Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Amen, op-san!

First off: Glenn Beck makes Sarah Palin look like a scholar. Mopping the court with him would be about as hard as posting up great granny. But the DP won't and can't permit that to happen, other than via discombobulated Taibbian scoffing.

Meanwhile, what's way weirder than the tea partiers (who are the same old two-note AM radio listeners they've always been) is the hordes of Obama-stickered mofos who are smug about NOT being "burned up" over "taxpayer-funded bonuses to millionaires."

And, of course, the journalistic Matts of the hipster center-right HAVE to tell themselves and their audience complete (and completely sophomoric) lies like "this country has no healthy avenues for genuine populist outrage. It never has."

I wish a rock would fall on these pricks.

It's a little hard to figure out exactly what you're trying to say here.

(Intentional? So you can accuse whomever misinterprets you of being a "liar" should you get caught saying something silly. Then you can pretend you never meant to say what you said after all?)

But if you're saying that the danger of fascism is being hyped by Democrats and that it can only happen in a primitive third world hellhole, then the lefty Pope Saint Noam Chomsky disagrees with you and agrees with Taibbi.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/13/noam_chomsky_on_the_global_economic

As I say, the precedents are not attractive. Now, if—now even before the next presidential, if in the next congressional election the economy has not begun to recover, this kind of populist rage could boil over and could have very dangerous consequences. This country has a long history of being kind of ridden by fear. It’s a very frightened country. This goes back to colonial times.

I mean, we’re very lucky that we have never had an honest demagogue. I mean, the demagogues we’ve had are so corrupt that they never got anywhere—you know, Nixon, McCarthy, you know, Jimmy Swaggart and others. So they were kind of destroyed by their own corruption.

Personally I agree with Trotsky on this one, you'll get facism when the big state capitalists really want it and they'll only really want it should you lefties ever get to the point where you're threatening a "revolution".

(ie not very bloody likely)

Fascism's foot soldiers always seems a bit ridiculous. Ever see that classic lefty movie "Z"? If you're not taking Glenn Beck seriously, then you will take him seriously when he's standing over you with a red hot poker savoring the idea of sticking it up your (censored).

But the original center right hipster Richard Hofstadter got it right. You never got fascism in the USA in the 1930s because you had a weak, decentralized state and, as a result, no vehicle for taking it national.

That's a little different now.

Glenn Beck is partly appealing to the rubes out in suburbia because he's appealing to a very rational fear of a powerful central government. There's nothing particularly irrational about working class whites hating and fearing immigrants since immigrants are being used as a reserve labor army to lower their wages and force them into a race to the bottom.

The fact that YOU ULTRA LEFT HIPSTERS are too smug to acknowledge that makes you as bad as you think Matt Taibbi.

And at least he writes clearly and doesn't muddy the waters to give the illusion that he's deep.

Ha Ha

"posting up great granny"

granny=Larry Johnson, great granny=?

"journalistic Matts of the hipster center-right"

That seems like a pretty appropriate profile, with the accent on hipster and the accent off some defined range on the politico-ideological spectrum (think Vice Magazine).

To his credit, though, ever since Obama took office and the Paulson Plan redux took flight, not once in multiple interviews I've heard has Taibbi made excuses or provided cover for Obama. Of course the whole sham only fuels his cooler-than-thou cynicism...

At the risk of further encouraging TKT...

"Glenn Beck is partly appealing to the rubes out in suburbia because he's appealing to a very rational fear of a powerful central government."

Regardless of its rationality, this is true.

"There's nothing particularly irrational about working class whites hating and fearing immigrants since immigrants are being used as a reserve labor army to lower their wages and force them into a race to the bottom."

In the absence of concerted international worker solidarity -- and boy, is such sentiment scarce anywhere in the world today -- this is also true.

But does not a vigorous campaign of deportation, border wall building, etcetera, require a "powerful central government." Or are a few fat white guys in camo gear imbued with can-do spirit up to the task?

Hey.

Lil old reactionary moi isn't the one saying that working class white guys have a right to be angry and that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are the only ones expressing it.

