Sic Semper Tyrannis 2008

GOP = Whigs?

Millard Fillmore was the last Whig president.  He succeeded Zachary Taylor upon Taylor's unexpected death.  There were a few more Whig candidates for president after Fillmore, but the game was really over for the Whigs.  The party broke up over the internal "contradictions" of its Northern and Southern factions.  Complicating the situation was the competition provided by the "Know Nothing" nativists, the "Free Soilers,' the "Anti-Masonic" party, and the small abolitionist movement.

David Frum is a Canadian born neocon who wrote speeches for "W" for a few years and now has taken root at the American Enterprise Institute.  He is a utopian in political thought who has consistently supported an aggressive pursuit of democratic westernization in foreign policy but has never shown much interest (so far as I know) in American domestic affairs.  A few years back, he wrote a book entitled "The End of Evil" with Richard Perle (you remember him). Got the picture?

In the article linked to below, Frum repudiates the strategy of the disastrous McCain campaign.  In doing so he also implicitly repudiates the coalition of forces that has made up the present composition of the Republican Party.  In recent years the GOP has become a party in which a right wing foreign policy elite has manipulated the voting power of a "base" increasingly made up of small town, rural, white, faith driven activists oriented towards "issues of conscience" such as; abortion, gay marriage, gun control, etc. 

The problem with that coalition is that the activists and the neocons do not make up a winning majority on a national basis and the mass of supporters of this coalition are only that, supporters.  They are not activists.  There are other potential priorities for them.

The country has now come on hard times.  The economy, the foreign policy mess into which the neocons led the public, the real estate losses of ordinary Americans, the growing hatred of the Wall Street "Masters of the Universe" (perceived as Republican insiders); all these factors are destroying the aggregation of numbers that has led to Republican victories for decades.

The neocon and nativist/rural factions of the Republican Party may be too deeply entrenched in power to be removed from control.  This may mean that the Republican Party itself is not salvageable. 

It will be a good idea to look very closely at the the "internals" of the coming election results.

The time may be coming when the centrist parts of both parties have more in common than they have with the existing party structures.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302081.html

Will OPEC production cuts work?

"Even the Saudis, who argued for keeping the markets well supplied at the last OPEC meeting, seemed to have been struck by the speed of the price drop.

When prices spiked this summer, the cartel’s leaders attributed the jump to speculation, and Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer and OPEC’s most powerful member, opened the taps and increased production to a record of 10 million barrels a day. The Saudis have since pared their output to around 9.5 million barrels a day, according to analysts.

As the lowest-cost producer, Saudi Arabia can afford to let prices fall for a while without hurting its budget. Most analysts estimate that the Saudis could live with oil at $55 to $65 a barrel. But other producers need higher prices. Nigeria’s oil minister said his country would be more comfortable with $80, Qatar has set a range of $70 to $90, and Iran’s representative said that prices below $90 a barrel would hurt.

For Iran and Venezuela, the drop in prices is particularly painful,"  NY Times

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OPEC agreements on production cuts are not going to halt the fall in the world price of crude.  The fantastic prices that prevailed in the Summer of 2008 were the outcome of trading in oil as financial investments rather than as commodities.  Deregulation led to this as it led to speculative excess in many other commodities (real estate derivatives being the most famous example).  A valuation of crude by the financial markets resulted that had little to do with short term demand and everything to do with the boundless "greed" espoused by Gordon Gecko.

The collapse of the stock and credit markets that has occurred has started an unwinding of the fantasy of the false short term valuation of crude oil.  At the same time the actual economic slowdowns that are happening around the world are reducing real short term demand for oil to even lower levels.  This produces a downward spiral that has a certain built in momentum.

The oil producing countries need the revenues that they were earning at the inflated prices of oil that prevailed last Summer.  In many countries the governments themselves are the principal owners of the oil producing companies.  A loss of revenue by the oil companies is a direct "hit" on the governments' budgets.  Political stability in these countries is to some extent dependent on budgets.  Cutting production is a gamble that many of these governments will hesitate to adopt.  Cheating on OPEC established quotas for production is an old feature of the oil supply situation.  In addition, there will be countries who will simply not "play ball" with OPEC in this.

