In Soberness: Michael, Joe TNP, Sarah, Bobby, Michele

In soberness, PerchedEye is keenly observing the quintet icons of the current GOP. Comical as they might appear to some (DEMS and sane people), they do represent what is happening right now in the GOP. They catch attention. Are they truly leaders, or are they "just" leaping, grinning,cheerleaders at a time when GOP has lost a lot of ground? Whatever symbolism one attaches to them, the quintet are reaching out, sometimes "out there" to far and strange shores, but neverthless reaching out at a time when "traditional" GOP leadership seems paralyzed, lost, missing or just stunned.

What we seem to see is change-process, which in GOP style can take the form of awkward disjointed steps like a put-together Frankenstein trying to coordinate unfamiliar body parts that haven't met before. But be careful, DEMS, the quintet is morphing the GOP base. Are these guys serious? PerchedEye personally feels they have to be laughing at themselves, but the fact is they are loose, energetic and the base is swinging right into line. Perchedeye feels the quintet will not survive the long haul to 2010 but they will have helped the GOP to transform itself to.... something different.

Michael, Sarah, Boby, Joe, and Bachmann, too, Oh My

To the trio of stalwart GOP revolutionaries Sara, Bobby, Michael and Joe The Not-Plumber, let's add Michele-BaghdadBobbi-UBDM Bachmann (MBUB). The future is theirs, one imagines, not.

Michele is come to full bloom and is eager to demonstrate her miraculous trick of replacing reality with mere words, like her esteemed namesake Baghdad Bob, (former minister of Information, Iraq War 2). She will be a welcomed addition to the original GOP trio of fine feathered, red capped, revolutionaries.

Understanding the GOP: Michael, Sarah, Bobby and Joe Explained

The "new" GOP continues to fascinate this blogger; it puzzles me greatly, it repells and attracts, it is like a untranslatable transmission from the realm of the living dead. It seems morbid and comical, striving and dead, focused and frayed...these and more contrary characteristics all mushed together under one lid. Insincerity, cynicism and falsity need to be redifined when speaking of the GOP these days; they just have no meaning to the GOP.

To unravel confusion about the GOP, I recommend viewing the GOP indirectly, out of the corner of the eye, because nothing is there. At worst, 'Smoke and mirrors' comes to mind. At best, and this in my mind is the key to this puzzle, the GOP uses a current American marketing device to transmit its message - brand selling. The GOP is not real, it is a protrayal, an insincere projection of an selected image that is not real,...it is a brand that is imaged, symbolized, and marketed as a label that hopefully will invoke automatic, unthinking, pavlovian-reflex knee bendng in its believers and viewers who will then...buy it.

Brand marketing. Brand culture. Branding. Face, dress, suits, image, surface, slogans, brand jingles. What sells. Brand marketing and selling are characteristics, not character, and carry no moral content except success (make the sale) or failure. The GOP is a party of image, and images per se are ghosts.

What is absent in GOP brand selling is depth, reality (Steele's plan to attract "keep it real", hip hop nation is laughable - the 'hood' is as real as it gets in America), well-thought-out precepts, sensitivity and more.

Because sincerity is not part of their concern, because sincerity is simply irrelevant when the focus is on selling the label, the GOP actions can't be judged in a normal way. If it does not sell, then simply change the label and appearance until it does sell - there is no looking back, or need to preserve consistency. There is no real attachment to the "product" because in the mind of the GOP, it is the label that sells and thus the label is all important. "Product" is irrelevant. This is a different way of thinking to most DEMS. This difference explains why the GOP can accuse the DEMS of being bleeding hearts, because the GOP regards sincerity and heart as extraneous to selling the label.

Selling itself as a label allows the GOP turn on a dime in ways that can confound and amaze. McCain lost real credibility by bringing in a Palin and posting Jindal in the wings, both brand labels that GOP felt would counter what they saw as the Obama and Hillary labels. The rest of us saw these moves as extreme, mind boggling examples of cynicism and falsity. But by GOP standards, this was a simple move because they saw only superficial qualities in both Obama and Hillary - skin color and a female - labels in their minds.

The GOP can never get it that DEMS feel deeply about the greater societal meaning of an Obama or Hillary. According to GOP precepts, 'greater meaning' is dangerous thinking because it detracts from the attention to the label.

Joe the Plumber is another good example of label marketing. That Joe is not a licensed plumber, owes back taxes, and in other ways is not the best example of hard work and success, nevertheless he is easily labeled as blue collar, mid American with a hoped for link to that voting bloc. Understandably, from their modus operandi of brand-label sell, the GOP is unconcerned about licensing and all, and they are genuinely puzzled by the outrage and disbelief caused by these moves. Likewise, Michael Steele being the new RNC chair of a 98% white party represents no moral contrast or emabrassment issue for the GOP because Mr. Steele is not seen as a person, he is merely a brand label that will assist the selling of the product. But the question leaps forth - what exactly is the product? Why the product is nothing but success.

