Labels: Greg Palast, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans
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posted by profmarcus at
2/02/2008
[I]n a society dominated by pathological values, if one can call them that, the existence of a small group of conscienceless people promoting a culture of greed and selfishness creates an environment where the pathological becomes the norm. In a society, such as the United States today, where the president can lie with impunity on matters of life and death, a pathological environment is created where lying becomes acceptable. Violence is acceptable. Greed is acceptable. It is part and parcel of the ideology of the American Dream, that anyone can be a success no matter who you have to hurt to do it. And, it is in what they must do to actually succeed that the seeds of pathology are sown. In that environment, people of conscience who are weak and easily influenced take on the characteristics of the pathological in order to survive and succeed. They see that their leaders lie and cheat, and they figure that if they want to get ahead, then they can lie and cheat as well.
[...]
Psychopathy is an adaptive life strategy that is extremely successful in American society, and thus has increased in the population. What is more, as a consequence of a society that is adaptive for psychopathy, many individuals who are NOT genetic psychopaths have similarly adapted, becoming "effective" psychopaths, or "secondary sociopaths." In other words, in a world of psychopaths, those who are not genetic psychopaths, are induced to behave like psychopaths simply to survive. When the rules are set up to make a society "adaptive" to psychopathy, it makes psychopaths of everyone.
Were that pathological influence removed from society by putting psychopaths into quarantine, by educating people of conscience on the signs of pathology, of what to look for and how to deal with manipulation, by changing the systems created by psychopaths; if through such methods we were able to remove this ponerogenic influence, then the other pole, that of conscience, would be the more influential of the two, and people would gravitate towards altruism and truth rather than selfishness and lies.
If we were able to remove the pathological influence, we might find that our conceptions of "human nature" are wrong and are weighted wrongly because we accept those who are genetically without conscience as "human". Remove them and their acts from the data set, remove their influence from society as a whole, and the higher qualities of human nature capable of conscience might find room for expression in ways that we have never dreamed possible.
There are a number of traits that we find in psychopaths: An obvious trait is the complete lack of conscience. They lack any sense of remorse or empathy with others. They can be extremely charming and are experts at using talk to charm and hypnotize their prey. They are also irresponsible. Nothing is ever their fault; someone else or the world at large is always to blame for all of their 'problems' or their mistakes. Martha Stout, in her book The Sociopath Next Door, identifies what she calls the pity ploy. Psychopaths use pity to manipulate. They convince you to give them one more chance, and to not tell anyone about what they have done. So another trait - and a very important one - is their ability to control the flow of information.
They are also incapable of deep emotions. In fact, when Hare, a Canadian psychologist who spent his career studying psychopathy, did brain scans on psychopaths while showing them two sets of words, one set of neutral words with no emotional associations and a second set with emotionally charged words, while different areas of the brain lit up in the non-psychopathic control group, in the psychopaths, both sets were processed in the same area of the brain, the area that deals with language. They did not have an immediate emotional reaction.
Our whole emotional life is a mystery to them, while at the same time providing a tremendous tool for them to manipulate us. Think of those moments when we are strongly affected by our emotions and how our ability to think is impaired. Now imagine that you were able to feign such emotion, remaining cool and calculating, while the person you were exchanging with was really trapped in an emotional cauldron. You could use tears or shouting to get what you wanted, while your victim was driven to despair by the emotions they were living.
They also seem to have no real conception of past or future, living entirely for their immediate needs and desires. Because of the barren quality of their inner life, they are often seeking new thrills, anything from feeling the power of manipulating others to engaging in illegal activities simply for the rush of adrenaline.
Another trait of the psychopath is what Łobaczewski calls their "special psychological knowledge" of normal people. They have studied us. They know us better than we know ourselves. They are experts in knowing how to push our buttons, to use our emotions against us. But beyond that, they even seem to have some sort of hypnotic power over us. When we begin to get caught up in the web of the psychopath, our ability to think deteriorates, gets muddied. They seem to cast some sort of spell over us. It is only later when we are no longer in their presence, out of their spell, that the clarity of thought returns and we find ourselves wondering how it was that we were unable to respond or counter what they were doing.
