KELSO'S AN "ANTI-WAR HIPPIE" GO FIGGA...

...guess it makes sense because "Liberal Elitist" was one of the choices -- thank whomever K didn't get that appelation. Kelso never thought himself as either, but is probably both . He certainly never had long hair, wore tie-dye, and hasn't touched mota in lord knows how long. Kelso's got some elitism in his lineage and a pile of education and has never lived anywhere other than a big city so "Liberal Elitist" probably fits better than "Anti-War Hippie" from a cultural standpoint but "Liberal Elitist" allows for a pro-war stance, see Clinton, Obama, Biden for details. Christ, pre-Bush Libby and Wolfowitz were "liberals." And Kelso is resolutely anti-war. Why? Because take the worst pain you've ever felt and multiply it by the number of grains of salt factorial in all the Morton containers in the biggest supermarket in your home town and that's maybe close to what war is.

Oh, the rating test came from a link on dark-wraith forums.

Sorry for the wool-gathering, a wool-gathering tone needed be set because more wool gathering's coming. To wit, a wake up call to America's vast "middle-class."

STREET GANGS

Your right-wing middle-class exurbanite has an irrational fear that urban street gangs -- Bill Bennett's "superpredators" -- are conspiring to invade his cul-de-sac, steal his beer and rape his dog with the "liberal elite" cheering on. It's hogwash. Those gangmembers do not know that you even exist. Were you to walk into a "blood" or a "crip" neighborhood go into a store and buy a pack of cigarettes, nobody would notice or care. Friend, you can walk into Jenny's on Arbor Vitae in Inglewood day or night and order waffles to your heart's content. To Jenny's regulars(yes, even teenaged males) you are invisible, a fantasm. They are concerned with their own affairs amongst and between themselves. They love those of their flag and hate those of the other flag. They have feuds over crap like a slice of Canadian Bacon that go back decades. The right-wing exurban office-park dad has assymptotic zero to fear from Bennett's fantastical "superpredator" but quite a bit to fear from his beloved Republican Party, which brings us to paranoia #2 in this little meditation...

"THE RICH"

Your left-wing middle-class exurbanite has an idea that there's this amophous but united group called "the rich" who are conspiring to oppress them and destroy them. Outside of cases such as the Westinghouse/General Electric/Alliss-Chalmers engine cartel (which was successfully prosecuted), there is no "the rich." Rich people hate each other, are envious of each other and generally can't agree on what to have for lunch, let alone conspire to oppress anyone. Furthermore, about 1/3 of "the rich" has politics to the left of your basic left-wing middle-class exurbanite. What about Halliburton, you ask? "The rich" loathe Halliburton. As the acquisition and maintainance of wealth requires brains, work, risk and luck, "the rich" despise Cheney's thievery. Look at the history of Halliburton. Twenty years ago, Halliburton was one of the Louisiana/Texas oil patch's smallest distributors of field supplies. In steps, Cheney grabbed everything that wasn't nailed down. How do you feel that the "rich" bond-trader whose pay depends on his precision feels about Cheney's billions? He fucking hates it. How does he feel about the trader across the desk? He fucking hates him. That guy's performance can cost the first guy bonus money. Sure, there are trade associations and PACs but no rich person pays them any mind, really. Again, the "middle-class" doesn't exist for "the rich." They might as well also be fantasms and their needs are neither liked nor disliked. They are merely ignored.

WAR AND PEACE

War in the Middle-East is good for some of the "rich" -- those who are long commodities. It's terrible for those of the "rich" who are long dollars. Peace in Latin American is good for "the rich" who are long real-estate and banking. War in Latin America -- oh, hell, yeah Venezuela -- would help "the rich" as war in the Middle-East does. But would be awful for those long dollars, banking or real estate. Latin American capitalists don't hate Chavez because of some domino theory. There is no domino theory. Chavez has neither the means nor the motivation to destabilize anything anywhere. Are you crazy? He gets paid hard currency for crude and USD for refined products in the USA through CITGO-marketing. You think he wants to mess that up? Holders of Venezuelan bank stocks have been offered 1 1-2 times the market price in the re-nationalization (yes, there are Venezuelan stock, bond and commodities markets; yes, Venezuela is a capitalist country) and there is no shortage of right-wing American risk-arb specialists who've scooped up every Bolivar. Those share are going to end up settling beyond 1 1-2 times market because of privacy, low taxes, and a Bolivar that's stronger than the USD. Latin American capitalists outside Venezuela hate Chavez for needling Bush because they don't want BUSH to distabilize things.. As we've seen when Bush destabilizes things, they fucking well stay destabilized. It's taken these countries too long to develop into low-inflation, high-growth economies with concurrent democratic republican governments and a real-estate crash brought on by yet another Cold War proxy would mess everything up in a very bad way. Maybe that's what Bush and Negroponte want. Maybe they hate democracy and capitalism al estilo Latino. Yet, communism al chino and totalitarianism al arabe, no problem, huey.

And speaking of right-wing and totalitarian China and that crap, what is going to happen to the only big-time purveyor of real news -- The Wall Street Journal -- when Murdoch buys it? Guess John Piesen will switch from trotters to growth stocks. Is Ray Kerrison still alive? He can do blue chips or Treasuries: there must be an anti-abortion angle in there somewhere? Steve Dunleavy? Mutual Funds. Think he can figure out an angle to get colleges to reinvest so as to resurrect Boer power in South Africa?




Kelso's Nuts love you.