John Dunbar
October 27, 2008 12:00am
TROUBLED US banks could use the US Government's $US700 billion bailout to buy rival banks, pay bonuses, or simply hoard, according to reports.
As the economic crisis worsens, lawmakers on both sides of Congress are starting to gripe that the much-touted $A1.04 trillion rescue package is seemingly far different from the one they were sold by the Bush administration.
The bailout was initially to be used in buying devalued mortgage-backed securities from tottering banks to unclog frozen credit markets.
Then it was about using $US250 billion of it to buy stakes in banks. The idea was that banks would use the money to start making loans again.
But reports are surfacing that bankers may instead use the money to buy other banks, pay dividends, give employees a raise and executives a bonus, or just sit on it.
Three weeks after becoming law, and with the first dollar of the $US700 billion yet to go out, officials are just starting to discuss helping strapped homeowners to avoid foreclosure.
But also of concern to some senators is the seeming change of tack from Treasury.
In buying equity stakes in banks, Treasury has "deviated significantly from its original course", says Senator Richard Shelby, on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Senator Shelby was one Republican who opposed the bailout.
The centrepiece of the Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act is the 'troubled asset relief program' or TARP for short. Critics note that tarps are used to cover things up.
The money was to go into buying "toxic" mortgage-backed securities whose value has slid in step with home prices. But Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson then followed European governments into the banking business, diverting $US250 billion to buy stock in healthy banks to spur lending.
Bank executives hinted they might instead use it for acquisitions. Chairman of the Senate banking committee, Christopher Dodd, said this move was "beyond troubling".
A day after Senator Dodd made the comment, the government confirmed that PNC Financial Services Group was approved to receive $US7.7 billion in return for company stock. At the same time, PNC said it was acquiring National City Corp for $US5.58 billion.
Other planned uses of the money have lawmakers bristling, even though there is nothing in the law that they just wrote to prevent those uses.
Senator Charles Schumer questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock.
He said he also feared banks might stuff the money "under the proverbial mattress" rather than make loans.
Neel Kashkari, head of the Treasury's financial stability program, said there are few strings attached to the capital-infusion program because too many rules would discourage financial institutions from participating.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Uses for $700 billion bailout money ever shifting
By JOHN DUNBAR – 5 days ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — First, the $700 billion rescue for the economy was about buying devalued mortgage-backed securities from tottering banks to unclog frozen credit markets.
Then it was about using $250 billion of it to buy stakes in banks. The idea was that banks would use the money to start making loans again.
But reports surfaced that bankers might instead use the money to buy other banks, pay dividends, give employees a raise and executives a bonus, or just sit on it. Insurance companies now want a piece; maybe automakers, too, even though Congress has approved $25 billion in low-interest loans for them.
Three weeks after becoming law, and with the first dollar of the $700 billion yet to go out, officials are just beginning to talk about helping a few strapped homeowners keep the foreclosure wolf from the door.
As the crisis worsens, the government's reaction keeps changing. Lawmakers in both parties are starting to gripe that the bailout is turning out to be far different from what the Bush administration sold to Congress.
In buying equity stakes in banks, the Treasury has "deviated significantly from its original course," says Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. "We need to examine closely the reason for this change," said Shelby, who opposed the bailout.
The centerpiece of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act is the "troubled asset relief program," or TARP for short. Critics note that tarps are used to cover things up. The money was to be devoted to buying "toxic" mortgage-backed securities whose value has fallen in lockstep with home prices.
But once European governments said they were going into the banking business, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson followed suit and diverted $250 billion to buy stock in healthy banks to spur lending.
Bank executives hinted they might instead use it for acquisitions. Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, said this development was "beyond troubling."
Sure enough, a day after Dodd, D-Conn., made the comment, the government confirmed that PNC Financial Services Group Inc. was approved to receive $7.7 billion in return for company stock. At the same time, PNC said it was acquiring National City Corp. for $5.58 billion.
"Although there will be some consolidation, that's not the driver behind this program," Paulson recently told PBS talk show host Charlie Rose. "The driver is to have our healthy banks be well-capitalized so that they can play the role they need to play for our country right now."
Other planned uses of the bailout money have lawmakers protesting, although it is only fair to note there is nothing in the law that they just wrote to prevent those uses.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock.
"There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders," he said.
Schumer, whose constituents include Wall Street bankers, said he also fears that they might stuff the money "under the proverbial mattress" rather than make loans.
Neel Kashkari, head of the Treasury's financial stability program, told Dodd's committee this past week that there are few strings attached to the capital-infusion program because too many rules would discourage financial institutions from participating.
As the bank plan has become a priority, the effort to buy troubled assets has receded from the headlines. Potential conflicts of interest pose all kinds of problems in finding qualified companies to manage that program.
"Firms with the relevant financial expertise may also hold assets that become eligible for sale into the TARP or represent clients who hold troubled assets," Kashkari said.
The challenge was made plain when the Treasury hired the Bank of New York Mellon Corp. as "custodian" of the troubled assets purchase program. The bank will conduct "reverse auctions" to buy the toxic securities on behalf of the Treasury. The lower the price they set, the better chance sellers have of getting rid of the devalued securities.
On the same day it hired Mellon, the Treasury also picked the company to receive a $3 billion investment as part of the capital-infusion program. The same bank hired to help manage part of the economic rescue plan became a beneficiary of it.
With the Nov. 4 election nearing, lawmakers decided it was important to remind the government officials running the bailout program about parts of the law aimed at helping distressed homeowners by offering federal guarantees to mortgages renegotiated down to lower monthly payments.
"The key to our nation's economic recovery is the recovery of the housing market," Dodd said. "And the key to recovery of the housing market is reducing foreclosures."
Sheila Bair, who heads the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., responded that her agency is working "closely and creatively" with Treasury officials to "realize the potential benefits of this authority."
WASHINGTON (AP) — First, the $700 billion rescue for the economy was about buying devalued mortgage-backed securities from tottering banks to unclog frozen credit markets.
Then it was about using $250 billion of it to buy stakes in banks. The idea was that banks would use the money to start making loans again.
But reports surfaced that bankers might instead use the money to buy other banks, pay dividends, give employees a raise and executives a bonus, or just sit on it. Insurance companies now want a piece; maybe automakers, too, even though Congress has approved $25 billion in low-interest loans for them.
Three weeks after becoming law, and with the first dollar of the $700 billion yet to go out, officials are just beginning to talk about helping a few strapped homeowners keep the foreclosure wolf from the door.
As the crisis worsens, the government's reaction keeps changing. Lawmakers in both parties are starting to gripe that the bailout is turning out to be far different from what the Bush administration sold to Congress.
In buying equity stakes in banks, the Treasury has "deviated significantly from its original course," says Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. "We need to examine closely the reason for this change," said Shelby, who opposed the bailout.
The centerpiece of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act is the "troubled asset relief program," or TARP for short. Critics note that tarps are used to cover things up. The money was to be devoted to buying "toxic" mortgage-backed securities whose value has fallen in lockstep with home prices.
But once European governments said they were going into the banking business, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson followed suit and diverted $250 billion to buy stock in healthy banks to spur lending.
Bank executives hinted they might instead use it for acquisitions. Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, said this development was "beyond troubling."
Sure enough, a day after Dodd, D-Conn., made the comment, the government confirmed that PNC Financial Services Group Inc. was approved to receive $7.7 billion in return for company stock. At the same time, PNC said it was acquiring National City Corp. for $5.58 billion.
"Although there will be some consolidation, that's not the driver behind this program," Paulson recently told PBS talk show host Charlie Rose. "The driver is to have our healthy banks be well-capitalized so that they can play the role they need to play for our country right now."
Other planned uses of the bailout money have lawmakers protesting, although it is only fair to note there is nothing in the law that they just wrote to prevent those uses.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock.
"There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders," he said.
Schumer, whose constituents include Wall Street bankers, said he also fears that they might stuff the money "under the proverbial mattress" rather than make loans.
Neel Kashkari, head of the Treasury's financial stability program, told Dodd's committee this past week that there are few strings attached to the capital-infusion program because too many rules would discourage financial institutions from participating.
As the bank plan has become a priority, the effort to buy troubled assets has receded from the headlines. Potential conflicts of interest pose all kinds of problems in finding qualified companies to manage that program.
"Firms with the relevant financial expertise may also hold assets that become eligible for sale into the TARP or represent clients who hold troubled assets," Kashkari said.
The challenge was made plain when the Treasury hired the Bank of New York Mellon Corp. as "custodian" of the troubled assets purchase program. The bank will conduct "reverse auctions" to buy the toxic securities on behalf of the Treasury. The lower the price they set, the better chance sellers have of getting rid of the devalued securities.
On the same day it hired Mellon, the Treasury also picked the company to receive a $3 billion investment as part of the capital-infusion program. The same bank hired to help manage part of the economic rescue plan became a beneficiary of it.
With the Nov. 4 election nearing, lawmakers decided it was important to remind the government officials running the bailout program about parts of the law aimed at helping distressed homeowners by offering federal guarantees to mortgages renegotiated down to lower monthly payments.
"The key to our nation's economic recovery is the recovery of the housing market," Dodd said. "And the key to recovery of the housing market is reducing foreclosures."
Sheila Bair, who heads the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., responded that her agency is working "closely and creatively" with Treasury officials to "realize the potential benefits of this authority."
World Tires of Rule by Dollar
Paul Craig Roberts
Counterpunch
October 30, 2008
What explains the paradox of the dollar’s sharp rise in value against other currencies (except the Japanese yen) despite disproportionate US exposure to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?
The toxic American derivatives were marketed worldwide by Wall Street.
The answer does not lie in improved fundamentals for the US economy or better prospects for the dollar to retain its reserve currency role.
The rise in the dollar’s exchange value is due to two factors.
One factor is the traditional flight to the reserve currency that results from panic. People are simply doing what they have always done. Pam Martens predicted correctly that panic demand for US Treasury bills would boost the US dollar.
The other factor is the unwinding of the carry trade. The carry trade originated in extremely low Japanese interest rates. Investors and speculators borrowed Japanese yen at an interest rate of one-half of one percent, converted the yen to other currencies, and purchased debt instruments from other countries that pay much higher interest rates. In effect, they were getting practically free funds from Japan to lend to others paying higher interest.
The financial crisis has reversed this process. The toxic American derivatives were marketed worldwide by Wall Street. They have endangered the balance sheets and solvency of financial institutions throughout the world, including national governments, such as Iceland and Hungary.
Banks and governments that invested in the troubled American financial instruments found their own debt instruments in jeopardy.
Those who used yen loans to purchase, for example, debt instruments from European banks or Icelandic bonds, faced potentially catastrophic losses. Investors and speculators sold their higher-yielding financial instruments in a scramble for dollars and yen in order to pay off their Japanese loans. This drove up the values of the yen and the US dollar, the reserve currency that can be used to repay debts, and drove down the values of other currencies.
The dollar’s rise is temporary, and its prospects are bleak. The US trade deficit will lessen due to less consumer spending during recession, but it will remain the largest in the world and one that the US cannot close by exporting more. The way the US trade deficit is financed is by foreigners acquiring more dollar assets, with which their portfolios are already heavily weighted.
The US government’s budget deficit is large and growing, adding hundreds of billions of dollars more to an already large national debt. As investors flee equities into US government bills, the market for US Treasuries will temporarily depend less on foreign governments. Nevertheless, the burden on foreigners and on world savings of having to finance American consumption, the US government’s wars and military budget, and the US financial bailout is increasingly resented.
This resentment, combined with the harm done to America’s reputation by the financial crisis, has led to numerous calls for a new financial order in which the US plays a substantially lesser role. “Overcoming the financial crisis” are code words for the rest of the world’s intent to overthrow US financial hegemony.
Brazil, Russia, India and China have formed a new group (BRIC) to coordinate their interests at the November financial summit in Washington, D.C.
On October 28, RIA Novosti reported that Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin suggested to China that the two countries use their own currencies in their bilateral trade, thus avoiding the use of the dollar. China’s prime Minister Wen Jiabao replied that strengthening bilateral relations is strategic.
Europe has also served notice that it intends to exert a new leadership role. Four members of the Group of Seven industrial nations, France, Britain, Germany and Italy, used the financial crisis to call for sweeping reforms of the world financial system. Jose Manual Barroso, president of the European Commission, said that a new world financial system is possible only “if Europe has a leadership role.”
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that the “economic egoism” of America’s “unipolar vision of the world” is a ”dead-end policy.”
China’s massive foreign exchange reserves and its strong position in manufacturing have given China the leadership role in Asia. The deputy prime minister of Thailand recently designated the Chinese yuan as “the rightful and anointed convertible currency of the world.”
Normally, the Chinese are very circumspect in what they say, but on October 24 Reuters reported that the People’s Daily, the official government newspaper, in a front-page commentary accused the US of plundering “global wealth by exploiting the dollar’s dominance.”
To correct this unacceptable situation, the commentary called for Asian and European countries to “banish the US dollar from their direct trade relations, relying only on their own currencies.” And this step, said the commentary, is merely a starting step in overthrowing dollar dominance.
The Chinese are expressing other thoughts that would get the attention of a less deluded and arrogant American government. Zhou Jiangong, editor of the online publication, Chinastates.com, recently asked: “Why should China help the US to issue debt without end in the belief that the national credit of the US can expand without limit?”
Zhou Jiangong’s solution to American excesses is for China to take over Wall Street.
China has the money to do it, and the prudent Chinese would do a better job than the crowd of thieves who have destroyed America’s financial reputation while exploiting the world in pursuit of multi-million dollar bonuses.
Counterpunch
October 30, 2008
What explains the paradox of the dollar’s sharp rise in value against other currencies (except the Japanese yen) despite disproportionate US exposure to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?
The toxic American derivatives were marketed worldwide by Wall Street.
The answer does not lie in improved fundamentals for the US economy or better prospects for the dollar to retain its reserve currency role.
The rise in the dollar’s exchange value is due to two factors.
One factor is the traditional flight to the reserve currency that results from panic. People are simply doing what they have always done. Pam Martens predicted correctly that panic demand for US Treasury bills would boost the US dollar.
The other factor is the unwinding of the carry trade. The carry trade originated in extremely low Japanese interest rates. Investors and speculators borrowed Japanese yen at an interest rate of one-half of one percent, converted the yen to other currencies, and purchased debt instruments from other countries that pay much higher interest rates. In effect, they were getting practically free funds from Japan to lend to others paying higher interest.
The financial crisis has reversed this process. The toxic American derivatives were marketed worldwide by Wall Street. They have endangered the balance sheets and solvency of financial institutions throughout the world, including national governments, such as Iceland and Hungary.
Banks and governments that invested in the troubled American financial instruments found their own debt instruments in jeopardy.
Those who used yen loans to purchase, for example, debt instruments from European banks or Icelandic bonds, faced potentially catastrophic losses. Investors and speculators sold their higher-yielding financial instruments in a scramble for dollars and yen in order to pay off their Japanese loans. This drove up the values of the yen and the US dollar, the reserve currency that can be used to repay debts, and drove down the values of other currencies.
The dollar’s rise is temporary, and its prospects are bleak. The US trade deficit will lessen due to less consumer spending during recession, but it will remain the largest in the world and one that the US cannot close by exporting more. The way the US trade deficit is financed is by foreigners acquiring more dollar assets, with which their portfolios are already heavily weighted.
The US government’s budget deficit is large and growing, adding hundreds of billions of dollars more to an already large national debt. As investors flee equities into US government bills, the market for US Treasuries will temporarily depend less on foreign governments. Nevertheless, the burden on foreigners and on world savings of having to finance American consumption, the US government’s wars and military budget, and the US financial bailout is increasingly resented.
This resentment, combined with the harm done to America’s reputation by the financial crisis, has led to numerous calls for a new financial order in which the US plays a substantially lesser role. “Overcoming the financial crisis” are code words for the rest of the world’s intent to overthrow US financial hegemony.
Brazil, Russia, India and China have formed a new group (BRIC) to coordinate their interests at the November financial summit in Washington, D.C.
On October 28, RIA Novosti reported that Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin suggested to China that the two countries use their own currencies in their bilateral trade, thus avoiding the use of the dollar. China’s prime Minister Wen Jiabao replied that strengthening bilateral relations is strategic.
Europe has also served notice that it intends to exert a new leadership role. Four members of the Group of Seven industrial nations, France, Britain, Germany and Italy, used the financial crisis to call for sweeping reforms of the world financial system. Jose Manual Barroso, president of the European Commission, said that a new world financial system is possible only “if Europe has a leadership role.”
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that the “economic egoism” of America’s “unipolar vision of the world” is a ”dead-end policy.”
China’s massive foreign exchange reserves and its strong position in manufacturing have given China the leadership role in Asia. The deputy prime minister of Thailand recently designated the Chinese yuan as “the rightful and anointed convertible currency of the world.”
Normally, the Chinese are very circumspect in what they say, but on October 24 Reuters reported that the People’s Daily, the official government newspaper, in a front-page commentary accused the US of plundering “global wealth by exploiting the dollar’s dominance.”
To correct this unacceptable situation, the commentary called for Asian and European countries to “banish the US dollar from their direct trade relations, relying only on their own currencies.” And this step, said the commentary, is merely a starting step in overthrowing dollar dominance.
The Chinese are expressing other thoughts that would get the attention of a less deluded and arrogant American government. Zhou Jiangong, editor of the online publication, Chinastates.com, recently asked: “Why should China help the US to issue debt without end in the belief that the national credit of the US can expand without limit?”
Zhou Jiangong’s solution to American excesses is for China to take over Wall Street.
China has the money to do it, and the prudent Chinese would do a better job than the crowd of thieves who have destroyed America’s financial reputation while exploiting the world in pursuit of multi-million dollar bonuses.
The Post-Election Struggle to Come
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
The election is now upon us. Barring massive theft - and only a fool thinks the Republicans will not steal as massively as they possibly can - it appears Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. There is something that is much more certain than Obama's election, and that is, that the current economic crisis will deepen, punctuated with increasingly frequent upheavals as the capitalist system convulses in the throes of insurmountable contradictions. And there is another certainty: that Barack Obama will respond to these convulsions as his corporate friends and backers demand. He will try to do something about rebuilding U.S. infrastructure, but not necessarily in ways that benefit the inner cities, and certainly not in ways that clash with corporate plans for urban America - plans that reserve little space for populations that presently live there. And whatever Barack Obama spends on people's needs will take a back seat to propping up the corporate sector, and feeding the all-devouring military industrial complex.
We know this is true, because Obama has already shown it to be so. The bailout of Wall Street, which he embraced instantaneously, is but the first of many demands that will be made on the national treasury. All of Obama's economic advisors, the ones that count, are steeped in the corporate culture: organized theft. They serve government in order to serve their class. Obama picked them, so there is no reason to doubt he will follow their advice. Which means every economic measure they undertake will be geared to corporate health, not popular welfare. They will build barricades to preserve what is left of the corporate order, but it will never be enough to withstand the shocks that are in store. And the people will wind up with little to nothing.
What the bankers don't get, the military will. Obama has not only committed to maintaining the current structures of the U.S. Armed Forces, but to expanding the "boots on the ground" by 92,000 soldiers and Marines. These troops will have to be sent somewhere, requiring new overseas facilities, a whole new generation of equipment, and increases in salaries and benefits to keep the recruits coming. But most of all, the new administration will face tremendous pressures to deploy forces to project military power where U.S. economic power is no longer decisive - and that will mean a lot of foreign destinations in the coming months and years. Before the crisis of finance capital hit, the military was already strangling the nation's ability to meet human needs.
Only a fundamental break with militarism can halt this spiral into bankruptcy and war. But nothing in Barack Obama's background offers any evidence he is capable of making that break.
No, the American people are not doomed, because they will fight back, as people always do. But that bleak struggle will take place under very different direction than today's so-called Black and progressive "leadership," most of whom are hopelessly wedded to Obama. They claim they will take up the people's cause, after the election. But nobody should believe them. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente, of the Green Party, will be there, part of the new leadership to replace those who capitulated to Obama. Elections come and go. Struggle is a constant.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
The election is now upon us. Barring massive theft - and only a fool thinks the Republicans will not steal as massively as they possibly can - it appears Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. There is something that is much more certain than Obama's election, and that is, that the current economic crisis will deepen, punctuated with increasingly frequent upheavals as the capitalist system convulses in the throes of insurmountable contradictions. And there is another certainty: that Barack Obama will respond to these convulsions as his corporate friends and backers demand. He will try to do something about rebuilding U.S. infrastructure, but not necessarily in ways that benefit the inner cities, and certainly not in ways that clash with corporate plans for urban America - plans that reserve little space for populations that presently live there. And whatever Barack Obama spends on people's needs will take a back seat to propping up the corporate sector, and feeding the all-devouring military industrial complex.
We know this is true, because Obama has already shown it to be so. The bailout of Wall Street, which he embraced instantaneously, is but the first of many demands that will be made on the national treasury. All of Obama's economic advisors, the ones that count, are steeped in the corporate culture: organized theft. They serve government in order to serve their class. Obama picked them, so there is no reason to doubt he will follow their advice. Which means every economic measure they undertake will be geared to corporate health, not popular welfare. They will build barricades to preserve what is left of the corporate order, but it will never be enough to withstand the shocks that are in store. And the people will wind up with little to nothing.
What the bankers don't get, the military will. Obama has not only committed to maintaining the current structures of the U.S. Armed Forces, but to expanding the "boots on the ground" by 92,000 soldiers and Marines. These troops will have to be sent somewhere, requiring new overseas facilities, a whole new generation of equipment, and increases in salaries and benefits to keep the recruits coming. But most of all, the new administration will face tremendous pressures to deploy forces to project military power where U.S. economic power is no longer decisive - and that will mean a lot of foreign destinations in the coming months and years. Before the crisis of finance capital hit, the military was already strangling the nation's ability to meet human needs.
Only a fundamental break with militarism can halt this spiral into bankruptcy and war. But nothing in Barack Obama's background offers any evidence he is capable of making that break.
No, the American people are not doomed, because they will fight back, as people always do. But that bleak struggle will take place under very different direction than today's so-called Black and progressive "leadership," most of whom are hopelessly wedded to Obama. They claim they will take up the people's cause, after the election. But nobody should believe them. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente, of the Green Party, will be there, part of the new leadership to replace those who capitulated to Obama. Elections come and go. Struggle is a constant.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
Obama Panders to Racists
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
With unseemly haste, the corporate media consensus seems to have rushed to the conclusion that the so-called "Bradley Effect" is a myth; that white covert racism will not be a significant factor on November 4, and that the polls are accurately reflecting a looming landslide for Barack Obama.
Obama may, indeed, win by a landslide, but such an outcome most certainly would not signal that race and racism are no longer huge factors in American political life in general, or in this election cycle, in particular. Indeed, the zeal with which corporate pundits seek to declare the end of race as a defining element of U.S. politics serves only to confirm its overarching presence in the political culture.
The Bradley Effect refers to the tendency of some whites to lie to pollsters about their intentions to vote for a Black candidate. Not only is it asserted that the Bradley Effect is no longer operative - that whites are telling pollsters the truth this time around - but some pundits claim that the phenomenon is an urban legend. As a journalist since 1970, I have observed "The Effect" in action on many occasions, with white votes for Black candidates in local races consistently lower than the polls predicted. The Bradley Effect is an historical reality, one that every political campaign in racially mixed jurisdictions has taken into account. Those who attempt to discredit the Bradley Effect are, in reality, seeking to declare racism in America a non-issue, unworthy of further attention. They have seized on Barack Obama's campaign as proof that Black agitation is outdated and even harmful to the national interest.
Obama has encouraged whites to believe that, once he is in the White House, Black complaints about racism in public life can be deemed irrelevant; that the long debate over white skin privilege and entrenched institutional racism will be over. The most shameless proponent of this baseless notion is Frank Rich, a supposedly liberal columnist for the New York Times. In a piece titled "In Defense of White Americans," Rich cites Obama's high polling marks as sufficiently compelling to declare that "It's past time to come to the unfairly maligned white America's defense." Rich ridicules the idea that "a black guy is doomed among Reagan Democrats, Joe Sixpacks, rednecks, Joe the Plumbers or whichever condescending term you want to choose."
Well, Rednecks, Reagan Democrats and all kinds of racists may well vote for Obama. He has praised their hero, Ronald Reagan, effectively declaring that the world-class race-baiter wasn't a racist, after all. Obama has blamed his own former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and every other Black that complains about racism for creating harmful diversions that stand in the way of solving the nation's "real" problems. Barack Obama is successful because he coddles racists, in hopes of getting their vote. But a Black candidate's willingness to malign other Blacks and pander to racists does not signal the end of racism. Rather, it confirms that race is central to U.S. political life. Racists can vote for Obama, and feel good about themselves. But you won't find me celebrating.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
With unseemly haste, the corporate media consensus seems to have rushed to the conclusion that the so-called "Bradley Effect" is a myth; that white covert racism will not be a significant factor on November 4, and that the polls are accurately reflecting a looming landslide for Barack Obama.
Obama may, indeed, win by a landslide, but such an outcome most certainly would not signal that race and racism are no longer huge factors in American political life in general, or in this election cycle, in particular. Indeed, the zeal with which corporate pundits seek to declare the end of race as a defining element of U.S. politics serves only to confirm its overarching presence in the political culture.
The Bradley Effect refers to the tendency of some whites to lie to pollsters about their intentions to vote for a Black candidate. Not only is it asserted that the Bradley Effect is no longer operative - that whites are telling pollsters the truth this time around - but some pundits claim that the phenomenon is an urban legend. As a journalist since 1970, I have observed "The Effect" in action on many occasions, with white votes for Black candidates in local races consistently lower than the polls predicted. The Bradley Effect is an historical reality, one that every political campaign in racially mixed jurisdictions has taken into account. Those who attempt to discredit the Bradley Effect are, in reality, seeking to declare racism in America a non-issue, unworthy of further attention. They have seized on Barack Obama's campaign as proof that Black agitation is outdated and even harmful to the national interest.
Obama has encouraged whites to believe that, once he is in the White House, Black complaints about racism in public life can be deemed irrelevant; that the long debate over white skin privilege and entrenched institutional racism will be over. The most shameless proponent of this baseless notion is Frank Rich, a supposedly liberal columnist for the New York Times. In a piece titled "In Defense of White Americans," Rich cites Obama's high polling marks as sufficiently compelling to declare that "It's past time to come to the unfairly maligned white America's defense." Rich ridicules the idea that "a black guy is doomed among Reagan Democrats, Joe Sixpacks, rednecks, Joe the Plumbers or whichever condescending term you want to choose."
Well, Rednecks, Reagan Democrats and all kinds of racists may well vote for Obama. He has praised their hero, Ronald Reagan, effectively declaring that the world-class race-baiter wasn't a racist, after all. Obama has blamed his own former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and every other Black that complains about racism for creating harmful diversions that stand in the way of solving the nation's "real" problems. Barack Obama is successful because he coddles racists, in hopes of getting their vote. But a Black candidate's willingness to malign other Blacks and pander to racists does not signal the end of racism. Rather, it confirms that race is central to U.S. political life. Racists can vote for Obama, and feel good about themselves. But you won't find me celebrating.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
The Racist Sheriff Rules in Phoenix
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
It is broadly received wisdom that America has turned the corner on race, that the nation has already entered a post-Civil Rights era, in which those who complain about institutional racism and the vestiges of old-time Jim Crow should be dismissed as misguided at best, subversive at worst. It's rather easy to counter this false picture on the institutional racism front: the comparative racial statistics show an undeniable, living connection between past oppressions and present Black conditions. The sheer weight of numbers tells the tale in ways that no amount of celebrity anomalies like Tiger Woods, Oprah - even Barack Obama - can contradict.
Some of the old structures of brazen, unashamed racism are very much alive and kicking. Old-time racism in its most raw and barbaric form thrives in the criminal justice system: the American Gulag that is the shame of the planet. And the man who proudly personifies this system is Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes metropolitan Phoenix. Arpaio was born in Massachusetts, but he is the living, breathing example of the racist lawman whose popularity flows from utter contempt for society's "Others," principally non-whites and the poor.
Arpaio is extremely popular because he acts out the worst prejudices and hatreds of a huge segment of the citizenry - large majorities of voters share his pathological personality traits, as demonstrated by Arpaio's consistent success at the polls. TV's 60 Minutes has twice featured Arpaio, whom they treat as a likeable character. This jailhouse tyrant is an American icon: the professional sadist as hero and role model. And there can be no doubt that racism is at the core of Arpaio's fame, as citizens lash out vicariously through him to mete out cruel humiliations on the hated "Other."
A federal judge has attempted to put some brakes on Arpaio's very public abuses of the over one hundred of thousand men and women who pass through the county jail every year. The judge ruled that Arpaio caused "needless suffering and deterioration" to mentally ill inmates, and fed prisoners unhealthy food in unsanitary cells, depriving them of medical screening and care. And those are just some of the abuses in one section of the huge jail facility.
Arpaio has made a career of abusing inmates. He operates so-called "volunteer" chain gangs for both men and women, makes male inmates wear pink underwear to humiliate them, and set up a tent city where daytime temperatures have been recorded at 150 degrees in the top bunks.
Arpaio displays his barbarism like a badge; he has been re-elected with strong majorities since 1992. Decent people in the Phoenix area tried to recall the sheriff in 2007, but failed to get enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot. The recall would have failed, anyway. A survey taken during the petition drive found that "nearly three out of four respondents opposed the recall, and 65 percent...held a positive opinion of Arpaio."
The Sheriff has recently taken to staging raids on public buildings in cities around the county, searching for undocumented aliens. Arpaio is the modern version of the southern sheriff with hound dogs and bullwhips, operating in one of the nation's biggest cities. Don't dare say old-style racism is a thing of the past. It is very much alive, and has many names; one of them is Joe Arpaio.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
It is broadly received wisdom that America has turned the corner on race, that the nation has already entered a post-Civil Rights era, in which those who complain about institutional racism and the vestiges of old-time Jim Crow should be dismissed as misguided at best, subversive at worst. It's rather easy to counter this false picture on the institutional racism front: the comparative racial statistics show an undeniable, living connection between past oppressions and present Black conditions. The sheer weight of numbers tells the tale in ways that no amount of celebrity anomalies like Tiger Woods, Oprah - even Barack Obama - can contradict.
Some of the old structures of brazen, unashamed racism are very much alive and kicking. Old-time racism in its most raw and barbaric form thrives in the criminal justice system: the American Gulag that is the shame of the planet. And the man who proudly personifies this system is Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes metropolitan Phoenix. Arpaio was born in Massachusetts, but he is the living, breathing example of the racist lawman whose popularity flows from utter contempt for society's "Others," principally non-whites and the poor.
Arpaio is extremely popular because he acts out the worst prejudices and hatreds of a huge segment of the citizenry - large majorities of voters share his pathological personality traits, as demonstrated by Arpaio's consistent success at the polls. TV's 60 Minutes has twice featured Arpaio, whom they treat as a likeable character. This jailhouse tyrant is an American icon: the professional sadist as hero and role model. And there can be no doubt that racism is at the core of Arpaio's fame, as citizens lash out vicariously through him to mete out cruel humiliations on the hated "Other."
A federal judge has attempted to put some brakes on Arpaio's very public abuses of the over one hundred of thousand men and women who pass through the county jail every year. The judge ruled that Arpaio caused "needless suffering and deterioration" to mentally ill inmates, and fed prisoners unhealthy food in unsanitary cells, depriving them of medical screening and care. And those are just some of the abuses in one section of the huge jail facility.
Arpaio has made a career of abusing inmates. He operates so-called "volunteer" chain gangs for both men and women, makes male inmates wear pink underwear to humiliate them, and set up a tent city where daytime temperatures have been recorded at 150 degrees in the top bunks.
Arpaio displays his barbarism like a badge; he has been re-elected with strong majorities since 1992. Decent people in the Phoenix area tried to recall the sheriff in 2007, but failed to get enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot. The recall would have failed, anyway. A survey taken during the petition drive found that "nearly three out of four respondents opposed the recall, and 65 percent...held a positive opinion of Arpaio."
The Sheriff has recently taken to staging raids on public buildings in cities around the county, searching for undocumented aliens. Arpaio is the modern version of the southern sheriff with hound dogs and bullwhips, operating in one of the nation's biggest cities. Don't dare say old-style racism is a thing of the past. It is very much alive, and has many names; one of them is Joe Arpaio.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
No Way to Hide Truth: Cell Phone Does Cause Tumor
Chanyut Phrukkumwong
NaturalNews
Thursday, Oct 30, 2008
Long-term exposure to electromagnetic radio waves at certain strengths does cause brain tumors. Just like in the case of cigarette smoking, which nobody realized could damage your health until the era where lung cancer caused by regular smoking showed up. Such warnings about the dangers from electromagnetic radio waves from cell phones have been around for some years now. But the reporting has not been very widespread because of the attempt to hide this truth from those who hold the stake, which is certainly the cell phone industry (manufacturers).
Dr. George Carlo is among the first scientists who warned the public about this danger. He refused a billion-dollar bribe from the cell phone industry who told him to keep quiet about the research results that he conducted. Take a look at his website, (http://www.safewireless.org).
Other honest doctors and health advocates have helped this warning to become more widespread and more understandable by comparing such dangers with the ones associated to smoking. Everybody mistook, at first, that smoking was healthy but we have later come to know that it is dangerous.
More warnings about cell phones can be found here (http://www.naturalnews.com/cell_phone.html) .
We may notice that such warnings about the danger of cell phone is usually put out by honest doctors, health advocates, health-related people while hidden by cell phone industries or technology-related people. Until recently, this issue was mentioned about by the technology-related web site like CNET or ZD net.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/…
http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-5741203…
Even though an objection against the research finding is also there, we know that it is only a voice from cell-phone industry who has tried its best to conceal this fact and to protect itself from losing the profits. This shows that the industry itself has already realized this truth simply because there is no way to hide it.
So what’s the deal? Is it possible to stop using cell phone? No way. Cell phone has become part of our daily lives. It helps us in case of emergency or while being in the place where we need to talk and no other safe communication device is available. We should take action to minimize such risk and to be responsible for our own health. Simply be smart. Take moderate practice. Make use of it but do not let it harm us. Use headset, use handsfree feature, use it only when a wired phone is not available, do not go for a long conversation, send a message instead of talking. There are quite a number of techniques to minimize the risk.
Also, we can be selective by choosing a cell phone model that emits minimum strength of electromagnetic waves possible. Check out here http://www.fda.gov/cellphones/qa.html#6.
Details about the concentration of electromagnetic waves at home noted in the following article is also of interest http://www.naturalnews.com/023307.html.
Since cell phone has become a world-wide public issue, everyone in the world uses it while its long-term use does cause some diseases, there should be a public law that helps administer the marketing, selling, and the use of cell phone the same way as on cigarettes or sports drinks. The law that enforces the labeling of warning message on every cell phone and/or cell phone shop like “Long-term use of cell phone causes cancer“, “Cell phone causes autism”, that prohibits children under the age of 15 or so (whose physical development is still not so endured as adult) to buy a cell phone is strongly encouraged.
Want more live evidence? Take a look at this now! >>> http://www.fitnesssavedmylife.com.
NaturalNews
Thursday, Oct 30, 2008
Long-term exposure to electromagnetic radio waves at certain strengths does cause brain tumors. Just like in the case of cigarette smoking, which nobody realized could damage your health until the era where lung cancer caused by regular smoking showed up. Such warnings about the dangers from electromagnetic radio waves from cell phones have been around for some years now. But the reporting has not been very widespread because of the attempt to hide this truth from those who hold the stake, which is certainly the cell phone industry (manufacturers).
Dr. George Carlo is among the first scientists who warned the public about this danger. He refused a billion-dollar bribe from the cell phone industry who told him to keep quiet about the research results that he conducted. Take a look at his website, (http://www.safewireless.org).
Other honest doctors and health advocates have helped this warning to become more widespread and more understandable by comparing such dangers with the ones associated to smoking. Everybody mistook, at first, that smoking was healthy but we have later come to know that it is dangerous.
More warnings about cell phones can be found here (http://www.naturalnews.com/cell_phone.html) .
We may notice that such warnings about the danger of cell phone is usually put out by honest doctors, health advocates, health-related people while hidden by cell phone industries or technology-related people. Until recently, this issue was mentioned about by the technology-related web site like CNET or ZD net.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/…
http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-5741203…
Even though an objection against the research finding is also there, we know that it is only a voice from cell-phone industry who has tried its best to conceal this fact and to protect itself from losing the profits. This shows that the industry itself has already realized this truth simply because there is no way to hide it.
So what’s the deal? Is it possible to stop using cell phone? No way. Cell phone has become part of our daily lives. It helps us in case of emergency or while being in the place where we need to talk and no other safe communication device is available. We should take action to minimize such risk and to be responsible for our own health. Simply be smart. Take moderate practice. Make use of it but do not let it harm us. Use headset, use handsfree feature, use it only when a wired phone is not available, do not go for a long conversation, send a message instead of talking. There are quite a number of techniques to minimize the risk.
Also, we can be selective by choosing a cell phone model that emits minimum strength of electromagnetic waves possible. Check out here http://www.fda.gov/cellphones/qa.html#6.
Details about the concentration of electromagnetic waves at home noted in the following article is also of interest http://www.naturalnews.com/023307.html.
Since cell phone has become a world-wide public issue, everyone in the world uses it while its long-term use does cause some diseases, there should be a public law that helps administer the marketing, selling, and the use of cell phone the same way as on cigarettes or sports drinks. The law that enforces the labeling of warning message on every cell phone and/or cell phone shop like “Long-term use of cell phone causes cancer“, “Cell phone causes autism”, that prohibits children under the age of 15 or so (whose physical development is still not so endured as adult) to buy a cell phone is strongly encouraged.
Want more live evidence? Take a look at this now! >>> http://www.fitnesssavedmylife.com.
Ex-Italian President: Provocateur Riots Then “Beat The Shit Out Of Protesters”
Cossiga says Italian government should “do what I did” under Operation GLADIO - infiltrate protest groups with agent provocateurs
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has offered a solution to the Italian government in dealing with widespread demonstrations by students and teachers over a cut in state funding of education - use agent provocateurs to start riots and then have the police “beat the shit out of the protesters”.
Cossiga, former Italian President, Prime Minister, Minister of the Interior, and one of the founders of the Operation GLADIO covert intelligence unit, encouraged Silvio Berlusconi and current Minister of the Interior Robert Maroni to “do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior,” namely infiltrate what so far have been relatively peaceful demonstrations, radicalize them, start riots, then engender public support for a heavy-handed police response.
Cossiga’s full statement translated reads as follows.
“Maroni should do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior. University students? Let them do what they want. Withdraw the police from streets and universities, infiltrate the movement with provoking agents ready for anything ["agenti provocatori" is the Italian term] and let them devastate shops, put fire to the cars and put cities to the sword for ten days.
Then, strengthen by people’s support, the sound of the sirens from ambulances will have to overwhelm that from the police and carabinieri [italian military police]. Law enforcement officers should pitilessly beat the shit out of protesters and send them all to the hospital. They should not arrest them since the courts would free them immediately, but they should beat them savagely, and they should beat savagely as well those teachers that incites them: not old professors, just the young school teachers.”
