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By Delisting the MEK, the Obama Administration is Taking the Moral and Strategic Bankruptcy of America’s Iran Policy to a New Low

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | Race for Iran | September 21st, 2012

The U.S. Department of State took the moral and strategic bankruptcy of America’s Iran policy to a new low today, by notifying Congress that the Obama administration intends to remove the mojahedin-e khalq (MEK) from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).

At a macro level, we are disdainful—even scornful—of the U.S. government’s lists of both FTOs and state sponsors of terrorism.  We have seen too many times over the years just how cynically American administrations have manipulated these designations, adding and removing organizations and countries for reasons that have little or nothing to do with designees’ actual involvement in terrorist activity.  So, for example, after Saddam Husayn invaded the fledgling Islamic Republic in 1980—on September 22, no less—and starting killing large numbers of innocent Iranians, the Reagan administration (which came to office in January 1981) found a way to remove Iraq from the state sponsors list, in order to remove legal restrictions prohibiting the U.S. government from helping Saddam prosecute his war of aggression as robustly as the administration wanted.  (During that war, the MEK—after having tried but failed to bring down the Islamic Republic through a bloody campaign of terrorist bombings and assassinations conducted against the new Iranian government’s upper echelons—ended up collaborating with an Iraqi government regularly carrying out chemical weapons attacks against targets, civilian as well as military, inside Iran.)  But, when the same Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, the George H.W. Bush administration couldn’t get Iraq back on the state sponsors list fast enough.  We are very skeptical that Saddam’s ties to groups that the United States considers terrorist organizations changed all that much during this period.

Yet, precisely because we know how thoroughly corrupt and politicized these designations really are, we recognize their significance as statements of U.S. policy.  Today, the Obama administration made a truly horrible statement about U.S. policy toward Iran.

The statement is horrible even if one wants to believe that FTO designations have some kind of procedural and evidentiary integrity about them.  (We don’t, but we also recognize that letting go of illusions is often not easy.)  Just this year, U.S. intelligence officials told high-profile media outlets that the MEK is actively collaborating with Israeli intelligence to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists, see here; Iranian officials have made the same charge.  Since when did murdering unarmed civilians (and, in some instances, members of their families as well) on public streets in the middle of a heavily populated urban area (Tehran) not meet even the U.S. government’s own professed standard for terrorism?  Of course, one might rightly point out that the United States is responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent civilians across the Middle East.  But Washington generally strives to maintain the fiction that it did not intend for those innocents to die as a (direct and foreseeable) consequence of U.S. military operations and sanctions policies.  (You know, the United States didn’t really mean for those people to die, but, as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once said, “Stuff happens.”)  Here, the Obama administration is taking an organization that the U.S. government knows is directly involved in the murder of innocent people and giving this group Washington’s “good housekeeping seal of approval.”

But, to invoke Talleyrand’s classic observation that a certain action was “worse than a crime—it was a mistake,” delisting the MEK is not just a moral abomination; it is a huge strategic and policy blunder.  It is hard to imagine how the Obama administration could signal more clearly that, even after the President’s presumptive reelection, it has no intention of seeking a fundamentally different sort of relationship with the Islamic Republic—which would of course require the United States to accept the Islamic Republic as a legitimate political entity representing legitimate national interests.

Count on this:  once the MEK is formally off the FTO list—a legally defined process that will take a few months to play out—Congress will be appropriating money to support the monafeqin as the vanguard of a new American strategy for regime change in Iran.  In the 1990s, similar enthusiasm for Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress—who were about as unpopular among Iraqis as the MEK is among Iranians—led to President Clinton’s signing of the Iraq Liberation Act, which paved the way for George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003.  The chances for such a scenario to play out with regard to Iran over the next few years—with even more disastrous consequences for America’s strategic and moral standing—got a lot higher today.

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September 21, 2012 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is the Afghan Surge Really Over?

By Peter Hart – FAIR – 09/21/2012

Misleading media reports today are announcing the end of the U.S.  troop surge in Afghanistan.

USA Today:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the Washington Post:

There are many more along the same lines.

It’s important to understand that the troop reductions are only part of the total troop surge that happened under Obama.

As FAIR noted last year (Media Advisory, 6/23/11) there were two major increases in the number of U.S. troops in 2009:

When Obama took office in 2009, the U.S. had about 34,000 troops in Afghanistan. Obama has initiated two major troop increases in Afghanistan: about 20,000 additional troops were announced in February 2009, followed by the December 2009 announcement that an another 33,000 would be deployed as well; other smaller increases have brought the total to 100,000.

The surge that is “ending” today refers to the 33,000 that were sent in December. But the troops that were sent in the earlier Obama surge are still there. As the USA Today article notes, there are still 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, roughly double the number that were in the country when Obama took office.

These headlines might give the impression that the Afghan War is winding down. Based on the troop levels alone, that would be highly misleading.

September 21, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

US government restores indefinite detention without trial

Press TV – September 19, 2012

The American government has successfully appealed a ruling by a district court banning indefinite detention of suspects without due process, re-instituting the controversial law that contradicts the US Constitution, Press TV reports.

The restoration of the law allows the Obama administration to hold suspects, even American citizens, captive without trial at military prison facilities such as the notorious Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for as long as they desire.

The provision is part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law by US President Barack Obama in 2011. The controversial bill further extends surveillance powers of various American law enforcement institutions, allowing the US military forces around the world to seize any non-combatant foreign individual across the globe.

US Civil Rights Attorney Ron Kuby describes the latest ruling as another blow to American civil liberties, insisting that it grants the government and its military forces too much authority.

This is while US District judge Katherine Forrest dismissed NDAA last week as “deeply flawed,” declaring it unconstitutional on the basis that it violates the 1st and fifth amendments. The Obama administration, however, appealed the verdict passed down by Judge Forrest, claiming that her decision has put the US military operations around the world in jeopardy.

