Let's get down to Basics: Terrorism 101

Washingtonsblog:

Sunday, September 12, 2010The Warped Mission of the American Military: "Out-Terrorize the Terrorists"

A number of American soldiers are blowing the whistle on the American military practice of indiscriminately killing Iraq civilians - by randomly firing bullets in a 360 degree circle - anytime that an improvised explosive device hits a U.S. soldier.

As Truthout notes:

Both [specialists Ethan McCord and Josh Stieber] say they saw their mission as a plan to "out-terrorize the terrorists," in order to make the general populace more afraid of the Americans than they were of insurgent groups.

In the interview with [Constitutional lawyer Scott] Horton, Horton pressed Stieber:

"... a fellow veteran of yours from the same battalion has said that you guys had a standard operating procedure, SOP, that said - and I guess this is a reaction to some EFP attacks on y'all's Humvees and stuff that killed some guys - that from now on if a roadside bomb goes off, IED goes off, everyone who survives the attack get out and fire in all directions at anybody who happens to be nearby ... that this was actually an order from above. Is that correct? Can you, you know, verify that?

Stieber answered:

"Yeah, it was an order that came from Kauzlarich himself, and it had the philosophy that, you know, as Finkel does describe in the book, that we were under pretty constant threat, and what he leaves out is the response to that threat. But the philosophy was that if each time one of these roadside bombs went off where you don't know who set it ... the way we were told to respond was to open fire on anyone in the area, with the philosophy that that would intimidate them, to be proactive in stopping people from making these bombs ..."

Terrorism is defined as:

The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

So McCord and Stieber are correct: this constitutes terrorism by American forces in Iraq.

Of course, America's institutionalized policy of torture (see this and this) is also terrorism. As I pointed out last year:

An article today in Der Spiegel describes a study on the use of torture over the last couple of thousand years:

A new book, ["Extreme Violence in the Visuals and Texts of Antiquity"] by Martin Zimmerman, a professor of ancient history in Munich, looks at current research into the kinds of violence that inspired "loathing, dread, horror and disgust."

In the ancient Far East, where there were large states peopled by many different ethnicities, leaders demonstrated their might by inventing ingenious new tortures and agonizing methods of execution -- as a way to keep the population obedient...

The issue of state-sanctioned torture to achieve political goals is still a current one.

The study reinforces what I wrote last year:

Listen to the testimony to Congress by a representative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

"Governments that use torture intend to intimidate their citizens in order to maintain control; those who are tortured become examples of the consequences of dissent."

Indeed, this is a well-known tactic for brutal regimes. Take Zimbabwe, for example:

"Victims and eyewitnesses told Human Rights Watch that [Zimbabwe’s brutal regime] has set up detention centers . . . to round up and instill fear in suspected political opponents."

Torture is a form of terrorism, plain and simple.

As the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services director told Congress:

"... torture is the deliberate mental and physical damage caused by governments to individuals to ... terrorize society."

And the U.S. policy of assassinating people all over the world (including Americans) - without trial - is a form of terrorism as well.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new. As the former director of the National Security Agency said:

By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism - in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation.

(the audio is here).

And as Truthout points out, the 360 degree firing on innocent bystanders is most definitely a war crime:

High-level orders to kill civilians in the context of retaliation for attacks on forces have already been successfully prosecuted as a war crime. In 1944, German SS Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler ordered the execution of civilians in the ratio of ten to one for every German soldier killed in a March 1944 attack by Italian partisans. Kappler was sentenced to life in prison. The executions took place in the Caves of Ardeatine in Italy, and were made into the subject of a movie starring Richard Burton. None of the lower-ranking soldiers who actually carried the order out were prosecuted.

***

The attack which spurred the World War II German commander's retaliatory executions, intended as collective punishment for not informing on partisans, was an IED planted in a garbage container. Kappler's rank was the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel.

The ironic thing is that top conservative and liberal terrorism experts say that torture and other war crimes increase terrorism and reduce national security.

And terrorism is bad for the economy as well.

Homeland Security at Work

Does this sound familiar....?

savanahnow.com:

Effingham deputies call feds after arresting Russians with shovel, wire cutters outside Georgia Power plant

Posted: September 9, 2010 - 6:05pm | Updated: September 9, 2010 - 7:31pm

By DeAnn Komanecky

SPRINGFIELD — Effingham County sheriff deputies have reported the early Sunday morning arrest of three men to the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The men, two from Russia and one from Kazakhstan, were found near Georgia Power’s Plant McIntosh on Old Augusta Road about 1 a.m. Sunday after a ranger with the Department of Natural Resources reported a suspicious vehicle, Effingham County sheriff’s spokesman David Ehsanipoor said.

Deputies reported the men, who were inside a 1995 Nissan Pathfinder, had a machete, shovel, wire cutters and ski masks. One man also had black silk stockings in his front left pocket.

Arrested were Evgeniy Luzhetskiy, of Kazakhastan Nail Idiatullin and Rustem Ibragimov of Russia. All three reported they lived in Charleston, S.C., deputies reported.

The men were all charged with possession of tools during the commission of a crime.

The three were released after being interviewed by task force members, Ehsanipoor said.

"They did all have visas that allowed them to be here and are supposed to be leaving the country soon."

Here's your tax cut for the rich at work

Let freedom ring's Talking Points Memo Blog:

What the wealthy did with their tax cuts

September 9, 2010, 12:31PM

According to the the U.S. census US capital investment in foreign countries has gone from $1.3 trillion in 2000 to $3.2 trillion in 2008 while at the same time the Bush tax cuts which overwhelmingly went to the wealthy cost 1.3 trillion per politifact. So the wealthy essentially took their tax cuts, intended per the Republicans to spur U.S. jobs, and invested them and more in foreign countries, not the U.S..

What Can Obama Really Do?

2010 August 29

by Ian Welsh:

A zombie argument is going around about why Obama hasn’t accomplished liberal and progressive ends to the extent many would have liked him to:

Obama can’t do anything because he needs 60 votes in Congress and he doesn’t have them because Republicans and Dems like Lieberman and Nelson won’t vote for his programs.

This argument is misleading in one sense and incorrect in another. It is misleading in that it misrepresents how things get done in Congress. It is incorrect in that many liberal policies do not require the consent of Congress.

Let’s examine the misconceptions this zombie argument is built on.

Negotiation 101

Let’s look at how things get done in Congress. Obama apologists make the excuse that Obama couldn’t have passed a larger stimulus because he was forced to reduce the stimulus by $100 billion as it was. This line of reasoning demonstrates a misunderstanding of how negotiation (or Congress) works.

If Obama had wanted a $1.2 trillion stimulus, say, he should have asked for a $1.6 trillion stimulus. Then “moderate” Republicans and Dems could have negotiated him down $400K. This is basic negotiation, which anyone who has ever negotiated in a third world bazaar knows—you start off with an offer far higher (or lower) than what you’re willing to accept, and leave room for the inevitable haggling.

The same is true of health care reform. If you’re negotiating for a public option—if you actually want one, then you don’t throw single payer advocates out. You act as if that’s something you’re seriously considering, you talk about polls showing it has majority support, and you then “compromise” to a public option.

This sort of self-defeating, pre-negotation concession has been a repeated pattern for the Obama administration (assuming that Obama does seek Liberal ends).

Force It Through

Many liberal policies do not require the consent of congress.

