Iowa: All Caucused Up

First: Caucus is an ugly word. Primary is so sweet, but caucus sounds like something that should be done in private, not in the group clusterfuck way Iowa chooses to do it, arcane and complex, which should and does benefit the motivated, the committed, the extremist, the zealot.

And speaking of Bernie Sanders: If this is the best he can do, he might as well hang it up.  Iowa is as white as it's going to get for him and he can't pull better than a tie with HRC.  A tie isn't good enough for the man who's essentially said he's counting on the caucus states and the whiter, whitish, whitesque states to keep him competitive.  It will be all over for him after South Carolina, a winner-take-all state that will crush his hopes like a dialectical antithesis.  Congratulations, President Clinton, on the first step of your inevitable slog to victory.

Regarding the GOP: Trump is a loser.  Trump got schlonged by Ted Cruz's big Canadian schlong.  Or smallish, who knows?  Do we really know anything about the plucky Canuck?  Do we care?  He will be perhaps the least likable major party nominee since...Calvin Coolidge?  He's footnoteworthy only in that he schlonged Donald Trump.

Marco Rubio seemed quite pleased with his overwhelming/unstoppable 3rd place victory.  And of course it was something of a victory.   In a sane world the other so-called "normies" in the GOP would drop out and support him, putting the party above the petty, but Jeb Bush is nothing if not petty and he won't be dropping out soon.  Rand Paul has the warmth of Freedom to keep the cold sting of defeat from his free Texas skin.  Chris Christie is probably just happy for an excuse to be out of New Jersey.  Kasich is, apparently, quietly demented.  None of them will be inclined to drop out, though the one way to stop the Cruz/Trump derailment of their party necessitates they do so, they drop out immediately, endorse Rubio, and turn their side of 2016 into a three-way race.  Who would win such a race?  God, who knows.  Clinton will beat any of them.

What else did we learn?  That polling is absurd, because it had Trump ahead in Iowa most of the way?  No, we didn't learn that.  Polling isn't absurd, Trump supporters are.  They are infantile, clueless White Nationalists who enjoy bellowing about how their Whiteness is not quite as adequately recompensed as in days of yore and then are easily distracted.  A set of car keys jangling-in-the-face distracted.  Too distracted to go out and vote.  Perhaps in non-caucus states a greater percent will make the bother, and Trump still might win the GOP nomination.  Or he could be so devastated by Iowa that he throws in the monogrammed towel.

We can happily say good-bye to Martin O'Malley, who absolutely didn't belong in the last debate, or perhaps should have been placed on a B-stage debate by himself, where his pre-planned responses would have not sounded a note different in stridency or beat.  Without his presence we will see a more focused contrast between HRC and the non-Democrat running in the Democratic primary.  It should be interesting to see if Bernie Sanders has much to say about much of anything beside the billionaire class.  Perhaps he will discuss Hillary Clinton's damn emails.  Stay tuned.

South Carolina will Decide the Primaries

Iowa and New Hampshire exist this primary year only to weed out the candidates who properly have no business campaigning.  On the Democratic side, that is Martin O'Malley.  On the Republican side, it is everyone not named Trump or Cruz and, perhaps, a sole surviving "establishment" candidate.

South Carolina will decide the nominee of the Democratic Party, almost certainly, and quite possibly that of the Republican Party.

Iowa and New Hampshire, with their proportional delegate distribution, will keep Bernie Sanders in the race until South Carolina.  He and Hillary Clinton will split the delegates in the two states in whatever way the chips happen to fall, 55% of them to Clinton, 45% to Sanders is my guess, but South Carolina's entire 50 delegates, with its winner-take-all distribution, will all go to HRC.  She will have a huge lead, and at that point Sanders will, presumably, drop out of the race.  The only reasons he wouldn't: desire to keep his "message" out there (kudos to him, yes, and fuck the billionaire class); the conviction he is inspired by whatever god he believes in (probably something to do with dialectical materialism); he's a bored old man who likes the attention -- the Ralph Nader Syndrome (I doubt it).

