If Cain has a chance, how about the country?

While the Politico belabors the question of whether Herman Cain has a chance at becoming the GOP nominee and president, is that really the real pertinent question? See if you can spot the obviously corrupt nature of the discussion:

Does Herman Cain really have a chance? - Political Hotsheet - CBS News: "Polls suggest that Herman Cain is one of the front-runners for the GOP presidential nomination. So why is it that most political insiders privately dismiss his chances?

The one-word answer: Money.

The conventional wisdom in Washington - and it is grounded in recent history - is that you can't win a presidential election without wealthy donors behind you. "

According to Politico, then, Cain's principle deficit is financial. That he's a former corporate henchman, Federal Reserve Bank honcho and supported by the Koch brothers financial empire is somehow studiously overlooked, while the insiders busy themselves with the question of who can put together a better traditional political operation.

The questions that really matters is, does the US have a chance when its leaders are at the beck and call of those with the money to finance their media and PR operations. Politics has ceased to have any meaning the the conventional sense,, and has devolved into a contest of big economic interests competing against one another for a perceived advantage in extorting favors and benefits out of the government.

Herman Cain is simply the latest hired clown of the influence-buying machine, and the level of cynicism that propels his candidacy is so audacious as to astound even the veteran hucksters of this political circus. If anything gives one a sense of futility in the continuation of the current system, this ought to be your wake-up call.

New from the "brain" of McCain

A bleating loser, if there ever was one, is John McCain on Obama's latest foray by bus in search of his lost electoral mandate:

McCain blasts Obama's tour -- and his bus: "It sounded like a reprise of the 2008 election.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blasted President Obama yesterday for his criticism of the Republican jobs plan, the motives behind his bus trip to North Carolina and Virginia -- and even the bus itself.
"I've never seen an uglier bus than the Canadian one he's traveling around on," McCain said. "A Canadian bus touting American jobs.""

Obama will never reclaim the support of his erstwhile followers, nor will this slithering snake of a politician redeem himself by mouthing insincere platitudes.

As for McCain, for shame, senator!

The guy who unleashed the abundantly vacuous Sarah Palin on a hapless and uninterested public, creating a greasy spectacle of a loser's loser being flayed alive for public expressions of insipidness, stupidity and general ineptitude. The paltry Palin, into the meat grinder, proved that hamburger is on the menu when it comes to an intellectually starved electorate.

Who is this guy to criticize a winsome opportunist on the other side of the political badminton net, when he groveled so low for votes that he's still got abrasions on his chin?

Why stop at "stolen valor"? What about stolen honor?

This is yet another example of imperial overreach on the part of the federal establishment and associated interest groups. The feds bestowed upon our gallant republic a law against a very narrow variety of lying, in which one claims military honors not rightfully earned. Now the supreme court will consider a challenge:

Stolen Valor Act gets hearing - News - ReviewJournal.com: "WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court will decide whether telling a lie about yourself is a crime -- if the lie claims military medals you didn't earn.
The court said Monday it will rule on the constitutionality of a law making it a federal crime to claim falsely, either in writing or aloud, that one has been awarded the Medal of Honor, a Silver Star, Purple Heart or any other military medal.
The Stolen Valor Act, which passed Congress with overwhelming support in 2006, has been used only a few dozen times, but the underlying issue of false claims of military heroism has struck a chord in an era in which American soldiers are fighting two wars."

If this is indeed a pressing matter requiring immediate and legal efforts to curtail its effects from eroding some treasured American values, or whatever patriotic clap-trap you want to apply, why not let's go the extra mile, and get some bang for our bucks:

Why not make it a crime for politicians, either in spoken or written communications, to lie about their records, or that of their opponents, or to otherwise embellish or distort the record of their accomplishments? This, it seems, is a far more grave challenge to our nation that some drunk fuck at the bar claiming he won the Medal of Honor in Grenada or some such.

Why punish the underachiever, who in any case probably will accomplish even less once he's to the point of claiming false glory, and not the striving politico, who for 40 pieces of silver goes out and rapes his constituency with relish, while speaking loads of pure bullshit on the campaign trail in order to con folks to vote for his sorry ass?

Too bad, but since it's the politicians who enact these laws, we'll probably be reading of prosecutions of resume embellishers in civilian life, while lying politicians go about their business with impunity.

