- by Stephen Lendman
8/31/07
Labor Day is commemorated on the first Monday in September each year since the first one was celebrated in New York in 1882. Around the world outside the US, socialist and labor movements are observed on May 1 to recognize organized labor's social and economic achievements and the workers in them. This day gets scant attention in the US, but where it's prominent it's commonly to remember the Haymarket Riot of May 4, 1886 in Chicago. It followed the city's May 1 general strike for an eight hour day that led to violence breaking out on the 4th.
Labor Day became a national federal holiday when Congress passed legislation for it in June, 1894 at a time working people had few rights, management had the upper hand, only wanted to exploit them for profit, and got away with it. It took many painful years of organizing, taking to the streets, going on strike, holding boycotts, battling police and National Guard forces, and paying with their blood and lives before real gains were won. They got an eight hour day, a living wage, on-the-job benefits and the pinnacle of labor's triumph in the 1930s with the passage of the landmark Wagner Act establishing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). It guaranteed labor the right to bargain collectively on equal terms with management for the first time ever.
All of it was won from the grassroots. Management gave nothing until forced to and neither did government. It always sides with business never yields a thing unless threatened with disruptive work stoppages or possible insurrection. All this is in a democracy that claims to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people, most of whom are ordinary working class ones.
Since a worried Congress passed the 1935 Wagner Act during The Great Depression, the state of organized labor declined, especially post-WW II. It accelerated precipitously during the Reagan years under an administration openly hostile to worker rights in its one-side support for management. It continued unabated, under Republican and Democrat administrations, and today stands at a multi-generational low.
Under George Bush conditions got much worse. Since coming into office in 2001, he sided with management openly on policies to strip workers of their right to organize and be able to bargain for a living wage and essential benefits. He hired anti-union officials, denied millions overtime pay, cut pay raises for 1.8 million federal workers claiming a "national emergency," and schemed to end Social Security as we know it by plotting (unsuccessfully so far) to let Wall Street sharks take it over.
Since labor's ascendency decades earlier, corporate America, in league with government, shamelessly denigrated unions and the rights of working people in them. In 1958, 34.7% of the work force was unionized, but now the figure is around 12% overall, and only 7.4% in the private sector - the lowest it's been in seven decades.
Even worse, most jobs are low-pay service sector ones because the nation's manufacturing base and many higher-paying positions in finance and technology have been offshored to low-wage developing nations. Workers there can be hired for a fraction of the pay scales here or as virtual serfs at below poverty wages as low as $2 a day or less and no benefits. They fill legions of sweatshop factory jobs in countries prohibiting unions and fair worker practice standards for Wal-Mart's "Always low prices" on the backs of ruthlessly exploited working people.
Nonetheless, on the first Monday each September, this nation "remembers" working Americans with a federally-mandated holiday in their "honor." Who's celebrating when it's disingenuously commemorated at a time worker rights are threatened, ignored, forgotten, and uncared about by heartless governments beholden to capital. They scorn working people who are no longer as deceived with meaningless bread and circus droppings at the expense of what they need most: good jobs at good pay, essential benefits, job security, and a government on their side doing what counts most - supporting their rights with worker-friendly legislation.
Workers are reminded every day that backing like that is off the table by governments shamelessly mocking their day. It's commemorated in name only by a nation beholden to capital, the corporate giants controlling it, and the best democracy their money can buy for them alone.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com Saturdays at noon US central time.
Friday, August 31, 2007
a marketing point of view
The White House decided, they said, that even with the appearance of disarray it was still more advantageous to wait until after Labor Day to kick off their plan.
''From a marketing point of view,'' said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff who is coordinating the effort, ''you don't introduce new products in August.''
- The New York Times, September 7, 2002, Elizabeth Bushmiller
We’ve decided to have another war.
Happy Labor Day. Don’t worry, keep shopping.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Post Labor Day Product Rollout: War with Iran
by Barnett R. Rubin
http://icga.blogspot.com/2007/08/post-labor-day-product-rollout-war-with.html
[…]
But this apparently is just test marketing, like Cheney's 2002 speech. After all "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way:
They [the source's institution] have "instructions" (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this--they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is "plenty."
[…]
August 29, 2007
War With Iran It's already started
by Justin Raimondo
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11521
For months we at Antiwar.com have been monitoring the situation between Iran and the United States, parsing the words of administration spokesmen for any hints of when and how hostilities between the two countries might begin. We've been running reports from insiders saying that the Cheney faction is pushing for an attack, that Bush is quite amenable but is biding his time, and that an assault on Tehran is imminent. Now the president has come out openly with his warlike intentions. In a speech delivered Tuesday, he reiterated recent charges by Washington that Iran is arming and training Iraqi Shi'ite groups who are launching attacks on American forces in Iraq, and he announced: "I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities."
Translation: The bombing begins shortly…
Iran and Beyond: Total War is Still on the Horizon
by Glen Ford / July 14th, 2007
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/07/iran-and-beyond-total-war-is-still-on-the-horizon/
The mindset that launched the invasion of Iraq remains embedded in the mentality of the ruling circles of the United States — and compels them to lash out at Iran. Actually, Iran was supposed to have been vanquished, already, rolled up in the euphoria of America-Love that the delusional architects of the Iraq operation imagined existed among the people of the Middle East and the rest of the world. It didn’t turn out that way, because it could not. Americans are not loved, because they are not lovable. They kill, big time.
More than half a million deaths later, the same Americans imagine that they can resurrect the cemetery they have created, and make the corpses march under the Red, White, and Blue banner. But that is not possible. There are millions of grieving family members who know who the murderers are: the Americans. These sins will never be forgiven, and they are wounds to the entire Arab family. That’s a lot of folks.
When the Bush regime told the generals to cross the Kuwaiti border, and introduced the world to hi-tech “Shock and Awe,” they fully expected that the dominoes would fall in Tehran, Damascus and throughout the Arab/Persian/Turkik world. Such was their hubris, and their ignorance. They have not gotten any smarter, in defeat. They still savor taking Tehran, the capital of Iran, and are ramping up for an attack on that nation.
The Bush gang’s game plan remains the same: to somehow move beyond Iraq into Iran and Central Asia, to secure the geo-resource space that was the original goal of the Iraqi invasion - to change the world balance of power by military force. The Project for the New American Century was their blueprint for world conquest. It would have carried U.S. forces deep into places in Central Asia that most Americans had never heard of. The Americans planned to plant the flag among happy natives trodding atop vast oil and gas fields, and to effectively partition vast stretches of the planet from the Russians, Chinese, Indians, Europeans and anybody else. That was the plan. It failed, and they have no other plan.
So they go forward with the old plan, the only one they’ve got. Attack Iran…
Killing Time: Countdown Quickens for Bush War on Iran
Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 02 July 2007
(UPDATED below)
http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/Killing_Time%3A_Countdown_Quickens_for_Bush_War_on_Iran/
Here we go…
U.S. Ties Iranians to Iraq Attack That Killed G.I.’s (NY Times)
The countdown to war with Iran has entered its final stages now. Citing testimony elicited – by one means or another – from two Iraqi Shiite captives and a Lebanese man who has been held in one of Bush's secret prisons, U.S. military officials are now formally charging that Iranian government officials directly planned operations that killed American soldiers in Iraq.
Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said the evidence obtained from the captives proves that Iran's Qud Force – one of those deep cover, gloves-off, Special Ops kind of units so beloved of the Bushists and their bootlickers – are arming and training Shiite militia groups to attack American and Iraqi government forces. That would be the same Iraqi government that is controlled by, er, Iranian-armed and –trained militia groups who are also being armed and trained by the Bush Administration. This would also be the same Iraqi government whose leaders – installed via the American occupation and backed, with blood and treasure, by the Bush Administration – are frequently to be found in Tehran, praising the close and cooperative relationship they have with Iran. Why, just days before General Bergner leveled his charges, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was in Tehran, expressing his abiding appreciation of "the guidelines of Leader of the Islamic Revolution about Iraqi reconstruction and contribution of Iranian government to Iraqi nation's progress and welfare." (Alalam News, via Juan Cole)
So according to General Bergner, the Iranians are arming Shiite groups to overthrow the government made up of Shiite groups they previously armed, in order to…uh…install a government made up Shiite groups armed by Iran. Well, who knows? Maybe it's true. Maybe the Iranians are as stupid as the Bushists, who have been arming various violent, extremist factions in Iraq for years now, in what a cynical observer might be forgiven for thinking was a deliberate policy of setting Iraqis at each other's throats, the better to destroy the country and reduce it to a more easily dominated ruin (or grab-bag of rump states). But if so, it would be the first known instance of the Iranian regime arming groups to attack its own allies…
''From a marketing point of view,'' said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff who is coordinating the effort, ''you don't introduce new products in August.''
- The New York Times, September 7, 2002, Elizabeth Bushmiller
We’ve decided to have another war.
Happy Labor Day. Don’t worry, keep shopping.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Post Labor Day Product Rollout: War with Iran
by Barnett R. Rubin
http://icga.blogspot.com/2007/08/post-labor-day-product-rollout-war-with.html
[…]
But this apparently is just test marketing, like Cheney's 2002 speech. After all "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way:
They [the source's institution] have "instructions" (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this--they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is "plenty."
[…]
August 29, 2007
War With Iran It's already started
by Justin Raimondo
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11521
For months we at Antiwar.com have been monitoring the situation between Iran and the United States, parsing the words of administration spokesmen for any hints of when and how hostilities between the two countries might begin. We've been running reports from insiders saying that the Cheney faction is pushing for an attack, that Bush is quite amenable but is biding his time, and that an assault on Tehran is imminent. Now the president has come out openly with his warlike intentions. In a speech delivered Tuesday, he reiterated recent charges by Washington that Iran is arming and training Iraqi Shi'ite groups who are launching attacks on American forces in Iraq, and he announced: "I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran's murderous activities."
Translation: The bombing begins shortly…
Iran and Beyond: Total War is Still on the Horizon
by Glen Ford / July 14th, 2007
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/07/iran-and-beyond-total-war-is-still-on-the-horizon/
The mindset that launched the invasion of Iraq remains embedded in the mentality of the ruling circles of the United States — and compels them to lash out at Iran. Actually, Iran was supposed to have been vanquished, already, rolled up in the euphoria of America-Love that the delusional architects of the Iraq operation imagined existed among the people of the Middle East and the rest of the world. It didn’t turn out that way, because it could not. Americans are not loved, because they are not lovable. They kill, big time.
More than half a million deaths later, the same Americans imagine that they can resurrect the cemetery they have created, and make the corpses march under the Red, White, and Blue banner. But that is not possible. There are millions of grieving family members who know who the murderers are: the Americans. These sins will never be forgiven, and they are wounds to the entire Arab family. That’s a lot of folks.
When the Bush regime told the generals to cross the Kuwaiti border, and introduced the world to hi-tech “Shock and Awe,” they fully expected that the dominoes would fall in Tehran, Damascus and throughout the Arab/Persian/Turkik world. Such was their hubris, and their ignorance. They have not gotten any smarter, in defeat. They still savor taking Tehran, the capital of Iran, and are ramping up for an attack on that nation.
The Bush gang’s game plan remains the same: to somehow move beyond Iraq into Iran and Central Asia, to secure the geo-resource space that was the original goal of the Iraqi invasion - to change the world balance of power by military force. The Project for the New American Century was their blueprint for world conquest. It would have carried U.S. forces deep into places in Central Asia that most Americans had never heard of. The Americans planned to plant the flag among happy natives trodding atop vast oil and gas fields, and to effectively partition vast stretches of the planet from the Russians, Chinese, Indians, Europeans and anybody else. That was the plan. It failed, and they have no other plan.
So they go forward with the old plan, the only one they’ve got. Attack Iran…
Killing Time: Countdown Quickens for Bush War on Iran
Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 02 July 2007
(UPDATED below)
http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/Killing_Time%3A_Countdown_Quickens_for_Bush_War_on_Iran/
Here we go…
U.S. Ties Iranians to Iraq Attack That Killed G.I.’s (NY Times)
The countdown to war with Iran has entered its final stages now. Citing testimony elicited – by one means or another – from two Iraqi Shiite captives and a Lebanese man who has been held in one of Bush's secret prisons, U.S. military officials are now formally charging that Iranian government officials directly planned operations that killed American soldiers in Iraq.
Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said the evidence obtained from the captives proves that Iran's Qud Force – one of those deep cover, gloves-off, Special Ops kind of units so beloved of the Bushists and their bootlickers – are arming and training Shiite militia groups to attack American and Iraqi government forces. That would be the same Iraqi government that is controlled by, er, Iranian-armed and –trained militia groups who are also being armed and trained by the Bush Administration. This would also be the same Iraqi government whose leaders – installed via the American occupation and backed, with blood and treasure, by the Bush Administration – are frequently to be found in Tehran, praising the close and cooperative relationship they have with Iran. Why, just days before General Bergner leveled his charges, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was in Tehran, expressing his abiding appreciation of "the guidelines of Leader of the Islamic Revolution about Iraqi reconstruction and contribution of Iranian government to Iraqi nation's progress and welfare." (Alalam News, via Juan Cole)
So according to General Bergner, the Iranians are arming Shiite groups to overthrow the government made up of Shiite groups they previously armed, in order to…uh…install a government made up Shiite groups armed by Iran. Well, who knows? Maybe it's true. Maybe the Iranians are as stupid as the Bushists, who have been arming various violent, extremist factions in Iraq for years now, in what a cynical observer might be forgiven for thinking was a deliberate policy of setting Iraqis at each other's throats, the better to destroy the country and reduce it to a more easily dominated ruin (or grab-bag of rump states). But if so, it would be the first known instance of the Iranian regime arming groups to attack its own allies…
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
war against Iran
The President’s Escalating War Rhetoric On Iran
by Glenn Greenwald
Wednesday August 29, 2007 07:11 EST
George Bush, speaking before yet another military audience, yesterday delivered what might actually be the most disturbing speech of his presidency, in which he issued more overt war threats than ever before towards Iran:
The other strain of radicalism in the Middle East is Shia extremism, supported and embodied by the regime that sits in Tehran. Iran has long been a source of trouble in the region. It is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Iran backs Hezbollah who are trying to undermine the democratic government of Lebanon. Iran funds terrorist groups like Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which murder the innocent, and target Israel, and destabilize the Palestinian territories. Iran is sending arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan, which could be used to attack American and NATO troops. Iran has arrested visiting American scholars who have committed no crimes and pose no threat to their regime. And Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.
Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. And that is why the United States is rallying friends and allies around the world to isolate the regime, to impose economic sanctions. We will confront this danger before it is too late (Applause.)
