How We Fuel Africa's Bloodiest War
What is rarely mentioned is the great global heist of Congo's resources
By Johann Hari
The deadliest war since Adolf Hitler marched across Europe is starting again – and you are almost certainly carrying a blood-soaked chunk of the slaughter in your pocket. When we glance at the holocaust in Congo, with 5.4 million dead, the clichés of Africa reporting tumble out: this is a "tribal conflict" in "the Heart of Darkness". It isn't. The United Nations investigation found it was a war led by "armies of business" to seize the metals that make our 21st-century society zing and bling. The war in Congo is a war about you.
Every day I think about the people I met in the war zones of eastern Congo when I reported from there. The wards were filled with women who had been gang-raped by the militias and shot in the vagina. The battalions of child soldiers – drugged, dazed 13-year-olds who had been made to kill members of their own families so they couldn't try to escape and go home. But oddly, as I watch the war starting again on CNN, I find myself thinking about a woman I met who had, by Congolese standards, not suffered in extremis.
I was driving back to Goma from a diamond mine one day when my car got a puncture. As I waited for it to be fixed, I stood by the roadside and watched the great trails of women who stagger along every road in eastern Congo, carrying all their belongings on their backs in mighty crippling heaps. I stopped a 27 -year-old woman called Marie-Jean Bisimwa, who had four little children toddling along beside her. She told me she was lucky. Yes, her village had been burned out. Yes, she had lost her husband somewhere in the chaos. Yes, her sister had been raped and gone insane. But she and her kids were alive.
I gave her a lift, and it was only after a few hours of chat along on cratered roads that I noticed there was something strange about Marie-Jean's children. They were slumped forward, their gazes fixed in front of them. They didn't look around, or speak, or smile. "I haven't ever been able to feed them," she said. "Because of the war."
Link to con.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Naomi Klein: Bailout = Bush's Final Pillage
By Naomi Klein, The Nation.
In the final days of the election, many Republicans seem to have given up the fight for power. But that doesn't mean they are relaxing. If you want to see real Republican elbow grease, check out the energy going into chucking great chunks of the $700 billion bailout out the door. At a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing, Republican Senator Bob Corker was fixated on this task, and with a clear deadline in mind: inauguration. "How much of it do you think may be actually spent by January 20 or so?" Corker asked Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old former banker in charge of the bailout.
When European colonialists realized that they had no choice but to hand over power to the indigenous citizens, they would often turn their attention to stripping the local treasury of its gold and grabbing valuable livestock. If they were really nasty, like the Portuguese in Mozambique in the mid-1970s, they poured concrete down the elevator shafts.
The Bush gang prefers bureaucratic instruments: "distressed asset" auctions and the "equity purchase program." But make no mistake: the goal is the same as it was for the defeated Portuguese -- a final frantic looting of the public wealth before they hand over the keys to the safe.
Link to con.
By Naomi Klein, The Nation.
In the final days of the election, many Republicans seem to have given up the fight for power. But that doesn't mean they are relaxing. If you want to see real Republican elbow grease, check out the energy going into chucking great chunks of the $700 billion bailout out the door. At a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing, Republican Senator Bob Corker was fixated on this task, and with a clear deadline in mind: inauguration. "How much of it do you think may be actually spent by January 20 or so?" Corker asked Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old former banker in charge of the bailout.
When European colonialists realized that they had no choice but to hand over power to the indigenous citizens, they would often turn their attention to stripping the local treasury of its gold and grabbing valuable livestock. If they were really nasty, like the Portuguese in Mozambique in the mid-1970s, they poured concrete down the elevator shafts.
The Bush gang prefers bureaucratic instruments: "distressed asset" auctions and the "equity purchase program." But make no mistake: the goal is the same as it was for the defeated Portuguese -- a final frantic looting of the public wealth before they hand over the keys to the safe.
Link to con.
The Triumph of Ignorance
Why morons succeed in US politics.
By George Monbiot
How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind’s closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist?(1)
Like most people on this side of the Atlantic I have spent my adult life mystified by American politics. The US has the world’s best universities and attracts the world’s finest minds. It dominates discoveries in science and medicine. Its wealth and power depend on the application of knowledge. Yet, uniquely among the developed nations (with the possible exception of Australia), learning is a grave political disadvantage.
There have been exceptions over the past century: Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy and Clinton tempered their intellectualism with the common touch and survived; but Adlai Stevenson, Al Gore and John Kerry were successfully tarred by their opponents as members of a cerebral elite (as if this were not a qualification for the presidency). Perhaps the defining moment in the collapse of intelligent politics was Ronald Reagan’s response to Jimmy Carter during the 1980 presidential debate. Carter - stumbling a little, using long words - carefully enumerated the benefits of national health insurance. Reagan smiled and said “there you go again”(2). His own health programme would have appalled most Americans, had he explained it as carefully as Carter had done, but he had found a formula for avoiding tough political issues and making his opponents look like wonks.
Link to con.
Why morons succeed in US politics.
By George Monbiot
How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind’s closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist?(1)
Like most people on this side of the Atlantic I have spent my adult life mystified by American politics. The US has the world’s best universities and attracts the world’s finest minds. It dominates discoveries in science and medicine. Its wealth and power depend on the application of knowledge. Yet, uniquely among the developed nations (with the possible exception of Australia), learning is a grave political disadvantage.
There have been exceptions over the past century: Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy and Clinton tempered their intellectualism with the common touch and survived; but Adlai Stevenson, Al Gore and John Kerry were successfully tarred by their opponents as members of a cerebral elite (as if this were not a qualification for the presidency). Perhaps the defining moment in the collapse of intelligent politics was Ronald Reagan’s response to Jimmy Carter during the 1980 presidential debate. Carter - stumbling a little, using long words - carefully enumerated the benefits of national health insurance. Reagan smiled and said “there you go again”(2). His own health programme would have appalled most Americans, had he explained it as carefully as Carter had done, but he had found a formula for avoiding tough political issues and making his opponents look like wonks.
Link to con.
GM sugar beet: Trick or treat?
Sugar from GM sugar beets will soon be unlabeled and widespread
Posted by Lisa J. Bunin
The scariest thing next Halloween might not be the monsters, zombies or witches trolling our streets -- it might be the candy. Those colorful, tin-foil-wrapped Hershey's kisses and dark chocolate pumpkins could contain sugar extracted and processed from the roots of genetically modified sugar beets.
Sugar in Halloween candy comes from several sources, including sugar beets. But this year, farmers are planting Monsanto's Roundup-Ready GM sugar beets for sale to food producers for the first time. This beet is genetically engineered to survive multiple, direct applications of the weed killer, Roundup, and its active ingredient, glyphosate. What's particularly appalling about the approval of this GM sugar beet is that at the time of its approval, Monsanto convinced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to increase the glyphosate residues allowed on sugar beetroots by an astounding 5,000 percent. This opens up the possibility for excessive pesticide spraying on GM sugar beets. Now that's scary news for our precious ghosts and goblins!
So how would you know if the treats you bought contained GM sugar? The short answer: You wouldn't. That's because sugar from GM beets like all other GM foods would not be labeled.
Link to con.
Sugar from GM sugar beets will soon be unlabeled and widespread
Posted by Lisa J. Bunin
The scariest thing next Halloween might not be the monsters, zombies or witches trolling our streets -- it might be the candy. Those colorful, tin-foil-wrapped Hershey's kisses and dark chocolate pumpkins could contain sugar extracted and processed from the roots of genetically modified sugar beets.
Sugar in Halloween candy comes from several sources, including sugar beets. But this year, farmers are planting Monsanto's Roundup-Ready GM sugar beets for sale to food producers for the first time. This beet is genetically engineered to survive multiple, direct applications of the weed killer, Roundup, and its active ingredient, glyphosate. What's particularly appalling about the approval of this GM sugar beet is that at the time of its approval, Monsanto convinced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to increase the glyphosate residues allowed on sugar beetroots by an astounding 5,000 percent. This opens up the possibility for excessive pesticide spraying on GM sugar beets. Now that's scary news for our precious ghosts and goblins!
So how would you know if the treats you bought contained GM sugar? The short answer: You wouldn't. That's because sugar from GM beets like all other GM foods would not be labeled.
Link to con.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Adventures in Bottomfeeding: Bill Ayers and the Pinochet Rationale
by Pamela Troy
As I’ve observed, every now and then I like to put on my scuba suit and mask, strap on a hefty supply of oxygen, and dive down, down, down into the depths of the right-wing blogosphere – Free Republic, Little Green Footballs, the comments sections of various wing-nut blogs, etc. Sometimes I’ll encounter a truly appalling argument, and, after a couple of tentative pokes with my trident, carry it back up to the surface to show everybody.
“Ewwwwwwww!” I’ll exclaim. “Look what I found!”
The problem is, a few years or even a few months later, I’ll be out in the sunlight, the wind in my hair, enjoying a good healthy sail over the surface of the American media, when suddenly my rudder will hit something. I’ll stop, investigate and discover that the one-eyed, slimy, tentacled, half rotten fishy smelling monster I’d grossed everybody out with in the past is now doing backstrokes in broad daylight across the offline media and being seriously discussed by Sean Hannity or Lou Dobbs or even Wolf Blitzer.
My latest foray into the depths has brought up a truly funny and grotesque specimen, once again via the wonderful people at Sadlyno. It seems that Bob Owens, AKA Confederate Yankee, conducted an interview with “Weathermen insider/FBI informant Larry Grathwohl” now posted on Pajamasmedia as “Eyewitness to the Ayers Revolution,” in which reference is made to the following excerpt from a 1982 documentary (which seems to be listed nowhere on IMDB) No Place to Hide:
Link to con.
by Pamela Troy
As I’ve observed, every now and then I like to put on my scuba suit and mask, strap on a hefty supply of oxygen, and dive down, down, down into the depths of the right-wing blogosphere – Free Republic, Little Green Footballs, the comments sections of various wing-nut blogs, etc. Sometimes I’ll encounter a truly appalling argument, and, after a couple of tentative pokes with my trident, carry it back up to the surface to show everybody.
“Ewwwwwwww!” I’ll exclaim. “Look what I found!”
The problem is, a few years or even a few months later, I’ll be out in the sunlight, the wind in my hair, enjoying a good healthy sail over the surface of the American media, when suddenly my rudder will hit something. I’ll stop, investigate and discover that the one-eyed, slimy, tentacled, half rotten fishy smelling monster I’d grossed everybody out with in the past is now doing backstrokes in broad daylight across the offline media and being seriously discussed by Sean Hannity or Lou Dobbs or even Wolf Blitzer.
My latest foray into the depths has brought up a truly funny and grotesque specimen, once again via the wonderful people at Sadlyno. It seems that Bob Owens, AKA Confederate Yankee, conducted an interview with “Weathermen insider/FBI informant Larry Grathwohl” now posted on Pajamasmedia as “Eyewitness to the Ayers Revolution,” in which reference is made to the following excerpt from a 1982 documentary (which seems to be listed nowhere on IMDB) No Place to Hide:
Link to con.
A soccer team gives hope to refugees in Italy
The émigrés, many of whom fled persecution in their own lands, form the country’s first professional team made up entirely of refugees.
By Lorenzo Tondo
Karim, an Afghan with a powerful kick, passes the soccer ball to Mamadi, who is streaking up the sidelines. Mamadi, from Guinea, dribbles left and then deftly lunges toward the goal, where his Iraqi teammate, Akar, shadows him, waiting for a pass. Awote, a talented midfielder from Sudan, races up from behind. Mamadi feints left. He boots the ball – and scores.
This game, underway on an ashy patch of earth on the edge of Rome, sounds like it could be part of a United Nations soccer league. But it is actually being played by a single team – the Liberi Nantes Football Club, Italy’s first professional soccer team made up entirely of refugees.
To get here, many of these players braved harrowing journeys. Most fled persecution in their homelands. All have escaped either prison, war, or poverty.
Mamadi, Akar, and Karim are not their real names. These players will never end up with their pictures on trading cards. Authorities in their countries believe they are dead – and if they knew the truth, it would put their families at home in danger.
Link to con.
The émigrés, many of whom fled persecution in their own lands, form the country’s first professional team made up entirely of refugees.
By Lorenzo Tondo
Karim, an Afghan with a powerful kick, passes the soccer ball to Mamadi, who is streaking up the sidelines. Mamadi, from Guinea, dribbles left and then deftly lunges toward the goal, where his Iraqi teammate, Akar, shadows him, waiting for a pass. Awote, a talented midfielder from Sudan, races up from behind. Mamadi feints left. He boots the ball – and scores.
This game, underway on an ashy patch of earth on the edge of Rome, sounds like it could be part of a United Nations soccer league. But it is actually being played by a single team – the Liberi Nantes Football Club, Italy’s first professional soccer team made up entirely of refugees.
To get here, many of these players braved harrowing journeys. Most fled persecution in their homelands. All have escaped either prison, war, or poverty.
Mamadi, Akar, and Karim are not their real names. These players will never end up with their pictures on trading cards. Authorities in their countries believe they are dead – and if they knew the truth, it would put their families at home in danger.
Link to con.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The End of the American Road
The New Neo-Con Reality
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
--Bush White House aide explaining the New Reality
The New American Century lasted a decade. Financial crisis and defeated objectives in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Georgia brought the neoconservative project for American world hegemony crashing to a close in the autumn of 2008.
The neocons used September 11, 2001, as a “new Pearl Harbor” to give power precedence over law domestically and internationally. The executive branch no longer had to obey federal statutes, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or honor international treaties, such as the Geneva Conventions. An asserted “terrorist threat” to national security became the cloak which hid US imperial interests as the Bush Regime set about dismantling US civil liberties and the existing order of international law constructed by previous governments during the post-war era.
Perhaps the neoconservative project for world hegemony would have lasted a bit longer had the neocons possessed intellectual competence.
On the war front, the incompetent neocons predicted that the Iraq war would be a six-week cakewalk, whose $70 billion cost would be paid out of Iraqi oil revenues. President Bush fired White House economist Larry Lindsey for estimating that the war would cost $200 billion. The current estimate by experts is that the Iraq war has cost American taxpayers between two and three trillion dollars. And the six-week war is now the six-year war.
Link to con.
The New Neo-Con Reality
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
--Bush White House aide explaining the New Reality
The New American Century lasted a decade. Financial crisis and defeated objectives in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Georgia brought the neoconservative project for American world hegemony crashing to a close in the autumn of 2008.
The neocons used September 11, 2001, as a “new Pearl Harbor” to give power precedence over law domestically and internationally. The executive branch no longer had to obey federal statutes, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or honor international treaties, such as the Geneva Conventions. An asserted “terrorist threat” to national security became the cloak which hid US imperial interests as the Bush Regime set about dismantling US civil liberties and the existing order of international law constructed by previous governments during the post-war era.
Perhaps the neoconservative project for world hegemony would have lasted a bit longer had the neocons possessed intellectual competence.
On the war front, the incompetent neocons predicted that the Iraq war would be a six-week cakewalk, whose $70 billion cost would be paid out of Iraqi oil revenues. President Bush fired White House economist Larry Lindsey for estimating that the war would cost $200 billion. The current estimate by experts is that the Iraq war has cost American taxpayers between two and three trillion dollars. And the six-week war is now the six-year war.
Link to con.
On the Demonization of Redistribution of Wealth
Author: J Crowley
It’s strange to me how so many Americans get so easily lured into this trap, along the campaign trail, of caring so much about how much money about three percent of the population makes that they lose sight of the importance of the quality of their own lives.
First, let’s address the subject in question, and then we’ll get to the obsession with “redistribution of wealth” as some kind of ideological profanity.
There’s something very wrong with the fact that Person A is paid maybe $12,000 a year to successfully flip hamburgers while Person B is paid $58,500,000 a year (at least for the first year) to unsuccessfully run AIG, to the point of nearly destroying the American economy. I’m sure we can all agree about the problem with paying executives large amounts regardless of performance. Where our paths may diverge, however, if you subscribe to laissez-faire and trickle-down economics, is that I see something tremendously wrong with Person B receiving 4,875 times the yearly income of Person A regardless of whether they’re not running the business into the ground.
No one could credibly argue that Person B is doing 4,875 times the work as Person A. Granted, it’s more stressful a job in certain ways, and one’s decisions regarding the direction of a company will have much greater an impact than deciding how much salt to put on the fries when you take them out of the deep fryer, but the difference certainly isn’t enough to warrant that much of a pay disparity. Surely those decision-making skills aren’t equivalent to the mind power of thousands of people.
Link to con.
Author: J Crowley
It’s strange to me how so many Americans get so easily lured into this trap, along the campaign trail, of caring so much about how much money about three percent of the population makes that they lose sight of the importance of the quality of their own lives.
First, let’s address the subject in question, and then we’ll get to the obsession with “redistribution of wealth” as some kind of ideological profanity.
There’s something very wrong with the fact that Person A is paid maybe $12,000 a year to successfully flip hamburgers while Person B is paid $58,500,000 a year (at least for the first year) to unsuccessfully run AIG, to the point of nearly destroying the American economy. I’m sure we can all agree about the problem with paying executives large amounts regardless of performance. Where our paths may diverge, however, if you subscribe to laissez-faire and trickle-down economics, is that I see something tremendously wrong with Person B receiving 4,875 times the yearly income of Person A regardless of whether they’re not running the business into the ground.
No one could credibly argue that Person B is doing 4,875 times the work as Person A. Granted, it’s more stressful a job in certain ways, and one’s decisions regarding the direction of a company will have much greater an impact than deciding how much salt to put on the fries when you take them out of the deep fryer, but the difference certainly isn’t enough to warrant that much of a pay disparity. Surely those decision-making skills aren’t equivalent to the mind power of thousands of people.
Link to con.
Bio Lab in Galveston Raises Concerns
By JAMES C. McKINLEY JR, NY Times
Much of the University of Texas medical school on this island suffered flood damage during Hurricane Ike, except for one gleaming new building, a national biological defense laboratory that will soon house some of the most deadly diseases in the world. How a laboratory where scientists plan to study viruses like Ebola and Marburg ended up on a barrier island where hurricanes regularly wreak havoc puzzles some environmentalists and community leaders.
“It’s crazy, in my mind,” said Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer in Houston. “I just find an amazing willingness among the people on the Texas coast to accept risks that a lot of people in the country would not accept.”
Officials at the laboratory and at the National Institutes of Health, which along with the university is helping to pay for the $174 million building, say it can withstand any storm the Atlantic hurls at it.
Built atop concrete pylons driven 120 feet into the ground, the seven-floor laboratory was designed to stand up to 140-mile-an-hour winds. Its backup generators and high-security laboratories are 30 feet above sea level.
Link to con.
By JAMES C. McKINLEY JR, NY Times
Much of the University of Texas medical school on this island suffered flood damage during Hurricane Ike, except for one gleaming new building, a national biological defense laboratory that will soon house some of the most deadly diseases in the world. How a laboratory where scientists plan to study viruses like Ebola and Marburg ended up on a barrier island where hurricanes regularly wreak havoc puzzles some environmentalists and community leaders.
“It’s crazy, in my mind,” said Jim Blackburn, an environmental lawyer in Houston. “I just find an amazing willingness among the people on the Texas coast to accept risks that a lot of people in the country would not accept.”
Officials at the laboratory and at the National Institutes of Health, which along with the university is helping to pay for the $174 million building, say it can withstand any storm the Atlantic hurls at it.
Built atop concrete pylons driven 120 feet into the ground, the seven-floor laboratory was designed to stand up to 140-mile-an-hour winds. Its backup generators and high-security laboratories are 30 feet above sea level.
Link to con.
(Check out the table!)
Obama's Tax Plan Could Cost Oprah $25 Million
by Julian Sancton
We’ve all heard the simple versions of the candidates’ tax plans: Obama will be cutting taxes for 95 percent of working Americans, and McCain will be slicing them across the board. But now that this election is turning out to be more about the economy than ever, stupid, we decided to find out what this will mean for all segments of society, not just Joe the Plumber.
The results may surprise you. The average plumber (based on statistics from the Tax Policy Center) can expect to pay $752 less in taxes under Obama than he would under McCain. Meanwhile, we now understand why Bill O’Reilly has been working so hard to defeat the Democrat: he stands to lose $940,000 a year. But what about Oprah Winfrey? The pro-Obama überhost could pay $25 million more if her candidate wins than she would if he lost.
Link to con.
Obama's Tax Plan Could Cost Oprah $25 Million
by Julian Sancton
We’ve all heard the simple versions of the candidates’ tax plans: Obama will be cutting taxes for 95 percent of working Americans, and McCain will be slicing them across the board. But now that this election is turning out to be more about the economy than ever, stupid, we decided to find out what this will mean for all segments of society, not just Joe the Plumber.
The results may surprise you. The average plumber (based on statistics from the Tax Policy Center) can expect to pay $752 less in taxes under Obama than he would under McCain. Meanwhile, we now understand why Bill O’Reilly has been working so hard to defeat the Democrat: he stands to lose $940,000 a year. But what about Oprah Winfrey? The pro-Obama überhost could pay $25 million more if her candidate wins than she would if he lost.
Link to con.
The End of International Law?
posted by Robert Dreyfuss
A parallel new Bush doctrine is emerging, in the last days of the soon-to-be-ancien regime, and it needs to be strangled in its crib. Like the original Bush doctrine -- the one that Sarah Palin couldn't name, which called for preventive military action against emerging threats -- this one also casts international law aside by insisting that the United States has an inherent right to cross international borders in "hot pursuit" of anyone it doesn't like.
They're already applying it to Pakistan, and this week Syria was the target. Is Iran next?
Let's take Pakistan first. Though a nominal ally, Pakistan has been the subject of at least nineteen aerial attacks by CIA-controlled drone aircraft, killing scores of Pakistanis and some Afghans in tribal areas controlled by pro-Taliban forces. The New York Times listed, and mapped, all nineteen such attacks in a recent piece describing Predator attacks across the Afghan border, all since August. The Times notes that inside the government, the U.S.Special Operations command and other advocates are pushing for a more aggressive use of such units, including efforts to kidnap and interrogate suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. Though President Bush signed an order in July allowing U.S. commando teams to move into Pakistan itself, with or without Islamabad's permission, such raids have occurred only once, on September 3.
The U.S. raid into Syria on October 26 similarly trampled on Syria's sovereignty without so much as a fare-thee-well. Though the Pentagon initially denied that the raid involved helicopters and on-the-ground commando presence, that's exactly what happened. The attack reportedly killed Badran Turki Hishan al-Mazidih, an Iraqi facilitator who smuggled foreign fighters into Iraq through Syria. The Washington Post was ecstatic, writing in an editorial:
Link to con.
posted by Robert Dreyfuss
A parallel new Bush doctrine is emerging, in the last days of the soon-to-be-ancien regime, and it needs to be strangled in its crib. Like the original Bush doctrine -- the one that Sarah Palin couldn't name, which called for preventive military action against emerging threats -- this one also casts international law aside by insisting that the United States has an inherent right to cross international borders in "hot pursuit" of anyone it doesn't like.
They're already applying it to Pakistan, and this week Syria was the target. Is Iran next?
Let's take Pakistan first. Though a nominal ally, Pakistan has been the subject of at least nineteen aerial attacks by CIA-controlled drone aircraft, killing scores of Pakistanis and some Afghans in tribal areas controlled by pro-Taliban forces. The New York Times listed, and mapped, all nineteen such attacks in a recent piece describing Predator attacks across the Afghan border, all since August. The Times notes that inside the government, the U.S.Special Operations command and other advocates are pushing for a more aggressive use of such units, including efforts to kidnap and interrogate suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. Though President Bush signed an order in July allowing U.S. commando teams to move into Pakistan itself, with or without Islamabad's permission, such raids have occurred only once, on September 3.
The U.S. raid into Syria on October 26 similarly trampled on Syria's sovereignty without so much as a fare-thee-well. Though the Pentagon initially denied that the raid involved helicopters and on-the-ground commando presence, that's exactly what happened. The attack reportedly killed Badran Turki Hishan al-Mazidih, an Iraqi facilitator who smuggled foreign fighters into Iraq through Syria. The Washington Post was ecstatic, writing in an editorial:
Link to con.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Populism Arising—but Will It Be the Killer Kind?
By Chris Hedges
The old assumptions and paradigms about capitalism and free markets are dead. A new, virulent populism, still inchoate, is slowly and painfully rising to take their place. This populism will determine the future of the country. It is as likely to be right-wing as left-wing.
I watched these competing populism's flicker Thursday night at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., when I moderated a debate between independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin. The two candidates come from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Nader, in essence, is a democratic socialist in the mold of Eugene Debs or Norman Thomas. Baldwin, a founder and minister at the Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., is an evangelical, right-wing populist.
The Story of Bob the Rancher
Is Ranching Sustainable?
By GEORGE WUERTHNER
I hear often from livestock proponents that ranching is an economically sustainable use of western rangelands. Unfortunately many interested in conservation also believe this myth, and it has unfortunate public policy implications. As University of Montana economist Tom Power has noted, most people have a rear view mirror of their local and regional economies. They almost never know what is happening in the present and their ability to predict the future is even less accurate.
Ranching is doomed in the West by rising land values. Ranching, like all agriculture, persists on marginal land—lands that can’t provide a higher monetary return doing something else—usually real estate development. When land prices rise to the point that one cannot reasonably be expected to return sufficient profit to pay a mortgage on such property running cows, growing wheat or whatever, it signals the end of that industry—even though it may take a long time for the industry to completely disappear from the regional landscape. It is this long lingering death that fools people into believing ranching is sustainable.
With regards to ranching in the West, land values have already marginalized the industry. Few are buying ranches in the West to raise cows, or at least to make a profit raising cows. Today’s ranch purchaser is usually an amenity buyer who is more interested in seeing elk and catching trout than returning a profit from a livestock operation. For instance one recent study of ranching in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem found that most new ranch owners had earned their fortunes in other business endeavors. The ranch was a vacation home—a trophy to signal success—rather than a viable livestock operation. In many cases, if a cattle operation persists, it’s a tax write off rather than a source of income. Traditional ranching in the West is on life support and dying.
Link to con.
Is Ranching Sustainable?
By GEORGE WUERTHNER
I hear often from livestock proponents that ranching is an economically sustainable use of western rangelands. Unfortunately many interested in conservation also believe this myth, and it has unfortunate public policy implications. As University of Montana economist Tom Power has noted, most people have a rear view mirror of their local and regional economies. They almost never know what is happening in the present and their ability to predict the future is even less accurate.
Ranching is doomed in the West by rising land values. Ranching, like all agriculture, persists on marginal land—lands that can’t provide a higher monetary return doing something else—usually real estate development. When land prices rise to the point that one cannot reasonably be expected to return sufficient profit to pay a mortgage on such property running cows, growing wheat or whatever, it signals the end of that industry—even though it may take a long time for the industry to completely disappear from the regional landscape. It is this long lingering death that fools people into believing ranching is sustainable.
With regards to ranching in the West, land values have already marginalized the industry. Few are buying ranches in the West to raise cows, or at least to make a profit raising cows. Today’s ranch purchaser is usually an amenity buyer who is more interested in seeing elk and catching trout than returning a profit from a livestock operation. For instance one recent study of ranching in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem found that most new ranch owners had earned their fortunes in other business endeavors. The ranch was a vacation home—a trophy to signal success—rather than a viable livestock operation. In many cases, if a cattle operation persists, it’s a tax write off rather than a source of income. Traditional ranching in the West is on life support and dying.
Link to con.
Change, or more of the same?
From Pravda. Ru
In a recent article for the Miami Herald, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts discussed two “still-classified” government memos that not only revealed how the United States government, under George W. Bush, authorized and engaged in the use of torture, but also how Bush himself blatantly lied to the American people about this reality.
The memos, written in 2003 and 2004, were designed to alleviate the concerns of then-CIA director George Tenet that agents might be criminally prosecuted for torturing “high value” terrorism suspects. Yet two years later, George W. Bush was telling the American people, “The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values. I have not authorized it-and I will not authorize it.”
Pitts made two other compelling points in this article. The first was that the corporate-controlled media largely ignored the revelations in these memos, a development that, while disturbing, is certainly not surprising given the plethora of so-called “news” channels that favor sensationalism and superficiality over substance.
Link to con.
From Pravda. Ru
In a recent article for the Miami Herald, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts discussed two “still-classified” government memos that not only revealed how the United States government, under George W. Bush, authorized and engaged in the use of torture, but also how Bush himself blatantly lied to the American people about this reality.
The memos, written in 2003 and 2004, were designed to alleviate the concerns of then-CIA director George Tenet that agents might be criminally prosecuted for torturing “high value” terrorism suspects. Yet two years later, George W. Bush was telling the American people, “The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values. I have not authorized it-and I will not authorize it.”
Pitts made two other compelling points in this article. The first was that the corporate-controlled media largely ignored the revelations in these memos, a development that, while disturbing, is certainly not surprising given the plethora of so-called “news” channels that favor sensationalism and superficiality over substance.
Link to con.
US Raid in Syria: A Tactic to Provoke Iran?
by max blunt
The Syrian incursion is an exemplar of the strongest possibility, one that is built into our occupation of Iraq. As we've said from the beginning here at Antiwar.com, the war cannot be contained within the borders of Iraq. It is bound to spill over – providing a convenient pretext to expand and escalate the conflict, and draw in Iran.
Despite all the blustering and threats delivered by Israeli and American government officials, a direct attack on Iranian territory has always been the least likely possible avenue to a war against the mullahs. If and when it comes, the confrontation between Washington/Tel Aviv and Tehran will be sparked by an attack on an Iranian proxy.
Hezbollah has proved pretty much impervious, however, and much too strong militarily. That leaves only Syria – the weakest link in Iran's regional alliance. Just this past May, the Syrians signed a mutual defense pact with the Iranian government: any action against Syria will call Tehran's bluff.
Link to con.
by max blunt
The Syrian incursion is an exemplar of the strongest possibility, one that is built into our occupation of Iraq. As we've said from the beginning here at Antiwar.com, the war cannot be contained within the borders of Iraq. It is bound to spill over – providing a convenient pretext to expand and escalate the conflict, and draw in Iran.
Despite all the blustering and threats delivered by Israeli and American government officials, a direct attack on Iranian territory has always been the least likely possible avenue to a war against the mullahs. If and when it comes, the confrontation between Washington/Tel Aviv and Tehran will be sparked by an attack on an Iranian proxy.
Hezbollah has proved pretty much impervious, however, and much too strong militarily. That leaves only Syria – the weakest link in Iran's regional alliance. Just this past May, the Syrians signed a mutual defense pact with the Iranian government: any action against Syria will call Tehran's bluff.
Link to con.
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Widening Gyre
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY Times
Economic data rarely inspire poetic thoughts. But as I was contemplating the latest set of numbers, I realized that I had William Butler Yeats running through my head: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”
The widening gyre, in this case, would be the feedback loops (so much for poetry) causing the financial crisis to spin ever further out of control. The hapless falconer would, I guess, be Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary.
And the gyre continues to widen in new and scary ways. Even as Mr. Paulson and his counterparts in other countries moved to rescue the banks, fresh disasters mounted on other fronts.
Some of these disasters were more or less anticipated. Economists have wondered for some time why hedge funds weren’t suffering more amid the financial carnage. They need wonder no longer: investors are pulling their money out of these funds, forcing fund managers to raise cash with fire sales of stocks and other assets.
The really shocking thing, however, is the way the crisis is spreading to emerging markets — countries like Russia, Korea and Brazil.
Link to con.
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY Times
Economic data rarely inspire poetic thoughts. But as I was contemplating the latest set of numbers, I realized that I had William Butler Yeats running through my head: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”
The widening gyre, in this case, would be the feedback loops (so much for poetry) causing the financial crisis to spin ever further out of control. The hapless falconer would, I guess, be Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary.
And the gyre continues to widen in new and scary ways. Even as Mr. Paulson and his counterparts in other countries moved to rescue the banks, fresh disasters mounted on other fronts.
Some of these disasters were more or less anticipated. Economists have wondered for some time why hedge funds weren’t suffering more amid the financial carnage. They need wonder no longer: investors are pulling their money out of these funds, forcing fund managers to raise cash with fire sales of stocks and other assets.
The really shocking thing, however, is the way the crisis is spreading to emerging markets — countries like Russia, Korea and Brazil.
Link to con.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Block the Vote
Will the GOP's campaign to deter new voters and discard Democratic ballots determine the next president?
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. & GREG PALAST
These days, the old west rail hub of Las Vegas, New Mexico, is little more than a dusty economic dead zone amid a boneyard of bare mesas. In national elections, the town overwhelmingly votes Democratic: More than 80 percent of all residents are Hispanic, and one in four lives below the poverty line. On February 5th, the day of the Super Tuesday caucus, a school-bus driver named Paul Maez arrived at his local polling station to cast his ballot. To his surprise, Maez found that his name had vanished from the list of registered voters, thanks to a statewide effort to deter fraudulent voting. For Maez, the shock was especially acute: He is the supervisor of elections in Las Vegas.
Maez was not alone in being denied his right to vote. On Super Tuesday, one in nine Democrats who tried to cast ballots in New Mexico found their names missing from the registration lists. The numbers were even higher in precincts like Las Vegas, where nearly 20 percent of the county's voters were absent from the rolls. With their status in limbo, the voters were forced to cast "provisional" ballots, which can be reviewed and discarded by election officials without explanation. On Super Tuesday, more than half of all provisional ballots cast were thrown out statewide.
This November, what happened to Maez will happen to hundreds of thousands of voters across the country. In state after state, Republican operatives — the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics — are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats. If this year's race is as close as the past two elections, the GOP's nationwide campaign could be large enough to determine the presidency in November. "I don't think the Democrats get it," says John Boyd, a voting-rights attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for impeding access to the ballot. "All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states."
Link to con.
Will the GOP's campaign to deter new voters and discard Democratic ballots determine the next president?
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. & GREG PALAST
These days, the old west rail hub of Las Vegas, New Mexico, is little more than a dusty economic dead zone amid a boneyard of bare mesas. In national elections, the town overwhelmingly votes Democratic: More than 80 percent of all residents are Hispanic, and one in four lives below the poverty line. On February 5th, the day of the Super Tuesday caucus, a school-bus driver named Paul Maez arrived at his local polling station to cast his ballot. To his surprise, Maez found that his name had vanished from the list of registered voters, thanks to a statewide effort to deter fraudulent voting. For Maez, the shock was especially acute: He is the supervisor of elections in Las Vegas.
Maez was not alone in being denied his right to vote. On Super Tuesday, one in nine Democrats who tried to cast ballots in New Mexico found their names missing from the registration lists. The numbers were even higher in precincts like Las Vegas, where nearly 20 percent of the county's voters were absent from the rolls. With their status in limbo, the voters were forced to cast "provisional" ballots, which can be reviewed and discarded by election officials without explanation. On Super Tuesday, more than half of all provisional ballots cast were thrown out statewide.
This November, what happened to Maez will happen to hundreds of thousands of voters across the country. In state after state, Republican operatives — the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics — are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats. If this year's race is as close as the past two elections, the GOP's nationwide campaign could be large enough to determine the presidency in November. "I don't think the Democrats get it," says John Boyd, a voting-rights attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for impeding access to the ballot. "All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states."
Link to con.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Organic farming 'could feed Africa'
Traditional practices increase yield by 128 per cent in east Africa, says UN
By Daniel Howden in Nairobi
Organic farming offers Africa the best chance of breaking the cycle of poverty and malnutrition it has been locked in for decades, according to a major study from the United Nations to be presented today.
New evidence suggests that organic practices – derided by some as a Western lifestyle fad – are delivering sharp increases in yields, improvements in the soil and a boost in the income of Africa's small farmers who remain among the poorest people on earth. The head of the UN's Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, said the report "indicates that the potential contribution of organic farming to feeding the world maybe far higher than many had supposed".
The "green revolution" in agriculture in the 1960s – when the production of food caught and surpassed the needs of the global population for the first time – largely bypassed Africa. Whereas each person today has 25 per cent more food on average than they did in 1960, in Africa they have 10 per cent less.
A combination of increasing population, decreasing rainfall and soil fertility and a surge in food prices has left Africa uniquely vulnerable to famine. Climate change is expected to make a bad situation worse by increasing the frequency of droughts and floods.
Link to con.
Traditional practices increase yield by 128 per cent in east Africa, says UN
By Daniel Howden in Nairobi
Organic farming offers Africa the best chance of breaking the cycle of poverty and malnutrition it has been locked in for decades, according to a major study from the United Nations to be presented today.
New evidence suggests that organic practices – derided by some as a Western lifestyle fad – are delivering sharp increases in yields, improvements in the soil and a boost in the income of Africa's small farmers who remain among the poorest people on earth. The head of the UN's Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, said the report "indicates that the potential contribution of organic farming to feeding the world maybe far higher than many had supposed".
The "green revolution" in agriculture in the 1960s – when the production of food caught and surpassed the needs of the global population for the first time – largely bypassed Africa. Whereas each person today has 25 per cent more food on average than they did in 1960, in Africa they have 10 per cent less.
A combination of increasing population, decreasing rainfall and soil fertility and a surge in food prices has left Africa uniquely vulnerable to famine. Climate change is expected to make a bad situation worse by increasing the frequency of droughts and floods.
Link to con.
Harper’s Index
Estimated value of U.S. economic growth lost due to the global credit crisis : $2,000,000,000,000 (see page 35)
Portion of U.S. subprime mortgage buyers since 2003 who might have qualified for a prime mortgage : 3/5
Number of times that speakers at the Republican National Convention said the word “economy” : 31
Number of times they referred to President Bush by name : 1
Minimum number of reporters who traveled to Wasilla, Alaska, in the two weeks following Sarah Palin’s selection as VP : 90
Estimated number of votes that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement swung to Barack Obama’s primary campaign : 1,015,559
Amount that corporate donors to both conventions have spent lobbying Congress since 2005 : $1,316,151,129
Minimum amount the U.S. government has paid contractors in the Middle East since 2003 : $8,200,000,000
Total value of federal small-business contracts obtained by Blackwater between 2005 and 2007 : $110,000,000
Percentage of former terrorist groups worldwide that stopped operating because of military force used against them : 7
Percentage that stopped because they had achieved their stated goals : 10
Percentage of Afghans who say they would support a coalition government that included the Taliban : 54
Chances that an Israeli Arab says he or she would rather live in Israel than anywhere else : 3 in 4
Average number of religions practiced in each world nation : 32
Estimated number in Papua New Guinea, which has the most : 648
Percentage of U.S. doctors who think God has the power to cure a fatally injured patient : 20
Chance that a U.S. conservative today believes church leaders should be involved in politics : 1 in 2
Chances in 2004 : 7 in 10
Percentage of Americans in 2006 who were “not at all” confident that President Bush had won reelection “fair and square” : 32
Minimum number of Brazilians running for political office this year under the name “Obama” : 5
Date on which the U.S. must leave its only South American military installation, by order of Ecuador, its host : 11/12/09
Date on which Playgirl magazine will become an online-only publication : 11/18/08
Amount that Paris Hilton’s parents have donated to John McCain’s campaign : $4,600
Amount the co-founder of the gay dating website Manhunt has : $2,300
Number of registered users on AshleyMadison.com, a site for people who “want to explore the new infidelity” : 2,540,000
Number of scenes of or references to sex between a married couple shown during an average week of NBC programming : 1
Number showing or referencing adultery or sex with minors, respectively : 1, 1
Chances that a U.S. woman who gives birth is unmarried at the time : 2 in 5
Minimum number of children in the United States who have at least one parent in the country illegally : 5,100,000
Average number of new federal crimes that Congress creates each year : 56
Chance that a 411 call in the United States is handled by a federal prisoner : 1 in 136
Number of marijuana plants found under cultivation inside Miami’s Mall of the Americas in August : 360
Average number of hours per week that an American and a Chinese person, respectively, spend shopping : 4, 10
Number of the 77 applications to protest during the Beijing Olympics this summer that were denied : 1
Number that were withdrawn by the petitioners or suspended for incorrect paperwork : 76
Number of South Koreans pardoned by the country’s president on August 15 : 341,864
Total votes cast online last fall to decide which Thanksgiving turkeys President Bush should pardon : 27,726
Margin by which U.S. dog owners favor John McCain over Barack Obama : 43–34
Margin by which Americans would rather watch football with Obama than with McCain : 50–47
Number of free tattoos of Obama’s face given out so far by a body artist in Moore, Oklahoma : 300
Estimated value of U.S. economic growth lost due to the global credit crisis : $2,000,000,000,000 (see page 35)
Portion of U.S. subprime mortgage buyers since 2003 who might have qualified for a prime mortgage : 3/5
Number of times that speakers at the Republican National Convention said the word “economy” : 31
Number of times they referred to President Bush by name : 1
Minimum number of reporters who traveled to Wasilla, Alaska, in the two weeks following Sarah Palin’s selection as VP : 90
Estimated number of votes that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement swung to Barack Obama’s primary campaign : 1,015,559
Amount that corporate donors to both conventions have spent lobbying Congress since 2005 : $1,316,151,129
Minimum amount the U.S. government has paid contractors in the Middle East since 2003 : $8,200,000,000
Total value of federal small-business contracts obtained by Blackwater between 2005 and 2007 : $110,000,000
Percentage of former terrorist groups worldwide that stopped operating because of military force used against them : 7
Percentage that stopped because they had achieved their stated goals : 10
Percentage of Afghans who say they would support a coalition government that included the Taliban : 54
Chances that an Israeli Arab says he or she would rather live in Israel than anywhere else : 3 in 4
Average number of religions practiced in each world nation : 32
Estimated number in Papua New Guinea, which has the most : 648
Percentage of U.S. doctors who think God has the power to cure a fatally injured patient : 20
Chance that a U.S. conservative today believes church leaders should be involved in politics : 1 in 2
Chances in 2004 : 7 in 10
Percentage of Americans in 2006 who were “not at all” confident that President Bush had won reelection “fair and square” : 32
Minimum number of Brazilians running for political office this year under the name “Obama” : 5
Date on which the U.S. must leave its only South American military installation, by order of Ecuador, its host : 11/12/09
Date on which Playgirl magazine will become an online-only publication : 11/18/08
Amount that Paris Hilton’s parents have donated to John McCain’s campaign : $4,600
Amount the co-founder of the gay dating website Manhunt has : $2,300
Number of registered users on AshleyMadison.com, a site for people who “want to explore the new infidelity” : 2,540,000
Number of scenes of or references to sex between a married couple shown during an average week of NBC programming : 1
Number showing or referencing adultery or sex with minors, respectively : 1, 1
Chances that a U.S. woman who gives birth is unmarried at the time : 2 in 5
Minimum number of children in the United States who have at least one parent in the country illegally : 5,100,000
Average number of new federal crimes that Congress creates each year : 56
Chance that a 411 call in the United States is handled by a federal prisoner : 1 in 136
Number of marijuana plants found under cultivation inside Miami’s Mall of the Americas in August : 360
Average number of hours per week that an American and a Chinese person, respectively, spend shopping : 4, 10
Number of the 77 applications to protest during the Beijing Olympics this summer that were denied : 1
Number that were withdrawn by the petitioners or suspended for incorrect paperwork : 76
Number of South Koreans pardoned by the country’s president on August 15 : 341,864
Total votes cast online last fall to decide which Thanksgiving turkeys President Bush should pardon : 27,726
Margin by which U.S. dog owners favor John McCain over Barack Obama : 43–34
Margin by which Americans would rather watch football with Obama than with McCain : 50–47
Number of free tattoos of Obama’s face given out so far by a body artist in Moore, Oklahoma : 300
The Idiots Who Rule America
By Chris Hedges
Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. That it is still in power, and will remain in power after this election, is a testament to our inability to separate illusion from reality. We still believe in “the experts.” They still believe in themselves. They are clustered like flies swarming around John McCain and Barack Obama. It is only when these elites are exposed as incompetent parasites and dethroned that we will have any hope of restoring social, economic and political order.
“Their inability to see the human as anything more than interest driven made it impossible for them to imagine an actively organized pool of disinterest called the public good,” said the Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul, whose books “The Unconscious Civilization” and “Voltaire’s Bastards” excoriates our oligarchic elites. “It is as if the Industrial Revolution had caused a severe mental trauma, one that still reaches out and extinguishes the memory of certain people. For them, modern history begins from a big explosion—the Industrial Revolution. This is a standard ideological approach: a star crosses the sky, a meteor explodes, and history begins anew.”
Our elites—the ones in Congress, the ones on Wall Street and the ones being produced at prestigious universities and business schools—do not have the capacity to fix our financial mess. Indeed, they will make it worse. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of the common good. They are stunted, timid and uncreative bureaucrats who are trained to carry out systems management. They see only piecemeal solutions which will satisfy the corporate structure. They are about numbers, profits and personal advancement. They are as able to deny gravely ill people medical coverage to increase company profits as they are able to use taxpayer dollars to peddle costly weapons systems to blood-soaked dictatorships. The human consequences never figure into their balance sheets. The democratic system, they think, is a secondary product of the free market. And they slavishly serve the market.
Link to con.
By Chris Hedges
Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. That it is still in power, and will remain in power after this election, is a testament to our inability to separate illusion from reality. We still believe in “the experts.” They still believe in themselves. They are clustered like flies swarming around John McCain and Barack Obama. It is only when these elites are exposed as incompetent parasites and dethroned that we will have any hope of restoring social, economic and political order.
“Their inability to see the human as anything more than interest driven made it impossible for them to imagine an actively organized pool of disinterest called the public good,” said the Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul, whose books “The Unconscious Civilization” and “Voltaire’s Bastards” excoriates our oligarchic elites. “It is as if the Industrial Revolution had caused a severe mental trauma, one that still reaches out and extinguishes the memory of certain people. For them, modern history begins from a big explosion—the Industrial Revolution. This is a standard ideological approach: a star crosses the sky, a meteor explodes, and history begins anew.”
Our elites—the ones in Congress, the ones on Wall Street and the ones being produced at prestigious universities and business schools—do not have the capacity to fix our financial mess. Indeed, they will make it worse. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of the common good. They are stunted, timid and uncreative bureaucrats who are trained to carry out systems management. They see only piecemeal solutions which will satisfy the corporate structure. They are about numbers, profits and personal advancement. They are as able to deny gravely ill people medical coverage to increase company profits as they are able to use taxpayer dollars to peddle costly weapons systems to blood-soaked dictatorships. The human consequences never figure into their balance sheets. The democratic system, they think, is a secondary product of the free market. And they slavishly serve the market.
Link to con.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Is Dennis Kucinich the only person in Congress asking about Wall Street's $70 billion bonus pool?
Chris in Paris
You have got to be kidding. Where's Waxman? Where's Schumer? Where's Dodd? I like all of them but really, quit sitting on the sidelines here and show some leadership. I can't think of any industry out there who needed $700 billion (and lots more) from taxpayers and still handed out billions in bonuses. Sorry folks, but Wall Street failed and there's only coal in the stocking this year. Wall Street more than made up for this in recent years by cashing in on trash so to ask American taxpayers (and now European) to fund Wall Street's lifestyle even more is asking for too much.
We all know that the $250 billion for Wall Street banks is only a down payment. C'mon, Europe alone is putting up closer to $3 trillion and it's obvious that if we weren't in the middle of an election, we would not have this drip, drip, drip and would have seen a similar number. It's coming, that much is certain. Only yesterday Bernanke went public with a request for more Wall Street help. It's un-patriotic for Wall Street to squeeze American taxpayers like this and the day we reward so handsomely for failure is the day we ought to just scrap the entire system and start over. How pathetic.
Link
Chris in Paris
You have got to be kidding. Where's Waxman? Where's Schumer? Where's Dodd? I like all of them but really, quit sitting on the sidelines here and show some leadership. I can't think of any industry out there who needed $700 billion (and lots more) from taxpayers and still handed out billions in bonuses. Sorry folks, but Wall Street failed and there's only coal in the stocking this year. Wall Street more than made up for this in recent years by cashing in on trash so to ask American taxpayers (and now European) to fund Wall Street's lifestyle even more is asking for too much.
We all know that the $250 billion for Wall Street banks is only a down payment. C'mon, Europe alone is putting up closer to $3 trillion and it's obvious that if we weren't in the middle of an election, we would not have this drip, drip, drip and would have seen a similar number. It's coming, that much is certain. Only yesterday Bernanke went public with a request for more Wall Street help. It's un-patriotic for Wall Street to squeeze American taxpayers like this and the day we reward so handsomely for failure is the day we ought to just scrap the entire system and start over. How pathetic.
Link
Monday, October 20, 2008
A Trip to America's Most Toxic Place
Inside Hanford
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
The outback of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in eastern Washington State is called the T-Farm. It’s a rolling expanse of high desert sloping toward the last untamed reaches of the Columbia River. The “T” stands for tanks—huge single-hulled containers buried some fifty feet beneath basalt volcanic rock and sand holding, the lethal detritus of Hanford’s fifty-year run as the nation’s H-bomb factory.
Those tanks had an expected lifespan of thirty-five years; the radioactive gumbo inside them has a half-life of 250,000 years. Dozens of those tanks have now started to corrode and leak, releasing the most toxic material on earth—plutonium and uranium-contaminated sludge and liquid—on an inexorable path toward the Columbia River, the world’s most productive salmon fishery and the source of irrigation water for the farms and orchards of the Inland Empire, centered on Spokane in eastern Washington.
Internal documents from the Department of Energy and various private contractors working at Hanford reveal that at least one million gallons of radioactive sludge have already leaked out of at least sixty-seven different tanks. Those tanks and others continue to leak and, according to these sources, the leaks are getting much larger.
One internal report shows the results from a borehole drilled into the ground between two of Hanford’s largest tanks. Using gamma spectrometry, geologists detected a fifty-fold increase in contamination between 1996 and 2002. The leak from those tanks, and perhaps an underground pipeline, was described as “insignificant” a decade ago. Six years later that radioactive dribble had swelled up into a “continuous plume” of highly radioactive Cesium-137.
Link to con.
Inside Hanford
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
The outback of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in eastern Washington State is called the T-Farm. It’s a rolling expanse of high desert sloping toward the last untamed reaches of the Columbia River. The “T” stands for tanks—huge single-hulled containers buried some fifty feet beneath basalt volcanic rock and sand holding, the lethal detritus of Hanford’s fifty-year run as the nation’s H-bomb factory.
Those tanks had an expected lifespan of thirty-five years; the radioactive gumbo inside them has a half-life of 250,000 years. Dozens of those tanks have now started to corrode and leak, releasing the most toxic material on earth—plutonium and uranium-contaminated sludge and liquid—on an inexorable path toward the Columbia River, the world’s most productive salmon fishery and the source of irrigation water for the farms and orchards of the Inland Empire, centered on Spokane in eastern Washington.
Internal documents from the Department of Energy and various private contractors working at Hanford reveal that at least one million gallons of radioactive sludge have already leaked out of at least sixty-seven different tanks. Those tanks and others continue to leak and, according to these sources, the leaks are getting much larger.
One internal report shows the results from a borehole drilled into the ground between two of Hanford’s largest tanks. Using gamma spectrometry, geologists detected a fifty-fold increase in contamination between 1996 and 2002. The leak from those tanks, and perhaps an underground pipeline, was described as “insignificant” a decade ago. Six years later that radioactive dribble had swelled up into a “continuous plume” of highly radioactive Cesium-137.
Link to con.
Powell's Finest Moment
What is remarkable to me about Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama on Meet the Press was its sincerity and the form of its reasoning. He addressed issues, not personalities. He engaged in analysis, not demonization. After the Rove years of Goebbels-like propaganda, guilt by association, and innuendo, Powell's appearance brought fresh air into the nation's living rooms the way flinging the windows open in March for spring cleaning does.
Powell brings a great deal of credibility to this discussion. He gave money to the McCain campaign last year and is a lifelong Republican. Although he had a very bad experience with the Bush administration, there is no reason to think that experience would color his view of McCain (who was also badly used by Bush).
Powell presents his argument as a series of reasoned conclusions:
1. There were questions about Obama's mettle-- his experience and his judgment. What we have seen of him in this long and difficult political campaign has laid those questions to rest.
2. The two candidates' reaction to the financial crisis tells in Obama's favor. McCain behaved erratically and inconsistently, giving the impression that he did not know what exactly to do and perhaps that he did not even grasp the nature of the problems.
3. McCain's choice of Palin showed a lack of judgment. She clearly is not ready to be president, which is the only real job a vice president has. Since McCain picked her, that is a demerit for his campaign.
Link to con.
What is remarkable to me about Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama on Meet the Press was its sincerity and the form of its reasoning. He addressed issues, not personalities. He engaged in analysis, not demonization. After the Rove years of Goebbels-like propaganda, guilt by association, and innuendo, Powell's appearance brought fresh air into the nation's living rooms the way flinging the windows open in March for spring cleaning does.
Powell brings a great deal of credibility to this discussion. He gave money to the McCain campaign last year and is a lifelong Republican. Although he had a very bad experience with the Bush administration, there is no reason to think that experience would color his view of McCain (who was also badly used by Bush).
Powell presents his argument as a series of reasoned conclusions:
1. There were questions about Obama's mettle-- his experience and his judgment. What we have seen of him in this long and difficult political campaign has laid those questions to rest.
2. The two candidates' reaction to the financial crisis tells in Obama's favor. McCain behaved erratically and inconsistently, giving the impression that he did not know what exactly to do and perhaps that he did not even grasp the nature of the problems.
3. McCain's choice of Palin showed a lack of judgment. She clearly is not ready to be president, which is the only real job a vice president has. Since McCain picked her, that is a demerit for his campaign.
Link to con.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Dirty tricks designed to mislead Texas voters have been spreading across the state, and many Obama supporters are getting incorrect information about the voting process.
Bogus claims about voting machines are spreading via email chains -- and in one reported case, even broadcast on a Houston radio station -- that could have a huge impact on voter turn out on Election Day.
Here is the truth that every Texan should know: If you vote a straight Democratic Ticket you will cast your ballot for Barack.
But Texans are not alone -- voters in key neighboring battleground states like New Mexico, Colorado, and Missouri are receiving deceitful automated phone messages and mailers from the McCain campaign spreading vile lies about Barack Obama.
We can't let dirty tricks and bad information sway this election. We need Texans to step up and spread the truth to other voters -- not just here at home, but also in our neighboring states.
Will you stand up for the truth and make a short weekend trip to a key battleground state?
No one is certain who's behind this latest attempt to influence the election and scare Obama supporters away from the polls on November 4th. But the intent is clear: to steal votes away from Barack and other great Democratic candidates up and down the ticket.
We can be sure that shameless tactics like these will intensify over the next 16 days.
That's why your help is crucial to making sure that every voter knows the truth about Barack Obama and the change we need in this country.
Forward this email to your friends and family in Texas, then sign up to spread the truth to other voters:
http://tx.barackobama.com/DriveForChange
There is so much at stake in this election. Together, we can make sure that everyone casts their vote for change on November 4th.
Bogus claims about voting machines are spreading via email chains -- and in one reported case, even broadcast on a Houston radio station -- that could have a huge impact on voter turn out on Election Day.
Here is the truth that every Texan should know: If you vote a straight Democratic Ticket you will cast your ballot for Barack.
But Texans are not alone -- voters in key neighboring battleground states like New Mexico, Colorado, and Missouri are receiving deceitful automated phone messages and mailers from the McCain campaign spreading vile lies about Barack Obama.
We can't let dirty tricks and bad information sway this election. We need Texans to step up and spread the truth to other voters -- not just here at home, but also in our neighboring states.
Will you stand up for the truth and make a short weekend trip to a key battleground state?
No one is certain who's behind this latest attempt to influence the election and scare Obama supporters away from the polls on November 4th. But the intent is clear: to steal votes away from Barack and other great Democratic candidates up and down the ticket.
We can be sure that shameless tactics like these will intensify over the next 16 days.
That's why your help is crucial to making sure that every voter knows the truth about Barack Obama and the change we need in this country.
Forward this email to your friends and family in Texas, then sign up to spread the truth to other voters:
http://tx.barackobama.com/DriveForChange
There is so much at stake in this election. Together, we can make sure that everyone casts their vote for change on November 4th.
Friday, October 17, 2008
When Greed is Rewarded
Government of Thieves
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Just as the Bush regime’s wars have been used to pour billions of dollars into the pockets of its military-security donor base, the Paulson bailout looks like a Bush regime scheme to incur $700 billion in new public debt in order to transfer the money into the coffers of its financial donor base. The US taxpayers will be left with the interest payments in perpetuity (or inflation if the Fed monetizes the debt), and the number of Wall Street billionaires will grow. As for the US and European governments’ purchases of bank shares, that is just a cover for funneling public money into private hands.
The explanations that have been given for the crisis and its bailout are opaque. The US Treasury estimates that as few as 7% of the mortgages are bad. Why then do the US, UK, Germany, and France need to pour more than $2.1 trillion of public money into private financial institutions?
If, as the government tells us, the crisis stems from subprime mortgage defaults reducing the interest payments to the holders of mortgage backed securities, thus driving down their values and threatening the solvency of the institutions that hold them, why isn’t the bailout money used to address the problem at its source? If the bailout money was used to refinance troubled mortgages and to pay off foreclosed mortgages, the mortgage backed securities would be made whole, and it would be unnecessary to pour huge sums of public money into banks. Instead, the bailout money is being used to inject capital into financial institutions and to purchase from them troubled financial instruments.
Link to con.
Government of Thieves
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Just as the Bush regime’s wars have been used to pour billions of dollars into the pockets of its military-security donor base, the Paulson bailout looks like a Bush regime scheme to incur $700 billion in new public debt in order to transfer the money into the coffers of its financial donor base. The US taxpayers will be left with the interest payments in perpetuity (or inflation if the Fed monetizes the debt), and the number of Wall Street billionaires will grow. As for the US and European governments’ purchases of bank shares, that is just a cover for funneling public money into private hands.
The explanations that have been given for the crisis and its bailout are opaque. The US Treasury estimates that as few as 7% of the mortgages are bad. Why then do the US, UK, Germany, and France need to pour more than $2.1 trillion of public money into private financial institutions?
If, as the government tells us, the crisis stems from subprime mortgage defaults reducing the interest payments to the holders of mortgage backed securities, thus driving down their values and threatening the solvency of the institutions that hold them, why isn’t the bailout money used to address the problem at its source? If the bailout money was used to refinance troubled mortgages and to pay off foreclosed mortgages, the mortgage backed securities would be made whole, and it would be unnecessary to pour huge sums of public money into banks. Instead, the bailout money is being used to inject capital into financial institutions and to purchase from them troubled financial instruments.
Link to con.
The Charmed LIves of the Crony Capitalists
How the Banksters are Making a Killing Off the Bailout
By PAM MARTENS
In 1897, when 8-year old Virginia O’Hanlon posed her Santa Claus query to the New York Sun, she received a heart-warming editorial response reassuring her that “He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist….”
Today, we hand our 8 year olds a $13 trillion national debt while our Congress hands Wall Street banksters the national purse without so much as a hearing to determine the cause of the debt collapse. Worse still, the money is doled out to the very same individuals who leveraged their institutions to casino status.
Americans are correctly outraged at the spectacle of U.S. crony capitalism crashing stock and bond markets around the globe while simultaneously watching the poster boys of crony capitalism on Monday, October 13, 2008 march up the granite steps of the United States Treasury building in their Armani shoes and heist a fresh $125 Billion of taxpayer dough in broad daylight.
The U.S. Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson’s, $700 billion bailout plan to buy up distressed mortgage assets has spun off its own $250 billion subsidiary plan (skipping that pesky detail called taxation with representation) to inject $125 billion in equity capital into 9 of the biggest commercial and investment banks in the country. Another $125 billion may possibly go to smaller regional banks and thrifts, assuming they will sign on to the deal.
Link to con.
How the Banksters are Making a Killing Off the Bailout
By PAM MARTENS
In 1897, when 8-year old Virginia O’Hanlon posed her Santa Claus query to the New York Sun, she received a heart-warming editorial response reassuring her that “He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist….”
Today, we hand our 8 year olds a $13 trillion national debt while our Congress hands Wall Street banksters the national purse without so much as a hearing to determine the cause of the debt collapse. Worse still, the money is doled out to the very same individuals who leveraged their institutions to casino status.
Americans are correctly outraged at the spectacle of U.S. crony capitalism crashing stock and bond markets around the globe while simultaneously watching the poster boys of crony capitalism on Monday, October 13, 2008 march up the granite steps of the United States Treasury building in their Armani shoes and heist a fresh $125 Billion of taxpayer dough in broad daylight.
The U.S. Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson’s, $700 billion bailout plan to buy up distressed mortgage assets has spun off its own $250 billion subsidiary plan (skipping that pesky detail called taxation with representation) to inject $125 billion in equity capital into 9 of the biggest commercial and investment banks in the country. Another $125 billion may possibly go to smaller regional banks and thrifts, assuming they will sign on to the deal.
Link to con.
Let’s Get Fiscal
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY Times
The Dow is surging! No, it’s plunging! No, it’s surging! No, it’s ...
Nevermind. While the manic-depressive stock market is dominating the headlines, the more important story is the grim news coming in about the real economy. It’s now clear that rescuing the banks is just the beginning: the nonfinancial economy is also in desperate need of help.
And to provide that help, we’re going to have to put some prejudices aside. It’s politically fashionable to rant against government spending and demand fiscal responsibility. But right now, increased government spending is just what the doctor ordered, and concerns about the budget deficit should be put on hold.
Before I get there, let’s talk about the economic situation.
Just this week, we learned that retail sales have fallen off a cliff, and so has industrial production. Unemployment claims are at steep-recession levels, and the Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index is falling at the fastest pace in almost 20 years. All signs point to an economic slump that will be nasty, brutish — and long.
Link to con.
By PAUL KRUGMAN, NY Times
The Dow is surging! No, it’s plunging! No, it’s surging! No, it’s ...
Nevermind. While the manic-depressive stock market is dominating the headlines, the more important story is the grim news coming in about the real economy. It’s now clear that rescuing the banks is just the beginning: the nonfinancial economy is also in desperate need of help.
And to provide that help, we’re going to have to put some prejudices aside. It’s politically fashionable to rant against government spending and demand fiscal responsibility. But right now, increased government spending is just what the doctor ordered, and concerns about the budget deficit should be put on hold.
Before I get there, let’s talk about the economic situation.
Just this week, we learned that retail sales have fallen off a cliff, and so has industrial production. Unemployment claims are at steep-recession levels, and the Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index is falling at the fastest pace in almost 20 years. All signs point to an economic slump that will be nasty, brutish — and long.
Link to con.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Great Reagan Pyramid Scheme Comes Crashing Down
The Republican Party that Nixon invented melded the moneyed classes of the Northeast with the white evangelicals of the South. This odd couple went on to simultaneously steal from and oppress the rest of us. The moneyed classes were happy to let the New Puritans impose their stringent morality, since they could always just buy any licentiousness they wanted, regardless of the law. And the New Puritans were so consumed with cultural issues such as homosexuality, abortion, school prayer and (yes) fighting school desegregation that they were happy to let the northeastern Money Men waltz off with a lion's share of the country's resources, consigning most Americans to stagnant wages and increasing debt. The Reagan revolution consolidated this alliance and brought some conservative Catholic workers into it.
These domestic policies at home were complemented by wars and belligerence abroad, which further took the eye of the public off the epochal bank robbery being conducted by the American neo-Medicis, and which were a useful way of throwing billions in government tax revenue to the military-industrial complex, which in turn funded the think tanks and reelection campaigns of the right wing politicians. The Reagan fascination with private armies and funding anti-communist death squads contributed mightily to the creation of al-Qaeda, blowback from which fuelled even bigger Pentagon budgets, spiralling upward and feeding on itself. Terrorism is much better than Communism as a bogey man, since you can just intimate that there are a handful of dangerous people out there somewhere, and force the public to pay over $1 trillion to combat them. In fact, of course, less US interventionism abroad would create less blowback, and genuine threats are better addressed through good police work by multilingual FBI agents than by a $700 billion Pentagon budget.
Link to con.
The Republican Party that Nixon invented melded the moneyed classes of the Northeast with the white evangelicals of the South. This odd couple went on to simultaneously steal from and oppress the rest of us. The moneyed classes were happy to let the New Puritans impose their stringent morality, since they could always just buy any licentiousness they wanted, regardless of the law. And the New Puritans were so consumed with cultural issues such as homosexuality, abortion, school prayer and (yes) fighting school desegregation that they were happy to let the northeastern Money Men waltz off with a lion's share of the country's resources, consigning most Americans to stagnant wages and increasing debt. The Reagan revolution consolidated this alliance and brought some conservative Catholic workers into it.
These domestic policies at home were complemented by wars and belligerence abroad, which further took the eye of the public off the epochal bank robbery being conducted by the American neo-Medicis, and which were a useful way of throwing billions in government tax revenue to the military-industrial complex, which in turn funded the think tanks and reelection campaigns of the right wing politicians. The Reagan fascination with private armies and funding anti-communist death squads contributed mightily to the creation of al-Qaeda, blowback from which fuelled even bigger Pentagon budgets, spiralling upward and feeding on itself. Terrorism is much better than Communism as a bogey man, since you can just intimate that there are a handful of dangerous people out there somewhere, and force the public to pay over $1 trillion to combat them. In fact, of course, less US interventionism abroad would create less blowback, and genuine threats are better addressed through good police work by multilingual FBI agents than by a $700 billion Pentagon budget.
Link to con.
With Goat, a Rancher Breaks Away From the Herd
By KIM SEVERSON, NY Times
BILL NIMAN is not the rancher he once was. Last year Mr. Niman walked away from the meat company he started in the 1970s with not much more than a handful of cattle and a political philosophy built on self-sufficiency.
Niman Ranch, which takes in annual sales of $85 million, was founded on the notion that the better an animal is treated, the better the meat will be. His beef was so good that in the early 1980s Alice Waters made it the first proper-noun meat on the menu at her Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse. His pigs, raised humanely by 600 family farms in Iowa, provide pork for the Chipotle chain’s carnitas. Niman Ranch bacon, hot dogs and sausage fill grocery cases around the country.
But Mr. Niman is no longer a part of the company. Angry and discouraged after prolonged battles with a new management team over money and animal protocols, he left in August 2007 with a modest severance check and a small amount of stock.
He can’t use his surname to sell meat, and he had to surrender the small herd of breeding cattle that lived on his ranch here, about an hour’s drive north of San Francisco. The cattle were direct descendants of the ones he tended back in the days of counterculture, not profit margin.
Link to con.
By KIM SEVERSON, NY Times
BILL NIMAN is not the rancher he once was. Last year Mr. Niman walked away from the meat company he started in the 1970s with not much more than a handful of cattle and a political philosophy built on self-sufficiency.
Niman Ranch, which takes in annual sales of $85 million, was founded on the notion that the better an animal is treated, the better the meat will be. His beef was so good that in the early 1980s Alice Waters made it the first proper-noun meat on the menu at her Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse. His pigs, raised humanely by 600 family farms in Iowa, provide pork for the Chipotle chain’s carnitas. Niman Ranch bacon, hot dogs and sausage fill grocery cases around the country.
But Mr. Niman is no longer a part of the company. Angry and discouraged after prolonged battles with a new management team over money and animal protocols, he left in August 2007 with a modest severance check and a small amount of stock.
He can’t use his surname to sell meat, and he had to surrender the small herd of breeding cattle that lived on his ranch here, about an hour’s drive north of San Francisco. The cattle were direct descendants of the ones he tended back in the days of counterculture, not profit margin.
Link to con.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
As the Violence Soars, Mexico Signals It's Had Enough of America's Stupid War on Drugs
By Silja J.A. Talvi, AlterNet.
Even on his most homicidal of days, Al Pacino's character in Scarface couldn't even approach the level of drug trafficking-related brutality bleeding down Mexico's streets. It is no longer unusual for the Mexican news media to report on yet another, freshly decapitated head stuck atop a fencepost or a metal spike, or a garbage bag filled with body parts, usually with a hand-scrawled note or placard attached. That amounts to a cartel's calling card, and it's usually delivered in the form of a warning to a rival cartel, or for the Mexican authorities to stay away and stop seizing their drugs. Other times, it's just a chilling placard intended to strike terror into the hearts of the people who come across the gory scene and the text: "Ha Ha Ha." To be sure that their message is heard, cartels are known to send regular text messages to newspaper reporters, place newspaper advertisements, or to even upload their own killing videos (sometimes accompanied by narco-corridos as background music) to YouTube.
Mexican drug cartels are, rather effectively, fighting the government's War on Drugs with their own War of Terror, often swelling their ranks (and combat/terror tactics) with former members of law enforcement. The Zetas, for instance, are members of former Mexican counter-narcotics squads (some with U.S.-assisted training under their belts), who have become the self-proclaimed and much-feared hit men of the Gulf cartel.
Link to con.
By Silja J.A. Talvi, AlterNet.
Even on his most homicidal of days, Al Pacino's character in Scarface couldn't even approach the level of drug trafficking-related brutality bleeding down Mexico's streets. It is no longer unusual for the Mexican news media to report on yet another, freshly decapitated head stuck atop a fencepost or a metal spike, or a garbage bag filled with body parts, usually with a hand-scrawled note or placard attached. That amounts to a cartel's calling card, and it's usually delivered in the form of a warning to a rival cartel, or for the Mexican authorities to stay away and stop seizing their drugs. Other times, it's just a chilling placard intended to strike terror into the hearts of the people who come across the gory scene and the text: "Ha Ha Ha." To be sure that their message is heard, cartels are known to send regular text messages to newspaper reporters, place newspaper advertisements, or to even upload their own killing videos (sometimes accompanied by narco-corridos as background music) to YouTube.
Mexican drug cartels are, rather effectively, fighting the government's War on Drugs with their own War of Terror, often swelling their ranks (and combat/terror tactics) with former members of law enforcement. The Zetas, for instance, are members of former Mexican counter-narcotics squads (some with U.S.-assisted training under their belts), who have become the self-proclaimed and much-feared hit men of the Gulf cartel.
Link to con.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Racism, Obama and the Fall of the American Economy
The Law of the Jungle
By FIDEL CASTRO
Trade, within a society and between countries, is the exchange of goods and services produced by human beings. The owners of the means of production appropriate the profits. As a class, they are the leaders of the capitalist state and they boast of fostering development and social wellbeing through market. This they worship as an infallible God.
In every country there is competition between the strongest and the weakest; the ones with more physical energy and better fed, those who learned how to read and write, who attended school and have more experience accumulated; the ones with more extensive social relations and more resources, and those within society who fail to have these advantages.
Now, as far as the countries is concerned, there are differences between those with a better climate and more arable land, more water and more natural resources in the area where they are located, when there are no more territories to conquer; the ones mastering technology, having greater development and handling unlimited media resources and those who, on the contrary, do not enjoy any of these prerogatives. These are the sometimes enormous differences between the rich and the poor nations.
It´s the law of the jungle.
Link to con.
The Law of the Jungle
By FIDEL CASTRO
Trade, within a society and between countries, is the exchange of goods and services produced by human beings. The owners of the means of production appropriate the profits. As a class, they are the leaders of the capitalist state and they boast of fostering development and social wellbeing through market. This they worship as an infallible God.
In every country there is competition between the strongest and the weakest; the ones with more physical energy and better fed, those who learned how to read and write, who attended school and have more experience accumulated; the ones with more extensive social relations and more resources, and those within society who fail to have these advantages.
Now, as far as the countries is concerned, there are differences between those with a better climate and more arable land, more water and more natural resources in the area where they are located, when there are no more territories to conquer; the ones mastering technology, having greater development and handling unlimited media resources and those who, on the contrary, do not enjoy any of these prerogatives. These are the sometimes enormous differences between the rich and the poor nations.
It´s the law of the jungle.
Link to con.
Journalists targeted in latest Mexico drug violence
A newspaper editor, a columnist, police officers, and bar patrons are among those killed in separate acts of violence this past week.
By David Montero
As drug-related violence continues to worsen across the border in Mexico, journalists are being increasingly targeted.
Mexico's widening war with drugs has claimed more than 3,000 lives this year alone. On Sunday, assailants opened fire on the US consulate in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, reports the Associated Press. Nobody was injured in that attack, but on Saturday gunmen killed six young men at a family party in the gang-plagued Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, reports AP.
Saturday night's mass shooting was the second in the border state of Chihuahua in less than a week. Just before midnight Thursday, gunmen opened fire in a bar in the city of Chihuahua, killing 11 people. The most recent violence underscores yet another frightening dimension in the violence: the targeting of journalists, the San Antonio Express reports.
Link to con.
A newspaper editor, a columnist, police officers, and bar patrons are among those killed in separate acts of violence this past week.
By David Montero
As drug-related violence continues to worsen across the border in Mexico, journalists are being increasingly targeted.
Mexico's widening war with drugs has claimed more than 3,000 lives this year alone. On Sunday, assailants opened fire on the US consulate in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, reports the Associated Press. Nobody was injured in that attack, but on Saturday gunmen killed six young men at a family party in the gang-plagued Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, reports AP.
Saturday night's mass shooting was the second in the border state of Chihuahua in less than a week. Just before midnight Thursday, gunmen opened fire in a bar in the city of Chihuahua, killing 11 people. The most recent violence underscores yet another frightening dimension in the violence: the targeting of journalists, the San Antonio Express reports.
Link to con.
Religulous: Atheists Will Love Bill Maher's New Flick
Posted by DJK, Brave New Films
Finally, a movie for my people! That's right, I'm an atheist. In fact, I'm so much of an atheist that I don't even like the term. I think the default setting for humans is to not be religious — I might as well call myself a non-snake handler, non-scientologist, or a non-branch Davidian.
But enough about me. Religulous, directed by Borat director Larry Charles, follows Bill Maher as he travels the world questioning religious "experts" and believers about the inherent contradictions and accepted silliness that makes up the bulk of the world's "organized" religions. Maher is not an atheist — he just accepts that he does not know the answers to life's big spiritual questions, and that anyone who claims to know with absolute certainty what God or Allah wants or what happens when we die must be doubted to the utmost. Pretty hard to argue with that.
Maher has been talking about religion for his entire comedic career. At times, the movie feels a bit like watching his stand up being performed to an audience of one, whether it be a Jew for Jesus, a Muslim cleric, or an evangelical senator. Which is not a bad thing — there are big laughs in Religulous as Maher boldly challenges the many illogical, violent, farcical beliefs that form the foundation of most religions. Unlike Borat, Religulous uses a lot of stock footage and clips to punctuate its jokes, while also adding a welcome dose of infotainment. For example, who knew that the story of Jesus — with its virgin birth, 12 disciples and resurrection — is a variation of a tale that had been circulating the Middle East and the Mediterranean for decades?
Link to con.
Posted by DJK, Brave New Films
Finally, a movie for my people! That's right, I'm an atheist. In fact, I'm so much of an atheist that I don't even like the term. I think the default setting for humans is to not be religious — I might as well call myself a non-snake handler, non-scientologist, or a non-branch Davidian.
But enough about me. Religulous, directed by Borat director Larry Charles, follows Bill Maher as he travels the world questioning religious "experts" and believers about the inherent contradictions and accepted silliness that makes up the bulk of the world's "organized" religions. Maher is not an atheist — he just accepts that he does not know the answers to life's big spiritual questions, and that anyone who claims to know with absolute certainty what God or Allah wants or what happens when we die must be doubted to the utmost. Pretty hard to argue with that.
Maher has been talking about religion for his entire comedic career. At times, the movie feels a bit like watching his stand up being performed to an audience of one, whether it be a Jew for Jesus, a Muslim cleric, or an evangelical senator. Which is not a bad thing — there are big laughs in Religulous as Maher boldly challenges the many illogical, violent, farcical beliefs that form the foundation of most religions. Unlike Borat, Religulous uses a lot of stock footage and clips to punctuate its jokes, while also adding a welcome dose of infotainment. For example, who knew that the story of Jesus — with its virgin birth, 12 disciples and resurrection — is a variation of a tale that had been circulating the Middle East and the Mediterranean for decades?
Link to con.
The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama (he is not, at all, even close....just read the article)
By FRANK RICH, Ny Times
IF you think way back to the start of this marathon campaign, back when it seemed preposterous that any black man could be a serious presidential contender, then you remember the biggest fear about Barack Obama: a crazy person might take a shot at him. Some voters told reporters that they didn’t want Obama to run, let alone win, should his very presence unleash the demons who have stalked America from Lincoln to King. After consultation with Congress, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, gave Obama a Secret Service detail earlier than any presidential candidate in our history — in May 2007, some eight months before the first Democratic primaries.
“I’ve got the best protection in the world, so stop worrying,” Obama reassured his supporters. Eventually the country got conditioned to his appearing in large arenas without incident (though I confess that the first loud burst of fireworks at the end of his convention stadium speech gave me a start). In America, nothing does succeed like success. The fear receded.
Link to con.
By FRANK RICH, Ny Times
IF you think way back to the start of this marathon campaign, back when it seemed preposterous that any black man could be a serious presidential contender, then you remember the biggest fear about Barack Obama: a crazy person might take a shot at him. Some voters told reporters that they didn’t want Obama to run, let alone win, should his very presence unleash the demons who have stalked America from Lincoln to King. After consultation with Congress, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, gave Obama a Secret Service detail earlier than any presidential candidate in our history — in May 2007, some eight months before the first Democratic primaries.
“I’ve got the best protection in the world, so stop worrying,” Obama reassured his supporters. Eventually the country got conditioned to his appearing in large arenas without incident (though I confess that the first loud burst of fireworks at the end of his convention stadium speech gave me a start). In America, nothing does succeed like success. The fear receded.
Link to con.
Me, Myself & I
Hunter S. Thompson placed himself at the centre of every narrative he wrote and, along with the equally tawdry Andy Warhol, reinvented celebrity. Warhol was a starfucker who embraced the very celebrity Thompson - who was just a plain old fucker - would come to despise by the time he was outdrawing the candidates he was covering on the 1976 U.S. presidential campaign trail.
Inadvertently, Warhol and Thompson encouraged people to become so narcissistic we have gone from the 1970s Me Generation to the Me, Myself and I Generation. Today everybody wants to be famous. They just don't want to earn it. Today, armed with videocams and suffering from blog-lust, everybody's a pundit or porn star.
American culture represents a nihilistic west disappearing into a whirlpool of narcissism, sentimentality and moral emptiness. We have sold our souls for the freedom to shop and screw as and when we wish.
American Ideology: The Cult of Individualism
Bracing against the Marxist menace, America erected a powerful pantheon of ideas where the deities of Capital received frequent and fulsome tribute. Foremost among these deities was Individuality.
Link to con.
Hunter S. Thompson placed himself at the centre of every narrative he wrote and, along with the equally tawdry Andy Warhol, reinvented celebrity. Warhol was a starfucker who embraced the very celebrity Thompson - who was just a plain old fucker - would come to despise by the time he was outdrawing the candidates he was covering on the 1976 U.S. presidential campaign trail.
Inadvertently, Warhol and Thompson encouraged people to become so narcissistic we have gone from the 1970s Me Generation to the Me, Myself and I Generation. Today everybody wants to be famous. They just don't want to earn it. Today, armed with videocams and suffering from blog-lust, everybody's a pundit or porn star.
American culture represents a nihilistic west disappearing into a whirlpool of narcissism, sentimentality and moral emptiness. We have sold our souls for the freedom to shop and screw as and when we wish.
American Ideology: The Cult of Individualism
Bracing against the Marxist menace, America erected a powerful pantheon of ideas where the deities of Capital received frequent and fulsome tribute. Foremost among these deities was Individuality.
Link to con.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
The Mask Slips
By BOB HERBERT, Ny Times
The lesson for Americans suffused with anxiety and dread over the crackup of the financial markets is that the way you vote matters, that there are real-world consequences when you go into a voting booth and cast that ballot. For the nitwits who vote for the man or woman they’d most like to have over for dinner, or hang out at a barbecue with, I suggest you take a look at how well your 401(k) is doing, or how easy it will be to meet the mortgage this month, or whether the college fund you’ve been trying to build for your kids is as robust as you’d like it to be.
Voters in the George W. Bush era gave the Republican Party nearly complete control of the federal government. Now the financial markets are in turmoil, top government and corporate leaders are on the verge of panic and scholars are dusting off treatises that analyzed the causes of the Great Depression.
Mr. Bush was never viewed as a policy or intellectual heavyweight. But he seemed like a nicer guy to a lot of voters than Al Gore.
Link to con.
By BOB HERBERT, Ny Times
The lesson for Americans suffused with anxiety and dread over the crackup of the financial markets is that the way you vote matters, that there are real-world consequences when you go into a voting booth and cast that ballot. For the nitwits who vote for the man or woman they’d most like to have over for dinner, or hang out at a barbecue with, I suggest you take a look at how well your 401(k) is doing, or how easy it will be to meet the mortgage this month, or whether the college fund you’ve been trying to build for your kids is as robust as you’d like it to be.
Voters in the George W. Bush era gave the Republican Party nearly complete control of the federal government. Now the financial markets are in turmoil, top government and corporate leaders are on the verge of panic and scholars are dusting off treatises that analyzed the causes of the Great Depression.
Mr. Bush was never viewed as a policy or intellectual heavyweight. But he seemed like a nicer guy to a lot of voters than Al Gore.
Link to con.
Farmer in Chief
By MICHAEL POLLAN
It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.
Complicating matters is the fact that the price and abundance of food are not the only problems we face; if they were, you could simply follow Nixon’s example, appoint a latter-day Earl Butz as your secretary of agriculture and instruct him or her to do whatever it takes to boost production. But there are reasons to think that the old approach won’t work this time around; for one thing, it depends on cheap energy that we can no longer count on. For another, expanding production of industrial agriculture today would require you to sacrifice important values on which you did campaign. Which brings me to the deeper reason you will need not simply to address food prices but to make the reform of the entire food system one of the highest priorities of your administration: unless you do, you will not be able to make significant progress on the health care crisis, energy independence or climate change. Unlike food, these are issues you did campaign on — but as you try to address them you will quickly discover that the way we currently grow, process and eat food in America goes to the heart of all three problems and will have to change if we hope to solve them. Let me explain.
Link to con.
By MICHAEL POLLAN
It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact — so easy to overlook these past few years — that the health of a nation’s food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.
Complicating matters is the fact that the price and abundance of food are not the only problems we face; if they were, you could simply follow Nixon’s example, appoint a latter-day Earl Butz as your secretary of agriculture and instruct him or her to do whatever it takes to boost production. But there are reasons to think that the old approach won’t work this time around; for one thing, it depends on cheap energy that we can no longer count on. For another, expanding production of industrial agriculture today would require you to sacrifice important values on which you did campaign. Which brings me to the deeper reason you will need not simply to address food prices but to make the reform of the entire food system one of the highest priorities of your administration: unless you do, you will not be able to make significant progress on the health care crisis, energy independence or climate change. Unlike food, these are issues you did campaign on — but as you try to address them you will quickly discover that the way we currently grow, process and eat food in America goes to the heart of all three problems and will have to change if we hope to solve them. Let me explain.
Link to con.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Third-Party Blues
By Scott RitterRalph Nader is right: The two-party system is failing America. There isn’t time between now and Election Day to create a viable third-party candidate, and so the sad reality is one of two deeply flawed men, the byproduct of a deeply flawed political system, will serve as president for the next four or eight years. During the time before the election, both candidates will do their best to woo the American people.
Link
Charles targets GM crop giants in fiercest attack yet
In a provocative address to an Indian audience, the Prince echoes Gandhi with a stinging attack on 'commerce without morality'. Geoffrey Lean reports
It is less than two months since Prince Charles was on the receiving end of a fusillade of scientific, political and commentariat criticism for voicing, yet again, his concerns about GM crops and foods. He was widely accused of "ignorance" and "Luddism"; of being too rich to care about the hungry, and even of trying to increase sales of his own organic produce. It was put about that Gordon Brown was angered by his intervention.
Yet the Prince has responded by stepping up his campaign, making his most anti-GM speech yet, in delivering – by video – the Sir Albert Howard Memorial Lecture to the Indian pressure group Navdanya last Thursday. And he made it clear that he was going to continue. "The reason I keep sticking my 60-year-old head above an increasingly dangerous parapet is not because it is good for my health," he said " but precisely because I believe fundamentally that unless we work with nature, we will fail to restore the equilibrium we need in order to survive on this planet."
True to his word, he plunged straight into the most controversial and emotive of all the debates over GM crops and foods by highlighting the suicides of small farmers. Tens of thousands killed themselves in India after getting into debt. The suicides were occurring long before GM crops were introduced, but campaigners say that the technology has made things worse because the seeds are more expensive and have not increased yields to match.
Link to con.
In a provocative address to an Indian audience, the Prince echoes Gandhi with a stinging attack on 'commerce without morality'. Geoffrey Lean reports
It is less than two months since Prince Charles was on the receiving end of a fusillade of scientific, political and commentariat criticism for voicing, yet again, his concerns about GM crops and foods. He was widely accused of "ignorance" and "Luddism"; of being too rich to care about the hungry, and even of trying to increase sales of his own organic produce. It was put about that Gordon Brown was angered by his intervention.
Yet the Prince has responded by stepping up his campaign, making his most anti-GM speech yet, in delivering – by video – the Sir Albert Howard Memorial Lecture to the Indian pressure group Navdanya last Thursday. And he made it clear that he was going to continue. "The reason I keep sticking my 60-year-old head above an increasingly dangerous parapet is not because it is good for my health," he said " but precisely because I believe fundamentally that unless we work with nature, we will fail to restore the equilibrium we need in order to survive on this planet."
True to his word, he plunged straight into the most controversial and emotive of all the debates over GM crops and foods by highlighting the suicides of small farmers. Tens of thousands killed themselves in India after getting into debt. The suicides were occurring long before GM crops were introduced, but campaigners say that the technology has made things worse because the seeds are more expensive and have not increased yields to match.
Link to con.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Dennis Kucinich on the Democrats’ Bailout Betrayal
By Chris Hedges
The passing of the $850-billion bailout pulled the plug on the New Deal. The Great Society is now gasping for air, mortally wounded, coughing up blood. It will not recover. It was murdered by the Democratic Party.
We are on our own. And don’t expect any help from Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who lobbied hard for the bill and voted for it. Ignore their rhetoric. Look coldly at the ballots they cast against us. We, as citizens, have only a handful of representatives left in Washington, most of whom were left sputtering in rage and frustration on the House floor. The sad irony is that some of them were Republican.
“This was the largest single act of class warfare in the modern history of this country,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who led the fight in the House against the bailout, told me by phone from Cleveland. “It is a direct attack on the American people’s ability to be able to stabilize their homes and their neighborhoods. This single vote will define the careers of everyone. We are back to taxation without representation, to markets that are openly rigged.”
“We buried the New Deal,” he said of the vote. “Instead of Democrats going back to classic New Deal economics where we prime the pump of the economy and start money circulating among the population through saving homes, creating jobs and building a new infrastructure, our leaders chose to accelerate the wealth of the nation upwards. They did so in a way that was destructive of free-market principles. They ripped away all the familiar moorings. We are in an uncharted sea where the traditional roles of the political parties are being switched. The Democrats have unfortunately become so enamored and beholden to Wall Street that we are not functioning to defend the economic interest of the broad base of the American people. It was up to the Republicans to protect not just a so-called free market but the American taxpayer and attempt to block this. This is an outrage. This was democracy’s Black Friday.”
Link to con.
By Chris Hedges
The passing of the $850-billion bailout pulled the plug on the New Deal. The Great Society is now gasping for air, mortally wounded, coughing up blood. It will not recover. It was murdered by the Democratic Party.
We are on our own. And don’t expect any help from Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who lobbied hard for the bill and voted for it. Ignore their rhetoric. Look coldly at the ballots they cast against us. We, as citizens, have only a handful of representatives left in Washington, most of whom were left sputtering in rage and frustration on the House floor. The sad irony is that some of them were Republican.
“This was the largest single act of class warfare in the modern history of this country,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who led the fight in the House against the bailout, told me by phone from Cleveland. “It is a direct attack on the American people’s ability to be able to stabilize their homes and their neighborhoods. This single vote will define the careers of everyone. We are back to taxation without representation, to markets that are openly rigged.”
“We buried the New Deal,” he said of the vote. “Instead of Democrats going back to classic New Deal economics where we prime the pump of the economy and start money circulating among the population through saving homes, creating jobs and building a new infrastructure, our leaders chose to accelerate the wealth of the nation upwards. They did so in a way that was destructive of free-market principles. They ripped away all the familiar moorings. We are in an uncharted sea where the traditional roles of the political parties are being switched. The Democrats have unfortunately become so enamored and beholden to Wall Street that we are not functioning to defend the economic interest of the broad base of the American people. It was up to the Republicans to protect not just a so-called free market but the American taxpayer and attempt to block this. This is an outrage. This was democracy’s Black Friday.”
Link to con.
The Wounded Shark: ‘Good War’ Lost, But the Imperial Project Goes On
By Chris Floyd
Don’t tell Obama and McCain, but the war they are both counting on to make their bones as commander-in-chief — the “good war” in Afghanistan, which both men have pledged to expand — is already lost. Their joint strategy of pouring more troops, tanks, missiles and planes into the roaring fire — not to mention their intention to spread the war into Pakistan — will only lead to disaster.
Who says so? America’s biggest ally in the Afghan adventure: Great Britain. This week, two top figures in the British effort in Afghanistan — Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, UK ambassador to Kabul, and Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the senior British military commander in Afghanistan — both said that the war was “unwinnable,” and that continuing the current level of military operations there, much less expanding it, was a strategy “doomed to fail.”
The biggest headlines went to the comments by Cowper-Coles, whose frank assessment was quoted in a secret French diplomatic cable that was published by a muckraking French magazine last week. Cowper-Coles put it plainly:
The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust….The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution. Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis.
Link to con.
By Chris Floyd
Don’t tell Obama and McCain, but the war they are both counting on to make their bones as commander-in-chief — the “good war” in Afghanistan, which both men have pledged to expand — is already lost. Their joint strategy of pouring more troops, tanks, missiles and planes into the roaring fire — not to mention their intention to spread the war into Pakistan — will only lead to disaster.
Who says so? America’s biggest ally in the Afghan adventure: Great Britain. This week, two top figures in the British effort in Afghanistan — Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, UK ambassador to Kabul, and Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the senior British military commander in Afghanistan — both said that the war was “unwinnable,” and that continuing the current level of military operations there, much less expanding it, was a strategy “doomed to fail.”
The biggest headlines went to the comments by Cowper-Coles, whose frank assessment was quoted in a secret French diplomatic cable that was published by a muckraking French magazine last week. Cowper-Coles put it plainly:
The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust….The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution. Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis.
Link to con.
Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out "Crowd Control"
By Naomi Wolf, AlterNet.
Background: the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practiced in Iraq, subduing "unruly individuals," and the management of a national emergency. I am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman reported that an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.
George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for military to patrol the U.S. He has also legally established that in the "War on Terror," the U.S. is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus the U.S. is also a battlefield.
He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader powers in the event of a loosely defined "insurrection" or many other "conditions" he has the power to identify. The Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus -- habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held without trial -- in the event of an "insurrection." With his own army force now, his power to call a group of protesters or angry voters "insurgents" staging an "insurrection" is strengthened.
Link to con.
By Naomi Wolf, AlterNet.
Background: the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practiced in Iraq, subduing "unruly individuals," and the management of a national emergency. I am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman reported that an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.
George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for military to patrol the U.S. He has also legally established that in the "War on Terror," the U.S. is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus the U.S. is also a battlefield.
He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader powers in the event of a loosely defined "insurrection" or many other "conditions" he has the power to identify. The Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus -- habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held without trial -- in the event of an "insurrection." With his own army force now, his power to call a group of protesters or angry voters "insurgents" staging an "insurrection" is strengthened.
Link to con.
A Fool’s Paradise
By BOB HERBERT, NY Times
With less than a month left until Election Day, there is still time for the presidential candidates to focus with great intensity on what should be the most important issue of this campaign. It’s not just the economy, stupid — it’s jobs. The stock markets were rocked again on Monday, and the need to stabilize the financial system is obvious. But the U.S. economy is never going to be really healthy until the country figures out how to provide work at decent pay for all, or nearly all, of the men and women who want to work.
We’ve been living for years in a fool’s paradise atop a mountain of debt. The masters of the universe on Wall Street lost all sense of reason, no doubt. But most of us have been living above our means through the magic of easy credit, ever lower taxes, ever rising property values, stock market bubbles and the gift of denial, which we used to assure ourselves that the bills would never come due. We’ve even put our wars on a credit card.
The burden of debt for a typical middle-income family, earning about $45,000 a year, grew by a third in just the few years from 2001 to 2004, according to the Center for American Progress. The reason for this unsustainable added weight was the rising cost of such items as housing, higher education, health care and transportation at a time when wages grew only slightly or not at all.
Link to con.
By BOB HERBERT, NY Times
With less than a month left until Election Day, there is still time for the presidential candidates to focus with great intensity on what should be the most important issue of this campaign. It’s not just the economy, stupid — it’s jobs. The stock markets were rocked again on Monday, and the need to stabilize the financial system is obvious. But the U.S. economy is never going to be really healthy until the country figures out how to provide work at decent pay for all, or nearly all, of the men and women who want to work.
We’ve been living for years in a fool’s paradise atop a mountain of debt. The masters of the universe on Wall Street lost all sense of reason, no doubt. But most of us have been living above our means through the magic of easy credit, ever lower taxes, ever rising property values, stock market bubbles and the gift of denial, which we used to assure ourselves that the bills would never come due. We’ve even put our wars on a credit card.
The burden of debt for a typical middle-income family, earning about $45,000 a year, grew by a third in just the few years from 2001 to 2004, according to the Center for American Progress. The reason for this unsustainable added weight was the rising cost of such items as housing, higher education, health care and transportation at a time when wages grew only slightly or not at all.
Link to con.
(Check out the comments as well at the link to this snippet)
MCCAIN AND PALIN ARE INCITING VIOLENCE- REMEMBER YITZHAK RABIN, TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY
by Obamawitz
This is not just another scandal, or joke, or gaffe. Sarah Palin and John McCain are inciting violence, against Barack Obama and any of the millions of Americans who support his campaign. Anyone who is familiar with the recent history of Israel, and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing extremist, will recognize the pattern. We must take this seriously, and make our protest against the McCain-Palin incitement to violence heard, before it is too late.
Sarah Palin's new punchline is calling Barack Obama a ""pal of terrorists."
It is easy to laugh, and to see this as yet another example of Sarah Palin's astonishing lack of knowledge and/or conscience--and it is that. But it's no laughing matter.
The United States is engaged in a "Global War On Terror."
Our policy--as advocated by Barack Obama as well as his opponents--is to attack not only terrorists, but states or organizations who harbor and support them.
In Virginia, you can see many license plates bearing the slogan "Fight Terror."
So it's very clear what Sarah Palin means when she calls Barack Obama a friend of terrorists. She's calling him an enemy. She's calling him a target. She's calling him someone who needs to be "taken out."
Don't kid yourselves. This is direct incitement to violence against Barack Obama, and against the millions of Americans who support his campaign to be our President.
Link to con.
MCCAIN AND PALIN ARE INCITING VIOLENCE- REMEMBER YITZHAK RABIN, TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY
by Obamawitz
This is not just another scandal, or joke, or gaffe. Sarah Palin and John McCain are inciting violence, against Barack Obama and any of the millions of Americans who support his campaign. Anyone who is familiar with the recent history of Israel, and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing extremist, will recognize the pattern. We must take this seriously, and make our protest against the McCain-Palin incitement to violence heard, before it is too late.
Sarah Palin's new punchline is calling Barack Obama a ""pal of terrorists."
It is easy to laugh, and to see this as yet another example of Sarah Palin's astonishing lack of knowledge and/or conscience--and it is that. But it's no laughing matter.
The United States is engaged in a "Global War On Terror."
Our policy--as advocated by Barack Obama as well as his opponents--is to attack not only terrorists, but states or organizations who harbor and support them.
In Virginia, you can see many license plates bearing the slogan "Fight Terror."
So it's very clear what Sarah Palin means when she calls Barack Obama a friend of terrorists. She's calling him an enemy. She's calling him a target. She's calling him someone who needs to be "taken out."
Don't kid yourselves. This is direct incitement to violence against Barack Obama, and against the millions of Americans who support his campaign to be our President.
Link to con.
Palin’s Kind of Patriotism
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, NY Times
Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can’t just ignore what she has to say. And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw. It was when she turned to Biden and declared: “You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that’s not patriotic.”
What an awful statement. Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.
I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.
Link to con.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, NY Times
Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can’t just ignore what she has to say. And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw. It was when she turned to Biden and declared: “You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that’s not patriotic.”
What an awful statement. Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.
I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.
Link to con.
Monday, October 06, 2008
End of the empire – The current financial crisis signals a global shift
By: George Ochenski
America’s citizens continued their broad revolt against the proposed $700 billion taxpayer bailout of Wall Street in a mass protest rarely seen in this country. The left, the right and the middle are howling in unison and in such numbers that the congressional website was overwhelmed on Monday when the House rejected the Bush administration’s bailout bill. Another vote is planned, but regardless of its success or failure one thing seems clear: America’s future will be much different from its past—and politicians of all stripes had best be rethinking our nation’s priorities, including the economic and geopolitical realities of our far-flung empire.
Here at home, most of the news surrounding the financial panic on Wall Street is totally focused on the “crisis” demanding immediate and large-scale action. But when articles examine what the American people are telling their congressional delegations, it’s quite a different story.
Overwhelmingly, the citizens are against the bailout for all the right reasons, including that they no longer believe the boy who cried wolf. Bush’s credibility is now so low that, despite personal lobbying by both the president and vice president, more members of their own party voted against the bill in the House than did Democrats. To their credit, Montana’s Democrat Sen. Jon Tester and Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg have both said they are against the measure because of what they’re hearing from Montanans and neither wants to be rushed into approving the enormously expensive plan pushed by the financial “experts”—many of whom are blamed for getting us into this mess in the first place.
Link to con.
By: George Ochenski
America’s citizens continued their broad revolt against the proposed $700 billion taxpayer bailout of Wall Street in a mass protest rarely seen in this country. The left, the right and the middle are howling in unison and in such numbers that the congressional website was overwhelmed on Monday when the House rejected the Bush administration’s bailout bill. Another vote is planned, but regardless of its success or failure one thing seems clear: America’s future will be much different from its past—and politicians of all stripes had best be rethinking our nation’s priorities, including the economic and geopolitical realities of our far-flung empire.