Cossiga is essentially describing the problem-reaction-solution dialectic that he exploited when he was in government. Under the banner of Operation GLADIO, which was unveiled after parliamentary investigations in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, NATO sponsored secret armies committed acts of violence and terrorism and blamed the attacks on left-wing political movements, allowing far-right governments to seize power in numerous European countries.
“You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game,” right-wing terrorist and GLADIO agent Vincezo Vinciguerra explained the so-called “strategy of tension” in sworn testimony.
“The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.”
GLADIO-orchestrated false flag terror attacks, such as the Bologna train bombing in 1980 which killed 85 people, were revealed during the Italian parliamentary investigation as having been overseen by elements of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. At the very least, U.S. intelligence sat on prior knowledge of bombings and allowed them to go ahead.
Cossiga’s call to infiltrate protest groups and provocateur violence, giving the police public backing to “beat the shit” out of them, is a false flag tactic that has been employed numerous times during major protest events around the world.
Indeed, the scenario Cossiga is describing is exactly what happened at the violent 2001 Genoa G8 summit, during which Italian police planted bombs in headquarters being used by protest groups as an excuse to conduct raids and “beat the shit” out of peaceful demonstrators.
A similar tactic was also attempted during last year’s SPP summit protest in Quebec Canada. Canadian police were caught dressed up as rock-wielding anarchists intent on causing riots.
Peaceful protesters identified the agent provocateurs and the police later had to admit the fact despite going to the lengths of publicly staging the arrests of their own officers.
Last year, Cossiga drew on his first-hand personal experience in conducting false flag terror operations to declare that 9/11 was an inside job and that this fact was “common knowledge” amongst global intelligence agencies.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has offered a solution to the Italian government in dealing with widespread demonstrations by students and teachers over a cut in state funding of education - use agent provocateurs to start riots and then have the police “beat the shit out of the protesters”.
Cossiga, former Italian President, Prime Minister, Minister of the Interior, and one of the founders of the Operation GLADIO covert intelligence unit, encouraged Silvio Berlusconi and current Minister of the Interior Robert Maroni to “do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior,” namely infiltrate what so far have been relatively peaceful demonstrations, radicalize them, start riots, then engender public support for a heavy-handed police response.
Cossiga’s full statement translated reads as follows.
“Maroni should do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior. University students? Let them do what they want. Withdraw the police from streets and universities, infiltrate the movement with provoking agents ready for anything ["agenti provocatori" is the Italian term] and let them devastate shops, put fire to the cars and put cities to the sword for ten days.
Then, strengthen by people’s support, the sound of the sirens from ambulances will have to overwhelm that from the police and carabinieri [italian military police]. Law enforcement officers should pitilessly beat the shit out of protesters and send them all to the hospital. They should not arrest them since the courts would free them immediately, but they should beat them savagely, and they should beat savagely as well those teachers that incites them: not old professors, just the young school teachers.”
Cossiga is essentially describing the problem-reaction-solution dialectic that he exploited when he was in government. Under the banner of Operation GLADIO, which was unveiled after parliamentary investigations in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, NATO sponsored secret armies committed acts of violence and terrorism and blamed the attacks on left-wing political movements, allowing far-right governments to seize power in numerous European countries.
“You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game,” right-wing terrorist and GLADIO agent Vincezo Vinciguerra explained the so-called “strategy of tension” in sworn testimony.
“The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.”
GLADIO-orchestrated false flag terror attacks, such as the Bologna train bombing in 1980 which killed 85 people, were revealed during the Italian parliamentary investigation as having been overseen by elements of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. At the very least, U.S. intelligence sat on prior knowledge of bombings and allowed them to go ahead.
Cossiga’s call to infiltrate protest groups and provocateur violence, giving the police public backing to “beat the shit” out of them, is a false flag tactic that has been employed numerous times during major protest events around the world.
Indeed, the scenario Cossiga is describing is exactly what happened at the violent 2001 Genoa G8 summit, during which Italian police planted bombs in headquarters being used by protest groups as an excuse to conduct raids and “beat the shit” out of peaceful demonstrators.
A similar tactic was also attempted during last year’s SPP summit protest in Quebec Canada. Canadian police were caught dressed up as rock-wielding anarchists intent on causing riots.
Peaceful protesters identified the agent provocateurs and the police later had to admit the fact despite going to the lengths of publicly staging the arrests of their own officers.
Last year, Cossiga drew on his first-hand personal experience in conducting false flag terror operations to declare that 9/11 was an inside job and that this fact was “common knowledge” amongst global intelligence agencies.
Time for Troy is Now!
[col. writ. 10/22/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
As these words are written, Troy Davis's life may be measured in hours, if Georgia has its way.
His case is proof positive of how easy it is for a state to send someone to the death house, and how hellishly difficult it is to fight one's way out.
His case is ripped throughout with false testimony, with 80% of his trial witnesses now admitting as much. Of 9 people who testified at trial, 7 have recanted, saying they were forced by the cops to lie on him.
One, Jeffrey Sapp, swore by affidavit that "The police came and talked to me and put a lot of pressure on me to say 'Troy said this' or 'Troy said that.' I got tired of them harassing me, and they made it clear that the only way they would leave me alone is if I told them what they wanted to hear. I told them that Troy told me he did it, but it wasn't true. Troy never said that or anything like that."
But these recantations have fallen on deaf judicial ears, both in Georgia, and in Washington. Indeed, there has never even been a hearing on these recantations.''
In another era, Davis would've had a new trial. But that was before the draconian AEDPA (Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act), of 1996, (signed into law by Bill Clinton, by the way), that makes it increasingly difficult for judges to grant relief -- or even to get hearings.
In fact, even the state court judge, Georgia's Supreme Court Justice Leah Ward Sears, in her dissenting opinion, noted that the bar has been set so high for granting a new trial that no one could meet it.
Not even Troy Davis -- an innocent man.
If Troy Davis is to be saved, it will take the People to demand it.
For more information, contact: www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis or
www.troyanthonydavis.org.
-- (c) '08 maj
As these words are written, Troy Davis's life may be measured in hours, if Georgia has its way.
His case is proof positive of how easy it is for a state to send someone to the death house, and how hellishly difficult it is to fight one's way out.
His case is ripped throughout with false testimony, with 80% of his trial witnesses now admitting as much. Of 9 people who testified at trial, 7 have recanted, saying they were forced by the cops to lie on him.
One, Jeffrey Sapp, swore by affidavit that "The police came and talked to me and put a lot of pressure on me to say 'Troy said this' or 'Troy said that.' I got tired of them harassing me, and they made it clear that the only way they would leave me alone is if I told them what they wanted to hear. I told them that Troy told me he did it, but it wasn't true. Troy never said that or anything like that."
But these recantations have fallen on deaf judicial ears, both in Georgia, and in Washington. Indeed, there has never even been a hearing on these recantations.''
In another era, Davis would've had a new trial. But that was before the draconian AEDPA (Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act), of 1996, (signed into law by Bill Clinton, by the way), that makes it increasingly difficult for judges to grant relief -- or even to get hearings.
In fact, even the state court judge, Georgia's Supreme Court Justice Leah Ward Sears, in her dissenting opinion, noted that the bar has been set so high for granting a new trial that no one could meet it.
Not even Troy Davis -- an innocent man.
If Troy Davis is to be saved, it will take the People to demand it.
For more information, contact: www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis or
www.troyanthonydavis.org.
-- (c) '08 maj
SOCIALISM, for SOME
[col. writ. 10/22/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Stimulus package. Bailouts. Banking rescues.
It has been generations since we've witnessed scenes such as these.
Government officials spin like jacks, as they proclaim a policy one day, only to renounce it the next. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rushes up and spirals downward in a matter of minutes, visual, measurable reminders of the volatility in the markets.
Money is dumped into failing financial houses, failing banks, and private companies, in an attempt to 'prime the pump', we are told.
Companies that have been icons for over a century, fade away like dew in the morning sun.
And this ain't just national; it's global.
A year ago, British banking giant, Northern Rock, fell into a crisis. For months the government sought to persuade private investors to take a bite; but there were no takers. In February, the institution was nationalized, and the government pumped in £87 billion to keep it afloat. The bank was salvaged, but thousands of its employees were fired.
The Northern Rock debacle, coupled with the $700 billion bailout has set off alarm bells among the investor class. One billionaire investor, Jim Rogers, was quoted thus: "America is more communist than China is right now. You can see that this is welfare of the rich, it is socialism for the rich -- it's just bailing out financial institutions. this is madness, this is insanity, they have more than doubled the American national debt in one weekend for a bunch of crooks and incompetents. I'm not quite sure why I or anybody else should be paying for them."*
What makes it even more surreal is how politicians hurl charges at other politicians of "socialist!" Ignored is the socialism accorded to the wealthy bankers and houses of high finance.
Of course, this isn't anything like real socialism at all.
For the working class, the working poor, and millions in the middle, this economic crisis is a terrifying portent of things to come. They know that hard times will only get harder.
They wish they had some of the 'socialism' that has been lavished on the rich.
--(c) '08 maj
[*Palmer, Steve, "Capitalist Crisis -USA: Goodbye Wall Street," Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (Oct. - Nov. 2008/London), p.3 ]
Stimulus package. Bailouts. Banking rescues.
It has been generations since we've witnessed scenes such as these.
Government officials spin like jacks, as they proclaim a policy one day, only to renounce it the next. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rushes up and spirals downward in a matter of minutes, visual, measurable reminders of the volatility in the markets.
Money is dumped into failing financial houses, failing banks, and private companies, in an attempt to 'prime the pump', we are told.
Companies that have been icons for over a century, fade away like dew in the morning sun.
And this ain't just national; it's global.
A year ago, British banking giant, Northern Rock, fell into a crisis. For months the government sought to persuade private investors to take a bite; but there were no takers. In February, the institution was nationalized, and the government pumped in £87 billion to keep it afloat. The bank was salvaged, but thousands of its employees were fired.
The Northern Rock debacle, coupled with the $700 billion bailout has set off alarm bells among the investor class. One billionaire investor, Jim Rogers, was quoted thus: "America is more communist than China is right now. You can see that this is welfare of the rich, it is socialism for the rich -- it's just bailing out financial institutions. this is madness, this is insanity, they have more than doubled the American national debt in one weekend for a bunch of crooks and incompetents. I'm not quite sure why I or anybody else should be paying for them."*
What makes it even more surreal is how politicians hurl charges at other politicians of "socialist!" Ignored is the socialism accorded to the wealthy bankers and houses of high finance.
Of course, this isn't anything like real socialism at all.
For the working class, the working poor, and millions in the middle, this economic crisis is a terrifying portent of things to come. They know that hard times will only get harder.
They wish they had some of the 'socialism' that has been lavished on the rich.
--(c) '08 maj
[*Palmer, Steve, "Capitalist Crisis -USA: Goodbye Wall Street," Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (Oct. - Nov. 2008/London), p.3 ]
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Riot Squads, SWAT Teams Preparing For Election Day Trouble
Police prepare for unrest
By Alexander Bolton
Posted: 10/21/08 07:58 PM [ET]
Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.
Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation's first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.
Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.
Democratic strategists and advocates for black voters say they understand officers wanting to keep the peace, but caution that excessive police presence could intimidate voters.
Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee for president, has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly.
Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed.
In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby.
"Are we anticipating it will be a riot situation? No. But will we be prepared if it goes awry? Yes," said Jeff Thomason, spokesman for the Oakland Police Department.
"I think it is a big deal - you got an African-American running and [a] woman running," he added, in reference to Obama and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. "Whoever wins it, it will be a national event. We will have more officers on the street in anticipation that things may go south."
The Oakland police last faced big riots in 2003 when the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Officials are bracing themselves in case residents of Oakland take Obama's loss badly.
Political observers such as Hilary Shelton and James Carville fear that record voter turnout could overload polling places on Election Day and could raise tension levels.
Shelton, the director of the NAACP's Washington bureau, said inadequate voting facilities is a bigger problem in poor communities with large numbers of minorities.
"What are local election officials doing to prepare for what people think will be record turnout at the polls?" said Shelton, who added that during the 2004 election in Ohio voters in predominantly black communities had to wait in line six to eight hours to vote.
"On Election Day, if this continues, you may have some tempers flare; we should be prepared to deal with that but do it without intimidation," said Shelton, who added that police have to be able to maintain order at polling stations without scaring voters, especially immigrants from "police states."
Carville, who served as a senior political adviser to former President Bill Clinton, said that many Democrats would be very angry if Obama loses. He noted that many Democrats were upset by Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) loss to President Bush in the 2004 election, when some Democrats made allegations of vote manipulation in Ohio, the state that ultimately decided the race.
Experts estimated that thousands of voters did not vote in Ohio because of poor preparation and long lines.
Carville said Democratic anger in 2004 "would be very small to what would happen in 2008" if the same problems arose.
Carville said earlier this month that "it would be very, very, very dramatic out there" if Obama lost, a statement some commentators interpreted as predicting riots. In an interview Tuesday, however, Carville said he did not explicitly predict rioting.
"A lot of Democrats would have a great deal of angst and anger," said Carville, who predicted that on Election Day "the voting system all around the country is going to be very stressed because there's going to be enormous turnout."
Other commentators have made such bold predictions.
"If [Obama] is elected, like with sports championships, people may go out and riot," said Bob Parks, an online columnist and black Republican candidate for state representative in Massachusetts. "If Barack Obama loses there will be another large group of people who will assume the election was stolen from him….. This will be an opportunity for people who want to commit mischief."
Speculation about Election-Day violence has spread on the Internet, especially on right-wing websites.
This has caught the attention of police departments in cities such as Cincinnati, which saw race riots in 2001 after police shot a young black man.
"We've seen it on the Internet and we've heard that there could be civil unrest depending on the outcome of [the election,]" said Lt. Mark Briede of the Cincinnati Police Department. "We are prepared to respond in the case of some sort of unrest or some sort of incident."
Briede, like other police officials interviewed, declined to elaborate on plans for Election Day. Many police departments have policies prohibiting public discussion of security plans.
James Tate, second deputy chief of Detroit's police department, said extra manpower would be assigned to duty on Election Night. He said problems could flare whichever candidate wins.
"Either party will make history and we want to prepare for celebrations that will be on a larger scale than for our sports teams," Tate said.
He noted that police had to control rioters who overturned cars after the Tigers won the 1984 World Series.
"We're prepared for the best-case scenario, we're prepared for the worst-case scenario," he said. "The worst-case scenario could be a situation that requires law enforcement."
But Tate declined to describe what the worst-case scenario might look like, speaking gingerly like other police officials who are wary of implying that black voters are more likely than other voting groups to cause trouble.
Shelton, of the NAACP, said he understands the need for police to maintain order. But he is also concerned that some political partisans may point their finger at black voters as potential troublemakers because the Democratic nominee is black.
Shelton said any racial or ethnic group would get angry if they felt disenfranchised because of voting irregularities.
Police officials in Chicago, where Obama will hold a Nov. 4 rally, and Philadelphia are also preparing for Election Day.
"The Chicago Police Department has been meeting regularly to coordinate our safety and security plans and will deploy our resources accordingly," said Monique Bond, of the Chicago Police Department.
Frank Vanore, of the Philadelphia Police Department, said officials were planning to mobilize to control exuberant or perhaps angry demonstrations after the World Series, which pits the Phillies against the Tampa Bay Rays.
He said the boosted police activity would "spill right over to the election. "
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=bktq8igrdGo
http://www. texasstandup. com/texasstandup/Vote_Early%21. html
By Alexander Bolton
Posted: 10/21/08 07:58 PM [ET]
Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.
Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation's first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.
Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.
Democratic strategists and advocates for black voters say they understand officers wanting to keep the peace, but caution that excessive police presence could intimidate voters.
Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee for president, has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly.
Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed.
In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby.
"Are we anticipating it will be a riot situation? No. But will we be prepared if it goes awry? Yes," said Jeff Thomason, spokesman for the Oakland Police Department.
"I think it is a big deal - you got an African-American running and [a] woman running," he added, in reference to Obama and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. "Whoever wins it, it will be a national event. We will have more officers on the street in anticipation that things may go south."
The Oakland police last faced big riots in 2003 when the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Officials are bracing themselves in case residents of Oakland take Obama's loss badly.
Political observers such as Hilary Shelton and James Carville fear that record voter turnout could overload polling places on Election Day and could raise tension levels.
Shelton, the director of the NAACP's Washington bureau, said inadequate voting facilities is a bigger problem in poor communities with large numbers of minorities.
"What are local election officials doing to prepare for what people think will be record turnout at the polls?" said Shelton, who added that during the 2004 election in Ohio voters in predominantly black communities had to wait in line six to eight hours to vote.
"On Election Day, if this continues, you may have some tempers flare; we should be prepared to deal with that but do it without intimidation," said Shelton, who added that police have to be able to maintain order at polling stations without scaring voters, especially immigrants from "police states."
Carville, who served as a senior political adviser to former President Bill Clinton, said that many Democrats would be very angry if Obama loses. He noted that many Democrats were upset by Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) loss to President Bush in the 2004 election, when some Democrats made allegations of vote manipulation in Ohio, the state that ultimately decided the race.
Experts estimated that thousands of voters did not vote in Ohio because of poor preparation and long lines.
Carville said Democratic anger in 2004 "would be very small to what would happen in 2008" if the same problems arose.
Carville said earlier this month that "it would be very, very, very dramatic out there" if Obama lost, a statement some commentators interpreted as predicting riots. In an interview Tuesday, however, Carville said he did not explicitly predict rioting.
"A lot of Democrats would have a great deal of angst and anger," said Carville, who predicted that on Election Day "the voting system all around the country is going to be very stressed because there's going to be enormous turnout."
Other commentators have made such bold predictions.
"If [Obama] is elected, like with sports championships, people may go out and riot," said Bob Parks, an online columnist and black Republican candidate for state representative in Massachusetts. "If Barack Obama loses there will be another large group of people who will assume the election was stolen from him….. This will be an opportunity for people who want to commit mischief."
Speculation about Election-Day violence has spread on the Internet, especially on right-wing websites.
This has caught the attention of police departments in cities such as Cincinnati, which saw race riots in 2001 after police shot a young black man.
"We've seen it on the Internet and we've heard that there could be civil unrest depending on the outcome of [the election,]" said Lt. Mark Briede of the Cincinnati Police Department. "We are prepared to respond in the case of some sort of unrest or some sort of incident."
Briede, like other police officials interviewed, declined to elaborate on plans for Election Day. Many police departments have policies prohibiting public discussion of security plans.
James Tate, second deputy chief of Detroit's police department, said extra manpower would be assigned to duty on Election Night. He said problems could flare whichever candidate wins.
"Either party will make history and we want to prepare for celebrations that will be on a larger scale than for our sports teams," Tate said.
He noted that police had to control rioters who overturned cars after the Tigers won the 1984 World Series.
"We're prepared for the best-case scenario, we're prepared for the worst-case scenario," he said. "The worst-case scenario could be a situation that requires law enforcement."
But Tate declined to describe what the worst-case scenario might look like, speaking gingerly like other police officials who are wary of implying that black voters are more likely than other voting groups to cause trouble.
Shelton, of the NAACP, said he understands the need for police to maintain order. But he is also concerned that some political partisans may point their finger at black voters as potential troublemakers because the Democratic nominee is black.
Shelton said any racial or ethnic group would get angry if they felt disenfranchised because of voting irregularities.
Police officials in Chicago, where Obama will hold a Nov. 4 rally, and Philadelphia are also preparing for Election Day.
"The Chicago Police Department has been meeting regularly to coordinate our safety and security plans and will deploy our resources accordingly," said Monique Bond, of the Chicago Police Department.
Frank Vanore, of the Philadelphia Police Department, said officials were planning to mobilize to control exuberant or perhaps angry demonstrations after the World Series, which pits the Phillies against the Tampa Bay Rays.
He said the boosted police activity would "spill right over to the election. "
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=bktq8igrdGo
http://www. texasstandup. com/texasstandup/Vote_Early%21. html
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
10 Things the Food Industry Doesn't Want You to Know
By Adam Voiland Adam Voiland – Mon Oct 20, 5:31 pm ET
Two nutrition experts argue that you can't take marketing campaigns at face value
With America's obesity problem among kids reaching crisis proportions, even junk food makers have started to claim they want to steer children toward more healthful choices. In a study released earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about 32 percent of children were overweight but not obese, 16 percent were obese, and 11 percent were extremely obese. Food giant PepsiCo, for example, points out on its website that "we can play an important role in helping kids lead healthier lives by offering healthy product choices in schools."
The company highlights what it considers its healthier products within various food categories through a "Smart Spot" marketing campaign that features green symbols on packaging. PepsiCo's inclusive criteria--explained here--award spots to foods of dubious nutritional value such as Diet Pepsi, Cap'n Crunch cereal, reduced-fat Doritos, and Cheetos, as well as to more nutritious products such as Quaker Oatmeal and Tropicana Orange Juice.
But are wellness initiatives like Smart Spot just marketing ploys? Such moves by the food industry may seem to be a step in the right direction, but ultimately makers of popular junk foods have an obligation to stockholders to encourage kids to eat more--not less--of the foods that fuel their profits, says David Ludwig, a pediatrician and the co-author of a commentary published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association that raises questions about whether big food companies can be trusted to help combat obesity. Ludwig and article co-author Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University, both of whom have long histories of tracking the food industry, spoke with U.S. News and highlighted 10 things that junk food makers don't want you to know about their products and how they promote them.
1. Junk food makers spend billions advertising unhealthy foods to kids. According to the Federal Trade Commission, food makers spend some $1.6 billion annually to reach children through the traditional media as well the Internet, in-store advertising, and sweepstakes. An article published in 2006 in the Journal of Public Health Policy puts the number as high as $10 billion annually. Promotions often use cartoon characters or free giveaways to entice kids into the junk food fold. PepsiCo has pledged that it will advertise only "Smart Spot" products to children under 12.
2. The studies that food producers support tend to minimize health concerns associated with their products.In fact, according to a review led by Ludwig of hundreds of studies that looked at the health effects of milk, juice, and soda, the likelihood of conclusions favorable to the industry was several times higher among industry-sponsored research than studies that received no industry funding. "If a study is funded by the industry, it may be closer to advertising than science," he says.
3. Junk food makers donate large sums of money to professional nutrition associations.The American Dietetic Association, for example, accepts money from companies such as Coca-Cola, which get access to decision makers in the food and nutrition marketplace via ADA events and programs, as this release explains. As Nestle notes in her blog and discusses at length in her book Food Politics, the group even distributes nutritional fact sheets that are directly sponsored by specific industry groups. This one, for example, which is sponsored by an industry group that promotes lamb, rather unsurprisingly touts the nutritional benefits of lamb. The ADA's reasoning: "These collaborations take place with the understanding that ADA does not support any program or message that does not correspond with ADA's science-based healthful-eating messages and positions," according to the group's president, dietitian Martin Yadrick. "In fact, we think it's important for us to be at the same table with food companies because of the positive influence that we can have on them."
4. More processing means more profits, but typically makes the food less healthy.Minimally processed foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables obviously aren't where food companies look for profits. The big bucks stem from turning government-subsidized commodity crops--mainly corn, wheat, and soybeans--into fast foods, snack foods, and beverages. High-profit products derived from these commodity crops are generally high in calories and low in nutritional value.
5. Less-processed foods are generally more satiating than their highly processed counterparts.Fresh apples have an abundance of fiber and nutrients that are lost when they are processed into applesauce. And the added sugar or other sweeteners increase the number of calories without necessarily making the applesauce any more filling. Apple juice, which is even more processed, has had almost all of the fiber and nutrients stripped out. This same stripping out of nutrients, says Ludwig, happens with highly refined white bread compared with stone-ground whole wheat bread.
6. Many supposedly healthy replacement foods are hardly healthier than the foods they replace.In 2006, for example, major beverage makers agreed to remove sugary sodas from school vending machines. But the industry mounted an intense lobbying effort that persuaded lawmakers to allow sports drinks and vitamin waters that--despite their slightly healthier reputations--still can be packed with sugar and calories.
7. A health claim on the label doesn't necessarily make a food healthy.Health claims such as "zero trans fats" or "contains whole wheat" may create the false impression that a product is healthy when it's not. While the claims may be true, a product is not going to benefit your kid's health if it's also loaded with salt and sugar or saturated fat, say, and lacks fiber or other nutrients. "These claims are calorie distracters," adds Nestle. "They make people forget about the calories." Dave DeCecco, a spokesperson for PepsiCo, counters that the intent of a labeling program such as Smart Spot is simply to help consumers pick a healthier choice within a category. "We're not trying to tell people that a bag of Doritos is healthier than asparagus. But, if you're buying chips, and you're busy, and you don't have a lot of time to read every part of the label, it's an easy way to make a smarter choice," he says.
8. Food industry pressure has made nutritional guidelines confusing.As Nestle explained in Food Politics, the food industry has a history of preferring scientific jargon to straight talk. As far back as 1977, public health officials attempted to include the advice "reduce consumption of meat" in an important report called Dietary Goals for the United States. The report's authors capitulated to intense pushback from the cattle industry and used this less-direct and more ambiguous advice: "Choose meats, poultry, and fish which will reduce saturated fat intake." Overall, says Nestle, the government has a hard time suggesting that people eat less of anything.
9. The food industry funds front groups that fight antiobesity public health initiatives.Unless you follow politics closely, you wouldn't necessarily realize that a group with a name like the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) has anything to do with the food industry. In fact,Ludwig and Nestle point out, this group lobbies aggressively against obesity-related public health campaigns--such as the one directed at removing junk food from schools--and is funded, according to the Center for Media and Democracy, primarily through donations from big food companies such as Coca-Cola, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and Wendy's.
10. The food industry works aggressively to discredit its critics.According to the new JAMA article, the Center for Consumer Freedom boasts that "[our strategy] is to shoot the messenger. We've got to attack [activists'] credibility as spokespersons." Here's the group's entry on Marion Nestle.
The bottom line, says Nestle, is quite simple: Kids need to eat less, include more fruits and vegetables, and limit the junk food.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Behind the Money Crash
[col. writ. 10/8/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
For millions of people, the economic crash and crisis seems almost mystical.
What happened? Why did it happen? How did it happen?
It seems more complex than it really is. That's because the corporate media is, more often than not, a contributor to confusion, rather than a source of clarity.
The media thrives on conflict, chaos and controversy.
That's why I found in the {British} left press what I've never seen in the corporate media: the text of a 2002 open letter from U.S. financier, Warren Buffett to his Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. Buffett, one of the richest people in the U.S., warned his shareholders to avoid 'derivatives'. which he described as "time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them, and the economic system."
Buffett explained that derivatives are financial agreements for the exchange of money at some future date, which can be 20 years or more. What makes them dangerous is they're collateralized, or guaranteed, based on often faulty reference points. For example, derivatives may be traded saying in 10 years, GM stocks will double its 2004 value, and if it does in 2014, the instrument buyer will receive say, $10 million. In many cases, before the contract is ripe, not a penny has changed hands, yet some companies assigned these instruments a value, recorded them on their books as assets, when in fact, they had no real value.
Remember Enron? On paper, they were rolling in dough. In fact, however, they were rolling in paper -- for, at any time, if they hit a snag, they had no real cash to cover corporate debts -- it was on the books, but not in the banks.
Again, Buffett explained six years ago why these instruments should be avoided, writing to his shareholders:
The derivatives genie is now well out of the bottle, and these instruments will
almost certainly multiply in variety and number until some event makes their
toxicity clean.
Knowledge of how dangerous they are has already permeated the electricity and
gas businesses, in which the eruption of major troubles caused the use of
derivatives to diminish dramatically. Elsewhere, however, the derivatives
business continues to expand unchecked. Central banks and governments have
so far found no effective way to control, or even monitor, the risks posed by
these contracts.*
In closing, Buffett warned, "derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that......are potentially lethal."
--(c) '08 maj
{Source: Labour & Trade Union Review (No. 191: Oct. 2008), pp.16-18}
For millions of people, the economic crash and crisis seems almost mystical.
What happened? Why did it happen? How did it happen?
It seems more complex than it really is. That's because the corporate media is, more often than not, a contributor to confusion, rather than a source of clarity.
The media thrives on conflict, chaos and controversy.
That's why I found in the {British} left press what I've never seen in the corporate media: the text of a 2002 open letter from U.S. financier, Warren Buffett to his Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. Buffett, one of the richest people in the U.S., warned his shareholders to avoid 'derivatives'. which he described as "time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them, and the economic system."
Buffett explained that derivatives are financial agreements for the exchange of money at some future date, which can be 20 years or more. What makes them dangerous is they're collateralized, or guaranteed, based on often faulty reference points. For example, derivatives may be traded saying in 10 years, GM stocks will double its 2004 value, and if it does in 2014, the instrument buyer will receive say, $10 million. In many cases, before the contract is ripe, not a penny has changed hands, yet some companies assigned these instruments a value, recorded them on their books as assets, when in fact, they had no real value.
Remember Enron? On paper, they were rolling in dough. In fact, however, they were rolling in paper -- for, at any time, if they hit a snag, they had no real cash to cover corporate debts -- it was on the books, but not in the banks.
Again, Buffett explained six years ago why these instruments should be avoided, writing to his shareholders:
The derivatives genie is now well out of the bottle, and these instruments will
almost certainly multiply in variety and number until some event makes their
toxicity clean.
Knowledge of how dangerous they are has already permeated the electricity and
gas businesses, in which the eruption of major troubles caused the use of
derivatives to diminish dramatically. Elsewhere, however, the derivatives
business continues to expand unchecked. Central banks and governments have
so far found no effective way to control, or even monitor, the risks posed by
these contracts.*
In closing, Buffett warned, "derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that......are potentially lethal."
--(c) '08 maj
{Source: Labour & Trade Union Review (No. 191: Oct. 2008), pp.16-18}
Scare Tactics
[col. writ. 10/4/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
With the passage of the Wall St. bailout bill, a major line has been crossed in U.S. economic and political history.
The rulers can do anything, as long as they leaven it with fear.
Just like the Iraq War authorization, with enough fear Congress will roll over, and say, "Uncle."
And there was an avalanche of fear. The corporate media sold oceans of fear and dread, just as it sold facile patriotism, the Iraq War and the so-called "War on Terror."
Using individual tales of fallen 401(k)s, or of a few firings, they successfully insinuated that unless the bailout passed, you might loseyour job, or your 401(k) might turn to dust.
They ran the banner headlines of the drop of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and scared legislators into flipping their prior no votes into yea votes.
Here's the deal. What we've seen from both major political parties is the greatest transfer of public wealth into private hands in history. Indeed, it is privatization run amok.
It is a bailout, pure and simple, that the media and its masters want you to call a 'rescue', but who is rescued?
You? C'mon.
Does a government that facilitated the loss of millions of jobs; that scuttled public education; that gave away the public treasury to Wall St. bankers; that sold a long war based on lies; that allowed millions of homeowners to fall into foreclosures, give a damn about you?
A government that cared about its people wouldn't have led them to this disaster.
Think of it this way: the same government that fought for months to privatize social security, or in other words, to invest peoples' retirement funds into stocks, came up with this bailout plan.
If the government was successful, some 40 million people (those 65 and over) would've been flat broke. What they couldn't do one way, they did another, for the economic hole that another trillion dollars will blow into the deficit spells danger to this project.
If you elect a government based on its rhetoric of anti-government, of deregulation, of the 'blind hand of the market', you get economic carnage, crony capitalism, and misery for millions.
Moreover, what you have is the privatization of the State, by its rental by private capital.
For, in both houses of Congress, in both major parties, we find pols who have received tens of thousands of dollars from Wall St. Can anyone deny that this money donated to Congress was wasted? (By 'wasted', I mean to those who made those donations -- not to average Americans).
As the saying goes, 'you get what you pay for.'
It might also be said that you get what you vote for.
--(c) '08maj
{Note: Check out www.opensecrets.org for data on Congress for sale.}
With the passage of the Wall St. bailout bill, a major line has been crossed in U.S. economic and political history.
The rulers can do anything, as long as they leaven it with fear.
Just like the Iraq War authorization, with enough fear Congress will roll over, and say, "Uncle."
And there was an avalanche of fear. The corporate media sold oceans of fear and dread, just as it sold facile patriotism, the Iraq War and the so-called "War on Terror."
Using individual tales of fallen 401(k)s, or of a few firings, they successfully insinuated that unless the bailout passed, you might loseyour job, or your 401(k) might turn to dust.
They ran the banner headlines of the drop of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and scared legislators into flipping their prior no votes into yea votes.
Here's the deal. What we've seen from both major political parties is the greatest transfer of public wealth into private hands in history. Indeed, it is privatization run amok.
It is a bailout, pure and simple, that the media and its masters want you to call a 'rescue', but who is rescued?
You? C'mon.
Does a government that facilitated the loss of millions of jobs; that scuttled public education; that gave away the public treasury to Wall St. bankers; that sold a long war based on lies; that allowed millions of homeowners to fall into foreclosures, give a damn about you?
A government that cared about its people wouldn't have led them to this disaster.
Think of it this way: the same government that fought for months to privatize social security, or in other words, to invest peoples' retirement funds into stocks, came up with this bailout plan.
If the government was successful, some 40 million people (those 65 and over) would've been flat broke. What they couldn't do one way, they did another, for the economic hole that another trillion dollars will blow into the deficit spells danger to this project.
If you elect a government based on its rhetoric of anti-government, of deregulation, of the 'blind hand of the market', you get economic carnage, crony capitalism, and misery for millions.
Moreover, what you have is the privatization of the State, by its rental by private capital.
For, in both houses of Congress, in both major parties, we find pols who have received tens of thousands of dollars from Wall St. Can anyone deny that this money donated to Congress was wasted? (By 'wasted', I mean to those who made those donations -- not to average Americans).
As the saying goes, 'you get what you pay for.'
It might also be said that you get what you vote for.
--(c) '08maj
{Note: Check out www.opensecrets.org for data on Congress for sale.}
Supreme Court Refusal to Hear Troy Davis Case "Truly Shocking"
by Amnesty International, reprinted from Alternet
Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) decried today's U.S. Supreme Court decision to deny a new hearing for Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis. The Court had granted Davis a stay of execution just hours before he was scheduled to be put to death while it decided whether to hear the case. In denying Davis' petition for a writ of certiorari, the Court has effectively ended a longstanding battle to have new evidence in Davis' favor heard in a court of law.
"The Supreme Court's decision is truly shocking, given that significant evidence of Davis' innocence will never have a chance to be examined," said Larry Cox, executive director for AIUSA. "Faulty eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions, and the hallmark of Davis' case. This was an opportunity for the Court to clarify the constitutionality of putting the innocent to death –- and in Davis' case, his innocence could only be determined with a new hearing or trial."
"It is disgraceful that the highest court in the land could sink so low when doubts surrounding Davis' guilt are so high," Cox added.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Davis’ petition for writ of certiorari that was submitted on constitutional grounds of due process and cruel and unusual punishment violations if an individual is put to death despite significant claims to innocence. Davis’ attorneys filed the petition after the Georgia Supreme Court’s narrow 4-3 ruling to deny Davis an evidentiary hearing last March; the ruling was based on technicalities rather than basic questions of guilt and innocence.
Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Authorities failed to produce a murder weapon or any physical evidence tying Davis to the crime. In addition, seven of the nine original state witnesses have since recanted or changed their initial testimonies in sworn affidavits. One of the remaining witnesses is alleged to be the actual perpetrator.
Since the launch of its February 2007 report, "Where Is the Justice for Me? The Case of Troy Davis, Facing Execution in Georgia," Amnesty International has campaigned intensively for a new evidentiary hearing or trial and clemency for Davis, collecting well over 200,000 clemency petition signatures and letters from across the United States and around the world. To date, internationally known figures such as Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter have all joined the call for clemency, as well as lawmakers from within and outside of Georgia.
For more information about the Troy Davis case, please visit: www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis .
Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) decried today's U.S. Supreme Court decision to deny a new hearing for Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis. The Court had granted Davis a stay of execution just hours before he was scheduled to be put to death while it decided whether to hear the case. In denying Davis' petition for a writ of certiorari, the Court has effectively ended a longstanding battle to have new evidence in Davis' favor heard in a court of law.
"The Supreme Court's decision is truly shocking, given that significant evidence of Davis' innocence will never have a chance to be examined," said Larry Cox, executive director for AIUSA. "Faulty eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions, and the hallmark of Davis' case. This was an opportunity for the Court to clarify the constitutionality of putting the innocent to death –- and in Davis' case, his innocence could only be determined with a new hearing or trial."
"It is disgraceful that the highest court in the land could sink so low when doubts surrounding Davis' guilt are so high," Cox added.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Davis’ petition for writ of certiorari that was submitted on constitutional grounds of due process and cruel and unusual punishment violations if an individual is put to death despite significant claims to innocence. Davis’ attorneys filed the petition after the Georgia Supreme Court’s narrow 4-3 ruling to deny Davis an evidentiary hearing last March; the ruling was based on technicalities rather than basic questions of guilt and innocence.
Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Authorities failed to produce a murder weapon or any physical evidence tying Davis to the crime. In addition, seven of the nine original state witnesses have since recanted or changed their initial testimonies in sworn affidavits. One of the remaining witnesses is alleged to be the actual perpetrator.
Since the launch of its February 2007 report, "Where Is the Justice for Me? The Case of Troy Davis, Facing Execution in Georgia," Amnesty International has campaigned intensively for a new evidentiary hearing or trial and clemency for Davis, collecting well over 200,000 clemency petition signatures and letters from across the United States and around the world. To date, internationally known figures such as Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter have all joined the call for clemency, as well as lawmakers from within and outside of Georgia.
For more information about the Troy Davis case, please visit: www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis .
Barack Obama, Voter Suppression and the Myth of “Vote Fraud”
by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon
With less than three weeks before election day, the fix is definitely in.
The cynically misnamed “Help America Vote Act” mandated the widespread adoption electronic voting machines full of exploitable software holes and lacking any verifiable paper audit trail. Commonly, for example most vote counting software is capable of subtracting votes as well as adding them, and offer no way of telling this has been done after the fact. Network security experts such as Stephen Spoonamore have explained that electronic voting systems are far less secure than electronic banking and credit card transactions, which routinely tolerate level of fraud around 2%.
Ohio in 2004 showed us the pattern of sending Republican-leaning areas more than ample quantities of voting machines and supplies, while routing fewer and faultier machines and inadequate supplies to Democratic-leaning precincts, resulting in long lines, delays and significant falloff in voter participation Voter registration drives of the kind that Obama and this reporter helped organize in back in 1992 have been restricted by law, demonized in the corporate press, and have even become the targets of legal harassment and malicious prosecution .
Perhaps the biggest threats to the voting rights of millions of people this election season are selective and malicious purges of the voter registration rolls, usually undertaken by Republican officials. States and localities have adopted the practice of checking existing voter rolls or sometimes just new registrations against federal and state databases such as the social security and drivers license lists, and eliminating hundreds of thousands of voters whose middle names are on their voter lists but who only have a middle initial on their drivers license or social security record, or vice versa. When this rule was implemented in California, a full 43% of new voter registrations and address changes were denied in Los Angeles county, along with 26% statewide, according to the Los Angeles Times. Rather than discrediting no-match-no-vote rules, results like this have made it a favorite vote-purging tactic on the state and county level nationwide.
Other purging methods have included matching names and birth dates on the voting lists to each other and eliminating both voters with the same or similar names in a city or county without checking, on the basis that it's a duplicate registration, or checking voter rolls against lists of “convicted felons”, sometimes removing multiple voters whose names are the same or similar to that of a single “felon”.
