“A Few Bad Apples”: A Mocumentary*

(*sprouted from an intended Documentary)

[In light of the talking heads that have surfaced recently from the constitutional shallows to take credit for the demise of Osama bin Laden, we disclose a(n aborted) simulation meant to explore in greater depth those constitutional shallows. Of course, one prefers not to mock others, but when “those others” continue to manifest escalating obtuseness about the torque perpetrated upon the American Constitution under their “righteous” watch, one has diminishing options. NOTE to obtusers: “mock-on.wrtr!” considers every person (even you) to have human rights whereas torture.gov does not. Who would not prefer the “lance” of a Jon(athan) Swift or Stewart to that of a Pol Pot or Pinochet^[1]? Unless of course, one is also obtuse about Pol Pot and Pinochet! Or likewise, if one believes that objectives justify any means! NOTE TWO: names have been amended for a purpose.]

A FEW BAD APPLES^[2]

Place: Gitmo interrogation room

Time: 8th Anniversary (more or less)

Scene: Black box room; large viewing screen—i.e., a whitish sheet draped to divide the room; 3 metal chairs face screen; the dented middle one is occupied by Rush Limpaugh, fresh-faced and attired in an orange jump-suit; he has been duct-taped in place; the other two chairs are empty; Donald Drumsfeld stands in a back corner—on one leg—at a desk elevated to the proper height by 2 flat stacks of metal chairs. A timing clock shows 6 hours, 3 minutes.

Voice from beyond the screen: “Mr. Limpaugh, in the interests of partial disclosure, you have been renditioned by Citizens against Torture and Hypocrisy (CaTaH for short) to screen a new documentary. Through a free and democratic process and a series of small participatory incentives, you were voted as the man most likely to resist information. CaTaH couldn’t afford renditions for our other guests, being Mr. Dick Chainee, who declined our invitation claiming a prior hunting engagement; and Mr. Karl Rover, who was voted as the man most likely to invent information, but who also declined, claiming he was in protracted, top-secret (Oops! Oh well!) negotiation for the Fix-job of Bill O’Really!. You may have noticed Mr. Drumsfeld in a back corner. He was not invited initially, but insisted on coming at his own expense to prove a standing-point. He has been allowed to remain on his express promise (which we remind him, was given in writing) that he NOT interfere in these proceedings.

“Now, we know Mr. L., that silence is not one of your strong suits, so we are sorry about the duct-tape. It will be removed at the end of the screening. Oh, and just so you know, we have double security on standby. We will begin without further delay.”

Documentary scenes (DS-x) flash upon the viewing screen:

DS-1) Video of Geo Bush: whacking brush and other Texas shrubs while muttering “I’ve bin had! I’ve bin had!” under his breath. [Several Secret Service hover in the scanty shade.] Suddenly GB exclaims (as the Texas sun caresses his boyish face): “I say, nobody whacks a Texas Bush with impunity. We’ll re-designate. If they ain’t entitled to rights, then we can’t do nothin’ wrong by ‘em. Right, boys. It’s brilliant sense and first-class history, if I don’t praise so myself.”

DS-2) Video of Dick Chainee: “We’ll have to work sort of the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, without any discussion, without any discussion, without any discussion, [tech hiccup is thumped into submission] using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies—if we’re going to be successful. That’s the world these folks operate in. And, uh, so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means, any means, any means, any means, any means [2nd tech hiccup corrected with a loud whack on the module] at our disposal basically to achieve our objectives.”^[3]

DS-3) Video of David S. Addingnone [running caption: DC’s DA: aka Dick Chainee’s Dark-side Advocate]. DsA hangs his long cape and 5-gallon black ‘n white cowboy hat in a secret closet. Sits down at his computer to redact his email and memos.

DS-4) Video montage of Jack Bauer extracting information on 24 while being cheered by several senior and semi-officials, including but not limited to Chertiff and that other guy, Feithful—all closely clustered in a windowless office. (Several are taking notes).