Here at home, most of the news surrounding the financial panic on Wall Street is totally focused on the “crisis” demanding immediate and large-scale action. But when articles examine what the American people are telling their congressional delegations, it’s quite a different story.
Overwhelmingly, the citizens are against the bailout for all the right reasons, including that they no longer believe the boy who cried wolf. Bush’s credibility is now so low that, despite personal lobbying by both the president and vice president, more members of their own party voted against the bill in the House than did Democrats. To their credit, Montana’s Democrat Sen. Jon Tester and Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg have both said they are against the measure because of what they’re hearing from Montanans and neither wants to be rushed into approving the enormously expensive plan pushed by the financial “experts”—many of whom are blamed for getting us into this mess in the first place.
Link to con.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Bail Out the Homeowners!
Why Paulson's Plan is a Fraud
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Is the Paulson bailout itself as big a fraud as the leveraged subprime mortgages?
Yesterday, here on CounterPunch, I discussed the bailout as proposed and noted that the proposal cannot succeed if it impairs the US Treasury’s credit standing and/or the combination of mark-to-market and short-selling permits short-sellers to prosper by driving more financial institutions into bankruptcy.
A reader’s comment and an article by Yale professors Jonathan Kopell and William Goetzmann raise precisely this question of the fraudulence of the Paulson package.
As one reader put it,“We have debt at three different levels: personal household debt, financial sector debt and public debt. The first has swamped the second and now the second is being made to swamp the third. The attitude of our leaders is to do nothing about the first level of debt and to pretend that the third level of debt doesn't matter at all.”
The argument for the bailout is that the banks will be free of the troubled instruments and can resume lending and that the US Treasury will recover most of the bailout costs, because only a small percentage of the underlying mortgages are bad. Let’s examine this argument.
Link to con.
Why Paulson's Plan is a Fraud
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Is the Paulson bailout itself as big a fraud as the leveraged subprime mortgages?
Yesterday, here on CounterPunch, I discussed the bailout as proposed and noted that the proposal cannot succeed if it impairs the US Treasury’s credit standing and/or the combination of mark-to-market and short-selling permits short-sellers to prosper by driving more financial institutions into bankruptcy.
A reader’s comment and an article by Yale professors Jonathan Kopell and William Goetzmann raise precisely this question of the fraudulence of the Paulson package.
As one reader put it,“We have debt at three different levels: personal household debt, financial sector debt and public debt. The first has swamped the second and now the second is being made to swamp the third. The attitude of our leaders is to do nothing about the first level of debt and to pretend that the third level of debt doesn't matter at all.”
The argument for the bailout is that the banks will be free of the troubled instruments and can resume lending and that the US Treasury will recover most of the bailout costs, because only a small percentage of the underlying mortgages are bad. Let’s examine this argument.
Link to con.
The Bailout: How Capitalism Killed Democracy
By David Sirota, AlterNet.
The marriage of American capitalism and democracy has always been a Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee affair -- stormy and erratic since its hasty wedding. But during the debate over a Wall Street bailout this week, we watched that matrimonial knot unwind into a tangled tale of terror.
As a financial crisis became a political panic, capitalism murdered democracy (ironically, while pursuing a vaguely socialist bailout). Only, unlike a typical horror story, the dead body wasn't hidden, it was dumped in the nation's public square.
The fiasco started, like most, with unreasonable demands. Under threat of financial meltdown, capitalism's corporate lobbyists asked our democracy to forsake its usual deliberations and hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money in less than a week.
Many were surprised when democracy responded with such valiant defiance. As television screens split between the floors of the stock exchange and the House of Representatives, lawmakers initially voted with their constituents and against the bailout. That's when this husband-and-wife argument escalated into a grisly crime of passion.
Link to con.
By David Sirota, AlterNet.
The marriage of American capitalism and democracy has always been a Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee affair -- stormy and erratic since its hasty wedding. But during the debate over a Wall Street bailout this week, we watched that matrimonial knot unwind into a tangled tale of terror.
As a financial crisis became a political panic, capitalism murdered democracy (ironically, while pursuing a vaguely socialist bailout). Only, unlike a typical horror story, the dead body wasn't hidden, it was dumped in the nation's public square.
The fiasco started, like most, with unreasonable demands. Under threat of financial meltdown, capitalism's corporate lobbyists asked our democracy to forsake its usual deliberations and hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money in less than a week.
Many were surprised when democracy responded with such valiant defiance. As television screens split between the floors of the stock exchange and the House of Representatives, lawmakers initially voted with their constituents and against the bailout. That's when this husband-and-wife argument escalated into a grisly crime of passion.
Link to con.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
A shattering moment in America's fall from power
The global financial crisis will see the US falter in the same way the Soviet Union did when the Berlin Wall came down. The era of American dominance is over
Our gaze might be on the markets melting down, but the upheaval we are experiencing is more than a financial crisis, however large. Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably. The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over.
You can see it in the way America's dominion has slipped away in its own backyard, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez taunting and ridiculing the superpower with impunity. Yet the setback of America's standing at the global level is even more striking. With the nationalisation of crucial parts of the financial system, the American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated. In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed.
Ever since the end of the Cold War, successive American administrations have lectured other countries on the necessity of sound finance. Indonesia, Thailand, Argentina and several African states endured severe cuts in spending and deep recessions as the price of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which enforced the American orthodoxy. China in particular was hectored relentlessly on the weakness of its banking system. But China's success has been based on its consistent contempt for Western advice and it is not Chinese banks that are currently going bust. How symbolic yesterday that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees.
Link to con.
The global financial crisis will see the US falter in the same way the Soviet Union did when the Berlin Wall came down. The era of American dominance is over
Our gaze might be on the markets melting down, but the upheaval we are experiencing is more than a financial crisis, however large. Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably. The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over.
You can see it in the way America's dominion has slipped away in its own backyard, with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez taunting and ridiculing the superpower with impunity. Yet the setback of America's standing at the global level is even more striking. With the nationalisation of crucial parts of the financial system, the American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated. In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed.
Ever since the end of the Cold War, successive American administrations have lectured other countries on the necessity of sound finance. Indonesia, Thailand, Argentina and several African states endured severe cuts in spending and deep recessions as the price of aid from the International Monetary Fund, which enforced the American orthodoxy. China in particular was hectored relentlessly on the weakness of its banking system. But China's success has been based on its consistent contempt for Western advice and it is not Chinese banks that are currently going bust. How symbolic yesterday that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees.
Link to con.
Orwell's Inspiration ... The G.O.P.
by Jon Faulkner
The meltdown of the U.S. Financial Industry, and its subsequent bailout by Congress, is a harbinger of a future when corporate forces will control the world’s resources and use them to control populations. Never, in U.S. history, have the People’s Representatives been so brazenly disloyal to their sworn pledge to hold the people’s interests above all others.
Congressional loyalty, with its constitutional oath of office, is today a quaint reminder of a bygone age. There was a time when Congressional Representatives were honored to stand up for their districts, their neighbors. Today‘s Congress is emptying the National Treasury. Dignity, honor, the truth be damned. Congress works for the ones who pay them. The people don't have enough money to expect their representatives to care about them.
That so many Americans regard today’s congressional debate as legitimate, speaks volumes. It should never occur to the financial sector to ask for money from taxpaying, honest Americans, and if Congress is asked, it should regard such a notion as laughable, or horrifying, depending on point of view. Such are the times.
Link to con.
by Jon Faulkner
The meltdown of the U.S. Financial Industry, and its subsequent bailout by Congress, is a harbinger of a future when corporate forces will control the world’s resources and use them to control populations. Never, in U.S. history, have the People’s Representatives been so brazenly disloyal to their sworn pledge to hold the people’s interests above all others.
Congressional loyalty, with its constitutional oath of office, is today a quaint reminder of a bygone age. There was a time when Congressional Representatives were honored to stand up for their districts, their neighbors. Today‘s Congress is emptying the National Treasury. Dignity, honor, the truth be damned. Congress works for the ones who pay them. The people don't have enough money to expect their representatives to care about them.
That so many Americans regard today’s congressional debate as legitimate, speaks volumes. It should never occur to the financial sector to ask for money from taxpaying, honest Americans, and if Congress is asked, it should regard such a notion as laughable, or horrifying, depending on point of view. Such are the times.
Link to con.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Kucinich tells Maddow: Bailout plan is 'immoral'
David Edwards and Nick Juliano
Democratic House leaders were rightfully rebuked in their attempt to pass an "immoral" bailout plan that would have put Wall Street's interests above those of average Americans, said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who commended Republicans for helping torpedo the $700 billion package earlier this week.
"I believe in this idea of making sure that the great mass of people get some help. This plan is immoral," the Ohio Democrat and former presidential candidate told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. "This plan is a disgrace. It bails out people on Wall Street who have speculated and who would drive this economy into the ground unless we have some controls on them."
Kucinich, one of the most liberal House members, predicted the bailout package's demise before it went down in a dramatic vote Monday afternoon. He said the plan should take "a page out of classic New Deal economics," and focus more on helping struggling homeowners than Wall Street speculators.
"Help the many and you'll help the few," Kucinich said. "But what's happening is this bailout proposal helps the few at the expense of the many."
Link to con.
David Edwards and Nick Juliano
Democratic House leaders were rightfully rebuked in their attempt to pass an "immoral" bailout plan that would have put Wall Street's interests above those of average Americans, said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who commended Republicans for helping torpedo the $700 billion package earlier this week.
"I believe in this idea of making sure that the great mass of people get some help. This plan is immoral," the Ohio Democrat and former presidential candidate told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. "This plan is a disgrace. It bails out people on Wall Street who have speculated and who would drive this economy into the ground unless we have some controls on them."
Kucinich, one of the most liberal House members, predicted the bailout package's demise before it went down in a dramatic vote Monday afternoon. He said the plan should take "a page out of classic New Deal economics," and focus more on helping struggling homeowners than Wall Street speculators.
"Help the many and you'll help the few," Kucinich said. "But what's happening is this bailout proposal helps the few at the expense of the many."
Link to con.
Michael Moore: Congratulations, We Stopped the 'Inevitable' Bailout for the Rich
Posted by Michael Moore
Friends,
Everyone said the bill would pass. The masters of the universe were already making celebratory dinner reservations at Manhattan's finest restaurants. Personal shoppers in Dallas and Atlanta were dispatched to do the early Christmas gifting. Mad Men of Chicago and Miami were popping corks and toasting each other long before the morning latte run.
But what they didn't know was that hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up yesterday morning and decided it was time for revolt. The politicians never saw it coming. Millions of phone calls and emails hit Congress so hard it was as if Marshall Dillon, Elliot Ness and Dog the Bounty Hunter had descended on D.C. to stop the looting and arrest the thieves.
The Corporate Crime of the Century was halted by a vote of 228 to 205. It was rare and historic; no one could remember a time when a bill supported by the president and the leadership of both parties went down in defeat. That just never happens.
Link to con.
Posted by Michael Moore
Friends,
Everyone said the bill would pass. The masters of the universe were already making celebratory dinner reservations at Manhattan's finest restaurants. Personal shoppers in Dallas and Atlanta were dispatched to do the early Christmas gifting. Mad Men of Chicago and Miami were popping corks and toasting each other long before the morning latte run.
But what they didn't know was that hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up yesterday morning and decided it was time for revolt. The politicians never saw it coming. Millions of phone calls and emails hit Congress so hard it was as if Marshall Dillon, Elliot Ness and Dog the Bounty Hunter had descended on D.C. to stop the looting and arrest the thieves.
The Corporate Crime of the Century was halted by a vote of 228 to 205. It was rare and historic; no one could remember a time when a bill supported by the president and the leadership of both parties went down in defeat. That just never happens.
Link to con.
The Rich Are Staging a Coup This Morning ...a message from Michael Moore
Friends,
Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.
No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:
"Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it. "Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages. "At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees. "Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions."
Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to "consult" in the bailout.
The problem is, nobody truly knows what this "collapse" is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn't know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can't figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone.
And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Falling for whom? NOTHING in this "bailout" package will lower the price of the gas you have to put in your car to get to work. NOTHING in this bill will protect you from losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance.
Health insurance? Mike, why are you bringing this up? What's this got to do with the Wall Street collapse?
It has everything to do with it. This so-called "collapse" was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people's home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans are losing their homes? To hear the Republicans describe it, it's because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn't afford. Here's the truth: The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills. Let me state this simply: If we had had universal health coverage, this mortgage "crisis" may never have happened.
This bailout's mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It's to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It's to make sure their yachts and mansions and "way of life" go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars!
I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something -- NOW! Here's what you can do immediately:
1. Call or e-mail Senator Obama. Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they've made. Tell him we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what's the best route to take. Tell him the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street.
2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC).
3. Call your Representative in Congress and your Senators. (click here to find their phone numbers). Tell them what you told Senator Obama.
When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again!
Yours,
Michael Moore
Friends,
Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies -- who must soon vacate the White House -- are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.
No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:
"Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it. "Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages. "At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees. "Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury's proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions."
Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to "consult" in the bailout.
The problem is, nobody truly knows what this "collapse" is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn't know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can't figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone.
And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
Falling for whom? NOTHING in this "bailout" package will lower the price of the gas you have to put in your car to get to work. NOTHING in this bill will protect you from losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance.
Health insurance? Mike, why are you bringing this up? What's this got to do with the Wall Street collapse?
It has everything to do with it. This so-called "collapse" was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people's home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans are losing their homes? To hear the Republicans describe it, it's because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn't afford. Here's the truth: The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills. Let me state this simply: If we had had universal health coverage, this mortgage "crisis" may never have happened.
This bailout's mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It's to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It's to make sure their yachts and mansions and "way of life" go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars!
I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something -- NOW! Here's what you can do immediately:
1. Call or e-mail Senator Obama. Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they've made. Tell him we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what's the best route to take. Tell him the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street.
2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC).
3. Call your Representative in Congress and your Senators. (click here to find their phone numbers). Tell them what you told Senator Obama.
When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again!
Yours,
Michael Moore
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