The email received by me from Truth Dig has a link.

A click on it does NOT take me to the comment referred to.

This is absurd and waste of time.

Kindly set this right and let me know.

We salute you. We wish you lead. Once prohibition was repealed.
Alcohol and Cigarettes are found to be more harmful, yet permitted to be sold under licensing fee.
Regulate and allow the first profession the second dies.
Regulate and permit use of drugs many millions are saved.
? The 2nd profession ?  The ‘GossipMonger’: MassMedia.

^ is one of the reason I keep posting.  These forums can indeed be enlightening.  Differences make life interesting and challenging.  We are a cross section of humanity and it’s anything but boring.  Respect is paramount.

When you talk about people refinancing their homes, it doesn’t matter if they’ve lived there five minutes or five decades.  Pulling out your equity and spending it resets the clock to right now.  Using your house as an ATM, even if times are hard, is unwise unless you have a job you can really count on.  If you fall for the notion that real estate is always going to go up, and use ALL the equity in your home, then you’re no smarter than the guy who buys into the market today with a dumb loan that’s going to pop up in a year or two. 
We need regulation of the banking industry, no question. But we’re never going to be able to legislate dumb choices out of existence.

Expat, even though we have not always agreed, I have always respected your comments.  With respect to your comments this morning I stand shoulder to shoulder with you and have said such several times elsewhere about these blogs not effecting any change in the external world (external to the blogs that is).  What value then can they be?  For me, I have discovered that amazing dialogue between, or among the denizens of particular forums can be generated.  It actually transcends the contents of the article at times and takes on a life of its own.  Often, scholarly benefit is instigated.  Gaining insights into and from other what I call disembodieds is similar to those gained from reading a fine book.  Books are disembodied minds, usually one mind but sometimes two or more collaborating to express ideas or emotions.  These forums, if it can get past the excitement of the topic of the article, can be incredibly enlightening as there are truly fine minds in the world.  And I appreciate them even when we do not agree, and even when sometimes hubris or angst seeps in.  Amazingly enough, when a genuine and authentic interaction takes place, real friendships can develop where the electronic ghosts in the machine take on human form.  I have found this a personal and valuable experience.  So if you decide to keep posting, I will without a doubt keep reading your comments. 

And yes DC, I do know the value of paragraphs!

Ta da!

^ point wasn’t clear. 

“The point was; results in the real world are not evident and the evidence of effect is sadly lacking.”

My point was in fact about blogging and it’s effectiveness in the real world; aka results in our daily lives.  I have found no evidence these sights actually change anything.  I see them as an energy absorbing media that blunts any effective change in our day to day lives.  Blogging is a place to vent ones frustrations and flame the person who dares to disagree with you.  It’s anonymous so people are rude and insulting in a way they would never be in face to face conversation.  This isn’t anything original on my part but an acknowledgement of an ongoing reality.

Yes, I know about “clicking” on an add.  This doesn’t obviate the reality of revenue and this is a good deal of what’s going on here.  This site has won the “Webby Awards 2007”, just look at the header.  Look at the filler articles and the constant chumming for comments.  Sometimes I feel like the bait.

That’s sense.  Apply it to drugs as well.  Think of the millions that could be saved.

I totally agree with you.  In that, promises made should be kept and never broken.
Ok, the vow of marriage is made between two in the presence of a 3rd.
If this promise is kept, well and good.  When it is broken, it is a matter for the ‘two’ and NOT for the rest of the world to gape and gloat.
Some make good marriages and others are unfortunate.
In some culture people marry many times devoid of broken promises. In some culture a marriage is for life, come what may.
So let’s not cast the 1st stone but get on with the job.

Of course, when one gives one’s word it is always in a context, but we are here speaking abstractly and hence in general about the nature of one’s word and its relative worth.  I don’t mind considering explicit occasions of one’s word but a specific example will have to be the topic.  To say that there are specific examples is just to say that the abstract concept exists in reality and is not just hypothetical.  We learn the value of keeping one’s word by our experiences and developing a personal morality.  And of course, that personal morality is then translated into how we view society’s moral/immorality codes.  The other side of the coin is how the other, either the individual or the society, accepts the word of someone and whether or not trust is to be given.

Expat, you missed the critical adjective.  Sure, there is advertising over all Web pages, not just here but on my own blog.  So every now and then I go over to AdSense to see if any of those ads are having any impact, and I suspect you can guess what sort of a revenue stream I currently have!

Out of curiosity, have YOU ever clicked on anything “to the right of this blog?” Do you know that your click, by itself, creates NO revenue?  Revenue is only passed back to the blog if the advertiser “closes the deal.” This is a model based more on promising stories than hard data.  If you follow the business/technology news, you may have seen that harsh reality is even beginning to catch up with Google!

(The real point of my post was the second one, though!)

There is a lot of value in this analysis.  However, I think it misses out on at least one aspect, which is that one gives one’s word in a social context; and a key element of that context was the way in which it dealt with the “broken word.” Some of the earliest societies (which today we would probably denigrate with the adjective “primitive") believed that breaking one’s word provided grounds for forfeiting one’s life.  Whether or not we would view this as extreme, it emphasizes that we cannot talk about the act of giving one’s word without talking about the social context that establishes the consequences when the word is broken.

