And, yes, I DO take it personally

Another goddam $10B bailout - American Airlines wants to hand its pensions over to the PBGC

2012-01-31T16:16:00.000-08:00

on december 1, i predicted this...

American Airlines will use its bankruptcy as a $10B bailout by kicking its pensions to taxpayers

based on this...

Taxpayers May Have To Pay AMR Pension Bill

based on the precedent set by united airlines in 2005 when i posted this...

United defaults on pension plans; CEO buys $4.5M condo

so now we have this...

AMR To Seek End To Worker Pensions - PBGC

The US Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which has responsibility for insuring certain benefits under private defined benefit pension plans, said on Tuesday it believes American Airlines will seek to terminate employee pensions in bankruptcy.

The agency said it filed a USD$92 million lien against American parent AMR for the balance of unpaid pension plan contributions. It added that the lien was applied to AMR assets outside the United States, mainly in Latin America.

[...]

The US Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which has responsibility for insuring certain benefits under private defined benefit pension plans, said on Tuesday it believes American Airlines will seek to terminate employee pensions in bankruptcy.

The agency said it filed a USD$92 million lien against American parent AMR for the balance of unpaid pension plan contributions. It added that the lien was applied to AMR assets outside the United States, mainly in Latin America.

make no mistake... what american airlines is asking for is a $10B bailout... bankruptcy is a very convenient way for companies to void their labor contracts, neuter their unions and hand off their pension liabilities to ~~the government~~ ~~taxpayers~~ ~~hapless citizens~~ us suckers to pick up the tab... privatizing profits, socializing losses... it's the american way...

The more we grasp that our true allies may not speak our language ... the more powerful we will become

2012-01-30T09:52:00.000-08:00

chris hedges...

Corporate power is global, and resistance to it cannot be restricted by national boundaries. Corporations have no regard for nation-states. They assert their power to exploit the land and the people everywhere. They play worker off of worker and nation off of nation. They control the political elites in Ottawa as they do in London, Paris and Washington. This, I suspect, is why the tactics to crush the Occupy movement around the globe have an eerie similarity—infiltrations, surveillance, the denial of public assembly, physical attempts to eradicate encampments, the use of propaganda and the press to demonize the movement, new draconian laws stripping citizens of basic rights, and increasingly harsh terms of incarceration.

Our solidarity should be with activists who march on Tahrir Square in Cairo or set up encampamentos in Madrid. These are our true compatriots. The more we shed ourselves of national identity in this fight, the more we grasp that our true allies may not speak our language or embrace our religious and cultural traditions, the more powerful we will become.

i have often been dismayed at how much of a bubble we live in here in the u.s... it's particularly apparent to me when i return from outside the country... the only global perspective most of us have is what dribbles down to us from our propaganda-spouting media (iran, iraq, afghanistan, arab spring, etc.) or from a dim awareness that virtually everything we buy - short of automobiles and food - comes from china...

fortunately, the occupy movement has begun to move beyond that kind of insular thinking at least to the extent that an increasing number of those involved identify with what's happening in tahrir square, spain and chile...

hedges is right... there is a global awakening and we need to embrace it as such... when i talk with my afghan friends - as i do regularly - i find they are struggling with the same issues of repression by their super-rich elites as their compatriots in egypt and our own occupy protestors here in the u.s... the false dichotomies of patriotism and nationalism heaped on us by our handlers only serve to keep us from the full realization that the "99%" are under the thumb of the "1%" globally, not just inside our borders...

America is a nine-hundred pound man imprisoned in a fetid trailer bedroom begging for one more case of Little Debbie Cocoa Cremes

2012-01-30T08:47:00.000-08:00

post headline from a james howard kunstler piece on obama's sotu entitled "Jive Talkin"...

America is a nine-hundred pound man imprisoned in a fetid trailer bedroom begging for one more case of Little Debbie Cocoa Cremes before the front-end-loader bashes through the wall to haul him to intensive care. America just wants to hear another story about its own wonderfulness before that happens. America's soul is so lost that it has disappeared into the same cosmic wilderness that MF Global's client accounts were last seen entering.

[...]

I've had enough of Obama, though I voted for him in 2008. I won't vote for him again. But I'm not altogether confident that any of us will be voting for anyone in the fall of 2012. Too many systems we depend on are spinning out of control. I suppose we will continue feeding ourselves a diet of lies and evasions until circumstances become so extreme that language itself loses all relevance and only real action will answer. I believe that moment is approaching in the yet-to-be-acted-out political uproars of the spring and summer. In the meantime, American leadership is bankrupt. Just accept the fact that America has no legitimate leadership. The vacuum is total and we know how nature feels about a vacuum.

occasionally, kunstler is a fun read but i can't imagine being cooped up in the same room with him for very long without one or the other of us starting to foam at the mouth...

Whining U.S. banks make me physically ill

2012-01-29T13:42:00.000-08:00

great gobs of steaming bullshit... the banks are one of the prime culprits in why the world economy is in the mess it is in right now and, despite the trillions of dollars that the u.s. and the eu have tossed their way, have continued to reward themselves without any regard for the general welfare of the people they were chartered to serve... now, they're saying if they don't get their way, it will only delay any recovery... they can all go directly to hell...

Banks warn rule change will hurt recovery

US banks fear that any recovery in the US housing market will be further delayed as a result of moves to remove credit ratings from American regulations, which will boost banks’ capital requirements by billions of dollars.

Bankers have until Friday to respond to a proposal by the Federal Reserve and other regulators that would increase the “risk weights” on securitised assets, driving up sharply the equity capital that banks are forced to set against them.

screw 'em... they haven't done anything for anybody but themselves...

The power-brokers in the global economy are finally realising that something has gone badly awry

2012-01-29T13:22:00.000-08:00

a thoughtful, well-written op-ed in yesterday's guardian...

We can now see the true cost of globalisation

The worldwide public realises there is something deeply wrong with today's world economic system

i particularly like the closing comment...

[A]s we sift through the wreckage of the Great Recession, perhaps it's finally time to heed Marx's words, and stand up for workers everywhere.

i would re-word that just a bit to "it's time to stand up for the common good of all peoples everywhere"...

It has become totally legal for rich people to run politicians the same way they might run horses or greyhounds

2012-01-28T08:25:00.000-08:00

the above title is taken from a common dreams post by jennifer browdy de hernandez...

As in Germany before the Kristallnacht, none of us here in the U.S. wants to believe that anything could happen to destroy our cherished freedoms, our vaunted “American way of life.” We don’t want to admit, even to ourselves, the extent to which our freedoms are already being encroached upon, day by day.

Just last week, for example, there was an outrageous episode in Arizona, where the government declared a whole long list of books to be unsuitable for school use, and went so far as to direct the school librarians and teachers to pull them from the shelves, box them up and put them into deep storage.

Among the authors banned are some of my favorite writers—Gloria Anzaldua, Elizabeth Martinez, Paulo Freire.

Yes, that Paulo Freire, the famous Brazilian educator and free thinker who wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a brilliant analysis of the way that traditional education indoctrinates students into conformity and submission to authority.

Freire proposed that instead of a banking style of education, where knowledge is deposited into students, who are then required to spit it back upon demand, education worth its salt should empower students to think for themselves.

Such a simple idea, but so powerful, too. Education should teach people to think for themselves, and to work with each other to come to consensus on issues of importance to the larger society.

Isn’t that just what the Occupy movements have been trying to do? If Freire were alive, he would be out there in the thick of the Occupy action, inspiring the young to shake off the false animation of Zombieland, and insist on dancing to their own authentic beat.

isn't it totally bizarre that education that empowers people to think for themselves should be so threatening...? of course, taken in the context of the super-rich elites who are so desperate to maintain their hold on money and power, i suppose it makes sense to keep people dumb, docile and locked in a fear-based mindset...

Lawrence Lessig and Chris Hedges on Citizens United, the corporatocracy and the courts

2012-01-27T15:11:00.000-08:00

occupy the courts...

On January 20th, occupiers across the country rallied together in protest against the insidious influence of the corporations over the judiciary. Shortly before the rally in Foley Square, New York CIty, Lawrence Lessig and Chris Hedges met in front of Occupy TVNY's cameras to discuss their vision of change.

Social media surveillance in the National Security State

2012-01-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

i saw this article earlier today and, given how disgusted i am with most everything that's coming out of the obama administration, i have to confess, i merely shrugged, rolled my eyes and moved on... then it popped up again in another venue and i thought, well, hell, it deserves any additional visibility i might be able to give it...

FBI seeking social media monitoring tool

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking for a tool to mine social media for intelligence tips.

The US domestic law enforcement agency is asking information technology contractors about the feasibility of building a tool that would “enhance its techniques for collecting and sharing ‘open source’ actionable intelligence.”

The January 19 open request was published on a website offering federal business opportunities and was first reported by New Scientist magazine.

The FBI said it is seeking an “open source and social media alert, mapping and analysis application solution” for its Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC).

“Social media has become a primary source of intelligence because it has become the premier first response to key events and the primal alert to possible developing situations,” the FBI request said.

“Intelligence analysts will often use social media to receive the first tip-off that a crisis has occurred,” it said.

The FBI said the tool “must have the ability to rapidly assemble critical open source information and intelligence that will allow SIOC to quickly vet, identity, and geo-locate breaking events, incidents and emerging threats.”

It would need to be able to “instantly search and monitor key words and strings in all ‘publicly available’ tweets across the Twitter site and any other ‘publicly available’ social networking sites/forums.”

It would also need the ability to “search the data across a myriad of parameters and view terrorist activities by location, terrorist group, and type of attack and see trends and analytics.”

it's sad... five years ago, i would have been apoplectic over something like this, along with a lot of other people... now, after having gagged down serial surveillance atrocities and constitution-shredding maneuvers year after year, this is just one more in a long series...

On the eve of the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling

2012-01-26T13:04:00.000-08:00

how cool is this...?

G8 & NATO in Chicago - Adbusters calls for #Occupy Chicago for the month of May

2012-01-26T10:25:00.001-08:00

from adbusters...

Tactical Briefing #25

Hey you redeemers, rebels and radicals out there,

Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May. The world’s military and political elites, heads of state, 7,500 officials from 80 nations, and more than 2,500 journalists will be there.

And so will we.

On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.

And this time around we’re not going to put up with the kind of police repression that happened during the Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, 1968 … nor will we abide by any phony restrictions the City of Chicago may want to impose on our first amendment rights. We’ll go there with our heads held high and assemble for a month-long people’s summit … we’ll march and chant and sing and shout and exercise our right to tell our elected representatives what we want … the constitution will be our guide.

And when the G8 and NATO meet behind closed doors on May 19, we’ll be ready with our demands: a Robin Hood Tax … a ban on high frequency ‘flash’ trading … a binding climate change accord … a three strikes and you’re out law for corporate criminals … an all out initiative for a nuclear-free Middle East … whatever we decide in our general assemblies and in our global internet brainstorm – we the people will set the agenda for the next few years and demand our leaders carry it out.

And if they don’t listen … if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they’ve done so many times before … then, with Gandhian ferocity, we’ll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe … we’ll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.

Jammers, pack your tents, muster up your courage and prepare for a big bang in Chicago this Spring. If we don’t stand up now and fight now for a different kind of future we may not have much of a future … so let’s live without dead time for a month in May and see what happens …

for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ

if nothing else, it would be nice to be able to give rahm the finger in person...

Betrayal by the “good guys” for whom I have ended up voting has become the norm

2012-01-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

robert scheer...

