Thursday, January 31, 2008
Who's Afraid of John Edwards?
Media freezes out a threat to corporate owners
BY TED RALL
In 2004, Democrats were determined to pick the presidential nominee who had the best chance of defeating George W. Bush in the general election. That man was the feisty former governor of Vermont, Howard Dean. One could easily imagine him mercilessly flaying Bush in debates before trouncing Yale's least favorite son in November. Primary voters, mistakenly betting that blandness and moderation would be a better sell, chose John Kerry instead.
The party of Hubert Humphrey and Michael Dukakis seems poised to make the same mistake again, whether with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Polls show that two-thirds of Americans think the country is ready for a female or black president. But I'm a glass-third-full guy. When a third of the electorate tells you "we're" not ready for a woman or an African-American commander-in-chief, they really mean that they won't vote for one. John Edwards is more likely to beat Romney or McCain than either of his history-making rivals, just by showing up with pale skin and a Y chromosome.
But even aside from electability, Edwards ought to be the Democratic frontrunner. His populist campaign, bashing corporations and free-trade deals that have led to a decline in wages, seems perfectly timed for an economy everyone admits is in a recession. (In truth, the current downturn began with the 2000-2001 dot-com crash, but whatever.) His platform offers more red meat for the party's liberal base than Clinton's or Obama's: total withdrawal from Iraq in nine months, Euro-style health care, full financial aid for students admitted to public colleges and universities......
LINK.....
Media freezes out a threat to corporate owners
BY TED RALL
In 2004, Democrats were determined to pick the presidential nominee who had the best chance of defeating George W. Bush in the general election. That man was the feisty former governor of Vermont, Howard Dean. One could easily imagine him mercilessly flaying Bush in debates before trouncing Yale's least favorite son in November. Primary voters, mistakenly betting that blandness and moderation would be a better sell, chose John Kerry instead.
The party of Hubert Humphrey and Michael Dukakis seems poised to make the same mistake again, whether with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Polls show that two-thirds of Americans think the country is ready for a female or black president. But I'm a glass-third-full guy. When a third of the electorate tells you "we're" not ready for a woman or an African-American commander-in-chief, they really mean that they won't vote for one. John Edwards is more likely to beat Romney or McCain than either of his history-making rivals, just by showing up with pale skin and a Y chromosome.
But even aside from electability, Edwards ought to be the Democratic frontrunner. His populist campaign, bashing corporations and free-trade deals that have led to a decline in wages, seems perfectly timed for an economy everyone admits is in a recession. (In truth, the current downturn began with the 2000-2001 dot-com crash, but whatever.) His platform offers more red meat for the party's liberal base than Clinton's or Obama's: total withdrawal from Iraq in nine months, Euro-style health care, full financial aid for students admitted to public colleges and universities......
LINK.....
They did do nothing to deserve the name, "Americans". Stirling Newberry
Showing that he is untouched by self-reflection, intellectual honesty, or self-doubt, George W. Bush has delivered a hard partisan, nasty and crassly self-promoting state of the union to a Congress. He demanded total acquiescence to his economic, foreign policy and domestic agenda, and high handedly threatened that Congress repeatedly if they did not yield to his every demand. Piling on dog whistle after dog whistle to anti-government and anti-tax zealots, in direct contradiction to being the most free spending executive in post-war history, he threw in the face of that same Congress his own duplicity on the matter. Trillions for corruption, but a few spare pennies for everyone else.
Bush was never a uniter, he was never interested in bi-partisanship, and he was always interested only in imposing his will and vision on America. A series of Congresses, filled with the corrupt and the craven, not merely bent it's knee to the monarchial impulse, but eagerly participated in outrages against the Constitution that Bush now so gaily flaunts only the first three words of.......
LINK
Showing that he is untouched by self-reflection, intellectual honesty, or self-doubt, George W. Bush has delivered a hard partisan, nasty and crassly self-promoting state of the union to a Congress. He demanded total acquiescence to his economic, foreign policy and domestic agenda, and high handedly threatened that Congress repeatedly if they did not yield to his every demand. Piling on dog whistle after dog whistle to anti-government and anti-tax zealots, in direct contradiction to being the most free spending executive in post-war history, he threw in the face of that same Congress his own duplicity on the matter. Trillions for corruption, but a few spare pennies for everyone else.
Bush was never a uniter, he was never interested in bi-partisanship, and he was always interested only in imposing his will and vision on America. A series of Congresses, filled with the corrupt and the craven, not merely bent it's knee to the monarchial impulse, but eagerly participated in outrages against the Constitution that Bush now so gaily flaunts only the first three words of.......
LINK
The 935 lies of George W. Bush
Yes, you already knew. But now they're actually quantifiable. Like, say, stab wounds
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Oh sweet Jesus, someone actually counted.
Two independent nonprofit journalism groups apparently took enough laudanum and beat down whatever healthy sense of human decency they had in order to plunge straight into that quivering mountain of incompetence that is the official record of the Bush administration, all the false quotes and all the lie-strewn press conferences and all the squinty-eyed fabrications from Dubya, Colin Powell, Condi and Cheney and Rummy et al, that took place in the two years after September 11, 2001, and added them all up.
Is it helpful to know the exact number? Does it make a difference? After all, presidential lying isn't exactly a revelation. Pretty much a national pastime, really. Hell, Bill Clinton lied in a harmless civil lawsuit, and was even impeached for it. Of course, his little oral fixation didn't lead us into an unwinnable trillion-dollar war that will scar the nation for multiple generations and which has wasted 4,000 American lives and resulted in tens of thousands of wounded, crippled and brain-damaged U.S. soldiers. But that's just splitting hairs, really.
After all, it's common knowledge that, say, George Bush Sr. lied about Iran-Contra and "read my lips," Ronald Reagan lied like a nasty old rug about Iran and aiding the Contras, Lyndon Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin to gain support for the Vietnam war, Harry Truman probably lied about Hiroshima and John F. Kennedy probably lied about the Bay of Pigs and, well, all presidents lie, really, to some degree or another and with varying degrees of success and historic consequence. Is it not sort of pointless to whine about it?
Fair enough. But there is something truly special about Bush 43. Something so unique, so poisonous and strange that historians are busy right this minute rewriting not only their books, but their entire way of thinking about how we measure and interpret political malfeasance........
LINK
Yes, you already knew. But now they're actually quantifiable. Like, say, stab wounds
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Oh sweet Jesus, someone actually counted.
Two independent nonprofit journalism groups apparently took enough laudanum and beat down whatever healthy sense of human decency they had in order to plunge straight into that quivering mountain of incompetence that is the official record of the Bush administration, all the false quotes and all the lie-strewn press conferences and all the squinty-eyed fabrications from Dubya, Colin Powell, Condi and Cheney and Rummy et al, that took place in the two years after September 11, 2001, and added them all up.
Is it helpful to know the exact number? Does it make a difference? After all, presidential lying isn't exactly a revelation. Pretty much a national pastime, really. Hell, Bill Clinton lied in a harmless civil lawsuit, and was even impeached for it. Of course, his little oral fixation didn't lead us into an unwinnable trillion-dollar war that will scar the nation for multiple generations and which has wasted 4,000 American lives and resulted in tens of thousands of wounded, crippled and brain-damaged U.S. soldiers. But that's just splitting hairs, really.
After all, it's common knowledge that, say, George Bush Sr. lied about Iran-Contra and "read my lips," Ronald Reagan lied like a nasty old rug about Iran and aiding the Contras, Lyndon Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin to gain support for the Vietnam war, Harry Truman probably lied about Hiroshima and John F. Kennedy probably lied about the Bay of Pigs and, well, all presidents lie, really, to some degree or another and with varying degrees of success and historic consequence. Is it not sort of pointless to whine about it?
Fair enough. But there is something truly special about Bush 43. Something so unique, so poisonous and strange that historians are busy right this minute rewriting not only their books, but their entire way of thinking about how we measure and interpret political malfeasance........
LINK
The Threat of Population Growth Pales Beside the Greed of the Rich
By George Monbiot, Comment Is Free.
I cannot avoid the subject any longer. Almost every day I receive a clutch of emails about it, asking the same question. A frightening new report has just pushed it up the political agenda: for the first time the World Food Program is struggling to find the supplies it needs for emergency famine relief. So why, like most environmentalists, won't I mention the p-word? According to its most vociferous proponents (Paul and Anne Ehrlich), population is "our number one environmental problem." But most greens will not discuss it.
Is this sensitivity or is it cowardice? Perhaps a bit of both. Population growth has always been politically charged, and always the fault of someone else. Seldom has the complaint been heard that "people like us are breeding too fast". For the prosperous clergyman Thomas Malthus, writing in 1798, the problem arose from the fecklessness of the laboring classes. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, eugenicists warned that white people would be outbred. In rich nations in the 1970s the issue was over-emphasized, as it is the one environmental problem for which poor nations are largely to blame. But the question still needs to be answered. Is population really our number one environmental problem?
The Optimum Population Trust (OPT) cites some shocking figures, produced by the UN. They show that if the global population keeps growing at its current rate, it will reach 134 trillion by 2300. But this is plainly absurd: no one expects it to happen. In 2005, the UN estimated that the world's population will more or less stabilize in 2200 at 10 billion. But a paper published in Nature last week suggests that there is an 88 percent chance that global population growth will end during this century......
LINK
By George Monbiot, Comment Is Free.
I cannot avoid the subject any longer. Almost every day I receive a clutch of emails about it, asking the same question. A frightening new report has just pushed it up the political agenda: for the first time the World Food Program is struggling to find the supplies it needs for emergency famine relief. So why, like most environmentalists, won't I mention the p-word? According to its most vociferous proponents (Paul and Anne Ehrlich), population is "our number one environmental problem." But most greens will not discuss it.
Is this sensitivity or is it cowardice? Perhaps a bit of both. Population growth has always been politically charged, and always the fault of someone else. Seldom has the complaint been heard that "people like us are breeding too fast". For the prosperous clergyman Thomas Malthus, writing in 1798, the problem arose from the fecklessness of the laboring classes. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, eugenicists warned that white people would be outbred. In rich nations in the 1970s the issue was over-emphasized, as it is the one environmental problem for which poor nations are largely to blame. But the question still needs to be answered. Is population really our number one environmental problem?
The Optimum Population Trust (OPT) cites some shocking figures, produced by the UN. They show that if the global population keeps growing at its current rate, it will reach 134 trillion by 2300. But this is plainly absurd: no one expects it to happen. In 2005, the UN estimated that the world's population will more or less stabilize in 2200 at 10 billion. But a paper published in Nature last week suggests that there is an 88 percent chance that global population growth will end during this century......
LINK
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Hillary Clinton: The New Nixon?
By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com.
I'm in Las vegas, at yet another stiflingly full-of-shit Democratic debate, just breaking up now. The show tonight was a new low, with a suddenly cuddlesome troika of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards spending two hours giving each other friendly establishment back rubs while NBC played the Big Brother role, going to court to keep that meddling Dennis Kucinich off the stage. Afterward, the first flack to waddle into the spin cave is Mark Penn, Clinton's chief mouthpiece, one of Washington's most depraved and expensive lobbyist-whores.
Penn is the Democratic version of Karl Rove. He even looks like Rove, only he's fatter and more disgusting. Up close in a forum like this, his eyes bulge out of his fat, blood-flushed head; his neck spills out of his too-tight shirt collar; and he generally looks like Jabba the Hutt, his suit bursting at the seams, with only the bowl of snackable live toads suspended at arm's length missing from the picture.
After Obama's win in Iowa, everyone familiar with the Clintons and how they operate could have set their watches by the Hillary camp's inevitable decision to start reminding America of the dangers of electing a black teenager on coke. There is now a sudden sense on the campaign trail that the electoral chaos of the last year is a thing of the past, that this race is once again back in the hands of scaly Washington pros like Penn, the whole contest reduced to a series of empty PR ploys on the level of a staged crying fit and a series of back-channel character attacks. The Clintons are back, running things as they always have, with their back-stabbing, inside-baseball mastery, their fanatical, almost religious pursuit of the political fork in the road, their boundless faith in ruthless corporate bagmen of the Penn genus and other such faceless electoral point-shavers.
This all becomes punishingly obvious when Penn, smiling broadly, leans into the hive of spin-room microphones and announces with a straight face that Barack Obama's refusal to describe himself as a "chief operating officer" of the government bureaucracy marks a "critical distinction" in the race.
LINK to rest......
By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com.
I'm in Las vegas, at yet another stiflingly full-of-shit Democratic debate, just breaking up now. The show tonight was a new low, with a suddenly cuddlesome troika of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards spending two hours giving each other friendly establishment back rubs while NBC played the Big Brother role, going to court to keep that meddling Dennis Kucinich off the stage. Afterward, the first flack to waddle into the spin cave is Mark Penn, Clinton's chief mouthpiece, one of Washington's most depraved and expensive lobbyist-whores.
Penn is the Democratic version of Karl Rove. He even looks like Rove, only he's fatter and more disgusting. Up close in a forum like this, his eyes bulge out of his fat, blood-flushed head; his neck spills out of his too-tight shirt collar; and he generally looks like Jabba the Hutt, his suit bursting at the seams, with only the bowl of snackable live toads suspended at arm's length missing from the picture.
After Obama's win in Iowa, everyone familiar with the Clintons and how they operate could have set their watches by the Hillary camp's inevitable decision to start reminding America of the dangers of electing a black teenager on coke. There is now a sudden sense on the campaign trail that the electoral chaos of the last year is a thing of the past, that this race is once again back in the hands of scaly Washington pros like Penn, the whole contest reduced to a series of empty PR ploys on the level of a staged crying fit and a series of back-channel character attacks. The Clintons are back, running things as they always have, with their back-stabbing, inside-baseball mastery, their fanatical, almost religious pursuit of the political fork in the road, their boundless faith in ruthless corporate bagmen of the Penn genus and other such faceless electoral point-shavers.
This all becomes punishingly obvious when Penn, smiling broadly, leans into the hive of spin-room microphones and announces with a straight face that Barack Obama's refusal to describe himself as a "chief operating officer" of the government bureaucracy marks a "critical distinction" in the race.
LINK to rest......
(This article in no way means that I am supporting Obama, I just found it intersting...my vote is still a write in for Edwards or Kuchinich)
Barack in Butte, Montana: Defying Conventional Wisdom About Race and Politics
By Laura Flanders, TheNation.com.
If Barack Obama's South Carolina win was a "black" thing, it's awfully strange how it's going down in Butte. US towns don't come much whiter or more hope-resistant than this battered old Montana mining town. And yet organizers here resonate with his call, not because they think he'll change things here, but because they believe the movement he's inspiring will help them do that work.
It was mid-morning Sunday when I finally flipped open my laptop to watch Obama's South Carolina victory speech. The only other soul in the faded foyer of the once-grand Finlen Hotel was Debbie, the receptionist. Obama's words drew blue-eyed Debbie over. What do you think? I asked. Looking at the crowd, her smile revealed more than a few missing teeth. "That looks like everybody," she said. "That's good."
The Finlen is a lonely place; a 1920s relic perched on a snow-swept slope between stone-cold, closed Victorian banks and bars and the country's biggest toxic Super Fund site. Butte was once the copper capital of the world (and the most unionized town in the US) but the swag and smut of the 1880s is long gone and Butte's as broken now as the bones of its best-known 20th century export -- Evel Knievel. And even he is dead.
LINK to rest......
Barack in Butte, Montana: Defying Conventional Wisdom About Race and Politics
By Laura Flanders, TheNation.com.
If Barack Obama's South Carolina win was a "black" thing, it's awfully strange how it's going down in Butte. US towns don't come much whiter or more hope-resistant than this battered old Montana mining town. And yet organizers here resonate with his call, not because they think he'll change things here, but because they believe the movement he's inspiring will help them do that work.
It was mid-morning Sunday when I finally flipped open my laptop to watch Obama's South Carolina victory speech. The only other soul in the faded foyer of the once-grand Finlen Hotel was Debbie, the receptionist. Obama's words drew blue-eyed Debbie over. What do you think? I asked. Looking at the crowd, her smile revealed more than a few missing teeth. "That looks like everybody," she said. "That's good."
The Finlen is a lonely place; a 1920s relic perched on a snow-swept slope between stone-cold, closed Victorian banks and bars and the country's biggest toxic Super Fund site. Butte was once the copper capital of the world (and the most unionized town in the US) but the swag and smut of the 1880s is long gone and Butte's as broken now as the bones of its best-known 20th century export -- Evel Knievel. And even he is dead.
LINK to rest......
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
What's Happened to John Edwards by Plaid Adder
have not been around the primaries much because, as I said in my last post here, I find the whole thing depressing. I am particularly annoyed by the minute attention being paid by the media to the Clinton and Obama campaigns' interactions, and who said what about whom and who needs to apologize. If these people think that by dissecting a comment Bill Clinton made about Jesse Jackson for evidence of possible racial bias they are in any way furthering the cause of racial equality, they are more deluded than I thought they were. Racial inequality is perpetuated in this country by a number of bedrock economic injustices that neither Obama nor Clinton is talking about addressing, and although it would be nice if we could train everyone to be polite to each other, that by itself will never eradicate racial inequality.
Strangely, the only candidate coming at all close to addressing these issues is John Edwards--because he's taking on class, and not just race or gender. But since the MSM is really giving him no air time whatsoever, and since I no longer have the time to go digging through LBN like I used to, I really don't know too much about the specifics he's proposing. But let me tell you what, from my point of view, is really wrong with this country, the electorate, and in particular this primary race:
We can talk about race, we can talk about gender. But in general, as a society, we cannot talk about money or class. We do not have the vocabulary, the concepts, or--and here I'm talking about the Democratic party elite and their two front-runners--the courage.
The first problem you encounter when you try to talk about class is that most of the people you try to talk to will tell you it doesn't exist--at least not in America. The second problem is that to the extent that people know and use the term "class," it is to describe themselves as "middle class." If you listen to Americans on the subject you would get the idea that they live in a country that's 100% middle class, with no upper or lower. All politicians ever talk about is doing things for the middle class. The closest anyone ever gets to uttering the words "working class" is "working families," as if the work "worker" is so scary it cannot be uttered unless it is immediately domesticated by the word "family." And of course a lot of things are actually done to benefit the rich; but no politician ever admits in public that they work for "the rich." All this capital-gains stuff somehow benefits "the middle class," even though large chunks of "the middle class" have never come near a stock portfolio.
But class divisions in this country are deep, and they are harder to bridge than any other kind. Their causes are not obvious and their remedies are neither clear nor easy. But I'll tell you, when you start raising a kid for the first time, you start to notice these things a lot more.
LINK.....to rest of the article
have not been around the primaries much because, as I said in my last post here, I find the whole thing depressing. I am particularly annoyed by the minute attention being paid by the media to the Clinton and Obama campaigns' interactions, and who said what about whom and who needs to apologize. If these people think that by dissecting a comment Bill Clinton made about Jesse Jackson for evidence of possible racial bias they are in any way furthering the cause of racial equality, they are more deluded than I thought they were. Racial inequality is perpetuated in this country by a number of bedrock economic injustices that neither Obama nor Clinton is talking about addressing, and although it would be nice if we could train everyone to be polite to each other, that by itself will never eradicate racial inequality.
Strangely, the only candidate coming at all close to addressing these issues is John Edwards--because he's taking on class, and not just race or gender. But since the MSM is really giving him no air time whatsoever, and since I no longer have the time to go digging through LBN like I used to, I really don't know too much about the specifics he's proposing. But let me tell you what, from my point of view, is really wrong with this country, the electorate, and in particular this primary race:
We can talk about race, we can talk about gender. But in general, as a society, we cannot talk about money or class. We do not have the vocabulary, the concepts, or--and here I'm talking about the Democratic party elite and their two front-runners--the courage.
The first problem you encounter when you try to talk about class is that most of the people you try to talk to will tell you it doesn't exist--at least not in America. The second problem is that to the extent that people know and use the term "class," it is to describe themselves as "middle class." If you listen to Americans on the subject you would get the idea that they live in a country that's 100% middle class, with no upper or lower. All politicians ever talk about is doing things for the middle class. The closest anyone ever gets to uttering the words "working class" is "working families," as if the work "worker" is so scary it cannot be uttered unless it is immediately domesticated by the word "family." And of course a lot of things are actually done to benefit the rich; but no politician ever admits in public that they work for "the rich." All this capital-gains stuff somehow benefits "the middle class," even though large chunks of "the middle class" have never come near a stock portfolio.
But class divisions in this country are deep, and they are harder to bridge than any other kind. Their causes are not obvious and their remedies are neither clear nor easy. But I'll tell you, when you start raising a kid for the first time, you start to notice these things a lot more.
LINK.....to rest of the article
The Man Who Learned Too Little
In his final State of the Union, Bush makes more empty promises.
By Fred Kaplan
The sad thing about President George W. Bush's final State of the Union address is that he seems to have learned so little about the crises in which he's immersed his nation so deeply.
His first words on foreign policy in tonight's address reprised the theme of previous addresses: "We trust that people, when given the chance, will choose a future of freedom and peace." He cited, as "stirring" examples of this principle, the "images" of citizens demanding independence in Ukraine and Lebanon, of Afghans emerging from the Taliban's tyranny, of "jubilant Iraqis holding up ink-stained fingers" to celebrate free elections.
One waited for the president to invoke the lamentable flip side of these images, the retreats and retrenchments that followed (perhaps the "challenges" ahead?)—but he didn't. Is he still living in the dream world of the spring of 2004? It's a pleasant world, but it had gone up in smoke by that summer. If we were truly serious about promoting freedom, it would be useful to explore the lessons of those hopes as they were not only stirred but then crushed. As with his previous State of the Union addresses, this was not seen as a time to face reality.
LINK....
In his final State of the Union, Bush makes more empty promises.
By Fred Kaplan
The sad thing about President George W. Bush's final State of the Union address is that he seems to have learned so little about the crises in which he's immersed his nation so deeply.
His first words on foreign policy in tonight's address reprised the theme of previous addresses: "We trust that people, when given the chance, will choose a future of freedom and peace." He cited, as "stirring" examples of this principle, the "images" of citizens demanding independence in Ukraine and Lebanon, of Afghans emerging from the Taliban's tyranny, of "jubilant Iraqis holding up ink-stained fingers" to celebrate free elections.
One waited for the president to invoke the lamentable flip side of these images, the retreats and retrenchments that followed (perhaps the "challenges" ahead?)—but he didn't. Is he still living in the dream world of the spring of 2004? It's a pleasant world, but it had gone up in smoke by that summer. If we were truly serious about promoting freedom, it would be useful to explore the lessons of those hopes as they were not only stirred but then crushed. As with his previous State of the Union addresses, this was not seen as a time to face reality.
LINK....
$100 Billion and Counting: How Wall Street Blew Itself up
By Pam Martens, CounterPunch.
The massive losses by big Wall Street firms, now topping those of the Great Depression in relative terms, have yet to be adequately explained. Wall Street power players are obfuscating and Congress is too embarrassed or frightened to ask, preferring to just throw money at the problem and hope it goes away. But as job losses and foreclosures mount and pensions and 401(k)s shrink, public policy measures to address the economic stresses require a full set of unembellished facts.
The proof that Wall Street is giving mainstream media a stage-managed version of what went wrong begins with a strange revelation by Gary Crittenden, CFO of Citigroup, on the November 5, 2007 conference call where he discusses what have now become the largest losses in the firm's 196-year history. Mr. Crittenden is asked by an analyst why the firm didn't hedge its risk. Here's his response:
"I mean I think it is a very fair question ... we are the largest player in this [collateralized debt obligation; CDO] business and given that we are the largest player in the business, reducing the book by half and then putting on what at the time was three times more hedges than we had ever had at least in our recent history, seemed to be very aggressive actions given that we were a major manufacturer of this product ... once this [decline in values] process started ... the size was simply not there. The market is simply not there to do it in size in any way and it would have been uneconomic to do it."
What Mr. Crittenden really seems to be saying is that Wall Street, with Citigroup leading the pack, built a vast market of complex securities but neglected to put in place a liquid and efficient marketplace for hedging this risk. Say, for example, big, liquid, exchange traded indices and futures contracts that are routinely used to hedge everything from stocks to soy beans to crude oil by as diverse a group as Iowa farmers to Saudi princes.
LINK.....
By Pam Martens, CounterPunch.
The massive losses by big Wall Street firms, now topping those of the Great Depression in relative terms, have yet to be adequately explained. Wall Street power players are obfuscating and Congress is too embarrassed or frightened to ask, preferring to just throw money at the problem and hope it goes away. But as job losses and foreclosures mount and pensions and 401(k)s shrink, public policy measures to address the economic stresses require a full set of unembellished facts.
The proof that Wall Street is giving mainstream media a stage-managed version of what went wrong begins with a strange revelation by Gary Crittenden, CFO of Citigroup, on the November 5, 2007 conference call where he discusses what have now become the largest losses in the firm's 196-year history. Mr. Crittenden is asked by an analyst why the firm didn't hedge its risk. Here's his response:
"I mean I think it is a very fair question ... we are the largest player in this [collateralized debt obligation; CDO] business and given that we are the largest player in the business, reducing the book by half and then putting on what at the time was three times more hedges than we had ever had at least in our recent history, seemed to be very aggressive actions given that we were a major manufacturer of this product ... once this [decline in values] process started ... the size was simply not there. The market is simply not there to do it in size in any way and it would have been uneconomic to do it."
What Mr. Crittenden really seems to be saying is that Wall Street, with Citigroup leading the pack, built a vast market of complex securities but neglected to put in place a liquid and efficient marketplace for hedging this risk. Say, for example, big, liquid, exchange traded indices and futures contracts that are routinely used to hedge everything from stocks to soy beans to crude oil by as diverse a group as Iowa farmers to Saudi princes.
LINK.....
Monday, January 28, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Caught with a Bag of Weed? It Could Cost You More Than You Think
By Paul Armentano, AlterNet.
What's the current price for a bag of weed? According to the latest figures from the FBI, the human cost is roughly 739,000 a year.
That's the number of American citizens arrested in 2006 for possessing small amounts of pot. (Another 91,000 were charged with marijuana-related felonies.) The figure is the highest annual total ever recorded, and is nearly double the number of citizens busted for pot fifteen years ago.
Those arrested face a multitude of consequences, primarily determined by where they live. For example, most Californians charged with violating the state's pot possession laws face little more than a small fine. By contrast, getting busted with a pinch of weed in Ohio will cost you your driver's license for at least six months. Move to Texas -- well, now you're looking at a criminal record and up to 180 days in jail. Or if you happen to be a first-time offender, possibly a stint in court-mandated 'drug rehab' (one recent study reported that nearly 70 percent of all adults referred to Texas drug treatment programs for weed were referred by the courts), probation, and a hefty legal bill. And don't even think about getting busted in Oklahoma, where a first time conviction for minor pot possession can net you up to one year in jail, or up to ten years if you're found guilty of a second offense. Thinking of growing your own? That'll cost you a $20,000 fine, and -- oh yeah -- anywhere from two years to life in prison.
Yes, you read that right -- life in prison.
LINK
By Paul Armentano, AlterNet.
What's the current price for a bag of weed? According to the latest figures from the FBI, the human cost is roughly 739,000 a year.
That's the number of American citizens arrested in 2006 for possessing small amounts of pot. (Another 91,000 were charged with marijuana-related felonies.) The figure is the highest annual total ever recorded, and is nearly double the number of citizens busted for pot fifteen years ago.
Those arrested face a multitude of consequences, primarily determined by where they live. For example, most Californians charged with violating the state's pot possession laws face little more than a small fine. By contrast, getting busted with a pinch of weed in Ohio will cost you your driver's license for at least six months. Move to Texas -- well, now you're looking at a criminal record and up to 180 days in jail. Or if you happen to be a first-time offender, possibly a stint in court-mandated 'drug rehab' (one recent study reported that nearly 70 percent of all adults referred to Texas drug treatment programs for weed were referred by the courts), probation, and a hefty legal bill. And don't even think about getting busted in Oklahoma, where a first time conviction for minor pot possession can net you up to one year in jail, or up to ten years if you're found guilty of a second offense. Thinking of growing your own? That'll cost you a $20,000 fine, and -- oh yeah -- anywhere from two years to life in prison.
Yes, you read that right -- life in prison.
LINK
Friday, January 25, 2008
Give Them Death: Three Leading Democratic Candidates Support Capital Punishment
By Liliana Segura, AlterNet.
When Clinton, Obama and Edwards took the stage before a mostly African-American crowd in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Monday night, they came brimming with concern for the plight of black America. From the disproportionate effects of the subprime loan crisis to the racially drawn pitfalls of U.S. healthcare, the black community, said Edwards, "is hurt worse by poverty than any community in America. And it's our responsibility, not just for the African-American community, but for America, as a nation, to take on this moral challenge."
Politicians like to see moral challenges when it's convenient. The candidates have labeled the war in Iraq, global warming and the economy "moral challenges" before various audiences in the past few months. But there's one topic the leading Dems systematically exclude from their morality crusade, one that begged to be addressed before an African-American audience in a Southern state: the death penalty.
It's not news that African-Americans are disproportionately represented on death row. While 12 percent of the country is African-American, more than 40 percent of the country's death row population is black -- and although blacks and whites are murder victims in nearly equal numbers, 80 percent of the prisoners executed since the death penalty was reinstated were convicted for murders in which the victim was white. Study upon study in states across the country have discovered racial bias at every stage of the death penalty process, including one that found that the more "stereotypically black" a defendant is perceived to be, the more likely that person is to be sentenced to death. Add to that the fact that over 20 percent of black defendants who have been executed were convicted by all-white juries, and the racial reality of the death penalty becomes impossible to ignore.
LINK
By Liliana Segura, AlterNet.
When Clinton, Obama and Edwards took the stage before a mostly African-American crowd in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Monday night, they came brimming with concern for the plight of black America. From the disproportionate effects of the subprime loan crisis to the racially drawn pitfalls of U.S. healthcare, the black community, said Edwards, "is hurt worse by poverty than any community in America. And it's our responsibility, not just for the African-American community, but for America, as a nation, to take on this moral challenge."
Politicians like to see moral challenges when it's convenient. The candidates have labeled the war in Iraq, global warming and the economy "moral challenges" before various audiences in the past few months. But there's one topic the leading Dems systematically exclude from their morality crusade, one that begged to be addressed before an African-American audience in a Southern state: the death penalty.
It's not news that African-Americans are disproportionately represented on death row. While 12 percent of the country is African-American, more than 40 percent of the country's death row population is black -- and although blacks and whites are murder victims in nearly equal numbers, 80 percent of the prisoners executed since the death penalty was reinstated were convicted for murders in which the victim was white. Study upon study in states across the country have discovered racial bias at every stage of the death penalty process, including one that found that the more "stereotypically black" a defendant is perceived to be, the more likely that person is to be sentenced to death. Add to that the fact that over 20 percent of black defendants who have been executed were convicted by all-white juries, and the racial reality of the death penalty becomes impossible to ignore.
LINK
Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade with Turkey
Exonerating Neocon Criminals
by Joshua Frank / January 25th, 2008
According to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds there is a vast black market for nukes, and certain U.S. officials have been supplying sensitive nuclear technology information to Turkish and Israeli interests through its conduits. It’s a scathing allegation which was first published by the London Times two weeks ago, and Edmonds’ charge seems to be on the verge of vindication.
In likely reaction to the London Times report, the Bush Administration quietly announced on January 22 that the president would like Congress to approve the sale of nuclear secrets to Turkey. As with most stories of this magnitude, the U.S. media has put on blinders, opting to not report either Edmonds’ story or Bush’s recent announcement.
LINK
Exonerating Neocon Criminals
by Joshua Frank / January 25th, 2008
According to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds there is a vast black market for nukes, and certain U.S. officials have been supplying sensitive nuclear technology information to Turkish and Israeli interests through its conduits. It’s a scathing allegation which was first published by the London Times two weeks ago, and Edmonds’ charge seems to be on the verge of vindication.
In likely reaction to the London Times report, the Bush Administration quietly announced on January 22 that the president would like Congress to approve the sale of nuclear secrets to Turkey. As with most stories of this magnitude, the U.S. media has put on blinders, opting to not report either Edmonds’ story or Bush’s recent announcement.
LINK
UCS Position Paper: Pharmaceutical and Industrial Crops
Most of the genetically engineered (GE) crops currently on the market are food or feed crops that have been modified for agronomic purposes—to better repel pests or to be compatible with chemical pesticides. A new generation of crops is now being modified for different purposes—to produce medicines or industrial compounds such as plastics. Many of these substances are being produced in corn and other food crops visually indistinguishable from their non-industrial counterparts. Contamination of food crops with drugs or industrial chemicals could occur through seed mixing and cross-pollination. The potential contamination of food crops with the hundreds, if not thousands, of drugs or industrial compounds promised by this industry poses new and serious risks to the safety of the food system. Pharmaceutical and industrial compounds also pose potentially serious risks if released into the environment.
This paper details the position of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) regarding federal policy on crops genetically engineered to produce pharmaceutical and industrial compounds. After careful analysis, we have concluded that current U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations governing such crops, although stronger than they have been in the past, are still insufficiently stringent to assure the complete protection of the food supply in the United States. Moreover, the routes of contamination in existing commodity crop production systems are so numerous that even very strong regulatory systems may not be sufficient to prevent the contamination of the food system with crops genetically engineered to produce pharmaceutical and industrial compounds. Although it may be theoretically possible to design an adequate regulatory system, we believe it would be too complex to be implemented effectively by the USDA, the federal agency with primary authority over GE pharmaceutical and industrial crops.
LINK
Most of the genetically engineered (GE) crops currently on the market are food or feed crops that have been modified for agronomic purposes—to better repel pests or to be compatible with chemical pesticides. A new generation of crops is now being modified for different purposes—to produce medicines or industrial compounds such as plastics. Many of these substances are being produced in corn and other food crops visually indistinguishable from their non-industrial counterparts. Contamination of food crops with drugs or industrial chemicals could occur through seed mixing and cross-pollination. The potential contamination of food crops with the hundreds, if not thousands, of drugs or industrial compounds promised by this industry poses new and serious risks to the safety of the food system. Pharmaceutical and industrial compounds also pose potentially serious risks if released into the environment.
This paper details the position of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) regarding federal policy on crops genetically engineered to produce pharmaceutical and industrial compounds. After careful analysis, we have concluded that current U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations governing such crops, although stronger than they have been in the past, are still insufficiently stringent to assure the complete protection of the food supply in the United States. Moreover, the routes of contamination in existing commodity crop production systems are so numerous that even very strong regulatory systems may not be sufficient to prevent the contamination of the food system with crops genetically engineered to produce pharmaceutical and industrial compounds. Although it may be theoretically possible to design an adequate regulatory system, we believe it would be too complex to be implemented effectively by the USDA, the federal agency with primary authority over GE pharmaceutical and industrial crops.
LINK
Thursday, January 24, 2008
THE LAST MAN WHO COULD HAVE SAVED US!!!! I ve decided that I am still voting for Dennis as a write in.....what the hell, he is who I want and that who I am voting for....this is a democracy!!!
the Repuyblicans put 4 different people in to run against Dennis who
is up for reelection and he had to quit to save his seat in congress
the Repuyblicans put 4 different people in to run against Dennis who
is up for reelection and he had to quit to save his seat in congress
Kucinich Starts New Impeachment Drive
By David M. Herszenhorn
Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio may get excluded from Democratic presidential debates, as he has been recently, but no one can deny him the floor in the House.
And today Mr. Kucinich took to the floor to fire off his latest salvo at the Bush administration: his plans to introduce Articles of Impeachment against President Bush on Jan. 28 — the day of Mr. Bush’s State of the Union speech.
Accusing the administration of lying about the need for the war in Iraq, Mr. Kucinich said he did not need to hear the president’s
assessment. “We know the State of the Union,” he declared. “It’s a lie.”
He also fired a volley at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California
who has maintained that impeaching Mr. Bush is not on the table for Congressional Democrats. “If impeachment is off the table,” Mr. Kucinich said, “truth is off the table. If truth is off the table
then this body is living a lie.”
Mr. Kucinich introduced Articles of Impeachment against Vice
President Dick Cheney last April and in November, with the surprise help of Republicans seeking to embarrass the Democrats, he nearly succeeded in securing an hour of debate on the House floor. House Democratic leaders blocked that, however, by referring the impeachment effort back to the Judiciary Committee.
Anti-Bush groups have been urging Mr. Kucinich to undertake an
effort to impeach the president.
LINK
By David M. Herszenhorn
Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio may get excluded from Democratic presidential debates, as he has been recently, but no one can deny him the floor in the House.
And today Mr. Kucinich took to the floor to fire off his latest salvo at the Bush administration: his plans to introduce Articles of Impeachment against President Bush on Jan. 28 — the day of Mr. Bush’s State of the Union speech.
Accusing the administration of lying about the need for the war in Iraq, Mr. Kucinich said he did not need to hear the president’s
assessment. “We know the State of the Union,” he declared. “It’s a lie.”
He also fired a volley at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California
who has maintained that impeaching Mr. Bush is not on the table for Congressional Democrats. “If impeachment is off the table,” Mr. Kucinich said, “truth is off the table. If truth is off the table
then this body is living a lie.”
Mr. Kucinich introduced Articles of Impeachment against Vice
President Dick Cheney last April and in November, with the surprise help of Republicans seeking to embarrass the Democrats, he nearly succeeded in securing an hour of debate on the House floor. House Democratic leaders blocked that, however, by referring the impeachment effort back to the Judiciary Committee.
Anti-Bush groups have been urging Mr. Kucinich to undertake an
effort to impeach the president.
LINK
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
See at a glance where the presidential contenders stand on climate and energy issues
http://grist.org/candidate_chart_08.html
Notice that the only two remaining canidates that oppose Coal and Nuclear are Edwards and Kucinich!!! If only people voted on the issues that are important and not on who looks good, is a women, is black (green, brown, etc.), or a good speaker! All the Republicans are brain washed wack jobs....so a Democrat is better but......we need Dennis Kucinich or if not Edwards!
http://grist.org/candidate_chart_08.html
Notice that the only two remaining canidates that oppose Coal and Nuclear are Edwards and Kucinich!!! If only people voted on the issues that are important and not on who looks good, is a women, is black (green, brown, etc.), or a good speaker! All the Republicans are brain washed wack jobs....so a Democrat is better but......we need Dennis Kucinich or if not Edwards!
False Pretenses
Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith
President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.
On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.
LINK TO CON.
Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith
President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.
On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.
LINK TO CON.
On Martha’s Vineyard, Using Scallops as Currency
By JOAN NATHAN
Published: January 23, 2008
FOR year-round residents of this Martha’s Vineyard village, winter is time to relax. In summer, when the island’s population soars from 15,000 to 75,000, locals like Jan Buhrman have to make a year’s living in just a few short months. Ms. Buhrman, who is 50, caters weddings and dinner parties for the seasonal crowd. When winter comes, she tends a local school library, among other jobs, and she cooks.
Even in January, her hours in the kitchen have a purpose. Sitting in the bright oak post-and-beam room built by her husband, Richard Osnoss, a carpenter, Ms. Buhrman explained that she tries to eat only food raised on Martha’s Vineyard and to go down island to the grocery store in Vineyard Haven as little as possible.
Some of her groceries she grows herself. For much of the rest, she trades with her neighbors.
Following Ms. Buhrman for a day or two as she gathers ingredients is a lesson in how to eat locally, even in the coldest days of winter. Because she seems to know everybody on the island who raises, catches or forages for food, it is also a glimpse of an alternative economy of eating, one in which modern capitalism takes a back seat to a looser, island-grown style of bartering.
In summer, for instance, Ms. Buhrman hands out ice from her freezers to help the local fishermen keep their catch cold. In winter, they repay her with fish, oysters and bay scallops.
“It’s just the way we do it here,” she said.
“Swapping and borrowing isn’t institutionalized on the Vineyard,” said Carl Flanders, a fisherman in summer and a carpenter in winter. “If I catch some fish in summer, I’ll sell it to Larsen’s Fish Market but I’ll just give the rest away to friends. I don’t expect anything in return.”
LINK
By JOAN NATHAN
Published: January 23, 2008
FOR year-round residents of this Martha’s Vineyard village, winter is time to relax. In summer, when the island’s population soars from 15,000 to 75,000, locals like Jan Buhrman have to make a year’s living in just a few short months. Ms. Buhrman, who is 50, caters weddings and dinner parties for the seasonal crowd. When winter comes, she tends a local school library, among other jobs, and she cooks.
Even in January, her hours in the kitchen have a purpose. Sitting in the bright oak post-and-beam room built by her husband, Richard Osnoss, a carpenter, Ms. Buhrman explained that she tries to eat only food raised on Martha’s Vineyard and to go down island to the grocery store in Vineyard Haven as little as possible.
Some of her groceries she grows herself. For much of the rest, she trades with her neighbors.
Following Ms. Buhrman for a day or two as she gathers ingredients is a lesson in how to eat locally, even in the coldest days of winter. Because she seems to know everybody on the island who raises, catches or forages for food, it is also a glimpse of an alternative economy of eating, one in which modern capitalism takes a back seat to a looser, island-grown style of bartering.
In summer, for instance, Ms. Buhrman hands out ice from her freezers to help the local fishermen keep their catch cold. In winter, they repay her with fish, oysters and bay scallops.
“It’s just the way we do it here,” she said.
“Swapping and borrowing isn’t institutionalized on the Vineyard,” said Carl Flanders, a fisherman in summer and a carpenter in winter. “If I catch some fish in summer, I’ll sell it to Larsen’s Fish Market but I’ll just give the rest away to friends. I don’t expect anything in return.”
LINK
Who Will Take On the Banks?
By Robert Scheer
It was smart of the top Democrats to cut presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich out of that South Carolina debate, where they lamely attempted to deal with the dire consequences of the banking meltdown without confronting the banks. They made all the proper concerned noises about millions of folks losing their retirement savings and homes, but none was willing to say what Kucinich would have said: Bankers are crooks who will steal from the public unless the government holds them accountable.
How do I know Kucinich would have said that? Because I interviewed him for the Los Angeles Times back when he was mayor of Cleveland and the banks foreclosed on his city after he refused to sell the public power plant. Others can talk a populist line, but Kucinich lived it. He was forced out of office that time, but voters realized 10 years later that Kucinich had been right. Thanks to the public power alternative that Kucinich refused to sacrifice, Cleveland had cheap power, and he was elected to the Ohio Legislature and then to Congress as his reward.
LINK
By Robert Scheer
It was smart of the top Democrats to cut presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich out of that South Carolina debate, where they lamely attempted to deal with the dire consequences of the banking meltdown without confronting the banks. They made all the proper concerned noises about millions of folks losing their retirement savings and homes, but none was willing to say what Kucinich would have said: Bankers are crooks who will steal from the public unless the government holds them accountable.
How do I know Kucinich would have said that? Because I interviewed him for the Los Angeles Times back when he was mayor of Cleveland and the banks foreclosed on his city after he refused to sell the public power plant. Others can talk a populist line, but Kucinich lived it. He was forced out of office that time, but voters realized 10 years later that Kucinich had been right. Thanks to the public power alternative that Kucinich refused to sacrifice, Cleveland had cheap power, and he was elected to the Ohio Legislature and then to Congress as his reward.
LINK
Monday, January 21, 2008
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
the legacy remembered,
the message that should not be forgotten
The homage that Americans pay today to the inspiring life and lasting legacy of Dr. King is a fitting tribute to this leader who spoke so eloquently of peace, of social justice, and of equal rights under the law and under the moral covenant that established and guides this great nation. But, as we survey the grim realities of today, across this country and around the world, that rightful homage also has the somber ring of a faint and distant eulogy for a man and a message from another time.
That other time that we remember and honor was then. But, more than ever, it is also now.
In his speech at Riverside Church in New York City, on April 4, 1967, Dr. King spoke of one war that was destroying the aspirations of the people of two nations - the people of the United States and the people of Vietnam.
The Vietnam War resulted in the deaths of 4 million Vietnamese civilians in a nation of about 40 million - 10% of the total population of Vietnam. Americans lost 58,202 soldiers in that war. And in hard, cold numbers, the Vietnam War cost the United States the equivalent of $662 billion in today's dollars.
So far, today, this no-end-in-sight war against Iraq has resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million innocent Iraqis in a nation of 25 million. Four thousand of our best and bravest have died, and nearly 29,000 have been wounded. In hard, cold numbers, the Iraq War will cost the United States more than $2 trillion.
What would Dr. King say today? What would his message be to the President, to the U.S. Congress, and to the American people? It would be, I deeply believe, the same as it was more than 30 years ago: Iraq is a war that is destroying the aspirations of the people of two nations - the people of the United States and the people of Iraq.
And, it was only two years ago that the leadership of the Democratic Party, without invoking Dr. King but aligning itself with the powerful principles that he espoused, promised an end to the abuse of political power and an end to the war that was devastating the people of two nations. And Americans, believing that promise that we would “be free at last” from the policies that morally and economically enslaved this nation and unrepentantly took control of another, elected a new Democratic leadership in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
Tragically, in the two years since, nothing has changed. The policies of this President persist and prevail. The Congress yields and subjugates itself time and time again. And the powerful, righteous, and universal message of Dr. King has been forgotten.
Dr. King's concluding remarks in his Riverside Church speech called for an end to the disintegration of humanity brought about by war: "Somehow this madness must end," he implored.
It is not in our power to bring Dr. King back, but it is within our power to resurrect his spirit in our daily lives and in the policies of the government that we elect to represent and lead us. He demonstrated throughout his entire life that social and economic justice are achieved not through compromising what we believe, but rather, committing to what we believe – whatever the odds.
In this crucial year for the future of our nation and the future of our world, today is the day to remember Dr. King's words, embrace his spirit, and fortify ourselves with the message that he left for us.
It is time, once again, to ask what we can do to forge ahead – in our votes, in our support, and in everything we do -- to reach that place where his words, his strength, and his optimism become more than a legacy. They become the policy and mission of this nation: "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."
Dennis Kucinich
the legacy remembered,
the message that should not be forgotten
The homage that Americans pay today to the inspiring life and lasting legacy of Dr. King is a fitting tribute to this leader who spoke so eloquently of peace, of social justice, and of equal rights under the law and under the moral covenant that established and guides this great nation. But, as we survey the grim realities of today, across this country and around the world, that rightful homage also has the somber ring of a faint and distant eulogy for a man and a message from another time.
