Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Bailout and What's Next

Watch the 47 minute 'Money as Debt' animated documentary in http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279. This is a useful, though by no means definitive, introduction to the topic of debt and the monetary system.
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The Bailout and What's Next

Yesterday marked a day that will go down in history, when Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike took on full responsibility to protect the interests of taxpaying Americans, and defeated the deceptive bail out bill, defying the dictates of the Administration, the House Majority Leadership, the House Minority Leadership and the special interests on Wall Street.

Obviously Congress must consider quickly another course. There are immediate issues which demand attention and responsible action by the Congress so that the taxpayers, their assets, and their futures are protected.

We MUST do something to protect millions of Americans whose homes, bank deposits, investments, and pensions are at risk in a financial system that has become seriously corrupted. We are told that we must stabilize markets in order for the people to be protected. I think we need to protect peoples' homes, bank deposits, investments, and pensions, to order to stabilize the market.

We cannot delay taking action. But the action must benefit all Americans, not just a privileged few. Otherwise, more plans will fail, and the financial security of everyone will be at risk.

The $700 billion bailout would have added to our existing unbearable load of national debt, trade deficits, and the cost of paying for the war. It would have been a disaster for the American public and the government for decades and maybe even centuries to come.

To be sure, there are many different reasons why people voted against the bailout. The legislation did not regard in any meaningful way the plight of millions of Americans who are about to lose their homes.  It did nothing to strengthen existing regulatory structures or impose new ones at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve in order to protect investors. There were no direct protections for bank depositors. There was nothing to stop further speculation, which is what brought us into this mess in the first place.

This was a bailout for some firms (and investors) on Wall Street, with the idea that in doing so there would be certain, unspecified, general benefits to the economy.

This is a perfect time to open a broader discussion about our financial system, especially our monetary system. Such a discussion is like searching for a needle in a haystack, and then, upon finding it, discussing its qualities at great length.

Let me briefly describe the haystack instead.

Here is a very quick explanation of the $700 billion bailout within the context of the mechanics of our monetary and banking system:

The taxpayers loan money to the banks. But the taxpayers do not have the money. So we have to borrow it from the banks to give it back to the banks. But the banks do not have the money to loan to the government. So they create it into existence (through a mechanism called fractional reserve) and then loan it to us, at interest, so we can then give it back to them.

Confused?

This is the system. This is the standard mechanism used to expand the money supply on a daily basis not a special one designed only for the "$700 billion" transaction. People will explain this to you in many different ways, but this is what it comes down to.

The banks needed Congress' approval. Of course in this topsy turvy world, it is the banks which set the terms of the money they are borrowing from the taxpayers. And what do we get for this transaction? Long term debt enslavement of our country. We get to pay back to the banks trillions of dollars ($700 billion with compounded interest) and the banks give us their bad debt which they cull from everywhere in the world.

Who could turn down a deal like this? I did.

The globalization of the debt puts the United States in the position that in order to repay the money that we borrow from the banks (for the banks) we could be forced to accept International Monetary Fund dictates which involve cutting health, social security benefits and all other social spending in addition to reducing wages and exploiting our natural resources. This inevitably leads to a loss of economic, social and political freedom.

Under the failed $700 billion bailout plan, Wall Street's profits are Wall Street's profits and Wall Street's losses are the taxpayers' losses. Profits are capitalized. Losses are socialized.

We are at a teachable moment on matters of money and finance. In the coming days and weeks, I will share with you thoughts about what can be done to take us not just in a new direction, but in a new direction which is just.

Thank you,


Dennis
www.Kucinich.us
216-252-9000   877-933-6647

PS Watch the 47 minute 'Money as Debt' animated documentary in http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279. This is a useful, though by no means definitive, introduction to the topic of debt and the monetary system. Let me know what you think.

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Polio Is Alive, Well, Harmful As Ever, It Was Not Cured - The Name Was Only Changed

NO Polio cure was made. The vaccine 'cure' was done by renaming the disease. Polio continues none the less. The vaccine may have caused all sort of harms.

Polio symptoms are caused by heavy metals and pesticides.

All vaccines are contaminated.

Vaccines can be causing autism in children, dementia etc in elders and people with impaired immune systems.

Ineptitudes vaccine can cause MS.

Listen to the second half of today's Gary Null show 9/30/08, it will eventually be posted here:
http://www.garynull.progressiveradionetwork.org/

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All this from recently uncovered public documents of scientist, public health officials ...

More will be made available on the uncovered documents tomorrow at a full press conference:

Wednesday, Oct. 1st., 2pm (Can be watched live also http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/PRNvideo.php )

Gary NUll with British journalist Janine Roberts will hold a live press conference at the 92d Street Studio, between 1st and 2d Avenues in NYC, with Janine Roberts. (See directly below for more information on Janine.)The press conference will be held live at 2pm ET.
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Her just release book:

Fear of the Invisible by Janine Roberts (Paperback - Jun 30, 2008)
This is the story of a ten-year investigative journey into a reckless and contaminated medical industry. The author takes her readers on a journey into the very heart of the hunt for viruses - to the key experiments that were performed to prove that these invisibly small particles cause diseases that often were previously blamed on toxins or bacteria. It sheds light on the extraordinary assumptions underlying much of this research into viruses - and the resulting vaccines and antiviral medicines.

The author, an investigative journalist who has researched and produced investigative films for the BBC, American and Australian television, was asked by parents whose children had fallen severely ill after vaccination to discover if the medical authorities might be hiding anything from them. She agreed, but had no idea how long this search would take or how it would change her ideas.

She expected at best to uncover a small degree of vaccine contamination. But, on the ensuing journey of discovery, she found top government scientists reporting alarmingly, at meetings between scientists, that it is impossible to purify vaccines. They stated that the childhood vaccines of today are contaminated with viruses from chickens, humans and monkeys, with RNA and DNA fragments, with "cellular degradation products," and possibly "oncogenes and prions."