I’ll admit it: Listening to Barack Obama, I am ready to enlist in his campaign against the feed-the-rich Republicans ... until I recall that I once responded in the same way to Bill Clinton’s faux populism. And then I get angry because betrayal by the “good guys” for whom I have ended up voting has become the norm.

Yes, betrayal, because if Obama meant what he said in Tuesday’s State of the Union address about holding the financial industry responsible for its scams, why did he appoint the old Clinton crowd that had legalized those scams to the top economic posts in his administration? Why did he hire Timothy Geithner, who has turned the Treasury Department into a concierge service for Wall Street tycoons?

Why hasn’t he pushed for a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, which Clinton’s deregulation reversed? Does the president really believe that the Dodd-Frank slap-on-the-wrist sellout represents “new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like this never happens again”? Can he name one single too-big-to-fail banking monstrosity that has been reduced in size on his watch instead of encouraged to grow ever larger by Treasury and Fed bailouts and interest-free money?

When Obama declared Tuesday evening “no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas,” wasn’t he aware that Jeffrey Immelt, the man he appointed to head his jobs council, is the most egregious offender? Immelt, the CEO of GE, heads a company with most of its workers employed in foreign countries, a corporation that makes 82 percent of its profit abroad and has paid no U.S. taxes in the past three years.

scheer goes on to list more grievances but, imho, is seriously remiss in not citing obama's disgraceful record in foreign policy and civil liberties...

U.S. tied for 47th place with Argentina and Romania in Press Freedom

2012-01-26T08:46:00.000-08:00

every u.s. citizen that pretends to be informed should be able to cite this statistic and to understand that the country we love to label the "land of the free" is, in reality, not so much... not when countries like jamaica (16), namibia (20), mali (25), niger (29), papua new guinea (35), el salvador (37) and ghana (41), rank as having more freedom of the press than we do...

also note the ranking of the two countries where the u.s. has been most deeply involved in promoting "democracy," afghanistan (150) and iraq (152)...

Press Freedom Index 2011/2012

In order to have a bigger spread in the scores and increase the differentiation between countries, this year’s questionnaire had more answers assigning negative points. That is why countries at the top of the index have negative scores this year. Although the point system has produced a broader distribution of scores than in 2010, each country’s evolution over the years can still be plotted by comparing its position in the index rather than its score. This is what the arrows in the table refer to – a country’s change in position in the index compared with the preceding year.

Rank Country Score

1 Finland -10,00

- Norway -10,00

3 Estonia -9,00

- Netherlands -9,00

5 Austria -8,00

6 Iceland -7,00

- Luxembourg -7,00

8 Switzerland -6,20

9 Cape Verde -6,00

10 Canada -5,67

- Denmark -5,67

12 Sweden -5,50

13 New Zealand -5,33

14 Czech Republic -5,00

15 Ireland -4,00

16 Cyprus -3,00

- Jamaica -3,00

- Germany -3,00

19 Costa Rica -2,25

20 Belgium -2,00

- Namibia -2,00

22 Japan -1,00

- Surinam -1,00

24 Poland -0,67

25 Mali 0,00

- OECS 0,00

- Slovakia 0,00

28 United Kingdom 2,00

29 Niger 2,50

30 Australia 4,00

- Lithuania 4,00

32 Uruguay 4,25

33 Portugal 5,33

34 Tanzania 6,00

35 Papua New Guinea 9,00

36 Slovenia 9,14

37 El Salvador 9,30

38 France 9,50

39 Spain 9,75

40 Hungary 10,00

41 Ghana 11,00

42 South Africa 12,00

- Botswana 12,00

44 South Korea 12,67

45 Comoros 13,00

- Taiwan 13,00

47 United States of America 14,00

- Argentina 14,00

- Romania 14,00

50 Latvia 15,00

- Trinidad and Tobago 15,00

52 Haiti 15,67

53 Moldova 16,00

54 Hong-Kong 17,00

- Mauritius 17,00

- Samoa 17,00

57 United States of America (extra-territorial) 19,00

58 Malta 19,50

- Bosnia and Herzegovina 19,50

- Guyana 19,50

61 Italy 19,67

62 Central African Republic 20,00

63 Lesotho 21,00

- Sierra Leone 21,00

- Tonga 21,00

66 Mozambique 21,50

67 Mauritania 22,20

68 Croatia 23,33

- Burkina Faso 23,33

70 Bhutan 24,00

- Greece 24,00

72 Nicaragua 24,33

73 Maldives 25,00

- Seychelles 25,00

75 Guinea-Bissau 26,00

- Senegal 26,00

77 Armenia 27,00

78 Kuwait 28,00

79 Togo 28,50

80 Serbia 29,00

- Bulgaria 29,00

- Chile 29,00

- Paraguay 29,00

84 Kenya 29,50

- Madagascar 29,50

86 Guinea 30,00

- Kosovo 30,00

- Timor-Leste 30,00

- Zambia 30,00

90 Congo 30,38

91 Benin 31,00

92 Israel (Israeli territory) 31,25

93 Lebanon 31,50

94 Macedonia 31,67

95 Dominican Republic 33,25

96 Albania 34,44

97 Cameroon 35,00

- Guatemala 35,00

99 Brazil 35,33

100 Mongolia 35,75

101 Gabon 36,50

102 Cyprus (North) 37,00

103 Chad 37,67

104 Ecuador 38,00

- Georgia 38,00

106 Nepal 38,75

107 Montenegro 39,00

108 Bolivia 40,00

- Kyrgyzstan 40,00

110 Liberia 40,50

111 South Sudan 41,25 nc

112 United Arab Emirates 45,00

113 Panama 45,67

114 Qatar 46,00

115 Peru 51,25

116 Ukraine 54,00

117 Cambodia 55,00

- Fiji 55,00

- Oman 55,00

- Venezuela 55,00

- Zimbabwe 55,00

122 Algeria 56,00

- Tajikistan 56,00

- Malaysia 56,00

125 Brunei 56,20

126 Nigeria 56,40

127 Ethiopia 56,60

128 Jordan 56,80

129 Bangladesh 57,00

130 Burundi 57,75

131 India 58,00

132 Angola 58,43

133 Israel (extra-territorial) 59,00

134 Tunisia 60,25

135 Singapore 61,00

- Honduras 61,00

137 Thailand 61,50

138 Morocco 63,29

139 Uganda 64,00

140 Philippines 64,50

141 Gambia 65,50

142 Russia 66,00

143 Colombia 66,50

144 Swaziland 67,00

145 Democratic Republic of Congo 67,67

146 Indonesia 68,00

- Malawi 68,00

148 Turkey 70,00

149 Mexico 72,67

150 Afghanistan 74,00

151 Pakistan 75,00

152 Iraq 75,36

153 Palestinian Territories 76,00

154 Kazakhstan 77,50

- Libya 77,50

156 Rwanda 81,00

157 Uzbekistan 83,00

158 Saudi Arabia 83,25

159 Côte d’Ivoire 83,50

- Djibouti 83,50

161 Equatorial Guinea 86,00

162 Azerbaijan 87,25

163 Sri Lanka 87,50

164 Somalia 88,33

165 Laos 89,00

166 Egypt 97,50

167 Cuba 98,83

168 Belarus 99,00

169 Burma 100,00

170 Sudan 100,75

171 Yemen 101,00

172 Vietnam 114,00

173 Bahrain 125,00

174 China 136,00

175 Iran 136,60

176 Syria 138,00

177 Turkmenistan 140,67

178 North Korea 141,00

179 Eritrea 142,00

Rank	Country	Score
1	Finland	-10,00
-	Norway	-10,00
3	Estonia	-9,00
-	Netherlands	-9,00
5	Austria	-8,00
6	Iceland	-7,00
-	Luxembourg	-7,00
8	Switzerland	-6,20
9	Cape Verde	-6,00
10	Canada	-5,67
-	Denmark	-5,67
12	Sweden	-5,50
13	New Zealand	-5,33
14	Czech Republic	-5,00
15	Ireland	-4,00
16	Cyprus	-3,00
-	Jamaica	-3,00
-	Germany	-3,00
19	Costa Rica	-2,25
20	Belgium	-2,00
-	Namibia	-2,00
22	Japan	-1,00
-	Surinam	-1,00
24	Poland	-0,67
25	Mali	0,00
-	OECS	0,00
-	Slovakia	0,00
28	United Kingdom	2,00
29	Niger	2,50
30	Australia	4,00
-	Lithuania	4,00
32	Uruguay	4,25
33	Portugal	5,33
34	Tanzania	6,00
35	Papua New Guinea	9,00
36	Slovenia	9,14
37	El Salvador	9,30
38	France	9,50
39	Spain	9,75
40	Hungary	10,00
41	Ghana	11,00
42	South Africa	12,00
-	Botswana	12,00
44	South Korea	12,67
45	Comoros	13,00
-	Taiwan	13,00
47	United States of America	14,00
-	Argentina	14,00
-	Romania	14,00
50	Latvia	15,00
-	Trinidad and Tobago	15,00
52	Haiti	15,67
53	Moldova	16,00
54	Hong-Kong	17,00
-	Mauritius	17,00
-	Samoa	17,00
57	United States of America (extra-territorial)	19,00
58	Malta	19,50
-	Bosnia and Herzegovina	19,50
-	Guyana	19,50
61	Italy	19,67
62	Central African Republic	20,00
63	Lesotho	21,00
-	Sierra Leone	21,00
-	Tonga	21,00
66	Mozambique	21,50
67	Mauritania	22,20
68	Croatia	23,33
-	Burkina Faso	23,33
70	Bhutan	24,00
-	Greece	24,00
72	Nicaragua	24,33
73	Maldives	25,00
-	Seychelles	25,00
75	Guinea-Bissau	26,00
-	Senegal	26,00
77	Armenia	27,00
78	Kuwait	28,00
79	Togo	28,50
80	Serbia	29,00
-	Bulgaria	29,00
-	Chile	29,00
-	Paraguay	29,00
84	Kenya	29,50
-	Madagascar	29,50
86	Guinea	30,00
-	Kosovo	30,00
-	Timor-Leste	30,00
-	Zambia	30,00
90	Congo	30,38
91	Benin	31,00
92	Israel (Israeli territory)	31,25
93	Lebanon	31,50
94	Macedonia	31,67
95	Dominican Republic	33,25
96	Albania	34,44
97	Cameroon	35,00
-	Guatemala	35,00
99	Brazil	35,33
100	Mongolia	35,75
101	Gabon	36,50
102	Cyprus (North)	37,00
103	Chad	37,67
104	Ecuador	38,00
-	Georgia	38,00
106	Nepal	38,75
107	Montenegro	39,00
108	Bolivia	40,00
-	Kyrgyzstan	40,00
110	Liberia	40,50
111	South Sudan	41,25	nc
112	United Arab Emirates	45,00
113	Panama	45,67
114	Qatar	46,00
115	Peru	51,25
116	Ukraine	54,00
117	Cambodia	55,00
-	Fiji	55,00
-	Oman	55,00
-	Venezuela	55,00
-	Zimbabwe	55,00
122	Algeria	56,00
-	Tajikistan	56,00
-	Malaysia	56,00
125	Brunei	56,20
126	Nigeria	56,40
127	Ethiopia	56,60
128	Jordan	56,80
129	Bangladesh	57,00
130	Burundi	57,75
131	India	58,00
132	Angola	58,43
133	Israel (extra-territorial)	59,00
134	Tunisia	60,25
135	Singapore	61,00
-	Honduras	61,00
137	Thailand	61,50
138	Morocco	63,29
139	Uganda	64,00
140	Philippines	64,50
141	Gambia	65,50
142	Russia	66,00
143	Colombia	66,50
144	Swaziland	67,00
145	Democratic Republic of Congo	67,67
146	Indonesia	68,00
-	Malawi	68,00
148	Turkey	70,00
149	Mexico	72,67
150	Afghanistan	74,00
151	Pakistan	75,00
152	Iraq	75,36
153	Palestinian Territories	76,00
154	Kazakhstan	77,50
-	Libya	77,50
156	Rwanda	81,00
157	Uzbekistan	83,00
158	Saudi Arabia	83,25
159	Côte d’Ivoire	83,50
-	Djibouti	83,50
161	Equatorial Guinea	86,00
162	Azerbaijan	87,25
163	Sri Lanka	87,50
164	Somalia	88,33
165	Laos	89,00
166	Egypt	97,50
167	Cuba	98,83
168	Belarus	99,00
169	Burma	100,00
170	Sudan	100,75
171	Yemen	101,00
172	Vietnam	114,00
173	Bahrain	125,00
174	China	136,00
175	Iran	136,60
176	Syria	138,00
177	Turkmenistan	140,67
178	North Korea	141,00
179	Eritrea	142,00

Hedge funds are not really interested in an actual Greek rescue - only their profit matters

2012-01-25T12:13:00.000-08:00

spiegel...

