Will California become America's first failed state?

Peacenik hasn't posted anything about the economy for a while. Peacenik has been watching in disbelief as the stock market continues to rally. Meanwhile insiders are selling like crazy. Revenue in New York State collapsed by 38% in the last quarter. State after state is unable to balance its budget. The big banks in the states are still being kept afloat by shady accounting and public tax dollars. And California is paying its workers with IOU's.

But the market goes up and in Canada the housing bubble keeps bubbling along. Of course the Canadian banks just got another handout from the feds. And mortgage rates are artificially low. And federal and provincial deficits across the country have exploded. And unemployment and underemployment is growing. And pension plans, big and small, are unable to keep either their promises, nor their legal obligations. But all is good. Until the Minsky Moment arrives. Then watch out.

Paul Harris

Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state government is issuing IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong?

Patients without medical insurance wait for treatment in the Forum, a music arena in Inglewood, Los Angeles. The 1,500 free places were filled by 4am. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

California has a special place in the American psyche. It is the Golden State: a playground of the rich and famous with perfect weather. It symbolises a lifestyle of sunshine, swimming pools and the Hollywood dream factory.

But the state that was once held up as the epitome of the boundless opportunities of America has collapsed. From its politics to its economy to its environment and way of life, California is like a patient on life support. At the start of summer the state government was so deeply in debt that it began to issue IOUs instead of wages. Its unemployment rate has soared to more than 12%, the highest figure in 70 years. Desperate to pay off a crippling budget deficit, California is slashing spending in education and healthcare, laying off vast numbers of workers and forcing others to take unpaid leave. In a state made up of sprawling suburbs the collapse of the housing bubble has impoverished millions and kicked tens of thousands of families out of their homes. Its political system is locked in paralysis and the two-term rule of former movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as a disaster – his approval ratings having sunk to levels that would make George W Bush blush. The crisis is so deep that Professor Kevin Starr, who has written an acclaimed history of the state, recently declared: "California is on the verge of becoming the first failed state in America."

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World War Three Anybody?

Unfortunately, Kunstler lays out a very plausible future. Can the tensions in the Middle East just keep festering without something different happening? Peacenik doesn't think so.

And something different won't be peace and friendship and brotherhood. The outcome of an attack on Iran is probably just as Kunstler imagines it or worse. Yet U.S. senators and media types and some generals openly cheer and campaign for an attack. Does U.S. society have a deathwish? Or is the future already so distopian that this future, World War, is a preferable outcome? Maybe swine flu should mutate and depopulate huge chunks of the earth. Maybe that is a preferable outcome.

By James Howard Kunstler

When Alan Greenspan predicted three percent economic growth showing up in the reported figures for the third quarter of 2009, did he mean executive compensation packages? Maybe the lesson here is: don't ask a crackhead to predict the future supply of crack. Greenspan's greatest success may be to drive economics into such disrepute that it will be cut loose from the universities and only be taught by mail order or internet subscription from the same outfits that offer PhD's in astrology. That is, before the universities themselves go broke.
The predicament that the USA finds itself will not be "solved" at the scale of operation that we're accustomed to, and we should just stop wasting precious time and dwindling resources in the idle hope that it will be. The failure to recognize this dynamic is the most impressive part of the meltdown. The only thing that the federal government is likely to prove in the process is the ineffectiveness of its actions as applied to any of the raging current problems from the killing burden of hyper-debt to the brushfires of geopolitics. Congress will only make the health care system more complex. Both congress and President Obama will do everything possible to keep housing prices unaffordable -- in a quixotic effort to protect the collateral of the big banks. Capital will continue to vanish in the black hole of default.

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McChrystal Faulted On Troop Statements

Peacenik thinks soldiers should shut their pie holes. McChrystal should be fired for insubordination. But of course the media and other high ranking generals have their own agendas. Petraeus will probably run for president next time round. The media is trying to undermine Obama and promote more war.

