Archive for January, 2010
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Inveterate Liar
“If anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses, let me know,” Mr. Obama said. “Let me know.”
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Orwell Would be Unpublished Now
I swear, the most skilled dystopian novelist couldn’t make this stuff up:
Beverly Hills, Calif., Jan 17, 2010 – Nominees, presenters and performers arriving to “The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards” will have an opportunity to help raise money for Haitian relief efforts with a simple signature. Positioned at the entrance of the Beverly Hilton Hotel is President and Chief Executive Officer for the Chrysler Brand, Chrysler Group LLC, Olivier Francois’ personal car, a Chrysler 300C. Francois donated his vehicle so that attendees to the ceremony could place their signature upon the sedan which could then be donated for auction to specifically raise money for Haiti relief efforts.
“Looking at the devastation this catastrophe has caused to an already impoverished country,there is no doubt that we have a social responsibility to assist in any way that we can. This will not be the only funding we will provide to this country on behalf of the Chrysler Brand and Chrysler Group LLC, there is more to come.”said Olivier Francois, President and Chief Executive Office – Chrysler Brand, Chrysler Group LLC. “We are pleased to join hands with Hollywood to offer this gesture as part of the relief efforts toward Haiti. And, to my colleague, Dodge Brand President and Chief Executive Officer, who is of Haitian-descent, and to all Haitian-Americans with family in Haiti, our thoughts are with you.”
The Chrysler 300C that will be donated for auction is expected to raise approximately 1 million dollars.
Chrysler Joins Stars for a Cause to Auction Chrysler 300 “eco style” Edition Vehicles
The Chrysler brand, together with Dick Clark Productions, has also partnered with Stars for a Cause to donate six eco-friendly accessorized vehicles that will be auctioned off to select celebrity charities.
Nominee Meryl Streep, presenters Christina Aguilera, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks and Felicity Huffman and actor Colin Firth will arrive to the Golden Globes in their select Chrysler 300 eco style limited edition vehicle, which will be donated and auctioned to the charity of their choice.
Based off of the Chrysler 300C, the most-awarded vehicle in the industry, the eco style edition vehicles are accessorized with eco-friendly materials such as cork, bamboo, recycled jute carpeting and suede seat inserts and feature refurbished wheels while providing high-end luxury and elegant design. The vehicles feature a refined interior, premium technology and offer fuel-efficient performance and excitement.
Each of the celebrities will arrive to the awards in their select vehicles:
* Presenter Christina Aguilera’s Chrysler 300 eco style vehicle features a water-based Vanilla exterior color. On the inside are cactus-colored seat-inserts with bamboo applique placed on the door trim and center console
* Presenter Leonardo DiCaprio’s vehicle has Cream exterior and Aqua-blue seat inserts, a hydrographic water-themed applique is subtly placed throughout the interior
* Actor Colin Firth’s vehicle features a stately and sleek Black exterior color with Black Bamboo interior accents
* Presenter Tom Hanks will arrive to the awards in an elegant Black Chrysler 300 eco style edition vehicle with Curry seat-inserts and organic appliques
* Presenter Felicity Huffman will arrive in a Dark Cordovan vehicle with a stained Cordovan cork interior color
* Nominee Meryl Streep’s vehicle features a Platinum exterior and on the interior are Cumin-colored seat-inserts along with natural mat and cork materials
Recycled materials are used within the interior of the vehicle. Recycled ultra-suede seat inserts are used for the front and rear-passenger seats and are soft to the touch and durable. Hydrographics patterns are used to place organic themes on the center console and door trim of the interior compartment. Water-based paints are used on the exterior of the vehicle.
And here’s the kicker:
Under the hood is the 5.7-liter HEMI® engine with Muliti-displacement System (MDS). MDS seamlessly alternates between smooth high-fuel-economy four-cylinder mode when less power is needed and V-8 mode when more power is needed. MDS optimizes fuel economy without sacrificing vehicle performance.
If you know anything about physics, you know that a 5.7-liter engine is a huge motor. If you know that, then you won’t be surprised by the EPA mileage rating of this “eco-style” engine: 15 city/23 highway!