Hedge Funds Bet on Profits from Greek Debt Talks

The negotiations over the Greek debt haircut are becoming increasingly suspenseful, with euro-zone finance ministers and the IMF pushing investors to accept greater losses. Hedge funds, more than any others, stand to profit, and are betting that the voluntary debt rescheduling will fail.

Who will bleed for Greece? For weeks, private creditors like banks and insurers have been trying to negotiate a debt rescheduling with the country without success. Even when they seem close to agreement, it remains unclear if all creditors are on board. In particular, hedge funds that own Greek bonds could have a significant interest in ignoring the results of the negotiations, instead preferring to focus on an official national default.

Bank representatives assume in the meantime that many hedge funds are not really interested in an agreement. With a controversial investment strategy they have assured themselves of profiting with either a low level of Greek bad debts, or a complete Greek bankruptcy.

At issue are Greek bonds with a total volume of about €200 billion. How many are owned by hedge funds is unclear, but the amount is estimated to be about €70 billion (including other funds).

The bondholders are expected to voluntarily give up 50 percent of their claims. Another 15 percent is to be compensated with either cash or secure bonds of the European rescue fund EFSF. The remaining 35 percent should come in the form of new Greek bonds, that will likely reach maturity in 30 years.

The amount of money the creditors will actually have to give up depends on the interest rates on the new bonds. The Institute of International Finance (IIF), which is leading the negotiations with Greece, is insisting on an average of at least four percent. The euro-zone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have instead insisted on rates lower than four percent, in order to make the burden on Greece more bearable. The banks calculate that this means they would actually lose closer to between 70 and 80 percent of their claims, and they are balking.

'Not Worried About Their Public Image'

For some hedge funds, the fight over interest rates has given them more incentive to push for a breakdown of the proposed plan. Officially, they are in the same boat as the banks and insurance companies. But in reality their interests are vastly opposed. "Hedge funds don't need to worry about their public image," one banker says. Their reputation has already been destroyed. Therefore, they can be relatively cavalier in gambling with the possibility of a Greek bankruptcy.

In an internal analysis of the German Savings Banks Association (DSGV), which represents the public banks, the hedge funds come off fairly badly. Withttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifh the financial investors "only the performance" is most important. There is "hardly a political or economic corrective factor," such as long-term customer or contractual relations, the analysis says. Therefore, "one can conclude that they are not really interested in an actual Greek rescue."

i honestly don't think the hedge funds have EVER been seriously concerned about their reputation... it's always been about money - how much can be grabbed and how fast - and woe to anybody who gets in the way... matt taibbi's metaphor of a giant vampire squid glued firmly to the face of not only humanity but also to the planet is apt... they will suck the life out of anything and everything as long as there is money to be made...

If you happen to watch the State of the Union tonight and Obama mentions accountability, remember this

2012-01-24T10:13:00.001-08:00

glenn...

The Rules of American Justice are quite clear:
(1) If you are a high-ranking government official who commits war crimes, you will receive full-scale immunity, both civil and criminal, and will have the American President demand that all citizens Look Forward, Not Backward.
(2) If you are a low-ranking member of the military, you will receive relatively trivial punishments in order to protect higher-ranking officials and cast the appearance of accountability.
(3) If you are a victim of American war crimes, you are a non-person with no legal rights or even any entitlement to see the inside of a courtroom.
(4) If you talk publicly about any of these war crimes, you have committed the Gravest Crime — you are guilty of espionage – and will have the full weight of the American criminal justice system come crashing down upon you.

Citigroup replaces JP Morgan as White House Chief of Staff

2012-01-24T09:47:00.000-08:00

the post headline is from a story by gawker and dates back to 9 january... i just ran across it yesterday and am convinced it's destined to be a classic...

Here's a brief history of President Obama's White House chiefs of staff: Rahm Emanuel, a former Clinton official who then worked in investment banking, was replaced in 2010 by Bill Daley, a former Clinton official who then worked in investment banking, in order to run for Mayor of Chicago, a seat that had been held for 20 years by Bill Daley's brother.

Today, Bill Daley officially resigned and will return to Chicago and perhaps his career in investment banking. He'll be replaced with Jack Lew, a former Clinton official who then worked in investment banking, who has served as President Obama's Office of Management and Budget director since 2010 when he replaced Peter Orszag, a former Clinton official who now works in investment banking.

so, what else would you like to know about what obama thinks is important...?

Calling bullshit on the White House and the SOTU - "Building a country ... where everyone is accountable for what they do"

2012-01-24T09:20:00.000-08:00

this does NOT sit well with me...

White House aides said Monday that Obama will build on a speech he gave in Kansas last month. In it, Obama laid out what he called the two competing visions, a Republican blueprint for survival of the fittest that trusts unregulated markets to lift the country, and his vision, which asks the government to take an active hand.

"The State of the Union will be a bookend to the president's speech in Kansas last month about the central mission that we have as a country and his focus as president: Building a country and an economy where we reward hard work and responsibility, where everyone does their fair share, and where everyone is held accountable for what they do," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday.

boy, i sincerely hope obama uses those very words in the SOTU because they deserve to be hung around his neck like an albatross... obama came into office with one of the biggest opportunities to demonstrate and enforce accountability that have been given to any president in the history of this country and he not only blew them off, he made the principles of accountability and the rule of law in the united states global icons of hypocrisy...

i'm not going to chronicle the multiple instances where obama has given the finger to accountability... i've posted on it more times than i care to count along with folks like glenn greenwald, chris hedges and others... obama's record on accountability is nothing short of shameful and that he could even be considering pushing accountability as a focus in the sotu is beyond laughable... and yet he continues to add fuel to the fire as dean baker points out in today's piece on the mortgage fraud "settlement"...

Is the Obama Administration Soft on Crime?

That would seem to be the case from the leaks about a mortgage settlement which would reportedly give the banks and their executives immunity for all their misdeeds connected with the housing bubble in exchange for $20 billion in principle write-downs on underwater mortgages. And, Naked Capitalism reminds us that this $20 billion need not even come out of the banks' pockets. This includes write downs on mortgages that they are servicing, which means that the money would come out of investors' pockets.

Apart from the limited money at stake, the question is why would there be a reason to grant immunity for criminal wrong-doing? If people at these banks committed fraud, for example by lying about possessing documents that they did not possess, lying about the terms of loans to mortgage applicants or misrepresenting the mortgages in pools to investors, then why would we want to give them a get out of jail free card?

If no such fraud was committed, then there is no reason to include this sort of immunity in a settlement. The only reason to grant immunity of this type is if fraud was committed and the Obama administration wants to let the bankers off the hook.

i really don't want to watch the sotu tonight but probably will only if i have a good supply of anti-nausea medication on hand...

Patriots for Self-Deportation - words fail me

2012-01-24T09:10:00.000-08:00

this email appeared in my inbox this morning...

PATRIOTS FOR SELF-DEPORTATION
www.SelfDeport.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACTS:
E-mail: Stephen Winters, SelfDeport@gmail.com
Phone: (717) 585-0628
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/SelfDeport

AUSTIN (January 24, 2012) The grassroots organization Patriots for Self-Deportation, formed last year in response to legislative inaction on the issue of birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants (also known as the “anchor baby” problem), announced today the launch of their website, SelfDeport.org. The group describes SelfDeport.org as a resource for patriotic Americans who wish to set an example of responsible citizenship by proving their own rights to remain in this great nation.

The group hopes the website and issue benefits from Republican candidate Mitt Romney's endorsement of self-deportation as a solution to the problem of illegal immigration, according to spokesman Stephen Winters.

"A surprising number of authentic patriots have found in their own genealogical searches that one or more of their ancestors came here or stayed here illegally, and yet continued to make a living in this country and have children who in turn became instant citizens," said Winters. "Some patriots, faced with this moral dilemma, have decided to set an example for others. Knowing that their own presence in this country is not on moral solid ground, they have decided to demonstrate the highest level of civic dedication and sacrifice, and engage in self-deportation."

In order to address the surprisingly large number of such cases, Patriots for Self-Deportation launched SelfDeport.org to support, inform, and assist those undertaking or considering a similar move. At SelfDeport.org, patriots can answer for themselves the following questions:

How can I know if ancestors of mine came here legally?
If I suspect that an ancestor should never have received citizenship, am I morally obliged to do something about it?
What support is available if I decide to self-deport?
If several of my ancestors came over illegally, how do I decide which country of origin to return to?
How do I go about self-deportation?

Reuters interview with Mike McConnell on cybersecurity - a misinformation case study

2012-01-24T07:47:00.000-08:00

we're all reasonably aware of the ability of news media to shape the national dialogue by focusing on subject matter that the ptb wishes to highlight in the public consciousness... we're also pretty much aware of how little context we get with most news stories where often critical background information is conveniently omitted that, if included, would give a story significantly deeper meaning... and we're also aware that key public figures will often make themselves available for interviews to news outlets when they are trying to soften the public up for an event or decision that might not sit well... rarely, however, do all of these come together in one article...

Ex-U.S. spy chief says may take crisis for new cyber law

U.S. intelligence agencies have unique capabilities that can help protect American companies from cyber espionage and attack, but it will probably take a crisis to change laws to allow that type of cooperation, a former spy chief said on Monday.

Intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency are authorized to operate abroad but generally are restricted from working within the United States,

"Until we have a banking collapse or electric power goes off in the middle of a snowstorm for eight weeks, or something of that magnitude, we're likely just to talk about it and not do much," Mike McConnell, former director of national intelligence, said.

[...]

The House intelligence committee in December approved a bill that would allow U.S. spy agencies to share cyber-threat intelligence with private companies. Some critics worry that could lead to government surveillance of private data.

[...]

"There are unique things that the government can do. For example code-breaking. The private sector out there does not do code-breaking," McConnell, a former National Security Agency director, told Reuters in an interview.

"How would you harness that capability and then make it available to the private sector in a way that their infrastructure could be better protected?"

[...]

McConnell gives an example that if NSA, which conducts electronic eavesdropping to detect foreign threats, observed a cyberthreat against the U.S. private sector, "NSA is powerless to do a thing other than issue a report."

He said in the area of cyber exploitation, such as reading an adversary's mail without leaving fingerprints, the United States, Britain and Russia are probably the best.

