Do Not Pray for Easy Lives. Pray to Be Stronger Men.-JFK

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent but if we can come to terms with this indifference then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning.
However vast the darkness we must supply our own light.

I forgot the author of this profound piece, suffice to say it' not me.

Friday, May 20, 2011

The Washington Consensus Is A Dead Can Dance

Apparently Bejing was not too subtle(is China turning a new leaf?)as Washington Consensus was rumbling about Pakistan "having to know all about Bin laden".
Bejing has explicitly told DC that any act of war towards Pakistan would have consequences. China is selling lots of fighter planes to their new found friend and DC
mandarins don't probably like it. Wonder if the Chinese planes could really do damage compared to the death dealing hawks of the US defense contractors?
I think we will find out in the future. But please don't let me tear you away from your celebrity spin cycle to something so dull as a possible buildup to WWIII fellow Americans.
But I don't know even some of you with the 24 hour news cycle attention span will
maybe possibly read further because you might care what happens for your children.

Just know  DC does have to behave with China. Can't exactly make up the rules as you go with the CCP since all those Treasuries which are probably not exactly worth as much
as they are supposed to and are held by the  communist human rights violator du jour. Hilary Clinton makes no sense to me except perhaps to befuddled liberal Demo types and AIPAC fundies as she prattles on about the rights abuses of China while 1,000,000 plus Iraq dead are screaming bloody murder and the drones cruise Pakistan highlands. Arrogant?

Since we are pretty much already in a kind of free-fall from any sense of what USA
as/was/written by the founders  of United States is supposed to be it's wise to assume that "nothing is off the table". We are in Dick Cheneys dark side wetdream and I'll bet some of you are just loving it. Just remeber that old funky hippie saying,
What goes around come around. Just remember they put Guantanamo off the coast of Florida for a reason. 

Desperate to have control, dominance and market share in all areas the Empire has
seized the assets of Libya(including 440 tons of gold-comes in handy for a debt strapped nation no?),seized the assets of Syria's Assad(human rights violator natch, who provided good rendition torture express services for the CIA)and threatened war on Pakistan who has gobbled up a lot of money to "fight" terrorism and also fund various assorted CIA endevors through the ISI. But it's the Paki nukes you say.
Yes. And that Afghan poppy and untapped gold. Empires stretch and they do conquest. It's the name of the game.

Yes, we are the beacon on the hill. The shining city as Reagan quoted. That's why
the rest of the world dear fellow Americans is slowly looking at who might be a good
ally should a certain sick man get sicker. Do you see what I see? Everybody seems to be getting a long memory these days in the global stage. Who's been the fire starter of wars in the last thirty years?

Saudi Arabia runs to China after the Arab Spring breaks out. Iran makes friends down in South America. New missiles going up in Venuzuela courtesy Iran.
China and Russia agree they can trade in Yuan and Rouble. The SDR is being talked about on the side lines in the IMF. The Chinese, Russian, Iranian Central banks are buying up gold as fast as can be.
While the American serf scambles to survive inside the walls outside the rules are changing. This is globalization but it's much more fellow AMerican.

Inflation that really has done a number in the middle east is hitting the protected American consumer and it's going to be coming a bit stronger soon. Since the dollar is reserve currency for now where exactly has all this inflation sprouted from?
Ben Bernanke is doing all that he's doing to keep US markets alive and the present system going but what is the cost?
Ask yourself. Are you better off before 2008 or after?

Pushing off the costs onto other countries will only last so long. The US stock market can definetely be manipulated as it most certainly is right now, but what about the bond market? High Frequency Trading and the Plunge Protection Team can definetely do wonders but how much and when do the swans glide in as they must?

It would probably work out fine as it has in the past if Uncle Sam were brimming with health, vim and vigor and ready to kick some ass. Like in the past with Reagan invoke the old ghosts and banish the demons of threats ot democracy ect.
USA all the way. Besides maybe back then not every last job was downsized, shipped, and packed off to lands unknown. We have the vaunted service and knowledge economy.
Wonder of wonders. Facebook employs how many people? Do you want your kids to work at Taco Bell for a lifetime? And what's so bad about having a manufacturing sector? Germany has one and is doing better economically.

I know many of you think that there is no way anybody could hold a candle to US miltary might. This is true. 800 plus bases and not counting all special ops troops is a definte negotiating tool. It's worked in the past, but due to technology this is getting more cumbersome to hide. That nasty thing the internet alerts everybody whats going on in real time. Harder to invade secretly. Harder to do dirty deeds in the dark.

I would also point out that it's the propaganda or pysops that keeps things in check here at homestead USA but in the rest of the world.....not so much. Newsflash Americans, the rest of the world is pretty hip to the trip of what's going on.