This is not to say that one can only give one’s word in a society of laws.  Ours is the glaring counterexample:  We have laws and processes of litigation up the wazoo.  As a result, ours is a society of loopholes through which one can AVOID the consequences of breaking one’s word!  Put another way, ours is a society that has devalued the concept of “trust” and has thus blunted the impact that giving one’s word used to have.  To go back to the very first sentence of this analysis, our own social context has lost touch with that fundamental concept of personal morality by fabricating any number of theories and practices (i.e. excuses) for circumventing that concept.

^ haven’t noticed the revenue to the right of this blog?  It’s advertising; thus the revenue.  But even if this wasn’t a cash cow the answer would be to just stop posting.  It’s really very easy.  No postee, no money; no postee, no responsee.  But then, that was hardly the point was it?  The point was; results in the real world are not evident and the evidence of effect is sadly lacking.

Pity that you still haven’t discovered the concept of the PARAGRAPH, Shhhh.

By the way, we are all actually tri-sexual beings......

First of all I have yet to encounter a blog that serves as a viable source of revenue.  You cannot put something out of business that is not a business in the first place!  A blog is no different from a television channel (including the non-commercial ones):  If you do not like it, you can ignore it.

Secondly, there is far too much diversity in the blogosphere to generalize over their efficacy.  You cannot compare someone who decides to publicize a diary that documents meals eaten, music played, movies seen, and sexual partners engaged with no reflection beyond the list-making with many of the bloggers out there who use their writing to think through the complexity in which we are all immersed.  For that latter class blogging is less a way to call for action than the use of writing to think BEFORE acting.  It sort of like writing letters to the editor, except that, because there is more (virtual) “column-space,” there is “room” for more letters (which means more diversity of opinion but also more diversity in quality of expression).  My guess is that those “money/power people” have a greater love for those who leap into action without any forethought, because those are usually the easiest to shoot down (figuratively or literally, depending on the setting)!

Dr. Knowitall you have given voice to a personal morality:  The value of giving one’s word and whether it has any meaning or not.  What you say is of the greatest importance, and may even form the only firm basis for any concrete certitude of interaction between men and women.  Or any kind of partnership for that matter.  The institution of marriage involves not only a legal contract but a more basic authenticity as a conscious human being that acknowledges another as an equal colleague.  Most marriages have not had that quality.  Ancient rites and rituals that have evolved into religious perspectives and tribal (ethnic) attitudes most likely developed from a sense of tribal security diverged from a sense of necessary equality between men and women to one of dominance and privilege.  However, reason has ascended over these social evolutions and women have come to realize their own worth in the two-sex system. But what we are talking about is not limited to that specific pairing.  What a person’s word is worth is the worth of that person.  There has been a silent (maybe not always so nonvocal) and inexorable change in how men and women act toward one another and women are once again ascending to the equal position they may once have had at the genetic level and this has not always been in the case of other species.  There is a natural confusion whenever a universe is undergoing alteration.  And it takes time for the chaos to settle down.  The notion of reciprocity is probably one of the most important ways people deal with one another within a social organization and probably the least understood. Giving without any expectation of receiving anything in return seems to have more value than when something is expected back.  For a certain amount of genuine generosity is implied.  Certain expectations are also to be understood.  Such as when one gives one’s word, it is expected that their word is true and kept.  Anything less demonstrates extreme disingenuousness. No real relationship is possible under that condition.  So you are correct when you say that this model provides a model for how politicians deal with their constituents.  In a way when they make a bargain with their people to represent them in political matters, they in effect marry them, make an explicit contract, and give their word to deal honestly with them and their negotiations.  When they violate that word, they are no longer trustworthy and no longer may represent the people.

This post is running out of gas so I’d like to weigh in one more time on the sex thing.

I’ve been married twice, first time 16 years and the 2nd, 25 and counting.  After all this time and all the problems (an joys) one confronts in marriage and partnerships of all kinds, I have come to believe more strongly in the concept of monogamy, not because I’m a prude or against multiple sex partners, but because a promise is implied or explicit between the partners (unless they agree to openess) and a promise ought to be everything between two parties.

One of the great issues between George Bush and the American people, for example, is that he broke many of his promises to us. 

If promises don’t mean anything any longer, either between individuals or between leaders and the led, then the whole concept of civilization and the kind of morality it embodies has to be completely rethought. 

People who are weak in integrity or strong in their ability to rationalize their way out of promises probably shouldn’t get married or be president.

^ times here and the response has been tepid at best.

Dr., Dr. says, “Conventional wisdom must be that blogs and ranting and protesting and the like are basically ineffective; were they productive, I think, just about everyone would act.”
“Maybe we ranters should commit ourselves to putting blogs out of business (the money/power people must love the distraction/sedative blogs represent.  Maybe Sheer’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing) and act--somehow.”

I can move my lips as you speak!  I agree.  Myself, I am close to stopping.  Back in the late 60’s I knew I was having an effect when I marched in the streets; this (T.D.) is a place to absorb all of the enery and dissipate it to naught.
Our government must love these places because they keep us out of their faces.

Why does the American Media scream when someone has sex ?
Why not let the Editor of New York Times wallow in his own lust than pry and probe into those of others ?
See how the French react when their ‘president’ has one of those biological and natural urge that we ALL have.
My reaction is seen here: http://benzaloy.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-are-these-am ericans-hypocrites.html

JimBob,

I have to tell you something here, though I don’t know any compiled statistics.

BUT, I DO know many people in California, (all sections...north/south/central...that have lost homes they’ve been in for a very long time.

I know one guy who’s already lost his own primary residence in northern California, that he’d been in for 28 years. By then, folks do have equity in their property. But, for people who become unemployed, that equity doesn’t keep them from losing their homes if they still can’t pay their mortgages.

