According to the Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove is resigning from the Bush Administration to spend more time with his family.

Of course, we all believe what he told Paul Gigot—that he sincerely desires more quality time with his family back in Texas.

We also believe that pigs fly.

Addicts to power don't resign voluntarily, and Mr. Rove certainly qualifies as such an addict, along with nearly everyone of significance in the White House. It therefore goes without saying that Mr. Rove was asked to resign by George W. Bush, and, given Bush's friendship and almost total reliance on Rove for political advice—which in this strange government has come to mean the same as policy advice—Bush's decision to dump Rove portends a political development of tectonic magnitude.

It is unlikely that Rove is being let go for failing to win the 2006 elections, or that his policies might lead the Republican Party to disaster in 2008. Bush is a lame duck president and, besides having nothing to lose in 2008, has shown no dissatisfaction with Rove's shortcomings.

It briefly crossed my mind that Bush, approaching the end of his presidency, is contemplating how to make the transition from controversial and almost universally loathed psychopath into a widely-admired, wise elder statesman, and may have realized that being closely associated with the junkyard dog that is Karl Rove is rapidly becoming a liability. This is unlikely, however, because Bush doesn't operate that way. Rove's strategy was the major reason that Bush became president, and Bush has shown a mafia-like loyalty to his friends and benefactors far beyond what one would reasonably expect from a person with his sense of entitlement. Bush wouldn't have fired Rove unless he absolutely had to.

Besides, Rove knows all the White House dirt, especially since he is responsible for much of it. Given Congress's complacency towards Bush's known impeachable acts, it is difficult to imagine anything that Karl Rove might reveal that would make much difference. Some offenses, however, while not as damaging to the constitutional fabric as Bush's expansion of executive power, have the power, if revealed, to provoke such a degree of popular outrage on the gut level that the resulting outcry would compel Congress to act. Since Rove undoubtedly has knowledge of such behavior on the part of Bush, Cheney and others, Bush would not fire him lightly, irrespective of any feelings of loyalty.

There is a strong possibility that Rove has good reason to know that the Bush administration is about to sink and that he had best jump before he goes under with the rest of the crew. As one of the principal navigators responsible for sailing the ship of state into an iceberg, he stands to shoulder much of the blame when it goes down.

Whatever the reason for Rove's departure, this is a big deal. We just don't know quite yet how big.

Deer Hunting with Jesus — Dispatches from America's Class War
by Joe Bageant (Crown, 2007)

I started reading Joe Bageant's web site about six months ago at the suggestion of a friend, and, like many of us not far removed either in time or distance from the rural life of the American South quickly found myself hooked by his ability to bring to life the humanity of poor and oppressed southern rednecks, with their fierce pride and individualism, their profound ignorance of the forces that are driving them deeper and deeper into despair, and their apocalyptic religious visions that make them tolerate the ills of this world for the promise of a perfect and blissful life sometime in the future.

Bageant grew up in Winchester, Virginia, a small rural town that looks on the map to be about 100 miles northeast of Washington, DC, on Interstate Highway 81. After escaping his hometown to the U. S. Navy during the Vietnam War, he travelled west and began writing for a living. He also tended bar in an Indian reservation for 10 years. As most southern writers do, he eventually returned to Winchester and has chronicled his experiences coming home with the local folk, many of them relatives, and the changes that globalization and finance capitalism have wrought upon their lives.

It is not a pretty picture. Declining wages, predatory lending, sub-standard health care, and mobile homes only begin to describe what the working class is going through with no clue as to how it got that way. Some of Bageant's characters, like Dottie, the woman who sings in bars with the aid of an oxygen tank, are touching, humorous, inspiring and outrageous at the same time. Others, like his brother, a fundamentalist preacher who claims to have cast out devils, are a little scary to this rather rationalist Episcopalian, who has read enough history to know that religious zealotry can turn ugly on a dime. Nevertheless, Bageant is usually sympathetic to some of the most repellant of his characters, and even when his sympathy runs dry he is slow to condemn. Like Socrates, he attributes many of our problems to ignorance and often illiteracy.

This is a book worth reading, even though it does not have a happy ending. The dominant genre of American narrative is melodrama, where everything turns out OK in the end. Simon Legree is foiled, the hero gets the girl, and everything is back the way it was. Melodrama is escapist pablum for persons who cannot endure literature and drama intended for mature adults. Real life is like Humpty-Dumpty over and over again; nothing can ever be put back the way it was before. In fact, once Humpty-Dumpty falls, it's almost impossible to even remember how things were before the fall.

