it...glossy advertizing...including the "T" style magazine and the annual "watch your time" section of watches so expensive ( think of a figure equaling or surpassing what i paid for my working class hovel ) there are no prices printed ( "if you have to ask you can't afford it " )...the front section was expanded to two because every other page was a full page ad for something or another ( at&t and apple went berserk )...so scrooges "false and commercial festival" has arrived and we better fucking well consume or retailers will suffer and so will the economy...i can feel the advent of deeply seated streaks of both austerity and the pariah mentality...i can see me holed up with a few books and the basement projects until mid january when the new year grind begins to kick in...my favorite? the tired and passe rolling stones flogging grossly expensive watches to the proles...priceless.

allende day

"make the economy scream" richard nixon on the cia's approach to salavdor allende's presidency in chile___________________________chalmers johnson says we will debase our society with empire and the societies of all those we try to police...certainly the will to empire remains but as the means to empire ( and the philosophical double-think involved )become more complex and costly the hegemonic culture will debase both the national currency and what little remains of the national ethos to pay for it...and to what end one wonders? to deny that we all benefit form empire would be self deceit..to deny the stain it leaves is equally a function of denial...being an anthropogenic structure it will fail at some point and the old saw about bumping into the people you met on the way up while you're on the way back down is particularly appropriate for empire and its assorted "unfortunate" actions and their collateral damage...the allende coup is a case in point...the apparent "losers" never completely disappear no matter how hard the seeming "winners" wish it or try to implement it ( wolfgang shivelbush's book " the culture of defeat" is instructive in this and you can see the mechanics of it in action in the southern tier of states in this seat of empire )...the current president of chile, michelle bachelet, is the daughter of an air force general who remained loyal to allende and was killed by pinochet and his generals...she does not appear to believe in "an eye for an eye", but there are doubtlessly millions who do...joseph stalin was a tsar who said, " one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic", relying on humans' difficulty in processing large numbers as a vehicle to avoid being cast as the mass murderer he surely was...what old joe failed to realize is that statistic that equaled a million deaths also equaled a million tragedies that, once responsibility was established, human nature wasn't going to let go of ...imperial behavior is not without responsibility or harm to others and you may not always be able to divine or control their response...i would suggest a fundamental rethinking of who we are and where we would want to go is in order...but no one will listen...jihaddi is the new commie...a useful tool in leveraging fear and acquiescence in the imperium.

a matter of timing

“the sailor, officially a stenographer, had been copying nsc documents and kissinger’s memos for ten months, making an extra copy of everything that went into the Xerox machine, working at night and searching burn bags…after Kissinger returned to Islamabad, Radford, went through his room and his briefcases taking notes…” “Kissinger figured the president was drinking too much, not so unusual when rebozo was around.” President Nixon: alone in the white house. richard reeves ________________________________________________________________ ________ august 8, 1974 was a thursday as I recall…summer work in the steel mills had drawn to a close and there were several weeks left before the fall semester started so we decided to go camping…in colorado…we left hobart at about eight in the morning and drove straight through to denver, arriving there at about two a.m. on friday the ninth…this would have put us somewhere in the endless wastes of nebraska when tricky dick took to the national airwaves to bid the presidency farewell…we caught a few hours of sleep in the car after we got to denver and when the sun came up we stopped to buy a couple of cases of coors and headed southwest out of denver towards woodland park and the mountain backwoods…we pitched camp by a creek and settled back to watch mule deer and get thoroughly buzzed…high as kites on mountain air…next day we were joined by a couple of friends ( bill and frank to be specific ) who had driven out in a decrepit fiat and were delayed by numerous mechanical woes but had soldiered on to the mountains...their arrival doubled the exhilaration delivered by the alpine climate and we lazed the next few days away hiking in the mountains, swimming in icy streams, swatting horse flies, and digging out ticks…70s style camping at its very best…the weekend evolved into a new week and by Tuesday thoughts of heading home intruded ( some of us had real world jobs )…bill and I headed into woodland park to find an auto parts store to purchase parts for a desperately needed tune-up for the fiat ( the primitive automobiles we drove forty years ago had such exotic parts as distributor caps, rotors, points, and condensers…all swept into the dustbin of automotive terminology by the advent of the computer and a systems deepening so complex that I believe you’d have to take the engine out of my pick-up to change spark plugs…it was a simpler time when you listened to an engine to diagnose a problem rather than paying ninety bucks to hook it up to a diagnostic computer…complexity equates to progress in the consumerist utopia )…it was around noon when we wandered into the parts store and pissed the clerk off by interrupting his lunch…bill rattled off a list of necessities and the grumbling counterman stomped off to gather the goods…the small black and white television ( electronic media were as primitive as the autos…if you look closely enough at photos of the era you can just make out the shadows of the dinosaurs that gave us so much trouble then ) was tuned to the “news at noon” which was on hiatus for a few commercials ( some things never change )…when the local news anchor returned he led the segment off by announcing that “president ford” would be holding a “televised” news conference that evening…startled bill and I looked at one another and I asked “wasn’t Nixon president when we left?”…in some suspense we waited for the clerk to return and when he did bill and I both said at the same time, “what happened to Nixon?”…the clerk affixed us with a look of combined pity and loathing he must have used when confronted by morons or strangers who were obviously deranged and said, “that fucker quit”…this ignited ( literally ) a celebration when we returned to the car and we celebrated all the way back to camp…which induced some forgetfulness as to the cause of the celebratory binge...the amnesia was temporary however, and when we recalled and recounted the news to the others it reignited ( again , literally) the celebration…content we retired to the tent and initiated repairs on the fiat in the morning, leaving to return home by around nine…the trip home took us through nebraska in daylight with a remarkable train of events at a truck stop outside lincoln…that is another president however…and a completely different story.