AND, for anyone attempting any refinancing in the past 4 to 6 years, EVEN WITH EXCELLENT CREDIT, if they can’t pay the mortgage on the refinance, they might not as well have any equity. When the banks foreclose, (and they’re all the more anxious to foreclose on property that DOES have that much equity in it) they get the whole house, even if the loan on the thing (the amount re-financed) wasn’t that much.
And, in this one guy’s case, he was losing some another piece of property (rental property) that had been in his family for 63 years. So, that had obviously been paid off long ago as well, but he’d needed to refinance when he no longer had employment income.

Of course he had long since used it as rental property, since his family no longer occupied the units themselves, and having the rental income should have paid the new loan. But, when the renters lose their jobs, and can’t afford to pay their rent...pretty much the same thing happens. It is tragic.

So, while I’m sure you’re correct that many of these foreclosures may be a result of people walking away from stupid loans, that isn’t necessarily the bulk of them. Even very long established neighborhoods in the LA areas, where the occupants have lived for decades, are losing their homes.

I started noticing it last fall when I was there. It was like there were 3 or 4 homes on every block for sale...apparently trying to cut their losses.

I was back in December, and it was up to what seemed like every other house. Again, these people have been in their homes for decades. Admittedly many of them are elderly, but not THAT many people are dying and having their homes snatched.

And then, just a couple of weeks ago I was there, and it was heartbreaking, because those homes that these people had been unable to sell, had indeed been snatched up by the banks.

And, that was just one area of the state. Others are being hit the same way. I think that calling this a subprime crises, (which is in fact real enough) has also given the banks license to move in on plenty of properties that have plenty of equity. BUT, these are people on fixed incomes, and even if they had tons of equity, and even relatively small mortgages, the dollar doesn’t give them the same power. They get the same fixed amount income, but EVERYTHING else costs 5 times more, be it food, gas, medications, health care insurance, (if their lucky enough to have it) and the list goes on.

So, which do you NOT pay? The mortgage or the light bill? The mortgage or the food bill? The mortgage or meds? And if ya can’t pay the mortgage, the banks are cutting any slack. Three months and their out. The more equity they have in the property, the better it is for the banks.

So, what folks are calling the ‘bad economy’ or the subprime crisis, is in reality just that much more major fleecing of America by the corps.

Now, this isn’t melodrama on my part. I’ve been watching it for nearly a year now. It’s ugly.

Bob, I just listened to LR&C;, where also you bemoan the poor people losing their homes—according to you, their life’s savings, their nest eggs, their very futures—because of the scalawags on Wall St.  The subprime crisis was an avoidable mess that may turn out to be the nudge that brings down a credit bubble far larger than a few mortgages.  But let’s not overromanticize those homeowners.  People whose homes really are their nest eggs are people with equity in their homes.  People who either put down a lot of cash to buy in, or have owned their homes for a long time and built equity over time.  Those are not the people losing their homes as a result of the subprime loans that were made in recent history.  Those people will go on making their payments because they have to; those who are losing—often simply walking away from—the homes they bought with stupid loans based on fraud often from both sides of the transaction, aren’t giving up that much in most instances. 
Bob, I agree with you on just about everything; even if you do get a little over-passionate at times, I understand why.  I don’t want to see you undermine the righteous part of your argument with false evidence or melodramatic hyperbole. 
Hugs and Kisses,
JimBob

“Our Government ‘fighting crime’ to shield the ‘banksters’ from being exposed for their crime! .....We help Wall Street, the masters of us all, nail shut the lid on the coffin they use to bury us alive...”

Oh, agreed!

Yes, SS, just to let you know I appreciate your thinking.  There is a similar proposition that Umberto Eco gave in a very small essay, “When the Other Appears on the Scene,” that is very similar and I am not quoting verbatim, but essentially that if a Christ did not exist, humanity would have to invent him.  Furthermore walking with Lao Tzu we take the first step then put one foot in front of the other on “The Journey.” Thank you for the other references.

Shenonymous, I was actually invoking a quote from another Agar book, A TIME FOR GREATNESS:  “The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.” I suspect that you would find this reinforcement for your pessimism.  I prefer to be motivated by a story (which may or may not be true) that George Bernard Shaw once sent a letter to Tolstoy in which he wrote, “Imagine, just for the sake of argument, that there is a God who created all the universe we can know as nothing more than a joke; would we not still be obliged to make the joke a good one?” I guess I see my writing as an effort to make the joke a good one, regardless of how many readers I have.

The Tent City offer was a stone tossed into a lake, which has not yet produced any ripples.  I have no idea if anyone is trying to register the residents as a voters; but, if the movement gets under way, it is not difficult for me to get down there and help.  I felt it was an important point to raise for two reasons.  Historically, I doubt that any provisions were made for Hooverville residents to vote.  In the present, though, it looks as if the City of Ontario is more interested in getting rid of “folks who don’t belong,” because they did not lose houses in Ontario:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/03/return- of-hooverville.html

Again, I am sure this would reinforce your pessimism; but one keeps trying.  All any of us can do is take the steps we can along Lao Tzu’s “journey of a thousand miles.”

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/03/observi ng-and-acting.html

It’s kind of interesting that citizens have organized to “take back” their neighborhoods from thugs and criminal elements. 

Grass roots works locally. 

Nationally, you have to convince millions of people to believe as you do and then, after they’re convinced, act in consort.