This is the “new” stuff that’s being peddled, after Obama’s automotive bailout, after the arrival of supposedly better European managers…
And, of course, don’t you just want to weep with gratitude at the sacrifices that were made all around for the people of Haiti? As part of being honored from churning out yet another year of unwatchable pablum about cops and robbers and saints in surgical garb, the attendees at one of the multiple versions of the Hollywood Employee of the Year Banquet “raised” perhaps 1/10th of what was spent on the “awards ceremony” — “for Haiti.” All, of course, while pimping for Chrysler’s deranged ecocidal waste-pushing.
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
Empire of Boondoggles
In American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips reviewed the fact that all decrepit empires become increasingly sclerotic and psychotic in the last days of their hegemony.
Conservative true believers will scoff: the United States is sue generis, they say, a unique and chosen nation. What did or did not happen to Rome, imperial Spain, the Dutch Republic, and Britain is irrelevant. The catch here, alas, is that these nations also thought they were unique and that God was on their side. The revelation that He was apparently not added a further debilitating note to the later stages of each national decline.
Dmitry Orlov adds to Phillips’ observations by pointing out that, in their senescence, failing empires, being ruled by narrow, long-pampered overclasses that have lost the interest and capacity for self-criticism and institutional innovation, always try to solve their problems by redoubling, rather than altering, established practices. High on their own fumes, late-imperial bigwigs try harder and harder to get different results from the same old practices. Nothing else is permitted serious consideration:
Economic collapse has a way of turning economic negatives into positives. It is not necessary for the United States to embrace the tenets of command economy and central planning to match the Soviet lackluster performance in this area. We have our own methods that are working almost as well. I call them “boondoggles.” They are solutions to problems that result in more severe problems than those they attempt to solve.
Just look around and you will see boondoggles sprouting up everywhere, in every field of endeavor: we have military boondoggles like Iraq, financial boondoggles like the doomed retirement system, medical boondoggles like private health insurance and legal boondoggles like the intellectual property system. At some point, creating another boondoggle becomes the preferred course of action: since the outcome can be predicted with complete accuracy, there is little risk.
So why not, as a matter of policy, only propose solutions that are guaranteed to simply create more problems, for which further solutions can then be proposed?
I would suggest that this is precisely the proper context in which to view yesterday’s multiply amazing Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Orwellianly-named front-group plaintiff in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
In the short run, the further heightening of the power of money in elections will probably matter very, very little. It’s not like there has been anybody other than money-grubbing corporate stooge-whores within a country mile of power in this society since the FDR epoch, if then.
But, in the long run, you have to wonder about the fate of a society facing so many immense negative consequences of market totalitarianism, which permits its ruling class to keep granting itself more and more privileges. As another blogger writes:
maybe i’m just in a leftist mood or something. but if money is speech according to the conservative court, then constitutional rights vary directly with income. now they do anyway, always one sort of argument for programs to redistribute wealth etc. but what i’m saying is that conservatives need to think about where explicitly endorsing this idea will take them. and then let’s add the premise that corporations are persons – a kind of legal commonplace, but fearsomely radical if the idea is that corporations possess inherent rights in the declaration-of-independence sense, and hence if the first amendment and others apply to them.
alright start off with the idea that i and goldman sachs both have free speech. now throw in the premise that this right varies with, ranges over, or actually is money. then my right is shockingly negligible and circumscribed. we might say that goldman sachs has ten million times as much right to free speech as i have, approximately. in part, i admit, this is simply a statement of antecedent fact rather than some sort of normative program. but these things cannot all be true at once: a corporation is a man. all men are created equal, that is, they have certain inalienable rights. money is speech.
i would like to do an excursus, for one thing on individualism and the relation of corporatism to communism, but instead i will say: the decision makes the most basic ideas on which the american republic is founded entirely incoherent. it makes the basic american political vision inyourface absurd. that, one would think, should have given the court some pause.
