TODAY'S TOPICS: Mumbai, Historical Revisionism, False Narratives, Daily Show, Colbert, Humboldt!, Auto Loans
IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN FALSE NARRATIVES
The Matrix’s latest false narratives regarding our two occupations go something like this:
-- Military experts agree that more troops are required to carry out an effective counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan.
--The turnaround in Iraq is the result of the so-called troop surge and the influx of new troops.
Now for a little truth (the basics being it wasn’t increased troops that changed the Iraq situation and two brigades won’t do the trick in Afghanistan either):
A sudden surge of foreign troops and cash will be unhelpful and unsustainable. It would take 20 successful years to match Pakistan’s economy, educational levels, government or judiciary — and Pakistan is still not stable. Nor, for that matter, are northeastern or northwestern India, despite that nation’s great economic and political successes.
We will not be able to eliminate the Taliban from the rural areas of Afghanistan’s south, so we will have to work with Afghans to contain the insurgency instead. All this is unpleasant for Western politicians who dream of solving the fundamental problems and getting out. They will soon be tempted to give up.
It is in our interests for Afghanistan to be more stable in part because it contributes to the stability of the region, and in particular Pakistan. Well-focused, long-term assistance in which we appear a genuine partner, not a frustrated colonial master, could help Afghans achieve this goal. We will be able to create, afford and sustain such a relationship only if we put it in a broader strategic context and limit its scope.
--Rory Stewart, who’s award winning book on Afghanistan was a New York Times bestseller
VIDEO SECTION
A Daily Show classic (I was so disgusted by their recent attempt to link MSNBC as the Fox of the left I couldn't watch it for a few days)! This on Bush’s truly painful to watch exit interviews…he’s everything we remember him as, and worse. Let the historical revisionism begin! And watch the corporate media eat it up…because they too have something to gain by this revisionism, as they were key components of the crimes perpetrated against us…and the world:
http://crooksandliars.com/silentpatriot/daily-show-president-bushs-painful-e
Some brilliant commentary and analysis from Stephen Colbert on the way in which the media simultaneously praises, yet undermines Obama and politicians in general. This is “Political Communications” 101…brings me straight back to Grad School…but a lot funnier:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/colbert-word-barack-handed-compliment
Rachel Maddow has reporter David Isikoff on to discuss the still developing (yes, it’s not dead) case against the Administration’s firing of US Attorneys (all part of a much larger election theft conspiracy). Watch the latest:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-show-isikoff-latest-ag-firin
Joan Walsh of Salon.com does a pretty damn good job of smacking down the Bush interviews and his attempt to re-write history…particularly on Iraq and the economy. Just so EVERYONE IS CLEAR, Saddam DID NOT kick out the inspectors, that's a bald faced lie that the media has accepted. Saddam allowed inspectors to go anywhere and everywhere they wanted, they found nothing, Bush told them to come back, then he invaded…saying it was because Hussein wouldn’t let them do their job. It is staggering to the mind that he still makes this claim, and the media allows it. Watch:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/hardball-joan-walsh-smacks-down-george-bus
Z’S QUICK THOUGHTS
FIGHTING HISTORICAL REVISIONISM
We must guard against historical revisionism now more than ever! I know it’s tedious to continue to debunk the same old lies, but there is no other choice. As the Bush era comes to a close, there will be a massive, concerted, and well thought out effort to re-write history, clouding what really happened during the run up to war (as in lies, more lies, criminality, illegality, mass murder, and propaganda) as well as the proceeding invasion. We can’t let there be historical doubts as to what really happened.
This means people must remember that Saddam DID allow inspectors in, intelligence was not the real reason we illegally invaded Iraq (most of it cast doubt on “the threat”), other nations DID NOT “all agree” with the US's "intelligence", “all experts” DID NOT agree Saddam had weapons, and we of course ACTUALLY invaded Iraq for reasons other than WMD's, from control of oil resources to creating a military foothold in the region to rewarding campaign contributors and the military industrial complex to keeping political control in America and on and on.
DEFINING PROGRESSIVISM RE-DEFINING CONSERVATISM
Just as we need to counter the historical revisionism we also need to put together a concerted offensive linguistic campaign to define what progressivism (or introduce it even…and create it for the first time) is, particularly by framing it within the context of this past election victory, and contrast it with what is the REAL CAUSE of our current national meltdown (in every area): the conservative policies of the past 30 years.
It will no doubt in part be up to the liberal blogosphere and some members of Congress to shift the narrative away from "bipartisanship" and centrism in order to remind the country that it was liberal and or progressive values that will save our country from Conservative ruin this time, and most definitely has saved it in the past.
Digby explains one aspect of my argument:
Progressivism needs progressive rhetoric to match policy if it wants to be around long enough to make a real impact. If Democrats make things better without making it clear that their ideology (I know that's a bad word) is superior, the country will simply continue to treat politics like entertainment and vote for whoever puts on the best show and makes them feel good about themselves at a particular time, irrespective of their policies. It would be foolish to think the Republicans will never again be able to compete in that arena. They have shown themselves to be very adept at that kind of politics.
Now, if their ideas could be so discredited that nobody wants to ever be associated with them again it wouldn't matter if they ran the reanimated Elvis, nobody would want to vote for them. But that's not going to happen if progressives believe that it doesn't matter if our politicians distance themselves from progressivism simply because it's easier than challenging the myth that the country is center-right.
This is a two party country. You can say you aren't "ideological" and that you are a pragmatist, as Obama does, but polarity is the norm. This isn't just semantics --- it matters in a very prosaic, practical way if the country identifies itself with the party that has staked out the conservative side of the line. You can see from the two different responses to presidential victories by Gergen how that plays itself out politically. There's a reason why armies wear identifiable uniforms and it's so their own fellows will recognize them.
ARTICLE SECTION
A great piece on why Mumbai is a FAR more complicated story than any of the narratives being sold to us tell us to believe it is...particularly the "it was another 9/11" frame (in fact, 9/11 we know was no 9/11!). Lakshmi Chaudhry of the TheNation.com details the many aspects to these attacks we must balance if we are to be able to formulate anything close to an accurate understanding of what happened and what it all means.
A few clips:
The most telling argument against the inside/outside classification is the reality that fighting terrorism in India -- at least the Islamic kind (Indian terrorists include Tamils, Marxist-inspired Naxalites, Hindu fundamentalists and, previously, Sikhs) -- will require an international solution. Yes, New Delhi will have to take significant steps to address the real grievances of Indian Muslims, but apart from the recent emergence of the Indian Mujahedin, they have not been the primary recruiting ground for terrorists -- contrary to what Hindu fundamentalists like to claim. Ending Islamic terrorism requires a sustainable Kashmir settlement and hence dealing with Pakistan, and therefore a stable, strong Pakistani government that is not just willing but also able to negotiate a genuine peace, which in turn requires stability and order in Afghanistan, all of which will entail a significant role for the United States. Such is the reality of our post-9/11 world.
The problem with the 9/11 litmus test is that it relies on an inside/outside distinction that is untenable in any nation with a significant Muslim population. In this age of global terror, where borders are no protection against the transfer of ideology, people or resources, the domestic/foreign distinction is becoming impossible to sustain when labeling terrorist groups. These days, we can play the Kevin Bacon game with any given Islamic jihadi group and come up with an Al Qaeda connection. Even if the so-called Deccan Muhajeddin did exist and were entirely comprised of radicalized Indian Muslims, their established Kashmir connection makes them a hop, skip and jump away from the Taliban and Al Qaeda (many of whose members fight/have fought on the Kashmir front). If, as the Indian government claims, this is the handiwork of the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba , then the ties are even closer. According to known intelligence, LeT members have embedded themselves with Taliban units in Afghanistan to gain battle experience, and an Al Qaeda lieutenant was captured in one of its camps in 2002.
http://www.alternet.org/story/109886/is_mumbai_india%27s_9_11_it%27s_not_that_simple/
PROP 8 NUMBERS
The results of the latest research on Prop 8 by the Public Policy Institute of California are unsurprising. But it once again demonstrates the point I began making within a day or two of the election: Don't buy the "blacks were primarily responsible for Prop 8's victory" bullshit!! (the argument was a fraud looking to cause controversy, nothing more).
