So I’m reading ecconned and I’ve been thinking about propaganda. Corrente had a great piece on “The Fear” that desperate last act of the fauxgressives to make us vote D, or else the republicans will happen and the world will be worse off. Or not.

Yves Smith points out that in economics the neoclassical theory has been that even though it only works in a perfect world, working at second best with all the complications that are stripped out of the theoretical model will still get you to a perfect system. But that’s a load of crap. It not only won’t get you to a perfect system, but you will end up way more fucked up than you would have been if you just kept bartering with your neighbors. (It’s the A-Prime/C-Prime theorem by Diedre McCloskey. You should read it even though it’s a pdf. It will help you understand this post and a lot of other shit too.

But what if that same nice theory, doesn’t work in real life thing is true of our political system. What if we’ve been striving for second best democracy, only to end up with kleptocracy because second best democracy isn’t really democratic at all?

So if the idea is that we can’t have a perfect democracy (too many people for us to vote on every single little issue, have reps do that for us instead blah blah blah) we can have near perfect. Except near perfect is anything but. With democracy, we are supposed to have representation of everyone, unlike the previous system where only those acting in the king’s best interest were represented. But we still have a king (or kings) class. It’s just now they don’t have to worry about any actual governing because the people have the illusion that they are doing that themselves, what with the voting and the choice between the king’s rep who wears blue ties or the king’s rep who wears red ties. But make no mistake, both are working for the king. But you know, we do get to vote so it is technically democratic. We have democracy within the letter of the law, but not the spirit of it.

Anyways, I just cleaned out the mod que (so sorry peeps! I can’t check the que on my phone and this is literally the first time I’ve been in front of a real compy in months) and it was full of screaming obamabots who think I am just as bad as a tea partier because I won’t bow to the supreme leader. I have to wonder what those self-labeling liberals would say if they realized that they are the political equivalent of NAFTA champions and people who want to kill the epa and end public schools.

Anyways, it’s a working theory. Not quite fleshed out. Feel free to fill in the blanks and check my work. I do find that the realization that this kind of democracy doesn’t work actually doesn’t make me any less democratic. Actually, I’m becoming more radical about it. Fuck elections. We should just draw social security numbers out of a hat every few years and choose our reps that way. Everybody goes in the hat. Everybody gets a chance to serve. But I haven’t figured out how we would kill the bureaucrat class that would pop up as the power behind the peeps if we did that. We still need their technical skills, but they would become the entrenched power players.

please, kindly, move on. you say you need 1.1 million bucks and
100.000 volunteer hours to beat the republicans. why? what do we,
those of us with either the money (rare) or the hours (less rare with
severe unemployment) get for our troubles? a jobs gaurantee- not even
on the agenda. infrastructure rebuilt, only a token. social security,
well obama is making sure we won’t have that teet to suck in old age
or disability. what do we get if we throw what little resources we
have left in with the dems? if it’s just a matter of people liking
blue better than red, i think you’re fucked. and after watching
middling, meddling obama milquetoast his way to bipartisan hell,
perhaps what he needs is a republican foe to make his focus the
democrats ire on someone who isn’t us unterbussen.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

if people’s religious beliefs were treated as if they were as personal
and most importantly, private as people’s sexual fantasies are. i
don’t care what god you do or don’t worship, just like i don’t care if
you have a foot fetish. but i am made as uncomfortable by people
evangalizing on street corners as i am by cat calls. both are
instances of people trying ti hijack my time and attention in
unsolicited and unwanted ways. and everytime i hear a politician talk
about god i cringe in the same way i did upon hearing about larry
craig’s wide stance. i want to hear about your personal jesus as much
as i want to hear about your golden showers.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

i quit smoking (again) a little more than 3.5 days ago. this is
probably attempt number 12 in the 20 years i’ve been smoking, and i am
more (cautiosly) optimistic about my success this time. i’m using the
gum, which tastes like ass and leaves my mouth a painful blistered
wreck, so at least quitting the gum will be easy. i haven’t killed
anyone yet, or even yelled at anyone, but i do feel myself to be
lacking my normal level of sympathy. i think it would be easier to
give up food and water than to give up smoking, but it turns out i’m
not really suicidal and surprise, if i’m going to live a long life i
would rather not do it strapped to an oxygen tank. my lungs already
feel a little better. since i have 11.5 weeks of gum smacking ahead of
me, donations of nicorette 4mg gum would be deeply appreciated. it
would suck to run out of gum and have to bum a smoke to compensate.
oddly, not smoking is temporarilly more expensive than smoking, but
there is a light at the end of the tunel.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

after the dead or displaced humans, is human compassion. i’ve seen so
very little info on the tv about the floods in pakistan. certainly
less info than just after the earthquake in haiti. are we suffering
from disaster burnout, unable to invest the concern and cash after
having our heart strings plucked so frequently and so recently?
but what’s really stupid is that we are in afghanistan in order to
save nuclear pakistan from the taliban. it might be easier to shore up
pakistani goodwill if we were the ones helping rebuild and recover.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