charlie's got your number jim

"complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable. that the public good is is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." federalist X (madison ) _______________________________"this maintenance of the legal basis aims at asserting minority interest as if they were the predominant interests...it aims at retaining legislators who are concerned only with their particular interests; it seeks to misuse political power in order forcibly to place the interests of a minority above the interests of the majority." karl marx from his defense speech at his 1849 trial _____________________________________ sixty-one years later and charlie provides insight into the thinking of the vanguard of the political operatives who were struggling to create a "more perfect union" because the sort of "public and personal liberty" that the jeffersoinian declaration of independence had brought into being was spawning movements that were inimical to the interests of the elite and were in serious danger of exposing those interests as anything but "predominant" in the new republic...shay's rebellion displeased madison while it scared the living shit out of hamilton and moved him into an even more reactionary stance that even abigail adams found distasteful...have a leisurely but close perusal of the federalist papers and you will find hamilton is the only one of the three authors who cites shay's rebellion by name...the others simply referred to it euphemistically as something like "the recent unpleasantness in massachucetts"...as if calling it by its popular ( and now historical ) name would lend credence to the idea that the new hegemons' interests might not be in the best interest of the public at large ( that "overbearing majority"...in 1787 madison is already putting paid to the concept of majority rule...jefferson's vision snuffed out in the cradle...much like lennin croaked it in russia in 1917...hegemons are cut from the same cloth historically speaking )...the vanguard never has much use for "the herd"...an unwashed rabble with barely a brain amongst them...only useful fools and a vast pool of consumers...readily mislead and manipulated by desire and emotional appeals...they are missing a central point i think but i am not going to try to enlighten them...the center has had a fair run since 1789...it's gone from a collection of imperial wannbes wearing their desires on their sleeves by garnishing the capitol with neo-classical kitsch architecture to an actual imperial machine that has taken what it wanted since 1945...but entropy is catching up to it...as the system becomes more and more complex to try to deflect and deter real and perceived threats ( how much money does the nsa really cost? what's the real budget..come on...you guys read this blog...give us a ballpark figure we can run with ) the law of diminishing returns is kicking in..pretty soon all that complexity is going to simply cost too much and coercive efforts to collect ever rising taxes are going to have the periphery looking for a better deal...eventual collapse into a simpler form of extortion is fairly inevitable..the cascade failure will see to that...politics in this country have grown so unbearably rank and out of touch with reality ( someone should seriously whack the tea party over their collective heads to get their limited attention and try to explain as simply as possible that you cannot have empire and small government...one or the other morons...both are impossible ) that it is not really possible to take it seriously...it's a circus and the menagerie in whoretown is only going to get more out of control..it can be entertaining at times but as a steady diet it's a lot like having yahoo as your home page...to damned busy...no room for quiet thought...which may be what they want...but who cares what they want? the object is to expose the enter as the irrelevancy it is and get to work on building a culture and a community that will help us crawl out form under the rubble of the late republic's collapse and help one another...that is as inimical to the interests of the elite as you can get.

princip day

it's one hundred years to the day that gavrilo shot franz and sophie as they rode through the streets of sarajevo...it was a sunday and th elast day of their visit to the imperial outpost...sophie went along because she could be photographed with her husband there...franz had married nobility ( sophie was a countess ) but he hadn't married a princess or a grand duchess..so when they were in vienna the rigid court protocol required sophie to stand behind the princesses and grad duchesses of the court...so no photographs of the couple in public in vienna...sophie was freer away from the imperial center and so she died with her husband...gavrilo was a bosnian serb nationalist so his memory there is somewhat clouded by more recent events...he was the catalyst, not the cause of the first world war which resulted in, among billions of other things...the french and brits drawing abstract and artificial borders in the "middle east" after the war to ease their administrative burdens while creating an ethnic and religious tragedy that still plays on today in seemingly endless conflict...the bolshevik revolution which beget stalin and a teleological bureaucracy that took on a life of its own embedded in a secular religion in which parentage was ( and still is in all secular religions ) original sin, poison gas, tanks, fighter aircraft, massive artillery...and on and on...the armistice, the treaty of versailles the "stab in the back" and, along with the poison gas business, hitler...an entry of the u s into the wider world of imperialism in which we had been mere dilettantes before the war flouncing around cuba and the phillipines ( look at us now! )...eerie to be able to pinpoint an historical catalyst so precisely...causation is non-linear...this gave it focus momentarily before it caromed off into history...but not before franz and sophie's driver turned down the wrong street and stopped to back up giving gavrilo his perfect moment.