Things are much more interesting on the Republican side, in a horse-race sort of way, with a dozen or so candidates still in the mix at this point, though "mix" might not apply to the candidates who seem to have fallen out of the mixing bowl.  Several of them simply don't belong here, polling very badly, "Martin O'Malley" bad, even: Santorum, Huckabee, Fiorina, Paul.  To receive any delegates in Iowa and NH a candidate must get at least 15 percent of the vote.  None of those four will.  The first three will fold after Iowa, unless they're simply having too much fun with all the fol-de-rol, though Rand Paul might stick around as a "message" candidate -- and of course he won't want to disappoint Dad. Ben Carson will continue to run as long as it generates decent book sales.  Frankly, his campaign should more properly be covered by Writer's Digest than by the news and politics journals.  His is one of the more outside-the-box book-marketing campaigns I've seen, and will no doubt inspire dozens of future memoirists to run for the highest office in the land.  The real race is and will be between Trump and Cruz -- and one and no more than one surviving "establishment" candidate.

As with Clinton and Sanders on the Democratic side, delegates will split neatly between Trump and Cruz, quite possibly all of them, as no other candidate might achieve the 15 percent level to be considered for delegate apportionment.  South Carolina, again, will decide the story.  If Cruz wins all the delegates there, his lead will be substantial enough that Loser Donald might not want to continue running a Loser Race, the dummy.  Sad.  If Trump wins, Cruz will probably drop out, if his national polling numbers are still substantially lower than the Donald's.

For an "establishment" GOP candidate to survive after South Carolina, the others had best drop out soon after Iowa.  Of the four: Bush, Kasich, Rubio, Christie -- Gov. Christie probably has the best chance of competing against the Trump/Cruz phenomena.  Bush is simply unlikable.  Unless you're Eric Cantor.  Which proves the point.  The only thing Left and Right agree on is that Jeb Bush is truly unlikable.  John Kasich is simply unlistenable.  He is as unlistenable as Bush is unlikable.  Has 90 seconds ever lasted so long than when listening to a Kasich response to a debate question?  Rubio is a lightweight, to put it mildly.  He belongs running the gate at a Tony Robbins seminar.  Christie, however, for all his flaws, or perhaps because of them, can be seen as a viable alternative to the "nutty" candidates.  He can bluster and bully like Trump.  (One imagines his dismay when Trump entered the race just before him, immediately staking out a claim to the "shout out your love for bullying" terrain.)  He can be as mean-spirited as Cruz.  ("Bridge Lane to Nowhere.")  He embraces the blame-the-victim generator that keeps the lights on in the bunker that is the postmodern GOP.  (Lock you up if you've ever been anywhere near Ebola.)  If he survives after New Hampshire, and if the other "establishment" candidates drop out and endorse him, he could be disruptive enough to keep either Trump or Cruz from a clear majority.  At which point Christie would likely be anointed at a brokered convention as the only seemingly normal GOP choice.

Handicapping the races at this point is simple on the Democratic side: Hillary Clinton.  On the Republican side, not so much.  Trump, if he dominates early on.  If he doesn't, then possibly Christie, if enough of the others drop out and endorse him.  Cruz does not seem likely.  He really is as unliked as all the rumors indicate, and dislike at the highest levels of politics, as always, has a way of bringing you down.

We will know so much more after South Carolina.  Perhaps more than we want to know.

Baals Lied, Bertolt Brecht

Early Brecht poem, my translation:

Baals Lied

Hat ein Weib fette Hüften, tu ich sie ins grüne Gras....
Rock und Hose tu ich lüften, sonnig – denn ich liebe das.

Beißt das Weib vor Ekstase, wisch ich ab mit grünem Gras
Mund und Biß und Schoß und Nase: sauber – denn ich liebe das.
Treibt das Weib die schöne Sache feurig, doch im Übermaß
Geb ich ihr die Hand und lache: freundlich, denn ich liebe das.

……….

Baal’s Song

If I had a woman with big fat hips I’d take her on the green grass.
I’d lift her skirt and her shirt in the sun – I’d love that.
I’d bite that woman to ecstasy, wash her clean in the green grass,
her mouth and her teeth, her nose, her lap – I would love that.
I’d set that beautiful woman on fire. I’d lose control, giving her the hand,
then the smile – amiable again. And I’d love that.

