by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyAs a fourth generation Texan, a descendant of Texas pioneers, I deny a favorite myth among the GOP inclined. There was no 'Texas Miracle' --a term cooked up in a GOP focus group, fly-by-night political consultants (perhaps from Chicago). Fact is --not only has education dropped off the radar, Texas has run out of oil that can be pumped profitably; real jobs are as scarce as hen's teeth.Frankly, I am surprised to learn that --as economist Paul Krugman points out -- in June 2011 the Texas unemployment rate was ONLY 8.2 percent. I had expected that it would have been higher. About that, economist Paul Krugman asks: "...what does population growth have to do with job growth?" Krugman is right to ask! The point is made as only Krugman can make it! Indeed, if the 'Texas Miracle' had been real, Texas should not be boasting of unemployment rates as high as 8.2 percent.But I am disappointed that Krugman has not mentioned the BUSH-PERRY scam about which I have screamed bloody murder! I believe that unemployment figures for TX would be much, much higher if those millions left behind by Bush-Perry neglect/subversion of public education were showing up in the stats. But --they are not! They are not showing up because those "left behind" are finding the only long-term employment that is available to them in the corporate-owned prisons, what I call the Bush-Perry Gulag!This is not the result of GOP incompetence. It is, rather, the result of deliberate GOP crookery at the party-leadership level. This is the result of the GOP's deliberate neglect of education. It is one of several reasons the GOP is not a poltiical party; it is a crime syndicate, a kooky cult!The only pockets lined by GOP largesse (pork) are the pockets of an increasingly tiny ruling elite now just 1 percent of the total US population. Official stats prove my assertions; those numbers can be found at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Commerce Dept-B.E.A. Be prepared to see proof that the GOP, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry et al are lying, distorting the effects of every GOP tax cut in U.S. history.
In each case, the cuts --enriching only the upper, upper classes and the corporate owners of prisons --are followed by recessions, depressions. ERGO: GOP tax cuts do not and have never stimulated the economy, have never created a single job! In fact, job growth has either declined or gone negative (net job loss) after every GOP tax cut. In fact, every recession/depression since 1900 has been the result of either GOP incompetence or crookedness or both.It is for this reason primarily that BUSH-PERRY neglected education. A state that will not educate new generations deserves to pay for the privilege of neglect with much higher crime rates. But even that is not the point ---the point is that the GOP and the CORPORATE OWNED PRISONS benefit from the whole package: 1) LOWER HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATIONS 2) HIGHER CRIME RATES 3) HIGHER PROFITS FOR CORPORATE-OWNED PRISONS. It's the GOP formula. Given what we know about the GOP record in Texas, we should not be surprised to learn that a failed governor from a 'gulag' state, a failed governor with more hair than brains, an inarticulate governor challenged to spell 'ed-joo-ka-shun' should wish to occupy the White House, a 'perch' from which he might prey upon the future of an entire nation and the futures of all the people who live in it.So when Mr. Perry presents himself as the candidate who knows how to create jobs, don’t believe him. His prescriptions for job creation would work about as well in practice as his prayer-based attempt to end Texas’s crippling drought. --Paul Krugman, The Texas UnmiracleThere was NO 'Texas Miracle'!
Unless you consider the rise of the prison system to be a 'miracle'! I don't! Nor am I impressed with pimples on the much larger curve. I grew up with the boom and bust 'oil industry' and consider it an utterly failed strategy akin to playing Blackjack or Roulette in the expection of, one day, hitting a jackpot! I cannot count the number of 'busts' that I witnessed growing up. And from each 'bust' only the very, very rich benefited. In any case, when it is deemed more profitable to attack and invade another Middle Eastern country, temporary 'bubbles' will always burst. But crime --as a result of the GOP/right wing sabotage of education --will ensure that the corporate run prisons are full. What a racket!!
GOP policy is anti-education! It was the evil axis of Bush-Perry that made of Texas the GULAG STATE!
10 comments:
I receive the following comment in response via email:
We are beginning to see the MSM give this Texas asshole the star treatment. Who will expose his lies? Does the US, yet again, elect a moron? After W's second win, all stupid is possible. It doesn't have to be inevitable, but our collective laziness and our lack of education, in civics particularly, might just doom us.
We can all do our part. Get the skinny on PERRY and EMAIL to everyone on your list.
Help to make the TRUTH go viral.
Texas has run out of oil that can be pumped profitably; real jobs are as scarce as hen's teeth.
SO NOW the big shots want to PUMP CANADA'S COAL SAND SLUDGE all the way from the ARCTIC to fucking refineries in Texas so they can ship it!
FUCK EM - EVERY GODDAMNED SWINGIN DICK ONE OF EM!
I will be out there in my vintage 65 Chev motorhome making coffee and sandwiches for the monkey wrench gang on this one!
Mr. Natural said...