As you will see, the REAL reason Prop 8 won (again, I am a little skeptical...hence why partial recounts of paper ballots versus electronic counts of them are necessary ALL the time, not just in elections within a .5%) wasn't because a tiny group of black voters that supported it, but rather, because overwhelming numbers of old people, uneducated people, Republicans, and Christian (or religious even) fundamentalists did. In fact, it appears the racial voting block was even less important than previously thought.
HIGHLIGHTS...
Evangelical Christians supported Proposition 8 at an 85 percent clip, while voters without a college degree (62 percent) were more likely to vote "yes" than college graduates (43 percent). Voters of No religion, 79% against it.
One notable number is that a substantially higher percentage of Republicans (77 percent) supported Proposition 8 and two in three Democrats (65%) voting no. Obama supporters (30%) were much less likely than McCain supporters (85%) to vote yes on Proposition 8.
Married voters (58%) were far more likely to vote yes than those have never been married (37%). Latinos were more likely to support Proposition 8 (61% yes) than whites (50-50); and 57 percent of Latinos, Asians, and blacks combined voted yes. (Samples sizes for Asians and blacks are too small to report separately.)
AUTO INDUSTRY BANKRUPTCY - WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU
What Republicans are conveniently neglecting to tell the public as to why they so heartily support the auto industry going into bankruptcy are the kinds of decisions a company CAN make that they otherwise couldn’t once they file.
Such as:
-- The company can tear up any existing union contract it likes. Say goodbye, UAW.
-- It can wipe out all its existing pension plans. Many on the right are using the United Airlines bankruptcy as an example of why we should do the same to the big autos, but what they neglect to mention is that how that bankruptcy totally destroyed the company's pension system.
And let’s not forget another key reason the auto industry is in trouble that the right wing would rather not admit to: health care costs (which a single payer system would COMPLETELY solve…Obama’s plan would help a little)
DETROIT'S HEALTH CARE BURDEN: The growing burden of providing health care benefits has contributed significantly to U.S. automakers' dwindling profits. Health care costs add $1,525 to the price tag of every GM vehicle. In 2007, the company paid more for health care than it did for steel. Indeed, billionaire businessman and philanthropist Warren Buffet has called GM "a health and benefits company with an auto company attached." Detroit's soaring health care costs make American automobiles less competitive because companies such as Toyota and Honda benefit from Japan's universal health care system. For example, Toyota "paid $1,400 less per vehicle on health care" and makes $2,400 more per car than American manufacturers. In fact, in June 2005, despite strong competition from U.S. states, the company chose to locate a new plant in Ontario, Canada, citing the country's national health service serving as a "big selling point." The fractured U.S. health care system inflates health care costs and expects U.S. automakers and other businesses to pick up the tab. Thus, this system not only reduces profitability, but decreases competitive advantages and drives away jobs.
ELECTION FRAUD SECTION
Three cheers for Humboldt!
Lost Votes on Diebold System Discovered by New 'Transparency Project' in CA
Humboldt County's First-of-Its-Kind Citizen Oversight Program Finds 197 Ballots Dropped, Miscounted by Voting System in One Precinct
Company Knew About Software Flaw, Failed to Notify County...
-- Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
Congratulations are in order for Humboldt County California Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich who worked with local voters to launch the first-of-its kind "Humboldt Election Transparency Project" leading to the discovery of nearly 200 ballots which had previously gone uncounted due to a flaw in the Diebold voting system used by the county.
The new program has uncovered a "glitch" that, it turns out, was previously known by Diebold even though they failed to let the county know about it in advance of the election.
Did the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) know about it and fail to let the county know as well? And what of the other states and counties which use the popular -- and unforgivably flawed -- Diebold GEMS central tabulator?...
FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6722
Friday, December 05, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
TODAY'S TOPICS: My Thoughts, Franken, "War on Terror", Moore, Latin America, Anti-War Movement, Prop 8 Musical
Z’s Quick Thoughts
FRANKEN GAINING
Before this recount began I predicted Franken would make up the ground and win the race based on what I know about under-votes, over-votes, demographics, and voting trends. This much we know, it’s going to be close!
And let me just also say, God damn I want Franken to win! Coleman is one of the sleaziest, dirtiest, and insidious characters in politics today…even being named one of the four most corrupt politicians in Congress. How cool would it be to watch this weasel get beat by a comedian?
The good news coming out of Minnesota today is that Franken may have just pulled ahead, or at least, near even with Coleman. Plus, we just learned that officials in Ramsey County "discovered" a stack of 171 ballots that were never counted in the first place…and that netted 37 votes for Al.
Another piece of great news, and when all is said in done, if some of these are counted, may be the difference, is the Canvassing Board’s decision to instruct county officials to sort through rejected absentee ballots, and identify those ballots which did not appear to have a valid reason for rejection.
As Nate Silver noted, “This is potentially (although far from certainly) a precursor to those ballots actually being counted, a process which we estimated would result in a net gain of 25 to 100 votes for Franken (the Franken campaign believes a similar number of ballots are at stake).” When all is said and done, it will come down to the thousands of challenged ballots and those absentee’s…but things look good.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
A Political Maestro
First, the good news. Obama is a political maestro, no doubt about that. Just look at the polls coming out from USA Today regarding his transition and cabinet choices:
More than three of four Americans, including a majority of Republicans, approve of the job Obama has done so far. By 69%-25%, those surveyed approve of his pick of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his former Democratic primary rival, as secretary of State.
In the poll, Americans by more than 3-1 say they trust Obama more than Bush to handle the economy. By 58%-33%, they support Obama's plan for a huge spending package to spur economic growth.
Of course, no matter how popular he is now, or becomes, what's going to positively effect the lives of human beings and this planet are the policies he pursues, not poll numbers. Of course, this kind of popularity bodes well, as it will take this kind of broad-based support to enact the kinds of policies we really need in this country.
How Will He Govern?
While clearly Obama’s cabinet choices have been right of center, I don’t think, at least if we are grading on a “curve”, he will govern right of center (though clearly not a progressive). Obviously, compared to recent Republican Presidents, and the one Democrat, he will be to their left. I only say he’ll be left of Clinton because the country has moved significantly in that direction on every major issue and he has the benefit of having a Democratic Congress.
So Obama will likely govern from what is in actuality "the center" (and let’s be realistic, we need a lot more than that to turn things around), but because of our country's drastic move to the right since the Reagan Revolution and the corporate/christian fundamentalist love child it produced (a little hyperbole won’t kill anyone), this cenrtism has been redefined by the corporate media as liberal. Ha!
War Machine Intact - The Foreign Policy Team
What still deeply concerns me however, labels aside, is that nothing in Obama’s picks leads me to believe he’s going to challenge the status quo in any significant way. He certainly doesn’t seem interested in challenging our imperialism-based foreign policy (in terms of trade and continued occupation of Afghanistan anyway). In fact, there’s not a single, solid anti-war voice in the upper echelons of the Obama foreign policy team (I probably like Susan Rice the best out of that group). In other words, the Matrix is more than protected thank you very much. And this of course is why the Washington insiders, the Agent Smiths and the Borg-like elite are gushing over Obama's picks.
While I’m glad he says he wants to be challenged by his advisers, why aren't ANY OF THEM progressives (i.e. you know, who were RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING, and support peace, human rights, and economic justice)? I just find it strange that even Obama abides by that old Washington adage "if you were wrong about everything you're promoted". Why not add some new and fresh thinking about security in the 21st century?
With all the talk about the importance of foreign policy experience, why is there so little attention paid to the quality of that experience? Rumsfeld and Cheney immediately come to mind anytime I hear someone blather about the importance of "experience".
What we need after eight catastrophic years is experience informed by good judgment. Or how about this, people that were right from the outset not after the fact (or debacle)? People that had the courage to take on the status quo, not get on their knees to please it. What about someone who believe the defense budget must be cut for our future salvation (which happens to be true)? What is gained by bringing in people who traffic in conventional wisdom and who have shown the kind of foreign policy timidity that allowed for disasters like the Iraq war?
And finally, in the case of keeping Gates (he better at least get rid of that guy after 6 mo’s or a year), Obama has worsened the Democratic image on national security – once again validating the argument that Democrats can't run the military.
The “Obama is a liberal” Myth
I’m glad to see more people are at least beginning to realize - a point I’ve made on this blog ad nausea for the past two years - that Obama is not now, nor has he ever been (at least since becoming a US Senator) a progressive or liberal. Yes, in the tiny ideological spectrum as defined by the corporate media and the right wing fascists, he is, but in the world of reality, he is not.
This is why I wasn’t going to vote for him in the primaries, and why, while disappointed in his cabinet choices, I’m not surprised. The "Obama is a hard left liberal" was nothing more than a false narrative created by the Matrix and its key players (media, GOP, etc.) because they DEPEND on moving the ideological dial to the right, and by calling “corporate moderates” “liberal” they are able to portray themselves as something other than the ACTUAL EXTREMISTS they are.
Simultaneously, true progressives are therefore marginalized, and framed as so outside the mainstream that they border on crazy (i.e. Kucinich, Saunders, Feingold, Lee, etc.). Of course, they are the ones that ARE MAINSTREAM, as they were right about every issue, and fight for the majority’s interests, not those of the wealthy minority and corporate elites.
Just so we’re clear, that bogus 2007 National Journal ranking which concluded that Obama was the most liberal Senator was a fraud. It used a deeply flawed methodology that no other ranking confirmed, and only a true knuckle dragger would swallow the notion that Obama was more liberal than Russ Feingold or Bernie Sanders! Go to any ranking systems, which I do ALL THE TIME, for years, and you’ll find Obama falls near the exact middle of the Democratic Party, and on the major issues of the day, in the middle of the country.
ECONOMY – IT’S A DEBT CRISIS MORE THAN A CREDIT ONE
I’m getting really tired of these supposed experts going on and on about how the one thing we need more of is access to credit!! Isn’t our addiction to consumption and credit (with high interest rates) one of the primary reasons we got into this mess!? And of course, this faulty logic was at the heart of the economic coup known as the Bailout Bill: throw money at banks so they’ll loan more money to us suckers so then we can go further into debt. Rinse, repeat…
It’s not the difficulty of getting credit that’s the real problem. Most consumers can barely afford to pay the interest charges on the debt they're already carrying. Our economy is on the brink of disaster because peoples’ earnings haven't kept up with the costs of the basics, like health care, education, energy, food, housing, etc. It’s not rocket science. The “recovery” that officially ended December, 2007 (the National Bureau of Economic Research now tells us) was the first on record in which median earnings declined, adjusted for inflation. Since then, many people have also lost their jobs or are working part time when they'd rather be working full time, or else know they're in danger of losing their jobs. Any economic solution must be the antithesis to the bank bailout methodology...in other words, deal with the debt of PEOPLE, particularly in their mortgages...meaning, start from the bottom and go up, not more trickle down.
END “THE WAR ON TERROR”
If the attacks in Mumbai demonstrated anything at all it is that Obama could take no smarter a step than renouncing the "war on terror." There are so many reasons for doing this its hard to know where to begin. First, terrorist attacks are not acts of war to be responded to in kind, but crimes against humanity. As crimes, they should be investigated and the perpetrators tried and prosecuted. We don’t go bomb a neighborhood where a suspected murderer might live, so why would this be our policy around the world?
We also know by making the world our battlefield and killing millions of innocent people (and torturing them) we create more terrorists than we could ever kill (whacking a hornets nest comes to mind). Think about it: since we began (I should say “announced”) the “war on terror” the number and ferocity of terrorist attacks has only increased. We have actually managed to fuel support for groups that use terrorism. That's because the "war on terror" has led millions of people to conclude that the US is an even greater threat to their safety and freedom than Al Qaeda and other violent fringe groups.
And one more thing, did you know that on average, approximately 70 Americans are killed due to terrorism or terrorist activities? In other words, more of us die from being allergic to peanuts than from terrorism. Yet, we don’t go bomb places where peanuts are sold, do we? Do we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the peanut death epidemic? Do we strip hapless American peanut eaters of countless civil liberties enshrined in our Constitution in order to “protect them”? In fact, 18,000 Americans die EVERY YEAR from their lack of health care coverage!! That’s six times the number that perished on 9/11!
So to summarize, there is no military solution to terrorism. Let’s end the phony and fake “war on terror”, start building bridges with other countries rather than bombing them, and begin to spend money that actually benefits life rather than celebrates death. Now we can only hope that the Indian government does not follow our example, and bomb Pakistan just because a few of the terrorists in Mumbai were from that country.
QUOTES
US intervention in Afghanistan has proven not much different from US intervention in Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, and elsewhere. It had the same intent of preventing egalitarian social change, and the same effect of overthrowing an economically reformist government. In all these instances, the intervention brought retrograde elements into ascendance, left the economy in ruins, and pitilessly laid waste to many innocent lives.
The war against Afghanistan, a battered impoverished country, continues to be portrayed in US official circles as a gallant crusade against terrorism. If it ever was that, it also has been a means to other things: destroying a leftist revolutionary social order, gaining profitable control of one of the last vast untapped reserves of the earth's dwindling fossil fuel supply, and planting US bases and US military power into still another region of the world.
-- Michael Parenti
VIDEO SECTION
Yes! I’ve been harping on the ridiculous “tail of two bailouts” syndrome since the sudden phony outrage about the auto companies starting coming from Republicans and the media. Rachel Maddow, as usual, sees the same hypocrisy: bailing out the criminal bankers is ok, autoworkers not so much. As you'll see in the Moore article below, there is in fact another way.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-tale-two-bailouts
This is great: Prop 8 the musical…with Jack Black and a host of other celebs:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/109734/%27prop_8%3A_the_musical%27_starring_jack_black%2C_john_c._reilly%2C_and_more/
ARTICLE SECTION: Latin America, Moore,
This is an excellent analysis of the kinds of opportunities Latin America offers an Obama Presidency. The fact is, Latin America is in the midst of a great transition from being "the bitch" of the American corporatocracy to one of egalitarianism and independence. Of course, this influx of leftist, progressive leaders is portrayed by the Matrix as a threat, and these leaders as "our enemies" and "would be dictators" (though of course they are not...our President is the only illegitimate leader in the hemisphere). The good news is that in this regard, Obama CAN really fundamentally change the way we relate to our brothers and sisters to the south.
A few clips:
President-elect Obama's historic triumph was welcomed in Latin America by left-of-center governments who saw it as a continuation of their own electoral victories…Obama has an opportunity to forge a new relationship with the region after his predecessor drove U.S.-Latin American relations into a ditch. But it will require a major change in Washington's attitude toward our southern neighbors.
SNIP
The consensus in Washington is that we have the right to do all kinds of things in Latin American countries that we would never permit here. The new governments there do not agree. They also think they have the right to an independent foreign policy. Brazil's foreign minister went to Iran this month, where he publicly defended Iran's right to enrich uranium, and announced that expanding commercial and other ties to Iran were "a foreign policy priority" for Brazil. The State Department and U.S. media ignored these statements because they came from Brazil, but when Venezuela does the same thing it is considered impermissible. These are the kinds of double standards that the Obama administration will have to abandon if it wants a new relationship with Latin America.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/03-3
The great anti-war activist and progressive leader Tom Hayden details the next possible moves for the peace movement, particularly now that Iraq has become a much more "complicated" issue - as a result of the recent US-Iraq Security Pact - to deal with both in terms of ending this abomination as well as in framing it.
I think he's dead on. A few clips:
What does the US-Iraq Security Pact mean for the antiwar movement? It certainly may cement an American perception that the war is finally over, stranding the peace movement as public opinion turns its attention to the economy and the Obama administration.
The agreement forces the Bush administration and Pentagon to back down from long-held positions, especially over deadlines. The barracking of American troops in remote areas by June 2009 will be a retreat from offensive operations. More important, the language of the agreement in Arabic stipulates that all American forces, not merely combat units, will be withdrawn by 2011.
If these terms are maintained, President-elect Obama will be acquiescing in a doubling of his sixteen-month deadline for withdrawal of combat troops, but also for the first time accepting a date for removal of the so-called residual American forces--since "all" means all counter-terrorism units, advisers, trainers and back-up forces that could total 50,000 or more.