that the things we hate most about other people are things they have
little to no choice or control over? i don’t mean hate on an
individual basis, like i hate libertarians and ayn rand fans, but
oppressive, institutionalized group hate. we hate people based on
race, gender, poverty, health, nationality, sexual orientation,
etc,etc. even religion, to some extent, is not a choice in most cases
(and in many cases even if you weren’t a practicing irish catholic or
a practicing jew in germany, you were still treated like you were)
i wonder why that is? i wonder why our most heinous biases aren’t
based on something people can control, like favorite foods or musical
taste? but maybe i just answered my own question. if we could control
the things about ourselves that make others hate us into oppression,
then there would be no way to restrict the flow of resources to an
oppressed group.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

is it just me, or does the fact that they are taking money out of the
food stamp budget (a program which puts I believe 1.82 into the
economy for every 1.00 of cost)to fund michelle obama’s little I Hate
Fat Kids campaign seem a wee bit like marie antionette building la
petite triannon at ahuge expense to the french people so she could
play a naturalist milk maid? Do you think that organically grown
squash blossoms might be this administrations version of sanitized
sheep for play shepehearding?

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

Dear President Obama & the Democratic Party:
I promise that come November, i will vote. I also promise that come
November i will vote in my own best interest and for 2 years you all
have shown me that my best interest does not lie with the Dems in
general. If health reform legislation can be bought by health
insurance companies and stimulus packages can be bought by the wealthy
and war can be escalated by mineral deposits, then why can’t you all
spend a bit to buy my vote? buy the votes of the 20 percent unemployed
(i’m one) buy the votes of women (you all sure have failed on that
constituancy) buy the votes of my friends and allies in the gay and
minority communities. buy the votes of the forclosed in hoovervilles
(obamavilles?) buy the votes of those of us who are sickened that the
US is prosecuting a child soldier that we’ve been holding in gitmo for
years. until you make it worth my while to vote for you, my vote is
for sale to anyone but you including 3rd parties, write ins and pro
choice republicans.

On 8/12/10, Barack Obama <democraticparty@democrats.org> wrote:
> Elizabeth —
>
> Eighteen years ago, shortly after graduating from law school, I helped lead
> a voter registration campaign in Chicago that generated record turnout on
> Election Day.
>
> That experience taught me one of the most important lessons I ever learned
> as a community organizer: When people promise that they’ll do something —
> like voting — they are far more likely to do it.
>
> That’s why one key part of our Vote 2010 plan this year is to get folks like
> you from across the country to commit to vote, to make sure we get as many
> people as we can to cast their ballots this fall.
>
> But getting the commitments we need starts with your own promise to make it
> to the polls and cast your ballot.
>
> Will you please commit to vote in the 2010 elections?
>
> http://my.democrats.org/Commitment1
>
> Over the next 82 days, volunteers across the country will spend countless
> hours calling voters and knocking on their doors, asking them the same
> question.
>
> And you can bet that I am counting on you to join them in talking to voters
> in your community.
>
> This election offers a stark choice. We Democrats are hard at work trying to
> move America forward, repairing a decade of damage and growing an economy
> based on the Main Street values of hard work and responsibility.
>
> We’ve fought for and won historic reforms to our health care system, a
> victory 100 years in the making, and to Wall Street, the most sweeping
> overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression.
>
> But after years of policies that landed us in the worst recession since the
> 1930’s, the Republicans who got us there have not come up with anything
> different from the policies of George W. Bush.
>
> We simply cannot afford to go backwards or let them repeal our reforms. And
> making sure we can continue moving forward starts with your own promise to
> cast your ballot in these elections.
>
> Please commit to vote this fall:
>
> http://my.democrats.org/Commitment1
>
> Thank you,
>
> President Barack Obama
>
>
>
> **************************************************************
> Paid for and authorized by the Democratic National Committee,
> www.democrats.org. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or
> candidate’s committee.
> **************************************************************
>
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>
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, click the link below:
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>
> DNC, 430 S. Capitol St. SE, Washington DC 20003
>
>

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

there’s a large amount of handwringing going on right now about what
are all us disillusioned types gonna do come november. we could stay
home, but not voting doesn’t make a damn bit of difference in a system
that only measures votes received and not all possible voters. we can
make protest votes (which appeals to me on a deeply comedic level). we
can vote 3rd party, if there’s an actual 3rd party on the ballot.
but none of these things will give me what i want or need from my
government. actually, it doesn’t matter which end of the donkeyphant
gets power, i’m fucked either way. so my vote is for sale. shit,
politicians are for sale, legislation is for sale, war is for sale. so
why is it a big deal that i want my vote to be just as ‘free’ market
as our political system is?
will selling votes change our fucked up system? not anymore than the
rotation of elites that we currently use. but at least i’d get some
benefit from it. in honor of the late, great chasito, starting bids
for my vote is 5$ and a bus pass

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

exactly one month from today i’ll be in chapel hill nc, visiting the
loverly ruthzilla. it turns out she’s my cooking muse and i am
planning yumminess already.
so dear readers, if any of y’all are in the raleigh/chapel hill area
and want to meat for drinkies, drop me a line.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning