Security forces stand guard as people protest in Baghdad over corruption, unemployment and poor public services.
Thousands of Iraqi protesters have taken to the streets in main cities across the country, demanding economic reform and better living conditions.
Protest rallies over corruption, unemployment and poor government services were held in Baghdad, Basra, Nineveh, Anbar and Salahuddin following the Friday Prayers.
Unlike other demonstrations sweeping the Arab world, Iraqi protesters are seeking reforms, but not regime change.
“We live in a country rich with oil, yet we don’t have jobs,” demonstrators said. “The oil [is] for the people and not for thieves.”
They also chanted “Liar, Liar, Nouri al-Maliki” while carrying banners reading, “Where has the people’s money gone?” and “Yes to democracy and the protection of freedom.”
In the capital, where several thousands of demonstrators have already gathered in the city’s Tahrir (Liberation) Square, authorities have banned traffic across the city, forcing protesters to walk several kilometers to the square.
Iraqi authorities have also deployed thousands of security forces to Baghdad streets and protesters were frisked three times before reaching the square.
There were no reports of clashes between protesters and security forces.
Some Iraqis have named Friday’s rallies as the “Day of Regret,” to mark one year since the parliamentary elections. It took politicians more than nine months to form a new government after the poll on March 7, 2010, and even now, several major positions, including the ministers of interior, defense and planning, are unfilled.
Last week, at least 20 people were killed and more than 130 others were injured after Iraqi security forces attacked protesters.
Four top Iraqi officials, three southern provincial governors and Baghdad’s mayor, resigned following mass protests on February 25.
In response to nationwide protests, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki called an emergency cabinet meeting on Sunday and gave government ministers a 100-day ultimatum to deliver results and eliminate corruption or face dismissal.
“Mr. Maliki specified a 100-day period after which an assessment of the work of the government and ministries will be carried out to find out the level of their individual success or failure in performing their jobs,” AFP quoted the statement as saying.
The Iraqi premier has also introduced measures to combat graft, cut politician salaries and dedicate more money to providing food for the poor in an attempt to contain protests.
March 4, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Solidarity and Activism |
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In the midst of the Arab uprisings throughout the Middle East, at a time when even the European (EU) has publicaly condemned Israel’s blockade of Gaza and its illegal land seizures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou promised a visiting delegation of American Jewish leaders, that he would do everything possible to undermine EU opposition and promote Israeli economic, diplomatic and political interests in Europe.
US Zionists, recently returned from a visit to Athens described Papandreou as by far the most amenable (‘servile’) European leader they have met in recent memory. Papandreou’s slavish submission to Israeli interests includes his promise, to a delegation of U.S. Zionist notables, to use his influence to pressure the new Egyptian military junta to continue to uphold the Mubarak agreements with Israel (European Jewish Press 2/11/11). These include the continued blockade of Gaza and support of Israel’s military assaults on Lebanon, Syria and Palestinians. In other words Papandreou is openly supportive of Egypt’s past collaboration with Israeli clandestine assassinations and kidnapping of Arab militants.
Papandreou demonstrates a greater interest in promoting Israel’s exports to the European market, than the country he ostensibly represents. He promised a delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations “to integrate Israel into the European market” (European Jewish Press 2/11/11) while he shrinks the Greeks economy by 10% between 2009-11 and doubles unemployment from 8% to 16%. Papandreou’s gross servility to Israel and the American Zionist power structure is manifested in his cordial reception and recent agreements with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and his foreign minister, the notorious Zionist-fascist Avigdor Lieberman – the same Lieberman who advocates wholesale expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank. No Greek Prime Minister, since the Zionist state was founded, has exhibited such a bizarre display of active collaboration with Israel’s colonial claims in the Middle East. No European leader has so eagerly anticipated and implemented the demands of American Zionist organizations with such zeal.
What is most striking about Papandreou’s servility to Israeli and American Zionist interests, is that it takes place when most of the rest of the world, from Europe, Turkey, Lebanon, Latin America, to North Africa (Egypt, Tunisia) and the vast majority of Arabs are moving toward isolating Israel. In other words, Papandreou is embracing a pro-Israel policy which is alienating Europe, isolating Greece from well over a hundred million Arabs and undermining Greek agricultural (citrus) exports to the EU market.
Papandreou’s perverse and highly prejudicial foreign policy is matched by his extraordinary adherence and enforcement of the debt payment policies dictated by the IMF and the bankers of the EU and the US. His behavior is particularly shameless at a time when the next Irish government is threatening to declare a debt default if payments are not reduced. In his eagerness to ingratiate himself with the overseas bankers, Papandreou has systematically extracted billions of euros via a 20% reduction in wages, salaries and pensions and transferred it to the coffers of the banks. In the process Papandreou’s policies have doubled the unemployment rate, shrank the economy and undermined any future growth for the next decade. Papandreou rejected the Argentine formula, which in the face of a similar crises in 2001-02 , defaulted rather than deepen poverty. Under President Kirchner, Argentina renegotiated its debt, shaving bond payments by 75% and imposing a moratorium. As a result, Argentina recovered from the crises and maintained a growth rate of 7% for over a decade while reducing unemployment from 22% to less than 6%.
If Papandreou acts as a submissive messenger boy for Israel and its Zionist fifth column in America, he features prominently as the eager and aggressive “bill collector” for the overseas banks. He will go down in historical infamy as a willing accomplice of Israeli war crimes, an upholder of its unequal treaties with Egypt in his foreign policy and the enforcer of financial predators who impoverish millions of Greeks at home.
Having decimated the Greek economy via transfers of billions abroad and undermined economic relations with the Arab countries, Papandreou offers to sell Greece’s most lucrative transport, ports, energy and communication companies to Chinese, Israeli and Wall Street investors and speculators. It is ironic that George Papandreou the son of former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou should reverse each and every one of his father’s policies, especially with regard to the Middle East.
In 1981 after Andreas Papandreou was elected he invited me to Athens to discuss policies and programs of his future government. The first thing he told me was the importance of supporting the Palestinian struggle and how he had a successful meeting with Yasser Arafat, who regaled him with a prized pistol, which he displayed to me. A year later when I returned to Greece to direct and develop a research center, he invited me for a swim. We were accompanied by a dozen underwater security guards, patrolling offshore, against a potential assassination plot by Mossad, according to the prime minister, in reprisal for his solidarity with the Palestinians in Lebanon.
A few days later over 50,000 Greeks led by Culture Minister Melina Mercuri marched in solidarity with the Palestinians and in repudiation of Israel’s role in the bloody massacre of 2000 women and children in Sabra and Shatila. The contrast of the two generations of Papandreou’s could not be more stark; while Andreas saw Greece as a bridge between Europe and the Arab East, George sees Greece acting as a pimp for Israeli business interests in Europe and as a lobbyist for its dominance in the Middle East. The Zionists have lost an old client in Mubarek and gained a new one in Papendreou.