The Bush tax cuts were pushed through under reconciliation. Most of health care reform, including a public option could have been accomplished the same way. The tactical choice was entirely at the discretion of the Democratic leadership.

If Obama and Reid can’t hold 50 votes, then the problem is them, not the policies themselves, or “how congress works”.

Congress: Who Cares about Congress?

Now, let’s talk about other issues. There are many areas where Obama does not need Congress’s approval.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Obama can issue a stop loss for any soldiers any time he wants. Bang, that’s it, at least for as long as he’s President.

HAMP (the program supposedly intended to help homeowners, which hasn’t): This program is totally under administrative control. If Obama wanted it to work, there’s nothing to stop him.

Habeas Corpus: Obama can give everyone in Gitmo their day in court. Restoring habeas corpus is totally at his discretion, and he has chosen not to.

Social Security: After Congress voted down a debt and deficit commission, Obama went ahead and created one anyway–and stacked it with people with track records of wanting to slash Social Security.

In short, Obama has managed to side-step Congress in order to work against Democratic policy positions (e.g., Social Security), but otherwise has ignored executive privilege when he wanted to continue Bush-era policies (e.g., detention without trial at Gitmo) or to ignore the rights and needs of everyday Americans (e.g., HAMP and DADT). To the Obama administration, Congress is a very selective obstacle.

Going Forward: What Obama Can Still Do

Not only could Obama rectify DADT, HAMP, Habeus Corpus, and his Social Security commission with a stroke of his pen, he can still do a great deal to help the economy. If he wants to.

TARP: Obama has complete control of the TARP funds, the majority of which have not been spent. (We’re talking over $500 billion in slush funds.) $ 500 billion is a lot of stimulus, if it’s done right. Cash for Clunkers, representing a tiny fraction of the total stimulus funds, massively goosed GDP while it was in effect.

Leaving aside direct stimulus, there are plenty of other helpful things Obama could do. For example, as a friend of mine noted, most distressed debt today is selling to collection agencies for less than 10 cents on the dollar (often under 5 cents). The Treasury could buy up $100 billion of that distressed debt at 10 cents on the dollar. Reclaim the money at 15 cents on the dollar through the IRS, and otherwise just write it off. You won’t make 50% profit, because some people can’t pay even 10%, but you’ll almost certainly make some profit. Roll the money over and buy up more debt. Keep doing it. (N.B. In the past such debt didn’t sell so cheap, mainly because in the past, pre-Bankruptcy “reform”, people who really couldn’t pay would declare bankruptcy, but now they can’t. Obama never made fixing that horrible bankruptcy bill a priority at all.) Folks would be absolutely thrilled by a way to deal with distressed debt. With the debt off their backs, they could spend again, so it would also be stimulative. There are plenty of other things that could be done with over 500 billion dollars to help ordinary people and goose the economy.

Breaking the Banks (and getting lending going again): The banks have been pretty ungrateful for the massive bailout they received. They have unilaterally increased credit card rates to gouge customers, have been gaming the market (so much so that one quarter many banks didn’t lose money on their trading operations even one day of the quarter), have fought against financial reform, and have generally acted against the interests of the majority of Americans. One might say “well, now that they’re bailed out, there is nothing we can do about it.”

Wrong.

The Fed still holds over $2 trillion in toxic waste from the banks. The banks still hold trillions of dollars of toxic waste. If sold on the open market this stuff would sell for, oh, about 5 cents on the dollar. If forced to mark the assets they are keeping on their books at inflated prices to their actual market value, I doubt there is a single major bank in the country which wouldn’t go bankrupt. Including Goldman Sachs.

So here’s what you do. As the Federal Reserve you sell $100 billion of the toxic waste on the open market. Set an actual price for it. Then you make the banks mark their assets to market value. They go bankrupt. You nationalize them. (Why not?–They are actually bankrupt after all, and they haven’t increased lending like they were supposed to; in fact, they have decreased it.) You make the stockholders take their losses and the bondholders too, then you reinflate the banks. (If the Fed can print trillions to keep zombie banks “alive” it can print money to reinflate nationalized banks.) The banks lend under FDIC and Fed direction, at the interest rates the Fed directs. The FDIC and Fed eventually break the banks up into a reasonable size. And while they’re at it, they get rid of the entire executive class which caused the financial crisis, and have the DOJ go over all the internal memos and start charging everyone who committed fraud. (Hint: that’s virtually every executive at a major bank.) Again, this is completely up to Obama–the DOJ answers to him.

Think Obama can’t do this without Bernanke? Wrong. Obama can fire any Fed Governor for cause and replace them during a Congressional recess with no oversight.* (”Cause” is never defined, but Obama can note that the Fed’s mandate includes maximum employment and not stopping the financial crisis in the first place is certainly plausible as cause as well.)

Obama had the power. Obama had the money. Obama has the power–and the money.

The idea that Obama, or any President, is a powerless shrinking violet, helpless in the face of Congress is just an excuse. Presidents have immense amounts of power: the question is whether or not they use that power, and if they do, what they use it for.

Obama has a huge slush fund with hundreds of billions of dollars and all the executive authority he needs to turn things around.

If Obama is not using that money and authority, the bottom line is it’s because he doesn’t want to.

Putting aside the question of what Obama could have accomplished already, if he wants to help everyday Americans, turn around Democratic approval ratings in time for the midterm elections, and leave behind him a legacy of achievemant, he can still do it. If he wants to.

ndnote:

*”2. Members Ineligible to Serve Member Banks; Term of Office; Chairman and Vice Chairman
The members of the Board shall be ineligible during the time they are in office and for two years thereafter to hold any office, position, or employment in any member bank, except that this restriction shall not apply to a member who has served the full term for which he was appointed. Upon the expiration of the term of any appointive member of the Federal Reserve Board in office on the date of enactment of the Banking Act of 1935, the President shall fix the term of the successor to such member at not to exceed fourteen years, as designated by the President at the time of nomination, but in such manner as to provide for the expiration of the term of not more than one member in any two-year period, and thereafter each member shall hold office for a term of fourteen years from the expiration of the term of his predecessor, unless sooner removed for cause by the President. “

12 USC 242

Ian Welsh explains how the right thing morally is usually also the best thing practically

This is so true, and the fact that it's commonly ignored is so sad...

The right thing to do

2010 August 25

by Ian Welsh

What makes me saddest of all things in the world is this: the vast majority of the time the right thing to do morally is the right thing to do in terms of broad self-interest, and yet we don’t believe that and we do the wrong thing, thinking we must, thinking that we’re making the “hard decisions”.

This spans the spectrum of issues. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about foreign affairs, where the money used on Iraq and Afghanistan could have rebuilt America and made it more prosperous. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about health care, where everyone knew that the right thing to do was single payer or some other form of comprehensive healthcare, which would have reduced bankruptcies massively, saved 6% of GDP and massive numbers of lives. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the financial crisis, where criminally prosecuting those who engaged in fraud (the entire executive class of virtually ever major financial firm) and nationalizing the major banks, wiping out the shareholders and making the bondholders eat their losses was the right thing to do, and didn’t happen. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about drug policy, where the “war on drugs” has accomplished nothing except destabilizing multiple countries and giving the US the largest prison population proportional to population in the entire world and where legalizing marijuana, soft opiates and coca leaves would save billions of dollars, reduce violence, help stabilize Mexico and would help tax receipts. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about food, where we subsidize the most unhealthy foods possible and engage in practices which have reduced the nutritional content of food by 40% in the last half century. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about environmental pollutants, which have contributed to a massive rise in chronic diseases so great it amounts to an epidemic.