In Ann Arbor, as in probably a hundred other places, a handful of people meet every day to publicly protest the war.  Ann Arbor is pretty liberal.  Why is it only a handful? 

Conventional wisdom must be that blogs and ranting and protesting and the like are basically ineffective; were they productive, I think, just about everyone would act.

Maybe we ranters should commit ourselves to putting blogs out of business (the money/power people must love the distraction/sedative blogs represent.  Maybe Sheer’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing) and act--somehow.

There has to be leadership and common purpose, the very things present in our government, except pro we-the-people.

How, Louise, do you intend not help to Wall Street?  I don’t think whether you have an answer or not that Wall Street could be affected by I concur that they are the masters of us all.  Just trumpeting their debasement is ineffective.  Which is my point.  Understanding your point is easy.  Acting on it could be a hell of a lot more American, but just more daunting.  I think Wall Street will do what it wants regardless of what anyone says, and Congress will let them.  I’d be wholly willing to advocate keeping the eye of the world on the content and topic of this zombie article if I thought anything I do would have any effect in any way.

Do you really think the House is going to make the Senate take any action on the bill the telecommunications companies want Bush to veto, the snooping-on-the-public right-to-privacy issue?  The poor sap on the David Brancaccio NOW program tonight thinks there is a chance.

Stephen Smoliar, you are right about the service (mission) Truthdig does.  On other forums I have ranted about the dearth of real news provided by MSM and that I haven’t watched any of the mainstream for months now.  I catch up on al the news from some great Internet sites provided by a few of those who comment.  Truthdig has been accused of having an “agenda.” Thank you for putting me onto Herbert Agar.  I had not heard of him.  I went to a website that reviewed a 1936 book by Agar and Allen Tate, “Who Owns America?” The review by Mokhiber and Weissman is at
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/agar_who_owns_ america.html

That was 70 years ago!  So does anything change?  If not, then my point is valid that regardless of what is said by any one other than the ruling class, it gets lost in the fantasy that it actually matters.

With regard to Truthdig’s mission, that is not what I was addressing on any of my posts in this forum.  I have no idea what Tibetan monks feel.  I do have a cynicism about the effect disembodied blustering blogsters have on the behavior of politicians and government in general.  You have a wishful temptation to register Tent City voters.  But would you actually do it?  Or to make my point, do you think your stating your temptation on the forum will inspire anyone else to do it?  Regardless, would the number of increased Tent City votes in California actually change the way politics could go?  How far would adding their voices to the decibels for change actually project?  I guess I have turned into too much of a pessimistic realist to think we, the people, actually have any voice at all with the control exercised by corporate America and those who have most of the wealth and an agenda of their own.

It seems to me that one of the “missions” of Truthdig is to tell (dig for) the stories that the media won’t (can’t) tell.  Whether or not those stories yield truths that make us free is beside the point.  It is enough that, in the tradition of Herbert Agar, they are truths that most folks don’t particularly want to hear.

Still, I agree that action counts for more than observation.  (The monks in Tibet probably feel that way today, too!) I am tempted to go down to Ontario, California; and help to make sure that everyone in the Tent City is registered to vote, particularly before the city fathers start laying down the law as to who can legitimately stay there.  I certainly would like to know if such an effort is getting under way and, if so, who is organizing it.  It won’t get them back their houses, but it will at least guarantee that their voices will be heard in November.

Exactly what priorities are you talking about?  This forum reminds me of the big bad wolf story where he huffed and he puffed (the long, long posts here) and tried to blow down the brick shithouse and guess what, the bastards never get prosecuted. And the shithouse is still standing.  If Spritzer was “about” to spill the beans, what is to prevent him from doing that now?  It is a three ring circus, with you-can’t-say-he-is-naive johns like Spritzer, the corrupt other powers that be, and us.  It is a waste of breathe to point out what many of us already knew that criminal behavior within criminal behavior within criminal behavior buried so deep it would take 10 lifetimes to ferret out. Perhaps we don’t know the particulars, which I don’t really need to know because it is moot and from my perch, not much I can do about it.  Can you?  Just to “know” the “whole” story is kind of back-fence talk.  The action of this “blow hard” job belongs in the gossip column because we cannot do anything about it except obsess over the rich and famous being able to get away with anything.  I am not sure exactly what is the complaint among all the reporting.  Yeah, so what?  What is the big deal?  This not anything new in this day and age of politics.  If you all think you can do anything about this corrupt body politic then say what it is and do it, otherwise squawking about it is pissing into the wind and sort of enjoying it.  Not my idea of the good life.  And Dr. Knowitall, you tried and see where it got you?  Bravo, though.

Louise, you can find a great follow-up in Bernanke’s address to the annual meeting of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.  It does not take much text analysis to see that he is more interested in “softening the damage” to the lending institutions than he is in seeing to the needs of those victimized by those institutions predatory practices.  As a matter of fact, his words even hint at sanctioning a return to those practices after the economy has recovered (without saying anything about “if” or “when")!

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/03/softeni ng-damage.html

Nation in Crisis..

You hit the nail on the head here...Spitzer wasn’t targeted for his sexual crimes, he was targeted because he was too likely to blow the real crimes wide, wide, wide open.

AND...they couldn’t have that…

Consequently...those that busted him didn’t much care about his wife and daughters either, or none of this would ever have been exposed…

It’s all true, it’s all true..everything Louise just said here is true.

48 hours later, I’ve ALMOST wrapped up a similar paper. Sure wish you’d written this sooner Louise.