They say they dare not tell the pubic about all this contamination - as they might demand a withdrawal of the vaccines. One doctor at these meetings said that if the 'Greens' heard what they were reporting, they would demand the ending of vaccination.

[More: See the full description and other reviews below.]



Other Books, Videos by Janine:

In 1976 her first book (editor and co-author), The Mapoon Books, on aboriginal culture and institutional racism was published. She works with aboriginal groups in resisting mining on their territory, and researched Granada TV’s World in Action program on the issue. In the 1980s she worked as a freelance journalist and documentary maker.

In the late 1980s she was working on a documentary on the diamond industry for Australian, US and UK television. She produced a program for BBC’s Panorama on the CIA, MI6 and KGB under Gorbachov, and The Sun outed her to attack her credibility. In 1992, when The Diamond Empire was two-thirds shot, her home was invaded and she was seriously beaten and was in hospital for two months. While she was on the critical list, the BBC took control of the project away from her. However in 1994 the program was shown on the BBC and in the US with her name on it. Pressure from the diamond monopoly, De Beers, resulted in its showing on Australian Broadcasting Company being cancelled, and in the BBC not selling it abroad, especially to South Africa.

She continued to research the diamond industry, especially in South Africa and Namibia where she was a guest of the miners’ union. This resulted in the book Glitter and Greed, 2003.

Glitter & Greed: The Secret World of the Diamond Cartel by Janine Roberts (Paperback - April 1, 2007)








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Fear of the Invisible Full Description
This is the story of a ten-year investigative journey into a reckless and contaminated medical industry. The author takes her readers on a journey into the very heart of the hunt for viruses - to the key experiments that were performed to prove that these invisibly small particles cause diseases that often were previously blamed on toxins or bacteria. It sheds light on the extraordinary assumptions underlying much of this research into viruses - and the resulting vaccines and antiviral medicines.

The author, an investigative journalist who has researched and produced investigative films for the BBC, American and Australian television, was asked by parents whose children had fallen severely ill after vaccination to discover if the medical authorities might be hiding anything from them. She agreed, but had no idea how long this search would take or how it would change her ideas.

She expected at best to uncover a small degree of vaccine contamination. But, on the ensuing journey of discovery, she found top government scientists reporting alarmingly, at meetings between scientists, that it is impossible to purify vaccines. They stated that the childhood vaccines of today are contaminated with viruses from chickens, humans and monkeys, with RNA and DNA fragments, with "cellular degradation products," and possibly "oncogenes and prions."

They say they dare not tell the pubic about all this contamination - as they might demand a withdrawal of the vaccines. One doctor at these meetings said that if the 'Greens' heard what they were reporting, they would demand the ending of vaccination.

There is much research here that will be totally new and horrifying to most readers. The author cites, for example, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) scientist reporting that the MMR vaccine is contaminated with chicken leukosis virus, and that they have decided not to tell the public and to continue to make the vaccine with eggs from contaminated chickens. She also cites a report from a major MMR vaccine manufacturer stating that their vaccine is contaminated with cellular degradation products - and cannot be cleansed. It seems they stay silent with the public because to confess this would reveal that they cannot purify the vaccines given to our children.

A US court decision in 2008 has linked autism with vaccine contamination.This is not surprising given the degree of contamination documented here - contamination that seems inevitable given how the vaccines are manufactured using cells from slaughtered wild monkeys, chicken embryos and cancers. The author cites her sources by name - and gives references and Internet links where they are available.

She also gives evidence on how US biowarfare researchers have tried to create new agents to destroy human immune systems - and reported working on a bacterium to make it a hospital superbug. Did they manage to create HIV? Obama's pastor might have thought so - but what is the evidence for this? The author critically examines this - and the evidence for another theory put forward to her by a senior professor. he said that HIV may well have contaminated the polio vaccine. She learns that chimps were used in vaccine manufacturing so widely that HIV could easily have spread in a vaccine without any need for military intervention. She then set out to find why HIV spread so far and so fast. Was it in a vaccine? She needed to know more about HIV so went to the foundation research widely held today to have found this virus and proved it caused AIDS.

She was then rocked to discover that this key HIV research had been investigated for scientific fraud by powerful US scientific institutions and by Congress between 1990 to 1994. Why is this not widely known? These inquires reported major errors in this research, with some errors so serious that they said they made it impossible to repeat the key HIV experiments and verify them! She reveals the evidence unearthed - reproducing key documents so the reader can assess their importance for themselves. This is explosive material.

She reports finding to her surprise that the faults in researching HIV apply also to other viruses. She goes to the key experiments and discovers that it is very difficult to find any in which pure samples of viruses are produced and proved to cause particular human diseases. If they cannot purify viruses for use in vaccines, it seems they cannot produce the pure cultures needed to link with certitude viruses with diseases. This means that many illnesses may be misdiagnosed.

The book discusses in detail the defense made of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis. In 2007 senior HIV experts testified again and again - 'It is not just HIV we do not isolate. We don't isolate other viruses.` They described how they today produced the flu and measles virus without ever isolating or seeing any viruses. The author also shows how measles virus is produced according to the latest CDC guidelines.

Extraordinarily, at no point in this process, during which cells are poisoned and made cancerous with chemicals or radiation, is the virus itself actually detected and identified.

The book critically examines the evidence for various aspects of HIV theory, such as sexual transmission, the different clinical definitions of AIDS, why AIDS is said to be caused by HIV and at the same time is said by US and UK government Health Authorities to happen in the absence of HIV, and why the HIV test picks up on different diseases in the West and in Africa.

