A Level Gaze |
|
|
"What effect must it have on a nation if it learns no foreign languages? Probably much the same as that which a total withdrawal from society has upon an individual." --G.C. Lichtenberg LinksNew Email Address! levelgaze@gmail.com Blogs NoWarBlog The Lefty Directory The Agonist aintnobaddude alicublog Alas, a Blog Altercation Ambivalent Imbroglio AmericaBlog American Street Amygdala Anger Management Angry Bear Armed Liberal Bad Attitudes Barney Gumble Bartcop Beyond Corporate Billmon Blah3 Body and Soul Booman Tribune Brad DeLong Busy Busy Busy Buzzflash By Neddie Jingo Calculated Risk CalPundit Chase me ladies Chris Nelson Contested Terrrain Cooped Up Conceptual Guerilla corrente Counterspin Crooked Timber Daily Howler Daily Kos Decembrist Demosthenes Driftglass D-Squared Digest Electrolite Eschaton Ethel Ezra Klein Fafblog! Fanatical Apathy Firedoglake First Draft Fistful of Euros get donkey! Globblog The Hamster Here's What's Left Horowitz Watch Housing Bubble Hullabaloo Intl News Istanblog James Wolcott Jesus' General Juan Cole Junius Lean Left Left Coast Breakdown Letter from Gotham Liberal Oasis MacDiva MadKane Mahablog Majikthise Making Light Marginal Revolution Mark Kleiman Matthew Yglesias MaxSpeak Media Whores Online Michael Finley Michael Froomkin MyDD My Left Wing Nathan Newman Off the Kuff Oliver Willis Orcinus Pandagon Pen-Elayne Pfaffenblog PLA The Poor Man R.B. Ham Raed in the Middle Ragout Raw Story ReachM High Cowboy Rittenhouse Review The Road to Surfdom Roger Ailes Rude Pundit Ruminate This Seeing the Forest Seize the Fish Self Made Pundit Sideshow Sirotablog Sisyphus Shrugged Skippy Slacktivist South Knox Bubba Steve Gilliard Talking Points Memo Talk Left The Talking Dog Tapped TBogg Ted Barlow Testify! Thinking It Through Through the Looking Glass TNR Online Tres Producers TRR Two Tears in a Bucket uggabugga Unknown News Vaara Wampum War Liberal Winning Argument Wonkette WTF Is It Now General Interest BBC News The Economist Metafilter RealPolitik Robot Wisdom 
Archives 
|
Saturday, August 31, 2002
Absolutely priceless. Police arrested nine current and former McIntosh College students on drug charges Tuesday, as the city police chief said he was pushing federal prosecutors to seize a college dorm under federal drug forfeiture laws. (emphasis mine) They arrested students, but it's the college's fault? Maybe they should seize the state of Florida while they're at it. All kinds of drugs come through there. via Unknown News Look no further. This is what lefty blogging is all about, folks. Demosthenes is as good as it gets. I don't know who else has said this, but I'm joining them: Saddam Hussein is not Hitler. Iraq is not Germany. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf. Saddam writes romance novels. In World War I, Germany fought all of Europe and Russia to a standstill. Iraq lost a war with Iran's third-rate army. Germany was a modern, industrialized society with some of the best scientific minds and some of the most advanced manufacturing facilities in the world. Saddam has some oil and buys nearly everything else from other countries. Iraq can't even feed itself or build automobiles. So Rummy, buddy, pal, GIVE IT A REST ALREADY. Nobody believes you. You look like a jackass. Friday, August 30, 2002
Amid Worldwide Skepticism, Cheney Again Slams Iraq "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," Cheney said, reprising a fighting speech he gave on Monday in Nashville, Tennessee. "There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use them against our friends, against our allies and against us," he said. Uhh, no. Saddam does not pose a threat to anybody outside the borders of Iraq. The whole world knows this. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the only reason he has biological, chemical, and/or nuclear weapons (if he has them) is to protect his own ass and to inflict maximum damage on anyone who comes after him. If he uses them, or even threatens to use them, for any other purpose, he's dead. Finished. Kaput. Done. Not only would we kill him several times over, but his support in the Arab world would disintegrate instantly, and we'd look like heroes for taking out an actual threat. Ok. I've had about enough of this. It's not so bad when they lie to us about the deficit, taxes, the environment, etc.; at least then they come up with some obfuscatory rationales that at least sound plausible. You even get the sense that someone, somewhere, believes the stuff. But this is just ridiculous. Obviously Dick Cheney thinks we're all a bunch of freaking morons. Update: Matthew Rothschild at the Progressive gives the issue a more complete treatment. via Buzzflash Thursday, August 29, 2002