SNIP
Here at home, the agreement will force the antiwar movement into careful consideration of a broader agenda. Unless the pact is violated, it is difficult to imagine hundreds of thousands demonstrating to bring the troops home in 2010 instead of 2011. There will be continued attention to implementing the pact and pressuring for human rights standards in Baghdad, but the steady return of thousands of American soldiers will send a powerful message to most Americans that the Iraq War is ending, perhaps not soon enough, but ending nonetheless.
But it is possible to imagine broad and intense public support for a movement questioning Obama's multiple wars--Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, not to mention Iran and the Israel-Palestine conflict--as unwinnable quagmires that alienate countless Muslims and cost over $200 billion annually that taxpayers cannot afford amidst a collapsing economy. In this different framing, the antiwar movement could include the Iraq withdrawal and diplomatic solutions in Afghanistan and Pakistan within a new progressive agenda demanding a turn away from policing a world of quagmires to addressing our spiraling economic, trade, healthcare and energy crises.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/02-13
And Michael Moore goes WAY BEYOND the usual critique of what’s wrong, and provides probably the best ideas I’ve yet heard by anyone regarding what to do about the auto industry crisis! Inspired stuff…though it will never happen…too much of a challenge to the Matrix…I mean, public transit nationalization…Government taking over the auto industry? This stuff all makes too much sense…
A few clips:
Two weeks ago, the CEOs of the Big 3 were tarred and feathered before a Congressional committee who sneered at them in a way far different than when the heads of the financial industry showed up two months earlier. At that time, the politicians tripped over each other in their swoon for Wall Street and its Ponzi schemers who had concocted Byzantine ways to bet other people's money on unregulated credit default swaps, known in the common vernacular as unicorns and fairies.
But the Detroit boys were from the Midwest, the Rust (yuk!) Belt, where they made real things that consumers needed and could touch and buy, and that continually recycled money into the economy (shocking!), produced unions that created the middle class, and fixed my teeth for free when I was ten.
SNIP
Let me just state the obvious: Every single dollar Congress gives these three companies will be flushed right down the toilet. There is nothing the management teams of the Big 3 are going to do to convince people to go out during a recession and buy their big, gas-guzzling, inferior products. Just forget it. And, as sure as I am that the Ford family-owned Detroit Lions are not going to the Super Bowl -- ever -- I can guarantee you, after they burn through this $34 billion, they'll be back for another $34 billion next summer.
So what to do? Members of Congress, here's what I propose:
1. Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address. And because we are facing a massive economic, energy and environmental crisis, the new president and Congress must do what Franklin Roosevelt did when he was faced with a crisis (and ordered the auto industry to stop building cars and instead build tanks and planes): The Big 3 are, from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil and, more importantly to build trains, buses, subways and light rail (a corresponding public works project across the country will build the rail lines and tracks). This will not only save jobs, but create millions of new ones.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/03
Z’s Quick Thoughts
FRANKEN GAINING
Before this recount began I predicted Franken would make up the ground and win the race based on what I know about under-votes, over-votes, demographics, and voting trends. This much we know, it’s going to be close!
And let me just also say, God damn I want Franken to win! Coleman is one of the sleaziest, dirtiest, and insidious characters in politics today…even being named one of the four most corrupt politicians in Congress. How cool would it be to watch this weasel get beat by a comedian?
The good news coming out of Minnesota today is that Franken may have just pulled ahead, or at least, near even with Coleman. Plus, we just learned that officials in Ramsey County "discovered" a stack of 171 ballots that were never counted in the first place…and that netted 37 votes for Al.
Another piece of great news, and when all is said in done, if some of these are counted, may be the difference, is the Canvassing Board’s decision to instruct county officials to sort through rejected absentee ballots, and identify those ballots which did not appear to have a valid reason for rejection.
As Nate Silver noted, “This is potentially (although far from certainly) a precursor to those ballots actually being counted, a process which we estimated would result in a net gain of 25 to 100 votes for Franken (the Franken campaign believes a similar number of ballots are at stake).” When all is said and done, it will come down to the thousands of challenged ballots and those absentee’s…but things look good.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
A Political Maestro
First, the good news. Obama is a political maestro, no doubt about that. Just look at the polls coming out from USA Today regarding his transition and cabinet choices:
More than three of four Americans, including a majority of Republicans, approve of the job Obama has done so far. By 69%-25%, those surveyed approve of his pick of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his former Democratic primary rival, as secretary of State.
In the poll, Americans by more than 3-1 say they trust Obama more than Bush to handle the economy. By 58%-33%, they support Obama's plan for a huge spending package to spur economic growth.
Of course, no matter how popular he is now, or becomes, what's going to positively effect the lives of human beings and this planet are the policies he pursues, not poll numbers. Of course, this kind of popularity bodes well, as it will take this kind of broad-based support to enact the kinds of policies we really need in this country.
How Will He Govern?
While clearly Obama’s cabinet choices have been right of center, I don’t think, at least if we are grading on a “curve”, he will govern right of center (though clearly not a progressive). Obviously, compared to recent Republican Presidents, and the one Democrat, he will be to their left. I only say he’ll be left of Clinton because the country has moved significantly in that direction on every major issue and he has the benefit of having a Democratic Congress.
So Obama will likely govern from what is in actuality "the center" (and let’s be realistic, we need a lot more than that to turn things around), but because of our country's drastic move to the right since the Reagan Revolution and the corporate/christian fundamentalist love child it produced (a little hyperbole won’t kill anyone), this cenrtism has been redefined by the corporate media as liberal. Ha!
War Machine Intact - The Foreign Policy Team
What still deeply concerns me however, labels aside, is that nothing in Obama’s picks leads me to believe he’s going to challenge the status quo in any significant way. He certainly doesn’t seem interested in challenging our imperialism-based foreign policy (in terms of trade and continued occupation of Afghanistan anyway). In fact, there’s not a single, solid anti-war voice in the upper echelons of the Obama foreign policy team (I probably like Susan Rice the best out of that group). In other words, the Matrix is more than protected thank you very much. And this of course is why the Washington insiders, the Agent Smiths and the Borg-like elite are gushing over Obama's picks.
While I’m glad he says he wants to be challenged by his advisers, why aren't ANY OF THEM progressives (i.e. you know, who were RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING, and support peace, human rights, and economic justice)? I just find it strange that even Obama abides by that old Washington adage "if you were wrong about everything you're promoted". Why not add some new and fresh thinking about security in the 21st century?
With all the talk about the importance of foreign policy experience, why is there so little attention paid to the quality of that experience? Rumsfeld and Cheney immediately come to mind anytime I hear someone blather about the importance of "experience".
What we need after eight catastrophic years is experience informed by good judgment. Or how about this, people that were right from the outset not after the fact (or debacle)? People that had the courage to take on the status quo, not get on their knees to please it. What about someone who believe the defense budget must be cut for our future salvation (which happens to be true)? What is gained by bringing in people who traffic in conventional wisdom and who have shown the kind of foreign policy timidity that allowed for disasters like the Iraq war?
And finally, in the case of keeping Gates (he better at least get rid of that guy after 6 mo’s or a year), Obama has worsened the Democratic image on national security – once again validating the argument that Democrats can't run the military.
The “Obama is a liberal” Myth
I’m glad to see more people are at least beginning to realize - a point I’ve made on this blog ad nausea for the past two years - that Obama is not now, nor has he ever been (at least since becoming a US Senator) a progressive or liberal. Yes, in the tiny ideological spectrum as defined by the corporate media and the right wing fascists, he is, but in the world of reality, he is not.
This is why I wasn’t going to vote for him in the primaries, and why, while disappointed in his cabinet choices, I’m not surprised. The "Obama is a hard left liberal" was nothing more than a false narrative created by the Matrix and its key players (media, GOP, etc.) because they DEPEND on moving the ideological dial to the right, and by calling “corporate moderates” “liberal” they are able to portray themselves as something other than the ACTUAL EXTREMISTS they are.