Best of all, election authorities on the state and county level have the power to purge voter rolls secretly, with no public notice of their methodologies or of which voters have been eliminated. The voter doesn't find out till they show up at the polls and are turned away.
Where is Obama, where are Democrats on election integrity?
The answer is not much of anywhere. When the 2000 election was being stolen from Al Gore in Florida, the Democratic party emphatically rejected offers to fly in staff and legal help from around the country, and discouraged public gatherings and demonstrations against the heist then in progress. After the Supreme Court intervened and threw the election to Bush and the entire Congressional Black Caucus protested to the US Senate, urging them to not accept Florida's electoral vote, Al Gore, in his last vice presidential act presiding over the senate, rejected them. If a single Democrat in the US Senate had stood up to reject the vote it would have triggered a debate and perhaps and investigation. But no Democrats stood up for the disenfranchised in Florida, because most of the disenfranchised were perceived to be African American. The last thing the Democratic party wants is to be seen as the party of the Blacks.
Only the Green Party, underfunded and ignored in the national media, bothered to file lawsuits challenging the way votes were counted in some states.
In 2004, despite clear evidence of massive tampering with the vote in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico and elsewhere, John Kerry immediately conceded the election, rejecting calls for protests, lawsuits and investigations, and refusing to fight for every voter to be heard and every vote to be counted. For this, Kerry was duly lauded by his Democratic peers in high office as a statesman, gentleman and good sport, doing what those types do. Once again, the most of the disenfranchised were perceived to be African Americans. While utterly dependent on a large and near-unanimous black vote, the last thing Democrats want is to be seen identifying with the problems of black people.
Just as in 2000, the entire Congressional Black Caucus petitioned the US Senate not to accept Ohio's electoral vote, hoping that at least one Democratic senator, perhaps the chamber's only African American senator, would stand up to fight for every vote. It didn't happen.
In what may foretell his stand the day after a 2008 stolen election, Barack Obama sat down and shut up, leaving California senator Barbara Boxer to be the lone Democrat calling for a debate on whether Ohio's electoral votes should be accepted.
For a second time, only the Green Party attempted to file lawsuits which might expose the process by which the elections were stolen in Ohio and elsewhere. But lawsuits take time, and that one is still in the deposition stage today, four years later. Congressman John Conyers of Detroit, in his capacity as chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, has made threatening noises to open real investigative hearings with sworn testimony on the massive vote theft in Ohio, but nothing has come of these. And on the campaign trail, Barack Obama scarcely mentions the massive vote theft of 2000 and 2004, as though he were in denial that it ever happened, or might happen again.
In four years as a US senator, Obama has advanced no legislation that would institute voter-verifiable paper trails, and done little or nothing to advance the notion of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote.
Where is Obama, where are Democrats on voter suppression?
Although the national election was clearly stolen from Democrats in 2000 and 2004, that party has declined to fight for investigations into how massive numbers of Democrat-leaning voters, often black and brown, have been purged from the rolls, how voter registration drives and individual voters have been maliciously prosecuted. Despite the fact that several Republican whistle blowers have come to the fore, most prominently former US District Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico, with evidence that the White House demanded spurious prosecutions to lower black and brown turnout, one of many impeachment-grade offenses, the US Senate and House, both under Democratic control, declined to pursue vigorous investigations.
Republican operatives have assiduously cultivated the myth that hordes of foreigners and felons are itching for a chance to vote in US elections, on bond issues, school and library levies, and yes, presidential elections. While nobody has ever caught these legions of fake voters at the polls, the fair tale of their presence has become an accepted fact in popular American lore.
Barack Obama is a member of the senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, and his running mate Joe Biden chairs that committee. If Democrats wanted, any time in the last two years, to put a stop to voter suppression or expose the vacuous myth of large numbers of illegal voters,, these two could have called hearings, subpoenaed witnesses and kept it on the front page for weeks. But again, Democrats don't want to be seen as the party of the blacks, who are the most frequent victims of voter suppression.
If the election is stolen from Obama will he go the way of Gore and Kerry, and refuse to fight to count every vote? Nobody knows. Hopes are high, but Gore and Kerry preserved their elite credentials by refusing to fight the vote thieves. In almost 20 years of political life, Barack Obama has shown himself to be notoriously risk-averse. He doesn't fight. In the words of the Bodie character in HBO's The Wire, “...his heart pumps kool-aid.”
Where are Democrats, where is Barack Obama on the restriction of voter registration drives?
Given that Obama's political career was launched on the success of Project VOTE Illinois, which registered 130,000 voters in the space of a few weeks in 1992, one might expect him to take a special interest in the restrictions states are implementing on voter registration drives. In many parts of the country today, doing the perfectly legal things Project VOTE Illinois did in 1992 might land you a stretch in jail or at least a hefty fine. But now that he's above the fray, the voice of Barack Obama hasn't been heard on the malicious restriction of voter registration drives. In fact, the Boston Globe has reported that he is deliberately distancing himself from ACORN and other voter registration organizations under spurious attack for alleged “vote fraud”.
What you can do-- STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE
Luckily, every heart does not pump kool-aid. Greg Palast and Robert Kennedy Jr. have produced a downloadable comic book outlining seven steps any and everyone ought to take to protect their vote. The first three of these are
Never mail in your ballot. It's like sending your car keys to the thief. You won't be there to see what they do to it.
Vote early --- very early. Since millions of voters will be purged and not notified, it pays to vote early. If you are one of those turned away, you will at least have time to try to remedy the situation. Election day is a bit late, if they have unjustifiably deleted your name from the voter rolls.
Register and register. Register when you move. Register when you change your name. Go online or get on the phone and check your registration before the election.
The book can be downloaded for as little as a penny, and that will get you the other four methods to steal back your vote. Find it at www.stealbackyourvote.com, or at www.gregpalast.com.
Where is Barack, where are Democrats on a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote?
Back in the nineties, Chicago's congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr. advanced the revolutionary idea of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. Strangely, he has not reintroduced it since Democrats have come into control of the House, but this would be an ultimate solution to the problems of voter suppression and unaccountable voting machines stealing the votes. Making the right to vote on the same par as, say, the right to own a gun, would mandate uniform federal rules for what the voting machines can and cannot do, what the qualifications of voters are and are not, who can be purged and excluded, and much more.
But it would be a fight. And Democrats, most notably Democratic presidential candidates have shown no inclination to fight, especially if it looks like a fight on the side of African Americans. Even with an African American presidential candidate, it doesn't look like this will change any time soon.
If Obama does win by ten or twelve percent of the popular vote, which after all the theft is whittled down to two or three percent, it may be time to reintroduce the idea of a constitutional guarantee of the right to vote. It may be even more timely if he loses.
Obama's constituents in the African American community, a large proportion of those impacted by voter suppression, have to date demanded remarkably little from him. That doesn't mean they don't want anything, though. The Obama Check is one they haven't cashed, one whose amount they dare not peek at, but which they hope will be worth a lot. The time to cash that check is coming, on voting rights and voter suppression. Will he choose to honor it? Can anybody make him do it? These are questions that will be answered, and soon.
Black Agenda Report's managing editor Bruce Dixon is based in Atlanta GA. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com
With less than three weeks before election day, the fix is definitely in.
The cynically misnamed “Help America Vote Act” mandated the widespread adoption electronic voting machines full of exploitable software holes and lacking any verifiable paper audit trail. Commonly, for example most vote counting software is capable of subtracting votes as well as adding them, and offer no way of telling this has been done after the fact. Network security experts such as Stephen Spoonamore have explained that electronic voting systems are far less secure than electronic banking and credit card transactions, which routinely tolerate level of fraud around 2%.
Ohio in 2004 showed us the pattern of sending Republican-leaning areas more than ample quantities of voting machines and supplies, while routing fewer and faultier machines and inadequate supplies to Democratic-leaning precincts, resulting in long lines, delays and significant falloff in voter participation Voter registration drives of the kind that Obama and this reporter helped organize in back in 1992 have been restricted by law, demonized in the corporate press, and have even become the targets of legal harassment and malicious prosecution .
Perhaps the biggest threats to the voting rights of millions of people this election season are selective and malicious purges of the voter registration rolls, usually undertaken by Republican officials. States and localities have adopted the practice of checking existing voter rolls or sometimes just new registrations against federal and state databases such as the social security and drivers license lists, and eliminating hundreds of thousands of voters whose middle names are on their voter lists but who only have a middle initial on their drivers license or social security record, or vice versa. When this rule was implemented in California, a full 43% of new voter registrations and address changes were denied in Los Angeles county, along with 26% statewide, according to the Los Angeles Times. Rather than discrediting no-match-no-vote rules, results like this have made it a favorite vote-purging tactic on the state and county level nationwide.
Other purging methods have included matching names and birth dates on the voting lists to each other and eliminating both voters with the same or similar names in a city or county without checking, on the basis that it's a duplicate registration, or checking voter rolls against lists of “convicted felons”, sometimes removing multiple voters whose names are the same or similar to that of a single “felon”.
Best of all, election authorities on the state and county level have the power to purge voter rolls secretly, with no public notice of their methodologies or of which voters have been eliminated. The voter doesn't find out till they show up at the polls and are turned away.
Where is Obama, where are Democrats on election integrity?
The answer is not much of anywhere. When the 2000 election was being stolen from Al Gore in Florida, the Democratic party emphatically rejected offers to fly in staff and legal help from around the country, and discouraged public gatherings and demonstrations against the heist then in progress. After the Supreme Court intervened and threw the election to Bush and the entire Congressional Black Caucus protested to the US Senate, urging them to not accept Florida's electoral vote, Al Gore, in his last vice presidential act presiding over the senate, rejected them. If a single Democrat in the US Senate had stood up to reject the vote it would have triggered a debate and perhaps and investigation. But no Democrats stood up for the disenfranchised in Florida, because most of the disenfranchised were perceived to be African American. The last thing the Democratic party wants is to be seen as the party of the Blacks.
Only the Green Party, underfunded and ignored in the national media, bothered to file lawsuits challenging the way votes were counted in some states.
In 2004, despite clear evidence of massive tampering with the vote in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico and elsewhere, John Kerry immediately conceded the election, rejecting calls for protests, lawsuits and investigations, and refusing to fight for every voter to be heard and every vote to be counted. For this, Kerry was duly lauded by his Democratic peers in high office as a statesman, gentleman and good sport, doing what those types do. Once again, the most of the disenfranchised were perceived to be African Americans. While utterly dependent on a large and near-unanimous black vote, the last thing Democrats want is to be seen identifying with the problems of black people.
Just as in 2000, the entire Congressional Black Caucus petitioned the US Senate not to accept Ohio's electoral vote, hoping that at least one Democratic senator, perhaps the chamber's only African American senator, would stand up to fight for every vote. It didn't happen.
In what may foretell his stand the day after a 2008 stolen election, Barack Obama sat down and shut up, leaving California senator Barbara Boxer to be the lone Democrat calling for a debate on whether Ohio's electoral votes should be accepted.
For a second time, only the Green Party attempted to file lawsuits which might expose the process by which the elections were stolen in Ohio and elsewhere. But lawsuits take time, and that one is still in the deposition stage today, four years later. Congressman John Conyers of Detroit, in his capacity as chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, has made threatening noises to open real investigative hearings with sworn testimony on the massive vote theft in Ohio, but nothing has come of these. And on the campaign trail, Barack Obama scarcely mentions the massive vote theft of 2000 and 2004, as though he were in denial that it ever happened, or might happen again.
In four years as a US senator, Obama has advanced no legislation that would institute voter-verifiable paper trails, and done little or nothing to advance the notion of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote.
Where is Obama, where are Democrats on voter suppression?
Although the national election was clearly stolen from Democrats in 2000 and 2004, that party has declined to fight for investigations into how massive numbers of Democrat-leaning voters, often black and brown, have been purged from the rolls, how voter registration drives and individual voters have been maliciously prosecuted. Despite the fact that several Republican whistle blowers have come to the fore, most prominently former US District Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico, with evidence that the White House demanded spurious prosecutions to lower black and brown turnout, one of many impeachment-grade offenses, the US Senate and House, both under Democratic control, declined to pursue vigorous investigations.
Republican operatives have assiduously cultivated the myth that hordes of foreigners and felons are itching for a chance to vote in US elections, on bond issues, school and library levies, and yes, presidential elections. While nobody has ever caught these legions of fake voters at the polls, the fair tale of their presence has become an accepted fact in popular American lore.
Barack Obama is a member of the senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, and his running mate Joe Biden chairs that committee. If Democrats wanted, any time in the last two years, to put a stop to voter suppression or expose the vacuous myth of large numbers of illegal voters,, these two could have called hearings, subpoenaed witnesses and kept it on the front page for weeks. But again, Democrats don't want to be seen as the party of the blacks, who are the most frequent victims of voter suppression.
If the election is stolen from Obama will he go the way of Gore and Kerry, and refuse to fight to count every vote? Nobody knows. Hopes are high, but Gore and Kerry preserved their elite credentials by refusing to fight the vote thieves. In almost 20 years of political life, Barack Obama has shown himself to be notoriously risk-averse. He doesn't fight. In the words of the Bodie character in HBO's The Wire, “...his heart pumps kool-aid.”
Where are Democrats, where is Barack Obama on the restriction of voter registration drives?
Given that Obama's political career was launched on the success of Project VOTE Illinois, which registered 130,000 voters in the space of a few weeks in 1992, one might expect him to take a special interest in the restrictions states are implementing on voter registration drives. In many parts of the country today, doing the perfectly legal things Project VOTE Illinois did in 1992 might land you a stretch in jail or at least a hefty fine. But now that he's above the fray, the voice of Barack Obama hasn't been heard on the malicious restriction of voter registration drives. In fact, the Boston Globe has reported that he is deliberately distancing himself from ACORN and other voter registration organizations under spurious attack for alleged “vote fraud”.
What you can do-- STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE
Luckily, every heart does not pump kool-aid. Greg Palast and Robert Kennedy Jr. have produced a downloadable comic book outlining seven steps any and everyone ought to take to protect their vote. The first three of these are
Never mail in your ballot. It's like sending your car keys to the thief. You won't be there to see what they do to it.
Vote early --- very early. Since millions of voters will be purged and not notified, it pays to vote early. If you are one of those turned away, you will at least have time to try to remedy the situation. Election day is a bit late, if they have unjustifiably deleted your name from the voter rolls.
Register and register. Register when you move. Register when you change your name. Go online or get on the phone and check your registration before the election.
The book can be downloaded for as little as a penny, and that will get you the other four methods to steal back your vote. Find it at www.stealbackyourvote.com, or at www.gregpalast.com.
Where is Barack, where are Democrats on a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote?
Back in the nineties, Chicago's congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr. advanced the revolutionary idea of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. Strangely, he has not reintroduced it since Democrats have come into control of the House, but this would be an ultimate solution to the problems of voter suppression and unaccountable voting machines stealing the votes. Making the right to vote on the same par as, say, the right to own a gun, would mandate uniform federal rules for what the voting machines can and cannot do, what the qualifications of voters are and are not, who can be purged and excluded, and much more.
But it would be a fight. And Democrats, most notably Democratic presidential candidates have shown no inclination to fight, especially if it looks like a fight on the side of African Americans. Even with an African American presidential candidate, it doesn't look like this will change any time soon.
If Obama does win by ten or twelve percent of the popular vote, which after all the theft is whittled down to two or three percent, it may be time to reintroduce the idea of a constitutional guarantee of the right to vote. It may be even more timely if he loses.
Obama's constituents in the African American community, a large proportion of those impacted by voter suppression, have to date demanded remarkably little from him. That doesn't mean they don't want anything, though. The Obama Check is one they haven't cashed, one whose amount they dare not peek at, but which they hope will be worth a lot. The time to cash that check is coming, on voting rights and voter suppression. Will he choose to honor it? Can anybody make him do it? These are questions that will be answered, and soon.
Black Agenda Report's managing editor Bruce Dixon is based in Atlanta GA. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com
Jim Crow Terrorism
Aquil Aziz
Wrath of Allah News
All Jim Crow did was move his racism into America's institutions. He comfortably resides in the economic policy rooms, the courthouses, the education system, the job market, the welfare office, the healthcare arena, art and entertainment etc. When I was a little boy, my mother use to tell me that the Klan traded in their sheets for three-piece suits.
Now the police murder of Sean Bell was a tragedy of catastrophic proportions. We see that the white corporate media spew at us the dangers of terrorists, however Black America is faced with everyday reality of state sanctioned terrorism, carried out by the police department. The exoneration of the officers' reckless disregard for human life when they fired 50 shots at three unarmed Black men, killing one of them only gave police throughout Amerikkka the greenlight to kill our people.
We need to return to the grassroots action of the 1960's, but we need to update those tactics for the 21st century. Taking action must mean more than marches and chants of "no justice, no peace." When are we going to start the no peace side of our action(s) because we sure as hell ain't getting no justice. What will it take, when they start gunning down our 7 and 8 year old children? Perhaps police will gun down our infants in their strollers and say they posed a threat lying all snug in their blankets as they sleep away. Look at what they did to Pamela Lawton in Pittsburgh, PA when a police officer put his gun in her 7 year old daughter's face and threaten to blow her head off because she was crying. And charges were brought against Pamela Lawton? But I was not surprised when that happened.
We have no other options but to consider retaliation. They're sure as hell not listening to our protesting. We may as well take actions into our own hands or that will be our grandchildren and great grandchildren, and that's if we can make it that far without being exterminated.
Wrath of Allah News
All Jim Crow did was move his racism into America's institutions. He comfortably resides in the economic policy rooms, the courthouses, the education system, the job market, the welfare office, the healthcare arena, art and entertainment etc. When I was a little boy, my mother use to tell me that the Klan traded in their sheets for three-piece suits.
Now the police murder of Sean Bell was a tragedy of catastrophic proportions. We see that the white corporate media spew at us the dangers of terrorists, however Black America is faced with everyday reality of state sanctioned terrorism, carried out by the police department. The exoneration of the officers' reckless disregard for human life when they fired 50 shots at three unarmed Black men, killing one of them only gave police throughout Amerikkka the greenlight to kill our people.
We need to return to the grassroots action of the 1960's, but we need to update those tactics for the 21st century. Taking action must mean more than marches and chants of "no justice, no peace." When are we going to start the no peace side of our action(s) because we sure as hell ain't getting no justice. What will it take, when they start gunning down our 7 and 8 year old children? Perhaps police will gun down our infants in their strollers and say they posed a threat lying all snug in their blankets as they sleep away. Look at what they did to Pamela Lawton in Pittsburgh, PA when a police officer put his gun in her 7 year old daughter's face and threaten to blow her head off because she was crying. And charges were brought against Pamela Lawton? But I was not surprised when that happened.
We have no other options but to consider retaliation. They're sure as hell not listening to our protesting. We may as well take actions into our own hands or that will be our grandchildren and great grandchildren, and that's if we can make it that far without being exterminated.
The Illusion of Post-Racial America
by Aman Gill
This article originally appeared in The Indypendent.
Forty-one years ago, racial tensions - festering since slave times - burst into the Long Hot Summer in the tri-state area. Thirty-four died in Newark, but the most dramatic upheaval came from Plainfield, N.J., a quiet suburb 30 miles from New York City. Amid minor but widespread skirmishes spreading across the region, a lone police officer beat and shot a black youth in the boy's neighborhood. The boy survived, but the cop, quickly surrounded by enraged community members, did not make it out of the neighborhood alive.
Ashanti Alston, a political prisoner activist with the Jericho Movement and former Black Panther who was a teenager in Plainfield at the time, traced the escalating plot for The Indypendent. "The thing about Plainfield that stood out from all the other rebellions was that folks made their way to a gun manufacturing place right outside of the city," Alston says. "They came back to the community with rifles and it was a whole different ball game. It wasn't until the National Guard came that they were able to retake the black community."
Today, decades later, why does racial conflict no longer generate the same kind of heat? Not for lack of ignition. In Queens in November 2006, an undercover vice operation turned into an execution. A 50-shot cop fusillade killed Sean Bell, a young black man heading home on his final night as an unmarried man, and injured two of his friends, all unarmed. The murder won state sanction in April 2008, when a New York State Supreme Court judge accepted at face value the officers' contention that they feared for their lives, making their killing fully legal.
The verdict generated both outrage and despair. Hundreds of people marched that afternoon and "Justice for Sean Bell" signs sprang up throughout the boroughs. But an Al Sharpton-led civil disobedience action in June that might have been the first in a line of battles instead turned out to be the denouement. Things died down.
It's increasingly popular to argue that the fuel for unrest has disappeared because the problem of racism has receded into America's past. This idea has long held sway on the right, but, paradoxically, it's taken Barack Obama's candidacy to elevate this persistent right-wing myth into conventional wisdom.
Civil Rights Unfulfilled
"The history he [Obama] needs to know is the history he rejects," says Lenore Daniels, editorial board member of the Black Commentator, a weekly online magazine. "He rejects the whole Black Power movement: ‘Just the civil rights were fine, we'll leave it at that, there was progress.' [But] the Black Power movement is still relevant. That was a movement talking about economic equality, where King left off."
Histories of struggles are written by the victors. The movements of 40 years ago had winners and losers and, like any war, are remembered more ideologically than objectively. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended Jim Crow and for the first time in U.S. history granted black people formal equality before the law, but failed to transform their lives day-to-day. After 1965, all wings of the movement turned to address this gap: King turned from law and morality to economics; Malcolm X's militancy spread despite his assassination, Black Power was born, and the movement moved north.
Obama's view of a united, post-racial America is in the tradition of how the political establishment - Democrat and Republican - responded to heightened militancy. There was forceful repression, but also a more subtle, ideological response. The language of Jim Crow segregationism gave way to political correctness and new coded terms like "war on drugs." Those who were never allies of the oppressed lauded King and proclaimed the end of discrimination. And black elites, once viewed with suspicion, were welcomed to the table as long as they left their baggage behind. It was unsparing market capitalism for the rest of the community.
The result, as Columbia University historian Manning Marable puts it, is that "Jim Crow no longer existed, but in its place stood a far more formidable system of racial domination, rooted within the political economy and employing a language of fairness and equality." Racism in America may not look like all-white police forces, dogs on black men or sound like speeches by white supremacist politicians. It's more like a termite- infested house - political correctness and black representation in business, media and politics compose a nice-looking picture on the outside. But gashes in the façade expose structural disparities as racially aligned as ever. Statistical measures on rates of poverty, housing, employment and income are not far removed from their 1960s levels.
Black and White
At times, Obama sounds more like Richard Nixon than someone concerned with racism. At the 1968 Republican National Convention Nixon proclaimed, "To those who say law and order is the code word for racism, here is a reply: Our goal is justice for every American." Obama's response to the persecution of the Jena 6 nearly 40 years later sounded a similar note: "Outrage over an injustice like the Jena 6 isn't a matter of black and white. It's a matter of right and wrong."
Obama did not dwell on the marks of racism, so clear to many of us, in the demography of disaster left by Hurricane Katrina. "I do not subscribe to the notion that the painfully slow response of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security was racially based," he said. "The ineptitude was color-blind." And Obama did not object to the Sean Bell ruling, saying, "The judge has made his ruling, and we're a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down."
Obama's candidacy is seen as an indication that racial barriers no longer exist in the United States. Indeed, the election of a black president would be an undeniable milestone in American history, forcing many white Americans to confront latent fears and distrust of black people. And many see progress in the fact that a black man can run a campaign in which race is incidental. Yet it's taken Obama's embrace of post-racialism, and concurrent distancing from traditional civil rights-style black leadership, to lend viability to his campaign. Some activists see him as the culmination of a trend over the last 40 years of black leaders moving away from the communities they've traditionally served and closer to the political and corporate power that dominates the Democratic Party.
Movement Politics vs. Electoral Politics
Alston feels that since the 1970s, the face of mainstream black activism has moved from a base in communities to big money and corporate sway. "No longer do you have the real radical movement folks that were coming out of grassroots movements," Alston says. "You have people tied to money, or tied to established political power. What I look at today is that the Sharptons, the Barack Obamas, the Jesse Jacksons and even a lot of these mega-preachers now are not leaders from the grassroots. They're system leaders that were chosen by either political forces or corporate forces."
After attending Columbia University, Obama put in three years as a community organizer working on a range of neighborhood issues in the largely black Southside of Chicago. But his trajectory afterward - Harvard Law School and a stint as a law professor at the University of Chicago - looks more like the record of black politicians rising up in municipal politics in the 1980s and 1990s than the résumé of earlier leaders like King, Stokely Carmichael or Angela Davis. As he entered politics, he increasingly relied on allies culled from the Chicago elite - after the 2000 Census, he had his state senate district redrawn to make it, according to Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker, "wealthier, white, more Jewish, less-blue collar and better educated." The connections he cultivated with his new well-to-do constituents were vital to his successful 2004 campaign for a U.S. Senate seat.
As Democratic dominance of national-level black politics accelerated, communities' sense of action eroded into the passive live-with-your-fate mode that presently defines U.S. democracy. "When we go back to the 1950s and 1960s," Alston says, "that was the period when people were not relying on the Democratic Party, the party that black folks are so tied to [today]. People were in the streets, people voted through their civil disobedience and direct action and organizing."
The key question is whether much of the agenda in the fight against racial inequality remains unfulfilled. If so, there's plenty to drive modern-day movements, taking outrages like the Sean Bell verdict to illuminate the living economic inequality untouched by 1960s activism. If not, then what happened to Sean Bell is just an aberration that could have happened to anyone, of any class and any race, in a country that has finally fulfilled its egalitarian ideals. That may be an America to hope for, but it's not the one we have today.
Aman Gill is a frequent contributor to The Indypendent, the newspaper of the NYC Independent Media Center.
This article originally appeared in The Indypendent.
Forty-one years ago, racial tensions - festering since slave times - burst into the Long Hot Summer in the tri-state area. Thirty-four died in Newark, but the most dramatic upheaval came from Plainfield, N.J., a quiet suburb 30 miles from New York City. Amid minor but widespread skirmishes spreading across the region, a lone police officer beat and shot a black youth in the boy's neighborhood. The boy survived, but the cop, quickly surrounded by enraged community members, did not make it out of the neighborhood alive.
Ashanti Alston, a political prisoner activist with the Jericho Movement and former Black Panther who was a teenager in Plainfield at the time, traced the escalating plot for The Indypendent. "The thing about Plainfield that stood out from all the other rebellions was that folks made their way to a gun manufacturing place right outside of the city," Alston says. "They came back to the community with rifles and it was a whole different ball game. It wasn't until the National Guard came that they were able to retake the black community."
Today, decades later, why does racial conflict no longer generate the same kind of heat? Not for lack of ignition. In Queens in November 2006, an undercover vice operation turned into an execution. A 50-shot cop fusillade killed Sean Bell, a young black man heading home on his final night as an unmarried man, and injured two of his friends, all unarmed. The murder won state sanction in April 2008, when a New York State Supreme Court judge accepted at face value the officers' contention that they feared for their lives, making their killing fully legal.
The verdict generated both outrage and despair. Hundreds of people marched that afternoon and "Justice for Sean Bell" signs sprang up throughout the boroughs. But an Al Sharpton-led civil disobedience action in June that might have been the first in a line of battles instead turned out to be the denouement. Things died down.
It's increasingly popular to argue that the fuel for unrest has disappeared because the problem of racism has receded into America's past. This idea has long held sway on the right, but, paradoxically, it's taken Barack Obama's candidacy to elevate this persistent right-wing myth into conventional wisdom.
Civil Rights Unfulfilled
"The history he [Obama] needs to know is the history he rejects," says Lenore Daniels, editorial board member of the Black Commentator, a weekly online magazine. "He rejects the whole Black Power movement: ‘Just the civil rights were fine, we'll leave it at that, there was progress.' [But] the Black Power movement is still relevant. That was a movement talking about economic equality, where King left off."
Histories of struggles are written by the victors. The movements of 40 years ago had winners and losers and, like any war, are remembered more ideologically than objectively. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended Jim Crow and for the first time in U.S. history granted black people formal equality before the law, but failed to transform their lives day-to-day. After 1965, all wings of the movement turned to address this gap: King turned from law and morality to economics; Malcolm X's militancy spread despite his assassination, Black Power was born, and the movement moved north.
Obama's view of a united, post-racial America is in the tradition of how the political establishment - Democrat and Republican - responded to heightened militancy. There was forceful repression, but also a more subtle, ideological response. The language of Jim Crow segregationism gave way to political correctness and new coded terms like "war on drugs." Those who were never allies of the oppressed lauded King and proclaimed the end of discrimination. And black elites, once viewed with suspicion, were welcomed to the table as long as they left their baggage behind. It was unsparing market capitalism for the rest of the community.
The result, as Columbia University historian Manning Marable puts it, is that "Jim Crow no longer existed, but in its place stood a far more formidable system of racial domination, rooted within the political economy and employing a language of fairness and equality." Racism in America may not look like all-white police forces, dogs on black men or sound like speeches by white supremacist politicians. It's more like a termite- infested house - political correctness and black representation in business, media and politics compose a nice-looking picture on the outside. But gashes in the façade expose structural disparities as racially aligned as ever. Statistical measures on rates of poverty, housing, employment and income are not far removed from their 1960s levels.
Black and White
At times, Obama sounds more like Richard Nixon than someone concerned with racism. At the 1968 Republican National Convention Nixon proclaimed, "To those who say law and order is the code word for racism, here is a reply: Our goal is justice for every American." Obama's response to the persecution of the Jena 6 nearly 40 years later sounded a similar note: "Outrage over an injustice like the Jena 6 isn't a matter of black and white. It's a matter of right and wrong."
Obama did not dwell on the marks of racism, so clear to many of us, in the demography of disaster left by Hurricane Katrina. "I do not subscribe to the notion that the painfully slow response of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security was racially based," he said. "The ineptitude was color-blind." And Obama did not object to the Sean Bell ruling, saying, "The judge has made his ruling, and we're a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down."
Obama's candidacy is seen as an indication that racial barriers no longer exist in the United States. Indeed, the election of a black president would be an undeniable milestone in American history, forcing many white Americans to confront latent fears and distrust of black people. And many see progress in the fact that a black man can run a campaign in which race is incidental. Yet it's taken Obama's embrace of post-racialism, and concurrent distancing from traditional civil rights-style black leadership, to lend viability to his campaign. Some activists see him as the culmination of a trend over the last 40 years of black leaders moving away from the communities they've traditionally served and closer to the political and corporate power that dominates the Democratic Party.
Movement Politics vs. Electoral Politics
Alston feels that since the 1970s, the face of mainstream black activism has moved from a base in communities to big money and corporate sway. "No longer do you have the real radical movement folks that were coming out of grassroots movements," Alston says. "You have people tied to money, or tied to established political power. What I look at today is that the Sharptons, the Barack Obamas, the Jesse Jacksons and even a lot of these mega-preachers now are not leaders from the grassroots. They're system leaders that were chosen by either political forces or corporate forces."
After attending Columbia University, Obama put in three years as a community organizer working on a range of neighborhood issues in the largely black Southside of Chicago. But his trajectory afterward - Harvard Law School and a stint as a law professor at the University of Chicago - looks more like the record of black politicians rising up in municipal politics in the 1980s and 1990s than the résumé of earlier leaders like King, Stokely Carmichael or Angela Davis. As he entered politics, he increasingly relied on allies culled from the Chicago elite - after the 2000 Census, he had his state senate district redrawn to make it, according to Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker, "wealthier, white, more Jewish, less-blue collar and better educated." The connections he cultivated with his new well-to-do constituents were vital to his successful 2004 campaign for a U.S. Senate seat.
As Democratic dominance of national-level black politics accelerated, communities' sense of action eroded into the passive live-with-your-fate mode that presently defines U.S. democracy. "When we go back to the 1950s and 1960s," Alston says, "that was the period when people were not relying on the Democratic Party, the party that black folks are so tied to [today]. People were in the streets, people voted through their civil disobedience and direct action and organizing."
The key question is whether much of the agenda in the fight against racial inequality remains unfulfilled. If so, there's plenty to drive modern-day movements, taking outrages like the Sean Bell verdict to illuminate the living economic inequality untouched by 1960s activism. If not, then what happened to Sean Bell is just an aberration that could have happened to anyone, of any class and any race, in a country that has finally fulfilled its egalitarian ideals. That may be an America to hope for, but it's not the one we have today.
Aman Gill is a frequent contributor to The Indypendent, the newspaper of the NYC Independent Media Center.
Freedom Rider: If "That One" Wins
How will white people react if Barack Obama is elected the 44th president of the United States? Every poll shows Obama leading John McCain with just three weeks to go before election day. More importantly, he is leading in the states that John Kerry won four years ago, and may be able to add some of the states that Kerry, and other Democrats, were unable to win.
Obama's success at getting the votes of millions of white people does not change the fact that the United States is still very racist. A recent poll indicated that many white people, including some who claim to support Obama, continue to hold very negative opinions about black people, often viewing them as "violent," and "complaining."
The response to the worldwide economic meltdown that was engineered by wealthy and powerful white people is now being blamed on black Americans. As the new talking point goes, undeserving black people caused worldwide financial markets to crash when they defaulted on home mortgages. It is a supreme irony that a black man is on the verge of becoming president, while the rest of black America is caught in the familiar role of scapegoat for the nation's troubles.
Obama is truly admired, even loved, by many white people. His appeals to hope and change are indeed potent. The consultants who marketed those phrases certainly knew the power behind them. Obama's refusal to directly address the needs of black people is also appealing to white people. They can support him without having to change the bigoted attitudes they still hold against other black people.
However, it has to be pointed out that lofty campaign talking points can't placate people who are proudly and openly racist. They still don't to see a black person in the position of ultimate political authority, not even an eloquent, biracial, photogenic politician who never addresses black people's needs and who even has a white grand mother to trot out at convenient times. The very idea that a black man will be president makes these people very, very angry.
Hillary Clinton attempted to tap into these sentiments and John McCain does now. Clinton made it clear her campaign was appealing to "hard working people, white people." McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, uses Obama's middle name, Hussein, at every opportunity and sneers about community organizing, which doesn't really describe the social work that Obama did, but the anti-black sentiment is clearly understood by the audience for whom it is meant. In the first presidential debate John McCain refused to look Obama in the face. The second debate ended without a hand shake between the two, but that was not the most memorable moment. When McCain referred to his opponent as "that one" he was telling his most racist supporters that he shared their disdain and anger at the thought of an Obama presidency.
The parking lot owner in North Carolina who refuses to park cars with Obama bumper stickers didn't get the peace, love, harmony and post-racial memo. He probably wouldn't want a white Democrat to be president, and now he is particularly galled that a black Democrat may be president. He will be a very angry man if Obama is inaugurated in January.
He will blame black people for the mortgage crisis and for every other crisis in the world. Ironically, so will some of the white people who vote for Obama. His strategy of distancing himself from black people allows them to support him while still heaping disdain on the rest of black America. Obama appeals to many white people precisely because of his own denunciation of black demands for justice, or even the memory of past injustice. Rev. Jeremiah Wright knows that all too well.
The racist attacks directed at Obama pose a terrible dilemma. The primary one being that he doesn't acknowledge that racism exists. It has disappeared, bringing black people "90% of the way" towards equality.
If "that one" wins, black people will be very, very happy. The joy will be short lived when the political need to please white America, whether Obama supporters or not, takes precedence over the unrequited love that came Obama's way. Black America is facing an ugly reaction from white people angered because the commander-in-chief is black. White Obama supporters will be able to wash their hands of responsibility for righting America's wrongs because they cast their ballots for a black man.
Black people will face hard times in an Obama presidency. There will be no defense when the beat down begins. Why should there be? Violent, complaining people ought to be punished. They deserve nothing else.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
Obama's success at getting the votes of millions of white people does not change the fact that the United States is still very racist. A recent poll indicated that many white people, including some who claim to support Obama, continue to hold very negative opinions about black people, often viewing them as "violent," and "complaining."
The response to the worldwide economic meltdown that was engineered by wealthy and powerful white people is now being blamed on black Americans. As the new talking point goes, undeserving black people caused worldwide financial markets to crash when they defaulted on home mortgages. It is a supreme irony that a black man is on the verge of becoming president, while the rest of black America is caught in the familiar role of scapegoat for the nation's troubles.
Obama is truly admired, even loved, by many white people. His appeals to hope and change are indeed potent. The consultants who marketed those phrases certainly knew the power behind them. Obama's refusal to directly address the needs of black people is also appealing to white people. They can support him without having to change the bigoted attitudes they still hold against other black people.
However, it has to be pointed out that lofty campaign talking points can't placate people who are proudly and openly racist. They still don't to see a black person in the position of ultimate political authority, not even an eloquent, biracial, photogenic politician who never addresses black people's needs and who even has a white grand mother to trot out at convenient times. The very idea that a black man will be president makes these people very, very angry.
Hillary Clinton attempted to tap into these sentiments and John McCain does now. Clinton made it clear her campaign was appealing to "hard working people, white people." McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, uses Obama's middle name, Hussein, at every opportunity and sneers about community organizing, which doesn't really describe the social work that Obama did, but the anti-black sentiment is clearly understood by the audience for whom it is meant. In the first presidential debate John McCain refused to look Obama in the face. The second debate ended without a hand shake between the two, but that was not the most memorable moment. When McCain referred to his opponent as "that one" he was telling his most racist supporters that he shared their disdain and anger at the thought of an Obama presidency.
The parking lot owner in North Carolina who refuses to park cars with Obama bumper stickers didn't get the peace, love, harmony and post-racial memo. He probably wouldn't want a white Democrat to be president, and now he is particularly galled that a black Democrat may be president. He will be a very angry man if Obama is inaugurated in January.
He will blame black people for the mortgage crisis and for every other crisis in the world. Ironically, so will some of the white people who vote for Obama. His strategy of distancing himself from black people allows them to support him while still heaping disdain on the rest of black America. Obama appeals to many white people precisely because of his own denunciation of black demands for justice, or even the memory of past injustice. Rev. Jeremiah Wright knows that all too well.
The racist attacks directed at Obama pose a terrible dilemma. The primary one being that he doesn't acknowledge that racism exists. It has disappeared, bringing black people "90% of the way" towards equality.
If "that one" wins, black people will be very, very happy. The joy will be short lived when the political need to please white America, whether Obama supporters or not, takes precedence over the unrequited love that came Obama's way. Black America is facing an ugly reaction from white people angered because the commander-in-chief is black. White Obama supporters will be able to wash their hands of responsibility for righting America's wrongs because they cast their ballots for a black man.
Black people will face hard times in an Obama presidency. There will be no defense when the beat down begins. Why should there be? Violent, complaining people ought to be punished. They deserve nothing else.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
Eshu's blues: we are the people with boxes on our heads
It was just a matter of time. We all saw last spring how the Clinton machine was positively itching to shout the "n" word down in the Carolinas before Miss Ann and Ol' Colonel Clinton got served their walking papers by large black sections of the voting public. So it just stood to reason that the McCain machine, unable to shake off the tendency of Johnnie to remind people of a dried-up artichoke would try to figure out a cagey way to play the old skin game. The prime obstacle to the "nigger, nigger" play is the political savvy of Senator Obama, Senator Biden's "clean and articulate" running mate, who has distanced himself from we more Wrighteous black folks with our tiresome Jeremiads, and thereby lightened the burdens of sweaty white progressives who've long been looking for a black leadership that tows the party line without question.