Mother in shock over teen's sentence INVERNESS [FL] -- Earlier this year, 16-year-old Adam Bollenback swiped a six-pack of beer from a refrigerator in a woman's garage and got caught by Citrus County sheriff's deputies. The situation went from bad to worse when Bollenback slithered out of a patrol car while the deputy wasn't watching, leaving behind only his shoes. He was caught and accused of burglary, petty theft and escape. Prosecutors charged him in the adult system, a move that was within their discretion. According to the article, Bollenback, who suffers from bipolar disorder and other mental problems, had had two prior scrapes with the law, one for fighting, and one for aggravated assault against his mother, for which she had not wanted to press charges. The judge also noted the defendant had had a history of "abus[ing]" alcohol, codeine and pot. He was sentenced to 10 years in adult prison. Sayeth Circuit Judge Ric A. Howard: "You're well on your way to a lifetime of prison and I don't want to see that happen...This sentence is going to break your spirit right now." Damn right, your honor. Wednesday, August 28, 2002
Bin Laden thought to have had kidney transplant The latest reporting, believed to come from informants, again suggests that bin Laden received treatment with the help of dialysis machines supplied by Pakistan's intelligence agency. The above quote is a reminder to everyone who thinks we've got the War on Terra under control and that we're going to win easily that the world is a complex place, sometimes. Oh, and that we don't control JACK SHIT. via Bartcop Briefing Depicted Saudis as Enemies Bush reaffirms eternal friendship with Kingdom Saudi boycott causes 30 percent drop in U.S. exports Saudi royals face trillion-dollar lawsuit over September 11 Saudis join hands to fight back slander Banks to shut doors on Saudi royal cash Dollar falls as Saudi investors 'withdraw billions' It looks as though the Saudis are as confused as we are. Tuesday, August 27, 2002
"The Bush administration is now covering up for Bill Clinton, Marc Rich and Pinky Green." Got to admit, I didn't see that one coming. It looks like, true to form W. & Co. are working the system to prevent congressional and public oversight of its actions, in this case pardons. There are two possible interpretations of the article's lead graph: "President Bush's lawyers are trying to keep secret the inside stories of President Bill Clinton's last-day pardons by invoking a claim of executive privilege that extends far beyond the White House." 1) It's a total misdirect, intended to provide cover for when 43 whitewashes his administration as 41 did, or 2) As has been whispered darkly elsewhere, Republican interests may have as much or more to lose on the subject of Mark Rich's pardon than Clinton does. Either way, the hypocrisy is astounding. via Buzzflash Saturday, August 24, 2002
Steven Baum notes a Comstock Funds 'Daily Comment' that outlines the extreme risk the American economy faces from potential falling-off of foreign investment in US equities. If foreigners don’t keep investing in the U.S. as we continue running $400 to $500 billion per year current account deficits the U.S. dollar could be in trouble. For the foreign investor, a strengthening dollar enhances the return from investing in U.S.equities, while a weakening dollar decreases it. The whole process turns into a vicious circle of the foreigners trying to bail out before the dollar and stocks go lower, while their sales of dollar based securities drive the dollar and stocks lower. This is not a pretty picture. The current account deficit must be financed by foreigners redeploying over $1 billion a day of U.S. dollars back into this country. If foreign investment does not continue at the levels of the past few years, this could have a major impact on the U.S. dollar. If that in turn, causes actual net selling of U.S. financial securities the vicious circle of selling would commence. In an earlier post, I estimated the risk of Saudi disinvestment in US assets as low given that, as things stand now, alternative investments would be money-losing propositions. If the trickle of outflows of foreign money turns into a flood, however, all bets (so to speak) are off. Just about anything would be a better investment than US equities. As inept as their policies have been, it's inconceivable that the president's men are unaware of this looming catastrophe. Since they don't have the ability to restore real or even perceived value to our corporations, other options have to be pursued to save our collective bacon. If I were asked my opinion, I'd don my realpolitik cap and tell them to destabilize as much of the world economy as possible. With that in mind, war with Iraq is a dead cinch. I shudder to think what they have in mind to make China look like a bad investment, to say nothing of Europe. Friday, August 23, 2002
