The Scandal of Reincarnated Rats
John Braithwaite is back.
The famed Australian corporate criminologist is teaming up with a former European pharmaceutical executive – Graham Dukes – and together they are completing a new book on corporate crime in the pharmaceutical industry.
The working title – Corporations, Crime and Medicines.
Thirty years ago, Braithwaite finished his magnum opus – Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry (Routledge Kegan & Paul).
The book documented widespread fraud and corruption worldwide.
“In the latter part of the 1980s, I thought that the pharmaceutical industry was actually improving in its standards,” Braithwaite told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview. “Ciba Geigy was one company that had come under particularly aggressive attack from the consumer movement. And Ciba Geigy was responding and setting up corporate social responsibility policies with a new risk management initiative that it was trying to get other companies to join up with.”
“Pfizer became the number one company in the industry. It was sending senior executives to Australia to talk to me. They were really interested in what kind of internal procedures they could be putting in place to make sure that folks like Graham and I would not be making the kinds of critiques that were in Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry.”
“I was encouraged by that. I think actually I wasn’t conned. In the course of the 1980s, there was progress.”
“I actually finished the research for Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry in 1980. But the book was held up for concerns about libel.”
“But 30 years on, the situation has in fact become worse in most respects. Perhaps there has been some improvement in terms of safety and manufacturing processes among the majors. But on the other hand, the largest pharmaceutical corporations in the world have done a major disservice in the way they have approached the generic industry and, in a sense, stigmatized the generic industry.”
“In Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry, we concluded that 19 of the 20 largest U.S. pharmaceutical companies had engaged in serious corrupt activities in the course of the 1970s. And there was really no other industry in the United States that had such a consistent pattern. There were other industries – like the defense industry – that were doing terribly corrupt things. But in terms of top to bottom corruption, the pharmaceutical industry was the worst in the United States.”
“And in some ways, we are inclined to conclude that today it is even worse.”
In the area of research fraud, things are again worse 30 years later.
“A big part of the 1984 book was fraud in safety and testing of drugs,” Braithwaite said. “Remember the GD Searle company, of which Donald Rumsfeld was a CEO? They had the scandal of reincarnated rats. The rats would die when a drug was tested on them. And they would be replaced with living rats. That kind of blatant fraud is not dead in the pharmaceutical industry. There is a lot more sophisticated fraud in the form of suppression of negative safety and efficacy studies. And the boosting of positive studies.”
“But still, there is quite a lot of plain old fashion losing of negative data. And that is the same as the throwing away of the dead rat and replacing the dead rat with the reincarnated rat.”
“You generate data that a drug does not work. And you just suppress that data. It’s as if the study were never conducted and you start again and do another study until you get one that shows you what you want to find. Go to another university professor who will tell you what you want to hear.”
“That situation is, if anything. worse rather than better.”
On the Wall Street meltdown, Braithwaite says the situation could have easily been prevented.
“There was a lot of evidence that there was systemic mortgage fraud – liar loans, false representation of income and employment status of people on loans,” Braithwaite said. “And that had to do with a shift of the nature of capitalism. Banks issuing loans were no longer as interested as they should have been in assessing the capacity of the borrower to repay. Why? Because it was a move from a risk management financial sector to a risk shifting financial sector. You just slice and dice the loans and spread the risk around to a lot of other banks.”
“But it seems to me that there was a ready regulatory response to that. It was knowable that there was a problem. You had the FBI reporting as early as 2004 and 2005 that there was an epidemic of mortgage fraud in the United States. You had this huge trend up in housing loan defaults starting in the mid 2000s. These were very clear red flags.”
“The simple regulatory strategy was for prudential regulators to go to mortgage brokers and banks and say – look, your portfolio of loans has twice the default rate of the average in our state. We want to sit down with you and look into why that is. And if that very simple regulatory inspection measure had been taken, it would have quickly become apparent that there was a pattern of fraud in the loans that they were issuing. And that would have been the early preventive step.”
“And you wouldn’t have necessarily had to prosecute those banks. You would have wanted to go around the country and stop the problem. That would be the most important thing. You would prosecute the ones with the worst patterns of conduct. But the more important thing would be return to integrity in the way loans are issued. Banks return to being interested in ensuring that these were levels of repayment that could be made.”
Russell Mokhiber edits the Corporate Crime Reporter.
[For the complete transcript of the Interview with John Braithwaite, see 26 Corporate Crime Reporter 1(12), January 2, 2012, print edition only.]
January 3, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception |
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French boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigners have called on their government to abandon a €318 million deal to buy Heron TP drones from Israel Aircraft Industries. Meanwhile, senior members of France’s Senate have called publicly for the country to abandon the purchase on grounds that the Israeli drones are unsuited to the needs of the armed forces.
Campaign against Israeli drones
A petition launched by Campagne BDS France urging the government to end the deal and calling for an immediate military embargo on Israel has already garnered more than 1300 signatures. The text states:
No to the purchase by France of 318 million euros worth of Israeli drones!
An immediate military embargo against Israel!
On 20 July the French Ministry of Defence took the scandalous decision to buy from Israel more than 318 million euros worth of war weapons. When this outlaw state is guilty, day after day, of grave violations of international law, when there is a climate of austerity, when there are calls for demilitarization and for sanctions against Israel’s impunity, we are outraged by the disgraceful choice made by the Ministry of Defence.
Israel has a well established record of violations of international law and human rights, on display in its various military operations and aggressive attacks, incursions and occupations of Palestinian territories and other Arab countries, in its abusive and indiscriminate use of force and in the deliberate targeting of civilians and infrastructure. All of which result in a ceaseless repetition of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The BDS French Campaign joins the Palestinian BNC in calling for an immediate military embargo against Israel, similar to that imposed upon South Africa in the past. We demand the immediate cancellation of the contract to purchase drones from Israel.
Decision to buy Israeli drones “surprises” French Senate
Earlier this month, the vice-chairs of the foreign affairs and defence and armed forces committees of the French Senate wrote an open letter in Le Monde strongly opposing the decision. The four senators, two from President Nicholas Sarkozy’s UMP party and two from the Socialist opposition, wrote (my translation):
On July 20, the Minister of Defence, Gérard Longuet, chose to equip our forces with the Heron TP, manufactured by the Israeli company IAI [Israel Aircraft Industries] and imported by Dassault. This decision caused surprise in the Senate. When a state undertakes to equip its forces it must be done impartially, in a rational, that is to say, measurable manner: at what price, what specifications, and what industrial sovereignty? If possible it must reconcile all these objectives, otherwise it must prioritize the security of its soldiers and the effectiveness of its armed forces.
The senators added that the Israeli drone was unsuited to French needs. The Heron TP, they wrote, is “big, slow and vulnerable in degraded weather conditions.” They advocated purchasing the US-made Reaper drone instead.
