THE GATHERING STORM

Es brent, breiderlach, es brent! (It’s burning, brothers, burning From a Yiddish Poem of the Holocaust

Wake up, America ! Wake up, America! Dennis Kucinich at the 2008 Democratic National Convention

Of all the disturbing news of late, none has been more disturbing to me than this Headline from the website Army News: “Brigade Homeland Tours Start Oct 1. According to the article, “The 3^rd Infantry Division’s 1^st Brigade…under the day-to-day control of the U.S. Army North (will be utilized as) an on-call response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks”. (Uuhhh, isn’t that what the National Guard is supposed to do? But, oh, yeah, they’re a little busy now in Anbar Province .) “…this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control to federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities…They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control…” among other duties.

Why is the government expecting the need to deploy an Army Brigade to control civil unrest?

In her recent book, The Shock Doctrine; Disaster Capitalism in Action, Naomi Klein posits that the Right will use the shock of the current economic crisis to push through their policy wishes, including deregulation of the financial industry, school vouchers, far more stringent border controls (in both directions? one must ask), and the privatization of Social Security (“Pass a 21st Century Social Security system giving every young American the opportunity to profit from the rebuilding of the American economy” from Newt Gingrich’s “Eighteen Policy Prescriptions”. Newt fails to say what will happen to the old people who will be caught without the Social Security they paid into during the one or two decades it will take for the economy to recover. Victorians had the solution; they were called “Poorhouses).

And what of the other domestic policies resulting from economic collapse? Argentina, under murderous military dictatorship for many years, (there’s a frightening connection worthy of an entire blog itself), ran up huge, unsupportable debt in failed infrastructure and other projects, the Falklands Islands War and the state’s takeover of private debt. (Is this beginning to sound familiar?). Industries failed and unemployment, figured at only 5% by the government, was actually closer to 20%, the highest at any time since the Great Depression. The state’s acquisition of huge debt it could not repay resulted in gross inflation, as the government printed new money, industry collapsed (read: jobs were outsourced to India), unemployment grew, there were riots, and ultimately, the banks collapsed and closed. Millions were unable to access their accounts and were financially wiped out.

But what if there is a method to this madness? What if there is actually sinister purpose to this economic slide and resulting elimination of social programs? What is the purpose of making all these poor people? When people are struggling day—to-day just to feed their families, when they are physically wiped out from illness and can’t afford health care, they are not going to be politically active; they will just be scrambling for the next meal. They will not be politically active, making trouble for the ruling class.

But what if they do? There were certainly Labor struggles during the great depression; not everyone went down without a fight. What to do?

Here comes the 1^st Army Brigade, to the rescue. Klein is right on the money (no pun intended). With riots in the streets, due to the government’s mismanagement of our country’s finances, law and order must prevail.

We’ve seen this before. At the end of World War One, Germany ’s economy was in ruins. Inflation, we all learned in junior high, was so bad that one needed a wheelbarrow full of money just to buy a loaf of bread. Along came a hero, with a compelling, convincing theory about how Germany got into that mess, and how she could get out of it. We all know how that turned out. Hitler also used the Shock Doctrine to very good effect. And let’s not forget that (unlike George W. Bush) Hitler was actually elected, in a free, democratic election, in 1932. Germany, once the most liberal and enlightened state in the world, the shining star of the 19^th century Enlightenment, descended into genocidal madness. Brought about by economic collapse. Fed by millenias-old Jew hatred. The economy sucks? Blame it on the rich Jews, they’re just for themselves, and besides, they killed Jesus. Or the Mexicans taking all our jobs. Or the black gangsters, contributing to crime. Or the smart Asians, taking our university spots. Or the Arabs; they’re all terrorists anyway. Think it can’t happen here?

Today I am not one annoyed Jew. Today I am one angry and very frightened Jew.

Heideleh

Market Update

Yesterday morning, I speculated whether the market was going to reflect the national mood regarding the Nov. Election, and noted that during the Democratic Convention, the market kep going up.