The United States also has the ability to conduct cyber attacks, which would be to degrade or destroy an adversary's computerized system, and has used it.

Has the United States used its cyber attack capability? "Yes," McConnell said. Did it work? "Yes."

McConnell, now vice chairman at the Booz Allen Hamilton consulting firm in charge of cyber activities, did not elaborate on the use of a cyber attack capability.

"Do we have the ability to attack, degrade or destroy? Sure. If you do that, what are the consequences? That is the question," he said.

McConnell said the priority is to protect the country's critical infrastructure such as the financial sector, the electric power grid and transportation from cyber attack and stop the theft of intellectual property through cyber espionage.

"There will be a thousand voices on what is the right thing to do," and it will probably require a crisis to reach consensus, he said.

i'll give credit where credit is due... at least they bothered to mention mcconnell's position with booz allen even if it took 'em 14 paragraphs to do it...

what might have been additional contextually significant information is that mcconnell is a poster child for the revolving door between top u.s. government posts and the corporations that feed off of government contracts... mcconnell served as senior vp for intelligence and national security at booz after retiring from the navy as nsa director and before being appointed as the director of national security by george bush and went immediately back to booz again as a senior vp seven days after the obama presidential inauguration and has since assumed the post of booz vice chairman (see here)...

other information about booz that would have been relevant is that booz is the 9th largest u.s. government contractor with annual revenues of over $5B, does an enormous amount of work with the u.s. government in the area of technology and cybersecurity, is majority owned by the carlyle group and has a strong profit motive to push an increase in government cyber capability by fronting a former dni who just so happens to be its current vice chairman (see here and here)...

now, what to make out of mcconnell's statement that "it will probably require a crisis"...? if there isn't one that occurs naturally and spontaneously, can we assume one will be created...? are we being tipped off...? does mcconnell know something we don't...? is it a veiled threat...?

why can't news organizations give us the information we need to make sense out of a story...? just because i happen to be a news junkie, i am aware of all this relevant background but why can't such information be a legitimate part of the news...? it would certainly help people discharge their responsibilities as informed citizens...

Obama to Use Pension Funds of Ordinary Americans to Pay for Bank Mortgage "Settlement" [UPDATE]

2012-01-23T14:45:00.001-08:00

yves smith posting at naked capitalism...

[UPDATE]

Protesters Demonstrate in Front of Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Meeting in Chicago

We can vote for Romney or Obama, but Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil and Bank of America and the defense contractors always win

2012-01-23T08:26:00.000-08:00

chris hedges...

Our electoral system, already hostage to corporate money and corporate lobbyists, gasped its last two years ago. It died on Jan. 21, 2010, when the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission granted to corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts on independent political campaigns. The ruling turned politicians into corporate employees. If any politician steps out of line, dares to defy corporate demands, this ruling hands to our corporate overlords the ability to pump massive amounts of anonymous money into campaigns to make sure the wayward are defeated and silenced. Politicians like Obama are hostages. They jump when corporations say jump. They beg when corporations say beg.

[...]

Turn off your televisions. Ignore the Newt-Mitt-Rick-Barack reality show. It is as relevant to your life as the gossip on “Jersey Shore.” The real debate, the debate raised by the Occupy movement about inequality, corporate malfeasance, the destruction of the ecosystem, and the security and surveillance state, is the only debate that matters. You won’t hear it on the corporate-owned airwaves and cable networks, including MSNBC, which has become to the Democratic Party what Fox News is to the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party. You won’t hear it on NPR or PBS. You won’t read about it in our major newspapers.

[...]

Voting will not alter the corporate systems of power. Voting is an act of political theater. Voting in the United States is as futile and sterile as in the elections I covered as a reporter in dictatorships like Syria, Iran and Iraq. There were always opposition candidates offered up by these dictatorships. Give the people the illusion of choice. Throw up the pretense of debate. Let the power elite hold public celebrations to exalt the triumph of popular will. We can vote for Romney or Obama, but Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil and Bank of America and the defense contractors always win.

[...]

[V]oting is nothing more than a brief chance to register our disgust with the corporate state. It will not alter the configurations of power. The campaign is not worth our emotional, physical or intellectual energy.

[...]

Our efforts must be directed toward acts of civil disobedience, to chipping away, through nonviolent protest, at the pillars of established, corporate power. The corporate state is so unfair, so corrupt and so rotten that the institutions tasked with holding it up—the police, the press, the banking system, the civil service and the judiciary—have become vulnerable. It is becoming harder and harder for the corporations to convince its foot soldiers to hold the system in place.

keep on keepin' on... what else can we do...?

Moyers & Company: On Crony Capitalism

2012-01-22T19:58:00.000-08:00

did i mention how glad i am to see bill moyers back on the air...?

Moyers & Company Show 102: On Crony Capitalism from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

from alternet...

"Crony capitalism is about the aggressive and proactive use of political resources, lobbying, campaign contributions, influence-peddling of one type or another to gain something from the governmental process that wouldn't otherwise be achievable in the market. And as the time has progressed over the last two or three decades, I think it's gotten much worse. Money dominates politics."
Those are the words of former budget director for President Reagan, talking to Bill Moyers in this week's episode of Moyers & Company. Continuing to focus on the intersection of money and politics, Moyers' new program talks to Stockman about the financialization of the economy, re-regulating the big banks, the Fed's enabling of Wall Street, and how the banks buy influence with politicians to ensure favorable treatment.
“As a result,” Stockman says, “we have neither capitalism nor democracy. We have crony capitalism.”
He names names--Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, General Electric's Jeffrey Immelt, and more--who are deeply involved still in the Obama administration.
"If you have a former community organizer who was trained in the Saul Alinsky school of direct democracy, appointing the worst abuser, the worst abuser of crony capitalism, GE, who came in and begged for this bailout, to head his Jobs Council, when obviously GE's international corporation, they've been shifting jobs offshore for decades, then it becomes so obvious that we have a new kind of system, and that we have a real crisis."

Moyers also talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times business and finance reporter Gretchen Morgenson, who tells him, "You and I don't have a lobbyist and so we are not represented in this melee."
She continues, "There is no balance here. There's a drastic imbalance between the people who created the problem and the people who had to pay the problem and it has not been addressed."
When Moyers asks if a crisis like the one in 2008, the meltdown that nearly collapsed the financial system, could happen again, Morgenson replies, "It will happen again."

yes, it WILL happen again...

Bill Moyers: How ordinary people can fight ‘Citizens United’

2012-01-22T08:02:00.000-08:00

i still think bill moyers ought to run for president... he could pick stephen colbert for his vp...

from raw story...

In this clip, commentator Bill Moyers answers a question frequently posed to him by viewers — “How can ordinary people fight ‘Citizens United’?”

The controversial Supreme Court ruling enshrines the notion of “corporate personhood” into law, giving companies many of the same rights and protections as U.S. citizens, allowing businesses to pour unlimited amounts of money into influencing political contests.

Moyers urges viewers to believe in themselves as agents of change, to stick together and understand that there is real power in numbers. He quotes an African proverb, “If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk together.”
He concludes by giving contact information for two organizations fighting the “Citizens United” ruling, Move to Amend and Free Speech for People.

Ask Bill: How can ordinary people help to overturn or nullify the Citizen United Decision? from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

The Megaupload seizure does indeed give the finger to our SOPA/PIPA victory

2012-01-21T08:02:00.000-08:00

what you see when you click through to the megaupload site...

glenn...

It’s true that website-seizures-without-trials are not quite as lawless as indefinite detentions, since there are actual statutes conferring this power. But it nonetheless sends a very clear message when citizens celebrate a rare victory in denying the Government a power it seeks — the power to shut down websites without a trial — only for the Government to turn around the very next day and shut down one of the world’s largest and best-known sites. Whether intended or not, the message is unmistakable: Congratulations, citizens, on your cute little “democracy” victory in denying us the power to shut down websites without a trial: we’re now going to shut down one of your most popular websites without a trial.

The U.S. really is a society that simply no longer believes in due process: once the defining feature of American freedom that is now scorned as some sort of fringe, radical, academic doctrine. That is not hyperbole. Supporters of both political parties endorse, or at least tolerate, all manner of government punishment without so much as the pretense of a trial, based solely on government accusation: imprisonment for life, renditions to other countries, even assassinations of their fellow citizens. Simply uttering the word Terrorist, without proving it, is sufficient. And now here is Megaupload being completely destroyed — its website shuttered, its assets seized, ongoing business rendered impossible — based solely on the unproven accusation of Piracy.

the rule of law does not apply to our government...

The war on democracy is unmentionable in western elite circles

2012-01-20T15:32:00.000-08:00

john pilger...

Since the Second World War, the US has:
Attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most of them democratically-elected.
Attempted to suppress a populist or national movement in 20 countries.
Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.

In total, the United States has carried out one or more of these actions in 69 countries. In almost all cases, Britain has been a collaborator. The "enemy" changes in name – from communism to Islamism — but mostly it is the rise of democracy independent of western power or a society occupying strategically useful territory, deemed expendable...
The sheer scale of suffering, let alone criminality, is little known in the west, despite the presence of the world’s most advanced communications, nominally freest journalism, and most admired academy. That the most numerous victims of terrorism – western terrorism – are Muslims is unsayable, if it is known. That half a million Iraqi infants died in the 1990s as a result of the embargo imposed by Britain and America is of no interest. That extreme jihadism, which led to 9/11, was nurtured as a weapon of western policy ("Operation Cyclone") is known to specialists but otherwise suppressed.

[...]

America is now a land of epidemic poverty and barbaric prisons: the consequence of a "market" extremism which, under Obama, has prompted the transfer of $14 trillion in public money to criminal enterprises in Wall Street. The victims are mostly young jobless, homeless, incarcerated African-Americans, betrayed by the first black president. The historic corollary of a perpetual war state, this is not fascism, not yet, but neither is it democracy in any recognizable form, regardless of the placebo politics that will consume the news until November. The presidential campaign, says the Washington Post, will "feature a clash of philosophies rooted in distinctly different views of the economy." This is patently false. The circumscribed task of journalism on both sides of the Atlantic is to create the pretence of political choice where there is none.

there are times - and today is one of them - when i'd almost rather not know the truth...

Anonymous strikes back

2012-01-19T17:20:00.000-08:00

good on them...

Anonymous downs government, music industry sites in largest attack ever

Hacktivists with the collective Anonymous are waging an attack on the website for the White House after successfully breaking the sites for the FBI, Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America.

In response to today’s federal raid on the file sharing service Megaupload, hackers with the online collective Anonymous have broken the websites for the FBI, Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA, Motion Picture Association of America and Warner Music Group.

[...]

Only hours before the DoJ and Universal sites went down, news broke that Megaupload, a massive file sharing site with a reported 50 million daily users, was taken down by federal agents. Four people linked to Megaupload were arrested in New Zealand and an international crackdown led agents to serving at least 20 search warrants across the globe.

i like their style...

Insensitive, tone-deaf Democrats want to sell more skyboxes at BofA Stadium in Charlotte

2012-01-18T04:57:00.000-08:00

the news about the democratic national convention's choice of charlotte's bank of america stadium as the venue for obama to accept the presidential nomination ought to answer any questions as to how sincere are the concerns of the left side of our utterly broken two-party system for us peasants... selling "more skyboxes to wealthy donors" plus the enormous free advertising bofa will reap from the wall-to-wall media coverage before, during and after, clearly demonstrates who obama and the democratic party sees as their constituents...

For a party trying to cast itself as fighters for the middle class against Wall Street greed, Democrats are making some curious choices -- at least symbolically -- when it comes to planning for their 2012 convention.
They don't think it's a problem that they're holding their convention in Charlotte, N.C., a city sometimes referred to as "The Wall Street of the South." They also don't think it's a big deal that President Barack Obama is slated to accept the Democratic presidential nomination at Bank of America Stadium, named for the bank that received a $45 billion bailout during the financial crisis and sparked outrage by imposing a $5 monthly debit card fee on its customers. The fee was later dropped.

Democratic officials are also downplaying reports that the real reason they're choosing to hold the final day of their convention at Bank of America Stadium isn't because it means more seats for convention attendees, but because it would allow them to sell more skyboxes to wealthy donors.

Regardless of how much credence they give to such details, the visuals are a stark contrast to the populist image that Democrats are trying to project ahead of the November elections. Obama and congressional Democrats have been ramping up rhetoric about Republicans siding with big banks and wealthy people, while Democrats stand up for average Americans in need of jobs, health care and education.

"They will fight with their last breath to protect tax cuts for the most fortunate Americans," Obama said last week at a Chicago fundraiser. "We cannot go back to this brand of 'you are on your own economics.'"

Any irony in holding the Democratic National Convention at Bank of America Stadium was lost on Democrats involved in convention planning, however. Most said they hadn't heard of the "Wall Street of the South" moniker; some noted, after spontaneous Google searches, that other cities including Galveston and Atlanta have also been slapped with the title. Charlotte gets the name because it is home to Bank of America world headquarters and the East Coast headquarters of Wells Fargo, which makes it the nation's second-largest banking center after New York.

screw 'em... here's one voter that isn't falling for their bullshit populist rhetoric...

We shall have a nation by, for, and powered by the people once again

2012-01-17T09:14:00.000-08:00

i know several folks who have traveled to d.c. for this... i wish them and everyone involved all the best... it's time we reclaimed our rightful place as empowered citizens of our nation and of the world... things can no longer proceed as they have been... the time for sitting on the sidelines and hoping for the best is over...

AMERICA OCCUPIES THE CAPITAL

January 17 at 9 am
Capitol Hill

Washington, DC—On January 17 Americans from across the nation and the world will assemble in the shadows of a broken system to participate in real democracy.

At 9 am on the opening day of Congress, Occupy Congress will convene for a day of action against a corrupt political institution. Actions include a multi-occupational General Assembly, teach-ins, an OCCUParty, a pink slip for every congressional “representative” and a march on all three branches of a puppet government that sold our rights and our futures to the 1%.

This is an illegitimate system. Around half of the nation’s population doesn’t participate in electoral politics. More than 6 million Americans who want to vote are disenfranchised, including the entire populace of the District of Columbia. There is consensus that we are on the wrong track and that our “leaders” do not have our interests at heart.

All “elected” officials bought their way into gerrymandered seats with Wall Street money. These bankers’ henchmen have shown themselves both unwilling and unable to take on the tremendous, systemic issues in our country, our place in this world.

In the face of this endemic corruption, the Occupy movement is about organizing locally to discuss and change these problems from the ground up. We came to show the 1%’s Congress what democracy looks like.

Our nation, and our world, is in crisis and our “elected” officials have failed us. They refused to hold their bankrollers—Wall Street—responsible for the financial crimes that bankrupted our nation and destroyed the global economy. This last legislative cycle was the least productive in recorded U.S. history; 90% of the country disapproves of these “elected” officials.

We refuse to accept the grim future that Wall Street’s cronies have designed. We refuse to be the 1%’s captive citizenry. We stand together to show that the 99% are creating a better world.

The 99% will no longer be complacent. Our many voices will be amplified on the steps of Capitol Hill. We shall have a nation by, for, and powered by the people once again. We are building it.

i hope the turnout is so huge that it causes the ptb to literally quake in their expensive shoes...

A modest proposal for a Voters' Rights Amendment that brings Occupy and the Tea Party together

2012-01-16T14:00:00.000-08:00

i'm inclined to believe we're ready for this... my gut has told me for a long time that the ptb have worked tirelessly to keep us off balance and fighting each other and the tea party vs. the occupy movement is just one more instance of this as is the bogus two-party system, socialism vs. capitalism, war vs. peace, and all the other false dichotomies that are shoved down our throats on a daily basis...

apologies to truthout for exceeding the fair use standard but this deserves a full treatment...

A Voters' Rights Amendment as a Focus for Dissent

Unification of the Tea Party and Occupy movements for a common goal - a Voters' Rights Amendment - will re-establish the United States as a democratic republic and will restore control of its government to the voters. The sort of cooperation I will suggest here is possible only to the extent that there is not more opinion-manufacturing or co-optation by political parties or private interests.

Although the corporate and wealthy elite is doing everything in its power - primarily through its mouthpiece, the mainstream media - to convince Occupiers and Tea Partiers that each is an enemy of the other, it is becoming increasingly clear that the two groups have much in common.

Not only do both groups march under the "Don't Tread on Me" flag, they both very strongly believe that corporations should not enjoy the constitutional rights of individuals, regardless of what the US Supreme Court may have ruled. Moreover, both groups believe that their government ignores their most critical concerns, including jobs, personal freedom, and the health, nutrition and well-being of their families, as their elected representatives feed at the trough slopped by the corporate and wealthy elite.

The time is ripe for an open consideration of unity between the two groups. The extensive media coverage amounting to the propaganda-style coverage and pandering of the Tea Party's far smaller demonstrations has given way to acknowledgment of the Occupy movement in the face of police brutality and that movement's staying power.

Support for the Tea Party is lagging with the nonaligned public, as it is increasingly evident that the populist movement has been and is being manipulated by Republican operatives. At the same time, the Occupiers are fighting off attempts by establishment progressives to co-opt their movement.

It is essential that both groups identify their common interests and take collective actions to unify their efforts, instead of attacking each other over other issues about which they may have an honest difference of opinion. Uniting with the increasingly large block of independent voters, Tea Partiers and Occupiers will organize a more effective defense of both of their basic principles, rather than those offered by either the Republican or Democratic party, both of which subvert the rights and interests of workers and small-business owners in favor of wealthy donors and corporate supporters.

The most basic issue that Occupiers and Tea Partiers may perhaps readily agree upon is a Voters' Rights Amendment to the Constitution that ensures that the future of the United States is decided by its voters rather than by the corporate and wealthy elite, which currently manipulates and controls the voters' representatives. The Voters' Rights Amendment provides that only natural persons are protected by the Constitution, establishes a national paid voters' holiday and calls for a national paper ballot, which includes a national policy referendum on critical policy questions and an alternative write-in vote.

The Voters' Rights Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States of America

Section 1

Only natural persons shall be protected by this Constitution and entitled to the rights and freedoms it guarantees, including the freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, petition and privacy.

Section 2

Prior to the end of the calendar year preceding a presidential election, Congress shall adopt a joint resolution setting forth the 12 most critical policy questions that should be addressed by the next president and Congress.

Failure of Congress to adopt a joint resolution prior to the end of the calendar year shall result in the disqualification of all sitting members of Congress to be eligible for re-election.

Section 3

Federal elections conducted every second year for senators and representatives shall be held on a national voters' holiday, with full pay for all voters who cast a ballot.

Federal elections shall be conducted on uniform, hand-countable paper ballots and, for the presidential election, ballots shall include the 12 most critical policy questions identified by Congress, each to be answered yes or no by voters.

Paper ballots shall provide space for voters to handwrite in their choice for all elective federal offices, if they choose, and all such votes shall be counted.

Section 4

In balancing the public benefit of maximum voter participation with the prevention of voting fraud, Congress and the states shall not impose any restriction on voting by citizens except for the most compelling reasons.

The intentional suppression of voting in national elections is hereby prohibited and, in addition to any other penalty imposed by law, any person convicted of the intentional suppression of voting shall be ineligible for federal office for a period of five years.

Section 5

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 6

This article shall become operative once it has been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several states as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.

definitely worth considering...

Lamenting the loss of our civil liberties on the day set aside to honor Martin Luther King

2012-01-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

chris hayes interview with former guantánamo detainee lakhdar boumediene...

boumediene, explains in Arabic how his life was devastated by indefinite detention...

In October, 2001, six Algerian men were arrested in Bosnia and accused of plotting to blow up the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. They were later released due to insufficient evidence, but immediately handed off to U.S. military forces. In an exclusive interview Chris talks with Lakhdar Boumediene, one of the six men arrested who was then detained at Guantanamo for seven years - without charge or explanation.

With the help of a translator, Boumediene explains life as a Guantanamo prisoner, including the internal politics, ways in which he says U.S. military officials tortured him, and the struggles he faced after being released.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

in a similar vein, glenn reminds us of the tremendous attack on our civil liberties that continues unabated under barack obama... he cites jonathan turley's wapo op-ed...

In The Washington Post yesterday, Law Professor Jonathan Turley has an Op-Ed in which he identifies ten major, ongoing assaults on core civil liberties in the U.S. Many of these abuses were accelerated during the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11, but all have been vigorously continued and/or expanded by President Obama. Turley points out that these powers have long been deemed (by the U.S.) as the hallmark of tyranny, and argues that their seizure by the U.S. Government has seriously called into question America’s status as a free nation: “They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian.” All ten of these powers are ones very familiar to readers here:

Assassination of U.S. citizens; Indefinite detention; Arbitrary justice; Warrantless searches; Secret evidence; War crimes; Secret court; Immunity from judicial review; Continual monitoring of citizens; and Extraordinary renditions.

feel the hope...? feel the change...?

Bill Moyers Essay: "Occupying a Cause"

2012-01-15T09:02:00.000-08:00

Bill Moyers on Occupy Wall Street from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co., on what Occupy is accomplishing

2012-01-13T19:47:00.000-08:00

Ask Bill from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Greece headed toward default; Austria and France to be downgraded by S&P

2012-01-13T08:11:00.000-08:00

from the ft...

Greek debt restructuring talks collapse

Talks over Greece’s debt restructuring collapsed on Friday, an unexpected breakdown that makes it increasingly likely Athens will become the first government of a developed country in more than 60 years to suffer a full-scale default on its debt.

In a statement, lead negotiators for Greek bondholders said that the latest offer made by Athens “has not produced a constructive consolidated response” from “all parties” – a clear reference to International Monetary Fund conclusions that bondholder losses must be increased significantly or a second Greek bail-out would have to be bigger than the agreed €130bn.

and then there's this, also from the ft...

S&P set to downgrade two eurozone nations

The credit rating agency Standard & Poor's is set to downgrade two triple A-rated eurozone nations, with one government official naming France and Austria. The other triple A-rated nations, including Germany, are expected to escape downgrade.

This has yet to be confirmed by the agency or the governments.

can't we please just get the global financial and economic collapse over with so we can figure out how to move on...?

Fuzzy the Conciliation Caterpillar presents Obama vs. Obama

2012-01-12T09:19:00.000-08:00

mark fiore...

Take a look at the two (or more) Obamas and pick your favorite! Join Fuzzy the Conciliation Caterpillar in investigating Obama's record. At least one Obama is always right! Dig deeper into his record on gay marriage, terrorism, civil liberties and more!

Terrorism is the most meaningless — and thus most manipulated — term of propaganda; it’s always what They do and never what We do

2012-01-12T08:04:00.000-08:00

glenn on the assassination of iranian scientists...