And on, and on, and on.

Now the fact is that there is no free lunch. When you spend money on war, you can’t spend it on education or health or crumbling infrasture or civilian technology. When you allow oligopolies to control the marketplace and buy up politicians, the cost of that is a decreased standard of living. When you refuse to deal effective with externalized health pollution, whether from soda pop or carcinogens, you pay for that with the death of people you care for from heart disease, cancer and other illnesses.

The response is “we have to do this to protect ourselves/to make a profit”.

No, you don’t. America would be more prosperous and just as safe if you didn’t waste trillions on wars and a bloated military whose purpose isn’t to protect you but to beat on foreigners (who is going to invade the US? No one. Next.) You would be happier if you did not allow health pollution because you and your loved ones would be healthier and it’s damn hard to be happy when you or your loved ones get cancer, or diabetes, or asthma and so on. Cheap consumer goods do not make up for it and the costs are so high that it’s questionable that the consumer goods ARE cheap—you’re just paying for them in illness and health care bills.

All of these things are moral wrongs. We know it’s wrong to invade other countries that haven’t attacked us. We know that it’s wrong to put illness inducing substances into the air or food. We know that we shouldn’t subsidize high fructose corn syrup and that if we’re going to subsidize food we should subsidize healthy food. We know that’s immoral, yet we do it anyway.

One of the great ironies of human society is that we create it ourselves, but as individuals and even groups we feel powerless to control what we created. We forged our own chains, and can’t get out of them.

But the first step to freeing ourselves from our chains is to stop telling ourselves that the moral thing to do isn’t the right thing to do in practical terms. The right thing to do… is the right thing to do. When we refuse to do the right thing, instead we impoverish ourselves and our loved ones, we make ourselves sick and we kill ourselves. When we do horrible things to other people, we make them hate us, and then they try and do horrible things to us.

Doing the wrong thing, the immoral thing, is almost never the practical thing if you care about the well-being of yourself, your children, your friends and your family. It always blows back. If you’re lucky, you may die before the cost comes to bear, but that’s only if you’re lucky, and in the American context, if you aren’t dead yet, you probably aren’t going to get lucky.

So do the right thing. Not just because it is the right thing morally, but because it’s the right thing to do for you and your loved ones in a very practical way.

Leaner, Meaner Capitalism at Work

Mike Malloy was talking about this tonight.

A company gets new management, which decides to reward the 300 workers who enabled the company to go from a loss last year to a half billion dollar profit this year by docking them $1.50/hr, decimating their pension program, and generally behaving like greedy capitalist pigs. Three months later, the strike is still on, and the company is making more money than ever, thanks to strikebreaking scabs.

This is the first I've heard about it.

Here's the original story, from May of this year:

RWDSU.info:

Strike!: Mott's Wage Cuts Despite Huge Profits Forces Work Stoppage (5/23/10)

Over 300 full time manufacturing workers at the Mott’s plant in Williamson, New York, went out on strike this morning at 6 AM after company executives demanded painful wage cuts while the company enjoyed a record year of $550 million in profits. The work stoppage was caused as a direct result of the Mott’s (a subsidiary of Dr. Pepper Snapple Group) executives' unfair labor practices as they tried to peel away good jobs and wages, including not bargaining in good faith. The company had publicly declared an impasse and plans to implement their last contract terms, which offered nothing but a reduction in hourly wages and drastic healthcare and pension concessions for the skilled, dedicated workforce at the Williamson manufacturing plant.

“The workers that were forced to strike today are the same workers who helped make Mott’s the highly profitable company they are today, and they should not be treated like a bunch of rotten apples by overpaid executives,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, UFCW. “We understand that no one wins when there is a strike, but is very troubling and disturbing that such a profitable company as Mott’s would carve away a core relationship with their workforce all for corporate greed. Whittling down wage and benefit standards, while exponentially increasing CEO compensation is rotten business, and frankly unAmerican!”

RWDSU Local 220, which represents the workers, has been tirelessly negotiating to secure a fair and decent contract for months with Mott’s management. Despite the company’s profitability, Mott’s/Dr. Pepper Snapple have demanded givebacks, including a $1.50 per hour wage cut for all employees, a pension elimination for future employees and a pension freeze for current employees, a 20 percent decrease in employer contributions to the 401K and increased employee contributions toward health care premiums and co-pays.

Mott’s workers overwhelmingly rejected this offer and voted in favor of authorizing their negotiating committee at RWDSU Local 220 to call an unfair labor practice strike. The union has continued to demand that the company bargain in good faith in order to quickly reach a fair contract.

By contrast, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group President & CEO Larry D. Young has enjoyed a 113 percent salary increase over the last 3 years (or 28 percent each year). In 2009, Young's total compensation was $6,519,378.

Michael Leberth, president of RWDSU Local 220 said “the company has not budged from our reasonable and dignified offer and there will be no late night negotiations. We are tired of being juiced by such a profitable company.”

May is the busiest season for Mott’s apple juice and applesauce manufacturing as the demand for these family favorites is highest during the summer season.

The Williamson plant is the only plant that produces Mott’s applesauce, including high margin single serve packs, with 70 percent of the workforce in skilled labor categories. A labor dispute could damage the value of Mott’s family-friendly brand by associating it with corporate greed and union busting. Additionally, the product may suffer quality issues, as the skilled workforce is not easily replaceable. The Mott’s brand is responsible for more than $550 million worth of Dr. Pepper Snapple’s retail sales each year.

“Why would DPS, with millions in profit, risk interrupting production at a high volume plant?” asked Ira Bristol, who has worked at the plant for almost five years. “Destroying goodwill and creating this antagonistic atmosphere will badly hurt the production system and bottom line, not to mention negatively affect employee morale and tarnish the Mott’s good brand around the country.”

Here's a thumbnail of Dr Pepper Snapple—

ABCnews.go.com:

Since being spun out of U.K. conglomerate Cadbury Schweppes two years ago at around $25 per share, DPS shares have risen to nearly $40, and have more than doubled off of March 2009 lows. Last year, the company, which produces 50 brands, including Mott's juice, namesake brands Dr Pepper and Snapple, as well as 7-Up, Hawaiian Punch, A&W root beer and others, recorded $555 million in profits on more than $1 billion in revenues.

Here's where we're at now...

New York Times:

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: August 17, 2010

WILLIAMSON, N.Y. — After nearly 90 days of picketing in the broiling sun outside the sprawling Mott’s apple juice plant here in upstate New York, Michelle Muoio recognizes that the lengthy strike is about far more than whether the 305 hourly workers at the plant get a fatter or slimmer paycheck.

The union movement and many outsiders view the strike as a high-stakes confrontation between a company that wants to cut its labor costs, even as it is earning record profits, and workers who are determined to resist demands for wage and benefit givebacks.

“It’s disgusting, honestly, that they want to take things away from the people who made them profitable,” said Ms. Muoio (pronounced MOY-oh), a $19-an-hour machine operator who has worked at the plant 15 years.

The company that owns Mott’s, the beverage conglomerate Dr Pepper Snapple Group, counters that the Mott’s workers are overpaid compared with other production workers in the Rochester area, where blue-collar unemployment is high after years of layoffs at employers like Xerox and Kodak.

Chris Barnes, a company spokesman, said Dr Pepper Snapple was seeking a $1.50-an-hour wage cut, a pension freeze and other concessions to bring the plant’s costs in line with “local and industry standards.”

The company, which has 50 brands including 7Up and Hawaiian Punch, reported net income of $555 million in 2009, compared with a loss of $312 million the previous year. Its 2009 sales were $5.5 billion, down 3 percent.

With each passing week, the two sides have dug in deeper, doing their utmost to outmaneuver and undercut each other. Rain or shine, dozens of workers picket outside the plant each day, standing alongside a 15-foot-tall inflatable rat and a mock coffin emblazoned with “R.I.P. Corporate Greed.”

Rebecca Givan, a professor of industrial relations at Cornell, said the strike has taken on broader symbolism. “The union wants to tap into the public backlash against perceived corporate greed,” she said. “The company wants to emphasize the depressed local labor market.”

The strike has become so important because of the prominence of the brands and because of its unusual nature: a highly profitable company is taking the rare and bold step of demanding large-scale concessions.

Unlike previous battles, where American manufacturers have often sought to cut labor costs by threatening to close plants or move operations to the South or overseas, Dr Pepper Snapple is not making such threats.

For unions across the country, the stakes are high because if the Mott’s workers lose this showdown, it could prompt other profitable companies to push for major labor concessions. Such a lengthy strike is unusual at a time when work stoppages have become much less common than they once were.

Strikes and other work stoppages nationwide have plunged in recent decades, to 126 last year from 831 in 1990, according to the Bureau of National Affairs, as unions represent fewer workplaces and workers increasingly recognize the considerable pain and risk involved in walkouts.

“Companies have asked for concessions throughout the history of the labor movement because they’ve faced hard times and needed help to survive,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represents the Mott’s workers. “Dr Pepper Snapple is different. They don’t even show the respect to lie to us. They just came in and said, ‘We have no financial need for this, but we just want it anyway because we figure we can get away with it.’ ”

Negotiations have not been held since May, and Dr Pepper Snapple says it has no intention of resuming them. The company has continued to operate the plant using replacement workers and says that production of apple juice and apple sauce is growing each day. Union officials say production is one-third of what it was before the walkout.

The Mott’s workers voted 250 to 5 to strike, walking out on May 23. They were furious about the company’s demands to cut their wages by about $3,000 a year, freeze pensions, end pensions for new hires, reduce the company’s 401(k) retirement contributions and increase employees’ costs for health care benefits. Dr Pepper Snapple said it was merely seeking to bring its benefits more in line with those of its other plants.

Even before the strike vote, workers were stewing, saying that management had begun treating them far worse after Cadbury Schweppes, the former owner, spun off its American beverages division in 2007, creating Dr Pepper Snapple.

The new management eliminated their bonuses, the summer picnic and the year-end holiday party for employees’ children, several workers complained.

Democrats Go GOP on Tax Cuts

Counterpunch.org:

August 18, 2010

Meandering Into the Midterm Elections

By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO

President Obama supports letting many of the Bush tax cuts expire. He’s defending the passage of a new round of tax cuts, promised to benefit America’s middle and working classes. These cuts, however, would continue to benefit the affluent, or those individuals earning more than $170,000 a year. CNN Money reports that the tax cuts promoted by Obama for the middle class would also reduce taxes for those making between $171,850 and $195,550. This group would now fall into a “sweet spot” that would reduce their payments from the 33 percent tax bracket down to the 28 percent tax bracket. In contrast, those individuals who make more than $200,000 would see their payments increase from the 36 percent bracket to the 39.6 percent bracket.

The increase in taxes for those making more than $200,000 is misleading, however. While these individuals would legally be required to pay more in terms of their tax bracket, they would nonetheless qualify for other tax reductions under Obama’s plan.

The details are provided by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). The organization reports that under Obama’s plan, “people making more than $1 million will receive more than five times the tax cut benefit, in dollar terms, as a middle class family making $50,000 to $75,000. The wealthy would qualify for cuts under the proposed extension of the income tax rate reductions and married filers’ reductions. In relation to the income tax, the CBPP estimates that those in the $200,000 to $500,000 income category would receive, on average, an 83 percent greater tax cut than those immediately below them earning more than $100,000 but less than $200,000. Those earning between $500,000 and $1 million would receive, on average, a 13 percent greater tax cut than those immediately below them making between $200,000 and $500,000. Finally, individuals earning more than $1 million would benefit from a 15 percent greater cut than those immediately below them making between $500,000 and $1 million. These numbers may sound confusing, but the major theme is really quite simple: as an individual’s (or a household’s) earnings increase into the six figures and beyond, they will be entitled to increasingly larger tax cuts under the Obama plan when compared to middle, working class, and poor Americans.

The Obama tax cuts, while clearly benefitting the middle class in many ways, will also represent a major pay day for America’s upper class. This apparently isn’t enough for Republicans in Congress, however. They complain that the rich should benefit from all the tax cuts granted under Bush, not merely some of them. They feel that any tax increases (relatively to the cuts the rich received in the last few years) are illegitimate. Nowhere is this position more clearly declared than by House of Representatives Republican Minority Leader John Boehner, who defends the Bush era tax cuts, which went overwhelmingly to the wealthiest one to five percent of Americans.

Boehner complains that “you can’t raise taxes in the middle of a weak economy without risking the double-dip in this recession…You cannot get the economy going again by raising taxes on those people who we expect to create jobs in America and to get the economy going again. If we want to solve the budget problem, we’ve got to have a healthy economy and we have to get our arms around the runaway spending that’s going on in Washington, D.C.”

The supply side notion (first advocated by the Reagan administration) claims that economic growth only comes from massive tax cuts directed toward the rich. This theory, although promising prosperity for America’s middle class and poor, has done little to deliver benefits to the masses. A careful study from the Economic Policy Institute finds that “the economy has little to show for the $860 billion in tax cuts” passed under Bush from 2001 to 2005. In this EPI report, Lee Price concludes that “by virtually every measure the economy has performed worse in this business cycle than was typical in past ones, including that of the early 1990s, which saw major tax increases.” The EPI compares the 2001 to 2005 business cycle to other cycles in history (a cycle being defined in economics as a period beginning with a contraction in national GDP, a trough period when contraction ends and expansion begins, a sustained expansion period, and a peak of growth). EPI finds that, in spite of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, “almost every broad measure of economic activity – GDP, jobs, personal income, and business investment, among others – has fared worse over the last four and a half years (again, 2001 to 2005) than in past cycles.”

The EPI’s findings raise serious questions about the effectiveness of tax cuts aimed at the rich in bringing about economic recovery. The worthlessness of tax cuts for the rich in assuring middle class prosperity has been reinforced over the last few years as well. The Bush tax cuts are set to expire this year. Since the 2008 economic collapse and ensuing recession, the Bush tax cuts (in addition to the massive infusion of TARP funds for American “too big to fail” banks) have not been sufficient to push the U.S. into a serious economic recovery at a time when those who still have jobs are working harder and harder for declining wages. It was not until this year that the recession formally ended (a recession being defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth), and economic growth has been rather anemic, at just over one percent for the second quarter of 2010.