Like Mubarak, George Papandreou combines servility to his imperial mentors with arrogance and brutality to his Greek subjects. As the Egyptians demonstrated it will take the Greek people more than marches and occasional strikes to bring down an entrenched client of the empire. But it can be done as was exemplified in Cairo!
February 25, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism |
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Five pro-democracy protesters have been killed and several others have been wounded in Morocco as thousands demand the King give up some of his powers.
Protesters died during Sunday’s rallies. Morocco’s Interior Ministry said 120 demonstrators were also arrested during clashes with security forces.
The developments come as popular power revolutions continue to sweep US-backed autocratic regimes across the Middle East and North Africa.
Protesters demand the Moroccan King give up some of his powers and clamp down on government corruption.
The protest was initiated by a group calling itself the February 20 Movement for Change. Tens of thousands of people voiced support for the rallies.
In an attempt to head off serious unrest, the Moroccan government has promised to boost subsidies for staples whose prices have sharply risen in recent.
Human rights and civil groups as well as independent journalists have joined the movement.
They are demanding constitutional reforms that would reduce King Mohammed’s powers and make the justice system more independent.
February 21, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Solidarity and Activism |
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Their recent upheaval would certainly have been different, perhaps dramatically different.
In the past month, the people of Egypt—inspired by the recent democratic revolution in Tunisia and preceding emergent revolutions in Libya, Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, and Syria—have undertaken a revolt of truly stunning proportions, one that includes men and women from all class strata, religious and ethnic origins, and ideological commitments. They managed to rid themselves of a longstanding and brutal dictator worth over $40 billion and supported by the collective power of the United States, European Union, Israel, and the Arab Gulf States.
Now that two Arab dictators have been vanquished by the collective will of unaffiliated protesters, many American commentators have been forced to rethink their assumptions about the supposedly tribal and authoritarian Arab mind. Such commentators, sometimes conservative but often liberal, fancy themselves guardians of a civic and political enlightenment that in reality is misinformed in addition to being conceited and imperialistic.
Nevertheless, given the ardor and self-confidence of the notion that American values exemplify democratic modernity, let us imagine a few potential outcomes had the pioneering people of Egypt followed the example of today’s liberal American Democrats.
Mubarak offered the Egyptian people what he deemed sweeping reforms. The people rejected his overtures as inadequate and disingenuous, which only increased their desire to oust Mubarak. A protester named Dalia observed, “Nothing will make this regime go unless we keep on coming and keep on coming.” Had Dalia been a Democrat, she might have instead responded, “The Egyptian government has a real opportunity in the face of this very clear demonstration of opposition to begin a process that will truly respond to the aspirations of the people of Egypt.”
Despite police brutality, the people of Egypt remained steadfast and continued their chants of “down with Mubarak” and “Tunisia is the solution,” both slogans underscoring the importance of a genuinely transformative revolution. Had they been Democrats, they surely would not have been so quixotic and would have instead opted for a pragmatic approach, as most Democrats do in every American election. As Michael Moore warns, democratic transformation has no real place in American politics: “And so, I just—I think that—I mean, what I’ve proposed for the last few years is that if we really want to try and get this power in our hands, in the people’s hands, in the hands of the working people of this country, then we should, on a very grassroots level, from the bottom up, be doing things to—whether it’s running for local office, taking over the local Democratic Party.”
Working within a corrupt system, rather than trying to abolish it, is the way American liberals like Moore prefer to pursue justice: “well, we have these two political parties which are really very much like one party, why don’t we make sure that one of those parties actually is a second party and start locally and do that? And that’s what I encourage people to do. That’s my approach.”
The Egyptian protesters demanded rule by the people rather than subservience to a small caste of politicians and crony capitalists. They continue to agitate for a new constitution, universal health care, a multiple-party democracy, unionization for workers, and an end to the violent suppression of dissent. If they were Democrats, they probably wouldn’t be so ambitious. In the United States, dissent is often suppressed, sometimes violently, unions are busted, two parties representing 300 million people assert plutocratic hegemony, and politicians of the two parties serve the interests not of their citizen constituents but of crony capitalists. The Democrats do not tolerate dissentient action in the form of mass protest; they prefer the tactic of voting for Democrats during election season.
Liberal commentators dismiss as silliness any desire to oust dictatorial leaders outside the pragmatic framework of Democratic values. Todd Gitlin preaches discipline in the face of abusive state power: “Will the rebellious left discipline itself, cool its boiling blood, and decide that the pleasures of sectarianism are worth less than the steady resolve of infrastructural work?” Speaking against—what else?—leftist politician Ralph Nader, Eric Alterman is less diplomatic: “The man needs to go away. I think he needs to live in a different country. He’s done enough damage to this one. Let him damage somebody else’s now.” Alterman despises Nader because of Nader’s lack of faith in politicians: “Politicians blow with political winds. To force them to blow our way, progressives need leaders who can combine hardheaded realism with the ability to inspire Americans’ nascent idealism.”
According to liberal Democrats, alternate politics are impossible and thus undesirable. The Egyptian people do not share the same viewpoint. There was nothing pragmatic about what they did: it is never a reasonable idea to march into bullets, tear gas canisters, and police boots in order to upend a rotten political system brandishing the imprimatur of the world’s most powerful armies and politicians. But if the Egyptian people wanted a just political system, rather than the practical realities of theft and corruption, they needed to replace and not merely reform their government. To challenge bad politicians by electing more bad politicians is not serious political thinking; it is an inducement to apathy and intellectual frivolity.
The Egyptian people erected a remarkably functional democratic space in Tahreer Square, complete with an infirmary, a kindergarten, and a pharmacy. When Democratic Party bosses get together, protesters are entrapped in chain link cages.
In short, if the Egyptian protesters were Democrats, they would have undertaken no revolution. The Democratic Party represents the pervasiveness of elite corporate power; its liberal supporters represent the appropriation of oppositional politics into the neoliberal economies of electoral hegemony; the Egyptian protesters represent a determined, collective will to social justice and legitimate freedom. If those protesters were American liberals, they would have sided with the state while professing support for the people.
If the Egyptian protesters were Democrats, they would have accepted Mubarak’s proposed reforms—not because those reforms were good, but because Democrats are accustomed to settling for empty rhetoric. They would have accepted Mubarak’s handpicked successor, the infamous torturer Omar Suleiman—not because they like him, but because he would presumably be less evil than his predecessor. They would have accepted the inevitability of defeat—not because they wanted to lose, but because losing would be both pragmatic and realistic. The actual Egyptian protesters, however, would only accept freedom.
For those who might respond to this hypothetical exercise by pointing out that the United States is not Egypt, I would agree. Egypt under Mubarak was more equitable than the United States under Barack Obama. Egypt has far less income inequality than the United States, and all of Mubarak’s brutality was at least indirectly underwritten by the American government.
The people of the Middle East and North Africa have never listened to American liberals, who through the years have loved to bestow unsolicited advice on Arabs. Had the Arabs accepted this unsolicited advice, they would have become Democrats instead of revolutionaries.
The only acceptable liberal American response to the revolutions in the Arab World is the silence that enlivens a sincere attempt to listen. Clearly it is time for American liberals to stop lecturing Arabs and start following their example, instead.
February 21, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular |
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We demand to return now!
We, the community of The Farmers Association of Buenos Aires (ASOCAB), have been victims of forced displacement by paramilitary groups and alleged drug trafficker, Jesus Emilio Escobar, who was owner of the Las Pavas estate. Several years after Emilio Escobar left the farm and the community had already established food crops, he reappeared to remove us by force and sell the land to the Consortium Labrador. This consortium is comprised of the companies San Isidro SA Contributions and C.I. Tequendama SA, which is part of the DAABON group. They are dedicated to the implementation of extensive oil palm cultivation and caused our last displacement in 2009 with the consent of the municipal, regional and national government by using an illegal political process. They expelled us from Las Pavas with the assistance of the National Police and perpetrating the crime of forced displacement.
We declare before the local, regional, National and International communities that the Consortium Labrador has endangered the life and physical integrity of our community by spreading an announcement through the communications media. In this communication they accuse us of trying to illegally and clandestinely invade the Las Pavas estate, violating the rights of workers in the palm and peace in the region.
This statement is nothing more than a defamation and criminalization of ASOCAB and is just one of the strategies used by the Consortium to violate the rights of our community and prevent us from exercising our fundamental right to return to the land. We do not intend to invade private property or engage in violent or illegal acts. We are farmers, living a deep humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by food shortages due to the eviction forced on us by the palm companies, the state and armed groups, whom deny our rights acquired by long years of work on the farm. This Crisis has been aggravated by the total abandonment by the state and a rainy winter that lasted several months and destroyed the few crops we still had left.
This situation leaves us, the 600 people, who comprise ASOCAB, only one option for survival, to exercise our fundamental right to return to the land from where we have been displaced, as the Constitution and the law enables us to do. We have stated publicly on major national radio broadcast stations that we confirm that we are going to exercise the right of return and condemn what the Consortium Labrador is doing to try to smear the current government policy, which seeks restitution and return of the land for Colombian peasants who have been victims of displacement.
The attitude of the DAABON economic group is very regrettable. They said publicly that they currently have no interest in the Las Pavas Estate, and they no longer own the property. However, when checking the documents of ownership, they continue to appear as the title holders. Added to this, they have initiated two processes in the Courts of Mompox, Bolívar, in order to seize a portion of the estate which we have rights as holders of the property and that are vacant, which we have reported and proved this to INCODER
So, what is clear is that DAABON, remains responsible for our eviction and accomplices in our forced displacement.
Equally, we condemn the strategy of intimidation that the Consortium Labrador has implemented against our community and are summarized in the following activities:
* The Presence of outsiders to the community in the district of Buenos Aires acting suspiciously and that constantly monitoring ASOCAB leaders
* The Presence of Mr. MARIO MARMOL a known paramilitary, who participated in the forced displacement that we were victims of in 2003. By his own account, he is an employee of Consortium El Labrador and now works in the district of Buenos Aires. He is armed and is saying that ASOCAB is not going to win the dispute with the Consortium. He is also threatening to put livestock in with the crop of those who have managed to keep a few crops on small areas of Las Pavas and requiring some members of the community to completely leave the premises.
* Threats made by Mr. DANILO PALACIOS, the counsel of Consortium El Labrador, against the leader of our association and professor of the township, ELIUD ALVEAR, which warns that if he does not remove himself from ASOCAB he will lose his teaching job. Added to this, ongoing work persecution against him by the Rector of the school community, Mr. Luis Villamil, who is also an ally of Palm Businesses.
* Unknown individuals set fire to a community meeting room that we had built as a venue for our meetings.
* The attempt to divide our community through bribery, blackmail, illegal offers of gifts and work on their plantations of palm, which are used to prevent us from exercising our rights.
All of these actions show that those who are truly acting illegally are the Consortium EL Labrador businesses. These acts create anxiety and terror in our community because we are peaceful people and we fear for our physical safety.
It is also necessary to condemn these companies in the region that have caused irreparable environmental damage. They now plan to build walls that surround the Las Pavas estate to stop flooding during the rainy season. This would cause exacerbated damming and flooding in the populated area, thus causing the houses in Buenos Aires and its people to disappear. The other project they are intending to implement is the canalization of the swamp “Mata Perros,” thus eliminating one of the fishing areas available to the region, aggravating the food crisis and accelerating the displacement of not only ASOCAB, but all residents of the area.
Furthermore, we want to appeal to General Oscar Naranjo, Director General of National Police, to review the actions of his men, who instead of ensuring our security for the return, as mandated by law, have acted on behalf of The Consortium of Labrador. They act as if it were a private security company and for several days have patrolled and fenced off the Las Pavas estate, preventing any access. Our children are reliving the psychological trauma created by the actions of police when they evicted us from our land on July 14, 2009 with weapons of war. It is necessary that the police remember that their constitutional obligation is to protect the population, not the criminals.
Finally, we express our surprise at the attitudes of the INCODER and the Ministry of Agriculture, neither of whom have given substantive solutions to our particular case. However, in an article published by a prestigious national newspaper on November 3, 2010, Dr. Juan Camilo Restrepo, the Minister of Agriculture, strongly criticized businesspeople who oppose the restoration of land to small farmers. He cites as an example of the consequences of this attitude, the decision of the multinational THE BODY SHOP to break its trade relations with DAABON for not resolving their dispute with our association at that time.
We clarified that we are not criminals, nor do we violate the right to work. We are farmers with dignity. We are a peaceful Christian community. We respect human rights and because of that we invite the Colombian government, the Economic Group DAABON and Consortium Labrador to assume a similar attitude.
We thank all organizations and communities of solidarity that send communications of support for the legitimate demands of ASOCAB.
