Newsfare

Finally, How We Were Manipulated

Ralph Dratman

During the last several presidencies, Republican ideology has penetrated our domestic news sources to an astonishing degree, leading many to wonder how we could have been so easily duped. It turns out an illegal information war has been waged for the past 25 years against the American populace by professional propagandists.

The penetration of our news media by CIA-trained specialists began in 1983, during the Reagan administration. Rupert Murdoch (Fox News) and Sun Myung-Moon (Washington Times) had major parts to play. So did Oliver North.

And say, how did Nixon speech writers Pat Buchanan and William Safire end up serving for decades as influential editorialists and staple TV guests? I wonder...

If you want a quick overview, read this summary. For a complete play by play account, buy the book.

How Do You Get Off the Terrorist List?

Ralph Dratman

Are you on the US Homeland Security's "no fly" list, maybe by mistake? Were you by any chance hoping to get your name removed from the list? Maybe you are out of ideas on how to get off the damned thing. Well, here's how to do it:

First, become a world-renowned, highly respected foreign leader, "a symbol of freedom admired the world over." That may take some time and effort. You could be forced to spend decades in prison under an internationally despised regime in a distant country. Always remember that the reward is worth it: no longer being subject to arbitrary search and detention when you try to travel by air, and actually being allowed to board an airline flight. You will no doubt be willing --- grateful --- to work long and hard to reach such an important goal.

The next step is to have your 90th birthday coming up within the month. Yes, it means more waiting, but be patient. This is time well spent.

For extra credit, persuade the US Secretary of State to pronounce your inclusion on the list "an embarrassment." This step may help you achieve the final one.

Take a deep breath --- you are almost there. You just have to arrange an act of Congress which specifically takes your individual name off the list. Be sure to get the bill passed by both chambers and signed by the president.

And that's all it takes! With a little bit of perseverance, you can go back to living a normal life in the United States of America, circa 2008. In this country, you see, if you try hard enough, you can accomplish anything, even to the point of avoiding dangerous and demeaning treatment by government-employed thugs at one of our lovely, modern air terminals.

Happy 4th of July!

Near-Term Measures

Ralph Dratman

A few comments on the rising price of fuel.

1) The US should drastically limit its oil imports and use what we can extract domestically -- although buying from Mexico and Canada is almost like buying from ourselves.

2) The following, in no particular order, are a few examples of low-tech measures we should put into place very quickly, either by use of tax incentives, outright subsidies or, if necessary, policing:

* Gradually curtail use of private vehicles except for approved necessities and emergencies;

* Eliminate sales of incandescent bulbs;

* Sponsor free or cheap fares on multiple-passenger "jitney" (van or small bus) transportation systems;

* Begin a continuous process of building and modernizing passenger rail and bus facilities;

* Encourage delivery of groceries (where possible in electric vehicles), using computerized routing to serve the maximum number of households per run;

* Switch from trucking to railroad transportation for non-perishable commodities;

* Subsidize availability of warmer clothes in winter, including insulated underclothes;

* Begin gradually curtailing meat production, converting feed acreage to human-consumable crops;

* Begin to phase out corn-to-ethanol production...

... and similar relatively easy conservation steps.

3) We will need streamlined funding and approval for measures implementing the above changes. Unfortunately, local obstacles of many kinds will have to be overridden. We are facing an emergency of unrivaled proportions, far more dangerous than any single flood, hurricane or terrorist attack.

4) The US still has tremendously destructive military power, and the strategic oil reserve to deliver it under almost any circumstances. It follows that US leaders may threaten (though not necessarily publicly) to destroy power plants, bridges and so forth unless oil is diverted in the desired direction. The results of such threats are unpredictable -- except that they will probably make matters worse rather than better.

A Few Words From AP

Ralph Dratman

School gets transvestite bathrooms.

BANGKOK, Thailand - For ... who ... to ... as ... at one ... in Thailand, ... a ... no ... between ... and ... now a ... in ... a ... that ... than ... of the ... said.
So, when ... the ... a ... by a ... in ... and ... it are the words.

So sue me.

Gaddafi, US Elections Pundit

Ralph Dratman

Muammar Gaddafi, who watches cable news just like the rest of us, thank you very much, has decided to stick his oar into Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Wednesday U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would have an "inferiority complex" because he is black and if elected he might "behave worse than whites."

"We fear that Obama will feel that, because he is black with an inferiority complex, this will make him behave worse than the whites," Gaddafi told a rally at a former U.S. military base on the outskirts of the Libyan capital Tripoli.