Leave aside all of the dubious premises — the fact that the U.S. is supposed to consider Iran “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” because of its support for groups that are hostile to Israel; that Iran is arming its longstanding Taliban enemies; that Iran is some sort of threat to Iraq’s future even though it is an ally of Iraq’s government; and that Iran’s detention of American-Iranians inside its own country is anything other than retaliation for our own equally pointless detention of Iranians inside of Iraq, to say nothing of a whole slew of other provacative acts we have recently undertaken towards Iran. Leave all of that aside for the moment. Viewed through the prism of presidential jargon, Bush’s vow — “We will confront this danger before it is too late” — is synonymous with a pledge to attack Iran unless our array of demands are met. He is unmistakably proclaiming that unless Iran gives up its nuclear program and fundamentally changes its posture in the Middle East, “we will confront this danger.” What possible scenario could avert this outcome?
full article
read more
Bush warns of 'holocaust' if Iran gets nukes, warns Tehran off Iraq
by Olivier Knox
Wed Aug 29, 2007 2:28 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070829/pl_afp/irannuclearus_070829061944
Study: US preparing 'massive' military attack against Iran
08/28/2007 @ 11:04 am
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
http://tmars.iwarp.com/theMagazine/archive/07/attack-against-Iran.html
A provocative action against Iran
By Manal Alafrangi, Staff Writer
Published: August 22, 2007, 00:13
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10148220.html
US steps closer to war with Iran
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Aug 18, 2007
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH18Ak04.html
US 'surges', soldiers die. Blame Iran
By Gareth Porter
Aug 16, 2007
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH16Ak04.html
Bush warns Iraq over ties with Iran
by Olivier Knox
8/9/07
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070809/wl_afp/usiraniraqbush_070809170151
by Glenn Greenwald
Wednesday August 29, 2007 07:11 EST
George Bush, speaking before yet another military audience, yesterday delivered what might actually be the most disturbing speech of his presidency, in which he issued more overt war threats than ever before towards Iran:
The other strain of radicalism in the Middle East is Shia extremism, supported and embodied by the regime that sits in Tehran. Iran has long been a source of trouble in the region. It is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Iran backs Hezbollah who are trying to undermine the democratic government of Lebanon. Iran funds terrorist groups like Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which murder the innocent, and target Israel, and destabilize the Palestinian territories. Iran is sending arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan, which could be used to attack American and NATO troops. Iran has arrested visiting American scholars who have committed no crimes and pose no threat to their regime. And Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.
Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. And that is why the United States is rallying friends and allies around the world to isolate the regime, to impose economic sanctions. We will confront this danger before it is too late (Applause.)
Leave aside all of the dubious premises — the fact that the U.S. is supposed to consider Iran “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” because of its support for groups that are hostile to Israel; that Iran is arming its longstanding Taliban enemies; that Iran is some sort of threat to Iraq’s future even though it is an ally of Iraq’s government; and that Iran’s detention of American-Iranians inside its own country is anything other than retaliation for our own equally pointless detention of Iranians inside of Iraq, to say nothing of a whole slew of other provacative acts we have recently undertaken towards Iran. Leave all of that aside for the moment. Viewed through the prism of presidential jargon, Bush’s vow — “We will confront this danger before it is too late” — is synonymous with a pledge to attack Iran unless our array of demands are met. He is unmistakably proclaiming that unless Iran gives up its nuclear program and fundamentally changes its posture in the Middle East, “we will confront this danger.” What possible scenario could avert this outcome?
full article
read more
Bush warns of 'holocaust' if Iran gets nukes, warns Tehran off Iraq
by Olivier Knox
Wed Aug 29, 2007 2:28 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070829/pl_afp/irannuclearus_070829061944
Study: US preparing 'massive' military attack against Iran
08/28/2007 @ 11:04 am
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
http://tmars.iwarp.com/theMagazine/archive/07/attack-against-Iran.html
A provocative action against Iran
By Manal Alafrangi, Staff Writer
Published: August 22, 2007, 00:13
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10148220.html
US steps closer to war with Iran
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Aug 18, 2007
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH18Ak04.html
US 'surges', soldiers die. Blame Iran
By Gareth Porter
Aug 16, 2007
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH16Ak04.html
Bush warns Iraq over ties with Iran
by Olivier Knox
8/9/07
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070809/wl_afp/usiraniraqbush_070809170151
The War on Working Americans - Part II
- by Stephen Lendman
8/29/07
read Part I here
This article was written to assess the state of working America in the run-up to Labor Day, 2007. Organized labor today is severely weakened following decades of government and business duplicity to crush it. Part I reviewed the labor movement's rise in the 19th century and subsequent decline post-WW II and especially in the last three decades. Hope arose for some change in the Democrat-led 100th Congress. A weak effort emerged, but Senate Republicans killed it.
Organized labor is struggling to remain relevant and claw its way back. The enormous obstacles it faces are reviewed below as well as the condition of working Americans today in a globalized world affecting their lives and welfare heading "south" in the "land of opportunity" offering pathetically little.
full article
8/29/07
read Part I here
This article was written to assess the state of working America in the run-up to Labor Day, 2007. Organized labor today is severely weakened following decades of government and business duplicity to crush it. Part I reviewed the labor movement's rise in the 19th century and subsequent decline post-WW II and especially in the last three decades. Hope arose for some change in the Democrat-led 100th Congress. A weak effort emerged, but Senate Republicans killed it.
Organized labor is struggling to remain relevant and claw its way back. The enormous obstacles it faces are reviewed below as well as the condition of working Americans today in a globalized world affecting their lives and welfare heading "south" in the "land of opportunity" offering pathetically little.
full article
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Gonzales' work expanded power of the presidency
Roberto J. González
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/28/EDDGRQ9IA.DTL
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
In the aftermath of Alberto Gonzales' resignation and the U.S. attorney firings scandal, many have forgotten about the role he played in creating policies profoundly more troubling from a global perspective - policies that violate international law. They warrant not only Gonzales' resignation, but an independent investigation into his involvement in war crimes.
These policies are best exemplified by the "torture memos" Gonzales prepared from 2001 to 2003 while serving as President Bush's legal counsel. The documents, written by him and other administration lawyers, led to grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention against Torture at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and overseas secret prisons.
The most infamous memo was a Jan. 25, 2002, letter from Gonzales to Bush, which argued that "the war against terrorism is a new kind of war ... this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions" regarding treatment of suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members. Days later, Bush made it official policy.
During 2002, Gonzales chaired meetings with CIA and Pentagon advisers regarding the limits of interrogation and torture. The meetings included discussion of the relative merits of handcuffing, sleep deprivation, exposure to near-freezing temperatures and "water boarding" (simulated drowning). The advisers eventually relayed new policies down the chain of command, paving the way for ghastly abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the CIA's secret prisons.
As early as January 2005, a dozen retired generals and admirals publicly opposed Gonzales' nomination for the post of U.S. attorney general, declaring that "U.S. detention and interrogation operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere ... have fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence-gathering efforts, and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world."
Jordan Paust, a former member of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps, recently wrote that "not since the Nazi era have so many lawyers been so clearly involved in international crimes concerning the treatment and interrogation of persons detained during war."
Gonzales and his colleagues represent a radical fringe that has come under extraordinary criticism from prominent conservative lawyers Bruce Fein, Bob Barr, David Keene and Richard Viguerie, who recently founded the American Freedom Agenda to restore "an enlightened equilibrium among the three branches of government." The president's counselors - including Gonzales - attempted to put into practice a controversial legal concept known as the "unitary executive" theory, which maintains that congressional and judicial power over the executive branch should be strictly limited and that the president should retain complete control over all Cabinet-level agencies.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks led to a series of events that helped to hasten the development of the "unitary executive:" Congress passed the Use of Force Resolution on Sept. 14 (ceding war power to the president) and the PATRIOT Act on Oct. 26 (restricting civil liberties); and the president issued an executive order on Nov. 16 (proclaiming a state of extraordinary emergency, announcing rules for defining enemy combatants and forming military commissions not subject to congressional or judicial review). Taken together, these and subsequent changes mean that (in the words of AFA) "since 9/11, the executive branch has chronically usurped legislative or judicial power, and has repeatedly claimed that the president is the law."
The attorney firings scandal should be seen within the broader context of an executive power grab that has expanded extraordinary renditions, created a global prison network, attacked habeas corpus rights, engaged in warrantless surveillance, invaded and occupied Iraq without U.N. approval and disregarded international law.
As discussion begins about Gonzales' replacement, we should bear in mind the damage that he and other "unitary executive" theorists have done to the reputations of the eight fired attorneys - and to many others harmed by their reckless legalistic maneuvers. Gonzales and his colleagues must be held accountable for their crimes.
Roberto J. González is associate professor of anthropology at San Jose State University. He is the author of "Anthropologists in the Public Sphere: Speaking Out on War, Peace, and American Power" (2004). E-mail him at roberto_gonzalez@netzero.net.
This article appeared on page B - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/28/EDDGRQ9IA.DTL
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
In the aftermath of Alberto Gonzales' resignation and the U.S. attorney firings scandal, many have forgotten about the role he played in creating policies profoundly more troubling from a global perspective - policies that violate international law. They warrant not only Gonzales' resignation, but an independent investigation into his involvement in war crimes.
These policies are best exemplified by the "torture memos" Gonzales prepared from 2001 to 2003 while serving as President Bush's legal counsel. The documents, written by him and other administration lawyers, led to grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention against Torture at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and overseas secret prisons.
The most infamous memo was a Jan. 25, 2002, letter from Gonzales to Bush, which argued that "the war against terrorism is a new kind of war ... this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions" regarding treatment of suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members. Days later, Bush made it official policy.
During 2002, Gonzales chaired meetings with CIA and Pentagon advisers regarding the limits of interrogation and torture. The meetings included discussion of the relative merits of handcuffing, sleep deprivation, exposure to near-freezing temperatures and "water boarding" (simulated drowning). The advisers eventually relayed new policies down the chain of command, paving the way for ghastly abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the CIA's secret prisons.
As early as January 2005, a dozen retired generals and admirals publicly opposed Gonzales' nomination for the post of U.S. attorney general, declaring that "U.S. detention and interrogation operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere ... have fostered greater animosity toward the United States, undermined our intelligence-gathering efforts, and added to the risks facing our troops serving around the world."
Jordan Paust, a former member of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps, recently wrote that "not since the Nazi era have so many lawyers been so clearly involved in international crimes concerning the treatment and interrogation of persons detained during war."
Gonzales and his colleagues represent a radical fringe that has come under extraordinary criticism from prominent conservative lawyers Bruce Fein, Bob Barr, David Keene and Richard Viguerie, who recently founded the American Freedom Agenda to restore "an enlightened equilibrium among the three branches of government." The president's counselors - including Gonzales - attempted to put into practice a controversial legal concept known as the "unitary executive" theory, which maintains that congressional and judicial power over the executive branch should be strictly limited and that the president should retain complete control over all Cabinet-level agencies.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks led to a series of events that helped to hasten the development of the "unitary executive:" Congress passed the Use of Force Resolution on Sept. 14 (ceding war power to the president) and the PATRIOT Act on Oct. 26 (restricting civil liberties); and the president issued an executive order on Nov. 16 (proclaiming a state of extraordinary emergency, announcing rules for defining enemy combatants and forming military commissions not subject to congressional or judicial review). Taken together, these and subsequent changes mean that (in the words of AFA) "since 9/11, the executive branch has chronically usurped legislative or judicial power, and has repeatedly claimed that the president is the law."
The attorney firings scandal should be seen within the broader context of an executive power grab that has expanded extraordinary renditions, created a global prison network, attacked habeas corpus rights, engaged in warrantless surveillance, invaded and occupied Iraq without U.N. approval and disregarded international law.
As discussion begins about Gonzales' replacement, we should bear in mind the damage that he and other "unitary executive" theorists have done to the reputations of the eight fired attorneys - and to many others harmed by their reckless legalistic maneuvers. Gonzales and his colleagues must be held accountable for their crimes.
Roberto J. González is associate professor of anthropology at San Jose State University. He is the author of "Anthropologists in the Public Sphere: Speaking Out on War, Peace, and American Power" (2004). E-mail him at roberto_gonzalez@netzero.net.
This article appeared on page B - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, August 27, 2007
The War On Working Americans - Part I
- Stephen Lendman
8/27/08
As Labor Day approaches, what better time to assess the state of working America. It's under assault and weakened by decades of eroding rights in the richest country in the world once regarded as a model democratic state. It's pure nonsense in a nation always dedicated to wealth and power, but don't try finding that discussed in the mainstream. Today, it's truer than ever making the struggle for equity and justice all the harder. That's what ordinary working people now face making beating those odds formidable at the least.
full article
8/27/08
As Labor Day approaches, what better time to assess the state of working America. It's under assault and weakened by decades of eroding rights in the richest country in the world once regarded as a model democratic state. It's pure nonsense in a nation always dedicated to wealth and power, but don't try finding that discussed in the mainstream. Today, it's truer than ever making the struggle for equity and justice all the harder. That's what ordinary working people now face making beating those odds formidable at the least.
full article
Framing Questions And Making Choices
by Mary Pitt
8/27/07
The politicians, though they profess to ignore them, are greatly influenced by the national concensus polls. There have long been comments that the polls can say anything you want them to depending on the wording of the questions. It seems that may be all too true, because those questions do not include a real choice in the answer.
Of course, everybody resents the amounts of Social Security contributions which are taken out of their paychecks before they get them and, of course, nobody really enjoys paying taxes. However, if given a choice, these same people may find an entirely different answer to be appropriate. This was brought home to me recently while I was chatting with the young vice-president of our local bank. I believe I am safe in saying that he is a Republican because a Democrat is a rare find in these environs. In discussing the liabilities with which I am struggling as the result of my husband's death eight months ago, I stated that people are not aware of the amounts of medical bills that are not covered by Medicare. This led into a discussion of the costs of medical care in general. Then I simply asked him if he would be willing to pay a higher tax rate and be able to stop paying the exhorbitant premiums for medical coverage which still require the payment of cash from one's pocket. After a very short period of thought, he gave an answer which would astonish any of our representatives in government. A Republican constituent who would approve a single-payer universal health plan!
President Bush keeps telling us that Americans should be allowed to "make choices" and is very proud that he gave the senior citizens the privilege of deciding which insurance companies we would allow the national treasury to enrich by taking our money on a monthly basis as well as the government subsidy for which to pay only a portion of our prescription medical expenses. In order to do this, we have to talk to several insurance providers and choose which ones may offer us the better deal. In some cases, you must purchase your meds only from approved pharmacies. If your choices are limited due to location and availability of transportation, then you must continiue your search until you find one that will allow you to patronize the one in your area. Then you must go back to your physician to determine which medicines may be safely replaced with generic and which require the brand name product necessitating the payment of a higher deductible. Of course, there is also a co-payment for the price of an office visit to do so due to the patterning of Social Security after the practices of the insurance companies.
In every instance for the last six years, every time we are told we are given a choice, we find our choices limited by secret back-room deals between the White House and the big corporations. The next election, (and there are those who do not expect that to even happen), we may have an opportunity to change that situation, depending on who the Democratic leadership decides will be their candidate, and even that is not to be our choice. Senator Clinton and all the Republican candidates cannot seem to grasp the idea of "Medicare For All", proposing instead to pass mandatory insurance so that, again, our "choice" will be limited to which insurance company CEO will be enriched by our participation. Senator Biden wants us all to have "the same medical care that Congress has" without specifying how that plan could be enlarged to include the populace. Only former Senator Mike Gravel and Rep. Dennis Kucinich are willing to announce that they would support universal single -payer health care financed by tax contributions.
However, in a Congress that is averse to interfering with private enterprise, it appears unlikely that any meaningful health care reform will be on the horizon. The question rarely surfaces on any of the debates or television interviews. It may be that those who are conducting the questioning do not realize the importance of the problem in the lives of working Americans or it may simply be that the questions are ruled out by the respective candidates who simply do not want to be queried about it. But the questions will not be swept under the rug and forgotten in the furor over Iraq and the economy about which they prefer to argue. But so long as Americans may become ill and may find that medical bills are devastating and so long as people look to their government for the help that they need, the matter will not go away.