The Richmond Fook Festival

I read the news today, 200,000 folk at Richmond's Folk Festival over the past weekend. This was billed at Richmond at its best -- meaning that elements from the lower class did not disrupt the fun of suburban frolickers by behaving badly. No marauding youth gangs beating on one another, or innocent bystanders; no promiscuous gunfire or sleazy sexual encounters fueled by a drugs-sodden frenzy.

Nope, this was the sanitized, corporate city that hies itself to the 'burbs after 5 p.m. weekdays, and hardly ever looks back unless it's to the safety of the riverfront enclave centered around the Federal Reserve Bank. It's where Richmond comes to play, when it's not Richmonders doing the playing...

Speaking of the FED, one might wonder whether this kind of communal outpouring of support for the "best" the city has to offer might have been more productively applied to one of the OWS demonstrations against the corporate-security-oligarchical state, but alas, no one is worrying about that now. Everybody's too busy having fun, as you'll see:

The welcome mat is out... notice the dour looking guy on the left.

Nice tattoo: Tele Hog

Strolling along with grandiose corporate landmarks in the distance

Pause for instructions

Free festival besieges visitors with appeals for donations -- why not charge admission?

Trepidation

Inertia on the James

Let us entertain you

The human parade, wearing shades

Take a break, for gosh sake

Is there ever a moment without a word from our sponsors?

'Occupy' blows up in Italy; can it happen here?

The establishment press, regardless of how sympathetic it may be to the plight of working people -- is still stuck in its role of trying to characterize the "Occupy" movement in a way that doesn't challenge the status quo in any meaningful way. People may be angry, and a certain amount of anger is understood and tolerated, but things still must stay within bounds -- and never undermine the fundamental assumptions undergirding the US' economic system.

Today, the protests went global, which is to say that protesters in other cities in Europe, in particular, held demonstrations in solidarity with the people in New York and other US locations. Our protests have been remarkably well behaved, with a heavy hand coming down from somewhere to keep a certain orderliness and decorum in the proceedings. In effect, the movement seems to be required to prove that it has good manners in order to be taken seriously -- as if there's a snowball's chance in hell that the powers that be actually give a flying fuck about Occupy's critique of the US class system.

The dark flip side is described in this dispatch from CBS, but its source is completely incidental: the same sort of report seems to blanket the media, where the organizers of Occupy are being judged on their ability to keep the protests like unto a genteel tea party:

"Occupy" protests go global, turn violent - CBS News: "(CBS/AP) ROME - Italian police fired tear gas and water cannons Saturday in Rome as violent protesters turned a demonstration against corporate greed into a riot, smashing shop and bank windows, torching cars and hurling bottles.
The protest in the Italian capital, which left dozens injured, was part of the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations against capitalism and austerity measures that went global Saturday.

Tens of thousands nicknamed "the indignant" marched in major cities across Europe, as protests that began in New York linked up with long-running demonstrations against government cost-cutting and failed financial policies in Europe."

In the US the authorities will use the threat of force, or actual force, at will to suppress the anger and frustration that is boiling just under the surface here on the streets. And this is not limited to a white-shirt NYPD slugging a woman protester as has happened recently. Violence in places like Italy is the specter that our media projects about the protests in order to preemptively create a justification for the more extreme forms of response that are likely to follow as the protests gather force and the true sharp pain of the austerity knife starts to slice through flesh and to the bone.

One only need remember how the government ultimately dealt with the anti-war protests of the 1960s, and what finally brought the movement to a screeching halt: the government murders of protesters at Kent State and Jackson State in 1970. That was no joke, and no accident, and there's an atmosphere and an infrastructure created since 9-11 that will allow the hammer of repression to come down without hesitation on those who willfully interfere with the orderly transfer of wealth from the working class to the oligarchs.

Retail sales make counter-intuitive move up

The US economy continues to bumble along, with today's featured economic headline the September retail sales number -- which showed an unexpected increase of 1.1 percent.

Retail sales rise, economy seen accelerating | Reuters: "(Reuters) - U.S. retail sales in September grew at the fastest pace in seven months as consumers shook off concerns about a weak stock market and political gridlock, giving a bit more momentum to the economic recovery.

The data, which beat economists' expectations and eased concerns the U.S. could slip back into recession, overshadowed a separate report showing a surprise drop in consumer confidence in early October.

The Commerce Department said on Friday that retail sales rose 1.1 percent in September, with strong auto purchases providing a big boost. Sales for August and July were revised higher as well.