Also instructive is the fact the US military machine relies on your taxes and last time I checked, minus mainstream media koolaid, the economy is only back to normal for the rich and richer. It's not like they are footing the bill on this one. You'd have to be an incredibly dense or naive person to think the top 10% are paying their share to help out as things rapidly turn to shit here in the once great USA.
Since the taxes are skewed already that is a diminishing return if the economy does not turn around soon, as in 2012. That means more cutbacks and the US elite trying their best to maintain status quo. I mean they will get desperate.

I've got news for you dim bulbs out there. The way they like to do this when all else
fails is go to war. Not at first, but all empires make this backfire.First economic means are used. And TIm Geithner is pulling out all the stops on that one. I don't understand all of it but suffice that Tim and Ben are using "EVERY TRICK IN THE BOOK". There's expert better than me to explain but suffice to say Timmy ain't working for you or me.

 Asset prices overblown. No real accounting of the failure of the To Big To Fails.
 Other nations are backing away. New alliances are being born. Who knows how the banks fit in the final picture as the whole system across the world is distorted.
It's just right now DC is the desperate one.

As an American I geuss it's my duty to warn you that it spells trouble in big capital letters. It spells WAR. Not video game war in far off land but real live war without borders and possibly nuclear options in the future. Proxy war/homeland war.

I just feel it's my duty to give you a warning.

The DSK Affaire

I have really been having heavy feelings for awhile now. Watching the media go ape shit crazing on the feeding frenzy of the supposed Bin Laden hit, and all the people in the household who got bullets to the head even though there were no guns. AlQueda
scary monsters with no guns? Watching porn? And "muslim" burial at sea? Never heard of muslim burials at sea, nor had muslim scholars who voiced their opinions which the so-called free mainstream US media Pravda esque roaring Wullitzer drowned out in patriotic fever. That was too much already.
But I digress. The old bogeyman must be kept alive.But just as rapidly as that....

Now we have the DSK AFFAIRE TRAGIQUE! Cui bono?

A man who has been one of the most effective IMF leaders in quite awhile. Who has steered it away from the predatory Structured Asset Program script towards maybe oh I don't know humane? Practices.A man who questioned the dominance of the dollar reserve currency status and proposed SDR(Single Drawing Rights, including the Yuan, Rouble(hope I spell it right), and the Brazilian Rial. A man who questioned the fabulous fairy tale of globalization is his last speeches. WHo talked about the dark side of globalization and (gasp! Hush sweet children-turn away!)The inequality of income in the United States, the birthplace of our greatest economic debacle so far.
I used to watch Dominque on interviews with Charlie Rose. I will provide a disclaimer, I was watching him and saw him as a capable and powerful leader.
The 2008 interviews are instructive cause Charlie Rose who's like a gopher boy Johnny Carson for US elites does quite grasp the nuances in the IMF heads statement conducted from IMF headquarters in DC.
It's like he's holding back, as Charlie prods about Greek debt. Almost as if he wants to say, your're country is way more in debt Charlie. Way more fucked.
Again I digress. Watch the interviews. He's very candid about austerity.

Very quickly, and so dramatically he FALLS and it's the biggest story yet. Forget the shitty economy. Let's have sex, randy old men chasing hotel maids around the bedroom! You know those French! The ruling elite raping the help. Sound familar?
Oral sex is also very good for the ratings.


You might say that he DSK as he's called in France and the rest of Europe brought this on himself. Fair enough. There are all the stories of a womanizing reputation.

But here in the so-called free United States a suddenly powerful man in a few days
goes from directing the IMF overseeing the bailouts of nations indebted to very powerful bankers who want their money back(all of it-and then some), to being reviled in US media, walking the perp walk, sent to Rikers Island all in a matter of days. Always photographed, unshaven-in a raincoat, with handcuffs!
Just like a dirty old perv.

I don't know what happened. I'm a little thinking no one does.

Still he's being tried already and the verdict is guilty in the US media.PREDATOR!

Don't come at me with the victim thing because having been sexually victimized I see through that. This is being to use the quaint sick American term spun the way some very powerful people want it SPUN.

The "victim" is definetely that but I see that going a little farther. Who benefits? And who would possibly like this man to go far away?Elliot Spitzer?

I'll explain. I worked in a hotel that is a five star hotel in NYC. Plenty of bankers, VIPS, celebrities. The super rich.
I'm a man but I Never served these people alone. Never.
Always had another person or more.
I would assume the maids were at least two.
Further, the hotel always had a kind of bulletin board dossier on the VIP. Who they were. Any security concerns. And also heads-up. Or I was told this by the manger I worked for. Sex went on. I heard about this, was offered, and put two and two together.