Obama is pussyfooting around too many issues. And they are all going to blow up in his face. And the democrats are on the verge of blowing their supermajority in congress without passing any progressive, popularly supported legislation, without regulating the financial industry, without getting health care reform passed, and without winding down any of the wars. Heck of a job Obama.

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 5, 2009

National security adviser James L. Jones suggested Sunday that the public campaign being conducted by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan on behalf of his war strategy is complicating the internal White House review underway, saying that "it is better for military advice to come up through the chain of command."

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who commands the 100,000 U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, warned bluntly last week in a London speech that a strategy for defeating the Taliban that is narrower than the one he is advocating would be ineffective and "short-sighted." The comments effectively rejected a policy option that senior White House officials, including Vice President Biden, are considering nearly eight years after the U.S. invasion.

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No need to change vaccine policy based on Canadian flu shot data: WHO

So lets see if Peacenik has this straight. The international medical community discounts Canadian research that says if you have had a seasonal flu shot in the past, you are more susceptible to getting the swine flu.

But many Canadian jurisdictions, including Ontario, where Peacenik lives, are delaying giving seasonal flu shots until they have finished giving the swine flu shots. Keeping in mind that the swine flu vaccine is still not available, and the swine flu pandemic is simultaneously worsening in Ontario.

And Peacnik still doesn't know if the Ontario vaccine will use adjuvants in the vaccine. The U.S. will not. The U.K. will. Peacenik thinks that by the time there is an available flu shot for Peacenik, that Peacenik will shrug, roll up Peacenik's sleve, and get the shot.

By Helen Branswell Medical Reporter (CP) –

TORONTO — International influenza vaccine experts are apparently not convinced that Canadian researchers have found a true link between getting a seasonal flu shot and catching swine flu.

The consensus that emerged from a World Health Organization teleconference Friday on the controversial data seemed to be that the Canadian findings are likely due to some confounding factor or factors in the data themselves and may not reflect a real increased risk, according to a WHO official who helped pull together the meeting.

"From a WHO point of view, the fact that the findings are not replicated in other countries I think is reassuring for us that this is an outlier, if you like, the unexpected findings that are coming out of Canada," said David Wood, co-ordinator of the quality, safety and standards team of WHO's department of immunization, vaccines and biologicals.

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Nurses File Lawsuit Over Mandatory Flu Vaccine

The management of the current swine flu pandemic is becoming farcical. Peacenik doesn't know what good public health policy is anymore. The Star recently reported that there is a surge of swine flu cases in the Greater Toronto Area. The second wave has arrived. Peacenik was galvanized. Ready to wear Peacenik's N-65 medical mask everywhere.

Then there was the story that the vaccine manufacturers weren't going to be legally liable for any problems with flu shots. The Canadian taxpayer was going to be liable. Whaaaaat?

Then of course there is the preliminary story that seasonal flu shots increase the likely hood of getting swine flu. This story has not been debunked. Is it true? And of course there won't be any vaccine until the flu season is winding down in November.

And all the fights agains mandatory flu shots. Does anyone know what the best approach is? Peacenik doesn't. Have a good weekend.

Update: Peacenik just spoke to a colleague who just returned from speaking with her doctor. Peacenik's colleague asked the doctor if she should get the seasonal flu shot. The doctor said he just returned from a conference about the swine flu and the doctor was confused. Didn't really know what the answer was and said 'on balance if your are healthy you should get the seasonal flu shot". A doctor just gets back from a swine flu conference and is hazy about whether to take the shot or not. Peacenik is not the only one in the dark.

by KOMO News Staff

The nurses' union said in a statement that it supports a voluntary vaccination program, but that any mandatory policy should be overseen by the state or federal government. (Image: KOMO News)

SEATTLE - A union representing 16,000 registered nurses in Washington state has filed a federal lawsuit against MultiCare Health System for implementing a mandatory flu vaccination policy.