Bageant's pessimism is tempered by his obvious affection for the down-and-out, hard-working folk that do the menial, mind-numbing and body-wrenching work so necessary for the rest of us to live comfortable lives. One leaves the book with a deeper understanding of the human condition, and that is all a serious writer should hope for.

Joe Bageant's Web Site: http://www.joebageant.com

You can purchase Deer Hunting With Jesus from his home page.

Last night, some words by Bernard Lietaer from an interview with Sarah van Gelder kept going through my mind:

...I believe that greed and competition are not a result of immutable human temperament; I have come to the conclusion that greed and fear of scarcity are in fact being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using. For example, we can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. The scarcity is in our national currencies. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity. The direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.

Lietaer, a former Belgian banker instrumental in the establishment of the Euro and a recognized world authority on money, believes that people should create their own currencies—he calls them "complementary currencies"—as a part of the answer.

The problem with our current system is not hard to define: There is not enough money in circulation to mediate the optimal number of transactions in our society and world. Put more simply, work needs to be done and there are workers needing work, and the only thing keeping them from doing the work is the lack of money. Lietaer believes that people can overcome many of these problems by creating their own currencies that operate alongside the official money system. In his book, The Future of Money, he makes a powerful argument for complementary currencies based on actual human experience, citing historical examples from ancient Egypt to the present time.

Unfortunately, Amazon.com lists the book as "unavailable," but it is available on amazon.co.uk, which will ship to the U.S.

It is time to bring some of the most brilliant minds to bear upon the subject of our monetary/financial system and how it may be changed to reverse its mindless rush towards ecological, political and social disaster for the whole Earth. In order to make our civilization sustainable, people must be rewarded for actions that promote sustainability. The system now rewards people for exactly the opposite behavior. Classical economics, with its one-dimensional conception of humankind as homo acquisitivus, has become no more than an elaborate mathematical justification for even more destructive corporate and national behavior, if such a thing were possible.

Having been immersed all our lives in the world of fiat currencies, it is hard for us to imagine something different. It is even more difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend how the very nature of the money we earn, spend, and think about so much of the time contributes to many, if not most, of the world's major problems. But Lietaer shows that is indeed the case and it doesn't have to be that way. We humans created money a certain way and we can change it. Most professional economists, unfortunately, will be of little help; they have too much stake in existing theory and their paymasters have too much at stake in keeping the present system going as long as possible. Solving the current crisis will require leaders with the openness and breadth of intelligence of an Adam Smith, and they are rare in any age. Let us hope.

In over eight years, the Jackson Progressive has never asked for contributions, nor has it ever earned a dime from the Amazon ads on the sidebar. I fund it out of my own pocket, and consider it my contribution to the public conversation.

Greg Palast, whose book appears in the sidebar, is, in my opinion, one of the most important independent journalists in the world. More than any other single reporter, Palast has uncovered and reported the massive criminality and fraud of the Bush administration and its oil-besotted, election-stealing, kleptocratic underwriters, co-conspirators, enablers, abettors, and sycophants. The documented facts set out in Palast's book Armed Madhouse, by themselves, would, in a just world, lead to at least three impeachments--beginning with George W. Bush--and hundreds of indictments.



I was therefore upset when I learned that the Palast Investigative Fund is out of money. His organization is being forced to lay off people and shut down vital projects, at least temporarily.

So I'm asking, no, begging, you to give money.

Immediately.

Palast's work is simply too important to the life of our republic to let it fail. The fund is tax-exempt under Section 510(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. I gave money and will probably be giving more.

Click here to make a donation. Add three cents to your donation (i.e., $100.03) so they can identify this site as the referrer.

Tom Lowe, Editor, Publisher, Blogger

The Senate caved, giving our current lying, justice obstructing, lackey of an attorney general even more power than ever to spy on Americans without judicial supervision or even permission. What are our senators scared of that they would allow this, even for six months? Why should this authoritarian administration be given any more power over anything? Should we even be paying our senators' (or representatives') salaries if they jump whenever the president says "frog"? They are rapidly becoming useless parasites.

I am utterly disgusted and pessimistic. This really seemed like a no-brainer.

Update: Democrat Gene Taylor, U. S. Representative from the 4th District of Mississippi (Gulf Coast) voted for this abominable bill, which was passed by the House yesterday. Thanks, Gene, for giving away some more of our freedoms under the pretense of protecting them. You failed us utterly.

Representative Bennie Thompson did the right thing.

Republicans Lott, Cochran, Wicker and Pickering voted like the administration whores they are, which came as no surprise whatever.

House of Representatives Roll Call Vote

Senate vote not available on Thomas