Their support for the Reaper underscores that the senators, while strongly opposing the Israeli drone, did not raise any ethical concerns about the purchase. Their opposition – according to their words – is strictly on technical merit.
Nonetheless, with a significant core of opposition to buying from Israel already in place it may well be easier for BDS campaigners to bring more public pressure to abandon the deal.
French campaign follows in Finland’s footsteps
The campaign in France echoes a long-standing citizens’ initiative in Finland to get that country to abandon a possible deal to buy Israeli drones.
The Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja had already gone on record, while in opposition, against purchasing the Israeli weapons on ethical grounds and recently condemned Israeli “apartheid.”.
Last July, the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT) came out publicly in support of an arms embargo on Israel and called for an end to “all military-related training and consultancies with the Israeli army, military companies and academic research institutions.”
December 30, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Solidarity and Activism |
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In Guatemala, former military officers and their supporters have filed legal charges against human rights activists, journalists, and surviving victims of State repression, even as a former general, Otto Perez Molina – himself implicated in Guatemala’s genocide – prepares to assume the Guatemalan presidency on January 14, 2012!
Moreover, Perez Molina has named high ranking trainers of the brutal Kaibil forces to the top three military command positions. Kaibil’s were directly implicated in the very worst of the State repression and genocide of the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, and some today have direct links to the Mexico-based “Zeta” narco-trafficking cartel.
Furthermore, Perez Molina is getting set to engage the Army in policing matters in partnership with the US government that is launching phase II of the brutal and deadly Mexican “war on drugs” in Central America.
2012: MARCHING TOWARDS THE PAST
As Otto Perez Molina prepares to assume the presidency on January 14, 2011, he has named commanders of Guatemala’s “special forces”, the feared Kaibils, to the highest positions in the military. Two officers have been appointed to cabinet level positions, even while the respected and courageous Attorney General, Claudia Paz, along with human rights activists and journalists, have come under legal and public attack by war veterans. Earlier this year, CICIG (the United Nations backed Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala) came under attack from a Washington lobbyist hired by Guatemalan businessmen.
On December 14, 2011, a dual US/ Guatemalan citizen, also a coffee plantation owner, filed legal charges against 52 people, including a US citizen who worked for Amnesty International in Guatemala during the genocide carried out by the military, and including Jennifer Harbury, an attorney who became an internationally recognized campaigner against torture following the extended torture and presumed extrajudicial execution of her husband, Efrain Bamaca, a guerrilla commander she met during peace negotiations in Mexico City.
This is the third legal complaint of its kind lodged over the past month and a half, in what CICIG characterized as an attack on the Attorney General, seemingly an orchestrated campaign pressuring her to resign.
Over the past 2 years, human rights organizations and lawyers – and some politicians – have worked very hard to retake control of the legal system and the administration of justice from organized crime networks which have corrupted elements of the police, prosecuting attorneys and judges.
The clandestine criminal networks in Guatemala today grew out of the military/ business alliances which in the 1960s to early 1990s controlled the nation through US-backed military juntas, carrying out crimes with total impunity ranging from genocide and large scale massacres to drug trafficking. The current Attorney General, Claudia Paz, has been extremely effective in arresting and prosecuting top organized crime figures and high ranking military officers implicated in crimes against humanity.
GENOCIDE AND WAR CRIMES LINKED SPECIAL FORCES COMMANDERS NAMED TO TOP GOVERNMENT POSITIONS
The return of current and former military officers to high ranking positions in government is deeply concerning to human rights activists. The Guatemalan special-forces unit known as the Kaibils is especially renowned for brutality, and has been extensively implicated in heinous massacres that occurred in the worst years of the “cold war” repression.
President elect Perez Molina is making no concessions to concerns. Kaibils were named to the three top military positions: Col. Ulises Anzueto as Defense Minister, Col. René Casados Ramírez as Commander of the Joint Chiefs of Defense, and Col Manuel López Ambrosio as Sub-commander of the Joint Chiefs of Defense. Anzueto’s appointment bucks hierarchy, by military tradition his appointment will force 16 Generals to resign. Another Colonel was named Interior Minister, Mauricio Lopez Bonilla, who managed Perez Molina’s presidential campaign.
In 1995, based on witness testimony and written documentation, Anzueto was named by Harbury as one of three officers responsible for the kidnapping, disappearance and torture of Efrain Bamaca. Ever since, the case has languished in Guatemalan courts, defying rulings of the Inter American Court of Human Rights.
Otto Perez Molina himself, and two other generals, were named in a second case, focusing on the commanding officers whose direct responsibility became apparent through declassified documents and evidence obtained during the first case, charges filed in March 2011.
ZETA-LINKS AS WELL
The placement of four Kaibils in top government positions, including the presidency, is even more shocking given the extensively reported ties between Kaibils and the gruesomely violent Zeta drug trafficking cartel.
The Zetas were originally an elite unit of the Mexican Army Airborne Special Forces (GAFE) and are reported to have been trained in Fort Bragg, a US military base, to combat drug trafficking. In the late 1990′s they were then trained by the Guatemalan Kaibil “special forces.”
It is widely reported that, in 2000, the unit known as the Zetas left GAFE, en masse, to begin work as Gulf Cartel’s enforcers. The Gulf Cartel has, for decades, had a solid presence in Central America. It grew out of a network of local traffickers with strong ties to various militaries and death squads.
Ever since, but particularly since 2005, reports of Zeta recruitment of former Kaibils and former Kaibil training of Zetas, have been frequent. As recently as April 6, 2011, the Mexican Vice Minister of Security reported that current and former Kaibils were training Zetas in northern Guatemala and participated in drug smuggling, at the same time denouncing a pattern of large scale robbery by Zetas of weapons from military bases in Mexico and Guatemala.
The newly appointed Guatemalan Minister of Defense was the director of the Kaibil training academy until 2009, and the Commander of the Joint Chiefs of Defense was a Kaibil instructor.
The Kaibils have been credited as responsible for introducing some of the most gruesome techniques to the Zetas, including severing heads and dismembering bodies. This is no surprise given the Kaibils’ savage history in the Guatemalan civil war. Most recently, on May 17, 2011 former Kaibils, now members of the Zetas, were arrested for the massacre and decapitation of 27 farmworkers on the Los Cocos farm in Sayaxche, Peten.
GENOCIDE PRESIDENT
The savagery of the Kaibils is well known, even within one of the most brutal militaries imaginable, as well documented in two “Truth Commissions,” the 1999 United Nations sponsored report “Memory of Silence” and the 1998 Catholic Church’s report “Guatemala Never Again.”