No, no...I’m just kidding. I know you can’t do ALL of my work for me. Thing is..you sure do help a lot!!

Ok..for the record..it’s true, it’s true, and the most important part is that THE PUBLIC HAS BEEN NONE THE WISER.

This shit didn’t happen overnight, and the public has been totally blind to it for all of this time. THE FALL IS AT HAND. WE’VE MISSED 14 JILLION ALARMS!

Ironically, I just got an email from a friend in Texas, advising me to contact my Congressional representative about the ‘fine print’ in the credit card contracts. My reaction was (maybe because I’m tired) to LAUGH OUT LOUD!!

Let me see if I can repost at least part of it here.

Titled: Kiss Credit Card ‘Gotcha’s’ Goodbye
(if they only knew)

• “Bank of America recently announced interest rate increases, even for responsible card customers—some people reported new rates as high as 28%! And the bank didn’t make it easy to object.”

Well, no shit Sherlock. Remember the bill in Congress that capped the rates at a whopping 30%? The one Hillary approved, but ‘hoped wouldn’t pass”?  Now HOW LONG have these ‘gotcha’s’ been happening? And this says, ‘the bank didn’t make it easy to object?” And, since when have they done THAT?

• “To decline the rate hike, the bank required card holders to write a letter agreeing to stop using the card and pay off the existing balance at the old rate, according to news reports. They couldn’t
telephone, nor did Bank of America provide a form or a return envelope to help meet the short deadline. If the company didn’t get a quick response, rates would automatically rise.

“Bank of America is not the only bank to hit card holders with high rates and fees. Banks get to raise your interest rates, as well as the fees they charge for most services, because fine print clauses in
your credit card contracts allow it. They don’t even have to tell you why they did it.”

So, these folks are just now figuring out what’s been happening to poor folks for decades now.

•Tell Congress to protect card holders from unfair rate hikes, exorbitant penalty fees and other fine print “gotchas.” “As the economy softens, some Wall Street analysts believe that big banks want to make up their investment losses by raising rates to good credit card customers.”

(that means instead of just the poor folks they’ve been ripping off for years) I kept trying to tell them they were next.

A bill proposed in Congress would help rein in that practice and limit other “gotchas.” The bill would protect cardholders against arbitrary interest rate increases; hidden interest charges, due date traps and more. “

This bill is long past due! Tell your lawmakers that you support the Cardholders’ Bill of Rights.

(I don’t think it’s gonna help)

Why do I think this e-mail might be just a tad bit outdated?

Shenonymous, March 13 at 6:09 pm #

“This is best left to die a natural” death?

“Wow! that was a lot of work, sort of an obsessive amount of sleuthing, a media frenzy about a sex and money scandal-”

***

Not really. A few minutes finding a few links motivated by the [obviously] mistaken notion that someone out there might find it interesting that we are being “had” again.

***

“- but what does it matter? What is the real point?”

***

You don’t know?

***

“Each year, federal agents peek at the financial transactions of millions of Americans—without their knowledge.”

“The same type of information that raised suspicions about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is reviewed every day by authorities to find traces of money laundering, check fraud, identity theft or any crime that may involve a financial institution.”

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080312/a_f inancial12.art.htm

Underscores how EASY it would be to set someone up.

This isn’t about sex. This is about protecting the minority that controls the majority. And of course that means money.

A lot of money.

This is about taking our attention away from the grand theft of the Treasury to save the ‘banksters’ who created the mess that’s hurting us ALL. Not to save the government, or the people, or even to stop crime. This is to save that tiny percentage of the population that has ALL the wealth. So think about that for a minute.

Our Government ‘fighting crime’ to shield the ‘banksters’ from being exposed for their crime! That’s all.

***

“A Vicious Circle Ending In A Systemic Financial Meltdown”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19531.htm

“Yesterday’s action by the Federal Reserve proves that the banking system is insolvent and the US economy is at the brink of collapse. It also shows that the Fed is willing to intervene directly in the stock market if it keeps equities propped up. This is clearly a violation of its mandate and runs contrary to the basic tenets of a free market.”

“Bernanke announced that the Fed would add $200 billion to the financial system to shore up banks that have been battered by mortgage-related losses. The news was greeted with jubilation on Wall Street ...”

“They’re doing their best to try to restore confidence.”

“Confidence”? Is that what it’s called when the system is bailed out by Sugar-daddy Bernanke?”

“The point is, Bernanke’s latest scheme is not a remedy for the trillion dollar unwinding of bad bets. It is merely a quick-fix to avoid a bloody stock market crash ... predicated on the false assumption that consumers are too stupid to know that housing is in its biggest decline since the Great Depression.”

“Yippee. The Fed found a way to recapitalize the banks with permanent rotating loans and the public is NONE THE WISER. The capital-starved banksters at Citi and Merrill must feel like they just won the lottery.”

***

My point in linking to the “so-called media frenzy about sex” was to demonstrate the phoniness of this whole smelly business!

I find it incredible that the feds have no problem with their ‘star’ witness going public.

Seems to me a party to a ‘sting’ would be told to, “Go sit in a corner and shut up until we call you!”

The case must not be very important, other than to shut Spitzer down, which they did.

Why did they feel a need to do that?

Try to focus on that.

Or focus on sex, not on the alleged crime Spitzer has been charged with. [Maybe nobody knows what that is] The thing is people who focus on sex have charged, tried, found guilty and sentenced Spitzer. Obediently taking their eye off the ball.

The point? Folks, get your eye back on the friggin ball!