SO NOW the big shots want to PUMP CANADA'S COAL SAND SLUDGE all the way from the ARCTIC to fucking refineries in Texas so they can ship it!
FUCK EM - EVERY GODDAMNED SWINGIN DICK ONE OF EM!
Nothing is off the table for the the Evil Axis of Bush/Perry/Big 'Awwwl'! For example, Saddam was one of them; he was playing their game. The handwriting had been on the wall had anyone been paying attention. The transcript of Saddam's meeting with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie during the Bush I admin can probably still be found on the internet. This 'interview' is enlightening. Saddam wanted to raise the price of IRAQI oil! Glaspie gave him a greenlight: "...we have no position on your Arab/Arab disputes', she told him! But --when he moved into Kuwait, the Sr Bush had the pretext he need to nail Saddam's ass to the wall with respect to the spot price of middle east crude!
You're right! We are dealing with EVIL FUCKERS or to use your terms: 'EVERY GODDAMNED SWINGING DICK ONE OF THEM!"
Thank you for your eloquence and keep telling the truth!
D said...
....linking this sht to the 3rd Reich is pathetic, man. huh, cowboy? William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich????
There are NO mentions of Hitler nor the Third Reich in any phrase or sentence of this article.
Which article did you read?
But --had I decided to mention Hitler (and I might have), I would not have bothered to get your permission or blessing. You're a moron; you did not read this article; you failed to tell which article you DID read; you're an idiot!
Frankly --I don't give a fuck what idiots think!
I would suggest, D, that you refrain from posting here until you have something reasonably intelligent to say, something proving that your IQ may be nearing 100!
I might have deleted your stupid, inarticulate ass but suspected that you may have, in fact, been victimized by the Bush/Prick war ON education. If so, I feel sorry for you. I hope you find work.
1) It's obvious that you've never read the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich;
2) Even if you had, you are challenged to reference an alternative source. But I can --
Try 'Inside the Third Reich' by Albert Speer.
Try the transcripts of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials themselves.
Try: "The Empire of I.G. Farben"
You might even try this report from the Daily Mail: "The secret report that shows how the Nazis planned a Fourth Reich ...in the EU
I could also cite ALL of the testimony and ALL of the hundreds of documents that were filed in evidence at the Nuremberg War Crimes trial. All of those met the high standards of the Nuremberg Tribunal --not mere hayseeds, rednecks, and spitting, grass chewing goobers like you.
now ---SHUT THE FUCK UP, you inarticulate waste of human protoplasm! Post again --I will not hesitate to delete your stupid shit as it wastes time and bandwidth.
So do the world two favors: 1) STFU until you have procured as many as two working brain cells; 2) post here again and get blocked!
But if you are a victim of Bush/Perry, then I need only cite your post to prove everything I have ever written about the Bush/Perry and what they have done TO education in Texas!
William Shirer was one of 'Murrow's Boys' and covered Europe for CBS from a base in Geneva and some times France. Most of his time was spent in Berlin during the run up to war. His 'Berlin Diary' is a lucid, detailed, authoritative first-hand, eyewitness account of those yeas. Here's wiki entry re: Shirer.
"William Lawrence Shirer (February 23, 1904 – December 28, 1993) was an American journalist, war correspondent, and historian, who wrote The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a history of Nazi Germany read and cited in scholarly works for more than 50 years. Originally a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the International News Service, Shirer was the first reporter hired by Edward R. Murrow for what would become a team of journalists for CBS radio. Shirer became known for his broadcasts from Berlin, from the rise of the Nazi dictatorship through the first year of World War II. With Murrow, Shirer organized the first broadcast world news roundup, a format still followed by news broadcasts. Shirer's other books include Berlin Diary (published in 1941), The Collapse of the Third Republic which drew on his experience living and working in France from 1925 to 1933, and his three-volume autobiography, "Twentieth Century Journey.
...
When war broke out on the Western Front in 1940, Shirer moved forward with the German troops, reporting first hand on the German "Blitzkrieg." Shirer reported on the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April from Berlin, and then on the invasion of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and France in May. As German armies closed in on Paris, he traveled to France with the German forces."
I have read not only Shirer's 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' but his 'Berlin Diary' many times. And I will quote from them anytime I fucking well please.
Now--another source upon with which I am very familiar is Albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich" I've read this work many times. Here's an excerpt from a review:
"For anyone who loves the Indo-Europeans, this book is a hard read: it shows in agonizing detail the slow collapse of a hopeful vision, and where that vision was both wrong and inexorably right.
Speer is clearly a brilliant man, not solely in the academic sense, but in the practical sense as well. He sees to the structure of complex situations and, by grasping in his mind what is the goal and the methods most likely to achieve it, overcomes problems his colleagues can barely articulate. In this, interestingly, we see the greatest similarities to Hitler. Although Speer is never implicated in the "war crimes" of the Nazi regime, he went to prison for twenty years, and upon coming out, wrote this memoir which is more of a critical analysis than it is solely a recollection; in support of this concept, he details the mechanisms of the Third Reich and an insider's view of its failures.