Conclusion:  Production reduction efforts on the part of OPEC will not be fully effective.  Demand will continue to fall for some unforeseeable period of time. Therefore, crude oil prices wil continue to decline.  To what level will prices decline and for how long?  That is not knowable at this time, but It is likely that price will decline to below 50 dollars a barrel.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/worldbusiness/25oil.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&bl&ei=5087&en=e931bc5317323329&ex=1225080000&oref=slogin

Tribe on tribe - Pakistan

"The wounded men, and many others in the hospital, were supposed to be the backbone of a Pakistani government effort to take on the Taliban and its backers, Al Qaeda, with armies of traditional tribesmen working in consultation with the Pakistani military.

The tribal militias, known as lashkars, have quickly become a crucial tool of the Pakistani strategy in the tribal belt, where the army has been fighting the Taliban for more than two months. Their emergence is a sign not only of the tribesmen's rising frustration with the ruthlessness of the Taliban, but also of their traditional desire to run their own affairs and keep the Pakistani Army at bay, Pakistani officers and law enforcement officials say.

But even though some in Washington have pointed to the emergence of the lashkars as a hopeful parallel to the largely successful Sunni Awakening movement in Iraq, the tribesmen, armed with antiquated weaponry from the 1980s Afghan war, are facing better-equipped, highly motivated Taliban who have intimidated and crushed some of the militia.

Unlike in Anbar Province, one senior U.S. official said, where the Iraqi tribes "woke up to millions of dollars in government assistance and the support of the 3rd Infantry division," the support by the Pakistani Army and civilian government for the tribal militias has been "episodic" and so far "unsustained.""  IHT

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"Four things greater than all things are,

Women, and horses, and power and war."

R. Kipling

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This will work.

The takfiris and the Taliban are irritants in Pakistani tribal territory just as they were in Anbar and Diyala.  The lives of the tribesmen have a certain rhythm, a rhythm that has developed over hundred of years.  They may well be fanatics of some sort within the larger Islamic galaxy of communities, but  they are their own kind of fanatics.  Their lives are ruled by their conception of Islam, their tribal customary law and their allegiances to family, clan and tribe.  As in Iraq the Sunni takfiri jihadis seek to "reform" the lives of the tribesmen, to make them "pure" as they imagine the early community of the Muslims was "pure."  Nobody wants to be made "pure" according to someone else's conception of "purity."

This is the great weakness of the international movement of the takfiri jihadis.  They are vulnerable everywhere to armed rejection by those they wish to "save." 

I have no specific knowledge of this but I would wager that the "episodic" nature of the support these tribesmen have received will be a lot more dependable soon.

This may bring on civil war in tribal territory?   Quite possibly.  pl

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/23/asia/militia.php

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/ballad_of_kings_jest.html

The McCain/Palin Administration - Not!

Sarah Palin started calling it the "McCain/Palin Administration" immediately after her coronation at the Republican convention.  Most of us "inside the beltway" creatures knew right away that this was a bad thing.  For the vice-presidential nominee of any party to claim that he or she will exercize executive power during the administration of the presidential nominee is an act of unconstitutional bravado unsupported by history or law.

"W" gave Cheney delegated power, power based not in law but in his own willingness to sign over function and authority.  It should be understood that "W" could have delegated the same authority to "Joe" Wirzelbacher (or whatever his name is).  So long as he was a citizen, the same powers that "W" gave Cheney could have been "loaned" to "Joe."  The point is that the "loan" of powers by Bush to Cheney was a personal matter, and the loan does not endow future vice-presidents with similar or indeed any powers or functions other than to succeed to the presidency and to act as the president of the senate.  Former vice-presidents have not claimed that the presidency of the senate involved anything other than an occasional appearance in the chamber and the casting of tie breaking votes.  Sarah Palin's apparent belief that she could inject herself into the business of the senate seems to be unprecedented.  It would have been interesting to watch.

Alas, it will not be.

After watching the developing dynamic of the election state by state, I have come to think that this election will be a landslide of historic proportion.  This is a "perfect storm" for the Republicans.  There are many cyclones that have produced this typhoon; revulsion against the proto-fascism of the neocons, the muddle that is the Bush Administration, "Darth" Cheney and his henchmen, the two wars, the failure to capture bin Laden, the stock market crash, the rumors of a coming depression/recession, etc.  Add some more disasters to the list if you like.  There are many possibilities.

It looked for months as though the deep seated racism of many Americans might be enough to hold back the wind, but that ancient sin and defect has not proven to be effective this time. 