In his Gitmo corner, Donald Drumsfeld mutters: “Way to go, Jack-O. These CaTaH wimps should be conscripted to hell, fire ‘n damnation.”

(A deep sigh from beyond the screen!) Voice-over: “Excuse us Mr. D, but you did sign a contract, if you recall.”

Mr. D shifts his weight and mutters: “Duress vitiates, if you care to look it up.”

Voice-over: “Just so you know, Mr. D, three strikes and you’re outta here. OK.”

DS-5) Surveillance photo of former OLC Assistant A.G. Jay S. Bywybee signing “The Torture Memo” while holding his nose.

DS-6) Surveillance video of underling John Yoo-Hoo (while blowing his): “The working definition we find most apt is ‘equivalent to organ failure’.”

DS-7) Video of Cofvert Blackout rubbing his knuckles as caption scrolls: Former head of Counterterrorist Center and subsequent point-man says “Gloves off” BlueSky Memo. Additional caption: CB has serendipitous 2005 segue into vice chairmanship of Blackwater USA: State Dept’s biggest private security contractor, etc.

DS-8) Photos of Abu Ghraib (as seen by the public). More photos of American soldiers and detainees (not yet seen by the public and unlikely to be seen per Obamah Executive Order, but leaked to CaTaH for limited viewing rights after paying a $50.00 incentive).

In the corner, Donald Drumsfeld mutters: “A few bad apples!” He shifts to his other leg.

DS-9) Video of Rush Limpaugh in front of a large microphone (with righteous indignation) “These guys have been trained in making false allegations of torture. It’s all a ploy to discredit America and its values.”

DS-10) Scrolling text of The Torture Memo.

Orange-faced Rush squeezes his eyes tight shut. Voice-over begins to read the text aloud. Rush opens his eyes and pretends to read. Voice pauses then continues reading. Rush tries to tip his chair over, but it has been clipped to the floor. As he thrashes about, the documentary goes to pause. After a few minutes, things settle and the voice resumes reading hi-lighted portions.

DS-11) Photo of George Tenetloss [running caption: Former CIA Chief]: Classified memos scroll across his face.

DS-12) Grainy video of unknown persons burning videos and DVDs. Caption reads: CIA cleaning its drawers of interrogation films to make way for new blanks.

DS-13) Video of Condolee Rice [running caption: Former National Security Advisor & former Secretary of State]: “Whatever you think, Mr. President is far Right by me and extremely Right by America. And I cannot repeat enough, Sir, how your secret redefinition of torture has proved a brilliant strategy. I myself have covertly referenced it innumerable times; and I can assure you, Sir, that without it, we would have looked and sounded very, very, VERY bad—indeed and in fact. Yes, sir, Sir, redefinition was plain and simply masterful—and very comforting to the conscience, I might add. Yes, indeed.”

Rush Limpaugh feigns (?) respiratory distress. In shock and awful fury, Drumsfeld rushes to Rush’s side, thumps the detainee’s chest and blows air into his nose.^[4] (Rush’s mouth is not available re duct tape; supine rendition not possible either for the same reason). Rush’s eyes dilate in enhanced distress as he thrashes his head from side to side to avoid Drumsfeld’s yawning maw. Drumsfeld hollers and gesticulates at the screen. “Enough, already, you imbeciles! Can’t you see the man has had enough? Are you monsters? Have you no regard for HIS ‘n OUR CONSTITUTION?

Rush’s torquing girth succeeds in rupturing the chair’s substandard^[5] leg-welding. Freed from restraints, the chair launches and the ensuing rear-ender propels the gesticulating Don into and through the viewing screen which cascades in billowing grace upon the pomp d’circumstance.

Sounds of a crash and [redacted] frustration are heard from the Voice-over shadows. Meanwhile two actors in Military Police costume scramble in unrehearsed confusion toward the undulating scene.