I'd suggest an additional twist to the second of Armed Liberal's interpretations of our position vis a vis the Middle East and the developing world in general laid out in his(?) excellent series on terrorism. He writes: The second possibility is that there is a rising tide of dissent, often led by the educated classes throughout the world; in the Arab world, the only survivable outlet is in protest against Israel and America, which fits neatly into the philosophical underpinnings of that educated dissent, which is the rejection of modernity and the Western concept of ‘progress’. But while the incoming wave is most visible where there are reefs…and so the fact that this viewpoint finds official support in the Arab world, for a variety of reasons...the wave is moving in along a very broad front. I'd speculate that at least some of the "rejection of modernity" is not so much the wholesale repudiation of advanced modes of production, transport, communication, and so forth, but a rejection of how it has played out under US and western hegemony. There being no other example of modernity, many in the developing world certainly do identify technological progress with the exploitive practices of powerful, advanced nations. Among these groups, the only untainted frameworks around which they can build resistance are the necessarily less-advanced religious and cultural manifestations that predate the arrival of their oppressors (and are therefore 'authentic'). However, there is no reason that such resistance must be tied to backward institutions; doing so is at the moment the path of least resistance, the easiest way to mobilize the masses. Over time, the building blocks of modernity will inevitibly disperse from their current concentration in the developed world and be deployed by poorer nations to their own advantage, and be freed of the unnecessary association with de facto and/or economic colonialism. China provides an instructive example: although it depends on other nations for technological advances, it is in the process of putting together a self-sustaining modern infrastructure. Its strong geopolitical situation puts it in a position of relative independence from developed nations. As it continues to progress down the path of development, it will gradually help destroy the notion that modernity and oppression are inevitably linked. Currently, World Bank and I.M.F policies force many countries to give up or sell their technological infrastructures and foster continued dependence upon rich nations. The increasing resistance to these institutions (and, by extension, the US) indicates that the developing world is getting wise to these tactics, and won't put up with them for much longer. Thursday, August 22, 2002
Hissing the 'H' Word at Bush This is the third or fourth negative article I've seen about Dubya at UPI in the past week, and the harshest yet. As many of you know, UPI, along with The Washington Times, is owned by Sun Myung Moon, who has been very, very tight with the Bush family, and conservatives in general. So why are they now comparing him to Herbert Hoover? The conclusion that Bush's economic and political record could be as catastrophic -- at least -- as that of Herbert Hoover, the hapless president who endured three and half years of the Great Depression without being able to do anything useful about it, rests on, unfortunately, on much more than the parallels between the Great Wall Street Crash of October 1929, and the one now fitfully unfolding before our eyes, although that is the obvious place to start. First, the epochal scale of the current market slide -- even taking into account the 1,200 point rally in the Dow Jones Index we have just seen -- is now clear. And the grim dimensions of the crisis that we have been warning would come if Bush did not change his over-optimistic and, it now appears, highly irresponsible fiscal policies are now obvious to all. *** As Hutchinson and our Chief Economics Correspondent Ian Campbell have been noting with alarming regularity in recent weeks, Bush has already fallen deeply into the classic Herbert Hoover groove of blindly and mindlessly repeating his mantra that business conditions an economic fundamentals are sound when it is clear to all that they are far from sound. And any freshman student of Economics 101 could tell you why --even if they didn't have the benefit of Yale and Harvard Business School degrees, as Bush does. Even worse, Bush has already enthusiastically echoed Hoover -- and abandoned the great William McKinley, William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan traditions of tough, cool-nerved and reassuring leadership in difficult times. The UPI is much diminished lately, and is no longer a major news source on the level of the AP, Reuters, AFP, or even Bloomberg. And, as of today, Moon's other media mouthpiece is still pushing for war with Iraq. Still, this is looking more and more like a serious crack in the facade of right-wing unity. We can only hope. Wednesday, August 21, 2002