Following up on Obama administration’s legal challenge, US Appeals Judge Raymond Lohier agreed with the government on Tuesday and lifted the ban, exposing American natives just as vulnerable to such arbitrary arrests as hundreds of individuals living in other countries that may be detained after being labeled as ‘a terrorist’ by American authorities or military forces.

International human rights groups insist that more than 700 people across the globe have been kidnapped by the US authorities and transported to detention facilities in different parts of the world. The practice, often referred to as Rendition, gained international attention with the case of Khalid El Masri – a German citizen who was tortured in Afghanistan for months before being released in 2004.

A number of US legal experts emphasize, meanwhile, that even the US citizens can now be confronted by a similar plight no matter where they may reside. The fight, however, is far from over on the NDAA issue. The stay on this provision is only effective until September 28th, when the American government will have to defend it before a three judge appeals panel.

Many observers believe that the case will most likely end up in the US Supreme court.

Video Report

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September 19, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | 1 Comment

The Job Crisis, the “Unemployable,” and the Fiscal Cliff

Let the Wealthy Pay for Their Crisis

By SHAMUS COOKE | CounterPunch | September 18, 2012

With the November elections right around the corner, the millions of unemployed and under-employed have little reason to care. Aside from some sparse rhetoric, neither Democrats nor Republicans have offered a solution to job creation. Most politicians seem purposefully myopic about the jobs crisis, as if a healthy dose of denial might get them through the electoral season unscathed.

In reality, the jobs crisis continues unaddressed, and threatens to get worse after the election. The post-election “fiscal cliff” of social cuts — “triggered” by Obama’s debt commission —will pull the economy below the current treading-water phase, drowning millions more workers in America in unemployment and hopelessness. In addition, two million more long-term unemployed — those lucky enough to still receive benefits — face the very likely possibility of having their benefits ended due to the trigger cuts.

But this is all part of the plan. The current jobs crisis is not accidental; there are public policies that could be implemented — such as a federal jobs program — that would stop unemployment in its tracks. Both parties agree that this cannot  be done for the same reason: high unemployment is desirable since it acts as a sledgehammer against wages, lowering them with the intent of boosting profitability for corporations.  Creating this nationwide “new normal” takes time.

Until corporations have an ideal environment to make super profits — aside from the short-term money printing of the Federal Reserve — unemployment will remain purposefully high. The Feds massive money-printing program — called Quantitative Easing (QE) — is a desperate move that risks super inflation, yet is deemed necessary until politicians implement the economic new normal for workers in America.

This policy is referred to as an “adjustment” period by some economists. Corporations and their puppet politicians have used the recession to start implementing the new normal of lower wages, reduced benefits, and fewer social programs on a city, state, and federal basis. In order to complete this national adjustment, expectations for working people must be drastically lowered, so that they’ll be less likely to be angry and fight against this onslaught.

This was Bill Clinton’s intention when he told the Democratic National Convention, “The old economy isn’t coming back.”  Most people in America have yet to realize this, but the economic policies of the Democrats and Republicans reflect a conscious plan to push wages down and shred the safety net to fit the “new economy” standards sought by corporate America.

Because corporations only hire workers in order to make profit, businesses today are sitting on trillions of cash, waiting for a sunnier day to invest in labor. The lower the wages of workers in America, the brighter the skies for corporations’ bottom line. It is this basic economic interest driving the jobs crisis, as politicians only offer solutions that “encourage businesses to invest” rather than creating immediate solutions for working people.

But millions of people are waiting for sunnier days too. A large number are seeking to wait out the recession by returning to school and are now graduating; a record 30 percent have bachelor degrees, a number that is expected to rise. The increasing number of graduates will drive up unemployment, while those lucky enough to find jobs aren’t finding one capable of paying off their massive student loans. The trillion-dollar student loan business is yet another example of wealth transference from bottom to top: students borrow money from the wealthy, and pay them back with interest, sometimes exorbitant interest.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that there are 12.5 million people who are officially unemployed but an additional9.5 million who are “unofficially” unemployed — those who are not actively looking for work, “discouraged workers,” part-time workers who want full-time work, etc. The number is almost certainly higher. These workers are not counted in the “official” unemployment numbers, and this unofficial number is getting worse. In August 2012, 368,000 more workers joined this illustrious group by dropping out of the labor force, i.e., they gave up looking for a job and thus are no longer counted as unemployed, in this way giving Obama “positive news” since the unemployment numbers actually improved!

These workers are often referred to as “unemployable,” meaning that they are usually over fifty years of age or under 30 and are tarnished with a lack of job experience or an excess of it. Corporations can now have an abundance of workers to choose from, and are being extra picky on whom they hire, if anybody.

The new “private sector” jobs that Obama constantly brags about are much lower paying than the jobs they are replacing.   According to a study performed by the National Employment Law Project, 58 percent of all new post-recession jobs come with wages below $14.00 an hour, i.e. a not a living wage.

For those millions unable to find jobs, their future lies in either dependence on family or the state, or a risky life in the informal economy, which implies the possibility of imprisonment.

The reason that many labor and community groups have not fully explained the above facts — nor protested against them — is because they are “embarrassing” to the Democrats.  Labor unions have gone into pre-election hibernation, ignoring reality as they push their members to campaign for the president who is overseeing this economic “new normal.”

The still-sputtering economy is expected to grind to a halt post-election, with average working people again footing the bill. But millions of Americans are experiencing the politics of the 1%, and drawing conclusions; ever since the recession government policy has been aimed at benefiting the wealthy and corporations, while working people have only experienced layoffs, lower wages and benefits, and slashed public services.  To stop this dynamic of austerity working people must unite and protest in massive numbers, like the working people of Europe.

In Portland, Oregon, such a demonstration is being planned, pre-election, by a coalition of community groups to “stop the cuts,” for debt relief, and against the above national policy of austerity for working people. By highlighting the bi-partisan nature of the attack against working people, the community organizers in Portland hope to educate the community to take action, so that working people are prioritized. Let the wealthy pay for their crisis.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org).  He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

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September 18, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

U.S. Caught Creating Three New Computer Viruses

Obama administration touts cybersecurity while conducting cyber warfare

By Paul Joseph Watson | Infowars | September 18, 2012

While routinely touting the necessity for tighter controls over the Internet in the name of cybersecurity, the U.S. government has again been caught creating computer viruses to wage cyber warfare in the Middle East.