“This is best left to die a natural” death ?

There will be no natural death. We help Wall Street, the masters of us all, nail shut the lid on the coffin they use to bury us alive!

Come to think of it, I think your not understanding my point, makes my point!

Not indicted for a single solitary one Marshall.

So, there’s that difference. Bush-Cheney have broken more laws that we have been able to keep track of, though the laws involving the wars on Iraq already tally up to 104. (Still working on them).

Domestic law...different department, but I’ll check in with them and be glad to provide an update. (I work on the Int’l Crimes they’ve committed).

But, you are absolutely correct that they have yet to be INDICTED for a single one of them.

That could change...stay tuned…

^ spouse; I give a damn.

^ because, in America, it’s not who you know; it’s who you blow!  Or maybe more correctly, how rich one is!  Justice as illusion!

Maani says, “Remember, in America, you’re innocent until proven guilty.”

Yet another meaningless American slogan. 

You’re presumed innocent until proven guilty and, all too often, you’re still innocent even after being proven guilty. 

Sometimes you might even be guilty even if you’re acquitted, especially if you have money and high powered attorneys, like Spitzie and O.J.

Robert - I’m curious.  Just what laws has Bush been indicted for breaking?

Spitzer’s sexual conduct, as it’s been portrayed, is perfectly normal and reflects the behavior of the majority of men in the U.S. - most men cheat on their wives with mistresses, hookers, other men’s wives, etc.  And nearly half of all married women cheat on their husbands.  Who gives a damn!

“God, I love Truthdig. Everything, every thread, every blog, ends up being about ‘the Jews’. . . .”

That’s because Truthdig is a charter member of BIFPAT (the brigade of islamist, fundamentalist, propagandist, arab, trolls)!

Wow! that was a lot of work, sort of an obsessive amount of sleuthing, a media frenzy about a sex and money scandal, but what does it matter?  What is the real point? That the Spritzer caper is a smokescreen for worse shenanigans involving money?  The story of a scapegoat? Even if true, what else is new? Guess his wife and daughters just don’t really count to him… or to us.  They are just are accoutrements for a two-faced jerkoff politician and concern for their fate will disappear as soon as the story disappears from the MSM if not sooner.  So again, what else is new?  We are blasé and cosmopolitan about it all.  The fact of corruption is an unpleasant fact of life sans morals.  Now we get into the criminal part.  And that responsibility lies within the realm of the law.  I have no prurient interest in any alleged fact of Mr. Spritzer’s activities nor the call girl’s.  And I do not have anything to do with the law. There is no doubt if there is a law buck to be made here, it will be made. So what else is new?

How hard is it for a third party to use your cell phone number, your email address and your bank account to send phony calls, phony emails and phony bank transactions?

Folks it is not hard at all!

In fact it is so easy, the wonder is we haven’t all been “Spitzer’d.”

If everyone knew how easy it was, everyone would throw their cell phones away, quit sending emails and bury their money under the cherry tree!

~~~~~~~~~~

Eliot’s Mess:

“The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked”

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke confessed to handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

This week, the Federal Reserve Board, for the first time in its history, bought up a fifth of a trillion dollars in mortgage-backed junk bonds, handing eye-popping windfalls to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the edge of foreclosure.

There was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer. Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

http://www.gregpalast.com/

~~~~~~~~~~

“Spitzer Quits But Other Public Figure May Be Linked to Escort Ring”

According to an FBI affidavit, Client 9, identified by authorities as Spitzer, arranged for a prostitute named “Kristen” to travel from New York to Washington, D.C. She met Spitzer, who had registered under the pseudonym George Fox, in Room 871 of the Mayflower Hotel, collecting $4,300 in cash from Spitzer.

In a phone call secretly recorded by the FBI, Kristen later told her boss in New York about the event, dismissing concerns that Spitzer might demand “unsafe things.”

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4430558

~~~~~~~~~~

So, who else do you suppose might be set up? Well if we don’t get news about the other “perps” it’s a good bet they really were doing something wrong. If the news breaks fast and flashy it’s probably fishy.

The little girl who knows so much and feels no threat. conveniently, and overnight becomes the girl next door. Note [above] Did she know she was being recorded? Was that the trade-off for instant fame?

~~~~~~~~~~

MARCH 12--Meet “Kristen,” the high-priced hooker who trysted with Eliot “Client-9” Spitzer last month at that Washington, D.C. hotel. The 22-year-old prostitute’s real name is Ashley Alexandra Dupre (though she was born Ashley Youmans), according to a New York Times report. On the following pages you’ll find an assortment of photos of the young prostitute that were previously uploaded to a music web site, a talent agency’s site, and her MySpace page, which describes Kristen/Ashley as an aspiring musician who left home at 17 and has been in New York City since 2004. And we also have a couple of her high school yearbook photos. (11 pages) [Well she does have big boobs.]
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/031208 4kristen1.html

READER: Something is fishy here. I saw CNN’s article about Spitzer’s “escort” today. First thing that jumped out at me is that her photo is tagged as having come from MySpace.com. A call girl with a MySpace page? Okay… maybe I can buy that. But then CNN provides a link to her MySpace page. I checked it out and as it turns out, this MySpace profile was created TODAY. And she has a whopping 2 friends (including Tom) as of this writing. WTF?