Frustrated Voice-over: “Well, you’ve done it, Mr. Rush. Our limited budget did not anticipate reconstruction costs, so you’re off the evidentiary hook, so to speak, though it appears a second water-board may be prudent considering Mr. D’s resuscitation deposits and our irritations. In any event, we will keep your first confessional and universal release on file for future reference. And we’re sorry to inform you, that since we didn’t anticipate your quasi-termination for several more hours, our rendition plane is still fundraising for fuel. In the meantime, you can enjoy some Gitmo soundtracks, which, considering your increased time exposure, may now exceed our original pain-threshold assessment. Sorry about that, but you sort of brought it on yourself, didn’t you? As they say, when you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong profile, you get what’s on the pike, deserve it or not.”

Voice-over exits lugging the irreparably damaged projector.

The military actors don earplugs as a Gitmo soundtrack blasts into the black box. Lights fade to pitch black as Rush and Drumsfeld stiffen in shock and awe.

[All of which constitutes the aborted end of a never-to-be-acknowledged semi-simulation.]

--------------/
[1] Note: We have deliberately selected specimens from the far left and the far right of the torture.gov spectrum.
[2] First suggested working title: “Shock and Awful!”
[3] This is an accurate transcription of D.C.’s actual words from Meet the Press, Sep 16, 2001. In addition to other sources, see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/themes/darkside.html ; http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/etc/script.html
[4] A commendable reversal of attitude considering his previous declaration: “I don’t do detainees.” (Ref: Jane Mayer’s, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, p. 188)
[5] We highly recommend a congressional investigation into the Gitmo chair supplier (a well-known gov’t. contractor that we decline to name IF litigation is possibly pending). We believe there may be ample evidence of malfeasance because a concealed USPO (with paid-in-full notation) was later discovered in the mangled chair tubing. The PO was for 20,000 Gitmo metal chairs at $1,006.66 /chair. The chair price seems excessive considering the quality, the efficient market hypothesis, and considering we could only find 42 such chairs in the entire, semi-vacant (now used as storage) half of the once bustling Gitmo facility. DISCLOSURE: we managed to rent our Gitmo location for the day’s semi-simulation at less than half the price of one dented chair. (And there wasn’t even a supply and demand competitor! Would you believe!)

Back to Square 1601

~
Why 1601? Because those were the good old dogma days when “truth” had no obligation to conform to observed reality and measurement! Those were the days before the enlightenments of Galileo, Bacon, Locke, Newton, etc. Those were the days when the Church (or King or Baron or local aristocrat) spoke and “truth” reigned.

Now, in 2011 we begin a new cycle of good old dogma days for libertarians are announcing their run for POTUS. And what have they to offer? Plain and simple dogma espoused by the Church of the Laissez-faire (CLF).

None of the staunch members of the CLF seem the least bothered by the follies, fabrications, failings, and frauds of laissez-faire. Like the generally compliant masses of 1601, these latter-day devotees have received their wisdom from ivory-towered contemplations or pronouncements therefrom, and such is sufficient. No need to ponder, analyze, evaluate, understand, or actually consider the reality of:

▪ the inevitable concentrations of wealth and power in Big Business and the monied aristocracy under CLF dogma
▪ the inescapable greed and corruption that prevails when profit-motive runs rampant, unbalanced by other values
▪ warnings from founding fathers (and others) about monied aristocracy and concentrations of economic power
▪ the necessity of checks and balances upon any and every power
▪ ubiquitous, recycling booms and busts (which booms the few and busts the many)
▪ the fact that most share purchases contribute NOTHING to business capital—the prime purpose being to extract WEALTH after acquiring shares FROM other speculative shareholders—setting up the ultimate, ubiquitous MORAL HAZARD where those who contribute nothing, command corporate loyalty and mine the WEALTH produced by someone else’s LABOR¹
▪ the laissez-faire Chilean debacle (and every other mangled country where laissez-faire has been imposed—in the name of freedom!)
▪ what Adam Smith really said
▪ etc. 