The same situation exists in discussions about Social Security. The cries of the young and inexperienced are long and loud as they insist they they can plan their own retirement without government intervention, and besides, that's awaaaay down the road! However, when one suggests the possibility that they just might lose their shirts in the stock market and have to rely on their children for the necessities of life in their dotage, they suddenly feel a wave of insecurity. We have become a nation of immediate gratification. We want it all and we want it NOW. We have become trained by the media and the advertisers that greed and selfishness are the norm and tomorrow can take care of itself. The burdens of maturity are held at bay as long as possible while we clutch our puny possessions to out breasts and scream, "Mine! Mine! Mine!"
Unless and until we can have a frank and candid conversation with our representatives to Washington regarding a calm and sensible approach to the domestic needs of our nation, instead of substituting the desires of the big multi-national corporations to keep us in bondage to them, there is little hope of continuing our existence as a democratic republic. For that, we must choose carefully not only the candidates whom we support but the actions which we can expect them to take once in office. These so-called debates with the one-line sound-bite responses just will not provide us with the information we need in order to exercise our franchise. The future of our nation, ourselves, and our children depend on our choosing wisely.
It's truly dangerous out there!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. She is non-partisan but steeped in true patriotism and pride in being an American and a daughter of the Founding Fathers.
8/27/07
The politicians, though they profess to ignore them, are greatly influenced by the national concensus polls. There have long been comments that the polls can say anything you want them to depending on the wording of the questions. It seems that may be all too true, because those questions do not include a real choice in the answer.
Of course, everybody resents the amounts of Social Security contributions which are taken out of their paychecks before they get them and, of course, nobody really enjoys paying taxes. However, if given a choice, these same people may find an entirely different answer to be appropriate. This was brought home to me recently while I was chatting with the young vice-president of our local bank. I believe I am safe in saying that he is a Republican because a Democrat is a rare find in these environs. In discussing the liabilities with which I am struggling as the result of my husband's death eight months ago, I stated that people are not aware of the amounts of medical bills that are not covered by Medicare. This led into a discussion of the costs of medical care in general. Then I simply asked him if he would be willing to pay a higher tax rate and be able to stop paying the exhorbitant premiums for medical coverage which still require the payment of cash from one's pocket. After a very short period of thought, he gave an answer which would astonish any of our representatives in government. A Republican constituent who would approve a single-payer universal health plan!
President Bush keeps telling us that Americans should be allowed to "make choices" and is very proud that he gave the senior citizens the privilege of deciding which insurance companies we would allow the national treasury to enrich by taking our money on a monthly basis as well as the government subsidy for which to pay only a portion of our prescription medical expenses. In order to do this, we have to talk to several insurance providers and choose which ones may offer us the better deal. In some cases, you must purchase your meds only from approved pharmacies. If your choices are limited due to location and availability of transportation, then you must continiue your search until you find one that will allow you to patronize the one in your area. Then you must go back to your physician to determine which medicines may be safely replaced with generic and which require the brand name product necessitating the payment of a higher deductible. Of course, there is also a co-payment for the price of an office visit to do so due to the patterning of Social Security after the practices of the insurance companies.
In every instance for the last six years, every time we are told we are given a choice, we find our choices limited by secret back-room deals between the White House and the big corporations. The next election, (and there are those who do not expect that to even happen), we may have an opportunity to change that situation, depending on who the Democratic leadership decides will be their candidate, and even that is not to be our choice. Senator Clinton and all the Republican candidates cannot seem to grasp the idea of "Medicare For All", proposing instead to pass mandatory insurance so that, again, our "choice" will be limited to which insurance company CEO will be enriched by our participation. Senator Biden wants us all to have "the same medical care that Congress has" without specifying how that plan could be enlarged to include the populace. Only former Senator Mike Gravel and Rep. Dennis Kucinich are willing to announce that they would support universal single -payer health care financed by tax contributions.
However, in a Congress that is averse to interfering with private enterprise, it appears unlikely that any meaningful health care reform will be on the horizon. The question rarely surfaces on any of the debates or television interviews. It may be that those who are conducting the questioning do not realize the importance of the problem in the lives of working Americans or it may simply be that the questions are ruled out by the respective candidates who simply do not want to be queried about it. But the questions will not be swept under the rug and forgotten in the furor over Iraq and the economy about which they prefer to argue. But so long as Americans may become ill and may find that medical bills are devastating and so long as people look to their government for the help that they need, the matter will not go away.
The same situation exists in discussions about Social Security. The cries of the young and inexperienced are long and loud as they insist they they can plan their own retirement without government intervention, and besides, that's awaaaay down the road! However, when one suggests the possibility that they just might lose their shirts in the stock market and have to rely on their children for the necessities of life in their dotage, they suddenly feel a wave of insecurity. We have become a nation of immediate gratification. We want it all and we want it NOW. We have become trained by the media and the advertisers that greed and selfishness are the norm and tomorrow can take care of itself. The burdens of maturity are held at bay as long as possible while we clutch our puny possessions to out breasts and scream, "Mine! Mine! Mine!"
Unless and until we can have a frank and candid conversation with our representatives to Washington regarding a calm and sensible approach to the domestic needs of our nation, instead of substituting the desires of the big multi-national corporations to keep us in bondage to them, there is little hope of continuing our existence as a democratic republic. For that, we must choose carefully not only the candidates whom we support but the actions which we can expect them to take once in office. These so-called debates with the one-line sound-bite responses just will not provide us with the information we need in order to exercise our franchise. The future of our nation, ourselves, and our children depend on our choosing wisely.
It's truly dangerous out there!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. She is non-partisan but steeped in true patriotism and pride in being an American and a daughter of the Founding Fathers.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Beyond the Rhetoric of Withdrawal:
Our Unknown Air War Over Iraq
by Ed Kinane / August 25th, 2007
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/08/beyond-the-rhetoric-of-withdrawal-our-unknown-air-war-over-iraq/
A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President’s public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower. . . . The American air war inside Iraq is perhaps the most significant – and underreported – aspect of the fight against the insurgency.
– Seymour M. Hersh, “Up in the Air,” New Yorker, Nov. 29, 2005
There’s an air war over Iraq. It’s invisible (here). It’s deadly (there).
The Iraq air war may be the longest such war in history. In one way or another it has been undermining Iraq’s sovereignty, destroying its infrastructure, and killing and maiming Iraqis for some 16 years.
Despite global pressure to withdraw, Bush Inc. – and indeed the broader US power structure – has no intention of giving up Iraq. The potential oil bonanza is too huge. And Iran – with its oil bonanza – is next door.
That air war is intensifying. The US dropped five times as many bombs in Iraq during the first six months of 2007 as it did in the first half of 2006.[1]
“When the troops are cut, we’ll still be bombing the hell out of the place.”[2]
Terror from the Sky
The high tech mayhem of the First Gulf War and that of the 2003 “Shock and Awe” air attack got plenty of media play. Although bloody and intensely dramatic, these were fleeting episodes.
Since the beginning of the US occupation the media has largely ignored the airborne terror visited on Iraq. Besides “boots on the ground” stories, our corporate media feeds us a daily diet of horror. It features ghastly suicide bombings and the havoc of roadside explosive devices. It pumps us full of the atrocities others commit. The balance is wildly askew.
Because most US journalists in Iraq are embedded, they cover the war from the perspective of the US soldiers they accompany.
“Embeds” seldom accompany chopper or fixed-wing pilots and never accompany unmanned Predator drones — those robot planes that spew death with no risk to those guiding them from afar. So embeds can tell us little about such operations and their consequences.
As in most warfare in recent decades, most Iraq air war victims are civilians.
According to The Lancet medical journal study of Iraqi casualties, between March 2003 and June 2006 coalition air strikes caused over 78,000 violent deaths in Iraq. Coalition air strikes caused half of all violent deaths of Iraqi children under age 15.[3]
The Pentagon cloaks its airborne missions and their ordnance in secrecy. We seldom hear of the terror the invader rains from the sky. We seldom hear about the civilian-shredding cluster bombs or — as in the leveling of Fallujah — the civilian-igniting white phosphorus. Nor do we hear about the toxic and radioactive depleted uranium shells.
A Shameful History
Seymour Hersh’s November 2005 New Yorker article, “Up in the Air,” led to a flurry of progressive Internet commentary trying (with little success) to wake us up. But it was Dr. Les Roberts and his colleagues’ two Lancet studies of Iraqi war casualties that revealed the scale of the air war.[4]
This hecatomb isn’t unique in our history. From the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, to Korea and South East Asia, to the first Gulf War and now to Iraq — the air war is the “signature” of US war making.[5]
Such air war almost by definition is asymmetrical. In Iraq there’s no opposing air force and little or no anti-aircraft artillery. This pattern, this trend, shapes the world. It is the rogue elephant in our living room. Such is the denial, however, that we ignore its rampage.
The air war often targets residences or residential neighborhoods. From these areas the equally ruthless (though infinitely less armed and financed) resistance may or may not have staged an attack, and within them the resistance may or may not be seeking shelter.
Aerial bombardment is heinous and cowardly. Visiting wounded children in Baghdad hospitals in 2003 heightened my awareness of the air war. Those memories reinforce my resolve to live below taxable income: I don’t want to contribute a penny in federal taxes to the war machine – whether it kills and maims on land or from the air.
“Bring Them Home” Isn’t Enough
Recently some of us were doing weekly “outreach” — facing oncoming traffic with anti-war signs during rush hour at a busy Syracuse intersection. A passing driver, enraged at our perfidy, screamed that his son had been killed in Iraq.
I had no chance to explain to him our belief that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home. If the man’s son had never been sent to Iraq, he might well be alive today.
Since March 2003 US soldiers, many involuntarily, have been put through hell. Many US Americans have either empathy or some connection to one or more of those soldiers. So, “bring them home” is an apt message to put out there.
But that slogan is incomplete; it needs augmenting by other messages that raise consciousness and look beyond the eventual withdrawal of most US troops from Iraq. “Bring them home” must be accompanied by other messages that, among other things, expose the air war. Otherwise, when those soldiers seem out of harm’s way, people here may move on to other concerns – leaving the air war as robust and off the radar as ever.
“Bring them home” doesn’t address the criminality of the occupation nor the injustice done to the Iraqi people. It doesn’t begin to address reparations.
Nor does it acknowledge that as US forces downsize, many of the surviving soldiers won’t come home. Some will be kept in Iraq to train the Iraqi military to somehow suppress an extremely capable and committed resistance. Such “Iraqization” of the war recalls the feckless “Vietnamization” of an earlier era.
Reserve Cannon Fodder
With downsizing, many surviving soldiers will be deployed elsewhere in the Middle East. They may be out of harm’s way… temporarily. But they’ll be on stand-by: reserve cannon fodder in the perpetual resource war. Think Afghanistan… or Iran… or Pakistan….
Whether the soldiers are re-deployed in the region or rotate home, the phantom air war won’t go away. Given the current gaggle of candidates, this seems assured regardless of who next occupies the White House.
Here is not the place to review the candidates and their rhetoric. Suffice it to say that Hillary Clinton, a leader in the polls and supposedly part of the opposition, is a hawk.
Like other candidates, Hillary has ties to hawkish Israel. She also — in this most corporate-enriching war of all — has close corporate ties. Not to mention ties to Bill. Recall that it was Bill who presided over eight years of low intensity air war and genocidal sanctions on Iraq.
Enforcing the Empire
Apart from whether any of the candidates would end the war, consider the power structure’s frequently cited alternative strategy. It’s embodied in The Iraq Study Group Report.[6] Published last December, the Report sought to rectify neo-con excesses and strategic blunders.
The Report was compiled by beltway power brokers who fear the Iraq quagmire is breaking the US military machine. They fear the Empire will lose its enforcers.
The Report talks a good game: it calls on Mr. Bush to eventually withdraw most US ground forces. But the Report does not call for US troops to come home.
Rather the soldiers are to be redeployed nearby. Equally ominous, the Report makes no call whatsoever for US forces to vacate Iraq skies.[7] The Report has gotten away with such an egregious lapse in part because few anti-war activists know it’s a problem. Locally and nationally we have yet to grapple with what the air war means for our work. We have yet to put it on the agenda.
1- Charles J. Hanley, “Air Force Quietly Building Iraq Presence,” July 14, 2007, Associated Press
2- Sydney Schanberg, “The Unseen War in Iraq,” Village Voice, Jan. 24, 2006.
3- Nick Turse, “Our Shadowy Iraq Air War,” TomPaine.com, May 24, 2007.
4- Les Roberts, et al, “Mortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: Cluster Sample Survey,” Oct. 29, 2004, The Lancet. Sequel: Les Roberts, et al, “Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A Cross-Sectional Cluster Sample Survey,” The Lancet, Oct. 11, 2006.
5- Tom Engelhardt, “The Missing Air War in Iraq,” TomDispatch.com, Dec. 15, 2005.
6 - James A. Baker, III and Lee H. Hamilton et al, The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward – A New Approach (Vintage, 2006).
7- See Ed Kinane, “Killing the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs: A look at the Iraq Study Group Report,” Uruknet.info, Feb. 14, 2007; also reprinted at vcnv.org.
Ed Kinane worked in Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness before, during and after “Shock and Awe.” Reach him at: edkinane@verizon.net.
by Ed Kinane / August 25th, 2007
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/08/beyond-the-rhetoric-of-withdrawal-our-unknown-air-war-over-iraq/
A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President’s public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower. . . . The American air war inside Iraq is perhaps the most significant – and underreported – aspect of the fight against the insurgency.
– Seymour M. Hersh, “Up in the Air,” New Yorker, Nov. 29, 2005
There’s an air war over Iraq. It’s invisible (here). It’s deadly (there).
The Iraq air war may be the longest such war in history. In one way or another it has been undermining Iraq’s sovereignty, destroying its infrastructure, and killing and maiming Iraqis for some 16 years.
Despite global pressure to withdraw, Bush Inc. – and indeed the broader US power structure – has no intention of giving up Iraq. The potential oil bonanza is too huge. And Iran – with its oil bonanza – is next door.
That air war is intensifying. The US dropped five times as many bombs in Iraq during the first six months of 2007 as it did in the first half of 2006.[1]
“When the troops are cut, we’ll still be bombing the hell out of the place.”[2]
Terror from the Sky
The high tech mayhem of the First Gulf War and that of the 2003 “Shock and Awe” air attack got plenty of media play. Although bloody and intensely dramatic, these were fleeting episodes.
Since the beginning of the US occupation the media has largely ignored the airborne terror visited on Iraq. Besides “boots on the ground” stories, our corporate media feeds us a daily diet of horror. It features ghastly suicide bombings and the havoc of roadside explosive devices. It pumps us full of the atrocities others commit. The balance is wildly askew.
Because most US journalists in Iraq are embedded, they cover the war from the perspective of the US soldiers they accompany.
“Embeds” seldom accompany chopper or fixed-wing pilots and never accompany unmanned Predator drones — those robot planes that spew death with no risk to those guiding them from afar. So embeds can tell us little about such operations and their consequences.
As in most warfare in recent decades, most Iraq air war victims are civilians.