Obama will be president.   The Democrats will hold both houses of Congress so strongly that they will be tempted to govern unwisely, pushing the country farther to the left than its nature will allow.

McCain will be finished.  Perhaps he can find some peace in that.  Palin will become queen of the Northwest and prophetess of the Evangelicals.  Unfortunately for her, there are not enough votes in that base to elect her president.

We will see what the new adminsitration will be like.

It would be a good thing to have a government made up of human beings.  pl

Fortunato's Creed

"Pat Army Specialist Stephen R. Fortunato (25) passed away in Afghanistan this past week. He wrote the following recently and if you see fit please pass it on as it is especially poingant considering his short time here. He was from my hometown, though I did not know him I knew his family and he came from fine stock. All the Best Bobo " ""If I may … I’d like to say something….Just to get it out there so it is clear. To all the pampered and protected Americans who feel it is their duty to inform me that I am not fighting for their freedom, and that i am a pawn in Bush’s agenda of greed and oil acquisition: Noted, and Fuck You. I am not a robot. i am not blind or ignorant to the state of the world or the implications of the “war on terrorism.” i know that our leaders have made mistakes in the handling of a very sensitive situation, but do not for one second think that you can make me lose faith in what we, meaning America’s sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers in uniform are doing. I am doing my part in fighting a very real enemy of the United States, i.e. Taliban, Al Qaeda, and various other radical sects of Islam that have declared war on our way of life. Unless you believe the events of 9/11 were the result of a government conspiracy, which by the way would make you a MORON, there is no reasonable argument you can make against there being a true and dangerous threat that needs to be dealt with. I don’t care if there are corporations leeching off the war effort to make money, and I don’t care if you don’t think our freedom within America’s borders is actually at stake. I just want to kill those who would harm my family and friends. it is that simple. Even if this is just a war for profit or to assert America’s power, so what? Someone has to be on top and I want it to be us. There’s nothing wrong with wishing prosperity for your side. I am a proud American. I believe that my country allows me to live my life more or less however I want to, and believe me, I have seen what the alternative of that looks like. I also believe that our big scary government does way more than it has to help complete fuck-ups get back on their feet, a stark comparison to places where leaders just line their own pockets with gold while allowing the people who gave them their power and privilege to starve. I have chosen my corner. I back my country, and am proud to defend it against aggressors. Also, if you dare accuse us of being inhumane, or overly aggressive because we have rolled into someone else’s country and blown some shit up and shot some people, let me remind you of just how inhumane we COULD be in defending ourselves. Let me remind you that we have a warhead that drops multiple bomblets from the stratosphere which upon impact, would turn all the sand in Iraq to glass, and reduce every living thing there to dust. Do we use it? No. Instead we use the most humane weapon ever devised: the American Soldier. We send our bravest (and perhaps admittedly craziest) men and women into enemy territory, into harms way, to root out those whom we are after and do our best to leave innocent lives unscathed. …One last thing… A proposal: I know it has been stated time and time again but I just think it is worthy of reiteration. If you find yourself completely disgusted with the way America is being ran, and how we handle things on the global stage, you can leave. Isn’t that amazing? No one will stop you! If you are an anarchist, there are places you can go where there is no government to tell you anything. That’s right…you are left solely to your own devices and you can handle the men who show up at your door with AKs in any way that you see fit. Just don’t try good old American debate tactics on them because you will most likely end up bound and blind-folded, to have your head chopped off on the internet so your parents can see it. However, if you insist on staying here and taking advantage of privileges such as free speech and WIC, keep the counter-productive shit to a minimum while the grown ups figure out how to handle this god-awful mess in the middle east. Stephen R. Fortunato 26th Infantry Regiment US Army"'

Schedule

I will be gone until Wednesday.  I am on a panel at Fordham University Tuesday.  It is at the Manhattan Campus of the law school from 1 to 5 PM.  Subject "Torture and American Culture."

For those who might be interested, I have fnished a draft of my next novel, "Death Piled Hard."  pl

http://www.fordham.edu/Campus_Resources/Public_Affairs/topstories_1379.asp

Powell endorses Obama

I watched this.  I suppose that President Obama will find something for Colin Powell to do for the next few years, but that will be unfortunate.

Powell is someone who truly "blotted his copybook" as the Brits used to say.  After a lifetime of service and achievement, Powell chose in the end to "drink the koolaid" that flowed in the bloodstream of the Bush/Cheney/neocon regime that has ruled the United States for the last eight years.  He was Secretary of State at a time when his firm opposition, and ultimately his resignation would have crippled the onrushing utopian crusade for Westernization in Iraq. 

