Blowing It: Democrats, Unable to Be a Party of the People, are Sinking Themselves
Dave Lindorff – This Can’t Be Happening – 07/16/2011
The smoking ruin that is the the Obama White House, and the rotting corpse that is the Democratic Party, have, incredibly, together been boxed into a corner by, of all things, the certifiably insane Republican Party.
This amazing situation has resulted not through any brilliant strategy on the part of the Republicans, but by the self-inflicted wounds of the Democrats.
Faced with a collapsing economy that is at serious risk of performing a reprise of the Great Depression, Congressional Democrats and President Obama were in a perfect position to grab the flag and run home with it by declaring war on unemployment and on the party that has unequivocally declared itself openly to be the standard bearer of the wealthy and powerful.
All the president and Congressional Democrats had to do was announce that Social Security, Medicare, education and programs to protect the poor were all off limits in any discussion of the federal budget, and to declare an immediate 25% cut in military spending, as called for earlier by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee.
How hard would that have been to do? The polls show it’s what the public wants. Any elected official who did this, particularly someone elected and re-elected as a Democrat, would have been hailed by voters for such a bold action.
According to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in late May and released June 11, 60% of Americans correctly attribute the nation’s enormous deficit primarily to military spending, which eats up 52% of every tax dollar (Social Security and Medicare are entirely funded by separate payroll taxes, and not only have not contributed a single dollar to the federal deficit, but have been routinely borrowed from by the government to finance the deficit in the government’s operating budget caused by military spending). Only 24% blame the deficit on domestic spending other than military (and probably every one of those is a Republican or right-wing independent who likely believes that the earth was created 6000 years ago, and is flat, and who will never vote Democratic no matter what).
Military vs. Education spending around the globe (US in company of Iran, China, Russia, UAE and India)
That same poll showed that the vast majority of Americans (73%) object to proposals to cut the budget by reducing federal funding for social programs, or federal funding to the states for education, or by reducing Social Security benefits (59%), for example by raising the retirement age.
What the Pew poll finds Americans do support is raising the cap on income subject to the Social Security Tax (FICA), from its current meager level of $106,000, to cover all income (66% in favor). They also favor raising taxes on those households that earn more than $250,000 a year (65% in favor), and they favor getting rid of tax deductions for corporations, which have allowed many wildly profitable companies like Exxon, GE and News Corp to pay no corporate taxes despite earning billions of dollars in profits (62% in favor). They also overwhelmingly favor reducing America’s military operations overseas, where the US currently maintains over 800 bases in countries all over the world, including wealthy allies such as Europe and Japan (62% in favor).
After being deluged with poorly written, simplistic and often ideologically-driven news stories all year hyping the supposed budget “crisis,” the percentage of Americans who say they are worried about the budget deficit has crept up from 24% to 28%, but far more Americans say they are worried about the jobs crisis (38%, up from 34% in March).
If you were a political advisor in the White House, or in the Democratic Congressional Committee or the Democratic National Committee, one would think that seeing those numbers, the strategy going forward would be obvious: declare the country to be facing New Depression, call the Republican Party out as a bunch of know-nothings, end the wars, bring the troops home, slash military spending, call for higher taxes on the rich, and, in Congress, introduce a public jobs program every day of every week, forcing the Republicans to vote them down, one after another through the next election day.
But the Democratic Party, as I said, is a rotting corpse, and it certainly is not an organization that sees itself as fighting for the common man and woman.
As for the White House political team, and the president himself, they seem to have long since lost their grip on reality.
The president has been hanging around with Wall Street bankers, taking their money and their self-serving ideas, for so long now he actually thinks like them. Congressional Democrats, like their Republican colleagues, are so covetous of corporate campaign cash and lobbyist perks that, with a few exceptions, they can’t imagine crossing any corporate interests.
This is not a case of Democrats being stupid. You’d have to be far worse than stupid not to see the correct political strategy to adopt at this point.
What has happened is that the Democratic Party is no more. It is, at this point, all about current incumbents gaining the favor of the corporate elite, lulling the public into a non-voting torpor or stupor, and of course, arguing that people worried about the nation’s future should vote for them yet again because “the Republicans are worse.”
In a press conference on Friday, President Obama made some incredible statements, all demonstrably untrue. He said “We are all part of the same country,” and yet he surely knows that when it comes to the leaders of America’s biggest corporations, including GE, whose chairman Jeffrey Immelt he appointed to head his Jobs Council, this is demonstrably false. While many of these leaders may be Americans by birth, the companies they run and represent earn the majority of their revenues and profits from operations abroad, and are thus, technically speaking, foreign enterprises, with foreign interests that trump any US interests. Obama said, “We are all in this together,” speaking of the supposed debt “crisis,” but of course, he has announced himself ready to cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid programs, upon which poor and working class families depend, while leaving the rich largely unscathed. He has said it is the “will of the people” to cut the budget, but to the extent that that is even true, which is highly debatable, the will of the people is actually to cut military spending, not to cut Social Security or Medicare or even budgets for education or Medicaid.
The good news is that an increasing number of Americans appear to be finally realizing that this president is a fraud–a shill for bankers, the corporate interests and the neo-con military establishment who has just been posing as a man of the people.
The bad news is that there is little likelihood of any Third Party arising before 2012 that could seriously contest the national election, meaning that we are probably headed for either more of the same or a for Republican-led government.
The hope has to be that the blatant sell-out of the public interest and the national interest by both parties and by the president is becoming so self-evident that the American public will actually wake up from its media-induced somnolence and will abandon them both.
The institutional obstacles to such an unprecedented rebellion are of course enormous, but then, these are unprecedented times.
No, Obama, We Don’t Need Free Trade Agreements with Panama, Colombia, and Korea
By Ian Fletcher – July 15, 2011
Obama is still pushing for free trade agreements with Panama, Colombia, and Korea, albeit with the thin fig leaf of demanding they be accompanied by money for so-called Trade Adjustment Assistance, a “painkiller” program designed to blunt the harm to laid-off workers.
The Republicans don’t like TAA, which has held up passage of these agreements momentarily, but both sides are still gunning to pass these agreements some time soon.
You think America has learned its lesson from NAFTA, which the Labor Department has estimated cost us 525,000 jobs? Think again.
Take the Korea agreement, for example. President Obama and the Republican leadership want it despite the fact that the Economic Policy Institute has estimated it will cost us 159,000 more jobs over the next five years.
Yes, you read that correctly. At a time when the president says that his number one economic priority is job creation, and has created an entire commission for that purpose, they’re going ahead with it anyway.
Even the official U.S. International Trade Commission has admitted that KORUS-FTA will cause significant job losses. And not just in low-end industries: the ITC foresees the electronic equipment manufacturing industry, with average wages of $30.38 in 2008, as a major victim.
The supposed logic of America swapping junk jobs for high-end jobs simply isn’t the way the economics really works out. Pace free-market mythology, there are actually well-understood reasons for this, if you dig a little into what economists already know.
Was this the Obama America voted for in 2008?
No. That Obama is at an undisclosed location somewhere. He campaigned against KORUS-FTA during the 2008 campaign. (It was originally negotiated, but not ratified by Congress, by Bush in 2007.) Among other things, that Obama said:
I strongly support the inclusion of meaningful, enforceable labor and environmental standards in all trade agreements. As president, I will work to ensure that the U.S. again leads the world in ensuring that consumer products produced across the world are done in a manner that supports workers, not undermines them.
Nice words. Unfortunately, none of them are reflected in KORUS-FTA, which contains no serious new provisions on these issues.
This agreement is essentially a NAFTA clone. It is, in fact, the biggest trade agreement since NAFTA, and the first since Canada with a developed country.
This agreement, like NAFTA and the dozen or so other free trade agreements America has signed since NAFTA, is fundamentally an offshoring agreement. That is, it is about making it easier for U.S.-based multinationals to move production overseas with confidence in the security of their investments in overseas plants.
The provisions to protect workers and consumers are unenforceable window dressing. (That’s why they’re allowed to be in there in the first place.)
Don’t be fooled by the fact that some unions, like the United Auto Workers (UAW), have endorsed the agreement. This is just a cynical ploy by the White House to split the trade union movement in order to keep the AFL-CIO neutral.
The UAW’s out-of-touch leadership is so punch-drunk from the 2008 collapse of the U.S. auto industry that it has lost touch not only with what is good for the American economy as a whole, but with what is good for rank-and-file auto workers. (There’s a rumor in circulation they did a deal with the White House in exchange for protecting pension and other obligations in the auto industry bailout. I can’t prove this, but it would certainly explain a few things.)
Don’t take my word for it, either: in the words of Al Benchich, retired president of UAW Local 909:
The UAW Administration Caucus is the one-party state that controls the UAW at the International level. Every International officer is a member of the Caucus, and they surround themselves with appointed international reps that unquestioningly do their bidding.
No wonder other, more democratic and more intelligent, unions, like Leo Gerard’s United Steelworkers, are criticizing the UAW for its decision to support KORUS-FTA.
Interestingly, the UAW’s past record of criticizing KORUS-FTA is more honest than anything they’re saying right now. For example, here’s what they originally said about this agreement:
KORUS-FTA has inadequate protections and enforcement mechanisms to enforce either the spirit or the letter of the law.
Precisely. And changes made since then are, as noted, minimal.
As an example of how one-sided the treaty is, consider that it now allows — to great rejoicing — America to export 75,000 cars a year to Korea. This translates to a measly 800 jobs. Korea’s exports of cars to the U.S. in 2009, on the other hand?
Try 476,833.
Furthermore, even if the U.S. does get to sell more cars in Korea, American companies will mostly not be making the steel, tires, and other components that go into them, because the agreement allows cars with 65 percent foreign content to count as “American.”
Worse, it allows goods with as much as 65 percent non-South-Korean content to count as “Korean,” opening the door not only to North Korea but to the whole of China. Talk about the camel’s nose in the tent!
Despite what the White House and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are saying, this agreement makes no sense as a strategy to reduce our horrendous trade deficit. America’s trade deficits have a long record of going up, not down, when we sign trade agreements with other nations.
Paradoxically, trade agreements even seem to sabotage our own trade with foreign nations: according to an analysis by the group Public Citizen, in recent years our exports to nations we have free-trade agreements with have actually grown at less than half the pace of our exports to nations we don’t have these agreements with. So these agreements don’t hold water as trade-expanding measures.
Even leaving aside trade-balance issues, this agreement is a disaster, thanks to something called “investor-state arbitration.” Like NAFTA, it compromises American sovereignty and subjects American democracy to having its own laws overruled by foreign judges as interfering with trade. Under NAFTA to date, over $326 million in damages has been paid out by governments as a result of challenges to natural resource policies, environmental protection, and health and safety measures. There about 80 Korean corporations, with about 270 facilities around the U.S., that would acquire the right to challenge our laws under KORUS-FTA.
What kind of problems could this cause? The U.S. was forced in 1996 to weaken Clean Air Act rules on gasoline contaminants in response to a challenge by Venezuela and Brazil. In 1998, we were forced to weaken Endangered Species Act protections for sea turtles thanks to a challenge by India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Thailand concerning the shrimp industry. The EU today endures trade sanctions by the U.S. for not relaxing its ban on hormone-treated beef. In 1996, the WTO ruled against the EU’s Lome Convention, a preferential trading scheme for 71 former European colonies in the Third World. In 2003, the Bush administration sued the EU over its moratorium on genetically modified foods.
It gets worse. KORUS-FTA also signs away our right (and Korea’s, too, not that this makes it any better) to a wide range of financial regulations of the kind that might have helped avoid the crisis of 2008. For example, it forfeits our right to limit the size of financial institutions. It forfeits our right to place firewalls between different kinds of financial activities in order to prevent volatility in one market from collapsing another. It prevents us from limiting what financial services financial institutions may offer—Enron Savings & Mortgage, here we come… It bans regulation of derivatives. It ban limits on capital flows designed to tame volatile “hot money.”
Why is the U.S. flirting with making such an appalling mistake yet again? Because a) multinational corporations have bought our political system and b) because our government would rather play power politics than keep its own (declining) economic house in order.
Arab poll: Obama worse than Bush, German poll: US bigger peace threat than Iran
Press TV – July 14, 2011
A recent survey conducted in Germany has revealed that the people of the European country perceive the United States as a more serious threat to global peace than Iran.
Results from the opinion poll carried out by the German social research and statistical analysis, Forsa, indicate that 45 percent of those surveyed believe that the US is a more serious threat to world peace than Iran.
Twenty-eight percent of the respondents deemed Iran a bigger threat than the US, with 27 percent unable to choose between the two.
The survey, which questioned 1,500 German adults on June 17-29, 2011, did not include other choices such as Israel, which analysts introduce as a better-known threat to peace in the world’s public opinion.
The results of the Forsa study come at a time when the US, the only country to have ever used nuclear bombs against another nation, is attempting to put mounting international pressure on Iran to force the Islamic Republic to halt its peaceful nuclear program.
Meanwhile, a new poll released on Wednesday cast light on the dissatisfaction of a vast majority of the people in the Arab world with US President Barack Obama and his administration’s policies in the Middle East.
The poll conducted by the Arab American Institute in the six Arab nations of Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) demonstrated that the Obama administration is viewed less favorably in much of the Arab world today than that of his predecessor George W. Bush during his last year in office.
Only 5 percent of Egyptians surveyed said they have a favorable opinion of the US and its president. The same figure was 10 percent in Jordan and 12 percent in the UAE.
The poll also found that 88 percent of Moroccans think that Obama has not met the expectations laid out in his 2009 “Cairo speech.”
Disappointment with the US was highest in Lebanon, where 99 percent of the respondents disapproved of Obama’s policies. In Saudi Arabia, 77 percent of the respondents said they felt betrayed by the US.
2nd US drone strike kills 18 in Pakistan
At least 18 people have been killed in a second US drone attack on Tuesday in Pakistan’s northwest tribal region of North Waziristan, bringing to 25 the number of fatalities in the two unauthorized strikes in a single day.
The non-UN-sanctioned attack targeted a house and a vehicle in the Dari Nashtar area of North Waziristan, a Press TV correspondent reported. The number of missiles fired during the US attack is not yet clear.
Hours earlier, a US drone fired four missiles at Barmal area of tribal South Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, killing seven people and injuring four others, according to a Press TV report.
The non-UN-sanctioned attacks comes a day after another deadly US drone strike in the same region that killed at least 25 people. Initial reports had put the number of fatalities in the Monday attack at 10, but local officials later said the number of those killed had reached 25.
There has been a significant rise in the frequency of the US drone attacks on Pakistan’s tribal areas, which has sparked criticism among Pakistani officials and nation.
Despite Islamabad’s calls on US to halt its unauthorized strikes, the newly appointed US Secretary of State, Leon Panetta threatened on Saturday to continue and intensify unauthorized American drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, in what he claimed as efforts to hunt down al-Qaeda leaders.
US military officials persistently claim that the airstrikes target militants, but most of the attacks have, in fact, resulted in civilian casualties.
France Says NATO Bombing Has Failed
Hillary says war must continue
By FRANKLIN LAMB | CounterPunch | July 11, 2011
On Sunday July 10, France seemingly allied itself with Russia and China in calling on NATO to immediately stop its counterproductive and counterintuitive bombing, as more countries witness public demonstrations against NATO’s actions in Libya. French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said in Paris that military action in Libya must end and Colonel Gaddafi be welcomed around the negotiating table. Continual bombing of the country is not working, and diplomacy is the only solution – even if Gaddafi retains limited power, In an apparent U-turn in policy, Mr Longuet said Gaddafi could remain in Libya ‘in another room of the palace, with another title.’
Longuet said:
‘We must now sit around a table…
‘We will stop bombing as soon as the Libyans start talking to one another and the military on both sides go back to their bases.
‘They can talk to each other because we’ve shown there is no solution through force.’
NATO and the Obama administration can have no part of a dialogue because they will be the major losers if peace comes to Libya without Qadaffi leaving power.
No sooner had the French Defense Minister spoken than the US State Department issued a statement insisting that “the United States will continue efforts as part of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) coalition to enforce a U.N. Security Council-authorized no-fly zone in Libya designed to protect civilians under threat of attack, the State Department said. The spokesman did not mention that the no-fly zone was achieved back in March in 48 hours and that no Libya aircraft have flown since. Mission accomplished 100 days ago.
Hillary Clinton repeated her earlier words, “Our efforts in Libya will take time, but let there be no mistake that the political, military, and economic pressure on Qaddafi continues to grow. The allies will continue to increase pressure until the Libyan people are safe, their humanitarian needs met, and a transition of power is fully under way.”
And so it goes.
In most of the other Arab countries Fridays are days of rage against the government du jour but in Tripoli Friday prayers are followed by massive pro-Qadaffi rallies. One of the jokes heard at this week’s big pro-government Friday post prayer rally at Green Square is about how each morning Libya’s leader, following early morning Fajr prayers, dons his formal uniform, complete with those huge epaulets, and salutes the small NATO flag he tapes to his bathroom mirror as he moves from place to place dodging NATO drones and assassins. “Our leader does this”, one young lady informed me first with a wide smile and then growing serious, “because the NATO bombing of Libyan civilians, which the US/NATO axis claims Qaddafi is doing, has caused his popularity to skyrocket among our proud and nationalist tribal people. I am one example of this. Yes, of course we can use some new blood and long overdue reform in our government. Which country cannot? But first we must defeat the NATO invaders and then we can sort out our problems among our tribes including the so-called NATO Rebels.”
Since the beginning of the NATO operation, March 31, the alliance has conducted nearly 15,000 sorties, including close to 6000 bombing missions according to NATO’s media office in Naples. The most recent attacks reported on July 9 included 112 sorties and 48 bomb/missile attacks, and that is about average.
The two most active Embassies in Libya these days are the Russian and the Chinese. On February 2, according to the Bulgarian Embassy staff, which was falsely rumored to be currently handing US consular services, the US Embassy essentially ordered all EU and NATO Embassies to pack up and join their chartered plane and boats. Libyan officials tell visitors that they were shocked by the fast exodus. “They did not even say goodbye. Suddenly they were on their way to the airport,” one Foreign Ministry advised during a meeting last week.
The Russian and Chinese leadership has grown increasingly critical of NATO’s actions in Libya and are demanding a immediate and permanent ceasefire. Some cynics here are pointing out that these countries, unlike NATO, knows exactly what they are doing and it includes the realization that they have an excellent chance to obtaining many billions of dollars in lucrative contracts. It is partly this realization that it’s “all of nothing” that keeps the US and its potent military asset, NATO, focused on assassinating Colonel Qaddafi and breaking his civilian support base. If Qaddafi lives, NATO loses and so do the current major oil industry contractors who are reportedly becoming depressed seeing reports of all the Russian and Chinese businessmen arriving in Libya.
As one student at Tripoli’s Al Fatah University commented, “What your American government has done in the region to destroy yourselves since 9/11 is amazing to Libyans. Now you are going to fight us? Why? You already had all our oil you wanted at a bargain prices; we stupidly put our sovereign funds in US banks and we did not even bother Israel much. Every day that NATO bombs it kills more Libyan civilians. We sacrificed nearly 1/3 of our population, or more than one million of our brothers and sisters, expelling the Italians 70 years ago. Doesn’t anyone in your government study history? We are not Bahrainis or Syrians. We are armed and will use our weapons.
Among the errors our leadership has made, one of the worst is that it believed the US agreements we made in 2004. The Iranians and North Koreans laugh at us for trusting you and giving up nuclear and biological weapons programs. Believe me, if Qadaffi leaves power you will miss him because the Libyan people will be tougher against your projects than he has been.”
On July 9, 2011, NATO claimed its aircraft carried out another “precision strike” on a pro-Qaddafi missile firing position near Tawurgha, south of Misrata. According to its media office, “NATO intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance were conducted over a period of time to ascertain the military use of the site. It was confirmed as being used to launch indiscriminate attacks on Libyan civilians in the area and a staging area by pro-Qaddafi villagers, including planning attacks on rebel’s forces near the port and city of Misrata.” The next morning, 7/10/11, local inhabitants denied that the farm had any military activity on the property and an examination of the farm buildings failed to discovery any.
NATO is getting hammered by critics, including during its press conferences, especially by reporters from such groups as Jane’s Defense Weekly who know a thing or two about weapons and war. Last week Jane’s ridiculed the NATO commander who claimed that seeing satellite dishes on roofs were evidence of a particular site being a “Command and Control Center.” Jane’s found that assertion silly.
As international pressure builds on the White House to call off the NATO bombing campaign, several proposals are being discussed within the African Union, the Russian and Chinese Embassy’s, and even between the “NATO rebels” and representatives of the Libya government in Tripoli.
One possible scenario might be for Libya to offer Obama and NATO a fig leaf which would include Colonel Qadaffi “retiring to his tent to write and reflect” while dialogue takes places among the Libyan people, including the tribes and 600 plus Peoples Congresses which of course should have been allowed to take place as Congressman Dennis Kucinich and others insisted back in February, 2011 before NATO invaded.
Franklin Lamb is reachable at fplamb@gmail.com
Acts of Entrapment Ruled OK in The War on Terror
Activist Post | July 1, 2011
In a chilling sign of what is sure to become more widespread, three of the Newburgh 4 — a group of Muslim ex-convicts and American citizens — were sentenced to 25 years in prison even after it was exposed that the government manufactured the threat, and entrapped the men into their participation in a false terror plot.
Welcome to counterterrorism operations inside the United States.
The case against the Newburgh 4 actually began to fall apart back in the middle of 2010 after White Plains, NY federal judge Colleen McMahon excoriated prosecutors for covering up evidence that the plot to bomb a Bronx synagogue and a Jewish community center, as well as to shoot down military planes at Stewart International airport was a “plot” by an FBI agent to entrap the four men. She asked a rhetorical question:
Did the government locate some disaffected individuals, manufacture a phony terrorist plot that the individuals would (and could) never have dreamed up or carried out on their own, and then wrongfully induce them to participate in it? (Source)
No matter, in a supreme act of cowardice, she gave the most “lenient” sentence available to her without having the case overturned. The ruling is a clear indication that the failure of any one of these patsy-driven cases threatens to bring down the new system of using entrapment to further counterterrorism efforts in the United States.
This certainly wasn’t the first time government agents have used patsies in order to assure a terrified public that disaster was averted yet again.
The very same agent involved in the Newburgh 4 incident, Robert Fuller, was also present in that of the Fort Dix 5 case, which was an egregious example of using paid informants, a de facto citizen spy, and the Patriot Act to issue trumped-up charges and finally gain a life + 30 years conviction for the five men.
Other high-profile cases of the FBI thwarting its own bombs include the Portland Patsy, Mohamed Osman Mahmoud, who was arrested in 2005 after trying to detonate an inert bomb supplied to him by the FBI, on the corner of Southwest Yamhill Street and Sixth Avenue in front of a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland — engineered for full effect to show the divide between peaceful Christians and war-like Muslims, no doubt.
Then there was the drugged-out patsy without a passport, Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was led onto a plane by a U.S. government agent for the Christmas 2009 underwear bomb attempt. It has since been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that this was a staged event which, again, just happened to include the Christmas subplot for maximum terror and conditioning. Now we have TSA tyranny and body scanners.
However, the whitewash here is that this is some type of war on Muslims. This is merely the window dressing that has been presented to America in order to set a “reasonable” precedent amid the global war on terror currently centered on the Middle East and Africa.
When Obama advisor, John Brennan, recently announced that the shadowy world of overseas black ops, psych warfare, and renewed domestic COINTELPRO tactics would be landing on America’s doorstep, he was basically announcing a no-holds-barred policy that is permitted to work outside of the rule of law. The real mission is to use the threat of terror as a strategy to empower the police state apparatus.
There are countless examples of government-manufactured terror having been used to sway the public into believing that real terror exists, so that even more freedom-smashing measures will be permitted . . . all to protect freedom. For every justified case of entrapment, we find ourselves similarly entrapped into signing on to a war with only one end: the means by which the strongest document ever written to protect a nation from tyrants can be burned beyond recognition.
Mugged then Shot
By Linh Dinh | June 28, 2011
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, why shouldn’t the United States be the most corrupt (and corrupting) country on earth? We’re number one! In America, each politician can be bought and absurd sums of money are routinely misallocated or missing altogether, with nary a peep from the complicit media. On the foreign front, America’s modus operandi is to bribe every dictator, and the ones she can’t bribe, she’ll undermine, overthrow or bomb back to Jesus. In exchange for this bribe, which can be disguised as loans or “foreign assistance,” said dictator will allow America to loot his country in perpetuity. If you don’t believe me, just strip any tinpot dictator and you’ll surely find “CIA” tattooed on one ass cheek, with a (pretty good) portrait of a recent U.S. president embossed on the other. Lovers always leave a mark, they often say. Sometimes it’s not a dictator, per se, but a dominant party that’s America’s hushed puppy. In any case, rapacious trade deals and unpayable loans are the bane of countless client states orbiting Washington.
Domestically, American corruption has been institutionalized as campaign contributions and lobbying, but that’s only the open, legal part. Perhaps these practices are allowed to trick us into thinking that American corruption only goes so far, but who really knows what goes on in the labyrinthine backrooms, basements and dungeons of Washington? In any case, us lumpen Americans are “represented” by millionaire politicians who are lint deep in the pockets of the fattest banks and corporations. The American politician is thoroughly corrupt, often from grassroots level, but the degree of venality and sanctimonious hypocrisy increase as he approaches Washington DC, that beautiful cesspool of martial madness.
No candidate who’s not heavily pro big business, overtly or covertly, can have any chance of being elected to national office. He won’t be funded, nor will he be seen on television. It’s not a democracy when all candidates are vetted beforehand, and only millionaires can be chosen by other millionaires and billionaires. In this setup, the average citizen doesn’t matter, as his vote or canvassing for a favorite are only charades designed to make him feel good and involved, as if his opinions and advocacy matter, but whatever he does, it won’t prevent the election of yet another tool who’s corrupt, pro war and pro big business, at the expense of all else. But don’t despair, all you earnest partisans, for even when your candidate does lose, you’ll still get the same deal, more or less. Those who voted for McCain, for example, got pretty much all of his policies through Obama, so it’s a win, win, lose, lose situation, see? Emblematic of this farce is the fact that American tax payers are even asked to contribute three bucks a year to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. Though stuffed with cash from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Raytheon, etc., our candidates still panhandle from poor schmucks whom they will soon rip off anyway.
American politicians may differ on personal and ethical matters such as school prayer, gay marriage and abortion, but on all the major, lucrative issues affecting the military industrial complex or big business, they are remarkably uniform. Our senators and congressmen also behave like trained seals when it comes to Israel. Witness the 29 standing ovations a packed House gave Netanyahu recently. Whether Democrat or Republican, each was terrified to be caught sitting as his colleagues jumped up and barked.
Your rep sure knows who his daddy is, and it ain’t you, sucker! The primary job of the American politician, from Obama on down, is to spin and disguise an endless series of corporate and military crimes he’s enabling. Which brings us to the Pentagon. No other governmental organ is more gluttonously corrupt. The Pentagon’s main function is not defending America but to bleed this country dry to enrich Halliburton, Lockheed/Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and the rest. Over and over again, the Pentagon has put hundreds of thousands of Americans in harm’s way, just so its masters can make a handsome profit. To feed these insatiable ogres, the Pentagon is willing to destroy American itself, and it is doing so, right now.
Beside bloody business as usual, billions of dollars often go missing from the Pentagon cash register without any explanation whatsoever, and in 2001, Donald Rumsfeld even admitted that $2.3 trillion had disappeared, which he blamed on sloppy accounting. So it’s not thievery or corruption, but merely inept arithmetic. Tamping down this scandal, the mainstream media seemed to agree.
But perhaps we do have a math problem. We are a people who clip 25 cent coupons, drive (an SUV) a mile to save a buck, register with subtle satisfaction the missing penny from a $19.99 price tag, yet these stolen trillions leave us unfazed. One reason for this, I think, is that American corruption is not experienced directly, face to face, as it is in many other countries. Most Americans have never been browbeaten and shaken down by a corrupt cop, clerk or judge, so we can pretend that corruption doesn’t hurt us. Washington has also been waging wars without raising taxes, so it’s no skin off my back, many Americans are thinking, but our bellicose policy overseas is certainly bankrupting the homeland, even as it increases our insecurity in future blowbacks. The constant hike in our money supply, devaluing our dollars, is also a form of hidden taxation.
Another reason for our passivity in the face of widespread corruption is the state of our media, which routinely hype trivial stories while suppressing much greater outrages. Thus, the money John Edwards spent on his mistress, a million dollars provided by two private donors, was discussed for a week by television and newspaper “pundits,” but no one is concerned about the $1.5 million of tax money wasted each time Washington fires a Tomahawk missile at Libya. How many thousands have been launched so far in this three-month war? No one knows, and no one seems to care about the real flesh and bones on the receiving end of those weapons. “Bad guys” deserve to die, and so do “collateral damages.” Even as they mug us, our masters speak to us as if we’re morons. As they gobble up the entire world and everyone’s future, we get to nibble on catch phrases and slogans
Like Pavlov’s dogs, Americans have been conditioned to salivate at the sound of a home run, a Lady Gaga’s burp and the promise of hope and change comes election time, but when that fat, familiar hand reaches into our wallet, yet again, we feel nothing. We’re cool and blasé until it’s our turn to receive the pink slip, be evicted, then having to curl up in our car or on cardboard.
Interviewed by Stud Terkels, retired congressman C. Wright Patman said in 1970, “A dictatorship could spring up here over night, if this country got so bad. If another Depression came, we’d have a revolution. People wouldn’t take it any more. They have more knowledge. The big ones, they’d be looking for somebody that’d have the power to just kill people, if they didn’t agree. When John Doe begins to get up, they’d just go down and shoot him.”
I’m not sure that we have more knowledge, but with a presidency that can wage wars without congress or popular approval, and that can imprison or kill any American citizen without due process, a dictatorship is certainly here. Ditto, that Depression.
In a productive economy, corruption is less glaring because there are so many legitimate ways to enrich oneself, but in an increasingly non-productive one, such as what we have now, corruption becomes the primary means to riches. As we starve and kill each other, the mega corporations and their servants, our politicians, will continue to fatten themselves through their access to power.
In a ghetto with no stores, only drug corners, any bling-bling dude steering a loud Hummer is viewed suspiciously (or with admiration), so in this nation of fewer and fewer factories, save those that make bombs, tanks and high-grade weapons, who are our biggest death pushers and pimps, and what should we do about them?
‘Obama lawyers worse than Bush’s’
Press TV – June 20, 2011
An analyst says George W. Bush’s lawyers threatened to resign en mass when placed in a situation similar to Barack Obama’s lawyers, who were overruled on the Libya war.
American lawyer, columnist, and author Glenn Greenwald says in 2007 lawyers in the Bush administration threatened to resign en mass over the National Security Agency’s (NSA) warrantless eavesdropping program, The Huffington Post reported.
Similar to how Obama ignored legal advice on his Libya war campaign being illegal without congressional approval Bush decided to reject the legal conclusions of his top lawyers and order NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program to continue.
In the Republican’s case, however, several top administration lawyers, including, FBI Director Robert Mueller, threatened to resign en masse if Bush continued with the illegal spying program.
Earlier this week, Obama overruled top White House lawyers by deciding to argue that US military operations in Libya do not require congressional approval. However, his lawyers failed to take any decisive action.
Obama rejected the legal advice of Pentagon general counsel lawyer Jeh Johnson and the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Caroline Krass, in concluding that his administration was not in violation of the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR) by continuing its operation in Libya beyond 90 days, The New York Times reported on Friday.
Obama argued that the US military in Libya is only active in support roles and its actions do not amount to “hostilities,” therefore it is not in violation of the WPR despite having extended US operations in Libya to more than 90 days without seeking congress’s approval.
‘US to stay in Afghanistan for decades’
Press TV – June 14, 2011
A new report has revealed that secret talks between American and Afghan officials could see foreign troops remain in Afghanistan for several decades.
In a report published Monday, The Guardian, quoted US and NATO sources, as saying that secret negotiations have reportedly been underway for more than a month.
American negotiators will be in Kabul for a new round of talks later this month. The talks are aimed at securing a strategic partnership agreement that includes US presence in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 withdrawal deadline.
According to the report, any such agreement is likely to see American troops, spies and air power stay in the country for decades.
Meanwhile, senior NATO officials have also predicted that their troops will remain in Afghanistan far beyond 2014. However, Russia, China and India have voiced concern over any such ‘strategic partnership’ deal that would prolong US presence in the region.
The report comes days after and Washington exchanged proposals on possible US presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
“Our proposal had gone to the US government in response to their proposal. A delegation will come from the United States to discuss this and that will determine the nature of US presence in Afghanistan (after 2014),” Karzai said during an official visit to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Saturday.
Senior US and NATO officials have signaled that foreign troops will remain in the country beyond 2014. This is while US President Barack Obama had pledged a major drawdown from Afghanistan by July 2011.
Experts have described the new contradictory transition dates as a devastating truth for Americans.
Washington says the transition does not mean that Afghan forces will be in charge everywhere. Obama has promised to keep American forces in Afghanistan even after other Western countries withdraw their troops.
According to official figures, over 2,500 US-led soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion began in 2001.
US arms sales to Bahrain rise
Press TV – June 11, 2011
The US increased its military sales to Bahrain just before Manama began its brutal crackdown on protesters in February, says a report by the US State Department.
The annual report that provides sales figures between the US weapon manufacturers and foreign governments showed a USD 112 million increase in military sales to Bahrain between 2009 and 2010, The Washington Post reported.
In total, the US government has approved USD 200 million in military sales to the Persian Gulf kingdom during this period.
Previously, the sales included military hardware for aircraft and military electronics. However, in 2010, the US government also approved the sale of USD 760,000 in rifles, shotguns and assault weapons to Bahrain.
Since the anti-government demonstrations began in mid-February this year, the Al Khalifa regime has confronted the demonstrators with armed military and police, firing live ammunition. Scores have been killed and hundreds injured.
This comes as the West has remained silent on the Al Khalifa regime’s massive crackdown on the anti-government protesters. […]
In 2009, the first year of US President Barack Obama’s term, Washington sold an overall of USD 40 billion in military hardware to countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
This is an increase from the final year of former President George W. Bush’s term in 2008, when the US State Department approved USD 34.2 billion in military sales. – Full article
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A low-fat, high-carb diet has been the largest public health experiment in history. It’s past time for a rethink.
By Malcolm Kendrick | RT | November 25, 2020
New research suggests that four billion people globally will be overweight in 2050. This trend can be traced back to the ‘low-fat, high-carb’ guidelines first issued in the 70s, and should prompt a major U-turn on dietary advice.
A recent report from the Potsdam Institute predicts that by 2050 there will be four billion overweight people in the world, with one-and-a-half billion of them obese. This is not entirely surprising. The world has been getting fatter for years, and things do not seem to be slowing down.
Why is this happening? … continue
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