As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe
By NICHOLAS KULISH
Protesters around the world have something in common: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.
“Our parents are grateful because they’re voting,” said Marta Solanas, 27, referring to older Spaniards’ decades spent under the Franco dictatorship. “We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless.”
__________________________________
Isaiah Earhart
Seattle
Why is the NYT coverage of international protests so much more robust than their protest coverage of the very appropriate protest occupation of our own Wall Street.The Times has even given the protesters the aura of dignity and thoughtfulness. I am glad to read it. The protesters deserve it.
Capitalism will, by its own mathematical certainty, will concentrate vast wealth at the very top for the least moral among us. Democracy has been completely circumvented by huge corporations and the sociopaths that run them. I hope this inevitable change from this predatory system to a system that values the human being and our Earth's vital commons is a peaceful transition.
Meanwhile, we need another party to vote for.
sethwulsin
Cartagena
The headline for this article is extremely misleading, making it look like the protesters scorn the principle of voting, when it is the corruption of the voting process - the undermining of the vote, that protesters are fed up with.
SteveBrant
Los Angeles, CA
I love this very thorough article. Yes, there are protests against corrupt systems that don't really represent the people in countries all over the world... even in the largest democracy on the planet. People now realize that after they vote, the politicians they elect don't really take care of them. Those politicians take care of the very wealthy, who really run the country.
Of course, in the most famous democracy on the planet - the USA - there are no such protests, because our elected representatives always put "we the people" first.
Oh, but wait a minute... there are people protesting here in the USA! And for the same reasons too!
In the heart of Capitalism (Wall Street), we have Occupy Wall Street ( http://occupywallst.org/ )
And the protests have spread to Chicago ( http://occupychi.org/ )
And they're spreading to Boston ( http://occupybos.wordpress.com/ )
And they're spreading to California ( http://occupyca.wordpress.com/ )
And perhaps other locations too.
Yes, Nicholas Kulish and the rest of staff of The New York Times... people all over the world are fed up with no longer being represented by the people in their governments.
Even here in the USA!
Dan
Madrid
"these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over. "
Protesters feel contempt towards the so-called, supposedly democratic political process. Protesters are angry at the farcical nature of a system which pretends to represent the interests of ordinary people, but really constantly and zealously subordinates those interests to those of corporations and rich people.
Sylvanus
New York
What has coincided with the spread of this disillusionment? The spread of neoliberal policies, that, in effect, place the wealthy and large, international corporations in charge, worldwide. No state can effectively contest them. Indeed, governments, while nominally democratic, become captives of finance. (See the writings of Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF.) Globalization, with no boundaries related to environmental or labor regulation, frees capital from ability of nation states to control it. If corporations don't like a state's policies, whether regulation of capital or the environment or labor laws protecting workers, financiers threaten to leave and take their capital with them. 400 families in the US now control as much wealth as the bottom 40-50 percent of US citizens. One billionaire in Mexico possesses as much wealth as 150 million Mexicans. The same pattern increasingly applies worldwide. Thus the similarity of the complaints of citizens worldwide.
Josh
Santa Barbara, CA
I have little respect for the system because it is corrupted beyond words by moneyed interests. The game is not fair, anywhere, and while it will never be perfect, powerful institutions in the most free country in the world are consolidating wealth, destroying societal progress, and making it so the rules continue to be written in their favor, regardless of how inexplicably disconnected from the public interest and public opinion this might happen to be. An injustice this massive and profound requires some feathers to be ruffled. You will not get away with this, This is OUR country, and we are going to reclaim it. You may not hear us yet, and can try to ignore us, but we're not going away. See you on Wall Street in a few weeks. Maybe by then, the Times will give this rising domestic outcry the attention it deserves.
Gayle
Vermont
I was there for the civil rights movement. I was there for the anti-war movement. I was there for the women's march on the Pentagon...and then for two decades I got co-opted into believing the system was actually gonna work for me. Now, I'm almost sixty, unemployed for three years with a husband who just lost his job through an e-mail. Our health insurance is $800 a month, and he gets $160 a week in unemployment. Well guess what we've got? Time. I stand in solidarity with those on Wall Street and am ashamed that it took this long to bring me back to the essential truth of what this country is about. Unbridled corporate greed.
pdxtran
Minneapolis
Taking part in the 2004 campaign of a presidential candidate who thought and spoke outside the box was quite a disillusioning experience. We had to beg and plead for local press coverage, and it was only through relentless guerrilla marketing that we gave this candidate his best national showing, 17% of the caucus vote.
National media, including the New York Times, mentioned him as a footnote or carried articles ridiculing him. Yet he drew increasingly large crowds in my area, and if I had received a dollar for every time someone told me, "I love him, but he can't win," I could have afforded a nice vacation.
I always knew this candidate was a long shot, but what left a bitter taste was the way the media and his own party disrespected him.
To top it off, John Kerry, whom I did work hard for, seemed less interested in investigating possibly election fraud in Ohio than his own volunteers and the minor parties were. He conceded while people were still standing in line in Ohio.
In 2007, I saw the national media pretend that only Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were running for the Democratic nomination, and this was before a single caucus or primary vote had been cast. I knew then that these were the two candidates the powers that be found socially acceptable. I almost voted 3rd party, except that I didn't want Sarah Palin within striking distance of the White House.
The more I see of American politics, the more I believe that it's all theater on the national level. Politicians are playing good cop/bad cop with the American people, but in the end, the right-wingers always seem to get most of what they want.
Almost all politicians seem out of touch with the everyday concerns of the American people, the most striking current example being their obsession with the deficit as millions are unemployed.
The demonstrations are an attempt to hit the politicians and bigwigs with a figurative two-by-four. There doesn't seem to be any other way to attract their attention.
Dave K
Cleveland, OH
To quote trader Alessio Rastani on the BBC on Monday:
"What I would say to everybody is 'get prepared'. This is not a time right now to ... uh ... wishful thinking the government is going to sort things out. The governments don't rule the world. Goldman Sachs rules the world."
When financial insiders are saying things like that, how could anyone have anything but disillusionment about the democratic process?
The only time real progress has been made for working people, both in the US and in foreign countries, is when they have taken to the streets, threatening to shut things down completely in a general strike unless they got what they needed. That's how Americans won the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, OSHA, and the right to collectively bargain. So why would the 'paper of record' argue that it's in We The People's interest to do anything else?
Maxomus
New York
I for one am not frightened, but encouraged by this article. Justified civil unrest, which somehow is held in utter contempt here in New York by our own police force and much of the well-heeled citizenry, is the seed for a global revolution—their worst fear—TRUE equality for all. Change on a global level is being empowered (and orchestrated) by the Internet, somewhat, but more so by poverty, unemployment, hunger (1 in 4 American children go to bed hungry) and lack of fulfillment in life—the true driving force behind this movement. Availability of truthful information is now accessible to everyone, no longer a private toy of the ultra-wealthy to manipulate world markets (and its people) with.
What is it we seek? Honesty among our leaders? Sorry, too late for that—we assumed for too long at the voting booth that they would work to maintain our society while improving our lives, and have our best interests at heart. Our governments have failed us; they are owned by thoroughly corrupt private interest groups, and so patriotism will take on its true meaning, as promised in our Constitution: a governing body OF the people, FOR the people and BY the people, as the Western governments are beginning to behave like the garbled tongues at the Tower of Babel. What is unfolding before us on YouTube is the Family of Man in action—we are in touch with each other, we empathize and take action against famine in Somalia, unjust government practices in the U.S. and in India, Israel—anywhere where corruption has put a chokehold on ordinary life. Humanity endures abuse until it becomes unbearable—and it is unbearable for me as a compassionate man, raised and tutored by Franciscan nuns— to know that 25% of our children are hungry while the upper 5% consume 40% of available goods. This will not be tolerated by honest folks for much longer.
Peter
Kenosha, WI
The whole world is a mess. The comments I see here daily and in other newspapers will soon spill out into the streets, in the USA too. Obama is just an empty suit while the Republicans will stop at nothing, even pushing the whole nation off a cliff in order to bring him down.
In Europe the euro currency has become a "too big to fail" project -- a political Trojan horse for the unelected Eurocrats smoking their bong pipes behind the closed doors in Brussels to cement their pipe dream of political and economic union in Europe, never mind that Europe is a geographic entity and not a cultural or a political one and that the people don't want it anyway.
What I fear is that somewhere soon, a young-ish intelligent charismatic person with long term malignant goals and the will to carry them out will appear. A Hitler like figure. The times are ripe for that person.
Elizabeth
Florida
Maybe everything in life is cyclical because if you read history and life in the 17th 18th and 19th centuries you get an eerie feeling that what we are witnessing with the hijacking of government by the uber wealthy is a "back to the future, let 'em eat cake" reality.
We could have seen it coming if we were not blinded by the small trickle that flowed to us from the corporate barons and the self serving elected officials. That trickle was easy credit which fooled us into thinking that we are on the rise and we are one of them. How insane it is for example that in this country if you close your credit accounts or do not use them it goes against your credit rating!!!!
I for one am heartened by what is happening although I hesitate to say I know how it will end (the French revolution is swirling in my head.)
In his poem Morte D'Arthur, Lord Tennyson wrote: "The old order changeth, Yielding place to the new, And God fulfills Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should so corrupt the world."
That "good custom" - capitalism - has corrupted the world. Unchecked, not monitored, ruled by a few is corosive and needs to be brought into balance.
28.9.11
27.9.11
random voices
A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy
By MICHAEL POWELL
The Oxford don, a liberal atheist who is arguably the world’s most influential evolutionary biologist, continues to turn the prevailing view of evolution and natural selection on its head.
HG
Califormia
According to Karl Popper's definition of science, Evolutionary Biology is not science in the sense that it is not falsifiable. The theory cannot be examined by controlled experiments.
The very fact that Prof. Gould and Prof. Dawkins cannot agree with each other is evidence that evolutionary biology is not as rigorous a science as Physics. Even Physicists dare not refute the possible existence of God the first cause. I am amazed by Mr. Dawkins's audacious claim that his theory refutes the existence of God.
Refuting the literal story of Genesis is not a difficult task. Anyone with common sense will know that there is no way Noah can have the engineering know-how to build the arc, let along preserve all forms of living beings. Can anyone build the arc with today's technology?
It is a trap for rational, secular minds when reading the Bible. It is easy to say: "How can anyone with basic intelligence believe this literally?" Well, metaphorically, it makes sense to many people. And that doesn't make them stupid.
Dawkins's fundamental pitfall is that he believes whoever disagrees with him is stupid. From what I know, this is not the feature of a top-notch thinker. All top thinkers I know are humble because the more you learn, the more you realize the limit of human knowledge.
________________________
Stocks Decline a Day After Fed Sets Latest Stimulus Measure
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and CHRISTINE HAUSER
Investor pessimism about the outlook for the United States and European economies was deepened by weak data for the euro zone and a grim assessment from the Federal Reserve.
James J. Connolly
Waterford, Connecticut
The world economic system is now in free fall, folks. First time since the 1930s.
The folks at the controls (banks, the Fed, Democrats, Republicans, EU, IMF) have no idea what they are doing.
The man behind the curtain is panicking, and he has reason to do so.
Prepare for 30 percent unemployment nationwide, mass layoffs of public employees, and a nationwide moratorium on future foreclosures as Obama's main campaign platform for 2012.
Stop the nonsense about a double recession.
The Second Great Depression is here.
Capitalism is in its death throes, and the subservient governments of Europe and North America have failed to prop it up after trying every trick in their books.
anges
Midwest
Perhaps the Fed's own thrashing about on monetary policy contributes to "spooking" the economy. After an heroic response to the events of the autumn of 2008 during which Bernanke helped prevent a catastrophic worldwide economic meltdown, the Fed has since started one horse after the next, all of which have keeled over well before the finish line.
We had QE and then QE2 and now the "Twist" and several other perturbations of the money supply. None of this has done a bit of good - and no wonder. The economic problems are endemic: over-reliance on consumerism, massive private and government debt, uncompetetive labor costs, a failing educational system, a stupendous system of entitlements and public pension costs -- on the state level especially -- that cannot be honored. All these lie at the root of our economic problems and there is no way out other than austerity, frugality, a reduction in labor costs and a rationalization of our balance sheets. The Fed has, instead, sought a magic solution to our ills, a "Hey, Presto!" monetary gimmick (e.g. ultra-low interest rates) that will cause everything to spring back to prosperity -- as if the past thirty years of foolishness never occurred.
The best thing the Fed can do now is -- nothing. Let interest rates rise to where the genuine demand for money puts them and quit goosing the money supply. At the moment, it is impossible to adequately assess risk and credit requirements because the money markets are so distorted by the Fed's incessant thrashing and magical thinking.
We all owe Mr. Bernanke a debt of gratitude for his actions three years ago. But, he needs to stop his Ben the Great magic act so that we can, as a nation and as individuals, address our real problems. These problems are real, profound and pervasive -- and they cannot be solved by monetary gimmicks.
Suzanne
Florida
Large corporations keep saying they don't understand why their stocks are so depressed: bookings look just fine for the next 18-24 months. Yet the media screams that the sky is falling. Why am I starting to get the notion that this "whole recession thing" is some gigantic scam? Who is making the money or otherwise profiting from this psychologically induced recession? Yes, it sounds like a crack-brained conspiracy theory, but there are a number of ways to deal with credit and demand issues constructively and NO ONE is doing it. Have I been viewing the class warfare too myopically? Are the masses in the process of losing the last battle, while never having known they were involved in a war until recently?
This isn't the death throes of capitalism, but it may be the death throes of democracy.
Boat52
Naples, FL
"We all owe Mr. Bernanke a debt of gratitude for his actions three years ago." No we don't because he didn't do anything other than debase the currency, inflict significant damage millions of savers who have witnessed the vanishing of their interest income, and dump huge sums onto to bankers so that they could earn bonuses even greater than before the financial crisis. The above statement should read: "Bankers all owe a debt of gratitude for his actions." It is time for a regime change at The Fed and a return to an interest rate environment that rewards capital formation and savings rather than one that stimulates more debt accumulation.
___________________________
WikiLeaks’ Founder, in a Gilded British Cage
By DAVID CARR
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is more hunted than hunter these days, an itinerant with no permanent address save for a country manor provided by a former British journalist.
Martin
New York
Assange should get the Nobel prize. He has exposed more corruption and official crime than all the world's journalists of the past 10 years. And so of course they villify him or talk about personality. Wikileaks represents an enormous challenge to a press which has turned from exposing corruption to joining it, from informing to distracting and deceiving.
hn
london
We live in a police state where you can be "free" as long as you don't disturb the big Capital and the governments which main function is to protect the Banks and the big corporations. The war in Iraq started on a lie, as is well known now. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It seems that hundreds of thousands died because of that lie.
People are still dying there because of the false reasons given for the war. Iraq is a mess now but it is also a big source of profit for many American companies.
Then comes Julian Assange, who was brave enough to publish documents about the war, revealing information that gave us a better idea of what happened during the war in Iraq. Better than anything the press did, actually. And all this journalist can do is to write a cynical story portraying Assange as a paranoid, funny character. Assange is living the way he is so we could know more. He really deserves better than to be portrayed as a caricature.
caseycsw
13350
Assange is a modern day hero for exposing the murderous underside of the US corporate empire, and some day it will be recognized on a universal basis. For now we must endure NY Times articles portraying him as a seething and scheming Shakespearean figure, tragic because he has allowed himself to end up cornered in a "gilded cage". Actually, this article is more benign than most of the more sophisticated attacks on his reputation that the Times has deployed in the past. Just as the Gray Lady continues to ignore progressive opposition to the current state of affairs, while trumpeting the latest Tea Party sneeze almost as readily as Fox News, it occasionally stops to actually focus on left-wing demonstrations by bashing their intent and spirit altogether, such as in the wonderfully demeaning piece by Ginia Bellafante, "Gunning For Wall Street, With Faulty Aim"
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/nyregion/protesters-are-gunning-for-wa...
This, of course, is hardly surprising since many of the Wikileaks have pointed to the close bond between mainstream journalism and the corporate elites. Murdoch's hacking scandal is proof-positive. But it is truly sad to see the Gray Lady, once a staunch advocate for liberal and progressive causes, tied and bound by the sophisticated "right-wing lite" ideological wiring of her own gilded cage...
Jim Prince
New York
Dominique Straus Kahn goes free without a trial.
Barack Obama gets Nobel Peace Price with no qualification. Actually he is now blocking the freedom of Palestinians to have a free state and live in dignity.
You know they will get Julian Assange, one way or the other.
This is the new world order!
By MICHAEL POWELL
The Oxford don, a liberal atheist who is arguably the world’s most influential evolutionary biologist, continues to turn the prevailing view of evolution and natural selection on its head.
HG
Califormia
According to Karl Popper's definition of science, Evolutionary Biology is not science in the sense that it is not falsifiable. The theory cannot be examined by controlled experiments.
The very fact that Prof. Gould and Prof. Dawkins cannot agree with each other is evidence that evolutionary biology is not as rigorous a science as Physics. Even Physicists dare not refute the possible existence of God the first cause. I am amazed by Mr. Dawkins's audacious claim that his theory refutes the existence of God.
Refuting the literal story of Genesis is not a difficult task. Anyone with common sense will know that there is no way Noah can have the engineering know-how to build the arc, let along preserve all forms of living beings. Can anyone build the arc with today's technology?
It is a trap for rational, secular minds when reading the Bible. It is easy to say: "How can anyone with basic intelligence believe this literally?" Well, metaphorically, it makes sense to many people. And that doesn't make them stupid.
Dawkins's fundamental pitfall is that he believes whoever disagrees with him is stupid. From what I know, this is not the feature of a top-notch thinker. All top thinkers I know are humble because the more you learn, the more you realize the limit of human knowledge.
________________________
Stocks Decline a Day After Fed Sets Latest Stimulus Measure
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and CHRISTINE HAUSER
Investor pessimism about the outlook for the United States and European economies was deepened by weak data for the euro zone and a grim assessment from the Federal Reserve.
James J. Connolly
Waterford, Connecticut
The world economic system is now in free fall, folks. First time since the 1930s.
The folks at the controls (banks, the Fed, Democrats, Republicans, EU, IMF) have no idea what they are doing.
The man behind the curtain is panicking, and he has reason to do so.
Prepare for 30 percent unemployment nationwide, mass layoffs of public employees, and a nationwide moratorium on future foreclosures as Obama's main campaign platform for 2012.
Stop the nonsense about a double recession.
The Second Great Depression is here.
Capitalism is in its death throes, and the subservient governments of Europe and North America have failed to prop it up after trying every trick in their books.
anges
Midwest
Perhaps the Fed's own thrashing about on monetary policy contributes to "spooking" the economy. After an heroic response to the events of the autumn of 2008 during which Bernanke helped prevent a catastrophic worldwide economic meltdown, the Fed has since started one horse after the next, all of which have keeled over well before the finish line.
We had QE and then QE2 and now the "Twist" and several other perturbations of the money supply. None of this has done a bit of good - and no wonder. The economic problems are endemic: over-reliance on consumerism, massive private and government debt, uncompetetive labor costs, a failing educational system, a stupendous system of entitlements and public pension costs -- on the state level especially -- that cannot be honored. All these lie at the root of our economic problems and there is no way out other than austerity, frugality, a reduction in labor costs and a rationalization of our balance sheets. The Fed has, instead, sought a magic solution to our ills, a "Hey, Presto!" monetary gimmick (e.g. ultra-low interest rates) that will cause everything to spring back to prosperity -- as if the past thirty years of foolishness never occurred.
The best thing the Fed can do now is -- nothing. Let interest rates rise to where the genuine demand for money puts them and quit goosing the money supply. At the moment, it is impossible to adequately assess risk and credit requirements because the money markets are so distorted by the Fed's incessant thrashing and magical thinking.
We all owe Mr. Bernanke a debt of gratitude for his actions three years ago. But, he needs to stop his Ben the Great magic act so that we can, as a nation and as individuals, address our real problems. These problems are real, profound and pervasive -- and they cannot be solved by monetary gimmicks.
Suzanne
Florida
Large corporations keep saying they don't understand why their stocks are so depressed: bookings look just fine for the next 18-24 months. Yet the media screams that the sky is falling. Why am I starting to get the notion that this "whole recession thing" is some gigantic scam? Who is making the money or otherwise profiting from this psychologically induced recession? Yes, it sounds like a crack-brained conspiracy theory, but there are a number of ways to deal with credit and demand issues constructively and NO ONE is doing it. Have I been viewing the class warfare too myopically? Are the masses in the process of losing the last battle, while never having known they were involved in a war until recently?
This isn't the death throes of capitalism, but it may be the death throes of democracy.
Boat52
Naples, FL
"We all owe Mr. Bernanke a debt of gratitude for his actions three years ago." No we don't because he didn't do anything other than debase the currency, inflict significant damage millions of savers who have witnessed the vanishing of their interest income, and dump huge sums onto to bankers so that they could earn bonuses even greater than before the financial crisis. The above statement should read: "Bankers all owe a debt of gratitude for his actions." It is time for a regime change at The Fed and a return to an interest rate environment that rewards capital formation and savings rather than one that stimulates more debt accumulation.
___________________________
WikiLeaks’ Founder, in a Gilded British Cage
By DAVID CARR
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is more hunted than hunter these days, an itinerant with no permanent address save for a country manor provided by a former British journalist.
Martin
New York
Assange should get the Nobel prize. He has exposed more corruption and official crime than all the world's journalists of the past 10 years. And so of course they villify him or talk about personality. Wikileaks represents an enormous challenge to a press which has turned from exposing corruption to joining it, from informing to distracting and deceiving.
hn
london
We live in a police state where you can be "free" as long as you don't disturb the big Capital and the governments which main function is to protect the Banks and the big corporations. The war in Iraq started on a lie, as is well known now. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It seems that hundreds of thousands died because of that lie.
People are still dying there because of the false reasons given for the war. Iraq is a mess now but it is also a big source of profit for many American companies.
