ED NOTE:
MUSIC WILL BE -Intro/Hendrix, Star Spangled Banner
S9/ Eat Static, Crash and Burn
Exeunt/WildChild, Renegade Master
J. Good morning, and welcome to The Mojowire, I’m Mojo...
S. And I’m Sean, It’s Saturday, April 5, and this is the news for the week gone-by
J. Brought to you by Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988 — Now headlines, from Mojohaus:
S. We start this morning with a look at how the war on terror is being fought on the home front. Good thing for people in vulnerable, target rich environments like New York and Los Angeles that the Department of Homeland Security is on the job, or at least it would be if they had voted for the Republicans in the last two elections
J. But maybe there is just a bit more behind leaving the coasts open to attack by terrorists than simple political payback. Washington Monthly columnist Joshua Micah Marshall takes a look at the bigger picture when it comes to the flat-earth approach to neo-conservative foreign policy advice.
S. And even while we’re still hashing out this week’s flavor of ultimate evil, the real problems in America continue to mount with more disappointing economic news in the past two weeks, in spite of mini rallies in the stock market, fueled by nominal war news and pushed by the desparate speedy high of people lookiing for any reason to keep the party going, even after everyone’s gone home.
J. Which brings us to another hair-raising, spine-tingling episode with Dr. Strychnine, guaranteed to make you pig-bitin’ mad. This week, S9 tackles some of the weirder aspects of what we consider politically correct semantics in this day and age. Buckle up.
S. And next...Already the Glorious War for Liberation of Iraq (a Geo. Bush production, 2003, all rights reserved) is starting to be criticized. But by who? The radical left? The anti-American, cheese-eating surrender-monkies in “old Europe?” No, it’s the senior military staff in the Pentagon. And who are they the most bellicose about? Maximum Pro-Consul, Donald Rumsfeld..
J. Finally, this morning, we take a look at the 2004 Democratic primary, including Howard Dean beating expectations in the war chest and at the polls, and John Kerry’s remarks getting him tarred and feathered by conservatives who decry him for running for President.
S. First this morning, we explode the myth that the War on Terror is an apolitical exercise, being conducted by freedom-minded warriors of the people. Again, the Bush Adminsitration shows a tendency towards mendacity and deceit that is becoming difficult to measure with current technology.
Of course, there will be those of us who climb on top of the nearest tall buildings and soap boxes in the town square to cry, “we told you so.”
J. Paul Krugman of the New York Times, who is making something of a name for himself by beating the Bush Administration in print every week like the family mule, points out yet again how politics will win out over the securiy and prosperity of the American people in George Bush’s regime.
In a country where the “fringe element” of Americans on the coasts and in the urban centers heavily subsidize the so-called rural “Heartland” -- exemplified by the fact that New Jersey *pays* $1.50 in taxes for every dollar it gets back, while Montana *receives* $1.50 for ever dollar of tax it pays -- the Ministry of Homeland Security is no different.
Again, in spite of the fact that this nation’s softest most vulnerable targets are on the coasts, such as the ports or culturally important landmarks, the homeland security commissars spend 7 times as much protecting each resident of Wyoming as it does protecting each resident of New York.
Many say this is an egregious act of anti-urban, even potentially racist, bias, considering where some of the poorest minorities in this country live.
S. According to Krugman, here’s how it works: In its main grant programs, each state receives a base of 0.75 percent of the total, regardless of its population; the rest is then allocated in proportion to population.
“This is a very good deal for states with small populations, like Wyoming or Montana. It's a very bad deal for states like California or New York, which receives only 4.7 percent of the money. And since New York and other big urban states remain the most likely targets of another major attack, it's a very bad deal for the country,” Krugman wrote.
And this is while the adminsitration is busy handing out billions of dollars in homeland security contracts to politically well-connected allies. This includes the likes of Marc Raciot, former head of the Republican National Committee and now chairman of the security software company Sibel Systems.
They make software that will make it easier for the government to commit acts of internal spying on Americans, allegedly to keep us safe from the terrorists. But at the same time Bush is cutting funds for first responders such as police and fire and emergency medical care in those very same urban centers that are most likely to be targets. One has to ask: what is the *real* agenda here?
