In one sense it’s 2008 again but not HRC/Boy King. Huckabee recall took his grudge match with McCain to the bitter-most end. And he got a sweet TV deal and a new Florida bling-worthy crib out of it. Not bad for a few months of real work.

Newt’s already outside the Huckabee zone, denouncing justifiably the (remarkably feeble) ‘Republican establishment’. Besides, Fox wouldn’t be the end goal. Newt’s closing in on 70 and got ‘F U’ money already. And Ailes for his part has Glenn Beck’s rise and fall as fresh, cautionary memory. Although, Newt probably could rock a blackboard into Salvador Dali territory.

So how far can pique take Newt? He declared in his defiant (but undeniably weaker from exhaustion) election night he’s going on to every state. The New Newt MK XX’s a populist now. And wants moderates and Democrats (?) to join him. It’s so ON with the ‘Establishment’.

Veteran Newt watchers can place bets on how soon he petulantly turns on ‘Republicans’ in general. A small line, easily crossed any morning with a low sugar balance. From there, Americans themselves are unworthy of his genius? That only he can reclaim ‘American Civilization’ by ‘revolution’? He’s already thinking that right now.

What we wonder is what’s left for Romney or Gingrich to say? What attack left unsaid? What sleezy robo call unmade?

The Romney and Newt Florida election nite speeches make clear it’s Newt who retains the initiative to further radicalization. He alone would unhesitatingly hand out gasoline with glee. To burn his last bridge behind. How embarrassing should he discover he’s down to his last match. And simply whiffs out.

What do you think? Will Newt bow to traditional political realities? Or pursue his radicalism to its internally logical end?

If today’s GOP primary was a Japanese horror supernatural anime (all rights with respective owners). In both the Movement and Japanese imagination, conveniently blonde hair plays an outsized role. We think Ms. Base Babe definitely should pack, and it’s nice the pointy-headed-liberal here is wearing glasses. Probably went to a better school than Newt.

Issue No.1s are always tricky – introducing the main characters and the hero’s initial journey. While keeping a menace on the horizon. So did we miss anyone? Possibly in the Campbell tradition, the older mentor who must die for the hero to move on. That came to mind.

• Mitt Romney (in his idealized Fox News blonde state
• Tea Party and Republican base
• Liberal Media and Democratic elites
• Gratuitous T&A for Fox
• Newt Gingrich (who threatens to stalk the hero to the Convention)

Leave suggestions for Issue No. 2 below.

We bailed on the debate 10 minutes in. Scanning cable, the universe began to speak. A previously ignored channel (Movieplex? Plexamovie? Realplex?) ran the 1967 classic “Valley of the Dolls” (“dolls” referring to barbiturates). The movie (and underlying book) follow 3 single women in post-war New York showbiz from innocent enthusiasm, staggering quantities of alcohol, the aforementioned ‘dolls’ to swinging Hollywood and . . . nobody really comes to a good end. Perfect for the debate.

We switched back and forth between the two. “Dolls” is widely celebrated as so awful it might be surreal art. The Republican debate as backing track gave it a certain gravitas, too. For example, one of the 3 women, “Neely” (played by Patty Duke (who used to have her own show for kids who don’t remember B&W TV) and said loosely to be based on Judy Garland) is undeniably gifted. But also fantastically self-destructive, grandiose, destructive, untruthful, unfaithful and manipulative.

Did we mention destructive? So basically Newt. Oh universe, it’s as if you were watching CNN, too.

When Neely began a scene of drug-fuelled lunacy (including a spell in the pre-Betty Ford celeb rehab ‘sanitarium’) time to watch the debate for Newtisms. Sadly, Newt couldn’t match Patty Duke’s scenery chewing firepower. Not that we’d suggest anyone debate nationally on drugs, alcohol and grandiosity. Although at least one of them worked for Newt before.

One of Neely’s friends, Anne, proper, from New England and money, tried to fit in. Swing with the show business thing. She barely saves her life by fleeing Hollywood and embracing New ENgland home, family and friends. Her screen time? Cue to check in on Mitt.

Romney’s expectations are now so low that simply showing some signs of life makes people grant him a round. (Bachmann’s debate coach, written up on the WaPo as the “Candidate Whisperer” during her rise and despised deeply by her staff and inner circle also got alot of perhaps undeserved credit – what can 2 days on the job really do?). Still, Romney exposed Newt as the Pander Bear, a new port for South Carolina, a new ‘moon colony’ for the space coast.

Finally, the lovely Sharon Tate is Jennifer, the third friend in the triumvirate. We exclude her from this exercise with the heartbreaking knowledge we all have of what was to come shortly. Especially given the character’s tragic end.