Then comes Julian Assange, who was brave enough to publish documents about the war, revealing information that gave us a better idea of what happened during the war in Iraq. Better than anything the press did, actually. And all this journalist can do is to write a cynical story portraying Assange as a paranoid, funny character. Assange is living the way he is so we could know more. He really deserves better than to be portrayed as a caricature.
caseycsw
13350
Assange is a modern day hero for exposing the murderous underside of the US corporate empire, and some day it will be recognized on a universal basis. For now we must endure NY Times articles portraying him as a seething and scheming Shakespearean figure, tragic because he has allowed himself to end up cornered in a "gilded cage". Actually, this article is more benign than most of the more sophisticated attacks on his reputation that the Times has deployed in the past. Just as the Gray Lady continues to ignore progressive opposition to the current state of affairs, while trumpeting the latest Tea Party sneeze almost as readily as Fox News, it occasionally stops to actually focus on left-wing demonstrations by bashing their intent and spirit altogether, such as in the wonderfully demeaning piece by Ginia Bellafante, "Gunning For Wall Street, With Faulty Aim"
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/nyregion/protesters-are-gunning-for-wa...
This, of course, is hardly surprising since many of the Wikileaks have pointed to the close bond between mainstream journalism and the corporate elites. Murdoch's hacking scandal is proof-positive. But it is truly sad to see the Gray Lady, once a staunch advocate for liberal and progressive causes, tied and bound by the sophisticated "right-wing lite" ideological wiring of her own gilded cage...
Jim Prince
New York
Dominique Straus Kahn goes free without a trial.
Barack Obama gets Nobel Peace Price with no qualification. Actually he is now blocking the freedom of Palestinians to have a free state and live in dignity.
You know they will get Julian Assange, one way or the other.
This is the new world order!
13.9.11
How can you tell we are in deep s...?
...perhaps when we cannot pay the tips for the miscellaneous costs of flying prisoners.
How many more ways can evidence of America’s rendition and torture practices come to light? Earlier this week, it was thanks to a dispute over who would pay for muffins, airphone calls, and a plane to fly prisoners to secret prisons. Now, it’s with papers in a binder marked “C.I.A.” found in one of Qaddafi’s offices in Tripoli. (Jon Lee Anderson was on the scene for The New Yorker.) What next—an Eastern European military officer’s divorce trial, an election campaign in Asia, an iPhone prototype left in a bar? (That’s another story.) A program that involved hiding people from our country’s laws and courts, and outsourcing their interrogation to willing torturers—including, according to the documents, Qaddafi—left traces scattered around the world, waiting to be stumbled upon. A way they haven’t been cataloged, though, is the way they should have been: through a true reckoning by our own government. Instead, President Obama decided, in effect, that what was done was done. But it isn’t.
The “C.I.A.” binder was accompanied by two marked “MI6,” and the office they were in belonged to a man the Times described as “Libya’s former spymaster.” The paper also noted that, in the circumstances, their authenticity was hard to verify. (The C.I.A.’s response was not exactly a denial: “It can’t come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats.”) Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, sat down and read through the binders. There were talking points for Qaddafi, logistical details for flights, and what seems to have been the bartering of Qaddafi’s opponents, some of whom had ties to Islamist groups, for his cooperation. One of them is now a rebel leader.
All in all, there were “thousands of pieces of correspondence from US and UK officials,” according to the BBC, which then quoted Bouckaert:
Its dealings in Libya are not the C.I.A.’s only problem; nor is the C.I.A. the only problem. The Washington Post has two new pieces in its “Top Secret America” series that one should read. The first, by Julie Tate and Greg Miller, is on the C.I.A.’s shift away from learning things and toward killing people considered dangerous (and who makes that call?), with analysts becoming “targeters.” The other, by Dana Priest and William Arkin, is about the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, which has held some thousand prisoners “in jails that it alone controls in Iraq and Afghanistan.” (“We’re the dark matter. We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen,” a SEAL told the Post.) The “C.I.A.” binder in Tripoli included “a list of 89 questions for the Libyans to ask a suspect,” the Times said. We should have at least that many—many more—for our own government.
________________
In democracies it is really easy. Economic power buys military power and military power buys political power. As one former US president so eloquently put it; "Its the economy, stupid"
by henkers
"(“We’re the dark matter. We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen,” a SEAL told the Post.)" This may come across to many as simply a grandiose brag by one of the US Navy commando troops very proud of his groups' "accomplishments". However when put in general everyday language, the above statement is saying, "We enforcers turn all the words that make up orders/mandate/regulations/laws/edicts/directives/etc. issued by government legislators, executives (including the President), judges and bureaucrats into physical force upon the intended victim(s)." The point the SEAL was making - though I am certain he intended it to mean none other than for his particular military group - is that enforcers are *key* to all the words issued by their bosses in government. He's correct! And it is true for all government enforcers, including the domestic ("law enforcement officers") variety that without these initiators of physical force all those numerous official commanding words would be nothing but soundwaves and/or scribbles. Want to see these wars end?! Encourage and promote non enlistments in the military. No high ranking military or politicians are going to get out in the field - or even push the necessary buttons to launch weapons - and get their own hands dirty and/or bloody. No, rulers (and their adjutants) will always depend on underlings who have not yet been sufficiently persuaded by others that it is not in their own and anyone's longterm best interest to be a party to these actions. With far fewer troops available to each government, foreign wars will not be possible and only defense actions against invaders will be considered. This is not simply idealistic dreaming. It is a call to all individuals who want to see wars end to take personal responsibility for not approving with their continued voluntary association those among them who choose to continue to participate in wars, despite reasoned persuasion to get truly productive jobs.
by KittyAntonikWakfer
Time for Obama to plan his own exit ... From office.
by sloper
It beggars the definition of word 'hypocrite' to contemplate that our government, which for decades, has excoriated Libya and Gadaffi as brutal barbarians, but at the same time, in secret, hires them to carry out the very worst barbarities on prisoners (kidnappees) in American charge. Americans who engage in this kind of activity are worthy only of death. They should be exposed, tried and executed as a warning to others who seem to feel being in the government is a free pass on morality and accountability.
by cythara
In simple terms, the USA, the great champion of moral authority in the world (as it sees itself) is by that definition the more guilty of the torture and murder it conducts (directly or by proxy) than the Gadaffi's,Hussein's Assad's and Khameni's - those over whom the US claims moral superiority. Obama is to my knowledge the only US President to have imposed a death sentence on a US citizen without the benefit of any legal process for presumed treason - putting him on a par with those same Gadaffi's,Hussein's Assad's and Khameni's. Time for Ms. Davidson to begin calling spades - well - shovels might be a start.
by JohnGilmore
EIGHTY-NINE QUESTIONS: WHAT DID LIBYA DO FOR THE C.I.A.?
by Amy DavidsonHow many more ways can evidence of America’s rendition and torture practices come to light? Earlier this week, it was thanks to a dispute over who would pay for muffins, airphone calls, and a plane to fly prisoners to secret prisons. Now, it’s with papers in a binder marked “C.I.A.” found in one of Qaddafi’s offices in Tripoli. (Jon Lee Anderson was on the scene for The New Yorker.) What next—an Eastern European military officer’s divorce trial, an election campaign in Asia, an iPhone prototype left in a bar? (That’s another story.) A program that involved hiding people from our country’s laws and courts, and outsourcing their interrogation to willing torturers—including, according to the documents, Qaddafi—left traces scattered around the world, waiting to be stumbled upon. A way they haven’t been cataloged, though, is the way they should have been: through a true reckoning by our own government. Instead, President Obama decided, in effect, that what was done was done. But it isn’t.
The “C.I.A.” binder was accompanied by two marked “MI6,” and the office they were in belonged to a man the Times described as “Libya’s former spymaster.” The paper also noted that, in the circumstances, their authenticity was hard to verify. (The C.I.A.’s response was not exactly a denial: “It can’t come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats.”) Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, sat down and read through the binders. There were talking points for Qaddafi, logistical details for flights, and what seems to have been the bartering of Qaddafi’s opponents, some of whom had ties to Islamist groups, for his cooperation. One of them is now a rebel leader.
All in all, there were “thousands of pieces of correspondence from US and UK officials,” according to the BBC, which then quoted Bouckaert:
It wasn’t just abducting suspected Islamic militants and handing them over to the Libyan intelligence…The CIA also sent the questions they wanted Libyan intelligence to ask and, from the files, it’s very clear they were present in some of the interrogations themselves.
Its dealings in Libya are not the C.I.A.’s only problem; nor is the C.I.A. the only problem. The Washington Post has two new pieces in its “Top Secret America” series that one should read. The first, by Julie Tate and Greg Miller, is on the C.I.A.’s shift away from learning things and toward killing people considered dangerous (and who makes that call?), with analysts becoming “targeters.” The other, by Dana Priest and William Arkin, is about the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, which has held some thousand prisoners “in jails that it alone controls in Iraq and Afghanistan.” (“We’re the dark matter. We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen,” a SEAL told the Post.) The “C.I.A.” binder in Tripoli included “a list of 89 questions for the Libyans to ask a suspect,” the Times said. We should have at least that many—many more—for our own government.
________________
In democracies it is really easy. Economic power buys military power and military power buys political power. As one former US president so eloquently put it; "Its the economy, stupid"
by henkers
"(“We’re the dark matter. We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen,” a SEAL told the Post.)" This may come across to many as simply a grandiose brag by one of the US Navy commando troops very proud of his groups' "accomplishments". However when put in general everyday language, the above statement is saying, "We enforcers turn all the words that make up orders/mandate/regulations/laws/edicts/directives/etc. issued by government legislators, executives (including the President), judges and bureaucrats into physical force upon the intended victim(s)." The point the SEAL was making - though I am certain he intended it to mean none other than for his particular military group - is that enforcers are *key* to all the words issued by their bosses in government. He's correct! And it is true for all government enforcers, including the domestic ("law enforcement officers") variety that without these initiators of physical force all those numerous official commanding words would be nothing but soundwaves and/or scribbles. Want to see these wars end?! Encourage and promote non enlistments in the military. No high ranking military or politicians are going to get out in the field - or even push the necessary buttons to launch weapons - and get their own hands dirty and/or bloody. No, rulers (and their adjutants) will always depend on underlings who have not yet been sufficiently persuaded by others that it is not in their own and anyone's longterm best interest to be a party to these actions. With far fewer troops available to each government, foreign wars will not be possible and only defense actions against invaders will be considered. This is not simply idealistic dreaming. It is a call to all individuals who want to see wars end to take personal responsibility for not approving with their continued voluntary association those among them who choose to continue to participate in wars, despite reasoned persuasion to get truly productive jobs.
by KittyAntonikWakfer
Time for Obama to plan his own exit ... From office.
by sloper
It beggars the definition of word 'hypocrite' to contemplate that our government, which for decades, has excoriated Libya and Gadaffi as brutal barbarians, but at the same time, in secret, hires them to carry out the very worst barbarities on prisoners (kidnappees) in American charge. Americans who engage in this kind of activity are worthy only of death. They should be exposed, tried and executed as a warning to others who seem to feel being in the government is a free pass on morality and accountability.
by cythara
In simple terms, the USA, the great champion of moral authority in the world (as it sees itself) is by that definition the more guilty of the torture and murder it conducts (directly or by proxy) than the Gadaffi's,Hussein's Assad's and Khameni's - those over whom the US claims moral superiority. Obama is to my knowledge the only US President to have imposed a death sentence on a US citizen without the benefit of any legal process for presumed treason - putting him on a par with those same Gadaffi's,Hussein's Assad's and Khameni's. Time for Ms. Davidson to begin calling spades - well - shovels might be a start.
by JohnGilmore
10.9.11
9/11: "Specific, credible, but unconfirmed."
Johndrake07
NYC
Can you say 'False Flag Operation' - as if we need more justification for continuing the phoney war on tourists, excuse me, terrorism, this the eleventh year and counting?
The Great Distraction continues, and so does the non-stop filling of the sinkholes with trillions of taxpayer dollars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, along with the drain plug being quietly pulled on Syria and Iran.
Our officials aren't really concerned with protecting us from another 9/11 event or blow-back from our adventures abroad. Their concern is whether the American Public will wake up from their media-induced stupor and demand an end to this massive ripoff of trillions of dollars that could better have been spent fixing the ills in good ol' USA. But that would actually mean getting the money out to the people - in jobs, infrastructure repair, school improvement, road and rail rebuilding, and a host of other actions that would have a beneficial return on investment. Of course, that would also mean that the money spigot would be shut off to war profiteering, fraud, overcharges, millions diverted to off shore accounts, kickbacks to politicians and legislators, support and bail outs to failing and criminally negligent banks, and an end to the spinning and revolving door of job opportunity for our elected officials and their industry counterparts.
So, we can expect that the meme of 9/11 with all its fear mongering, Arab bashing, pseudo reconciliation, flag waving, crackdown of our freedoms here so they won't crackdown on them over there, not to mention the continuing dissolution of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, will continue unabated. After all, it is in their best interests to do so.
Police officers investigate a small cooler that was left unattended, causing sections of Times Square to be evacuated May 7, 2010 in New York. The cooler was determined to not be a threat, and the streets were reopened shortly after an hour of being closed.
9.9.11
Why are US in Iraq?
Former BP CEO Tony Hayward is receiving hearty handshakes for the $2.1 billion deal he has organized for fields holding a reasonably rich 356 million barrels of oil in Kurdistan. The agreed merger of Hayward's Vallares with Turkey's Genel Energy is his "continuing professional rehabilitation," Forbes says in one on-line piece, and "Tony Hayward's Revenge" in another. "Tony Hayward Makes a Comeback," says the Wall Street Journal. "Turkish Delight for Hayward" says Upstream magazine.
Are these assessments correct -- has Hayward (pictured above in less-happy times), 17 months after the devastating BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, demonstrated again that he has the right stuff? Mmmm ... no. What he has demonstrated anew is his taste for living on the edge, cutting corners and risk-the-company deals.
Those are not necessarily deadly attributes in the highly risky oil business. What makes them so hazardous is that Hayward does not appear to know his deals could jeopardize the company he happens to be running. He just stands on the ledge whistling. It is the same attitude -- one still apparent in his former company, BP (more on this below) -- that helped cause the Gulf spill of 5 million barrels of oil.
One can see what attracted Hayward to Kurdistan. He is in line to earn $24 million in shares in the merged company, and possibly more based on performance. He again is CEO of an oil company, albeit a pipsqueak compared with his old one. He is in one of the most exciting frontier oil regions of the world.
On the downside, Kurdistan is in perpetual dispute with Iraqi national leaders in Baghdad. The primary risk is that the entire deal could go south should Kurdistan and Baghdad plunge again fully into daggers drawn regarding the right of Kurdistan to sell and export oil. If that happens -- if Kurdistan or the Vallares properties alone are unable to freely export oil -- it would demolish the main rationale for Hayward's plans to list the merged company on the London stock exchange.
All of this risk-taking suits Hayward's new partner, Genel chief Mehmet Sepil. Last year, he was fined $1.5 million in Great Britain for insider trading, and thus could not have listed his company on the London exchange on his own merit, write Christopher Thompson and Anousha Sakoui at the Financial Times.
So the Hayward style (which to be fair was also his predecessor John Browne's style) continues in the land of wildcatting. But with his departure, it was supposed to be eradicated from BP itself. Yet as suggested above, there is evidence it has not.
We see this most recently in Russia, where Hayward's successor, CEO Bob Dudley, happily signed a blockbuster Arctic deal with Rosneft a few months ago that flouted contractual fidelity to an existing Russian partner. Courts effectively vacated the deal, and ExxonMobil, unhindered by any pre-existing marriage, picked it up last week in BP's place.
This has been so much blood in the water as far as BP's Russian partners are concerned, and they had masked Russian forces raid BP's Moscow office in supposed search of incriminating documents.
BP shareholders are clearly worried. In a piece this week, the Wall Street Journal's Guy Chazan reported that BP shareholders are demanding that management show that it knows how to right the company. He quotes Paul Mumford, senior fund manager at London-based Cavendish Asset Management, which owns BP shares: "BP is increasingly viewed as a company that's lost its way."
A few months ago, this blog argued that BP is such a serial offender, that it was time for shareholders to take matters into their own hands, and either totally shake up or say goodbye to the company. One option that's been discussed since the summer is breaking up BP into three or more parts. That is sounding more and more sensible.
Ex-BP Chief’s Firm to Buy Iraqi Oil Company in $2.1 Billion Deal
By JULIA WERDIGIER
LONDON — Tony Hayward, who resigned as chief executive of BP amid the fallout from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year, is set to become the head of another oil company.
Vallares, the investment vehicle Mr. Hayward co-founded with the financier Nathaniel P. Rothschild this year, agreed on Wednesday to buy Genel Energy International, an oil producer in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, in a $2.1 billion deal.
Mr. Hayward will be chief executive of the new company, called Genel Energy. Rodney Chase, the former deputy chief executive of BP, would become chairman and Mr. Rothschild nonexecutive director.
Under the terms of the transaction, Vallares will issue $2.1 billion of new stock at £10 ($15.99) a share to acquire Genel in a reverse takeover. The owners of Vallares and Genel will own equal shares in the combined company. The Turkish billionaire Mehmet Karamehmet currently owns 56 percent of Genel, while the company’s chief executive, Mehmet Sepil, owns 29 percent.
The deal comes months after Vallares raised £1.35 billion ($2.1 billion) from investors through a London stock listing in June, with the expectation of buying oil and natural gas assets in Russia and the former Soviet states, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Genel has stakes in two producing oil fields, a major natural gas discovery and significant exploration acreage in Kurdistan, the semiautonomous northern province of Iraq, Vallares said.
“Our investors are acquiring a strong existing business with excellent producing assets, a fine team of technical and operating staff already in place, and immense potential for future growth,” Mr. Hayward said in a statement on Wednesday. “The Kurdistan region of Iraq is undoubtedly one of the last great oil and gas frontiers.”
Mr. Sepil, who will become president of the new company, was fined £967,000 by the British financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority, in February 2010 for trading in Heritage Oil based on inside information about drilling tests.
The newly combined entity plans to file a prospectus in October, allowing it to move forward with its listing in London. The deal is subject to the approval of the Kurdistan government, which the company expects to receive later this month.
Following the transaction, the company plans to have sufficient funds “to participate aggressively in the significant consolidation we expect to see in the region over the next few years and to expand elsewhere if good opportunities arise,” it said in the statement.
tim ohanlon...
aberdeen
Nathan Rothschild's listed cash shell Vallares is involved in a quiet, no holds barred fight in the distant oil fields of Kurdistan, with a secretive Chinese military controlled company Poly Energy. The fight which has important implications for Western oil companies is to acquire control of one of the largest oil field in Kurdistan, Tak-Tak.
Tak-Tak, one of the last so-called elephant fields is relatively under explored, but from the little that has been explored, experts estimate a reserve of approximately six. billion barrels in the ground
The field is presently owned by Sinopec a Chinese state company and Genel Energy, a company owned by Memet Kara Memet, the richest Turk in the world.
This is when Tony Hayward, the former boss of BP, who is Nathan Rothschild's partner in Vallares, sensing a good opportunity moved in, only to find himself in a head to head with Poly energy, who backed by the Chinese state, are trying to acquire complete control of the biggest block in Kurdistan for China Inc.
Poly Energy is, we understand, being advised by Shiv Shankaran Nair, a reclusive Maltese millionaire and deal maker, who has thrived on front ending transactions for Chinese State Companies in Africa.
Nair who counts The Barzanis, who run Kurdistan almost as a personal fiefdom, as his personal friends , has been shuttling between Kurdistan, Beijing and Ankara on behalf of his Chinese client, trying to persuade the Kurds to allow a 100 % Chinese takeover of their biggest field.
The Vallares bid which is around the 2.1 billion USD mark in a mix of cash and equity options has been trumped by a straight cash offer of 3 billion USD by the Chinese.
The only victor out of this fight is the diminutive Turk, Memet Karamemet, who is rubbing his hands in glee seeing an asset he paid a hundred million dollars for six years ago, being fought for at ten times what he paid for it
Also sprach Obama: A speech for all and none
Karen Garcia
New Paltz, NY
It was vintage Obama -- long (too long) on righteous indignation and populist pablum, short on specifics. Did you miss the part where he said his fantastic job creation plan, two-thirds of which is tax cuts, will be paid for by even more draconian cuts to the social safety net?
Pay attention, not to a president air-kissing the elite politicians in the hallowed halls of Congress, but to that secretive politburo known as the Super Committee, which met for the first time (that we know about) on Thursday. Among the items they will be considering is an increase in the Medicare eligibility age to 67. That, and other measures, such as a possible reduction in Social Security benefits based on chained CPI measures, are too steep of a price to pay for a few tax cuts. Moreover, the proposed halving of the payroll tax will have the net effect of not filling the coffers of the Social Security trust fund. Get a few thousand now, lose your retirement later. Sounds more like cynical chutzpah than a big bold plan to me.
Again, the president reverted to the same old tactic of speaking Republicanese to placate the Congress. The programs he suggested, for the most part, have their provenance in GOP Land. Tax breaks to businesses who hire are nothing new.
The optics of the speech were in-your-face terrible. Who had the bright idea of seating tax-evading, anti-union offshore jobs shipper Jeffrey Immelt of G.E. in the First Lady's box? At least the camera operator had the good sense to pan in on him rising to his feet in gleeful applause when Obama talked about the great trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Columbia -- allowing G.E. and its ilk to outsource even more jobs and hoard obscene corporate profits.
I wish Obama had explained to the American people just what got us into this mess (Wall Street and deregulation) in the first place. Instead, he continued in austerian mode and just nibbled around the edges. Scary stuff.
http://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/
Marie Burns
Fort Myers, Florida
Uh, I thought the American people HAD been demanding action on jobs. I guess Congress doesn't read the public polls, all of which show overwhelmingly that Americans think the biggest problem in the country is unemployment. You wrote in a blogpost today, "I don’t want to wax all sentimental about the genius of the common man. But the fact is that both the origins of this crisis and its perpetuation overwhelmingly reflect the errors of the very people now lamenting the annoyances of democracy that keep them from imposing their preferred policies." I listened to a little bit of C-SPAN's post-speech phone-in, and while it's true that the people who called in weren't Nobel material, every one I heard, from left and right, complained about unemployment.
And as if to prove the point that the Very Serious People aren't listening to these people, Peter Walsten of the Washington Post reported yesterday: "More than two dozen senators [the usual suspects] from both parties met privately this week to revive hopes of a grand debt-cutting bargain -- exploring how to push the newly formed debt 'supercommittee' to find far more than its assigned goal of $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions.... [President] Obama, too, is expected to press the committee to exceed its deficit-reduction goal. In his speech Thursday night, he called on Congress to increase the supercommittee's deficit-cutting goals to cover the costs of his jobs plan."