Yesterday, the day of McCain's Veep announcement, the Dow plunged over 170 points.

'Nuff said.

Heideleh

Going for the Ovary Vote

Es brent, breiderlach, es brent! (It’s burning, brothers, burning!)

From a Yiddish Poem of the Holocaust

Wake up, America! Wake up, America!

Dennis Kucinich at the 2008 Democratic National Convention

Of all the disturbing news of late, none has been more disturbing to me than this Headline from the website Army News: “Brigade Homeland Tours Start Oct 1. According to the article, “The 3^rd Infantry Division’s 1^st Brigade…under the day-to-day control of the U.S. Army North (will be utilized as) an on-call response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks”. (Uuhhh, isn’t that what the National Guard is supposed to do? But, oh, yeah, they’re a little busy now in Anbar Province.) “…this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control to federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities…They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control…” among other duties.

Why is the government expecting the need to deploy an Army Brigade to control civil unrest?

In her recent book, The Shock Doctrine; Disaster Capitalism in Action, Naomi Klein posits that the Right will use the shock of the current economic crisis to push through their policy wishes, including deregulation of the financial industry, school vouchers, far more stringent border controls (in both directions? one must ask), and the privatization of Social Security (“Pass a 21st Century Social Security system giving every young American the opportunity to profit from the rebuilding of the American economy” from Newt Gingrich’s “Eighteen Policy Prescriptions”. Newt fails to say what will happen to the old people who will be caught without the Social Security they paid into during the one or two decades it will take for the economy to recover. Victorians had the solution; they were called “Poorhouses).

And what of the other domestic policies resulting from economic collapse? Argentina, under murderous military dictatorship for many years, (there’s a frightening connection worthy of an entire blog itself), ran up huge, unsupportable debt in failed infrastructure and other projects, the Falklands Islands War and the state’s takeover of private debt. (Is this beginning to sound familiar?). Industries failed and unemployment, figured at only 5% by the government, was actually closer to 20%, the highest at any time since the Great Depression. The state’s acquisition of huge debt it could not repay resulted in gross inflation, as the government printed new money, industry collapsed (read: jobs were outsourced to India), unemployment grew, there were riots, and ultimately, the banks collapsed and closed. Millions were unable to access their accounts and were financially wiped out.

But what if there is a method to this madness? What if there is actually sinister purpose to this economic slide and resulting elimination of social programs? What is the purpose of making all these poor people? When people are struggling day—to-day just to feed their families, when they are physically wiped out from illness and can’t afford health care, they are not going to be politically active; they will just be scrambling for the next meal. They will not be politically active, making trouble for the ruling class.

But what if they do? There were certainly Labor struggles during the great depression; not everyone went down without a fight. What to do?

Here comes the 1^st Army Brigade, to the rescue. Klein is right on the money (no pun intended). With riots in the streets, due to the government’s mismanagement of our country’s finances, law and order must prevail.

We’ve seen this before. At the end of World War One, Germany’s economy was in ruins. Inflation, we all learned in junior high, was so bad that one needed a wheelbarrow full of money just to buy a loaf of bread. Along came a hero, with a compelling, convincing theory about how Germany got into that mess, and how she could get out of it. We all know how that turned out. Hitler also used the Shock Doctrine to very good effect. And let’s not forget that (unlike George W. Bush) Hitler was actually elected, in a free, democratic election, in 1932. Germany, once the most liberal and enlightened state in the world, the shining star of the 19^th century Enlightenment, descended into genocidal madness. Brought about by economic collapse. Fed by millenias-old Jew hatred. The economy sucks, blame it on the rich Jews. Or the Mexicans taking all our jobs. Or the black gangsters. Or the smart Asians. Think it can’t happen here?

Today I am not one annoyed Jew. I am one angry and very frightened Jew.