Still, Senator Johnnie Mac had to give the old school a crack. And so it was that some of his nuttier white supporters got so worked up they were chanting "Kill him!" whenever Obama's name was mentioned the other day at a rally where Governor Palin was speaking. Senator McCain, to his credit, noticed that the atmosphere at some of his rallies was beginning to resemble a Klan rally, which isn't good form in the U.S.A., where the racism of the moment prefers metaphoric if still sophomoric tone.
Today, we are informed by John McCain, Senator Obama is a "good and decent family man." According to the mainstream press, this upset many of Senator McCain's followers, who actually booed him as he continued to suggest that William Ayers is only one of Senator Obama's supporters, and that his acquaintance with Ayers doesn't make Barrack Obama a terrorist.
The idea that Senator Obama might be a "good and decent family man" is a difficult notion for those factions of the "republican" party who dig "national hate week" to swallow. But let us judge not that we be not judged. There are certainly both those supporters and opponents of Senator Obama who fail to understand that the Golden Child is keeping company and lending support to patriotic war criminals whose crimes make all the transgressions of Ayers and his Weatherman sect colleagues rosy by comparison. But that's another story, one that the passion of the political season has successfully pre-empted.
Until that reality penetrates the layers of true believer nonsense generated by our quadrennial circus this year, the politics of Black America are going to see a serious fleecing. So hungry are we as a people for any validation of a "famous first" that we are willing to embrace the same savage spectacle that has driven white America out of its mind for centuries. I hate to say this about us, but it's true. Like many white residents of the United States, the current political discourse of black folks is driven by an ice cold commodity fetish, a mass absurdity addressed most eloquently by a sketch I saw performed in front of television cameras outside the "democratic" convention by the Church of the Sub-Genius twenty years ago.
The guerilla street theater performed by the Sub-Genius featured a bunch of people walking around outside the convention hall with cardboard boxes on their heads. When asked just what it was they were trying to say, they answered, "We are the people with boxes on our heads." And that is the politics of black America right now.
With the ascension of the black machine politics of would-be President Barack Obama, we have achieved in our public polity a narcissism and cultiness as craven and manipulative as anything that ever came out of the mouth of a white politician. But one way or another, the items inside the carton atop our heads are going to keep creeping out. This being an election year, no one is really going to hold our so-called leadership accountable for the intentional and slow destruction of the public sector in our "democracy," or the Black Hole of debt the financial elite have acquired for us, or the atrocities overseas which they so glibly claim demonstrate that we actually are a "shining city on the hill." But somewhere, underneath all the glitz, we all know that there actually is an alarm bell sounding. And like the man said, send not to know for whom it tolls, baby.
michael hureaux is a writer, musician and teacher who lives in southwest Seattle, Washington. He is a longtime contributor to small and alternative presses around the country and performs his work frequently. Email to: tricksterbirdboy@yahoo.com
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Glenn Beck Highlights Threat Of Martial Law Following Economic Crisis
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Tuesday, Oct 14, 2008
Like him or loathe him, last night CNN’s Glenn Beck became the only mainstream media source thus far to address on national TV the reality of the situation Americans are facing with the manufactured financial implosion - the direct threat of domestic martial law and a global financial dictatorship.
Beck’s guest, Peter Schiff, respected author of "Crash Proof" and president of the brokerage firm Euro Pacific Capital, joined him in outlining that martial law, the use of armed troops on the streets to quell dissent, is a real possibility should the economic crisis not improve or worsen to the point where civil unrest is fomented.
The following exchange between Beck and Schiff, who was also economic adviser to Ron Paul during his presidential campaign, is from the CNN transcript of last night’s show:
SCHIFF: You know, what`s going to happen, of course, is as inflation starts running out of control and prices start going through the roof, the government again is going to focus on the symptoms and not the disease.
And they`re going to impose price controls on energy, on food, on a lot of other things that are vital, which means shortages, which means long lines, black markets, civil unrest. All this stuff is coming if we don`t stop. [...]
BECK: Peter, let`s talk a little bit about martial law. Why would that even be a consideration?
SCHIFF: Well, I don`t think it was a threat if they had rejected the bailout Bill, but I think it is a possibility a few years down the line. We just spoke a little bit about price controls and the effect that they`re going to have.
If we have shortages of food, if we have rolling blackouts. And people are upset, and they`re hungry, and they`re cold, there could be civil unrest. There could be looting, rioting, and that might be the impetus for the government to declare martial law.
BECK: You know, I don`t think you`re a couple of years away from something like that. I mean, honestly, Peter, I mean, look at what`s happening. In a half hour, I`ve got a congressman on about — about the racism cries. I mean, there are people that are right now so disenfranchised, and I think being encouraged to be disenfranchised on both sides, that at any time this damn thing could break apart.
SCHIFF: Yes. And we`re giving the government so much power. And you know, you give up a lot more civil liberties. When you have martial law and you`ve got the military policing our streets, when you`ve got suspension of habeas corpus, you`ve got curfews, you can`t be out of your house after dark, and they can just pick you up and put you in prison and keep you there indefinitely without charges, and there`s nothing you can do about it?
I mean, we`re giving up one liberty after another, all to protect ourselves from this economic crisis, which needs to happen anyway, but it doesn`t need to be nearly this bad.
BECK: Peter, this is — I mean, we`re in Crazytown, USA. But my gut tells me that, two years down the road — let`s just use that number — this country is not going to look anything like it does today. Our world has changed; it just hasn`t caught up.
During the ten minute segment, Beck and Schiff also pointed out that America is headed for Weimar Republic style hyperinflation at the hands of global bankers, stated that the financial implosion has been manufactured by design, warned that the Treasury has been given dictatorial powers and raised the question of whether the end game is a one world currency and one world financial governance.
Beck also played the now infamous clip of Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman from October 2nd stating that several members of Congress were threatened before the bailout vote that martial law would be instigated in America if the legislation was not passed.
Watch the entire segment below:
Though Beck was unable to bring Rep. Sherman on to his show, the Congressman did appear exclusively on the Alex Jones show on October 3rd to discuss the threat of martial law. Peter Schiff also appeared on the Alex Jones show recently to discuss this important issue.
Infowars.net
Tuesday, Oct 14, 2008
Like him or loathe him, last night CNN’s Glenn Beck became the only mainstream media source thus far to address on national TV the reality of the situation Americans are facing with the manufactured financial implosion - the direct threat of domestic martial law and a global financial dictatorship.
Beck’s guest, Peter Schiff, respected author of "Crash Proof" and president of the brokerage firm Euro Pacific Capital, joined him in outlining that martial law, the use of armed troops on the streets to quell dissent, is a real possibility should the economic crisis not improve or worsen to the point where civil unrest is fomented.
The following exchange between Beck and Schiff, who was also economic adviser to Ron Paul during his presidential campaign, is from the CNN transcript of last night’s show:
SCHIFF: You know, what`s going to happen, of course, is as inflation starts running out of control and prices start going through the roof, the government again is going to focus on the symptoms and not the disease.
And they`re going to impose price controls on energy, on food, on a lot of other things that are vital, which means shortages, which means long lines, black markets, civil unrest. All this stuff is coming if we don`t stop. [...]
BECK: Peter, let`s talk a little bit about martial law. Why would that even be a consideration?
SCHIFF: Well, I don`t think it was a threat if they had rejected the bailout Bill, but I think it is a possibility a few years down the line. We just spoke a little bit about price controls and the effect that they`re going to have.
If we have shortages of food, if we have rolling blackouts. And people are upset, and they`re hungry, and they`re cold, there could be civil unrest. There could be looting, rioting, and that might be the impetus for the government to declare martial law.
BECK: You know, I don`t think you`re a couple of years away from something like that. I mean, honestly, Peter, I mean, look at what`s happening. In a half hour, I`ve got a congressman on about — about the racism cries. I mean, there are people that are right now so disenfranchised, and I think being encouraged to be disenfranchised on both sides, that at any time this damn thing could break apart.
SCHIFF: Yes. And we`re giving the government so much power. And you know, you give up a lot more civil liberties. When you have martial law and you`ve got the military policing our streets, when you`ve got suspension of habeas corpus, you`ve got curfews, you can`t be out of your house after dark, and they can just pick you up and put you in prison and keep you there indefinitely without charges, and there`s nothing you can do about it?
I mean, we`re giving up one liberty after another, all to protect ourselves from this economic crisis, which needs to happen anyway, but it doesn`t need to be nearly this bad.
BECK: Peter, this is — I mean, we`re in Crazytown, USA. But my gut tells me that, two years down the road — let`s just use that number — this country is not going to look anything like it does today. Our world has changed; it just hasn`t caught up.
During the ten minute segment, Beck and Schiff also pointed out that America is headed for Weimar Republic style hyperinflation at the hands of global bankers, stated that the financial implosion has been manufactured by design, warned that the Treasury has been given dictatorial powers and raised the question of whether the end game is a one world currency and one world financial governance.
Beck also played the now infamous clip of Democratic Congressman Brad Sherman from October 2nd stating that several members of Congress were threatened before the bailout vote that martial law would be instigated in America if the legislation was not passed.
Watch the entire segment below:
Though Beck was unable to bring Rep. Sherman on to his show, the Congressman did appear exclusively on the Alex Jones show on October 3rd to discuss the threat of martial law. Peter Schiff also appeared on the Alex Jones show recently to discuss this important issue.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Official: Gunmen Open Fire on U.S. Consulate in Mexico
Monday, October 13, 2008
MONTERREY, Mexico — The gate at the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey was pockmarked with bullet holes Monday, a day after assailants shot at the building and threw a grenade that failed to explode. No one was injured.
The consulate issued a statement saying that two men launched the attack around midnight Saturday, when the consulate was closed. Six spent .45-caliber casings were found at the scene.
It was not clear if the attack was related to a wave of violence by drug gangs and no evidence it was related to political terrorism, though fears persist that international terrorists might use Mexico to attack U.S. interests.
Officials were analyzing the consulate's security video, but had no suspects and had not determined a motive.
The consulate increased security and expressed "profound concern."
Offices were closed Monday because it was Columbus Day in the U.S., but two police pickups were stationed outside the building. A guard on duty said he was at the consulate when he heard the shots fired. He ran to the front, but the assailants already had fled.
The guard, who wasn't authorized to give his name, said the grenade didn't go off because the pin wasn't removed.
Alleged drug hit men threw grenades into a crowd of Independence Day revelers on Sept. 15, killing eight in the western city of Morelia. The attack heightened fears that drug cartels were expanding their violent campaign against a Mexican government crackdown.
Also late Sunday, assailants made the second grenade attack in less than six months against the state Public Safety office in the western city of Guadalajara, injuring six people on the street, according to a statement issued by the police agency.
Two grenades exploded and shattered windows of the office, a furniture store and several cars nearby. Authorities found the abandoned cars used by the assailants, but had made no arrests and had not determined a motive for the attack.
The Public Safety office was operating normally on Monday.
An attack on the office in June killed a policeman and injured another. Four former soldiers were arrested in the June attack.
MONTERREY, Mexico — The gate at the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey was pockmarked with bullet holes Monday, a day after assailants shot at the building and threw a grenade that failed to explode. No one was injured.
The consulate issued a statement saying that two men launched the attack around midnight Saturday, when the consulate was closed. Six spent .45-caliber casings were found at the scene.
It was not clear if the attack was related to a wave of violence by drug gangs and no evidence it was related to political terrorism, though fears persist that international terrorists might use Mexico to attack U.S. interests.
Officials were analyzing the consulate's security video, but had no suspects and had not determined a motive.
The consulate increased security and expressed "profound concern."
Offices were closed Monday because it was Columbus Day in the U.S., but two police pickups were stationed outside the building. A guard on duty said he was at the consulate when he heard the shots fired. He ran to the front, but the assailants already had fled.
The guard, who wasn't authorized to give his name, said the grenade didn't go off because the pin wasn't removed.
Alleged drug hit men threw grenades into a crowd of Independence Day revelers on Sept. 15, killing eight in the western city of Morelia. The attack heightened fears that drug cartels were expanding their violent campaign against a Mexican government crackdown.
Also late Sunday, assailants made the second grenade attack in less than six months against the state Public Safety office in the western city of Guadalajara, injuring six people on the street, according to a statement issued by the police agency.
Two grenades exploded and shattered windows of the office, a furniture store and several cars nearby. Authorities found the abandoned cars used by the assailants, but had made no arrests and had not determined a motive for the attack.
The Public Safety office was operating normally on Monday.
An attack on the office in June killed a policeman and injured another. Four former soldiers were arrested in the June attack.
U.S. Summons Only Super Elite Bankers To Post Bailout Meeting
Economic Policy Journal
October 13, 2008
The Bush administration summoned executives from leading banks to a meeting in Washington Monday afternoon to work out details of the $700 billion plan.
And, as they say in Chicago, "If you are not at the table, you are on the menu."
For the record those expected at the table are:
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon, and Bank of America Corp. CEO Kenneth Lewis were all asked to attend. There was some speculation that Paulson might have expanded the invitation to at least three other CEOs from various regional banks, people said.
The FDIC directly examines and supervises about 5,250 banks and savings banks, and Paulosn invites at most 8 bankers to discuss how to divvy up $700 billion?
"It was expected that whatever comes out of the meeting will be used to put the finishing touches on the plan," AP reported its sources as saying.
October 13, 2008
The Bush administration summoned executives from leading banks to a meeting in Washington Monday afternoon to work out details of the $700 billion plan.
And, as they say in Chicago, "If you are not at the table, you are on the menu."
For the record those expected at the table are:
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon, and Bank of America Corp. CEO Kenneth Lewis were all asked to attend. There was some speculation that Paulson might have expanded the invitation to at least three other CEOs from various regional banks, people said.
The FDIC directly examines and supervises about 5,250 banks and savings banks, and Paulosn invites at most 8 bankers to discuss how to divvy up $700 billion?
"It was expected that whatever comes out of the meeting will be used to put the finishing touches on the plan," AP reported its sources as saying.
Rescue for the Few, Debt Slavery for the Many
Michael Hudson
Counterpunch
October 13, 2008
We are now entering the financial End Time. Bailout “Plan A” (buy the junk mortgages) has failed, “Plan B” (buy ersatz stocks in the banks to recapitalize them without wiping out current mismanagers) is fizzling, and the debts still can’t be paid. That is the reality Wall Street avoids confronting. “First they ignore you, then they denounce you, and then they say that they knew what you were saying all the time,” said Gandhi. The same might be said of today’s overhang of debts in excess of the economy’s ability to pay. First the policy makers pretend that they can be paid, then they denounce the pessimists as spreading panic, and then they say that of course students have been taught for four thousand years now how the “magic of compound interest” keeps on doubling and redoubling debts faster than the economy can squeeze out an economic surplus to pay.
What has ended is the idea that “the magic of compound interest” can make economies rich without having to work and without industry. I hope we have seen the end of derivatives formulae seeking to make money by playing in a zero-sum game. A debt overhang always ends either in foreclosure of the debtor’s property, or in a debt annulment to preserve the economy’s overall freedom and equity.
This means that the postmodern economy as we know it must end – either in financial polarization and debt peonage to a new oligarchic elite, or in a debt cancellation, a Jubilee Year to rescue society. But when the government says that it is reviewing “all” the options, this reality is not one of them. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s first option was to buy packages of junk mortgages (collateralized debt obligations, CDOs) to save the wealthiest institutional investors from having to take a loss on their bad bets. When this was not enough, he came up with “Plan B,” to give money to banks. But whereas Britain and European countries talked of nationalizing banks or at least taking a controlling interest, Mr. Paulson gave in to his Wall Street cronies and promised that the government’s stock purchases would not be real. There would be no dilution of existing shareholders, and the government’s investment would be non-voting. To cap the giveaway to his cronies, Mr. Paulson even agreed not to ask executives to give up their golden parachutes, exorbitant annual bonuses or salaries.
Plan A (the $700 billion to buy mortgage-backed junk that the private sector will not buy) failed partly because it let financial institutions avoid putting a fair value on the debt packages they were selling. Instead of telling the truth about their financial position by marking assets to market prices), they can “mark to model,” Enron-style. We have seen the result: A solid week of plunging stock market prices. The public media call this a panic, but there is nothing irrational about it. Who in their right mind would buy securities or buy into a bank without knowing what the securities were worth? Faith in junk mathematical models has ended.
So we still await a public response to the problem of how to write down debts. Whose economic interest will have to give: that of debtors, as increasingly has been the case over the past eight centuries; or that of creditors, which have fought back to create a neoliberal economy controlled by the FIRE sector?
It is not too late to decide which road to take, but Wall Street bankers and creditors have taken the lead in positioning themselves. Seeing which way the political winds were blowing, they moved to empty out the Treasury before the November 3 elections much like medieval citizens fleeing a horde of Mongolian raiders under Genghis Khan. “We’re moving. Clean out the cupboards,” much as Lehman Brothers emptied out their foreign bank accounts in Britain and elsewhere just before declaring bankruptcy, taking what they could and steering it to their best friends.
The pretense was that a bailout was needed to restore confidence. But the ensuing week showed that the claims were false. It didn’t turn the stock market around as promised. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2,200 points from Wednesday, October 1 through the following Friday October 10 – eight straight trading days, not even pausing for the usual zigzags. Friday’s plunge was 100 points a minute for the first seven minutes – a 690 point drop to under 8000. Each 100 points was more than a 1 percent drop, which was reflected on the NASDAQ. Nothing could withstand the pressure of so many Americans cashing in their mutual funds overnight and so many foreigners in earlier time zones putting in sell-at-market orders.
Short sellers made one of the largest and quickest fortunes ever, and then covered their positions by buying back the stocks they had pre-sold. This pushed prices up even into positive territory just before 10:30 AM when George Bush began to speak. Half the financial stocks showed gains – a sign that the Plunge Protection Team had jumped in. But Mr. Bush said nothing helpful and stocks went back into freefall, ending down another 128 points despite the upcoming weekend G7 meeting. There was no talk at all of reducing debt levels – only of giving more money to banks, insurance companies and other money managers, as if “pushing on a string” somehow would lead them to lend yet more to an already debt-ridden economy.
If Congress really wanted to restore confidence, here’s what it might have done: First, mark to market, not to model. Investors no longer believe America’s Enron-style accounting, debt rating agencies or monoline risk insurers. They don’t trust U.S. banks to be honest about their financial positions. They worry about the fraud charges brought by attorneys general in eleven states against predatory lenders such as Countrywide and Wachovia that Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America were so eager to buy.
So is it too late for Congress to change its mind and repeal the giveaway? If the $700 billion handout didn’t stabilize the unsalvageable for small investors, pension funds and even the financial sector itself, what did it do?
What the Fed has been doing while the media have not been looking?
Let’s put the giveaway in perspective. While Senators and Congressmen subject to voters’ choice were debating $700 billion for the major Wall Street contributors to both parties (admittedly only for starters, Mr. Paulson explained), the Federal Reserve already had given even more, without any public discussion and without the major media noticing. Since Bear Stearns failed in March, the Federal Reserve has used the small print of its charter to go outside its normal customers (which are supposed to be commercial banks), to give investment banks, brokerage houses and now large corporations almost indiscriminately some $875 billion in “cash for trash” swaps. (The statistics are released each week in the Fed’s H41 report.) Like Aladdin offering new lamps for old, the Fed has exchanged Treasury securities for junk mortgages and other securities that brokerage houses and investment banks did not have time to pawn off onto OPEC, Asian sovereign wealth funds or other investors.
The press lauds Mr. Bernanke as “a student of the Great Depression.” If he were, he should know that what led to the 1929 collapse were harsh U.S. Government creditor policies toward its World War I Allied governments. This created a situation where the Federal Reserve had to provide easy credit to hold interest rates artificially low so as to encourage U.S. investors to lend to Britain and Germany, which would use these dollar inflows to pay their Inter-Ally arms and reparations debts. Mr. Bernanke’s predecessor, Alan Greenspan, promoted easy credit simply for ideological reasons, to enrich Wall Street by enabling it to sell more debt.
A student of the Great Depression would understand the conflicts of interest between retail commercial banking and wholesale investment banking and money management that led Congress to pass the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933 – conflicts unleashed once again when Pres.
Clinton backed then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and Republican leader (and McCain hero) Senator Phil Gramm in leading the repeal of this act, opening up the floodgates to today’s financial double-dealing that has cost the American economy so much.
If Mr. Bernanke does know this history, his behavior is simply that of an opportunistic student of the art of political self-advancement, toadying to Wall Street in campaigning for one last great rip-off before the Bush Administration goes out of business. The Fed has given Wall Street newly minted Treasury bonds, added to the national debt out of thin air. It has done this without feeling any need to rationalize it by drawing absurd public-relations pictures about how the government may “make a profit for taxpayers.”
The Fed Chairman is not elected democratically. He traditionally is designated by the Wall Street financial sector that the Fed is supposed to regulate, acting as its lobbyist for creditor interests – the top 10 percent of the population – against that of the indebted “bottom 90 percent.” This “independence of the central bank” is trumpeted as a hallmark of democracy. But it is undemocratic, precisely by being isolated from public control.
The Age of Oligarchy
Treasury Secretary Paulson has no such luxury. The Treasury is supposed to represent the national interest, not that of bankers – even though its head these days is drawn from Wall Street and acts as its lobbyist. Mr. Paulson presented his almost totalitarian giveaway gruffly to Congress on a take-it-or-leave it basis, announcing that if Congress did not save Wall Street from taking losses on its mountain of bad loans, the banks were willing to crash the economy out of spite. “Please don’t make us wreck the economy,” he said in effect. As Margaret Thatcher used to say while selling off the British government’s crown jewels in the 1980s, TINA: There is no alternative.
In making this bold threat Mr. Paulson behaved as arrogantly as Lehman’s CEO Richard Fuld did when he tried to bluff Korea and other prospective investors into paying the full, fictitiously high book value for his company. (His bluff failed and Lehman went bankrupt, wiping out its shareholders, including the employees and managers who held 30 percent of its stock.) There turned out to be an alternative after all. Responding to the loudest public condemnation in memory, Congress called Mr. Paulson’s bluff.
What made his $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) so much more visible to the media than the Fed’s actions is that Congress is involved, and this is an election year. The level of deception and false argument is therefore enormous – along with a few tradeoffs and tax cuts to distract attention. Erstwhile Republican opponent Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama came right out and said that “This bill has been packaged with a lot of very popular things to give it even more momentum,” so that (as The New York Times explained), “instead of siding with a $700 billion bailout, lawmakers could now say they voted for increased protection for deposits at the neighborhood bank, income tax relief for middle-class taxpayers and aid for schools in rural areas where the federal government owns much of the land.”
Left behind while Wall Street’s believers in the rapture of free markets were swept up to heaven by “socialism for the rich” have been mortgage debtors, student-loan debtors, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC, some $25 billion short), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC, about $40 billion short), as well as Social Security which, we are warned, may run up a trillion dollar deficit thirty or forty years down the line. Only the wealthiest have been beneficiaries, not voters, homeowners and other debtors.
Counterpunch
October 13, 2008
We are now entering the financial End Time. Bailout “Plan A” (buy the junk mortgages) has failed, “Plan B” (buy ersatz stocks in the banks to recapitalize them without wiping out current mismanagers) is fizzling, and the debts still can’t be paid. That is the reality Wall Street avoids confronting. “First they ignore you, then they denounce you, and then they say that they knew what you were saying all the time,” said Gandhi. The same might be said of today’s overhang of debts in excess of the economy’s ability to pay. First the policy makers pretend that they can be paid, then they denounce the pessimists as spreading panic, and then they say that of course students have been taught for four thousand years now how the “magic of compound interest” keeps on doubling and redoubling debts faster than the economy can squeeze out an economic surplus to pay.
What has ended is the idea that “the magic of compound interest” can make economies rich without having to work and without industry. I hope we have seen the end of derivatives formulae seeking to make money by playing in a zero-sum game. A debt overhang always ends either in foreclosure of the debtor’s property, or in a debt annulment to preserve the economy’s overall freedom and equity.
This means that the postmodern economy as we know it must end – either in financial polarization and debt peonage to a new oligarchic elite, or in a debt cancellation, a Jubilee Year to rescue society. But when the government says that it is reviewing “all” the options, this reality is not one of them. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s first option was to buy packages of junk mortgages (collateralized debt obligations, CDOs) to save the wealthiest institutional investors from having to take a loss on their bad bets. When this was not enough, he came up with “Plan B,” to give money to banks. But whereas Britain and European countries talked of nationalizing banks or at least taking a controlling interest, Mr. Paulson gave in to his Wall Street cronies and promised that the government’s stock purchases would not be real. There would be no dilution of existing shareholders, and the government’s investment would be non-voting. To cap the giveaway to his cronies, Mr. Paulson even agreed not to ask executives to give up their golden parachutes, exorbitant annual bonuses or salaries.
Plan A (the $700 billion to buy mortgage-backed junk that the private sector will not buy) failed partly because it let financial institutions avoid putting a fair value on the debt packages they were selling. Instead of telling the truth about their financial position by marking assets to market prices), they can “mark to model,” Enron-style. We have seen the result: A solid week of plunging stock market prices. The public media call this a panic, but there is nothing irrational about it. Who in their right mind would buy securities or buy into a bank without knowing what the securities were worth? Faith in junk mathematical models has ended.
So we still await a public response to the problem of how to write down debts. Whose economic interest will have to give: that of debtors, as increasingly has been the case over the past eight centuries; or that of creditors, which have fought back to create a neoliberal economy controlled by the FIRE sector?
It is not too late to decide which road to take, but Wall Street bankers and creditors have taken the lead in positioning themselves. Seeing which way the political winds were blowing, they moved to empty out the Treasury before the November 3 elections much like medieval citizens fleeing a horde of Mongolian raiders under Genghis Khan. “We’re moving. Clean out the cupboards,” much as Lehman Brothers emptied out their foreign bank accounts in Britain and elsewhere just before declaring bankruptcy, taking what they could and steering it to their best friends.
The pretense was that a bailout was needed to restore confidence. But the ensuing week showed that the claims were false. It didn’t turn the stock market around as promised. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2,200 points from Wednesday, October 1 through the following Friday October 10 – eight straight trading days, not even pausing for the usual zigzags. Friday’s plunge was 100 points a minute for the first seven minutes – a 690 point drop to under 8000. Each 100 points was more than a 1 percent drop, which was reflected on the NASDAQ. Nothing could withstand the pressure of so many Americans cashing in their mutual funds overnight and so many foreigners in earlier time zones putting in sell-at-market orders.
Short sellers made one of the largest and quickest fortunes ever, and then covered their positions by buying back the stocks they had pre-sold. This pushed prices up even into positive territory just before 10:30 AM when George Bush began to speak. Half the financial stocks showed gains – a sign that the Plunge Protection Team had jumped in. But Mr. Bush said nothing helpful and stocks went back into freefall, ending down another 128 points despite the upcoming weekend G7 meeting. There was no talk at all of reducing debt levels – only of giving more money to banks, insurance companies and other money managers, as if “pushing on a string” somehow would lead them to lend yet more to an already debt-ridden economy.
If Congress really wanted to restore confidence, here’s what it might have done: First, mark to market, not to model. Investors no longer believe America’s Enron-style accounting, debt rating agencies or monoline risk insurers. They don’t trust U.S. banks to be honest about their financial positions. They worry about the fraud charges brought by attorneys general in eleven states against predatory lenders such as Countrywide and Wachovia that Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America were so eager to buy.
So is it too late for Congress to change its mind and repeal the giveaway? If the $700 billion handout didn’t stabilize the unsalvageable for small investors, pension funds and even the financial sector itself, what did it do?
What the Fed has been doing while the media have not been looking?
Let’s put the giveaway in perspective. While Senators and Congressmen subject to voters’ choice were debating $700 billion for the major Wall Street contributors to both parties (admittedly only for starters, Mr. Paulson explained), the Federal Reserve already had given even more, without any public discussion and without the major media noticing. Since Bear Stearns failed in March, the Federal Reserve has used the small print of its charter to go outside its normal customers (which are supposed to be commercial banks), to give investment banks, brokerage houses and now large corporations almost indiscriminately some $875 billion in “cash for trash” swaps. (The statistics are released each week in the Fed’s H41 report.) Like Aladdin offering new lamps for old, the Fed has exchanged Treasury securities for junk mortgages and other securities that brokerage houses and investment banks did not have time to pawn off onto OPEC, Asian sovereign wealth funds or other investors.
The press lauds Mr. Bernanke as “a student of the Great Depression.” If he were, he should know that what led to the 1929 collapse were harsh U.S. Government creditor policies toward its World War I Allied governments. This created a situation where the Federal Reserve had to provide easy credit to hold interest rates artificially low so as to encourage U.S. investors to lend to Britain and Germany, which would use these dollar inflows to pay their Inter-Ally arms and reparations debts. Mr. Bernanke’s predecessor, Alan Greenspan, promoted easy credit simply for ideological reasons, to enrich Wall Street by enabling it to sell more debt.
A student of the Great Depression would understand the conflicts of interest between retail commercial banking and wholesale investment banking and money management that led Congress to pass the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933 – conflicts unleashed once again when Pres.
Clinton backed then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and Republican leader (and McCain hero) Senator Phil Gramm in leading the repeal of this act, opening up the floodgates to today’s financial double-dealing that has cost the American economy so much.
If Mr. Bernanke does know this history, his behavior is simply that of an opportunistic student of the art of political self-advancement, toadying to Wall Street in campaigning for one last great rip-off before the Bush Administration goes out of business. The Fed has given Wall Street newly minted Treasury bonds, added to the national debt out of thin air. It has done this without feeling any need to rationalize it by drawing absurd public-relations pictures about how the government may “make a profit for taxpayers.”
The Fed Chairman is not elected democratically. He traditionally is designated by the Wall Street financial sector that the Fed is supposed to regulate, acting as its lobbyist for creditor interests – the top 10 percent of the population – against that of the indebted “bottom 90 percent.” This “independence of the central bank” is trumpeted as a hallmark of democracy. But it is undemocratic, precisely by being isolated from public control.
The Age of Oligarchy
Treasury Secretary Paulson has no such luxury. The Treasury is supposed to represent the national interest, not that of bankers – even though its head these days is drawn from Wall Street and acts as its lobbyist. Mr. Paulson presented his almost totalitarian giveaway gruffly to Congress on a take-it-or-leave it basis, announcing that if Congress did not save Wall Street from taking losses on its mountain of bad loans, the banks were willing to crash the economy out of spite. “Please don’t make us wreck the economy,” he said in effect. As Margaret Thatcher used to say while selling off the British government’s crown jewels in the 1980s, TINA: There is no alternative.
In making this bold threat Mr. Paulson behaved as arrogantly as Lehman’s CEO Richard Fuld did when he tried to bluff Korea and other prospective investors into paying the full, fictitiously high book value for his company. (His bluff failed and Lehman went bankrupt, wiping out its shareholders, including the employees and managers who held 30 percent of its stock.) There turned out to be an alternative after all. Responding to the loudest public condemnation in memory, Congress called Mr. Paulson’s bluff.
What made his $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) so much more visible to the media than the Fed’s actions is that Congress is involved, and this is an election year. The level of deception and false argument is therefore enormous – along with a few tradeoffs and tax cuts to distract attention. Erstwhile Republican opponent Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama came right out and said that “This bill has been packaged with a lot of very popular things to give it even more momentum,” so that (as The New York Times explained), “instead of siding with a $700 billion bailout, lawmakers could now say they voted for increased protection for deposits at the neighborhood bank, income tax relief for middle-class taxpayers and aid for schools in rural areas where the federal government owns much of the land.”
Left behind while Wall Street’s believers in the rapture of free markets were swept up to heaven by “socialism for the rich” have been mortgage debtors, student-loan debtors, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC, some $25 billion short), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC, about $40 billion short), as well as Social Security which, we are warned, may run up a trillion dollar deficit thirty or forty years down the line. Only the wealthiest have been beneficiaries, not voters, homeowners and other debtors.
Dollar, Euro, Sterling May Be Destroyed Zimbabwe-Style
Paul Joseph Watson
Monday, October 13, 2008
Private investment advisor Martin Hennecke warned this morning that the endless printing of money to bail out collapsing banks would lead to hyperinflation and the Zimbabwe-style destruction of the dollar, euro and sterling.
Asked by CNBC how the three currencies could be destroyed, Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche, highlighted the collapse of Iceland’s banks.
“They have a lot of external debt in other currencies so they wouldn’t be able to print up more of their own currency - meaning hyperinflation to get out of their debt - but the UK, the U.S. and the rest of Europe could do it….this is the first step down the road to hyperinflation,” said Hennecke.
Noting that there was a gold rush and panic buying taking place while gold dealers worldwide had to close their doors, Hennecke agreed that gold prices would explode as hyperinflation crept up, and said that relatively modest overall price rises in the precious metal were partly a result of deleveraging as well as, “manipulation as the central bankers and the politicians don’t want you to panic out of their debt and go into gold.”
Hennecke dismissed the new rescue plans announced over the weekend as merely new taxpayer funded money being printed up and thrown at the problem, which will lead to accelerated inflation.
Asked if he believed whether the Euro and the U.S. dollar could go the way of the Zimbabwean dollar, which has suffered annual inflation of over 200 million per cent over the last few years, Hennecke responded, “Actually it’s interesting to know that the world’s leading standard rating agency Standard and Poor has predicted that all the major western governments are heading towards default on their sovereign bonds - that was predicted way before the crisis even started and now with tax revenues drying up and much much more money needed for these bailouts and privatizations of the banks to prevent a bank run, clearly that is likely to be happening earlier (rather) than later.”
“Most investors are saying cash is the safest thing but it might just turn around with cash being one of the highest risk investments if this inflation accelerates,” Hennecke concluded.
Early last month, before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the announcement of the $700 billion bailout package, Hennecke warned that the U.S. and Europe were both heading for depression and that the U.S. would eventually be forced to announce national bankruptcy.
Exposed: NSA Spies on Innocent Americans
Reports all over the media yesterday and today confirm what we’ve known all along. Surveillance programs touted as critical to protect national security have in fact been used to monitor the private communications of innocent Americans abroad, including humanitarian workers and U.S. service-members.
Two former military intercept operators -- the people at the National Security Agency (NSA) who actually listen in to people’s calls -- revealed the news in an ABC report released yesterday.
Contrary to direct assurances from Bush administration officials that NSA monitoring was directed at suspected terrorists, the intercept operators report that "hundreds of U.S. citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they call friends and family back home."
The NSA even intentionally directed its surveillance powers at well-established humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross.
It is outrageous that service men and women and international aid workers have had their private conversations needlessly and wantonly invaded by our government.
That is why the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Congress’s expansion of the NSA’s surveillance authority under the FISA Amendments Act is so critical. Our case, Amnesty International v. McConnell -- brought on behalf of an impressive array of journalists, human rights organizations and lawyers -- shines a spotlight on the devastating effect of unchecked spying power on Americans doing indispensable work around the globe.
Two former military intercept operators -- the people at the National Security Agency (NSA) who actually listen in to people’s calls -- revealed the news in an ABC report released yesterday.
Contrary to direct assurances from Bush administration officials that NSA monitoring was directed at suspected terrorists, the intercept operators report that "hundreds of U.S. citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they call friends and family back home."
The NSA even intentionally directed its surveillance powers at well-established humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross.
It is outrageous that service men and women and international aid workers have had their private conversations needlessly and wantonly invaded by our government.
That is why the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Congress’s expansion of the NSA’s surveillance authority under the FISA Amendments Act is so critical. Our case, Amnesty International v. McConnell -- brought on behalf of an impressive array of journalists, human rights organizations and lawyers -- shines a spotlight on the devastating effect of unchecked spying power on Americans doing indispensable work around the globe.
STATEMENT OF FACTS IN THE NEW JERSEY TRIAL OF ASSATA SHAKUR:
Written by Evelyn A. Williams, dated June 25, 2005
As a member of Assata’s New Jersey trial legal defense team, and her appeal lawyer, I think a correct statement of the circumstances of New Jersey Trooper Werner Foerster’s death as established by exhibits, trial testimony and forensic evidence and that conclusively repudiate the revisionist lies now being advanced by the State of New Jersey as “fact”, need to be repeated.
It is be remember that the only surviving eyewitnesses to the NJ Turnpike shoot-out were (1) Sundiata Acoli, (2) Trooper Harper, (3) Assata and (4) the driver of a car traveling along the NJ Turnpike at the time of the incident. Zayd Malik Shakur, a passenger, was killed during the shootout.
1. Sundiata did not testify at trial, nor did he make any pre-trial statements.
2. Harper’s testimony and actions are contained in the following documents (admitted into evidence)
a. The three official investigative reports prepared by Harper, in which he wrote that after he stopped the Pontiac, he ordered Sundiata to the back of the car to show his driver’s license to Trooper Foerster who had arrived at the scene. That Sundiata complied without incident. That as he looked into the inside door of the Pontiac to check the registration, Foerster yelled at him and held up an ammunition clip. He stated that at the same time Assata reached into a red pocketbook, removed a gun from it and fired at him. That he immediately ran to the rear of his car and fired at Assata, who had emerged from the car, and was firing at him from a prostrate position alongside of the Pontiac. And it was at this point that he shot her. (admitted into evidence)
b. His Grand Jury testimony where he swore under oath to the truth of the statements he had made in his 3 official reports. (admitted into evidence)
c. Trial transcripts of his testimony at both Sundiata’s and Assata’s trials where he admitted, under cross-examination, that he had lied in all three of his official reports and in his Grand Jury testimony. That the truth was that Foerster had never shown him an ammunition clip; that Foerster had not yelled to him; that he had not seen a gun in Assata’s hand while she was seated in the car; that Assata did not shoot him from the car; and that he had not seen a red pocketbook.
d. Audio tapes of the official recorded NJ Turnpike radio communications between all NJ State Trooper cars traveling the Turnpike near the scene of the shoot-out, dated May 2, 1973, which revealed that two additional turnpike patrol cars, those driven by Trooper Robert Palenchar and Trooper Woerner Foerster, had been ordered to aid Harper at the stop prior to the shoot-out. (admitted into evidence)
e. The verbatim, hand-written record of what transpired inside the NJ Turnpike Administration Building when Harper entered it at or about 1AM on May 2, 1973, to report the shoot-out to Sergeant Chester Baginski who was in charge of maintaining the official record of turnpike occurrences on that (refereed to as the Station Bible). Harper reported that he had just been involved in a shoot-out after he had stopped a Pontiac containing three Black people, two men and a woman, that he had been wounded, and that the Pontiac was proceeding South on the turnpike. He gave the license plate number, but did not mention that Trooper Foerster had arrived at the scene. (admitted into evidence)
f. Audio tapes of the investigation conducted by Detective Sgt. First Class Richard H. Kelly in the Administration Building at 7:37AM that morning to determine why over an hour elapsed from the time Harper entered the Administration Building that night and the discovery of Foerster’s body. Statements by each of the troopers present when Harper came into the Administration Building revealed that Harper had not reported Foerster’s presence at the scene and that no one was aware of the fact that Foerster lay on the road beside his car in front of the Administration building for over an hour, when his body was accidentally discovered by Trooper O’Rourke who had left the Administration building to investigate the scene of the shoot-out, less than 200 yards away. (admitted into evidence)
3. Assata testified that Harper stopped the car without any known reason, shot her with her arms raised at his demand, and then shot her in the back as she was turning to avoid his bullets. Almost mortally wounded, and semi-conscious, she climbed into the backseat of the Pontiac to avoid further bullets. Sundiata drove the car five miles down the road and parked it, where she remained until State Troopers dragged her onto the road.
