The written transcript is available at this link for those who would rather read the piece..., and you should read or see it. Here are a couple of snips. As for my opinion on the matter..., it's way more than a "canary in a coal mine"..., it's a deep dark rumbling with dust and smoke rising from down below. Ignore it at your own peril.

No writer understands the border culture between Mexico and the United States more intimately than Luis Alberto Urrea, whose life is the stuff of great novels. Son of a Mexican father and Anglo mother, Urrea grew up first in Tijuana and then just across the border in San Diego. Over the years he has produced a series of acclaimed novels, including The Hummingbird’s Daughter, The Devil’s Highway, and his latest, Queen of America — each a rich and revealing account of the people of the borderlands that join and separate our two nations.

Here's the primer:

Marty Kaplan on Big Money’s Effect on Big Media
April 27, 2012
Big money and big media have coupled to create a ‘Disney World’ of democracy in which TV shows, televised debates, even news coverage is being dumbed down, just as the volume is being turned up. The result is a public certainly more entertained, but less informed and personally involved than they should be, says Marty Kaplan, director of USC’s Norman Lear Center and an entertainment industry veteran. Bill Moyers talks with Kaplan about how taking news out of the journalism box and placing it in the entertainment box is hurting democracy and allowing special interest groups to manipulate the system.

of John Michael Greer and his "The Archdruid Report" blog..., you should be. Here's the summation of this week's piece, "America: The Price of Supremacy":

Through all this, the basic structure of American empire has remained essentially the same as it was at the end of the Second World War: a global military presence positioned according to the concepts of geopolitics, whether these are relevant or not; a global political system run by local elites propped up by American aid and, when necessary, military force, tasked with keeping the wealth pump going but left mostly to its own devices otherwise; a global economic system that was designed to suck wealth out of the rest of the world and channel it into the United States, but has sprung large and growing leaks in various places and increasingly fails to do its job; and a domestic political system in which a fantastically bloated executive branch headed by an imperial presidency keeps the forms of constitutional government in place, while arrogating to itself most of the functions originally exercised by Congress, and most of the rights originally left to the states and the people. That’s where we are today—in the aging, increasingly brittle, effectively bankrupt, but still immensely powerful global empire of the United States of America.

is now available at Amazon..., and probably other places. Over at his website there is a post of the introduction to the book by Ken Smith.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2012/04/introduction-to-book-of-joes-essays.html

“I’m so damn average that what I write resonates with people”, Joe Bageant once told an interviewer in explaining how he had gained a global following for his essays published on the web. In 2004, at the age of 58, Joe sensed that the Internet could give him editorial freedom. Without gatekeepers, he began writing about what he was really thinking, and then submitted his essays to left-of-center websites.

A new segment from Bill Moyers after a few frustrating weeks of pledge drive drivel on PBS.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome. Sometimes seems as if it were only a bad dream vaguely remembered from last night's restless sleep, but it was actually nine years ago this month that Iraq's capital of Baghdad erupted in 'shock and awe' and the American invasion began of a country that had not attacked us. When the last combat troops pulled out this past December, what one neo-conservative advocate of the invasion had predicted would be a "cakewalk," had killed well over a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians, cost nearly 4500 American soldiers their lives, maimed many others, and incurred costs that could reach more than 3 trillion dollars before the last invoice comes due.

And we never did find those weapons of mass destruction.

Video and transcript at the link http://billmoyers.com/segment/andrew-bacevich-on-changing-our-military-mindset/

Obama Issues Executive Order Declaring Peacetime Martial Law, Bypasses Congress, Takes Over All Resources

Executive Order — National Defense Resources Preparedness
EXECUTIVE ORDER
NATIONAL DEFENSE RESOURCES PREPAREDNESS
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (50 U.S.C. App. 2061 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:
PART I – PURPOSE, POLICY, AND IMPLEMENTATION
Section 101. Purpose. This order delegates authorities and addresses national defense resource policies and programs under the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (the “Act”).

I thought..., just another sensationalist headline..., trying to wring some juice out of an update to an old act. But I read further and some bells started to go off.

but we do have Bill Moyers on PBS.

Bruce Bartlett on Where the Right Went Wrong from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

BILL MOYERS: Heather McGhee speaks of how the neoliberal economic experience of the last 30 years – including cutting taxes on the rich and waiting for the wealth and prosperity to trickle down -- has left her generation of Millennials standing under a spigot someone forgot to turn on. After a few drips and drops, it went dry. So did the very notion of equal opportunity for all. And today we’re living in a country deeply divided between winners and losers. Nowhere is that more evident than in our tax system – so distorted by loopholes, exemptions, credits, and deductions favoring the already rich and powerful that it no longer can raise the money needed to pay the government’s bills.

over at the CounterPunch site. Hudson is a proponent of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)..., but never mentions it by name in this piece. He does make a strong case for it by laying out the argument that financing directly by the government is a superior and much less costly avenue than cycling the funding through the banksters. A little long..., but well worth the read.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/27/banks-werent-meant-to-be-like-this/

Here are a few snips that I culled from the article..., and I should mention that he is the first real economist that I have read who echos Denninger's "it's mathematically impossible to pay off all the debt" mantra (the bold in that passage is mine).

