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Who Runs America?

May 15, 2009

The Impotent President

By Paul Craig  Roberts | Counterpunch, May 14, 2009

What do you suppose it is like to be elected president of the United States only to find that your power is restricted to the service of powerful interest groups?

A president who does a good job for the ruling interest groups is paid off with remunerative corporate directorships, outrageous speaking fees, and a lucrative book contract. If he is young when he assumes office, like Bill Clinton and Obama, it means a long life of luxurious leisure.

Fighting the special interests doesn’t pay and doesn’t succeed. On April 30 the primacy of special over public interests was demonstrated yet again. The Democrats’ bill to prevent 1.7 million mortgage foreclosures and, thus, preserve $300 billion in home equity by permitting homeowners to renegotiate their mortgages, was defeated in the Senate, despite the 60-vote majority of the Democrats. The banksters were able to defeat the bill 51 to 45.

These are the same financial gangsters whose unbridled greed and utter irresponsibility have wiped out half of Americans’ retirement savings, sent the economy into a deep hole, and threatened the US dollar’s reserve currency role. It is difficult to imagine an interest group with a more damaged reputation. Yet, a majority of “the people’s representatives” voted as the discredited banksters instructed.

Hundreds of billions of public dollars have gone to bail out the banksters, but when some Democrats tried to get the Senate to do a mite for homeowners, the US Senate stuck with the banks. The Senate’s motto is: “Hundreds of billions for the banksters, not a dime for homeowners.”

If Obama was naive about well-intentioned change before the vote, he no longer has this political handicap.

Democratic Majority Whip Dick Durbin acknowledged the voters’ defeat by the discredited banksters. The banks, Durbin said, “frankly own the place.”

It is not difficult to understand why. Among those who defeated the homeowners bill are senators Jon Tester (Mont), Max Baucus (Mont), Blanche Lincoln (Ark), Ben Nelson (Neb), Many Landrieu (La), Tim Johnson (SD), and Arlan Specter (Pa). According to reports, the banksters have poured a half million dollars into Tester’s campaign funds. Baucus has received $3.5 million; Lincoln $1.3 million; Nelson $1.4 million; Landrieu $2 million; Johnson $2.5 million; Specter $4.5 million.

The same Congress that can’t find a dime for homeowners or health care appropriates hundreds of billions of dollars for the military/security complex. The week after the Senate foreclosed on American homeowners, the Obama “change” administration asked Congress for an additional $61 billion dollars for the neoconservatives’ war in Iraq and $65 billion more for the neoconservatives’ war in Afghanistan. Congress greeted this request with a rousing “Yes we can!”

The additional $126 billion comes on top of the $533.7 billion “defense” budget for this year. The $660 billion–probably a low-ball number–is ten times the military spending of China, the second most powerful country in the world.

How is it possible that “the world’s only superpower” is threatened by the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan? How can the US be a superpower if it is threatened by countries that have no military capability other than a guerilla capability to resist invaders?

These “wars” are a hoax designed to enrich the US armaments industry and to infuse the “security forces” with police powers over American citizenry.

Not a dime to prevent millions of Americans from losing their homes, but hundreds of billions of dollars to murder Muslim women and children and to create millions of refugees, many of whom will either sign up with insurgents or end up as the next wave of immigrants into America.

This is the way the American government works. And it thinks it is a “city on the hill, a light unto the world.”

Americans elected Obama because he said he would end the gratuitous criminal wars of the Bush brownshirts, wars that have destroyed America’s reputation and financial solvency and serve no public interest. But once in office Obama found that he was ruled by the military/security complex. War is not being ended, merely transferred from the unpopular war in Iraq to the more popular war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Obama, in violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, continues to attack “targets” in Pakistan. In place of a war in Iraq, the military/security complex now has two wars going in much more difficult circumstances.

Viewing the promotion gravy train that results from decades of warfare, the US officer corps has responded to the “challenge to American security” from the Taliban. “We have to kill them over there before they come over here.” No member of the US government or its numerous well-paid agents has ever explained how the Taliban, which is focused on Afghanistan, could ever get to America. Yet this hyped fear is sufficient for the public to support the continuing enrichment of the military/security complex, while American homes are foreclosed by the banksters who have destroyed the retirement prospects of the US population..

According to Pentagon budget documents, by next year the cost of the war against Afghanistan will exceed the cost of the war against Iraq. According to a Nobel prize-winning economist and a budget expert at Harvard University, the war against Iraq has cost the American taxpayers $3 trillion, that is, $3,000 billion in out-of-pocket and already incurred future costs, such as caring for veterans.

If the Pentagon is correct, then by next year the US government will have squandered $6 trillion dollars on two wars, the only purpose of which is to enrich the munitions manufacturers and the “security” bureaucracy.