Meanwhile, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke thinks people like me are a big part of the problem: In a speech yesterday, he said, "Even taking into account the many financial pressures that they face, households seem exceptionally cautious." As Binyamin Appelbaum of the Times put it, "Consumers are depressed beyond reason or expectation." Maybe Bernanke should talk to Tom Friedman. Friedman called us "self-indulgent" this week.
Any way you look at it, we ordinary Americans get no respect.
The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com
MNW
Connecticut
In my view we need to address specific targets.
There is hiring and there is demand for products and services. It is the chicken/egg dilemma - which is first.
Some entity has to step up and be first. Should it be hard-pressed consumers in the lower/middle class or Corporations with accumulated profits and overpaid upper management?
The answer is obvious - Corporations must stop outsourcing, reducing the workforce, decimating benefits, hoarding profits, etc.
Start hiring regardless. Reduce upper management salaries/perks. Bring back overseas profits without the blackmail of lesser taxes on those profits. They owe it to the society that put them where you are in every sense of the word. We are ALL in this together - we are an interdependent society.
Listen to Warren Buffet - a man of good conscience - promoting higher taxes on million dollar incomes and raising the 15% capital gains tax plus other sensible taxation measures. He would work effectively with persons in upper income brackets to bring about much needed change in the areas of deficit/debt/taxation matters.
Corporations want the lower corporate taxes to be found abroad, but not the higher income taxes that those countries require - to fund social programs for their society. Corporations want it both ways. If they move Headquarters to other countries to take advantage of lower corporate taxes then their upper management should be required to move there also to pay the required higher income taxes. It is called a balanced equation/system. Make "balance" the new byword for the benefit/fairness of us all.
Examine the tenets of Capitalism. An aspect of a capitalistic system is that INCOME in the system takes two basic forms - profit on one hand and WAGES on the other. Wages implies WORKERS and it is here that our system of Capitalism is currently failing us as a nation and as a society.
Until a credible balance returns to the two factors of profits and wages/workers we will remain in a precarious position regarding our viability as a functioning national entity on the world economic scene.
The first step to correct a Capitalistic system gone .......... haywire is to return manufacturing plants/processes to this country. If the government must step in to advance this necessary condition, then so be it. Wages and workers are at stake in the US and profits must be put back to work in the US for the benefit of all - the enterprise itself, management, employees, shareholders, investors, society, and even good government itself.
One of the functions of profits is to use them to expand an enterprise, creating more jobs and wealth here in the US. Creating more jobs creates more demand and creates more wealth for everyone. Isn't this what we currently need - more jobs and by extension more wealth?
End the damaging outsourcing of jobs and end the damage being done to our middle class and its economic viability - do that as soon as possible.
Andrew
Colesville, MD
Obama’s job creation proposal is a temporary alleviation of the economy malady at the best. The establishments and theirs aids confound temporary Xanax with cure; Aspirin is not an elixir. They prefer the demand side to supply side economics, unfortunately neither works.
It is wrong to say lack of consumption demand caused mass unemployment and economic stagnation. Demand deficiency is the not the cause rather the effect. The basic cause of capitalist economic crises is its structural deficiency and inextricable internal contradictions such as that between unlimited surplus value or profit extraction and relative over-population, including unemployment and under-employment and the vicious cycle thereof, ad inf.
There is adequate consumption demand supported with unemployment compensation, food stamp, welfare, child assistance, income tax credit, Medicaid, severance payment, Medicare, Social Security, pension and 401K, etc., in addition to capitalists’ own luxury consumption demand. Demand does not cause economic crises at all. If it did, wherefrom does the exorbitant profit come? Remember 70% of national income comes from consumption. Putting demand as a cart ahead of the capital horse is the best way to lurk the Ponzi blackmail of capital that is the real culprit. Obama wants to harmonize the capital and labor relationship serving as a runaround for capital to continue riding roughshod over labor.
Capital is the only pivotal force that debilitates the economy and abuses its power onto the working class. Every sincere & honest politico-economic calamity fighter must stop mollycoddling capital and masquerading pro-capital act as fair & balance neutrality.
Overproduction & over-accumulation of capital must stop before suffering further deterioration of economy. Unfettered labor productivity development, which incites excess capital, including cash hoarding & excess working population, including unemployment, must rein in hard through profit-sharing.
_________________________________
I do think Andrew goes the closest to the heart of the matter. The problem is:
Obama and the powers that be are obviously interested in neither. The ship is adrift in stormy seas, the increasingly restless passengers are looking for terra firma, an accident will take or tell us there. As the elites are always interested in the status-quo ante, only an accident will take us there.
New Paltz, NY
It was vintage Obama -- long (too long) on righteous indignation and populist pablum, short on specifics. Did you miss the part where he said his fantastic job creation plan, two-thirds of which is tax cuts, will be paid for by even more draconian cuts to the social safety net?
Pay attention, not to a president air-kissing the elite politicians in the hallowed halls of Congress, but to that secretive politburo known as the Super Committee, which met for the first time (that we know about) on Thursday. Among the items they will be considering is an increase in the Medicare eligibility age to 67. That, and other measures, such as a possible reduction in Social Security benefits based on chained CPI measures, are too steep of a price to pay for a few tax cuts. Moreover, the proposed halving of the payroll tax will have the net effect of not filling the coffers of the Social Security trust fund. Get a few thousand now, lose your retirement later. Sounds more like cynical chutzpah than a big bold plan to me.
Again, the president reverted to the same old tactic of speaking Republicanese to placate the Congress. The programs he suggested, for the most part, have their provenance in GOP Land. Tax breaks to businesses who hire are nothing new.
The optics of the speech were in-your-face terrible. Who had the bright idea of seating tax-evading, anti-union offshore jobs shipper Jeffrey Immelt of G.E. in the First Lady's box? At least the camera operator had the good sense to pan in on him rising to his feet in gleeful applause when Obama talked about the great trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Columbia -- allowing G.E. and its ilk to outsource even more jobs and hoard obscene corporate profits.
I wish Obama had explained to the American people just what got us into this mess (Wall Street and deregulation) in the first place. Instead, he continued in austerian mode and just nibbled around the edges. Scary stuff.
http://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/
Marie Burns
Fort Myers, Florida
Uh, I thought the American people HAD been demanding action on jobs. I guess Congress doesn't read the public polls, all of which show overwhelmingly that Americans think the biggest problem in the country is unemployment. You wrote in a blogpost today, "I don’t want to wax all sentimental about the genius of the common man. But the fact is that both the origins of this crisis and its perpetuation overwhelmingly reflect the errors of the very people now lamenting the annoyances of democracy that keep them from imposing their preferred policies." I listened to a little bit of C-SPAN's post-speech phone-in, and while it's true that the people who called in weren't Nobel material, every one I heard, from left and right, complained about unemployment.
And as if to prove the point that the Very Serious People aren't listening to these people, Peter Walsten of the Washington Post reported yesterday: "More than two dozen senators [the usual suspects] from both parties met privately this week to revive hopes of a grand debt-cutting bargain -- exploring how to push the newly formed debt 'supercommittee' to find far more than its assigned goal of $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions.... [President] Obama, too, is expected to press the committee to exceed its deficit-reduction goal. In his speech Thursday night, he called on Congress to increase the supercommittee's deficit-cutting goals to cover the costs of his jobs plan."