Does anyone have any doubt whatsoever that if Iran were sending hit squads to kill Israeli scientists in Tel Aviv, or was murdering a series of American scientists at Los Alamos (while wounding several of their wives, including, in one instance, shooting them in front of their child’s kindergarten), that those acts would be universally denounced as Terrorism, and the only debate would be whether the retaliation should be nuclear, carpet-bombing, or invasion? As always, Terrorism is the most meaningless — and thus most manipulated — term of propaganda; it’s always what They do and never what We do.
* * * * *
Regarding the question of who is responsible for the spate of scientist murders and explosions in Iran, it is true that there is no dispositive evidence on that question; that’s one of the benefits of conducting most consequential governmental action behind a wall of secrecy: no public accountability. But as the links above demonstrate, there is strong circumstantial and even direct evidence that (a) Israel is involved and (b) the U.S. has engaged in substantial covert acts of war aimed not only at the Iranian nuclear program generally but at Iran’s nuclear scientists specifically.
That all of this is done with total secrecy and no oversight by design enables deniability, if one is eager to embrace that. Newsweek‘s neocon national security reporter, Eli Lake, even went so far yesterday as to suggest the “possibility” that Iran is behind these acts of violence: because, as is well known, countries love to murder their own nuclear scientists and blow up their own nuclear facilities (Lake, of course, is right that it’s a “possibility” that Iran is behind this; as I replied: “Another possibility: maybe Senegal, or Singapore, is killing Iran’s scientists – or maybe Martians don’t like their nuclear program”). But by far the most likely explanation is that Israel is responsible, and one would have to be deliberately gullible — to the point of extreme self-delusion — to believe that the U.S. not only has no knowledge of or complicity in a spate of assassinations by its closest client state in a nation in which it has exhibited an intense interest, but also has no ability to stop it if it chose to (at the very least, the U.S. frequently sanctions state sponsors of Terrorism; if it objected to Israel’s acts, wouldn’t it do that here?).
Whatever else might be true, Israel and the U.S. are certainly the leading suspects behind these killings. And that is what explains the vehement resistance against calling this Terrorism.

nobody can tell me that this spate of killings isn't deliberate, targeted assassination... who's behind it is questionable but it's hard to imagine that either israel or the u.s. - or both - don't have something to do with it...

The cartoonist tries to figure out what's funny about the Republican candidates

2012-01-11T16:49:00.000-08:00

i guess it's only funny insofar as any of us find bigotry, deliberate ignorance, pandering, denial, delusion and lying funny...

equally not funny is that they are being paid attention to as if they had anything worthwhile to say...

and to think that one of them - most likely the pathetic one-percenter from massachusetts - will be our next president...

and, even if the incumbent is re-elected, we'll simply have to continue dealing with this...

i just don't know how i can handle this kind of excitement...

we are s-o-o-o-ooo screwed...

Bill Moyers talks about his return to TV with Stephen Colbert

2012-01-11T15:22:00.000-08:00

as i posted the other day, moyers returns to television on sunday with moyers & co...

from the colbert report...

Bill Moyers believes that capitalism is out of control and there can be no people's democracy as long as corporations are considered people.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

isn't it amazing that some of the best reporting on television is coming from a comedy show...?

i'm also reminded that the late, great molly ivins back in july 2006 proposed that bill moyers run for president... can you imagine what kind of impact moyers would get if he mounted a primary challenge to obama in even a single state...? what a message that would send...!

Molly Ivins: Run Bill Moyers for President, Seriously

Why we absolutely must proceed non-violently

2012-01-10T17:01:00.000-08:00

lurking immediately below many of the fears of the occupy movement, one of which is being co-opted by one of our political parties, is the profound fear of being co-opted into using violence...

gene sharp, the near-hermit who has authored what are called the handbooks of the "color revolutions" and is known for his espousal of non-violence (see here), talks with rt... he calls occupy a "symbolic protest"...

worth watching...

Yay...! Bill Moyers is coming back to TV this weekend...

2012-01-10T14:48:00.000-08:00

i had read about this earlier but am so very delighted to see it happening...“

Bill Moyers Journal” ended in April 2010 because Mr. Moyers, now 77, said he needed a break from the incessant demands of weekly television. But there’s no sign he is easing up this time around.
The new show, which begins this month on public television stations, has a different name, “Moyers & Company,” and a warmer set, featuring a blue-and-green background. But much will carry over from the old program, including Mr. Moyers’s thoughtful interviews with thinkers who wouldn’t otherwise get much television face time and a focus on the country’s most pressing political and economic questions. “I’m coming back because in tumultuous times like these I relish the company of people who try to make sense of the tumult,” Mr. Moyers writes on his Web site, billmoyers.com.
In an interview in his sprawling new Manhattan office he said that during his break he explored the possibility of a documentary on Lyndon B. Johnson, the president he served as press secretary, but decided that “today is more interesting than yesterday.”[emphasis added]

i repeat... yay...!

Occupy NH holds a "die-in"

2012-01-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

check the last sentence... some "explanation," eh...?

from truthout...

"Live free or die," the man instructed, and they all promptly died.

This was Monday's "Die-in," an Occupy New Hampshire event in the parking lot of the campaign headquarters of President Barack Obama. The death certificate lists the name of deceased as "democracy, freedom, liberty and the 99%." Cause: "The influence of Wall Street money." The protesters were demanding the campaign staff explain, among other things, President Obama's heavy reliance on corporate cash to fund his re-election effort. The campaign explained by calling the cops to break up the protest.

obama is the president... he don't have to explain SHIT to you...!

Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it

2012-01-10T13:10:00.000-08:00

i've always felt this way about the super-rich... they've always lived in their separate little worlds but i don't remember that they have ever had a larger impact on the rest of us as they do now...

mike lofgren, truthout...

I am unaware of a well-developed theory ... about how the super-rich and the corporations they run would secede from the nation state.
I do not mean secession in terms of physical withdrawal from the territory of the state, although that happens occasionally.(i) It means a withdrawal into enclaves, a sort of internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well-being except as a place to extract loot. Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; if one owns a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension - and viable public transportation doesn't even show up on the radar screen. With private doctors on call, who cares about Medicare?

To some degree, the rich have always secluded themselves from the gaze of the common herd; for example, their habit for centuries has been to send their offspring to private schools. But now this habit is exacerbated by the plutocracy's palpable animosity toward public education and public educators, as Michael Bloomberg has demonstrated. To the extent public education "reform" is popular among billionaires and their tax-exempt foundations, one suspects it is as a lever to divert the more than one-half trillion dollars in federal, state and local education dollars into private hands, meaning themselves and their friends.(ii) A century ago, at least we got some attractive public libraries out of Andrew Carnegie. Noblesse oblige like Carnegie's is presently lacking among our seceding plutocracy.

In both world wars, even a Harvard man or a New York socialite might know the weight of an Army pack. Now, the military is for suckers from the laboring classes, whose subprime mortgages you just sliced into CDOs and sold to gullible investors in order to buy your second Bentley or rustle up the cash to employ Rod Stewart to perform at your birthday party. Courtesy of Matt Taibbi, we learn that the sentiment among the super-rich toward the rest of America is often one of contempt rather than noblesse; Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, says about the views of the 99 percent: "Who gives a crap about some imbecile?"
[...]
The real joke is on the rest of us. After the biggest financial meltdown in 80 years - a meltdown caused by the type of rogue financial manipulation that Romney embodies - and a consequent long, steep drop in the American standard of living, who is the putative front-runner for one of the only two parties allowed to be competitive in American politics? None other than Romney, the man who says corporations are people. Opposing him, or someone like him, will be the incumbent President Barack Obama, who will raise up to a billion dollars to compete in the campaign. Much of that loot will come from the same corporations, hedge fund managers, merger and acquisition specialists and leveraged buyout artists the president will denounce in pro forma fashion during the campaign.

The super-rich have seceded from America even as their grip on its control mechanisms has tightened.

the super-rich have always thought of themselves as global citizens, for the most part not constrained by national boundaries and free to rape and pillage wherever in the world there was money to be made...

Both parties need to be driven into the wilderness of history and the rule of law has to be rescued from the oblivion they sent it to

2012-01-09T21:31:00.000-08:00

james howard kunstler blogging in clusterfuck nation...

Occupy Wall Street will seem like a mere harvest dance when we look back from the uproars later in 2012. Both organized parties have managed to banish the rule of law in America. Both parties need to be driven ihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnto the wilderness of history and the rule of law has to be rescued from the oblivion they sent it to. What group of clear-thinking adults can get behind that simple project? What voices will resolve out of the phenomenal noise of gadget America, with its deafening tweets, incessant advertising, instant messaging, idiotic robo-calling, and ever-present flat-screen assault on the senses?

I discern the distant sound of rebellion, a spirit that won't be appeased by bytes of Disney-babble from the pandering snouts of Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul or Obama. They are interested only in keeping a set of suicidal rackets going. All the yammer about "freedom" and "liberty" is hollow when the rule of law is AWOL. This ripe time is the natural moment for a true opposition to rise. A few months from now neither major party will have a credible candidate or a plausible platform of ideas. This will be painfully obvious. What angels and demons will rush into that awful vacuum?

truly, we are watching a horror show...

Fuck you, Larry Summers

2012-01-08T12:23:00.000-08:00

health, education and social protection need MORE capitalism...?

Lawrence Summers: We need smart reinvention not destruction

Lawrence Summers opens an FT series on the crisis in capitalism, its failings, challenges, weaknesses and the prospects for reform.

It is not so much the most capitalist parts of the contemporary economy but the least – those concerned with health, education and social protection – that are in most need of reinvention, he says.

why does this total disgrace to humanity keep getting a forum...?

The buying of the President 2012 - Mitt Romney's top contributors

2012-01-08T08:17:00.000-08:00

and who, may i ask, do you think mitt will feel most obligated to if he is elected...? i venture to say it would not be the peasants and serfs...

from opensecrets.org...

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2012 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Goldman Sachs $367,200
Credit Suisse Group $203,750
Morgan Stanley $199,800
HIG Capital $186,500
Barclays $157,750
Kirkland & Ellis $132,100
Bank of America $126,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers $118,250
EMC Corp $117,300
JPMorgan Chase & Co $112,250
The Villages $97,500
Vivint Inc $80,750
Marriott International $79,837
Sullivan & Cromwell $79,250
Bain Capital $74,500
UBS AG $73,750
Wells Fargo $61,500
Blackstone Group $59,800
Citigroup Inc $57,050
Bain & Co $52,500

Goldman Sachs	$367,200
Credit Suisse Group	$203,750
Morgan Stanley	$199,800
HIG Capital	$186,500
Barclays	$157,750
Kirkland & Ellis	$132,100
Bank of America	$126,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers	$118,250
EMC Corp	$117,300
JPMorgan Chase & Co	$112,250
The Villages	$97,500
Vivint Inc	$80,750
Marriott International	$79,837
Sullivan & Cromwell	$79,250
Bain Capital	$74,500
UBS AG	$73,750
Wells Fargo	$61,500
Blackstone Group	$59,800
Citigroup Inc	$57,050
Bain & Co	$52,500

by contrast, the largest contributor to barack obama is microsoft at $171K...

Walkers and oxygen tanks shut down B of A

2012-01-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

"a slow-moving group"... i love it...!

Occupy Geriatrics: Seniors in Walkers Shut Down Local Bank of America

What some healthy and spry Occupy Movements across the nation couldn't quite accomplish, San Francisco geriatrics have!

KCBS reports that a small group of senior citizens between the ages of 69 and 82 successfully shut down a Bank of America in Bernal Heights on Thursday with nothing more than walkers and oxygen tanks. That's right: No shouting, chanting, tear gas, or window-smashing.

The group, which dubbed itself "Wild Old Women" set up camp right outside the BofA, holding signs in what they were calling "a run on the bank."