Two decades in a desolate prison will leave an imprint on any person, and in Speer it manifests as a sense of guilt and excessive negativity toward his former colleagues; whether this is a clever way of avoiding the censors, or the outpouring of emotion from one who saw devastation of all he loved followed by a lengthy isolation, is an issue for others."
See: Inside the Third Reich
The trials at Nuremberg are original sources and transcriptsmay be found at the link.
Now --I have written reams about Texas politics and politicians. It is a topic about which I am qualified to write. I did so PROFESSIONALLY for years while employed by major media corporations to include ABC, CBS, Linn Broadcasting, MacClendon (KLIF, KNUS, DALLAS)et al.
A very short list of my interviews may be found in my bio on this blog. They include world leaders, American politicians, political consultants, writers, analysts et al from various American locations across the nation. They include economists from Morris Adelmen (M.I.T.) to Milton Friedman and many others to include experts in the oil and gas industries.
Now --while I did not interview William Shirer, whose credentials are impeccable, I did meet, converse and interview other famous correspondents to include among many others Dan Rather (CBS) and Richard C. Hottelet (CBS), who covered Great Britain, France and Germany as one of 'Murrow's boys'.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011
An American Gulag
There is a long blockquote in this article from Shirer's 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'. It describes a meeting in which Hitler met with industrialists to include Krupp, Thyssen, exec from I.G. Farben. He made a deal they could not refuse! In return for their support of him and his 'Reich', he would contract to them the arming of Germany, the production of Zyklon 'B' and the construction/maintence/management of the gulag of concentration camps that have, in fact, defined the history of the Third Reich.
More about how A. Hitler auctioned off the 'Third Reich' --not unlike the Praetorian Guard's sale of the Empire of Rome to nobleman Didius Julianus, not unlike the sale of TX to the corporate owners of the Texas Prison Gulag.
"Hitler did not intend to share his power with coalition partners. After the dissolution of the
Reichstag, he hoped to win an absolute majority for the NSDAP with a massive election campaign. To finance the electoral battle, he sought support from Germany’s leading industrialists.
In a meeting held on February 20, 1933, Hitler and Hermann Göring (1893-1946)explained the benefits that industry leaders would derive from an NSDAP victory: political
stability, the complete elimination of the Communist threat and, not least, a lucrative
rearmament policy.
Among those present at the meeting was George von Schnitzler, a board member of I.G. Farben, then the world’s largest chemical conglomerate. (I.G. Farben would eventually go on to produce the Zyklon B gas used in Nazi death camps). In the following affidavit, given in English on November 10, 1945, Schnitzler describes the purpose of the meeting and provides the names of others in attendance that day.
Schnitzler, who in his later capacity as Chairman of the company’s Chemical Committee
[Chemikalienausschuss] was responsible for exploiting the Polish and French chemical industries, was sentenced to a five-year prison term at the I.G. Farben Trial of 1947-48. He was
released after one year, however."
--German History in Documents and Images, Volume 7. Nazi Germany, 1933-1945, Georg von Schnitzler on Hitler’s Appeal to Leading German Industrialists on February 20, 1933 (Affidavit, November 10, 1945)
Great post, Len. Perry is a moronic tool, just like his predecessor, Dubya. I'm glad you brought up the privitization of prisons. This is a topic that few people know about, but I think most people would be horrified about, if they knew how it is raping the American public in dollar terms and leading to MORE incarcerations, not less. Thom Hartmann has done some good reporting on this topic, including here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdJZqmIei-E
Thanks again!
Stephen Kriz said...
... the privitization of prisons. This is a topic that few people know about, but I think most people would be horrified about, if they knew how it is raping the American public in dollar terms and leading to MORE incarcerations, not less.
I'm glad Thom Hartmann is on this 'beat'. For some reason, Americans seems to have a blind spot on this issue though it is THE 'smoking gun' with respect to the GOP modus operandi. The Texas system is the model --and a fascist model it is to be sure --upon which a greater, more encompassing fascist state can and will be built. I say 'will be' though much of the pieces of the puzzle are already in place. I am toying with the idea of writing a book about this very thing. I have been approached by a publisher.
Again --thanks for the great comment. I won't say 'spread the word'. Somehow, I know you will.
"William L. Shirer ranks as one of the greatest of all American correspondents. He lived and worked in Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Rome. But it was above all as correspondent in Germany for the Chicago Tribune and later the
Columbia Broadcasting System that his reputation was established. He subsequently wrote The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which is hailed as a classic,
and after the war he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur. In the post-war years he wrote in a variety of fields, and in his seventies he learned Russian, publishing a biography of Tolstoy at the age of 89. He died in 1994. His Berlin broadcasts were published posthumously by Hutchinson in 1999."
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