December 4, 2012 archive

Not much going on here. Sad, in a way but I think we are all weary of politics after the election. We dodged a bullet in a way–the Obama win asserted that the majority of the voters and, I believe, a majority of the people prefer not to end Western Civilization yet which a vote for Romney clearly would indicate. I’m happy for that and feel I can now relax a bit.

Life goes on–nothing substantial changed there will be some different seating arrangements in the halls of power but the same basic actors will be there and the same permanent government is in power. There is an cannot be any significant change in those arrangements as any reasonably thorough examination of our institutions, regs, laws and economic/social arrangements would indicate. We will be the land of the con, the scam the hidden deals and the fine-print and the “gotcha.” We are a chaotic society that keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.

What strikes me is what few on the left want to confront–our political arrangements actually reflect who we are on a personal and community-level in an exaggerated way of course–but the general attitude of incoherence, superstition, and the inability to have dialogue may be even worse in the body-politic than in the actual halls of power.

As I have had discussions both online and verbal over the years I find less and less willingness of people to listen to each other, rather, everyone wants to be right and be justified–I can’t say I am that different other than I try to be observant but I like anyone can get on my high horse and hear nothing.

I see no cultural movement moving us into a more “enlightened” point of view politically though I’m happy that there is more acceptance of sexual minorities, a slight turning away from religious fundamentalism due to a real resurgence of “I’m an atheist and I’m proud” movement which I like even though I am a Christian–you know the old fashioned type that actually has read the Gospels–I’m also influenced by Buddhism and Yoga and Sufism and so on it’s all very similar to me–the Perennial Philosophy as Huxley called it.

We need a dialogue on philosophy and spirituality in this country–politics comes from these larger views. We are diseased as a culture because we have not come to terms with philosophy or theology (the Queen of the Sciences in my view) and I think that movement may slowly roll. Being able to admit I’m a Christian or an Atheist or whatever or just that I don’t know is the new liberation movement we need.

Politics has nothing to offer now–we no longer live in a Constitutional republic so we should stop complaining about a fact that has been a fact for a long time and shows absolutely no sign of changing other than allowing everyone an equal opportunity to kill peasants and so on.

As far as politics and whatever this site is about–we’re running on empty. Sad.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

December 4 is the 338th day of the year (339th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 27 days remaining until the end of the year

On this day in 1783, future President George Washington, then commanding general of the Continental Army, summons his military officers to Fraunces Tavern in New York City to inform them that he will be resigning his commission and returning to civilian life.

Washington had led the army through six long years of war against the British before the American forces finally prevailed at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. There, Washington received the formal surrender of British General Lord Charles Cornwallis, effectively ending the Revolutionary War, although it took almost two more years to conclude a peace treaty and slightly longer for all British troops to leave New York.

Fraunces Tavern is a tavern, restaurant and museum housed in a conjectural reconstruction of a building that played a prominent role in pre-Revolution and Revolution history. The building, located at 54 Pearl Street at the corner of Broad Street, has been owned by Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York Inc. since 1904, which claims it is Manhattan’s oldest surviving building. The building is a tourist site and a part of the American Whiskey Trail and the New York Freedom Trail.

Revolution history

In August 1775, Americans took possession of cannons from the artillery battery at the southern point of Manhattan and fired on the HMS Asia. The British ship retaliated by firing a 32-gun broadside on the city, sending a cannonball through the roof of the building.

When the war was all but won, the building was the site of “British-American Board of Inquiry” meetings, which negotiated to ensure to American leaders that no “American property” (meaning former slaves who were emancipated by the British for their military service) be allowed to leave with British troops. Board members reviewed the evidence and testimonies that were given by freed slaves every Wednesday from April to November 1783, and British representatives were successful in ensuring that almost all of the loyalist blacks of New York maintained their liberty.

After British troops evacuated New York, the tavern hosted an elaborate “turtle feast” dinner on December 4, 1783 in the building’s Long Room for U.S. Gen. George Washington where he bade farewell to his officers of the Continental Army by saying “[w]ith a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.”

The building housed some offices of the Confederation Congress as the nation struggled under the Articles of Confederation. With the establishment of the U.S. Constitution and the inauguration of Washington as president in 1789, the departments of Foreign Affairs, Treasury and War located offices at the building. The offices were vacated when the location of the U.S. capital moved on December 6, 1790 from New York to Philadelphia.

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This interview with economist James K. Galbraith, by Paul Jay of Real News Network about why the “fical cliff” is a scam, was posted at naked capitalism in two parts by Yves Smith and Lambert Strether.

This is a very good, high level interview of Jamie Galbraith by Paul Jay of Real News Network. It explains how the fiscal cliff scare was created and why Obama and the Republicans are united in fomenting a false sense of urgency. This is the sort of piece I’d suggest sharing with friends and relatives who’ve been unable to miss the news coverage and want to get up to speed.

Lambert made note of this passage:

[GALBRAITH:] If, for example, [incompr.] suggestion which has been in the news, you raise the eligibility age for Medicare, then what you’re doing is privatizing it in part. What you’re saying is that people who have employer-based insurance or other forms of private insurance have to hang on to that when they’re 66 and into, say, 67 [incompr.] they hit the age when they can shrug it off and get onto Medicare. That’s privatization. That’s what it is. And I think that should also be off the table.

Six Reasons the “Fiscal Cliff” is a Scam: A Mechanism for Rolling Back Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

by James K. Galbraith at Global Research

Stripped to essentials, the fiscal cliff is a device constructed to force a rollback of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as the price of avoiding tax increases and disruptive cuts in federal civilian programs and in the military.  It was policy-making by hostage-taking, timed for the lame duck session, a contrived crisis, the plain idea now unfolding was to force a stampede.

In the nature of stampedes arguments become confused; panic flows from fear, when multiple forces – economic and political in this instance – all appear to push the same way.  It is therefore useful to sort through those forces, breaking them down into separate questions, and to ask whether any of them justify the voices of doom. [..]

In short, Members of Congress: if you can, just pass the President’s bill on middle-class taxes, and, if you can, eliminate the domestic sequester. Then, please go home.  Enjoy the holidays. Come back in January prepared to extend unemployment insurance, to phase out the payroll tax holiday gradually, to restore stable funding to necessary programs and to start dealing with our real problems:  jobs, foreclosures, infrastructure and climate change.