While the protesters said they had no intention (or oxygen) of storming the bank, as occupiers in other communities have done, officials at Bank of America shut the doors and locked them as they spotted the slow-moving group make its way to the front of the bank.

So the seniors took a seat outside the bank where they explained their demands, which were no different than every other occupiers: They want lower fees, and they want the bank to pay higher taxes and stop the foreclosures.

this made my morning...!

I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising

2012-01-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

glenn reviews michael hastings' book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan and, as usual, provides a razor-sharp perspective on the bought-and-paid-for crowd of puppets that pass themselves off as exemplars of news journalism...

(note: the post title is a quote from hastings' book...)

[T]here is a perverse, inverse relationship between the amount of power someone wields in Washington and the willingness of most establishment journalists to engage in reporting that exposes or embarrasses them. These journalists love to swarm with contempt on the marginalized and powerless in their world (people and groups like Julian Assange, Occupy Wall Street, Christine O’Donnell, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, etc.), but when it comes to those who exercise real power and are members in good standing of the Washington establishment — war Generals, senior White House officials, corporate officials and lobbyists — they tread with extreme caution when they do anything other than obediently convey messages.

reading glenn gives me some hope that my own grip on reality is maybe not as tenuous as i sometimes get to thinking it is... as most of us know all too well, when the prevailing societal norm is insanity, it's hard to keep believing in oneself...

Wow...! It's getting really hard to post...

2012-01-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

damn... i spent the entire week between christmas and new years without posting... then i come back and do a few days and i'm already burned out... this is going to be one hell of a year...

The U.S. doesn't want democracy for the Arab countries or for the U.S. either

2012-01-05T09:35:00.000-08:00

here's more glenn, this time talking with rt's alyona minkovski...

Remember coverage of the Arab Spring, of Tahrir Square, and you'd get the impression that there's nothing they want more than for all peoples' of the world to live in freedom and equality. Only problem is no matter how the media tries to spin it, Democracy in the Arab world is the last thing that our foreign policy establishment wants.

as i said in the previous post, staying in touch isn't necessarily conducive to either serenity or sanity...

Supporting one of the two major-party candidates in the 2012 presidential campaign offers no solution for anything

2012-01-05T08:42:00.000-08:00

glenn...

For those who are extremely dissatisfied with the status quo in American political life and are seeking ways to change it, supporting one of the two major-party candidates in the 2012 presidential campaign as the principal form of activism offers no solution. That’s not an endorsement for resignation, apathy, non-voting, voting for a third party, or anything else. It’s just a simple statement of fact: on many issues that progressives themselves have long claimed are of critical, overarching importance (not all, but many), there will be virtually no debate in the election because there are virtually no differences between the two candidates and the two parties on those questions. In the face of that fact, there are two choices: (1) simply accept it (and thus bolster it) on the basis that the only political priority that matters is keeping the Democratic Party and Barack Obama empowered; or (2) searching for ways to change the terms of the debate so that critical views that are now excluded by bipartisan consensus instead end up being heard.

[...]

How can you pretend to vehemently oppose the slaughter of foreign civilians, the deprivation of due process, a posture of Endless War, radical secrecy, etc., when the President behind whom you’re faithfully marching is an aggressive advocate and implementer of those very policies? It’s certainly possible — based on lesser-of-two-evils rationale — to vote for a President who does these things while simultaneously opposing those policies. But for those who insist that all political salvation lies exclusively within the Democratic Party: the only course of action to reconcile these conflicts is to de-prioritize them, to decide they no longer really matter, and thus remain content with a President and a Party who does these things with such abandon.

watching the 2012 presidential campaign go forward and knowing that the garbage that's been shoveled at us during 2011 is nothing compared to what's coming our way between now and november is, for me, one of the most depressing ways imaginable to start a new year...

if sticking my head in the sand could do anything other than foster delusion and denial, i'd do it... unfortunately, i believe that keeping my fingers on the pulse of what's happening is a good thing... i believe we all have an obligation to keep ourselves informed... it's part of what human beings are here for... how can we look out for each other and contribute to our common good if we deliberately choose to be ignorant...? equally unfortunately, staying in touch has consequences for fundamental serenity if not basic sanity... sigh...

I'm not ready to deal with this amount of shit this early in the New Year...

2012-01-04T14:37:00.001-08:00

just sayin'...

The candidate who raises the most money wins an astonishing 94% of the time in America & the 1% donors are remarkably tolerant - within limits

2012-01-03T13:36:00.000-08:00

yep... this matt taibbi piece pretty well captures it...

[T]his 2012 race may be the most meaningless national election campaign we’ve ever had. If the presidential race normally captivates the public as a dramatic and angry ideological battle pitting one impassioned half of society against the other, this year’s race feels like something else entirely.

In the wake of the Tea Party, the Occupy movement, and a dozen or more episodes of real rebellion on the streets, in the legislatures of cities and towns, and in state and federal courthouses, this presidential race now feels like a banal bureaucratic sideshow to the real event – the real event being a looming confrontation between huge masses of disaffected citizens on both sides of the aisle, and a corrupt and increasingly ideologically bankrupt political establishment, represented in large part by the two parties dominating this race.

[...]

[The Iowa] caucus, let’s face it, marks the beginning of a long, rigidly-controlled, carefully choreographed process that is really designed to do two things: weed out dangerous minority opinions, and award power to the candidate who least offends the public while he goes about his primary job of energetically representing establishment interests.
If that sounds like a glib take on a free election system that allows the public to choose whichever candidate it likes best without any censorship or overt state interference, so be it. But the ugly reality, as Dylan Ratigan continually points out, is that the candidate who raises the most money wins an astonishing 94% of the time in America.
That damning statistic just confirms what everyone who spends any time on the campaign trail knows, which is that the presidential race is not at all about ideas, but entirely about raising money.

The auctioned election process is designed to reduce the field to two candidates who will each receive hundreds of millions of dollars apiece from the same pool of donors.
[...]
The 1% donors are remarkably tolerant. They’ll give to just about anyone who polls well, provided they fall within certain parameters. What they won’t do is give to anyone who is even a remote threat to make significant structural changes, i.e. a Dennis Kucinich, an Elizabeth Warren, or a Ron Paul (hell will freeze over before Wall Street gives heavily to a candidate in favor of abolishing their piggy bank, the Fed). So basically what that means is that voters are free to choose anyone they want, provided it isn’t Dennis Kucinich, or Ron Paul, or some other such unacceptable personage.

If the voters insist on supporting such a person in defiance of these donors – this might even happen tonight, with a Paul win in Iowa – what you inevitably end up seeing is a monstrous amount of money quickly dumped into the cause of derailing that candidate. This takes overt forms, like giving heavily to his primary opponents, and more covert forms, like manufacturing opinions through donor-subsidized think tanks and the heavy use of lapdog media figures to push establishment complaints.

And what ends up happening there is that the candidate with the big stack of donor money always somehow manages to survive the inevitable scandals and tawdry revelations, while the one who’s depending on checks from grandma and $25 internet donations from college students always winds up mysteriously wiped out.

h/t to glenn greenwald...

Occupy Boston changes course - "More hours, less pay"

2012-01-03T12:40:00.000-08:00

gotta love it...

On December 17th, 2011, three months after the start of the #Occupy movement, Occupy Boston finally realized they had it all wrong. This is their march.

humor is powerful...

Belated Lake Tahoe photoblogging

2012-01-03T11:55:00.000-08:00

i spent the christmas holidays with my family up at lake tahoe and managed to capture this truly spectacular lake tahoe sunset...

Lake Tahoe Sunset
27 December 2011

Welcome to 2012 and the dystopian world of the NDAA [UPDATE]

2012-01-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

feel the hope...? feel the change...?

from raw story...

Even though President Barack Obama made closing Guantanamo one of his core campaign promises in the lead-up to the presidential election in 2008, that promise now appears to be “nearly impossible” to fulfill thanks to provisions in the new laws, Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, explained.

[...]

“It has no real geographical limitation, it has no temporal limitation,” he said, summarizing key provisions in the NDAA. “It basically puts into law, into permanent law, the ability to indefinitely detain, outside of a constitutional justice system, individuals the president picks up anywhere in the world that the president thinks might have some connection to terrorism. The United States Congress, with the support of the president, has now put into law the possibility of indefinite detention, where the entire world, including the United States, is a battlefield.”

But more than just giving the presidency more power to imprison terror suspects, the NDAA also strikes at Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo by limiting the executive’s authority to transfer prisoners.

“[There are] really dangerous provisions here that would make it nearly impossible to close Guantanamo,” Azmy explained. “Congress has forbidden from transferring or releasing any detainees from Guantanamo to their home countries or third countries willing to take them as refugees unless the Defense Department can meet this exceedingly onerous certification requirement. Basically, before anyone can be released, the Defense Department has to certify that the individual will not engage in any hostile acts when they are returned — something that the Defense Department cannot certify, which is why the FBI and [Defense Secretary] Leon Panetta vigorously opposed these provisions.

“The effect of that will make it virtually impossible to move people out of Guantanamo. Congress is basically shutting all of the detainees in.”

Azmy added that while Obama did add a signing statement which promises not to indefinitely detain without charge any American citizen, nothing in the law would “prevent President Romney from doing precisely the opposite.”

“This legislation puts into law, into a legal architecture, authority for the president to do things that no president has ever been authorized to do before. It’s a scary day for civil liberties if we depend on the graces of the executive not to use power the Congress has given them.”

president romney... god almighty... kinds seems like that's where we're heading, doesn't it...? otoh, having obama re-elected for a second term doesn't sound much better...

[UPDATE]

occupy wall street is planning to protest the ndaa today in nyc...

January 3rd will be a spontaneous show of people power in reaction to Obama’s treasonous signing of the National Defense Authorization Act. Not only does this act violate our first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth amendments, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but this Act was signed quietly this past New Years Eve violating what little trust remained between the people and their established government. We see what’s happening here, and we will not stand for it.

Tentative Schedule for Day of Action:

7:30AM (All Day) – OWS solidarity with the New York State Nurses Association Strike at St. Lukes (1111 Amsterdam Ave and 112th Street) and Roosevelt Hospital (1000 10th Ave and 59th Street.)
12PM – Press Conference at NYPL (Bryant Park)
2PM – Office Demonstration at Senator Gillibrand’s office (780 3rd Ave.)
3PM – Office Demonstration at Senator Schumer’s office (757 3rd Ave.)
4PM – Rally at Rockefeller Plaza
5PM – Flash check about NDAA in Grand Central for commuters.

you go, ows...!

A message from Anonymous to our handlers

2012-01-02T21:09:00.000-08:00

Attention Frequent Flyers...!

2012-01-02T11:53:00.001-08:00

just for chuckles and grins, something different for the new year and because i tend to spend a great deal of time on airplanes, i added a flight stats widget to the blog on the right-hand column... yeah, ok... deal with it...!

Track Flight Status & more at www.flightstats.com

The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — has done heinous things with the power he has been vested

2012-01-01T18:22:00.000-08:00

glenn comments on the endless political survival reality show that is the presidential election 2012...

