Macaulay Culkin Finally Wins Heisman, CFP National Championship!

He goes by Joe Burrow now, transferred from Ohio State to LSU, straightened and darkened his hair, stomped Clemson.


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The Curse of the Ruling Class

In his remarks to Congress, the president (George HW Bush) was asserting a prerogative that his predecessors had long ago appropriated: interpreting the zeitgeist in such a way as to merge past, present, and future into a seamless, self-congratulatory, and reassuring narrative of American power. He was describing history precisely as Americans — or at least privileged Americans — wished to see it. He was, in other words, speaking a language in which he was fluent: the idiom of the ruling class.--AB

From my favorite retired general.


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Classic Larry

Thx to RP Thomas for reminding me of this old gem.  Ferlinghetti is 100.


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More Freedom

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The Mother of All Meddling

The assassination by the United States of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, near Baghdad’s airport will ignite widespread retaliatory attacks against U.S. targets from Shiites, who form the majority in Iraq. It will activate Iranian-backed militias and insurgents in Lebanon and Syria and throughout the Middle East. The existing mayhem, violence, failed states and war, the result of nearly two decades of U.S. blunders and miscalculations in the region, will become an even wider and more dangerous conflagration. The consequences are ominous. Not only will the U.S. swiftly find itself under siege in Iraq and perhaps driven out of the country—there is only a paltry force of 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq, all U.S. citizens in Iraq have been told to leave the country “immediately” and the embassy and consular services have been closed—but the situation could also draw us into a war directly with Iran. The American Empire, it seems, will die not with a whimper but a bang.--CH

It is no secret that Donald Trump is cruel, amoral, unfit for the office he holds, and, despite his age, immature. He is also, as his former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, famously put it, “a fucking moron.”

Of course, this hasn’t stopped him from becoming the de facto leader of a following, essentially a cult, comprised of some forty percent or more of the voting public in the United States. There are a lot of morons out there.--AL

Two worth your time.


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No Doubt

A central premise of conventional media wisdom has collapsed. On Thursday, both the New York Times and Politico published major articles reporting that Bernie Sanders really could win the Democratic presidential nomination. Such acknowledgments will add to the momentum of the Bernie 2020 campaign as the new year begins—but they foreshadow a massive escalation of anti-Sanders misinformation and invective.--NS

No doubt.  Fake leftists, pragmatists and women from 2016 are still out there, attacking Bernie and his supporters at every opportunity. A big bitch among the establishment Dems was Bernie's supposed insulting treatment of the super-delegates. Never mind they were card-carrying Clintonite/Wall Street capitalists.  I'm actually quite shocked that Clinton hasn't, to date, jumped into the fray.  I guess her desperation has finally run its course.

Hopefully.

Bernie or Liz has to win just to restore some sense of stability to the country.  Even Liz is shaky, but at least the women would have their day, finally. I'd be down with that.

Remember the ridiculous lineup of Republicans in '16?  That's what the Democrats look like today. Pete Butthead is the Jeb Bush of his Party. And Joe Biden is as dumb as Rick Perry, so there it is.


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Australia is Burning

Australia is on fire.


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Can We Talk?

Global finance capital has seized control of the economies of most nation-states. The citizens watch, helplessly, as money and goods are transferred with little regulation across borders. They watch as jobs in manufacturing and the professions are shipped to regions of the global south where most workers are paid a dollar or less an hour and receive no benefits. They watch as the taxes of the rich and corporations are slashed, often to zero. They watch as austerity programs dismantle or privatize utilities and basic social services, jacking up fees to consumers. They watch as chronic unemployment and underemployment devastate workers, especially the young. They watch as wages stagnate or decline, leaving working men and women with unsustainable debts. This economic tyranny lies at the root of the unrest in Hong Kong, India, Chile, France, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon as well as the rise of right-wing demagogues and false prophets such as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.--CH

Like Paul Street and many other left intellectuals, Chris Hedges is convinced that the only way to defeat the malignant cancer (power) of corporate neoliberalism, unleashed on the global populace since the end of World War II, and particularly since Reagan, is an actionable non-violent street mobilization of the masses.  Such movements have arose around the world already in recent months.