The human and social costs are dramatic as well and not only for the Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani populations ravaged by American bombs. Dahr Jamail reports that US Army psychiatrists have concluded that by their third deployment, 30 percent of American troops are mental wrecks. Among the costs that reverberate across generations of Americans are elevated rates of suicide, unemployment, divorce, child and spousal abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, homelessness and incarceration.

In the Afghan “desert of death” the Obama administration is constructing a giant military base. Why? What does the internal politics of Afghanistan have to do with the US?

What is this enormous waste of resources that America does not have accomplishing besides enriching the American munitions industry?

China and to some extent India are the rising powers in the world. Russia, the largest country on earth, is armed with a nuclear arsenal as terrifying as the American one. The US dollar’s role as reserve currency, the most important source of American power, is undermined by the budget deficits that result from the munition corporations’ wars and the bankster bailouts.

Why is the US making itself impotent fighting wars that have nothing whatsoever to do with is security, wars that are, in fact, threatening its security?

The answer is that the military/security lobby, the financial gangsters, and AIPAC rule. The American people be damned.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

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Posted in Commentary, imperialism, US policy, USA, war crimes | Leave a Comment »

Congress not likely to form panel on alleged torture

April 25, 2009
Reid, Pelosi

Alex Brandon / Associated Press; David Paul Morris / Bloomberg News
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to let a Senate panel finish its work. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants an independent inquiry.
Alex Brandon / Associated Press; David Paul Morris / Bloomberg News
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to let a Senate panel finish its work. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants an independent inquiry.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama oppose the idea, but several prominent Democrats disagree.
By James Oliphant |Washington Post, April 25, 2009

Reporting from Washington — Congress is unlikely to form an independent panel to study the Bush administration’s program of harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects now that President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have voiced opposition to the idea.

Reid (D-Nev.) said he preferred to allow the Senate Intelligence Committee to finish its investigation of the Bush-era practices before taking further action. That could take the rest of the year, he said. Different approaches for two men at center of 'torture memo' controversy

Obama told congressional leaders Thursday that he thought an independent inquiry would create a distraction from his legislative agenda.

Obama’s and Reid’s stances are at odds with those of several prominent Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and liberal interest groups. Some have long been eager to investigate the Bush-era interrogation program, and possibly to prosecute lawyers and other officials who greenlighted it.

New details of the interrogation methods, which included waterboarding and other techniques some have labeled torture, came to light last week when Obama released legal memos from the Bush Justice Department that laid out some of the techniques and the legal rationale for them.

The new details had seemed to add momentum to the call for an independent commission, similar to the one that Congress created to study the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the government’s response to them.

For months, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has called for a so-called truth commission that would investigate the actions of officials in the White House, the Justice Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and other entities involved in the fight against terrorism.

Leahy said this week that such a commission would not target Bush officials for blame. “I’m not out just to hang a lot of scalps on the wall. I want to know exactly what happened so that it won’t happen again,” he told reporters.

Congressional investigations can carry risks for those who plan them, sometimes leading to unintended consequences. The Democratic Congress’ inquiry into the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s elevated Lt. Col. Oliver L. North into a folk hero.

A congressional inquiry might appear to the public as Democrats merely settling scores with the previous administration, said Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., chief counsel to the Brennan Center for Justice, a civil liberties think tank at New York University School of Law.

Schwarz was a lawyer to the 1970s Senate committee chaired by then-Sen. Frank Church that examined CIA abuses during the Cold War. He believes an independent commission would be better suited to investigate Bush-era anti-terrorism policy and would have more public credibility.

“If you are careful in doing that,” Schwarz said, “you are more likely to get people who will say: We’re looking at really important issues for the future of the United States.”

But such commissions pose their own problems. Although the Sept. 11 panel was largely considered a success, as a body outside government it had difficulty gaining the cooperation of federal agencies. Also, it lacked the ability to enact the reforms it advocated.

In its report, the 9/11 commission avoided assigning blame to individuals. One critic of a proposed panel to investigate interrogations during the Bush era says that would be impossible in this instance.

“It would be like a gigantic special counsel — even worse,” said David B. Rivkin Jr., an official in the George H.W. Bush administration. “It would just poison the atmosphere in Washington.” The end result, he said, would be laying the groundwork for criminal prosecution, either by the Justice Department or by an international tribunal.

Obama has left the question of criminal prosecutions of Bush-era officials to Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. The Justice Department’s internal inquiry of its lawyers’ actions on terrorism policy could be made public within the next several weeks. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), has said he will launch his own inquiry after the Justice Department’s report is made public.

joliphant@latimes.com

Peter Nicholas in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

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Posted in crime, Human rights, USA, War Criminals | 1 Comment »

14 Who Told Obama to Reconsider Escalating the War

March 25, 2009

Denial and Evasion on Afghanistan

By Norman Solomon | Counterpunch, March 24, 2009

Is your representative speaking out against escalation of the Afghanistan war?

