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Saturday, July 24, 2021

Doomsday Machine

… is that the whole point of the doomsday machine… is lost if you keep it a secret. Why didn’t you tell the world, eh?

- Dr. Strangelove (played by Peter Sellers)

It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.

- Soviet Ambassador, Alexei Sadeski (played by Peter Bull)

From the Movie Dr. Strangelove, Directed, Produced, Co-written by Stanley Kubrick

By Gregg Wall (7-24-2021)

Recently, I had an opportunity to watch Dr. Strangelove, again. In watching the movie, the thought occurred to me that the premise of the entire movie -- that of a doomsday machine that threatens nuclear annihilation for the entire world, and the insanity of man -- might be alive and well.

Without digressing too much, the movie takes place during the heart of the Cold War, when game theory, and the MAD doctrine (mutual assured destruction), arguably, controlled global foreign policy (as two superpowers – the former Soviet Union and the United States – wrestled for global control). Ah, simpler times. At the start of the movie, a rogue & unbalanced US Air Force commander launches a first strike. As the president and the joint chiefs attempt to pullback and unwind the strike, it comes to light -- via Soviet Premier Kissov and his ambassador -- that Russia, unbeknownst to the world, has a doomsday machine. A doomsday machine which will automatically destroy the world (via a radioactive shroud for 93 years) in retaliation for a first strike attack. The fact that nobody knows about the doomsday machine, under game theory, defeats the purpose of having such a device. If you haven’t seen the movie, or it’s been a while, I highly recommend it.

Today, does America have a doomsday device and what exactly is it? If we examine the structural defects of the US Constitution and our government, we quickly learn that the entire system revolves around protecting the wealthy and the powerful (aka the privileged white male). Starting with the US Senate, we’ve seen repeatedly, over the last several decades, that it is nearly impervious to change. From the filibuster to the gerrymandered nature of the Senate, and including the fact that elections are often sold to the highest bidder (a feature of all US elections), the Senate basically ensures and protects the highly failed – laissez faire, neoliberal – status quo. The unelected SCOTUS, with a hard right-wing majority, also guarantees that our monopoly system, oligarchy, and resulting American lethality are impervious to change. Add in a highly corrupt duopoly, with both parties serving many of the same billionaires and multinational interests, with no term limits, and you have several key structural defects that ensure a failed stasis & oligarchy – no matter how dangerous – all remain in effect.

The structural defects extend to the US economy itself, which has been placed into the hands of a highly privileged few. Concentration and monopoly -- thanks to free money policies of the Federal Reserve and Wall Street’s insatiably appetite for M&A and obscene profits -- are now the dominate feature of the US economy. And with that, as we’ve seen repeatedly, comes diseconomies of scale, failure, and a US government defiled by extreme wealth & privilege (But that’s not a problem, at least in the short term, because congress is more than happy to bailout boardrooms, c-suites, malevolence, stockholders, and failure: frequently, often, and unconditionally).

At the center of all this lies the US stock market, which I have argued has become a money laundering operation and a means to loot the US government. (See the FED’s QE programs, rampant privatization, and the 2008 and 2020 Wall Street bailouts… see also, captured regulatory bodies and Big Pharma). The moral hazard surrounding the stock market and the preeminence of the stock market, as the center of the US economy, and the lengths that congress and the powerful will go to protect this vehicle for the redistribution of wealth, is yet another key structural defect w/in the US economy.

A defect that ensures numerous business practices, products, and services that are highly detrimental, not only to the United States, but indeed, the world, stay in place and are impervious to change (see again, Big Oil and fossil fuels). Add in our stock trading US congress, combined with insatiable greed, and the doom loop, and feedback loop, is complete.

So, what’s the problem? America has had this system government & robber baron economy, structural defects and all, for many of our nearly 250 years. Moreover, many of the defects of the American system are also prevalent throughout Western democracies, many of them also captured by powerful billionaires and multinational interests (who believe that rigged markets and the almighty dollar, euro, or pound should dictate our fate).