According to The Lancet medical journal study of Iraqi casualties, between March 2003 and June 2006 coalition air strikes caused over 78,000 violent deaths in Iraq. Coalition air strikes caused half of all violent deaths of Iraqi children under age 15.[3]
The Pentagon cloaks its airborne missions and their ordnance in secrecy. We seldom hear of the terror the invader rains from the sky. We seldom hear about the civilian-shredding cluster bombs or — as in the leveling of Fallujah — the civilian-igniting white phosphorus. Nor do we hear about the toxic and radioactive depleted uranium shells.
A Shameful History
Seymour Hersh’s November 2005 New Yorker article, “Up in the Air,” led to a flurry of progressive Internet commentary trying (with little success) to wake us up. But it was Dr. Les Roberts and his colleagues’ two Lancet studies of Iraqi war casualties that revealed the scale of the air war.[4]
This hecatomb isn’t unique in our history. From the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, to Korea and South East Asia, to the first Gulf War and now to Iraq — the air war is the “signature” of US war making.[5]
Such air war almost by definition is asymmetrical. In Iraq there’s no opposing air force and little or no anti-aircraft artillery. This pattern, this trend, shapes the world. It is the rogue elephant in our living room. Such is the denial, however, that we ignore its rampage.
The air war often targets residences or residential neighborhoods. From these areas the equally ruthless (though infinitely less armed and financed) resistance may or may not have staged an attack, and within them the resistance may or may not be seeking shelter.
Aerial bombardment is heinous and cowardly. Visiting wounded children in Baghdad hospitals in 2003 heightened my awareness of the air war. Those memories reinforce my resolve to live below taxable income: I don’t want to contribute a penny in federal taxes to the war machine – whether it kills and maims on land or from the air.
“Bring Them Home” Isn’t Enough
Recently some of us were doing weekly “outreach” — facing oncoming traffic with anti-war signs during rush hour at a busy Syracuse intersection. A passing driver, enraged at our perfidy, screamed that his son had been killed in Iraq.
I had no chance to explain to him our belief that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home. If the man’s son had never been sent to Iraq, he might well be alive today.
Since March 2003 US soldiers, many involuntarily, have been put through hell. Many US Americans have either empathy or some connection to one or more of those soldiers. So, “bring them home” is an apt message to put out there.
But that slogan is incomplete; it needs augmenting by other messages that raise consciousness and look beyond the eventual withdrawal of most US troops from Iraq. “Bring them home” must be accompanied by other messages that, among other things, expose the air war. Otherwise, when those soldiers seem out of harm’s way, people here may move on to other concerns – leaving the air war as robust and off the radar as ever.
“Bring them home” doesn’t address the criminality of the occupation nor the injustice done to the Iraqi people. It doesn’t begin to address reparations.
Nor does it acknowledge that as US forces downsize, many of the surviving soldiers won’t come home. Some will be kept in Iraq to train the Iraqi military to somehow suppress an extremely capable and committed resistance. Such “Iraqization” of the war recalls the feckless “Vietnamization” of an earlier era.
Reserve Cannon Fodder
With downsizing, many surviving soldiers will be deployed elsewhere in the Middle East. They may be out of harm’s way… temporarily. But they’ll be on stand-by: reserve cannon fodder in the perpetual resource war. Think Afghanistan… or Iran… or Pakistan….
Whether the soldiers are re-deployed in the region or rotate home, the phantom air war won’t go away. Given the current gaggle of candidates, this seems assured regardless of who next occupies the White House.
Here is not the place to review the candidates and their rhetoric. Suffice it to say that Hillary Clinton, a leader in the polls and supposedly part of the opposition, is a hawk.
Like other candidates, Hillary has ties to hawkish Israel. She also — in this most corporate-enriching war of all — has close corporate ties. Not to mention ties to Bill. Recall that it was Bill who presided over eight years of low intensity air war and genocidal sanctions on Iraq.
Enforcing the Empire
Apart from whether any of the candidates would end the war, consider the power structure’s frequently cited alternative strategy. It’s embodied in The Iraq Study Group Report.[6] Published last December, the Report sought to rectify neo-con excesses and strategic blunders.
The Report was compiled by beltway power brokers who fear the Iraq quagmire is breaking the US military machine. They fear the Empire will lose its enforcers.
The Report talks a good game: it calls on Mr. Bush to eventually withdraw most US ground forces. But the Report does not call for US troops to come home.
Rather the soldiers are to be redeployed nearby. Equally ominous, the Report makes no call whatsoever for US forces to vacate Iraq skies.[7] The Report has gotten away with such an egregious lapse in part because few anti-war activists know it’s a problem. Locally and nationally we have yet to grapple with what the air war means for our work. We have yet to put it on the agenda.
1- Charles J. Hanley, “Air Force Quietly Building Iraq Presence,” July 14, 2007, Associated Press
2- Sydney Schanberg, “The Unseen War in Iraq,” Village Voice, Jan. 24, 2006.
3- Nick Turse, “Our Shadowy Iraq Air War,” TomPaine.com, May 24, 2007.
4- Les Roberts, et al, “Mortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: Cluster Sample Survey,” Oct. 29, 2004, The Lancet. Sequel: Les Roberts, et al, “Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A Cross-Sectional Cluster Sample Survey,” The Lancet, Oct. 11, 2006.
5- Tom Engelhardt, “The Missing Air War in Iraq,” TomDispatch.com, Dec. 15, 2005.
6 - James A. Baker, III and Lee H. Hamilton et al, The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward – A New Approach (Vintage, 2006).
7- See Ed Kinane, “Killing the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs: A look at the Iraq Study Group Report,” Uruknet.info, Feb. 14, 2007; also reprinted at vcnv.org.
Ed Kinane worked in Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness before, during and after “Shock and Awe.” Reach him at: edkinane@verizon.net.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Market Efficiency Hokum
- by Stephen Lendman
8/24/07
You know the story triumphantly heard in the West. Markets work best when governments let them operate freely - unconstrained by rules, regulations and taxes about which noted economist Milton Friedman once said in an interview he was "in favor of cutting....under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible (because) the big problem is not taxes (but government) spending.
Friedman is no longer with us, but by his reasoning, the solution to curbing it is "to hold down the amount of income (government) has (and presto) the way to do it is to cut taxes." He seemed to forget about borrowing and the Federal Reserve's ability to print limitless amounts of ready cash the way it's been doing for years and during the current credit squeeze…
full article
Debt as Money
8/24/07
You know the story triumphantly heard in the West. Markets work best when governments let them operate freely - unconstrained by rules, regulations and taxes about which noted economist Milton Friedman once said in an interview he was "in favor of cutting....under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible (because) the big problem is not taxes (but government) spending.
Friedman is no longer with us, but by his reasoning, the solution to curbing it is "to hold down the amount of income (government) has (and presto) the way to do it is to cut taxes." He seemed to forget about borrowing and the Federal Reserve's ability to print limitless amounts of ready cash the way it's been doing for years and during the current credit squeeze…
full article
Debt as Money
Friday, August 24, 2007
in the crosshairs of the cheneybush
FOX attacks Iran
CIA said to step up operations in Iran as hawks seek to tie Iraq bombs to Tehran
08/24/2007 @ 11:15 am
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Eyeing_strike_Bush_Administration_shifts_Iran_0824.html
‘They still need a trigger,’ former official says
In an effort to build congressional and Pentagon support for military options against Iran, the Bush administration has shifted from its earlier strategy of building a case based on an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program to one invoking improvised explosive devices (IEDs) purportedly manufactured in Iran that are killing US soldiers in Iraq.
According to officials – including two former Central Intelligence Agency case officers with experience in the Middle East – the administration believes that by focusing on the alleged ties between IEDs and Iran, they can link the Iranian government directly to attacks on US forces in Iraq.
The US military has provided credible evidence that the specialized IEDs known as explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), which have been killing US troops in Iraq, appear to have been manufactured in Iran. Intelligence and military officials caution, however, that there is nothing tying the weapons directly to the Iranian government, nor is there a direct evidentiary chain of custody linking the IEDs to Iran.
“There is clear evidence that someone in Iran is manufacturing the EFPs,” said a source currently working with military and intelligence joint operations in the Middle East, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the topic. “They have a distinctive signature. These devices are being used against US troops, Sunnis, and even some Shi'as.”
“This is viewed by some in the Bush Administration as sufficient justification for taking military action against Iran,” the source concluded.
Nearly half of all fatalities and serious injuries among US forces in Iraq are caused by IED attacks, including 43% of US casualties in Iraq this month.
CIA reported to step up operations
A senior intelligence official told RAW STORY Tuesday that the CIA had stepped up operations in the region, shifting their Iran focus to ”other” approaches in preference to the “black propaganda” that Raw Story “has already reported on.”
The source would not elaborate on what these “other” approaches are. A recent Washington Post report indicated that the US plans to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group, the first such designation for a foreign nation's military.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano would neither confirm nor deny that “other” operations were taking place.
“The CIA does not, as a matter of course, comment on allegations involving clandestine operations, despite the large amount of misinformation that circulates publicly on the subject," responded Gimigliano in a late Thursday email.
RAW STORY revealed in June that, according to sources, Iran was being targeted by CIA activities promoting a “pro-democracy” message and that the agency was supporting overt “pro-democracy” groups.
Two former CIA case officers interviewed said that the administration has zeroed in on the EFPs as proof positive of Iran's involvement in Iraq, despite lacking any direct trail to Tehran.
One former CIA case officer who served in the Middle East even suggested that politically framing the Iranians for its own failures in Iraq would allow the Bush administration to avoid accountability, as well as providing a casus belli for an attack.
The Bush Administration “can say it’s [the Iranians'] fault we are losing the war in Iraq and that would be a convenient out for their failed policy,” the officer said Monday.
The Iranians “have declared war against the US by sabotaging the war on terror is how they might sell it. I would not be surprised to next hear of Al Qaeda-Iranian connections because these people don't know the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'a.”
Some continue to press for 'surgical strikes'
Another former CIA case officer with experience in the Middle East said that some in the administration have continued to make a case for limited or surgical strikes inside Iran, and that preparations are well underway for such an operation to occur before next year’s presidential election.
“If you were to report that a US surgical strike against key targets in Iran were to happen sooner rather than later, you would not be wrong,” said this source, who wished to remain unnamed due to the sensitivity of the topic.
None of the sources interviewed for this article referenced President George W. Bush or alluded to the end of the Bush presidency as the deadline for an Iranian offensive. Each, instead, mentioned either the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney or Cheney himself.
Intelligence expert Steven Aftergood, Research Director for the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said he doesn’t believe a surgical strike would be wise.
“A surgical strike simply refers to a precisely targeted attack on a particular installation, conducted so as to minimize collateral damage. Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor would be an example,” Aftergood remarked.
“I don't believe there is a consensus that a surgical strike could be used effectively to disable Iran's nuclear program, or that it would be wise to attempt such a strike.”
Iranian's Revolutionary Guard
In addition to shifting from a strategy that uses an alleged immediate threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran to one featuring IEDs as the tool by which Iran is allegedly trying to sabotage the efforts of US forces in Iraq, the administration has also moved toward directly implicating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – sometimes referred to as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard – by labeling the group a "specially designated global terrorist" organizations.
According to an August 15, Washington Post article, the Guard will be designated a global terrorist organization under Executive Order 13224, which was issued shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001 to target and block funding to terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is the largest branch of Iran's military, boasting well over 100,000 elite active duty soldiers and roughly 300,000 reservists. The designation of the Guard as a "specially designated global terrorist” would be the first time a foreign military has been declared a terrorist organization.
Some officials speculate that the administration is trying to provoke the Iranians into an incident that will justify an airstrike in response, suggesting that the combined effect of circumstantial evidence tying Iran to the IEDs and an event or incident involving the Iranian Revolutionary Guard might “just be enough” to justify military action against Iran.
Experts and officials in the US military and intelligence communities read the administration's move to declare the Guard a terrorist organization as an indication that something ominous is looming over the horizon.
One of the former CIA case officers interviewed for this article explained that the Office of the Vice President is making this drastic move in order to lay the groundwork for a possible incident.
“They still need a trigger and I would not be surprised if we will see some event in Iraq which implicates the Iranians,” said this source. “They need a pretext.”
The motivations for an Iran strike were laid out as far back as 1992. In classified defense planning guidance – written for then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney by then-Pentagon staffers I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and current UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad – Cheney's aides called for the United States to assume the position of lone superpower and act preemptively to prevent the emergence of even regional competitors. The draft document was leaked at the time to the New York Times and the Washington Post and caused an uproar among Democrats and many in George H. W. Bush's Administration.
Previous attempts at “fixing the facts” around the policy of a military strike against Iran have failed on several occasions, including ramped up allegations of an Iranian WMD program being close to completion that culminated in a near-offensive in March of 2006 and attempts at provocation by positioning US aircraft carriers in the region during the summer of 2006.
Larisa Alexandrovna is managing editor of investigative news for Raw Story and regularly reports on intelligence and national security stories. Contact: larisa@rawstory.com
Muriel Kane contributed to the research for this article.
links to related articles at original
CIA said to step up operations in Iran as hawks seek to tie Iraq bombs to Tehran
08/24/2007 @ 11:15 am
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Eyeing_strike_Bush_Administration_shifts_Iran_0824.html
‘They still need a trigger,’ former official says
In an effort to build congressional and Pentagon support for military options against Iran, the Bush administration has shifted from its earlier strategy of building a case based on an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program to one invoking improvised explosive devices (IEDs) purportedly manufactured in Iran that are killing US soldiers in Iraq.
According to officials – including two former Central Intelligence Agency case officers with experience in the Middle East – the administration believes that by focusing on the alleged ties between IEDs and Iran, they can link the Iranian government directly to attacks on US forces in Iraq.
The US military has provided credible evidence that the specialized IEDs known as explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), which have been killing US troops in Iraq, appear to have been manufactured in Iran. Intelligence and military officials caution, however, that there is nothing tying the weapons directly to the Iranian government, nor is there a direct evidentiary chain of custody linking the IEDs to Iran.
“There is clear evidence that someone in Iran is manufacturing the EFPs,” said a source currently working with military and intelligence joint operations in the Middle East, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the topic. “They have a distinctive signature. These devices are being used against US troops, Sunnis, and even some Shi'as.”
“This is viewed by some in the Bush Administration as sufficient justification for taking military action against Iran,” the source concluded.
Nearly half of all fatalities and serious injuries among US forces in Iraq are caused by IED attacks, including 43% of US casualties in Iraq this month.
CIA reported to step up operations
A senior intelligence official told RAW STORY Tuesday that the CIA had stepped up operations in the region, shifting their Iran focus to ”other” approaches in preference to the “black propaganda” that Raw Story “has already reported on.”
The source would not elaborate on what these “other” approaches are. A recent Washington Post report indicated that the US plans to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group, the first such designation for a foreign nation's military.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano would neither confirm nor deny that “other” operations were taking place.
“The CIA does not, as a matter of course, comment on allegations involving clandestine operations, despite the large amount of misinformation that circulates publicly on the subject," responded Gimigliano in a late Thursday email.
RAW STORY revealed in June that, according to sources, Iran was being targeted by CIA activities promoting a “pro-democracy” message and that the agency was supporting overt “pro-democracy” groups.