"This will be a tragedy," Gaddafi said.

Gee thanks! More friendly advice to a Democrat.

"We tell him to be proud of himself as a black and feel that all Africa is behind him because if he sticks to this inferiority complex he will have a worse foreign policy than the whites had in the past." ...

All praise your teachings, Great One! And is there a particular example you would like to name, some badly-behaved leader who might have an inferiority complex because of his race?

Gaddafi saw a dark motive behind a recent speech by Obama in support of Israel. "Obama offered $300 billion in aid to Israel and more military support. He avoided talking about Israel's nuclear weapons," he said.

"We suspect he may fear being killed by Israeli agents and meet the same fate as Kennedy when he promised to look into Israel's nuclear program," Gaddafi said.

You go, Muammar. Pat Buchanan could not have produced a more senseless, paranoid screed.

If you ever get tired of the dictatorship business, I'm sure CNN will give you a show. And for heaven's sake, don't go feeling all inferior! If Glenn Beck can do it, so can you.

Impact of Gasoline Prices in Rural Areas

Ralph Dratman

The US is more vulnerable to rising gasoline prices than most other countries, because many Americans live far from their jobs.

Sociologists and economists who study rural poverty say the mounting gasoline crisis in the rural South, if it persists, could accelerate population loss and decrease the tax base in some areas as more people move closer to urban manufacturing jobs. They warn that the high cost of driving makes low-wage labor even less attractive to workers, especially those who also have to pay for child care and can live off welfare and food stamps.

"As gas prices rise, working less could be the economically rational choice," said Tim Slack, a sociologist at Louisiana State University who studies rural poverty. "That would mean lower incomes for the poor and greater distance from the mainstream."

At the local hardware store here, sales have plummeted to $30 a day from $250 a day a month ago. "Money goes to gasoline - I know mine does," said the hardware store's manager, Pam Williams, who tries to attract customers by putting out choice crickets for fishing bait beside the front door.

Local governments are leaving grass high along the roads and doing fewer road repairs to save on fuel costs. The Holmes County government has cut the work week to four days to give workers gasoline relief, and politicians are even considering replacing sanitation workers with prison inmates on some shifts to conserve money for fuel...

Dick Stevens, president of Consolidated Catfish Producers, which operates a fish processing plant in nearby Isola, Mississippi, said that 10 workers walked into his office last week and volunteered to take a buyout rather than continue commuting from Charleston, Mississippi, 65 miles away. "The gas ate them alive," he said.

Workers at the plant are trying to find ways to cope. Josephine Cage, who fillets fish, said her 30-mile commute from Tchula to Isola in her 1998 Ford Escort four days a week is costing her $200 a month, or nearly 20 percent of her pay.

"I make it by the grace of God," she said, and also by replacing meat at supper with soups and green beans and broccoli. She fills her car a little bit every day, because, "I can't afford to fill it up. Whatever money I have, I put it in."

What comes next in this sequence of reactions to higher oil prices? No one knows for sure, but it's a cinch the answer won't be nice.

Dick (ugh) Morris: Obama is the Nominee

Ralph Dratman

One day before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, the detestable Dick Morris was interviewed for the Fox web site. Hold your nose and read it, because he makes a very convincing case.

'Nuff said.

The End of an Era

Ralph Dratman

Chalmers Johnson observes that "60 years of enormous military spending is taking a dramatic toll on the rest of the economy."

That is increasingly obvious. But why has the once-reliable US strategy of wasting money ceased to create prosperity? For that matter, how could such a plan ever have succeeded?

To the naive observer, the idea that demand can sustain an economy sounds paradoxical. It is true that, under the assumption that all demand will be satisfied, net demand is equal to net production. But that assumption can only hold when there are abundant natural resources available to the economy in question. Under those happy circumstances, demand for goods and services does indeed have an apparently beneficial effect, in that the rate of utilization of natural resources increases. As those resources flow through the economy, they leave behind a trail of buildings, roads, houses, consumer products and all the other accoutrements of prosperity.

But suppose there are not sufficient natural resources to satisfy demand? At that point the habit of stoking the economic furnace simply by turning up the thermostat fails to work its expected miracle.

Oil, in particular, has supplied the powerful and conveniently deployed energy to create goods and services. The US was a net exporter of oil until some time in the 1960s, due to enormous discoveries of black liquids beneath Texas, Oklahoma and California. The rate of extraction of domestic petroleum was always able to increase to fuel the automobiles, tanks and airplanes necessary to satisfy any level of demand.

