Paul Buchheit: Five Facts That Put America to Shame

from common dreams...

1. We're near the bottom of the developed world in children's health and safety

According to a 2007 UNICEF report, the U.S. ranked last among 21 OECD nations in an assessment of child health and safety. The assessment measured infant mortality, immunization, and death from accidents and injuries.

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2. We've betrayed the young people who were advised to stay in school

Over 40% of recent college graduates are living with their parents, dealing with government loans that average $27,200. The unemployment rate for young people is about 50%. More than 350,000 Americans with advanced degrees applied for food stamps in 2010.

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3. The main source of middle-class wealth has been largely wiped out

American homeowners owe almost as much as the students, with $700 billion of debt over and above the value of their homes.

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4. We give prison sentences for smoking marijuana, but not for billion-dollar fraud

About half of our world-leading prison population is in jail for non-violent drug offenses. Americans have also been arrested for handing out free food in a park. Mothers in Ohio and Connecticut were jailed for enrolling their kids in out-of-district schools. As of 2003 in California there were 344 individuals serving sentences of 25 years or more for shoplifting as a third offense, in many cases after two non-violent offenses.

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5. You can have health care, if you pay for it

A recent Commonwealth Fund study compared U.S. health care spending to 12 other OECD countries. The data shows that reducing our costs to the median level of spending among the OECD countries would save us $1.5 trillion a year, more than our entire deficit.

so very, very sad...

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D.E.A. launders drug money

this is being spun as a conscious tactic in bringing down the cartels...? oh, man... just exactly how stupid do they think we are...? there's no way this passes the smell test...

Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.

The agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders, those officials said, to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are.

They said agents had deposited the drug proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers, or in shell accounts set up by agents.

The officials said that while the D.E.A. conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years. The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency’s effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplomatic concerns about Mexican sovereignty, and blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests.

here's the money quote - "the D.E.A. conducted such operations in other countries"... mexico just happens to be the most recent and the one that's come to light... what about colombia...? afghanistan...? other central american countries...?

and here are my questions...

• so, what "other countries"...?
• how much money are we talking about and over what period of time...?
• where does that money really go...?
• what kind of relationship does/did the d.e.a. have with wachovia bank that was caught laundering billions of dollars in drug money...?
• what are the banks that were involved, what was the nature of the relationships and how were they established...?
• what, if anything, resulted from this tactic...? arrests...? cartels dismantled...? drug flows reduced...?

it's utterly fascinating to me that wachovia is not even mentioned in this nyt article... i'm not a reporter... i'm probably not even an adequate sidelines observer, but the first thing that leaped to mind as i was reading this was wachovia...

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The dynamics of endless wars

glenn walks us through the fear-mongering and specious rationalizations behind our national dedication to endless wars...

What Endless War looks like

The key trick of Endless War is to permanently maintain two contradictory official premises: (1) we’re on the verge of Victory!; and (2) the threat is grave and we cannot let up. Without both of those premises, the citizenry will wonder why endless war is necessary or wise. That’s been the dual-track propaganda that has sustained the Drug War for four decades and counting (yes, we’ve been waging this war for 40 years, but we’re making real progress, but the threat is still so severe that the war must continue into the foreseeable future), and it has been and continues to be the core propaganda that fuels the Terror War. Hence, (1) we have made Al Qaeda “operationally ineffective” and (2) they “will remain a major security threat for years.”

so, here we are, throwing multi-trillions of dollars at the profiteers who are the ones who reap whatever "benefits" arise from these never-ending battles while our country goes to hell in a hand-basket...

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Acapulco photoblogging from Wednesday and Friday

i'm taking a little break in a place i haven't been for a long, long time... here's two pics from the place i'm staying in old acapulco on the cliffs right over the ocean...

from my bedroom window...



sunset from my balcony...



and, in case you're wondering about the current state of tourism in mexico given all the recent goings-on, here's an article i ran across from a few days ago...

Come On in, the Water’s Fine

Never mind the beheadings, the kidnappings, the mass graves. Mexico wants its tourists back.

the hotel referenced in the first paragraph of the article, los flamingos, is approximately 5 blocks up the street from the house i'm staying at...

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The U.S. continues to generate the threat that justifies its National Security and Surveillance State

glenn...

In just the past two months alone (all subsequent to the kihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giflling of Osama bin Laden), the U.S. Government has taken the following steps in the name of battling the Terrorist menace: extended the Patriot Act by four years without a single reform; begun a new CIA drone attack campaign in Yemen; launched drone attacks in Somalia; slaughtered more civilians in Pakistan; attempted to assassinate U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki far from any battlefield and without a whiff of due process; invoked secrecy doctrines to conceal legal memos setting forth its views of its own domestic warrantless surveillance powers; announced a "withdrawal"plan for Afghanistan that entails double the number of troops in that country as were there when Obama was inaugurated; and invoked a very expansive view of its detention powers under the 2001 AUMF by detaining an alleged member of al-Shabab on a floating prison, without charges, Miranda warnings, or access to due process. That's all independent of a whole slew of drastically expanded surveillance powers seized over the past two years in the name of the same threat.

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I long believed that the most patently irrational American policy -- the one that would cause future generations to look back in baffled disgust -- was the Drug War: imprisoning huge numbers of citizens for years and years for nothing more than possessing or selling banned substances to consenting adults. But now I think it's this: that the U.S. Government is able to persuade the populace to continue to support and pay for blood-spilling and liberty-destroying policies in the name of Terrorism when nothing sustains and exacerbates the threat of Terrorism more than those very policies. Just like the FBI continues to manufacture its own Terrorist plots that it then flamboyantly boasts of thwarting, the U.S. continues to generate the threat that justifies its National Security and Surveillance State.

ok, so, ya gotta ask... who benefits...? that's not a hard one to answer... since our super-rich elites profit hugely from the defense industry and all the industries associated with the national security and surveillance states and the death and destruction that ensues, why wouldn't they be heavily invested in making sure that absolutely no stone is left unturned in terms of keeping the endless wars going and adding to them whenever and wherever possible...? how do they keep them going...? that's an easy one too... they buy elected officials to do their bidding... those elected officials make a pretense of representing their constituents, but we all know who makes up their real constituency -- and it ain't us...

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