Last week, some members of Congress sent President Obama a letter that urged him to “reconsider” his order deploying 17,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

Everyone in the House of Representatives had ample opportunity to sign onto the letter. Beginning in late February, it circulated on Capitol Hill for more than two weeks. The letter was the most organized congressional move so far to challenge escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

But the list of signers was awfully short.

* California: Bob Filner, Michael Honda
* Hawaii: Neil Abercrombie
* Kentucky: Ed Whitfield
* Maryland: Roscoe Bartlett
* Massachusetts: Jim McGovern
* Michigan: John Conyers
* North Carolina: Howard Coble, Walter Jones
* Ohio: Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich
* Tennessee: John Duncan
* Texas: Ron Paul
* Wisconsin: Steve Kagen

We desperately need a substantive national debate on U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan. While the Obama administration says that the problems of the region cannot be solved by military means, the basic approach is reliance on heightened military means.

One of several journalists in Afghanistan on a tour “organized by the staff of commanding Gen. David D. McKiernan,” the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl, wrote a March 23 op-ed in support of an invigorated “counterinsurgency strategy.” With journalistic resolve, he explained: “Everyone expects a surge of violence and American casualties this year; no one expects a decisive improvement in the situation for at least several years beyond that.”

The commanding general, Diehl added, does not anticipate that the Afghan army “can defend the country on its own” until 2016. In effect, the message is to stay the course for another seven years: “The thousands of American soldiers and civilians pouring into the country deserve that strategic patience; without it, the sacrifices we will soon hear of will be wasted.”

And so, with chillingly familiar echoes, goes the perverse logic of escalating the war in Afghanistan. “Strategic patience” — more and more war — will be necessary so that those who must die will not have died in vain.

In contrast, the letter from the 14 members of the House (eight Democrats, six Republicans) lays down a clear line of opposition to the rationales for stepping up the warfare.

“If the intent is to leave behind a stable Afghanistan capable of governing itself, this military escalation may well be counterproductive,” the letter says. And it warns that “any perceived military success in Afghanistan might create pressure to increase military activity in Pakistan. This could very well lead to dangerous destabilization in the region and would increase hostility toward the United States.”

More than 400 members of the House declined to sign the letter. In effect, they failed to join in a historic challenge to a prevailing assumption — that the U.S. government must use massive violence for many more years to try to work Washington’s will on Afghanistan.

An old red-white-and-blue bumper sticker says: “These colors don’t run.”

A newer one says: “These colors don’t run… the world.”

Now, it’s time for another twist: “These colors won’t run… Afghanistan.”

But denial and evasion are in the political air.

Norman Solomon is the author of Made Love, Got War.

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Obama, Mitchell and the Palestinians

February 7, 2009

By James Abourezk | Counterpunch, Feb 6 – 8, 2009

Abe Foxman, head of the “Anti-Defamation League”, claims that George Mitchell is too fair to be a broker between Israel and the Palestinians.  I guess that Foxman, in denouncing the choice of Mitchell for Middle East negotiator, shows that he is accustomed to such impartial mediators as Dennis Ross, who, when he left the Clinton Administration returned to the Israeli Lobby, whence he came.  Or he possibly could be making a comparison between George Mitchell and Alan Dershowitz, the notorious Israeli propagandist.  (I once called Dershowitz a “snake” on Al Manar TV, which prompted him to write a column in the Jerusalem Post calling me an anti-Semite.  My mistake was to forget to apologize to the snakes.)

I’m sorry to say that, as much as I admire George Mitchell for the public service he has provided over the years, being fair will not be enough to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the brutality that accompanies it.

The gyrations of various administrations over the years, all of whom have put on great shows of “settling” the conflict, has done nothing but waste a great deal of newspaper ink and television time reporting peace efforts, as though the media believed what snake oil salespeople, such as Condi Rice, were selling to the public.  What someone in our government should have realized by now is that Israel absolutely does not want to give up the West Bank for a Palestinian state, even though there are warnings that if a “two state solution” is not reached, the Palestinians will be forced into a state of apartheid for the rest of the century.  Certainly, the Israelis have no intention of allowing the Palestinians to outvote them in Israel, which leaves South African style apartheid as the only solution.

One can count all the reasons given by the Israelis for not achieving the “peace” that Israel claims it wants, reasons such as:

    1. We have no negotiating partner.
    2. The Palestinians have to recognize Israel’s right to exist first before we talk to them.
    3. They have to end terrorism first.
    4. We made the Palestinians the best offer they could ever have gotten, but they turned it down.

These are just some of the shopworn excuses trotted out to avoid cutting a deal.

It seems that very few people have caught on to this scam, even though it has been exposed for many years.  So, as the establishment continues to blather about achieving “peace,” Israel continues to swallow up Palestinian lands, beating up, imprisoning and massacring Palestinians on a daily basis.

It is very clear to me, as well as to anyone else who declines to see the conflict through an Israeli prism, that only when an American President flatly tells the Israelis that they must move the settlers out of the West Bank, there will be no peace, only more occupation, more brutality, more violations of international law, and more bloody slaughters of civilians such as the one we only recently witnessed in Gaza.  Anything short of that leaves the Israelis in complete control, and it will leave America with more and more enemies not only in the Middle East, but around the world.

