MarkLimacher.com

So I read the following Chris Hedges piece from Truthdig the other day, and couldn’t help but grow concerned about my well being (yes- again). The jist of the article is about the meetings that took place earlier this week in Yekaterinberg, Russia by the BRIC & Shanghai Cooperation Organizationg, and the panic that should be starting to sink in about the future of the US dollar. A brief sample:

…It is the first formal step by our major trading partners to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. If they succeed, the dollar will dramatically plummet in value, the cost of imports, including oil, will skyrocket, interest rates will climb and jobs will hemorrhage at a rate that will make the last few months look like boom times. State and federal services will be reduced or shut down for lack of funds. The United States will begin to resemble the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe. Obama, endowed by many with the qualities of a savior, will suddenly look pitiful, inept and weak. And the rage that has kindled a handful of shootings and hate crimes in the past few weeks will engulf vast segments of a disenfranchised and bewildered working and middle class. The people of this class will demand vengeance, radical change, order and moral renewal, which an array of proto-fascists, from the Christian right to the goons who disseminate hate talk on Fox News, will assure the country they will impose.

Yet another take, Prairie2 put it rather bluntly, but effectively:

…The turmoil that this could produce has no large scale precedent. With almost no Americans having any sense of ownership in our society the reaction will be a feeling of hopelessness and an every man for himself mentality. The crazies on the right have been priming themselves for this sort of apocalyptic collapse for forty years and will have no doubt who is to blame. Those that don’t know who to blame will get a fair and balanced list on Fox News. Watch your back.

I’m reminded, rather insistently, by the post I made a few months ago in which I linked to the Robert Freeman piece regarding the US facing a possible Weimar moment. I know I do a great deal of yammering about fearing for my life/future, but I’m finding it much more difficult to ignore the sheer volume of evidence that’s beginning to mount regarding the speed with which the American empire is dissolving. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find much information about the results of said meeting, with a New York Times article indicating that the group “concluded with only a cautious statement suggesting a move away from the dollar’s role in global commerce and a call for greater representation of developing countries in global financial institutions.” I will admit that I find the general ‘non-statement’ quality of that reporting to send chills up my spine, but what else can I expect from the Times financial section. This seems likely to be a developing topic over the next several months, which is good only in that it gives me time to go and purchase some canned goods before the right-wing psychopaths band together in an omega-man-esque sort of glory.

As a kind of appertif, a sort of deliciousness in video form, I thought I’d post some of the perplexing sadness that is the David Letterman outrage.

I couldn’t resist this:
Last night a few of us got to talking about television shows from our youth, and I couldn’t help but bring up the detective series from the 70s that were my bread and butter growing up. Doing a brief google search I discovered some of the themes were available on youtube and I’ve posted a few of those below the fold. I can’t help but feel that there was a particular style of television composition that doesn’t exist anymore (perhaps not necessarily a bad thing)- an odd sort of blend comprising jazz-esque elements with an of old-world compositional sense.
Weird shit man.

I returned last night from my wonderful trip to Montreal- a trip that’s becoming a bit of annual tradition- and what was the big news of the last few days? Another right-wing extremist murdering someone, this time in the DC holocaust memorial museum. That struck me, because if I’m not mistaken, it was last week that another right-wing extremist murdered Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider in Kansas. Who’s to die next week?

When the DHS put out the report about rising right-wing extremism on April 7th, it was met with ridicule of the highest order from all of the expected neo-fascist sycophants. Promptly it was touted as nothing more than an appaling and shameful measure to criminalize disagreements in political policy and practice. If I’m not crazy, murdering a person for providing a LEGAL medical procedure to women in need, isn’t politics as usual. Murdering a person whose job it is to guard a museum memorializing the Nazi Holocaust is not the way you discuss a difference in policy opinion. The conservatives are already defending their previous hate-fest on Napolitano, or at least trying to obscure their previous statements by further hating on the ‘left’, in an absolutely unprecedented display of ignorance. I’m left wondering the following.

The so-called ‘center’ has moved, with blinding speed I might add, to the right over the past 60 years, and at this exact moment of time I spend a great deal of my day worrying about my safety and the state of my life in the future. I never thought I’d live in a reality in which honest concerns about violent extremists would be an immediate part of my life. Retrospectively that was unintentional intellectual dishonesty, and exhibits such a tremendous amount of North American chauvinism that I should feel ashamed- but I fully acknowledge my situation now. I asked it once, but I will ask it again:
Who will be next to die? I fear I won’t have to wait long for my morbid question to be dutifully answered.