Trump and White Nationalism

A few notes to a friend who thinks Donald Trump's support comes from economic issues:

No. It isn't. Trump's supporters are the spear's edge of the White Nationalist movement in America. They're the hardcore right wing of the right wing party. I don't believe the anger is about economics, but race-based. Every other Trump supporter on Twitter who trolls me has the #WhiteGenocide hashtag in his bio. (Yes, overwhelmingly "his.") The anti-immigrant rhetoric is racism wrapped up in legalities. The anti-"welfare" rhetoric comes from the belief that dark-skinned people are mooching off the system. The gun rights rhetoric comes from the fear that the dark-skinned people will come and hurt them if they aren't armed to the teeth. They've coalesced around hatred of a dark-skinned man in the White House. The economic or alleged constitutional issues that they pretend animate them were not discussed at all when a white Republican was in the White House. Fortunately, I don't think their schtick will play outside the neo-John Birch movement that is the Tea Party and Trump's support won't expand beyond the hardcore White Nationalists who currently propel him.

marriage poem

honestly it was okay to dislike
almost everything

even the graffiti on the wall
of the Standesaamt

as we walked, you holding
my hand, leading me

to the realization
that marrying is easy

for an American.
it's not as though I'm Syrian.

Germans, those I've met,
certainly you, like Americans

(which gives some cause
for concern)

& that graffiti, gangland
chic phony filtered

through a Euro trash
bin still a touch of home

remembered as I waffled through
the interview

my pidgin hoch-Deutsch on display.
we didn't want to pay

for a translator
250 Euros better spent

on rings
though the broad-gestured

bureaucrat almost insists.
these women

brassy with their chubby-
armed semaphore,

hatchet-scowled
until they flirt --

I chattered something
a remembered line

Goethe or Brecht
or boilerplate

from a standard contract
& she stamped my future

but left me with a murder-hole
I could slip into,

one last document
to be procured a long-

form birth certificate,
the short-form will not do

& I used the paper's edge to leap
back

across the ocean
wondering,

now,
as I check my pockets,

repeatedly,
what I forgot.

Bernie Sanders, Letter to a European Friend

Hola from America:


I'm a huge Bernie Sanders fan and have been for the 12 years that I've been aware of him.  He's the only socialist in Congress, as far as I know, a longtime Independent who caucuses with the Democrats.  I prefer his politics to Clinton's certainly, BUT!!! I support Clinton because I don't think Sanders has as good a chance to win in the general election.  Clinton's centrism is considered less threatening, while Sanders' socialism, in America, is perceived as extremist.  Many centrist Americans see him the way I see Ted Cruz, for instance.  I think the negative impact of a Republican in the White House outweighs the positive influence of Bernie Sanders, who can continue to do very important work in the Senate.  I'm glad he's running, though, as he very clearly outlines some basic tenets of socialism, which, frankly, many Americans know nothing about, and equate it with either Soviet-style Stalinism or godless Satanism.  I'm not exaggerating.  It's a good
thing that all of America will hear him.  He'll singlehandedly push the dividing line in our country to the left, a line that has been pushed constantly to the right since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980.  But because I believe he'll lose in a general election, I don't want him to be the Dem nominee.  And I don't dislike Clinton.  She will be a practical, pragmatic steward, sort of our version of an Angela Merkel, say, building on the slow, plodding work Obama has begun of moving America into the 21st century.  William F. Buckley, Jr., the great conservative writer, said he would always support the most conservative candidate who had THE MOST REALISTIC CHANCE OF WINNING (my emphasis).  Exactly.  In short, "Run, Bernie, run!" but then when Clinton leads in the delegate count, "Drop out, Bernie, drop out!" and support her wholeheartedly.

I despise Martin O'Malley.  He gave the worst speech I've heard in years, if not decades, from a Democrat, at the Democratic National Convention in 2012.  He sounded like a wind-up Amway salesman.  Also, a few weeks ago he started talking about Benghazi, and Clinton's role in it, something Republicans do, just because he's desperately low in the polls.  I expect that from a Republican, but from a Democrat -- well, I despise him, I'll just put it that way. 