Labels: American dream, dysfunctional organizations, greed, lies, Police State, psychopathy, United States
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
2/02/2008
Labels: AUMF, George Bush, Hans Blix, International Atomic Energy Agency, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, United Nations, WMD
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
2/02/2008
Mukasey's radical worldview is now the norm
Yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, featuring day-long testimony from Attorney General Michael Mukasey, was extraordinary for only one reason: for our country, what happened in the hearing is now completely ordinary. While Mukasey may be marginally more straightforward than Alberto Gonzales was -- more willing to conform to the procedural formalities of independence -- he is, ideologically, a clone of John Yoo and David Addington and is as much of a loyal adherent to the Bush/Cheney extremist worldview as Gonzales ever was.
Mukasey explicitly embraces the most extreme theories of presidential omnipotence and lawlessness and displays as much Cheney-ite contempt for the notion of Congressional oversight as the Vice President himself. He repeatedly endorsed patently illegal behavior -- including torture -- and refused even to pretend that he cared what the Senate thought about any of it. He even told Republican Senators that they have no right to pass a whistleblower law allowing federal employees who learn of lawbreaking to inform Congress about it, because such a law would infringe on the President's constitutional powers. In Mukasey's worldview, the President has unlimited power and Congress has none.
And none of this is particularly surprising, given that -- as I emphasized after his nomination was announced -- Mukasey is the federal judge who, when presiding over the Padilla case in 2002, endorsed the most tyrannical and un-American power there is, when he ruled that the President even has the power to imprison U.S. citizens indefinitely, even when detained on U.S. soil, with no process of any kind -- a position he refused to repudiate during his confirmation hearing.
None of what he said yesterday is extraordinary, despite how radical and jarring it is. Mukasey repeatedly insisted that even his most lawlessness-endorsing views are within our political mainstream, and he's right about that. It's now been seven years that our country has functioned under the radical executive power theories of the Bush administration, which include the right of the President to break the law. Congress long ago decided it would do nothing about any of it, would acquiesce to it, and thus -- as was predictable and predicted -- it has all become normalized.
I long ago stopped blaming the Bush administration -- at least exclusively -- for what has happened to our political system. They were responsible in the first instance, but the rest of the country's institutions -- its media, its Congress, the "opposition" party, even the courts -- all allowed it to happen, choosing to do nothing -- or to endorse it -- once it all began to be disclosed. It wouldn't have surprised the Founders that we would have corrupt and lawbreaking political leaders, including in the White House. The idea was that there would be numerous checks on that corruption. But when those other institutions fail, or are complicit, the fault is collective.
Consider how normalized this has all become: President Bush this week issued one of his most brazen signing statements yet, contesting the right of Congress even to exercise its spending power to bar the use of funds for permanent bases in Iraq. The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin noted that not a single journalist other than The Boston Globe's indefatigable Charlie Savage even reported on this event. As Froomkin said:
The overall message to Congress was clear: I'm not bound by your laws. . . . But it's Bush's cavalier dismissal of the ban on funding for permanent military bases that really speaks volumes -- not just about his view of the role of the legislative branch, but also about his intentions for Iraq. . . . Looking for a news story about all this in your morning paper? You won't find one in The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times or the Wall Street Journal.
In one sense, I understand Froomkin's indignance. It ought to be newsworthy, to put it mildly, when the President announces that he has the power to violate the law at will. But in another sense, it's not really newsworthy any longer. It's been going on for years and we've chosen to do nothing about it. We have a Government where the President is not bound by the law, and it is just as simple as that.
Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General, Dan Froomkin, executive power, FISA, George Bush, Glenn Greenwald, Michael Mukasey, retroactive immunity, Salon, telecommunications companies
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
2/02/2008
Labels: Argentina, Brazil, PDV, Petrobras, Venezuela, YPF
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
2/02/2008
It seems rather clear what happened here. There are certain amendments that are not going to get even 50 votes -- including the Dodd/Feingold amendment to strip telecom immunity out of the bill -- and, for that reason, Republicans were more than willing to agree to a 50-vote threshold, since they know those amendments won't pass even in a simple up-or-down vote.
But then, there are other amendments which might be able to get 50 votes, but cannot get 60 votes -- such as Feinstein's amendment to transfer the telecom cases to the FISA court and her other amendment providing that FISA is the "exclusive means" for eavesdropping -- and, thus, those are the amendments for which the GOP insisted upon a 60-vote requirement.
The whole agreement seems designed to ensure that the GOP gets everything they want -- that they are able to defeat all of the pending amendments which Dick Cheney dislikes, and to do so without having to engage in a real filibuster. In what conceivable way is this an instance of "Dems not caving" or "holding tough?"
For this president, fear is an easier political tactic than compromise. With FISA, he is attempting to rattle Congress into hastily expanding his own executive powers at the expense of civil liberties and constitutional protections. . . .
In these still treacherous times, we can't afford to have a president who leads by manipulating emotions with fear, flaunting the law, or abusing the very inalienable rights endowed to us by the Constitution. Though 9/11 changed the prism through which we view surveillance and intelligence, it did not in any way change the effectiveness of FISA to allow us to track and monitor our enemies. FISA has and still works as the most valuable mechanism for monitoring our enemies.
Labels: 9/11, Civil liberties, fear-mongering, FISA, Glenn Greenwald, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, New York Times, retroactive immunity, Richard Clarke, Salon, telecommunications companies, terrorism
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
2/01/2008
Microsoft in $44.6 Billion Bid for Yahoo
The surprise offer of $31 a share, which represents a 62 percent premium on Thursday’s closing price, would bring relief to Yahoo’s long-suffering shareholders.
Labels: ISP, media, Microsoft, telecommunications companies, Yahoo
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
2/01/2008
Labels: 2008 candidates, 2008 Election, Brave New Films, Dr. Strangelove, John McCain, Republicans, Robert Greenwald
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
2/01/2008
Labels: "A" list bloggers, And yes I DO take it personally, bloggers, Blogs
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/31/2008
Labels: Bill Clinton, fear-mongering, Hillary Clinton, nightmares
Submit To Propellerposted by Anonymous at
1/31/2008
Within the space of two weeks, the federal funds rate -- the rate at which banks lend each other money -- has been dropped by 1.25 percentage points. It's a record intervention, one which simultaneously sparks both hopes and fears.
"The Federal Reserve is obviously very nervous about what is going on in the financial system and the housing market," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, in remarks to the Associated Press.
Some analysts were unsparing in their criticism of the move. "I think the Fed is bonkers," Allan Meltzer, an economist at Carnegie Mellon University, told the Los Angeles Times. Fed officials "frequently swear to themselves and to each other that they are not going to ease (interest rates) excessively, and then the economy slows a little and they do just that," he said.
Labels: economic collapse, economy, Federal Reserve System, financial markets, financial meltdown, Spiegel, subprime mortgage crisis
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/31/2008
There will certainly be new military and financial constraints on the next president after the incompetence and profligacy of the Bush years. But those years have also shown how little of significance happens without American leadership. That’s as true of Israel-Palestine as of the environment or Kosovo.
As this election campaign is demonstrating, the United States remains the most vital, open, self-renewing and democratic society on earth. In December 2007, there were 1,059,793 naturalization applications pending: one million people are not clamoring to join a nation in eclipse.
[...]
Far from paradoxical, the global fascination with this election is in fact logical. For where America leads, with post-Bush dexterity and purpose, the world will still follow.
Labels: 2008 candidates, 2008 Election, Argentina, Barack Obama, Buenos Aires, Bush Administration, George Bush, Hillary Clinton
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/31/2008
Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study obtained by The Washington Post. Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.
At the same time, the number of attempted suicides or self-inflicted injuries in the Army has jumped sixfold since the Iraq war began. Last year, about 2,100 soldiers injured themselves or attempted suicide, compared with about 350 in 2002, according to the U.S. Army Medical Command Suicide Prevention Action Plan.
The Army was unprepared for the high number of suicides and cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among its troops, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have continued far longer than anticipated. Many Army posts still do not offer enough individual counseling and some soldiers suffering psychological problems complain that they are stigmatized by commanders.
Labels: Afghanistan, Army, Dana Priest, Iraq, suicides, Vietnam, Washington Post
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/31/2008
In France and Germany, students are being forced to undergo a dangerous indoctrination. Taught that economic principles such as capitalism, free markets, and entrepreneurship are savage, unhealthy, and immoral, these children are raised on a diet of prejudice and bias. Rooting it out may determine whether Europe’s economies prosper or continue to be left behind.
Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts. And doing so will not be easy. But not because these children are found in the madrasas of Pakistan or the state-controlled schools of Saudi Arabia. They are not. Rather, they live in two of the world’s great democracies—France and Germany.
The deep anti-market bias that French and Germans continue to teach challenges the conventional wisdom that it’s just a matter of time, thanks to the pressures of globalization, before much of the world agrees upon a supposedly “Western” model of free-market capitalism. Politicians in democracies cannot long fight the preferences of the majority of their constituents. So this bias will likely continue to circumscribe both European elections and policy outcomes. A likely alternative scenario may be that the changes wrought by globalization will awaken deeply held resentment against capitalism and, in many countries from Europe to Latin America, provide a fertile ground for populists and demagogues, a trend that is already manifesting itself in the sudden rise of many leftist movements today.
Labels: capitalism, Europe, Foreign Policy magazine, France, free markets, Germany, globalization, Latin America, populism
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/30/2008
From Abuja to Islamabad, autocratic regimes have become adept at manipulating “free and fair elections” to stay in power. Here’s how they do it—and how to stop them.
How it’s done: It’s much easier to steal an election when there are fewer checks on executive power and no legal framework for resolving disputes.
How to stop it: An independent judicial branch that is capable of arbitrating electoral disputes without partisan pressure is a must. It also helps if polls are managed by independent election commissions rather than interior ministries.
How it’s done: In countries with little or no independent media outlets, opportunities are rife for leaders to use state-controlled media to broadcast propaganda or discredit the opposition.
How to stop it: The proliferation of Internet news sources and text messaging can make it harder to control the flow of information...
How it’s done: In close elections, a popular technique is to identify which polling stations are likely to be swing votes and replace trained election officials with government loyalists at the last minute.
How to stop it: Observers from international organizations are harder to remove and less susceptible to threats from local law enforcement personnel.
How it’s done: [O]fficial results are generally tabulated by officials at centralized locations away from public scrutiny, making deliberate miscounting all too easy.
How to stop it: [Use] mobile phones to text unofficial results to a central server, creating a tally that could be compared to officially released results
Labels: election tampering, Elections, Foreign Policy magazine
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/30/2008
I'd like to once again thank all those who voted to confirm Michael Mukasey and those who didn't bother to vote. It was an excellent demonstration of leadership. (My recollection is that many of the Democrats felt they had already "won" by forcing out Alberto Gonzales.) But maybe next time, we could just have a a little baseline that the Attorney General of the United States can't believe that torture can legally be used if it might save lives. I think that might be considered a basic qualification going forward.
Labels: Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General, Democrats, Department of Justice, Digby, Joe Biden, Michael Mukasey, waterboarding
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/30/2008
Fed Cuts Key Rate by Half-Point
Saying it was acting to head off a recession, the
policy-setting committee of the Federal Reserve Board reduced
its benchmark short-term interest rate, the federal funds
target, to 3 percent, from 3.5 percent.
Labels: Ben Bernanke, economic collapse, Federal Reserve System, Wall Street
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/30/2008
Labels: domestic surveillance, Russ Feingold, warrantless domestic wiretapping
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/30/2008
A US military base might be set up near the village of Chubra in the region of Bourgas, Chubra mayor Georgi Kendov said.
The municipality was hoping that establishing the base would lead to the modernisation of infrastructure in the region, Dnevnik daily said.
Kendov said that the money to be earned from the base could be used for a polyclinic and daily emergency centre with ambulances.
NATO asked if the former buildings of a tank brigade in the town of Aitos could be turned into a reserve storage base. NATO planned to store here the equipment for one or two battalions, which would be based in the military bases of Novo Selo and Bezmer.
The US investment in the municipalities where military bases would be set up, would be nearly $200 million, Dnevnik said.
In late December 2007, at a public discussion, experts explained that the bases would remain Bulgarian, under Bulgarian flag and command. The villages near the bases would benefit from infrastructure development. The US planned charity for the social institutions in the region of the bases, Dnevnik said.
Sungulare mayor Georgi Kenov said that the bases were a possible way to solve some of the problems in the municipality, including unemployment.