In the final part of this book the author reports recent research that is revolutionizing biology and offering much hope for the future. These new developments shed new light on the relationships between our cells and viruses. They are not necessarily enemies. Readers may find these new developments will radically change the ideas they have held about viruses all their lives.

The preface is contributed by Dr Roberto Giraldo. The book has hundreds of scientific references, a scientific glossary and index.

From the Publisher
Janine Roberts has a long history of taking on tough investigations - and this she believes is one of her toughest.

Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party candidate for US President in 2008 and former Senior Democrat Congresswoman, said of the author: 'Janine Roberts is the rare individual who unflinchingly speaks truth to power. She battles her way through all obstacles and provides us with a glimpse of those who are in the innermost circles of global power... She exposes what they do and how they do it and how it comes to hurt us all. She gave testimony for me at a Hearing in Congress that was shocking in its revelations but thorough in its documentation... I count myself among the privileged of this world to know Janine and her works.'

Dr Roberto Giraldo reported of this book that it is written 'in elegant detail and in a most accessible manner'. He also said: 'It is very comforting to read in Fear of the Invisible: 'We have all been taught to greatly fear viruses - yet scientists are now discovering that they are fundamental parts of live, made by the million by all healthy cells. I hope this book will help by combating this fear, this damning of the invisible because we do not understand it. Without this fear, hopefully the focus in medical research will shift to looking more at the environmental toxins that really do put us, and our world, gravely at risk."

See all Editorial Reviews

     
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening, September 20, 2008
By     Book & Music Lover (Louisville, Kentucky USA) - See all my reviews

Here is a good narrative of what our so called scientists, from the CDC, to the WHO are hiding from the citizens of the world. Did man deliberately create the AIDS virus? Do they the CDC, etc., know the truth about Autism? Are vaccines really effective, or are they worse than the illnesses they were created to combat?

All the answers are here in a very well written and presented doctrine of what really goes on behind the scenes as far as our so called war on disease. How in a great many cases we are the originator, or perpetrator of ilnesses. Though there are many sceintific terms contained here there is a very useful glossary presented here as well. Once you have read this book you will be both amazed, and angered at what there is an attempt to hide. The garbage in vaccines, and attempts to keep this information from public knowledge.

Then we are told how not all viruses are dangerous, but that we will in the near future have to redirect our focus to toxins instead, to get a handle on illness. A very easy read, but you likely will have to read this book more than once, and keep it around for reference purposes.

     
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Dirty Business, September 6, 2008
By     PPARGammaGirl - See all my reviews

There will be much squirming and discomfiture in the hallowed halls of medical science when the truths in this book become more widely disseminated. From the frighteningly dirty (literally as well as figuratively) "scientific" methods that produce the state-mandated vaccines injected in increasing numbers into our innocent children, to the massive fraud perpetrated by the giant ego that is pseudologist Robert Gallo, this book will shock you - and rightly so. While many are well aware that Gallo narrowly escaped prosecution for scientific fraud over the "foundation" AIDS research, most are likely unfamiliar with the logistics and scope of this fraud. Ms. Roberts has provided the "smoking gun" in the form of copies of original documents that demonstrate unequivocally, exactly how this monstrous misdeed was perpetrated.

Ms. Roberts' journey begins with an earnest request from friends to discover whether a measles and rubella (MR) vaccine could have terribly damaged their precious child. With nothing more than a vague understanding of what constitutes viral illness she undertook to find out more about the science underlying virology and immunisation - a feat she has achieved to an astounding degree. What started as a small investigation into the MR vaccination campaign unfolded into a 10-year quest to try and discover why the large pachyderm is squatting in the front room making a large stinking mess while science pretends it's a necessary accoutrement in its selfless, seemingly Sisyphean, noble quest.

As a seasoned investigational journalist Roberts pits her wits and intelligent curiosity into dissecting a science (so inscrutable to the lay person that most would be led gibbering and screaming to a padded cell at the nearest mental facility) and emerges with a clear, factual account of the predominantly venal, self-serving science of virology.

The implications contained within this book are staggering. Large taxpayer-funded health institutions have been wantonly complicit in this patronising perfidy and accountability should be demanded from the upper (and lower) echelons of these organisations - their remit is purportedly safeguarding the health of the population, not conspiring to destroy it. The well-documented, reprehensible lack of concern about the contamination of vaccines, the propaganda and fear-mongering employed by these authorities and the impact on people's health, psyches and lives across the globe deserve thorough investigation, at the highest levels of government, and appropriate retributive measures need to be undertaken.

With meticulous detail, the execrable, pathetic "science" is unmasked, unfrocked and dethroned by Ms. Roberts' excellent investigation; the Emperor is as butt-naked as the day his umbilical cord was cut.


     
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Eye Opener!, July 28, 2008
By     Rev. David G. Collins, B.Msc. "The Reiki Matrix" (Dallas, TX, USA) - See all my reviews
Though I do not claim to fully understand all that is written in this book It will take a couple of readings) but I learned a lot about the history of HIV, AIDS and the fraud surrounding these two possibly very separate subjects. I learned a lot about viruses, diseases and vaccines/vaccinations in general (and the fraud surrounding them)... There is a lot in this book that will surprise and shock a lot of people. It is very timely and up to date.

We all need to wake up and start asking a lot more questions. We cannot simply accept that those "experts" in "authority" are always being honest with us. They have been given too many incentives to lie for personal gain and greed. We have come to rely way too much on information being "given" to us without question. It can be painstaking and difficult, but today it is more important than ever that we do our own personal research.

I highly recommend this thoroughly researched book to anyone wanting to know more about HIV, AIDS, Vaccinations and Viruses. Janine Roberts looks at all the sides of the issue and comes up with some very interesting conclusions which are most likely closer to the truth than what we've been led to believe.

I also highly recommend this latest article on the subject by Clark Baker:
http://exlibhollywood.blogspot.com/2008/07/gallos-egg.html






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It's still "No Deal!" - No bailout for Wall Street-- Build the economy from the grassroots up!

E-Alert: House, Senate, we need a real plan!

It's still "No Deal!"
No bailout for Wall Street--we need to rebuild the economy from the grassroots up!

Yesterday, 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans listened to their constituents and said "No Deal" to the House leadership and the Bush administration. Thanks go out to the millions of people who called, wrote, and emailed their legislators demanding a no vote on this toxic bill. 

But new legislation is on its way. Before it's too late, call or email Congress and tell them we don't need billion-dollar bandaids. We need a build-up for local economies, strict control of the financial industry, and a progressive tax policy that makes speculators and the corporate elite pay for their greed.

Call 800-473-6711 or 202-224-3121. Call district offices if you can't get through to Washington. Or send an email by clicking here.

We will not back a plan that

  • Lacks real oversight;
  • Has no firm provisions for limiting executive compensation;
  • Has no provisions for holding Wall Street financially accountable;
  • And most importantly, does nothing to address the systemic problems that caused this crisis.

Read our call for a public reconstruction and development bank to:

  • Make whole the victims of the speculators who have lost homes, pensions, and other assets
  • Create jobs at home for the innocent victims of the financial meltdown, not the speculators
  • Ensure high quality public education for all
  • Establish single payer health care
  • Fully fund public radio and TV to eliminate all corporate sponsorship
  • Tackle climate change by investing in energy efficiency, public transportation and decentralized solar/wind

Finance the bank by

  • Instituting a tax on all investment transactions including on "new financial products"
  • Heavily taxing speculator profits
  • Establishing progressive income and inheritance taxes
  • Eliminating the tax preference for capital gains

There are links to good analysis and alternatives to the bailout on our headlines blog. Check out the latest commentary.

Now, make your voice heard!

Please contact your legislators in both chambers and tell them it's time to come up with an alternative that will rebuild the economy at the grassroots. Read and send an e-mail to your members of Congress--click here to edit the letter and send.

Lastly, forward this email to friends. Thank you!

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Notice Where You Are Going - Knowing When to Improvise

Knowing When to Improvise
by Patricia Ryan Madson
http://www.ijourney.org/?tid=544

[Listen to Audio!]

A successful life involves both planning and improvising. Sometimes we actually do need a script. Those scripts that are working well for us (positive habits, for example) should be preserved and treasured. Spontaneity for its own sake is never the key. Knowing which strategy to use involves examining things clearly. Our moment-to-moment experience is improvisational, even though it exists within a structure or plan. That is, life brings us opportunities, question, and problems to solve, and we respond in real time, trying to make sense out of each challenge or offer.  How we live our lives within the structure of our day is an eternal improvisation.

The invitation to improvise is not a prescription for a careless approach to life. True improvisation is always an act of responsibility; it implies a conscious morality. We may know individuals who flaunt spontaneity as the supreme virtue and excuse thoughtless or selfish behavior in the name of “going with the flow.”  I am reminded of an inscription on a gold-lettered plaque over an oak bar in a Welsh bar: Pisces Mortui Solum Cum Flumine Natant. (“Only dead fish go with the flow.”) Failure to plan can have real consequences. Scheduling medical checkups is important. It is important to buy airline tickets in advance, fill up the gas tank before the fuel gauge signals empty, and pay a parking ticket the day you receive it. [...]

You are always the one steering the canoe, however. Sometimes on the white-water-rapids course it is both relaxing and exhilarating to be swept along by the swells, oars at rest, watching the scenery and marveling at the ease of it all. And sometimes we must paddle [...] against the current in order to take a fork in the river.

In 1982 I took a year off from teaching to circumnavigate the globe. I bought a one-way around-the-world airline ticket. I was allowed to make as many stops as I liked, in the line of direction, but couldn’t backtrack or go too far north or south of my last stop, and I had to complete my journey within twelve months. Buying the ticket gave me a sense of stability (planning); experiencing all the places was the great adventure. Planning provided a platform for me to improvise. Taking an improvised step always leads you somewhere.

Notice where you are going.

--Patricia Ryan Madson, From "Improv Wisdom"


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Monday, September 29, 2008

If Only We Didn't Waste It on the Defense Budget - We Have the Money

We Have the Money

If Only We Didn't Waste It on the Defense Budget

by Chalmers Johnson
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/29-1

There has been much moaning, air-sucking, and outrage about the $700 billion that the U.S. government is thinking of throwing away on rich New York bankers who have been ripping us off for the past few years and then letting greed drive their businesses into a variety of ditches. In fact, we dole out similar amounts of money every year in the form of payoffs to the armed services, the military-industrial complex, and powerful senators and representatives allied with the Pentagon.

On Wednesday, September 24th, right in the middle of the fight over billions of taxpayer dollars slated to bail out Wall Street, the House of Representatives passed a $612 billion defense authorization bill for 2009 without a murmur of public protest or any meaningful press comment at all. (The New York Times gave the matter only three short paragraphs buried in a story about another appropriations measure.)

The defense bill includes $68.6 billion to pursue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is only a down-payment on the full yearly cost of these wars. (The rest will be raised through future supplementary bills.) It also included a 3.9% pay raise for military personnel, and $5 billion in pork-barrel projects not even requested by the administration or the secretary of defense. It also fully funds the Pentagon's request for a radar site in the Czech Republic, a hare-brained scheme sure to infuriate the Russians just as much as a Russian missile base in Cuba once infuriated us. The whole bill passed by a vote of 392-39 and will fly through the Senate, where a similar bill has already been approved. And no one will even think to mention it in the same breath with the discussion of bailout funds for dying investment banks and the like.