Well, if anybody has paid attention, as of late, the globe is facing the ravages of what appears to be a manmade pandemic -- possibly created in a lab -- as well as, a global climate catastrophe, created by humanity’s insatiable need for energy and fossil fuels. In fact, the events facing humanity today -- brought about by the structural defects themselves -- are the existential crisis of our times, perhaps for the end times?

These structural defects then, quite possibly, are America’s – indeed, the world’s – doomsday machine. The sad part is, all this could be addressed and remedied, perhaps before it’s too late, but for the doomsday machine.

Humanity’s inability to change, reform, pull up from pending apocalypse – as a result of the aforementioned structural economic and political defects, and abject corruption – appears to be the hallmark of our times.

That, and billionaires attempting, desperately, to flee the planet. A planet beset by catastrophes largely of the oligarchy’s making.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021

Saturday, July 10, 2021

Hypocrisy Nation

President Biden chimed in Saturday: “Everybody knows of the rules going in. Whether they should remain the rules is a different issue, but the rules are the rules. ... I was really proud of the way she responded.”

Under WADA’s policies, substances are placed on the prohibited list if they meet two of three conditions: They have the potential or proven ability to enhance performance, they have the potential to cause harm to an athlete, or their use is considered against the spirit of sport.

- The doping rules that cost Sha’Carri Richardson have a debated, political history

By JM Hamilton (7-10-2021)

The suspension of Sha’Carri Richardson – a world class American athlete - from the pending Tokyo Olympic games - really burned some nerve endings for this writer.

For me the story is personal, for reasons I will not share this week, but on an entirely different level: the story speaks to the rank hypocrisy we see every day in the United States, from our courts, our Congress, our government… right into the boardrooms and C-suites, which are loaded with murderers. We see it globally as well, with billionaires, oligarchy, and Saudi princes.

At a time that the nation finds it worthy to persecute a star athlete for taking a relatively benign, but federally banned substance, it’s simply amazing that America turns a blind eye to the rank hypocrisy surrounding the criminal elite.

What rank hypocrisy are you writing about JM?

Well, I’m so very glad you asked.

This week, fifteen states’ attorneys general signed on to a deal that would allow the Sacklers, owners of the infamous Perdue Pharma, to basically walk away from murdering hundreds of thousands of Americans with their billions safely left in their possession. The Sacklers designed synthetic heroin, pushed it on doctors and the public as a less addictive pain killer alternative, and, also, made money on the rebound, by selling drugs to wean addicts off Purdue Pharma’s addictive opioid products. International drug dealers have a new patron saint, named Sackler.

The American West has been ablaze, as has Western Canada, thanks to the climate crisis and Big Oil & Gas. Exxon, et al., of course, knew of the hell that they were unleashing upon the earth, for decades, and covered it up. As a result of the global heat wave & climate change, hundreds will die, and thousands already have. Moreover, neighborhoods surrounding oil refineries and operations have long been known as cancer communities, with significantly higher rates of preventable disease & illness. More recently, an Exxon lobbyist was recorded as admitting that, to present a cleaner image, Exxon supported a carbon tax because – the US congress is so entirely corrupt & owned – that a carbon tax would never become law.

Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of endless war, died recently. The flames of hell are dancing merrily. Mr. Rumsfeld played a considerable role, during the Bush Administration, in destroying the sovereign nations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The WMD and Al Qaeda claims, used to justify invading Iraq, of course, were all great works of fiction. The Iraqi nation was destroyed, tens of thousands of civilians were killed; and conveniently enough, Big Oil & Gas as well as military defense contractor stocks soared. And Rumsfeld’s epitaph, if there was any justice in this world, would read: Mass Murderer.

And speaking of Big Oil, seems to be a theme, the Saudi Prince, who ordered Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, killed… well, it turns out that members of his hit squad were trained by the United States.