J. How many times are we going to let George Bush and his gang of dyspeptic vultures put American lives at risk at home and abroad while average Americans foot the bill and get stuck out on the long finger again by people who’s only real ability is counting votes, and who’s only ideology is political expediency.
The contempt of the Bush administration for urban centers is nothing new. They didn’t vote for him in particularly big numbers, so his gang sees no reason why they should receive any protection from the government. Besides, it sure is a lot easier to sell military adventurism overseas if you have a lot of neat CNN footage of burning sky scrapers to show people day after day.
It’s 11 months from primary day in California... let’s get ready to rumble.
S. In the recent issue of the Washington Monthly, Joshua Marshall offered a sobering view of the aims of the Neo Con’s at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:
In short, the administration is trying to roll the table--to use U.S. military force, or the threat of it, to reform or topple virtually every regime in the region, from foes like Syria to friends like Egypt, on the theory that it is the undemocratic nature of these regimes that ultimately breeds terrorism. So events that may seem negative--Hezbollah for the first time targeting American civilians; U.S. soldiers preparing for war with Syria--while unfortunate in themselves, are actually part of the hawks' broader agenda. Each crisis will draw U.S. forces further into the region and each countermove in turn will create problems that can only be fixed by still further American involvement, until democratic governments--or, failing that, U.S. troops--rule the entire Middle East.”
So, while 40% of Americans have been duped into believing this is a war soley to address the specific problem of Saddam and his Iraq, the Administration seems to be embarking on a radical overthrow of the consensus first put forward by Harry Truman. That the United States would operate within a framework of International order and law to develop liberty and human rights through peaceful means, and specifically opposed the efforts of other powers to effect change by force.
J. Those who know me have heard me say the following: Never blame conspiracy, when simple incompetence will serve to explain events. But now my assertions are being challenged.
The people directing foreign policy in this nation have adovcated this new direction, not by engaging in an honest debate with the American People, but by a campaign of deceit and deception that would leave even the Soviet propagandists of the Stalin’s Soviet Union shocked and awed. America has not been commited to the libeation of Iraq and the removal of the threat of Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, but to a war of conquest to reorder the world to our liking, either through direct force or the threat of it.
Remember, this is from a group of people, who in the past have used Biblical end-time prophecy to advocate this approach to foreign policy, to the point of having their pet Republican lawmakers foward this point of view on the floor of the House of Representatives. It’s as if Hal Lindsey and the gang at the Trinity Broadcasting Network have taken over American foreign policy and are now basing all critical State and Defense Department decisions on The Bible Code and the pronouncements of fat, beady-eyed, preachers with bad hairpieces and funny hats, breathlessly -- and gleefully -- proclaiming the death and damnation of all non-believers and that “Jesus is coming, so everyone look busy.”
At the same time, they have partnered with a posse of entrepreneurs who are ready to pimp any rhetorical line, as long as there are phat stacks of mad bank at the end of it.
S. And if that means the degradation of the American republic to gain a financial and political end, then that is the price that avverage Americans will have to pay to people who view them as nothing more than raw materials for a morally bankrupt political machine, propping up a bloated economic regime long past any usefulness to America or the world.
This is a gamble of immense proportions. A massive bet on the international roulete table placed by an arrogant group of idealogues who have apporpriated the grief of the nation over the deaths of 9/11, and perverted it to suit their grand schemes of political conversion. Of course, if the wheel comes up with a different number, the chaos they have created, the suffering they have brought about, and the huge debt that will have been shouldered by the taxpayers, will all be blamed on everyone but themselves and the dupe they installed in the White House.
You better flag down the drink waitress while the Bush Adminstration spins the wheel in the Middle East, we’re all going to need it while this war escalates to new heights. Make mine a double please, Dick Cheney creeps me out when I hear him speak while I’m sober.
J. While most Americans are still glued to their 24-hour-a-day FoxNews destruct-a-thon, they have been effectively distracted from the fact that the national economy is quickly slipping beneath the stormy waters for the third time.
Unfortunately, the lifeguard is stoned and trying to pick up chicks around the pool by flexing his muscle and using words he doesn’t understand, instead of actually watching for the safety of the people in the water.
The news on the economic front this week was bad...*again.* Now, don’t worry, there is war on, so that should be the only concern; forget the notion that there might not be any jobs for veterans when they return, and not enough in the federal coffers to properly care for them medically or socially, in spite of what they gave to and for their country.