Simultaneously, true progressives are therefore marginalized, and framed as so outside the mainstream that they border on crazy (i.e. Kucinich, Saunders, Feingold, Lee, etc.). Of course, they are the ones that ARE MAINSTREAM, as they were right about every issue, and fight for the majority’s interests, not those of the wealthy minority and corporate elites.
Just so we’re clear, that bogus 2007 National Journal ranking which concluded that Obama was the most liberal Senator was a fraud. It used a deeply flawed methodology that no other ranking confirmed, and only a true knuckle dragger would swallow the notion that Obama was more liberal than Russ Feingold or Bernie Sanders! Go to any ranking systems, which I do ALL THE TIME, for years, and you’ll find Obama falls near the exact middle of the Democratic Party, and on the major issues of the day, in the middle of the country.
ECONOMY – IT’S A DEBT CRISIS MORE THAN A CREDIT ONE
I’m getting really tired of these supposed experts going on and on about how the one thing we need more of is access to credit!! Isn’t our addiction to consumption and credit (with high interest rates) one of the primary reasons we got into this mess!? And of course, this faulty logic was at the heart of the economic coup known as the Bailout Bill: throw money at banks so they’ll loan more money to us suckers so then we can go further into debt. Rinse, repeat…
It’s not the difficulty of getting credit that’s the real problem. Most consumers can barely afford to pay the interest charges on the debt they're already carrying. Our economy is on the brink of disaster because peoples’ earnings haven't kept up with the costs of the basics, like health care, education, energy, food, housing, etc. It’s not rocket science. The “recovery” that officially ended December, 2007 (the National Bureau of Economic Research now tells us) was the first on record in which median earnings declined, adjusted for inflation. Since then, many people have also lost their jobs or are working part time when they'd rather be working full time, or else know they're in danger of losing their jobs. Any economic solution must be the antithesis to the bank bailout methodology...in other words, deal with the debt of PEOPLE, particularly in their mortgages...meaning, start from the bottom and go up, not more trickle down.
END “THE WAR ON TERROR”
If the attacks in Mumbai demonstrated anything at all it is that Obama could take no smarter a step than renouncing the "war on terror." There are so many reasons for doing this its hard to know where to begin. First, terrorist attacks are not acts of war to be responded to in kind, but crimes against humanity. As crimes, they should be investigated and the perpetrators tried and prosecuted. We don’t go bomb a neighborhood where a suspected murderer might live, so why would this be our policy around the world?
We also know by making the world our battlefield and killing millions of innocent people (and torturing them) we create more terrorists than we could ever kill (whacking a hornets nest comes to mind). Think about it: since we began (I should say “announced”) the “war on terror” the number and ferocity of terrorist attacks has only increased. We have actually managed to fuel support for groups that use terrorism. That's because the "war on terror" has led millions of people to conclude that the US is an even greater threat to their safety and freedom than Al Qaeda and other violent fringe groups.
And one more thing, did you know that on average, approximately 70 Americans are killed due to terrorism or terrorist activities? In other words, more of us die from being allergic to peanuts than from terrorism. Yet, we don’t go bomb places where peanuts are sold, do we? Do we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the peanut death epidemic? Do we strip hapless American peanut eaters of countless civil liberties enshrined in our Constitution in order to “protect them”? In fact, 18,000 Americans die EVERY YEAR from their lack of health care coverage!! That’s six times the number that perished on 9/11!
So to summarize, there is no military solution to terrorism. Let’s end the phony and fake “war on terror”, start building bridges with other countries rather than bombing them, and begin to spend money that actually benefits life rather than celebrates death. Now we can only hope that the Indian government does not follow our example, and bomb Pakistan just because a few of the terrorists in Mumbai were from that country.
QUOTES
US intervention in Afghanistan has proven not much different from US intervention in Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, and elsewhere. It had the same intent of preventing egalitarian social change, and the same effect of overthrowing an economically reformist government. In all these instances, the intervention brought retrograde elements into ascendance, left the economy in ruins, and pitilessly laid waste to many innocent lives.
The war against Afghanistan, a battered impoverished country, continues to be portrayed in US official circles as a gallant crusade against terrorism. If it ever was that, it also has been a means to other things: destroying a leftist revolutionary social order, gaining profitable control of one of the last vast untapped reserves of the earth's dwindling fossil fuel supply, and planting US bases and US military power into still another region of the world.
-- Michael Parenti
VIDEO SECTION
Yes! I’ve been harping on the ridiculous “tail of two bailouts” syndrome since the sudden phony outrage about the auto companies starting coming from Republicans and the media. Rachel Maddow, as usual, sees the same hypocrisy: bailing out the criminal bankers is ok, autoworkers not so much. As you'll see in the Moore article below, there is in fact another way.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-tale-two-bailouts
This is great: Prop 8 the musical…with Jack Black and a host of other celebs:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/109734/%27prop_8%3A_the_musical%27_starring_jack_black%2C_john_c._reilly%2C_and_more/
ARTICLE SECTION: Latin America, Moore,
This is an excellent analysis of the kinds of opportunities Latin America offers an Obama Presidency. The fact is, Latin America is in the midst of a great transition from being "the bitch" of the American corporatocracy to one of egalitarianism and independence. Of course, this influx of leftist, progressive leaders is portrayed by the Matrix as a threat, and these leaders as "our enemies" and "would be dictators" (though of course they are not...our President is the only illegitimate leader in the hemisphere). The good news is that in this regard, Obama CAN really fundamentally change the way we relate to our brothers and sisters to the south.
A few clips:
President-elect Obama's historic triumph was welcomed in Latin America by left-of-center governments who saw it as a continuation of their own electoral victories…Obama has an opportunity to forge a new relationship with the region after his predecessor drove U.S.-Latin American relations into a ditch. But it will require a major change in Washington's attitude toward our southern neighbors.
SNIP
The consensus in Washington is that we have the right to do all kinds of things in Latin American countries that we would never permit here. The new governments there do not agree. They also think they have the right to an independent foreign policy. Brazil's foreign minister went to Iran this month, where he publicly defended Iran's right to enrich uranium, and announced that expanding commercial and other ties to Iran were "a foreign policy priority" for Brazil. The State Department and U.S. media ignored these statements because they came from Brazil, but when Venezuela does the same thing it is considered impermissible. These are the kinds of double standards that the Obama administration will have to abandon if it wants a new relationship with Latin America.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/03-3
The great anti-war activist and progressive leader Tom Hayden details the next possible moves for the peace movement, particularly now that Iraq has become a much more "complicated" issue - as a result of the recent US-Iraq Security Pact - to deal with both in terms of ending this abomination as well as in framing it.
I think he's dead on. A few clips:
What does the US-Iraq Security Pact mean for the antiwar movement? It certainly may cement an American perception that the war is finally over, stranding the peace movement as public opinion turns its attention to the economy and the Obama administration.
The agreement forces the Bush administration and Pentagon to back down from long-held positions, especially over deadlines. The barracking of American troops in remote areas by June 2009 will be a retreat from offensive operations. More important, the language of the agreement in Arabic stipulates that all American forces, not merely combat units, will be withdrawn by 2011.
If these terms are maintained, President-elect Obama will be acquiescing in a doubling of his sixteen-month deadline for withdrawal of combat troops, but also for the first time accepting a date for removal of the so-called residual American forces--since "all" means all counter-terrorism units, advisers, trainers and back-up forces that could total 50,000 or more.
SNIP
Here at home, the agreement will force the antiwar movement into careful consideration of a broader agenda. Unless the pact is violated, it is difficult to imagine hundreds of thousands demonstrating to bring the troops home in 2010 instead of 2011. There will be continued attention to implementing the pact and pressuring for human rights standards in Baghdad, but the steady return of thousands of American soldiers will send a powerful message to most Americans that the Iraq War is ending, perhaps not soon enough, but ending nonetheless.