The United Nations backed Truth Commission found that during conflict over 200,000 people were killed and 45,000 disappeared. It found that 93% of the acts of violence were perpetrated by the military or paramilitary forces, 3% by armed revolutionaries and 3% unidentifiable authors. It documented 626 massacres by State security forces, the vast majority carried out against Mayan communities, and noted:
“The CEH has noted particularly serious cruelty in many acts committed by agents of the State, especially members of the Army, in their operations against Mayan communities… Acts such as the killing of defenseless children, often by beating them against walls or throwing them alive into pits where the corpses of adults were later thrown; the amputation of limbs; the impaling of victims; the killing of persons by covering them in petrol and burning them alive; the extraction, in the presence of others, of the viscera of victims who were still alive; the confinement of people who had been mortally tortured, in agony for days; the opening of the wombs of pregnant women, and other similarly atrocious acts, were not only actions of extreme cruelty against the victims, but also morally degraded the perpetrators and those who inspired, ordered or tolerated these actions.”
In August 2011, four former Kaibils and their commanding officer were sentenced to 6,060 years in prison for their participation in the gruesome massacre of 264 men, women and children in 1982 in the village of Dos Erres, Peten. This was the first time that soldiers have been arrested, tried and sentenced for any of the hundreds of massacres committed by State security forces during the “la violencia” (the violence), the military campaigns from 1981 to 1983.
The UN Truth Commission found that State forces committed acts of genocide against four Mayan peoples, the Achi, Q’anjobal, Kiche and Ixil. President elect Perez Molina commanded the Municipality of Nebaj military base from 1982 until the mid-1980′s, Nebaj being the center of the Ixil genocide. Survivors describe being tortured by him. At least one survivor has done so in court, and survivors and leaked military documents demonstrate involvement in massacres.
Legal cases against the intellectual and material authors of the Ixil genocide have also moved forward under the tenure of AG Claudia Paz y Paz. Former General Hector Mario Lopez Fuentes was arrested June 20, 2011, on charges of genocide against the Ixil people between 1982 and 1983. On October 12, 2011 Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez, head of military intelligence from 1983 to 1985, was arrested and indicted for genocide against the Ixil people. The advancement of these cases is now seriously at risk
PRO-MILITARY RALLIES – “WHEN ‘MI GENERAL’ WINS, WE WILL FINISH WHAT WE STARTED”
2011 is the first year military officers (being the “intellectual authors”) have been taken to court for the political crimes of the 1980s, but the impending presidency of one of their own seems to have rallied their spirits.
On November 13, 2011 shortly after Perez Molina’s electoral victory, the military and their supporters rallied in a march in the center of Guatemala City, decrying the prosecution of military officers for war crimes. This is the first time since the end of the war that the military has carried out a demonstration of this kind.
In the year leading up to the 2011 presidential elections, reports from the countryside indicated that networks of former Civil Defense Patrollers, veterans and other military allies – all implicated in the genocide and other extreme human rights abuses – mobilized to rally support for Perez Molina. Over the past year, frequent reports of vague threats made by these networks have been heard from surviving victims from the 1980′s, along the lines of: “When ‘Mi General’ wins, we will finish what we started.”
POLITICALLY MOTIVATED LEGAL CHARGES
Since June 2011, the association of military veterans and their allies have been taking aim at the current Attorney General, Claudia Paz y Paz. In newspaper advertisements veterans denounced prosecutors and human rights defenders, claiming the veterans would respond to attacks. Given the long history of endemic repression in Guatemala, these advertisements are perceived by many as threats.
The ads asserted that military officers were being unfairly persecuted, and that instead of pursuing justice in civilian courts, the Attorney General must respect the military tribunal trials that some of those accused of war crimes had been submitted to, military trials presented clearly as a tactic to avoid being held legally responsible in civilian courts for atrocities.
This year, legislators also attempted to quietly push through a new amnesty law. Both mechanisms – the mis-use of military tribunals and the passing of amnesty laws – violate international law norms.
On November 2, 2011 retired Col. Ricardo Méndez Ruiz filed legal charges, naming 26 people as responsible for his kidnapping in 1982.
On November 29, 2011 the Military Widows Association filed charges against 32 people for 45 acts of violence they claim were carried out by armed revolutionary movements.
On December 14, 2011 dual US/ Guatemalan citizen and coffee planter Theodore Plocharski, who apparently moved to Guatemala in 1980, filed charges against 52 people attributing to them responsibility for 11 acts of violence against diplomats and foreign military officers.
Many of the individuals named as defendants are repeated in the three complaints. At least one person named in the charges had not even been born at the time of the alleged acts, others were infants, some were not in the country.
No one doubts that these charges are direct attacks against the Attorney General, human rights activists, academics, politicians and journalists. Claudia Paz’s deceased father and cousin were named in all three cases. Others named include: Miguel Angel Albizures, a founder of FAMDEGUA, the victims association that promoted the Dos Erres prosecution; Jennifer Harbury and Jean Marie Simon, international human rights activists; outgoing first lady Sandra Torres; as well as well-known journalists, politicians, feminists, clergy, academics, and others. Some were members of the revolutionary movements.
CICIG (the United Nations backed Commission Against Impunity) has characterized the series of legal complaints as an orchestrated attack against the Attorney General, noting that Ricardo Méndez Ruiz clearly stated in an interview that he was going after the Attorney General. The aim of the campaign appears to be to demonstrate that Paz does not lead impartial investigations, a possible pretext to force her out of office.
Even so, the Attorney General has assigned investigation of the charges to a special unit created to investigate war crimes. If the charges follow the example of those levied against military officers, it may take 15 or more years to go to court, if any evidence is uncovered. However given the chronic problems of lack of independence of the judiciary, there is definitely a risk that those charged could face biased trials.
President-elect Otto Perez Molina has picked up on the discourse of these seemingly frivolous legal charges. During a November 9, 2011 interview, Perez asserted that justice must be impartial, not “persecution of just one side.” Four distinct revolutionary movements participated in the 36 year armed conflict that ended in 1996. The first revolutionary movement was founded by military officers loyal to the democratically elected government overthrown in a CIA orchestrated coup in 1954.
LEGAL CASES AGAINST DRUG KING-PINS
In addition to helping advance criminal trials against Guatemalan war criminals, Paz has also been highly successful in arresting and extraditing top level drug kingpins, most of whom have been operating with total impunity for decades. The US ambassador to Guatemala, Arnold Chacon, expressed support for her in November, and on November 30, 2011 Assistant Secretary of State for Global Affairs, Maria Otero, during a visit to Guatemala met with Perez Molina. Many believe pressure from State Department led to a December 8 joint press conference presented by Perez Molina and Claudia Paz in which they assured that Paz’s job was safe.