Perhaps it is time for the Church of the Laissez-faire to have a little Baconian method and Newtonian observation applied. Perhaps it is time we quit being so gallingly complacent about the dogma that prosperity revolves around the self-interested global globe of laissez-faire. Shouldn’t we have learned a thing or two over the span of four centuries about self-serving, revolving dogma?

Next time you hear a POTUS applicant (or supposed pundit) serve up justification for laissez-faire dogma, take a page from the book of Galileo, Newton, and friends and ask: Does this reflect fact or prevailing fantasy?

Surely, it’s time for the challenge to escalate—let us put every dogma of the Church of the Laissez-faire into the cross-hairs of unflinching examination.²

-------------/
1. Reference: Marjorie Kelly's Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy, © 2001, 2003
2. Perhaps a beginning, fruitful inquiry could address the question: If a few bad apples dominate the top of the idea barrel, is spoilage speeded and exacerbated by Newtonian gravity? (Note: Revelations will follow here, in the coming week, concerning “A Few Bad Apples?”

Econ 011 ~ The “Right” Stuff (or NOT) ?

~

HOW TO SPOT A FAUX ROGUE*

(to the right and to the left)

* Rogue (as defined by some) is to BE everything “Washington, DC” is NOT; as in honest, true, chaste, virtuous, wise, free of undue influence, etc., etc.. Because John (as in McCain) and Sarah (as in Palin) have claimed (and/or unclaimed) rogue-status, they will, of course, find themselves more in the cross-hairs of this checklist, but do not be distracted by their self-appointment. ALL who claim special rogue-dispensation to save freedom, democracy, and the Constitution (as also in the TeaPartyExpress) should be check-listed (NOT black-listed as some politicians and pundits prefer for their opponents, but check-listed) so we can see that they are really not rogues, BUT just more of the SAME OL’ STUFF—as in SOS.

So, if your “rogue” favors in the main:

□ Big Business
□ Small Government†
□ Privatization (especially of public goods)
□ Upper-crust Tax cuts
□ Lax rules ‘n regulations
□ “Free” & global markets
□ PAC money
□ Donations
□ Rewards
□ Hand-me-ups
□ Credit
□ Defense spending
□ Soldiers
□ War
□ Guns
□ Cheap shots
□ Expensive accounts
□ Appearances
□ PR
□ Sound bites
□ Fawning Reporters/Interviewers, et al.
□ The power of right words‡
□ Enhanced interrogation
□ Redacted facts
□ Grizzly tactics
□ One-winged eagles
□ Dual-winged aircraft
□ God (with Pentagon backup)
□ Oil
□ Money &
□ Manifest Destiny

we regret to inform you that your rogue is a phony—as in SOS.

----------------/
† Caveat: expressed support or favor almost NEVER translates into action—as in the Reagan years—as in promises for smaller government and deficit reduction—as in the difference between GOP actions in power and GOP words in campaigns and opposition. Small government seems to be but code for weak government vis-à-vis Big Business. There is also an increasing disparity between DEM actions in power and DEM words in campaigns and opposition, again related to the powers and persuasions of Big Business. They are both deeply corrupted.
 ‡ As in Mister Luntz.

Twelve Truths My Economist Never Told Me

~SMS~
1. Markets are rational—except when more frequently, they are not.

2. Moral hazard is to leverage your leverage.

3. There are stock puffers & stock prickers—and therein lies the grub.

4. Efficient Market Hypothesis is a congenital myth—somewhat like Santa Claus.^[1]

5. Oversupply and under-demand are the norm—except when less frequently, they are not.

6. Losing someone else’s money is less stressful than losing your own (aka: your Broker’s Credo).

7. There is ONLY ONE THING more tempting than a large, quick profit.^[2]

8. The “long shots of short-term” kill the goose & gander exponentially more often than the farm manager.

9. The daily SPANDEX comprises the rationale and ratings of money and market fluctuations elucidated by the former yet current Mr. Greenspan, and like-minders (herein dubbed spandexers).