Please send messages to the Minister of Agriculture, INCODER Manager, Vice President of the Republic, the Director of the National Police, the Director of Social Action, the Governor of Bolivar Department, the Constitutional Court and the Mayor of the Municipality of El Penon
Sincerely,
Misael Payares Guerrero, presidente ASOCAB
(The Farmers Association of Buenos Aires(ASOCAB) is legally represented by its general manager, Misael Payares Guerrero, a resident of Buenos Aires,PeñónTownship, Southern Bolivar, Colombia)
Background – COLOMBIA VIDEO: Biofuel Terrorism
February 21, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Illegal Occupation |
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The eastern Texas Panhandle, a land of rolling sand hills, tree-lined creek beds and tall grass vistas, may seem a desolate place to outsiders. Still, it has its beauty, especially to the cattle ranchers and wheat farmers who work and live on it. But not for long.
Much of this land, the fragile habitat of the Lesser Prairie Chicken and the Whooping Crane, is scheduled to become industrialized if the Texas PUC, the DOE and FERC have their way. Incongruously, the demolition of this mostly native grassland is being proposed in the name of green energy.
The Competitive Renewable Energy Zone (CREZ), a name not without irony, was initiated by a 10 million dollar grant from the Department of Energy (DOE). In December of 2009, plans were expanded when Secretary Chu joined Jon Wellinghoff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in a Memorandum of Understanding to coordinate efforts to interconnect several transmission lines. The CREZ line, part of the larger Electrical Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) system, is to help supply the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex with wind-generated electricity from the northern Texas Panhandle.
There are problems, however. Protests from disgruntled landowners have been met with staunch resistance from Cross Texas Transmission, the developer of the Gray to Tesla and Gray to White Deer lines. In an escalation of that resistance, landowners were sent a “Access Consent Form” the day before Thanksgiving insisting their lands be made available for survey. With the long weekend, landowners had only two working days to find representation and prepare a response and still meet CTT’s deadline. CTT, acting under the auspices of the Public Utilities Commission, has been given the power of eminent domain. With that looming over their heads, most landowners signed but added wording insisting Cross Texas Transmission follow established environmental laws, the same wording and the same laws now required on state-owned lands. Cross Texas responded to their request by issuing restraining orders and suing for entry without restraint.
The action was not surprising. Since having been awarded the contract to construct, operate and maintain these lines in October of 2009, Cross Texas has consistently reminded landowners that they have no options and has refused to address any of the economic or environmental problems created by the transmission lines.
The Economic Problems
According to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, wind energy in Texas will have in excess of 28 billion dollars in subsidies, federal and state, poured into its development by 2025. When tax breaks, market disruptions, increased production and ancillary costs are added in, the taxpayer’s bill could top 60 billion dollars. In spite of the massive funds being thrown its way, wind-generated electricity remains far more expensive for consumers than that produced from coal, gas or from nuclear facilities. It’s also proven far too intermittent. As a result, continued expansion of wind fields could raise rates paid by consumers by as much as 50 percent, even with the massive federal and state subsidies. The impact to small businesses and to those on fixed incomes could be devastating. Moreover, many experts believe that, due to the intermittent flow and low energy flux, wind generated electricity can never be competitive.
Science and Technology writer Gregory Murphy compared the energy flux density of the Comanche Peak nuclear plant south of Dallas to a hypothetical wind installation. The nuclear plant has two units capable of generating 2,500 megawatts and sits on only 4,000 acres which includes a man-made cooling lake that is open to the public and is used for recreation. Taking into account that the average wind turbine has a capacity of only 25 percent of its nameplate rated output, it would take 6,668 1.5 megawatt wind turbines to equal the output of the Comanche Peak station.
Spacing wind turbines at 5 per section of land, a rate somewhat higher than the density landowners were promised by wind farm developers, a wind installation equaling the output of the Comanche Peak plant would require well over 13,000 sections of land or 8.6 million acres. That is an area roughly 1/20th the size of Texas. All this land, plus the lands decimated by the transmission lines carrying electricity to major metropolitan areas, would have reduced productivity, severely increased erosion and drastically reduced property values—certainly no boon for landowners.
“Wind works only 25 percent of the time,” said Jeff Haley, rancher and Commissioner in Gray County, Texas. “And the CREZ line alone will cost 4.9 billion dollars. That’s a projected cost in 2008 dollars. It will almost certainly be more, but whatever it turns out to be, it will have to be paid for.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” said David Hall, another Gray County rancher. “The consumers will pay for much of this, and we’ll all pay for the rest with our tax dollars. It’s not just that I don’t want them on my land. It’s that this kind of government boondoggle is wrong. The politicians supporting these things don’t understand them. They’re being advised that this or that is the right thing to do, and they’re not informed enough to make the right decisions.”
“We’re dealing with Soviet-style technocrats,” Haley added.
The metaphor isn’t without basis. Cross Texas Transmission is a wholly owned subsidiary of J. L. Power Group, a Delaware shell corporation with no board of directors and only a few employees. SEC filings list Mikhail Segal, a one-time official in the Ministry of Energy in the former Soviet Union and Michael Liebellson as founders. From the outset, landowners say, Cross Texas Transmission has acted every bit the oligarch and used the PUC’s power of eminent domain as a weapon.
“These technocrats understand how to maneuver through the technicalities of the law.” Haley said. “It’s their job. They do it every day. How can we run our businesses and spend the time this is requiring to stand up to this kind of abuse?”
One of the maneuvers he is referring to is the Texas PUC hearings held last August. Three routes had been selected for the proposed Gray to Tesla line with one listed as the “preferred route.” Multiple landowners and attorneys were present to defend their properties from damage along this route. Without discussion, the Public Utilities Commission chose an alternate route automatically subjecting those properties not represented to eminent domain. The landowners on the route selected had received a notice that their lands could, at some point, be affected, but all assumed that only the preferred route would be considered at the hearing. None realized they would not have an opportunity to intervene specifically for their properties should the preferred route be rejected.
In addition to the issues of land spoilage and the usurpation of private property rights, the issue of viability is very much at the forefront. A number of wind power companies are currently being sued by utilities companies and municipalities for not being able to deliver the electricity they promised. In Texas, three wind farms owned by NextEra Energy Resources LLC agreed to sell specified amounts of power annually to Luminant Energy Company beginning in 2002. When they failed to deliver the contracted amount, Luminant sued for $29 million in liquidated damages and won. A similar case occurred years earlier in Washington state, and observers of the wind industry are predicting a deluge of such cases in the future.
The Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Bill may be momentarily dead, but there are persistent rumors of its resurrection. Even without it, proposals are floating through the halls of Congress which would offer billions more to wind developers and demand that as much as 20% of our electricity be generated from renewable sources. While these proposals are being discussed, three wind farms are cluttering the landscape of Hawaii, monuments in rust to the government’s imposition of a technology that simply does not work.
A similar situation exists in California. In the December 13th, 2010 edition of The American Thinker, Andrew Walden discusses what was once the largest collection of wind farms in the world. “In the best wind spots on earth,” he writes, “14,000 wind turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills.”