The New York Times reported this week, that surveys of manufacturers in the last month has shown increasing pessimism as executives complain about slumping demand for their own goods and higher prices for the materials they use to make them.
The Commerce Department reported that factory orders dropped 1.5 percent in February, the steepest drop in five months. On Friday, the government will reported that unemployment rose again in March.
Though the increase in joblessness was expected to be modest, the economy has already shed more than 600,000 jobs since November and two million since President Bush took office.
These latest numbers come amid decreasing consumer confidence and further erosion of retial sales, by nearly 2 percent in the last month alone, and general malaise in the financial markets.
So while our troops are overseas, their own political leadership is quickly destroying the economy of the country they were sworn to serve. The economic policy of this adminsitration is run the same way all of their other domestic policies are formed: by a committee of speechwriters, pollsters, political hacks and industrialists looking for their payback for fronting the President’s campaign.
The infrastructure of this country is being degraded at an ever-increasing pace, partly out of apathy and partly out of a belief that government has no role in such things, other than as perhaps an auctioneer, parceling out our national business to the highest bidders.
But as we have warned in the past, and will continue to warn in the future, there are some disturbing trends in the economy that should be worrying anyone with a 401k, or for that fact, anyone with a job:
Since latest data suggest that the rate at which things are getting worse is accelerating, in February, payroll employment fell by 308,000 — the worst reading since November 2001. Some analysts suggested that number was a fluke, distorted by bad weather, but Thursday, there were two more worrying indicators: new claims for unemployment insurance jumped, and a survey of service sector companies suggests that the economy as a whole is contracting.
Contracting, meaning that the productivity is going down, but with interest rates planning to climb, since they are already about as low as they can possibly go. And here we are talking about the deflationary spiral again.
The Bush Adminsitration’s idea of a working economy is Tom Joad, workhouses and dust-bowl blues, all seen through a nostalgic prism, askewed from the memories of those who actually lived through those times. The economy is not simply about being more worried about money than our security, it is, in fact, a measure of our security and our ability to export that security and prosperity abroad, and reap not only financial but political and social benefit.
Remember, terrorists rarely come from a world of comfort and peace.
J. That’s right. It is time once again for our regular contributor Dr. Strychnine, reporting from his super-secret, ultra-dope, mega-cool, extra-jiggy, Mojohaus spy satellite of love high in geosynchronous orbit above Bagdad by the Bay…take it away S9…
S9. Greetings, fellow space adventurers, from high orbit over San Francisco. It's time once again for Dr. Strychnine to guide you through the surrealistic landscape that is the contemporary American collective psyche. Please remain seated at all times, and do not extend your arms, legs or other appendages out the windows for any reason. This could be a bumpy ride.
If you look out the right side of the vehicle, you will witness a rare spectacle. That's Peter Arnett, who only said on Iraqi state-owned television something that a parade of people have been saying on American corporate-owned television for the last week. He's not just been fired from his job-- a U.S. Senator from Kentucky has called for him to be arrested and tried for treason.
Next to him, you'll see Geraldo Reivera. He transmitted secret U.S. military plans directly into the hands of enemy war planners in the Iraqi regime. Instead of being arrested on the spot, he was politely asked to leave Iraq and no criminal charges are expected.
Now, if you look out the left side of the vehicle, you will see the colorful plumage of Senator John Kerry, Democratic candidate for President. He's busy trying to win an election. You remember election cycles, don't you? That's when the American people take vote on whether to have a regime change in the U.S.A.
Apparently though, the meaning of the phrase 'regime change' has been redefined in recent weeks. When Senator Kerry suggested that Democrats should get behind his campaign, because America could use a 'regime change' in Washington as well as in Iraq, several of the major players in the GOP ruling party elite went ballistic, saying that such language was "highly inappropriate," "untimely while we are at war," and "rude, crude, lewd, icky-yucky-poopers".
Intrepid Mojowire research assistants in Tokyo, Moscow, London and Grover's Mill, New Jersey have investigated, and they discovered that the phrase 'regime change' has come to mean the overthrow of a sovereign national government by military conflict and the establishment of martial law-- which is clearly another way of saying the liberation of the long-suffering people and the establishment of democratic institutions. They're the same thing, you see.