10. Hedge funds are strongly regulated by temptation.

11. Insider-trading is a branch (perhaps a limb) of Quantum Mechanics. “It’s what happens when no one is looking” (or just as effective, when someone is looking the other way).^[3]

12. A self-regulating market is a “wild speculative paradox,”^[4] if proof is in the pudding (or lack thereof).^[5]

Freebie 13.^[6] It has been speculated that “broker” is derivative from the verb “to break.”

-------------/
[1] Santa Claus (sometimes pronounced Claws)—a fiction that receives highly-marketed credit for things this Mister Claus neither made nor paid for.
[2] No one yet knows what it is.
[3] Further out on that same limb someone would invariably find tax fraud—if someone were looking.
[4] Attributed to Alexander Hamilton, man on the US10$bill.
[5] Perhaps more accurately, the proof is in the déjà vu of markets and mania.
[6] As in a baker’s dozen.

Econ 010 ~ Then & Now

(Tea Party 1 : Tea Party 2)

To the offended: You may be adamantly against the recent stimulus packages and bailouts of Big Business (as proffered by GWB and BHO), but if you are a laissez-faire capitalist or corporate libertarian, you are a porter for economic tyranny (as in T-Party) whether you admit it or not. Why? Because that is the inevitable evolution of BOTH the far-right and the far-left as diagramed at http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2011/05/econ-011-right-stuff-or-not.html and http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/09/are-we-there-yet-at-t-point.html . Warning voices abound everywhere.

Growth Funds

(All indented quotes are found in Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor, © 1999, A Plume Book. You should read this book if you are an investor and/or speculator, or if you are financially related to one.)

Not only was the “vast fund of stupidity”* a growth industry in the 1800’s, its companion fund, cupidity, was not a whit behind. The prior manias¹ were dimly remembered, BUT this new century was unfolding as a unique and exceptional age BECAUSE the Railroad was unlike anything before. This time—THIS TIME—with the Railroad, “it was different.”²

Except of course, when it wasn’t.

Times (24 Oct. 1845): “A mighty bubble of wealth is blown before our eyes as empty, as transient, as contradictory to the laws of solid material, as confuted by every circumstance of actual condition, as any other bubble which man or child ever blew before.” (p. 140)

Journalist (1849): “All rule and order are upset by the general epidemic [of speculation], as in the Plague of London, when all ties of blood, honour, or friendship, were cast away.” (p. 139)

Benjamin Disraeli (British statesman, literary figure, & eventual UK-PM; as quoted in 1849): “[There was] commercial distress of unprecedented severity—private credit was paralysed, trade was more than dull, it was almost dead—and there was scarcely a private individual in this kingdom, ... , who was not smarting under the circumstances of commercial distress …” (p. 143)

Nation (1873): Anyone who stood on Wall Street or in the gallery of the stock Exchange last Thursday, or Friday, and Saturday, and saw the mad terror, we might almost say, brute terror … with which great crowds of men rushed to and fro trying to get rid of their property, almost begging people to take it from them at any price, could hardly avoid feeling that a new plague had been sent among men, that there was an impalpable, invisible force in the air, robbing them of their wits, of which philosophy had not yet dreamt.” (p. 185)

Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (author, 1869) “ … probably no representative body were ever more thoroughly venal, more shamelessly corrupt, or more hopelessly beyond the reach of public opinion, than are certain of those bodies which legislate for republican America in this latter half of the nineteenth century. (p. 177n)

Alexander Dana Noyes (1938 re 1880s): “[There were massive frauds accompanied by] individual wrongdoing, of a kind and on a scale for which even the lax financial morality of those days provided no precedent.” (p. 187)

Letter to the Times (12 Jul 1845): “There is not a single dabbler in scrip who does not steadfastly believe—first, that a crash sooner or later, is inevitable; and secondly, that he himself will escape it. When the luck turns, and the crack play is sauve qui peut, or devil take the hindmost, no one fancies that the last mail train from Panic station will leave him behind. In this, as in other respects, ‘Men deem all men mortal but themselves.’” (p. 136)

Times change, but human nature does not. And so the FUNDS grow.³ And the sinking sense of déjà vu prevails. THUS, woe is the world as bubbles float on with technology-assisted rapidity and with increasingly manic attempts to catch them before they burst!