But these are trifling things: Saudi princes getting away with murdering journalists; C-suites and boardrooms selling drugs and highly addictive synthetic heroin; Big Oil and Gas destroying the planet; a Wall Street that tells Americans they can’t divest of these criminal enterprises; and an entirely corrupt, and complicit, US congress that sits on their hands and obstructs positive change.

After all, the US has far more important things to do, like persecuting a world class athlete, who just happens to be black. Not unlike the persecution of blacks throughout American history, via: slavery, indentured servitude (see sharecropper); Jim Crow; systemic racism embedded in the US economy; the criminalization of cannabis usage; the resulting ‘law & order’ politics; the GOP’s racist Southern Strategy; and lest we forget, mass incarceration (a profit center for the private prison industrial complex and a boon for American lawyers).

Isn’t it all so very special, malignantly evil, wrong, and … quintessentially, American?

So what to do about Ms. Richardson? The FT reported, yesterday, that the Biden Administration has taken a personal interest, and plans on discussing the circumstances surrounding Ms. Richardson’s ban from the pending games with the World Anti-Doping Agency (yet another, opaque supranational body, directly and indirectly controlled by commercial interests and sponsors?)

But let’s cut to the chase, shall we? What really should be done? Not necessarily in this order: but perhaps the US Olympic Committee, and its subsidiary, the US Anti-Doping Agency, should get down on bended knee and beg Ms. Richardson to appear in the Tokyo Olympics. These organizations should also provide a written statement to the effect that it was wrong to make Ms. Richardson apologize for her cannabis usage, and the matter is now considered closed, except to make sure it never happens again. The US Senate should, immediately, vote, and pass into law, cannabis legalization.

And above all, whether the IOC or the World Anti-Doping Agency are on board or not, Ms. Richardson should appear in these Tokyo Olympic games and compete. Ms. Richardson – in Tokyo - should be presented for whom and what she truly is: An undisputed American champion. Such a move is, likely, a political and commercial winner as well.

This would be a tremendous start in the United States’ rehabilitation, and a pivot away from the nation’s, and its elite’s, recidivism concerning endless hypocrisy.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2021

Saturday, June 26, 2021

A dictatorship of a moneyed elite…

People of color are disproportionately employed in the service industries hardest hit by the pandemic, according to an analysis of employment data by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and unemployment rates reflect that: In February, 12.3% of Black workers in Texas were unemployed, compared to 9.3% of Hispanic workers and only 5.1% of white workers. In February 2020, the unemployment rates for each group were 4.7%, 4.7% and 2.5%, respectively.

- Greater disparities to emerge in Texas as unemployment benefits, protections against evictions and utility shutoffs end, Texas Tribune

By JM Hamilton (6-26-2021)

Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure deal this week was yet another reminder of how this administration has already given up on America’s working class and thrown them over the side of the country’s leaky – and condemned – ship of state, in favor of pandering to a right-wing GOP. The irony is the GOP could care less about working with this President, and Mitch McConnell has stated that he wants to see Biden fail. All this, when the Dems control both houses of Congress, and yet, refuse to exercise their power and authority already six months into the Biden administration.

The bipartisan infrastructure proposal, announced with great fanfare on Friday, is a dog. The proposal, as of yet - not even written up, is a fraction of what Biden proposed and contains little or no Green New Deal elements. Instead, Biden indicated that Dems would take a two-track approach and work on a more progressive infrastructure bill, simultaneously. It’s classic Washington, that is to say, completely backwards, corrupt, and incompetent. And of course, the two infrastructure bills will take months to pass if they ever pass at all.

Already the two sides, Dems & GOP, are bickering, after Biden said he’d veto the bipartisan bill, if he could not pass the more progressive Dem bill, simultaneously … only to backtrack on Saturday (today) and indicate that he wouldn’t veto the bipartisan bill, after all. Confused? No worries, you’re in good company. The Ivy League brain trust, in Washington, has no clue as to what they are doing either.

