The States of War Budgets - 3

In the first post of this series we touched upon the growing economic demise of states, and the source of that demise.

Later, in the second post of this series, we focused on the looming specter of sovereign failure of states to honor what they promised their citizens long after the citizens relied on, trusted in, then entered into agreements with those state governments.

Now we focus on the solution the united democrat republicans propose as a solution for the states: bankruptcy.

This series has focused on the dangers that MOMCOM's promiscuous war spending is bringing on the many sovereign entities described by the word "united".

The series shows that a more accurate word would be "bound" in place of "united", because even though the charge into invasion, occupation, and endless wars was led by the republican right wing neoCons, the democrats for the most part felt bound to go along, calling the state of affairs "united" nevertheless.

As we will soon see, in terms of economic damage, "The Bound States" is a more accurate description than "The United States", since the "solution" called state bankruptcy, unlike the wars that brought it on, is not something the lemmings want to jump off the cliff for.

The W direction has produced a condition which has turned the "united" world upside down, given new meaning that turns out to be "united we fall".

So the states are fighting to be free of this "united" economic thingy where they are bound to economic desperation caused by a MOMCOM desperate for war, lusting for war, and making a new religion of war.

The neoCons know that the holy warrior is here to stay, so long as the entities that are "united" in the war games (the "states") can survive this MOMCOM state of war.

The states are desperate not to be absorbed into "The United State of War", where there is only one state, not fifty:

No state is known to want to declare bankruptcy, and some question the wisdom of offering them the ability to do so now, given the jitters in the normally staid municipal bond market.

(United States of Bankruptcy). Desperate minds of MOMCOM are predictably trying to form a delusional solution:

Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.
...
For now, the fear of destabilizing the municipal bond market with the words “state bankruptcy” has proponents in Congress going about their work on tiptoe. No draft bill is in circulation yet, and no member of Congress has come forward as a sponsor, although Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, asked the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, about the possiblity in a hearing this month.
...
Still, discussions about something as far-reaching as bankruptcy could give governors and others more leverage in bargaining with unionized public workers.

“They are readying a massive assault on us,” said Charles M. Loveless, legislative director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “We’re taking this very seriously.”

(ibid, United States of Bankruptcy). The democrat republican state of mind wants a way out of the obligations of the sovereign, but not out of the wars that are causing it, so expect an effort to glorify capitulation, calling it "bi-partisan privatization" or deceitful words to that effect.

They want states to be able to tell official lies retroactively, to go back on their word, to do a time travel morph into Bernie Madoff.

This "solution" is treating the effect, not treating the cause for the need to go bankrupt in the first place.

Which said cause is the stupid, nation killing, senseless, and now endless holy wars of the Circle W Cowboys, yes, the wars that are bankrupting the entire nation.

Rather than stop the wars, the terminally insane minions of MOMCOM think it will send a positive message (be good for the country) if states can file bankruptcy.

"Screw some more citizens out of their pensions, out of their financial future, yeah that's the ticket".

Like Pogo, the states have met the enemy to which they are bound.

The Evolution of Song Truth

Have you ever noticed that some songs are only a bit true when first written and released?

But then the song seems to grow into mega-truth as "time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin' into the future"?

What is really happening is that the song was more prescient than the songwriter knew at the time?

At least in the sense that events in the changing world afterward seem to conform to the words of the song?

At least more so than it would have seemed to the songwriter at the time the song was written?

For example, recall an old but not so old song that says:

I get the news I need on the weather report.
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report.

...

Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where,
And we don't know where.

Here I am..........

Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where,
And we don't know where.

(Only Living Boy In New York, Simon & Garfunkel). Anyone watching the weather channel knows killer floods are happening everywhere in the world.

At the same time there are fire epidemics, recently in California, Russia, and Australia, but now those places are flooding.

Some observers call it global weirding, as scientists tell us this is only the tiny beginning, and as people fight the reality with the global weirding of denial.

You can easily get all the news you need to know about the direction the world is taking itself (by polluting the once healthy weather cycles) by getting that news "on the weather report".

Another song rings true concerning the evolution from left to right:

...
A poor little baby child is born

In the ghetto
... he'll grow to be an angry young man some day
...
Do we simply turn our heads
And look the other way
... his hunger burns
... Then one night in desperation
... Face down on the street with a gun in his hand
... young man dies
... Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto

(In the ghetto, Elvis). The song was originally called "The Vicious Circle", indicating that the author saw something evolving and replicating itself.

We can look around and see people of all colors and creeds beginning these last few years to experience the phenomenon (think foreclosure, job loss, bankruptcy, homelessness).

In fact, the congress is thinking of modifying the bankruptcy code to allow states to file for bankruptcy, even as financial experts begin to expect a flood of municipality bankruptcies (Chap. 9) in the USA.

This brings to mind a Dylan song:

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you

(Like a Rolling Stone, Dylan). Our "doll" MOMCOM will become a bum with the desperation of the young child in the ghetto, to eventually die face down like the power mad empires that went before.

Finally, think about the lyric in another Dylan tune that rings true to those who can envision what is coming, and what would happen to their children if they were to engender children:

You’ve thrown the worst fear

That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins

(Masters of War, Dylan). Knowledge brings people to the brink of reality forcing us to believe the science or believe the amygdala, then act accordingly.

Song truth keeps on ringing in our ears as floods damage a nuclear power plant in the USA like what a tsunami has already done to Fukushima in Japan.

The next post in this series is here.

Exceptionalism Neutralizes Wrong Speech?

One big hullabaloo that has been going around on the talking head circuit is that nothing talk radio hosts or talk TV hosts say can incite violence, that it is completely free speech.

A more realistic post over at Politics Daily goes over some of the history of ad hominem language, which really has been around a long time in American political discourse.