Oh yeah..., there are lines from movies and passages from books that stick with you. The Agonist is one of those that have passed the test of time..., and will endure..., thanks to the foundation you have laid Sean-Paul. Many thanks partner..., many, many thanks.

“It’s been a wild ride.” Oh yeah..., to say the least. I “found” The Agonist while my wife Julie and I were living in the Dial-Up Dark Ages in a cracker box camper trailer here on what was then just The Property. With no TV and the slow loading high profile, image and advertisement loaded web sites delivering anything but timely updates on the “war” news..., The Agonist was far and away the go to site for me. And has been ever since then. Even today with high speed Internet and satellite TV here on The Ranch. It seems that the growth and development of your site and our Ranch have gone hand in hand over the years. With a bruised thumb or two along the way. The hammer didn’t always hit the nail, but those pains were short lived.

I “lurked” here for many years before I signed on as a “user” when you posted Second Chances? over four and a half years ago. It took me over a year from that time..., and a very disturbing experience..., to work up the gumption to post a Diary entry of my own, I Had A Dream. I don’t have the words to describe the feeling I got when it was elevated to the Front Page. That move inspired me to send the piece about the Border Patrol Checkpoints to my congressional representatives and other government officials. The good news is that I haven’t experienced any more bus boardings by thugs in uniform. The bad news is that it inspired me to become a regular “ab-user” of The Agonist.

continue reading after the jump

for Bill Moyers latest show. It will be on my station tonight..., featuring David Stockman and Gretchen Morgenson. Moyers seems to be about the only guy..., besides me (and TJFXH when he was here)..., that thinks that our biggest problem is money in politics.

This Weekend: Crony Capitalism
January 20, 2012

This weekend, David Stockman, former budget director for President Reagan speaks candidly with Bill Moyers about how money dominates politics, distorting free markets and endangering democracy. “As a result,” Stockman says, “we have neither capitalism nor democracy. We have crony capitalism.” Watch a preview video clip above.

YEAH..., he's back on PBS with his new show Moyers and Company. He may be the only TV personality that I truly trust to deliver the truth in a way that I consistently understand. OK..., OK..., in the interest of full transparency..., I trust Stewart & Colbert too..., but in a slightly different context. Here's Bill's summation of his first broadcast:

BILL MOYERS: Waking up is right. Waking up to the reality that inequality matters. It matters because what we’re talking about is what it takes to live a decent life. If you get sick without health coverage, inequality matters. If you're the only breadwinner and out of work, inequality matters. If your local public library closes down and you can't afford to buy books on your own, inequality matters. If budget cuts mean your child has to pay to play on the school basketball team or to sing in the chorus or march in the band, inequality matters. If you lose your job as you’re about to retire, inequality matters. And if the financial system collapses and knocks the props from beneath your pension, inequality matters.

I grew up in a working class family. We were among the poorest in town, but I was rich in public goods.

I went to a good public school, played sandlot ball in a good public park, had access to a good public library, drove down a good public highway to a good public college, all made possible by people I never met. There was an unwritten bargain among the generations -- we didn’t all get the same deal, but we did get civilization.

That bargain’s being shredded. The occupiers of Wall Street understand this. You could tell from their slogans. A fellow young enough to be my grandson wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the words: “The system’s not broken. It’s fixed.” That's right. Rigged. And that’s why so many are so angry. Not at wealth itself, but at the crony capitalists who resorts to tricks, loopholes, and hard, cold cash for politicians to make sure insiders prosper and then pull up the ladder behind them.

Yes, Americans are waking up. To how they’re being made to pay for Wall Street’s malfeasance and Washington’s complicity. Paying with stagnant wages and lost jobs, with slashing cuts to their benefits and to their social services. And waking up to the grotesque Supreme Court decision defining a corporation as a person, although it doesn’t eat, breath, make love or sing, or take care of children and aging parents. Waking up to how campaign contributions corrupt our elections; to the fact that if speech is money, no money means no speech.

continue reading after the jump

With a hat tip to AlterNet..., here's a link to a Robert Reich piece.
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/153673/the_grotesque_corporate_monstrosity_unleashed_by_citizens_united/?page=entire

The Grotesque Corporate Monstrosity Unleashed By Citizens United
Citizens United invites the worst corruption our democracy has witnessed since the Gilded Age. Mitt Romney is one of its biggest beneficiaries.

