Saturday, December 04, 2004

Naomi Klein rocks

Since I read her book No Logo a couple of years ago, I've been a fan of hers. Back then, her main beat was anti-commecialism, and she's still at it. But lately she's been reporting on the war in Iraq, to great effect.

Never mind

I guess that wasn't the actor Nolte who died in Iraq. He's here, very much alive.

Thursday, December 02, 2004

It's the media, stupid!

Sure, the media--television, especially--cost Kerry the election. Sure, TV will continue plumping for the incumbent, a supporter of big business, which said businesses own the media. Sure, the media will continue to ignore facts--such as the ever-increasing civilian death toll in Iraq--that are unfavorable to the incumbent president. And so, sure, in two years, or four, six and eight, the same big-business politicians will win election, courtesy of their lackies, the TV stations that provide the great unwashed in America the only source of their information.

So what are we going to do about it?

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Ya gotta watch this

If you've got broadband, and eight minutes, take a look at Orwell's America, thirty years later. So well done, it's frightening.

Thanks, Kyle.

Miserable, miserable failure

Everything Bush touches turns to shit. From the headlines: Iraqi soldiers are turning out to be completely worthless in combat against the insurgents; the International Red Cross has found that our treatment of "enemy combatants" at Gitmo is tantamount to torture; the dollar is sinking due to international unease at America's growing trade and treasury deficits; inflation is on the rise; consumer confidence is down. That's just today. And we have four more years of this?

Sunday, November 28, 2004

A day late and a dollar (many dollars, actually) short

I've written several posts in the distant past (and I also wrote one last week that somehow didn't find its way onto my blog--Thanks, Blogger!) about the sinking dollar. A year ago I predicted it would decline to $1.30 against the euro, and now it's at $1.34. Why do I remind you of this? Because--your heard it here first--tomorrow, Monday, 11/29/04, is going to be a disaster for the dollar. Due to the feints in favor of the euro by the Chinese and others, individual dollar-holders are going to start dumping, and individual dollar-buyers are going to wait for a sizeable drop in the value before buying. I understand the European banks (maybe other governmental entities) will intervene and start buying dollars at $1.35, but that may be too late. There could well be a panic--really--in which even governmental buying won't ward off the selling frenzy.

Okay, maybe I'm being too dramatic. Maybe tomorrow will bring only a further gradual decline in the dollar's value, but that decline will only be gradual for a little while. The arrogance of America's leadership, led by capitalists who believe they govern the world, has shown no desire to stop the decline of the dollar in the hope that a weak dollar will lead to more sales of their products abroad. But guess what: Maybe they don't rule the world anymore. Maybe the dollar will prove to be like any other commodity, susceptible to evaluation based on its inherent worth. If so, I'd be selling like crazy. Wouldn't you?

Speechless

My access to Blogger to create posts has been interrupted lately (don't know whazzup, but it's okay now), but no matter. I've been tongue-tied. So much is amiss in the world that I'm frozen in despair, unable to address any of the outrages.

And besides the usual observations and protests of the Left (and to some extent the Far Right) in the US, and the disbelief of the rest of the world, nothing is being done to stanch the inexorable flow of events to disaster.

Perhaps the events themselves will bring the evil folly of the US administration to an end. The dollar may nosedive so deeply that we lose the ability to control the flow of oil, plunging us into depression. Foreign nations may gather enough gumption to stand up to our global reach. Even our citizens may rise up, once the charade of Bush's legitimacy is seen as the fraud it is.

But none of this seems likely this morning. So I'm going to shut up.