Two former CIA case officers interviewed said that the administration has zeroed in on the EFPs as proof positive of Iran's involvement in Iraq, despite lacking any direct trail to Tehran.
One former CIA case officer who served in the Middle East even suggested that politically framing the Iranians for its own failures in Iraq would allow the Bush administration to avoid accountability, as well as providing a casus belli for an attack.
The Bush Administration “can say it’s [the Iranians'] fault we are losing the war in Iraq and that would be a convenient out for their failed policy,” the officer said Monday.
The Iranians “have declared war against the US by sabotaging the war on terror is how they might sell it. I would not be surprised to next hear of Al Qaeda-Iranian connections because these people don't know the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'a.”
Some continue to press for 'surgical strikes'
Another former CIA case officer with experience in the Middle East said that some in the administration have continued to make a case for limited or surgical strikes inside Iran, and that preparations are well underway for such an operation to occur before next year’s presidential election.
“If you were to report that a US surgical strike against key targets in Iran were to happen sooner rather than later, you would not be wrong,” said this source, who wished to remain unnamed due to the sensitivity of the topic.
None of the sources interviewed for this article referenced President George W. Bush or alluded to the end of the Bush presidency as the deadline for an Iranian offensive. Each, instead, mentioned either the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney or Cheney himself.
Intelligence expert Steven Aftergood, Research Director for the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said he doesn’t believe a surgical strike would be wise.
“A surgical strike simply refers to a precisely targeted attack on a particular installation, conducted so as to minimize collateral damage. Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor would be an example,” Aftergood remarked.
“I don't believe there is a consensus that a surgical strike could be used effectively to disable Iran's nuclear program, or that it would be wise to attempt such a strike.”
Iranian's Revolutionary Guard
In addition to shifting from a strategy that uses an alleged immediate threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran to one featuring IEDs as the tool by which Iran is allegedly trying to sabotage the efforts of US forces in Iraq, the administration has also moved toward directly implicating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – sometimes referred to as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard – by labeling the group a "specially designated global terrorist" organizations.
According to an August 15, Washington Post article, the Guard will be designated a global terrorist organization under Executive Order 13224, which was issued shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001 to target and block funding to terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is the largest branch of Iran's military, boasting well over 100,000 elite active duty soldiers and roughly 300,000 reservists. The designation of the Guard as a "specially designated global terrorist” would be the first time a foreign military has been declared a terrorist organization.
Some officials speculate that the administration is trying to provoke the Iranians into an incident that will justify an airstrike in response, suggesting that the combined effect of circumstantial evidence tying Iran to the IEDs and an event or incident involving the Iranian Revolutionary Guard might “just be enough” to justify military action against Iran.
Experts and officials in the US military and intelligence communities read the administration's move to declare the Guard a terrorist organization as an indication that something ominous is looming over the horizon.
One of the former CIA case officers interviewed for this article explained that the Office of the Vice President is making this drastic move in order to lay the groundwork for a possible incident.
“They still need a trigger and I would not be surprised if we will see some event in Iraq which implicates the Iranians,” said this source. “They need a pretext.”
The motivations for an Iran strike were laid out as far back as 1992. In classified defense planning guidance – written for then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney by then-Pentagon staffers I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and current UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad – Cheney's aides called for the United States to assume the position of lone superpower and act preemptively to prevent the emergence of even regional competitors. The draft document was leaked at the time to the New York Times and the Washington Post and caused an uproar among Democrats and many in George H. W. Bush's Administration.
Previous attempts at “fixing the facts” around the policy of a military strike against Iran have failed on several occasions, including ramped up allegations of an Iranian WMD program being close to completion that culminated in a near-offensive in March of 2006 and attempts at provocation by positioning US aircraft carriers in the region during the summer of 2006.
Larisa Alexandrovna is managing editor of investigative news for Raw Story and regularly reports on intelligence and national security stories. Contact: larisa@rawstory.com
Muriel Kane contributed to the research for this article.
links to related articles at original
Thursday, August 23, 2007
this enemy would follow us home
"Unlike in Vietnam, if we were to withdraw [from Iraq] before the job was done, this enemy would follow us home."
- george w bush Aug 22, 2007
Well, let me see if I have this right. The Iraq Resistance & Terrorist Army would load up onto the ships of their formidable Navy, and the planes of their Air Force, and invade the US.
Is that right, georgie?
Or is it that your department of homeland security is so incompetent that they'd be able to just buy airline tickets and fly commercial? Then, what does DHS actually do anyway? Maybe you should have gone for quality instead of cronyism, hmmm?
Now, I'm just asking, georgie, do you even realize what a ridiculous clown you have made of yourself with these (no other way to put it) incredibly stupid slogans your speechwriters come up with? Do you know that your grandkids, now that jenna's engaged, are going to have to go to school with other kids who are going to humiliate and taunt them mercilessly with the fact that their grandfather is such a brainless twit? You know how cruel kids can be. Hell, you were one yourself, blowing up frogs, branding kids, and such.
- george w bush Aug 22, 2007
Well, let me see if I have this right. The Iraq Resistance & Terrorist Army would load up onto the ships of their formidable Navy, and the planes of their Air Force, and invade the US.
Is that right, georgie?
Or is it that your department of homeland security is so incompetent that they'd be able to just buy airline tickets and fly commercial? Then, what does DHS actually do anyway? Maybe you should have gone for quality instead of cronyism, hmmm?
Now, I'm just asking, georgie, do you even realize what a ridiculous clown you have made of yourself with these (no other way to put it) incredibly stupid slogans your speechwriters come up with? Do you know that your grandkids, now that jenna's engaged, are going to have to go to school with other kids who are going to humiliate and taunt them mercilessly with the fact that their grandfather is such a brainless twit? You know how cruel kids can be. Hell, you were one yourself, blowing up frogs, branding kids, and such.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Ah, Democracy, We Hardly Knew Ye...
By Sheila Samples
8/22/07
"For in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, 'hold office'; everyone of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve."
- John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage [p. 265]
My friend Bernie says he's not only tired of making excuses for Democrats, he's sick and tired of it. "We've worked our backsides off since 9-11 getting people in office with the courage to derail Bush and Cheney's Constitutional death train," Bernie wailed. "We had our feet on the ground, our eyes on the prize, our noses to the grindstone, our backs to the wall, our shoulders to the wheel --" he paused, mentally clicking off body parts.
"Your head in the clouds?" I suggested helpfully.
"Yeah. That too," Bernie said. "We believed them when they said they wanted to end the war. They promised to stop the torture, the slaughter of innocents, the killing and maiming of our own citizens. Just give us the power, they said, and we'll put a stop to Bush and Cheney's killing spree -- we'll jerk a knot in Gonzales' tail, stop the illegal spying on Americans -- restore our battered Constitution. They promised to impeach the treasonous warmongers, and we believed them. Well," Bernie said, "we were wrong. We gave them the power -- and they betrayed us."
Bernie's right. They betrayed us. Scarcely had the polls closed in November before the victorious Democrats were out in force, backing down, caving in, reassuring George Bush and Dick Cheney they had nothing to worry about. Incoming House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi held an immediate news conference, then hit the airwaves, to include CBS 60 Minutes and Tim Russert's Meet the Press, with a single announcement -- impeachment is no longer in the Constitution. Oversight...accountability...checks and balances...all gone.
Senator Chuck Schumer candidly admitted that getting elected and getting along were his top priorities regardless of what the people expected. He told the Wall Street Journal that "75% of this election was about the people's opinion of the president," but added, "...If we are seen as just blocking the president, it will not serve us well in 2008."
Others, like Rep. Charlie Rangel can't see the point in challenging Bush since he threatens to veto anything that is not what he wants. Rangel said, "We don't want really a fight with the president. What we want to do is to prove we can govern for the next two years..." And Rep. John Dingell, who's been around longer than anybody, agrees, saying the Democrats will "do what makes good sense, while not getting into any extreme positions on any matter."
What is it about 75% -- three-fourths -- of the votes that these craven gerbils don't understand? The 2006 election was an indictment of a president who is ruthlessly destroying our republic, our democratic freedoms, our way of life -- simply because he can. And he can because we let him. Apparently, Democrats are so brain dead they think the "voice of the people" they heard was permission to show they can manage a treasonous genocidal war better than Bush. Whereas, if like Bernie, they'd put their ears to the ground, they'd know that each vote was a primal scream erupting from the masses -- a mandate to stop the madness. Now.
The corrupt political cabal before whom Democrats and Republicans grovel is evil, disgusting, and dangerous. But even more so are their lame excuses for allowing Bush to strip the other two branches of government of their powers and to rule via signing statements and Executive Orders. We believed his lies, they say. We don't want to be blamed for opposing him if there's another attack on the "homeland." We can't speak out...we can't take a stand for democracy lest we be accused of aiding the enemy...please don't hurt us...
I can only hope that Dante was right when he said, "The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis." The silence of the Democratic lambs has been deafening since Constitutional traitors on the Supreme Court intervened in the 2000 election to strike the first blow against democracy. Since that time, the erosion of personal privacy and the alarming increase in citizen-control laws has been achieved by this administration under cover of fighting a senseless, baseless, illegal "war on terrorism."
And Bush grows bolder with each victory. He's determined to have no restraints placed upon him in any area. Immediately upon ramming through the USA Patriot Act just six weeks after 9-11, the administration went on a spree of sweeping up and detaining thousands of citizens without charges and no access to counsel. This act was, and continues to be, the greatest threat to American liberties in our history. It is buoyed by Bush's Military Commissions Act of 2006, or "no consequences torture bill," giving himself the empirical right to torture anyone he views as a "terror suspect."
Perhaps this act is one reason Democrats remain so subservient. Right up front, in Section 948a(2), Bush has the empirical right to decide who is a "lawful enemy combatant." If you are a "member of the regular forces of a State party engaged in hostilities against the United States," or even a "member of a volunteer corps or organized resistance movement and you wear a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance," Bush has the power to decide you are not only hostile but an enemy combatant.
Bush IS the United States -- a government of Bush, by Bush and for Bush. He has seized the power to "grant" or "take away" basic inalienable rights of American citizens. "I will decide who serves in my government," Bush recently told a member of the media questioning him about calls for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. Does it not follow, then, that those coming out against the war, those not supporting the troops by insisting they come home, or those calling for impeachment would be engaged in hostilities against the United States? Isn't that right, Mrs. Pelosi -- Mr. Conyers?
Is it any wonder that legislators on both sides of the aisle recoil and beat a fast retreat when they look up and see Bush, caught up in the wild influences of his own idiotic imagination, running at them with a lighted firecracker in each hand? Is anyone surprised that Bush so easily got them to agree to his Protect America Act of 2007, which allows the continued secret collection of Americans' phone calls and e-mails with no oversight...no checks...no balances?
It is madness to stand upon the precipice of a Constitutional crisis and even consider for one moment plunging into the abyss by giving Bush additional time to spy on Americans, to torture and kill innocents abroad, and to abandon an exhausted and ill-equipped military on the killing fields of a nation embroiled in the spiraling violence of civil war.
When party loyalty gets so screwed up it is based on a commitment to -- an obsession with -- opposing ideologies neither of which, in all its twisted glory, concerns itself with doing what is right for the people in this nation, it's time to take a break from that loyalty. John F. Kennedy was right when he said, "Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer."
We still have a Constitution. And we have a choice, perhaps the last one we are free to make. We can either use it -- or lose it.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at rsamples@sirinet.net.
8/22/07
"For in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, 'hold office'; everyone of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve."
- John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage [p. 265]
My friend Bernie says he's not only tired of making excuses for Democrats, he's sick and tired of it. "We've worked our backsides off since 9-11 getting people in office with the courage to derail Bush and Cheney's Constitutional death train," Bernie wailed. "We had our feet on the ground, our eyes on the prize, our noses to the grindstone, our backs to the wall, our shoulders to the wheel --" he paused, mentally clicking off body parts.
"Your head in the clouds?" I suggested helpfully.
"Yeah. That too," Bernie said. "We believed them when they said they wanted to end the war. They promised to stop the torture, the slaughter of innocents, the killing and maiming of our own citizens. Just give us the power, they said, and we'll put a stop to Bush and Cheney's killing spree -- we'll jerk a knot in Gonzales' tail, stop the illegal spying on Americans -- restore our battered Constitution. They promised to impeach the treasonous warmongers, and we believed them. Well," Bernie said, "we were wrong. We gave them the power -- and they betrayed us."
Bernie's right. They betrayed us. Scarcely had the polls closed in November before the victorious Democrats were out in force, backing down, caving in, reassuring George Bush and Dick Cheney they had nothing to worry about. Incoming House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi held an immediate news conference, then hit the airwaves, to include CBS 60 Minutes and Tim Russert's Meet the Press, with a single announcement -- impeachment is no longer in the Constitution. Oversight...accountability...checks and balances...all gone.
Senator Chuck Schumer candidly admitted that getting elected and getting along were his top priorities regardless of what the people expected. He told the Wall Street Journal that "75% of this election was about the people's opinion of the president," but added, "...If we are seen as just blocking the president, it will not serve us well in 2008."
Others, like Rep. Charlie Rangel can't see the point in challenging Bush since he threatens to veto anything that is not what he wants. Rangel said, "We don't want really a fight with the president. What we want to do is to prove we can govern for the next two years..." And Rep. John Dingell, who's been around longer than anybody, agrees, saying the Democrats will "do what makes good sense, while not getting into any extreme positions on any matter."
What is it about 75% -- three-fourths -- of the votes that these craven gerbils don't understand? The 2006 election was an indictment of a president who is ruthlessly destroying our republic, our democratic freedoms, our way of life -- simply because he can. And he can because we let him. Apparently, Democrats are so brain dead they think the "voice of the people" they heard was permission to show they can manage a treasonous genocidal war better than Bush. Whereas, if like Bernie, they'd put their ears to the ground, they'd know that each vote was a primal scream erupting from the masses -- a mandate to stop the madness. Now.
The corrupt political cabal before whom Democrats and Republicans grovel is evil, disgusting, and dangerous. But even more so are their lame excuses for allowing Bush to strip the other two branches of government of their powers and to rule via signing statements and Executive Orders. We believed his lies, they say. We don't want to be blamed for opposing him if there's another attack on the "homeland." We can't speak out...we can't take a stand for democracy lest we be accused of aiding the enemy...please don't hurt us...
I can only hope that Dante was right when he said, "The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis." The silence of the Democratic lambs has been deafening since Constitutional traitors on the Supreme Court intervened in the 2000 election to strike the first blow against democracy. Since that time, the erosion of personal privacy and the alarming increase in citizen-control laws has been achieved by this administration under cover of fighting a senseless, baseless, illegal "war on terrorism."
And Bush grows bolder with each victory. He's determined to have no restraints placed upon him in any area. Immediately upon ramming through the USA Patriot Act just six weeks after 9-11, the administration went on a spree of sweeping up and detaining thousands of citizens without charges and no access to counsel. This act was, and continues to be, the greatest threat to American liberties in our history. It is buoyed by Bush's Military Commissions Act of 2006, or "no consequences torture bill," giving himself the empirical right to torture anyone he views as a "terror suspect."
Perhaps this act is one reason Democrats remain so subservient. Right up front, in Section 948a(2), Bush has the empirical right to decide who is a "lawful enemy combatant." If you are a "member of the regular forces of a State party engaged in hostilities against the United States," or even a "member of a volunteer corps or organized resistance movement and you wear a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance," Bush has the power to decide you are not only hostile but an enemy combatant.
