Loose ends (no. 37)

EL PASO/JUAREZ:

It was an especially violent weekend for the ongoing Juarez drug war, gang wars, and general anarchy:

Friday: 11 murders
Saturday: 12 murders
Sunday: 4 murders (Sunday being the official day of "rest")

(Dada note: On this evening's news, the weekend Juarez death toll has been revised upward to 30.)

Total murders in Juarez for May - more than 100; year to date; more than 580
Meanwhile, Juarez's sister city, El Paso, has recorded 4 homicides since January 1. (But there have been 10 El Paso bank robberies!)

TEXAS

As a letter to the editor pointed out in The Times this morning, it's ironic that Texas governor Rick Perry signed into law a bill mandating all public school children pledge their allegiance to the flag each morning. Yeh, that pledge that includes the words, "one nation, under God, indivisible...."

Just to clear up any doubt, that's the same Rick Perry who hinted Texas might want to consider seceding from that indivisible union at a Texas Tea Party this April.

Oh, yeh, and that's the same governor Perry who also rejected federal stimulus money of $565 million for those jobless and homeless Texans in March. (Later over-ridden in revised form by both the Texas Senate and Hosue.)

But to complete the irony, Texas decided to allocate eleven million federal dollars stimulus money to reconstruct the governor's mansion which was torched by an arsonist in 2008.

Dada thinks the federal government may want to beat the Texas secessionists to the punch by purging the Union of a huge pain in the ass.

JUNE AND THE BEGINNING OF "THE SUMMER FROM HELL."

I'd just like to note GM's bankruptcy, and the federal government pledging to pump $30 billion more into GM (in addition to the $20 billion already cast to the wind). In a comment on Dada's, Fran (of "Ramblings" blog fame) notes, aside from the obvious pouring of federal taxpayer's moneys down the rathole:

• 21,000 union workers will be unemployed.

• Close 12 to 20 factories

• Forty percent of the company’s 6,000 dealers will close (2,400 dealers).

That's a whole lot of family wage jobs and health care benefits going away.

I suspect GM is going to bailout of their bailout- meaning we never see that $50 billion again.

Too bad, all those unemployed workers are going to need benefits & social/support services.

Thanks Fran. And, as Dennis Kucinich urged of the White House, Americans should not be subsidizing GM's growth overseas on the backs displaced US workers: “We must not allow GM to use US taxpayer dollars to close plants in America in order to open markets for products made in China and other countries.”

But why the hell should we listen to Kucinich? After all, as (the late, accoladed mediaman) Tim Russert so proudly gleaned from a Shirley MacLaine book, Kucinich may have seen a UFO! Holy SHIT! (Implication: He's a fuckin' nutcase, right?)

Meanwhile, Detroit folks are saddened and very anxious at the news of GM's bankruptcy. And why shouldn't they be? With yet another economic axe to fall as a result of today's GM news, one need only read Michael Moore's reminder that 47% of the houses in his hometown of Flint, MI are vacant. Ah, math reminder, that's nearly every other house, less in some neighborhoods, more than half in others!

But Moore goes on to chide the administration, to NOT pull GM and the past, i.e., Old World, into the New World of the 21st Century by "building 'cars' that may have been fun to drive, but are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature."

Moore instead pleads with our government to look to the future by converting closing auto plants into manufacturing things this country will need for its future! Things like the nation's first bullet trains, trains like Japan has now had for 45 years. (Dada can't imagine making a day trip to Albuquerque from El Paso in under two hours each way, not to mention the thousands of workers that would be put to work, not just locally but nationwide, in building such a network!)

Moore's nine suggestions are in his article, here, entitled "Goodbye GM".

But this is America, and as I have described our government, most specifically, our congress as a huge house of whores, Fred over on "Fred On Everything" painted it even more colorfully: "Congress, 535 commoditized temple monkeys pawing through the ruins of America in search of bribes. The bicameral whorehouse on Capitol Hill works like a vending machine. You put coins in the slot, select your law, and the desired legislation slides out." (Although Dada might have put it a tad more bluntly, i.e., you cram $bucks up their asses and out of their mouths spew future laws!)

Of course, suggestions such as Kucinich's and Moore's on how best to deal with the GM issue are exercises in futility. They will be ignored because our government no longer leads, it follows. And that, sadly, is usually in whatever direction it catches the scent of money.

Meanwhile, California is making drastic budget cuts that will affect millions of its residents in various and unpleasant ways. "As California goes, so goes the nation."

This is extremely sad for our future, but what leaves many of us anticipating "The Summer From Hell," which I suspect may be the prelude to an even worse autumn, winter, and, hopefully not, 2010.