4. A driver traveling north along the turnpike at the time of the incident testified at trial that he had seen a State Trooper struggling with a Black man between a parked white vehicle and a State Trooper car whose overhead revolving lights lit up the area. He was unable to identify the Black man, and further stated that he saw no one else on the road or at the scene. He immediately reported what he had seen to New Jersey Police Headquarters.
It therefore remained only forensic evidence to help determine the facts of that night as much as they could be determined. The forensic evidence examined by both the New Jersey crime laboratory in Trenton, New Jersey and FBI crime laboratories in Washington, D.C. established the following:
1. The finger print analyses of every gun and every piece of ammunition found at the scene showed there were no fingerprints of Assata found on any of them. (The official analyses admitted into evidence)
2. Neutron Activation Analysis taken immediately after Assata was taken to the hospital that night showed there was no gun power residue on her hands. Effectively refuting the possibility that she had fired a gun. (The official analyses were admitted into evidence)
3. As a result of the bullet Harper shot under her armpit, while her arms were raised in, her median nerve was severed, immediately paralyzing her entire right arm, shattering her clavicle, and lodging in her chest so close to her heart that an operation to remove it was not feasible. A neurologist testified to that fact at the trial.
4. A pathologist testified that “There is no conceivable way that the bullet could have traveled over to the clavicle if her arm was down. That trajectory is impossible.”
5. A surgeon testified that “it was anatomically necessary that both arms be in the air for Ms. Chesimard to have received the wounds she did.”
The state offered no expert witnesses to refute this medical testimony.
6. Photographs depicting the gunshot entry wound under her armpit and the entry would of the bullet Harper shot into her back were admitted into evidence during the trial.
Therefore, since no evidence existed that proved Assata fired the bullet that killed Trooper Foerster, why was she found guilty of his murder? There are several explanations:
The first is that the climate of hatred, prejudice and racism that had so contaminated the Middlesex County jury pool in 1973 that a change of venue was ordered, continued to exist in 1977. The unanimous opinion of the 1973 jury pool was “If she’s Black, she’s guilty.” After three defense motions for change of venue, Judge Leon Gerofsky granted the motion, stating, “It was almost impossible to obtain a jury here comprised of people willing to accept the responsibility of impartiality so that defendants will be protected from transitory passion and prejudice.” The trial was then moved to Morris County where Assata’s trial was severed from Sundiata’s because of her pregnancy.
In 1977 Assata began trial for the second time in this same Middlesex County, and this time jury nullification was insured: The jurors chosen to determine Assata’s guilt or innocence consisted of five jurors who were either relatives or close personal friends of state troopers or of state law enforcement officers.
However, Assata was not convicted of firing the shot that killed Trooper Foerster. She was convicted as an accomplice to his murder under New Jersey’s “aiding and abetting” statute.
Under New Jersey law, if a person’s presence at the scene of a crime can be construed as “aiding and abetting” the crime, that person can be convicted of the substantive crime itself. Judge Theodore Appleby charged the jury that they were permitted to speculate that Assata’s “mere presence” at a scene of violence, with weapons in the vehicle, was sufficient to sustain a conviction of the murder of Trooper Foerster. She was also convicted of possession of weapons – none of which could be identified as having been handled by her and of the attempted murder of Trooper Harper, who had sustained a flesh wound at the time of the shootout.
Now, 32 years after her conviction, a new, fabricated version of Foerster’s death has emerged:
There is absolutely no evidence to support statements made by Col. Joseph R. Fuentes, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, who said that “It was later determined that Werner Foerster’s service weapon was ripped from his holster as he lay wounded on the pavement, and he was executed with two shots to the head from his own service weapon.”
But his motivation for making those statements is clear:
1. To justify Assata being placed on the domestic terror watch list along with Osama bin Ladin. He said, “Anyone with a mindset that would execute a police officer once they were on the ground is dangerous enough to be considered a domestic terrorism threat.” But Assata is the only person convicted of a single domestic crime who has been classified a terrorist and put on the terrorism watch list, thereby nullifying the very definition of “terrorism”
2. To justify the $1 million dollar bounty to be paid from tax payers money. He said, “The reward money should make Chesimard a much more attractive quarry for professional bounty hunters.”
New Jersey State Assembly Speaker, Albio Sires, a longtime member of CANF (Cuban American National Foundation, representing Cuban exiles), said: “If Cuba’s citizenry could be informed of the $1 million bounty and the real story of Chesimard’s crimes, there is an increased likelihood of her being brought to Justice…. We want the Cuban people to know the real story about Joanne Chesimard and not the deceptive representation advanced by the Castro regime. We want people to realize that she is not a hero and she is really a violent criminal who is wanted for killing a State Trooper and escaping justice.”
By falsely asserting that Assata shot Foerster in the head while he lay helplessly on the ground, killing him “execution style”, the US Justice Department hopes to strip Assata of any of the sympathy and political support she now receives in the United States and from the citizens of Cuba. By labeling her a cold-blooded cop killer, the hope is that the real circumstances of the NJ Turnpike as well as all the years prior to that event during which time Assata was relentlessly hunted with the stated purpose of killing her on sight for having committed crimes of which the government knew she was innocent, will be forgotten.
But even as official lies are now being manufactured to convert Assata into a terrorist, so that Cuba can be accused of “harboring a terrorist” and to justify kidnapping her, there are, in fact, two well-known and admitted, convicted terrorists who are now being given safe harbor in the United States.
The US government has refused to extradite admitted terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, (charged with the shoot down of a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 civilians and convicted of other terrorist acts including the Bay of Pigs). The US government has also refused to extradite Posada’s convicted fellow terrorist, Orlando Bosch, who escaped from Venezuela and came to Miami in 1987 with the assistance of the CANF, Jeb Bush and his father, the then US Attorney, Gonzalez, who personally approved the bounty, also approved prisoner torture at Abu Ghreb.
Or that the approval came after New Jersey resident, Michael Chertoff, was named Secretary of the Department of Homeland Defense.
There are the facts. Let us not forget them.
- Evelyn A. Williams
As a member of Assata’s New Jersey trial legal defense team, and her appeal lawyer, I think a correct statement of the circumstances of New Jersey Trooper Werner Foerster’s death as established by exhibits, trial testimony and forensic evidence and that conclusively repudiate the revisionist lies now being advanced by the State of New Jersey as “fact”, need to be repeated.
It is be remember that the only surviving eyewitnesses to the NJ Turnpike shoot-out were (1) Sundiata Acoli, (2) Trooper Harper, (3) Assata and (4) the driver of a car traveling along the NJ Turnpike at the time of the incident. Zayd Malik Shakur, a passenger, was killed during the shootout.
1. Sundiata did not testify at trial, nor did he make any pre-trial statements.
2. Harper’s testimony and actions are contained in the following documents (admitted into evidence)
a. The three official investigative reports prepared by Harper, in which he wrote that after he stopped the Pontiac, he ordered Sundiata to the back of the car to show his driver’s license to Trooper Foerster who had arrived at the scene. That Sundiata complied without incident. That as he looked into the inside door of the Pontiac to check the registration, Foerster yelled at him and held up an ammunition clip. He stated that at the same time Assata reached into a red pocketbook, removed a gun from it and fired at him. That he immediately ran to the rear of his car and fired at Assata, who had emerged from the car, and was firing at him from a prostrate position alongside of the Pontiac. And it was at this point that he shot her. (admitted into evidence)
b. His Grand Jury testimony where he swore under oath to the truth of the statements he had made in his 3 official reports. (admitted into evidence)
c. Trial transcripts of his testimony at both Sundiata’s and Assata’s trials where he admitted, under cross-examination, that he had lied in all three of his official reports and in his Grand Jury testimony. That the truth was that Foerster had never shown him an ammunition clip; that Foerster had not yelled to him; that he had not seen a gun in Assata’s hand while she was seated in the car; that Assata did not shoot him from the car; and that he had not seen a red pocketbook.
d. Audio tapes of the official recorded NJ Turnpike radio communications between all NJ State Trooper cars traveling the Turnpike near the scene of the shoot-out, dated May 2, 1973, which revealed that two additional turnpike patrol cars, those driven by Trooper Robert Palenchar and Trooper Woerner Foerster, had been ordered to aid Harper at the stop prior to the shoot-out. (admitted into evidence)
e. The verbatim, hand-written record of what transpired inside the NJ Turnpike Administration Building when Harper entered it at or about 1AM on May 2, 1973, to report the shoot-out to Sergeant Chester Baginski who was in charge of maintaining the official record of turnpike occurrences on that (refereed to as the Station Bible). Harper reported that he had just been involved in a shoot-out after he had stopped a Pontiac containing three Black people, two men and a woman, that he had been wounded, and that the Pontiac was proceeding South on the turnpike. He gave the license plate number, but did not mention that Trooper Foerster had arrived at the scene. (admitted into evidence)
f. Audio tapes of the investigation conducted by Detective Sgt. First Class Richard H. Kelly in the Administration Building at 7:37AM that morning to determine why over an hour elapsed from the time Harper entered the Administration Building that night and the discovery of Foerster’s body. Statements by each of the troopers present when Harper came into the Administration Building revealed that Harper had not reported Foerster’s presence at the scene and that no one was aware of the fact that Foerster lay on the road beside his car in front of the Administration building for over an hour, when his body was accidentally discovered by Trooper O’Rourke who had left the Administration building to investigate the scene of the shoot-out, less than 200 yards away. (admitted into evidence)
3. Assata testified that Harper stopped the car without any known reason, shot her with her arms raised at his demand, and then shot her in the back as she was turning to avoid his bullets. Almost mortally wounded, and semi-conscious, she climbed into the backseat of the Pontiac to avoid further bullets. Sundiata drove the car five miles down the road and parked it, where she remained until State Troopers dragged her onto the road.
4. A driver traveling north along the turnpike at the time of the incident testified at trial that he had seen a State Trooper struggling with a Black man between a parked white vehicle and a State Trooper car whose overhead revolving lights lit up the area. He was unable to identify the Black man, and further stated that he saw no one else on the road or at the scene. He immediately reported what he had seen to New Jersey Police Headquarters.
It therefore remained only forensic evidence to help determine the facts of that night as much as they could be determined. The forensic evidence examined by both the New Jersey crime laboratory in Trenton, New Jersey and FBI crime laboratories in Washington, D.C. established the following:
1. The finger print analyses of every gun and every piece of ammunition found at the scene showed there were no fingerprints of Assata found on any of them. (The official analyses admitted into evidence)
2. Neutron Activation Analysis taken immediately after Assata was taken to the hospital that night showed there was no gun power residue on her hands. Effectively refuting the possibility that she had fired a gun. (The official analyses were admitted into evidence)
3. As a result of the bullet Harper shot under her armpit, while her arms were raised in, her median nerve was severed, immediately paralyzing her entire right arm, shattering her clavicle, and lodging in her chest so close to her heart that an operation to remove it was not feasible. A neurologist testified to that fact at the trial.
4. A pathologist testified that “There is no conceivable way that the bullet could have traveled over to the clavicle if her arm was down. That trajectory is impossible.”
5. A surgeon testified that “it was anatomically necessary that both arms be in the air for Ms. Chesimard to have received the wounds she did.”
The state offered no expert witnesses to refute this medical testimony.
6. Photographs depicting the gunshot entry wound under her armpit and the entry would of the bullet Harper shot into her back were admitted into evidence during the trial.
Therefore, since no evidence existed that proved Assata fired the bullet that killed Trooper Foerster, why was she found guilty of his murder? There are several explanations:
The first is that the climate of hatred, prejudice and racism that had so contaminated the Middlesex County jury pool in 1973 that a change of venue was ordered, continued to exist in 1977. The unanimous opinion of the 1973 jury pool was “If she’s Black, she’s guilty.” After three defense motions for change of venue, Judge Leon Gerofsky granted the motion, stating, “It was almost impossible to obtain a jury here comprised of people willing to accept the responsibility of impartiality so that defendants will be protected from transitory passion and prejudice.” The trial was then moved to Morris County where Assata’s trial was severed from Sundiata’s because of her pregnancy.
In 1977 Assata began trial for the second time in this same Middlesex County, and this time jury nullification was insured: The jurors chosen to determine Assata’s guilt or innocence consisted of five jurors who were either relatives or close personal friends of state troopers or of state law enforcement officers.
However, Assata was not convicted of firing the shot that killed Trooper Foerster. She was convicted as an accomplice to his murder under New Jersey’s “aiding and abetting” statute.
Under New Jersey law, if a person’s presence at the scene of a crime can be construed as “aiding and abetting” the crime, that person can be convicted of the substantive crime itself. Judge Theodore Appleby charged the jury that they were permitted to speculate that Assata’s “mere presence” at a scene of violence, with weapons in the vehicle, was sufficient to sustain a conviction of the murder of Trooper Foerster. She was also convicted of possession of weapons – none of which could be identified as having been handled by her and of the attempted murder of Trooper Harper, who had sustained a flesh wound at the time of the shootout.
Now, 32 years after her conviction, a new, fabricated version of Foerster’s death has emerged:
There is absolutely no evidence to support statements made by Col. Joseph R. Fuentes, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, who said that “It was later determined that Werner Foerster’s service weapon was ripped from his holster as he lay wounded on the pavement, and he was executed with two shots to the head from his own service weapon.”
But his motivation for making those statements is clear:
1. To justify Assata being placed on the domestic terror watch list along with Osama bin Ladin. He said, “Anyone with a mindset that would execute a police officer once they were on the ground is dangerous enough to be considered a domestic terrorism threat.” But Assata is the only person convicted of a single domestic crime who has been classified a terrorist and put on the terrorism watch list, thereby nullifying the very definition of “terrorism”
2. To justify the $1 million dollar bounty to be paid from tax payers money. He said, “The reward money should make Chesimard a much more attractive quarry for professional bounty hunters.”
New Jersey State Assembly Speaker, Albio Sires, a longtime member of CANF (Cuban American National Foundation, representing Cuban exiles), said: “If Cuba’s citizenry could be informed of the $1 million bounty and the real story of Chesimard’s crimes, there is an increased likelihood of her being brought to Justice…. We want the Cuban people to know the real story about Joanne Chesimard and not the deceptive representation advanced by the Castro regime. We want people to realize that she is not a hero and she is really a violent criminal who is wanted for killing a State Trooper and escaping justice.”
By falsely asserting that Assata shot Foerster in the head while he lay helplessly on the ground, killing him “execution style”, the US Justice Department hopes to strip Assata of any of the sympathy and political support she now receives in the United States and from the citizens of Cuba. By labeling her a cold-blooded cop killer, the hope is that the real circumstances of the NJ Turnpike as well as all the years prior to that event during which time Assata was relentlessly hunted with the stated purpose of killing her on sight for having committed crimes of which the government knew she was innocent, will be forgotten.
But even as official lies are now being manufactured to convert Assata into a terrorist, so that Cuba can be accused of “harboring a terrorist” and to justify kidnapping her, there are, in fact, two well-known and admitted, convicted terrorists who are now being given safe harbor in the United States.
The US government has refused to extradite admitted terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, (charged with the shoot down of a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 civilians and convicted of other terrorist acts including the Bay of Pigs). The US government has also refused to extradite Posada’s convicted fellow terrorist, Orlando Bosch, who escaped from Venezuela and came to Miami in 1987 with the assistance of the CANF, Jeb Bush and his father, the then US Attorney, Gonzalez, who personally approved the bounty, also approved prisoner torture at Abu Ghreb.
Or that the approval came after New Jersey resident, Michael Chertoff, was named Secretary of the Department of Homeland Defense.
There are the facts. Let us not forget them.
- Evelyn A. Williams
Cramer to the Market: Now Is the Time to Panic
By Tim Hanson
October 6, 2008
This morning had all the makings of a bad market day. Markets in Europe and Asia dropped substantially overnight. The futures market was pointing to a significantly lower open. And on the Today show, CNBC analyst Jim Cramer told the world (or at least the small percentage of it that watches Today):
Whatever you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market. Right now. This week. I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market.
The Dow is down 700 points as I type. It looks as though investors are taking Cramer's advice -- and then some.
But is it sound advice? Before we get to judging Cramer, let's acknowledge where his advice is coming from. First, this market is extraordinarily volatile -- the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index sits at an all-time high. Second, the near-term outlook for our economy is dim. Housing prices continue to drop, consumer confidence is in shambles, and the credit market -- with the three-month London Interbank Offered Rate at 4.29% -- is freezing up. It's unclear whether the $700 billion rescue package that Congress passed can have its desired affect. Third, as Ben Graham first noted, the stock market in the short-term is nothing more than a voting machine.
If people don't want to put their money at risk, a company's stock price will drop, regardless of the quality of the company's underlying fundamentals. For proof, note that more than 80% of all U.S.-listed stocks are down this year, including superior debt-free businesses such as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), and eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY).
Put these facts together, and you see that Cramer is absolutely right that you should not be risking your rent money, tuition, or medical emergency funds speculating in stocks. There are too many unknowns, and as Cramer pointed out today, it could get worse before it gets better (though I pointed out the same facts last week on CBS's The Early Show). The money you need to live on for the next few years should be stashed safely in an FDIC-insured savings account or in a principal-protecting asset such as Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS).
You never should have been doing that in the first place But here's where I -- and The Motley Fool -- differ from Jim Cramer. We never believe that you should risk any money you need for the next three to five years in stocks, and we've never told investors to buy any stock without at least a willingness to hold that security forever. To do so puts your hard-earned savings in the hands of market psychology, quarterly earnings announcements, and a whole host of other unpredictable and uncontrollable variables.
The goal of this column is not to demean Cramer, but the fact is that he approaches the market from a very different perspective. For example, one of my Foolish colleagues has documented how frequently he would have you trading in and out of Intuitive Surgical (Nasdaq: ISRG).
Such activity not only generates larger tax and trading bills, but it leaves you and your savings extremely vulnerable to sudden market downturns. Cramer's plea on NBC this morning is a welcome about-face.
That said … Even investors who were roundly frightened by Cramer's sobering outlook should heed his recommendation that long-term money needs to stay in the market. Given the extreme downward pressure today, it seems that many investors are pulling all of their savings -- even if they won't need that cash for 10 or 20 years -- out of the market.
That is a shortsighted move. Yes, even the superior companies we mentioned above will suffer in a slowing economy (see eBay's announcement today that it's laying off 10% of its workforce), but each has a strong enough balance sheet and enough entrenched competitive advantages not only to weather the current crisis but also -- through market-share gains, smart acquisitions, and a shaking out of their competitors -- to come out stronger on the other side.
When that happens, you will want to be invested. You can even make big money if you have some long-term savings in cash today that you can use to buy shares of these oversold, yet superior businesses ... and here are five simple steps to go about doing just that. We're also recommending to members of our Motley Fool Global Gains service that now is a fabulous time to increase your exposure to foreign stocks -- again, provided you have some long-term cash.
Not doing so is the biggest threat to your portfolio today.
The takeaway We're not here to tell you that the U.S. economy is all puppy dogs and daffodils.
It's not. But now is not the time to allow emotion to dictate your financial decision-making process.
If you have a sound asset-allocation plan that differentiates between short-term and long-term dollars, then you should have enough cash to see you through these lean times and be able to leave your long-term money in the market. If you don't have such a plan, then now is the time to put one in place for the next inevitable downturn.
Either way, the takeaway is the same: Stay stoic with your money. The highs are never as high as they seem, and fortunately, the lows are never as low.
October 6, 2008
This morning had all the makings of a bad market day. Markets in Europe and Asia dropped substantially overnight. The futures market was pointing to a significantly lower open. And on the Today show, CNBC analyst Jim Cramer told the world (or at least the small percentage of it that watches Today):
Whatever you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market. Right now. This week. I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market.
The Dow is down 700 points as I type. It looks as though investors are taking Cramer's advice -- and then some.
But is it sound advice? Before we get to judging Cramer, let's acknowledge where his advice is coming from. First, this market is extraordinarily volatile -- the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index sits at an all-time high. Second, the near-term outlook for our economy is dim. Housing prices continue to drop, consumer confidence is in shambles, and the credit market -- with the three-month London Interbank Offered Rate at 4.29% -- is freezing up. It's unclear whether the $700 billion rescue package that Congress passed can have its desired affect. Third, as Ben Graham first noted, the stock market in the short-term is nothing more than a voting machine.
If people don't want to put their money at risk, a company's stock price will drop, regardless of the quality of the company's underlying fundamentals. For proof, note that more than 80% of all U.S.-listed stocks are down this year, including superior debt-free businesses such as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), and eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY).
Put these facts together, and you see that Cramer is absolutely right that you should not be risking your rent money, tuition, or medical emergency funds speculating in stocks. There are too many unknowns, and as Cramer pointed out today, it could get worse before it gets better (though I pointed out the same facts last week on CBS's The Early Show). The money you need to live on for the next few years should be stashed safely in an FDIC-insured savings account or in a principal-protecting asset such as Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS).
You never should have been doing that in the first place But here's where I -- and The Motley Fool -- differ from Jim Cramer. We never believe that you should risk any money you need for the next three to five years in stocks, and we've never told investors to buy any stock without at least a willingness to hold that security forever. To do so puts your hard-earned savings in the hands of market psychology, quarterly earnings announcements, and a whole host of other unpredictable and uncontrollable variables.
The goal of this column is not to demean Cramer, but the fact is that he approaches the market from a very different perspective. For example, one of my Foolish colleagues has documented how frequently he would have you trading in and out of Intuitive Surgical (Nasdaq: ISRG).
Such activity not only generates larger tax and trading bills, but it leaves you and your savings extremely vulnerable to sudden market downturns. Cramer's plea on NBC this morning is a welcome about-face.
That said … Even investors who were roundly frightened by Cramer's sobering outlook should heed his recommendation that long-term money needs to stay in the market. Given the extreme downward pressure today, it seems that many investors are pulling all of their savings -- even if they won't need that cash for 10 or 20 years -- out of the market.
That is a shortsighted move. Yes, even the superior companies we mentioned above will suffer in a slowing economy (see eBay's announcement today that it's laying off 10% of its workforce), but each has a strong enough balance sheet and enough entrenched competitive advantages not only to weather the current crisis but also -- through market-share gains, smart acquisitions, and a shaking out of their competitors -- to come out stronger on the other side.
When that happens, you will want to be invested. You can even make big money if you have some long-term savings in cash today that you can use to buy shares of these oversold, yet superior businesses ... and here are five simple steps to go about doing just that. We're also recommending to members of our Motley Fool Global Gains service that now is a fabulous time to increase your exposure to foreign stocks -- again, provided you have some long-term cash.
Not doing so is the biggest threat to your portfolio today.
The takeaway We're not here to tell you that the U.S. economy is all puppy dogs and daffodils.
It's not. But now is not the time to allow emotion to dictate your financial decision-making process.
If you have a sound asset-allocation plan that differentiates between short-term and long-term dollars, then you should have enough cash to see you through these lean times and be able to leave your long-term money in the market. If you don't have such a plan, then now is the time to put one in place for the next inevitable downturn.
Either way, the takeaway is the same: Stay stoic with your money. The highs are never as high as they seem, and fortunately, the lows are never as low.
Dr. Mercola's Comments on Chemical Industry
I often point out just how powerful and influential the pharmaceutical industry is. The global market for pharmaceuticals was worth more than $693 billion in 2007. But Big Pharma is easily dwarfed by the global chemistry industry, which lives somewhere in the $3 trillion-a-year-neighborhood.
About 6 billion pounds of Bisphenol A (BPA) is produced annually, generating at least $6 billion in annual sales alone.
BPA – which mimicks the sex hormone estradiol -- is a building block for polycarbonate plastics and tough epoxy resins. As I discussed earlier this week, BPA-containing plastic is so pervasive it shows up in many places you might not have considered, such as in the linings of canned goods, where it leaches into your food and drink.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) found BPA in more than half of the canned foods and beverages sampled from supermarkets across the U.S.
Cans of infant formula have been shown to be some of the worst offenders; just one to three servings can contain BPA levels that have caused serious adverse effects in animal tests.
Dow Chemical – Roughnecks in Suits
As described in the article above, chemical companies like Dow are not above using threats and forceful intimidation when plain money doesn’t do the job. (Monsanto’s ruthless “seed police” are another giant swinging a big club, with a reputation for suing small farmers out of their homesteads.)
But this is not the first time Dow Chemical’s less than ethical tactics have been exposed.
The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal has tried to get Dow to own up to its poisoning of the village of Bhopal for over two decades, and accuses the multinational of using strong-arm tactics to intimidate the habitants of Shinde Vasuli into submission to build another chemical experimentation facility near their Indian village.
In 2002, Dow Chemical interrupted internet use for thousands, and closed down hundreds of unrelated websites after intimidating Verio into shutting down the ISP of a critical parody website.
And more recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) forced Mary Gade to quit her job as head of the EPA’s Midwest office after her interactions with Dow Chemical. Gade had been locked in a heated dispute with Dow about long-delayed plans to clean up dioxin-saturated soil that extends 50 miles beyond its Midland, Michigan plant. The company had been dumping the highly toxic and persistent chemical into local rivers for most of the last century.
In an interview on May 1, 2008, Gade said of her forced resignation: "There"s no question this is about Dow. I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I"m proud of what we did."
These examples are just a few drops in a very large bucket.
BPA and Your Immune System
That low-level exposure to BPA can be hazardous to your health has been established (but hotly debated and denied by industry) for over 10 years. It’s just now reaching the tipping point.
According to Washington State University reproductive scientist Patricia Hunt, “exposure to low levels of BPA -- levels that we think are in the realm of current human exposure -- can profoundly affect both developing eggs and sperm.”
But fetuses and infants are not the only ones at risk. Researchers are also finding that BPA exposure can affect adults.
A study published in the Environmental Health Perspectives in April 2008, discovered that BPA promotes the development of Th2 cells in adulthood, and both Th1 and Th2 cells in prenatal stages, by reducing the number of regulatory T cells.
This could have a profound effect on your health as Th1 and Th2 are the two “attack modes” of your immune system.
Based on the type of invader, your immune system activates either Th1 or Th2 cells to get rid of the pathogen. Th1 (T Helper 1) attacks organisms that get inside your cells, whereas Th2 (T Helper 2) goes after extracellular pathogens; organisms that are found outside the cells in your blood and other body fluids.
When your Th2 are over-activated, your immune system will over-respond to toxins, allergens, normal bacteria and parasites, and under-respond to viruses, yeast, cancer, and intracellular bacteria, because as one system activates, the other is blocked.
FDA Favors Industry Science… Again!
Pressured by a growing number of health and consumer advocates, lawmakers and scientists, an FDA advisory panel met on September 15th to decide whether BPA should be reassessed in terms of food safety. If the answer had been yes, it could have put an end to BPA-laced food packaging.
It was not.
True to form, the U.S. FDA upheld their decision that BPA is safe and can remain in food packaging, including infant formula containers and baby bottles, despite the more than 100 independent studies linking the chemical to serious disorders in humans, including:
Prostate cancer
Breast cancer
Diabetes
Early puberty
Obesity, and
Learning and behavioral problems
The Scientists & Engineers For America Action Fund Website said about the verdict:
The agency based their decision on two large multigenerational studies funded by the American Plastics Council (part of the American Chemistry Council) and the Society of the Plastics Industry.
As for the large body of literature on low dose effects of BPA that originally raised concerns about the chemical’s ability to disrupt reproductive, neurological and metabolic development and function at levels of exposure within the range found in humans, the FDA broadly found these studies to be inadequate or of limited utility in evaluating safety.
By relying solely on the industry-funded studies, the agency reaffirmed the trade associations’ ability to control what is considered to be reliable, credible science.
Where to Find BPA-Free Products
Clearly our regulators are either asleep at the wheel, or too busy planning how not to lose their hard earned bribes in a crashing stock market.
Fortunately, some companies are taking note of consumer demand and are increasingly offering products that don‘t contain BPA.
Personally, I too am doing everything I can to avoid this menacing chemical, and will be offering glass water bottles for sale later this year. (They have neoprene sleeves to protect them from breaking.) Glass is the safest and most inert way to store your water, and far better than ANY plastic.
Here are several other resources where you can buy various types of BPA-free products:
Amazon.com‘s BPA-free section lists water bottles, baby bottles, and sippy cups.
Rubbermaid says that some of its food storage containers and water bottles contain BPA, while others do not.
Nalgene now offers BPA-free water bottles.
Brita, which makes water filtration products, says that its pitchers and filters don‘t contain BPA.
SC Johnson, which makes Saran brand wraps and Ziploc bags and containers, says that it doesn‘t use BPA in its products.
The Children‘s Health Environmental Coalition offers tips for how to spot plastic household products with and without BPA.
Consumer Reports describes its BPA test results and provides advice on choosing safe plastics.
The Z Recommends blog posted an updated guide in February that lists children‘s feeding products that don‘t contain BPA.
BPA-free products have even appeared on eBay.
Related Articles:
Nalgene Bottles Pulled From Shelves
Toxic Compounds in Food Containers Wreak Havoc on Your Health
Don't Put Your Coffee in Plastic Cups
About 6 billion pounds of Bisphenol A (BPA) is produced annually, generating at least $6 billion in annual sales alone.
BPA – which mimicks the sex hormone estradiol -- is a building block for polycarbonate plastics and tough epoxy resins. As I discussed earlier this week, BPA-containing plastic is so pervasive it shows up in many places you might not have considered, such as in the linings of canned goods, where it leaches into your food and drink.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) found BPA in more than half of the canned foods and beverages sampled from supermarkets across the U.S.
Cans of infant formula have been shown to be some of the worst offenders; just one to three servings can contain BPA levels that have caused serious adverse effects in animal tests.
Dow Chemical – Roughnecks in Suits
As described in the article above, chemical companies like Dow are not above using threats and forceful intimidation when plain money doesn’t do the job. (Monsanto’s ruthless “seed police” are another giant swinging a big club, with a reputation for suing small farmers out of their homesteads.)
But this is not the first time Dow Chemical’s less than ethical tactics have been exposed.
The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal has tried to get Dow to own up to its poisoning of the village of Bhopal for over two decades, and accuses the multinational of using strong-arm tactics to intimidate the habitants of Shinde Vasuli into submission to build another chemical experimentation facility near their Indian village.
In 2002, Dow Chemical interrupted internet use for thousands, and closed down hundreds of unrelated websites after intimidating Verio into shutting down the ISP of a critical parody website.
And more recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) forced Mary Gade to quit her job as head of the EPA’s Midwest office after her interactions with Dow Chemical. Gade had been locked in a heated dispute with Dow about long-delayed plans to clean up dioxin-saturated soil that extends 50 miles beyond its Midland, Michigan plant. The company had been dumping the highly toxic and persistent chemical into local rivers for most of the last century.
In an interview on May 1, 2008, Gade said of her forced resignation: "There"s no question this is about Dow. I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I"m proud of what we did."
These examples are just a few drops in a very large bucket.
BPA and Your Immune System
That low-level exposure to BPA can be hazardous to your health has been established (but hotly debated and denied by industry) for over 10 years. It’s just now reaching the tipping point.
According to Washington State University reproductive scientist Patricia Hunt, “exposure to low levels of BPA -- levels that we think are in the realm of current human exposure -- can profoundly affect both developing eggs and sperm.”
But fetuses and infants are not the only ones at risk. Researchers are also finding that BPA exposure can affect adults.
A study published in the Environmental Health Perspectives in April 2008, discovered that BPA promotes the development of Th2 cells in adulthood, and both Th1 and Th2 cells in prenatal stages, by reducing the number of regulatory T cells.
This could have a profound effect on your health as Th1 and Th2 are the two “attack modes” of your immune system.
Based on the type of invader, your immune system activates either Th1 or Th2 cells to get rid of the pathogen. Th1 (T Helper 1) attacks organisms that get inside your cells, whereas Th2 (T Helper 2) goes after extracellular pathogens; organisms that are found outside the cells in your blood and other body fluids.
When your Th2 are over-activated, your immune system will over-respond to toxins, allergens, normal bacteria and parasites, and under-respond to viruses, yeast, cancer, and intracellular bacteria, because as one system activates, the other is blocked.
FDA Favors Industry Science… Again!
Pressured by a growing number of health and consumer advocates, lawmakers and scientists, an FDA advisory panel met on September 15th to decide whether BPA should be reassessed in terms of food safety. If the answer had been yes, it could have put an end to BPA-laced food packaging.
It was not.
True to form, the U.S. FDA upheld their decision that BPA is safe and can remain in food packaging, including infant formula containers and baby bottles, despite the more than 100 independent studies linking the chemical to serious disorders in humans, including:
Prostate cancer
Breast cancer
Diabetes
Early puberty
Obesity, and
Learning and behavioral problems
The Scientists & Engineers For America Action Fund Website said about the verdict:
The agency based their decision on two large multigenerational studies funded by the American Plastics Council (part of the American Chemistry Council) and the Society of the Plastics Industry.
As for the large body of literature on low dose effects of BPA that originally raised concerns about the chemical’s ability to disrupt reproductive, neurological and metabolic development and function at levels of exposure within the range found in humans, the FDA broadly found these studies to be inadequate or of limited utility in evaluating safety.
By relying solely on the industry-funded studies, the agency reaffirmed the trade associations’ ability to control what is considered to be reliable, credible science.
Where to Find BPA-Free Products
Clearly our regulators are either asleep at the wheel, or too busy planning how not to lose their hard earned bribes in a crashing stock market.
Fortunately, some companies are taking note of consumer demand and are increasingly offering products that don‘t contain BPA.
Personally, I too am doing everything I can to avoid this menacing chemical, and will be offering glass water bottles for sale later this year. (They have neoprene sleeves to protect them from breaking.) Glass is the safest and most inert way to store your water, and far better than ANY plastic.
Here are several other resources where you can buy various types of BPA-free products:
Amazon.com‘s BPA-free section lists water bottles, baby bottles, and sippy cups.
Rubbermaid says that some of its food storage containers and water bottles contain BPA, while others do not.
Nalgene now offers BPA-free water bottles.
Brita, which makes water filtration products, says that its pitchers and filters don‘t contain BPA.
SC Johnson, which makes Saran brand wraps and Ziploc bags and containers, says that it doesn‘t use BPA in its products.
The Children‘s Health Environmental Coalition offers tips for how to spot plastic household products with and without BPA.
Consumer Reports describes its BPA test results and provides advice on choosing safe plastics.
The Z Recommends blog posted an updated guide in February that lists children‘s feeding products that don‘t contain BPA.
BPA-free products have even appeared on eBay.
Related Articles:
Nalgene Bottles Pulled From Shelves
Toxic Compounds in Food Containers Wreak Havoc on Your Health
Don't Put Your Coffee in Plastic Cups
What the Chemical Industry Doesn't Want You to Know about Everyday Products
The global chemical industry annually produces about 6 billion pounds of bisphenol A (BPA), an integral component of a vast array of plastic products, generating at least $6 billion in annual sales. The value of BPA-based manufactured goods is probably incalculable. Environmental Working Group studies have found BPA in more than half the canned foods and beverages sampled from supermarkets across the U.S.
Soon after scientists Frederick Vom Saal and Wade Welshons found the first hard evidence that miniscule amounts of BPA caused irreversible changes in the prostates of fetal mice, a scientist from Dow Chemical Company showed up at the Missouri lab. He disputed the data and declared, as Vom Saal recalls, "We want you to know how distressed we are by your research."
"It was not a subtle threat," Vom Saal says. "It was really, really clear, and we ended up saying, threatening us is really not a good idea."
The Missouri scientists redoubled their investigations of BPA. Industry officials and scientist allies fired back, sometimes in nose-to-nose debates at scientific gatherings, sometimes more insidiously. "I heard [chemical industry officials] were making blatantly false statements about our research," says Welshons. "They were skilled at creating doubt when none existed."
The industry's increasingly noisy denials backfired. By the turn of the millennium, dozens of scientists were launching their own investigations of the chemical. But the chemical industry can be expected to fight aggressively against more regulation. Earlier this year, the industry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat a California legislative proposal to ban BPA in food packaging. The Chemistry Council and allied companies and industry groups hired an army of lobbyists. Tactics included an industry email to food banks charging that a BPA ban would mean the end of distributions of canned goods for the poor.
Sources:
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Retirement accounts have lost $2 trillion so far
Tue Oct 7, 7:27 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months — about 20 percent of their value — Congress' top budget analyst estimated Tuesday as lawmakers began investigating how turmoil in the financial industry is whittling away workers' nest eggs.
The upheaval that has engulfed financial firms and sent the stock market plummeting is also devastating people's savings, forcing families to hold off on major purchases and even delay retirement, Peter Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, told the House Education and Labor Committee.
As Congress investigates the causes and effects of the meltdown, the panel pressed economists and other analysts on how the housing, credit and other financial troubles have battered pensions and other retirement funds, which are among the most common forms of savings in the United States.
"Unlike Wall Street executives, America's families don't have a golden parachute to fall back on," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the panel chairman. "It's clear that their retirement security may be one of the greatest casualties of this financial crisis."
More than half the people surveyed in an Associated Press-GfK poll taken Sept. 27-30 said they worry they will have to work longer because the value of their retirement savings has declined.
Orszag indicated the fear is well-founded. Public and private pension funds and employees' private retirement savings accounts — like 401(k)'s — lost about 10 percent between the middle of 2007 and the middle of this year, and lost another 10 percent just in the past three months, he estimated.
Private retirement plans may have suffered slightly more because those holdings are more heavily skewed toward stocks, Orszag added.
"Some people will delay their retirement. In particular, those on the verge of retirement may decide they can no longer afford to retire and will continue working," Orszag said.
A new AARP study found that because of the economic downturn, one in five workers 45 and older has stopped putting money into a 401(k), IRA or other retirement savings account during the past year, and nearly one in four has increased the number of hours he works. More than one-third of these workers have considered delaying retirement, according to the study, which also found that more than half now find it difficult to pay for basic items such as food, gas and medicine.
The hearing came just as workers are receiving — or about to receive — their quarterly retirement savings account statements, which are likely to show disheartening drops in the value of holdings.
Jerry Bramlett, the head of BenefitStreet Inc., a retirement savings plan administration company, said there's a risk that people will overreact to the bad news by pulling their money out of the accounts, which could add to their potential losses.
"For participants with many years of retirement, a drastic abandonment of equity positions in their retirement account will only serve to lock in as-of-yet-unrealized losses. Markets do go up and down, and 401(k) participants must try to think long-term," Bramlett said.
Still, he said workers should do their best to diversify their retirement savings accounts and "perhaps consider less volatile investments."
On the heels of enacting a $700 billion market bailout, lawmakers are searching for ways to help workers who are feeling the ripple effects of the financial crisis.
"What should we be doing to try to find a way to salvage the retirement position of American workers?" said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, an opponent of the government rescue plan.
Congress, he added, "rushed to protect Wall Street in hopes that some benefits would trickle down to workers."
The massive losses have already reopened a bitter and long-running debate about what role — if any — the government should play in helping workers save for retirement.