"This new policy will force nurses to get the flu vaccination or to wear face masks as a condition of employment and may result in the firing of nurses who do not comply with the policy," the union said in a statement.

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The War on Language

punditman says...A correspondent by the name of Taxiguy has requested the following post, with this comment: "I think this article provides a few minutes of reassurance that the world has not gone completely mad. It also serves as a counterbalance to other articles about the bombast and spew that television news serves up every day."

by Chris Hedges

There is a scene in "Othello" when the Moor is so consumed by jealousy and rage that he loses the eloquence and poetry that make him the most articulate man in Venice. He turns to the audience, shortly before he murders Desdemona, and sputters, "Goats and monkeys!" Othello fell prey to wild self-delusion and unchecked rage, and his words became captive to hollow clichés. The debasement of language, which Shakespeare understood was a prelude to violence, is the curse of modernity. We have stopped communicating, even with ourselves. And the consequences will be as extreme as in the Shakespearean tragedy.

Those who seek to dominate our behavior first seek to dominate our speech. They seek to obscure meaning. They make war on language. And the English- and Arabic-speaking worlds are each beset with a similar assault on language. The graffiti on the mud walls of Gaza that calls for holy war or the crude rants of Islamic militants are expressed in a simplified, impoverished form of Arabic. This is not the classical language of 1,500 years of science, poetry and philosophy. It is an argot of clichés, distorted Quranic verses and slogans. This Arabic is no more comprehensible to the literate in the Arab world than the carnival barking that pollutes our airwaves is comprehensible to our literate classes. The reduction of popular discourse to banalities, exacerbated by the elite's retreat into obscure, specialized jargon, creates internal walls that thwart real communication. This breakdown in language makes reflection and debate impossible. It transforms foreign cultures, which we lack the capacity to investigate, into reversed images of ourselves. If we represent virtue, progress and justice, as our clichés constantly assure us, then the Arabs, or the Iranians, or anyone else we deem hostile, represent evil, backwardness and injustice. An impoverished language solidifies a binary world and renders us children with weapons.

How do you respond to "Islam is the solution" or "Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior"? How do you converse with someone who justifies the war in Iraq-as Christopher Hitchens does-with the tautology that we have to "kill them over there so they do not kill us over here"? Those who speak in these thought-terminating clichés banish rational discussion. Their minds are shut. They sputter and rant like a demented Othello. The paucity of public discourse in our culture, even among those deemed to be public intellectuals, is matched by the paucity of public discourse in the Arab world.

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Leaving Israel With No Choice?

So Iran has agreed to allow international inspection of its nuclear facilities. Problem solved. Whew. No more worries. That was close. Peacenik is relieved.

Except that the neo cons will never be satisfied. An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal says Iran doesn't have the right to any nuclear technology. This article says Israel might not be satisfied with inspections. And of course the demonization of Iran's leaders will continue. Don't forget, Iraq allowed inspectors and look what happened to them. Should Peacenik be relieved? Are you?

By Michael Gerson
Friday, October 2, 2009

On June 7, 1981, Israeli F-15s and F-16s took off for the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq, after the pilots were emotionally briefed that "the alternative is our destruction." In fact, Prime Minister Menachem Begin had no idea whether the raid would stop the Iraqi nuclear program or merely slow it. But slowing it was reason enough.

Since the George W. Bush administration, the American military has estimated that an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities would only delay the development of its program. "The reality is," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said recently, "there is no military option that does anything more than buy time. The estimates are one to three years or so."

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Why Right-Wing Demagogues Are Tying to Peddle Ludicrous Conspiracy Theories

As the U.S. economy goes down the toilet the wingnuts are acting like they are having a nervous breakdown. And the mainstream media continues to give credence to the craziest right wing theories. Lou Dobbs continues to push the birther movement. Kookie Glen Beck makes the cover of Time magazine. Huge swaths of wingnutville believe in death panels. A congressman called Obama an enemy of humanity. And on and on. Death threats against Obama are soaring.