Switching channels – while not instant – created strange sentence hand offs – A “Dolls” character begins to rant against ‘show business’ which segues naturally on CNN into media denunciation. Declarations of “I am not going to apologize for my talent!” are a smooth handover to “I am proud to have made money with LBOs”, etc. When Neely becomes particularly drug dependent and screaming for help, her agent’s prescription for tough love cued up Ron Paul, albeit less avuncular – Neely just needs to shut down the Federal Reserve.

The nite’s best line may belong to the Concierge of the Situation Room to Ron Paul: “What do you do when Raoul Castro calls?” “Ask him why he’s calling.”

With just a little work on the beats, it was almost Clouseau-level: “Does your dewg bite?” “No” GGGGGRRRRRRRRRRR “I thought you said your dewg does not bite!” “That’s not my dog.”

What’s the best way you’ve ever watched a debate?

So it’s impressive how little people get Newt. Even while talking about him ad nauseum.

Newt’s actually a chemist, of a sort. His favored (and necessary) efforts are to turn politics into their most gaseous state, that is to say radicalized and unpredictable. Amorphous. In this sense he truly is the anti-Romney and vice versa.

As a chemist, Newton Leroy Gingrich’s accelerant always is expediency. Look at the major events of his life. Expediency defines him from his first divorce through his calamitous years as Speaker to now running against LBOs and runaway judges. (An old acquaintance helped write that 52 page whackadoodle thing; if our experience writing for Newt is any guide he skimmed the intro then scrawled “Good effort, keep pushing. Newt.”)

“Keep pushing”. That drive to impart motion to politics is vital to his appeal and limitations. Newt is immersed in the Movement but not really part of it. Newt’s never even been a conservative. We don’t mean like recent (duh) denunciations by NRO, Santorum, etc. Newt’s on the Right because it’s expedient – they were and remain more pliable to his politics of expedient radicalism.

“Keep pushing” (we have that across our own papers somewhere, too). When politics are radicalized, when consensus boundaries and expectations are shattered, Newt finds his natural environment. He’s free. Whether you were for Paul Ryan’s budget or against it details for little minds. Nor whether you bashed a plutocrat for LBOs. Use a cable debate host like rag doll to mop the floor with a false narrative? All yesterday’s used tissues. “Keep pushing.”

Here’s a story. Republicans had just taken over the House. All of DC was in shock. Newt’s myth that he, Haley and the Contract had anything to do it another expedient fib. It was a last minute photo opp that gathered little attention. A famous pollster later got sanctioned by his professional association for claiming he did polling showing voters even knew about the Contract (trust us, we were there).

Still, Newt was Speaker. And it was a sweet ride for those tagging along. The Washington Post reporter covering X affairs called. He asked did the Speaker-elect really mean he would abolish X Department/Agency? Jack, then on Newt’s staff, passed the call to the Stiftung.

The Stiftung had no idea. There hadn’t even been a meeting on the subject. So we pulled a number out of thin air and said “Z function could be done by 28 people.” (28 sounded better than something round like 100). We laughed hanging up the phone.

And so across the WaPo the next day was “Gingrich Proposes Radical Slashing X to 28 people.” Newt was delighted. He didn’t care about the details. The *atmosphere* of radicalism is what he craved, keeping everyone off balance, preserving final options for him alone. Newt used to keep pestering Jack Reed, then the new Chair of the House Commerce Committee (it hadn’t been split by Tauzin’s ego yet). “Jack, of course we’re going to abolish the Commerce Department, and Education. So pick your own trophy. What ex-Department do you want over your fireplace?” (True quotes).

“Keep pushing”.

A gaseous maelstrom for the sake of preserving his expediency. Others — if they are honest — can regale you of countless times 1/2 staff would be pushing A legislation only to discover Newt personally cut a deal and promised interest groups B. *Everyone* is off balance but the most unbalanced of all.

The coup against Newt wasn’t just about some big egos ruffled. Reliance on expediency means Newt’s congenitally unable to govern – a staff, a majority or a House. It’s true he came up with 10 ideas a day, 7 looney, 2 iffy, one interesting. But all of that is symptomatic of his transcendent need to be unfettered by consequence, unbound by impact on others. Which also means his choice of Vice President should he be the nominee is critical — it’s almost guaranteed there will be something akin to a mutiny or coup in any Gingrich Administration. His final Gotterdammerung, perhaps.

“Keep pushing”.

When seen in this light, of course Newt in DC would call Marianne at home and tell her “I love you” while enduring the quiet ministrations of Callista. It’s not like there was a cigar, you know.