Some experts argue that the hefty tax subsidies that Congress has put in place in recent decades for 401(k) and other worker-contribution accounts have made people's retirement income less secure by shifting risks, decisions and costs from employers to people who often know little about investing.
"They are fatally flawed," Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist at the New School for Social Research, said of the tax-advantaged plans. "They're too risky, and it's not good policy to have workers run their own retirement plan. They want government help."
Common mistakes workers make include overinvesting in a single stock — often their company's — and participating in funds that carry large fees or involve excessive risk, the witnesses said.
"You cannot tell the participants at the bottom of your fund prospectus, 'Warning: Your psychology may lead you to make irrational choices,'" said Christian E. Weller of the University of Massachusetts Boston.
The current market turmoil adds to an already difficult retirement savings picture for Americans, who are increasingly shouldering the burden of managing and funding their own company-sponsored retirement savings plans as firms eliminate traditional pensions.
Even before the recent downturn, older Americans were on track to continue working longer.
Twenty-nine percent of people in their late 60s were working in 2006, up from 18 percent in 1985, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over the next decade, the number of workers who are 55 and older is expected to increase at more than five times the rate of the overall work force, the BLS reported.
Falling home values and now the decimation of much of their savings could plunge older Americans into period of austerity not seen in decades, Miller said: "The fear factor is huge, and they don't see the availability of resources to them to get well."
Orszag said the situation has little precedent in American history.
"The period that we're experiencing is arguably the greatest collapse in confidence that we've experienced since the Great Depression," he said.
WASHINGTON - Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months — about 20 percent of their value — Congress' top budget analyst estimated Tuesday as lawmakers began investigating how turmoil in the financial industry is whittling away workers' nest eggs.
The upheaval that has engulfed financial firms and sent the stock market plummeting is also devastating people's savings, forcing families to hold off on major purchases and even delay retirement, Peter Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, told the House Education and Labor Committee.
As Congress investigates the causes and effects of the meltdown, the panel pressed economists and other analysts on how the housing, credit and other financial troubles have battered pensions and other retirement funds, which are among the most common forms of savings in the United States.
"Unlike Wall Street executives, America's families don't have a golden parachute to fall back on," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the panel chairman. "It's clear that their retirement security may be one of the greatest casualties of this financial crisis."
More than half the people surveyed in an Associated Press-GfK poll taken Sept. 27-30 said they worry they will have to work longer because the value of their retirement savings has declined.
Orszag indicated the fear is well-founded. Public and private pension funds and employees' private retirement savings accounts — like 401(k)'s — lost about 10 percent between the middle of 2007 and the middle of this year, and lost another 10 percent just in the past three months, he estimated.
Private retirement plans may have suffered slightly more because those holdings are more heavily skewed toward stocks, Orszag added.
"Some people will delay their retirement. In particular, those on the verge of retirement may decide they can no longer afford to retire and will continue working," Orszag said.
A new AARP study found that because of the economic downturn, one in five workers 45 and older has stopped putting money into a 401(k), IRA or other retirement savings account during the past year, and nearly one in four has increased the number of hours he works. More than one-third of these workers have considered delaying retirement, according to the study, which also found that more than half now find it difficult to pay for basic items such as food, gas and medicine.
The hearing came just as workers are receiving — or about to receive — their quarterly retirement savings account statements, which are likely to show disheartening drops in the value of holdings.
Jerry Bramlett, the head of BenefitStreet Inc., a retirement savings plan administration company, said there's a risk that people will overreact to the bad news by pulling their money out of the accounts, which could add to their potential losses.
"For participants with many years of retirement, a drastic abandonment of equity positions in their retirement account will only serve to lock in as-of-yet-unrealized losses. Markets do go up and down, and 401(k) participants must try to think long-term," Bramlett said.
Still, he said workers should do their best to diversify their retirement savings accounts and "perhaps consider less volatile investments."
On the heels of enacting a $700 billion market bailout, lawmakers are searching for ways to help workers who are feeling the ripple effects of the financial crisis.
"What should we be doing to try to find a way to salvage the retirement position of American workers?" said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, an opponent of the government rescue plan.
Congress, he added, "rushed to protect Wall Street in hopes that some benefits would trickle down to workers."
The massive losses have already reopened a bitter and long-running debate about what role — if any — the government should play in helping workers save for retirement.
Some experts argue that the hefty tax subsidies that Congress has put in place in recent decades for 401(k) and other worker-contribution accounts have made people's retirement income less secure by shifting risks, decisions and costs from employers to people who often know little about investing.
"They are fatally flawed," Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist at the New School for Social Research, said of the tax-advantaged plans. "They're too risky, and it's not good policy to have workers run their own retirement plan. They want government help."
Common mistakes workers make include overinvesting in a single stock — often their company's — and participating in funds that carry large fees or involve excessive risk, the witnesses said.
"You cannot tell the participants at the bottom of your fund prospectus, 'Warning: Your psychology may lead you to make irrational choices,'" said Christian E. Weller of the University of Massachusetts Boston.
The current market turmoil adds to an already difficult retirement savings picture for Americans, who are increasingly shouldering the burden of managing and funding their own company-sponsored retirement savings plans as firms eliminate traditional pensions.
Even before the recent downturn, older Americans were on track to continue working longer.
Twenty-nine percent of people in their late 60s were working in 2006, up from 18 percent in 1985, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over the next decade, the number of workers who are 55 and older is expected to increase at more than five times the rate of the overall work force, the BLS reported.
Falling home values and now the decimation of much of their savings could plunge older Americans into period of austerity not seen in decades, Miller said: "The fear factor is huge, and they don't see the availability of resources to them to get well."
Orszag said the situation has little precedent in American history.
"The period that we're experiencing is arguably the greatest collapse in confidence that we've experienced since the Great Depression," he said.
NRC Report Misses Point: Govt. Surveillance About Control Grid, Not Terrorists
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
October 8, 2008
According to a report released by the National Research Council, automated identification of terrorists through data mining or any other mechanism “is neither feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology development efforts.” Inevitable false positives, writes Declan McCullagh for CNet News, will result in “ordinary, law-abiding citizens and businesses” being incorrectly flagged as suspects. McCullagh writes that the report “amounts to at least a partial repudiation of the Defense Department’s controversial data-mining program called Total Information Awareness, which was limited by Congress in 2003.”
The NSA is not looking for "secret terrorism cells" as claimed, but is rather in the process of implementing the largest and most comprehensive snoop and control apparatus in the world.
TIA, however, was not put out to pasture by Congress, as the former Clintonite Peter Swire admits. “I believe that Total Information Awareness is continuing under other names,” he told Democracy Now. Reuters obtained a congressional report that revealed nine months after Congress allegedly shut down TIA, the U.S. government continues to comb private records and databases.
“Total Information Awareness — the all-seeing terrorist spotting algorithm-meets-the-mother-of-all-databases that was ostensibly de-funded by Congress in 2003, never actually died, and was largely rebuilt in secret by the NSA, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gorman,” Ryan Singel writes for Wired. Singel reports that “the NSA is collecting and sifting through immense amounts of data about who Americans talk to, what they are interested in, how they spend their money and where they travel in order to find secret terrorism cells inside America.”
The NSA is not looking for “secret terrorism cells” as claimed, but is rather in the process of implementing the largest and most comprehensive snoop and control apparatus in the world, designed to monitor and profile the activity of average Americans and, more specifically, Americans who may actively oppose the government. The NSA works closely with the FBI, the CIA, and military intelligence in this massive effort.
“Since the creation of the NSA by President Truman, its spying capability has frequently been used to monitor the activities of an unsuspecting public,” writes Patrick S. Poole. From Project Shamrock to Project Minaret and Operation CHAOS, the government has not only surveilled those opposed to government policies, but has consistently sabotaged their efforts. As the revelations of the CIA’s so-called “family jewels” revealed, the agency worked with the NSA to monitor the communications of U.S. citizens active in the antiwar movement, a violation of the CIA’s charter.
“During the 1950s and 1960s, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover kicked FBI domestic spying into high gear. FBI agents compiled secret dossiers, illegally wiretapped, used undercover plants, and agent provocateurs, sent poison pen letters, and staged black bag jobs against black activists and anti-war groups,” notes Earl Ofari Hutchinson.
The National Research Council report says “U.S. government agencies should be required to follow a systematic process to evaluate the effectiveness, lawfulness, and consistency with U.S. values of every information-based program” and “should be subjected to robust, independent oversight of the operations of that program.”
Unfortunately, such recommendations miss the point — Total Information Awareness, or whatever the government now calls its high-tech snoop apparatus, is not about sniffing out sleeper terrorists, it is about erecting a control grid for the American people, who are considered the enemy.
“This is the prison without bars,” warns Paul Joseph Watson. “This is the panopticon, a prison so constructed that the inspector can see each of the prisoners at all times, without being seen. This is a portrait of the accelerating movement by western governments to erect giant, powerful, all-pervading mass surveillance, tracking and control grids that will keep all populations firmly under the baleful and watchful gaze of Big Brother.”
Infowars
October 8, 2008
According to a report released by the National Research Council, automated identification of terrorists through data mining or any other mechanism “is neither feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology development efforts.” Inevitable false positives, writes Declan McCullagh for CNet News, will result in “ordinary, law-abiding citizens and businesses” being incorrectly flagged as suspects. McCullagh writes that the report “amounts to at least a partial repudiation of the Defense Department’s controversial data-mining program called Total Information Awareness, which was limited by Congress in 2003.”
The NSA is not looking for "secret terrorism cells" as claimed, but is rather in the process of implementing the largest and most comprehensive snoop and control apparatus in the world.
TIA, however, was not put out to pasture by Congress, as the former Clintonite Peter Swire admits. “I believe that Total Information Awareness is continuing under other names,” he told Democracy Now. Reuters obtained a congressional report that revealed nine months after Congress allegedly shut down TIA, the U.S. government continues to comb private records and databases.
“Total Information Awareness — the all-seeing terrorist spotting algorithm-meets-the-mother-of-all-databases that was ostensibly de-funded by Congress in 2003, never actually died, and was largely rebuilt in secret by the NSA, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gorman,” Ryan Singel writes for Wired. Singel reports that “the NSA is collecting and sifting through immense amounts of data about who Americans talk to, what they are interested in, how they spend their money and where they travel in order to find secret terrorism cells inside America.”
The NSA is not looking for “secret terrorism cells” as claimed, but is rather in the process of implementing the largest and most comprehensive snoop and control apparatus in the world, designed to monitor and profile the activity of average Americans and, more specifically, Americans who may actively oppose the government. The NSA works closely with the FBI, the CIA, and military intelligence in this massive effort.
“Since the creation of the NSA by President Truman, its spying capability has frequently been used to monitor the activities of an unsuspecting public,” writes Patrick S. Poole. From Project Shamrock to Project Minaret and Operation CHAOS, the government has not only surveilled those opposed to government policies, but has consistently sabotaged their efforts. As the revelations of the CIA’s so-called “family jewels” revealed, the agency worked with the NSA to monitor the communications of U.S. citizens active in the antiwar movement, a violation of the CIA’s charter.
“During the 1950s and 1960s, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover kicked FBI domestic spying into high gear. FBI agents compiled secret dossiers, illegally wiretapped, used undercover plants, and agent provocateurs, sent poison pen letters, and staged black bag jobs against black activists and anti-war groups,” notes Earl Ofari Hutchinson.
The National Research Council report says “U.S. government agencies should be required to follow a systematic process to evaluate the effectiveness, lawfulness, and consistency with U.S. values of every information-based program” and “should be subjected to robust, independent oversight of the operations of that program.”
Unfortunately, such recommendations miss the point — Total Information Awareness, or whatever the government now calls its high-tech snoop apparatus, is not about sniffing out sleeper terrorists, it is about erecting a control grid for the American people, who are considered the enemy.
“This is the prison without bars,” warns Paul Joseph Watson. “This is the panopticon, a prison so constructed that the inspector can see each of the prisoners at all times, without being seen. This is a portrait of the accelerating movement by western governments to erect giant, powerful, all-pervading mass surveillance, tracking and control grids that will keep all populations firmly under the baleful and watchful gaze of Big Brother.”
America’s Financial Apocalypse Economists Need to Sit Down and Shut Up
The Market Oracle
October 8, 2008
I’m really sick and tired of these economists out there who continue to claim that America will not enter a depression. These are the same bozos that have yet to acknowledge the fact that the U.S. is in a recession and has been for several months now. In fact, as I have previously mentioned, I can make a very strong case that the U.S. has been in the early stages of a silent, modest depression for at least two years; at the very least a protracted recession masked by credit. After the appropriate adjustments have been made for GDP, the U.S. economy has had no more than 3 to 4 quarters of GDP growth since 2005.
Thus far, we have seen drastic emergency interventions by the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury – measures not taken since the Great Depression. Thus far, we have seen the failure of the sixth largest U.S. bank – Washington Mutual, representing the largest bank failure in U.S. history. As I have alluded to for several months now, this is just the beginning. Thus far, we have seen many of the world’s strongest, most successful financial institutions file for bankruptcy or participate in a forced buyout to avoid further crisis. Many of these buyouts have been prearranged behind closed doors with the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury and the FDIC. Bank of America, Merrill Bailout Disguised as Buyout?
Wall Street powerhouses such as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch were global icons of banking power and prestige. They survived everything…even the last Great Depression.
But they were unable to survive this one. The other Wall Street firms, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have only been able to survive thus far due to conversion into commercial banks so they can share complete access to the Fed’s endless printing presses along with the rest of the banking cartel. I have explained what the media, pundits and other “experts” have failed to for several months now. Here is an excerpt from my July 13, 2008 commentary of the IndyMac failure:
In the coming months, I expect to see several bank failures. Not Citigroup or Bank of America.
The “Big 5” won’t fail because the Fed would never permit it. You know the Fed – the entity that’s owned and operated by the “Big 5.” It will be the small local and medium regional banks that fail By the time the washout is finished we could see several hundred take a fall. If we include those destined for the auction block, I can almost guarantee you there will be hundreds of failures.
When the smaller banks fail, the “Big 5” will snatch them up at pennies on the dollar compliments of Bernanke’s printing presses. Maybe now you can see why every nation wants to get as far away from the dollar as possible. They understand the worst is yet to come.
Bernanke’s “Big 5” banking bailout is only ensuring the dollar crisis will continue. However, no nation will be able to completely escape the effects of the falling dollar since it remains the universal currency. It is deeply embedded within global commerce and has extensive reach throughout the global financial system.- Farewell Indymac, What’s Next? Say Hello to the 1970s Inflation Rate (Part2)
I’m going to do something I’ve rarely done in the past two years, but something economists do on a weekly basis – revise a forecast. Instead of the 500 to 600 bank failures I have previously predicted, I’d like to revise that figure to 1,200 to 1,500 over the next five years. This revision is based upon what I anticipate as continued premature seizures by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the FDIC. I’m sure by now you know who will pick up the pieces…that’s right, the banking cartel. And they will do it using taxpayer dollars.
Thus far, we have seen emergency lending by the Fed and U.S. Treasury to both commercial and investment banks; something not seen since the last depression. And now Washington plans to make direct loans to business…once again, something not seen since the last depression. Even the nation’s largest mortgage company, Fannie Mae - created to help the housing crisis during the Great Depression - has failed, as did its younger brother Freddie Mac, formed a few decades later. And taxpayers have been the unwilling recipients of billions of dollars in junk bonds from these two giants, while millions have lost their homes due to fraud, which won’t ever be dealt with appropriately.
Now Washington has forced an irresponsible bailout of the entire banking system down the throat of taxpayers. While this bailout will do very little than mend a short-term credit freeze, it will enrich those who wrecked havoc on the global economy. Even the FDIC, created as part of the Glass Steagal Act of 1934 has been granted unlimited access to the Fed’s printing presses in order to survive.
Yet, these bozo economists still want you to think we have not entered a depression. Ladies and gentlemen, America ’s next Great Depression has commenced. This is not something I an anxious to proclaim, but it is the unfortunate reality. And apparently, most Americans are beginning to see through the web of deceit that Washington and the media has spent so much effort to create. http://money.cnn.com/…
Those of you who understand what is going on should protest when you hear these economic shills rattle off their propaganda. We have no need for this “dog-and-pony” show any longer.
We’ve had our fill from Washington for eight years now. Americans have had enough of this nonsense. And for those who were entrusted with positions of authority to not have seen this coming and/or who failed to respond in a timely manner – Alan Greenspan, banking CEOs, and others – should be sent directly to jail.
For all of you economists who still don’t get it, I have provided some excerpts from a previous publication.
Fooling You with Simpleton Arguments
The pundits and economists continue to make simpleton arguments, such as the current conditions are no way like the depression. They claim that the government made many changes that would prevent the same thing from happening again. They claim that depressions cause deflation. Sure. But that does not mean inflation cannot be the lead into a depression. If things are so different now, why is the US approaching the price declines in real estate seen during the depression? If things are so different now, why has the Fed had to resort to measures not seen since the depression? If things are so different now, why did the New Deal solution to the depression era real estate crisis (Fannie Mae) collapse? All of you guys in denial really need to get with the program.
The Next Great Depression
No we won’t see 33% unemployment like in the depression. Why? Well for starters, Washington fudges all of the data. I have discussed this in detail in the past. As well, the bar for what are considered jobs has been lowered since the depression. Today, you can say you’re employed if you’re a part-timer, you work at McDonalds, you’re a valet or massage therapist (no disrespect to any of you who might be employed in these occupations but let’s face it, they don’t give you a pension plan or healthcare benefits).
Instead of massive unemployment, we will see significant unemployment combined with massive underemployment. Already, my estimates are that the real unemployment rate is approaching 9% while the underemployment rate is 20 to 25%. Over the next few years, the underemployment rate will continue to increase and could top 50%. As well, we won’t see banks close their doors because we have the FDIC. Sure, it will run out of reserves most likely within the next 2 years, but that doesn’t matter because the Fed will just print more money, causing higher inflation. All of this will put further downward pressure on living standards. The devastation won’t be due to a crisis, it will be only heightened by a crisis. The real devastation will be due to the transfer of wealth and jobs overseas. It will be a silent depression.
The Silent Depression
In a few years, the real estate and banking crisis will have cooled off and Washington will start reporting much improved numbers; numbers that will continue to be manipulated. In reality, things will only get worse. Real wages won’t budge, inflation for basic necessities will remain high and most likely be higher, and job quality will continue to decline. It will be a silent depression because there will be no crisis. You won’t feel the full effects on any given day. If you’re in the lucky majority, you will go to work and carry out your life as usual. But you just won’t be able to make ends meet like in the past. Each year things will get worse so you’ll spend more on credit.
It will be more difficult for your children to raise their income status because higher education is becoming an unaffordable luxury for the wealthy. Millions will be stuck in slave labor, working for low wages and no benefits. And they won’t be working in factories churning out goods for the global economy. They will be working in service jobs, tailoring to the needs of America ’s wealthy.
And when you retire, only then will you realize that you’ve lived through a depression because you will run out of money. If you are lucky enough to have a home, you might have to end up selling it to pay for your medical bills, even if you have health insurance. The smaller minority will have a much worse fate.
What the “experts” don’t get is that this will be a depression that will be much more difficult to reverse because it will be gradual. There will be no urgency. Many will wake up one day in a few years and realize that they just can’t make ends meet; they’ll have very little if any retirement assets. It will be a continuation of declining living standards to a point that could lead to some major societal problems.
- The Bailout Plain Truth and the Silent Economic Depression
Make no mistake. There are a few economists who understand what is going on. But the media chooses to interview only those who remain clueless and offer the same denial speeches over and over. The vast majority of the nation’s economists remain largely isolated from the real world and stick to the same status quo ideals that support Washington ’s bogus economic data. It’s like a Boy’s Club. And they adhere to the rules of conduct or face the threat of being ostracized by their peers. These are the same economists who have praised Greenspan and Bernanke’s monetary policies and rogue attempts to destroy the dollar while bailing out the banking system, with a total of over $5 trillion – yes that’s right I said trillion - handed out to the banking system in less than a year. If you do the math you will see this number is correct.
The scary thing is that this printing frenzy has done nothing but worsen the crisis. When it’s all said and done, the disastrous responses by the Fed and U.S. Treasury are likely to have cost taxpayers much more. Counting the losses to the stock market, housing market, banks and corporate defaults, as well as the lost jobs, the main villains of this historic crisis - Alan Greenspan, Wall Street and members of Washington who fought for banking deregulation will result in total losses in excess of $22 trillion for America alone (another revision). Already the losses have surpassed $13 trillion.
For those economists out there who remain in denial, I challenge you to come forward for to debate me on the realities of the economy and capital markets as well as the solutions. I prefer to call it an educational seminar. If you chose to accept this invitation, hopefully it will have a very large audience so that I can demonstrate to the crowd that you people are generally useless and often dangerous.
In fact, I would like to challenge all other “experts” who disagree with my insights and solutions.
This includes all of the clowns on television and radio. I can assure you there is not one person – not an economist, politician, Wall Street executive, pundit, or other self-proclaimed expert out there of sound mind and body who would agree to debate me on these issues. Once they come to realize the strength behind my insights they will run like cowards.
I’d like to encourage all readers to forward this challenge to your economics professors or favorite media personality – from the clowns on CNBC and FOX, to the government shills and financial industry hired hacks on radio. I have proven to be one of the leading experts on the U.S. economy and capital markets. That fact, combined with my lack of celebrity status is precisely the reason why the media has shunned me. They are afraid of my straight-talk commentaries and solutions. They fear that my remarks and criticisms would derail their political agendas and upset their corporate sponsors. And because I don’t have the celebrity status of Warren Buffett or Jim Rogers, the media stands to lose from my cold hard truth.
They’ll let Rogers talk about the realities of this mess despite the fact that he might upset some of their sponsors because having him on air will draw a big crowd, and rightly so.
That, my friends, is the way the media operates in America . That’s why you continue to see Jim Cramer get on national television and claim that he “called the crisis” last year when the facts clearly show he missed everything and has been way behind the curve like the rest of the television and radio clowns. You see, Cramer and others have been made into financial celebrities, so they draw an audience regardless how wrong they’ve been. And for that, YOU are to blame because YOU continue to watch them. Only recently have these media clowns changed faces, hoping you will be fooled into thinking that they actually warned you ahead of time. But the facts speak the truth and they all missed it. The only thing that counts is a person’s track record – something the media ignores.
The next time you hear an economist ramble away the realities of the economy, I hope you will do as I plan and tell them to sit down and shut up. The same applies to the goofballs on television and radio, especially CNBC. The American people are sick and tired of the same clowns feeding us with the same bull. Americans need intellectual leaders with practical experience and excellent track records who are capable of providing guidance and viable solutions. We do not have time for liars, shills and idiots.
'Economic 9/11' exacting grim psychological toll in US
Article from The Economic Times
8 Oct, 2008, 0718 hrs IST, AGENCIES
LOS ANGELES: The murder-suicide of a Los Angeles financial manager who shot dead five members of his family before killing himself has highlighted t
he psychological toll of the economic meltdown.
The bodies of Karthik Rajaram, a 45-year-old business school graduate, and his wife, three children and mother-in-law, were discovered at his home in an upmarket gated community on Monday.
In a letter to police, Rajaram said he had been driven to murder because of his dire economic situation: already unemployed for several months, his remaining finances were reportedly wiped out by Wall Street's collapse.
Rajaram's tragic case has become a grim symbol of the US financial crisis. Or as Los Angeles deputy police chief Michael Moore put it, "a perfect American family destroyed by a man stuck in a rabbit hole of absolute despair."
The Los Angeles case came less than a week after a 90-year-old woman in Ohio shot herself as she was about to served an eviction notice on the home she has lived in for the past 38 years.
The two harrowing incidents have drawn attention to the mental-health impact associated with the most serious US financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, experts say.
Chicago-based psychologist Nancy Molitor told AFP the numbers of people seeking help because of finance-related anxiety had skyrocketed. "In my 20 years of practice I have never seen anything like this, the anxiety is through the roof," Molitor said, estimating she had seen a 50-percent increase in volume of calls.
The sense of bewilderment caused by financial crisis was comparable to the effect of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Molitor said, impacting people of varying ages and backgrounds.
"This compares to 9/11 in terms of the impact, definitely. And it's significant that it isn't a Wall Street crisis as I see it -- it's affecting the entire consumer economy, and almost every individual that I see.
"It's not just affecting adults, it's affecting the children. I had one 14-year-old who came to see me and said 'I'm worried my parents are going to go broke, because they're arguing more.'
"It's filtered down to almost every household I deal with. I've never seen something that has affected such a wide range of people."
Molitor said the problems varied greatly: affluent people who had lost a million dollars; couples fretting over the ability to pay for college tuition, or in one case, a 79-year-old woman who "couldn't afford to die."
"I thought she was kidding," Molitor said. "But she told me 'I used to have a pretty good inheritance that I could leave my three children. If I die tomorrow they're going to get half of what they were going to get.'"
Judith Bardwick, a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, said the tidal wave of grim economic headlines had exacerbated widespread feelings of impotence in an era of job insecurity.
"It is a sense of fear, depression and anxiety that says no matter how hard or well I work, I have no control over my future," Bardwick said. "So the present stinks and the future will be worse. And there's no one to help me.
"In a period of fiscal crisis, in which very visibly major institutions fail or are bailed out, and the market is riding a rollercoaster, the number of people who have these despairing views of life will naturally increase."
The fact that the macroeconomic causes of the meltdown were not easily explained added to the sense of impotence, Molitor said. "It's a perfect storm because what breeds anxiety is a fear of the unknown," she explained. "I had a very bright person with a PhD in economics who said to me 'Even I don't get it. And if I don't get it, how is the average person managing a household supposed to get it?'"
"There's a sense of total helplessness, which if it goes on long enough becomes hopelessness. And if that goes on long enough it becomes depression."
In Los Angeles, authorities are urging anyone in despair to seek professional help immediately. Ken Kondo, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, said a 24-hour service was available for anyone seeking help.
"One in five people in the United States will experience mental illness and these stressors from the economic crisis could trigger that," Kondo said.
"What we're saying is that people should talk to friends and family members, don't try and handle it by yourself. And if they feel chronically depressed or suicidal, seek professional mental health help right away."
8 Oct, 2008, 0718 hrs IST, AGENCIES
LOS ANGELES: The murder-suicide of a Los Angeles financial manager who shot dead five members of his family before killing himself has highlighted t
he psychological toll of the economic meltdown.
The bodies of Karthik Rajaram, a 45-year-old business school graduate, and his wife, three children and mother-in-law, were discovered at his home in an upmarket gated community on Monday.
In a letter to police, Rajaram said he had been driven to murder because of his dire economic situation: already unemployed for several months, his remaining finances were reportedly wiped out by Wall Street's collapse.
Rajaram's tragic case has become a grim symbol of the US financial crisis. Or as Los Angeles deputy police chief Michael Moore put it, "a perfect American family destroyed by a man stuck in a rabbit hole of absolute despair."
The Los Angeles case came less than a week after a 90-year-old woman in Ohio shot herself as she was about to served an eviction notice on the home she has lived in for the past 38 years.
The two harrowing incidents have drawn attention to the mental-health impact associated with the most serious US financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, experts say.
Chicago-based psychologist Nancy Molitor told AFP the numbers of people seeking help because of finance-related anxiety had skyrocketed. "In my 20 years of practice I have never seen anything like this, the anxiety is through the roof," Molitor said, estimating she had seen a 50-percent increase in volume of calls.
The sense of bewilderment caused by financial crisis was comparable to the effect of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Molitor said, impacting people of varying ages and backgrounds.
"This compares to 9/11 in terms of the impact, definitely. And it's significant that it isn't a Wall Street crisis as I see it -- it's affecting the entire consumer economy, and almost every individual that I see.
"It's not just affecting adults, it's affecting the children. I had one 14-year-old who came to see me and said 'I'm worried my parents are going to go broke, because they're arguing more.'
"It's filtered down to almost every household I deal with. I've never seen something that has affected such a wide range of people."
Molitor said the problems varied greatly: affluent people who had lost a million dollars; couples fretting over the ability to pay for college tuition, or in one case, a 79-year-old woman who "couldn't afford to die."
"I thought she was kidding," Molitor said. "But she told me 'I used to have a pretty good inheritance that I could leave my three children. If I die tomorrow they're going to get half of what they were going to get.'"
Judith Bardwick, a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, said the tidal wave of grim economic headlines had exacerbated widespread feelings of impotence in an era of job insecurity.
"It is a sense of fear, depression and anxiety that says no matter how hard or well I work, I have no control over my future," Bardwick said. "So the present stinks and the future will be worse. And there's no one to help me.
"In a period of fiscal crisis, in which very visibly major institutions fail or are bailed out, and the market is riding a rollercoaster, the number of people who have these despairing views of life will naturally increase."
The fact that the macroeconomic causes of the meltdown were not easily explained added to the sense of impotence, Molitor said. "It's a perfect storm because what breeds anxiety is a fear of the unknown," she explained. "I had a very bright person with a PhD in economics who said to me 'Even I don't get it. And if I don't get it, how is the average person managing a household supposed to get it?'"
"There's a sense of total helplessness, which if it goes on long enough becomes hopelessness. And if that goes on long enough it becomes depression."
In Los Angeles, authorities are urging anyone in despair to seek professional help immediately. Ken Kondo, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, said a 24-hour service was available for anyone seeking help.
"One in five people in the United States will experience mental illness and these stressors from the economic crisis could trigger that," Kondo said.
"What we're saying is that people should talk to friends and family members, don't try and handle it by yourself. And if they feel chronically depressed or suicidal, seek professional mental health help right away."
Md. Police Put Activists' Names On Terror Lists
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/07/AR2008100703245_pf.html
Md. Police Put Activists' Names On Terror Lists
Surveillance's Reach Revealed
By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 8, 2008; A01
The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists
and entered their names and personal information into state and federal
databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged
yesterday.
Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing
that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty
and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was
disclosed in July.
The department started sending letters of notification Saturday to the
activists, inviting them to review their files before they are purged from the
databases, Sheridan said.
"The names don't belong in there," he told the Senate Judicial Proceedings
Committee. "It's as simple as that."
The surveillance took place over 14 months in 2005 and 2006, under the
administration of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). The former state
police superintendent who authorized the operation, Thomas E. Hutchins, defended
the program in testimony yesterday. Hutchins said the program was a bulwark
against potential violence and called the activists "fringe people."
Sheridan said protest groups were also entered as terrorist organizations in
the databases, but his staff has not identified which ones.
Stunned senators pressed Sheridan to apologize to the activists for the
spying, assailed in an independent review last week as "overreaching" by law
enforcement officials who were oblivious to their violation of the activists'
rights of free expression and association. The letter, obtained by The
Washington Post, does not apologize but admits that the state police have "no
evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime" by those classified as
terrorists.
Hutchins told the committee it was not accurate to describe the program as
spying. "I doubt anyone who has used that term has ever met a spy," he told the
committee.
"What John Walker did is spying," Hutchins said, referring to John Walker
Jr., a communications specialist for the U.S. Navy convicted of selling secrets
to the Soviet Union. Hutchins said the intelligence agents, whose logs were
obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland as part of a lawsuit,
were monitoring "open public meetings." His officers sought a "situational
awareness" of the potential for disruption as death penalty opponents prepared
to protest the executions of two men on death row, Hutchins said.
"I don't believe the First Amendment is any guarantee to those who wish to
disrupt the government," he said. Hutchins said he did not notify Ehrlich about
the surveillance. Ehrlich spokesman Henry Fawell said the governor had no
comment.
Hutchins did not name the commander in the Division of Homeland Security and
Intelligence who informed him in March 2005 that the surveillance had begun.
More than a year later, after "they said, 'We're not getting much here,' "
Hutchins said he cut off what he called a "low-level operation."
But Sen. James Brochin (D-Baltimore County) noted that undercover troopers
used aliases to infiltrate organizational meetings, rallies and group e-mail
lists. He called the spying a "deliberate infiltration to find out every piece
of information necessary" on groups such as the Maryland Campaign to End the
Death Penalty and the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance. When Hutchins called their
members "fringe people," the audience of activists who filled the seats in the
hearing room in Annapolis sighed.
Some activists said yesterday that they have received letters; others said
they were waiting with anticipation to see whether they were on the state police
watch list.
Laura Lising of Catonsville, a member of the Baltimore Coalition Against the
Death Penalty, received her notification yesterday. She said she wants a hard
copy of her file, because she does not trust the police to purge it. "We need as
much protection as possible," she said.
Both Hutchins and Sheridan said the activists' names were entered into the
state police database as terrorists partly because the software offered limited
options for classifying entries.
The police also entered the activists' names into the federal
Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area database, which tracks
suspected terrorists. One well-known antiwar activist from Baltimore, Max
Obuszewski, was singled out in the intelligence logs released by the ACLU, which
described a "primary crime" of "terrorism-anti-government" and a "secondary
crime" of "terrorism-anti-war protesters."
Sheridan said that he did not think the names were circulated to other
agencies in the federal system and that they are not on the federal government's
terrorist watch list. Hutchins said some names might have been shared with the
National Security Agency.
Although the independent report on the surveillance released last week said
that it was part of a broad effort by the state police to gather information on
protest groups across the state, Sheridan said the department is not aware of
any surveillance as "intrusive" as the spying on death penalty and war
opponents.
The police notified the protesters at the recommendation of former U.S.
attorney and state attorney general Stephen H. Sachs, who was appointed by Gov.
Martin O'Malley (D) to review the covert monitoring. In a report last week,
Sachs also recommended regulations that forbid such spying on protest groups
unless the state police chief believes it is justified.
"I can't imagine getting a letter that says, 'You've been classified as a
terrorist; come in and we'll tell about it,'" said Sen. Bryan W. Simonaire
(R-Anne Arundel). Two senators noted that they had been arrested years ago for
civil disobedience. Sen. Jennie Forehand (D-Montgomery) asked Sheridan, "Do you
have any legislators on your list?" The answer was no.
Md. Police Put Activists' Names On Terror Lists
Surveillance's Reach Revealed
By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 8, 2008; A01
The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists
and entered their names and personal information into state and federal
databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged
yesterday.
Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing
that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty
and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was
disclosed in July.
The department started sending letters of notification Saturday to the
activists, inviting them to review their files before they are purged from the
databases, Sheridan said.
"The names don't belong in there," he told the Senate Judicial Proceedings
Committee. "It's as simple as that."
The surveillance took place over 14 months in 2005 and 2006, under the
administration of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). The former state
police superintendent who authorized the operation, Thomas E. Hutchins, defended
the program in testimony yesterday. Hutchins said the program was a bulwark
against potential violence and called the activists "fringe people."
Sheridan said protest groups were also entered as terrorist organizations in
the databases, but his staff has not identified which ones.
Stunned senators pressed Sheridan to apologize to the activists for the
spying, assailed in an independent review last week as "overreaching" by law
enforcement officials who were oblivious to their violation of the activists'
rights of free expression and association. The letter, obtained by The
Washington Post, does not apologize but admits that the state police have "no
evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime" by those classified as
terrorists.
Hutchins told the committee it was not accurate to describe the program as
spying. "I doubt anyone who has used that term has ever met a spy," he told the
committee.
"What John Walker did is spying," Hutchins said, referring to John Walker
Jr., a communications specialist for the U.S. Navy convicted of selling secrets
to the Soviet Union. Hutchins said the intelligence agents, whose logs were
obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland as part of a lawsuit,
were monitoring "open public meetings." His officers sought a "situational
awareness" of the potential for disruption as death penalty opponents prepared
to protest the executions of two men on death row, Hutchins said.
"I don't believe the First Amendment is any guarantee to those who wish to
disrupt the government," he said. Hutchins said he did not notify Ehrlich about
the surveillance. Ehrlich spokesman Henry Fawell said the governor had no
comment.
Hutchins did not name the commander in the Division of Homeland Security and
Intelligence who informed him in March 2005 that the surveillance had begun.
More than a year later, after "they said, 'We're not getting much here,' "
Hutchins said he cut off what he called a "low-level operation."
But Sen. James Brochin (D-Baltimore County) noted that undercover troopers
used aliases to infiltrate organizational meetings, rallies and group e-mail
lists. He called the spying a "deliberate infiltration to find out every piece
of information necessary" on groups such as the Maryland Campaign to End the
Death Penalty and the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance. When Hutchins called their
members "fringe people," the audience of activists who filled the seats in the
hearing room in Annapolis sighed.
Some activists said yesterday that they have received letters; others said
they were waiting with anticipation to see whether they were on the state police
watch list.
Laura Lising of Catonsville, a member of the Baltimore Coalition Against the
Death Penalty, received her notification yesterday. She said she wants a hard
copy of her file, because she does not trust the police to purge it. "We need as
much protection as possible," she said.
Both Hutchins and Sheridan said the activists' names were entered into the
state police database as terrorists partly because the software offered limited
options for classifying entries.
The police also entered the activists' names into the federal
Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area database, which tracks
suspected terrorists. One well-known antiwar activist from Baltimore, Max
Obuszewski, was singled out in the intelligence logs released by the ACLU, which
described a "primary crime" of "terrorism-anti-government" and a "secondary
crime" of "terrorism-anti-war protesters."
Sheridan said that he did not think the names were circulated to other
agencies in the federal system and that they are not on the federal government's
terrorist watch list. Hutchins said some names might have been shared with the
National Security Agency.
Although the independent report on the surveillance released last week said
that it was part of a broad effort by the state police to gather information on
protest groups across the state, Sheridan said the department is not aware of
any surveillance as "intrusive" as the spying on death penalty and war
opponents.
The police notified the protesters at the recommendation of former U.S.
attorney and state attorney general Stephen H. Sachs, who was appointed by Gov.
Martin O'Malley (D) to review the covert monitoring. In a report last week,
Sachs also recommended regulations that forbid such spying on protest groups
unless the state police chief believes it is justified.
"I can't imagine getting a letter that says, 'You've been classified as a
terrorist; come in and we'll tell about it,'" said Sen. Bryan W. Simonaire
(R-Anne Arundel). Two senators noted that they had been arrested years ago for
civil disobedience. Sen. Jennie Forehand (D-Montgomery) asked Sheridan, "Do you
have any legislators on your list?" The answer was no.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Ron Paul: Bailout Unconstitutional, Special Interests Forced Bill Through Congress
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Monday, Oct 6, 2008
Texas Congressman Ron Paul has warned that the amended bailout legislation that passed Congress on Friday is not only far worse than the original bill but is also unconstitutional.
Paul speaking just minutes after leaving the floor of the House on Friday, explained that the tax portion of the bill was written by the Senate, when under the Constitution only the House can originate tax bills.
“That in itself was unconstitutional but it’s been done before and it will be done again.” The Congressman said.
Paul highlighted that the passage of the bill defied logic because it was even worse than the original rejected version:
“It’s amazing, you take a very very bad bill, appropriating $700 billion, you can’t get enough votes to pass it so you take it back out, you make it much worse and take it up to over $800 billion.” Paul commented.
“Today is an even sadder day that on Monday,” Paul stated, “Here today when the special interests got their two cents in, or their $10 million worth of lobbying in, the members switched their vote.”
The Congressman decried the fact that 57 members, mostly so called conservatives, switched their votes on Friday. He urged that those who have destroyed the economy and our freedoms not be allowed to dictate how the system is rebuilt in America.