Superficial investment in label sell is why the GOP in power can accomplish nothing meaningful or lasting because it only values success, and surface labels - corporate jets, power mansions, wealth. Most importantly and dangerously, the GOP focus on success, means its ultimate goal, power and influence, is meaningless except for the label it provides. The GOP has no thought behind what it wants to do with any power it might win. It is power for power's sake.

But what is the ultimate power game? War. War is the biggest sell of all...because if I win, I know for certain you lose, because you are dead, along with your wife and kids, your nation, your culture. In this picture, War killing and success bear no greater meaning than a record sales year for Campbell soup. But nevertheless, it is a win and palpable. This is why the GOP is so focused on winning, when the best, more strategic, outcome might be something less than total defeat and destruction. In war scenarios, the GOP ideology for total win is a pair of handcuffs - self-trapping and leading nowhere and logically to lame retreat with nothing accomplished.

This GOP superficiality is big problem for Democrats who even (admittedly often according to ancient, well thought out spiritual thinking) take themselves by their own hand along the road to understand differences, to see and confront their own reactions, and try to attain the goal of enlightenment with regard to their interactions with the rest of humanity. Hey, sometimes DEMS follow the philosophical precepts of the founding Fathers of the Republic. The GOP will lay claim to founding fathers as labels, however, without regard to what the Fathers actually wrote ot thought.

DEM goals are character qualities that don't guarantee success because they are inner goals. The GOP is outwardly directed on label symbolism that can be seen read in print, logo-lized; but these labels dont have to represent truth. Truth in labeling is not a GOP quality. Why do you think during a GOP administration the country experiences a watering down if not outright falsity (to DEMS, mothers with children, drinkers of water, many breathers of air, etc) in regulations for food, water, pharmaceuticals, accounting, banking, etc..

And finally, Sarah, Michael, Bobby and Joe. They show no embarassment at their seeming misplacements because they have bought into the Label. It's All about the label.

Jindal, Palin, Steele, Volcanoes, Oh My

What is going on with the Republican Party? There is some serious high weirdness happening every minute with them. It just seems like the Repubs have lost it. The global evolution has run away from them and all they can come up with are racial insults, snickering and adolecent word play,"stop the train" feet dragging, or crazy ideas crafted to derail all of us.

One clue, the smart money Republican professional politicians started to voluntarily drop out of the re-election races a year ago. So much for serving the nation, but what did we think most Republicans were in office for anyway (joined by Illinois governors, sadly).

But the trio in the headline is too much. Choke. This crew is the happening, right now, in your face GOP? Like a slap with a wet kleenex! Hip Hop revolutionaries? And after Obama's great speech to the American people, Jindal minces down a dark hallway to mock volcano monitoring when for real, Alaska right now is waiting for the mother of volcano eruptions that just might kill thousands in Alaska, Japan, tidal waves across the Pacific...what absurd ignorance. What?

Jindal's speech (?) after Obama's address was like a sparrow trying to keep up with an eagle. And what was that, generously speaking, semi-slide, dance step Jindal showed as he ...jeez, this is embarrassing..twinkle toed down the hall to the microphone? WTF. Palin, Steele, Jindal. Jeez.

What is curiously shared by Jindal and Steele, both men of color, is how they manage to cozy up to out-and-out racists. In the campaign, Palin did her bit of cozying in the deep red belt, too, but Wasilla (Alaska, her home town)is rumored to be just a colder red belt, tweaker colony.

I dont like this move by the Repubs. One can disagree honestly with an opposing political view because one is afterall a believer in the principles of two party government. But it just seems like the Repubs have lost it. The global evolution has run away from them and all they can come up with is either insults, snickering and adolecent word play,"stop the train" feet dragging, or crazy ideas crafted to derail all of us. They have left empty seats at the table as they wander off, maybe smoking fake cigarettes out behind the barn. Did the real Repubs take off in silver seeds to nowhere, their time came and they're gone and left this crew behind?

Michael Steele, Hip Hop GOP? (Not), and the Party that Steals

Michael Steele(MS) proposes to steal hip hip nation, wanna bet. Steele steals. Stealing Steele. Steele the man of steel, not. Steely stealing Steele steals what's real. GOP hip hop make over? Hardly. GOP and Hip Hop.Not. Sparrows and eagles...both are birds but there are differences, maybe not noticed by those with special comprehension problems, like Repubs. Pickles and candy canes, get it? GOP is so ready to grab anything out of reach. All of this is so weird words flee, I have the same feeling. GOP. Old. Party, Not.

