Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

I saw this on FOX News’ website, describing a video link (upon which I did not click; but from the thumbnail still image, it appeared to be a person-on-the-street interview piece.)

Good News is No News
Americans don’t react to news that the federal budget deficit projection has declined by three digits this year.

Feh. What’d I say in the comments the other day about being an underachiever?

“Under promise and over deliver.” —Me, in the comments the other day.

If you do enjoy such ‘good news’ don’t look more than one month out! (That’s when the fiscal year ends.)

Economists have said this year’s surge in tax receipts indeed reflects a strong economy, but they cautioned that the boost isn’t fully sustainable. The CBO sees the deficit rising to $286 billion in fiscal 2007, and projects cumulative deficits of $1.418 trillion from 2007 to 2011. Over the next decade, the agency sees deficits totaling $1.761 trillion. [Easy bourse: UPDATE: CBO Sees $260 Billion U.S. Deficit In Fiscal 2006]

Economists see a surge in tax receipts, and conclude: a strong economy. So why, as FOX frets, don’t Americans react to this fantastic news? I can’t speak for everyone, nor do I have evidence that these sentiments are widely held amongst non-economist Americans who are not reacting to news of a strong economy, but here’s what goes through my mind when I evaluate the economic situation:

• Is my job secure from outsourcing, or an economic downturn?
• Is my wife’s job secure from municipal budget cuts or fickle public priorities?
• Can I still sell my house without losing the equity I have invested?
• In the coming years, will I be able to sell my house for enough to just pay off the mortgage?
• Holy fuck! It costs over $30 to fill the tank of my compact car.
• What’s it gonna cost to heat the house this winter?
• What if work dries up at my second job? Will I still be able to make the monthly nut?
• Hey, why doesn’t my employer match my 401k contributions anymore?
• Shit. Will I ever be able to retire?
• My Grandma is paying how much for medications?
• The fuckin refrigerator’s broken.
• Is the check engine light in my car supposed to stay on all the time like that?

You know, stuff like that. Stuff that can get lost on big-time newsmakers and economists.

About that mere trifling $260 billion national debt? Not to worry! As long as the alternative minimum tax is allowed to expire end of next year, middle-classers can finally do “their share” and start paying that bad boy down.

[I hope to post my layman's views about productivity soon as I can. In the meantime there's this from the New York Times: Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in Productivity]

Joe — Mad Lib Style!

“Dag! I’d like to [verb] that live lingerie model in the window!”

“Well, all right, but don’t you think it would be better in the [noun] ?”

[Cross posted at I Miss Fafblog, Spot.]

Take heart, my children, when Donald Rumsfeld says he lies awake at night, “deeply troubled by the success of terrorist groups in ‘manipulating the media’ to influence Westerners.” Let talk of this sort worry you not. I can assure you, Our Brave Warrior rests as well as a baby, or a log, or the Kevin Pollak character in the jail scene in The Usual Suspects.

You too may rest easy, my dear friends, for the purpose of Our Media, as we have molded it, is to record history as We see it. To frame issues, and bound discussion inside the constraints of an ordained Neo-Reality. So to allow— and then complain loudly about —a ‘liberal’ (i.e. ‘terrorist’) bias within the media, is as if to say, “Thus far and no further,” when it comes to analyzing the issues. It is to head the dysfunctional loons of paranoid defeatism off at the pass through which information flows into the Utterly Rational Public Mind which informs our national discourse.

Concern yourselves not with the so-called “third way,” precious lambs. For there shall be no such thing. There shall be not even a second way! There is only the supremely right way; and the radically wrong way. Though, fear not! The radically wrong way is but a far-away straw-imagining; painstakingly constructed— in accordance with 19 Quart Lobster Pot doctrine —to most efficiently show the wrongness of all things other than the supremely right.

For an illustration of this in practice one needs look only as far as Our Mighty Master Cheney’s recent utterance:

I realize, as well, that some in our own country claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone. But the exact opposite is true.

Now don’t all of you pessimistic demagogues of peacenikery who’ve claimed, “retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists,” feel stupid now? Now that your bizarrely wrong-headed notions about the war and terrorism is laid out on display, in all of its farcity, for all to see?

There is only one alternative to defeat in Iraq, and that is Victory! Thus spake Medium Lobster. Only through our unwavering faith, and unquestioning devotion may our rulers carve this necessary truth out of today’s Iraq.

Check out V for Vendetta. Montag likes! It is recommended.

Object

“Mortimer, why did you say the invasion— and it should be noted, the ongoing occupation —of Iraq was US ‘continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001?’ When you knew just as well then as you do now, that it was— how shall we say? —uhh… not true?”

“I wanted to fool the masses!”

[Think Progress: Bush Now Says What He Wouldn't Say Before War: Iraq Had 'Nothing' To Do With 9/11]

Today was fucked.

Look for Bazooka Joe tomorrow, our Wednesday ‘Gang Activity’ feature will happen Thursday this time.

OFFAL sez:

The United States of America must understand it’s in our interests that we help this democracy succeed. As a matter of fact, it’s in our interests that we help reformers across the Middle East achieve their objectives. This is the fundamental challenge of the 21st century. A failed Iraq would make America less secure. A failed Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will provide safe haven for terrorists and extremists. It will embolden those who are trying to thwart the ambitions of reformers. In this case, it would give the terrorists and extremists an additional tool besides safe haven, and that is revenues from oil sales. [Emphasis added. White House: Press Conference by the President]

Well, good thing we don’t have a “failed Iraq” on our hands! After all, it’s still only ranked 4th on the 2006 failed states index!