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
All-American Moron Alert
Advertising Age reports that the reactionary, fake-Christian group Focus on the Family has purchased a 30-second spot during the 2010 Superbowl. The ad stars the brainless mega-ass Tim Tebow, pictured at left in a rare moment when he’s not running his mouth thanking Jesus for over-seeing one of his college football games.
Ad Age describes the anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-love, anti-real-family nature of the ad:
The organization’s ad will feature college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam, sharing a personal story centered on the theme of “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life,” according to a news release from Focus on the Family.
Not only do I look forward to hating whatever NFL team gets stuck with the odious peckerwood Tebow, but I commend this ad to those interested in the competing analyses of which side of the spectrum is shut out of the corporate media, and which is not, despite its fact-free, flak-providing bleats about “the liberal media” (meaning “the leftist media”).
Ad Age, of course, relays the preposterous claim that FOTF’s “Super Bowl commercial is not polarizing and does not take an ‘anti’ stance against any issue.”
Sure. And all the other ads, for each of which which CBS collects between $5,000,000 and $5,600,000 per minute (one wonders: WWJDWFMD?), are merely there to provide information, not mind-injections, to citizens.
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
Haiti v. Goldman Sachs
From Doug Henwood, author of the invaluable and entertaining Left Business Observer:
GDP of Haiti: $8.5 billion.
Goldman Sachs bonus pool for 2010: $20 billion.
Friday, January 15th, 2010
Worldwatch Craps Itself
So, guess what the geniuses over at the Worldwatch Institute have done for their annual report?
State of the World 2010: Tranforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability
The core problem we face, these would-be rebels say — without a single shred of evidence, by the way — is that “we continue to think of ourselves mostly as consumers.”
And where does “consumerism” come from, according to Worldwatch? From a viral illness:
As consumerism has taken root in culture upon culture over the past half-century, it has become a powerful driver of the inexorable increase in demand for resources and production of waste that marks our age. Of course, environmental impacts on this scale would not be possible without an unprecedented population explosion, rising affluence, and breakthroughs in science and technology. But consumer cultures support—and exaggerate—the other forces that have allowed human societies to outgrow their environmental support systems.
Yes, friends, our own stupidity has unleashed a runaway cultural rot, which in turn “allows” things to unfold as they are. We have met the enemy, and it is us, the “consumers.”
Capitalism? The word does not appear in any of the promotional material for this allegedly “subversive volume.”
And what is the cure prescribed by these self-described award-winners? If it weren’t entirely, comically, howlingly unrealistic, it would be damned frightening:
…Preventing the collapse of human civilization requires nothing less than a wholesale transformation of dominant cultural patterns. This transformation would reject consumerism—the cultural orientation that leads people to find meaning, contentment, and acceptance through what they consume—as taboo and establish in its place a new cultural framework centered on sustainability. In the process, a revamped understanding of “natural” would emerge: it would mean individual and societal choices that cause minimal ecological damage or, better yet, that restore Earth’s ecological systems to health. Such a shift—something more fundamental than the adoption of new technologies or government policies, which are often regarded as the key drivers of a shift to sustainable societies—would radically reshape the way people understand and act in the world.
Transforming cultures is of course no small task. It will require decades of effort in which cultural pioneers—those who can step out of their cultural realities enough to critically examine them—work tirelessly to redirect key culture-shaping institutions: education, business, government, and the media, as well as social movements and long-standing human traditions. Harnessing these drivers of cultural change will be critical if humanity is to survive and thrive for centuries and millennia to come and prove that we are, indeed, “worth saving.”
Alas, this kind of rote, thoughtless, misleading, dishonest, apolitical, and authoritarian drivel is what passes as “subversive” on the topic of corporate capitalism’s ongoing micro-management of off-the-job life/destruction of the planetary ecosphere. Such crapola causes über-poseur $99 sneaker pimps to ejaculate verbal turds about Worldwatch’s reactionary mental mush somehow being “a cultural mindbomb exploding with devastating force.” Hah and ROFLMFAO, times ten!
Talk about obstacles to change…How, pray tell, are we ever supposed to change the world if our gas-bagging award-winners continue to refuse to help us describe it?