I stumbled across this for no good reason, and happen to think it’s great, most certainly because it displays that he is more than just Pacific 231.
Don’t like the ’staging’? Go to hell, it’s amazing.

I must come clean:
I have been avoiding my blog because I have been feeling incredibly depressed at the state of my surrounding socio-politicaL atmosphere (yes- again).
It was this same feeling that kept me from blogging regularly for several years, not coming out of the shadows until the Obama inauguration really. Unfortunately, here I am with those same pangs of abject despair tugging at my heart.

I was really starting to think that for once in my life I would see the wheels of justice begin to turn again, having all but rusted in state from years of hideous abuse and distortion. Such, it would appear, will not be the case. President Obama appears to be taking a chilling centrist approach on seemingly everything, and worst of all has AGAIN been using this phrase “looking backwards” as a mechanism for doing gornisht.
What in fuck’s name is going on? Cheney is continually on television, we are hearing about endless atrocities with no justice in sight, American Idol is still more culturally valuable than my entire field, affordable health care is off the table, and Pelosi is the Antichrist- Is it still 2007?

On the upside, I have developed a plan for the summer. I creating a reading list for myself (please leave me suggestions), I have a few lessons lined up, and I will be watching a plethora of documentaries courtesy of Netflix. The downside is that most of the aforementioned activities will, with all likelihood, only worsen my depressive state. Hot damn.
I’m going to be taking a long overdue vacation to the great city of Montreal in a few weeks, and I fear that it’s going to take every ounce of will to drag my sorry ass back here. How about some Vaughan to forget our troubles.

I’m so busy that I’m close to insanity, but I thought I’d post a little something. This counts as one of the most chilling videos I’ve seen in a while, if you don’t count the Dom DeLuise retrospectives (I kid out of love, he will always be an absolute joy to me). No, this comes from this past Monday, when medical professionals and concerned citizens stood up against the health care reform atrocity headed by this republicrat little puke, Max Baucus. Just to clarify, those invited to the hearing included 15 members of various insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital corporatists. It’s all over.

As per usual, a clearing away of the clutter. I have practically OD’d on videos of the psychopathy conventions, er, I mean anti-tax-day-teabaggin’-festivals, so I’ll spare you the links.

I received an email earlier in the week from one of the editors of the book Neo-Confederacy: A Critical Introduction. It couldn’t be more apropos given my last post detailing the mounting secession movement right now. Mr. Sebesta’s blog, Anti-Neo-Confederate can be found here, and I’ve linked it in the ‘Friends of Mr. Limacher Section’. I will have to wait to write a little more on this subject, so expect a follow up, but I implore you to go have a look at the excerpts available on the link above.

Lastly, to the Ron Paul supporter who commented a few days ago, you’ll be pleased to know that Ron Paul is in support of the secession talk. All I have to say about Ron Paul, is all I ever have to say about Ron Paul- I can’t seem to understand what reality he lives in, because it can’t be the same one I grapple with every day.

The Jay S. Bybee memo of thursday, outlining the methods of torture able to be utilized by CIA officials and other US Nationals abroad, came as a revolting shock. The day before, thousands of dangerously brainwashed right wing psychopaths protested taxes, and I suppose, all forms of societal responsibility and human empathy. Today, it is clear that virtually no justice will be sought on the former, as Attorney General Eric Holder vowed not to prosecute those who carried out said acts of Torture.

It has been a very interesting and illuminating few weeks. This is a country where students protesting a known war criminal as their university president are teargassed , beat up, and restrained while being pepper-sprayed by the police, but right-wing extremists protesting imagined tax increases and other racist and psychopathic fantasies are given an international media platform and totally legitimized (and in Neil Cavuto’s case, inflated).
Yes, it has been a VERY illuminating few weeks.

I have read the Bybee memo, and I am sick to my stomach. I thought using insects as torture phased out in the Achemenid dynsasty, but apparently I was way off base. I thought water boarding would remain ‘just a Pol Pot thing’. Again, I was way, way off.
Honestly, where the fuck are the massive rallies about the torture, the deaths of detainees in US custody, the secret CIA black sites? Instead we have rabid right-wing psychopaths en masse protesting everything from a black man in the white house, to secession- yes, read it again, secession. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried anymore, this is getting so beyond dangerous that I don’t even have words most of the time. I end up stammering like Billy Budd for most of the day now. Example:
For all the coverage of Texas asshole Rick Perry talking about secession, the Georgia state senate passed this doozie 43 to 1. They passed resolution 632. Here is said resolution in full, but I’ll spare you some of the legalese, and cut to the chase. Firstly, they redefine the scope of the federal government’s authority of prosecution, and state that the ONLY crimes they can prosecute are treason, piracy and slavery. Everything else is null and void (somebody tell Madoff already). Secondly, they state that should the government attempt to overreach, the United states of America, and the United States Constitution is nullified and all authority is placed in the State government. What constitutes overreaching you might ask? According to Resolution 632, anything to do with the restriction of the sales of assault weapons would do the trick. By the by, this term ‘nullify’ has a rather distasteful history, such as during the civil rights movement as a means to disregard Supreme Court rulings on segregation, and my personal favorite, the Nullification Crisis on the path to the Civil War.