But for any mineral resource, the pace of extraction eventually slows, as poorer veins of ore or deeper deposits of oil must be mined. In 1971 the US rate of extraction of domestic petroleum reached a maximum and then began to decline.

At that moment, the era of US prosperity based on unlimited availability of cheap fuel came to an end. Large-scale imports of petroleum began to arrive on our shores from various parts of the world, particularly from the Persian Gulf countries. The US gradually transformed itself from a wealthy producer to a poor but militarily powerful consumer.

In the new era, as long as cheap oil could be pried from the hands of client regimes throughout the world, the US lifestyle could be maintained and expanded. Essentially our economy began to thrive only by theft of other countries' resources. This is of course the colonial model.

Colonial-style exploitation (also known as empire building) as a method of gaining one's living never lasts for very long. For the US, that wondrous period has now decisively come to an end. The old laws of economics no longer function. But our government does not yet fully comprehend that the rules have changed.

The paradox of reliance on demand to generate prosperity has finally been resolved. Now we must somehow begin to earn our living rather than simply extract it from underground deposits of unexploited wealth.

For a country of 300 million human inhabitants spread over a vast continent, and dependent on cheap transportation for its extravagant way of life, that transition must usher in an era of harsh necessity. How well the US will succeed in coping with this scary new age is as yet unknown.

Everybody Knows...

Ralph Dratman

But U.S. leaders won't admit it. That's the gist of a new study by World Public Opinion .org, a project of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll finds that majorities in 15 of 16 nations surveyed around the world think that oil is running out and governments should make a major effort to find new sources of energy. Most think that future oil prices will be much higher.

Only 22 percent on average believe that "enough new oil will be found so that it can remain a primary source of energy for the foreseeable future." Only in Nigeria does a majority (53%) endorse the view that governments can rely on oil in the long term.

Instead, an average of 70 percent takes the position that governments should assume that "oil is running out and it is necessary to make a major effort to replace oil as a primary source of energy."

So far so good! Most people around the world are perfectly capable of reading the handwriting on the oil well. That is a great relief, and as a bonus, that 70% common-sense majority worldwide lets us know that the persistently Bush-loving 30% of our populace has much in common with the same percentage of the rest of the uninformed schnooks on the planet. However...

A majority in the United States (57%), the world's biggest consumer of oil, believes their government is acting on the assumption that oil can remain a primary source of energy. This is also true in Nigeria (63%). However, while most Americans believe their government's assumptions are incorrect, most Nigerians think it is correct.

After all the aggressive propaganda spread by the Bush administration and their enablers in the broadcasting industry, people in the U.S. believe that their government is being fooled.

That brings lucky USAmericans back to the eternal question of whether our top thinkers are criminals or merely fools. I vote "both."

A Little Greenspan Jest

Ralph Dratman

What a travesty!* Alan Greenspan now admits to a fifty percent chance of recession. He is really talking about a fifty percent chance for one of those life-changing catastrophes economists like to call a "depression," presumably because a falling standard of living pushes most people into a gloomy state of mind.

As Greenspan knows, an economic day of reckoning has been inevitable since trade and budget deficits became structural features of our economy. Over long periods of time not even the mighty US of A can procure everything in return for little. Once imported oil became necessary for the functioning of a vast and scattered network of American towns and cities far from amber waves of anything, no other long-term outcome was possible.

The signal crime of Greenspan, along with all the other happy-days economists who have been buzzing around since the Nixon administration, was that of concealing this wretched reality from the citizens, and presumably also from their Congress.

It is very natural for the Majesty's viziers to hide an awful truth from the monarch, lest they suddenly lose their heads in the telling of it. What our mighty Lears lacked was the honest Fool to whom they might listen with a third ear. Though several brave fools have presented themselves to occupy such a perilous post, none has fared better than any everyday whistle-blowing Cassandra, always right, never heeded.

Who wants to announce that a mighty power, fresh from victory in two major wars, transported in a passionate flush of world leadership, is doomed to slow decline as its underground treasures dwindle? There arises a temptation to look away, to bargain with the twin devils of domestic concealment and overseas conquest, in search of additional pools of a crucial black liquid.

When riding high and fast, it is inadvisable to look too hard at the ground beneath. Yet ignore the landscape entirely and soon one has wandered into desert, or storm, or hostile territory without considering the chance of real danger, probability fifty, sixty, seventy percent and rising.