Of Markets and Hurricanes

Listening to NPR this week, which announces at the top of the news hour each morning the stock market risings and fallings, it was interesting and gratifying to see that both the DOW and NSADAQ went UP, UP, UP every single day. And not by a few tepid points.

Think that had anything to do with the Dem's Convention? It will be interesting to see what happens next week during the Republicans' fest. If the market plummets, it might be a predictor of how the vote will go in November.

Meanwhile, a hurricane is predicted to make landfall in Louisiana during that convention. It will be interesting to see how quickly the Bush Administration will respond this time. I hope the American populace won't be fooled again.

Heideleh

Gays at the Party

Did anyone notice that every single major speaker at the Democratic Convention mentioned the rights of gays in their speeches? They seemed unafraid of what the public might think.

I guess when folks can't pay the mortgage, put food on the table or afford medicine for their kids (never mind the gas to get them to the doctor), who is sleeping with whom becomes irrelevant.

Heideleh

Exodus

Last night on Tavis Smiley's show following the convention, guest (Democratic) Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia told a poignant story. He said an African American man from his delegation watching the official nomination of Barack Obama and crying, said "They only let my father be a waiter, and now I'm seeing this."

At our seder this past April, we spoke of the symbolism of forty years since Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. For the uninitiated, the Seder is the ritual meal and celebration that Jews observe to recount and commemorate the long slavery in Egypt, the Exodus from Egypt, and the wandering in the desert for forty years until the children of Israel reached the Promised Land of their ancestors. Rabbinic and Talmudic thought has explained the reason why the Jews had to wander 40 years before reaching their homeland. (And no, it wasn't because none of the men would ask for directions). The Jews had to wander in the desert for forty years until the slave generation, and its slave mentality, had died off. Only a new generation, one having grown up as a free people, would be fit to enter their homeland, once again a free people, to re-inherit the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Our country wandered in the desert for many more than forty years; at the very least, counting back from the end of the civil war and slavery until Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, it was almost one hundred years. And even after that, there was much struggling to be done, along the way losing our own Moses of the United States forty years ago.

But since that tragic loss forty years ago, to an enormous degree, the slave generation has died out. The proof is that forty years from Dr. King's killing we are witness to this amazing day when a black man will run, and G-d willing, be elected as a progressive Democrat in November. And his acceptance speech comes on another symbolic date: forty-five years ago today, our own Moses, Dr. King, gave his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington.

I remember vividly, as a child of twelve, listening to that speech with my father, sitting in our Chevy station wagon with car radio on, my father throwing caution to the wind and endangering the car battery, just so we could listen. I have no doubt that I will be as moved tonight when I hear my candidate's acceptance speech, as I was that day, forty-five years ago.

Heideleh

A BUCK FOR BOB

Most of you will remember Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, one of the most odious of the snarling pack during the Clinton impeachment debacle, when a president could be impeached for a blow job, rather than for destroying the constitution, invading a country that was no threat to us, killing hundreds of thousands of innocents, all while happily enriching oneself and one's cronies in the oil bidness.

Now Mr. Barr is running for president on the Libertarian ticket. The Republicans are not pleased about this, as any votes for Mr. Barr would surely otherwise go to John McCain. As we saw, unhappily with John Anderson, and more happily with Ross Perot, a third candidate can determine the outcome of an election. We certainly know the disastrous results of the Nader Campaign in 2000. (Hey, whatever happened to him??).

So let's help Mr. Barr along. I am proposing the "A Buck for Bob" movement. There are millions of Democrats who surely would be happy to contribute to the demise of the Bush/McCain agenda. I propose that if we all, many millions of us, each contribute one dollar to Mr. Barr's campaign, we will help him win votes away from John McCain, with no real danger of actually being elected.

To contribute to the Barr campaign, click on the link at the right, "A Buck for Bob". When the Obama/Biden ticket is swept into office, you can be proud of your efforts to help shut out McCain.

Please copy and send this message to every Democrat you know.

Heideleh