Maybe the Sofitel is different. The media makes it to the rubes like it's the richest hotel in NYC but that's hardly the case. Yes, it's a $3,000 dollar suite, but the man does business for IMF. If he were really the bankster galore he would stay at the Ritz or Pierre or I don't know Regis. He's elite for sure but they rub in the whole $3,000 thing too much. Maybe he's French and likes the food at Sofitel. Apparently he's been staying there since 2010. The maid has no idea who he is according to the official story. She has has a key card, but the room is empty. Starts to clean. DSK comes out of the bathroom (NAKED!) and jumps her, chases her down a hall (it's a suite), and finally pins her down on the bed and forces oral copulation. When done she spits out the evidence on the carpet. OK

Very outrageous. Yes.


OK. What about the "maid". We want to keep her identity secret, I get that.
French media has published her identity and in French Slate interviewed her family.
She speaks Fench. Sofitel is Fench firm. OK
She's from Ghana, but they say she's been here 17 years. US media 3-7 years. Big difference.
US media no mention of citizenship. French/African says she has a green card but "can't vote". I don't know the dynamics of immigration but she has obviously some limits of rights. She's afraid.

She's a "serious girl", whatever that means. I guess she doesn't party is what it means. Or "get around". Good, I'll buy that. Makes her side very credible. Then she's Muslim, religous is I geuss what that means so she is not given to sex out of marriage and all.

US media, the New York Post reports and it's confirmed by the AIDS helping type agency that she lives in housing in the Bronx with her 15 year old daughter. Only people with AIDS can live in this apartment building, and the Post reports that it has to be adult. So she's HIV postive. 32, means she had the daughter around 17?
HIV positive? That's serious shit. I am not prejudiced here I hope but would assume African Muslim with HIV isn't exactly popular in even the African Muslim NYC population. So the up shot is she's all, very, very alone. I know this feeling.

That makes an easy mark.

The family makes no mention of this in the interview.Of course why would they? They only say she is from a merchant family and married a merchant who came here to the USA and when they got here she divorced him. She is now 32. Her daughter is 15. So already I feel she has had much hardness in her life. She's been at the hotel 3 years. All say she's a good worker, nose to the grindstone all that. I don't doubt that stuff about being the hard worker.

I have read the African news sites that publish her name, and they have included the most recent photo. She is a very beautiful woman/girl. It would be apparent that yes maybe this woman could be a victim.A man could have designs from the photo I've seen. Undressed she would be even better looking. Who would know this?

Another "fact".
She is said to have called her "brother" who works as a manger at a restaurant in Harlem crying that a bad thing had happened. She describes the details.

He advises her to call a lawyer. Say what?
He doesn't get on the train or get a cab to go be there?What family is that?He couldn't leave work?My sister just got raped I need to be with her seems like a fair reason to leave in a moments notice. Maybe I'm wrong. You never know with employers these days...

Another thing. The family in the french/african interview which isn't picked up here says they haven't seen her. The brother says she's with police protection. Good.
But why wouldn't the family or brother see her. Wouldn't that be the thing first to do to stabilize a victim? Is the French media that good to outwit NYC's finest?

I also am perplexed at who or what exatly said to her the room was empty when DSK hadn't checked out but they tell "MAID" go clean the room, here's the key card.
It's a suite so it's conference room, living room, bedroom, bathroom. Big job.
For one maid. Yet since all accounts are by computer it would  PLAINLY SHOW Dominque Strauss Khan had not checked out.

Wouldn't they know just by looking at the computeized account that DSK had checked out?

An African site I read mentions another person. I can't verify so I will leave this alone.
A male who is also there, making it different.

The US media has emphasized the fact that DSK overpowered her. He's 62 years old, a little over-weight by far, and she's 32 and presumably physically fit from all the work she does. But this could be fear factor. Very much could be true bu then she is given a key card and wouldn't she be able to get out just as fast if DSK comes running out of the bath stark raving naked wanting to pounce?

Is this man that starved for sex? I mean let's be real he can probably get sex on speed dial in that area of NYC. Any fantasy. Anything.
OK-it's the predator thing. Still...

Last and I don't mean to be gory here but a very astute financial blogger who female
and not given to crude language pointed out the obvious that it would have been easy to do damage DSK in the oral way. Again could be the predator factor and I know from experience that this could very well be true. She spits out the "evidence"
and the carpet is cut away by NYPD Special Victims Unit.

It could be the predator overpowered the prey. It could be like OJ  trial that the obvious is true. A powerful man went too far.

I would like to see a fair trial. A respect for the accused and the victim that weighs the evidence and testimony in an impartial way.
I don't feel this is desired in some quarters.

That is why I will withhold my judgement until the truth all is made evident. Ugly as it is.