It's Saint Noam Chomsky the infallible Pope of the American Ultra Left.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/13/noam_chomsky_on_the_global_economic

It sort of peaked during the Sarah Palin period. And it’s kind of interesting. It’s been pointed out that of all the candidates, Sarah Palin is the only one who used the phrase “working class.” She was talking to the working people. And yeah, they’re the ones who are suffering. So, there are models that are not very attractive.

Only Saint Noam argues that these working class white guys direct their anger towards the wrong target (the government).

So. Ha. Ha. According to your own leader your own hatred of Obama and the government is producing the possibility of fascism exactly the way hatred of the government and Clinton gave us Bush.

And remember, this is Saint Noam, the acknowledged leader of the ultra left in America not me, not some liberal Democrat at Media Matters, and not Glenn Beck.

But does not a vigorous campaign of deportation, border wall building, etcetera, require a "powerful central government."

You got me there.

I can't quite square that circle, I must confess. I'm both a free trader and someone who thinks working class white guys have good cause to fear immigrants.

So capitalism by its very nature will hurt working class white guys.

So maybe the solution is to take their guns away and lock a few of them up. Or lock a few Mexicans up and deport a whole lot more.

This is why McCain would have made a better president. He went right into Michigan and told those working class white guys that "your jobs are gone and they're not coming back."

And they nodded and smiled. It's one thing for a white war hero to take your jobs away. It's another thing for a snotty black dude from Harvard who spends Sunday having Tabouli salad with Bill Ayers.

I find this reaction to Taibbi kind of strange. I highly doubt that he has any allegiance to the Democratic Party whatsoever, or that he is center-right, or that many hipsters would identify him as one.

Lately he has pretty much one theme: skin the bankers. He's alarmed that this sentiment is being channeled towards anti-totalitarian fantasies not because he wants support for the Democrats, but because he wants support for going after the bankers.

and guys - hipsters DO NOT wear curved baseball caps. Curved non-ironic baseball hats on a hipster is about as likely as Iggy Pop performing in a Ping fleece.

Just to give you an idea, this is an actual political peice (or as close as they get) by a hipster:

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2009/03/hey-yall-i-came-up-with-a-plan-2-save-the-economy-called-bracketologie.html

bob, VMungo was right, sometimes I can be a bit of a brown-noser, sometimes a snarling snaggletooth... my semi-echoing of MDawson was somewhat of a sweetener, so I'd have buy-in the rest of the way

here's what's funny about taibbi though... he laments anti-banker outrage being directed into inchoate anti-"totalitarian" or anti-"socialist" outrage... meanwhile more structurally inclined Marxoid types lament anti-systemic critique being channeled into the safe eddy of anti-banker outrage (such as the AIG bonus flap)

what I do find a little off-putting about Taibbi besides his gonzo journo pretensions, are his macho potty mouthisms (bitchslap this, buttfuck that)... I'm not hyper-pc, but I find it grating

btw, I'm sure that uber-recursive hipster fashion has moved way past Von Dutch and mesh truckers' caps, that's so passe, they're probably straight rocking high-fiving' white dudes headgear nowadays

"I can't quite square that circle, I must confess. I'm both a free trader and someone who thinks working class white guys have good cause to fear immigrants."

one course -- at least one taught by me--
in macro economics would solve this

hardly squaring the circle tkt

combo of fed deficits and devaluation
can both level the two national wage structures
and provide hyper employment opporunity

then the remaining problematic
would be cultural and linguist

drop the m savage border talk
lady liberty sez
come on over hoss

with a few income source class based
social welfare assumptions
and i could fire up a task for any half way decent dynamic program-er to "solve"

well, I don't really think I did justice to him in saying that he is just out to get the bankers. I have just recently started reading his stuff, but it seems like he does go after systemic issues and political corruption.

I don't really care about the bonuses, and I don't think he does either, but the wholesale pillaging of the Treasury is pretty terrible. Maybe like OP you view any action that hastens the onset of chaotic revolutionary conditions as an unalloyed good, but by that logic it would have been a good thing for Bush to have scrapped social security and for unemployment to be running at 25%. Easy to say when you are insulated from it.

"Personally I agree with Trotsky on this one, you'll get facism when the big state capitalists really want it and they'll only really want it should you lefties ever get to the point where you're threatening a "revolution".