Bush IS the United States -- a government of Bush, by Bush and for Bush. He has seized the power to "grant" or "take away" basic inalienable rights of American citizens. "I will decide who serves in my government," Bush recently told a member of the media questioning him about calls for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. Does it not follow, then, that those coming out against the war, those not supporting the troops by insisting they come home, or those calling for impeachment would be engaged in hostilities against the United States? Isn't that right, Mrs. Pelosi -- Mr. Conyers?
Is it any wonder that legislators on both sides of the aisle recoil and beat a fast retreat when they look up and see Bush, caught up in the wild influences of his own idiotic imagination, running at them with a lighted firecracker in each hand? Is anyone surprised that Bush so easily got them to agree to his Protect America Act of 2007, which allows the continued secret collection of Americans' phone calls and e-mails with no oversight...no checks...no balances?
It is madness to stand upon the precipice of a Constitutional crisis and even consider for one moment plunging into the abyss by giving Bush additional time to spy on Americans, to torture and kill innocents abroad, and to abandon an exhausted and ill-equipped military on the killing fields of a nation embroiled in the spiraling violence of civil war.
When party loyalty gets so screwed up it is based on a commitment to -- an obsession with -- opposing ideologies neither of which, in all its twisted glory, concerns itself with doing what is right for the people in this nation, it's time to take a break from that loyalty. John F. Kennedy was right when he said, "Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer."
We still have a Constitution. And we have a choice, perhaps the last one we are free to make. We can either use it -- or lose it.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at rsamples@sirinet.net.
America and Venezuela:
Constitutional Worlds Apart
- by Stephen Lendman
8/22/07
Although imperfect, no country anywhere is closer to a model democracy than Venezuela under President Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias. In contrast, none is a more shameless failure than America, but it was true long before the age of George W. Bush. The difference under his regime is that the mask is off revealing a repressive state masquerading as a democratic republic. This article compares the constitutional laws of each country and how they're implemented. The result shows world's apart differences between these two nominally democratic states - one that's real, impressive and improving and the other that's mostly pretense and under George Bush lawless, corrupted, in tatters, and morally depraved.
full article
- by Stephen Lendman
8/22/07
Although imperfect, no country anywhere is closer to a model democracy than Venezuela under President Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias. In contrast, none is a more shameless failure than America, but it was true long before the age of George W. Bush. The difference under his regime is that the mask is off revealing a repressive state masquerading as a democratic republic. This article compares the constitutional laws of each country and how they're implemented. The result shows world's apart differences between these two nominally democratic states - one that's real, impressive and improving and the other that's mostly pretense and under George Bush lawless, corrupted, in tatters, and morally depraved.
full article
Monday, August 20, 2007
Iraq Progress Report:
A Time to Assess and Reflect
by Stephen Lendman
8/20/07
The Bush administration is required to submit three progress reports on Iraq to Congress in September after it returns from its August recess. The US Comptroller General will issue one around September 1 on how well so-called congressional benchmarks have been met. Near the end of the month, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) conservative think tank will report on "The readiness of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) to assume responsibility for maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq, denying international terrorists a safe haven, bringing greater security to Iraq's 18 provinces in the next 12 to 18 months, and bringing an end to sectarian violence to achieve national reconciliation."
Then, on or about September 15, General David Petraeus, US "Multi-National Force" - Iraq (MNF-I) commander will submit his assessment of progress before multi-billions more funding are released for a war the Pentagon and most others in Washington know is unwinnable and lost. No matter, his report (and the others) will state progress has been made and the "surge" is working even though details will be sketchy in what's expected to be a vaguely worded deceptive snapshot of contrived positive trends. It'll fool no one, but Congress will be asked to accept it (and the others) on faith that more time, money, sustained troop levels and patience are needed.
That's assured from friendly Democrats and Republicans alike. They continue turning a blind eye to the daily nationwide out-of-control carnage like the August 14 Kurdish area truck bombings local Nineveh province officials report killed at least 500 (far above initial reports), seriously wounded hundreds more, and destroyed over 30 homes in the northwest Yazidi communities.
No matter, and who in Washington is watching and counting. The generalissimo's wishes are all that matter, and he'll have a list of them prepared for him by his bosses and handlers in "the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government,"according to an August 15 report in the Los Angeles Times. All Petraeus has to do is transcribe them to his letterhead, sign them, and return them to Washington in the enclosed stamp-addressed envelope…
full article
by Stephen Lendman
8/20/07
The Bush administration is required to submit three progress reports on Iraq to Congress in September after it returns from its August recess. The US Comptroller General will issue one around September 1 on how well so-called congressional benchmarks have been met. Near the end of the month, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) conservative think tank will report on "The readiness of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) to assume responsibility for maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq, denying international terrorists a safe haven, bringing greater security to Iraq's 18 provinces in the next 12 to 18 months, and bringing an end to sectarian violence to achieve national reconciliation."
Then, on or about September 15, General David Petraeus, US "Multi-National Force" - Iraq (MNF-I) commander will submit his assessment of progress before multi-billions more funding are released for a war the Pentagon and most others in Washington know is unwinnable and lost. No matter, his report (and the others) will state progress has been made and the "surge" is working even though details will be sketchy in what's expected to be a vaguely worded deceptive snapshot of contrived positive trends. It'll fool no one, but Congress will be asked to accept it (and the others) on faith that more time, money, sustained troop levels and patience are needed.
That's assured from friendly Democrats and Republicans alike. They continue turning a blind eye to the daily nationwide out-of-control carnage like the August 14 Kurdish area truck bombings local Nineveh province officials report killed at least 500 (far above initial reports), seriously wounded hundreds more, and destroyed over 30 homes in the northwest Yazidi communities.
No matter, and who in Washington is watching and counting. The generalissimo's wishes are all that matter, and he'll have a list of them prepared for him by his bosses and handlers in "the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government,"according to an August 15 report in the Los Angeles Times. All Petraeus has to do is transcribe them to his letterhead, sign them, and return them to Washington in the enclosed stamp-addressed envelope…
full article
Friday, August 17, 2007
Armed Robots Pushed to Police
By Noah Shachtman
August 16, 2007
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/08/armed-robots-so.html
Armed robots -- similar to the ones now on patrol in Iraq -- are being marketed to domestic police forces, according to the machines' manufacturer and law enforcement officers. None of the gun-toting 'bots appear to have been deployed domestically, yet. Both cops and company officials say it's only a matter of time, however.
"Other than some R&D with the shotgun mount, we haven't used it operationally," Massachusetts State Police Trooper Mike Rogowski tells DANGER ROOM. "But they're on the way. They're coming,"
Foster-Miller, maker of the armed SWORDS robot for military use, is also actively promoting a similar model to domestic, civilian police forces. The Talon SWAT/MP is a "robot specifically equipped for scenarios frequently encountered by police SWAT [special weapon and tactics] units and MPs [military police]," a company fact sheet announces. It "can be configured with the following equipment:
• Multi-shot TASER electronic control device with laser-dot aiming.
• Loudspeaker and audio receiver for negotiations. • Night vision and thermal cameras.
• Choice of weapons for lethal or less-than-lethal responses
- 40 mm grenade launcher - 2 rounds
- 12-gage shotgun - 5 rounds
- FN303 less-lethal launcher - 15 rounds.
In addition to the Massachusetts State Police, SWAT teams in Houston, San Francisco, and Lubbock, TX all have the robots, according to Foster-Miller spokesperson Cynthia Black. None of the team have armed the machines, so far. But Trooper Rogowski, for one, is extremely interested -- especially in equipping the robot with a less-lethal weapon, like a three-shot Taser stun gun. "That would be phenomenal," he says.
However, Trooper Rogowski adds, "Massachusetts is a pretty liberal state. To get management to sign off on an armed weapons platform -- that'll be pretty interesting, to see how that goes."
(Foster-Miller competitor iRobot recently teamed up with Taser International to build a stun gun-packing 'bot of their own.)
Like the SWORDS, the Talon SWAT/MP is based on Foster-Miller's line of bomb-disposal robots which have seen years' worth of action in Iraq. Rogowski says handling ordnance is his robot's main mission, too. But the machine has also been deployed in SWAT-type situations -- even before it gets armed.
Last fall, Rogowski remembers, a person in the town of Wilbraham, Massachusetts had barricaded himself into his house. But the overwhelming odor of propane fumes made police reluctant to send humans in. The robot went instead -- and discovered propane tanks, as well as the man. "He had shot himself in the master bedroom," Rogowski recalls.
August 16, 2007
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/08/armed-robots-so.html
Armed robots -- similar to the ones now on patrol in Iraq -- are being marketed to domestic police forces, according to the machines' manufacturer and law enforcement officers. None of the gun-toting 'bots appear to have been deployed domestically, yet. Both cops and company officials say it's only a matter of time, however."Other than some R&D with the shotgun mount, we haven't used it operationally," Massachusetts State Police Trooper Mike Rogowski tells DANGER ROOM. "But they're on the way. They're coming,"
Foster-Miller, maker of the armed SWORDS robot for military use, is also actively promoting a similar model to domestic, civilian police forces. The Talon SWAT/MP is a "robot specifically equipped for scenarios frequently encountered by police SWAT [special weapon and tactics] units and MPs [military police]," a company fact sheet announces. It "can be configured with the following equipment:
• Multi-shot TASER electronic control device with laser-dot aiming.
• Loudspeaker and audio receiver for negotiations. • Night vision and thermal cameras.
• Choice of weapons for lethal or less-than-lethal responses
- 40 mm grenade launcher - 2 rounds
- 12-gage shotgun - 5 rounds
- FN303 less-lethal launcher - 15 rounds.
In addition to the Massachusetts State Police, SWAT teams in Houston, San Francisco, and Lubbock, TX all have the robots, according to Foster-Miller spokesperson Cynthia Black. None of the team have armed the machines, so far. But Trooper Rogowski, for one, is extremely interested -- especially in equipping the robot with a less-lethal weapon, like a three-shot Taser stun gun. "That would be phenomenal," he says.
However, Trooper Rogowski adds, "Massachusetts is a pretty liberal state. To get management to sign off on an armed weapons platform -- that'll be pretty interesting, to see how that goes."
(Foster-Miller competitor iRobot recently teamed up with Taser International to build a stun gun-packing 'bot of their own.)
Like the SWORDS, the Talon SWAT/MP is based on Foster-Miller's line of bomb-disposal robots which have seen years' worth of action in Iraq. Rogowski says handling ordnance is his robot's main mission, too. But the machine has also been deployed in SWAT-type situations -- even before it gets armed.
Last fall, Rogowski remembers, a person in the town of Wilbraham, Massachusetts had barricaded himself into his house. But the overwhelming odor of propane fumes made police reluctant to send humans in. The robot went instead -- and discovered propane tanks, as well as the man. "He had shot himself in the master bedroom," Rogowski recalls.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The Search For The Great Middle
by Mary Pitt
8/16/07
The amusing aspect of this primary campaign for the 2008 president is watching the candidates groping their way in search for the "middle of the road". Poor Hillary Clinton, while being reviled by the Republican protagonists as a "leftie Liberal", keeps turning her wheels to the right as she navigates the fog in which American politicians are groping in order to find "the will of the people". On the other hand, the Republicans have long ago left the road and are off four-wheeling in the brush that keeps threatening to take over the famous "ranch" in Crawford.
The fact is that while all the politicians are blissfully dwelling in Foggy Bottom, they have lost touch with "the people". They think that all they have to do is to fall into a Southern accent and talk religion and they can walk into their next chosen office. But it is no longer quite that simple. Thanks to the current Resident of the White House, we are no longer dumb enough to fall for a pretty face and a lot of flowery words. The newspapers and the television news are enjoying calling the odds on the horse race but, to us, it is no longer a game but a matter of issues that mean life or death for millions of working-class Americans.
Those who feel that "the middle of the road" is just to the left of George Bush can't see well enough to know that he went "off the road" a long time ago while the rest of us are somewhere over here yelling, "This way, fools!" Republicans have become Democrats, Democrats have become Independents, and all of us are looking for a detour as the two political parties are so entangled in the special interest groups that we cannot find a way to where we intend to go. They can no longer appear before labor groups and assure them that their interests are paramount in their agenda because their audience knows that they have already been let down. They cannot speak to women because women know that their concern is not for their children. The populace know that they have been forsaken by their political representation and they are all viewed with a feeling of revulsion.
Even in the "red states" the Republican Party is fractured as the "real conservatives" struggle to regain control from the "religious right" with candidates switching parties to run against those now holding office. In other states, the new blood in the Democratic Party is likely to be considerably more Populist than the old guard who are now seated in Washington. This year, more than ever, the voters are looking past the designated front runners and assessing the opinions of the lesser lights. One cannot get into a discussion with a Republican without the name of Ron Paul being invoked while Democrats are more aware of people like Kucinich and Edwards during their brief stay in the spotlight. We look for someone who appears to really understand our trials as we send our sons and daughters off to engage in a seemingly endless war while we watch our neighbors suffer from stagnant wages, expensive health care, and loss of financial security.
We no longer listen to the yapping of the would-be shepherds who are barking, "This way! This way!" as they gallop off through the woods in different directions. We can see, as the people of the United States traditionally have, the road that we need to take and cannot comprehend why it is not obvious to the crazed creatures who would distract us from the business of staying alive.
Foreign policy? Cut off the money and bring the soldiers home to care for their families!
Taxes? Deficit? National Debt? Revoke the tax cuts for the rich and pay the damned bills!
Health care? Mandatory single-payer Medicare for everybody and spend all that insurance company profit on providing care to the people!
At our level, politics is a simple matter. We want to elect somebody who understands our problems and who will dedicate themselves to our welfare rather than that of those with great wealth from which they can feed. While they spend mega-millions in travel and air time to campaign for our votes, we live on wages that are never quite enough to provide for our children. While they live in Georgetown brownstones and send their kids to private schools, we must worry about the ever-rising cost of our mortgages and our kids go to run-down schools with ill-trained teachers and a shortage of books. While their sons are in college, our sons are in Iraq, for the third or fourth tour and we spend sleepless nights, dreading that knock on our door. Our patience wore out years ago and we want to see some action on our behalf.
And all we ask of these aspiring Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen is that they shut up and listen to us. We are the "middle" and We The People, demand it!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. She is non-partisan but steeped in true patriotism and pride in being an American and a daughter of the Founding Fathers.
8/16/07
The amusing aspect of this primary campaign for the 2008 president is watching the candidates groping their way in search for the "middle of the road". Poor Hillary Clinton, while being reviled by the Republican protagonists as a "leftie Liberal", keeps turning her wheels to the right as she navigates the fog in which American politicians are groping in order to find "the will of the people". On the other hand, the Republicans have long ago left the road and are off four-wheeling in the brush that keeps threatening to take over the famous "ranch" in Crawford.
The fact is that while all the politicians are blissfully dwelling in Foggy Bottom, they have lost touch with "the people". They think that all they have to do is to fall into a Southern accent and talk religion and they can walk into their next chosen office. But it is no longer quite that simple. Thanks to the current Resident of the White House, we are no longer dumb enough to fall for a pretty face and a lot of flowery words. The newspapers and the television news are enjoying calling the odds on the horse race but, to us, it is no longer a game but a matter of issues that mean life or death for millions of working-class Americans.