Meanwhile, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke thinks people like me are a big part of the problem: In a speech yesterday, he said, "Even taking into account the many financial pressures that they face, households seem exceptionally cautious." As Binyamin Appelbaum of the Times put it, "Consumers are depressed beyond reason or expectation." Maybe Bernanke should talk to Tom Friedman. Friedman called us "self-indulgent" this week.
Any way you look at it, we ordinary Americans get no respect.
The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com
MNW
Connecticut
In my view we need to address specific targets.
There is hiring and there is demand for products and services. It is the chicken/egg dilemma - which is first.
Some entity has to step up and be first. Should it be hard-pressed consumers in the lower/middle class or Corporations with accumulated profits and overpaid upper management?
The answer is obvious - Corporations must stop outsourcing, reducing the workforce, decimating benefits, hoarding profits, etc.
Start hiring regardless. Reduce upper management salaries/perks. Bring back overseas profits without the blackmail of lesser taxes on those profits. They owe it to the society that put them where you are in every sense of the word. We are ALL in this together - we are an interdependent society.
Listen to Warren Buffet - a man of good conscience - promoting higher taxes on million dollar incomes and raising the 15% capital gains tax plus other sensible taxation measures. He would work effectively with persons in upper income brackets to bring about much needed change in the areas of deficit/debt/taxation matters.
Corporations want the lower corporate taxes to be found abroad, but not the higher income taxes that those countries require - to fund social programs for their society. Corporations want it both ways. If they move Headquarters to other countries to take advantage of lower corporate taxes then their upper management should be required to move there also to pay the required higher income taxes. It is called a balanced equation/system. Make "balance" the new byword for the benefit/fairness of us all.
Examine the tenets of Capitalism. An aspect of a capitalistic system is that INCOME in the system takes two basic forms - profit on one hand and WAGES on the other. Wages implies WORKERS and it is here that our system of Capitalism is currently failing us as a nation and as a society.
Until a credible balance returns to the two factors of profits and wages/workers we will remain in a precarious position regarding our viability as a functioning national entity on the world economic scene.
The first step to correct a Capitalistic system gone .......... haywire is to return manufacturing plants/processes to this country. If the government must step in to advance this necessary condition, then so be it. Wages and workers are at stake in the US and profits must be put back to work in the US for the benefit of all - the enterprise itself, management, employees, shareholders, investors, society, and even good government itself.
One of the functions of profits is to use them to expand an enterprise, creating more jobs and wealth here in the US. Creating more jobs creates more demand and creates more wealth for everyone. Isn't this what we currently need - more jobs and by extension more wealth?
End the damaging outsourcing of jobs and end the damage being done to our middle class and its economic viability - do that as soon as possible.
Andrew
Colesville, MD
Obama’s job creation proposal is a temporary alleviation of the economy malady at the best. The establishments and theirs aids confound temporary Xanax with cure; Aspirin is not an elixir. They prefer the demand side to supply side economics, unfortunately neither works.
It is wrong to say lack of consumption demand caused mass unemployment and economic stagnation. Demand deficiency is the not the cause rather the effect. The basic cause of capitalist economic crises is its structural deficiency and inextricable internal contradictions such as that between unlimited surplus value or profit extraction and relative over-population, including unemployment and under-employment and the vicious cycle thereof, ad inf.
There is adequate consumption demand supported with unemployment compensation, food stamp, welfare, child assistance, income tax credit, Medicaid, severance payment, Medicare, Social Security, pension and 401K, etc., in addition to capitalists’ own luxury consumption demand. Demand does not cause economic crises at all. If it did, wherefrom does the exorbitant profit come? Remember 70% of national income comes from consumption. Putting demand as a cart ahead of the capital horse is the best way to lurk the Ponzi blackmail of capital that is the real culprit. Obama wants to harmonize the capital and labor relationship serving as a runaround for capital to continue riding roughshod over labor.
Capital is the only pivotal force that debilitates the economy and abuses its power onto the working class. Every sincere & honest politico-economic calamity fighter must stop mollycoddling capital and masquerading pro-capital act as fair & balance neutrality.
Overproduction & over-accumulation of capital must stop before suffering further deterioration of economy. Unfettered labor productivity development, which incites excess capital, including cash hoarding & excess working population, including unemployment, must rein in hard through profit-sharing.
_________________________________
I do think Andrew goes the closest to the heart of the matter. The problem is:
- How do you tel that to democratically entitled folk?
- How do you steer the ship into the right direction?
Obama and the powers that be are obviously interested in neither. The ship is adrift in stormy seas, the increasingly restless passengers are looking for terra firma, an accident will take or tell us there. As the elites are always interested in the status-quo ante, only an accident will take us there.
6.9.11
When did WWII(I) start?
...September 1, 1939? Not really -- the Germans started it much earlier and the Allies a bit later. How did the US get involved? Japanese oil.
When has WWIII started? Then, that is, pick your date after 9/11/2001. How the other(s) may get involved? Oil/vital resources.
Did Qaddafi indicate a change of taste from western to eastern currencies in exchange for the Libyan oil?
Libyan Historical Echoes
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From the above comment, one gets the idea that, in the good British imperial tradition, Libya will enjoy a precarious stability, at best. Hot peace can be maintained for now (read, as long as the rate on US Treasuries is low). The Russians are happy to see their oil-income go up amid instability in the oil-exporting countries. The Chinese interests will have to be factored in the Libyan peace as well. Whom should we invoice for the target practice? BTW, Bush's Mission Accomplished moment is being mirrored when they want us to think it's over in some quarter of the Arab Spring. Has anyone heard the Fat Lady?
When has WWIII started? Then, that is, pick your date after 9/11/2001. How the other(s) may get involved? Oil/vital resources.
Did Qaddafi indicate a change of taste from western to eastern currencies in exchange for the Libyan oil?
Libyan Historical Echoes
Libya has over 140 tribes and is a colonial construct cobbled together by the Italians from Fezzan (the south), Tripolitania (the west) and Cyrenaica (the east) using concentration camps (Suluq, Al-Maghroun, Al-Abiyar and Al-Agheila), by executing its religious and political leaders (Omar Mukhtar), and by manipulating various civil wars as they broke out. Just as with Iraq and the others, pundits, media and governments and those pandering to them, project their own false reality on the situation – its easy to invent “we are one country and one people all wanting the same thing but terrorized by a tyrant.” But the shallowness of that protestation becomes immediately evident the second a victory seems imminent. Then, opponents are not countrymen, but “rats” to be exterminated. Those actually familiar with that region and its history and its people, on the other hand, point out that this is just another chapter in a long history of civil wars between Benghazi (Cyrenaica) and Tripolitania. For some reason, NATO countries orchestrated a victory for Cyrenaica, so the tribes of the East will now prosper at the expense of all others. Ghadaffi is, after all, the name of a Tripolitanian tribe, not just that of a man or a family. Democracy demands that each region choose whether it would like to be part of a greater Libya and, if so, how to insure the rights and equal participation of all, with particular sensitivity to the weaker tribes of the former Fezzan to the South and the tribes just crushed by NATO. But there is no reasonable expectation this should come to pass after a war that caused more death than it prevented and that had no believable objective directed towards building a pluralistic society.
________
From the above comment, one gets the idea that, in the good British imperial tradition, Libya will enjoy a precarious stability, at best. Hot peace can be maintained for now (read, as long as the rate on US Treasuries is low). The Russians are happy to see their oil-income go up amid instability in the oil-exporting countries. The Chinese interests will have to be factored in the Libyan peace as well. Whom should we invoice for the target practice? BTW, Bush's Mission Accomplished moment is being mirrored when they want us to think it's over in some quarter of the Arab Spring. Has anyone heard the Fat Lady?
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