President Obama mentioned recently that if he doesn’t get the economy turned around in his first term, he will most likely not have a second term. What he has not yet calculated is that the Israeli occupation results in angry terrorism against American interests all over the world.  He is faced with the choice of either angering the Likud Lobby by demanding that the Israeli settlers be kicked out of the West Bank, or of continuing the heavy spending required to maintain Israel’s occupation against the wishes of the people they are occupying.  What is your guess as to what he will do?

Surely we should have learned by now that America can no longer afford to listen to the Abe Foxmans and the Alan Dershowitzes of the world.  As a nation, we are out of money, bereft of ideas, and incapable of curbing the moral and financial corruption in Washington, D.C., which includes the corruption brought about by the Likud Lobby.

The result is that the rich get richer, the poor and the middle class become more and more desperate, searching for jobs that no longer exist, and for homes they can no longer afford.

The likes of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have brought the world down around our collective ears, and after having done so, they have ridden off into the sunset, happy in the knowledge that they’ve taken care of their rich friends, who have profited from the wars they have started.  The oil price surge, the conflicts in the Middle East, which have brought about the surge in military spending has created fortunes for their cronies, all paid for by the people of this country.  We are, unfortunately, not finished paying the price for Mr. Bush’s costly — in terms of human lives and of money — puerile adventures for the past eight years.  We will be reaping the hatred and the violence caused by their wars, in addition to suffering  the economic fallout resulting from their policies of greed and corruption.  And we have not yet counted the kinds of misery and poverty and corruption these two heroes have spawned as a result of the Iraq War.

The cowardice of our presidents and of our Congress keeps Israel in the driver’s seat so far as continuing the occupation.  Brutality is the natural product of an occupation that is necessary to keep the land they’ve stolen from the Palestinians.  We are in desperate need of “change,” and we hope and we pray that Mr. Obama will have the courage to put it in motion.

James G. Abourezk is a lawyer practicing in South Dakota. He is a former United States senator and the author of two books, Advise and Dissent, and a co-author of Through Different Eyes. This article also  runs in the current issue of Washington Report For Middle East Affairs.  Abourezk  can be reached at georgepatton45@gmail.com

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Bush’s last 100 days the ones to watch

November 5, 2008

BY JESSE JACKSON | Chicago Sun-Times, Nov 4, 2008

The air crackles with anticipation. Fingers are crossed. It gets hard to breathe. Hope, for so long locked in a closet, begins pounding on the door.

And throwing caution to the wind, many already are talking about Barack Obama’s first 100 days. Will he move directly to the Apollo investment agenda, providing money to refit buildings, implement the use of renewable energy and generate jobs in the drive to reduce our dependence on foreign oil? Will he put forth a comprehensive health-care plan or begin by covering all children? Will workers finally be given the right to organize once more? How will he handle mortgage relief and/or help cities burdened by poverty?

But even as our minds, against all discipline, look beyond this day to the possible victory and change, we’d better start paying attention to another 100 days — President Bush’s last months in office.

Bush and Vice President Cheney represent a failed conservative era — and they know it. As the administration moves into its last 100 days, there seems to be a flurry of activity: regulations to forestall Obama’s new era of accountability; a flood of contracts to reward friends and lock in commitments; a Wall Street bailout that is pumping money out the door.

Consider: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is handing out $350 billion to the banks, drawing a special circle around nine banks — including Goldman Sachs, the firm he previously headed — as clearly too big to fail. The money apparently has no conditions, even though the entire purpose was to get the banks to start lending once more to one another and to companies and individuals.

Now it appears that banks plan to hoard the cash, to use it to help pay for mergers with other healthy banks (not weak ones), or to pay out dividends and bonuses. And Paulson, instead of publicly rebuking them, has let it be known that mergers would be a good thing.

Instead of getting the banking system working for small businesses and people again, our money is being used to consolidate the strength of a few megabanks.

There has been a rapid increase in military outlays over the last few months. Is the Pentagon being called on to help bolster the economy — and perhaps McCain — in these final weeks? Or, more likely, is the Pentagon pumping out money to reward its friends and lock in spending before the new sheriff gets to town?

The Washington Post reports that the White House is “working to enact an array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.”

About 90 new rules are in the works, and at least nine are considered “economically significant” because they would impose costs or promote societal benefits that exceed $100 million annually. Many will make changes that the new administration will find it hard to reverse for years to come. More emissions from power plants; more exemptions from environmental-impact statements; permission to operate natural gas lines at higher levels of pressure — the changes could be the last calamities visited upon us by the Bush administration.

Congress — the old one, not the new one just elected — comes back into special session right after the election. Representatives Henry Waxman and John Conyers would be well advised to convene special hearings to try to curb what Bush has cooked up for his last 100 days. Let’s not let the new dawn that is possible be dimmed by clouds left over from an old era that has failed.