This is pure waste. Our annual spending on "national security" -- meaning the defense budget plus all military expenditures hidden in the budgets for the departments of Energy, State, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, the CIA, and numerous other places in the executive branch -- already exceeds a trillion dollars, an amount larger than that of all other national defense budgets combined. Not only was there no significant media coverage of this latest appropriation, there have been no signs of even the slightest urge to inquire into the relationship between our bloated military, our staggering weapons expenditures, our extravagantly expensive failed wars abroad, and the financial catastrophe on Wall Street.

The only Congressional "commentary" on the size of our military outlay was the usual pompous drivel about how a failure to vote for the defense authorization bill would betray our troops. The aged Senator John Warner (R-Va), former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, implored his Republican colleagues to vote for the bill "out of respect for military personnel." He seems to be unaware that these troops are actually volunteers, not draftees, and that they joined the armed forces as a matter of career choice, rather than because the nation demanded such a sacrifice from them.

We would better respect our armed forces by bringing the futile and misbegotten wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end. A relative degree of peace and order has returned to Iraq not because of President Bush's belated reinforcement of our expeditionary army there (the so-called surge), but thanks to shifting internal dynamics within Iraq and in the Middle East region generally. Such shifts include a growing awareness among Iraq's Sunni population of the need to restore law and order, a growing confidence among Iraqi Shiites of their nearly unassailable position of political influence in the country, and a growing awareness among Sunni nations that the ill-informed war of aggression the Bush administration waged against Iraq has vastly increased the influence of Shiism and Iran in the region.

The continued presence of American troops and their heavily reinforced bases in Iraq threaten this return to relative stability. The refusal of the Shia government of Iraq to agree to an American Status of Forces Agreement -- much desired by the Bush administration -- that would exempt off-duty American troops from Iraqi law is actually a good sign for the future of Iraq.

In Afghanistan, our historically deaf generals and civilian strategists do not seem to understand that our defeat by the Afghan insurgents is inevitable. Since the time of Alexander the Great, no foreign intruder has ever prevailed over Afghan guerrillas defending their home turf. The first Anglo-Afghan War (1838-1842) marked a particularly humiliating defeat of British imperialism at the very height of English military power in the Victorian era. The Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) resulted in a Russian defeat so demoralizing that it contributed significantly to the disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991. We are now on track to repeat virtually all the errors committed by previous invaders of Afghanistan over the centuries.

In the past year, perhaps most disastrously, we have carried our Afghan war into Pakistan, a relatively wealthy and sophisticated nuclear power that has long cooperated with us militarily. Our recent bungling brutality along the Afghan-Pakistan border threatens to radicalize the Pashtuns in both countries and advance the interests of radical Islam throughout the region. The United States is now identified in each country mainly with Hellfire missiles, unmanned drones, special operations raids, and repeated incidents of the killing of innocent bystanders.

The brutal bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, on September 20, 2008, was a powerful indicator of the spreading strength of virulent anti-American sentiment in the area. The hotel was a well-known watering hole for American Marines, Special Forces troops, and CIA agents. Our military activities in Pakistan have been as misguided as the Nixon-Kissinger invasion of Cambodia in 1970. The end result will almost surely be the same.

We should begin our disengagement from Afghanistan at once. We dislike the Taliban's fundamentalist religious values, but the Afghan public, with its desperate desire for a return of law and order and the curbing of corruption, knows that the Taliban is the only political force in the country that has ever brought the opium trade under control. The Pakistanis and their effective army can defend their country from Taliban domination so long as we abandon the activities that are causing both Afghans and Pakistanis to see the Taliban as a lesser evil.

One of America's greatest authorities on the defense budget, Winslow Wheeler, worked for 31 years for Republican members of the Senate and for the General Accounting Office on military expenditures. His conclusion, when it comes to the fiscal sanity of our military spending, is devastating:

 "America's defense budget is now larger in inflation-adjusted dollars than at any point since the end of World War II, and yet our Army has fewer combat brigades than at any point in that period; our Navy has fewer combat ships; and the Air Force has fewer combat aircraft. Our major equipment inventories for these major forces are older on average than any point since 1946 -- or in some cases, in our entire history."

This in itself is a national disgrace. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on present and future wars that have nothing to do with our national security is simply obscene. And yet Congress has been corrupted by the military-industrial complex into believing that, by voting for more defense spending, they are supplying "jobs" for the economy. In fact, they are only diverting scarce resources from the desperately needed rebuilding of the American infrastructure and other crucial spending necessities into utterly wasteful munitions. If we cannot cut back our longstanding, ever increasing military spending in a major way, then the bankruptcy of the United States is inevitable. As the current Wall Street meltdown has demonstrated, that is no longer an abstract possibility but a growing likelihood. We do not have much time left.

Chalmers Johnson is the author of three linked books on the crises of American imperialism and militarism. They are Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006). All are available in paperback from Metropolitan Books.


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Saturday, September 27, 2008

Economists Say Bailout Is NOT Needed

Is the bailout needed? Many economists say 'no'

More on this Story

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/53107.html

WASHINGTON — A funny thing happened in the drafting of the largest-ever U.S. government intervention in the financial system. Lawmakers of all stripes mostly fell in line, but many of the nation's brightest economic minds are warning that the Wall Street bailout's a dangerous rush job.

President Bush and his Treasury secretary, former Goldman Sachs chief executive Henry Paulson, have warned of imminent economic collapse and another Great Depression if their rescue plan isn't passed immediately.

Is that true?

"It's more hype than real risk," said James K. Galbraith, a University of Texas economist and son of the late economic historian John Kenneth Galbraith. "A nasty recession is possible, but the bailout will not cure that. So it's mainly relevant to the financial industry."