That article also discusses how the intensity ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes.

Where were the "hate speech can do no harm" guys a week or so ago when Hal Turner was sentenced to prison for doing just that, for saying three judges should be killed, publishing their address, etc., causing a jury to find him guilty?

There are times when good logic, the constitution, and peaceful discourse will not rid the nation of civil wrongs:

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857) commonly referred to as the Dred Scott decision, was a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves (or their descendants, whether or not they were slaves) were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens.

(Dred Scott v. Sandford). But there are also times when it will:

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

(Brown v Board of Education). Those were both clear decisions with people both happy and unhappy with each one.

When any government or social event makes some people unhappy, that is the time when allegiance to the national laws against violence need to be observed, while at the same time it may be more difficult to do so.

The people who are happy with any given government event have no problem, so as it turns out, unhappiness is the harbinger of any potential problem with violence.

I guess in general then, unhappiness is the seed of any dangerous state of affairs, and we all know that unhappiness is on a roll in the nation these days.

For that matter, looking at the natural disasters happening in Haiti, Australia, Brazil, and other places in the world, there is a lot of unhappiness, plenty of the seeds for a dangerous state of affairs.

It seems to me that those who can stay reasonably happy when times are tough are people who are sound enough not to get into hate speech, thus, those who engender hate speech are probably very unhappy as well as being unsound.

Governments, both state and federal, should know this and be about the business of happiness instead of the business of killing, maiming, and destroying in seemingly endless, but definitely misguided, wars.

Driving Miss Crazy

Some Americans are not able to comprehend, face, or discuss the national reality which includes the specter of a growing mental health epidemic.

This is a notion that we at Dredd Blog talk about periodically, which we have tended to call a national dementia.

We think that the evidence is everywhere to be seen for those who want to see it, from the big chunks to the minutia, which we will deal with in this post.

Let's go to the movies to get into the gist of this drama a bit more:

It is 1948 and ... "Miss" ... Daisy ... a 72-year-old Jewish widow, lives in Atlanta, Georgia, alone except for an African American housemaid named Idella ... After a driving mishap where her Chrysler automobile is demolished, Miss Daisy’s son, Boolie ... tells her she will have to get a chauffeur because no insurance company will insure her ... Boolie finds a man named Hoke Colburn ... who had driven for a local judge until he died ... Daisy starts to accept Hoke and the fact that she needs him to drive her around.

(Driving Miss Daisy). That is Hollywood, but on main street the greatest cause of automobile accidents is the inability to stay alert enough in order to remain safe.

The state of mental alertness begins with a grasp of the reality of the dangers on the highways, roads, and streets of the nation, since:

Distractions are the leading cause of motor vehicle crashes and the number one distraction is cell phones.

(NCS Org, Focus Driven Org, a citizen / government co-operative). The issue here is that widespread endemic mild dementia shows up on American roadways, as indicated by some of these symptoms of dementia:

Having difficulty recalling recent events ("just got on the freeway doing 70 & talking trash with the girl friend on the cell").

Not recognizing familiar ... places ("my freeway is warm and fuzzy").

Having trouble finding the right words ... ("screw you, this is my lane").

Having difficulty performing calculations ("how long does it take to ...").

Having problems planning and carrying out tasks ("honk, honk, honk").

Having trouble exercising judgment ("what dangers, what problems ... what was that you said Hoke?" ... scccrrrrreeeeeccccchhhhhhhhhh crash boom bang).

Having difficulty controlling moods or behaviors ("stop tailgating *!@#* or I will slam on my brakes!!!").

(Dementia - Symptoms). Not to mention widespread road rage and parking rage which leads to shootings, stabbings, fisticuffs, and other demented acts.

These are the early warnings some observers think we are missing, and therefore are likewise not aware of the monster problem in the room:

Among people over 85 (the fastest-growing segment of the American population), dementia afflicts one in two. It is estimated that 13.5 million Americans will be stricken with Alzheimer’s by 2050 — up from five million today.

(Will Elections Cure The Disease?, emphasis added). Dredd Blog has asserted that this national dementia is induced to a certain degree by exceptionalism, spin, and other forms of propaganda.

The purpose of spin and propaganda is to detach you from reality, to deceive you, then to have you rely on them to tell you where you are, where you have been, and where you are going (which is classic dementia).

And it even shows up in our foreign policy now doesn't it (Is Obama driving Miss MOMCOM around)?

Happy Birthday Dr. King

The only national holiday for an American who did not hold "public office" belongs to the memory and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Lets face it, many great Americans did not hold public office, and in fact, the Dredd Blog philosophy is that those who hold office too long will suffer the toxins of power, unless they have the immunity of a saint.

Dr. King was a force for moving from the right to the left, or to a kinder, gentler nation, as Bush I was fond of saying.

From slavery to citizenship is a long haul, but we did it, with a lot of help from Abe Lincoln and Martin King.

His words ring very true today, that violence has no race or color, it only has hate:

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it ...

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends ...

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true ...

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity ...

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

(Martin Luther King, Jr., Quotes). The tenor of the national psyche, the sails of our ship of state, have been filled with the winds of hate, thus we have been blown off course of late.

The dignity of Dr. King shines through today, in the wake of his assassination, John Kennedy's assassination, Robert Kennedy's assassination, Judge Roll's assassination, and the murder and maiming of others in Tuscon recently:

Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
I just looked 'round and he's gone.

(Abraham, Martin, and John). We live in the age of fill in this blank:

Anybody here seen my old friend __________________?

Open Thread

Weekend
open
thread

---

DUI Lawyer warns of MADD dangers to constitution

---

Jared Lee Lochner Shooting Victim Arrested For Threatening Violence

---