One would think that all these negative signs would be enough to convince Republicans (and conservative Democrats) not to renew tax cuts for the wealthy. This, however, has not been the case. The Republican Party – aided by reactionary pundits in the media – continues to push tax cuts for the rich. They do this, not because these cuts promote strong recovery and prosperity for middle America, but because they subsidize Republicans’ primary constituency – the rich. Democrats have long been reliant on, and supportive of corporate power as well, so their relatively weaker support for tax cuts for the rich is not surprising either.

Rather than asking what the Democrats and Republicans should be doing to reduce the size of government (as both parties’ leaders are doing), we should be asking how the government should be expanding its efforts to help the needy during times of economic desperation. The Democratic expansion of Medicaid under the 2010 health care reform bill will certainly help America’s poor in terms of increasing the size of the social welfare state, but a far larger (and much needed) expansion in the form of establishing a universal health care, Medicare-for-all system, would do a lot more in reducing the suffering of vulnerable Americans. What also would help the country (in addition to the recent extensions of unemployment and state school funds passed by Democrats in Congress) is another stimulus, which should be passed prior to the 2010 midterm elections.

The Democratic Party has gone Republican in at two ways when it comes to the tax cuts: 1. by pushing for a market solution over expanding government social welfare services; and 2. by continuing the tax cuts to the rich, even if in a reduced form from the far larger, more extreme amount preferred by conservatives. The choice to promote tax cuts over increased social spending (on food subsidies for the poor and on a new stimulus) signals a privileging of the well off over the truly needy. Instead of helping preserve the jobs of state educators and other public employees through massive stimulus spending, the Democrats have instead chosen to grant tax cuts to those who already have jobs. Why this group should be prioritized over the unemployed is anyone’s guess. The Democratic approach signifies the party’s increasing embrace of the Republican themes that “the government is the problem,” and that the best way to promote economic recovery is to reduce government revenues, and “give the people more of their own money,” rather than use that money to help those who are the most desperate.

There are penalties to be paid for going Republican at a time when Republicans are just as unpopular as the Democrats in the public mind. The Democratic Party’s emphasis on unnecessary tax cuts, and its timidity in pushing for an expansion of government stimulus has left us in the desperate economic position we are in today. The party is willing to promote at least limited welfare spending, passing $34 billion in unemployment extension benefits, and an additional $26 billion to help states fill their deficits and stave off cuts in education and Medicare. These most recent education and Medicaid packages, however, came along with $10 billion worth of cuts in food aid to the poor. The recent Medicaid, school, and unemployment bills also total just $50 billion for the year (after adjusting for the food aid cuts), and this represents a small fraction of the hole in state deficits that needs to be filled.

The state deficits for 2010 were estimated to total $192 billion, according to the CBPP. State deficits for 2011 are estimated at approximately $120 billion. Allowing all the Bush era tax cuts to expire would produce an additional $217 billion in revenues for the federal government throughout 2010 and 2011, according to a recent study by the Brookings Institute and the Urban Institute. This amount is more than enough to plug in the $120 billion hole in the 2011 state budget deficits. It’s unlikely that the Democratic Party will take this route, however, in light of its increasing support for Republican mantras about the holiness of tax cuts as a means of economic stimulation.

Democrats could single handedly end the state budget crises that will (sadly) continue to grip the country over the next year. Instead, they will continue to meander throughout the rest of 2010, refusing to push any sort of stimulus on par with the $787 billion stimulus package passed in 2009. Democratic refusals to pass a second stimulus will all but guarantee continued economic stagnation – and possibly decline. The party’s incompetence and preference for the rich will likely come back to haunt it in the 2010 election, in which the American public will angrily (and rightly) throw out many Democrats due to their mishandling of the economic crisis.

Anthony DiMaggio is the editor of media-ocracy (www.media-ocracy.com), a daily online magazine devoted to the study of media, public opinion, and current events. He has taught U.S. and Global Politics at Illinois State University and North Central College, and is the author of When Media Goes to War (2010) and Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (2008). He can be reached at: mediaocracy@gmail.com

Watching the Disintegration of the US Infrastructure

This is so sad, and as is so often the case with sad things, so unnecessary.

Salon.com:

Friday, Aug 6, 2010 12:07 ET

What collapsing empire looks like

By Glenn Greenwald:

As we enter our ninth year of the War in Afghanistan with an escalated force, and continue to occupy Iraq indefinitely, and feed an endlessly growing Surveillance State, reports are emerging of the Deficit Commission hard at work planning how to cut Social Security, Medicare, and now even to freeze military pay. But a new New York Times article today illustrates as vividly as anything else what a collapsing empire looks like, as it profiles just a few of the budget cuts which cities around the country are being forced to make. This is a sampling of what one finds:

Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but Hawaii went further -- it furloughed its schoolchildren. Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation.

Many transit systems have cut service to make ends meet, but Clayton County, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, decided to cut all the way, and shut down its entire public bus system. Its last buses ran on March 31, stranding 8,400 daily riders.

Even public safety has not been immune to the budget ax. In Colorado Springs, the downturn will be remembered, quite literally, as a dark age: the city switched off a third of its 24,512 streetlights to save money on electricity, while trimming its police force and auctioning off its police helicopters.

There are some lovely photos accompanying the article, including one showing what a darkened street in Colorado looks like as a result of not being able to afford street lights. Read the article to revel in the details of this widespread misery. Meanwhile, the tiniest sliver of the wealthiest -- the ones who caused these problems in the first place -- continues to thrive. Let's recall what former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson said last year in The Atlantic about what happens in under-developed and developing countries when an elite-caused financial crises ensues:

Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or -- here's a classic Kremlin bailout technique -- the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk -- at least until the riots grow too large.

The real question is whether the American public is too apathetic and trained into submission for that to ever happen.

UPDATE: It's probably also worth noting this Wall St. Journal article from last month -- with a subheadline warning: "Back to Stone Age" -- which describes how "paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue." Utah is seriously considering eliminating the 12th grade, or making it optional. And it was announced this week that "Camden [New Jersey] is preparing to permanently shut its library system by the end of the year, potentially leaving residents of the impoverished city among the few in the United States unable to borrow a library book free."

Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights -- or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State -- that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability? Anyway, I just wanted to leave everyone with some light and cheerful thoughts as we head into the weekend.

Official Social Security Report In!

...and, of course, everything's just fine...

OurFuture.org:

What Social Security Report SAYS vs What They Tell You It Says

By Dave Johnson

August 5, 2010 - 1:59pm ET

The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees today released their report on the Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs. Here is what it says:

Social Security Just Fine Until At Least 2037

The summary of the report says, "The financial outlook for Social Security is little changed from last year. The short term outlook is worsened by a deeper recession than was projected last year, but the overall 75-year outlook is nevertheless somewhat improved..." and is otherwise fine until at least 2037 with no changes.

It is just fine forever, in fact, if we do something simple like raise the "cap" on earnings that are taxed to pay for the program. (That's right, when you make more than a certain income level you stop paying the tax!) Compare that to the military budget. We spend more than $1 trillion on military and related programs each year - more than every other country combined - and unlike Social Security that is completely "unfunded," and adds to the deficit.

Medicare Outlook Improved Substantially

The report also says, "The outlook for Medicare has improved substantially because of program changes made in the [Health Care Reform Bill]"

Those Are The Facts

Those are the simple facts: everything is fine. Everything will be fine. There are some things that should be changed to make them even more OK than they are. They are good programs that demonstrate that government works.

So What's The Problem?