Those who feel that "the middle of the road" is just to the left of George Bush can't see well enough to know that he went "off the road" a long time ago while the rest of us are somewhere over here yelling, "This way, fools!" Republicans have become Democrats, Democrats have become Independents, and all of us are looking for a detour as the two political parties are so entangled in the special interest groups that we cannot find a way to where we intend to go. They can no longer appear before labor groups and assure them that their interests are paramount in their agenda because their audience knows that they have already been let down. They cannot speak to women because women know that their concern is not for their children. The populace know that they have been forsaken by their political representation and they are all viewed with a feeling of revulsion.
Even in the "red states" the Republican Party is fractured as the "real conservatives" struggle to regain control from the "religious right" with candidates switching parties to run against those now holding office. In other states, the new blood in the Democratic Party is likely to be considerably more Populist than the old guard who are now seated in Washington. This year, more than ever, the voters are looking past the designated front runners and assessing the opinions of the lesser lights. One cannot get into a discussion with a Republican without the name of Ron Paul being invoked while Democrats are more aware of people like Kucinich and Edwards during their brief stay in the spotlight. We look for someone who appears to really understand our trials as we send our sons and daughters off to engage in a seemingly endless war while we watch our neighbors suffer from stagnant wages, expensive health care, and loss of financial security.
We no longer listen to the yapping of the would-be shepherds who are barking, "This way! This way!" as they gallop off through the woods in different directions. We can see, as the people of the United States traditionally have, the road that we need to take and cannot comprehend why it is not obvious to the crazed creatures who would distract us from the business of staying alive.
Foreign policy? Cut off the money and bring the soldiers home to care for their families!
Taxes? Deficit? National Debt? Revoke the tax cuts for the rich and pay the damned bills!
Health care? Mandatory single-payer Medicare for everybody and spend all that insurance company profit on providing care to the people!
At our level, politics is a simple matter. We want to elect somebody who understands our problems and who will dedicate themselves to our welfare rather than that of those with great wealth from which they can feed. While they spend mega-millions in travel and air time to campaign for our votes, we live on wages that are never quite enough to provide for our children. While they live in Georgetown brownstones and send their kids to private schools, we must worry about the ever-rising cost of our mortgages and our kids go to run-down schools with ill-trained teachers and a shortage of books. While their sons are in college, our sons are in Iraq, for the third or fourth tour and we spend sleepless nights, dreading that knock on our door. Our patience wore out years ago and we want to see some action on our behalf.
And all we ask of these aspiring Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen is that they shut up and listen to us. We are the "middle" and We The People, demand it!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. She is non-partisan but steeped in true patriotism and pride in being an American and a daughter of the Founding Fathers.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
A "Slow Motion Train Wreck"
- by Stephen Lendman
8/15/07
These days, financial/market punditry seems to follow two opposite lines of thinking. It ranges from the predominant view that world economies are growing and sound, problems in them minor and fixable, and current volatility (aka turmoil) is corrective, normal and a healthy reassessing and repricing of risk. Contrarians, on the other hand, believe the sky is falling. Most often, extreme views like these turn out wrong and are best avoided. Things are never that simple and hindsight usually proves only Cassandra was good at forecasting although calling market tops and bottoms wasn't her specialty.
Amidst all the commentary and sorting out of market Strang und Durm these days, some financial world figures stand head and shoulders above the rest for their wisdom, level-headednessness and believability. One in particular is Jeremy Grantham, called by some the philosopher king of Wall Street even though he's based to the northeast in Boston. In 1977, he co-founded Grantham, Mayo and Van Otterloo, now known as GMO. In his Quarterly Letters to clients, he assesses current market conditions and usually takes a longer view as well. His commentaries are detailed, scholarly, sober and clear.
The Vanguard Group of mutual funds founder John Bogle calls Grantham "one of the top two or three individuals in this business (and) If there's anybody in this whole business who calls a spade a spade (that person is) Jeremy Grantham." A metaphor for his wisdom, attitude and investing style sits aside his office desk. It's a huge 9th century stone Buddha signifying "everything in moderation" and one of Grantham's core beliefs that all markets eventually revert to their mean values from their highs and lows.
full article
8/15/07
These days, financial/market punditry seems to follow two opposite lines of thinking. It ranges from the predominant view that world economies are growing and sound, problems in them minor and fixable, and current volatility (aka turmoil) is corrective, normal and a healthy reassessing and repricing of risk. Contrarians, on the other hand, believe the sky is falling. Most often, extreme views like these turn out wrong and are best avoided. Things are never that simple and hindsight usually proves only Cassandra was good at forecasting although calling market tops and bottoms wasn't her specialty.
Amidst all the commentary and sorting out of market Strang und Durm these days, some financial world figures stand head and shoulders above the rest for their wisdom, level-headednessness and believability. One in particular is Jeremy Grantham, called by some the philosopher king of Wall Street even though he's based to the northeast in Boston. In 1977, he co-founded Grantham, Mayo and Van Otterloo, now known as GMO. In his Quarterly Letters to clients, he assesses current market conditions and usually takes a longer view as well. His commentaries are detailed, scholarly, sober and clear.
The Vanguard Group of mutual funds founder John Bogle calls Grantham "one of the top two or three individuals in this business (and) If there's anybody in this whole business who calls a spade a spade (that person is) Jeremy Grantham." A metaphor for his wisdom, attitude and investing style sits aside his office desk. It's a huge 9th century stone Buddha signifying "everything in moderation" and one of Grantham's core beliefs that all markets eventually revert to their mean values from their highs and lows.
full article
A Disneyland of Militant Ignorance:
The American Normalization of Mass Murder
by Phil Rockstroh
8/13/07
Given the nation's tottering infrastructure, imperial overreach abroad and vandalized constitutional process by a lawless executive branch, what will it take to scare the general public, mainstream press and political classes into immediate action to bring about meaningful change? At this twilight hour of the American republic, there must come a paradigm shift of seismic proportions or else the republic will perish. I'm less than optimistic. Insomuch as, I suspect, that if, during a rare press conference, George W. Bush's face were to suddenly shed its skin, right on camera, live on national television, on all channels, broadcast and cable, to reveal the countenance of a Gila Monster -- the elitist beltway punditry would begin to catalog the merits of his reptilian single-mindedness. Then proceed to an interview with an "expert" from a right-wing funded, zoological think tank, "The American Institute for the Advancement of Predatory Policy," who would assure us that: "...in an era when evil is as proliferate as flies around the stinking dumpster of the world, Americans will be kept safe by a lizard-faced leader who eats flies for breakfast." And the general public would only be concerned because the broadcast happened to preempt the finals of American Idol.
To survive as a republic, a great many American idols will have to topple, and not only those inane, fame-obsessed clowns and crooners sharp-elbowing each other on the Fox Network's televised exercises in Pop Stardom for Dummies. As far as idolatry goes, by far the most pervasive, ruinous, and in need of toppling is the position of unquestioning worship the US military holds in American life. One would think that after the Götterdämmerung of macho folly we've witnessed over the past half-decade that the country would have had its fill of self-proclaimed alpha male posturing and adolescent-minded, military hagiography.
full article
by Phil Rockstroh
8/13/07
Given the nation's tottering infrastructure, imperial overreach abroad and vandalized constitutional process by a lawless executive branch, what will it take to scare the general public, mainstream press and political classes into immediate action to bring about meaningful change? At this twilight hour of the American republic, there must come a paradigm shift of seismic proportions or else the republic will perish. I'm less than optimistic. Insomuch as, I suspect, that if, during a rare press conference, George W. Bush's face were to suddenly shed its skin, right on camera, live on national television, on all channels, broadcast and cable, to reveal the countenance of a Gila Monster -- the elitist beltway punditry would begin to catalog the merits of his reptilian single-mindedness. Then proceed to an interview with an "expert" from a right-wing funded, zoological think tank, "The American Institute for the Advancement of Predatory Policy," who would assure us that: "...in an era when evil is as proliferate as flies around the stinking dumpster of the world, Americans will be kept safe by a lizard-faced leader who eats flies for breakfast." And the general public would only be concerned because the broadcast happened to preempt the finals of American Idol.
To survive as a republic, a great many American idols will have to topple, and not only those inane, fame-obsessed clowns and crooners sharp-elbowing each other on the Fox Network's televised exercises in Pop Stardom for Dummies. As far as idolatry goes, by far the most pervasive, ruinous, and in need of toppling is the position of unquestioning worship the US military holds in American life. One would think that after the Götterdämmerung of macho folly we've witnessed over the past half-decade that the country would have had its fill of self-proclaimed alpha male posturing and adolescent-minded, military hagiography.
full article
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Pelosi needs to put impeachment on the table
Bruce Fein
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/14/ED69RHPFT.DTL
President Woodrow Wilson recanted his no-war pledge, President Franklin D. Roosevelt disowned his balanced budget promise and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., should learn from those examples. She should reconsider her “impeachment [of President Bush] is off the table” pledge. As Ralph Waldo Emerson advised, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
The speaker’s reluctance is understandable. The president’s tenure expires on Jan. 20, 2009. An impeachment inquiry could embolden al Qaeda, the Taliban, Iraq’s insurgents and Iran’s nuclear-minded mullahs. President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and a majority of Republicans in Congress would attempt to portray the exercise as naked partisanship. Their enthusiasm for impeaching President Bill Clinton over lying under oath about Monica Lewinsky would be no deterrent.
But countervailing constitutional concerns are more compelling. Bush has crippled checks and balances and protections against government abuses. If these claims and practices are not repudiated, the precedents will lie around like loaded weapons, ready for use by any White House incumbent to intimidate rivals or to destroy the rule of law.
The president has reduced Congress to wallpaper. He has asserted executive privilege to foil the congressional power of investigation - the most important because sunshine is the best disinfectant for lawlessness or maladministration. Thus, Bush has claimed inherent constitutional power to prohibit former presidential adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, among others, from testifying about perjury, obstruction of justice or the politicization of law enforcement in conjunction with congressional scrutiny of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. Even President Richard M. Nixon, whose signature creed was “if the president does it, it’s legal,” shied from such a monarch-like claim. When former White House counsel John Dean was implicating him in the Watergate coverup by reciting chapter and verse of Oval Office conversations before the Senate Watergate Committee, Nixon never insinuated he could silence his accuser. In contrast, Bush is claiming that secrecy, as opposed to transparency, is the constitutional rule for the executive branch. Government by the consent of the governed, however, requires the people to know what their government is doing to enable them to adjust their political loyalties accordingly.
Bush has hidden from Congress details of the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). It involves the National Security Agency’s spying on Americans based on the president’s say-so alone in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires judicial warrants. The president has declined to share the number of Americans targeted by the TSP, the intelligence yield, the earmarks employed to identify American targets, or other facts needed for Congress to evaluate its legality or advisability. Indeed, if it were not for an executive branch leak of the TSP to the New York Times, the spying would have been concealed forever with no public discussion or congressional hearings. Sister spying programs remain secret to this very moment.
Bush has claimed constitutional power to gather foreign intelligence by breaking and entering homes, opening mail, kidnapping, or torturing in violation of federal criminal prohibitions. He maintains that every square inch of the United States is a battlefield, where military force or tactics are legitimate, including killing suspected al Qaeda members or affiliates. He has endangered every American traveling abroad by establishing the international law principle that nations are entitled to kidnap, imprison and torture noncitizens who they suspect of sympathy with domestic rebels. He has claimed the United States is in perpetual war with international terrorism that justifies arming the president with perpetual war powers.
Bush routinely issues signing statements that declare his intent to disregard provisions of bills he has signed into law because he asserts they are unconstitutional. The signing statements lacerate the congressional power over legislation. They are indistinguishable from line-item vetoes that were held unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Clinton vs. New York. Members of Congress vote on an entire bill, not on a Swiss cheese version. Signing statements entail the enforcement of a law, expurgated by the president, which Congress never passed. The Constitution obligates the president to veto bills he believes are unconstitutional, which offers Congress an opportunity to override by two-thirds majorities.
If House Speaker Pelosi neglects to put impeachment back into the Constitution, an omnipotent, repressive and secret presidency is inescapable. If her constituents voice that concern, it should concentrate her mind wonderfully.
Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer, chairman of the American Freedom Agenda, and author of the forthcoming book "Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle of Our Constitution and Democracy" (Palgrave Macmillan).
This article appeared on page B - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/14/ED69RHPFT.DTL
President Woodrow Wilson recanted his no-war pledge, President Franklin D. Roosevelt disowned his balanced budget promise and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., should learn from those examples. She should reconsider her “impeachment [of President Bush] is off the table” pledge. As Ralph Waldo Emerson advised, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
The speaker’s reluctance is understandable. The president’s tenure expires on Jan. 20, 2009. An impeachment inquiry could embolden al Qaeda, the Taliban, Iraq’s insurgents and Iran’s nuclear-minded mullahs. President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and a majority of Republicans in Congress would attempt to portray the exercise as naked partisanship. Their enthusiasm for impeaching President Bill Clinton over lying under oath about Monica Lewinsky would be no deterrent.
But countervailing constitutional concerns are more compelling. Bush has crippled checks and balances and protections against government abuses. If these claims and practices are not repudiated, the precedents will lie around like loaded weapons, ready for use by any White House incumbent to intimidate rivals or to destroy the rule of law.
The president has reduced Congress to wallpaper. He has asserted executive privilege to foil the congressional power of investigation - the most important because sunshine is the best disinfectant for lawlessness or maladministration. Thus, Bush has claimed inherent constitutional power to prohibit former presidential adviser Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, among others, from testifying about perjury, obstruction of justice or the politicization of law enforcement in conjunction with congressional scrutiny of the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. Even President Richard M. Nixon, whose signature creed was “if the president does it, it’s legal,” shied from such a monarch-like claim. When former White House counsel John Dean was implicating him in the Watergate coverup by reciting chapter and verse of Oval Office conversations before the Senate Watergate Committee, Nixon never insinuated he could silence his accuser. In contrast, Bush is claiming that secrecy, as opposed to transparency, is the constitutional rule for the executive branch. Government by the consent of the governed, however, requires the people to know what their government is doing to enable them to adjust their political loyalties accordingly.
Bush has hidden from Congress details of the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). It involves the National Security Agency’s spying on Americans based on the president’s say-so alone in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires judicial warrants. The president has declined to share the number of Americans targeted by the TSP, the intelligence yield, the earmarks employed to identify American targets, or other facts needed for Congress to evaluate its legality or advisability. Indeed, if it were not for an executive branch leak of the TSP to the New York Times, the spying would have been concealed forever with no public discussion or congressional hearings. Sister spying programs remain secret to this very moment.
Bush has claimed constitutional power to gather foreign intelligence by breaking and entering homes, opening mail, kidnapping, or torturing in violation of federal criminal prohibitions. He maintains that every square inch of the United States is a battlefield, where military force or tactics are legitimate, including killing suspected al Qaeda members or affiliates. He has endangered every American traveling abroad by establishing the international law principle that nations are entitled to kidnap, imprison and torture noncitizens who they suspect of sympathy with domestic rebels. He has claimed the United States is in perpetual war with international terrorism that justifies arming the president with perpetual war powers.