"Reports of the consumer's demise have been greatly exaggerated," said Stephen Stanley, chief economist eat Pierpont Securities in Stamford, Conn."

If the consumer's demise is not so final as has been rumored so far, one wonders where Joe and Jane Citizen are coming up with the scratch to soothe their consumerist itch. Their incomes are stagnant, and the unemployment rate is officially 9.1 percent and in fact closer to 16 percent. If people continue to spend, either they're pulling the money out of their asses or they've got a new piece of plastic -- or two.

Besides, the global ponzi scheme is only being kept aloft one day at a time, and when the bottom really drops out -- which it most assuredly will -- there won't be any excess cash floating around to keep customers coming into a mall near you. Hear about OWS? Well, you ain't seen nothin' yet!

Perry claims he is a miracle worker!

You gotta have faith, because if you just use your common sense you'd never believe what Rick Perry is selling today:

First Read - Perry calls for creating jobs through energy production: "WEST MIFFLIN, PA -- Seeking to refocus his campaign after a month of controversies and shaky debate performances, Texas Gov. Rick Perry visited a cavernous steel plant outside of Pittsburgh Friday to unveil his plan for job creation through reform of the energy industry.
Speaking here at U.S. Steel's Irvin plant, Perry said that his proposal -- which would open protected land for oil and natural gas production as well as lift federal regulations on the energy sector -- will create 1.2 million jobs.
"Today, I offer a plan that will create more than a million good American jobs across every sector of the economy and enhance our national security. And the best news is it can be set in motion in my first 100 days," he told a crowd of hard-hat-wearing steelworkers."

Just because Rick Perry says so, doesn't mean it IS so.

We've been routinely been fed this line that the reason the nation's energy resources aren't tapped is because of government regulation, and that the way out of our economic woes -- and high energy prices -- is the "drill, baby, drill."

About all they're going to drill is another hole in their listeners' heads, in case they need one, to pour this crap into. Think the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the mammoth oil spill that resulted was caused by over-aggressive regulation of BP and the other polluters? Sure, the government hasn't opened all the potential areas up for exploration and exploitation, but considering that the industry has plenty of opportunities in places to which they already hold leases, they've got plenty to keep them busy -- if they want it!

No, Perry and his ilk are blowing smoke, as usual. Where there are pathetically weak regulations now, they'd simple weaken them even more. Or simply eliminate them altogether. Think the oil industry doesn't develop more refining capacity because of onerous regulatory burdens? How about, instead, that they're limiting supply in order to keep prices elevated? How can an industry that owns the politicians that write energy policy be held back? It just isn't happening.

The hardhats listening to Rick Perry may like the sound of millions of new jobs, since after all, they may need a new one once the steel mill closes down and moves production to China. Even if new jobs do come, however, they won't be in manufacturing or anything that pay enough to support a middle-class lifestyle. Eventually, Americans won't even be able to afford the burgers they'll be flipping, if the oligarchs that Perry and his fellow politicos work for have their way.

As economist Michael Hudson says, Obama is working to lower the standard of living in the US by 30 percent, and is doing yeoman service to his masters by pushing for the dismantling of social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Rick Perry or Mitt Romney or any of the rest of them would do no less, but it's Obama who has the constituency to actually pull such a thing off, so in that respect he's far more valuable to TPTB than any of the strivers on the GOP side

It's simply a matter of convincing the Yahoo Nation to put enough GOP lawmakers in congress to make this 80-year-old dream of the plutocracy a reality, and dismantle the New Deal once and for all. It's taken longer than anticipated, but the past 30 years have been a period of exceptional progress on the quest for ultimate wealth concentration.

The wrench thrown into this process has been thrown in New York City with the Occupy Wall Street movement, as it now spreads throughout the country. This has raised the stakes for the travelling demagogue revue that's spreading the gospel of more, and more profitable, wars, as well as more exploitation and repression at home, by means of the well-oiled propaganda machine the oligarchs have constructed with single-minded resolve since the 1970s. There's enough energy on both sides of the equation for some very interesting pyrotechnics to come about, if by no other cause than an explosive chemical reaction that's beginning to take place in the streets.

Palin and Perry and Obama have their orders, but they aren't miracle workers and as the sorry state of the economy strips the finish off these clowns, we'll begin to see the fake smiles and empty blandishments' effectiveness wear off like a cheap whisky drunk. I'd love to see one of those hardhats punch Rick Perry in the face.