Paul also compared the economic situation to that of the Soviet Union in 1989, urging that the current economic meltdown stems from empire building foreign policy, and that we are now dealing with the bankruptcy of the United States.
Watch Ron Paul’s reaction to the passage of the bailout:
Earlier in the day Ron Paul had taken the floor in the House to express his opposition to the bailout, stating that it represents an evasion of the real problem and more of the same inflationary practices that have caused the crisis in the first instance.
Infowars.net
Monday, Oct 6, 2008
Texas Congressman Ron Paul has warned that the amended bailout legislation that passed Congress on Friday is not only far worse than the original bill but is also unconstitutional.
Paul speaking just minutes after leaving the floor of the House on Friday, explained that the tax portion of the bill was written by the Senate, when under the Constitution only the House can originate tax bills.
“That in itself was unconstitutional but it’s been done before and it will be done again.” The Congressman said.
Paul highlighted that the passage of the bill defied logic because it was even worse than the original rejected version:
“It’s amazing, you take a very very bad bill, appropriating $700 billion, you can’t get enough votes to pass it so you take it back out, you make it much worse and take it up to over $800 billion.” Paul commented.
“Today is an even sadder day that on Monday,” Paul stated, “Here today when the special interests got their two cents in, or their $10 million worth of lobbying in, the members switched their vote.”
The Congressman decried the fact that 57 members, mostly so called conservatives, switched their votes on Friday. He urged that those who have destroyed the economy and our freedoms not be allowed to dictate how the system is rebuilt in America.
Paul also compared the economic situation to that of the Soviet Union in 1989, urging that the current economic meltdown stems from empire building foreign policy, and that we are now dealing with the bankruptcy of the United States.
Watch Ron Paul’s reaction to the passage of the bailout:
Earlier in the day Ron Paul had taken the floor in the House to express his opposition to the bailout, stating that it represents an evasion of the real problem and more of the same inflationary practices that have caused the crisis in the first instance.
A Futile Bailout as Darkness Falls on America
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
America has become a pretty discouraging place. Americans, for the most part, will never know what happened to them, because they no longer have a free and responsible press. They have Big Brother’s press. For example, on September 28, 2008, a New York Times editorial blamed the current financial crisis on “antiregulation disciples of the Reagan Revolution.”
What utter nonsense. Every example of deregulation that the New York Times editorial provides is located in the Clinton Administration and the George W. Bush administration. I was a member of the Reagan administration. We most certainly did not deregulate the financial system.
The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial from investment banking, was the achievement of the Democratic Clinton Administration. It happened in 1999, over a decade after Reagan left office.
It was in 2000 that derivatives and credit default swaps were excluded from regulation.
The greatest mistake was made in 2004, the year that Reagan died. That year the current Secretary of the Treasury, Henry M. Paulson Jr, was head of the investment bank Goldman Sachs. In the spring of 2004, the investment banks, led by Paulson, met with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At this meeting with the New Deal regulatory agency tasked with regulating the US financial system, Paulson convinced the SEC Commissioners to exempt the investment banks from maintaining reserves to cover losses on investments. The exemption granted by the SEC allowed the investment banks to leverage financial instruments beyond any bounds of prudence.
In place of time-proven standards of prudence, computer models engineered by hot shots determined acceptable risk. As one result Bear Stearns, for example, pushed its leverage ratio to 33 to 1. For every one dollar in equity, the investment bank had $33 of debt!
It was computer models that led to the failure of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, the first systemic threat to the financial system. Why the SEC went along with Paulson and set aside capital requirements after the scare of Long-Term Capital Management is inexplicable.
The blame is headed toward SEC chairman Christopher Cox. This is more of Big Brother’s disinformation. Cox, like so many others, was a victim of a free market ideology, itself a reaction to over-regulation, that was boosted by academic economic opinion, rewarded with Nobel prizes, that the market “always knows best.”
The 20th century proves that the market is likely to know better than a central planning bureau. It was Soviet Communism that collapsed, not American capitalism. However, the market has to be protected from greed. It was greed, not the market, that was unleashed by deregulation during the Clinton and George W. Bush regimes.
I remember when the deregulation of the financial sector began. One of the first inroads was the legislation, written by bankers, to permit national branch banking. George Champion, former chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, testified against it. In columns I argued that national branch banking would focus banks away from local business needs.
The deregulation of the financial sector was achieved by the Democratic Clinton Administration and by the current Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, with the acquiescence of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Paulson bailout saves his firm, Goldman Sachs. The Paulson bailout transfers the troubled financial instruments that the financial sector created from the books of the financial sector to the books of the taxpayers at the US Treasury.
This is all the bailout does. It rescues the guilty.
The Paulson bailout does not address the problem, which is the defaulting home mortgages.
The defaults will continue, because the economy is sinking into recession. Homeowners are losing their jobs, and homeowners are being hit with rising mortgage payments resulting from adjustable rate mortgages and escalator interest rate clauses in their mortgages that make homeowners unable to service their debt.
Shifting the troubled assets from the financial sectors’ books to the taxpayers’ books absolves the people who caused the problem from responsibility. As the economy declines and mortgage default rates rise, the US Treasury and the American taxpayers could end up with a $700 billion loss.
Initially, the House, but not the Senate, resisted the bailout of the financial institutions,whose executives had received millions of dollars in bonuses for wrecking the US financial system.
However, the people’s representatives could not withstand the specter of martial law and Great Depression with which Paulson and the Bush administration threatened them. The people’s representatives succumbed as they did during the New Deal.
The impotence of Congress traces to the Great Depression. As Theodore Lowi in his classic book, The End of Liberalism, makes clear, the New Deal stripped Congress of its law-making power and gave it to the executive agencies. Prior to the New Deal, Congress wrote the laws.
After the New Deal a bill is merely an authorization for executive agencies to create the law through regulations. The Paulson bailout has further diminished the legislative branch’s power.
Since Paulson’s bailout of his firm and his financial friends does nothing to lessen the default rate on mortgages, how will the bailout play out?
If the $700 billion bailout is based on an estimate of the current amount of bad mortgages, as the recession deepens and Americans lose their jobs, the default rate will rise. The $700 billion might not suffice. The Treasury will have to go hat in hand to its foreign creditors for more loans.
As the US Treasury has not got $7, much less $700 billion, it must borrow the bailout money from foreign creditors, already overloaded with US paper. At what point do America’s foreign bankers decide that the additions to US debt exceed what can be repaid?
This question was ignored by the bailout. There were no hearings. No one consulted China, America’s principal banker, or the Japanese, or the OPEC sovereign wealth funds, or Europe.
Does the world have a blank check for America’s mistakes?
This is the same world that is faced with American demands that countries support with money and lives America’s quest for world hegemony. Europeans are dying in Afghanistan for American hegemony. Do Europeans want their banks, which hold US dollars as their reserves, to fail so that Paulson can bail out his company and his friends?
The US dollar is the world’s reserve currency. It comprises the reserves of foreign central banks. Bush’s wars and economic policies are destroying the basis of the US dollar as reserve currency. The day the dollar loses its reserve currency role, the US government cannot pay its bills in its own currency. The result will be a dramatic reduction in US living standards.
Currently Treasuries are boosted by the habitual “flight to quality,” but as Treasury debt deepens, will investors still see quality? At what point do America’s foreign creditors cease to lend? That is the point at which American power ends. It might be close at hand.
The Paulson bailout is predicated on cleaning up financial institutions’ balance sheets and restoring the flow of credit. The assumption is that once lending resumes, the economy will pick up.
This assumption is problematic. The expansion of consumer debt, which kept the economy going in the 21st century, has reached its limit. There are no more credit cards to max out, and no more home equity to refinance and spend. The Paulson bailout might restore trust among financial institutions and enable them to lend to one another, but it doesn’t provide a jolt to consumer demand.
Moreover, there may be more shoes to drop. Credit card debt could be the next to threaten balance sheets of financial institutions. Apparently, credit card debt has been securitized and sold as well, and not all of the debt is good. In addition, the leasing programs of the car manufacturers have turned sour. As a result of high gasoline prices and absence of growth in take-home pay, the residual values of big trucks and SUVs are less than the leasing programs estimated them to be, thus creating more financial problems. Car manufacturers are canceling their leasing programs, and this will further cut into sales.
According to statistician John Williams [ http://www.shadowstats.com/section/commentaries ] who measures inflation, unemployment, and GDP according to the methodology used prior to the Clinton regime’s corruption of these measures, the US unemployment rate is currently at 14.7 per cent and the inflation rate is 13.2 per cent. Consequently, real US GDP growth in the 21st century has been negative.
This is not a picture of an economy that a bailout of financial institution balance sheets will revive. As the Paulson bailout does not address the mortgage problem per se, defaults and foreclosures are likely to rise, thus undermining the Treasury’s estimate that 90 per cent of the mortgages backing the troubled instruments are good.
Moreover, one consequence of the ongoing financial crisis is financial concentration. It is not inconceivable that the US will end up with four giant banks: J.P. Morgan Chase, Citicorp, Bank of America, and Wachovia Wells Fargo. If defaulting credit card debt then assaults these banks’ balance sheets, who is there to take them over? Would the Treasury be able to borrow the money for another Paulson bailout?
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation refinanced one million home mortgages in order to prevent foreclosures. The refinancing apparently succeeded, and HOLC returned a profit. The problem then, as now, was not “deadbeats” who wouldn’t pay their mortgages, and the HOLC refinancing did not discourage others from paying their mortgages. Market purists who claim the only solution is for housing prices to fall to prior levels overlook that rising inventories can push prices below prior levels, thus causing more distress.
They also overlook the role of interest rates. If a worsening credit crisis dries up mortgage lending and pushes mortgage interest rates higher, the rise in interest rates could offset the fall in home prices, and mortgages would remain unaffordable even in a falling housing market.
Some commentators are blaming the current mortgage problem on the pressure that the US government put on banks to lend to unqualified borrowers. However, whatever breaches of prudence there may have been only affected the earnings of individual institutions. They did not threaten the financial system. The current crisis required more than bad loans. It required securitization and its leverage. It required Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s inappropriate low interest rates, which created a real estate boom. Rapidly rising real estate prices quickly created home equity to justify 100 percent mortgages. Wall Street analysts pushed financial companies to improve their bottom lines, which they did by extreme leveraging.
An alternative to refinancing troubled mortgages would be to attempt to separate the bad mortgages from the good ones and revalue the mortgage-backed securities accordingly. If there are no further defaults, this approach would not require massive write-offs that threaten the solvency of financial institutions. However, if defaults continue, write-downs would be an ongoing enterprise.
Clearly, all Secretary Paulson thought about was getting troubled assets off the books of financial institutions.
The same reckless leadership that gave us expensive wars based on false premises has now concocted an expensive bailout that does not address the problem, which will fester and become worse.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
America has become a pretty discouraging place. Americans, for the most part, will never know what happened to them, because they no longer have a free and responsible press. They have Big Brother’s press. For example, on September 28, 2008, a New York Times editorial blamed the current financial crisis on “antiregulation disciples of the Reagan Revolution.”
What utter nonsense. Every example of deregulation that the New York Times editorial provides is located in the Clinton Administration and the George W. Bush administration. I was a member of the Reagan administration. We most certainly did not deregulate the financial system.
The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial from investment banking, was the achievement of the Democratic Clinton Administration. It happened in 1999, over a decade after Reagan left office.
It was in 2000 that derivatives and credit default swaps were excluded from regulation.
The greatest mistake was made in 2004, the year that Reagan died. That year the current Secretary of the Treasury, Henry M. Paulson Jr, was head of the investment bank Goldman Sachs. In the spring of 2004, the investment banks, led by Paulson, met with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At this meeting with the New Deal regulatory agency tasked with regulating the US financial system, Paulson convinced the SEC Commissioners to exempt the investment banks from maintaining reserves to cover losses on investments. The exemption granted by the SEC allowed the investment banks to leverage financial instruments beyond any bounds of prudence.
In place of time-proven standards of prudence, computer models engineered by hot shots determined acceptable risk. As one result Bear Stearns, for example, pushed its leverage ratio to 33 to 1. For every one dollar in equity, the investment bank had $33 of debt!
It was computer models that led to the failure of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, the first systemic threat to the financial system. Why the SEC went along with Paulson and set aside capital requirements after the scare of Long-Term Capital Management is inexplicable.
The blame is headed toward SEC chairman Christopher Cox. This is more of Big Brother’s disinformation. Cox, like so many others, was a victim of a free market ideology, itself a reaction to over-regulation, that was boosted by academic economic opinion, rewarded with Nobel prizes, that the market “always knows best.”
The 20th century proves that the market is likely to know better than a central planning bureau. It was Soviet Communism that collapsed, not American capitalism. However, the market has to be protected from greed. It was greed, not the market, that was unleashed by deregulation during the Clinton and George W. Bush regimes.
I remember when the deregulation of the financial sector began. One of the first inroads was the legislation, written by bankers, to permit national branch banking. George Champion, former chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, testified against it. In columns I argued that national branch banking would focus banks away from local business needs.
The deregulation of the financial sector was achieved by the Democratic Clinton Administration and by the current Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, with the acquiescence of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Paulson bailout saves his firm, Goldman Sachs. The Paulson bailout transfers the troubled financial instruments that the financial sector created from the books of the financial sector to the books of the taxpayers at the US Treasury.
This is all the bailout does. It rescues the guilty.
The Paulson bailout does not address the problem, which is the defaulting home mortgages.
The defaults will continue, because the economy is sinking into recession. Homeowners are losing their jobs, and homeowners are being hit with rising mortgage payments resulting from adjustable rate mortgages and escalator interest rate clauses in their mortgages that make homeowners unable to service their debt.
Shifting the troubled assets from the financial sectors’ books to the taxpayers’ books absolves the people who caused the problem from responsibility. As the economy declines and mortgage default rates rise, the US Treasury and the American taxpayers could end up with a $700 billion loss.
Initially, the House, but not the Senate, resisted the bailout of the financial institutions,whose executives had received millions of dollars in bonuses for wrecking the US financial system.
However, the people’s representatives could not withstand the specter of martial law and Great Depression with which Paulson and the Bush administration threatened them. The people’s representatives succumbed as they did during the New Deal.
The impotence of Congress traces to the Great Depression. As Theodore Lowi in his classic book, The End of Liberalism, makes clear, the New Deal stripped Congress of its law-making power and gave it to the executive agencies. Prior to the New Deal, Congress wrote the laws.
After the New Deal a bill is merely an authorization for executive agencies to create the law through regulations. The Paulson bailout has further diminished the legislative branch’s power.
Since Paulson’s bailout of his firm and his financial friends does nothing to lessen the default rate on mortgages, how will the bailout play out?
If the $700 billion bailout is based on an estimate of the current amount of bad mortgages, as the recession deepens and Americans lose their jobs, the default rate will rise. The $700 billion might not suffice. The Treasury will have to go hat in hand to its foreign creditors for more loans.
As the US Treasury has not got $7, much less $700 billion, it must borrow the bailout money from foreign creditors, already overloaded with US paper. At what point do America’s foreign bankers decide that the additions to US debt exceed what can be repaid?
This question was ignored by the bailout. There were no hearings. No one consulted China, America’s principal banker, or the Japanese, or the OPEC sovereign wealth funds, or Europe.
Does the world have a blank check for America’s mistakes?
This is the same world that is faced with American demands that countries support with money and lives America’s quest for world hegemony. Europeans are dying in Afghanistan for American hegemony. Do Europeans want their banks, which hold US dollars as their reserves, to fail so that Paulson can bail out his company and his friends?
The US dollar is the world’s reserve currency. It comprises the reserves of foreign central banks. Bush’s wars and economic policies are destroying the basis of the US dollar as reserve currency. The day the dollar loses its reserve currency role, the US government cannot pay its bills in its own currency. The result will be a dramatic reduction in US living standards.
Currently Treasuries are boosted by the habitual “flight to quality,” but as Treasury debt deepens, will investors still see quality? At what point do America’s foreign creditors cease to lend? That is the point at which American power ends. It might be close at hand.
The Paulson bailout is predicated on cleaning up financial institutions’ balance sheets and restoring the flow of credit. The assumption is that once lending resumes, the economy will pick up.
This assumption is problematic. The expansion of consumer debt, which kept the economy going in the 21st century, has reached its limit. There are no more credit cards to max out, and no more home equity to refinance and spend. The Paulson bailout might restore trust among financial institutions and enable them to lend to one another, but it doesn’t provide a jolt to consumer demand.
Moreover, there may be more shoes to drop. Credit card debt could be the next to threaten balance sheets of financial institutions. Apparently, credit card debt has been securitized and sold as well, and not all of the debt is good. In addition, the leasing programs of the car manufacturers have turned sour. As a result of high gasoline prices and absence of growth in take-home pay, the residual values of big trucks and SUVs are less than the leasing programs estimated them to be, thus creating more financial problems. Car manufacturers are canceling their leasing programs, and this will further cut into sales.
According to statistician John Williams [ http://www.shadowstats.com/section/commentaries ] who measures inflation, unemployment, and GDP according to the methodology used prior to the Clinton regime’s corruption of these measures, the US unemployment rate is currently at 14.7 per cent and the inflation rate is 13.2 per cent. Consequently, real US GDP growth in the 21st century has been negative.
This is not a picture of an economy that a bailout of financial institution balance sheets will revive. As the Paulson bailout does not address the mortgage problem per se, defaults and foreclosures are likely to rise, thus undermining the Treasury’s estimate that 90 per cent of the mortgages backing the troubled instruments are good.
Moreover, one consequence of the ongoing financial crisis is financial concentration. It is not inconceivable that the US will end up with four giant banks: J.P. Morgan Chase, Citicorp, Bank of America, and Wachovia Wells Fargo. If defaulting credit card debt then assaults these banks’ balance sheets, who is there to take them over? Would the Treasury be able to borrow the money for another Paulson bailout?
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation refinanced one million home mortgages in order to prevent foreclosures. The refinancing apparently succeeded, and HOLC returned a profit. The problem then, as now, was not “deadbeats” who wouldn’t pay their mortgages, and the HOLC refinancing did not discourage others from paying their mortgages. Market purists who claim the only solution is for housing prices to fall to prior levels overlook that rising inventories can push prices below prior levels, thus causing more distress.
They also overlook the role of interest rates. If a worsening credit crisis dries up mortgage lending and pushes mortgage interest rates higher, the rise in interest rates could offset the fall in home prices, and mortgages would remain unaffordable even in a falling housing market.
Some commentators are blaming the current mortgage problem on the pressure that the US government put on banks to lend to unqualified borrowers. However, whatever breaches of prudence there may have been only affected the earnings of individual institutions. They did not threaten the financial system. The current crisis required more than bad loans. It required securitization and its leverage. It required Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s inappropriate low interest rates, which created a real estate boom. Rapidly rising real estate prices quickly created home equity to justify 100 percent mortgages. Wall Street analysts pushed financial companies to improve their bottom lines, which they did by extreme leveraging.
An alternative to refinancing troubled mortgages would be to attempt to separate the bad mortgages from the good ones and revalue the mortgage-backed securities accordingly. If there are no further defaults, this approach would not require massive write-offs that threaten the solvency of financial institutions. However, if defaults continue, write-downs would be an ongoing enterprise.
Clearly, all Secretary Paulson thought about was getting troubled assets off the books of financial institutions.
The same reckless leadership that gave us expensive wars based on false premises has now concocted an expensive bailout that does not address the problem, which will fester and become worse.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
The Fear Bomb -- Again!
[col. writ. 9/23/08]
(c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
If Congress has shown us anything, it is that when they are scared, they'll do anything. Seven years ago, in the twilight after 9/11 and in the wake of the anthrax attacks, Congress passed sweeping authorizations to the White House for war on a whim, and signed the so-called Patriot Act in record time.
Some members admitted that they didn't even read the bill before voting "aye." One man, a prominent and even legendary congressman admitted, "We were afraid; they told us we had to pass the Patriot Act -- so we did it." Fear.
That same dank, semi-sweet smell is radiating through the halls of Congress, thicker than the clouds of cigar smoke.
This time it's financial fear.
Politicians are once again dancing to the tune of others, to the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street, who need another bailout, bringing it to nearly a trillion bucks ($1,000,000,000,000!) in less than a month! And just like last time, Congress is being suckered into coughing up the public's money--quickly--or else!
The Iraq War was a shell game that exploded into a debacle. Remember how the media initially tried to link anthrax attacks to Al Qaeda? When the source is nailed to an apparently mad American scientist (question: was he really mad, or a scientist following government orders?), it's too late.
The damage is done. The bills are passed. Powers are transferred. Hundreds of billions are spent and wasted? Right? Congress has defied the common knowledge that we learn from our mistakes; because here we go again. The administration yells, "Boo!", and Congress answers, "How much do you want?" This is not to suggest (to paraphrase former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt) that the only thing to be feared is fear.
There really is a disaster looming in the financial world. And Congress knew about it years ago (or certainly should have). Why else would they've passed the amended Bankruptcy Act several years ago? Why would they pass a bill making it harder to file bankruptcies--unless they saw a tidal wave of it coming down the river?
They knew it was coming, as certainly as autumn follows summer. Congress is poised to, once again, transfer public wealth to private businesses, in a mad dash to re- wrap bad loans as new instruments, so that these securities could be peddled to new buyers. Who'll buy? Will Wall Street?
Don't bet on it. Will you? Probably not.
Perhaps China will buy up these new instruments --but don't hold your breath!
-(c) '08 maj
Fall of the House of Capital?
[col. writ. 10/1/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
By the time you read this the $700 billion bailout will have been old news, one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history.
But it will not heal that which ails the nation as it trips and stumbles like a drunken sailor on shore leave.
The reasons are simple.
For the problems are systemic, built into the rapacious nature of the machinery humming all around us. The Rube Goldberg-like contraption of democratic forms at the service of the financial services industry is a bottomless maw, a gaping mouth that is never sated.
Why was there no alarm when millions of people lost their homes to foreclosures made inevitable by variable mortgage rates? When millions lost manufacturing jobs to low paying service gigs? When living standards crumbled, and when take home pay fell to 1973 levels?
Where was the alarm?
There was no alarm -- for this was the 'blind hand of the market' at work, the leveling way of globalism, the new world order moving through, preparing the way for the triumph of capitalism uber alles.
Few were the politicians who gave voice to this immense social suffering. Fewer still used their power to try to assuage their pain, for they too were drunk on the wine of globalism.
But when the ripples spread upwards, from the foreclosed homes to the foreclosing banks -and from the banks to investment houses, Congress stirred from their drunken stupor, and rang alarm bells loudest.
"It's an economic 9/11!", some bellowed; "It's a financial tsunami!", yelled others.
When Americans were hoodwinked into ruinous sub-prime loans, and millions were faced with foreclosures, where was the alarm?
More importantly, where was the help for those who were endangered?
Nowhere. Nowhere.
If they helped them the present economic crisis would've been mitigated.
Instead, we're in a situation where a scam artist sets up shop in a street-corner, playing a fraudulent 3-card monty hustle, and along comes a cop. The cop, instead of rousting the scam artist, rifles the pockets of every passerby, and delivers the stolen loot to the scammer.
The scam artist, of course, is the financial investment houses; the cop, of course, is Congress -- and you are the passerby, hustled and robbed by both of them.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote, 160 years ago, that the State was but the executive for capitalist. After what we are all seeing, who can doubt it?
The Empire is crumbling.
--(c) '08 maj
==================
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
By the time you read this the $700 billion bailout will have been old news, one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history.
But it will not heal that which ails the nation as it trips and stumbles like a drunken sailor on shore leave.
The reasons are simple.
For the problems are systemic, built into the rapacious nature of the machinery humming all around us. The Rube Goldberg-like contraption of democratic forms at the service of the financial services industry is a bottomless maw, a gaping mouth that is never sated.
Why was there no alarm when millions of people lost their homes to foreclosures made inevitable by variable mortgage rates? When millions lost manufacturing jobs to low paying service gigs? When living standards crumbled, and when take home pay fell to 1973 levels?
Where was the alarm?
There was no alarm -- for this was the 'blind hand of the market' at work, the leveling way of globalism, the new world order moving through, preparing the way for the triumph of capitalism uber alles.
Few were the politicians who gave voice to this immense social suffering. Fewer still used their power to try to assuage their pain, for they too were drunk on the wine of globalism.
But when the ripples spread upwards, from the foreclosed homes to the foreclosing banks -and from the banks to investment houses, Congress stirred from their drunken stupor, and rang alarm bells loudest.
"It's an economic 9/11!", some bellowed; "It's a financial tsunami!", yelled others.
When Americans were hoodwinked into ruinous sub-prime loans, and millions were faced with foreclosures, where was the alarm?
More importantly, where was the help for those who were endangered?
Nowhere. Nowhere.
If they helped them the present economic crisis would've been mitigated.
Instead, we're in a situation where a scam artist sets up shop in a street-corner, playing a fraudulent 3-card monty hustle, and along comes a cop. The cop, instead of rousting the scam artist, rifles the pockets of every passerby, and delivers the stolen loot to the scammer.
The scam artist, of course, is the financial investment houses; the cop, of course, is Congress -- and you are the passerby, hustled and robbed by both of them.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote, 160 years ago, that the State was but the executive for capitalist. After what we are all seeing, who can doubt it?
The Empire is crumbling.
--(c) '08 maj
==================
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
A Time for Union Power!
[col. writ. 10/1/08]
(c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
It's been over a year since two members of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), Local 10, were harassed, beaten and busted while trying to call their union rep on a cell phone.
The men, Aaron Harrison and Jason Ruffin, were beaten by maritime security and West Sacramento cops, for the fake offense of parking -- while Black.
They are days away from trial in Yolo County, California on bogus "resisting arrest" charges, really cover charges--to cover up the fact that they were racially profiled for the high crimes and misdemeanor of being two young Black men, sitting in a car, on the docks.
It would've been wrong, and just as vile, if it were 2 young guys who were unaffiliated or even unemployed.
But the fact is, they are affiliated with a union with a long and proud history of resistance on behalf, not just of ILWU members, but to the working class, and social justice movements worldwide.
And if the ILWU will fight for others, they certainly will fight for themselves!
And they are rightfully demanding that all charges be dropped against their ILWU brothers Ruffin and Harrison --not some--all!
They will come out in the hundreds for them -- because they understand the old saying, "An injury to one, is an injury to all!"
For that -- for their fighting spirit -- for making unity a real part of the union -- they are to be commended.
With unity like that unions can expand, and begin to transform this country from the casino and political whorehouse for Wall St. that it has become.
Free Bros. Ruffin & Harrison!
An Injury to One Is An Injury to All!
-(c) '08 maj
==============
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
(c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
It's been over a year since two members of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), Local 10, were harassed, beaten and busted while trying to call their union rep on a cell phone.
The men, Aaron Harrison and Jason Ruffin, were beaten by maritime security and West Sacramento cops, for the fake offense of parking -- while Black.
They are days away from trial in Yolo County, California on bogus "resisting arrest" charges, really cover charges--to cover up the fact that they were racially profiled for the high crimes and misdemeanor of being two young Black men, sitting in a car, on the docks.
It would've been wrong, and just as vile, if it were 2 young guys who were unaffiliated or even unemployed.
But the fact is, they are affiliated with a union with a long and proud history of resistance on behalf, not just of ILWU members, but to the working class, and social justice movements worldwide.
And if the ILWU will fight for others, they certainly will fight for themselves!
And they are rightfully demanding that all charges be dropped against their ILWU brothers Ruffin and Harrison --not some--all!
They will come out in the hundreds for them -- because they understand the old saying, "An injury to one, is an injury to all!"
For that -- for their fighting spirit -- for making unity a real part of the union -- they are to be commended.
With unity like that unions can expand, and begin to transform this country from the casino and political whorehouse for Wall St. that it has become.
Free Bros. Ruffin & Harrison!
An Injury to One Is An Injury to All!
-(c) '08 maj
==============
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Bank on this: Bank failures will rise in next year
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - Here's a safe bet for uncertain times: A lot of banks won't survive the next year of upheaval despite the U.S. government's $700 billion plan to restore order to the financial industry.
The biggest question is how many will perish and how they will be put out of their misery — in outright closures by regulators scrambling to preserve the dwindling deposit insurance fund or in fire sales made under government pressure.
Enfeebled by huge losses on risky home loans, the banking industry is now on the shakiest ground since the early 1990s, when more than 800 federally insured institutions failed in a three-year period. That was during the clean-up phase of a decade-long savings-and-loan meltdown that wound up costing U.S. taxpayers $170 billion to $205 billion, after adjusting for inflation.
The government's commitment to spend up to $700 billion buying bad debts from ailing banks is likely to save some institutions that would have otherwise died, but analysts doubt it will be enough to avert a major shakeout.
"It will help, but it's not going to be the saving grace" because a lot of banks are holding construction loans and other types of deteriorating assets that the government won't take off their books, predicted Stanford Financial analyst Jaret Seiberg. He expects more than 100 banks nationwide to fail next year.
The darkening clouds already have some depositors pondering a question that always seems to crop up in financial panics despite deposit insurance: Could it possibly make more sense to stash cash in a mattress than in a bank account?
"It sounds like a joke," said business owner Mauricoa Quintero as he recently paused outside a Wachovia Bank branch in Miami. "But it sounds safer than the turmoil out there right now."
Not as many banks are likely to fail as in the S&L crisis, largely because there are about 8,000 fewer today than there were in 1988.
But that doesn't necessarily mean the problems won't be as costly or as unnerving; banks are much larger than they were 20 years ago, thanks to laws passed in the 1990s.
"I don't see why things will be that much different this time," said Joseph Mason, an economist who worked for the U.S. Treasury Department in the 1990s and is now a finance professor at Louisiana State University. "We just had a big party where people and businesses overborrowed. We had a bubble and now we want to get back to normal. Is it going to be painless? No."
With more super-sized banks in business, fewer failures could still dump a big bill on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the government agency that insures bank and S&L deposits. The FDIC's potential liability is rising under a provision of the bailout that increases the deposit insurance limit to $250,000 per account, up from $100,000.
Using statistics from the S&L crisis as a guide, Mason estimates total deposits in banks that fail during the current crisis at $1.1 trillion. After calculating gains from selling deposits and some of the assets of the failed banks, Mason estimates the clean-up this time will cost the FDIC $140 billion to $200 billion.
The FDIC's fund currently has about $45 billion — a five-year low — but the agency can make up for any shortfalls by borrowing from the U.S. Treasury and eventually repaying the money by raising the premiums that it charges the remaining banks and S&Ls.
Through the first nine months of the year, 13 banks and S&Ls have been taken over by the FDIC — more than the previous five years combined.
The FDIC may be underestimating, or at least not publicly acknowledging, the trouble ahead. As of June 30, the FDIC had 117 insured banks and S&Ls on its problem list. That represented about 1 percent of the nearly 8,500 institutions insured as of June 30. Entering 1991, about 10 percent of the industry — 1,496 institutions — was on the FDIC's endangered list.
Although the FDIC doesn't name the institutions it classifies as problems, this year's June 30 list didn't include two huge headaches — Washington Mutual Bank and Wachovia. Combined, WaMu and Wachovia had more than $1 trillion in assets; the assets of the 117 institutions on the FDIC's watch list totaled $78 billion.
Late last month, WaMu became the largest bank failure in U.S. history, with $307 billion in assets, nearly five times more, on an inflation-adjusted basis, than the previous record collapse of Continental Illinois National Bank in 1984. The FDIC doesn't expect WaMu's demise to cost its fund anything because JP Morgan Chase & Co. agreed to buy the bank's deposits and most of the assets for $1.9 billion.
Regulators dodged another potential bullet by helping to negotiate the sale of Wachovia's banking operations to Citigroup Inc. in a complex deal that could still end up costing the FDIC, depending on the severity of future loan losses. On Friday, a battle of banking giants erupted when Wachovia struck a new deal with Wells Fargo & Co. without government help, and Citigroup demanded that it be called off.
The banking outlook looks even gloomier through the prism of Bauer Financial Inc., which has been relying on data filed with the FDIC to assess the health of federally insured institutions for the past 25 years.
Based on its analysis of the June 30 numbers, Bauer Financial concluded that 426 federally insured institutions are grappling with major problems — about 5 percent of all banks and S&Ls.
About 15 percent of the banks on Bauer's cautionary list have more than $1 billion in assets. Not surprisingly, the troubles are concentrated among banks that were the most active in markets where free-flowing mortgages contributed to the rapid run-up in home prices that set the stage for the jarring comedown. By Bauer's reckoning, the largest numbers of troubled banks are in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Minnesota.
"It's important for people to remember that not all these banks are going to fail, just because they are on this list," said Karen Dorway, Bauer Financial's president. "Many of them will recover."
James Barth, who was chief economist of the regulatory agency that oversaw the S&L industry in the 1980s, doubts things will get as bad as they did then.
"It's scary right now, but it's not as scary as a lot of people are making it out to be," said Barth, now a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, a think tank.
Mani Behimehr, a home designer living in Tustin, Calif., isn't feeling reassured after what happened to WaMu and Wachovia. After he heard the news that WaMu had been seized and sold to JP Morgan, he rushed out to withdraw about $150,000 in savings and opened a new account at Wachovia only to learn about its sale to Citigroup two days later.
"I thought this is the strongest economy in the world; nothing like that happens in this country," said Behimehr, 46, who is originally from Iran.
The tumult is creating expansion opportunities for healthy banks. Industry heavyweights like JP Morgan, Citigroup and Bank of America Corp. have already rolled the dice on major acquisitions of financially battered institutions in hopes of becoming more powerful than ever.
Smaller players like Clifton Savings Bank in New Jersey are bragging about their relatively clean balance sheets to lure depositors away from rivals that are wrestling with huge loan losses. The bank, with about $900 million in total assets, says just one of its 2,300 home loans is in foreclosure.
"There is going to be a flight to quality," predicted John Celentano Jr., Clifton Savings' chief executive. "People are going to start putting their money in places that were being run the way things are supposed to be run: the old-fashioned way."
___
AP Business Writer Dave Carpenter in Chicago and Associated Writers Rasha Madkour in Miami and Amy Taxin in Orange County, Calif. contributed to this story.
___
On The Net:
http://fdic.gov
http://www.bauerfinancial.com
SAN FRANCISCO - Here's a safe bet for uncertain times: A lot of banks won't survive the next year of upheaval despite the U.S. government's $700 billion plan to restore order to the financial industry.
The biggest question is how many will perish and how they will be put out of their misery — in outright closures by regulators scrambling to preserve the dwindling deposit insurance fund or in fire sales made under government pressure.
Enfeebled by huge losses on risky home loans, the banking industry is now on the shakiest ground since the early 1990s, when more than 800 federally insured institutions failed in a three-year period. That was during the clean-up phase of a decade-long savings-and-loan meltdown that wound up costing U.S. taxpayers $170 billion to $205 billion, after adjusting for inflation.
The government's commitment to spend up to $700 billion buying bad debts from ailing banks is likely to save some institutions that would have otherwise died, but analysts doubt it will be enough to avert a major shakeout.
"It will help, but it's not going to be the saving grace" because a lot of banks are holding construction loans and other types of deteriorating assets that the government won't take off their books, predicted Stanford Financial analyst Jaret Seiberg. He expects more than 100 banks nationwide to fail next year.
The darkening clouds already have some depositors pondering a question that always seems to crop up in financial panics despite deposit insurance: Could it possibly make more sense to stash cash in a mattress than in a bank account?
"It sounds like a joke," said business owner Mauricoa Quintero as he recently paused outside a Wachovia Bank branch in Miami. "But it sounds safer than the turmoil out there right now."
Not as many banks are likely to fail as in the S&L crisis, largely because there are about 8,000 fewer today than there were in 1988.
But that doesn't necessarily mean the problems won't be as costly or as unnerving; banks are much larger than they were 20 years ago, thanks to laws passed in the 1990s.
"I don't see why things will be that much different this time," said Joseph Mason, an economist who worked for the U.S. Treasury Department in the 1990s and is now a finance professor at Louisiana State University. "We just had a big party where people and businesses overborrowed. We had a bubble and now we want to get back to normal. Is it going to be painless? No."
With more super-sized banks in business, fewer failures could still dump a big bill on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the government agency that insures bank and S&L deposits. The FDIC's potential liability is rising under a provision of the bailout that increases the deposit insurance limit to $250,000 per account, up from $100,000.
Using statistics from the S&L crisis as a guide, Mason estimates total deposits in banks that fail during the current crisis at $1.1 trillion. After calculating gains from selling deposits and some of the assets of the failed banks, Mason estimates the clean-up this time will cost the FDIC $140 billion to $200 billion.
The FDIC's fund currently has about $45 billion — a five-year low — but the agency can make up for any shortfalls by borrowing from the U.S. Treasury and eventually repaying the money by raising the premiums that it charges the remaining banks and S&Ls.
Through the first nine months of the year, 13 banks and S&Ls have been taken over by the FDIC — more than the previous five years combined.
The FDIC may be underestimating, or at least not publicly acknowledging, the trouble ahead. As of June 30, the FDIC had 117 insured banks and S&Ls on its problem list. That represented about 1 percent of the nearly 8,500 institutions insured as of June 30. Entering 1991, about 10 percent of the industry — 1,496 institutions — was on the FDIC's endangered list.
Although the FDIC doesn't name the institutions it classifies as problems, this year's June 30 list didn't include two huge headaches — Washington Mutual Bank and Wachovia. Combined, WaMu and Wachovia had more than $1 trillion in assets; the assets of the 117 institutions on the FDIC's watch list totaled $78 billion.
Late last month, WaMu became the largest bank failure in U.S. history, with $307 billion in assets, nearly five times more, on an inflation-adjusted basis, than the previous record collapse of Continental Illinois National Bank in 1984. The FDIC doesn't expect WaMu's demise to cost its fund anything because JP Morgan Chase & Co. agreed to buy the bank's deposits and most of the assets for $1.9 billion.
Regulators dodged another potential bullet by helping to negotiate the sale of Wachovia's banking operations to Citigroup Inc. in a complex deal that could still end up costing the FDIC, depending on the severity of future loan losses. On Friday, a battle of banking giants erupted when Wachovia struck a new deal with Wells Fargo & Co. without government help, and Citigroup demanded that it be called off.
The banking outlook looks even gloomier through the prism of Bauer Financial Inc., which has been relying on data filed with the FDIC to assess the health of federally insured institutions for the past 25 years.
Based on its analysis of the June 30 numbers, Bauer Financial concluded that 426 federally insured institutions are grappling with major problems — about 5 percent of all banks and S&Ls.
About 15 percent of the banks on Bauer's cautionary list have more than $1 billion in assets. Not surprisingly, the troubles are concentrated among banks that were the most active in markets where free-flowing mortgages contributed to the rapid run-up in home prices that set the stage for the jarring comedown. By Bauer's reckoning, the largest numbers of troubled banks are in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Minnesota.
"It's important for people to remember that not all these banks are going to fail, just because they are on this list," said Karen Dorway, Bauer Financial's president. "Many of them will recover."
James Barth, who was chief economist of the regulatory agency that oversaw the S&L industry in the 1980s, doubts things will get as bad as they did then.
"It's scary right now, but it's not as scary as a lot of people are making it out to be," said Barth, now a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, a think tank.