That other time that we remember and honor was then. But, more than ever, it is also now.
In his speech at Riverside Church in New York City, on April 4, 1967, Dr. King spoke of one war that was destroying the aspirations of the people of two nations - the people of the United States and the people of Vietnam.
The Vietnam War resulted in the deaths of 4 million Vietnamese civilians in a nation of about 40 million - 10% of the total population of Vietnam. Americans lost 58,202 soldiers in that war. And in hard, cold numbers, the Vietnam War cost the United States the equivalent of $662 billion in today's dollars.
So far, today, this no-end-in-sight war against Iraq has resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million innocent Iraqis in a nation of 25 million. Four thousand of our best and bravest have died, and nearly 29,000 have been wounded. In hard, cold numbers, the Iraq War will cost the United States more than $2 trillion.
What would Dr. King say today? What would his message be to the President, to the U.S. Congress, and to the American people? It would be, I deeply believe, the same as it was more than 30 years ago: Iraq is a war that is destroying the aspirations of the people of two nations - the people of the United States and the people of Iraq.
And, it was only two years ago that the leadership of the Democratic Party, without invoking Dr. King but aligning itself with the powerful principles that he espoused, promised an end to the abuse of political power and an end to the war that was devastating the people of two nations. And Americans, believing that promise that we would “be free at last” from the policies that morally and economically enslaved this nation and unrepentantly took control of another, elected a new Democratic leadership in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
Tragically, in the two years since, nothing has changed. The policies of this President persist and prevail. The Congress yields and subjugates itself time and time again. And the powerful, righteous, and universal message of Dr. King has been forgotten.
Dr. King's concluding remarks in his Riverside Church speech called for an end to the disintegration of humanity brought about by war: "Somehow this madness must end," he implored.
It is not in our power to bring Dr. King back, but it is within our power to resurrect his spirit in our daily lives and in the policies of the government that we elect to represent and lead us. He demonstrated throughout his entire life that social and economic justice are achieved not through compromising what we believe, but rather, committing to what we believe – whatever the odds.
In this crucial year for the future of our nation and the future of our world, today is the day to remember Dr. King's words, embrace his spirit, and fortify ourselves with the message that he left for us.
It is time, once again, to ask what we can do to forge ahead – in our votes, in our support, and in everything we do -- to reach that place where his words, his strength, and his optimism become more than a legacy. They become the policy and mission of this nation: "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."
Dennis Kucinich
Overseas Investors Buy Aggressively in U.S.
By PETER S. GOODMAN and LOUISE STORY
Last May, a Saudi Arabian conglomerate bought a Massachusetts plastics maker. In November, a French company established a new factory in Adrian, Mich., adding 189 automotive jobs to an area accustomed to layoffs. In December, a British company bought a New Jersey maker of cough syrup.
For much of the world, the United States is now on sale at discount prices. With credit tight, unemployment growing and worries mounting about a potential recession, American business and government leaders are courting foreign money to keep the economy growing. Foreign investors are buying aggressively, taking advantage of American duress and a weak dollar to snap up what many see as bargains, while making inroads to the world’s largest market.
Last year, foreign investors poured a record $414 billion into securing stakes in American companies, factories and other properties through private deals and purchases of publicly traded stock, according to Thomson Financial, a research firm. That was up 90 percent from the previous year and more than double the average for the last decade. It amounted to more than one-fourth of all announced deals for the year, Thomson said.
LINK
By PETER S. GOODMAN and LOUISE STORY
Last May, a Saudi Arabian conglomerate bought a Massachusetts plastics maker. In November, a French company established a new factory in Adrian, Mich., adding 189 automotive jobs to an area accustomed to layoffs. In December, a British company bought a New Jersey maker of cough syrup.
For much of the world, the United States is now on sale at discount prices. With credit tight, unemployment growing and worries mounting about a potential recession, American business and government leaders are courting foreign money to keep the economy growing. Foreign investors are buying aggressively, taking advantage of American duress and a weak dollar to snap up what many see as bargains, while making inroads to the world’s largest market.
Last year, foreign investors poured a record $414 billion into securing stakes in American companies, factories and other properties through private deals and purchases of publicly traded stock, according to Thomson Financial, a research firm. That was up 90 percent from the previous year and more than double the average for the last decade. It amounted to more than one-fourth of all announced deals for the year, Thomson said.
LINK
Red, White and Blue Tag Sale
By MAUREEN DOWD
When President Bush finished doing his sword dances and Arabian stallion inspections, when he finished making a speech in Abu Dhabi on the importance of freedom that fell flat, when he finished lounging in his fur-lined George of Arabia robe in the Saudi king’s tent, he came home.
Or he came to what was left of home.
A Washington Post cartoon by Tom Toles summed it up best: “Great to be home,” W. enthuses on Air Force One, heading toward the East Coast. “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” Hanging on the skyline of New York is a sign reading: “U.S.A. Now a Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Foreign Investors.”
Wherever he went, W. seemed dazzled by the can-do spirit of the J. Pierrepont Finches of the new Middle East. “It’s important for the president to hear thoughts, hopes, dreams, aspirations, concerns from folks that are out making a living,” he told Saudi entrepreneurs.
In Dubai, he commended young Arab leaders, saying, “The entrepreneurial spirit is strong.”
In Abu Dhabi, he marveled at the royal family’s plans to build a city based entirely upon renewable energy. “Amazing, isn’t it?” W. said.
You know you’re in trouble when your Middle East oil pump is greener than you are.
LINK TO ARTICLE
By MAUREEN DOWD
When President Bush finished doing his sword dances and Arabian stallion inspections, when he finished making a speech in Abu Dhabi on the importance of freedom that fell flat, when he finished lounging in his fur-lined George of Arabia robe in the Saudi king’s tent, he came home.
Or he came to what was left of home.
A Washington Post cartoon by Tom Toles summed it up best: “Great to be home,” W. enthuses on Air Force One, heading toward the East Coast. “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” Hanging on the skyline of New York is a sign reading: “U.S.A. Now a Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Foreign Investors.”
Wherever he went, W. seemed dazzled by the can-do spirit of the J. Pierrepont Finches of the new Middle East. “It’s important for the president to hear thoughts, hopes, dreams, aspirations, concerns from folks that are out making a living,” he told Saudi entrepreneurs.
In Dubai, he commended young Arab leaders, saying, “The entrepreneurial spirit is strong.”
In Abu Dhabi, he marveled at the royal family’s plans to build a city based entirely upon renewable energy. “Amazing, isn’t it?” W. said.
You know you’re in trouble when your Middle East oil pump is greener than you are.
LINK TO ARTICLE
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