India and Global Change: "Slumdog Millionaire"

American literati and pundits are doing their usual twirling anxiety dance around that which is different or "exotic" in their realm of experience and/or self identification, e.g. the David Lim piece in Slate (Jan 26, '09). But, common sense pretty quickly gloms onto what Slumdog Millionaire is all about: humanity takes on and creates many, many forms as time goes on (cultural morphing), and as the globe turns everything is becoming the same while still remaining different in some ways. A new book deliciously lays this out - Ian McDonald's Cyberabad Days (2009,Prometheus) which protrays India in a near-future world of water shortage, exotic but understandable bio-enhancements, and many other new technologies that are packaged in ancient lore and icons. "Slumdog" is one more sign of the new paradigm for survival and prospering paradigms coming to India, Asia and even to the US. THere appears to be a resurgenence of looking to India perhaps for clues to getting through some of the globe's current eco-politico-socio-economic challenges. We as well as India have a lot to look forward to.

The New York Post Apologizes for Murdering the Chimp and Almost Assassinating

Murdoch made an acceptable apology Feb 24(imho), i.e. clean and simple with no glaring "buts" and other conditionals. Suggestion to Mr. Murdoch - since the buck stops with you, a good idea would seem to be making sure the Post has a diversity of staff and supervisory review to help avoid this kind of incident on the future.

Hanging Ten on the Recession

This recession is like a ten mile high Tsunami suspended over the lands and most everyone are scurrying around pointing fingers and yelling at each other but only a few are bothering to look up.

Still Undercover - What about, again, Tarp-1 Section 8? Hmmm Where's the Money?

Still haven't heard what happened to the first $350 Billion (otherwise known as a big lot of bucks).

Auto Bail Out, and a National Energy Plan

There seems to be something missing in the national dialog about the problems of American auto industry. The auto industry is in collapse, no question there. There is lots of public money going to bail it out, that has already begun so no doubts about that also. And it appears public money will continue to flow in that direction as the auto industry has kind of implied, mainly because it has not expressed any notion of a target timeline for ...what, exactly? This vagueness of objective other than "sometime somehow, we hope to be profitable", leaves the question standing there naked, just why is the public going to bail it out? What is the objective because other than getting the big three through each upcoming quarter, there does not appear to be measurable objectives along the way, nor conditions and purpose going along with the money.

A background thought: no other developed country has the same reluctance as the United States to guide a national industry resource when there is obviously a crisis right now. A personal explanation is that America is caught in trap of its own making, a quick sand of theological-economic ideology that holds sacred the preserving of a free-market icon. The truth is there is no such thing as a free market that obeys the axioms of theoretical market models. And the current Wall Street collapse, revealed after the previous administration's denials even up to the last second, has again scholed us on the real, human fallibility, vunerable to corruption, dynamics of our market system our mis-named market system. Exactly what is the appropriate name for our system, maybe junior-league facism? Hmmm, free-market, believe-me-when-I-tell-you, revivalist hokum?.

Why does America have such difficulty with the 'bail out' concept, when America has singled handedly bailed out, redirected, modernized, made over, and gifted the major global industrial giants (former fight-to-the-death enemies no less) with the Marshall Plan after WW2. Why does America have such a difficult time telling essentially bankrupted, bad product making, unimaginative and unadaptable auto company leadership its time to change in very basic ways.

A big problem, a missing puzzle piece, as I see it is that America needs a coherent, clearly objectified, National Energy Plan wherein the auto industry can have a clearly defined interdependent, and profiting, niche along side other major industries whose products use, produce, design, and integrate into the energy big picture. But again there seems to be an ideological block that prevents an even open dialog on that subject.

The Stimulus, The New York Post Murders a Chimp, and Incites Assassination of the President

A now controversial February 18, 2009, New York Post cartoon is in my opinion a provocation to assassinate the President of the United States, or at best looks at such assassination as a trivial and deserved act. The cartoon comes off as a crude, racist, 1800's lynch mob incitement to murder that is puzzling and groping, and not what one expects from a 2009, adult, professional American cartoonist, and his editor whose leanings seem to be equally rabid. The best that can be said about the cartoon is the nation just does not need this kind of mocking stupidity especially right or any time. That part of American history is passe.