He did not choose to follow that path.  Instead, he chose to believe the corrupted judgments of an intelligence community leadership that betrayed the country and the armed forces by producing nonsensical estimates designed to create support for war among an ignorant and bellicose public that hungered for revenge aganst an enemy they could not even define.

Today, when he was asked by Brokaw about his role as perhaps the greatest enabler of the Iraq War decision, he took shelter behind the collection of garbage that was served up in 2002-2003 by George Tenet and company as justification for war.

For Shame!  For Shame!

He should hide himself and hope that someday men will remember the good of him and not the worst.  pl

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081019/pl_politico/14714

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Powell

PS  Contrary to Brokaw, on MTP, it does not appear that Powell commanded an infantry battalion in the 101st Division in VN.  Comment?

"Serving the President"

Today it was once again possible to hear both serving officers of the armed forces and the newspeople who cover them speak of their belief that military and naval officers "serve the president."  This time the mention was in connection with the "discovery" that Petraeus and Odierno have decided (some time ago) that they will not vote in the national election.  Odierno was taped saying that voting would be a bad idea because to do so would compromise his ability to "serve the president" whomever that might be.

It was actually a very old custom of the US Army that regular officers did not vote.  My father did not vote until he retired from the Army.  That custom has not been followed for a long time, but the reason that Odierno gave is not the reason that was contemplated in the past.

In days of old, it was understood that members of the armed forces served the constitution and through that instrument they served the federal union.  That is quite different.

The principle is simple.  The president is not sovereign.  He is the instrument of the constitution as are the members of the armed forces.  The president has no authority or right to order anyone in the armed forces to do anything that is unconstitutional or indeed illegal.  If he does, then he need not be obeyed and such an order is proof in itself of a "high crime."

The present administration in Washington has done everything in its power to persuade that, in effect, the president IS sovereign.  This is a lie and a pernicious doctrine that, if accepted, would make us all the servants of a king or perhaps a queen.

I have had old army friends argue to me that they DO think of the president as king and that they must think thusly because how else would they know whom to obey.

I think it must be said that such ideas are unworthy in those to whom the constitution and the people have entrusted so much.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty

"Joe" and the Magic Plunger.

Someone wrote to ask if I thought "Joe" might be a "plant," a "shill,"  a "ringer," etc.  The appearance of this fellow in the midst of the desperate search by Rick Davis, McCain et al for a rallying figure among the white, working class electorate does raise a certain question for me.

Someone should be taking a close look at Mr. Joe the everyman.

He brings to mind a bit of doggerel that my "mates" used to sing in pubs in the Gulf:

"Oh who IS the Sultan of Muscat and Oman?

Is he a yes man or is he a no man?

Or is he indeed, the abominable Snowman?"  Anon.

Look closely boys and girls of the media.  That is what you are paid for.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/nyregion/17plumber.html?em

The GOP and the income tax.

A new feature of the ever evolving memes and themes of the McCain presidential campaign is the accusation that Obama is in favor of a "redistribution of wealth" in the United States through what amounts to confiscatory taxation.  Both McCain and his familiar, Rick Davis, have been saying that (paraphrase) "Americans do not want to see income redistributed through taxation" and that to redistribute income in that way is (paraphrase) "not the American Way."

They must be talking about some other "America," an "America" that exists in a parallel universe, hidden away behind the walls of the "Racket club," or the "River Oaks Country Club." 

This "America," the one that most of us live in has had a graduated, progressive income tax as a feature of life and death for as long as any among us can remember.

Now, it is true that the denizens of that other, more exclusive "America" often manage to use the intricacies of the tax code in their favor so as to not pay very much income tax.  Warren Buffet's famous remark that his cook (or some such person) actually pays more tax than he does come easily to mind.  Nevertheless, a progressive income tax is what we have.

Does this mean that McCain opposes the progressive income tax?  Does he favor a flat tax or a "national consumption tax on steroids" as I do?

Are the Republicans serious when they mock poor Biden (ole foot in the mouf) for implying that paying taxes is patriotic?  Surely they do not mean that?  The US income tax is largely collected on the honor system-----  Hmmm.

Actually, we all know that the tax drivel is just irresponsible propaganda.  This too will pass.  pl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Income_tax