Once again I will not mince words- I fear that if nothing is done to stem the tide of this fulmination of anger and hate by these right-wing psychopaths, that some manifestation of insurrection is not only possible but likely.

It is getting harder for me to laugh at the ridiculousness of this news, and ridiculous and absurd it is indeed, but sometimes I know not what else to do.

Yesterday, as I made my way to the post office to mail my tax return, three right wing psychopaths stopped me before I was able to enter, asking if I was there to do the unspeakable (they were doing so to everyone entering/walking past the PO).

Psychopath 1: “You going in there to pay your taxes?”
Myself: “Yes…”
Psychopath 2: “Don’t go in there man, say no to socialism”
Me: “If you touch me I’ll sue”
Psychopaths in Unison: “Hey relax buddy, just spreadin’ the word”

At this point they turned away and continued handing their pamphlets to other unsuspecting passer-by’s. As the door shut behind me, I could hear the remnants of “Obama’s a socialist!” and “Say no to socialism!”, met with an abundance of hostility given that this is the fucking UPPER EAST SIDE OF MANHATTAN. That however, was nothing. The video below chills me. This should be old news at this point, but this kind of total insanity is only the beginning. This is getting so inappropriately out of hand, and I am left completely speechless at this shit. I’m reminded of the recurring South Park bit where the red necks in the town get so riled up about the typical memes that they spit all over themselves. The only difference is of course that this time it’s not satire; they’re heavily armed, uneducated, racist, culturally ignorant, bigoted and REAL.
Brace yourselves.

Today is tax day, and to mark the occasion, dumb ass republican mouth breathers will be gathering in groups around the country to insert each other’s testes and scrotums orally.

Such a glorious display of defiance against the evils of socialism is enough to bring a tear to my eye. Unfortunately, I’m not illiterate enough, hateful enough or downright willfully ignorant enough to participate in of the tea bagging parties themselves. No, in fact in all honesty, the sheer volume of armaments likely to be present at each one of these low-kal-klan rallies is enough of a deterrent for me. To be honest, I’m a little less than comfortable about this absolutely absurd anti-tax rhetoric. In the Barbara Ehrenreich piece I put up last week, she talks about how as a society we might want to start thinking about the common good, at least slightly more than usual, instead of only ever our individual interest. This is one of my major problems with this continent, we have somehow arisen at a point where we are so intrinsically selfish that a certain faction of society is willing to go around on tax day and place pretend their re-enacting the Boston Tea Party. Let’s make the distinction right now.

The Boston Tea Party took place because of a lowering in a ‘corporate’ tax. The British East India company was being taxed 25% on all the tea they imported by the British Parliament. Problems arose when Dutch tea, which was not taxed by their government, began to be smuggled into Britain and sold as much lower prices. To correct for this great loss of capital in a British company, the Parliament lowered said tax to 0%. At the same time, they passed the Townshend Revenue Act, which allowed for massive tax-rapings to begin in the colonies. The colonists were all like “hey bra, I’m just dreaming about founding a christian nation over here with my pal Jesus and Tom Delay, what’s with the taxes while the fucking East India Company gets an Enron of a pass??” and then Samuel Adams was all like “lets dress up like American Indians and dump the next load of tea they bring over here into the water!”.

In our contemporary world, these tea bagging parties are the hellspawn of Fox News and other right wing cash sources, used to manipulate the dumb and the mean of our society into gathering on tarmacs around the country on tax day to place each other’s testes and scrotums into each other’s mouths, because Barack Obama wants to raise the tax rate on those who earn above $250k a year from 36% to 39%. Lapsang the bastard!

As an additional treat, a new podcast episode is below with panel guests Nora Burkey, Samantha Fingerhut and Nykki Dular. We discuss a variety of topics including Nykki Dular’s thesis on children, the tea bagging parties (forgive me, I mispeak and refer to the Dutch East India Company when in fact I mean to say British East India Company), New School Free Press Items, and Hot Dogs.
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