PEREZ MOLINA TIES TO WASHINGTON
For decades the State Department has maintained a very close relationship to Perez Molina. In 1995 he was reported to have been on the CIA payroll while head of military intelligence in 1993, when he oversaw a secret torture center and prison reported to hold over 300 prisoners. His name was very frequently mentioned in Wikileaks cables. He is a graduate of the School of the Americas.
Despite extensive evidence of his participation in extreme violations, including a video and photographs of him standing over the bodies of three murdered and tortured indigenous men in 1982, the State Department appears to have done nothing to distance itself from him. The embassy recognized his victory the night of the election before the official tally was in. Obama even called to congratulate him on November 21, and to express the US interest in cooperation in security initiatives in Central America.
During a December trip to Mexico, Perez Molina visited Mexican President Felipe Calderon to discuss security cooperation. Human rights activists claim that Calderon’s “war on drugs” has cost 45,000 lives in Mexico and been unsuccessful in stemming trafficking. Calderon’s War is financed by the United States through the Merida Initiative which, when proposed in 2006, was intended to finance security operations in Central America as well as Mexico. However, only this year has Washington’s focus turned back to Central America, and the region is already showing signs of militarization.
Perez Molina and Calderon share some of the same friends in Washington. The Spanish public relations firm Ostos & Sola worked on both Perez Molina’s and Calderon’s campaigns, as well as the campaigns of Haitian President Michel Martelly and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, all considered right wing. The firm’s Executive Director in Washington DC is Damien Merlo, who was previously Vice President of Otto Reich Associates, at a time when the DC lobby firm, run by Bush administration State Department appointee Otto Reich, advocated for the recognition of Honduran coup government of Roberto Micheletti.
MILITARIZATION versus JUSTICE
Earlier this year, in March 2011, Washington’s own breed of political hit men, lobbyists or strategic advisors, were hired to take on, or out, the highly successful United Nations backed Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, CICIG. Former Ambassador Robert Geldbard of Washington Global Partners, a former special envoy to the Balkans during the Clinton Presidency and later Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, was hired by Guatemalan businessmen, including WalMart Central America Vice President Salvador Paiz, reportedly to undermine CICIG’s image with its funders in Washington and New York, the Congress and the United Nations.
According to an October 15, 2011 article in the Economist, Guatemalan businessmen were reportedly angered by the arrest warrants issued against the former Minister of Governance Carlos Vielmann, accused by CICIG of running an organized crime related death squad within the police.
Cleaning up corruption at the highest levels of government is apparently not popular amongst the powerful economic and military sectors, but it is obviously key to ending the devastating violence, repression and impunity in Central America, and is completely dependent on the political will of the powerful sectors in Guatemala and the so-called international community.
As efforts were underway to undermine CICIG’s support in New York and Washington, both the UN and the State Department were pushing full steam ahead on the Central America Security Strategy, particularly focused on a push to ‘reform’ the police forces in Central America, which in El Salvador and Guatemala were created from forces ‘recycled’ from the militaries.
In the ‘Northern Triangle’ of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador), the police forces (historically linked to and dependent on the militaries) are infamously corrupt. The US, United Nations and international community are seemingly turning to infamously corrupt, violent and criminal military partners to ‘clean up’ security.
In furtherance to this focus on strengthening police forces in the Northern Triangle countries, in November, Panamanian President Martinelli announced that the US and Colombia are establishing in Panama a joint training center for police forces from throughout the region, bringing back nightmarish memories of the School of the Americas, which originally trained military forces from throughout Latin America in Panama.
PRIVATIZATION
There also appears to be a push to involve private security contractors in the police reforms and ‘anti-narcotics war’ in Central America. Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has coordinated a series of conferences for mayors and presidents of Central America, sponsored by private security corporation Continental Security and Integrated Systems (CIS). 55% of Plan Colombia funds were spent on US based private security contractors. It appears Central America will follow suit.
Military and former military officers dominate the private security industry throughout the region, and in recent years the presence of private security forces in the countryside, especially in Guatemala and Honduras, has grown extensively, largely present where mines, hydroelectric dams and biofuel projects are being developed by transnational corporations and the local elite.
In the Bajo Aguan region of Honduras, it is reported that 1980s death squad member Billy Joya advised the local police before a rash of death squad style killings of land rights activists in conflict with biofuel producers broke out; at least 50 campesinos activists have been killed in under two years.
In addition to Washington’s willingness to work with incoming president Perez Molina and his Kaibil cabal, in El Salvador former General Munguia was named Security Minister in November, an extremely controversial move toward ‘militarization’ of civilian security. Analysts claim that the appointment came in response to pressure form the US Embassy.
Perez Molina has pledged to deploy Kaibils to combat drug trafficking, despite accusations against current and former Kaibils of participating in drug trafficking. He has also pledged to mobilize the Airforce Special Forces in the drug war, and to expand the military by 2,500 new elements.
In Honduras, the reform program has been vigorously denounced as a charade run by the same corrupt power players that created the criminal networks within the police and that supported the 2009 military coup against the democratically elected government of President Zelaya. Alfredo Landaverde, a former Anti Narcotics Chief and one of the most outspoken critics of the “reform,” was gunned down by motorcycle assassins on December 7.
GRIM PROSPECTS FOR REAL SECURITY AND JUSTICE
While undoubtedly clean police forces are critical to building safe communities, pouring money, arms and training into corrupted security forces, as shown by the Zetas, will only fuel the violence, corruption and impunity.
There must be real political interest in addressing impunity and corruption and in prosecuting organized crimes’ political power players. Apparently prosecution of corruption is not good for transnational business interests, but the security industry is big business.
Annie Bird is co-director of Rights Action, www.rightsaction.org.
December 30, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes |
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Last week I wrote about how Labor Friends of Israel (LFI) – a lobby group within Britain’s largest opposition party – appears to be breaking a law on political donations. I am happy to report that the UK’s Electoral Commission has now received a formal request to investigate the LFI and similar organizations affiliated to the country’s ruling coalition.
Jenny Tonge, a member of the House of Lords, has alerted the Commission to the lack of transparency over how Zionist support groups are funded.
Tonge’s letter draws attention to apparent omissions in the information that the “friends of Israel” groups within Labor and the senior government party, the Conservatives, have submitted to the Commission. Under legislation dating from 2001, all donations exceeding £7,500 ($11,600) to “member’s associations” within political parties have to be disclosed.
The LFI has reported spending nearly £77,000 on trips to the Middle East for members of Parliament between 2003 and 2009 and is known to have at least two full-time members of staff. The Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) have reported expenditure of more than £110,000 on travel since 2011, yet have indicated that they only received donations totalling £29,350 in that period.
Tonge wrote, “The Commission surely has an obligation to examine their finances, together with those of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel, to ensure that they have not failed to declare any donations above the threshold, as it does seem remarkable to have this level of expenditure without significant donations from groups or individuals.”
