This was on page one. Isn't this the equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce running up a white flag?
David Wessel
Officials Improvised To Rescue Markets; Will It Be Enough? March 27, 2008; Page A1
The past 10 days will be remembered as the time the U.S. government discarded a half-century of rules to save American financial capitalism from collapse.
On the Richter scale of government activism, the government's recent actions don't (yet) register at FDR levels. They are shrouded in technicalities and buried in a pile of new acronyms.
But something big just happened. It happened without an explicit vote by Congress. And, though the Treasury hasn't cut any checks for housing or Wall Street rescues, billions of dollars of taxpayer money were put at risk. A Republican administration, not eager to be viewed as the second coming of the Hoover administration, showed it no longer believes the market can sort out the mess.
"The Government of Last Resort is working with the Lender of Last Resort to shore up the housing and credit markets to avoid Great Depression II," economist Ed Yardeni wrote to clients. FULL TEXT
hearing the cops talk that way about peaceful protesters was chilling.
I disagree with the person who narrated this when she said this is why you should try to cover your face. Someone wearing a mask is not a person, your neighbor, or cousin, and therefore it is easier to give them the beat down without a second thought. And if you don't have a mask on, someone who knows you but didn't know how strongly you feel about the issue might see you on TV.
I also disagree with some of the protesters who said "fuck you" and flipped off the police. Better to remind they are on our side with signs like:
I heard Tim Robbins reading this on the Randi Rhodes Show, and it struck me as profoundly true and sad.
Ironically, by choosing George W. Bush to be their public face, the wealthy did more to destroy the myth that they are somehow morally or even intellectually superior than any progressive, commie, anarchist, or nonpartisan curmudgeon ever could.
The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when few human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work. The world of today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place compared with the world that existed before 1914, and still more so if compared with the imaginary future to which the people of that period looked forward. In the early twentieth century, the vision of a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly, and efficient -- a glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete -- was part of the consciousness of nearly every literate person. Science and technology were developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed natural to assume that they would go on developing. This failed to happen, partly because of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly regimented society. As a whole the world is more primitive today than it was fifty years ago. Certain backward areas have advanced, and various devices, always in some way connected with warfare and police espionage, have been developed, but experiment and invention have largely stopped, and the ravages of the atomic war of the nineteen-fifties have never been fully repaired. Nevertheless the dangers inherent in the machine are still there. From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process -- by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute -- the machine did raise the living standards of the average humand being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction -- indeed, in some sense was the destruction -- of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away.
This morning on Democracy Now, Rep. Jan Schakowski essentially said that the only people who would vote for impeaching Cheney are the co-sponsors of Kucinich's resolution.
Her second comment shows that those in Congress know full well the risk of leaving Cheney in place. So I guess a substantial number of Democrats (not Schakowski) think bombing Iran and potentially starting a world war is not necessarily a bad idea.
REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY: Well, I signed on, after giving it about ten seconds thought, to Dennis's resolution to impeach Dick Cheney. But here is the question for progressives who believe that Dick Cheney should be impeached: Do we want to have that vote? And, actually, I wanted to have that vote. You know, I voted in favor of having that vote. Do we want to have a vote, though, that loses overwhelmingly? That’s the fear. And that was what the Republicans were essentially saying: “Fine. Go ahead. Have your vote and see how many actually would have voted for the impeachment resolution.” I think it actually would have been pretty much of a handful of us who have signed on as co-sponsors, and I’m just not sure that it would have advanced our cause. They knew that.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about the impeachment of President Bush?
REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY: Well, we certainly don’t want to impeach President Bush without impeaching Cheney. I think that many of the most drastic and radical of the actions taken by this administration -- I think Dick Cheney would have no hesitation, for example, to go in and bomb Iran. So, having Cheney as the President in the interim -- now, if we did both and Nancy Pelosi were the President of the United States and that were actually feasible in the next year, I would be all for that. FULL TEXT
Political leaders and activists are realizing how much leverage they have over companies whose services cannot be conducted over the internet, outsourced to cheap overseas labor, or that depend on extracting natural resources.