But it is possible to imagine broad and intense public support for a movement questioning Obama's multiple wars--Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, not to mention Iran and the Israel-Palestine conflict--as unwinnable quagmires that alienate countless Muslims and cost over $200 billion annually that taxpayers cannot afford amidst a collapsing economy. In this different framing, the antiwar movement could include the Iraq withdrawal and diplomatic solutions in Afghanistan and Pakistan within a new progressive agenda demanding a turn away from policing a world of quagmires to addressing our spiraling economic, trade, healthcare and energy crises.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/02-13
And Michael Moore goes WAY BEYOND the usual critique of what’s wrong, and provides probably the best ideas I’ve yet heard by anyone regarding what to do about the auto industry crisis! Inspired stuff…though it will never happen…too much of a challenge to the Matrix…I mean, public transit nationalization…Government taking over the auto industry? This stuff all makes too much sense…
A few clips:
Two weeks ago, the CEOs of the Big 3 were tarred and feathered before a Congressional committee who sneered at them in a way far different than when the heads of the financial industry showed up two months earlier. At that time, the politicians tripped over each other in their swoon for Wall Street and its Ponzi schemers who had concocted Byzantine ways to bet other people's money on unregulated credit default swaps, known in the common vernacular as unicorns and fairies.
But the Detroit boys were from the Midwest, the Rust (yuk!) Belt, where they made real things that consumers needed and could touch and buy, and that continually recycled money into the economy (shocking!), produced unions that created the middle class, and fixed my teeth for free when I was ten.
SNIP
Let me just state the obvious: Every single dollar Congress gives these three companies will be flushed right down the toilet. There is nothing the management teams of the Big 3 are going to do to convince people to go out during a recession and buy their big, gas-guzzling, inferior products. Just forget it. And, as sure as I am that the Ford family-owned Detroit Lions are not going to the Super Bowl -- ever -- I can guarantee you, after they burn through this $34 billion, they'll be back for another $34 billion next summer.
So what to do? Members of Congress, here's what I propose:
1. Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address. And because we are facing a massive economic, energy and environmental crisis, the new president and Congress must do what Franklin Roosevelt did when he was faced with a crisis (and ordered the auto industry to stop building cars and instead build tanks and planes): The Big 3 are, from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil and, more importantly to build trains, buses, subways and light rail (a corresponding public works project across the country will build the rail lines and tracks). This will not only save jobs, but create millions of new ones.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/03
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
TODAY'S TOPICS: Hedges, US Terrorism, "Angry Left", Baker, CitiGroup, Jim Jones, Posse Comitatus, Bush
Those who externalize evil and seek to eradicate that evil through violence lose touch with their own humanity and the humanity of others. They cannot make moral distinctions. They are blind to their own moral corruption. In the name of civilization and high ideals, in the name of reason and science, they become monsters. We will never free ourselves from the self-delusion of the "war on terror" until we first vanquish the terrorist within.
--Chris Hedges was the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times.
Z's Quick Note - Latest False Narrative
Just a quick note on the latest false narratives coming from the Matrix Media bobbleheads. It goes something like this, the "angry left" HAS TO BE marginalized by Obama if he is to have a successful presidency. And yes, its us "angry progressives" (I guess because we're continually right about everything from the war to the economy to the environment yet we're still insulted and ignored) that are the real "problem" that Obama faces. No, the real threats to his Presidency and agenda (you know, the one he ran on) won't be the Republican fascists and christian zealots roaming the Capitol with their bag of obstructionist tricks (filibuster anyone?), its that old "angry left" who wants things like healthcare, an end to the war, and clean energy. What crazy radicals!!!
So just so everyone is clear, WE NOW threaten Obama's agenda according to the Matrix. I guess its too much to ask for the punditocracy to instead ask the question "Why is the left "angry"? If that question is asked of course, the answer wouldn't come out quite like the corporate media wants, would it (as in, we were right about Iraq, right about the bailout, right about healthcare, etc. etc.)? Of course not. And now that the nation has at least partly awakened to what we've been saying all along, we're still attacked, dismissed, condemned, denounced and mocked. Worse, the President that we helped put into office, has not even given the nod to A SINGLE PROGRESSIVE to date.
So yes, I suppose I'm a little upset. But it sure is hard to figure how it's us that threaten Obama's agenda??? Or, how its too much to ask for him to at least include a progressive in his so called "team of (centrist) rivals". Look, I knew he was going to be a corporate centrist, but I did expect something a little better to be sure. Of course, Obama could once again outsmart everyone, and simply be putting together a right wing cabinet to give him cover to move left. Or perhaps, such a cabinet will allow him more effectively to get progressive policies enacted, as they would be more cloaked in centrism. All of this we shall see...
VIDEO SECTION
Texas District Attorney Guerra unveils why his investigation led him to the Vice President:
"Greed will get you discovered and arrested every time, and that's what happened to Cheney," Guerra said. Guerra says he went through Cheney's financial records and the prison companies' financial records and found the connection. The three top prison companies Guerra researched were Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group and Cornell. Those three have the Vanguard Group in common, which is an investment company that puts money into all three prison companies.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/texas-da-reveals-evidence-led-dick-cheney
Dealing with the Taliban and getting out of Afghanistan…a Real News interview Professor Tariqu Amin-Khan in which he lays out the cold hard reality: the US can’t win this by force.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/109329/dealing_with_the_taliban_to_end_the_afghanistan_war/
UAW President strikes back at the concerted and orchestrated attack on unions…in the guise of populism no less! You’ve heard the right wing calls…let the auto industry die…what they’re really talking about his unions and worker rights. Let’s remember, the average auto industry worker salary is $28, not $70, and the UAW ALREADY HAS made massive concessions…while CEO’s make millions for their failures.
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/late-edition-uaw-president-gettlefing
ARTICLE SECTION
Chris Hedges writes another Red Pill Special. His incredibly well written manifestos always help keep me straight, honest, and in line with what's really going on and what's really at stake, no matter how powerful the propaganda becomes, be it from the Republicans or the Democrats.
A few clips:
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when viewed from the receiving end, are state-sponsored acts of terrorism. These wars defy every ethical and legal code that seek to determine when a nation can wage war, from Just War Theory to the statutes of international law largely put into place by the United States after World War II. These wars are criminal wars of aggression. They have left hundreds of thousands of people, who never took up arms against us, dead and seen millions driven from their homes. We have no right as a nation to debate the terms of these occupations. And an Afghan villager, burying members of his family's wedding party after an American airstrike, understands in a way we often do not that terrorist attacks can also be unleashed from the arsenals of an imperial power.
SNIP
The East and the West do not have separate, competing value systems. We do not treat life with greater sanctity than those we belittle. There are aged survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who can tell us something about our high moral values and passionate concern for innocent human life, about our own acts of terrorism. Eastern and Western traditions have within them varied ethical systems, some of which are repugnant and some of which are worth emulating. To hold up the highest ideals of our own culture and to deny that these great ideals exist in other cultures, especially Eastern cultures, is made possible only by historical and cultural illiteracy.
The civilization we champion and promote as superior is, in fact, a product of the fusion of traditions and beliefs of the Orient and the Occident. We advance morally and intellectually when we cross these cultural lines, when we use the lens of other cultures to examine our own. The remains of villages destroyed by our bombs, the dead killed from our munitions, leave us too with bloody hands. We can build a new ethic when we face our complicity in the cycle of violence and terror.
http://www.truthout.org/120108D
Dean Baker (who SHOULD BE in Obama’s cabinet) details just some of what’s wrong with the CitiGroup bailout. Welcome to the heart of the Wall Street beast. And let's remember, this is EXACTLY what we progressives said was wrong with the bailout bill and what would happen if it was enacted. Gee...progressives are right again, who would have thunk it??!!
A few clips first:
Given all the concern over Obama's ideas about spreading the wealth, it is remarkable how little attention is being given to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke's much more ambitious effort to spread the wealth. They are putting in practice measures that swamp any plans put forward by Obama in the presidential campaign, yet this massive government redistribution of wealth is drawing almost no attention whatsoever. The basic story is that the Treasury and Fed together now control several trillion dollars of bailout funds. This money is being used with almost no accountability, especially with the Fed's portion of the bailout, which is by far the bulk of the funds.
SNIP
Of course, Citi is just a small portion of the bailout story, but the same issues arise everywhere. Corporations that would be out of business if the market was left alone, are instead kept operating courtesy of the taxpayers' dollars. Due to the secrecy surrounding the bailout, the taxpayers can't even know whose vacation homes and private jets they've saved. (How can we know if we should expect a thank you note?)