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Don’t ignore Constitution during election season

October 23, 2008

by Kathleen Taylor | The Capital Times, Oct 22, 2008

America is in the midst of an election season, nearing an Election Day with what likely will be far-reaching consequences. Public interest is extraordinarily high, and candidates are debating many critical issues. Yet we have heard little or nothing about the Constitution and its Bill of Rights — the touchstone of our individual freedoms.

The most significant words of the U.S. Constitution may be the first three: “We the people.” Not “I the King,” not “I the Grand Religious Leader,” not even “I the elected President.” Our governing structure was created by the people, and ensuring that it works for the people is a continuing legal, moral and political journey.

All through the centuries, arguments about the Constitution’s meaning have persisted: What does it mean that only Congress can declare war (Article I)? What constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors” (Article II)? Is taking an oath of office with your hand on the Bible a “religious test” (Article VI)? Under which conditions, if any, should explicit sexual language not be considered free speech (Amendment 1)? Is a urine test for drugs an “unreasonable search” (Amendment 4)?

The remarkable characteristic of the Constitution is that it offers bedrock principles — checks and balances, procedures, freedoms, responsibilities, protections — while at the same time responding to the needs of contemporary society. It’s not an accident; the founders wrote it that way on purpose. The Constitution is our civic compass. It points the way for courts, legislatures and executive administrations. It guides us in times of war and of peace, of boom and of bust, and of everything in between. It keeps us on the path of fair play, equal treatment, liberty and security.

Or it does if we’re constantly vigilant.

Over the last two centuries, through activism, dissent and dedication, citizens have expanded the scope and depth of our liberty. And today, more Americans enjoy the “blessings of liberty” than at any time in history.

Yet, in recent years, our federal government has grown more powerful and secretive, assuming powers it does not rightfully have. Our government has: spied on Americans without the approval of Congress or the courts; allowed the CIA to torture and abuse hundreds of people, including Americans, in secret prisons throughout the world; held prisoners indefinitely without charge; placed hundreds of thousands of Americans on terrorist watch lists without an explanation or opportunity to appeal; and restricted the free flow of scientific information and set up barriers to the use of scientific materials.

No matter who wins the election, we must remember that the Constitution applies to everyone. It applies to the least desirable among us and to those with whom we vehemently disagree on matters of politics, religion or ethics. That’s the tough part. We need to be vigilant for all people, not merely the ones whom society favors.

This election season is an opportunity to think about what the Constitution has given us, as well as what we ourselves can do to make sure it survives — not just in letter, but in spirit. We can consider whether what’s been going on is consistent with the Constitution. We shouldn’t fall into the trap of “Well, it’s not me; it’s that awful other person who’s being tortured/spied upon/denied an attorney/discriminated against/harassed.” Any of us could be that person in the future.

Kathleen Taylor is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state.

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Reversal of Fortune

October 13, 2008

By Joseph Stiglitz | ZNet,  Oct 13, 2008
Source: Vanity Fair

When the American economy enters a downturn, you often hear the experts debating whether it is likely to be V- shaped (short and sharp) or U-shaped (longer but milder). Today, the American economy may be entering a downturn that is best described as L-shaped. It is in a very low place indeed, and likely to remain there for some time to come.

Virtually all the indicators look grim. Inflation is running at an annual rate of nearly 6 percent, its highest level in 17 years. Unemployment stands at 6 percent; there has been no net job growth in the private sector for almost a year. Housing prices have fallen faster than at any time in memory-in Florida and California, by 30 percent or more. Banks are reporting record losses, only months after their executives walked off with record bonuses as their reward. President Bush inherited a $128 billion budget surplus from Bill Clinton; this year the federal government announced the second-largest budget deficit ever reported. During the eight years of the Bush administration, the national debt has increased by more than 65 percent, to nearly $10 trillion (to which the debts of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae should now be added, according to the Congressional Budget Office). Meanwhile, we are saddled with the cost of two wars. The price tag for the one in Iraq alone will, by my estimate, ultimately exceed $3 trillion.

This tangled knot of problems will be difficult to unravel. Standard prescriptions call for raising interest rates when confronted with inflation, just as standard prescriptions call for lowering interest rates when confronted with an economic downturn. How do you do both at the same time? Not in the way that some politicians have proposed. With gasoline prices at all- time highs, John McCain has called for a rollback of gas taxes. But that would lead to more gas consumption, raise the price of gas further, increase our dependence on foreign oil, and expand our already massive trade deficit. The expanding deficit would in turn force the U.S. to continue borrowing gargantuan sums from abroad, making us even more indebted. At the same time, the higher imports of oil and petroleum-based products would lead to a weaker dollar, fueling inflationary pressures.