In these cases, they cannot evade taxes or regulations requiring safe products and fair treatment of their workers.
This is the chink in their armor that must be exploited for one person one vote to prevail over one dollar one vote.
Hugo Chavez understands this which is why corporations hate him, and the Iraqis understand it, which is why they are resisting the oil company drafted Hydrocarbon Law--because you can't suck most of Iraq's oil out of the ground any place but Iraq.
You can outsource a factory to Bangladesh, but you can't outsource in-person service or retail. If people wrapped their brains around this, they could turn Walmart into a model corporate citizen--because they need to SELL here.
And every place corporations take from public lands, we should get a chunk of fair market value, not some token payment set by a corrupt legislator 150 years ago.
Americans must demand that our politicians play hardball with these assholes in situations where we have the advantage before they drag us back to feudalism.
If your elected representative won't do this, he should be removed, not in the next election, but immediately with a shoe leather colonic.
Captive-Industry Populism by David Sirota
Take a look at Livingston, Montana. Its stretch of the Yellowstone River might be known as the setting for the film "A River Runs Through It," but the town also has the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) railroad running through it, as well as an underground plume of industrial toxins dumped by the company over many decades. In 2006, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) declared that if BNSF refused to clean up its mess, the state would do the job itself and — here's the kicker — bill the company for the cost.
Such a threat might have made an Internet firm flee. But a national railroad is a captive industry. It cannot easily move its infrastructure (tracks, bridges, etc.). That is why when Schweitzer toured Livingston last week, he saw firsthand how his captive-industry populism resulted not in BNSF leaving, but in BNSF spending $10 million to begin cleaning up.
A few clicks north of Livingston, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) is proposing to reform her state's laws so that they prevent oil companies from avoiding $800 million in taxes this year. Palin knows the oil business is both lucrative and a captive industry, and therefore that "oil-rich states such as Alaska can bump up taxes without much worry about loss of production or oil industry investment," as the Anchorage Daily News reported. Put another way, she knows that no modest tax measure will make the ConocoPhillipses of the world walk away from massive petroleum reserves.
Of course, captive-industry populism goes beyond environmental and energy policy and beyond rural areas. In Emeryville, Calif., grassroots organizers recently passed a voter referendum establishing a $9/hour minimum wage in the town's hotels. The hotels could not convincingly undermine the minimum wage campaign with threats to move because tourism is a captive industry and the hotels' business comes from Emeryville's proximity to Oakland Airport, San Francisco and Silicon Valley. FULL TEXT
Judging from this, it looks like polls don't mean a hell of a lot until much closer to the actual election.
Poll: Tsongas tops present N.H. field But Cuomo favored if he were running Boston Herald October 30, 1991
The poll was taken Oct. 20-24 by Maguire Associates of Concord, Mass., and made available to the Herald.
Tsongas of Massachusetts led with 24 percent; with Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska second at 19 percent; Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa third at 12 percent; three rivals - Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and ex-California Gov. Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown - were in single digits; and 26 percent were undecided.
But when the names of Cuomo and Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey were added to the field, Cuomo led with 40 percent, Bradley pulled 15 percent and the current candidates all fell back to single digits - Tsongas to 9 percent, Kerrey to 8 percent.
Following President Bush's September 13 prime-time address to the nation on Iraq, Fox was the only broadcast network not to air the Democratic response, which was delivered by Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI). Instead, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, who was hosting Fox's post-speech coverage, stated: "The Democrats will say in the Democratic response later that the larger problems, as General Petraeus put it, are not military but political. The surge, when announced by the president, was designed to give the political leaders in Iraq the time to bring together their strategies to secure the nation and solve their political problems." At the conclusion of Fox's coverage, Smith stated: "Our coverage continues on the Fox News Channel on cable and satellite with the Democratic response and more. Right now, back to your local Fox programming." ABC, NBC, and CBS all aired the Democratic response.
On NBC, Nightly News anchor Brian Williams hosted the network's coverage of Bush's address, both before and after Reed's speech, and ABC World News anchor Charles Gibson led ABC's coverage before and after Reed's response. On CBS, Evening News anchor Katie Couric offered a summation of Bush's speech prior to airing Reed's response. CBS did not host a discussion after airing Reed's speech.
