Today's quote is, uh, "Money is not real." ...

... Money is not real. It is a conscious agreement on measuring abstract value. Unhealthy societies often become mesmerized by money and treat it as if it were something concrete. The effect is to destroy the currency’s practical value.

-- from The Doubter's Companion via digby.

It's been apparent for awhile that our society is not healthy and that money is the only value that is valued by the self-defined valuable-people. All else is 'on the table.'

The US Supreme Court decides in favor of The Torturers ...

..The decision does not bode well for either state secrets cases or for suits trying to hold Bush Administration officials responsible for torture (such as the Yoo appeal being heard in the 9th Circuit today).

Which I guess means we’ve officially become a country that finds protecting those who commit torture more important than justice for those who were tortured.

Whatever happens, they can blame the victims ...

... I'm not convinced that it isn't really a case of the financial elites seeing the opportunity to drastically cut --- excuse me "reform" --- the welfare state and going for it. Unfortunately, as we know, people and economies don't always heal properly when in terrible pain, so while they may cut out the hated safety net they could end up killing the patient.

One never knows but if the turmoil is extreme, perhaps a few Marie Antoinette's may also pay the price. When the 'shared' pain is deliberate, vindictive and disproportionate it just isn't surprising that visions of revenge can override sense. After all the victims will only need to look to the 'elites' for the pattern.

Fascism is what I'm expecting ...

More ominously perhaps, I'm guessing that leadership with fascist inclinations will find a very willing audience.

We seem to be emulating the Germany that allowed a Hitler to take hold. George Bush, with Cheney as his backbone, set us on course. Barack Obama not only fell right in line with the Bush/Cheney corruption but is formalizing the worst and going even further in some instances. I think Obama is furthering unrest by catering to the Media Scolds and the GOP mafia and ignoring the people of this country, specially the ones who elected him. Though I don't expect Obama to be the US's Hitler I think he is setting the stage for such a person.

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ADDED: The US's own special brand of Court Jesters (who apparently seriously consider themselves journalists) will also, undoubtedly, take their place in the roll call of those who help turn the US into Hitler's Germany's copy cat government. Of course, the US will be 'bigger and better' in that we really do have the power to destroy the world. That is the power to destroy the earth's ability to support us even faster than we already appear determined to do.

... all of this just [...] reveals what our nation's leading "journalists" really are: desperate worshipers of political power who are far more eager to be part of it and to serve it than to act as adversarial checks against it -- and who, in fact, are Royal Court Spokespeople regardless of which monarch is ruling. That's why they're invited into the heart of Versailles to frolic with the King's most trusted aides: it's their reward for loyal service as Court courtiers. Just marvel at the self-abasing joy in which Ed Henry wallows by virtue of getting to play water sports with Emanuel and the Bidens. He sounds like a gushing pre-adolescent who just met his favorite boy band idol and got his water gun signed. ...

How is Barack Obama like George Bush? Let me count the ways ...

Here's one: A disgrace of historic proportions

... despite knowing how many people we are innocently imprisoning, the Obama administration continues to demand the power to imprison people with no judicial review: by indefinitely detaining them without charges, by insisting that Bagram detainees captured outside Afghanistan have no habeas rights, by refusing to release any Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo, including those whom the administration itself knows are being wrongfully detained. ...

And we call ourselves civilized? ...

... Most Americans like torture. They're entertained by it. But at least someone is making a record. Sometimes that's all you can do.

Bush/Cheney (among others) caused this. Obama (and many Dems) choose to continue it.

Those who torture should be prosecuted. Those who support torture should be treated with derision, demonized, ostracized.

But the United States of America led by that great hope, Barack Obama, does the opposite.

THIS is to be Obama's legacy? ...

From a most analytical being, Glenn Greenwald:

... this to what is taking place in the United States under Democratic Party rule. We get -- from the current Government -- presidential assassination programs, detention with no charges, senseless demands for further reductions of core rights when arrested, ongoing secret prisons filled with abuse, military commissions, warrantless surveillance of emails, and presidential secrecy claims to block courts from reviewing claims of government crimes. The Democratic-led Congress takes still new steps to block the closing of Guantanamo. Democratic leaders push for biometric, national ID cards. The most minimal surveillance safeguards are ignored. Even the miniscule limits on eavesdropping powers are transgressed. And from just this week: "Millions of Americans arrested for but not convicted of crimes will likely have their DNA forcibly extracted and added to a national database, according to a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday" ...