Labels: Argentina, Buenos Aires, Bulgaria, European Union, NATO, unemployment, United States, urban issues, urban migration
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/30/2008
Labels: 2008 candidates, 2008 Election, Democrats, John Edwards, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/30/2008
When Bush first came in, the comedian Will Ferrell did a skit on the television show "Saturday Night Live" that depicted the president cowering under his desk as bombs went off in Washington and the country went down the tubes. Coming after the prosperity and relative peace of the Clinton years, it seemed a fantastic parody. Little did we know that if anything SNL did not begin to capture the full extent of the catastrophe.
Nobody cares any more, unlike in 2003 when shills for the war were always on my case to "report the good news" and lay off Bush. Some of my "arguments with Bush" during the past 7 years were internet bestsellers. Now, the man has discredited himself so badly, he can't even get people to so much as yawn at him. But in honor of all those arguments of the past, I'm doing it one last time.
As usual, most of what he said in the State of the Union address was transparent lies. He praised private groups for doing charity work in Louisiana because he hasn't followed through on his own promises after Katrina. He did that phony thing of reporting the average tax "increase" if his "tax cuts" were allowed to expire. If I'm in the room with someone who made a billion dollars last year and Bush doesn't cut my taxes at all but he cuts those of the billionaire such that he saves 5% of his income, then the two of us in the room have an average tax cut of $25 million apiece. But in the real world, I get bupkus and the billionaire gets $50 million. That shell game sums up the Republican "tax cut" scam they keep running on the American middle class, which always falls for it.
So here are some last arguments with the man's bald faced lies, for old times sake.
Bush assertion: "We believe that the most reliable guide for our country is the collective wisdom of ordinary citizens."
Sad Fact: Indiana GOP tries to keep ordinary citizens from voting with restrictive photo identification law.
Bush assertion: "And so, in all we do, we must trust in the ability of free peoples to make wise decisions and empower them to improve their lives for their futures."
Sad fact: Amit Paley writes, "A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.
In Baghdad, for example, nearly three-quarters of residents polled said they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq, with 65 percent of those asked favoring an immediate pullout . . ."
Bush assertion: "We've seen Afghans emerge from the tyranny of the Taliban and choose a new president and a new parliament."
Sad fact: "Afghanistan Journalist sentenced to Death for Blasphemy" and I don't think women would agree with Bush's rosy picture of progressive democracy in Kabul. Not to mention that half the country's gross domestic product is generated by the heroin trade. Bush goes on to say that his democratic projects are only being interrupted by terrorists; but all the problems above are problems with the establishment, not with terror groups.
Bush assertion: "From expanding opportunity to protecting our country, we've made good progress."
Sad fact: Bush's Iraq is a major generator of terrorism, which it was not before 2003. "Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the prime training ground for foreign terrorists who could travel elsewhere across the globe and wreak havoc, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials and classified studies" by the CIA and the Department of State, Warren P. Strobel reported July 4, 2005. "Iraq's emergence as a terrorist training ground appears to challenge President Bush's rationale for invading and overthrowing leader Saddam Hussein in March 2003," Strobel wrote." So we are safer how again?
Bush assertion: "We launched a surge of American forces into Iraq. We gave our troops a new mission: Work with the Iraqi forces to protect the Iraqi people, pursue the enemy in his strongholds, and deny the terrorists sanctuary anywhere in the country."
Sad fact: "The Iraqi Red Crescent Organization and the U.N. reported last month that the "number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the American troop increase began in February". . . The chart reports some decreases in the intensity of "ethno-sectarian violence" in certain Baghdad districts (Note: This is based on military data). But where there have been decreases, they are due largely to the fact that "mixed Muslim" areas are being overrun by either Shia or Sunni enclaves.The map above demonstrates that Shias have been gradually taking over all of Baghdad (noted by the green mass that now covers much of the city), wiping out Sunni communities that stood in their path. Center for American Progress analyst Brian Katulis estimated that Baghdad, which once used to be a 65 percent Sunni majority city, is now 75 percent Shia."
A large proportion of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in Damascus was displaced to Syria during 2007, apparently as a side effect of Bush's troop surge.