Jim Webb is interesting, a bit too far to the right wing of the Democratic Party for my taste, but he's...interesting.  Known as a very good novelist (a few Vietnam War novels, a conflict he served in), and a former senator from Virginia, which will be a battleground state, very close to going either D or R this year.  He might make a good VP running mate for Clinton, a manly macho manly man for all the swing voters who might be uncomfortable with a woman president.


All best,
Bill

Do it, GOP, Make this thing a real TV show

Dear Reince Priebus, you and the Republican Party have it in your power to make this primary season the best freaking reality TV show ever. 

Start with the first debate.

Throw out all the old formats.  You have sixteen relatively legitimate (lol) candidates; now if you only have the will you can design a bracket battle that will enthrall America.

First, rank them by latest polls, Trump at the top, and the people whose name I don't want to bother loking up at the bottom, like...Topkapi?  Poughkeepie?  That guy, and Jindal, at the bottom.  Then bracket them in four groups of four each, 1 and 16, 5 and 12 in the first bracket, etc.  Make the first debate a quad slugfest, with four debaters a time on stage for thirty minutes total, no screwing around, cut their damn microphones if they go over their thirty seconds.  Let that British asshole from American idol moderate.  "Illegal immigration: Rand Paul, you have 30 seconds!" or "Don't Ask, Don' Tell, Ben Carson, you have 30 seconds!"  Then, and here's the genius, LET THE VIEWERS DECIDE who advances.  The viewers vote in real-time, kind of like Dancing With the Stars.

One person advances.  One from each quad.  So the sixteen are winnowed down to four at the end of two hours.  Then those four square off a week later.

Ratings would go through the roof.  I would guess the Final Four would be something like Trump, Bush, Walker, and whoever.  It would be a freaking blast getting to the Final Four, all America would be talking about you.

Basically, we'd be talking about what assholes you are, but we're already doing that.

Think about it, Reince.

Afghan Heroin Spikes

The default assumption of U.S. ideology regarding the Afghan heroin spike centers on the argument of unintended consequences.  In other words, "Gosh, we sure tried to stop heroin production in Afghanistan, but you know...shit happens."

http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/afghan-heroin-the-cia-519/

http://rt.com/news/156128-afghanistan-drugs-usa-heroin/

A far more interesting connection would center on the near collapse of the heroin industry after the Taliban took over most of the country; by 2001, heroin production was close to nil for the region that provides 90 percent of the world's heroin.

Somebody was losing a lot of money.

Enter 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan, spearheaded by the CIA, which has proven a dab hand at generating drug money when needed for black ops. 

Fifteen years later, and billions of dollars spent to "eradicate" the poppy fields, more heroin than ever is flowing from Afghanistan.  We can argue and assume incompetence to explain this heroin spike, but it can just as easily be inferred that the point of the Afghanistan invasion was to get the heroin supply flowing again, reclaim the black market fortunes that were being lost.

The "War on Drugs" meme needs to be reframed and rethought for what it is: The war to keep the drugs flowing.

New Book

http://www.amazon.com/Density-100-Page-Suicide-Note/dp/1514691175/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436459095&sr=8-1&keywords=bill+clunie

Varoufakis on Saving Capitalism from Itself

Varoufakis:

"A Greek or a Portuguese or an Italian exit from the eurozone would soon lead to a fragmentation of European capitalism, yielding a seriously recessionary surplus region east of the Rhine and north of the Alps, while the rest of Europe would be in the grip of vicious stagflation. Who do you think would benefit from this development? A progressive left, that will rise Phoenix-like from the ashes of Europe’s public institutions? Or the Golden Dawn Nazis, the assorted neofascists, the xenophobes and the spivs? I have absolutely no doubt as to which of the two will do best from a disintegration of the eurozone. I, for one, am not prepared to blow fresh wind into the sails of this postmodern version of the 1930s. If this means that it is we, the suitably erratic Marxists, who must try to save European capitalism from itself, so be it. Not out of love for European capitalism, for the eurozone, for Brussels, or for the European Central Bank, but just because
we want to minimise the unnecessary human toll from this crisis.