Bush routinely issues signing statements that declare his intent to disregard provisions of bills he has signed into law because he asserts they are unconstitutional. The signing statements lacerate the congressional power over legislation. They are indistinguishable from line-item vetoes that were held unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Clinton vs. New York. Members of Congress vote on an entire bill, not on a Swiss cheese version. Signing statements entail the enforcement of a law, expurgated by the president, which Congress never passed. The Constitution obligates the president to veto bills he believes are unconstitutional, which offers Congress an opportunity to override by two-thirds majorities.
If House Speaker Pelosi neglects to put impeachment back into the Constitution, an omnipotent, repressive and secret presidency is inescapable. If her constituents voice that concern, it should concentrate her mind wonderfully.
Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer, chairman of the American Freedom Agenda, and author of the forthcoming book "Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle of Our Constitution and Democracy" (Palgrave Macmillan).
This article appeared on page B - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, August 13, 2007
Bush's Booming Economy - For The Rich
By Sheila Samples
8/13/07
Sometimes I'm amazed at how much I know about the financial markets and the economy. I don't understand any of it, but I know a lot of stuff, thanks to my friend and mentor, Richard Walrath, who's been to the market more than once. He says when George Bush brags that the economy is booming, he's probably right. The economy is exploding with a big boom, and Walrath says now we are engaged in a great battle to see how long this country can endure.
The Fed just poured a bunch of money into the market, which was news to me, but Walrath said the Fed has been manipulating the market for years, especially during the Bush years.
"There was great fear the United States was going to follow Japan into a period of deflation and recession -- maybe even a depression," Walrath said. "Interest rates were cut close to zero while hundreds of billions of dollars were added to the National Debt through tax-cuts for the rich and 'Big Bidness.' And it gets worse just at the time the National Debt limit has to be raised again."
With things as bad as they are, Walrath says it's going to be interesting to see how this crisis is handled. Congress may have to return early to pass legislation to raise the National Debt. But it makes more sense to me -- since the bulk of our lawmakers were so eager to get out of school for recess, that Bush could decide to handle the whole thing like he does everything else to avoid partisan jawboning or oversight -- just dash off an Executive Order.
But the National Debt is just one of many problems battering our economy. Walrath points out a major problem is "all those margin accounts out there with people getting calls to come up with some real money because their stock is down. As you might expect, this led to speculation in housing -- let's flip it -- and millions of people who couldn't afford to pay their rent bought houses."
Wait a minute...Let's flip it? What does that mean? Nothing comes to mind -- okay one thing does -- but Walrath never takes such a cavalier attitude about economics.
Let's flip it, Walrath says is when "--you buy the house with no intention of ever living in it. You add a kitchen, spruce up a bathroom, and "flip" it, or put it back on the market, hoping to make a profit.
This goes on all the time, Walrath says, but there were more flippers than buyers this time around because it cost almost nothing to own a house while you were waiting to sell it. That's sub-prime credit. You could buy a house with no money down, no income, no job, no assets.
Of course! Now I understand. If you buy a house with no money down, you have little or nothing invested. Just walk away. Let the banks worry about selling them.
But to whom will banks sell them? What are the banks going to do? "That's why houses for sale are now piling up all over the country," Walrath said. "It's a terrible situation."
Donald Trump begs to differ. When you're in a hole, keep digging as hard and as fast as you can. Trump's advice, according to Walrath is to "just go back and make another deal with whoever holds the mortgage. Trump says you'll get a better deal this time than the one you had before. Don't walk away from it -- go make another deal. The last thing the bank wants is your house. What are they going to do with it? They can't find anybody to buy it."
So, who's flipping whom in this credit seizure?
According to an unsigned editorial in Saturday's Wall Street Journal, the root cause of this credit correction was the Federal Reserve's willingness to keep money too easy for too long.
The Journal warns an "emergency rate cut, as some in the market seem to be anticipating or hoping for -- carries the risk of introducing even greater moral hazard into the financial system."
We can't have immorality in our financial system, now can we? Oh, the horror!
While chiding Democrats such as Senator Hillary Clinton for proposing a $1 billion federal bailout fund for homeowners at risk of default and foreclosure, the Journal goes on to channel Barbara Bush's flash of morality when speaking of homeless Katrina victims -- "No one wants to see someone lose his home to foreclosure. But many of those most at risk bought their homes with little or no money down, and so have very little at stake economically. Bringing in the feds to bail them out would send precisely the wrong message -- that risky or overly aggressive borrowing will be rewarded by the government rather than punished in the marketplace. To the extent that bad loans were made, the market needs to clear, not be propped up by federal-aid programs."
Unfortunately, despite what the Journal and the endlessly bleating "Money Heads" on TV would have you believe, millions of Americans are in deep trouble. CNBC's Jim Cramer "flipped out" last week in a torrent of truth about the current economic situation.
Walrath agrees, and says if we continue in the direction we're headed, Bush's "boom" will make the Savings and Loan bail-out look like a Girl Scout Cookie Sale.
According to Walrath, there are four sets of losers in this housing meltdown...
- Those caught with the homes they bought for flipping purposes are not going to be able to find buyers. They are going to lose whatever they have invested, plus whatever mortgage payments they make. It may be cheaper for them just to walk away.
- Those who own homes will see the value of their houses go down because of the current oversupply due to overbuilding when interest rates were lower and people were buying homes with little or nothing down with the idea of flipping the houses as soon as possible.
- Those who bought homes with variable-rate mortgages are having trouble making payments because those payments keep going up, and there's nothing they can do about it. Many did not even realize they had such a mortgage. Millions are going to lose their homes.
- And then, there's the murky many -- the banks and the hedge funds which ended up with mortgages used as collateral for junk bonds, which ended up as holdings by French and German and English banks, not to mention those in this country.
"This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built, and we ain't seen nothing yet," Walrath says.
"When it comes to saving the rich from losing money, no expense will be spared. Actually," Walrath mused, "the economy is good -- if you're rich. For the rest of us, there's not much to write home about."
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at rsamples@sirinet.net.
8/13/07
Sometimes I'm amazed at how much I know about the financial markets and the economy. I don't understand any of it, but I know a lot of stuff, thanks to my friend and mentor, Richard Walrath, who's been to the market more than once. He says when George Bush brags that the economy is booming, he's probably right. The economy is exploding with a big boom, and Walrath says now we are engaged in a great battle to see how long this country can endure.
The Fed just poured a bunch of money into the market, which was news to me, but Walrath said the Fed has been manipulating the market for years, especially during the Bush years.
"There was great fear the United States was going to follow Japan into a period of deflation and recession -- maybe even a depression," Walrath said. "Interest rates were cut close to zero while hundreds of billions of dollars were added to the National Debt through tax-cuts for the rich and 'Big Bidness.' And it gets worse just at the time the National Debt limit has to be raised again."
With things as bad as they are, Walrath says it's going to be interesting to see how this crisis is handled. Congress may have to return early to pass legislation to raise the National Debt. But it makes more sense to me -- since the bulk of our lawmakers were so eager to get out of school for recess, that Bush could decide to handle the whole thing like he does everything else to avoid partisan jawboning or oversight -- just dash off an Executive Order.
But the National Debt is just one of many problems battering our economy. Walrath points out a major problem is "all those margin accounts out there with people getting calls to come up with some real money because their stock is down. As you might expect, this led to speculation in housing -- let's flip it -- and millions of people who couldn't afford to pay their rent bought houses."
Wait a minute...Let's flip it? What does that mean? Nothing comes to mind -- okay one thing does -- but Walrath never takes such a cavalier attitude about economics.
Let's flip it, Walrath says is when "--you buy the house with no intention of ever living in it. You add a kitchen, spruce up a bathroom, and "flip" it, or put it back on the market, hoping to make a profit.
This goes on all the time, Walrath says, but there were more flippers than buyers this time around because it cost almost nothing to own a house while you were waiting to sell it. That's sub-prime credit. You could buy a house with no money down, no income, no job, no assets.
Of course! Now I understand. If you buy a house with no money down, you have little or nothing invested. Just walk away. Let the banks worry about selling them.
But to whom will banks sell them? What are the banks going to do? "That's why houses for sale are now piling up all over the country," Walrath said. "It's a terrible situation."
Donald Trump begs to differ. When you're in a hole, keep digging as hard and as fast as you can. Trump's advice, according to Walrath is to "just go back and make another deal with whoever holds the mortgage. Trump says you'll get a better deal this time than the one you had before. Don't walk away from it -- go make another deal. The last thing the bank wants is your house. What are they going to do with it? They can't find anybody to buy it."
So, who's flipping whom in this credit seizure?
According to an unsigned editorial in Saturday's Wall Street Journal, the root cause of this credit correction was the Federal Reserve's willingness to keep money too easy for too long.
The Journal warns an "emergency rate cut, as some in the market seem to be anticipating or hoping for -- carries the risk of introducing even greater moral hazard into the financial system."
We can't have immorality in our financial system, now can we? Oh, the horror!
While chiding Democrats such as Senator Hillary Clinton for proposing a $1 billion federal bailout fund for homeowners at risk of default and foreclosure, the Journal goes on to channel Barbara Bush's flash of morality when speaking of homeless Katrina victims -- "No one wants to see someone lose his home to foreclosure. But many of those most at risk bought their homes with little or no money down, and so have very little at stake economically. Bringing in the feds to bail them out would send precisely the wrong message -- that risky or overly aggressive borrowing will be rewarded by the government rather than punished in the marketplace. To the extent that bad loans were made, the market needs to clear, not be propped up by federal-aid programs."
Unfortunately, despite what the Journal and the endlessly bleating "Money Heads" on TV would have you believe, millions of Americans are in deep trouble. CNBC's Jim Cramer "flipped out" last week in a torrent of truth about the current economic situation.
Walrath agrees, and says if we continue in the direction we're headed, Bush's "boom" will make the Savings and Loan bail-out look like a Girl Scout Cookie Sale.
According to Walrath, there are four sets of losers in this housing meltdown...
- Those caught with the homes they bought for flipping purposes are not going to be able to find buyers. They are going to lose whatever they have invested, plus whatever mortgage payments they make. It may be cheaper for them just to walk away.
- Those who own homes will see the value of their houses go down because of the current oversupply due to overbuilding when interest rates were lower and people were buying homes with little or nothing down with the idea of flipping the houses as soon as possible.
- Those who bought homes with variable-rate mortgages are having trouble making payments because those payments keep going up, and there's nothing they can do about it. Many did not even realize they had such a mortgage. Millions are going to lose their homes.
- And then, there's the murky many -- the banks and the hedge funds which ended up with mortgages used as collateral for junk bonds, which ended up as holdings by French and German and English banks, not to mention those in this country.
"This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built, and we ain't seen nothing yet," Walrath says.
"When it comes to saving the rich from losing money, no expense will be spared. Actually," Walrath mused, "the economy is good -- if you're rich. For the rest of us, there's not much to write home about."
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at rsamples@sirinet.net.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
and the Iraq occupation grinds on
August 12, 2007
Sunday: 5 GIs, 57 Iraqis Killed; 37 Iraqis Wounded
Updated at 6:00 p.m. EDT, Aug. 12, 2007
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=11435
Although violence remains relatively light, U.S. forces took a heavy hit on Saturday; five American servicemembers were killed and four wounded in separate incidents. At least 57 Iraqis were killed and 37 more wounded during the latest incidents.
Four Task Force Marne soldiers were killed and four more wounded by an explosion during combat operations south of the capital yesterday. In a separate incident, another Task Force Marne soldier was killed during a dismounted patrol southeast of Baghdad.
In Baghdad, 17 bodies were found scattered in several neighborhoods. The Iraqi army reported killing seven suspects and arresting 70 others. Two civilians were wounded during a bombing near the Saj al-Reef restaurant. A roadside bomb on the al-Rasheed camp road injured five civilians. Mortars landing in Qahira killed three people and wounded 15 more.
U.S. forces killed two civilians and wounded a third during an incident in Sadr City. During raids that involved helicopter back-up, two people were killed and four wounded.
In Daquq, gunmen killed one civilian and injured two others during a drive-by shooting. In a separate drive-by, three policemen were killed and two more were wounded; the wife of one of the dead policemen was reported to have committed suicide upon hearing the news. Yesterday, one person was killed and another wounded during a drive-by in nearby al-Ulia village.
An Iraqi soldier was shot and killed in Hawija. Also, two bodies were found.
Nine gunmen were killed during clashes with MNF forces in Muqdadiyah.
In Wajihiya, two Iraqi soldiers were wounded during clashes with gunmen.
British forces in Basra reported wounding an unspecified number of civilians in crossfire between unknown assailants and a British patrol.
One person was killed an another injured during a drive-by shooting in Kirkuk.
Several car bombs in Karbala were safely defused.
Two bodies were found in Kora Roqa village, near Suleimaniyah.
Marines handed their positions in Ramadi over to Iraqi security forces and withdrew from the area.
In Hashemiya, an Iraqi soldier was shot and killed.
Three bodies belonging to a man and two women were found in Hilla.
One Iraqi soldier was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb was detonated in Latifiya.
Compiled by Margaret Griffis
Sunday: 5 GIs, 57 Iraqis Killed; 37 Iraqis Wounded
Updated at 6:00 p.m. EDT, Aug. 12, 2007
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=11435
Although violence remains relatively light, U.S. forces took a heavy hit on Saturday; five American servicemembers were killed and four wounded in separate incidents. At least 57 Iraqis were killed and 37 more wounded during the latest incidents.
Four Task Force Marne soldiers were killed and four more wounded by an explosion during combat operations south of the capital yesterday. In a separate incident, another Task Force Marne soldier was killed during a dismounted patrol southeast of Baghdad.
In Baghdad, 17 bodies were found scattered in several neighborhoods. The Iraqi army reported killing seven suspects and arresting 70 others. Two civilians were wounded during a bombing near the Saj al-Reef restaurant. A roadside bomb on the al-Rasheed camp road injured five civilians. Mortars landing in Qahira killed three people and wounded 15 more.
U.S. forces killed two civilians and wounded a third during an incident in Sadr City. During raids that involved helicopter back-up, two people were killed and four wounded.
In Daquq, gunmen killed one civilian and injured two others during a drive-by shooting. In a separate drive-by, three policemen were killed and two more were wounded; the wife of one of the dead policemen was reported to have committed suicide upon hearing the news. Yesterday, one person was killed and another wounded during a drive-by in nearby al-Ulia village.
An Iraqi soldier was shot and killed in Hawija. Also, two bodies were found.
Nine gunmen were killed during clashes with MNF forces in Muqdadiyah.
In Wajihiya, two Iraqi soldiers were wounded during clashes with gunmen.
British forces in Basra reported wounding an unspecified number of civilians in crossfire between unknown assailants and a British patrol.
One person was killed an another injured during a drive-by shooting in Kirkuk.
Several car bombs in Karbala were safely defused.
Two bodies were found in Kora Roqa village, near Suleimaniyah.
Marines handed their positions in Ramadi over to Iraqi security forces and withdrew from the area.
In Hashemiya, an Iraqi soldier was shot and killed.
Three bodies belonging to a man and two women were found in Hilla.
One Iraqi soldier was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb was detonated in Latifiya.
Compiled by Margaret Griffis
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
and then, three days later
Nagasaki
August 9, 1945
August 9, 1945
Pictures Of WarPictures of suffering
Pictures of death
Some say this is holy
Some say this is good
Women burned alive
Children without heads
and heaps of corpses on the ground
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