Mani Behimehr, a home designer living in Tustin, Calif., isn't feeling reassured after what happened to WaMu and Wachovia. After he heard the news that WaMu had been seized and sold to JP Morgan, he rushed out to withdraw about $150,000 in savings and opened a new account at Wachovia only to learn about its sale to Citigroup two days later.
"I thought this is the strongest economy in the world; nothing like that happens in this country," said Behimehr, 46, who is originally from Iran.
The tumult is creating expansion opportunities for healthy banks. Industry heavyweights like JP Morgan, Citigroup and Bank of America Corp. have already rolled the dice on major acquisitions of financially battered institutions in hopes of becoming more powerful than ever.
Smaller players like Clifton Savings Bank in New Jersey are bragging about their relatively clean balance sheets to lure depositors away from rivals that are wrestling with huge loan losses. The bank, with about $900 million in total assets, says just one of its 2,300 home loans is in foreclosure.
"There is going to be a flight to quality," predicted John Celentano Jr., Clifton Savings' chief executive. "People are going to start putting their money in places that were being run the way things are supposed to be run: the old-fashioned way."
___
AP Business Writer Dave Carpenter in Chicago and Associated Writers Rasha Madkour in Miami and Amy Taxin in Orange County, Calif. contributed to this story.
___
On The Net:
http://fdic.gov
http://www.bauerfinancial.com
Hoax Bank Closure Story Peddles Bailout Propaganda
Paul Joseph Watson
Friday, October 3, 2008
Internet rumor about run on the banks leads back to alleged FBI informant
A hoax Internet rumor that has been doing the rounds over the last few days posits that unless the House follows the Senate in approving the bailout bill tonight then all U.S. banks will be forced to close for one week. The scam is noteworthy because it echoes the fearmongering rhetoric being spewed by the White House, while the source of the claim leads back to an alleged FBI informant.
The fact that people are pulling their money out of the banks is undeniable, indeed, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, even Yahoo.com carried a story admitting there was already a “slow motion run on banks”.
Experts such as Mark Patterson, chairman of private equity fund MattlinPatterson, have warned that 300 to 500 U.S. banks are set to fail over the next three years and as a result absorb all of the FDIC’s pool of funds.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which guarantees individual accounts up to $100,000, only has about $50 billion to “insure” about $1 trillion in assets across the nation’s financial institutions.
The reality of the danger of a run on the banks in a time of financial crisis is all too real, which makes unsubstantiated Internet hoaxes all the more irresponsible. Indeed, a Hong Kong man who posted an Internet rumor claiming that a financial institution would be shut down was arrested this week. Another man was arrested on Saturday for urging people to withdraw money from a local bank that he claimed was about to be shut down.
There’s a clear difference between warning people about how to secure their assets and outright scare mongering about runs on specific banks.
Originating from a so-called “alternative news website” that has routinely proven to be a peddler of disinformation in the past, the rumor states, “Reliable word that Bank of America branch managers just received a message via the U.S. Federal Reserve Wire system from the US Federal Reserve instructing them to “perhaps be ready for a one-week universal shut-down of the banking system”, including access to checking accounts, savings accounts, credit cards and ATM’s.”
“Additional word is that a silent run is taking place on many U.S. Banks with customers withdrawing huge amounts from all banks almost everyday,” the claim reads. “My source says that unless Congress comes through with a plan which will stop the silent run, Banks will be forced to close to stop the run.”
The most interesting aspect of the hoax is that it actually echoes rhetoric being used by the White House and the Federal Reserve in order to ram through the widely despised bailout bill, by using economic terrorism and the fear of total collapse of the financial system to get the message across, just as Bush, Bernanke and Paulson have been ferociously doing for the past two weeks.
No surprise therefore that we learn the source of the hoax is Hal Turner, who was exposed earlier this year as an alleged FBI informant posing as a white supremacist.
In January, hackers broke into Turner’s computer server and found e-mails between Turner and an FBI agent who was apparently Turner’s handler. Turner was providing information to the FBI agent about individuals who attended his neo-nazi rallies, along with a potential assassination plot against Senator Russ Feingold.
“Once again,” Turner wrote to the agent, “my fierce rhetoric has served to flush out a possible crazy.”
When he was confronted by his readers, Turner shut down his website and vowed to separate himself from the “pro-White” movement. His site later returned in the form of a blog hosted on blogspot.com.
The Southern Poverty Law Center documented the case in an article entitled, FBI’s Use of Neo-Nazi Informant Knocked. Both the FBI and Turner have refused to comment on the allegations.
Considering the fact that Turner has been left alone despite arguing that killing certain federal judges “may be illegal, but it wouldn’t be wrong” and outright calling for the murder of immigrants crossing border from Mexico, it’s no surprise that his latest scam, despite its blatant illegality, will go unnoticed by the same authorities that Turner apparently accepts a paycheck from.
The SLPC article states,
In 2006, Turner told his audience to “clean your guns, have plenty of ammunition … [and] then do what has to be done” to undocumented workers. Around the same time, he suggested that half the U.S. Congress “may have to be assassinated.” A year earlier, he suggested “drawing up lists of yeshivas,” or Jewish religious schools. He once started a website called www.killtheenemy.com for the purpose of posting photos and names of those who marched in favor of immigrant rights. Hearing that anti-racist activist Floyd Cochran was visiting Newark, near his home town, last June, Turner said he had “arranged for a group of guys to physically intercept” Cochran and added that Cochran would likely “get such a beating that his next stop is going to be University Hospital.” (Although complaints were made both to the FBI and to Newark police about this threat against Cochran, both declined to press criminal charges.)
So Turner’s alleged relationship with the FBI apparently affords him immunity from any legal consequences of making death threats, just as neo-con radio talk show host Michael Reagan was left alone despite openly advocating the assassination of Mark Dice and stating “I’ll pay for the bullets”.
Despite its brazenly unreliable origins, the bank closure hoax has been cropping up in e mails, forums and blogs across the Internet, almost to the point of going viral.
The fact that the scam actually endorses the necessity of passing the bailout bill should tell us in no uncertain terms that it can be attributed to the same economic terrorists that have brow-beaten the American people with threats of a financial apocalypse if the bankers and the Wall Street crooks do not get their way.
Martial Law Will Be Declared If Banker Bill Not Passed In House
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet
Friday, October 3, 2008
In House debate on the banker “rescue” bill, Rep. Brad Sherman told his fellow Congress critters the government will declare martial law and the stock market will drop 3,000 points if the bill is not passed. “The panic-mongers were to the point of telling people the market would drop 3,000 points and there would be martial law,” said Sherman.
Sherman’s comment was not in the same context as a comment issued by Rep. Michael Burgess earlier in the week. Burgess, who appeared on the Alex Jones Show, said Pelosi threatened to invoke House rule XIII(6)(a), described as “martial law,” intended to suspend normal procedures and safeguards and thus allowing the House leadership to operate in a more authoritarian fashion. Sherman, however, said martial law would be declared on Wall Street, not in the House.
Rep. Sherman said the “exaggerated fear-mongering turned out not to be true” and the House “can draft a good bill,” regardless of the pressure put on representatives to pass the banker bailout bill.
The bailout plan is not only “economic fascism,” as Richard Viguerie has correctly noted, designed to loot the U.S. Treasury and reorganize and further consolidate elite control over the economy, but it is also a brazen effort to impose a martial law and dictatorship. Paulson’s role as financial dictator, not answerable to Congress or the American people, fully compliments additional steps taken over the last few years.
As former California congressman Dan Hamburg said earlier this year, the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act gives the executive the power to invoke martial law in case of “major public emergencies,” not limited to “a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack,” but also “any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.” Obviously, a financial crash and ensuing social chaos of the sort now being implemented by the ruling elite would be characterized as a dire emergency and a near perfect excuse to impose martial law, a long standing goal of the elite.
As well, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, codifying indefinite imprisonment of dissidents, and the National Security Presidential Directive 51, ensuring the “continuity of government” in the event of a “catastrophic emergency,” are tools the government will most assuredly use after the economy implodes, now a foregone conclusion according to many economists.
Numerous Bilderberg pronouncements, dutifully reported here at Infowars and Prison Planet but ignored by the larger corporate media, reveal what the global elite have in mind for us — an engineered economic crash followed by a consolidation of wealth under fire sale conditions. In order to successfully accomplish this, the elite must impose martial law and “maintain public order,” that is to say force the public to accept their terms by military force.
As the Army Times reported last month, a battle-hardened “homeland” brigade is now “going domestic” after spending time in Iraq. It appears this illegal deployment (under Posse Comitatus) is designed to respond to “public disorder” as the economy is deliberately and cynically dismantled at the behest of our rulers who are now investing in the Treasury and the executive, with the complicity of Congress, dictatorial powers heretofore unheard of in America.
Prison Planet
Friday, October 3, 2008
In House debate on the banker “rescue” bill, Rep. Brad Sherman told his fellow Congress critters the government will declare martial law and the stock market will drop 3,000 points if the bill is not passed. “The panic-mongers were to the point of telling people the market would drop 3,000 points and there would be martial law,” said Sherman.
Sherman’s comment was not in the same context as a comment issued by Rep. Michael Burgess earlier in the week. Burgess, who appeared on the Alex Jones Show, said Pelosi threatened to invoke House rule XIII(6)(a), described as “martial law,” intended to suspend normal procedures and safeguards and thus allowing the House leadership to operate in a more authoritarian fashion. Sherman, however, said martial law would be declared on Wall Street, not in the House.
Rep. Sherman said the “exaggerated fear-mongering turned out not to be true” and the House “can draft a good bill,” regardless of the pressure put on representatives to pass the banker bailout bill.
The bailout plan is not only “economic fascism,” as Richard Viguerie has correctly noted, designed to loot the U.S. Treasury and reorganize and further consolidate elite control over the economy, but it is also a brazen effort to impose a martial law and dictatorship. Paulson’s role as financial dictator, not answerable to Congress or the American people, fully compliments additional steps taken over the last few years.
As former California congressman Dan Hamburg said earlier this year, the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act gives the executive the power to invoke martial law in case of “major public emergencies,” not limited to “a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack,” but also “any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.” Obviously, a financial crash and ensuing social chaos of the sort now being implemented by the ruling elite would be characterized as a dire emergency and a near perfect excuse to impose martial law, a long standing goal of the elite.
As well, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, codifying indefinite imprisonment of dissidents, and the National Security Presidential Directive 51, ensuring the “continuity of government” in the event of a “catastrophic emergency,” are tools the government will most assuredly use after the economy implodes, now a foregone conclusion according to many economists.
Numerous Bilderberg pronouncements, dutifully reported here at Infowars and Prison Planet but ignored by the larger corporate media, reveal what the global elite have in mind for us — an engineered economic crash followed by a consolidation of wealth under fire sale conditions. In order to successfully accomplish this, the elite must impose martial law and “maintain public order,” that is to say force the public to accept their terms by military force.
As the Army Times reported last month, a battle-hardened “homeland” brigade is now “going domestic” after spending time in Iraq. It appears this illegal deployment (under Posse Comitatus) is designed to respond to “public disorder” as the economy is deliberately and cynically dismantled at the behest of our rulers who are now investing in the Treasury and the executive, with the complicity of Congress, dictatorial powers heretofore unheard of in America.
George W. Bush’s Legacy: A $ 10 Trillion National Debt
Doug Mataconis
Below The Beltway
Sunday, Oct 5, 2008
By the time he leaves office, George W. Bush will have increased the national debt more than any other President in American history:
With no fanfare and little notice, the national debt has grown by more than $4 trillion during George W. Bush’s presidency.
It’s the biggest increase under any president in U.S history.
On the day President Bush took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. The latest number from the Treasury Department shows the national debt now stands at more than $9.849 trillion. That’s a 71.9 percent increase on Mr. Bush’s watch.
But wait, there’s more:
The bailout plan now pending in Congress could add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt – though President Bush said this morning he expects that over time, “much if not all” of the bailout money “will be paid back.”
But the government is taking no chances. Buried deep in the hundred pages of bailout legislation is a provision that would raise the statutory ceiling on the national debt to $11.315 trillion. It’ll be the 7th time the debt limit has been raised during this administration. In fact it was just two months ago, on July 30, that President Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, which contained a provision raising the debt ceiling to $10.615 trillion.
Of course Bush didn’t do it alone, for six years he had a Republican-controlled Congress that helped him do it. Because of both of them, the Republican Party has lost all credibility with the American voter as the party of fiscal conservatism. It will take a long time to earn that reputation back.
Thanks a lot, Mr. President. For nothing other than a boat load of debt.
Below The Beltway
Sunday, Oct 5, 2008
By the time he leaves office, George W. Bush will have increased the national debt more than any other President in American history:
With no fanfare and little notice, the national debt has grown by more than $4 trillion during George W. Bush’s presidency.
It’s the biggest increase under any president in U.S history.
On the day President Bush took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. The latest number from the Treasury Department shows the national debt now stands at more than $9.849 trillion. That’s a 71.9 percent increase on Mr. Bush’s watch.
But wait, there’s more:
The bailout plan now pending in Congress could add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt – though President Bush said this morning he expects that over time, “much if not all” of the bailout money “will be paid back.”
But the government is taking no chances. Buried deep in the hundred pages of bailout legislation is a provision that would raise the statutory ceiling on the national debt to $11.315 trillion. It’ll be the 7th time the debt limit has been raised during this administration. In fact it was just two months ago, on July 30, that President Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, which contained a provision raising the debt ceiling to $10.615 trillion.
Of course Bush didn’t do it alone, for six years he had a Republican-controlled Congress that helped him do it. Because of both of them, the Republican Party has lost all credibility with the American voter as the party of fiscal conservatism. It will take a long time to earn that reputation back.
Thanks a lot, Mr. President. For nothing other than a boat load of debt.
Bailout Creating a Financial Black Hole to Suck Us All In
The International Forecaster
October 5, 2008
A dish of Bailout with a side of pork, shareholders vaporized by Derivatives Death-Star, We all await the financial markets implosion, No problems solved by the bailout, Stay prepared for a full shutdown of the financial system with some cash on hand, Credit default swaps unregulated point in the chain
Well, what a surprise, we’ve been sold down the river for the usual "thirty pieces of silver" by our Congress and our President, working together in unison, for the nth time.
The $700 billion bailout, a mere sideshow, sweetened with 150 billion in pork, has now been approved so that Wall Street can continue to game the system and its hapless suckers, the American sheople. Just put some pork in, and the hungry piranha in Congress would legislate their own mothers into slavery for a nice juicy morsel of that pork. And never mind the moral hazard dripping from the pork, because that makes it taste all the sweeter.
If you were wondering why all the healthier financial institutions, and of course we say that with tongue-in-cheek because we know they are all eventually slated for destruction by the explosive blast of a Quadrillion Dollar Derivative Death-Star, were buying all the gargantuan commercial and investment banks that are laden with toxic waste, you now have your answer. This is why all the shareholders in these zombie-acquisition deals are getting vaporized. Their assets were more valuable than they thought, because unbeknownst to them, the US government was about to pay far more for these assets than they were worth. But since the shareholders were not Illuminists, they were not privy to this information. And look at the disgrace with Citibank and Wachovia. After Citigroup wipes out the Wachovia shareholders, with the help of the FDIC, suddenly Wells Fargo, which now sees the value of all of Wachovia’s crap paper via the Paulson Ponzi-Plan, comes through with a better offer. The Wachovia shareholders should attack Citigroup based on their fraudulent balance sheets, because they were in no position to acquire anything on this scale, or any other scale for that matter.
The Illuminist insiders were all told in advance that Wall Street’s Excellent Bailout Bonanza would be stuffed down the throats of gullible US taxpayers. Note how many of these zombie-acquisition-deals were done before the bailout plan was even proposed on September 20. As you can see, the masters of the universe are so arrogant that they were willing to bet hundreds of billions of dollars that the Paulson Ponzi-Plan would be successfully shoved up our collective butts by our bought-and-paid-for-or-compromised government "representatives," so-called, despite the hue and cry of the sheople against this monstrosity, sometimes by as much as 300 to 1. All that cesspool paper that they now own by virtue of these zombie-acquisition-deals is very valuable to them. It will be sold to the government for far more than it is worth so that financial institutions around the world can somehow pretend that the losses are far less than they really are. And never mind that everyone in the world knows this stuff is crap, because we will all now have some sort of collective pipedream in the United Goldilocks Matrix. We can just see Hank and Ben firing up the pods and installing the everything-will-turn-out-juuuust-right software, so we can all pretend that the credit-crunch never happened. We will just ignore it. This is another Illuminist fantasy that will turn out about as well as their subprime scam.
Of course, the reality is, whether this cesspool paper worth pennies on the dollar is sold for its hold-to-maturity value or for some lesser, but still outrageously exaggerated, figure, the sheople will eat just about everything they pay out for this toxic garbage via the bailout plan. This stuff is crap even under current conditions, which are worsening by the minute. Just imagine what this stuff will be worth as the real estate markets, and the value of our new collateral, continue to fade off into the sunset while we enter into the Very Large Depression, which is now insured to happen by virtue of the Paulson Ponzi-Plan. And how much less will it be worth as the rate of return on this garbage gets buried by the upcoming double-digit interest rates that will be born out of the hyperinflation generated by all these bailouts, thus reducing its present value quite drastically. Then throw in the proposed government workouts, complete with interest rate reductions and cram-downs, just for good measure, and that ten cents on the dollar paper that we paid thirty, forty or fifty cents on the dollar for, will soon become worthless. Making matters even worse, all this toxic waste will be sold by select Illuminist institutions at what will be sham "arranged" auctions where everyone gets to sell what they want for the price they want, as long as they are Illuminist insiders. Everyone else can of course go scratch. With Hanky Panky as the real, unsupervised or rubber-stamped auctioneer, you can bet that we, the sheople, will be taken to the Illuminati’s slaughterhouse to be sliced up into some prime cuts for the elitist carnivores. Mutton chops anyone? Dinner is now served, complete with caviar and champagne. Bon appetite.
The Illuminati will now act like drunken sailors at a keg party. They will drain the keg in short order, and then ask for more. If they do not get what they want, they will get rowdy, pounding the tables with their mugs and threatening a brawl that will destroy the tavern if they do not get their next round, pronto. Out comes the next keg, which gets drained even faster than the first because everyone is inebriated, and the next round of table pounding and threats becomes manifest. This process will proceed until everyone at the party has more than they can handle and passes out. Then comes the derivatives tsunami that will drown them all in a sea of counterparty risk, an event which will be used to usher in a new Orwellian, corporatist fascist state, where the financial, manufacturing and other major industries are all nationalized. We, and our European and Canadian counterparts, will all then resemble our fellow fascists, Marxists and dictators in Russia, in China, in the Middle East, in Asia and in South America, and the formation of world government will seem like the most the most natural thing to do, when everyone is on the same page, after the pesky, arrogant United States has been humbled into submission.
As we mentioned, this Excellent Bailout Bonanza, this Paulson Ponzi-Plan, is just a sideshow to distract everyone from the real issue, which is of course the Derivative Death-Star, with a Quadrillion Dollar mass that is about to implode, detonate, and morph into a financial black hole that will suck the entire world economy into its dark, massive, foreboding center. The subprime debacle is just one of the many fuses leading into the gargantuan derivatives powder keg. The subprime paper to be auctioned is little more than a catalyst for the creation of the real disaster, which are the credit-default swaps and interest rate swaps, an entangled, Byzantine labyrinth of opaque, unregulated counterparty risk that will be ignited by continuing corporate bankruptcies and double-digit interest rates that will be created by a hyper-inflated economy awash in bailout dollars which the Fed will have created out of thin air.
Foreign nations with dollar forex cannot possibly keep buying all the treasuries that will have to be created to fund all these bailouts because they are all experiencing rampant inflation, and printing more of their own domestic currencies to absorb the dollars necessary to purchase treasuries is no longer possible without risking social upheaval and revolution as hyperinflation destroys their economies. This means that some, or even most, of the new treasuries that will be created by the Treasury and the Fed to fund the bailouts and deficits will have to be monetized, which is immediately inflationary. M3 is about to explode as these many monetizations and the Fed’s trillions in liquidity injections continue to flood the fiat money and credit system, which will continue in its cryogenic state despite the Paulson Ponzi-Plan that will now be implemented in an attempt to re-inflate the credit markets, which are the lifeblood of our debt-based, fiat money system, thanks to the cessation of the gold standard. Everyone on Wall Street knows that the subprime paper is not the real problem. The real reason they distrust one another, and will not lend to one another, is the unknown counterparty risk that will go into a plasma state when the Derivative Death-Star detonates. It is the opaque, unregulated OTC derivatives market that they are really afraid of.
Due to the fact that you have 70 or more trillion of credit default swaps insuring 5 trillion in bonds, a ten billion dollar loss by a large corporation can on average morph into a 140 billion disaster of epic proportions that could wipe out several other companies, whose own credit-default swap counterparty risk would then ignite, in a chain reaction reminiscent of a thermonuclear explosion. Remember, credit default swaps are not true derivatives with a zero net sum. They are insurance policies. But unlike most insurance, there are no regulators or loss reserves, thanks to Slick Willie Clinton and the Congress, which passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act in 2000. Worse yet, they can be used to insure property which the insured party does not even own. Hence, you can see why everyone trembles at the thought of this radioactive sector going thermonuclear.
Did you see how the stock market received the Paulson Ponzi-Plan? They used it as an opportunity to de-leverage, which is pretty much all it was good for, and the Dow was taken to a new low in the process. No problems have been solved, and we will continue on to our ignominious destiny with recession, depression, and a third world Banana Republic standing where we are all but irrelevant to the world economy. No one will have anything but worthless paper to spend for foreign tangible goods.
Americans and Europeans are too stupid to understand the necessity of owning precious metals under these disastrous circumstances, and they will have little of value to trade for the tangible goods exported by the world’s manufacturing economies, who have taken over America’s role as the lead producer thanks to free trade, globalization, off-shoring, outsourcing and both legal and illegal immigration. The main purpose of the IF is to wise these dolts up, and save them from the planned destruction of our economy at the hands of the Illuminati. This situation is survivable, but advance notice and preparation are the key to success. Gold and silver are the only remedy for what now ails our nation, and nations around the world.
The Senate financial market rescue bill would temporarily allow the FDIC to borrow unlimited amounts of money from the Treasury Department in order to provide larger government deposit coverage that would extend until the end of next year, which really means forever. This has all the earmarks of a banana republic.
The latest propaganda from the government and the Illuminist think tanks tells us that, treasuries are more secure than gold because they are backed by the US government and gold has a counter party risk by whoever is storing your gold as the counter party. I’ve never heard any stupider comments.
The Fed has informed Bank of America to be ready for a one-week universal shutdown of the banking system, including access to checking accounts, savings accounts and credit cards. This is why you need $5,000 in small bills in your safe at home and small denomination gold and silver coins.
Friday, October 03, 2008
LaRouche: “They Will Kill You”
YouTube
October 3, 2008
America is fucked! Once again, Congress has cowed out to the threats and fear-mongering from the white house. The bailout (the stick-up) bill was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 263-171. Prior to that vote, the U.S. Senate passed the stick-up bill 74-25. Mr. LaRouche spoke of a French-like revolution in America. It looks like the United States is headed for a second civil war. The American people are feeling what so many people in other nations have felt, thanks to the CIA assassinating and overthrowing democratically elected leaders and dictators alike. I can see the gallows and the guillatine on Capitol Hill and by the white house. The shit is going down. People need to read history and do it quick. As more and more is taken away from the American people, many of them will resort to their guns. I am talking about white people doing this. You better recognize. The military has began tours of duty on U.S. soil. The Posse Comitatus Act means nothing. It's too late. The American people allowed this blatant disregard for the rule of law by both the president and the Congress and now the modern day National Socialists, Nazis (Neo-Conservatives) are in control. It's Nazi Germany all over again. Hyper inflation is coming very very soon. I'll say it again: THE SHIT IS GOING DOWN!!!
October 3, 2008
America is fucked! Once again, Congress has cowed out to the threats and fear-mongering from the white house. The bailout (the stick-up) bill was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 263-171. Prior to that vote, the U.S. Senate passed the stick-up bill 74-25. Mr. LaRouche spoke of a French-like revolution in America. It looks like the United States is headed for a second civil war. The American people are feeling what so many people in other nations have felt, thanks to the CIA assassinating and overthrowing democratically elected leaders and dictators alike. I can see the gallows and the guillatine on Capitol Hill and by the white house. The shit is going down. People need to read history and do it quick. As more and more is taken away from the American people, many of them will resort to their guns. I am talking about white people doing this. You better recognize. The military has began tours of duty on U.S. soil. The Posse Comitatus Act means nothing. It's too late. The American people allowed this blatant disregard for the rule of law by both the president and the Congress and now the modern day National Socialists, Nazis (Neo-Conservatives) are in control. It's Nazi Germany all over again. Hyper inflation is coming very very soon. I'll say it again: THE SHIT IS GOING DOWN!!!
Martial Law Will Be Declared If Banker Bill Not Passed In House
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
October 3, 2008
In House debate on the banker “rescue” bill, Rep. Brad Sherman told his fellow Congress critters the government will declare martial law and the stock market will drop 3,000 points if the bill is not passed. “The panic-mongers were to the point of telling people the market would drop 3,000 points and there would be martial law,” said Sherman.
Sherman’s comment was not in the same context as a comment issued by Rep. Michael Burgess earlier in the week. Burgess, who appeared on the Alex Jones Show, said Pelosi threatened to invoke House rule XIII(6)(a), described as “martial law,” intended to suspend normal procedures and safeguards and thus allowing the House leadership to operate in a more authoritarian fashion. Sherman, however, said martial law would be declared on Wall Street, not in the House.
Rep. Sherman said the “exaggerated fear-mongering turned out not to be true” and the House “can draft a good bill,” regardless of the pressure put on representatives to pass the banker bailout bill.
The bailout plan is not only “economic fascism,” as Richard Viguerie has correctly noted, designed to loot the U.S. Treasury and reorganize and further consolidate elite control over the economy, but it is also a brazen effort to impose a martial law and dictatorship. Paulson’s role as financial dictator, not answerable to Congress or the American people, fully compliments additional steps taken over the last few years.
As former California congressman Dan Hamburg said earlier this year, the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act gives the executive the power to invoke martial law in case of “major public emergencies,” not limited to “a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack,” but also “any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.” Obviously, a financial crash and ensuing social chaos of the sort now being implemented by the ruling elite would be characterized as a dire emergency and a near perfect excuse to impose martial law, a long standing goal of the elite.
As well, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, codifying indefinite imprisonment of dissidents, and the National Security Presidential Directive 51, ensuring the “continuity of government” in the event of a “catastrophic emergency,” are tools the government will most assuredly use after the economy implodes, now a foregone conclusion according to many economists.
Numerous Bilderberg pronouncements, dutifully reported here at Infowars and Prison Planet but ignored by the larger corporate media, reveal what the global elite have in mind for us — an engineered economic crash followed by a consolidation of wealth under fire sale conditions. In order to successfully accomplish this, the elite must impose martial law and “maintain public order,” that is to say force the public to accept their terms by military force.
As the Army Times reported last month, a battle-hardened “homeland” brigade is now “going domestic” after spending time in Iraq. It appears this illegal deployment (under Posse Comitatus) is designed to respond to “public disorder” as the economy is deliberately and cynically dismantled at the behest of our rulers who are now investing in the Treasury and the executive, with the complicity of Congress, dictatorial powers heretofore unheard of in America.
Infowars
October 3, 2008
In House debate on the banker “rescue” bill, Rep. Brad Sherman told his fellow Congress critters the government will declare martial law and the stock market will drop 3,000 points if the bill is not passed. “The panic-mongers were to the point of telling people the market would drop 3,000 points and there would be martial law,” said Sherman.
Sherman’s comment was not in the same context as a comment issued by Rep. Michael Burgess earlier in the week. Burgess, who appeared on the Alex Jones Show, said Pelosi threatened to invoke House rule XIII(6)(a), described as “martial law,” intended to suspend normal procedures and safeguards and thus allowing the House leadership to operate in a more authoritarian fashion. Sherman, however, said martial law would be declared on Wall Street, not in the House.
Rep. Sherman said the “exaggerated fear-mongering turned out not to be true” and the House “can draft a good bill,” regardless of the pressure put on representatives to pass the banker bailout bill.
The bailout plan is not only “economic fascism,” as Richard Viguerie has correctly noted, designed to loot the U.S. Treasury and reorganize and further consolidate elite control over the economy, but it is also a brazen effort to impose a martial law and dictatorship. Paulson’s role as financial dictator, not answerable to Congress or the American people, fully compliments additional steps taken over the last few years.
As former California congressman Dan Hamburg said earlier this year, the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act gives the executive the power to invoke martial law in case of “major public emergencies,” not limited to “a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack,” but also “any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.” Obviously, a financial crash and ensuing social chaos of the sort now being implemented by the ruling elite would be characterized as a dire emergency and a near perfect excuse to impose martial law, a long standing goal of the elite.
As well, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, codifying indefinite imprisonment of dissidents, and the National Security Presidential Directive 51, ensuring the “continuity of government” in the event of a “catastrophic emergency,” are tools the government will most assuredly use after the economy implodes, now a foregone conclusion according to many economists.
Numerous Bilderberg pronouncements, dutifully reported here at Infowars and Prison Planet but ignored by the larger corporate media, reveal what the global elite have in mind for us — an engineered economic crash followed by a consolidation of wealth under fire sale conditions. In order to successfully accomplish this, the elite must impose martial law and “maintain public order,” that is to say force the public to accept their terms by military force.
As the Army Times reported last month, a battle-hardened “homeland” brigade is now “going domestic” after spending time in Iraq. It appears this illegal deployment (under Posse Comitatus) is designed to respond to “public disorder” as the economy is deliberately and cynically dismantled at the behest of our rulers who are now investing in the Treasury and the executive, with the complicity of Congress, dictatorial powers heretofore unheard of in America.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
New York Post: Gay Porn Star Services Bohemian Grove Members
New York Post Page Six (Archived Page) July 22 2004
Comment: The spin here is that the Grove members are unaware of who the porn star is. Point one - porn stars get paid tens of thousands of dollars, it's highly unlikely that 'Chad Savage' needs a part time summer job to earn money. Point two - as the San Francisco Chronicle reported, employees are highly screened, they don't just get in 'by accident.' To get in without them knowing you would have to sneak in like Alex did. Plus there have been numerous reports down the years of how male prostitutes are bused in especially for the members.
July 22, 2004 -- THE power-moguls and political heavyweights now luxuriating at ultra-exclusive retreat Bohemian Grove are unaware that they're being waited on hand-and-foot by a famous gay porn star.
We're told that "Chad Savage," who has appeared in such carnal classics as "How the West Was Hung," is supplementing his sex job by working as a valet at Bohemian Grove, the all-male annual gathering inside a 2,700-acre redwood forest in Monte Rio, Calif., that has been attended by every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge, as well as by industrial titans and media magnates.
"All of us valets in the Grove are tittering about it," says our Bohemian blabbermouth. "To think there's all these powerful conservative guys having their drinks and food served to them by a gay porn star. He makes their beds and attends to their every need — and they have no idea who he really is."
Bigwigs who have attended the two-week retreat include George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan, Walter Cronkite, Newt Gingrich, Alexander Haig, Jack Kemp, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, John Major, William F. Buckley, and former C.I.A. director William Casey.
Savage is at the Grove under his real name — which we wouldn't reveal to Grove spokesman Sam Singer, because we didn't want the valet to lose his job. But Singer said the club didn't care about his past. "All that matters is that the valets do good service," he said. "That's really all that matters."
Savage sure knows how to provide "service." When he starred in "How the West Was Hung" in 1999, one reviewer wrote that he wore a "beatific grin" while engaging in an orgy, and added that his "youthful enthusiasm is entirely winning."
When they're not listening to policy speeches, "Bohos" are known to urinate freely in the redwoods and perform mock-druidic rituals that revolve around a 40-foot-tall stone owl. In one ritual, called "Cremation of Care," members wearing red-hooded robes cremate a coffin effigy of "Dull Care" at the base of the owl altar.
While the club has claimed its share of accomplishments — Grovers privately boast that the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb was conceived on its grounds — its oddball activities aren't for everyone. Richard Nixon once famously described the gathering as "the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine."
-------------------------------------
FLASHBACK: Nixon Tape Discusses Homosexuals at Bohemian Grove
Bohemian Grove Archive
Alex Jones' Infiltration Into Bohemian Grove
Comment: The spin here is that the Grove members are unaware of who the porn star is. Point one - porn stars get paid tens of thousands of dollars, it's highly unlikely that 'Chad Savage' needs a part time summer job to earn money. Point two - as the San Francisco Chronicle reported, employees are highly screened, they don't just get in 'by accident.' To get in without them knowing you would have to sneak in like Alex did. Plus there have been numerous reports down the years of how male prostitutes are bused in especially for the members.
July 22, 2004 -- THE power-moguls and political heavyweights now luxuriating at ultra-exclusive retreat Bohemian Grove are unaware that they're being waited on hand-and-foot by a famous gay porn star.
We're told that "Chad Savage," who has appeared in such carnal classics as "How the West Was Hung," is supplementing his sex job by working as a valet at Bohemian Grove, the all-male annual gathering inside a 2,700-acre redwood forest in Monte Rio, Calif., that has been attended by every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge, as well as by industrial titans and media magnates.
"All of us valets in the Grove are tittering about it," says our Bohemian blabbermouth. "To think there's all these powerful conservative guys having their drinks and food served to them by a gay porn star. He makes their beds and attends to their every need — and they have no idea who he really is."
Bigwigs who have attended the two-week retreat include George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan, Walter Cronkite, Newt Gingrich, Alexander Haig, Jack Kemp, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, John Major, William F. Buckley, and former C.I.A. director William Casey.
Savage is at the Grove under his real name — which we wouldn't reveal to Grove spokesman Sam Singer, because we didn't want the valet to lose his job. But Singer said the club didn't care about his past. "All that matters is that the valets do good service," he said. "That's really all that matters."
Savage sure knows how to provide "service." When he starred in "How the West Was Hung" in 1999, one reviewer wrote that he wore a "beatific grin" while engaging in an orgy, and added that his "youthful enthusiasm is entirely winning."
When they're not listening to policy speeches, "Bohos" are known to urinate freely in the redwoods and perform mock-druidic rituals that revolve around a 40-foot-tall stone owl. In one ritual, called "Cremation of Care," members wearing red-hooded robes cremate a coffin effigy of "Dull Care" at the base of the owl altar.
While the club has claimed its share of accomplishments — Grovers privately boast that the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb was conceived on its grounds — its oddball activities aren't for everyone. Richard Nixon once famously described the gathering as "the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine."
-------------------------------------
FLASHBACK: Nixon Tape Discusses Homosexuals at Bohemian Grove
Bohemian Grove Archive
Alex Jones' Infiltration Into Bohemian Grove
George W. Bush, Chad Savage and the Homosexual Intercourses at the Bohemian Grove Club
September 30, 2007 in Bi, Bohemian Grove Club, Bohos, Catholic League, Chad Savage, Cremation of Care, Gay, Georges W. Bush, Homosexuality, Intercourse, Leola McConnell, Lustful Utterances, Outing, Sex, Victor Ashe, White House
Allegations that George W. Bush performed a homosexual act on current U.S. Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe in the mid-1980’s have resurfaced in the tell-all memoirs of the woman who first made the claim.
Leola McConnell, former Liberal Democratic Candidate for Governor of Nevada and one time prostitute-for-hire, was met with deafening silence on behalf of the majority of the corporate media last year when she sensationally alleged that Bush and Ashe regularly hired bisexual men for secret sex sessions in the 80’s when Bush was a private citizen.
“In 1984 I watched George W. Bush enthusiastically and expertly perform a homosexual act on another man, one Victor Ashe,” said McConnell. “Ashe is the current U.S. ambassador to Poland; and he too should come out, like former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevy, and admit to being a gay American.” “Other homo-erotic acts were also performed by then-private citizen George W. Bush. I know this because I performed one of them on him myself.”
According to Radar Online, in the year since McConnell made the claim, she has been subjected to constant harassment and death threats. An attempt to get her story told in the pages of Larry Flynt’s Hustler Magazine fell through, so she has chosen to self-publish a series of memoirs called Lustful Utterances.
In the books, McConnell also claims to expose a network of clientele that regularly enjoyed her “services”, most of which come from the Evangelical wing of the Republican Party and the Neo-Con crowd.
Bush is a regular attendee at the the all-male Bohemian Grove club, an annual gathering of the elite which takes place at a forest encampment in Monte Rio, California. In 2004, the New York Post reported that homosexual porn stars were being hired by the Grove to “service” the members, supposedly without their knowledge.
However, the Grove is notorious for its homosexual activity and a reporter who worked at the camp during the summer of 2004 and 2005 told us that he was regularly propositioned by men seeking homosexual intercourse.
On June 29 1989, the Washington Times’ Paul M. Rodriguez and George Archibald reported on a Washington D.C. prostitution ring that had intimate connections with the White House allegedly all the way up to President George H.W. Bush. According to the story, male prostitutes had been given access to the White House and the article also cited evidence of “abduction and use of minors for sexual perversion.”
Gay Porn Star Services Bohemian Grove Members, New York Post, July 22 2004 :
The power-moguls and political heavyweights now luxuriating at ultra-exclusive retreat Bohemian Grove are unaware that they’re being waited on hand-and-foot by a famous gay porn star.
We’re told that Chad Savage, who has appeared in such carnal classics as “How the West Was Hung,” is supplementing his sex job by working as a valet at Bohemian Grove, the all-male annual gathering inside a 2,700-acre redwood forest in Monte Rio, Calif., that has been attended by every Republican president since Calvin Coolidge, as well as by industrial titans and media magnates.
“All of us valets in the Grove are tittering about it,” says our Bohemian blabbermouth. “To think there’s all these powerful conservative guys having their drinks and food served to them by a gay porn star. He makes their beds and attends to their every need — and they have no idea who he really is.”
Bigwigs who have attended the two-week retreat include George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan, Walter Cronkite, Newt Gingrich, Alexander Haig, Jack Kemp, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, John Major, William F. Buckley, and former C.I.A. director William Casey.
Savage is at the Grove under his real name — which we wouldn’t reveal to Grove spokesman Sam Singer, because we didn’t want the valet to lose his job. But Singer said the club didn’t care about his past. “All that matters is that the valets do good service,” he said. “That’s really all that matters.”
Savage sure knows how to provide “service.” When he starred in “How the West Was Hung” in 1999, one reviewer wrote that he wore a “beatific grin” while engaging in an orgy, and added that his “youthful enthusiasm is entirely winning.”
When they’re not listening to policy speeches, “Bohos” are known to urinate freely in the redwoods and perform mock-druidic rituals that revolve around a 40-foot-tall stone owl. In one ritual, called “Cremation of Care,” members wearing red-hooded robes cremate a coffin effigy of “Dull Care” at the base of the owl altar.
While the club has claimed its share of accomplishments — Grovers privately boast that the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb was conceived on its grounds — its oddball activities aren’t for everyone. Richard Nixon once famously described the gathering as “the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine”.
See also :
Bush Homosexual Allegations Resurface In New Book
Dominatrix Gets a Political Beating
San Francisco Chronicle, The Chosen Few
Homosexual Prostitution Inquiry
Nixon Discusses Homosexual Intercourses at Bohemian Grove Club
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