If and when federal funds cease to be shoveled into the wind projects now underway in Texas, most industry observers believe they will also be abandoned leaving the once swaying prairie an industrial junkyard of concrete, steel and fiberglass.
Meanwhile, the green jobs pledged by the Obama Administration seem to be suffering the same fate as the birds. Almost 12 percent of the President’s original $814 billion stimulus package, enacted early in 2009, went to renewable energy projects. The White House estimates that the stimulus created 190,700 green jobs. The Department of Energy, however, reports only 82,000 jobs actually resulted from the bill and as many as 80 percent of those went to firms in China, Spain and South Korea. Further, the National Center for Policy Analysis reports that, because of the expense, renewable energy is in reality costing more jobs than it is creating.
The Enviromental Problems
… While pro-wind energy groups maintain that less than one percent of land is removed from actual production by turbines and transmission lines, many experts argue otherwise. First, the towers create large dry spots at their base that, in a semi-arid environment like the Texas Panhandle, simply won’t support a vegetative cover. The resulting “blow spots” grow with each wind storm and can, in short order, consume many acres. Further, roads must be built to service turbines and transmission towers. In sandy areas like most of the Gray to Tesla line, the surfaces must be paved or coated to prevent blowing. These roads prevent normal moisture absorption and interfere with animal migration, and the damage to wildlife by the existence of tall structures is far greater than that from technologies dependent on fossil fuels. Tall grasses and wildlife are also damaged by the turbines’ prodigious oil leaks, plus, in an area already plagued by major grass fires often started by downed power lines, lines of the magnitude proposed are not welcome.
Heavy equipment used to install and service these lines and turbines compacts the turf and churns the surface, destroying vegetation. Then, during the frequent winter and spring winds, the barren spots grow larger. Once productive sandy loam becomes what Panhandle ranchers call “blow sand,” soil leached of organic material by the wind, unable to sustain a vegetative cover.
Both the turbines and the lines interfere with bird migration as well. The tall structures inhibit the breeding of the Lesser Prairie Chicken, and their presence will put the fate of the Whooping Crane very much into question. Further fragmentation of the LPC nesting grounds will almost certainly put it on the Endangered Species list and subject land owners to close federal scrutiny creating even more unwanted intrusion.
Richard Peet, Gray County Judge, wrote in a letter to Assistant Attorney General Moreno and Tom Clark of the Natural Resources Division on December 9, 2010, that prior to allowing Cross Texas Transmission to circumvent the law that requires an environmental impact study, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents themselves pointed out that the currently proposed positioning of the Gray to Tesla line would “most assuredly” put the LPC on the endangered species list. At the very least, it was expected that the Fish and Wildlife Service would step in and insist that the route be studied for impact to wildlife. But the Service said there was no federal action that triggered a proper Environmental Impact Statement and that no permit would be required of CTT. However, a field coordinator for the Service told one landowner, if a permit is required, more than likely they will just pay mitigation and all resistance would end.
The Problems of Quasi-Capitalism
“Wind power is an open trough of government subsidies, tax credits and state mandates. Taken together, it’s a massive corporate welfare effort that means big money for the wind power developers and big costs for the rest of us.” Loren Steffy, the Houston Chronicle.
In a free market, goods and services are offered for gain. So long as it is mutually advantageous to buyer and seller, it works. When products fail to meet requirements, the buyer finds better, cheaper or more desirable products elsewhere. When the producer fails to make a profit, he generally seeks another market. Or another product
The role of government in such a system is limited. If the producer fails to deliver promised goods or delivers something other than what was promised, or if the buyer refuses to pay the agreed-upon price, the government steps in through the criminal courts system, demands remediation and applies appropriate penalties. But what happens when the government itself exerts influence in the decision-making process or even dictates the outcome of the transaction?
In that case, competitively priced goods or services cease to be the primary concern of the producer. Courting government agencies and influencing laws becomes the chief goal. Government-backed or government-created corporations become an extension of political might, and a symbiotic relationship develops between lawmakers and corporations facilitated by laws that, in many instances, they helped write.
Intermittent sources of power, especially those that require backup from coal or gas, cannot compete in the open marketplace. Equipping corporate welfare recipients with one of the most easily abused powers of the state in an attempt to force the populace to accept an unreliable source of energy at a tremendously inflated price is both unwise and dangerous. Such policies come at great cost, and landowners may only be the first to be asked to pay.
“The government is using corporations as its arm. They’re not just destroying my land; they’re destroying my heritage,” said Mark Cadra, a Wheeler County rancher whose land lies along the route selected by the Texas PUC. “I was taught for as long as I can remember to be a good steward of the land. Now the government has given this company the right to take what they want and do whatever they want with it. Believe me, what they want will damage my land forever. It makes me feel helpless.”
~
Sam Pakan is a rancher and writer in Wheeler County, Texas. He is currently producing beef for the health market while writing a series of historical novels set in WWII. He also edits books for selected novelists.
Copyright © 2011 by Sam Pakan. All Rights Reserved.
February 18, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Environmentalism, Timeless or most popular |
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Two months after lawmakers ordered the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to release safety reports about the levels of radiation being emitted by baggage X-ray machines, naked body scanners, and other airport security equipment, the agency has yet to make this information public. The reports, which remain in the hands of TSA officials, are allegedly being retained to protect “sensitive security or privacy-protected information.”
NaturalNews covered TSA’s refusal to release safety inspection reports back in December 2010 shortly after USA Today petitioned the agency to release them. TSA workers and travelers have continued to file numerous complaints about radiation exposure not only from the new machinery but also from faulty and poorly-maintained machinery. TSA responded by insisting the machines have all passed safety inspections, but it refused to provide any trace of evidence for this claim (http://www.naturalnews.com/030655_T…).
“The public has a right to know, and there isn’t something so sensitive that requires holding it back,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) who recently sponsored legislation to limit the use of full-body scanning machines.
TSA officials routinely insist that its scanning machines are all safe, and that no malfunctions have ever caused “an actual or potential additional radiation exposure.” But a 2008 report issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says that not only do TSA contractors routinely fail to properly inspect and maintain machinery, but malfunctioning machinery does indeed emit excess radiation, exposing workers and passengers to unknown levels of harm.
TSA also falsely insists that the electromagnetic wave versions of its naked body scanners are completely harmless, even though scientific tests have shown that the tetrahertz waves used in such machinery cause significant DNA damage.