"Personally I agree with Trotsky on this one"

yikes

chomsky yes

but trotman

bad habit to get into

btw
why give that rather common formulation
to "the professor's son" from odessa ???
or are you baiting me u little dust devil u

"Maybe like OP you view any action that hastens the onset of chaotic revolutionary conditions as an unalloyed good"

glad you wrote that bob

actually i favor anything class typical that advances the "contradictions " in the system
that in fact has harm free consequences ...stand alone ..
to my class of regular average american mcjobsters

if some one can show me the intrinsic line of causation
and i mean necesssary line of causation
betwween a hyper money flow into bankster
institutions and sa mass layoffs
i'll retract my scoffing immediately if not sooner

but i'll submit to u
'it might require a pretty fair
formal train of reasoning

" Easy to say when you are insulated from it "

like my mentor mr FE
i was dear fellow "insulated" from it
but alas
do to the folly of my own actions ...
I no lonnger am

to my surprise
this fall from disgrace
has kinda jesus-ized
my feelings toward
the exploiter class
or at least its ur and petty forms

i forgive them burgers
obviously
they know not what they do

and that's typical of Clio's game eh ???
make us all useful idiots
wish i had milton's genius handy
to turn that meme to a sonnet

btw do any of you still think
i'm trying to write verse here??

in fact its only an affectaion
now easily indulged
since like dollars
backed only by their legality as tax tender

virtual space is now unlimited

and the speed dumps created by the generous use of the enter ket
make for sign post packets

recall
algebra

and traffic signs

i love em both dearly

the algebra must of course await
a differently missioned and aimed site

we here exercise our literary faculty only

i'd like a site where any econ con model
could be thrown up
and you could punk it or pimp it
your choice

of course i'd invite mingo and tkt

come only armed with algebra kids

algebra ah algebra
don't it have beauty beyond measure

platonic wonder worlds await us there
as seductive as sirens
numberless to man

"So you can accuse whomever misinterprets you of being a "liar" should you get caught saying something silly"

why i am a liar mr t

and silly i love silly
i embrace silly
lewis carroll is an idol of mine
even if i spell his name wrong

heavens to betsey

silly is the sincerest form of ignorance

I think I can do it in 500 or less

If I'm understanding you correctly, you view the Treasury shenanigans as a largely symbolic (given reserve currency status), a sort of Pareto-optimal class outrage generator.

Well, I would contend that that sort of economically Pareto-optimal political calculus is based on a utilitarian calculation (it doesn't hurt wages, so it's ok) that categorically ignores extremely unjust outcomes. Maybe that doesn't bother you, since it is just a matter of certain people gaining, while others do not really lose, but I find it harder to write off the moral dimension of handing gigantic cheques to a pack of thieves.

"somewhat of a sweetener, so I'd have buy-in the rest of the way"

why u u u....u jesuit u

"the wholesale pillaging of the Treasury is pretty terrible"

really
how so
politics of envy ??
hey i hardly care what the rich and famous have or can buy

unless its part of a comprehensive
model

in isolation
what is the connection between
high livin and high thievin
to job smurfs wages ??

show me the link ups

that ain't gold in there mate
its notions pure notions
costless notions
dollars are a free lunch
so long as you got
ready access to
THE SOURCE
a point super AAl never never never forgets
so don't you guys forget it either

-----
when ever any one fears inflation per se
they are burgerizing themselves somethin' aweful..is that 'nough said ??

------
say man
the read deal
is raging about
stagnant "nominal" wages
in the context of on going
maybe even accelerating inflation

the word here for the wagery class
is index

got one attached to your hourly rate
or don't got one
de facto or de jure

now we are not in an inflationary regime now ..obviously

its our debt burden that weighs on us eh ???

hows floodin the hi fi channels with costless cash a problem here

it don't even imply future inflation

god economics is a science
it ain't just one damn think after another out there on market earth
err well
okay maybe not a science
its well
a pseudo science at least

some times 'round here
i feel like a mechanic
talking to a suspicious girly man
about his car

btw
i am that girlie man guys

bob our comments crossed
i would have coached it differently if i'd had your comment first

but ...

pareto optimal ???

pareto improvement yes

optimal no

btw have u read stiglitz whither socialism
i rarely suggest books or movies or restaurants

but i think its quite a good verbal presentaion of some of the new micro-nomics back ground on this

in particular the first few chapters
of course the editorializing is sheep dip liberal
but the formal models he points to are really quite lovely

okay its like keeping a pet ape
hang around it too long and eventually it'll bite your face and fingers off

reifying comes too easy to all of us

like the tricks a fly does to its own brain to allow it to fly

"really
how so
politics of envy ??"