The cartoon shows New York city policemen shooting and killing a chimpanzee (a recent, real but very unrelated act) then in text bubble having the policement casually link the dead chimp with the author of the Stimulus. Also, there is a sign on a nearby lamp post reading "beware of dog" which is not where such a sign is found, but for crude symbolic reference to race and the civil rights history of police violence on African-Americans it works.

[NYPost link: http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.nypost.com/delonas/delonas.htm&ei=5xicSc6SLJj-NMHyyaEF&sig2=gGeKKr1k-HlJQzERpJ926Q&usg=AFQjCNFgNgoYZPOkDjvec-zhxl2wwxvPsA]

Even at best, the cartoon earns a 'malicious' badge because the clear intent is to provoke or justify violence with a kind of seventh grade, adolescent snicker. Even for unsubtle thinking it is easy to connect the images as symbolic of killing the President. But hiding at the core of this tale is an irresponsible, troglodyte editor who is rumored to be a 8th level Hoodoo follower and who wears full body, hair suits and rewards special staff (usually this cartoonist) with the privilege of flogging him in his overheated cubicle ofice and ironing his satin hood. The cartoon fails at humor, but succeeds in entering dangerous ground because it equates the President with a murdered chimp and suggests the resolution to the Stimulus debate is assassination. There it is.

The puzzling aspect of the cartoon is that even if one wishes to be generous and give the benefit of doubt to the Post a it is crying to have, the newspaper and its owners come off as ignorant of, or deliberately insensitive to, current national trends and events which are marked by the real efforts of more Americans than ever to move past race baiting. Also, just why would a New York city newspaper want to appear crude, racist, inciting, juvenile, even perhaps criminal. Hmmm, sounds like the New York Post.

Almost immediately, the cartoon appears a deliberate mis-linkage, crudely disguised as humor, intended to convey a message that the champion of the Stimulus, the President who is the central communicator of the Stimulus (and the chimp by racial stereotype), could or should suffer terminal violence...hint, hint?? The 'hinting' is as clear as day, it is the chief device relied on by the cartoonist in his trade craft, and it is a cowardly tactic since the cartoonist and the editor hide behind the white sheet hoods of invoked humor and editorial freedom. To claim the Post was not aware of the symbolism of the cartoon seems to be just another deliberate, irresponsible diversion. Worse,the attempt by the Post to beg off as being a victim of misreading, just comes off as another malicious snicker.

This being a nation of constitutional freedoms those principles are worthy of respect to repect, especially freedom of speech. And that is the rub. The cartoon is an intentional hate expression, of race, disguised under a thin sheet of ignorant and unsubtle political disagreement. The Post should give an apology to at least give the impression it values what is left of its dignity.

Obama's First Three Weeks - Response to Dan Rather's Complaint, 'Where's the Outrage?'

Reagan, Bush 1, Bush2, republican congresses among these 20 years during which the Republicans were pretty much sucessful in implementing their anti-regulation, free-market (minimal controls) agenda. And during the last 60 days of the previous administration, the chief executive was as busy as a bee underneath that slow exterior planting more executive order land mines to remove as many remaining corporate controls as possible in his final retreat. Now its clean up time.

The miracle is we elected a young, physically fit, mentally quick, grass roots, constitutional trained attorney-scholar to head the cleanup. Three weeks! Let's repeat that...it really seems like the new president has been in office more than a year. He is so in-the-air and 'at it' it seems he has accomplished the impossible, being in several places at once.

There is a thought, though, just extrapolate one more term of the last administration and it is not hard to picture a radically different situation.... vacations, no questioning of bailed out banks and corporations, no explanation of how much and where the bailout money went (still have to fix that, Obama), no congressional input except to rubber stamp....on and on. Three weeks! And so different.

Come on. The new president and his administration of efficient worker bees have been so busy and efficient, the only attack the Repubs can come up with is he likes working in his shirtsleeves!! As if all presidents including Reagan didn't do the same. One can just hope the new president and administration keep up the hard work.
[published originally in The Daily Beast, http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-02-12/wheres-the-outrage/2/]

Bank CEO Testimonies Before House FSC

After looking at Rep Frank's House Financial Services Committe grilling of the TARP CEOs on the morning of February 11, '09, Pericles21 feels the CEOs deserve no heavy blame. Further, at this point, blame talk is pointless. It is simply a bad financial situation that needs fixing. But, the public wants to see the wringing of hands and several kinds of mea culpa. So, the Frank Committee hearings were useful. And so, what now? We are still left with the problem of how to save the financial sector loans from defaulting and homes from foreclosure. That problem will require cleverness and innovation because the solutions will have to go against the ABC's of economics which is bad debt should be dropped and bad businesses should die off as a natural culling process leading to the better health of thebusiness organism. The problem is things have gone so far into badness that bad business represents a major portion of the organism. Letting "bad" die off will be like cutting off a leg to save the foot.