So all this involves "protecting the Iraqi people" how, exactly? Does Bush think Iraqis are safer when they are refugees in a foreign country?
He won't be missed.
Labels: Afghanistan, Baghdad, CIA, George Bush, Hurricane Katrina, Iraq, Juan Cole, plenary presidential power, State of the Union, Syria, taxes, terrorism
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/29/2008
Luke Ryland: Why has the US failed on this story so dramatically for 6 years?
Sibel Edmonds: [...] With the US media, it appears as though if there is no clear partisan angle, then there's no story. As you know, this case is spread over two administrations, and that appears to make it difficult for the reporters to cover the story. Even within one news organization you might have one journalist who wants to use the story to indict Clinton, and another who wants to use the story to bash Bush, and in the end neither of them write about the story because it doesn't fit their partisanship, their 'narrative', so they just drop it altogether.
I had such high hopes for the alternative press, and they do a lot of good work, but partisanship repeatedly gets in the way there too, on both sides.
[...]
The other major problem in the US is the focus on symptoms, rather than root causes.
[...]
I have one message for the US media: If they think this is over, it's not over. Much more will come out. They won't be able to ignore it any longer, and so I hope they get over any reluctance they might have.
Labels: Bill Clinton, blogosphere, Luke Ryland, nuclear weapons, Sibel Edmonds, Turkey
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/28/2008
This veto threat is one of the President's most brazen acts ever, so nakedly exposing the fun and games he routinely plays with National Security Threats. After sending Mike McConnell out last August to warn that we will all die without the PAA, Bush now says that he would rather let it expire than give Congress another 30 days. He just comes right out and announces, then, that he will leave us all vulnerable to a Terrorist Attack unless he not only gets everything he wants from Congress -- all his new warrantless eavesdropping powers made permanent plus full immunity for his lawbreaking telecom partners -- but also gets it exactly when he wants it (i.e., now -- not 30 days from now).
If the Democrats had even the slightest strategic sense and/or courage -- just the slightest amount -- this is a political confrontation they would be uncontrollably eager to have. Just imagine if they sustain the filibuster today and instead pass a 30-day extension of the PAA, and then Bush vetoes it, knowingly choosing to leave the intelligence community without the ability to Listen In When Osama Is Calling. It would be the height of political stupidity for Democrats to be afraid of that outcome.
* * * * *
That's what is at stake today as Senate Democrats try to sustain a filibuster against the Republicans' efforts to force a final vote on the truly pernicious Senate Intelligence Committee bill. Are there any limits at all on the willingness of Congressional Democrats to be bullied and humiliated by Republicans, even by the most transparently disingenuous tactics such as these?
[...]
The veto threat from the President is so unbelievably corrupt and manipulative that if our national press had even the smallest amount of critical faculties and understanding of the issues, that veto threat would be a major story. After all, how can the President possibly threaten the country that he will veto a law that he himself has claimed for months is indispensable for Protecting Us All?
[...]
Any rational person has long ago given up the hope that Congressional Democrats will stand for any actual political convictions, but the most basic sense of personal pride and human dignity -- which one thought was an intrinsic part of human nature -- would preclude their capitulation today. If they don't stand up to the White House and Senate Republicans under these circumstances, one might as well accept that they never will do so.
Labels: Chris Dodd, FISA, George Bush, Glenn Greenwald, Mike McConnell, Protect America Act, retroactive immunity, Russ Feingold, Senate Intelligence Committee, warrantless domestic wiretapping
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/28/2008
From Episode Two of the film series "The Century of the Self" by Adam Curtis. The nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays started his ... all » business life as a publicist. While still in his twenties, he was part of the propaganda effort that drove the United States into in World War I (WW I.)
He personally advised several US presidents starting with Woodrow Wilson and counseled numerous corporations and business associations. Hitler's propaganda chief and Nazi henchman Joseph Goebbels was a reader and fan of Bernay's writing in particular Bernay's book "Crystalizing Public Opinion."
In this short excerpt from Curtis's film we see one example of Bernays at work.
Bernays was one of the engineers of the Cold War. He perfected the technique of manufacturing a distant but ever-threatening enemy and then creating a constant state of fear by generating false news reports that endlessly re-stated and exagerated the threat.