If all this doesn't leave you wondering whether you should have taken the blue pill instead of the red one, then you'll definitely want to check the monitors for the latest from the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference.
According to a story in Wired News, Heather MacDonald-- one of the John M. Olin fellows at a right-wing crackhouse called The Manhattan Institute, and who is also the author of a book that unapologetically defends the practice of racial profiling in law enforcement-- this week had the gall to show up at a technical policy conference, and tell a packed hall full of extremely geeky techno-gearheads that they're all a bunch of neo-Luddites, that to combat terrorism we must allow the government to use invasive technology to destroy the concept of personal privacy.
For those of you taking the virtual survey at home, the John M. Olin Foundation is one of the principle sources of funding for the neo-Conservative movement. Heather MacDonald is a non-practicing lawyer, and a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard, which is strongly affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for a New American Century-- in other words, basically, she's a member of the blackest death cult in America today. These are the same
yahoos who attacked the Center for Public Integrity when they called attention to the news that the Ministry of Justice has been secretly been working on a heinous new upgrade to the USA Patriot Act-- as we mentioned weeks ago on the Mojowire.
If all this sounds to you like we are on safari in rubberband-land, you're not alone. Another week of this, and we're all going to be living in a Dali painting--recall, for a moment, that Dali deliberately
promoted the forgery of his own work.
So, let's review. It's only treason when you question the wisdom of the President, but not when you give secret war plans to the enemy. Engaging in political campaigning during wartime is highly inappropriate. Martial law and democratic institutions are the same thing. And, the concept of personal privacy must be destroyed or the terrorists win. Quit whining, or you're going straight to Room 101. Did we miss anything?
A door is ajar. A door is ajar.
S. Thank you Dr. Strychnine for yet another illuminating report. And now...
According to Ultra Fly Reporter Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, Officers and Generals in the Pentagon have been dragging reporters like Hersh into broom closets at the Pentagon to express their extreme displeasure at the amateur meddling and bizarre demands of Donald Rumsfelds and Rummiettes. In particular, Rumsfelds demands to reduce by half the proposed invasion force, and his flock of Chickenhawks assuming control of the operational deployment details.
According to Hersh’s piece in the most recent New Yorker magazine: “Several senior war planners complained to me in interviews that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his inner circle of civilian advisers, who had been chiefly responsible for persuading President Bush to lead the country into war, had insisted on micromanaging the war’s operational details. Rumsfeld’s team took over crucial aspects of the day-to-day logistical planning—traditionally, an area in which the uniformed military excels—and Rumsfeld repeatedly overruled the senior Pentagon planners on the Joint Staff, the operating arm of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ‘He thought he knew better,’ one senior planner said. ‘He was the decision-maker at every turn.’”
J. The words of this reporter -- an alleged terrorist according to Senior Defense Dept. advisors unfamiliar with the U.S. Consititution -- should be a wake up call for anyone who thought that this war was anything other than a made-for-TV political spectacle. This despite the warnings of the professional officer corps of the U.S. military, this war is being run by people who think that Tom Clancy and Mack Bolan novels represent the best and brightest thinking in military strategy, and that Hogan’s Heroes should be shown on the History Channel.
Now that it has become apparent even to the doomed monkeys at Fox News that the reduced deployment created vulnerabilities in the long supply lines, Rummy has taken to pimping how General Tommy Franks was responsibile, and pushing his grouchy Boo Radley persona at Press Briefings to a new height of “kiss my leathery old Chickenhawk behind.”
It’s hard to decide what is worse, Arrogant intellectuals who were too good for military service during Vietnam deciding to dress up and play general during the planning for operation Iraqi Hubris, or Rummy spreading the blame around for deployment inadequacies like a bad case of the clap at a Subic Bay Cathouse.
S. Here’s a free piece of advice from the brain trust at Mojowire, unless you had the stones to enlist and spend decades learing how to deploy huge mechanized armies, maybe you should return your Walmart Bought Camo’s and go back to doing what you’re good at, Sticking your balding dome on talks shows to pretend your opinions mean anything. This goes in particular to that Peter Lorre Wannbe Richard Perle, friends don’t let friends wander up to Meat the Press and predict easy victory, nice Job Wonderlick!