Millions of Americans are losing their homes. (Already, some 3.6 million have done so since the subprime- mortgage crisis began.) This social catastrophe has severe economic effects. The banks and other financial institutions that own these mortgages face stunning reverses; a few, such as Bear Stearns, have already gone belly-up. To prevent America’s $5.2 trillion home financiers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, from following suit, Congress authorized a blank check to cover their losses, but even that generosity failed to do the trick. Now the administration has taken over the two entities completely, a stunning feat for a supposedly market-oriented regime. These bailouts contribute to growing deficits in the short run, and to perverse incentives in the long run. Market economies work only when there is a system of accountability, but C.E.O.’s, investors, and creditors are walking away with billions, while American taxpayers are being asked to pick up the tab. (Freddie Mac’s chairman, Richard Syron, earned $14.5 million in 2007. Fannie Mae’s C.E.O., Daniel Mudd, earned $14.2 million that same year.) We’re looking at a new form of public-private partnership, one in which the public shoulders all the risk, and the private sector gets all the profit. While the Bush administration preaches responsibility, the words are addressed only to the less well-off. The administration talks about the impact of ‘moral hazard’ on the poor ‘speculator’ who borrowed money and bought a house beyond his ability to pay. But moral hazard somehow isn’t an issue when it comes to the high-stakes speculators in corporate boardrooms.

How Did We Get into This Mess?

A unique combination of ideology, special-interest pressure, populist politics, bad economics, and sheer incompetence has brought us to our present condition.

Ideology proclaimed that markets were always good and government always bad. While George W. Bush has done as much as he can to ensure that government lives up to that reputation-it is the one area where he has overperformed-the fact is that key problems facing our society cannot be addressed without an effective government, whether it’s maintaining national security or protecting the environment. Our economy rests on public investments in technology, such as the Internet. While Bush’s ideology led him to underestimate the importance of government, it also led him to underestimate the limitations of markets. We learned from the Depression that markets are not self- adjusting-at least, not in a time frame that matters to living people. Today everyone-even the president-accepts the need for macro-economic policy, for government to try to maintain the economy at near- full employment. But in a sleight of hand, free-market economists promoted the idea that, once the economy was restored to full employment, markets would always allocate resources efficiently. The best regulation, in their view, was no regulation at all, and if that didn’t sell, then ‘self-regulation’ was almost as good.

The underlying idea was, on the face of it, absurd: that market failures come only in macro doses, in the form of the recessions and depressions that have periodically plagued capitalist economies for the past several hundred years. Isn’t it more reasonable to assume that these failures are just the tip of the iceberg? That beneath the surface lie a myriad of smaller but harder-to-assess inefficiencies? Let me venture an analogy from biology: A patient arrives at a hospital in serious condition. Now, it may be that the patient has simply fallen victim to one of those debilitating ailments that go around from time to time and can be cured by a massive dose of antibiotics. In this case we have a macro problem with a macro solution. But it could instead be that the patient is suffering from a decade of serious abuse-smoking, drinking, overeating, lack of exercise, a fondness for crystal meth-and that it has not only taken a catastrophic toll but also left him open to opportunistic infections of every kind. In other words, a buildup of micro problems has led to a macro problem, and no cure is possible without addressing the underlying issues. The American economy today is a patient of the second kind.

Continued . . .

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Nader’s Message Brings Maine Voters To Their Feet

October 8, 2008

The presidential candidate blasts the powers in Washington for the recent financial crisis.

Portland Press Herald (Maine),  Oct 7 2008

October 7, 2008

Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer
enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer
Ralph Nader gave little relief to the major players in the current Wall Street financial crisis during a speech in Portland on Monday. “If you’re not indignant, you’re not a citizen,” Nader said.
Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer
enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer
Ralph Nader speaks to about 250 people gathered at First Parish Church of Portland on Monday night. He is on the ballot as an independent candidate for president.

Ralph Nader brought a Portland audience to its feet Monday night with his signature call to fight Wall Street greed, corporate crime and the military industrial complex.

“If you’re not indignant, you’re not a citizen,” Nader said to about 250 people gathered at First Parish Church in Portland.

Nader, who’s on the Nov. 4 ballot as an independent presidential candidate, skewered last week’s $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

He said Congress approved the unprecedented taxpayer-backed rescue even though many Americans believe it will benefit executives who caused the mortgage-related financial crisis without holding them accountable.

“That means your representatives in Congress shut you down,” Nader said. “Wall Street stuffed Washington into a barrel and rolled it.”

Nader said he’s running for president again because the United States is drowning in debt and Americans have surrendered control of their lives to corporations that are running the country.

Regarding corporate influence in government, Nader said the biggest difference between Republicans and Democrats is “the speed at which their knees hit the floor” when corporations knock on the door.

He said he wants to reform the tax system, in part because the government has reverted to the days of taxation without representation that led to the Revolution. “We’re back to 1775,” he said.

Nader noted that about half of the nation’s annual operating budget is spent on defense and corporations that make up the so-called military industrial complex.