The Social Security program collects money via the "payroll tax." Much, much more money -- trillions -- has been collected than needed to be paid out to cover the coming retirement of the "baby boomers," and the extra -- the "trust fund" -- was invested in US Treasury Bonds.

Under Reagan and then both Bushes that money was borrowed from the trust fund and used to give huge tax cuts to the wealthy. (Clinton was paying it back but Bush II cut taxes again for the wealthy.) Now those boomers are beginning to retire, and the trust fund money that was borrowed and given out to the rich is needed back to cover their retirement. The obvious solution is to get the money from where the money went. But those who it went to are trying to stop the obvious from happening. They say we should cut benefits, make us retire at 70, anything to keep them from paying back what is owed to the retirees.

Oh, and there is another conservative complaint about Social Security. Social Security is very successful and popular, and is a constant, living proof that government of the people, by the people and for the people works and works really well. Among a certain crowd, that just can't be allowed to stand.

So now, let the anti-tax, anti-government conservative bamboozlement begin.

Let The Bamboozlement Begin

The anti-government conservatives are using several approaches to undermine public confidence in the program (and therefore government). MoveOn.org has a "Top 5 Social Security Myths" page up that is worth looking at.

Myth: Social Security is going broke.
Myth: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.
Myth: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.
Myth: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs.
Myth: Social Security adds to the deficit.

Please go to the website to learn the truth about these myths. And please answer with those facts when you hear people spreading these myths.

Let's see how the conservatives are doing at spreading myths today, and how the mainstream media covers it:

Heritage Foundation: Once Again, the Social Security Trust Fund Has No Money in It

Washington Times: Social Security in the red for first time ever (Note - that's only if you don't count the interest that the trust fund earns. Just more bamboozlement.)

FOX News: Social Security 2010 Outlays to Exceed Receipts

CNN: Social Security: More going out than coming in

NPR: 2010 Social Security Outlook: Not Great

CNBC: Social Security 2010 outlays to exceed receipts

That's just a quick sampling. Compare what these headlines lead you to believe to the facts above. When was the last time you saw a headline that reads, "Massive military budget causes huge federal deficit"? Right. Bamboozlement, plain and simple. Expect to see a lot more like these. Don't fall for it.

Social Security Is Not Broken

Social Security is not broken. If we fight the myths and the anti-government lies it will be there for all of us.

Here is a statement by Nancy Altman, co-chairman of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition of 60+ organizations, representing over 30 million Americans:

“Every year, the trustees’ reports become an excuse for fear mongering by those who should know better. This year, the news is especially good for Medicare, thanks to the enactment of health care reform. The news for Social Security is even better, revealing once again that Social Security’s promised benefits are fully affordable without benefit cuts and without increasing the retirement age. Poll after poll reports that’s what the American people want. Unfortunately, we know there are some in Washington, including a few members of the Administration’s fiscal commission, who will use this report to try to advance their agenda of cuts to Social Security benefits, including rising the retirement age. Politicians should stop scaring the American people. Social Security is strong and should be strengthened, not cut. The reality is the biggest threat to Social Security is the politicians in Washington who continue to play politics with this issue.”

Send a message to the politicians: No increase in the retirement age. No privatization. No Social Security cuts. Go to ourfuture.org/nosocialsecuritycuts.

Stan McChrystal and Lynndie England: Compare and Contrast

Antiwar.com:

Code of Military Justice

by Jeff Huber, August 03, 2010

Gen. Stan McChrystal, United States Army, will leave active service with four stars instead of three because of a special waiver bestowed on him by President Barack Obama. One is supposed to hold four-star rank for three years before one can retire at that pay grade, something McChrystal obviously didn’t do, but Obama made nice and let him walk away with a full set of collar candy anyway. The extra star makes a staunch bit of difference in McChrystal’s retirement pay. He’ll start at $181,416 per year versus the measly $160,068 he would have received otherwise. But both of those amounts are chump change compared to what Mr. McChrystal is likely to knock down in his Beltway banditry career.

Noted counterinsurgency illusionist John A. Nagl, a retired Army light colonel and a Beltway bandit himself, says that “forcing” McChrystal to retire with three stars “would have sent a signal that he was out of favor.” Colleagues, according to the New York Times, say that because McChrystal kept his fourth star he’s not “radioactive,” so he can expect a bright future “as a well-paid outside consultant to the Pentagon or a government intelligence agency.” Don’t be shocked to see McChrystal named CEO of whatever Blackwater winds up calling itself next.

Retired three-star Beltway bandit Jack Keane, a key node in the war mafia’s AIPAC-neocon-Pentagon-Congress-White House connections, says of his protégé McChrystal, “Stan will land on both feet, make no mistake about that.”

Lynndie England, the marginally self-aware former private in the United States Army Reserve, was one of the few bad apples who took the fall for the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. She received no pension at all after she left the Army with a dishonorable discharge, and she couldn’t get back her civilian job as a chicken-plucker after she was released from military prison.

It took two trials by courts-martial to convict England. The judge in the first court-martial, Army Col. James Pohl, declared a mistrial because he doubted whether England was mentally competent enough to understand what a raw plea deal her incompetent military defense lawyers had wheedled her into. Pohl also questioned whether she possessed sufficient cognizance to discern right from wrong. The five officers on the second jury clearly had a more flexible conscience about making junior enlisted personnel the patsies for policies established at the four-star level and above; they sentenced her to a three-year term.

Torture was a key aspect of what “King David” Petraeus recently referred to as McChrystal’s “exceptional leadership” as commander of the infamous Joint Special Operations Command. As head of JSOC, McChrystal was directly responsible for the interrogation camp in Iraq known as NAMA, an acronym that stood for “Nasty A** Military Area.” The Camp NAMA motto was “No Blood, No Foul,” a slogan that reflected the interrogators’ philosophy that “If you don’t make them bleed, they can’t prosecute for it.” As one Pentagon official explained, “there were no rules there.” The Red Cross was never allowed into NAMA on order of Gen. McChrystal, who visited the place a number of times and who had a really darn good idea what was going on there.

Journalist Seymour Hersh called the JSOC part of an “executive assassination ring” that McChrystal ran under the direct control of Dick Cheney, who as vice president had no constitutional or legal authority in the military chain of command. Gen. Stan and his Howling Commandos, along with CIA hooligans, Blackwater yahoos-of-fortune, and other patriotic psychopaths, rubbed out God only knows how many “suspected” terrorists who were identified by intelligence beaten or bribed out of nefarious sources. There’s no telling how many innocent civilians were slaughtered in the process of these vigilante-style shoot-em-ups.

McChrystal has more blood on his hands than Macbeth and his wife put together, and he is as mendacious as he is murderous. His involvement in the cover-up of the Gardez Massacre, in which U.S. Special Forces destroyed evidence of collateral damage by digging their bullets out of the corpses of civilians, made his whitewash of the Pat Tillman fratricide affair seem venial by comparison, a petty sin that might be absolved with a fistful of Hail Marys.

By rights, McChrystal should be the gaunt, smirking face of American war atrocities, but he is far, far too special to be cast as a villain. Born of military nobility – his father was a two-star general – McChrystal learned early in life how to work his decoder ring and give the secret handshake. West Point Cadet McChrystal made his reputation as a bad boy, but he always knew just how far he could push things and still land on the safety network his father’s connections provided him.