Here's the meat...,

“Restore Our Future” is to Mitt Romney’s campaign as the dark side of the moon is to the moon. And it reveals the grotesque result of the Supreme Court’s decision a year ago in Citizen United vs the Federal Election Commission, which reversed more than a century of efforts to curb the influence of big money on politics.

If income and wealth in America were as widely shared as in the first three decades after World War II, we’d have less reason to worry. But now, with an almost unprecedented concentration of money at the very top, Citizens United invites the worst corruption our democracy has witnessed since the Gilded Age.

Other candidates have quietly set up Super PACs of their own, but his unique ties to big money enable Romney to take most advantage of the Court’s scurrilous invitation.

The financial news from Europe is worse every day. Now (11/23/11) the most stable country in Euro-Land..., Germany, has no buyers for its bonds. Maybe the Federal Reserve will save the world (again) and Bail Out Germany and the rest of the world’s banks and bond holders..., like they clandestinely did in 2008. The Fed doesn’t have to buy American T-bonds with QE-2 anymore..., everyone is buying them up now. Lots of money left to buy Euro-Bonds. QE-3..., if they don’t get caught.

I know one guy who hopes they don’t get away with it..., or hopes it fails..., if they do. He hopes the whole shebang comes falling down like the famous bridge in the children’s rhyme. He hopes..., or knows..., that the whole industrial economy of this fragile planet needs to come to a screeching halt in short order. The sooner the better for this Spaceship Earth that we call “ours”. It’s our only hope. He says that if we keep burning the fossil fuels that sustain our industrial economy at the present rate..., let alone at the rate at which it would take to “grow” the current economy enough too “rescue” us from fiscal and monetary collapse..., it would fuel world climate change and global warming to the extent of total extinction of most living species...., including our own.

Some nut-case doomer..., this guy..., you ask? No..., this guy..., is Guy R. McPherson. With a PH.D in Range Science, Texas Tech University..., along with all the other academic credentials the come prior to a Doctorate degree. A tenured professor at the University of Arizona..., until he “walked away” from it..., and all the trappings that go with it.

My dear, sweet Aunt Ethel sent me some old family photographs recently. Of primary interest to me were the ones of my Granddad and his team of logging horses. The photos date from some time in the 1930’s and they are a reminder of an era long gone. There are few…, if any…, occupations in life that I could imagine as being more satisfying than working beside and behind horses all day and attending to their care and feeding in the evening after a hard and productive day’s work. But I will never know that satisfaction…, because, “those jobs have been shipped overseas”. Whoops…, excuse me…, it seems that I have read and heard that phrase so many times that it just pops out on its own. And the image of Granddad sending his horses over to China so some low wage coolies could cut the timber and drive the team and save him a little money compared to a high paid American worker and lower his tax base as well, is precisely the image a lot of folks want you to believe in.



as we knew him here on The Agonist..., has found a new home over at http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/ The Blog was primarily a Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) site..., but Tom has..., it appears..., almost single handedly transformed it into much more. While he mostly posts links to other stories with a bit of analysis and comments..., I was thrilled to see him post an original piece on the OWS situation. http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2011/10/brewing-storm-and-trend-that-will-last.html

Friday, October 14, 2011
The brewing storm and a trend that will last for the rest of this decade

..., you read David Michael Green. http://www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/All_The_Bad_News_Fit_To_Print.html

All the Bad News Fit to Print

Sometimes, when certain species (you know who you are) are too utterly daft to recognize the obvious, the Universe sees fit to scream it out in the form of big, bold block letters.

...

Let me make it simple, in case anyone wants to share this essay with their idiotic, Republican (pardon the redundancy) cousin Buford: The story of American politics over the last generation is the story of the transfer of wealth from the people to the plutocrats. If you think there is anything else essential going on here, you don’t get it.

I didn't take my camera..., and I would need many hundreds of photos to show the number of windmills we saw on the trip.

My brother Larry and I were on our way in his car to Newport, OR for the wedding of his son Bert.  Larry and I only see each other once a year at best, now that our parents are gone..., so the trip was a good excuse to spend some time together.  I flew from Forks, WA to Lewiston, ID and Larry met me there.  I saw some windmills from the plane..., and we were a few miles west of Pomeroy, WA when the giant sentinels began appearing. Larry..., as always..., knew a bit about them and filled me in on what he knew. We talked about them and marveled at what a huge undertaking the project must have been. We had worked together on a big Bonneville Power line job back in the 80’s when we were partners in Spence Brothers Logging, so we weren’t just idling speculating. Those big windmills were impressive and intimidating..., but they did nothing to prepare us for the immensity of the scene in the Columbia River Gorge. Hundreds upon hundreds of windmills..., mile after mile after mile of them.

but I certainly agree with his summation...,

We must fix the health care system, not "Medicare" or "Medicaid." I have written on this extensively and it features prominently in Leverage (the book) as well. This means an immediate end to the cost-shifting by providers, drug and device makers. It means an honest debate as to what, if anything, society owes people in this regard and that subsidy must be transparent and paid for with current tax revenues. If it cannot be, it cannot be provided. Period.