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/letters/

~~~~~~~~~~

Hmmm, today eh. Maybe we need to title Eliot’s mess:

“Spitzer helps hooker help feds set up Spitzer which helps hooker gain instant international fame, movie contract in the works.”

Oh, and breaking news, Banking, Mortgage Crisis Shored Up [courtesy your kids tax dollars, and maybe theirs ... grand theft treasury]

God, I love Truthdig. Everything, every thread, every blog, ends up being about ‘the Jews’. Spitzer was ‘set up’ because he went after Bronfman. Thanks, Concrete Man, for another chuckle as we shake off the objectifying of an entire gender, the abuse of power without moral compass by politicians of every stripe, and get down to the real issue, the evil Jews. Whaddaya think, maybe a Final Solution? Just ‘cause it didn’t work before...left too many loose ends, I guess.
Hey, I got an idea: Maybe the SOB was just another Democratic letcher who was willing to break Federal Laws for some high class ass.

Women can be on top of the power game too.

i really like what you write about the need for discussion, it’s very clearly stated.

i agree.

We talk about trivial matters on national television because the ratings numbers tell the people who run the broadcasters that such stuff is what we WANT to watch.  I, for one, do NOT watch it; but I am not sure I would want to watch a discussion of societal conduct, either!  The problem is, as these comments have demonstrated, that such a discussion involves a complex web of issues; and I doubt that I would be able to follow (let alone engage in) such a discussion in the “real time” of television broadcasting.  That is why I deal with these matters through READING; and, when the level of both reading and writing has been as good as it has been in this particular forum, that seems to be the most informative way to go!

No, we do not need a national referendum.  We need social discussion to raise the possibility of morals to a conscious level.  On national television we talk about every other trivial matter, why not how we members of this diverse society ought to behave toward one another, including how men and women ought to behave toward one another?

Now really!  How many men do you know would stop to ask a woman if they want to have sex with them, and that they would even get paid for it, especially if it is a power game? 

The mea culpa just wouldn’t work.

I agree that morals ought not to be involved in criminal law. I have already said as much.  Morals are society’s own.  Not the individual’s own.  It is how society gives respect to one another.  And as long as there is a society, mutual respect is required.  I have heard your argument before.  It is a useless one in a society.  It is the concept of the anarchist.  Do what you want, don’t bother me.  It’s all right if you are a hermit.  But don’t come around my little childrens.  Morals can be talked about as much as the f’n war in Iraq can be talked about.  Morality says we ought not to have killed 1.3 million Iraqis.  Or show a blind eye to the millions in Africa who have been killed by self-serving religious fanatics who pimp their religion to gain material wealth.  Morals do not only have to do with sex and the relationship between men and women.  Morals say how we as conscious human beings ought to treat one another.

You know, Shen, I think you’re right on. 

Apparently, it’s o.k. to rationalize morality using your own criteria.

The one, single thing I find most reprehensible about this thing, and the discussion, is that no one, so far as I can see, has considered that the prostitute is someone else’s daughter and because she’s that, it’s ok and justified to hire her to gratify you; you just won’t have your daughter doing that for some other guy.  Forget that she and many women like her have arrived at prostitution as a last resort to sustain themselves and, perhaps, their families.

It may be a truth that a man’s need for sex makes him a ready market for women who need money.  But I bet there’s not one guy out there who would approve of his daughter being a prostitute. 

The whole thing might be more tasteful to me if the buyer’s daughter is also a prostitute and he agrees with that and the prostitute in no way feels prostitution is her only means to sustain herself, in other words, isn’t in it for the money or even self-respect.

... relevant to your thesis. i’ll try harder next time to better suit your dialectical needs.

i’m not trying to have an argument with you. i’m just relating how i think with regards to the issue at hand. i’m trying to make a little conversation with you and i get accused of being “uncaring of [a] basic sense of humanity.” Ouch. i guess i’m going to have to join the Republican party now.

Totally agree with you that sex doesn’t have to be a power game. Totally agree that when entering into a sexual power game the “morals” of the endeavor must be discussed to prevent damage. Totally don’t think that the discussion about that mutual agreement extends beyond the people engaging in the act. In other words, no national referendum on appropriate safe word selection.

I agree that morals ought not to be involved in criminal law. I have already said as much.  Morals are society’s own.  Not the individual’s own.  It is how society gives respect and a code of behavior to one another.  And as long as there is a society, mutual respect is required.  I have heard your argument before.  It is a useless one in a society.  It is the concept of the anarchist.  Do what you want, don’t bother me.  It’s all right if you are a hermit.  But don’t come around my little childrens.  Morals can be talked about as much as the f’n war is Iraq can be talked about.  Morality says we ought not to have killed 1.3 million Iraqis.  Or show a blind eye to the millions in Africa who have been killed by self-serving religious fanatics who pimp their religion to gain material wealth.  Morals do not only have to do with sex and the relationship between men and women.  Morals say how we as conscious human beings ought to treat one another.

Morals are our own. Laws are everyones.

Spitzer broke the law and that is why he is in trouble. i do not agree with the law because it legislates morality.

Had prostitution not been illegal, this might only have been an embarrassment for the Spitzer family and not ended in Eliot’s resignation.

We will never in a million years be able to sit down and define a common morality.

One realistic and possible solution is to repeal “moral” legislature which defines acts of a victimless nature as criminal acts.