The Paulson plan will get some bad assets off the balance sheets of troubled Wall Street institutions and commercial banks. That may help thaw the lending freeze.

But it wouldn't reduce the crush of homes in or near foreclosure, said Simon Johnson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That's a problem that will surely grow worse if the U.S. economy enters recession, leading to greater job losses, which feed a vicious downward spiral of even more foreclosures and defaults on car loans and credit-card debt.

Americans are spooked by talk that financial Armageddon awaits.

The global financial system nearly melted down last week when investors pulled out en masse from money market funds and the short-term debt markets that help corporate America fund its day-to-day needs.

These traditionally have been viewed as safe investments for ordinary Americans, so the flight from them struck fear in the hearts of policymakers.

Few economists, including Galbraith, are willing to discount completely the chance of a financial collapse, given the turmoil in credit markets and banking.

"My sense is it will delay a disaster, given that you only have three months left in this administration. But it will not cure the problem in the (financial) industry or prevent the shakeout and downsizing of the industry," Galbraith said.

Many lawmakers also expressed skepticism.

Coming out of the White House on Thursday, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, Alabama's Richard Shelby, held up what he said was a five-page list of economists opposing the rescue plan.

"This is not me. This is economists at Harvard, Yale, MIT, University of Chicago, our leading universities," an exasperated Shelby told reporters. He called the administration plan "flawed from the beginning."

Johnson, a former assistant director of research for the International Monetary Fund, said: "I think the main problem is what they have on the table is not truly comprehensive, and I think it's probably not decisive for that reason."

With the problems in money market funds and the fact that banks have stopped lending to each other except at high rates, the global financial system is as weak as it has been in modern times, he said.

"It's a very dangerous situation. I would not recommend doing nothing. The world financial markets were in cardiac arrest last week," Johnson said.

What Congress and the administration failed to do, Johnson said, is develop a mechanism to quickly modify distressed mortgages and prevent even more empty homes from being dumped into real-estate markets in freefall.

The plan also doesn't help banks bring in new capital to boost lending; instead many are sitting defensively on their reserves to offset expected loan defaults.

"I think the rush that happened this week is unfortunate," Johnson said. "I don't think it is enough."

Another doubter of the Great Depression theme is Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economics professor, who thinks the intervention may prevent or delay the necessary failure of weak financial institutions.

"It is time to take stock of the crisis and recognize that the financial industry is undergoing fundamental shifts, and is not simply the victim of speculative panic against housing loans," he wrote in a syndicated column. "Certainly better regulation is part of the answer over the longer run, but it is no panacea.

Today's financial firm equity and bond holders must bear the main cost, or there is little hope they will behave more responsibly in the future."

Some analysts think the most important steps to avoid another depression may have already occurred without the $700 billion bailout.

"Last week we came real close to a financial economic meltdown because of the run on money market funds, resulting from the bankruptcy of (investment bank) Lehman Brothers, and I think insuring the money-market funds was enough," said Ed Yardeni, a veteran Wall Street analyst. Last week the Treasury announced a $50 billion insurance plan for money market funds, which restored confidence in them. "It wasn't necessary to move to Plan B."

Doubting the financial Armageddon scenario, Yardeni said another measure that could have the same effect as the $700 billion rescue plan is simply to change accounting rules for bad assets — mostly bonds with mortgages as their collateral.

Right now, banks and others with this toxic debt by law must write down losses every quarter. They are forced to put a present-day value on these assets. Yardeni thinks suspending this rule could do the job without taxpayer money.

"There are quite a few of us who think that could have stabilized the situation quite effectively," he said, adding, "I think it (the bailout) was rushed, and certainly we didn't give other reasonable, cheaper alternatives a chance. But at this point it is what it is, and we all have to pray that it works."



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Friday, September 26, 2008

Video - Reminders Of Our Humanity & Letting Go Of Terrible Gods & Planting Rice

Sep 26, 2008

Chris Abani's Stories of Humanity
Chris Abani tells stories of people: people standing up to soldiers, people showing compassion, people being human or reclaiming their humanity. And according to this critically-acclaimed Nigerian poet and novelist, these stories are a way of imparting something called "ubuntu." Meaning, the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.

Watch This Video


KarmaTube is a repository of inspiring online videos coupled with small, be-the-change actions that everyone can engage in. Our weekly videos reach 21248 active subscribers. Thank you for your partnership in service.

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Wallstreet Reckoning Alternative - Compelling Video On Bailout Scam - Ohio Rep Marcy Kaptur Nails It

In a mere five minutes on the floor of the House today, Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur gave a fantastic recap of the Paulson "Wall Street Bailout" plan, and proposed a compelling alternate vision of a "Wall Street Reckoning":



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S27yitK32ds

Here's the transcript:
http://www.kaptur.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=289&Itemid=1

THE LATEST REALITY GAME--WALL STREET BAILOUT -- (House of Representatives - September 22, 2008) | Print |

   The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.

   Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, here is the latest reality game. Let's play Wall Street Bailout.

   Rule one: Rush the decision. Time the game to fall in the week before Congress is set to adjourn and just 6 weeks before an historic election so your opponents will be preoccupied, pressured, distracted, and in a hurry.

   Rule two: Disarm the public through fear. Warn that the entire global financial system will collapse and the world will fall into another Great Depression. Control the media enough to ensure that the public will not notice this.

   Bailout will indebt them for generations, taking from them trillions of dollars they earned and deserve to keep.

   Rule three: Control the playing field and set the rules. Hide from the public and most of the Congress just who is arranging this deal. Communicate with the public through leaks to media insiders. Limit any open congressional hearings. Communicate with Congress via private teleconferencing calls. Heighten political anxiety by contacting each political party separately. Treat Members of Congress condescendingly, telling them that the matter is so complex that they must rely on those few insiders who really do know what's going on.