It’s tempting to say that Newton is essentially still an 11 year old boy. All of us and life itself are props for his fantasy narrative, in which he overcomes all dangers to save his People, slay evil (and thus redeem his expediency and win the (next) girl). Solopsism? We’ll leave the diagnosis to You Know Who. It was noteworthy to see him in South Carolina election night equating himself to Ronald Reagan, whom he demoted as ‘a B actor who starred with chimps’.

The Faustian bargain Newt seeks to close is different than 1994. There, as mentioned, his Speakership was an after thought, the Contract meaningless in the election. Here he wants the deal signed and sealed on the grandest possible American stage. His appeal to “keep pushing”, to “destroy”, “revolutionize”, “remake”, “dramatically overhaul” promises not just electoral victory.

Some supporting him don’t actually have a great deal of faith in pluralistic democracy or find caveats to render results ‘fraudulent’. What Newt’s selling is a dream. His siren call? “Imagine a future public theater (the election) *and* compelling hated institutions (the media Hollywood, etc) to document and concede their defeat.” Newt’s facility articulating this is because he’s asking them to join the joyride of his own 11 year old’s inner narrative.

“Keep pushing”. And together we will stand over the political corpses of hated psychological archetypes (an African American president of modest achievement, few convictions and little actual political will). That he will then turn on them hasn’t occurred to them at all.

They can’t know because we today refuse to talk about the Great Recession in its granular reality. We’re a people compulsively determined to pretend it’s not happening.

Of course, there’s ‘talk’. Our lives every day are filled with tactical fluff. Snarky tweets. Cable news opinion – millionaire teleprompter readers solemnly reading economic numbers like a professional sports summary. The next Obama sound byte merges with the next Republican Debate in a vortex of detachment.

Ephemera. All of it flitting like lifespans of summer fireflies. Easily interchangeable by . . . Tebow, crashed cruise ships, whether Vanity Fair some magazine bleats is Zooey Deschanel ‘over’? And so on.

That is not how (healthy) societies memorialize and create legacies about one of the great catastrophes of the modern era, the Great Recession.

What then are the actual artifacts that mark a time? In our demotic-oligarchy, the mass memory is defined by pop culture. Even as technology allows narrowcasting and splintering of audiences, the yearning for finding consensual touchstones remains. The spiraling reductionism of a ‘hit’ TV comedy show like “The Big Bang Theory” which both mocks and marinates self-referentially in pop culture is an example.

Let’s look at pop culture since 2007. Is there any break between pre-and post 2007? Anything to reflect the economic collapse and implosion experienced by at least 20-25% of the populace? Put another way, what will one find in a future iTunes/Amazon online product grid to define this time?

Not much if anything. There is no ‘break.’ More than that, pop culture is virtually unchanged. The same franchises lurch on. New IP (as they say) can be about zombies, vampires, rich people in trouble. One painful ‘comedy’ on CBS called ’2 Broke Girls’ allegedly speaks to the Great Recession. It’s really about 20-something actresses dropping excruciatingly clumsy and rushed innuendo ala the movie Bridesmaids. Apparently, empowerment for women is now to be as crude as bad male characters.

Compare how differently pop culture reacted to 9-11. Pop culture powerfully aided and abetted lobotomizing American society, making it pliable, even willfully complicit in its militarization and constitutional subjugation. ’24′. ‘The Unit’. We could spend hours documenting it all. Movies. Pop songs. Video games. Violence. Power, Kinetic death. Remember the death threats to the Dixie Chicks? U-S-A! U-S-A!

The legacy endures. Much of pop culture today is still excessively militarized or suffused with National Security State memes. One can be a ‘burned’ spy, but the answer is always the same – righteous violence, subterfuge and fast-cut action.

Why are Americans incapable of producing or unwilling to consume mass market pop culture about the Great Recession — a calamity far greater than 9/11? What accounts for the willful refusal to experience it, produce it, consume it, create it?

Imagine a hypothetical college student trying to understand the Great Recession. He or she might come across some photos or video clips of tents in some parks. But what puts them in context? What is the cultural product that gives these random images meaning? The mortgage crisis – there isn’t one scriptwriter capable of portraying the human toll for an artifact as historical legacy movie/TV show? Or songwriter for a pop album?

Dear Reader, you might well ask, ‘Why the fixation on pop culture?’ Besides demotic poli-sci-sociological riff. People consume pop culture to forget about things, lay off. Except they don’t. The revenge culture of force and violence after 2001 is proof. Every season of ’24′ Jack Bauer killed and maimed countless dark people trying to nuke LA, etc.