Where, wonder Street and Hedges, is the U.S. movement?  The faux "resistance" of mainline Democrats seeking to retake power from Donald Trump and Republicanism doesn't count. Voting itself, in the U.S. construct, cannot be depended on for anything more than a continuation of the ruses of false hope and change.

The age of trickery has to change via massive global protests--from the bottom up.


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Army/Navy Game Blues

The ultimate demonstration of U.S. militarism is made annually in the good old game of American football.  And of course, nothing is quite so emblematic of that as the Army v. Navy game.  It is the one game of the year that I, as a football connoisseur, find the most drab, boring, reprehensible, and disgusting spectacle ever invented for the edification of the common man.

There are many reasons why I despise this game, not the least of which it is that it is always ugly. It is ugly in its aesthetics, ugly in its style, and ugly in its blind worship of all things military.  (Well, of course it is, it is the Army/Navy game.)

Packed into the stadium at kickoff, the assembled future brass, and likely sprinkle of "sacrificed" officers--against the multitude of enlisted poor--cheered uproariously for the introduced U.S. near-dictator and fascist POTUS, Donald Trump. (If that doesn't convince you that this game is whacked out, nothing will.)

It causes one to ponder: perhaps former Army history professor Maj. (Ret.) Danny Sjursen should have built an outpost in his classroom and fought off  to the last soldier--Japanese-style--the invading generals who wanted him out now!

But, so much water under the bridges southeast of Normandy in 1944!

Speaking of the pro game (I didn't but you did under your breath). Here is a fantastic piece.  Read it.


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Pilger Visits Assange

I set out at dawn. Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh is in the flat hinterland of south east London, a ribbon of walls and wire with no horizon. At what is called the visitors centre, I surrendered my passport, wallet, credit cards, medical cards, money, phone, keys, comb, pen, paper.--JP

Degrading, disgusting, despicable; Assange as Her Majesty's political plaything.


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Sanders Spanks Obama

Centrists are terrified that if the Democratic nominee is far to the left of Biden and Obama, they will be forced to coalesce around a candidate who represents a threat to the establishment of which they are a part. The unflappable Sanders brushed aside Obama’s criticism in an interview with The New York Times, saying, “When I talk about raising the minimum wage to a living wage, I’m not tearing down the system. We’re fighting for justice.” On the health care front, he added, “When I talk about … ending the embarrassment of America being the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care for every man, woman and child, that’s not tearing down the system. That’s doing what we should have done 30 years ago.” His words resonate with the millions of Americans who are struggling every day, but they grate on the nerves of those who have thrived in our unequal society.--SK

Obama went to the mountain top, pulled his pants down, and pissed all over democracy.  True story.


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Street: Taking it to the Streets

If we are serious about getting rid of the demented fascist oligarch and his insurance policy, Pence, then we are going to have to join and expand an authentic opposition, a real popular resistance in the streets. The effective and meaningfully democratic way to remove Trump is not through elite procedures designed by 18th century slaveholders for whom democracy was the ultimate nightmare. It is through sustained mass civil disobedience—through rebellion by and for those whom the American ruling class fears and hates the most: the working-class majority.

The sooner Trump can be forced out, the better. Curiously enough, impeachment makes the need to form a grassroots movement to overthrow the Trump-Pence regime more urgent than ever. Now that he’s looking at impeachment and a Senate trial, there’s no telling what Trump and his heavily armed minions might do. He has enormous means of mass destruction and mass distraction at his neofascistic fingertips.

We need Trump and Pence out now, not some time next year. The way to make that happen is with a mass movement that will not only sweep him from power but challenge the richly bipartisan racist, sexist, imperial and eco-cidal class rule system that hatched the Trump regime in the first place.--PS

Every day, starting now, would have to look like the scene above.


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Tweet Watch

Who would have guessed that an orange septuagenarian, with the prop at his fingertips, could have turned his opinions into a daily laugh track?

He's a talented grifter no doubt. It's dress up time. Who do you want to be today?

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Big Bad Beavs

Oregon State is suddenly playing with poise and confidence. The Beavers host Washington tonight. Coach Jonathan Smith has the program headed in the right direction.

Washington has tortured OSU for years. Would be fun to see the improving Beavs knock Washington over.


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80

Happy 80th birthday to Charles Deemer, the longest and most solid RBP contributor. Like he has often said, it's a miracle.

The picture?  He loves Oregon women.


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