When the economy gets even worse (Saturn shutting down as Peacenik types) what are all the armed, dangerous, angry, unemployed, hungry, rightwingers going to do? Peacenik thinks this is the last chance for the mainstream media. If it has any sense of right from wrong left, it has to start exposing quackery for what it is. But Peacenik thinks the media is too far gone. It is quackery itself.

By Chip Berlet, Indypendent. Posted October 1, 2009.

Even before Obama was sworn in as the 44th President, the internet was seething with lurid theories exposing his alleged subversion and treachery.

Among the many false claims: Obama was a secret Muslim; he was not a native U.S. citizen and his election as president should be overturned; he was a tool of the New World Order in a plot to merge the government of the United States into a North American union with Mexico and Canada.

Within hours of Obama’s inauguration, claims circulated that Obama was not really president because Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts scrambled the words as he administered the oath of office. A few days after the inauguration came a warning that Obama planned to impose martial law and collect all guns.

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It's Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran Time

This article is a very good summary of the anti-Iranian manipulation in the western media. The propaganda would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous. Because there are some very dangerous neo-cons who really do want to bomb Iran.

And of course Obama continues to kowtow. Will the neocons be satisfied with stricter sanctions? They never are. And sanctions not supported by China, who gets oil from Iran, or by India, who exports gas to Iran, will fail. Peacenik wonders how the neo- cons will back down from their hysterical warmongering. Multilateral talks with Iran start today. Peacenik is hoping for some rational outcome.

by Pepe Escobar

The United States and Western "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" crowd -- hysteria running at fever pitch ahead of Thursday's multilateral nuclear talks in Geneva -- could do worse than have a word with Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

Lula actually talked to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad face-to-face for over an hour on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last week. He invited Ahmadinejad to visit Brazil in November. About the meeting, he went straight to the point, "What I wish for Iran is what I always wanted for Brazil -- a peaceful, civilian nuclear program."

Lula is an island of common sense in an ocean of hysteria. French President Nicolas Sarkozy publicly gave a December deadline for Iran not to make a "tragic mistake", as in provoking Armageddon. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini reiterated the Group of Eight was giving Iran only three more months.

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The Lying Game: How We Are Prepared for Another War of Aggression

punditman says...Government propaganda, media complicity and military psy-ops are firmly inbedded in the brains of many sheeple. Does recent history mean anything? Do the facts? What or who will stop the next war of choice?

by John Pilger

In 2001, the Observer in London published a series of reports that claimed an "Iraqi connection" to al-Qaeda, even describing the base in Iraq where the training of terrorists took place and a facility where anthrax was being manufactured as a weapon of mass destruction. It was all false. Supplied by US intelligence and Iraqi exiles, planted stories in the British and US media helped George Bush and Tony Blair to launch an illegal invasion which caused, according to the most recent study, 1.3 million deaths.

Something similar is happening over Iran: the same syncopation of government and media "revelations," the same manufacture of a sense of crisis. "Showdown looms with Iran over secret nuclear plant," declared the Guardian on 26 September. "Showdown" is the theme. High noon. The clock ticking. Good versus evil. Add a smooth new US president who has "put paid to the Bush years." An immediate echo is the notorious Guardian front page of 22 May 2007: "Iran’s secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq." Based on unsubstantiated claims by the Pentagon, the writer Simon Tisdall presented as fact an Iranian "plan" to wage war on, and defeat, US forces in Iraq by September of that year — a demonstrable falsehood for which there has been no retraction.

The official jargon for this kind of propaganda is "psy-ops," the military term for psychological operations. In the Pentagon and Whitehall, it has become a critical component of a diplomatic and military campaign to blockade, isolate and weaken Iran by hyping its "nuclear threat": a phrase now used incessantly by Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, and parroted by the BBC and other broadcasters as objective news. And it is fake.

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