While we may not know the details, we can be fairly certain that many people are making millions, and some might be making hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, as a result of the Fed and Treasury's bailouts. Money is being redistributed to those who are skillful in anticipating Fed and Treasury actions, or alternatively who are politically connected, or perhaps just lucky.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/02-6
Just so no one has any illusions about Obama’s new “national security team”…or as I call them, “A Team of Hawks”, here’s some important info on the new National Security Adviser Jim Jones…
A few clips first:
In part, he worries that failure in Afghanistan would send a message to terrorist organizations that we and our allies can be defeated. It would. But, to use the new buzzword, let's be pragmatic. Wouldn't it be better to send that message at a time when a new American president offers the world new hope rather than after we follow the British and Soviets into a deadly Afghan quagmire?
The answer could determine the success of Obama's domestic dreams, and whether he will be a one-term president. Lest he actually believes in the possibility of winning even a half-baked victory, he should read Rudyard Kipling or call Mikhail Gorbachev.
The problem with Jones goes even further. The vision offered by his Afghanistan Study Group draws heavily on his experience with NATO, as one can see in this recently released letter to the Washington Post that he co-authored with Harlan Ullman, the civilian architect of the Pentagon's Rapid Dominance Strategy, or Shock and Awe.
http://www.truthout.org/120108A
NEWS CLIPS
NEW MEDICAID RULE FORCES STRUGGLING AMERICANS TO PAY MORE FOR CARE: Last Tuesday, the Bush administration issued a new federal rule that would allow states to "deny care or coverage to Medicaid beneficiaries who do not pay their premiums or their share of the cost for a particular item or service." In what the New York Times describes as a "sea change" in Medicaid, states will now "charge premiums and higher co-payments for doctors' services, hospital care and prescription drugs provided to low-income people under Medicaid." According to the Congressional Budget Office, 13 million low-income people -- about a fifth of Medicaid recipients -- will face new or higher co-payments and "some individuals may choose to delay or forgo care rather than pay their cost-sharing obligations." The rule has elicited criticism from "the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association for Home Care and AARP, among other groups," who said that higher co-payments would make it more difficult for low-income children, homebound people, and older Americans to get care.
BUSH'S LAST-MINUTE RULE GUTTING WORKER PROTECTIONS MAY VIOLATE HIS OWN GUIDELINES: The Labor Department -- which has been "widely criticized for walking away from its regulatory function across a range of issues, including wage and hour law and workplace safety" -- is attempting to complete a rule making it more difficult to regulate toxic substances and chemicals that affect workers on the job. Public health officials and labor unions say the rule, which has strong support from business groups and is opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, "would delay needed protections for workers, resulting in additional deaths and illnesses." The New York Times noted that this proposal "appears to violate a memorandum issued in early May by Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff." "Except in extraordinary circumstances," Mr. Bolten wrote, "regulations to be finalized in this administration should be proposed no later than June 1, 2008, and final regulations should be issued no later than Nov. 1, 2008." The proposal is "one of about 20 highly contentious rules the Bush administration is planning to issue" in its final weeks.
The Posse Comitatus Act and American Military Rule
FROM C&L (this has been covered by Project Censored, and by me once or twice in the past…a “must know”):
Can anyone say "mission creep"? The military always can, which is why a new initiative to give the Pentagon an ability to surge a combat-ready force for domestic security is so worrying.
The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terroristattack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.
The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.
There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.
But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
They can say it all they want, but that doesn't make it so. And more to the point, the Bush administration knows it. Their analysts have already given them a half dozen scenarios involving WMD level casualties without actually using WMDs, exploiting LNG tankers, blowing up a big enough bomb next to an existing reactor or using other everday aspects of the nation's industry and commerce. All are easier to pull off than smuggling a bomb, or radioactives, into the country or than gathering a sizeable store of such material from domestic sources without discovery.
ADMINISTRATION DEFENDS RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY FOR TELECOMS IN COURT: Lawyers for the Bush administration will attempt today to "to convince a federal judge to let stand a law granting retroactive legal immunity to the nation's telecommunications firms, which are accused of transmitting Americans' private communications to the National Security Agency without warrants." The court battle centers on "nearly four dozen lawsuits filed by civil liberties groups and class action attorneys against AT&T, Verizon, MCI, Sprint and other carriers who allegedly cooperated with the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program in the years following the Sept. 11 terror attacks," Threat Level explains. Among the groups filing suit is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which argues that the FISA Amendments Act -- granting retroactive immunity at the discretion of the Attorney General by allowing for "the dismissal of the lawsuits over the telecoms' participation in the warrantless surveillance program" -- is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker announced yesterday that he planned to discuss a series of 11 questions during today's hearing, including whether or not there exists "any precedent" for the powers granted to the Attorney General by the FISA Amendments Act. FireDogLake's Marcy Wheeler says that Walker's questions "suggest that Walker is not going to simply roll over and abdicate his Article III function."
WHAT IS NEEDED AND WHAT TO LOOK FOR...
President-elect Barack Obama is considering a stimulus package that will include a heavy dose of spending on environmentally friendly projects aimed at creating "green-collar jobs" and saving energy. Read more about the "the economic imperative for clean energy."
Those who externalize evil and seek to eradicate that evil through violence lose touch with their own humanity and the humanity of others. They cannot make moral distinctions. They are blind to their own moral corruption. In the name of civilization and high ideals, in the name of reason and science, they become monsters. We will never free ourselves from the self-delusion of the "war on terror" until we first vanquish the terrorist within.
--Chris Hedges was the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times.
Z's Quick Note - Latest False Narrative
Just a quick note on the latest false narratives coming from the Matrix Media bobbleheads. It goes something like this, the "angry left" HAS TO BE marginalized by Obama if he is to have a successful presidency. And yes, its us "angry progressives" (I guess because we're continually right about everything from the war to the economy to the environment yet we're still insulted and ignored) that are the real "problem" that Obama faces. No, the real threats to his Presidency and agenda (you know, the one he ran on) won't be the Republican fascists and christian zealots roaming the Capitol with their bag of obstructionist tricks (filibuster anyone?), its that old "angry left" who wants things like healthcare, an end to the war, and clean energy. What crazy radicals!!!
So just so everyone is clear, WE NOW threaten Obama's agenda according to the Matrix. I guess its too much to ask for the punditocracy to instead ask the question "Why is the left "angry"? If that question is asked of course, the answer wouldn't come out quite like the corporate media wants, would it (as in, we were right about Iraq, right about the bailout, right about healthcare, etc. etc.)? Of course not. And now that the nation has at least partly awakened to what we've been saying all along, we're still attacked, dismissed, condemned, denounced and mocked. Worse, the President that we helped put into office, has not even given the nod to A SINGLE PROGRESSIVE to date.
So yes, I suppose I'm a little upset. But it sure is hard to figure how it's us that threaten Obama's agenda??? Or, how its too much to ask for him to at least include a progressive in his so called "team of (centrist) rivals". Look, I knew he was going to be a corporate centrist, but I did expect something a little better to be sure. Of course, Obama could once again outsmart everyone, and simply be putting together a right wing cabinet to give him cover to move left. Or perhaps, such a cabinet will allow him more effectively to get progressive policies enacted, as they would be more cloaked in centrism. All of this we shall see...
VIDEO SECTION
Texas District Attorney Guerra unveils why his investigation led him to the Vice President:
"Greed will get you discovered and arrested every time, and that's what happened to Cheney," Guerra said. Guerra says he went through Cheney's financial records and the prison companies' financial records and found the connection. The three top prison companies Guerra researched were Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group and Cornell. Those three have the Vanguard Group in common, which is an investment company that puts money into all three prison companies.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/texas-da-reveals-evidence-led-dick-cheney
Dealing with the Taliban and getting out of Afghanistan…a Real News interview Professor Tariqu Amin-Khan in which he lays out the cold hard reality: the US can’t win this by force.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/109329/dealing_with_the_taliban_to_end_the_afghanistan_war/
UAW President strikes back at the concerted and orchestrated attack on unions…in the guise of populism no less! You’ve heard the right wing calls…let the auto industry die…what they’re really talking about his unions and worker rights. Let’s remember, the average auto industry worker salary is $28, not $70, and the UAW ALREADY HAS made massive concessions…while CEO’s make millions for their failures.
http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/late-edition-uaw-president-gettlefing
ARTICLE SECTION
Chris Hedges writes another Red Pill Special. His incredibly well written manifestos always help keep me straight, honest, and in line with what's really going on and what's really at stake, no matter how powerful the propaganda becomes, be it from the Republicans or the Democrats.