It’s little wonder that he got away with MacArthur-magnitude insubordination when he used his 60 Minutes infomercial and other media tricks to corner Obama into going along with escalating the Bananastans* fiasco. And the Rolling Stone escapade was a stroke of passive-aggressive virtuosity. A diamond-studded parachute, it bailed McChrystal out of responsibility for the disaster he had created.

McChrystal is as made a guy as a guy can get made in the American war mafia. His bollixing of the Bananastans conflict has become the crown jewel of the Pentarchy’s** Long War strategy by making Obama’s July 2011 withdrawal date vanish like a wallet on a Chicago sidewalk. Will he ever go to trial for war crimes? Forget about it. A whole bunch of people in a lot of high places knew what McChrystal was up to and tacitly if not actively approved of it, and if he ever faces criminal charges, he’ll sing like Frank Sinatra.

Lynndie England grew up in a trailer park. In grade school she was diagnosed with severe learning disabilities. How she got into the Army Reserve is anyone’s guess. She doesn’t have friends in high places, or anywhere else for that matter. Upon her release from prison, she returned home with her son (by fellow Abu Ghraib felon Charles Graner) to West Virginia, where, according to a March 2009 Associated Press story, she “spends most of her days confined to her home.” She says she suffers from depression and anxiety, a claim one finds easy enough to believe.

She gets by on welfare and help from her parents. In 2007 she landed a spot on her local recreation board, but it was a non-paying position. Though she’s sent out hundreds of resumés, she can’t find a paying job. When one restaurant manager considered hiring her, the other employees threatened to quit.

People point and whisper, “That’s her.” England relates that one stranger sent her a note that suggested her mother should “shoot herself for raising somebody like me, and that I should kill my baby and kill myself, or give up my child for adoption, because the way I was raised they didn’t want him to turn into some evil monster, too.”

She has tried changing her appearance by dying her hair and wearing sunglasses and ball caps. “But it’s my face that’s always recognized,” says England, who never once directly or indirectly or on purpose or by accident caused the death of a single human being.

* The Bananastans are Afghanistan and Pakistan, our banana republics in Central Asia.

** The Pentarchy is the cabal of oligarchs who support and promote the Pentagon’s Long War agenda.

This Just In—The Recession is Over, and all that Gulf Oil is Gone

The oil is still there, of course, just under the surface where it's not visible from the lofty view of the official media — just like the depression.

Washington's Blog:

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Mainstream Economists: "Mission Accomplished"

Numerous current stories show how disconnected mainstream policy-makers are from reality.

For example, Ryan Grim points out that there is an "unbelievable disconnect" between the American people (who are people are against the Afghanistan war) and Congress and the political elite (gung-ho to escalate this never-ending war):

Even after the Wikileaks revelations, even though there is no logical reason to be in Afghanistan, even though the war won't help the economy, and even though most Americans want us to get out, Congress keeps increasing funding for the endless war.

And Alan Blinder (economist, banking consultant and former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System) and chief Moody's economist Mark Zandi wrote a paper yesterday called How We Ended the Great Recession:

How We Ended the Great Recession
A source on Capitol Hill sent this to me, telling me that the paper is making the rounds on the Hill.

In the paper, Blinder and Zandi congratulate the Bush and Obama administrations for saving us from the Great Depression 2.0:

Eighteen months ago, the global financial system was on the brink of collapse and the U.S. was suffering its worst economic downturn since the 1930s. The Great Recession gave way to recovery as quickly as it did largely because of the unprecedented responses by monetary and fiscal policymakers.

In other words: "Mission Accomplished".

In the real world, however, the economy is on the second leg down of the crash, and the government's policies have not addressed the real problems. See this and this (no wonder consumer confidence is plunging but Wall Street is partying like it's 1999).

Indeed, while Blinder and Zandi and Congress are patting themselves on the back for a job well done, the facts simply do not bear out their claims. As just one example, they claim that the TARP bank bailouts helped the economy. But as I pointed out in March 2009, the bailout money didn't actually go to any productive economic uses:

The bailout money is just going to line the pockets of the wealthy, instead of helping to stabilize the economy or even the companies receiving the bailouts:

• Bailout money is being used to subsidize companies run by horrible business men, allowing the bankers to receive fat bonuses, to redecorate their offices, and to buy gold toilets and prostitutes

• A lot of the bailout money is going to the failing companies' shareholders

• Indeed, a leading progressive economist says that the true purpose of the bank rescue plans is "a massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives"

• The Treasury Department encouraged banks to use the bailout money to buy their competitors, and pushed through an amendment to the tax laws which rewards mergers in the banking industry (this has caused a lot of companies to bite off more than they can chew, destabilizing the acquiring companies)

And as the New York Times notes, "Tens of billions of [bailout] dollars have merely passed through A.I.G. to its derivatives trading partners".

***

In other words, through a little game-playing by the Fed, taxpayer money is going straight into the pockets of investors in AIG's credit default swaps and is not even really stabilizing AIG.

The super-wealthy have been bailed out, and life is great for them. For everyone else, things are not so good.

The system is rigged to benefit the elites and their sycophants at the expense of the country. See this, this, this, and this.

And - because Congress members tend to be wealthy, and because they can engage in insider trading without having to worry about pesky things like the law - they continue (with only a handful of exceptions who challenge status quo thinking regarding finance and war) to make decisions which benefit their own bank accounts, instead of working for the American people.

I remember when the Republican fundraisers were the crooks...!

the money quote, so to speak:

"Nemazee had been the national finance chairman of Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign."

AP:

Ex-Clinton fundraiser gets 12 years in prison

July 16, 2010

NEW YORK — A wealthy Manhattan investment banker who was once a top fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton and other big-name Democrats has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for bank fraud.

Hassan Nemazee (hah-SAHN' nah-MAH'-zee) was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Manhattan.

He had reached a plea deal in March. He has admitted to three counts of bank fraud and one count of wire fraud.

Prosecutors say he forged signatures and concocted bogus account statements to conceal a scam in which he was using proceeds from new loans to pay off older ones.

Nemazee had been the national finance chairman of Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. He also raised money for President Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats.

Of Course Politicians Don’t Listen to Ordinary Citizens. Why Would They?

...a question I've found myself asking myself recently, and myself has not found a good answer...

by Ian Welsh:

2010 July 18

So, apparently 68% of Americans think that the political class doesn’t listen to them. After TARP, where calls were running between 100:1 to 1200:1 against, passed, the failure of Congress to get out of Iraq after 2006, the failure of the 70%+ supported public option, and on and on, the only mysterious thing is why it’s only 68%.

But why should the political class listen? They get the majority of their reelection funds from corporations and the rich. Their spouses and children are given good jobs by such donors, and if ordinary people do actually ever vote them out for not looking after their interests, well, as long as they went down doing what they were supposed to, they’ll still be very well taken care of.

Get elected, do what your corporate masters tell you to, and you’ll never ever have to worry about money ever again.

Only a sucker or an idealist would do anything else.

This is the fundamental problem with the US. There is no accountability for the political class. They and those who take care of them have made sure of it. Go to war with a nation which has never attacked the US based on a big lie propaganda campaign, or spy on millions of Americans, or torture, or deregulate the economy so that Wall Street can cash in and crash the economy, and hey, so what, there’s no cost for you.

And as long as there is no cost for them, they’ll keep doing it. Just like Wall Street, having been bailed out after crashing the world economy, will do it again. They got rich doing it, why wouldn’t they do it again.

They’d have to be suckers or idealists not to.