Researchers working for both Kaspersky and Symantec have separately discovered that the United States is almost certainly responsible for three new viruses that are being used in Lebanon and Iran to conduct espionage, having already been identified as the culprits behind the 2010 Stuxnet virus and this year’s closely related Flame virus.

Kaspersky and Symantec experts are still unsure as to what the newly discovered viruses are designed to do, but have confirmed that they are operating in the Middle East, including Iran and Lebanon, and that the, “approach to uploading packages and downloading data fits the profile of military and/or intelligence operations.”

The new viruses, programs code-named SP, SPE and IP, use malware packages that try to “communicate with command and control servers.” The new viruses could be offshoots of the Flame virus or completely different pieces of software.

“The findings are likely to bolster a growing view that the U.S. government is using cyber technology more widely than previously believed to further its interests in the Middle East,” reports Haaretz.

“The United States has already been linked to the Stuxnet Trojan that attacked Iran’s nuclear program in 2010 and the sophisticated Flame cyber surveillance tool that was uncovered in May.”

As the Washington Post reported earlier this year, the United States and Israel were also responsible for jointly developing the Flame virus, a huge malware assault that monitored Iran’s computer networks.

Despite months of inaccurate speculation blaming Russia or China for the outbreak of the 2010 Stuxnet virus, it was eventually admitted by the New York Times that, “US and Israeli intelligence services collaborated to develop a destructive computer worm to sabotage Iran’s efforts to make a nuclear bomb.”

The U.S. government’s continual efforts to develop computer viruses as a tool of cyber warfare might be more palatable were it not for the constant push by the executive and legislative branches to censor and regulate the Internet domestically in the name of cybersecurity.

Urging President Obama last month to pass an executive order that critics have denounced as another federal power grab over the Internet, Senator Jay Rockefeller justified the EO by claiming it was needed “to protect this country from the cyber threat,” even as the U.S. simultaneously launches aggressive cyber warfare campaigns against other countries.

Indeed, viruses created by the United States and Israel have even been cited as proof that restrictive cyber security legislation needs to be rubber stamped – by the very same government allied with the intelligence networks creating the viruses.

As we reported back in 2011, despite initial evidence clearly indicating the U.S. and Israel were behind the Stuxnet attack, a fact that was subsequently confirmed, major news websites still parroted the official narrative that Russia or China were to blame, even going to the lengths of ridiculing anyone who suggested otherwise as paranoid conspiracy theorists.

While claiming that it needs more power over the world wide web to prevent the spread of hostile computer viruses that could cripple U.S. infrastructure and sensitive networks, the U.S. government itself is creating those very same computer viruses to spy on and attack infrastructure and sensitive networks in other countries.

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September 18, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

White House demands military prisons for Americans under NDAA

RT | September 17, 201

The White House has asked the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals to place an emergency stay on a ruling made last week by a federal judge so that the president’s power to indefinitely detain Americans without charge is reaffirmed immediately.

On Wednesday, September 12, US District Court Judge Katherine Forrest made permanent a temporary injunction she issued in May that bars the federal government from abiding by the indefinite detention provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, or NDAA. Judge Forrest ruled that a clause that gives the government the power to arrest US citizens suspected of maintaining alliances with terrorists and hold them without due process violated the Constitution and that the White House would be stripped of that ability immediately.

Only hours after Judge Forrest issued last week’s ruling, the Obama administration threatened to appeal the decision, and on Monday morning they followed through.

At around 9 a.m. Monday, September 17, the White House filed an emergency stay in federal appeals court in an effort to have the Second Circuit strip away Judge Forrest’s ruling from the week earlier.

“Almost immediately after Judge Forrest ruled, the Obama administration challenged the decision,” writes Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist that is listed as the lead plaintiff in the case. According to Hedges, the government called Judge Forrest’s most recent ruling an “extraordinary injunction of worldwide scope,” and Executive Branch attorneys worked into the weekend to find a way to file their stay.

“The Justice Department sent a letter to Forrest and the Second Circuit late Friday night informing them that at 9 a.m. Monday the Obama administration would ask the Second Circuit for an emergency stay that would lift Forrest’s injunction,” Hedges writes. “This would allow Obama to continue to operate with indefinite detention authority until a formal appeal was heard. The government’s decision has triggered a constitutional showdown between the president and the judiciary.”

Attorney Carl Mayer, a counsel for Hedges and his co-plaintiffs, confirmed to RT early Monday that the stay was in fact filed with the Second Circuit.

“This may be the most significant constitutional standoff since the Pentagon Papers case,” Carl Mayer says in a separate statement posted on Mr. Hedge’s blog.

Bruce Afran, who serves as co-lead counsel along with Mayer, tells Hedges that the White House could be waging a war against the injunction to ensure that the Obama administration has ample time to turn the NDAA against any protesters participating in domestic demonstrations.

“A Department of Homeland Security bulletin was issued Friday claiming that the riots [in the Middle East] are likely to come to the US and saying that DHS is looking for the Islamic leaders of these likely riots,” Afran tells Hedges. “It is my view that this is why the government wants to reopen the NDAA — so it has a tool to round up would-be Islamic protesters before they can launch any protest, violent or otherwise. Right now there are no legal tools to arrest would-be protesters. The NDAA would give the government such power. Since the request to vacate the injunction only comes about on the day of the riots, and following the DHS bulletin, it seems to me that the two are connected. The government wants to reopen the NDAA injunction so that they can use it to block protests.”

Hedges, who has previously reported for papers including the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor, argued that his job as a journalist requires him to routinely interact and converse with persons that may be considered terrorists in the eyes of the US government.

Under the NDAA, Americans “who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners” can be held in prison cells “until the end of hostilities,” vague verbiage that essentially allows for those suspect of such associations to be decided under the discretion of US President Barack Obama or any federal agent underneath him.

“Because the language is so vague in this law,” Mr. Mayer explains to RT, “if any journalist or activist is seen as reporting or offering opinions about groups that could somehow be linked not just to al-Qaeda but to any opponent of the United States or even opponents of our allies”

“I spent many years in countries where the military had the power to arrest and detain citizens without charge,” Hedges wrote when he first filed his suit in January. “I have been in some of these jails. I have friends and colleagues who have ‘disappeared’ into military gulags. I know the consequences of granting sweeping and unrestricted policing power to the armed forces of any nation. And while my battle may be quixotic, it is one that has to be fought if we are to have any hope of pulling this country back from corporate fascism.”

Monday morning, Hedges once more responded to the White House’s relentless attempts to reauthorize powers granted under the NDAA, asking, “If the administration is this anxious to restore this section of the NDAA, is it because the Obama government has already used it? Or does it have plans to use the section in the immediate future?”

“The decision to vigorously fight Forrest’s ruling is a further example of the Obama White House’s steady and relentless assault against civil liberties, an assault that is more severe than that carried out by George W. Bush,” writes Hedges. “Obama has refused to restore habeas corpus. He supports the FISA Amendment Act, which retroactively makes legal what under our Constitution has traditionally been illegal — warrantless wire tapping, eavesdropping and monitoring directed against US citizens. He has used the Espionage Act six times against whistle-blowers who have exposed government crimes, including war crimes, to the public. He interprets the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Act as giving him the authority to assassinate US citizens, as he did the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. And now he wants the right to use the armed forces to throw U.S. citizens into military prisons, where they will have no right to a trial and no defined length of detention.”

In his latest blog post, Hedges acknowledges, “The government has now lost four times in a litigation that has gone on almost nine months.”

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September 17, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | 2 Comments

Showdown in Chicago

Why the Teachers Must Prevail

By ANDREW LEVINE | CounterPunch | September 13, 2012

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the pesky little ankle-nipper charged in the first years of the Obama administration with dissing the left (“f…ing retards”), empowering Blue Dog Democrats and killing the public option in the Affordable Care Act, is Barack Obama writ obnoxious.   It is of the utmost importance that teachers in Chicago win their strike against his administration.

Theirs is the first battle in what will be a protracted war, during the second Obama administration, to save public institutions, public education especially, from the anti-worker, pro-corporate, privatizing predations of Democratic presidents.

To be sure, it is Republicans who prattle on about Ronald Reagan and advocate the retrograde policies associated with his name.    But while they are relentless in praising that villainous old actor, they are terrible at implementing the Reaganite agenda. This is understandable: when they are in the White House, their efforts inspire Democrats to fight back — not so much from conviction but because it plays well with the base and therefore pays off at election time.

Democratic presidents, on the other hand, are good at implementing the Reaganite agenda, whether their hearts are in it or not.  No one, so far, has been better at it than Bill Clinton.  This is because, as we saw again in Charlotte, he is adept at winning Democratic hearts and minds, and therefore at neutralizing potential opposition and even bringing it along.

This is how that old horn dog was able to win more for the Gipper than either Bush.  He did more even than Reagan himself to end the New Deal and Great Society “as we know it,” and to give Wall Street free rein.

Obama might have bested him had he not been stymied by Republican obduracy.  Now that obduracy is coming back to haunt the GOP.  By pandering to God-fearing, ignorant and stupid white men – and the women who stand by them — they have made themselves scary enough to assure a second Obama term.

Barring unforeseeable developments, therefore, it will be Obama, not Romney, who will be wielding the Reaganite cudgel in the next four years; and therefore Obama, the lesser but more effective evil, whom we will have to fight.

Obama is poised to leave the Clintons standing in the dust.  Hizzoner Da Mare is showing the way.  Workers be damned, and let the Grand Bargains begin!

*  *  *

Even before the Occupy movements of last fall, public workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere were beginning to fight back.  In Wisconsin, their efforts were unsuccessful, thanks in part to the indifference or connivance of the national Democratic Party and the Obama administration.

It isn’t just that Obama was AWOL throughout the winter and spring of 2011, when workers and their allies occupied the state Capitol in Madison, mobilizing tens of thousands of supporters.   When it came down just to a recall election a year later, the hope and change President couldn’t even be bothered to campaign for Tom Barrett, the anodyne Democratic rival to the execrable, Koch-funded, Republican governor Scott Walker.  All he could muster was a tweet at the final hour.

With the election less than two months away, Team Obama must realize that it will cost the President to betray the Chicago Teachers’ Union similarly.  But count on him to give it his best shot – the Obama-Emanuel tie is tight, and Emanuel’s anti-union, pro-corporate “reforms” are in line with Arne Duncan’s, Obama’s Secretary of Education.

Expect him therefore to remain aloof for as long as he can.  After all, who will stop him?  Not organized labor.  They’ve pledged their troth unconditionally to Democratic presidents so many times that they’ve forgotten how to do anything else, even when the object of their servility poses an “existential threat.”

For a long time, it seemed that the problem with Obama, and the Democratic Party, was their almost pathological “reasonableness,” their preference for compromising over winning.  But the real situation was becoming clear even before Emanuel became the face of militant Obamaism.

The problem is not just that Obama is inept at governance or that caution sometimes gets the better of him.  It is that he is on the wrong side.

Romney is scarier by orders of magnitude and more onerous by far.  But, like Clinton, Obama can deliver, especially nowadays when liberals are hell bent on cutting the man slack.  This is why he is, arguably, more dangerous even than his Republican rival.  Romney is unabashed class warrior for the one-percent; Obama is a more complicated figure.  But by their deeds, ye shall know them.

What Emanuel and Duncan and Obama want is what George Bush wanted: to despoil public education.  Of course, this is not what they say.  But it is hardly concern for kids, much less poor kids or for their families, that drives Bush-Obama efforts at reforming public education to ruin or that makes “market solutions” and privatization the order of the day.  Only hapless Republicans and market theologians (to the extent there is a difference) could believe that.

The Obamaites want to privatize public education, to the extent they can, for the same reason they want to privatize so much else:  because there is a lot of money – local, state and federal – involved, and the corporate interests Obama and his basketball buddies work for want to get their hands on it.

Obama and Duncan, and maybe even Emanuel, the “f-ing retard,” are too smart to be taken in by the meretricious charms of corporate bean counting.  They surely understand how detrimental teaching to tests can be, and how it serves no one other than corporate managers, or those who have internalized their values, to undermine educators’ morale by imposing impossible working conditions and assaulting workers’ dignity.

It is telling that Obama sent his own kids to the Chicago Lab School and then to Sidwell Friends.  Expensive private schools have always been about reproducing social elites – and, in recent years, coopting a few others for diversity’s sake — but Obama’s children, reared in the White House, have nothing to gain on that account.

The Obamas, like the Duncans and Emanuels of the world, just want their own children to get decent educations.  No doubt, they’d like that for working peoples’ children too, other things being equal.  But other things are not equal; the oligarchy has a different plan in mind.

They want a work force that is trained, not educated; workers ready to do what capitalist firms nowadays require — on the off-chance that capitalists find it more profitable, in certain circumstances, to exploit domestic labor instead of workers abroad.

Not long ago, the children of rich and poor alike were formed in the same schools, taught by dedicated teachers who, though underpaid, were treated with dignity and respect.  Not long ago, public higher education was cheap enough to be broadly accessible and good enough to rival or out perform even the richest private universities.

This is all inimical to the Reaganite agenda but, even now, public education, at all levels, is holding up tolerably well, notwithstanding chronic underfunding and increasingly vitriolic opposition from the minions of the one percent.  If Emanuel prevails, it will be harder, much harder, to hold the line.

This is a real danger.  Emanuel has the austerity mongers in the Obama administration, and Obama himself, at his back.  In an election year, he has the support of most Democrats.  And, of course, he has the implicit support of Mitt Romney, who at least has the decency to be more forthrightly anti-union and anti-(small-d) democratic than his rival.

Emanuel also has the “liberal” media doing its best to keep the Reaganite tide from receding.

Now that the New York Times has priced itself so much higher than it is worth and made itself, or at least its print edition, scarce, NPR has become perhaps the main source for conventional wisdom and pro-regime propaganda.

As the Chicago strike began, it was almost comical to listen to them struggle to find voices willing to berate the teachers for the inconvenience they are causing parents and students.  Evidently, Chicagoans, so far anyway, are behind the teachers because they realize that, in combatting Obama-style Reaganism – in taking on Rahm Emanuel — they are fighting for them.

They are absolutely right.  The Chicago teachers’ strike is the successor of last year’s demonstrations in Wisconsin and other states in the grip of reactionary Republican governors; it is the successor of the Occupy movements.  Its outcome matters more than the November election.  Chicago teachers must prevail!

ANDREW LEVINE is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is In Bad Faith: What’s Wrong With the Opium of the People. He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy) at the University of Maryland-College Park.  He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

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September 13, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Democrats’ Jerusalem Arithmetic

By ALISON WEIR | CounterPunch | September 7, 2012

Not often is a political fix so public.

The Democratic committee that develops the party’s campaign platform recently failed to include the apparently obligatory “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel” pronouncement.

This statement, which is largely untrue and has a number of problems, had been part of previous platforms. Its omission caused an immense brouhaha, and party bigwigs decided that the ongoing Democratic National Convention needed to reinsert it.

The means was to be an amendment introduced on the convention floor, which required a two-thirds affirmative vote by delegates.

The bizarre sequence of events that followed was and remains in public view, thanks to C-span and YouTube videos (e.g. http://youtu.be/bjdj6K3yoR8 ). These clips are hilarious to view – if one likes tragicomedy.

The videos begin with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the handpicked chairman of the convention, standing at the podium.

Villaraigosa calls on the Chair of the Platform Drafting Committee, former Ohio governor Ted Strickland. Strickland moves that the rules be suspended to permit an amendment to the platform.

This passes quickly, as many people clearly have no idea what’s going on. Strickland then introduces the required amendment, and it is immediately seconded.

Villaraigosa then says, in the normal Roberts Rules of Order rite: “Is there any further discussion. Hearing none, the matter requires a two-thirds vote in the affirmative. All those delegates in favor say “aye.”

There is a large “aye” vote.

He then says, “All those delegates opposed say no.”

There is a “no” vote that is at least as loud, perhaps a touch louder.

Villaraigosa then says, “In the opinion of the…” He suddenly stops, then says, “Let me do that again.”

Things are going wrong and Villaraigosa has no idea what to do. The motion has just been defeated, since it requires a two-thirds vote and it has clearly failed to get this. Nevertheless, Villaraigosa soldiers on.

“All of those delegates,” he begins, in the tones of a school master admonishing recalcitrant students, “in favor say ‘aye.”

There is a large “aye” vote.

Villaraigosa then says, “All those opposed say ‘no.’”

There is an equally large “no” vote.

Villaraigosa looks like a deer caught in the headlights. He gazes straight ahead and then from side to side, a foolish half smile fleetingly on his face. He starts to say, “I, um… I guess…” He gives his head a slight shake and looks behind him.

A woman official can be heard quietly telling him, “You’ve got to let them do what they’re gonna do.”

Villaraigosa announces, “I’ll do that one more time.”

Keep in mind that the amendment has already twice failed the two-thirds test. According to all rules of procedure the amendment has been rejected. Nevertheless, Villaraigosa says again, “All those delegates in favor say ‘aye.’”

There is a large “aye” vote.

Villaraigosa says: “All those delegates opposed say ‘no.’”

There is an equally large (in fact, it may be a slightly larger) “no” vote. The amendment has now been defeated three times. At minimum, half the delegates have rejected it.

Is Villaraigosa going to repeat this vote a fourth time… possibly all night until they finally get it right?

No. Perhaps someone has finally signaled to him to ignore the vote and simply read his lines. Or maybe he has figured this out for himself. By now, he has probably realized that his chances of being the next Obama have slipped through his fingers, thanks to uppity delegates who won’t get with the program.

He decrees: “In the opinion of the Chair, two thirds have voted in the affirmative [boos can be heard] and the platform has been amended as shown on the screen.” He thanks Strickland for his service.

Meanwhile, the boos increase in volume and begin to sweep the convention, while those in favor of the fix that just went through on national TV cheer loudly – apparently unconcerned that clear principles of fairness and proper procedure have just been flushed, in full public view, down the Democratic toilet, the alleged “people’s” party.

Some people might wonder why so many delegates went against their leaders’ wishes, creating what Republican spinmeisters are now casting as an “embarrassing” spectacle, suggesting that the Democratic Party contains numerous political extremists.

In point of fact, however, presidents from both parties, including George W. Bush, have sensibly opposed locating the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, which Israel fanatics have long pushed.

There are a number of problems with the statement.

First of all, it’s inaccurate.

Despite the fact that Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital and has continued its decades-long expulsion of the Christians and Muslims who inhabited it for centuries, international law decrees that much of Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian land. (And many people, with substantial justification, consider that all of it is). Virtually all countries, including the U.S., locate their embassies in Tel Aviv.

Even the original 1947 UN partition recommendation, which Israel claims (fraudulently) as the legal foundation for its creation as a nation-state, called for Jerusalem to be an international city.

Second, it is widely understood that the wrong move concerning Jerusalem by the U.S. government would significantly reduce the chances of a peaceful settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, thus costing even more lives, while substantially increasing hostility toward the United States, causing considerable damage to both America’s security and economy.

Yet, all this seems to matter little to political operatives from both parties, who are either Israel partisans themselves or are focused on taking positions that will not alienate campaign donors.

Despite this omission on Jerusalem, many observers would have expected Israel partisans to have been extremely pleased with the Democratic platform. According to one of its Israel-partisan drafters, Robert Wexler, the platform was “100 percent pro-Israel.”

The platform writers, Wexler explained, simply wanted to especially focus on Israel’s (alleged) security needs concerning Iran.

In fact, a comparison with the Republican platform’s statements on Israel by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs shows the Democratic platform to be for all intents and purposes identical. This is not surprising, given that Israelists dominate both parties.

This was not, however, good enough. According to the UK Guardian, there was “a mounting clamour from Jewish donors and pro-Israel groups [who] objected to the dropping of a line supporting Jerusalem as the capital of Israel from the Democratic policy platform.”

Accordingly, those who control the Democratic Party decided that an amendment would be added with the prescribed wording. They set about getting it, by hook or by crook. It turned out to be by the latter.

Is the Democratic convention debacle completely bad news?

It’s hard to say.

On the one hand, it’s deeply unpleasant to watch manipulation unfold, and obvious lies win the day. For anyone who believes that votes should be fair and processes honest, it’s disturbing to see the opposite take place in one of our country’s major institutions.

Considerably worse is the fact that it’s this kind of political corruption that contributes to the extraordinarily small voter turnout of our citizens.

A democracy requires its citizens to participate in the process. When people see there is no point, they stop. That, of course, leaves a vacuum that is eagerly filled by the ruthless and unprincipled, who caused the problem in the first place.

In 1787, following the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin said that the months-long, hard-fought convention had given us “a republic, if you can keep it.” Villaraigosa and those who tell him what to do – and the rest who go along – are grinding this under foot.

But it’s not all bad news.

The reality is that at least half the delegates at this extremely mainstream convention – full of party loyalists who usually toe the party line – did not go along with the Israel Lobby agenda.

And while videos of the event focused almost entirely on close-ups of dissenters of Arab ethnicity, suggesting that this was an ethnic position, the vast majority of those opposed to the amendment had no such ethnic connection and were from all over the United States.

While the media, both liberal and conservative, consistently give us Israel-centric coverage, and while party bosses make it clear that favoring Israel uber alles is the way to get ahead, at least half the delegates rebelled.

Of course, this was a small, ultimately unsuccessful uprising. Nevertheless, I think it is an indication that the tide has slowed and may start to turn.

In fact, I believe an uprising in the United States may be coming.

People are tired of wars and killing, and of being sold a pack of goods by both parties using lies, deception, and manipulation.

We’re tired of power brokers running roughshod over what we want.

We’re tired of “alternative” institutions such as MoveOn that enable the charade, and of candidate puppets of “change” who continue cruel policies while spouting high-minded words that they hope will hide their unconscionable actions.

We’re tired of scripted conventions, of bullying special interests, of lying politicians, of manipulative media, and of partisan politics that set us against one another, in which both sides push falsehoods about the other, and about themselves.

We’re tired of pretend democracy.

More and more of us are demanding real change, not computer generated simulations. Instead of responding by refusing to vote, and thus forfeiting this life-and-death game, many of us are going to cast votes that will displease those used to running things.

And if in this election we choose to “throw our votes away,” as party cheerleaders scornfully call it, on candidates who would end our serial, suicidal wars and stop the killing of children – thus saving the lives of our own as well – then I feel we will have a shot at a future election in which we aren’t once again expected to choose between a proven war criminal and a competitor who might, astonishingly enough, be even worse.

Instead of throwing our votes away, I believe we will have started the process of throwing the bums out – this time for real. And of keeping our republic, or our democracy, whichever you choose to call it.

Alison Weir is President of the Council for the National Interest and Executive Director of If Americans Knew.

September 8, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Don’t Call It ‘Raising the Retirement Age,’ Because That’s Not What They’re Doing

By Jim Naureckas | FAIR | September 7, 2012

As Dean Baker noted (Beat the Press, 9/7/12), corporate media mostly missed one of the major pieces of news in President Barack Obama’s speech to the Democratic National Convention.

Talking about the federal budget deficit, Obama said, “Now, I’m still eager to reach an agreement based on the principles of my bipartisan debt commission.” Then, as he talked about what he would and wouldn’t do to reduce the deficit, he included this line: “And we will keep the promise of Social Security by taking the responsible steps to strengthen it–not by turning it over to Wall Street.”

“Responsible steps to strengthen it”–what does that mean? Dean Baker helpfully paraphrases:

President Obama implicitly called for cutting Social Security by 3 percent and phasing in an increase in the normal retirement age to 69 when he again endorsed the deficit reduction plan put forward by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of his deficit commission.

This would be a good thing for voters to know about, wouldn’t it?

Baker’s blog post explains the 3 percent thing–the result of proposed games with the cost of living adjustment. As for raising the retirement age, that requires further discussion–because that’s one of the big lies of the Social Security discussion.

The thing is, nobody who proposes raising the retirement age is really proposing raising the retirement age. If you were just raising the retirement age, you’d have to wait until you were (say) 69 to stop working, but when you did, you get the same benefits that you would now if you retired at age 69.

But no one’s proposing that–because that would save hardly any money. The way Social Security works is that you can retire whenever you want starting at age 62–but the longer you wait, the more money you get. The government tries to calculate it based on life expectancy so that whatever date you pick, you end getting (on average) about the same amount of money.

So when they “raised the retirement age”–as they’ve been in the process of doing for decades now–they didn’t say that you couldn’t retire at 62 anymore. They said that if you retired at 62, you’d get less money. And you’d get less money if you retired at 63, or 64, or 65, or….

There’s a more accurate way than “raising the retirement age” to describe this policy of lowering the amount of money someone at any given age receives when they retire. It’s “cutting Social Security benefits.”

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September 7, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

MoveOn and Lesser Evilism

By STEPHEN ZIELINSKI | CounterPunch | September 7, 2012

I just concluded a brief phone conversation with a MoveOn activist. It’s an election year, and her natural and obvious goal was to promote Barack Obama’s cause in November. She did not say much, however, and did not have a chance to speak at length, for when I heard Obama’s name after her organization’s name, I told her that I would never vote for Obama.

“Why,” she asked.

“Because he’s a war criminal, a promoter of authoritarian government, a tool of Wall Street and an opponent of authentic health care reform, among many other reasons,” I replied.

There was a brief silent moment which I used to punctuate my claim that “I [was] criticizing Obama from the left.”

I told her this because I did not want her to consult her talking points when she formulated her response.

She didn’t. In fact, she was shocked, and indicated that she could not understand why anyone on the left would criticize the President.

And that’s one problem with those progressives who tie their political fate to the Democratic Party and its candidates. They lack imagination. Their commitment to a pseudo-pragmatic electoral strategy binds them to a corrupt Democratic Party, to its commitment to war-making abroad, the security-surveillance state at home, to elite lawlessness, to a general austerity, a predatory economic system and the oligarchs who own them.

They are blind to the false dilemma inherent in the lesser evil principle. Why is the dilemma false? Firstly, the Democratic and Republican Parties do not exhaust the political options available to America’s nominally free citizens. Secondly, whereas the policies of the two parties differ on this or that issue and their constituencies differ, they are not so distinct that they differ in kind. The Democrat and Republican Parties are system affirmative entities, and reflect this fact. Voting for a candidate of one party thus affirms the core principles of the other party. This point expresses the gist of George Wallace’s “not a dime’s difference” evaluation of the two legacy parties. Thirdly, both parties form a party system which affirms and reproduces the larger political system of which they are a part. They accomplish these goals because they and the elections they contest operate as filters which eliminate the political opposition as an electoral force while thereby producing legitimacy for the results of the election and for the political system as a whole. Barack Obama was elected President. He legitimately occupies the office of the President. Outsiders — Ralph Nader and his kind — typically are shunned and ridiculed. The party system reproduces itself, and changes little. An authentic democratic politics can be found only in the streets. Sheldon Wolin thus identified the early 21st century American political system as an inverted totalitarian regime, a system without an opposition. Fourthly, there are situations, electoral contests and political choices that feature lesser evils which are too evil to tolerate. A lesser Hitler remains a Hitler. An Obama acts like a Bush. A Clinton works hard to complete the Reagan Revolution. War, war crimes and lawlessness; mass murder, suppression of dissent and incarceration of whistleblowers; social austerity, economic predation and personal hardship — these are some of the policies and policy outcomes which MoveOn supports when it thumps the tub for Barack Obama.

The lesser evil principle acquires its persuasive force when one considers the New Deal and Great Society reforms which once marked the history of the Democratic Party. One may suspect that Americans who voted for Obama and “change you can believe in” affirmed the collective memory of and institutional residues left over from these past victories. But these memories are mostly just memories. The New Deal State and the political culture which supported it parted ways decades back. Militarism and empire, finance capital and the capitalist class pushed labor and the lesser sort to the margins of the Democratic Party. This is the place where one will find MoveOn and the like. Rahm Emanuel once denounced them as “fucking retarded.”

The ideologically committed liberal should ponder well Emanuel’s words and insolence.

Stephen Zielinski can be reached at: s.zielinski@comcast.net.

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September 7, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

What Obama Has Wrought

By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report | September 5, 2012

Most people don’t want to be a perceived as party-poopers – which is why the principled folks that have protested the evil antics of the corporate, imperial parties, in Tampa and Charlotte, are so much to be admired. Frankly, who wants to be the one to point out, in the middle of the festivities, that Michelle Obama was just a Chicago Daley machine hack lawyer who was rewarded with a quarter million dollar a year job of neutralizing community complaints against the omnivorous University of Chicago Hospitals? She resigned from her $50,000 seat on the board of directors of Tree-House Foods, a major Wal-Mart supplier, early in her husband’s presidential campaign. But, once in the White House, the First Lady quickly returned to flaking for Wal-Mart, praising the anti-union “death star” behemoth’s inner city groceries offensive as part of her White House healthy foods booster duties.

She also serves on the board of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the corporate foreign policy outfit to which her husband dutifully reported, each year, in his pucker-up to the presidency. The Obama’s are a global capital-loving couple, two cynical lawyers on hire to the wealthiest and the ghastliest. They are no nicer or nastier than the Romneys and the Ryans, although the man of the house bombs babies and keeps a kill list. Yet, former “green jobs” czar Van Jones, a convention night chatterer on CNN who was fired by Obama for no good reason, chokes up when he speaks of the Black family that fronts for America – a huge act of national camouflage.

It is as useless to anchor a serious political discussion to this year’s Democratic and Republican convention speeches, as to plan the liberation of humanity during Mardi Gras. Truth is no more welcome at the former than sobriety is at the latter. So, forget the conventions and their multi-layered lies. Here are a few highlights of what Barack Obama has inflicted on the nation and the world:

Preventive Detention

George Bush could not have pulled off such an evisceration of the Bill of Rights, if only because the Democrats and an aroused street would not have allowed it. Bush knew better than to mount a full-court legislative assault on habeas corpus, and instead simply asserted that preventive detention is inherent in the powers of the presidency during times of war. It was left to Obama to pass actual legislation nullifying domestic rule of law – with no serious Democratic opposition.

Redefining War

Obama “led from behind” a 7-month Euro-American air and proxy ground war against the sovereign nation of Libya, culminating in the murder, after many attempts, of the nation’s leader. The president informed Congress that the military operation was not subject to the War Powers Act, because it had not been a “war” at all, since no Americans were known to have been killed. The doctrine was thus established – again, with little Democratic opposition – that wars are defined by the extent of U.S. casualties, no matter how many thousands of foreigners are slaughtered.

War Without Borders

Obama’s drone war policies, greatly expanded from that inherited from Bush, have vastly undermined accepted standards of international law. This president reserves the right to strike against non-state targets anywhere in the world, with whatever technical means at his disposal, without regard to the imminence of threat to the United States. The doctrine constitutes an ongoing war against peace – the highest of all crimes, now an everyday practice of the U.S.

The Merger of Banks and State

The Obama administration, with the Federal Reserve functioning as a component of the executive branch, has funneled at least $16 trillion to domestic and international banking institutions, much of it through a virtually “free money” policy that could well become permanent. This ongoing “rescue” of finance capital is unprecedented in sheer scope and in the blurring of lines between Wall Street and the State. The routine transfer of multi-billions in securities and debts and assets of all kinds between the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve and corporate accounts, has created de facto structures of governance that may be described as institutional forms of fascism.

These are world-shaking works of Obama-ism. Even Obama’s “lesser” crimes are astounding: his early calls for austerity and entitlement-axing (two weeks before his inauguration) and determined pursuit of a Grand Accommodation with the GOP (a $4 trillion deal that the Republicans rejected, in the summer of 2011) reveal a politician intent on ushering in a smoother, more rational corporate hegemony over a thoroughly pacified civil society. Part and parcel of that pacification is the de-professionalization of teaching – an ambition far beyond de-unionization.

Of course, Obama begins with the delegitimization of Black struggle, as in his 2004 Democratic Convention speech (”…there is no Black America…only the United States of America.”) To the extent that the nation’s most progressive, anti-war constituency can be neutralized, all of Obama’s corporate and military goals become more doable. The key to understanding America has always been race. With Obama, the corporate rulers have found the key that fits their needs at a time of (terminal) crisis. He is the more effective evil.

Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

September 5, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | 1 Comment

Obama Has Been Speechless on Minimum Wage

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | September 4, 2012

The impoverishment of politics in the Age of Obama has been nothing short of amazing. This president has so suppressed every vestigial remnant of progressivism in the political discourse, that the most fundamental bread and butter issues have become taboo. I’m talking about raising the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2007, the year before the bottom fell out of the economy.

A new study shows that the Great Recession was most destructive of decent-paying jobs, the middle tier where working people earned between about $14 and $21 an hour. That’s where sixty percent of job losses occurred between 2008 and 2010, and most of those jobs have not come back. Instead, the greatest increase in jobs has come in the low-wage sector, with a median pay from $7.69 – just above the federal minimum – to $13.83 an hour. The lowest wage sector now accounts for almost 60 percent of job growth, with traditionally bad-paying jobs in food preparation and retail sales leading the way.

High unemployment, on top of the disappearance of living wage jobs. You would think that in an election year, the party that is most identified with working people and folks that need to find work would be screaming at the top of their lungs: Raise the minimum wage! But, you will hear little or nothing of that from the Democratic convention festivities in Charlotte.

It’s not that the delegates are unaware of the crying need for a higher minimum wage. The Democratic platform – for what its worth – declares that “we will raise the minimum wage, and index it to inflation.” However, it doesn’t say how much, or when. And that’s in deference to the party’s standard bearer, who has not said anything meaningful about the minimum wage since he was campaigning for president in 2008. Back then, Obama promised to work to raise the minimum to $9.50 by 2011. Then he got elected, and we heard nothing more about it.

When the president is mum on an issue, then the party faithful put themselves on mute. There are bills in the House and the Senate to raise the minimum wage – the best one is sponsored by Chicago Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., calling for an immediate $10 an hour minimum, tied to inflation. But, there’s no chance of these bills going anywhere without the cooperation of Democratic leadership. Ralph Nader and others have beseeched party leaders to break the silence, but they don’t dare raise the issue for fear of embarrassing their President.

Apologists for Obama will claim that pushing for a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation – or any significant raise – would hurt his chances for re-election. But the poll numbers show differently, with huge public support for an increase, including among lots of Republicans. Even Mitt Romney says he supports linking the minimum wage to inflation – just not right now. Obama has effectively been saying “no, not now” to underpaid workers for almost four years. So, why in the hell is labor getting ready to spend tens of millions of dollars to re-elect him, instead of building a movement that will force politicians to do the right thing?

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

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September 5, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

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