There’s something else afoot. It’s an almost child-like refusal to deal with reality in the hopes it will go away? Paramount, Sony, Fox – all of them collectively thinking ‘cooties’ and ‘jinx’.

It’s true there are many books about this or that. Some may survive in a future format even. Yet our definition above specifically sought out *mass* audience because that scope of consumption created a forged common experience (even if audiences have mixed reactions). College kids today know their Robot Chicken. Upton Sinclair, not so much.

Imagine that future college student looking at those tent pictures. Where’s the context? If you answer Hoover-ville, that says more about a reader’s demographic than the likelihood the same historical ‘charge’ in that label’s capacitor will carry forth into the future. Put it this way, a college sophomore today has no living memory of Bill Clinton as president, only vaguely recalls the Bush twilight. They couldn’t even vote in 2008. To them, reading about GHWB might as well be Augustine Rome temporally. Truly.

We submit that a society that can not create and experience X (however defined) about the Great Recession as it unfolds is psychologically incapable of grasping the actual challenge. And a society acting on fear and embracing avoidance only empowers those without compunction who see opportunity.

Our bet that not much will change. Which means that a lot will for those who have to live out that future.

The STSOZ 2.0 today completed one migration. From a creaky, ancient software base to a more modern and trendy version. In practical terms, you may notice slightly faster load times. A recent post or two may be hors de combat.

Why do it? This successful transition gives comfort that STSOZ 2.0 in its entirety (from the Quote Machine to the relic .com site) can move to ‘the cloud’ safely. And, as consumers, we’ve certainly been conditioned to believe everything “should go to the cloud.” Right?

Our focus turns to STSOZ 1.0. It’s antique software is not actually in digital code; it was carved into oak by Druidic sages while intoning “Inna Gada Davida” from the album. Long before Rachel Maddow became Olbermann’s Mini Me. (How was that for a little memory jog?)

The long and short? You may (or may not) see odd things happening here. If we throw the dice — and bet the last 8 years or so — we’ll give a shout. Unless we screw up unintentionally the site will go down for at least 6 days. (Just to clear the Internet Root Servers, etc.) If it arrives in pieces, one day at time then.

Stick around. It might be fun rubbernecking.

SOPA is kitchen table talk now. Perhaps everyone wants to at least feel like they’re ‘in’. Like Tina Fey-kinda-in. It’s a simple talking point, too. Why, allowing Hollywood lawyers to tell backbone companies to block websites the lawyers deem carrying pirated material? That would “break the Internet.” Angry Birds would die. Mafia Wars end. And so on.

We won’t rehearse all the original machinations of the Motion Picture Association of America, the Business Software Alliance (MSFT eta al.). You’ve seen it elsewhere. And of course, watching MSFT and others at BSA cave to pressure and retreat is not un-fun. But it’s the same old story of IP holders’ greed and fear from the DMCA days. Turned up a notch. Except now there’s social media – like Reddit. And it bit them in the backside but fierce.

Still, it’s a bread and circuses thing. We’re just puzzled why Amerikhuns care more about access to online porn, Pirate Bay wannabees and LOLCats than, say, oh, their personal freedom. Nobody lifted a finger to slow PATRIOT down then. Except Dick Armey and a few who demanded and got sunset provisions. OK, it was right after 9/11. Feelings were raw.

Feelings weren’t that raw when Democrats and Republicans voted to blow past the original sunsets. How raw could feelings be with the Boy King in office? To get *expansions* to the PATRIOT Act, notwithstanding its classified offshoots. Chirp. Chirp. You’d think this would be something custom made for social media, ala Cairo, etc. But alas, people can’t conceive of losing something that’s not tangible, like a shiny new iPad suddenly no longer showing a favorite website.

So if you go to one of those usual suspect aggregators news sites proclaiming this ‘dramatic’ SOPA victory to ‘preserve the Internet’, just remember, sure, Amerikhuns may get LOLCats unimpeded. And the torrents running free in Sweden.

High fives all around. Because, like, saving the “integrity of the Internet” is so much more important than a constitutional republic. You know we’re right.

Obama tries his hand declaring by fiat ‘we have turned the page’ from whatever 2001-2011 was. (Report here). Apparently, winding down two land wars allowed him to glimpse the U.S. would seek agility with inevitable force re-sizing. Who knew? Conveniently forgotten is that DoD now has more contractors in *Afghanistan* than uniformed personnel anyway.

At its core the Stiftung finds the report, well, Goldilocks. Compared to competing camps and their ‘narratives’. Its cardinal achievement? To begin re-focusing institutional U.S. geostrategic fixation on Europe and re-align it to the Pacific Rim, alas 20 years too late.