In his response, Reed stated: "When the president launched the surge in January, he told us that its purpose was to provide Iraqi leaders with the time to make that political progress. But now, nine months into the surge, the president's own advisers tell us that Iraq's leaders have not, and are not likely to do so." He also described the Democrats' proposal "to change course" in Iraq. Reed said: "ur plan focuses on counterterrorism and training the Iraqi army. It engages in diplomacy to bring warring factions to the table and addresses regional issues that inflame the situation. It begins a responsible and rapid redeployment of our troops out of Iraq. And it returns our focus to those who seek to do us harm: Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups." In conclusion, Reed stated, "An endless and unlimited military presence in Iraq is not an option. ... I urge the president to listen to the American people and work with Congress to start bringing our troops home and develop a new policy that is truly worthy of their sacrifices."
Playing the opposition response to a presidential speech is the last faint gesture toward the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting.
It is fitting that the right give up even the symbolism of real debate since they have done their best best to drown it in the bathtub not just on radio and TV, but at the university, and in the halls of Congress.
Zalmay Khalizad, Bush's former ambassador to Iraq who was a consultant to Unocal on the trans-Afghanistan pipeline claims a Washington Post article about Iraq's Hydrocarbon Law was wrong to say Iraqis oppose it or that it is designed to give Iraq's TENS OF TRILLIONS in oil income to Bush's big oil cronies who are also his former employers.
Khalizad wrote this in a letter to the Washington Post to protest an article that, rather just repeating the White House talking points about the law dividing Iraq's oil profits between various ethnic groups, had the gall to cite Iraqis who opposed it because it gives away the bulk of their oil income to transnational oil companies like Exxon, Chevron, ConnocoPhillips, BP, and Shell.
Khalizad reminds us that neocons really went to Iraq to do charity work and spread democracy not kill people and pry the fillings from their teeth like they do everywhere else.
Fourth, the article did not critically examine misplaced accusations that the oil law was designed to enable Americans to take control of these resources. Iraqi leaders themselves sought to enable international investment in this sector because they understood the inefficiency of Iraq's past statist and overcentralized policies.
EXCERPTS THAT PROBABLY PISSED HIM OFF IN THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
Missteps and Mistrust Mark the Push for Legislation
By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, September 5, 2007; A12 excerpts
"This was a very bad move by the Americans to push for this law," said Issam al-Chalabi, a former oil minister. "Now it looks like . . . the Americans are after oil -- they will bring their Exxons and Chevrons and they will control our oil again."
snip
Meanwhile, bitterness was rising from many factions -- unions in the oil-rich port city of Basra, petroleum industry experts, Sunni politicians and those loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- that the law would allow foreign companies to make off with Iraq's oil wealth. A group of 419 Iraqi academics, engineers and oil industry experts would later sign an open letter to parliament stating that "it is clear that the government is trying to implement one of the demands of the American occupation."
The draft oil law, the letter stated, "lays the foundation for a fresh plundering of Iraq's strategic wealth and its squandering by foreigners, backed by those coveting power in the regions, and by gangs of thieves and pillagers."
Obviously, the Washington Post article put the neocons in a panic because if they had been thinking clearly they would have realized Khalizad's protest drew MORE attention to their lies and machinations about Iraq's oil not less.
If the Democrats were serious about ending the war and representing the people who voted for them, they would stop talking about the lies that got us into Iraq and whether or not we are succeeding at creating a stable, Democratic Iraq, a propaganda frame which no one in DC gives a crap about, and few outside of DC are fooled into believing they do.
Instead, they should start talking about whether wrestling the oil profits from Iraqis only to give them to transnational corporations will increase hatred of and terrorism toward the US, and what exactly average Americans get in return for our investment of tax dollars and blood to give Iraq's oil to those companies.
If consistently and repeatedly talked about that instead of the embarrassing, patronizing, childish way they and the Bushies talk to us about Iraq now, the war would be over in short order, and Bush, Cheney, and a lot of oil execs would be doing research on how to remove tar and feathers.