He said the true sign of courage in leadership is having the ability to wage peace and diplomacy.

Nader said he wants to improve workplace health and safety, continue fighting for consumer rights and provide universal health care for Americans.

Nader criticized the energy policies of the presidential candidates representing the major political parties, Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain and Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.

He said both support a banquet of fuel options, including oil, coal and nuclear power, that aren’t good for consumers or the environment.

Nader supports clean energy sources, such as solar and wind power, and wants to put a stop to oil, nuclear, electric and coal subsidies.

“Some forms of energy are better than others,” said Nader.

Nader, who’s on the ballot in 45 states and the District of Columbia, also complained that third-party candidates are excluded from the presidential debates.

“I looked at that stage the other night,” Nader said. “It really had a lot of space, didn’t it?”

The audience at the Congress Street church included people of all ages and political persuasion.

Nader is “a Connecticut Yankee with a very high order of intellect,” said Tom Little, an independent voter from Connecticut who is working as an apple picker at a local orchard. “I don’t agree with him on everything, but he represents a legal, law-enforcement response to a criminal government.”

“I’ve voted for Ralph every time he’s been on the ballot,” said Claudine Grange, a Democrat who is a nurse practitioner and lives in Portland.

Grange disputed the notion that she’s throwing away her vote in what is basically a two-way race.

“I vote my conscience,” she said. “Whether he wins or not isn’t important. He’s educating the public and he’s telling the truth and that’s what matters.”

Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard can be contacted at 791-6328 or at:

kbouchard@pressherald.com

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Why not a bailout for the rest of us?

October 1, 2008

What’s really required in this crisis is an entirely different kind of government intervention in the economy.

Editorial

Socialist Worker,  October 1, 2008

Quickly organized protests around the U.S. drew opponents of the bailout for Wall Street (Joe Newman)Quickly organized protests around the U.S. drew opponents of the bailout for Wall Street (Joe Newman)

AS THE smoke cleared after Monday’s stunning House of Representatives vote against a $700 billion financial bailout for Wall Street, the politicians immediately got down to the business of blaming each other–and scheming about the next attempt to push through this rescue of the super-rich.

But for working people trying to figure out what the hell has happened to the U.S. financial system–and why the leaders of the U.S. government, apparently regardless of political party, are prepared to spend more than $2,000 for every man, woman and child in this country to save Wall Street–the reaction was different.

For one thing, there was sweet satisfaction to be taken in the fact that the bankers and stockbrokers didn’t get their way for once–especially since they’re out to steal $700 billion in taxpayers’ money to cover their bad investments, under a program devised by former Wall Street CEO and now Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

With the business world ratcheting up political pressure and Paulson predicting certain doom if no action was taken, the Bush administration and the leadership of both parties in both the House and Senate were all sure that the bailout bill would go through. Yet the legislation was derailed because members of Congress are feeling the heat from a growing popular outrage over the staggering scale of a giveaway to the very same people who led the economy to the edge of the abyss.

It was an all-too-rare turn of events for the U.S. political system–the opinions of ordinary Americans actually mattered in what happened.

At the same time, though, there’s a sense of foreboding. If the government can’t agree on a bailout, will Wall Street really crash and burn–and cause an economic catastrophe on Main Street, too?

After all, that’s the claim of “King Henry” Paulson and his nominal boss, George W. Bush. They’re basically extortionists, insisting that if Congress doesn’t agree to a king’s ransom for the banks, the economy gets it–in the form of a worldwide financial meltdown that would wipe out workers’ savings and eliminate millions of jobs overnight.

The stock market plunge that followed the House vote Monday will have reinforced such fears. Few workers have the resources to play the stock market, of course, but their lives are affected by its ups and downs, especially the downs–for example, the loss of retirement savings in 401(k) accounts that many workers rely on, now that defined benefit pension plans are going the way of the dinosaur.

So is it true? Are we all–the multi-millionaire bankers on Wall Street and the tens of millions of workers on every other street–in the same boat after all? Do we really need the Paulson bailout to avert a second Great Depression?

The answer is no.

The argument that a bailout of the banks is good of all us is an ideological smokescreen, to cover the specifics of the Paulson proposal, as sanctioned by the Democrats–which benefits the rich and powerful, at the expense of the rest of us.

There are plenty of ways that government intervention could alleviate the financial crisis and provide urgently needed relief to working people. But that would involve programs, policies and priorities that the bankers despise–and that political leaders in Washington want nothing to do with.

Paulson is right to say that Wall Street is facing its most severe crisis since the Great Depression–a catastrophe entirely of its own making–and that the U.S. government has to respond. But the form that response takes–a huge handout for the super-rich or a progressive plan to rein in the banks and help ordinary people–depends on whether workers organize to make their voices heard and felt in Washington.

Continued . . .

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Michael Moore: The Rich Are Staging a Coup This Morning

September 30, 2008

Published on Monday, September 29, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

by Michael Moore

Friends,

Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies — who must soon vacate the White House — are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.