----------/
* A quote from Cato's Letters, January 1721. See http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2011/03/vast-fund-of-stupidity-recycling.html

1. Reference: The Tulip Mania (1637), John Law’s Mississippi Bubble (1720), the South Sea Bubble (1720), the mining and canal crazes (1790s and beyond), and scores of lesser manias.
2. The four most expensive words in the English language are “this time it’s different.” (Attributed to Sir John Templeton and quoted in Chancellor’s book at page 191.)
3. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_bubble for some of the many latter-day bubbles.

“Vast Fund of Stupidity [& Recycling Cupidity]”?!

(All indented quotes are found in Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor, © 1999, A Plume Book, pp. 59, 67, 67, 69, 76, 77, 92.)

In memory of the birth of the South Sea Company (in 1711 – 300 years ago), Deja Vu Times recycles a few comments/quotes from the “bubble-bath” of 1720. These words from the 1700s are also recycled in memory of the many bubble-baths since and in expectation of The Great Bath (TGB) to come (sooner than later), if we don’t renounce this Vast Fund (and all its fundamentalists).

Cato’s Letters, January 1721: “There must certainly be a vast Fund of Stupidity in Human Nature, else Men would not be caught as they are, a thousand times over, by the same Snare; and while they yet remember their past Misfortunes, go on to court and encourage the Causes to which they are owing, and which will again produce them.”

Anonymous Insider (circa 1720): “’Twas his [John Blunt, leading schemer’s] avow’d Maxim, a thousand time repeated, That the advancing by all means of the price of stock, was the only way to promote the good of the company. [And his second maxim:] the more confusion the better: People must not know what they do, which will make them the more eager to come into our measures: the execution of the Scheme is our business; the Eyes of all Europe are upon us.”

Sir Isaac Newton (who lost £20,000 in South Sea investment): “I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of the people.”

Alexander Pope: “I am really piqued at the stocks, which put a stop at present, to all trade and all friendship, and I fear all honour too.” // “… [give no heed to] this miserable mercenary Period; and turn yourself, in a just Contempt of these Sons of Mammon, to the Contemplation of Books, Gardens, and Marriage.”

Edward Harley (whose brother Robert was a former British Tory minister & co-founder of the South Sea Company in 1711): “… the demon stock jobbing is the genius of this place. This fills all hearts, tongues, and thoughts, and nothing is so like bedlam as the present humour which has seized all parties … and all sects. No one is satisfied with even exorbitant gains, but everyone thirsts for more, and all this is founded upon a machine of paper credit supported only by imagination …”

Jonathan Swift: “I have enquired of some that have come from London, what is the religion there? They tell me it is South Sea stock; what is the policy of England? the answer is the same; what is the trade? South Sea still; and what is the business? nothing but South Sea.”

Adam Anderson (former cashier of the South Sea Company): “… may [1720] serve for a perpetual memento to the legislators and ministers of our own nation, never to leave it in the power of any, hereafter, to hoodwink mankind into so shameful and baneful an imposition on the credulity of the people, thereby diverted from their lawful industry.”

How many more “South Sea” tsunamis and false profits can our irrationality and folly endure?

------------------/
See also:
http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/09/panglossary.html
http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-long-till-we-get-it.html
http://dejavu-times.blogspot.com/2010/02/free-fall.html

P-Con 001 ~ Enough & To Spare (Or Not) !

(P-Con = sketch-stories exploring the déjà vu of Power, Publicity, PR, & Propoganda Concerns.)

This sketch-story was inspired while watching "Donald Trump's Golf War" documentary, aired on "The Passionate Eye" - CBC News Network, Sunday, March 20, 2011; available for ONLY a limited time at http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/passionateeyeshowcase/2011/golfwar/