What's goin on

Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today ...
1971 | Marvin Gaye | Obie Benson

Finally, it has come to this we think and yet, its not over, not by a long shot. The mess, the turmoil, has a long way to go. A few things need attention while the thunderstorm and hail are flung across the passes and traffic slows to a dead halt on the interstates ...

Browsing the welcome news (we all have welcome news, you might have seen this), I was amused by an article dated today concerning a GOP senate candidate's statement made four years ago and wondered as you will too, why bring up this paranoid's delusion now? Of course, its election dirt, but its more. It reads as a thinly disguised attempt to take us further into 1984 where we are always at war. If this is so, it needs to be nipped in the bud immediately because we are going to need strong friends and soon. The paranoid's delusion is just that, a delusion, and a rather perfect illustration of reactionary thinking. What's wrong with these people, anyway? We wouldn't be reluctant witness to provocateurs' antics if our Laureate community organizer and his handlers could organize their way to real solutions, but alas ... personalities earn fame and fortune spotlit by media's public relations-compliant analysis, pressing and pushing to no avail. Economic relationships are stuck for life regardless of who occupies what office, and where, unless (there's always an unless) one party is suspected to be profiting more than the other. Profiting greatly.  In the end, in our bottom line, in our litmus test, it means nothing we don't already know. Tit for tat. Where's the change, dude? The whole place is still sliding on thin ice.

You'll want to follow up that piece, whichever one you chose among the roster of corporate feeds, with something of genuine substance, although its the blog author who provides great insight to the ironies contained in certain documents which are purportedly the agenda for the upcoming G-20. You will find the opinions fascinating. You may even find confirmation for your secret thoughts on this issue contained within. Gonzalo's take on his material is most entertaining. It would make a great film. Someday, I would like to see a dream roundtable discussion between Charles Hugh Smith, James Kunstler and Gonzalo Lira on just about anything. If wishes grew on trees ... Oh, the poor public. They have no idea. The new statistic for our beleaguered livestock is three out of four Americans will be obese (not merely overweight) by 2020. Do I need to repeat that? Has it sunk in? Good. The cattle would rather scrape lemon drops off the bottom of the BGH-GMO barrel than figure out what's going on.

None of the above will mean anything to you if you don't see the links.

The cattle better figure it out soon because it is no longer in the hands of some mythical great overseer. Mentally repeat the past and ask yourself what are you going to do when disaster snarls its way into your living room? Who is prepared when they don't know what is brewing in the witch's den? Personally, I have a prejudice against knowing too much because MSM details generally obscure the point, among other travesties. What has happened is we have no one looking out for us, we are viewed as too shallow, too spoiled through over-abundance, too oblivious and too corrupt for salvation. The humanity has been wrung out of the human. Where does one begin to repair all that has happened and all that is to come? How can we heal while wallowing in a national cesspool of denial? Yes, it is shocking. It is an impasse like none other, ever.

Mister Kunstler's essay today is his best one since I've been reading him, easily a few years by now. Oh, I know, he doesn't keep his house all that clean, there are plenty of repeat trolls nosing around, but once in a while there will be a comment so worthy of a larger audience it is like a rainbow breaking the storm. (I've taken the liberty  to correct punctuation where I find it and understand in the heat of the moment how such things happen.)

This one is from conchscooter:

"Can you spell quitclaim? The reason those famous "23 states" keeps getting brought up on this issue is that these are judicial foreclosure states. That would be states that require a judge to sign off on a foreclosure order.
However if challenged (and the title companies are doing just that)the banks not only can't produce the pen-and-ink mortgage agreement, they have had those lackeys sign off that the original documents were "lost." They weren't lost they were transferred without the benefit of being properly recorded to investment trusts.
That means the mortgages are not properly recorded and can therefore be challenged.
If you buy a foreclosed property you will not get title insurance because in those judicial foreclosure states the banks had no legal right to sell a property in which they had no legal standing.
This is a state issue and is going to have a more revolutionary impact on this lawless state of ours than any number of survivalists with guns.

Don't believe me? Ask yourself why banks are stopping foreclosure in judicial foreclosure states...No one else has asked themselves why and what happens next. Not even Jim Kunstler, which is disappointing, but he got closer than most."

And here's one from eightm: 

Another AX: WORK
Take a look at all of those skyscrapers in New York City, Tokyo, Seoul, etc. What do you think all of those office workers actually "do" ? Do you really think they are actually producing anything ? Are they needed for anything except being a place holder - a figment of imaginary labor - work, to justify billions of dollars of money transfers amongst the already and only ever going to be rich ? The truth is work in general is no longer needed, is destined to become obsolete no matter what anyone says or thinks or desires.