Pounding the drumbeat of war
The LFI’s reticence over its funding is at odds with its determination to prove that it is shaping policy. Its 15 December newsletter gloated at how the first visit to Israel and the West Bank by Douglas Alexander, since his appointment as shadow foreign secretary in January, was hosted by the LFI. During the visit Alexander met Israel’s chief spindoctor Mark Regev, a man who has perfected the art of looking suave while telling lies. Alexander showed just how amenable he was to Israeli propaganda by going to see a high school in southern Israel — where, in his words “classrooms doubled up as bomb shelters.”
His itinerary did not include an excursion into the nearby Gaza Strip, where he could have inspected schools destroyed by the highly-equipped Israeli military during Operation Cast Lead three years ago. At least 353 Palestinian children were killed by Israel in that three-week offensive.
The same newsletter illustrates that LFI – like its beloved Regev – has a tenuous relationship with the truth. It brands Iran’s nuclear programme “illegal” and notes that the Labor hierarchy has pledged support for sanctions against the Tehran regime. Readers are not provided with any background details about how it was Israel, not Iran, that introduced nuclear weapons to the Middle East and how it is Israel, not Iran, that has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The newsletter proceeds to recommend an article by Alan Johnson from the Britain Israel Research Center (BICOM), who praised the British government’s determination “to end the diplomatic merry-go-round, to see Iran plain and to act, now and decisively, to confront it.”
If the “friends of Israel” are pounding the drumbeat of war against Iran, then it is vital that they be closely monitored.
December 28, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Wars for Israel |
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As if we expected anything else from psychopaths
It seems America’s bankers are tired of all the abuse. They’ve decided to speak out.
True, they’re doing it from behind the rope line, in front of friendly crowds at industry conferences and country clubs, meaning they don’t have to look the rest of America in the eye when they call us all imbeciles and complain that they shouldn’t have to apologize for being so successful.
But while they haven’t yet deigned to talk to protesting America face to face, they are willing to scribble out some complaints on notes and send them downstairs on silver trays. Courtesy of a remarkable story by Max Abelson at Bloomberg, we now get to hear some of those choice comments.
December 25, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Supremacism, Social Darwinism |
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Congress approved an additional $235 million in U.S. military aid to Israel, Ynet reports. The U.S. allocates to Israel approximately $2.5 billion in aid, per year.
The request, which boosts the total amount allocated for 2012 to $25 million more than the last fiscal year (the 2011 budget was $3.075 billion), came from the Pentagon in order to help Israel in “development of safeguards against rockets and missiles that could be launched towards Israel by Hezbollah and Iran.”
Ynet reports:
Pentagon officials were the ones who requested that Congress approve a $106 million aid budget for Israel’s defense systems against missiles, on top of the Iron Dome budget. Congress chose to nearly double that amount, approving a budget of $235 million for 2012, amounting to $25 million more than in 2011.
Since 1949, Congress has distributed over $114 billion in U.S. aid to Israel.
December 24, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite |
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Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Hohman looked at total state and federal assistance offered for the development and production of the Chevy Volt, General Motors’ plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. His analysis included 18 government deals that included loans, rebates, grants and tax credits. The amount of government assistance does not include the fact that General Motors is currently 26 percent owned by the federal government.
The Volt subsidies flow through multiple companies involved in production. The analysis includes adding up the amount of government subsidies via tax credits and direct funding for not only General Motors, but other companies supplying parts for the vehicle. For example, the Department of Energy awarded a $105.9 million grant to the GM Brownstown plant that assembles the batteries. The company was also awarded approximately $106 million for its Hamtramck assembly plant in state credits to retain jobs. The company that supplies the Volt’s batteries, Compact Power, was awarded up to $100 million in refundable battery credits (combination tax breaks and cash subsidies). These are among many of the subsidies and tax credits for the vehicle.
It’s unlikely that all the companies involved in Volt production will ever receive all the $3 billion in incentives, Hohman said, because many of them are linked to meeting various employment and other milestones. But the analysis looks at the total value that has been offered to the Volt in different aspects of production – from the assembly line to the dealerships to the battery manufacturers. Some tax credits and subsidies are offered for periods up to 20 years, though most have a much shorter time frame.
GM has estimated they’ve sold 6,000 Volts so far. That would mean each of the 6,000 Volts sold would be subsidized between $50,000 and $250,000, depending on how many government subsidy milestones are realized.
If those manufacturers awarded incentives to produce batteries the Volt may use are included in the analysis, the potential government subsidy per Volt increases to $256,824. For example, A123 Systems has received extensive state and federal support, and bid to be a supplier to the Volt, but the deal instead went to Compact Power. The $256,824 figure includes adding up the subsidies to both companies.
The $3 billion total subsidy figure includes $690.4 million offered by the state of Michigan and $2.3 billion in federal money. That’s enough to purchase 75,222 Volts with a sticker price of $39,828.
Additional state and local support provided to Volt suppliers was not included in the analysis, Hohman said, and could increase the level of government aid. For instance, the Volt is being assembled at the Poletown plant in Detroit/Hamtramck, which was built on land acquired by General Motors through eminent domain.
“It just goes to show there are certain folks that will spend anything to get their vision of what people should do,” said State Representative Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills.
According to GM CEO Dan Akerson, the average Volt owner makes $170,000 per year.
Greg Martin, director of Policy and Washington Communications for GM, wrote in an email, “While much less than the hundreds of billions of dollars that Japanese and Korean auto and battery manufacturers have received over the years, the investments provided by several different Administrations and Congresses to jump-start the country’s fledgling battery technology and domestic electric vehicle industries (not just specifically for the Volt as Ford’s offering will also use LG Chem batteries and Fisker will use the A123 system for example) matches the same foresight and innovation leadership that other countries are exhibiting and which America has historically taken pride in.”
Martin added that the Mackinac Center’s math was “simple and selective.” However, he offered no data or specifics to support his assertion.
“This is a matter of simple math,” said Hohman. “I added the known state and federal incentives that have been offered and divided by the number of Volts sold. If GM has additional information to add to the public data on the use of taxpayer money, I look forward to seeing it.”
December 23, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Nuclear Power, Timeless or most popular |
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Public anger over how members of parliament (MPs) were abusing their expenses system has helped usher in a little transparency to British politics over the past few years. Yet the Labor Friends of Israel (LFI), a powerful group within the country’s main opposition party, is still behaving like a secret society.
Unlike a similar “friends of Israel” group belonging to the Liberal Democrats – the junior party in the ruling coalition – the LFI does not appear to have supplied any information about the sources of its finances to the UK’s Electoral Commission. This lack of disclosure could be illegal. Legislation applying to “members’ associations” of political parties stipulates that all donations above £7,500 ($11,600) must be notified to the Commission within 30 days.