The real composition of the deficit

Michael Collins at the Agonist:

Why do elected leaders hate the citizens? Nihilists at the helm!

The graph to the right is from the Center for Budget Policy and Priorities. It shows the relative contribution of various factors to the deficit. It's not a full exposition, but take it for what it's worth. If we stopped the wars, restored the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest citizens, and ended TARP, we would make a huge contribution to reducing the current deficit.

So why hasn't that happened? Congress and the White House would rather kill people overseas, reward Wall Street failures, and coddle the wealthiest citizens than reducethe deficit.

The solutions aren't that hard. Will they take action? Of course not.

Why do those in charge hate the citizens of this country? It's a fair assumption to say that they do hate us when they avoid obvious and direct solutions to a major problem. Instead, they've put together a stacked entitlement commission to tombstone Social Security. By their actions, their program is clear. "The middle class is being systematically wiped out" by the current leaders.

They ALL know this. Most of them do absolutely nothing.

All but a very few should be fired in 2010, without regard to party. If the next crew does the same, fire them too.

Addition: Have all federal candidates sign a contract - strictly enforced A Contract with the Citizens. Stiff penalties,like walking the plank if they deviate.

...and here is an insightful commenter's answer to the question, "Why do our elected leaders hate the citizens?":

Our Elected Leaders Love The Citizens!

"Why do elected leaders hate the citizens?"

I used to agonise night and day over the relentless hollowing out of American ideals, jurisprudence and governance. It really pained and depressed me to witness it by the decade, to live through it year upon year, helpless to turn us from war and ruin to peace and prosperity. To see where America is headed in its blind and fearful groping for wealth and power and safety and to also know there is no steering or stopping this thing, that it runs on gravity -- cost me so much time wasted on organizing and protesting, working Party politics, reading and studying, writing and marching, crying and thinking and talking . . . if I'd put all that effort into permaculture gardening it would have done far more actual good here on Earth, under the sun and sky.

But I marched and protested and petitioned and voted and agonised over America's penchant for endless war until I couldn't do it any more, because I became numb. Literally wordless. Nothing more to write or say to anyone. Not when all the words in the world can't steer this thing. It is not in our hands, the steering wheel.

In the face of all passion, logic, ideals, humanity -- the American war machine rolls on, right over real lives, right over human beings, in this country and Over There in Eastasia. And Oceania. The whole world is divided into theaters of American warfare. It is the perennial business of America to make war, to make "the world safe for United Fruit Company." (Smedley Butler)

I once heard tell of a Beatnik out in California, in the early Fifties, who plunked down court fees and changed his name to Neil Ism. I laughed at the time, but one morning a couple years ago realized that I knew this man very well, without ever meeting him. And that he was years ahead of me. One fine morning he chose gardening, period.

For it has gradually dawned on me that America IS just a machine, and this has taken the sting out of losing my love, my country. She's not a shining goal or ideal to me anymore; she's not a vision of loveliness. She's a thing with wheels and treads, something you get out of the way of. Or don't.

There is actually no human being or group of human beings in definitive charge, no group of people with a philosophy of Gotterdammerung in mind. As far as human beings go, there is just the pursuit of happiness, to use Jefferson's fine euphemism for human beings seeking wealth, safety, freedom from wants, and power. Nope, the human beings running organizations, institutions, governments and corporations are not starkly different from John and Jane Q. Publick. One pant leg at a time, and all that.

Sure, there are lots more functioning sociopaths and psychopaths in the upper ranks of all large organizations, but their goals and actions are tempered by all the more balanced people within the organization. In a fully pathological organization you would routinely use flamethrowers and artillery on a daily basis against your competitors, even if they only represented a 1% chance of ever challenging you. It would be the logical thing to do, in the simple pursuit of self interest.

Very few modern organizations actually exercise this approach.

No, it isn't the people, putting their pants on in the morning in order to pursue happiness all day, that steer America.

It is the organizations themselves, viewed as persons, that are utterly ruthless, soul-less psychopaths. And they have come to steer America. The human beings, in their pants, are just along for the ride.

Corporations that are organized for profit -- in particular -- are quite insane in this regard. It is not a matter of them following the law -- the law says they are created to seek profit for their own 'self' and shareholders only, and can consider nothing else. Nor is it a matter of writing laws to restrain or regulate them -- they write the laws of the land now, and always have -- because wealth is influence is power.

The wealthiest 5000 families in America also belong in this category, for their lives entire are at the service of their great wealth. And, their wealth is entirely invested within huge, psychopathic corporations. There is no difference in the machinery.

Our original Constitution was heavily influenced to favor wealthy white men -- landowners, slaveholders and bankers -- over the working man, or any woman, slave, or native. These wealthy white men were the feudal lords of the day, their godly superiority over others and their right to write the laws based entirely on the fact and influence of their many possessions. The Constitution and all established law reflected their views before other views. It is so in almost every nation today. Wealth is influence is power, and the grip of wealth upon government only gets tighter over time, like a python's does.

Corporations, especially when legally considered to possess every right and trait of living human beings, are our current feudal lords, our Really Large Citizens. America's laws and government(s) not only favors them, it IS them, for they finance the electees, and the elections, and they write the laws for the electees to vote upon -- very often without reading or understanding them. In State legislatures and in Congress, voting is by Party, and Party answers to electoral power, which answers to funding, which comes from corporations, who have agendas to be put into legal standing.

Agendas that aim to increase their grip on government, and their freedom to operate unregulated, unchallengeable, untouchable, too big to fail. There comes a point when government becomes a nuisance.

Power increases itself, just as wealth increases itself. Right now, the corporations of America hold more power than they ever have before, more than they ever dreamed would be theirs, more than they know quite what to do with. They are drunk with it, and yet want more. There comes a point when government becomes a real nuisance.

It is these 'corporate persons' our government looks out and sees, standing tall between our shining seas. The government sees and serves these Really Large Citizens. As for you and me, ehhh, not so much.

We actual human persons out here, in our pants, are seen as cattle, mere fodder units (as the Bush Family calls us), put here by God or Happenstance to serve as laborers and consumers and debtors for the corporations -- and damn sure for nothing more. If we were algae or germs we would receive the same consideration as homo sapiens sapiens do in America today. We have a role to play in the affairs of the nation -- laborers, consumers and debtors -- and have been granted the latitude to either fit in or be smooshed, no more. And it just gets tighter this way.

Even the so-called voting of we humans is so pre-arranged between corporate-friendly candidates as to be mere kabuki -- we can vote Red Party or Blue Party and no more real choice is offered. Votes aren't even counted any more, just pretend-counted in the digital depths of black boxes no one can ever look into since they belong to a registered corporation which has the inalienable right to privacy. If there were more votes cast than there are people registered to vote there is no recount, and no recourse -- even in the courts.

"Why do elected leaders hate the citizens?"

Your very question is wrong, sir. An unfortunate misperception on your part.

Our elected leaders do not hate the citizens. No no. Dear God, how they love them! They cater to their every whim, they roll in the hay with them at all hours, they take them in and take them on by the half dozen like legendary Shakespearean whores -- as long as those citizens are corporate persons in good wealth well then it's "Roll Me Over And Do It Again!" Leave some money on the dresser.

Corporations are the America's citizens. Human beings are cattle. Your mistake is mistaking human beings for citizens.

OMG that is sooooo 18th Century!

Antifa July 16, 2010 - 5:04pm