(no subject)

[grinninfoole]

I have spent some time today beginning to get my shit together, figuring out what I need to do now that the big push has succeeded. I have a list of many small things to get to, and some big things, too. The most important matters to address are what I shall do for work and where Millari and I shall live. (We also need to get married.)

I have also spent a couple of hours catching up web-trolling, and now I want to make a short post putting up some things that have caught my eye over the past couple of weeks.

First, here's a link to a somewhat partisan expose of the workings of Congress published in Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi (who appeared on the Daily Show once) based on following Bernie Sanders around.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7539869?rnd=1124819771030&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.872

Second, here's an article from the New Yorker that told me stuff I didn't know about the problems with US health care, namely the misguided and evil economic assumptions underlying the policies of the Republican party and its opposition to socialized medicine. http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/050829fa_fact

Third, here's an article from a geopolitical website of which I have never heard but which my uncle (who used to be an Army Intelligence colonel) evidently reads. It explains why New Orleans has been and is critically important to the United States, why it can be fairly called the lynchpin of our economy, and why this crisis will be a national, perhaps even global, disaster.
http://www.stratfor.com/news/archive/050903-geopolitics_katrina.php

On Fresh Air (playing right now on my radio), they are discussing someone (I think it was Tom Delay but it might have been Dennis Hastert) saying that private funds should pay to rebuild New Orleans, since the people living there were dumb enough to live below sea level, so why shoudl the rest of us help pay for it. This article effectively answers that particular selfish nonsense, but the larger issue that such whining reveals is this: our current leaders are thieves. They don't care about using the power of government to help people, but only to line their own pockets. They care about this to point where they are not even 'good for business', which is one of the rallying points of hte Republican party today. The Bush administration in particular has been terrible for business. They have been great for some particular individuals who control favored companies, but the business of a company is what it does to make money. The making money part derives from the work the company does, the services it provides, the stuff it makes. Wise, good, effective pro-business government involves policies that make it easier for companies to do their work, such that we all enjoy increased prosperity. Cutting funding to maintain levees to funnel cash to Halliburton for no-bid contracts in Iraq is not pro-business--it's graft.

Comments

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

It was Hastert who talked about not rebuilding New Orleans (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090101482.html), in keeping with his habit of saying really dumb things, like when he said George Soros favored drug legalization because Soros is in the pay of drug barons (http://slate.msn.com/id/2106077/).

In fairness to him, though, it sounds like what he was really talking about was not rebuilding some parts of the city, and he just made a gaffe.

Crony capitalism

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

I think the Republicans are usually the pro-busines party. (And Democrats the pro-labor party.)

Neither party really likes the free market all that much, something which has been true since the Theodore Roosevelt administration, when thinkers in both major parties became enamored of Herbert Croly (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14422/14422-h/14422-h.htm).

But Bush has gone beyond that. I think he's an out and out crony capitalist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism). We've had a good deal of crony capitalism for a long time in this country, mostly in the defense industry, but Bush has gone beyond that.

It's no wonder he's so chummy with Vladimir Putin.

[sphinxvictorian.livejournal.com]

Hey! Congratulations on finishing!! Yay!! Lija will be down in NoHo today, and we'll be there for the meeting tomorrow night, so hopefully we can talk about getting together with you and Millari!!

Talk to you soon!