Another adventure in wordsmithery gone awry.

I've reference many times my historic affair with Derrida. In this

What is always forgotten in what has become the binary debate in american punditized economics between Marx and Smith is the breadth of the discourses. What is always landed on is the prescriptive elements of thier treaties, and what is always and necessarily overlooked is the analytical chapters which establish the assumptive truths from which the prescriptive notions originate.

The analytica chapters are necessarily overlooked because an intellectually honest appraisal of these components of the Marx v. Smith debate requires that we award Marx with the insight into the mechanism of capitalism and Smith be relegated to the ranks of foolish dogmatics, stuck in unfounded ideological merrygo rounds or con artists hocking snake oil to willing rubes and usefull idiots.

What is it boy????

When I was in architecture school, there was a point in many conversations concerning design, art and the practice of cultural production when the name Jacque Derrida could be used as a punctuation mark. Within that particular paradigmatic sliver of architectural theory that we were trained in, the very specific method of deconstructionist thought encompassed When William talks about lowering spending as a policy, dog ears perk.

I have to start writing in better shorthand. I love the turn of phrase in this, but every once in a while I should try to finish a thought.

The Golden Age of Libertainianism

"I'm from the libertarian wing of the party." William Weld on Morning Joe 11/25/2008

Ask any conservative dousche why they're still a republican and you're going to get a response like this. William is not necessarily a dousche but the stock response does remind us that republicanism was never, ever about conservativism, it has always been about coalition building in the service of consolidation of power. I'd never even heard of William Weld before this morning, but he's struck a nerve so I'm going to work out my frustration with some very silly mythologies through him.

I'll get back to this. But let me say as a jumping off point, as disappointed as I am that there seem to be no liberals in Obama's cabinet so far there are economists are specialists. This is a step up from the Republican theocracy that we've lived with for the last eight years.

Here's a list of some liberal positions we will not see with Obama:

1) minimum wage=living wage. 

2) single payer universal healthcare.

3) immediate withdrawl from Iraq.

4) policies that promote unions. By the way, number 1 on this list makes number 4 at lot easier.

5) much more restrictive federal regulations on commodities trading, which would remove the spectre of speculation from the foundational markets of the economy.

6) elimination of tax exempt status for churches [some of you know I'd probably loose my job if this happened]

7) war crimes investigations concerning the invasion of Iraq, Gitmo and related "terrorist detention facilitites" around the world.

8) two state solution at the '67 borders

9) end of corporate personhood, revolving around the revisitation of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific.

10) the end of non-salaried executive compensation systems.

You will see none of these 10 things in the next 4 years.

One more thing....

...if a majority of Californians decided former Speakers of the US House of Representatives with Irish surnames should not be allowed to be married in California, would Newt Gingrinch support this?

Couple More things

First, I had this idea about the difference between conservatives and liberals. Republicans are willing to give up democracy to save capitalism, liberals are willing to give up capitalism to save democracy. This is clearly over simplified, and the profound confusion Republicans seem to show on what both capitalism and democracy are, are enough the refute the proposal.


Also, a fantastic history of the current financial meltdown can be found here:
http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/20081108_financial_meltdown_101/

Round Up...

I've been busy with the painting but let's just get into the record some ideas I've had.

With the passage of Prop 8 in California do gays still have to pay taxes and do they get a full vote in elections? Are they counted as 3/5ths in the census?

Joe Lieberman should not loose his chairmanship because of the election, he should loose his chairmanship because he sucks. Because the committee he chairs should have investigated Katrina, it didn't. It should have investigated Blackwater, he wouldn't. It should have investigated why FEMA responded to the flooding in Iowa but not formaldehyde filled trailers in Mississippi, it won't. This reminds me of one of my biggest problems with the American voter. We assume campaigning and governing are the same. The faults of Jomentum in the presidential campaign make him a bad chairman of the HS committee when in fact he's a bad chairman because he's a bad chairman. On this subject, wtf is Evan Bye doing on tv, ever? Until there's a Senate Committee on mediocrity and meaningless platitudes, could we just pretend he's not there?

There's more, I lost my train of thought.

URGET OBAMA NEWS!!!!

This video has revealed some shocking revelations about the president elect. Discussion below

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No Real Thought Behind This...

So what do we do now?

Let's have a look at our checklist:

1) Elect a non-retard...check.

2) Elect a fillibuster proof majority in the senate...yeah, nice work kentucky (assholes)

Anyhoo, what else...

Repeal the REAGAN tax cuts and return to a 50% top marginal tax on earned income above $1 mil.

Offer medicare to anyone who wants it

Pass card-check unionization

Make the minimum wage a living wage for anyone filing as head of household

Reinstate the entirety of the post-depression banking and commodity regulation regime, reinstate Glass-Stiegel, repeal commodities futures modernization, make it legal to kick Phil Grahm in the nuts at will

Cut defense spending in half and make every public school a golden palace....

okay he's talking now.

On Second Thought...

...fuck it. He won. Let's just celebrate all that's good in that.

The Republican Brand

"...uh, Ted, I think what we're seeing here is a wholesale rebuttal of the Republican brand."

A lot of you know I consider myself expert in the field of the sociology of the brand. So take it from me, it's not the brand that people are voting against this time, it's the republican product.

In short Republican ideology sucks. It cannot suceed. More on that in another post, but this election may be one of the very few elections in my lifetime where people are not rejecting a brand. They are rejecting the very clear, very identifiable policy prefeences of one of the two available american parties.

We should talk sometime about the specific meaning and psychology of the phenomenon of the brand...And tattoos. We should talk more about tattoos.

I Hven't been posting...

...lately because I've been working on some more indepth posts. I've decided to just start talking about the election night coverage to fill in some of the gaps.