   Rule four: Divert attention and keep people confused. Manage the news cycle so Congress and the public have no time to examine who destroyed the prudent banking system that served America so well for 60 years after the financial meltdown of the 1920s.

   Rule five: Always keep in mind the goal is to privatize gains to a few and socialize loss to the many. For 30 years in one financial scandal after another, Wall Street game masters have kept billions of dollars of their gain and shifted their losses to American taxpayers. Once this bailout is in place, the greed game will begin again.



   But I have a counter-game.

It's called Wall Street Reckoning.

Congress shouldn't go home to campaign. It should put America's accounts in order. 

   To Wall Street insiders, it says ``no'' on behalf of the American people. You have perpetrated the greatest financial crimes ever on this American republic. You think you can get by with it because you are extraordinarily wealthy and the largest contributors to both Presidential and congressional campaigns in both major parties, but you are about to be brought under firm control.

   First, America doesn't need to bail you out, it needs to secure the real assets and property, not your paper, that means the homes and properties of hardworking Americans who are about to lose their homes because of your mortgage greed. There should be a new job for regional Federal Reserve Banks. We want no home foreclosed if a serious work-out agreement can be put into place. And if you don't do it, we want a notarized statement by a Federal Reserve official that they tried and failed.

   Second, taxpayers should directly gain any equity benefits that may flow from this historic bailout. We want the American people to get first priority in taking ownership of the institutions that want to pass their toxic paper onto the taxpayers.

   Third, before any bailouts for Wall Street, America needs major job creation to rebuild our major infrastructure. America needs assets, not paper. We need working assets.

   Fourth, the time for real financial regulatory change is now, not next year. A modernized Glass Eagle Act must be put in place. We need to reestablish locally-owned community savings banks across this country and create within the Justice Department a fully funded unit to prosecute every single high-flying thief whose fraud and criminal acts created this debacle and then forced their disgorgement of assets going back 15 years.

   Fifth, any refinancing must return a major share of profits to a new Social Security and Medicare lockbox, where the monies can go to pay for a dignified and assured retirement for every American. This Member isn't voting for a penny of it.

Those who created and profited from this game of games must be brought to justice.

The assets they stole must be returned to the American taxpayers, right down to the tires on their Mercedes.

   Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring my bill to create an independent commission to investigate these well-heeled wrongdoers. Real reform now, or nothing.
===

Facing our Financial Crisis | Print |
See also: Jobs, Trade, and the Economy.

Statement on Economic Turmoil
The American people are extremely concerned about recent turmoil in the nation’s economy, including the dramatic events of last week.

Congress must not adjourn until it addresses this situation.

The House and Senate should commit to staying in session until we get this right for the American public. There should be no talk about going home to campaign until we straighten out this mess.

Due Diligence: we must protect the hard-earned assets of the American public.

My position is that Congress should make it a priority to protect the assets of the American people. We should not be stampeded into taking rash action six weeks before an election. We must insist on due diligence at every step of the process. Thus, we should not approve any bailout without insisting on reforms. This is especially important to those of us who opposed the various pieces of legislation that created this irresponsible, high-risk behavior in the financial markets.

Prudence: No reforms = no money for the bailout.

I do not believe that Congress should bail out large financial institutions on Wall Street, especially without adequate protection for the average person. We need to help Main Street, not just Wall Street.

Help families fight off foreclosure.

Also, the financial crisis was precipitated by an avalanche of foreclosures. Ohio and Michigan have been especially hard hit by the decline in real estate values. Accordingly, any financial recovery plan must take into account the situations of thousands of families who are in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure.

Wrongdoers must be held responsible.

I do not believe that the people who helped bring about this situation should be allowed to profit from it. Therefore, I will insist on measures that hold responsible anyone whose actions helped bring us to this extraordinary moment where the American people are being called upon to save the financial system.

Read what others are saying about the financial crisis:
===


Other comments by Representative Kaptur:
http://www.kaptur.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=290&Itemid=1

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.

   Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, Congress is being pushed to pass a Bush administration plan to write a blank check to white collar criminals of the highest order. Instead of prosecuting those who stole from us, Secretary Paulson wants us to reward his former colleagues for their bad decisions, abusive and unlawful practices.

   While my constituents are struggling to pay their gas bills, we should recall fondly the record annual bonuses Secretary Paulson's alma mater, Goldman Sachs, gave less than 2 years ago. In 2006, that investment house alone paid $16.5 billion in compensation to its employees averaging more than $600,000 per employee. In fact, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein got $53.4 million that year. And Bear Stearns chief executive officer, the company that the Fed just bailed out with our money, James E. Cayne, got a stock bonus that year worth $14.8 million. Merrill Lynch chief executive officer Stanley O'Neal, he got $35.4 million. Think about this America.

   Now 2 years later, those houses are demanding that our taxpayers bail out their companies, despite the fact that the real median household income of a middle class family in our country is about $50,000 a year. That doesn't matter to the people drafting this bailout.

   In 2006, Forbes Magazine estimated Secretary Paulson earned $16.4 million as CEO of Goldman Sachs, not counting all his other perks. His net worth is estimated somewhere over half a billion dollars. Indeed, that tidy amount alone would make a real dent in what is owed to the American people in this proposed bailout.

   So why would our middle class taxpayers be asked to bail out billionaires? Some of them should be doing time for insider trading and fraudulent accounting rather than lobbying down here in Washington for us to bail them out.

   American taxpayers were forced to lay out $30 billion to help Bear Stearns.

   And then we were asked to shell out the first $200 billion, and that could rise to $2.44 trillion, for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And now, $85 billion to rescue AIG Insurance Company.