No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday’s New York Times and you can see what the real deal is:

“Even as policy makers worked on details of a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it.”Financial firms were lobbying to have all manner of troubled investments covered, not just those related to mortgages.

“At the same time, investment firms were jockeying to oversee all the assets that Treasury plans to take off the books of financial institutions, a role that could earn them hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees.

“Nobody wants to be left out of Treasury’s proposal to buy up bad assets of financial institutions.”

Unbelievable. Wall Street and its backers created this mess and now they are going to clean up like bandits. Even Rudy Giuliani is lobbying for his firm to be hired (and paid) to “consult” in the bailout.

The problem is, nobody truly knows what this “collapse” is all about. Even Treasury Secretary Paulson admitted he doesn’t know the exact amount that is needed (he just picked the $700 billion number out of his head!). The head of the congressional budget office said he can’t figure it out nor can he explain it to anyone.

And yet, they are screeching about how the end is near! Panic! Recession! The Great Depression! Y2K! Bird flu! Killer bees! We must pass the bailout bill today!! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Falling for whom? NOTHING in this “bailout” package will lower the price of the gas you have to put in your car to get to work. NOTHING in this bill will protect you from losing your home. NOTHING in this bill will give you health insurance.

Health insurance? Mike, why are you bringing this up? What’s this got to do with the Wall Street collapse?

It has everything to do with it. This so-called “collapse” was triggered by the massive defaulting and foreclosures going on with people’s home mortgages. Do you know why so many Americans are losing their homes? To hear the Republicans describe it, it’s because too many working class idiots were given mortgages that they really couldn’t afford. Here’s the truth: The number one cause of people declaring bankruptcy is because of medical bills. Let me state this simply: If we had had universal health coverage, this mortgage “crisis” may never have happened.

This bailout’s mission is to protect the obscene amount of wealth that has been accumulated in the last eight years. It’s to protect the top shareholders who own and control corporate America. It’s to make sure their yachts and mansions and “way of life” go uninterrupted while the rest of America suffers and struggles to pay the bills. Let the rich suffer for once. Let them pay for the bailout. We are spending 400 million dollars a day on the war in Iraq. Let them end the war immediately and save us all another half-trillion dollars!

I have to stop writing this and you have to stop reading it. They are staging a financial coup this morning in our country. They are hoping Congress will act fast before they stop to think, before we have a chance to stop them ourselves. So stop reading this and do something — NOW! Here’s what you can do immediately:

1. Call or e-mail Senator Obama. Tell him he does not need to be sitting there trying to help prop up Bush and Cheney and the mess they’ve made. Tell him we know he has the smarts to slow this thing down and figure out what’s the best route to take. Tell him the rich have to pay for whatever help is offered. Use the leverage we have now to insist on a moratorium on home foreclosures, to insist on a move to universal health coverage, and tell him that we the people need to be in charge of the economic decisions that affect our lives, not the barons of Wall Street.

2. Take to the streets. Participate in one of the hundreds of quickly-called demonstrations that are taking place all over the country (especially those near Wall Street and DC).

3. Call your Representative in Congress and your Senators. (click here to find their phone numbers). Tell them what you told Senator Obama.

When you screw up in life, there is hell to pay. Each and every one of you reading this knows that basic lesson and has paid the consequences of your actions at some point. In this great democracy, we cannot let there be one set of rules for the vast majority of hard-working citizens, and another set of rules for the elite, who, when they screw up, are handed one more gift on a silver platter. No more! Not again!

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
 MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Having read further the details of this bailout bill, you need to know you are being lied to. They talk about how they will prevent golden parachutes. It says NOTHING about what these executives and fat cats will make in SALARY. According to Rep. Brad Sherman of California, these top managers will continue to receive million-dollar-a-month paychecks under this new bill. There is no direct ownership given to the American people for the money being handed over. Foreign banks and investors will be allowed to receive billion-dollar handouts. A large chunk of this $700 billion is going to be given directly to Chinese and Middle Eastern banks. There is NO guarantee of ever seeing that money again.

P.P.S. From talking to people I know in DC, they say the reason so many Dems are behind this is because Wall Street this weekend put a gun to their heads and said either turn over the $700 billion or the first thing we’ll start blowing up are the pension funds and 401(k)s of your middle class constituents. The Dems are scared they may make good on their threat. But this is not the time to back down or act like the typical Democrat we have witnessed for the last eight years. The Dems handed a stolen election over to Bush. The Dems gave Bush the votes he needed to invade a sovereign country. Once they took over Congress in 2007, they refused to pull the plug on the war. And now they have been cowered into being accomplices in the crime of the century. You have to call them now and say “NO!” If we let them do this, just imagine how hard it will be to get anything good done when President Obama is in the White House. THESE DEMOCRATS ARE ONLY AS STRONG AS THE BACKBONE WE GIVE THEM. CALL CONGRESS NOW.

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