We must have that same honest debate about all other government programs. For each program the people want, they must be able to fund it with current tax revenues, and nobody can be exempt from paying something toward it. Yes, some people will get more benefit than they pay in taxes - that's the nature of such things, but those benefits that are intangible (e.g. national defense) are different than those that are direct and personal. Nonetheless, no program may be funded and operated that we refuse to fund with present tax revenue. Period.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice http://symbalitics.blogspot.com/ offers up a list of 173 "Aphorisms". Here are a few...,

1. A banker is someone who demands to be paid, for other people taking their chances.
2. American business has learned that profit comes not from making first class better, but by making coach worse.
3. These are not the richest rich that have every walked the earth, their feet never touch actual soil.
4. Depressions are made, not born.
5. Stand with the President: cut entitlements to fund tax cuts.

16. Once the rich were rich, now they are merely tax exempt and infinitely overdrawn.

I wrote about Tom Russell and attending a performance here on The Agonist a while back. At that performance I picked up one of Tom's CD's called "Hotwalker" I am not capable of explaining what it really is..., certainly not a purely musical CD. But when I heard this song "Woodrow" (an ode to Woody Guthrie) I knew it was something special..., and wanted so bad to share it with others. I could never have made anything of this caliber. The opening may be a bit disconcerting..., read the description of the album on You-Tube for a little insight. But whatever you do..., hang in there and give this one a listen.

http://scottrthequillayutecowboy.blogspot.com/

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/

Joe Bageant was pleased to learn this morning that his second book, Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir, has finally been listed for advance orders on Amazon-US. The book is listed as "temporarily out of stock" even though it has never been "in stock" for US readers. A shipment of Rainbow Pie has been sent to Amazon-US and deliveries to US buyers should begin within the next week or two.

http://scottrthequillayutecowboy.blogspot.com/2010/03/joe-bageant.html

The Show was over and Julie and I stepped outside the Treehouse Café for a smoke in the cool, crisp air of the Olympic Peninsula while we waited for the crowd to thin out. Tom Russell had put on a performance that was everything we had anticipated…, and more. Back inside, there I was with five of Tom’s CD’s in hand, standing in what was then a short line, to get them autographed by him…, and wondering what I should say…, besides, “Thank you,”?

It had been about a year since I had “discovered” Tom’s extraordinary songwriting and musical abilities. I had read a piece of his writing, posted on The Agonist Blog, which was linked from Tom’s own “Notes From the Borderland” blog. Intrigued by that piece, I began to read his other posts on his blog. They went back in time a bit, and many of them were about the songs from his newly released CD, “Blood and Candle Smoke”. I don’t buy…, or even listen to…, any “new” music these days. The old chain saw, rock concert, barroom boogie days have left these old ears of mine ravaged to a degree that if I don’t already know the words to a song, I can barely discern them. But based on Tom’s writing I decided to take a chance and bought “Blood and Candle Smoke” and “Veteran’s Day – The Tom Russell Anthology”. It had been almost 20 years since a new artist’s work had graced my collection. I wish I could say that it was worth the wait…, but what I really wish…, is that I had discovered Tom 40 years and 25 albums ago.

..., by David Michael Green.

The Democrats Won't Even Fight for Their Lives ...

Learning From Lame Ducks

By DAVID MICHAEL GREEN

So, class, what have we learned from the past week or two of the lame duck Congress and our just plain-old lame president?

A few things, actually. Not – since lameness trumps all else – that they’ll necessarily matter, though.

One thing – which is actually only new to someone who has spent the last several decades not paying attention to American politics (Barack, are you listening?) – is that there is effectively no bottom to the depths to which Republicans will sink in order to serve their plutocratic masters and strip the country bare. I mean none. Zero. Nada. Zip. They are capable of absolutely anything.

In America, housing IS the economy
...

Housing IS the US economy today.

For homeowners, who will lose all they have and more if prices keep on dropping. Which they will, just check "normal" price levels back to the 1960's-70's.

For construction workers, who were a huge part of the US labor force over the past 10-15 years.

For the mortgage industry, the brokers, flippers et al, who are all getting annihilated.

For the lending industry, who are all hugely invested in the market, even though the government bailed them out through Fannie and Freddie.

And for that same government, who have a seemingly impossible choice to make. Do they do what they know is right, because it's inevitable down the line, that is, let the market decide home prices, which would end their political careers in no time, or do they continue the pointless practice of propping up the zombie market, which puts a rapidly increasing burden on the shoulders of the US citizen, who already doesn’t have a nickel to scratch her behind with?