February 14, 2011
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Corruption, Deception |
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In commenting on the unfolding Egyptian revolution, media and analysts have emphasised the role of social media in building up networks of dissidents and facilitating the organisation of protests. Some have credited the ‘Facebook generation’ with lighting the spark of collective action. Undoubtedly, social media activists, in calling for ‘the day of anger’, put the tools of virtual communication to remarkable use. However these ‘days of anger’ can only be understood if we look at what the vast majority of Egyptians have experienced over the last three decades under Mubarak’s rule.
Successive waves of protests by wide segments of the population, particularly over the last decade, have also given a clear indication of growing opposition to the regime’s economic and social policies and its instruments of government and control. Prior to the recent protests, there were numerous massive strikes by textile workers demanding better pay, week-long street occupation by tax collectors protesting their low wages, and various sit-ins by university professors, doctors and lawyers calling for policy change.
Under Mubarak, the Egyptian state abandoned its welfare responsibilities and left citizens to fend for themselves. The so called free market became dominated by monopolies and oligopolies, with party elites and regime cronies controlling entire markets in basic and strategic commodities such as iron and steel, cement, and wood. The ruling clique and its business partners appropriated the country’s lands converting publicly-owned property into gated communities and turning entire coastal areas into exclusive resorts for the super rich. Built on vast areas of privatised state land, enclaves like Qatamiyya Heights and Mirage City catered to multi-million dollar palaces for the very privileged few. The scale of the land grab has threatened to deprive future generations of any chance of descent housing and a share of the country’s resources and wealth.
At the same time, masked and not-so-masked privatisation of education and health robbed citizens of the few citizenship rights gained in the country’s post-independence period. Social disparities have grown at extraordinary rates as state offices turned into personal fiefdoms in order to maintain the regime and its clients and to implement the neo-liberal agenda of economic reform.
To try and prevent growing resistance to these economic and social policies, Egypt and the Egyptians became subject to a police government. The Egyptian police departments govern vast areas of social life. They have responsibilities over security and public order, but also have jurisdiction over the regulation of, among other things, outdoor markets, the use of public utilities such as electricity, and the implementation of municipal building codes. With regular outdoor market raids and campaigns to monitor citizens’ use of these utilities, the police intruded into the daily life of ordinary citizens. Endowed with the arbitrary powers of emergency laws, the police engaged in practices of extortion, and used violence to intimidate and silence any questioning of their powers.
Security checks and roadblocks on the streets of Cairo and many other cities were part of Egyptian citizens’ daily reality. Drivers and pedestrians were randomly stopped, arrested and subjected to arbitrary investigation. Young men, feared by the regime for their potential for activism and resistance, were the main target of these practices. The everyday experience of humiliation at the hands of the police fuelled the youth’s opposition and rejection of the regime and its coercive arm, the police.
It was befitting that the revolution had its spectacular beginning on Police Day and that the youth would take the lead in breaking down the barrier of fear that the police have erected over a long period of time. Egypt’s youth have bravely put themselves forward along with vast segments of society to reassert their right to dignity and freedom. They have taken the first steps towards reclaiming their rights and towards exercising fully the responsibilities of citizenship. It is in reference to these objectives that the protesters’ main and most powerful slogan “the people want to bring down the system” should be understood. The desired change is nothing short of an overhaul of the institutions and structures of government.
~
Salwa Ismail is Professor of Politics with reference to the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
February 11, 2011
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Civil Liberties, Corruption, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering |
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai has confirmed US plans to set up permanent bases in his country, enabling its troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 deadline.
The decision comes after negotiations between Karzai and US officials and senators on a range of strategic issues, including the establishment of permanent military bases in Afghanistan, DPA reported.
“Yes they want this (permanent bases) and we have been negotiating with them,” Karzai said at a press conference in his presidential palace on Tuesday.
“We believe that a long-term relationship with the United States is in the interest of Afghanistan,” Karzai added, expressing hope for the establishment of a relationship that brings security and economic prosperity to Afghanistan and an end to violence.
The Afghan president did not give a date for finalizing the deal, but said any long-term partnership would need to be approved by the parliament and the grand tribal council known as the Loya Jirga.
Karzai also emphasized that long-term US bases would not be “used as base against other countries and that Afghanistan is not a place from where our neighbors could be threatened.”
If an agreement is reached on permanent bases, the US troops will remain on the Afghan soil beyond the planned transfer of security responsibilities by the end of 2014 — a process scheduled to start in the spring this year.
February 8, 2011
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Corruption, Militarism, Timeless or most popular |
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EUROPE TO BECOME PLANNED ECONOMY LIKE CHINA
*Germany and France to control all wages, taxes, pensions and welfare benefits across the Eurozone under new plan unveiled in Brussels.
*Economic coordination will result in a planned economy and inefficiency, economic experts say.
*People of Europe will have no say in the transfer of control over their pensions, wages and taxes to a central authority, national leaders to decide.
A plan by Germany and France to enforce the same labour, welfare, pension and economic policies across the entire Eurozone by decree was unveiled in Brussels on Friday.
Economist Hans-Werner Sinn from Germany’s IFO said that the attempt to introduce new binding agreements on labour costs, taxes and pensions that would apply to every single citizen in every single country in the Eurozone, amounted to introducing a planned economy that will promote inefficiency.
http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/international/631259/HansWerner-Sinn_EUPlaene-wie-in-einer-Planwirtschaft
The plans set out by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for the harmonization of the corporate-tax base, the abolition of indexing pay raises to inflation, and also for the linking of pension ages to demographics i.e. the pension age to be raised across the Eurozone.
Merkel and Sarkozy are pushing for an agreement in March.
They claim their push for economic convergence in the euro monetary union without a political union and without any opportunity by the people of Europe to have a say and also without any adequate basis in an EU treaty will allow economies in Europe to overcome the financial crisis and grow faster. But experts say their plan is a way of introducing through the back door the transfer union and Eurobonds benefiting banks at the expense of ordinary people .
The plan also includes a binding indicator for labour productivity and labour unit costs across Europe i.e. the amount of earnings every person working in a specific job sector is to be set centrally across Europe.
In any event labour cost units do not address the problem of enormous and growing unemployment in the Eurozone as a result of the failed policies of Merkel and Sarokzy and EU, especially in countries in the southern European zone where many jobs have been lost because they joined the Eurozone at an exchange rate that was too high and so became uncompetitive.
To regain competitiveness, the countries need to be able to devalue their currency or introduce a regional, parallel currency, experts say. However, there is no mention of devaluation in the Merkel/Sarkozy plan.
Crucial also to a buoyant economy is the demand for products. Germany, for example, was prosperous in the 1980s because people earned enough money to be able to buy German products, creating a virtuous economic circle of demand and production. Today, Germany’s domestic demand is small because real income is barely enough to cover essentials, and the new plan does nothing to change that.
