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20100216

The Call of Cthulhu

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Can't say I blame her.

14 comments:

  1. Abandon hope all ye . . . Well, I'm sure you know the rest.

    The question is:

    "How did a campaign supposedly powered by small donors and "super-volunteer" activists produce an administration whose economic chieftains come straight from the belly of big finance? How was it that the day after the election Wall Street was calling the shots on the most critical decisions of the nascent administration, while no one had a plan for keeping the grass-roots movement going?"

    A: "The truth is that Obama was never nearly as free of dependence on big-money donors as the reporting suggested, nor was his movement as bottom-up or people-centric as his marketing implied. This is the big political story of 2009, the meta-story of what did, and didn't happen, in the first year of Obama's administration."

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  2. I wonder if the economy is too big to turn around quickly without Big Finance? If we go another route it will take too long and there are people without jobs who are hurting and need some urgent fixes. Given more time I think there are other ways we could turn the economy around, but the unemployed and the foreclosed on, don't have the luxury of time...we have no money to last out. (I am one of them, my hours got cut in half...and that is the good news)

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  3. What about this scenario?

    Obama and the Congress don't reregulate. Or at least not seriously, allowing the banks to take another dip from the public trough. Just one more before the American people wise up and see that without strict regulation there will be endless bubbles and endless public bailouts.

    So Wall Street gets another draft from the public well. Many economists within the government are fully aware of this. And since the Wall Street game is only to get rich (screw the world) as soon as possible, the Congress and the White House will only put a fig leaf of regulation on the banks while allowing a new bubble to expand. One costing trillions of tax dollars.

    The basic tenet of Reaganomics is that big government and regulation are bad. There still millions of Americans who believe firmly in all this. It may take one more catastrophic bubble and bailout to get them to see that the free market is not self regulating. And Wall Street wants to take advantage of this one last opportunity to get as much as it can.

    What kind of regulations are set in will tell the story.

    Paranoid? Or is there some reality in this scenario?

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  4. Alas!

    Alas!

    Woe unto you, Jerusalem.

    The Golden Calf is upset.

    Nothing left to do but pray: PIC

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuSDQzJDB80

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  5. Wrong mythos, Nausicaa! Jeez don't you guys know anything? Nothing less than a baptism of blood will do at this point.

    Those are the Great Old One we are talking about. Like Ghatanothoa, The Usurper, God of the Volcano, and Vorvadoss, Troubler of the Sands, Whom Waiteth in the Outer Dark.

    Or Gloon, the Corrupter of Flesh, Master of the Temple and Eihort, the Pale Beast, God of the Labyrinth,

    Nyogtha, The Thing which Should Not Be,

    Ithaua, the Wind Walker, the Wendigo, God of the Cold White Silence...

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  6. Or Ythogtha, the Thing in the Pit...

    The Great Old Ones are vastly powerful and ancient creatures who are often worshiped as gods by insane human cultists.

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  7. Are you saying Ronald Reagan is coming back?

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  8. LOL Nausica. H.P. Lovecraft is rolling over in his grave.

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  9. Jeeze! They actually slit that golden bull's throat?

    In downtown New York they do things like that?

    The heart of civilization?

    With little children, innocents, anxious parents and ingenues in attendance?

    What will all the decent people (In their two thousand dollar suits) think?

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  10. Oh? So, that's what they were doing. I thought the participants were Democratic Senators pressed into the cult of Cybele and Attis. The cult was notorious for its yearly "Day of Blood," during which self-inflicted castration, a prerequisite for admittance into the priest caste of this phallic cult, took place. Isn't it basically what the DLC demands of the party nowadays?

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  11. Speaking of which, did anyone catch Bill Maher on "Anderson Cooper 360" last night:

    COOPER: Senator Bayh said things are so polarized that Congress isn't working and the people's business isn't getting done. Do you buy his reason for leaving?

    MAHER: He wasn't working. He's the problem with Congress.

    COOPER: How so?

    MAHER: That made me laugh. Well, because he's not a centrist. People, you guys in the media have to stop calling people like that a centrist. He's a corporatist.

    Ok, and that's the main problem with Congress. His wife is on the board of Well Pointe, one of the big health insurance companies.

    COOPER: So you don't buy his --

    MAHER: So I'm not surprised that he was against the public option. So when he says Congress isn't working, that's why Congress isn't working because he's the guy on the Democratic side who always sides with the Republicans to stop all legislation. That's why the senate is where legislation goes to die...

    COOPER: Do you think things are too polarized?

    MAHER: They're not polarized enough. We don't have a progressive party in this country.

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  12. We don't have a left, or genuine left.

    Visiting Lisbon a few years ago the Portuguese CP was out on the streets in force, celebrating the historic ouster of one of their past military dictators. As an American I searched for scars indicating where their horns had been raggedly shorn off. And checked to see if they were carrying pitchforks and smelled of brimstone.

    But nope, they were actually normal friendly people. And they were celebrating free elections and democracy.

    I was watching Matthews the other night when he had an ex moderate Republican senator and an ex moderate Democratic Senator as his guests. They were celebrating the sacred center, as if being in the middle somehow guaranteed a sane and sensible position. As opposed to Tea Baggers on the right extreme and the "looney left." (That's us brothers.)

    Even Aristotle himself said the Golden Mean wasn't necessarily located in the center, but could be way over on one side or another.

    How can we compensate here, though, in the United States for not choosing decent candidates? it seems to be somehow beyond us.

    Term limits solve nothing. IMHO terms limits only thwarts democracy, eliminates experienced office holders, and strengthens the lobbyists who know the ropes.

    Voting the bums out only replaces them, often enough, with worse bums. Occupying the sacred center fosters caution and mediocrity. And is no replacement for wisdom and insight.

    Hmmmm, just cozying up to the bar in anticipation of a few cold ones and a long evening has got me going. But that's what bars are sometimes for, right?

    If anyone here watched the CPAC convention this afternoon they may have caught the speaker who suggested large numbers of Tea Partyers go into leftwing bars and drown out the drunken lefties with their own drunken noise. No kidding!

    Should the Wulfshead brace itself?

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  13. I kind of like Sheldon Whitehouse, my senator here in RI. And my former Congresswoman, from Berkeley, Barbara Lee, is quite good too.

    I would hate to see them termed out artificially because this is somehow supposed to promote good government.

    While I would shed no tears if any number of far right Congress person clowns were gone they would only be replaced by others. After all, the districts they represent are "conservative." Terms limits would solve nothing and may suggest a lack of understanding of democracy. Those who vote for Marcia Blackburn (sp) would never vote for Barbara Lee. And vice versa. Can you imagine Blackburn being elected in some districts?

    Now let me have another beer. Please. Even though it's winter weather that's what I'm in the mood for. And later on maybe a hot Italian roast beef sandwich with a bit of peperoncini.

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