The calculation is easy to do: there are 200 million office workers worldwide, information workers, "knowledge" workers, research workers, "innovation", and research and development and all of the other mega Bull Shit terms and expressions the modern economist love to talk about. So exactly what are they discovering - improving - creating ? Absolutely nothing except billions of dollars being robbed from the poor. But let's look at it for what it really is: out of 200 million workers I would fathom that only 1 out of 1,000 are creating anything, are really producing anything of lasting value, any real optimization, any real improvement, any real result, any real serialization of work as something that accumulates. But this is OK, the other 199 million are just running around in circles, they are essentially spinning their wheels, they are mostly just killing time and creating and solving imaginary problems, and playing the status game, office politics game, and creating useless meetings and every conceivable way to pretend to actually be working and doing something.
But those 200,000 that are actually optimizing, that are improving the little work processes that are left to do, those guys there are setting the stage to eliminate at least each 100 jobs as a minimum. For what is all of this research, optimization, innovation worth if it doesn't cut costs, which in the end really means cut jobs ? And cut costs they will, no matter how inefficient they are because it is only natural that processes can slowly be improved and optimized. So 200,000 workers (the only ones that are actually serializing work, accumulating lasting results) will eventually each cut 100 jobs, so another 200 million unemployed workers will appear in the near future.
So the future of work is actually no work, hundreds of millions of unemployed, mass poverty, eventually starvation, thanks to the capitalists, success model of rich robbing everything from the poor. We need free salaries, and cheap rents since there will no longer be any possible work in the future. We need to get rid of the competition mentality, the me better than you idea, the idea of "earning" what you need, we need equality and everything must be furnished for free since automation and technology have essentially killed all possible work and will kill all work in the future.
You don't understand: you won't be choosing "capitalism" or whatever, the forces at play are going all in the same direction no matter what you or anyone wants. Optimization, automation, Chinese or South Korean scientists - engineers automating factories, creating production shortcuts, etc. etc. This will trickle through and translate into less costs which means somewhere and somehow less money to workers or less work. No matter what, this world is going towards the end of work, work is no longer needed, I know many people for one reason or another have no work, have nothing to do, even if they wanted to, because the modern production process is all geared towards the elimination of work. We better get this straight and not buy all the BS justifications of the economists that say more productivity, more research etc. will create new jobs. And in fact these are exactly the items that are eliminating work. More productivity and more research will kill jobs, not create new jobs, unless you consider dog walking a new "kind of job", a new "service job"...
No matter where and how many people can build houses or cut the lawns (valid only in the US, most countries don't have houses with lawns to cut, etc.) there is not enough work for too many people. We have huge excess capacity in all productive endeavors, Spain and the US, just to name 2 even very different countries built way too many homes and now have a glut of homes, the US may have 15 million empty homes, all of Europe from Lisbon to Moscow may have even more, they did all the right things, they built all the homes they could, but the system cannot support them without free salaries to millions of families that could use them.
The right wing thugs like to pretend there are these magical solutions, "technology destroys jobs but creates more jobs than destroyed", or "go somewhere else where they are looking for your manpower", etc to put the blame on the unemployed, to put the blame on the victim and not on the system: we live in automatic economies, work is disappearing at an alarming rate, there is no magical solution. We need free salaries and cheap rents, government owned, because the government is the people, the government is the nation as a whole, is the only real value, the collectivity, the individual is an egotistical criminal that wants to rob from the poor, wants to beat up the weak and kick them out of work. A central government that gives what the people need, and a progressive government that will use all the excess productive capacity for progress, the future, like space exploration, millions of skyscrapers, a society where the common good, and not the individual good is cherished. Exploration of the solar system and then the stars and planets, thousands of rockets, the future of humanity, a future of science and discovery, of an advanced civilization that puts all of its energy to use for progress, for the advancement of everyone, to share with everyone, to go higher and higher and further and further. Capitalism is a stone age system for violent - ancient apes that like to fight and have huge egos.
But this is exactly how the system is being set up to be ... (Please see link above for the rest of eightm's comment.)

Shall we ask eightm where the free salaries will come from?  Ah, sweetheart, don't even think about Treasury's presses.

What does all this say as a whole picture? It means we are fubar and need to either pull up stakes or batten down the hatches for our remaining lifetimes. That's right, sail under bare poles from this moment forward.

Who remembers the ISG, the Iraq Study Group, asking for solutions from the American citizens?  And did not BP ask for the public's solutions to the blowout?  And was Saudi Arabia's' offer of assistance not refused? Of course, Bush strummed his three chord riff, his only riff, during Katrina at a California's power photo-op rather than ask for solutions because he just didn't give a damn.  All along the signs and omens were blinking neon truths which for the most part have been taken for granted.  You saw it. The Fema trailers for those who qualified were reported to be cancer incubators.  And now there's Corexit - a solution not supplied by the public who was cluesless as to what on Earth could be done short of a walking evacuation, but where to?  With what?

Nothing is like it was and will never be like it was again. We've outgrown our childhoods and cannot go back. The people are unhappy and complaining and running into brick walls with every action they attempt to accomplish seemingly simple tasks. Simultaneously, it is a continuing joy to communicate with each other in our small, caring communities. I know lots of readers are worried about Visible this week, but he will survive his situation and resurrect into more than he already is. Tell me who among us has not been there? Let us trust each others' journeys through our own power to survive these times with our love and understanding. We ARE on our own, but we are not alone.  I will pass along a secret I shared with a friend just this morning: When your broken heart needs repair and you find yourself in the dark, swirling abyss, falling, falling, faster and faster, do-something-good-for-someone-else.   It is amazing how one small good deed turns it around.  This is where we are, just taking it day by day, usually hour by hour.  Baby steps and good deeds.

Art: 
L.A. Postcard | 18" x 24" watercolor on Arches
Woof!  Woof! Creole translation: Oua! Oua! | 18* x 24* watercolor on Arches

Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for comments made by others and hold no political position for or against the commentary produced by anyone else.  All material on this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.