Why we despise them ...

Glenn Greenwald summarizes it so well:

It makes perfect sense that the country loathes the political establishment. Just look at its rancid fruits over the past decade: a devastating war justified by weapons that did not exist; a financial crisis that our Nation's Genuises failed to detect and which its elites caused with lawless and piggish greed; elections that seem increasingly irrelevant in terms of how the Government functions; grotesquely lavish rewards for the worst culprits juxtaposed with miserable unemployment and serious risks of having basic entitlements (Social Security) cut for ordinary Americans; and a Congress that continues to be owned, right out in the open, by the very interests that have caused so much damage. The political establishment is rotten to its core, and the only thing that's surprising is that the citizenry's contempt isn't even more intense than it is. ...

Then he slams the incompetence and utter decrepitude of the media:

... But precisely because that dynamic so clearly transcends Left/Right or Democratic/GOP dichotomies, little effort is expended to understand or explain it.

The media can't/won't attempt to understand the world they inhabit because it may not suit their little preprogrammed minds.

What do the do in all those journalism schools? Teach journalistic creationism?

And so who should that surprise? ...

Obama’s Drug Strategy All Talk, No Walk

"We are a nation of cover-up artists."

You can say that again ...

We are a nation of cover-up artists.

Like Republican, Like Democrat ...

It's a smelly political swamp we've allowed to stink up our country:

To say that "Democrats, including liberals, will accept and push whomever Obama picks," based on the rationale that "Clinton & Obama like and trust her, and most liberals (myself included) like and trust Clinton & Obama" -- even if they know nothing about her, even if she might move the Court to the Right -- seems to me to be an exact replica of what I described four years ago.

Delicate balance?

All the Joe Stack's vs The Powers That Be ...

But in a brilliant exercise in doublethink, people are led to hate and fear the deficit. That way, business’s cohorts in Washington may agree to cut benefits and entitlements like Social Security (but not bailouts).

At the same time, people should not oppose what is largely creating the deficit—the growing military budget and the hopelessly inefficient privatized healthcare system.

It is easy to ridicule how Joe Stack and others like him articulate their concerns, but it’s far more appropriate to understand what lies behind their perceptions and actions at a time when people with real grievances are being mobilized in ways that pose no slight danger to themselves and to others.

Obama, the smiling Bushie ...

Other than for the first few days in office, has Obama done anything worthwhile?

The Dow is swinging wildly–down as much as 980 points within the last hour–largely due to insecurity about the situation in Greece and shaky retail sales. And according to Brad DeLong, who is generally pretty tight with the White House, Obama will come out in opposition to Audit the Fed this afternoon.

At a time when confidence in the markets desperately needs shoring up, the President should be looking to instill confidence in investors by supporting accountability and transparency within the financial system — not acting to shield the banks. [link]

Obama has catered to thieves and liars. Obama has bowed down to moneyed interests. Is there a single principle that Obama has not betrayed?

Not only has he chosen to follow Bush's murdering steps, Obama now makes jokes about killing people, just like Bush. The similarities are adding up ...

I don't find that a Democrat who acts like a ReThug is any improvement over a ReThug.

Really, at least Bush could not destroy Social Security while he was in office. He must be laughing his guts out now that Obama plans to accomplish what Bush couldn't. As far as Social Security and Medicare we would have been better off with McCain as President and the Congress in Democratic hands. As it is Obama has ruined the chances of many Democrats. If one could conceive of the ReThugs having the smarts and/or Obama having the 'audacity' one could almost imagine Obama being a pre-planned Trojan Horse working for the Republican/Corporate Party.

Dems are just as smart at the Repugs ...

... which, in general, means they are amazingly dumb.

Giant Oil Spill Threatens Alternative Energy Legislation. Wait, What?

When Congress doesn't want to do something anything can be used as a reason.