Today, I asked Ben Garrett, the LFI’s head of policy and research, why his organization seems to be breaking the law. “I am not willing to comment,” he replied.
Garrett repeated that answer when I asked for basic details of the LFI’s annual budget and who its largest contributors are. When I argued that it is undemocratic for the LFI to be seeking to influence British policies on the Middle East, without providing basic details about how it is financed, he said, “I am not willing to engage with The Electronic Intifada in a discussion on these issues.”
Admittedly, the information provided by the “friends of Israel” groups for the two other large parties is quite scanty. The Conservative Friends of Israel refused to tell me a few months ago if that group is being funded by the arms industry. The answer to this question cannot be found in the information it has given to the Commission, which mainly relates to visits to the Middle East by Conservative MPs. For its part, the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel group appears to be more open, naming David Alliance, a textiles entrepreneur known to grace The Sunday Times list of Britain’s richest people, as one of its key donors.
Admiring Israel’s weapons
The LFI’s secrecy is all the more disturbing, given how some of its senior figures have recently been preparing a review of Britain’s defense policy and there is strong reason to suspect that their admiration for Israel is coloring their views.
A 96-page paper called “Ideas for Future UK Defense Equipment” was published by the Labor Party in September. Its preface was jointly signed by Michael Dugher, the LFI’s vice-chairman, and Jim Murphy, the shadow defense secretary.
As part of their deliberations, both men visited Israel in June. The bill for that trip was shared by the Britain Israel Research Center (BICOM) and the UK embassy in Tel Aviv. During it, the men held consultations with two of Israel’s leading arms makers, Elbit and Rafael. Their paper lauds the pilotless drones that Elbit has provided to the British Army for the war in Afghanistan, without acknowledging that they have been tested by spying on and murdering civilians in Gaza.
A few months ago, Dugher and Murphy both tried to make political capital out of a controversy in which Liam Fox, then the UK’s defense secretary, was embroiled. Fox had to resign because his close friend Adam Werritty was posing as his adviser, despite how Werritty had never been given any such job by the British government. While Dugher and Murphy were happy to censure Fox and Werritty for their shenanigans, they did not draw attention to how some of Werritty’s trips abroad were financed by BICOM.
Strong bonds to Zionist PR firm
Their reticence on that point is easy to understand. For BICOM is known to have solid bonds with the LFI, even though the center’s chief donor, Las Vegas casino magnate Poju Zabludowicz has helped fund the Conservatives. BICOM is registered as a private company, yet performs many of the functions that an embassy normally would by, for example, arranging for journalists to interview Israeli politicians.
At least three of BICOM’s team either remain involved with the LFI or have been in the recent past. Lorna Fitzsimons, the chief executive, was active in the LFI when she was a Labor member of parliament. Dermot Kehoe, BICOM’s press officer, was the partner of David Cairns, the LFI chairman who died in May. And Luke Akehurst, BICOM’s director of campaigns, is a Labor councillor in London who uses his blog to solicit recruits for the LFI.
Akehurst is also the quasi-official stenographer for the LFI. Last month, he wrote a glowing account of a speech given to the LFI by Ed Miliband, leader of the entire Labor Party.
Proving that he is little different to his predecessors Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, Miliband is more eager to placate the LFI’s hawks than follow the good example shown by his mother Marion Kozak , who has declared her support for the principled organization Jews for Justice for Palestinians. If Akehurst’s transcript is accurate, Miliband used his LFI address to malign the Palestinian-led campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel by implying that it had an anti-Semitic motive.
Sara Apps from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London noted that the only information that the LFI seems to have provided to the Electoral Commission concerned trips that the LFI has financed, without revealing where the money for those trips originated. “According to the Electoral Commission website, LFI has spent at least £76,822 on overseas visits for Labor MPs since 2003,” she told me. “Add this to their office and employment costs, it is difficult to conceive they could survive without significant donations from funders.”
By refusing to reveal where they get their money, the Labor Friends of Israel prove that they are enemies of democracy.
December 19, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption |
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Newt Gingrich’s jaunt to New York early this month was well–covered in the media, but one crucial aspect went unexplored: the Israel lobby angle. But good reporting from The Jewish Week‘s Adam Dickter makes clear that Gingrich came to New York looking for right-wing Jewish campaign donors who are hardline supporters of Israel.
Dickter reports that Gingrich has only raised around $52,000 from New York campaign donors, a paltry sum compared to Mitt Romney’s New York totals. So Gingrich came to New York in search of some much-needed funds in order to compete with Romney, his chief rival for the Republican nomination.
Not coincidentally, Gingrich’s controversial remarks on Palestinians came only a few days after a major New York meeting with donors.
Who did Gingrich meet with? Dickter reports:
On Dec. 6, at the Hyatt in Midtown, Gingrich met with some 30 prominent Jewish New Yorkers, including Daily News publisher Morton Zuckerman, an ex-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; developer and Republican Jewish Coalition co-founder George Klein; Presidents Conference executive vice chairman Malcolm Hoenlein; National Council of Young Israel Executive Director Rabbi Pesach Lerner and Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind.
Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein, who lives in Pennsylvania, also attended.
“[Gingrich] was extremely impressive,” said Hikind, a Democrat, who has been said to be considering an endorsement of Gingrich, whose views are in line with many constituents of Hikind’s heavily Orthodox Borough Park and Flatbush district. “There are a lot of people from my part of the Jewish community that are pro-Israel that really like the guy. There’s no question that he is refreshing.”
Gingrich’s meeting was an effort to broaden his appeal to donors who are right-wing on Israel, and his remarks about Palestinians are part of that effort. Already in Gingrich’s corner is “Lawrence Kadish, a Long Island-based real estate investor and co-founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition,” reports Dickter. “Kadish is president of First Fiscal Trust and a resident of Old Westbury. He serves on the board of the conservative think tanks Hudson Institute and Claremont Institute and supports the pro-Israel media-watch organizations CAMERA and MEMRI.” But Gingrich needs more money, and so he’s pandering hard to the right on Israel. It will also help in Iowa, where Gingrich wants to capture the Christian evangelical vote, a vote that is solidly Zionist.
Note that his meeting in New York was bipartisan. It’s not just Republican Jewish donors Gingrich is looking to for help; it’s also Democrats like Dov Hikind (who is quite conservative for a Democrat) and Mort Zuckerman. And they’re all about Israel. It’s another example of how the Israel lobby crosses party lines.
Thomas Friedman today said that Congress’ standing ovations for Benjamin Netanyahu was “bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” He could also extend that line of thinking to include the presidential candidates, including Obama. Sure, Gingrich is tapping into genuine support for Israel among some Americans. But the financing of his campaign is a core reason why Gingrich continues to run to the hard right on Israel. Perhaps now, with an opening in the discourse, we can talk frankly about why Gingrich, and Obama, come to New York and talk about Israel.