When the final history of American democracy is written, it will reflect that Obama walked a deranged lunatic into the White House, and that Biden will undoubtedly do the same, as he fails to meet his obligations and promises to American labor, independents, and the working class.

Washington occupies a bubble and does everything in its power to crush labor, and disenfranchised Americans, by ignoring the public’s request for wildly popular: Green New Deal, Medicare for All, Living Wage, and Infrastructure programs. The public also wants to see the exceptionally wealthy pay for these programs; but so far, the bipartisan deal calls for America’s old infrastructure to be sold off to the wealthy at fire-sale prices (undoubtedly so that they can extract rents from the American public) … just like they do in poor countries.

That’s right America, we are just another corrupt banana republic, another kleptocracy, that is being busted out – a la Soprano – for America’s rapacious billionaire class.

All of this, of course, is happening while unemployment benefits, rent moratoriums, and utility breaks are rapidly coming to an end, at a time when the US economy is anything but fully recovered, and tens of millions of workers are unemployed, underemployed, given up looking for work, and are subjected to wage slavery. See minorities and women in particular, Biden’s base, who the President does not appear to give a damn about. Meanwhile, the plague is resurgent throughout Southern GOP states, and Trump’s and Biden’s one time stimulus checks have long ago run out for America’s bottom half.

How do the two parties get away with it? Simple, both parties serve the same billionaire/multinational masters. They know the political pendulum swings back and forth, and the public has nowhere to run but to the failed two-party system. Biden’s primary strategy appears to be to burn up the legislative clock, pretend to be working on his agenda & campaign promises (which are already DOA), and pander to his wealthy donors (basically, ensuring a rigged US economy and Washington remain untouched from change and reform).

How do I know that Biden’s agenda is dead, that he has no intention of fulfilling his campaign promises…watch the Federal Reserve, who indicates they are getting ready to taper because they are satisfied with the progress of the American economy. That is, if the FED was still concerned about the economy, or thought they’d need to finance yet more crisis programs or New Deal legislation, there’d be little or no discussion about tapering ultra-accommodative monetary policy.

But I digress, the problem for Biden, the Dems, and Americans is, the GOP is playing for keeps, and the coup they started on January 6^th is still very much alive and in motion. We see this with massive voter suppression efforts, and the installation of Trump lackeys in key state positions … positions that will certify, or not, future elections. Moreover, the Dems haven’t lifted a finger to bring GOP coup leaders, in Congress, to trial (nor the GOP’s donors).

What many Americans fail to realize is none of this has to be this way. There are western governments that actually work and function on behalf of their citizen. There are democratic governments that are effective and get things done expeditiously. In Canada, the Trudeau government has been highly effective in taking care of its citizens with progressive policies, like a UBI. And this same government has already vaccinated greater than 75% of the population, with first time vaccine doses. The NY Times reports America’s comparable number is less than 55%. Do I agree with everything the Liberal government does… absolutely not. But because the Liberals, partnered with the NDP, are so effective, and generally, do the right thing on behalf of Canada’s citizens… this humble American, blessed with dual Canadian citizenship, just has to marvel at the Canadian government’s success (vis a vis, the never-ending corruption and failure that is the American government).

Who benefits from the malaise surrounding the US government, who encourages the partisanship and the atomization of the American electorate, who ensures that culture wars/social conflicts are never resolved (and wages remain stagnant) … so that Americans don’t have a moment to look up and see who is really destroying theirs and their children’s futures? Well, that’s the billionaire and donor class, who know that if they can keep America divided, its citizens are less likely to notice that as the national debt soars, the billionaires and multi-millionaires are growing richer, and richer, and richer (and more numerous).

And public largesse, by the trillions, is being laundered through America’s debt and stock markets, as the national debt soars ever higher: #BustOut.

It’s the ultimate transfer of wealth from the many into the hands of a few. It’s probably already too late to reform, America is already run by a dictatorship… A dictatorship of a moneyed elite. Given the path the Biden administration is traveling down, Americans soon may not even have the illusion - or pretense - of a two-party system.