In a word, yes. As I wrote above.

obviously i stand convicted

equality fairness etc
to me they are
epi phenoms of our bourgeoise society
can i see beyond them any better then you ??
no
does the caveat ned burkey haunt me some ??

yes

i just know "they" our humanist values are at best an open system

ahh poppers ??

that remain part of what makes
thesocial glass we look thru
be so fuckin' "darkly" for us

amoral indecent assburger burger ..moi ??

i've been known to be worse
even then that

hey who's about to make me philospher king anyway

now father S
like the great degaulle
Himself is fit tanned
ready and waiting

i am but an igor
in the lab of scientific socialism

op, indulge me if you will... you often pour bilgewater on Counterpunch, but is not their overarching attitude toward paleocon ranting more or less the same as yours, that "premature anti-fascist" prog-twerps are all huffed up about a tempest in a teapot?

Beck is enervating beyond belief, but let's remember that his bossman Rupe puts showbiz before the political line... after all, he was wining and dining Hillary when it looked certain that there wouldn't be a Repub repeat in November 2008.

If Glenn Beck is the Duce of American fascism (which he is), we are all quite safe. This guy is a clown, a donut, a pebble. Tea parties are miles farther away from Nuremberg rallies than our left confusion is from a general strike.

Speaking of apt phrases, gluelicker nails it:

"the safe eddy of anti-banker outrage"

Bankers bank capital, which stills derives from exploited work and gets split off via the class-wide claims of shareholders. The bankers would grow a new head, if ever they were lopped via Taibbian/left-Obamian outrage. They'd just invent new derivatives.

P.S. Street hipsters, the baristas and Thermals listeners of the world, need their intellectuals, and those intellectuals are the baseball-capped Matts. OP-san is entirely right -- the gist of Taibbi's outrage about Beck is cool-ass quietism, a dissipating mixtape for the my-clothes-are-my-politics crowd.

PPS: You know who's really terrible now, playing a worse, much more dangerous role than Beckboy?

She is:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/

Talk about a merit-baby...

OP:

ok, comparatively pareto efficient.. does that work for you? I think you get the idea anyway.

If I can be permitted, I'm going to give you my psycho-political-cultural reductionist account of your view (when in Rome):

Your infatuation with the idea of a sea of green eyeshades as a nouveau Gosplan technocracy reeks of ingrained meritoid impulses. Almost Hamiltonian? I think you are mistaking the shadow of your mortarboard for that of a green eyeshades.

I think the onus lies with you to prove that your modern Gosplan wouldn't fail as miserably as the original.

"If Glenn Beck is the Duce of American fascism (which he is), we are all quite safe. This guy is a clown, a donut, a pebble. Tea parties are miles farther away from Nuremberg rallies than our left confusion is from a general strike."

Obviously not a duce, but a popular writer in the employ of Julius Streicher. they were idiots as well, but good at what they did.

I still think your read on Taibbi is totally off. He has pretty much no currency with hipsters, just like the publication he writes for. The only people that seem to have gotten stirred up by his stuff are the same type of Villagers who ate up Simon Johnson's piece.

I fail to see how you can call him a force for quietism.. I mean as opposed to what? The massive working-class agitation being generated by this blog or your niche publication? OP's urging of a knowing quietism in the face of robbery, a confidence that it is all part of some historically necessary dialectical movement that can be predicted?

I'm with bob on this one.

While Matt Taibbi's take on Glenn Beck might be misguided, if you believe Taibbi is an apologist for Obama or the professional pwogs, then you're not obviously familiar with the other stuff he has written.

not obviously=obviously not, sorry.

OK, JTG, I'm game. What's Taibbi's best piece? I've been bored to tears or worse by what I've seen, but I admit to generally avoiding this guy. What's to miss?

And I'm not accusing him of excusing the professional progs. I'm saying he's a mainstay of street-prog/hipster reading. Rolling Stone is what I'm talking about.