December 15, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism |
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The U.S. administration is in talks with Congress on the establishment of a new organization supporting NGOs in Russia, Philip Gordon, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, said on Wednesday, December 14.
“As part of our democracy strategy, the administration has been consulting with Congress on an initiative to create a new fund to support Russian non-governmental organizations that are committed to a more pluralistic and open society,” Gordon said.
“The fund would not require an additional appropriation, as necessary funding would be drawn from the liquidated proceeds of the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund – an example of successful U.S. foreign assistance to Russia,” he said at a meeting of a subcommittee in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Gordon said the United States provides financial support to Russian civil society.
“Since 2009, the U.S. government has given approximately $160 million in assistance to support programs on human rights, rule of law, anti-corruption, civil society, independent media, good governance, and democratic political processes,” he said.
“Most recently, U.S. funding was used to support independent Russian monitoring of the [State] Duma elections and education for independent media on professional and unbiased reporting, encourage informed citizen participation in elections, and enhance the capacity to conduct public opinion polling,” Gordon said, RIA Novosti reported.
On December 8, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed toughening responsibility for those who interfere in Russian political life on foreign orders.
“When money from abroad is invested in political activities inside another country, this concerns us,” he said, adding that “hundreds of millions of dollars” of foreign money have been spent to influence the election process in Russia.
“We are not against foreign observers monitoring out election process,” Putin said. “But when they begin motivating some organizations inside the country which claim to be domestic but in fact are funded from abroad… this is unacceptable.”
The ruling United Russia party won the Russia’s December 4 parliamentary elections, gaining about 50 percent of the vote. Tens of thousands of people went to the streets to protest the vote results, which they say were rigged.
December 15, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception |
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The diminutive Gulf totalitarian monarchy of Qatar has been making quite a name for itself of late. It was one of the only Arab countries to provide air support in Libya, its customs officials — seemingly unprovoked — recently attacked a Russian ambassador, it cajoled the Arab League into voting for sanctions against Syria, and it plays host to Al Jazeera which has increasingly looked more and more like a mouthpiece for the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) and the West. Although, Qatar would appear to be a Lilliputian micro-petrostate, it would seem to be one with Napoleonic delusions of grandeur.
The Emir of Qatar — a real peach — who deposed his own father, took power at the early age of 44. Unlike his father, who preferred to use the kingdom’s resources to remain at the same level as the other sheikdoms in the region, the young Emir sought that Qatar should be known and acknowledged. In doing so the young Emir surrounded himself with a phalanx of Western technocratic advisers. Additionally, the Emir sought to become one of the world’s most impish international and geopolitical actors.
In an article in May, the noted Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar, included Qatar — in its rightful place — among the “counterrevolution club” of Middle Eastern countries. Along with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Oman it comprises the Gulf Cooperation Council; a deeply backward and anachronistic bloc of sheikdoms, profoundly tied (and some would say indentured) to the Western countries. In fact, the Obama White House played host to the Emir of Qatar just this past April — ostensibly for its role in the promotion of democratization. The White House may value its role in the NATO misadventurism in Libya, but on the home front this democratizing impulse would appear to be glaringly lost.
The Emir exercises virtual total power, with few restraints on his grip. In Qatari courts the opinion of two women is equal to that of one man, and, moreover, nearly half of all Qatari judges are at-will employees, which limits their independence, considering that they can be dismissed promptly; in other words, at the drop of a hat.
Qatar remains one of the only three Arab countries that has not signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and Qatar has also signed on to precious few international human rights conventions and accords. Additionally, Qatar is a destination country for women who are trafficked and forced into conditions of coercive labor. And similarly, foreign domestic workers, often struggle under conditions approaching involuntary servitude, and some are even sexually abused.
Though Qatar has in the past even hosted a Hamas delegation, as well as tried to remain amicable with the government of Iran, it has increasingly looked — as if —it is coming under the thumb of the Anglo-Americans. Qatar had also been seen as an intermediary with Syria, and had invested heavily in the Syrian economy, but now it seems to have signed on — to a different policy — a policy of Libya 2.0. And Qatar, ostensibly so concerned about democracy, gave its full backing to neighboring Saudi Arabia’s intervention into the majority Shia Sunni-led Kingdom of Bahrain.
Qatar not only funneled hundreds of millions to the Libyan opposition, but dispatched Western-trained advisers, who helped finance, arm and train the so-called revolutionary militias. The nature of Qatar’s future machinations in Syria, is, of course, yet to be determined. But if its coarse, robust and inauspicious role at the Arab League is any portent — as to its tactility, we can expect more of the same financing of an armed “revolution”, not knowing what will be wrought for the citizens of a (formerly) sovereign country.
~
Sean Fenley is an independent progressive who would like to see the end of the dictatorial duopoly of the so-called two party adversarial system. He would also like to see some sanity brought to the creation and implementation of current and future U.S. military, economic, foreign and domestic policies.
December 10, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular |
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My name is Patrick Meighan, and I’m a husband, a father, a writer on the Fox animated sitcom “Family Guy”, and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica.
I was arrested at about 1 a.m. Wednesday morning with 291 other people at Occupy LA. I was sitting in City Hall Park with a pillow, a blanket, and a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Being Peace” when 1,400 heavily-armed LAPD officers in paramilitary SWAT gear streamed in. I was in a group of about 50 peaceful protestors who sat Indian-style, arms interlocked, around a tent (the symbolic image of the Occupy movement). The LAPD officers encircled us, weapons drawn, while we chanted “We Are Peaceful” and “We Are Nonviolent” and “Join Us.”
As we sat there, encircled, a separate team of LAPD officers used knives to slice open every personal tent in the park. They forcibly removed anyone sleeping inside, and then yanked out and destroyed any personal property inside those tents, scattering the contents across the park. They then did the same with the communal property of the Occupy LA movement. For example, I watched as the LAPD destroyed a pop-up canopy tent that, until that moment, had been serving as Occupy LA’s First Aid and Wellness tent, in which volunteer health professionals gave free medical care to absolutely anyone who requested it. As it happens, my family had personally contributed that exact canopy tent to Occupy LA, at a cost of several hundred of my family’s dollars. As I watched, the LAPD sliced that canopy tent to shreds, broke the telescoping poles into pieces and scattered the detritus across the park. Note that these were the objects described in subsequent mainstream press reports as “30 tons of garbage” that was “abandoned” by Occupy LA: personal property forcibly stolen from us, destroyed in front of our eyes and then left for maintenance workers to dispose of while we were sent to prison.