In fact, Germans along with the rest of Europeans are set to have even less money if the new pact is agreed in Brussels in March with wages and pensions set to be slashed in real terms.
Scrapping the link between annual wage increases and inflation will mean that wages will fall in real terms across Europe, leaving people with even less money to spend resulting in reduced demand in the economy.
Far from boosting the economy, the measures unveiled will, in fact, accelerate Europe’s transformation into a centrally planned, labour Gulag such as in China.
It has been estimated that more people in the developing countries will have an income of 10,000 dollars a year than in Europe and the USA together in five years time, underlining just how steep the drop in the real incomes in Europe and the USA has been.
Charities have calculated that the minimum required to live in Germany is about 1000 euros a month. That means almost 80% of the Germans are now already living on or close to the minimum needed to exist.
According to Die Welt, more than 20% of Germans have less than 1,070 euros a month and another 60% of Germans earn between 1,070 to 2,350 euros a month. Only 3% earn more than 7,000 euros a month.
http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article12349505/DIW-Forscher-sehen-schwindende-Mittelschicht.html
The long-term unemployment benefit Hartz IV is 350 euros or only about 7 times more than the poorest Egyptians have to live on a month in spite of much higher costs in Germany.
The Hartz IV benefit is set to rise by only 5 euros this year on the insistence of Merkel, far below inflation, further eroding the real purchasing power and driving millions deeper into poverty.
It is not just in Germany but all across Europe that salaries have been decimated. Gone are the days not so long ago when professions such as young teachers for example earned 30 times more than their average cost of accommodation in major cities. In Greece, for example, the average pension is just 600 euros.
The next logical step for Merkel and Sarkozy is to float plans to send millions of Europeans to live in barracks and work in factories or roads with a bowl of soup and bread until they are 90 or drop dead as in the 1930s after a similar engineered financial crisis.
I can’t see the people of Europe allowing a centralised bureaucracy set up by governments in Berlin and Paris to cut their pensions and wages in order to give yet more to the banks and corporations – not after these same governments aided the banks in an engineered financial crisis that wrecked economies, and plunged nations into debt.
Merkel has said that the rest of Europe has to keep up with the “best”. Implying the low wage, slave labour concentration camp that Germany has become, with its corrupt financial sector, corrupt corporations caught bribing its own and foreign politicians (Siemens in Greece) is in some way to be emulated.
I suspect Europeans will not share that view.
Not the Irish for sure. Even tame politicians and newspapers like Enda Kenny and the Irish Times are comparing the brutal take-over of the Irish economy by the German and EU bankers via an enforced 85 billion euro loan with the armed conflicts of Leningrad and the Easter Rising.
How much longer will the people of Europe put up with this?
After helping the banks wreck the European economy in front of everyone’s eyes and pushing toxic vaccines on their populations, Merkel and Sarkozy pair up in a flagrant bid to steal pensions (etc) instead of presenting a serious plan.
How dare they?
February 7, 2011
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular |
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Soaring Prices, Growing Destabilization
The dramatic rise in food prices is fueling a great deal of discontent in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere. It’s a deep undercurrent propelling many of the poor, who face prospects of starvation to resort to the streets and to violence. According to the United Nation’s Food Agency (Food and Agriculture Organization — FAO) world food prices are up for the 7th month in a row and are likely to surpass the record high reached in December 2010.
No end is in sight for this destabilizing battle with food price inflation in places like Egypt, where more than half of an average income goes for food. According to the State Department, more than 60 food riots occurred worldwide over the past two years.
In March 2008, a dramatic spike in food prices led thousands of people on the brink of starvation in Egypt to violently riot — sending a seismic shock wave through the Mubarak regime. After the Egyptian military was able to distribute enough wheat to dispel the rioting, efforts to stockpile wheat by the Mubarak government have failed, as food prices continue to hover at record highs.
The media is reporting many reasons for this problem ranging from soaring demand, cuts in food subsidies, droughts, and government mandates to use more grain-based biofuel. But, another significant factor is at play: unfettered speculation by investment banks. As noted in USA Today, in 2008, “the bulls may not be running on Wall Street, but they’re charging in the commodities pits.
At issue are the still deregulated commodity markets ushered in by the Clinton administration and the U.S. Congress with the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Before this law, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) served as a cop on the beat, enforcing rules that prevent the distortion or manipulation of prices beyond normal supply and demand. But Wall Street banks and companies such as ENRON and British Petroleum were determined to make a lot more money from speculation by exempting energy-derivative contracts and related swaps from government oversight.
For this reason, the 2000 law allows entities that have no stake in whether adequate amounts of food and fuel are available for ordinary people and commodity-dependent businesses to make huge sums of money by gambling with other people’s money.
Soon after passage of the 2000 law, “dark” unregulated futures trading markets emerged, most notably the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in London — created by Wall Street and European investment banks and several oil companies. A key practice involves “over the counter index trading” in which hundreds of billions of dollars of pension, sovereign wealth, and other institutional funds are used to flood “dark” commodity markets to buy and hold futures contracts without an expiration date or oversight. When it’s time to make money on a losing bet, these funds are withdrawn, causing commodity price crashes and economic instability.
These transactions don’t involve customary “bona fide” commodity traders, such as an airline company hedging on the price of jet fuel by purchasing futures contracts. As prominent hedge fund manager Michael McMasters noted before a U.S. Senate panel in 2008, this amounts to “a form of electronic hoarding and greatly increases the inflationary effect of the market. It literally means starvation for millions of the world’s poor.”
Some world leaders are willing to speak out against the pernicious role of “dark” commodity markets. Recently, French President Sarkozy warned of further unrest and even war at the Davos forum, unless commodity speculation is reined in — something that Wall Street and Republican lawmakers are bitterly fighting. The Dodd/Frank Financial Reform Law places some restrictions on this practice by the CFTC. In particular, the CFTC is beginning the process of weeding out “non bona fide” investment bank speculators.
True to form, House Republicans are demanding that the CFTC slam on the brakes. They’re planning hearings and legislation to hamstring these efforts.
The spontaneous mass uprising of ordinary people in Egypt and the Middle East against their authoritarian regimes has many root causes. One that deserves much greater attention is unfettered speculation by powerful private financial institutions that don’t care about world-wide starvation and its impacts. It’s distorting global food supplies.
Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary from 1993 to 1999.
February 4, 2011
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Corruption, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular |
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What’s it like spending two years doing thankless work that, in the end, is going to be ignored by the very people who asked for your services? The members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission have just found out. Their 662 page report is sinking rapidly into oblivion in official Washington, and is now destined to be of interest only to historians. This was fully predictable. The Commission was given a charter by Congress to tell us who, what, when, and where about the financial crisis, but they were not allowed to explain why. To understand why this crisis occurred would be stepping on way too many powerful toes in Washington, and for this reason the Commission was told not to make any policy recommendations to Congress that would help prevent such a crisis from occurring again.