   Who ever heard of the Federal Government rescuing an insurance company that was already paying, get this, civil fines in New York for its wrongdoing of over $1.6 billion on proven charges of serious accounting fraud and misconduct.

   Why send our hardened paychecks to the very people who caused these problems?

   Americans don't need to write checks. We need investigations, and we don't need just investigations, we need prosecutions. White collar crimes of this magnitude cannot go unpunished, nor can they get rewarded.

   First, investigation. We need the American people's voices to be heard, not just the voices of those who perpetrated these crimes against us, the taxpayers. We need real congressional investigation and oversight in each of the committees of jurisdiction which seem strangely silent here, using their subpoena power, the Judiciary Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Budget Committee, the Financial Services Committee, which is having a perfunctory hearing tomorrow, I guess, and Government Oversight. The silence is deadening.

   The crimes of Wall Street will make Watergate look like penny-ante thieves.

   Second, campaign reform. Get the Wall Street money out of congressional and presidential races. Wall Street is now the Number 1 top source of Federal campaign money to Congress and in those presidential races. And guess who's the Number 1 Wall Street giver? Goldman Sachs. And guess where our last two Treasury Secretaries have come from? Goldman Sachs.

   Whether it's a Democratic administration or a Republican, not one lawmaker or candidate should be accepting Wall Street money. Wall Street is so broke as to beg for our help, but somehow they have millions of dollars to drop into political coffers.

   I think the American people are beginning to get the picture. In fact, I'm putting in the Record tonight an article from the Wall Street Journal called Wall Street Top Source of Campaign Money, and also a list of the biggest donors on Wall Street.

   Mr. Speaker, I will continue tomorrow evening to talk about justice and empowering the Department of Justice to institute a major investigation.

   And let me also, in closing say, I'm going to be placing in the Record tonight some remarks from Americans who have ideas about what should be done.

   I want to compliment the American people. You're doing a lot of thinking on your own. We need to hear from you.

   This Congress shouldn't be closing down and going home. We should be

taking care of America's business, not going home to campaign.
===

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Thursday, September 25, 2008

Bailout can't hide it; the country is busted - Paying Ranson Keeps The Country & World Hostage

as the government keeps paying ransom, the financial class will keep taking the country hostage.
+++

Bailout can't hide it; the country is busted

By Chris Powell
Journal Inquirer - North-Central Connectitut's Hometown Newspaper
Published: Thursday, September 25, 2008 10:18 AM EDT
http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2008/09/25/chris_powell/doc48db9d8625518811197071.txt
Even leading Republicans in Congress, including presidential nominee John McCain, recoiled from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson's proposal to take absolute power over $700 billion to be borrowed by the federal government and used to purchase every sort of bad debt without ever having to answer for it -- not to the courts, not to regulatory agencies, and only occasionally and incidentally to Congress itself.

The bad-debt bailout would be the biggest government patronage program in history and would amount to declaring martial law over the U.S. financial system and economy. Even if such martial law is necessary, its implementation should be put in democratic hands -- a non-partisan agency with full transparency, statutory standards for its purchases, and close accountability to Congress.


All the same, even if it can work -- that is, prop up insolvent financial institutions -- the Treasury's proposal is still a proclamation of the collapse of the whole U.S. financial system. Even if some financial institutions are saved, the collapse will manifest itself in other ways, probably ways more damaging to the public. For who cares if Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley endure if the issuance of $700 billion more in government bonds drives interest rates way up, diverts credit from the private economy, devalues the already sinking dollar, and sends commodity prices soaring again?

In that case the financial class will have won another battle in its long war against the producing class. It will be again as was said about the maneuvers of the Second Bank of the United States two centuries ago: "The bank was saved; only the people were ruined."

Injecting throughout the world financial system their bogus and unregulated financial instruments, like collateralized debt obligations and credit-default swaps, the big New York financial houses have taken the world economy hostage. The president and Congress should strive to save the hostages, not the kidnappers.

But the president and Congress have participated eagerly with the kidnappers in the total corruption of the financial system.

They have staffed the regulatory agencies largely from Wall Street and then diminished financial regulation.

They have let the financial houses finance presidential and congressional campaigns.

They have watched haplessly as accounting firms and credit-rating agencies engaged in conflict of interest and failed to do their jobs over and over again even as corporate scandal followed corporate scandal.

They have waged mistaken imperial war not with taxes but with huge amounts borrowed from abroad, making the country hostage to foreign nations, including some with hostile interests.

They have approved the government's falsification of inflation data and its surreptitious suppression of the price of gold so that interest rates could be set below the inflation rate, the government and everyone else could borrow more at lower interest, and the public would not become alarmed by monetary debasement.

Now the U.S. government is conjuring into existence via a few computer keystrokes fantastic, virtually inconceivable amounts of money. Unreal as these amounts are, they will be claims on the real goods and services of the country, and, if the rest of the world wants to keep playing along, which is doubtful, claims on the real goods and services of the rest of the world as well.

The purpose of all this will be to save the people who happen to be in charge of the payments system and to save the propertied class generally. But people without many assets, people who don't earn enough to own housing, people who could gain from lower housing prices and lower prices of everything else, are not even in the government's equation.

The country is simply busted. Its financial obligations are unpayable, its asset prices are illusions, and the great undertaking in Washington and New York is to preserve those illusions rather than face reality. If the price of preserving those illusions is $700 billion -- and of course it is more likely to run into the trillions -- could it really be more expensive to dispense with the illusions now?

After all, instead of rescuing financial institutions that disregarded risk, the government just as easily could keep the country going by sending checks to everyone every month -- as it already sends Social Security checks to retirees.

But as long as the government keeps paying ransom, the financial class will keep taking the country hostage. 

-----


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