When the LAPD finally began arresting those of us interlocked around the symbolic tent, we were all ordered by the LAPD to unlink from each other (in order to facilitate the arrests). Each seated, nonviolent protester beside me who refused to cooperate by unlinking his arms had the following done to him: an LAPD officer would forcibly extend the protestor’s legs, grab his left foot, twist it all the way around and then stomp his boot on the insole, pinning the protestor’s left foot to the pavement, twisted backwards. Then the LAPD officer would grab the protestor’s right foot and twist it all the way the other direction until the non-violent protestor, in incredible agony, would shriek in pain and unlink from his neighbor.
It was horrible to watch, and apparently designed to terrorize the rest of us. At least I was sufficiently terrorized. I unlinked my arms voluntarily and informed the LAPD officers that I would go peacefully and cooperatively. I stood as instructed, and then I had my arms wrenched behind my back, and an officer hyperextended my wrists into my inner arms. It was super violent, it hurt really really bad, and he was doing it on purpose. When I involuntarily recoiled from the pain, the LAPD officer threw me face-first to the pavement. He had my hands behind my back, so I landed right on my face. The officer dropped with his knee on my back and ground my face into the pavement. It really, really hurt and my face started bleeding and I was very scared. I begged for mercy and I promised that I was honestly not resisting and would not resist.
My hands were then zipcuffed very tightly behind my back, where they turned blue. I am now suffering nerve damage in my right thumb and palm.
I was put on a paddywagon with other nonviolent protestors and taken to a parking garage in Parker Center. They forced us to kneel (and sit–SEE UPDATE) on the hard pavement of that parking garage for seven straight hours with our hands still tightly zipcuffed behind our backs. Some began to pass out. One man rolled to the ground and vomited for a long, long time before falling unconscious. The LAPD officers watched and did nothing.
At 9 a.m. we were finally taken from the pavement into the station to be processed. The charge was sitting in the park after the police said not to. It’s a misdemeanor. Almost always, for a misdemeanor, the police just give you a ticket and let you go. It costs you a couple hundred dollars. Apparently, that’s what happened with most every other misdemeanor arrest in LA that day.
With us Occupy LA protestors, however, they set bail at $5,000 and booked us into jail. Almost none of the protesters could afford to bail themselves out. I’m lucky and I could afford it, except the LAPD spent all day refusing to actually *accept* the bail they set. If you were an accused murderer or a rapist in LAPD custody that day, you could bail yourself right out and be back on the street, no problem. But if you were a nonviolent Occupy LA protestor with bail money in hand, you were held long into the following morning, with absolutely no access to a lawyer.
I spent most of my day and night crammed into an eight-man jail cell, along with sixteen other Occupy LA protesters. My sleeping spot was on the floor next to the toilet.
Finally, at 2:30 the next morning, after twenty-five hours in custody, I was released on bail. But there were at least 200 Occupy LA protestors who couldn’t afford the bail. The LAPD chose to keep those peaceful, non-violent protesters in prison for two full days… the absolute legal maximum that the LAPD is allowed to detain someone on misdemeanor charges.
As a reminder, Antonio Villaraigosa has referred to all of this as “the LAPD’s finest hour.”
So that’s what happened to the 292 women and men were arrested last Wednesday. Now let’s talk about a man who was not arrested last Wednesday. He is former Citigroup CEO Charles Prince. Under Charles Prince, Citigroup was guilty of massive, coordinated securities fraud.
Citigroup spent years intentionally buying up every bad mortgage loan it could find, creating bad securities out of those bad loans and then selling shares in those bad securities to duped investors. And then they sometimes secretly bet *against* their *own* bad securities to make even more money. For one such bad Citigroup security, Citigroup executives were internally calling it, quote, “a collection of dogshit”. To investors, however, they called it, quote, “an attractive investment rigorously selected by an independent investment adviser”.
This is fraud, and it’s a felony, and the Charles Princes of the world spent several years doing it again and again: knowingly writing bad mortgages, and then packaging them into fraudulent securities which they then sold to suckers and then repeating the process. This is a big part of why your property values went up so fast. But then the bubble burst, and that’s why our economy is now shattered for a generation, and it’s also why your home is now underwater. Or at least mine is.
Anyway, if your retirement fund lost a decade’s-worth of gains overnight, this is why.
If your son’s middle school has added furlough days because the school district can’t afford to keep its doors open for a full school year, this is why.
If your daughter has come out of college with a degree only to discover that there are no jobs for her, this is why.
But back to Charles Prince. For his four years of in charge of massive, repeated fraud at Citigroup, he received fifty-three million dollars in salary and also received another ninety-four million dollars in stock holdings. What Charles Prince has *not* received is a pair of zipcuffs. The nerves in his thumb are fine. No cop has thrown Charles Prince into the pavement, face-first. Each and every peaceful, nonviolent Occupy LA protester arrested last week has has spent more time sleeping on a jail floor than every single Charles Prince on Wall Street, combined.
The more I think about that, the madder I get. What does it say about our country that nonviolent protesters are given the bottom of a police boot while those who steal hundreds of billions, do trillions worth of damage to our economy and shatter our social fabric for a generation are not only spared the zipcuffs but showered with rewards?
In any event, believe it or not, I’m really not angry that I got arrested. I chose to get arrested. And I’m not even angry that the mayor and the LAPD decided to give non-violent protestors like me a little extra shiv in jail (although I’m not especially grateful for it either).
I’m just really angry that every single Charles Prince wasn’t in jail with me.
Thank you for letting me share that anger with you today.
Patrick Meighan
——-
UPDATE (12/9/11): Hey all, thank you for the nice thoughts from many folks who have read this account. One necessary clarification about the 7 hours spent by the roughly 100-of-us in the Parker Center parking garage immediately following our arrest:
though we were indeed forced to kneel on that parking garage pavement for an extended period and though we did in fact have our hands tightly zipcuffed behind our backs for that entire seven-hour stretch on the pavement, and though we were barred from standing and moving for that time period, the LAPD officers, in point of fact, did allow us to shift ourselves out of the kneeling position onto our butt-cheeks, our side-legs, etc., as necessary. At the very least, when we began to do so, they did not stop us. I apologize for implying otherwise.
I also want to say that I don’t consider my above-described treatment at the hands of the LAPD to be, in any way, uniquely-brutal, or that I was especially victimized. Yes, getting arrested and going to jail was scary and sometimes painful and it generally sucked, but jail is supposed to suck. Again, the point of this blogpost is not that I was treated especially poorly by the LAPD officers who arrested, processed and held us. The LAPD officers were just doing their jobs, as they understood them. The point of the blogpost is simply to contrast the legal response to nonviolent protestors against the the legal response (or, rather, non-response) to the perpetrators of the largest act of coordinated larceny in economic history, for whom the next arrest will be the first one.
Best,
Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA
December 9, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Corruption, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular |
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