The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations with drones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient.
He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He’s brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the U.S. as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes is as strong as ever.
Most of all, America’s National Security State, its Surveillance State, and its posture of endless war is more robust than ever before. The nation suffers from what National Journal‘s Michael Hirsh just christened “Obama’s Romance with the CIA.” He has created what The Washington Post just dubbed “ a vast drone/killing operation,” all behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy and without a shred of oversight. Obama’s steadfast devotion to what Dana Priest and William Arkin called “Top Secret America” has severe domestic repercussions as well, building up vast debt and deficits in the name of militarism that create the pretext for the “austerity” measures which the Washington class (including Obama) is plotting to impose on America’s middle and lower classes.
The simple fact is that progressives are supporting a candidate for President who has done all of that — things liberalism has long held to be pernicious. I know it’s annoying and miserable to hear. Progressives like to think of themselves as the faction that stands for peace, opposes wars, believes in due process and civil liberties, distrusts the military-industrial complex, supports candidates who are devoted to individual rights, transparency and economic equality. All of these facts — like the history laid out by Stoller in that essay — negate that desired self-perception. These facts demonstrate that the leader progressives have empowered and will empower again has worked in direct opposition to those values and engaged in conduct that is nothing short of horrific. So there is an eagerness to avoid hearing about them, to pretend they don’t exist. And there’s a corresponding hostility toward those who point them out, who insist that they not be ignored.
The parallel reality — the undeniable fact — is that all of these listed heinous views and actions from Barack Obama have been vehemently opposed and condemned by Ron Paul: and among the major GOP candidates, only by Ron Paul. For that reason, Paul’s candidacy forces progressives to face the hideous positions and actions of their candidate, of the person they want to empower for another four years. If Paul were not in the race or were not receiving attention, none of these issues would receive any attention because all the other major GOP candidates either agree with Obama on these matters or hold even worse views.

as usual, glenn exposes the unbelievable hypocrisy that passes for news and information in this run-up to the election of 2012...

Octupied

2012-01-01T17:52:00.000-08:00

be sure to tune in to tomorrow's rose parade...

Fat cats and greedy pigs make great symbols of corporate greed, but multi-armed octopi speak to the ways in which corporations operate. On 11/20/2011 at noon a 15 foot tall x 70 foot long octopus puppet manned by 40 puppeteers "Octupied" the steps of Los Angeles City Hall and visiblized the tentacular stranglehold of corporations on politics and government. For more info visit: performingpublicspace.org

more at firedoglake...

Wow...! What a long break...!

2012-01-01T11:06:00.001-08:00

this has been the longest time i've gone without making a post in the seven years i've been doing this blog... i've been devoting my time to family and the holidays...

HAPPY NEW YEAR...!

Was the CIA involved in the shutdown of Occupy and why was the Freedom of Information Act request denied?

2011-12-23T09:19:00.000-08:00

from rt...

The Occupy Wall Street movement has experienced severe crackdowns nationwide. Many of the occupiers suspect the CIA has been aiding local law enforcement to try to thwart the movement. The Partnership for Civil Justice filed a Freedom of Information Act request to try to see if the CIA was involved in the OWS crackdowns, but the PCJF was denied the information. Is the CIA covering up evidence?

both interesting and disturbing...

The deep compassion of Occupy

2011-12-22T15:41:00.000-08:00

rebecca solnit...

The breadth of this movement is one thing, its depth another. It has rejected not just the particulars of our economic system, but the whole set of moral and emotional assumptions on which it’s based. Take the pair shown in a photograph from Occupy Austin in Texas. The amiable-looking elderly woman is holding a sign whose computer-printed words say, “Money has stolen our vote.” The older man next to her with the baseball cap is holding a sign handwritten on cardboard that states, “We are our brothers’ keeper.”

The photo of the two of them offers just a peek into a single moment in the remarkable period we’re living through and the astonishing movement that’s drawn in… well, if not 99% of us, then a striking enough percentage: everyone from teen pop superstar Miley Cyrus with her Occupy-homage video to Alaska Yup’ik elder Esther Green ice-fishing and holding a sign that says “Yirqa Kuik” in big letters, with the translation -- “occupy the river” -- in little ones below.

The woman with the stolen-votes sign is referring to them. Her companion is talking about us, all of us, and our fundamental principles. His sign comes straight out of Genesis, a denial of what that competitive entrepreneur Cain said to God after foreclosing on his brother Abel’s life. He was not, he claimed, his brother’s keeper; we are not, he insisted, beholden to each other, but separate, isolated, each of us for ourselves.

Think of Cain as the first Social Darwinist and this Occupier in Austin as his opposite, claiming, no, our operating system should be love; we are all connected; we must take care of each other. And this movement, he’s saying, is about what the Argentinian uprising that began a decade ago, on December 19, 2001, called politica afectiva, the politics of affection.

If it’s a movement about love, it’s also about the money they so unjustly took, and continue to take, from us -- and about the fact that, right now, money and love are at war with each other. After all, in the American heartland, people are beginning to be imprisoned for debt, while the Occupy movement is arguing for debt forgiveness, renegotiation, and debt jubilees.

yes, we ARE our brother's keeper...

I'm not pushing Ron Paul

2011-12-21T13:48:00.000-08:00

but this sure does capture some of my sentiments...

I'm following the news as usual but, oh, my...! Let's forget it for today, shall we...?

2011-12-20T12:12:00.001-08:00

i'm in that place once again, that place of near-despair that i occasionally get to when there just doesn't seem to be any uplifting news whatsoever...

so...

how about some holiday greetings...?

Photo credit: my daughter

More tragedy in Cairo

2011-12-19T10:10:00.000-08:00

from spiegel...

Stones thrown during clashes between soldiers and protesters in Cairo are
placed in a heart-shape around blood stains, in memory of protesters killed
during the latest clashes. Thirteen people have been killed in the violence
since Friday with hundreds suffering injuries. Over 100 demonstrators have
been arrested. The most recent clashes come just days after Egyptians voted
in the latest round of parliamentary elections. Protests against ongoing military
rule in the country have been ongoing since mid-November and have become
increasingly violent since then. Forty-two people were killed in street battles
in November. Both United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have expressed concern at the latest flare-up.

so sad...

Sunday high desert sunset photoblogging

2011-12-18T18:44:00.000-08:00

yeah, i know, it's been a long time since i've done any photoblogging... for one thing, my canon camera developed some "issues" and, even though it was still more or less useable, i took it offline because it wasn't really doing the job... then i got a new sony which is really quite a whizzy camera but i didn't get into using it until just the past few days because it's got so much whiz that i had to take some time to learn how to operate it...

anywayz, here's some high desert sunset photos from this evening...

the old camera was able to capture some of the subtler colors pretty well and i still have to figure out what settings to use on this camera to do the same...

What's going on with Twitter...? Are we seeing censorship take hold...?

2011-12-18T17:04:00.000-08:00

disturbing...

Welcome To The United Police States of America, Sponsored By Twitter

Imagine my surprise this morning when, without warning, my shiny new Twitter account (@d_seaman) was suspended and taken offline.

No more tweets for you. You now have 0 followers.

My crime? Talking too much about Occupy Wall Street (I'm not an Occupier, but as a blogger and journalist it strikes me as one of the most important stories out there -- hence the constant coverage), and talking too much about the controversial detainment without trial provisions contained in the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which would basically shred the Bill of Rights and subject American citizens to military police forces. The same level of civil rights protection that enemy combatants in a cave in Afghanistan receive!

But no, my tweets were 'annoying our users,' according to Twitter's suspension notice.

Well, not so much: nearly everyone following me appreciated my coverage of this issue, when few others in the media have had an interest in the NDAA or the widespread Occupy turnouts all over the country last night.

If they didn't appreciate it, ignorant bliss is only an 'unfollow' away. So why was I suspended only for covering two very serious news stories, and offering my own brand of commentary? I wasn't harassing users. I wasn't spamming. I wasn't hawking affiliate or porn links or any of the trash that should get one swiftly suspended from Twitter. (I've received some spam direct messages already; funny that those aren't suspended, but I was.)

I have contacted Ev Williams, co-founder of Twitter, and several tech journalists hoping to get some answers. I don't want to start a big thing -- I just want my account reactivated. This is America, not Iran, thanks in advance.

Also: it's worth questioning why #NDAA and #OWS, which are receiving consistently VERY high volumes of conversation/tweet traffic are not trending at all on Twitter, yet their featured 'worldwide trends' this morning include: Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, #myfavoritefood, and Kindergarten Cop.

yes, i know, everyone's on edge right now, and rightly so... we don't need to leap to any hysterical conclusions but, at the same time, we would be foolish not to be looking at anything and everything with a very critical eye...

Anonymous calls out Congressional representatives who voted for the NDAA

2011-12-17T12:13:00.000-08:00

The NDAA - the United States of Gitmo

2011-12-17T11:22:00.000-08:00

from rt...

Bradley Manning

2011-12-17T11:09:00.000-08:00

i would be seriously remiss if i didn't give some space to the incredibly critical case of bradley manning that's now in a hearing phase at ft. meade, maryland...

here's keith olbermann discussing the case with daniel ellsberg...

ellsberg makes several key points, among them that manning has been judged guilty by president obama before even being brought to trial and, even more ominously, that manning's prosecution is a loud and clear signal from the obama administration about how it treats whistleblowers...

Over half the world's largest economies are corporations

2011-12-16T15:31:00.000-08:00

a very interesting and revealing report from the swiss federal institute of technology...

The network of global corporate control

here's an excerpt from stephen lendman discussing the report's findings...

The study says 147 powerful companies control an inordinate amount of economic activity - about 40%. Among the top 50, 45 are financial firms. They include Barclays PLC (called most influential), JPMorgan Chase, UBS, and other familiar and less known names.

Twenty-four companies are US-based, followed by eight in Britain, five in France, four in Japan, and Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands with two each. Canada has one.

Moreover, "top ranked" companies "hold a control ten times bigger than what could be expected based on their wealth."

As a result, they have enormous influence over political, financial, and economic activity.

In his book titled, "When Corporations Rule the World," David Korten said they're able to transfer enormous amounts of power, wealth and resources from public to private hands with government complicity. Money power and concentrated wealth in few hands especially harm humanity.

"These forces have transformed" financial institutions and other corporate predators "into instruments of a market tyranny that is extending its reach across the planet like a cancer, colonizing ever more of the planet's living spaces, destroying livelihoods, displacing people, rendering democratic institutions impotent, and feeding on life in an insatiable quest for money" and profits as a be and end all.

Only bottom line priorities and market dominance matter, not human welfare, environmental sanity, peace, equity and justice.

Transnational giants are the dominant institution of our time - especially financial ones with money power control of everything.

They decide who governs and how, who serves on courts, what laws are enacted, and whether or not wars are waged. Corporate dominance, especially financial power, and democratic values are incompatible.

They operate ruthlessly as private tyrannies. They're predators. We're prey, and every day we're eaten alive. They do it because they can, and in America by mandate.

Publicly owned US corporations, including financial ones, must serve shareholders by maximizing equity value through higher profits. They do it by exploiting nations, people and resources ruthlessly.

Social responsibility doesn't matter. Neither does being worker-friendly, a good citizen, or friend of the earth. Bottom line priorities alone matter. Failure to pursue fiduciary responsibilities means possible dismissal or shareholder lawsuits.

Yet nothing in America's Constitution or statute laws endow corporations with their rights. They usurped them by co-opting Washington, the nation's courts, state capitals, and city halls.

As a result, over half the world's largest economies are corporations. Financial ones controlling the power of money are most dominant.

Corporate personhood enhanced their power, yet imagine. Although corporations aren't human, they can live forever, change their identity, reside in many places globally, can't be imprisoned for wrongdoing, and can transform themselves into new entities for any reason.

more reasons to occupy...

lendman's concluding comment...

Can revolutionary sparks be far behind? Expect pain levels eventually to cross thresholds of no return. Anything after that is possible, good or bad.

it's happening right now, methinks...