I was away at a two week retreat, followed by somehow ingesting a can of bronchial whoop-ass that layed me up for about a week. I’m around until the 20th, when I’ll be off-line for a few months.

I’m hearing from lots of people about Obama – Where’s the beef? The whole nation is lined-up to follow his lead, but he appears to be too busy asking permission from Rush and the Goopers to get anything going – eerily similar to how he almost fell off the tracks during the campaign by falling for Palin’s low-level poking and sliming. He needed to ’snap-out’ of Palin-fixation then, and, imvho, he needs to do it again now with Republican Obstructionism.

All this at a time when We need to be doing National Aerobatics to pull-out of an impending Blue Max moment – letting an aircraft ‘run out’ and gather downhill speed – instead of taking advantage of relatively slow speeds to deftly maneuver – usually leads to the wings tearing off when the maneuver is belatedly attempted.

My fear is that the Goopers will obstruct any “visible signs of Obama-success to the Public” – limiting his maneuver space – and let him ‘run out’ for another 50 days – and then, imvho, we can stamp his/Our Blue Max certificate and simply wait for the sound of the crash.

Can you imagine the hail of blistering criticism any of us, let alone a Rush Limbaugh-like Party Leader, would have received from the Republicans if we had said of George Bush in 2001: “I want him to fail”?

Boxturtle (Please don’t ask me to explain the difference)

That’s right: Citi is more profitable this quarter (so far) than in any quarter since 3Q2007.

Here’s the memo in its entirety. The money quote:

In addition to our strong capital position, I am most encouraged with the strength of our business so far in 2009. In fact, we are profitable through the first two months of 2009 and are having our best quarter-to-date performance since the third quarter of 2007. In January and February alone, our revenues excluding externally disclosed marks were $19 billion. Our client businesses are strong: our deposits are relatively stable, our client-driven Securities and Banking businesses have been performing well, including our recent #1 rank in M&A, and we continue to provide credit to consumer and corporate customers. You have all done a very impressive job driving revenues and reducing our cost structure, and it is gratifying to see the results first hand.

I was thinking about this and other issues while out walking the dog this morning. The late-night/early-morning news was all (on all networks) about how Obama’s doing too much, if the banks and carmakers are dying let them die, cut ‘em all off and kill ‘em, let all hell break loose. This is all coming from the same Republican idiots we hear from all the time. All doom and gloom all the time.

And, it got me to thinking.

Why all the fearmongering?

By the time I got to one of the more scenic overlooks on my dogwalk (the wonder setter and I did 4.5 miles this morning, fast, for those of you interested) I’d come to the conclusion that the reason was that this was more of the same REpublican propaganda we’ve seen for years now.

All the Democrats are giggling at RNC chair Michael Steele and watching the “implosion” of the Republicans as the visage of Rush Limbaugh rises like Vladimir Putin’s head leering and peering across the Bering Straits at Sarah Palin’s back porch. (You remember the image.)

But, I predicted that the dominant theme the Republicans would use once Obama won the election would be that

“You’ll see. Once the n*ggers take over, everything will go to hell. And you’ll come back to us.”

In that regard, the ongoing collapse of Steele as RNC chair illustrates the Republican propaganda perfectly. He was purely a token hire who got the job because no one else “wanted” it and is now taking one for the team. He’ll be exposed as corrupt and a crony-monster. And all America will see that black face going off in disgrace, scandal and mismanagement.

Then there is the Burris saga. It will come back. The propaganda will kick up along those same lines once the Sagamon County prosecutor gets around to indicting him for perjury before the Illinois Legislature’s impeachment committee. That will take a while – the prosecutor and Fitz are going to have to work out an arrangement for the tapes to be copied off and provided for the county’s investigation. Then, Burris, in Blago-like fashion, will fight in a fabulously, spectacularly and desperately inept fashion against an open-and-shut case, getting all sorts of really negative press.

Once again reaffirming:

“You’ll see. Once the n*ggers take over, everything will go to hell. And you’ll come back to us.”

All the while, the TradMed, owned by Republicans, will have adopted a two-pronged approach to creating the news:
Prong 1. Fear and more fear.
Prong 2. Instant gratification thwarted by ineptitude and “trying to do too much”.

We’ve all seen – and Rove and the other Rethug propagandists know quite well – how effective constantly replaying images of jetliners crashing into tall buildings was in driving a populace like a herd of scared sheep into all sorts of unnatural things. The fear of some dark-skinned people taking over your plane and killing you in the process is nothing next to the slow grinding fear of being made homeless, penniless and jobless.

We will see story after story about fear, calculated to raise fear and inspire it.

As to prong 2, we will see a constant drumbeat of inanity demanding that the misfeasances and worse that took an entire generation, be resolved in time for news at 11 so we can all go back to the way we used to be.

News flash: we are not going back to the way we used to be. It never was the case with anything that you ever went back to the way you used to be. that is the nature of life, and the one thing that the US consumer society’s advertising tries so desperately to hide from the consumers themselves.

I suppose the one conclusion we can draw from McSame’s growling is that he and his economics puppeteer Gramm have managed to get their money out, and the Boys in charge of the Rethug party have managed to get their money out and even get into a position which will profit from the collapse they are cheering for.

Which is why they are cheering for it.