That aside, and I’m only reading in between the lines here and picking up the thinnest strand of an undercurrent; but if OFFAL is saying what I think he’s accidentally implying, then there may actually be some truth inside this statement, like the proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

See, I think the “fundamental challenge of the 21st century” will be increased competition for increasingly scarce energy resources. Also, to my mind, it seems as though “our interests” and “American security” consist of keeping the power to exploit world energy (and other) resources in order to maintain our exuberant way of life; without resorting to conservation or shelling-out to invest in a large scale conversion to renewable energy.

I’d call the elements in the Mid East who oppose women becoming educated, and religious freedom — who resist “the ambitions of reformers” seeking modernization — “extremists.” (But the extremists are not the sole proprietors of terrorism. All factions— including US —have resorted to terrorism in this snarly circle-jerk-cum-tug-of-war we call Iraq.)

But do we actually believe that a loosely organized band of suicide bombers and guerilla fighters will take control of a failed Iraq’s oil industry, whatever that’d look like, and begin reaping all the profits to fund more (and really expensive!) terrorist activity? No. We just don’t trust the extremists— who could very possibly shuffle a little of that oil money out to terrorists —to respect “our interests” and “American security” in the broader sense.

So, are we really there to help the reformers in Iraq? What do the everyday people in Iraq think about all of this?

Iraqi blogger and activist Raed Jarrar:

Why don’t you go and talk to any Iraqi in the street or talk with Iraqi leaders, elected officials or civil society leaders? All of them blame the occupation for the current sectarian violence, and all of them realize that Iraqis have been living in harmony and peace for the last 1,400 years. And none of these incidents used to happen before the occupation started in Iraq. So people blame the occupation there, and people say, “The day that the occupation will leave Iraq, this sectarian violence will go down. We know how to deal with our problems by ourselves. We know how to take out these people who are trying to increase the civilian conflict and civilian and sectarian tension in Iraq.” [Democracy Now!: Iraqi Peace Activist Forced to Change T-Shirt Bearing Arabic Script Before Boarding Plane at JFK]

So when a vast majority of Iraqi parliamentarians ask that we leave Iraq, why don’t we give them, 1400 years of history and the Iraqi people the benefit of the doubt?

Because we don’t really believe that a vast majority of Iraqi parliamentarians and 1400 years of history will champion “our interests” and “American security.” Mainly because, and rightly so, authentic democracies champion their own people’s interests and security.

MTT: We noticed last Friday, that the Administration is “considering alternatives other than democracy” in Iraq. Look for an Iraqi dictator, an obedient client, hand-picked for certain less-than-compassionate traits, propped up by the presence of permanent US military bases in Iraq.

It’s the permanent occupation of Iraq for strategic control of Mid-East energy resources, stupid!

MRS. MONTAG: Do you think they should even bother having pre-season football?

ME: Um, no . . . Or . . . I don’t know . . . What does Belichick have to say about it?

MRS. MONTAG: He seems to think it’s valuable.

ME: So, yes.

MRS. MONTAG: You sound like one of those “Belichick For President” people.

ME: No. I don’t think he should be President.

MRS. MONTAG: . . .

ME: His job is way too important to quit and become President.

The Young Montags Are Gifted Artists

Exhibit A

[Here is an inane sports post. If you come for political ranting, scroll down. Lot's of posts today.]

The Yankees lost last night which leaves them 1.5 games ahead of Our Beloved Red Sox in the American League Eastern Division standings.

The agenda for the weekend?

Fri. Aug 18 — New York — 1:05 PM — Fenway Park
Fri. Aug 18 — New York — 8:05 PM — Fenway Park
Sat. Aug 19 — New York — 1:20 PM — Fenway Park
Sun. Aug 20 — New York — 8:05 PM — Fenway Park
Mon. Aug 21 — New York — 1:05 PM — Fenway Park
[Excite Sports: Red Sox Schedule & Results]

Yes, that’s a five game Sox-Yankees series at Fenway Park. (more…)

One question I have heard a lot, comes especially from fellow Whining Liberals, usually taking a condescending and incredulous tone when they marvel at the incredible tendency of a population with a high number of working-class folks and low number of elites to vote for politicians and policies that frankly don’t often enough benefit working-class folks.

“Why do people vote against their best interests?!” —Shrilly McShrilly Shrill, Liberal.

Ignoring, partially, the effects of the media, and the money, on the electoral and/or political system(s), the short answer has seemed to me, (informed only— as I often am —by intuition,) to be that a relatively high number of elites participate in the political process, while a relatively low number of working-class folks do. Because they just don’t give a shit about or are bored by or don’t have time for or think that government has been hopelessly, irreparably corrupted by or would rather watch television than participate in the political process.

Well, I would like to posit something interesting that may or may not have affected this phenomenon in the past; and may or may not have an effect— or have more of an effect —on this tendency in the future: It’s Wal-Mart’s fault.

YOU: What the fuck, Montag?! You’ve gone too far this time! Fucking Wal-Mart?! That’s just outrageous!

ME: Oh. Should I keep going?

YOU: YEAH!

(more…)