Recession, Let It Be

Perched Eye had a worrisome dream that it is too early to see how to fix this recession. So, unpleasant as it seems, would it be best to let things get worse until patterns and critical variables are clearer? Will money spent now actually work? Does government need to excercise a kind of national triage for the time being, maybe until unemployment reaches around 8.5%?

Nice compromise for Congress: Repubs won't have to spend money, Dems won't have to stick their necks out. Just have to accept a few million more job losses. Hmmmm?

MBA Follies #1: The Public as Labor [Or, MBA wet dreams gone bad]

From the PERCHED EYE.
The Blue-Red economic ideolgy clash is easy to sum up. The Blue(DEMS) regard Americans as citizens first without whom the nation is, ipso facto, meaningless. The Reds(GOP) define citizens of whatever nation, but especially so it seems American citizens, as a nameless labor pool to be traded about as pawns on the corporate strategy board (or left idle to fend for themselves, as whim dictates). At best, Red political policies rend to treat American citizens like a miscellaneous account of some kind of imagined mega-corporation. Americans take on favored status, however, when they are needed to fight wars which especially nowadays support or benefit real commercial corporate interests. Reds seem to so invested into corporate lingo they visualize non-Wall Street American people as simply labor that deserve nothing more than what might trickle down from the tables of the Masters of the Universe (MUs). This Red POV has obvious, curious and dangerous fallacies. One, in bad times, unlike with corporate concerns, a nation can't just fire the citizenry and expect them to disappear from view and concern, or, rather, a nation's leaders might contemplate this action if they had no brains. Two, citizenry just can't up and walk to another country, that easily... unless the other country is ...well that's another blog. But given the reality of America, Americans are in no way going to "walk", emigrate,...just try to fire them (us..see what I mean). We'll see who fires who, as happened last November 08 in the election. American history is chock full of legend about citizens' responses to that kind of challenge. What are the Red thinking?

Recession, Bail Outs and Stimulus - "Remember Section 8"?

Section 8 of the TARP plan (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) was a troubling part of Treasury Secretary Paulson's early September 2008, $700+ Billion, Wall Street bailout plan. Section 8 read, “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” Section 8 exempted the administration (and specifically Paulson) from ANY and ALL oversight regarding his administrative actions in handing out $700 Billion of public money.

As the New York Times put it (NYT Sept 22, 2008, A.R. Sorkin), "with those words, the Treasury secretary...will be vested with perhaps the most incredible powers ever bestowed on one person over the economic and financial life of the nation."

Section 8 did not appear in the final bail, out but it didn't have to since it was de facto enacted on the first $350 billion dole-out about which no details yet have been offered, by whomsoever as to where, when and how those funds were distributed. But maybe worse, no one is effectively asking. It's like a predator picked off cows from the herd while the other cows just went on cud chewing. So, since section 8 continues in left over spirit like a bad odor, here're some thoughts about that from a Perched Eye.

Quick Glance:
Section 8 was unprecedented in American history. But the scam was unprecedented in scope. The Bush administration wanted a HAIL MARY bailout to save the day because the economy was about to tank but with a quick miracle, maybe GOP could save its rear or at least delay the collapse until after the election. Solution?- a midnight-hour, grandstand, outrageous play that relied on cowing the press, Democratic innocence (gullibility, naivete, etc) and a public that was only sporadically tuned in (apathetic). It almost worked.

Rose Glass:
The Bush administration was in truth caught unawares and was simply excercising (resorting to) a grosser version of executive privilege. 'Hey we have the best interests of (fill in good nice things);...just believe in us [and go back to your reality tv]."

The Gut (says):
The administration was passing bricks since early 08 trying to figure a spin on how to explain that Wall Street had done it again...despite the good guy faith the administration had placed in the eight year handshake with the financial sector, 'we trusted you guys....we're one of you...WTF..., and one more thing, don'hat you guys know when to stop, huh? Paulson, get out there; do your thing; we got one chance.... yeah, say anything...Congress are asleep at the wheel...tell em you don't need oversight. Don't worry, Pelosi and Reid haven't a clue where this thing has gone. Jeez, what would RN have done...sure he's not around?'

That basically sets the stage for everything that has happened from October 08 until now, February 6, 08. Think about it. GOP's still touting "wealth" as the only worthwhile passenger to be saved on this sinking ship, while the DEM's are still trying to mouth their position that the people deserve consideration too, and appear stunned that anyone in their right mind can forget this. Well, the GOP core can, could, and will continue quite well to forget the public (er, labor...lay em off... or something).