Well, I guess I am accusing him of excusing the professionals...albeit in a roundabout manner...

Bob

Gosplan II

Has much to prove
Before any one oughta let it
Go "on line"

We'll need to ease into it
Regardless

Markets have an un fore see able time span yet

And despite certain libertoon
Conception
So has the state
And orgs with an
Intentional hierarchy

I've always liked his writing for Buffalo Beast, which has also recommended this blog.

I thought his best piece was this one.
http://www.buffalobeast.com/114/obama.htm

Just curious about the word "pwog"

Is it an homage to David Brooks? Sounds like something he'd say.

Interestingly enough, you can see just how ridiculous the left anti-war movement was by looking at these righty tea parties.

Lefties holding up signs saying "fuck the war." Nobody cared. As long as they paid their taxes.

Righties holding up signs saying "fuck Obama's taxes." Nobody cares. As long as they pay their taxes.

"And at least he writes clearly and doesn't muddy the waters to give the illusion that he's deep"
-TKT

... Like TKT.

just noticed that HRO blog I mentioned earlier has a tax day post up. I'm not sure if the modern elloi are actually fed up with taxes and the "failed Obama regime" or if the post was paid for by Pete Peterson. Could be either really, but nonetheless I was surprised to see the tea party sentiment popping up in such an unlikely place. I've also been noticing an increase in anti-government quasi-libertarian tirades on apolitical blogs and music forums that one would assume to be either apolitical or wearing "yes we can" shirts.

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2009/04/i-feel-less-unique-2day-cuz-i-have-2-file-taxes-just-like-every1-else.html

It is alarming to see how poorly the socialists are making their case to Gen Y (which dwarfs the baby boomers or gen xers), and how easily the conservatives are gaining ground. btw, by socialist I don't mean Democrat, and conservative I don't mean Republican. It's been going on for a while (Vice founder Gavin Macinnes's pet project is to inculcate hardcore conservative beliefs amongst the Vice readership), but I had always thought it was a waste of time.

"Has much to prove
Before any one oughta let it
Go "on line"

We'll need to ease into it"

Well, I'm all ears. I'm reading some of Whither Socialism right now. I like a lot of the arguments, but I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what form such a government would take.

What kind of property reforms are necessary? To what extent is industry and business carried out by the government? Would all prices be administered, or to what extent? What sort of monetary system would be used? Those kinds of things.

some preliminary thoughts:
I do like the argument. I can see how a planned economy would have the same informational benefits that Buffett derives from Berkshire Hathaway's conglomerate structure. I wonder though, whether that is simply an advantage when competing in a market environment vs. other actors who have limited information, rather than an entirely more efficient system when applied on the scale of a systemic monopoly.

It seems to me that certain markets would benefit from public administration, while others would not. My general view is that there are certain things, like simple P&C insurance and management of utilities etc. that the government is better at administering, while other goods are better priced by the market. It seems to me that there are different reasons for mis-pricing under each regime, and that it depends on the type of good. Basically, I'm a crude Keynesian market socialist at the end of the day, although I am sympathetic to a lot of Stiglitz's criticisms. I'll have to track down an actual copy of that book.

Bob
I'm on a phone
But very good batch of questions
Obviously
Glad u gave stigs book a shot
I guess if u come to it with a credo like yours
The book is vastly
More useful
I wish everyone
Shared your willingness to suffer the tedium
Of modern
micro/macro
By passing it for
Boxed radonomic
Hand waving is
A loss

Marx as I'm sure u know was very aware
Of the prior generation of burger
Econ cons
And his formulations
Observe all classical categories
In as much as they were coherent
His theory of surplus value
Has been ridiculously ossified
By his acolytes
Its an idealogians
Picnic lunch
The burger science proceeded to sublat itself
Three times since the 1840's-50's

The dictat about
No more advances
Since ricardo
Needs a shelf job

I will try to put a set of responses
Together for you and slip it into this comment thread

MD-
Matt Taibbi is not "center-right." He writes very disparagingly about politicians, in a way that offends certain bluenoses.