I don’t think I am critical in the least of human sexual nature as I am those who judge it to be moral or immoral.  All you are saying are things we all know.  Of course almost everyone likes sex.  Including me!  So what?  There is no argument to much of what you said.  But it is irrelevant to my thesis.  Whatever the reason for the drop in the divorce rate, and it isn’t all that much by the way, most likely doesn’t have anything to do with morals.  Perhaps this or perhaps that is not in question here, that is what scientists can deal with.  What was intended by the comment about blaming the man is not clear.  If sex is a power game, and power is a malicious need, then sex has to go?  For that is where the logic leads.  I don’t think we want to go there.  All sex is not a power game.  Is it?  Or is it that it can be?  And when it is, then rules of morality are necessary to prevent damage to people.  Uncaring of this basic sense of humanity is typical of men who cry “I like sex! and money!”

Morals are our own. Laws are everyones.

Spitzer broke the law and that is why he is in trouble. i do not agree with the law because it legislates morality.

Had prostitution not been illegal, this might only have been an embarrassment for the Spitzer family and not ended in Eliot’s resignation.

We will never in a million years be able to sit down and define a common morality.

One realistic and possible solution is to repeal “moral” legislature which defines acts of a victimless nature as.criminal acts.

Perhaps the divorce rate is dropping as people start to make more personal, internal decisions about entering into marriage, rather than capitulating to the societal message which seems to imply that you should marry before having intercourse, should be marrying your “one true love,” or that marriage is the ultimate goal and responsibility of a God-fearing human. Perhaps people are behaving less selfishly, or perhaps a more realistic allowance for keeping the relationship “spicy” is evolving. You know, there are a lot of couples out there looking for a third party to liven things up in the bedroom....

The way i read Douglas’s title was that he himself was blaming the man, and not ironically. From what he wrote it looks like he was saying that sex is a power game, which is a common assessment by the psychological community, and to a degree, i see the relationship. But sometimes we get so caught up in the psycho analysis that we forget to first examine the easier answers. Perhaps for Spitzer it isn’t the rush of throwing a wad of cash in the girls face and triumphantly proclaiming, “I fucked you!” But maybe it’s as simple as he wanted to have sex with a hotter girl than his wife, he wanted it at his convenience and so he made the arrangements to have that happen.

Almost everyone likes sex. Many fantasize about having sex with strangers or sex for the sole sake of having sex. Is there not something to be said for the idea of having a tidy little arrangement where you can have your orgasm and then not have to have a conversation about whether the car insurance bill got mailed?

In my opinion, the people who are the most critical of our sexual nature are not comfortable with the sexual urges which they themselves feel, and often those who strive the hardest to legislate and prosecute matters of a sexual nature often have a self-perceived deviance they are trying to hide or to repent for. This may be a result of mixed messages we get when we put our Puritanical heritage up against the raging hormones of adolescence, or it may stem from not having those urges satisfied in the “socially appropriate” arena.

I did not say anything about laws.  Moral codes are not laws but conventions that a society agrees to.  I agree that enforcing morals as law would be counterproductive and pandemonium in the courts.  But unless unconscionable acts are not even given voice, we do not know what is or is not acceptable.  However, it is just your very brand of ambiguity that sets up the problems on how to judge the behavior of for instance our politicians or anybody for that matter.  Bill Clinton was vilified for his sexual peccadillos in the Oval Office.  I quite agree what the hell and who cares what the f he did.  I certainly didn’t care, nor do I care what Spritzer did.  It is just that we ought not to be hypocrites in our judgment of men’s or women’s apparent immorality unless we have a set of conventions.  Why depose him as a president if we do not have a set of moral ourselves?

i the person, of my United States of consciousness, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to myself and to cover my posterior, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of Me.

Murder is wrong. Unless it is necessary.

Drugs are bad. Unless they are being done by my friends and me on our own time to have fun and relax. Or if they are the panacea to a host of newly discovered syndromes outlined by the unholy alliance of Big Pharma and the AMA.

Sex is fun. Except when too much alcohol was involved and i ended up sleeping with a bony republican she-male (Ah crap, i slept with Ann Coulter again?).

Marriage is the sexual and emotional ownership of the spouse. Except in the case of swingers, who happily share their loved ones with other couples.

The free market economy is the perfect system for ensuring peace, tranquility, and happiness. But not when it is actually the perfect system for ending peace, tranquility, and happiness.

Hate speech is wrong. Unless of course it is blindly applied to people whose political, religious, or socio-economic association differs from my own. And against Nazis. i hate Nazis.

Legislation of personal affairs will be limited to protecting the well-being of those considered. Except when i decide that one is incapable of correctly assessing one’s own well being, which is frankly, all the rest of you, in which case, i will decide what is in your best interest and prosecute appropriately.

***
Shenon, while i appreciate your desire to define a well-reasoned moral code, i think that it is in the defining that we have diverged from a common sense approach to behaving morally. If we continue to rely on the law to tell us what is right or wrong, we never make a personal choice, but leave those decisions to someone else. If it isn’t illegal, it can’t be wrong, right? Or the converse, which isn’t necessarily true either. If it is illegal, it is wrong.

i think we need less laws. Less legal/moral definition for matters of personal choice. If i want to grow a pot plant, harvest it and smoke it, why shouldn’t i be allowed to do that? If i want to offer my jiggly bits up for an hourly wage, who’s to say that i’m not allowed? If i want to do naked one-armed pushups from the top of my roof at 4 am, why shouldn’t i be allowed to do just that? (Okay, i have to take my neighbors in to account on that one.) But the point is that we have too many laws based on “morality” which intend to ensure that the morality of the law’s author is enforced upon the actions of another who may not share the same moral code, and loses sight of the purpose of legislation, which presumably is to protect the freedoms of one from being impinged upon by another.