A few clips:
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when viewed from the receiving end, are state-sponsored acts of terrorism. These wars defy every ethical and legal code that seek to determine when a nation can wage war, from Just War Theory to the statutes of international law largely put into place by the United States after World War II. These wars are criminal wars of aggression. They have left hundreds of thousands of people, who never took up arms against us, dead and seen millions driven from their homes. We have no right as a nation to debate the terms of these occupations. And an Afghan villager, burying members of his family's wedding party after an American airstrike, understands in a way we often do not that terrorist attacks can also be unleashed from the arsenals of an imperial power.
SNIP
The East and the West do not have separate, competing value systems. We do not treat life with greater sanctity than those we belittle. There are aged survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who can tell us something about our high moral values and passionate concern for innocent human life, about our own acts of terrorism. Eastern and Western traditions have within them varied ethical systems, some of which are repugnant and some of which are worth emulating. To hold up the highest ideals of our own culture and to deny that these great ideals exist in other cultures, especially Eastern cultures, is made possible only by historical and cultural illiteracy.
The civilization we champion and promote as superior is, in fact, a product of the fusion of traditions and beliefs of the Orient and the Occident. We advance morally and intellectually when we cross these cultural lines, when we use the lens of other cultures to examine our own. The remains of villages destroyed by our bombs, the dead killed from our munitions, leave us too with bloody hands. We can build a new ethic when we face our complicity in the cycle of violence and terror.
http://www.truthout.org/120108D
Dean Baker (who SHOULD BE in Obama’s cabinet) details just some of what’s wrong with the CitiGroup bailout. Welcome to the heart of the Wall Street beast. And let's remember, this is EXACTLY what we progressives said was wrong with the bailout bill and what would happen if it was enacted. Gee...progressives are right again, who would have thunk it??!!
A few clips first:
Given all the concern over Obama's ideas about spreading the wealth, it is remarkable how little attention is being given to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke's much more ambitious effort to spread the wealth. They are putting in practice measures that swamp any plans put forward by Obama in the presidential campaign, yet this massive government redistribution of wealth is drawing almost no attention whatsoever. The basic story is that the Treasury and Fed together now control several trillion dollars of bailout funds. This money is being used with almost no accountability, especially with the Fed's portion of the bailout, which is by far the bulk of the funds.
SNIP
Of course, Citi is just a small portion of the bailout story, but the same issues arise everywhere. Corporations that would be out of business if the market was left alone, are instead kept operating courtesy of the taxpayers' dollars. Due to the secrecy surrounding the bailout, the taxpayers can't even know whose vacation homes and private jets they've saved. (How can we know if we should expect a thank you note?)
While we may not know the details, we can be fairly certain that many people are making millions, and some might be making hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, as a result of the Fed and Treasury's bailouts. Money is being redistributed to those who are skillful in anticipating Fed and Treasury actions, or alternatively who are politically connected, or perhaps just lucky.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/02-6
Just so no one has any illusions about Obama’s new “national security team”…or as I call them, “A Team of Hawks”, here’s some important info on the new National Security Adviser Jim Jones…
A few clips first:
In part, he worries that failure in Afghanistan would send a message to terrorist organizations that we and our allies can be defeated. It would. But, to use the new buzzword, let's be pragmatic. Wouldn't it be better to send that message at a time when a new American president offers the world new hope rather than after we follow the British and Soviets into a deadly Afghan quagmire?
The answer could determine the success of Obama's domestic dreams, and whether he will be a one-term president. Lest he actually believes in the possibility of winning even a half-baked victory, he should read Rudyard Kipling or call Mikhail Gorbachev.
The problem with Jones goes even further. The vision offered by his Afghanistan Study Group draws heavily on his experience with NATO, as one can see in this recently released letter to the Washington Post that he co-authored with Harlan Ullman, the civilian architect of the Pentagon's Rapid Dominance Strategy, or Shock and Awe.
http://www.truthout.org/120108A
NEWS CLIPS
NEW MEDICAID RULE FORCES STRUGGLING AMERICANS TO PAY MORE FOR CARE: Last Tuesday, the Bush administration issued a new federal rule that would allow states to "deny care or coverage to Medicaid beneficiaries who do not pay their premiums or their share of the cost for a particular item or service." In what the New York Times describes as a "sea change" in Medicaid, states will now "charge premiums and higher co-payments for doctors' services, hospital care and prescription drugs provided to low-income people under Medicaid." According to the Congressional Budget Office, 13 million low-income people -- about a fifth of Medicaid recipients -- will face new or higher co-payments and "some individuals may choose to delay or forgo care rather than pay their cost-sharing obligations." The rule has elicited criticism from "the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association for Home Care and AARP, among other groups," who said that higher co-payments would make it more difficult for low-income children, homebound people, and older Americans to get care.
BUSH'S LAST-MINUTE RULE GUTTING WORKER PROTECTIONS MAY VIOLATE HIS OWN GUIDELINES: The Labor Department -- which has been "widely criticized for walking away from its regulatory function across a range of issues, including wage and hour law and workplace safety" -- is attempting to complete a rule making it more difficult to regulate toxic substances and chemicals that affect workers on the job. Public health officials and labor unions say the rule, which has strong support from business groups and is opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, "would delay needed protections for workers, resulting in additional deaths and illnesses." The New York Times noted that this proposal "appears to violate a memorandum issued in early May by Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff." "Except in extraordinary circumstances," Mr. Bolten wrote, "regulations to be finalized in this administration should be proposed no later than June 1, 2008, and final regulations should be issued no later than Nov. 1, 2008." The proposal is "one of about 20 highly contentious rules the Bush administration is planning to issue" in its final weeks.
The Posse Comitatus Act and American Military Rule
FROM C&L (this has been covered by Project Censored, and by me once or twice in the past…a “must know”):
Can anyone say "mission creep"? The military always can, which is why a new initiative to give the Pentagon an ability to surge a combat-ready force for domestic security is so worrying.
The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terroristattack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.
The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.
There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.
But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
They can say it all they want, but that doesn't make it so. And more to the point, the Bush administration knows it. Their analysts have already given them a half dozen scenarios involving WMD level casualties without actually using WMDs, exploiting LNG tankers, blowing up a big enough bomb next to an existing reactor or using other everday aspects of the nation's industry and commerce. All are easier to pull off than smuggling a bomb, or radioactives, into the country or than gathering a sizeable store of such material from domestic sources without discovery.
ADMINISTRATION DEFENDS RETROACTIVE IMMUNITY FOR TELECOMS IN COURT: Lawyers for the Bush administration will attempt today to "to convince a federal judge to let stand a law granting retroactive legal immunity to the nation's telecommunications firms, which are accused of transmitting Americans' private communications to the National Security Agency without warrants." The court battle centers on "nearly four dozen lawsuits filed by civil liberties groups and class action attorneys against AT&T, Verizon, MCI, Sprint and other carriers who allegedly cooperated with the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program in the years following the Sept. 11 terror attacks," Threat Level explains. Among the groups filing suit is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which argues that the FISA Amendments Act -- granting retroactive immunity at the discretion of the Attorney General by allowing for "the dismissal of the lawsuits over the telecoms' participation in the warrantless surveillance program" -- is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker announced yesterday that he planned to discuss a series of 11 questions during today's hearing, including whether or not there exists "any precedent" for the powers granted to the Attorney General by the FISA Amendments Act. FireDogLake's Marcy Wheeler says that Walker's questions "suggest that Walker is not going to simply roll over and abdicate his Article III function."
WHAT IS NEEDED AND WHAT TO LOOK FOR...
President-elect Barack Obama is considering a stimulus package that will include a heavy dose of spending on environmentally friendly projects aimed at creating "green-collar jobs" and saving energy. Read more about the "the economic imperative for clean energy."
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