He also is in the employ of Rolling Stone, whose publisher, Jann Wenner, lathered up Obama and placed van den Heuvel-level halos around him. Taibbi went googly-eyed over him a few times in print, and defends him on Left Jab radio, albeit half-heartedly, and if you get Taibbi drunk enough, he'll probably concur that he was an ass to do so.
Otherwise, his takedowns, such as of Thomas Friedman, can be priceless - which is about how much a subscription for the teen-dream mag costs.
So there you have it. As for the other arguments going on in and around here, I'd appreciate a few translations into English along with roadmaps for the non-vanguard.

Mjoe

If I've
Fallen into jargon and or sectiferous gibber
Please accept my
Apologies

I try to appear
Human if not humanist
I try not to
Slip from my usual
Ideolectical neologissimusm
To pointless jargantuan flatulence

I have been to Taibbi's Buffalo, and return more underwhelmed than ever. I, me, I, I, me, I, I, I...plus the notion that Obama has anything whatsoever to do with the New Deal and "pissing off the right people."

This is mainstream journalism as defined by Alexander Cockburn -- strategically manufactured nonsense.

OP San -

You never did nuttin to me. No apologies desired. "Ideolectical neologissimusm" is precisely good enough, and it may just be my reading style - folks are comin' at me from all angles, and it just ain't makin' sense.
MD, it's not like Alexander Cockburn is all they, they, they - Mikey Tai has his point of view, and it is surely not "strategic" - strategy for what, for whom? So he can sell 100 copies and have a quasi-journalistic semi-job? If his stuff is "manufactured," I'd like to see the factory - I think it's just him. And "nonsense?" Taibbi is not David Broder. He has fun writing about our idiotic political culture. He is not a Wall Streeter. He does not fly bombers. I take it you won't be shaken, so onward, back to the countdown...

"I wonder though, whether that is simply an advantage when competing in a market environment vs. other actors who have limited information, rather than an entirely more efficient system when applied on the scale of a systemic monopoly"

the notion might run like this

all firms share one accounting operation and thus every firms numbers are seen by every other firm
tinbergen called this eliminating secondary uncertainty
ie uncertainy that was an artefact of the system not
the primary uncertainty of nature technical innovation investment and preference

a systemic monopoly

no
a de centered system of local initiative
and intense competition

which is better competition picj up half court or ref-ed full court ??

combined with a job yes A job
not job security but job opportunity
for everyone of course
and a progressive hourly tax on idleness
up say 30 hours based on net worth
and hu cap potential value added

"It seems to me that certain markets would benefit from public administration, while others would not"

this probably misses the inter connections the price and credit system lace firms together with

the red and the black of it
the brake even point bias

some firms will operate in the red
others in the black
the attempt to reach optimal relative prices
will require non linear algorithms
tax and subsidy is a very crude first step

incentive structures would be the product of central designs of course
effectively we'd all work for one multiplex of "firms"
if one chooses to be passive and take the highest paying mcjob
all well and good
the system would feel more like a job transfers system then
fire and hire

"that there are certain things, like simple P&C insurance and management of utilities etc. that the government is better at administering, "
again this misses the totalization process

i think of lipsey lancaster and second best plus grossman stiglitz hierarchy optimization

"other goods are better priced by the market"

only final household goods and jobs
firms control the production decisions
but markets are just algorithms
automat pricing

all markets open to all firms of course

"It seems to me that there are different reasons for mis-pricing under each regime,
and that it depends on the type of good. "

very true even truer then a flat market economy could "discover" by pure price groping

central plan would run the price level controls
a mark up market
ala lerner vickrey collander

"I'm a crude Keynesian market socialist "

good place to start
the best of the science up thru say
1970 is precisely that combo

but the science in its third sublation has gone further

gosplan II incorporates these insights
both formal and intuitive

Mjo, I'm not saying Taibbi is the worst. But I've yet to get a good overall take from the guy, in my admittedly limited tries.

As to strategic news engineering, seems to me that neither the strategy nor the engineering need to reside in the intent of the immediate producer. I'm thinking Herman-Chomsky filters here. If you turn out useful discombobulation, you find niches in the system. To get to the top, you need to be utterly horrible and/or empty. To make Rolling Stone or the NYT Mag, you need some serious confusion to be a part of your game. If you pitch screwballs and only screwballs, you're hired.

Peace out.