Though toothless and hobbled by Congress, the Commission has issued a remarkable report, at least by Washington standards. The report reads like the work of an investigative reporter, filled with interesting anecdotes selected from hundreds of hours of interviews with financial experts and market participants. The chapters are organized chronologically from the start of the housing boom to its collapse. Hardly anybody comes out of this report looking good, but of the many people who have reason to hang their head in shame, none appear quite as damaged as Alan Greenspan. He and the Federal Reserve are fingered by the Commission for failure to regulate the banks and other players in the housing market.
The outcome of “Fed Lite”
The central bank operated a regulatory regime called “Fed Lite”, providing little regulatory oversight for the banks, and no oversight for the shadow banking system that blew up under the weight of excessive debt and sparse capital. Fed Lite was founded on Alan Greenspan’s near-religious belief that the markets always weed out inefficient players and excesses, and the Fed’s job therefore is to stay out of the way of the banks they are supposed to regulate. Greenspan later admitted to the Commission that he might have been a bit wrong about the wonderful self-correcting mechanism of the markets. He also admitted that he was out of his depth whenever the staff came to talk to him about technical matters like mortgages, the housing markets, derivatives such as CDOs, and so on.
This was the man who was dubbed “The Maestro” by Bob Woodward, but apparently nearly twenty years of hands-on experience running the central bank was not enough to educate him sufficiently to understand the housing market, much less detect a bubble in the making. Why was someone like him given such a position of power? The Commission is unable to explain this to us, and to do so would require going much further back in time than the housing bubble – in fact back to the 1950s, when Alan Greenspan sat at the side of Ayn Rand, as an Apostle of Selfishness and a prized member of her cult of Objectivists.
Greenspan Shrugged
In his professional life Alan Greenspan has never talked about his days with Ayn Rand, and curiously no one in Washington has bothered to ask him publicly about how much of her philosophy he believes. As Fed Chairman, if Greenspan was a maestro of anything, it was playing Washington politics, and he was always wise enough never to tip his hand on policy matters until he had to. By the time the Fed was ready to implement Fed Lite, the mood in Washington had already shifted in favor of the Republican campaign to reduce government regulation wherever possible. This meant not only allowing market operators to function unfettered, it meant giving the wolves access to the henhouse. Insurance and oil industry executives were allowed in to Congressional staff meetings to help write laws governing their industries. Bankers were appointed to top positions at the Treasury and the Fed. As far as Wall Street was concerned, the traditional balance between Greed and Fear was upended: Fear was banished and Greed was allowed to run rampant once bankers were given access to unlimited taxpayer money in the form of bailouts.
All of this was quite congenial to Alan Greenspan, the inventor of the “Greenspan put” – which was a phrase created by the market to characterize the promise by the Fed that any serious losses in the market could always be “put back” to the government. Time and again Greenspan oversaw one bank bailout after another, and then expanded the franchise to the hedge fund industry when he bailed out LTCM in 1998. By the time he retired from the Fed, the financial industry had become so large that the Greenspan put had become institutionalized, and is now referred to as the Bernanke put. The job of Chairman of the Federal Reserve apparently carries with it the promise to forever protect the markets from their mistakes.
Only the “Worthy” Succeed
This must be quite satisfying to Ayn Rand followers. In their mythology, only Worthy Individuals are allowed to succeed in life, by taking what they want from others, and fighting off the little people and bothersome bureaucrats who obstruct them because they are envious of anyone who succeeds. Alan Greenspan must view himself and the eminent people he associates with as the Worthy few, entitled to their wealth and position of power. As a Republican, Greenspan has had no problems with the evolution of his party into the protector of the privileged few – the Lucky Duckies who control nearly 90% of the wealth in America, and feel entitled to raid the Treasury whenever they need to cover up for their mistakes.
This is the problem the Commission has had in doing its work. It is operating in a political and social environment in Washington that for decades has glorified greed and selfishness, and so accepted are these qualities that an alternative universe where government helps the average person rather than just the wealthy person is simply too hard for people in Washington to imagine. The best the Commission can do is say “Alan Greenspan should have done this, and he shouldn’t have done that.” It cannot say that there is something deeply corrupting in the way politicians of both parties think and act in Washington.
That is also why this Commission is so very different from the Pecora Commission of the 1930s, which took as its job the exposure of corruption and fraud at the very highest levels of business and government. The evidence of corruption and fraud in the housing bubble and during the credit crisis is mounting every day, but no one of responsibility or power has been called to account. The Commission has apparently identified a few low level functionaries for the attention of the Justice Department, but it is unlikely that someone like Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide is ever going to wind up in court on fraud charges. There is no moral outrage in Washington anymore, because there is simply no telling whose head would not fall under the guillotine if the true extent of fraud and corruption were revealed.
“Greed is Good”
The American people don’t have much moral outrage either. For the longest time they bought into the Greed is Good philosophy as long as the stock market was going up, and the housing bubble was in the ascendant. Once both of these financial props collapsed, misery spread everywhere, but it wasn’t the misery experienced by our grandfathers, who lost all their wealth in the 1930s when the banks collapsed completely. Most Americans are holding on to some of their wealth, and 80% of them have full time jobs, even if the work is stressful and the benefits are disappearing. Unemployment checks are being extended for another year, payroll taxes are scheduled to be cut in 2011, and Ben Bernanke has spent over half a trillion dollars generating another stock market bubble. The wealthy are spending money, which helps the retail sales numbers look good, and the Fed assures us that inflation is not a problem, because the Fed excludes the price of food and energy in its calculations of inflation.
Of what use, then, is a Commission that explains why things really happen the way they do? No one wants to hear it – not the Congress, not the White House, not Republicans, Democrats, nor independents. No one wants to hear that the American Dream – which use to say that anyone could succeed in America with hard work – has been polluted by a wholly different American Dream, which now says you can succeed with the right connections and you can take what you want without any consequences. We have brought the philosophy of Selfishness to its logical conclusion, which has left us with a society of individuals who are isolated from each other, who have been stripped of any sense of community, and who have been taught to expect that government will be of no help to you unless your are in a position of privilege and power.
What America really needs is a Commission of Truth, that would outline how Selfishness became triumphant, how it has devastated our country, and what we as a community and as a nation must do about this. A Commission of Truth, however, needs to have an audience willing to listen to the truth, and such an audience does not exist in America. At least not yet – not until Americans have experienced the full, bitter fruits that a lifetime of Selfishness can produce.
February 3, 2011
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Corruption, Economics, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular |
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Aletho News
Aletho News 