This PR exercise is also less than it seems. Most of the hard questions about mission re-definement made real through procurement? Punted. A defense budget and alleged cuts, etc. are always gamed not what they seem. Obama claims he will start cutting $480 billion over the next ten years. First, reductions in future rates of growth are not reductions at all. Second, given the (malfunctioning) annual budget authorization and appropriations process, projecting beyond 3 years is to party with Charlie Sheen. The Stiftung has long-supported a two-year budget appropriation cycle but people on the Hill prefer the one year approach for narrow self-interested political reasons.

The current Obama FY defense budget is over $708 billion. That is over double the FY 2001 outlay of $316 billion. (And for those counting, pure top line defense industry profit – the net of the net profit in 2011 was over $25 billion according to SEC filings. That is a 400% increase since 2001).

Let’s put everything in context: the U.S. since 2001 spent $ 4trillion on defense *and* a further $1.4 trillion fighting actual wars. The latter costs were kept ‘off budget’ in so-called ‘emergency’ war supplementals. (Don’t blame just Cheney, et al, a Democratic Senate went along). Remember that when you see frowns about ‘dangerous’ cuts, etc.

Substantively, the apparent fantasy is that U.S. power projection will be light and fast, with drones, JSOC and CONUS-based kinetic strike. The need for littoral heavy footprints and consequent force protection and SLOCs, etc? Gone. Booyah!

It’s a convenient day dream. Littoral access just about anywhere along the so-called Crescent of Crisis will be contested if not denied, whether Iran, Korea, the ASEAN region, etc. The pivot from Europe (so-called) is two decades over due. The Army presence there a hang-over from 1949 and 1991. So some down-sizing inevitable anyway. The Marines, by the way are themselves seeking a smaller force. They want to go back to being both elite and focused on their unique mission. Stationing a token presence in Australia a geopolitical signal Asians will understand.

You’d be excused for wondering how the U.S. forgets its own Asian Lost Weekend. It deployed unprecedented kinetic violence, body counts and Special Forces and eventually sent GROPOS ashore at Danang. The internal logic of escalation dominance (irrational to an objective outside observer) and all that. How’d that work out?

According to Obama’s document the U.S. will not repeat Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. You see, Obama has invented ‘partial-pregnancy’. We will assert U.S. global superiority but not with onshore footprint of large combat forces. We will intervene and help domestic entities but won’t get ‘dragged in.’ Apparently it is the geo-political equivalent of the Rhythm Method. We don’t need to worry about logistics or CSAR because, well, because. While a drone base has a smaller footprint than a F-22/F-35 capable runway, bladders, hangers, etc. the report doesn’t deal with the future of Jedi Knights sitting in cockpits.

Overall, it’s a B. Leaving Europe and realizing the future will be in Asia notable achievements given endemic superficial U.S. strategic planning. A few rice bowls got nudged. Most of all Obama cynically kicked the can down the road after the elections for the details and real turf fights. Because you just know how well Obama does when he’s fresh off a victory. It’s bank, man.

_____________________

Appropos of absolutely nothing, but offered as a public service. What history suppressed. And now can be revealed.

__________
Blank screen? Blame the guy in the black mock turtle neck . . .

To wit, the usual suspects: the Kardashian wedding, Weiner’s Tweets, the movie ‘Cowboys and Aliens’, Glenn Beck ‘parting ways’ with Fox, the Beatles’ song ‘In My Life’ used to sell mattresses by Sleepy’s, and so on. Toss in various pedantic finger jabs at the camera by Laurence (‘I was Chief of Staff to the Senate Finance Committee!’) O’Donnell or Rachel (‘Check this out, it is sooo cool. In the 1970s, they actually had LED wristwatches!’) Maddow.

Life defining moments all, surely.

Still, we can sift through the cacophony and seek greater refinement. To kickstart conversation, here’s one stab at a Top Ten:

10. Michele Bachmann
9. ‘Teh Gays’ Invading C-PAC, causing a Counter-Revolution and Coup
8. Khadaffi’s PG-Rated Cher Condi Photo Book
7. Season 2 of ‘Walking Dead’
6. Hewlett-Packard
5. Herman Caine’s Smoking Commercial
4. The Republican Debates (pick your moment)
3. Boehner/Cantor Road Show
2. US/ISI Divorce (and drone war migrating to Africa)
1. The U.S. Default/Debt Debacle/People Realizing Goldilocks Doesn’t Work

Submit your suggestions. Anything missing? What should be here?

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