The stated purpose of Bernay's methods was to give those in power greater control over what he called "the mass mind." It worked well in the 1950s and sadly, it appears to be working quite well today... but maybe not forever.
Labels: Brasscheck TV, cold war, democracy, Edward Bernays, fear-mongering, Guatemala, United Fruit Company
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/28/2008
Labels: Black Box Voting, New Hampshire, vote tampering, voting machines
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/27/2008
Labels: 2008 Election, Republicans
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/27/2008
I've thought most of the criticisms of the Clintons' campaign, including the role played by Bill, have been overblown. Given the standard level of campaign rhetoric, and particularly considering the bile that will be launched towards Obama from the currently pro-Obama right-wing noise machine if he's the nominee, most of the "controversial" comments have been rather mild, standard election fare, generating interest primarily because it was coming from the Clintons.
Beyond that, it seemed most of the efforts to inject dramatic racial conflict into the contest were media-driven rather than an intentional Clinton strategy. And all of the grave concern over how Bill Clinton is sullying the majestic glory of his status as an ex-president -- all because he is, as anyone would, actively and aggressively campaigning for his spouse -- has struck me as silly and slightly pompous.
But the last few days have changed my view on those matters substantially. The Clintons' strategy has become increasingly trashy, even ugly, and yesterday's remarks by Bill Clinton -- in which he pointedly compared Obama's candidacy to Jesse Jackson's and thus implicitly (though clearly) dismissed South Carolina as a state where the "black candidate" wins, followed up by the Clinton campaign's anonymous branding of Obama as "the black candidate" -- reeked of desperation.
Labels: 2008 candidates, 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Glenn Greenwald, Hillary Clinton, Mark Penn, racism, Salon
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/27/2008
The top two U.S. intelligence officials made a secret visit to Pakistan in early January to seek permission from President Pervez Musharraf for greater involvement of American forces in trying to ferret out al-Qaida and other militant groups active in the tribal regions along the Afghanistan border, a senior U.S. official said.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity given the secret nature of the talks, declined to disclose what was said, but Musharraf was quoted two days after the Jan. 9 meeting as saying U.S. troops would be regarded as invaders if they crossed into Pakistan to hunt al-Qaida militants.
The New York Times — which first reported on the secret visit by CIA Director Michael Hayden and Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence — said Musharraf rebuffed an expansion of an American presence in Pakistan at the meeting, either through overt CIA. missions or by joint operations with Pakistani security forces.
Labels: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, CIA, DNI, Michael Hayden, Michael McConnell, Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/27/2008
AN investigation into the illicit sale of American nuclear secrets was compromised by a senior official in the State Department, a former FBI employee has claimed.
The official is said to have tipped off a foreign contact about a bogus CIA company used to investigate the sale of nuclear secrets.
The firm, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was a front for Valerie Plame, the former CIA agent. Her public outing two years later in 2003 by White House officials became a cause célèbre.
The claims that a State Department official blew the investigation into a nuclear smuggling ring have been made by Sibel Edmonds, 38, a former Turkish language translator in the FBI’s Washington field office.
Edmonds had been employed to translate hundreds of hours of intercepted recordings made during a six-year FBI inquiry into the nuclear smuggling ring.
She has previously told The Sunday Times she heard evidence that foreign intelligence agents had enlisted US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.
Her latest claims relate to a number of intercepted recordings believed to have been made between the summer and autumn of 2001. At that time, foreign agents were actively attempting to acquire the West’s nuclear secrets and technology.
Significantly, since the Times began this series three weeks ago, the White House has quietly moved to legalize the sale of nuclear technology to Turkey in an apparent attempt to 'Exonerate Neocon Criminals' who have been illegally selling this technology for a decade. Congress has 90 days to block this legislation, otherwise it becomes law. If Turkey wants and deserves nuclear technology, this decision should be made openly and transparently, not the result of stealth decisions made by this administration to hide crimes of senior US officials.
We need public open hearings to determine which officials have been supplying the nuclear black market before this becomes law.
Labels: Brewster Jennings, CIA, Downing Street memo, FBI, London Sunday Times, neocons, nuclear weapons, Sibel Edmonds, State Department, Turkey, Valerie Plame, White House
Submit To Propellerposted by profmarcus at
1/27/2008
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