J. Which brings us finally this morning to the subject of elections. You do remember elections don’t you? Well, assuming we have one next year, here is the latest in Democratic presidential electoral politics.
A quick preface...we here at the Mojowire have decided early on that we are all about the Howard Dean campaign. We are disclosing this in the interest of fairness, so deal with it. This is an opinion show and our opinion is that Howard Dean should have run for president three years ago, and we plan to openly plug his campaign in the coming months.
To begin with, apparently the fire storm surrounding John Kerry’s “regime change” remarks are not hurting his chances with the voters any. Apparently, he saw one of those keen “regime change begins at home” signs, and decided that would be a neat piece of propaganda.
This immediately lead to charges that he was “politicizing” the war, and doing so in “highly inappropriate” ways. The rhetoric of “regime change” aside, since when have the Republicans shied away from politicizing war? It was Bush’s own brain, the evil Dr. Rove who, was openly telling his troops last year to get out there and talk up the war on terror during the mid term elections.
S. And yet, in the early wealth primary, Kerry is not meeting expectations. He still trails John Edwards, who in the first quarter stuffed his cheek pockets with $7.4 million, as opposed to a paltry $7 million by Kerry. This is a poor showing for Kerry in his own backyard, the Northeast, where he was expected to do very well.
These two are followed by Connecticut Senator Joe Liberman’s $3 million and Vermont Governor Dr. Howard Dean’s $2.6 million, beating his own fundraising goals by more than a half-million dollars, while House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt has, as yet, declined to say who is juicing his campaign and by how much.
And there is an interesting thing here to note. Dean, who is short nearly $4.5 million of John Kerry, in money is actually even with him in early polling in New Hampshire. There are some Democratic strategists who are downplaying the significance of Dean’s early success in money raising.
It is being said that he doesn’t get extra points just for beating expectations. To be competitive, it is estimated he will need at least $20 million in the bank just to be a legitimate starter by the beginning of next year.
J. And yet, those pesky poll numbers that show the Dean campaign growing in popularity and challenging the mainstream insitutuional candidates like Kerry. The numbers seem to suggest that although he may not be getting as much money, he is certainly getting the face time and the name recognition necessary to make a legitimate bid for the big seat.
We here at the Mojowire believe it is a combination of firey rhetorical style that makes him sound less like a victim than others in the race. It is a style that combines well with fire and brimstone old school liberal message that actually appeals to the Democrats in the Democratic Party.
This is a potential combination that could swing some of the soft Green and other third party votes by representing a real alternative to the Bush Juggernaut in 2004.
And if I were in the Bush camp right now I would have my eyes a little less glued to the video-game war being played out on TV, and perhaps a little more attention paid to the business sections of major metropolitan newspapers.
In a piece in this morning’s Washington Post, analyst Dana Milbank points out that, politically speaking, time is running out for the Bush team to fix the economy.
S. Yet another Bush administration official has gone off the reservation in terms of the bad economic news. This week, John W. Snow, Secretary of the Treasury: “The problem is not with the concern about the Iraq war. The problem is the underlying weakness with the economy,” Snow said in Orlando, Fl. on Thursday. Asked about the possibility of a return to recession, he said that "we need to guard against it” because of a “clear weakness.”
The conventional wisdom has it that in order for an economic recovery to mean anything, it must do a couple of things: first, grow the economy at a bare minimum stall speed of three percent per year to add jobs, and that such growth has to be firmly in place by the second quarter of an election year. To achieve that, any stimulus package needs at least nine months to a year lead time in the economy for the ripple effect to take place.
Regardless of how the war the plays out, the fundamental weakness in the economy is something the Bush Administration is going to have to deal with on an immediate basis, or their chances of being upset by the likes of Howard Dean start to look better and better.
J. So our patriotic thought for the day: Running for President as an opposition candidate means the terrorists win... or as John Ashcroft says... “Elections? We don’t need no steenking elections...”
S. And that’s all for this week, tune in again soon for another exciting installment, unless, of course, we are declared enemies of the state.
J. This has been the Mojowire, brought to you by Mojohaus...Mojohaus-fine journalism, afflicting the comfortable since 1988, and produced by our super funky fly producer Mike Payne and the Darkling Eclectica, here on KUCI, 88.9...