Saudi threat to withdraw billions in US investments I wonder, did anyone think this kind of thing might happen before all the anti-Saudi rhetoric started flying all over the place? Actually, this is probably a mostly empty threat. There really isn't anyplace else for the money to go, especially given that the world has been thoroughly (if temporarily) disabused of the notion that asset-price bubbles are a good thing. Most likely, the money would be shifted into Europe, but that amount of money going into European assets would inflate prices, with the Saudis taking a major hit just buying them, especially if the money moves en masse. Putting it all into cash, especially Euros, could have a devastating effect on the dollar in the short term, but they'd still be faced with the loss of its returning to a stable exchange rate after they finish buying. Unless they're willing to lose a large chunk of their $750 billion, the majority of Saudi US investments will probably stay put. Still, it's going to be fun to watch all the (Republican-friendly) American financial institutions running in circles and screaming bloody murder for the Bush Administration to do something about this. It'll be even more fun to watch the latter capitulate. via Buzzflash US tax dollars helped finance some Chavez foes, review finds I'm going to leave the heavy lifting on this one to more able bloggers, except for this: The International Republican Institute, which has an office in Caracas and is an arm of the US Republican Party, also has been questioned over its activities and of the anti-Chavez zeal of its leader. The institute's grant from the [US taxpayer-funded] National Endowment for Democracy grew from $50,000 in 2000, to promote youth participation in politics, to $339,998 last year for political party building. What in the Sam Hill is the Congress of the United States of America doing giving money to "arm[s] of the US Republican Party?" What the hell kind of political parties are the fine, upstanding people at the International Republican Institute building with my money? Ashcroft could be hit with House subpoena It seems that the continuing barrage of bonehead policies coming from the executive branch is starting to scare people. Unless his constituents are feeling antsy about having their whole lives open to government scrutiny, it's hard to come up with a reason for Sensenbrenner's threat to subpoena Ashcroft. It's good to know there are still some sane republicans out there. Steven Baum over at Ethel the Blog absolutely destroys the idea that Al Quaeda's (or whoever's) killing a few dogs means they're the most evillest thing on the planet: While we have videotape of evil evil evil blah blah fucking blah Osama or whoever killing a few dogs, the U.S. military spends $180 million to kill over half a million dogs, cats, etc. each and every goddamned year. Anyone who weeps for Osama's ostensible canine victims while rationalizing the military's dog holocaust as somehow vital for the survival of the pitiful, helpless giant in the big, mean, Islamofascist world has, to put it bluntly, their head so far up their ass that it's going to meet itself in some topological nightmare scenario that would give Escher the heebie-jeebies. Tuesday, August 20, 2002
Bush May Have Evaded Taxes On Sale Of Baseball Team A review of George W. Bush’s 1998 tax return reveals that he reported the sale of his share of the Texas Rangers baseball team as a long term capital gain. As a result, he paid a tax on the more than $15 million proceeds at a tax rate of 20%, as opposed to the 39.6% rate on ordinary income. According to a press release dated June 18, 1998 from the Dallas Morning News, Bush paid $606,000 for about 1.8% of the team and became the managing general partner of B/R Rangers Associates, Ltd., a limited partnership that owned the team. Under the terms of the agreement, Mr. Bush was given an additional 10.2% of the proceeds as additional compensation if the team was sold. The team was purchased for $86 million in 1989 and sold in 1998 for $250 million to Tom Hicks, a person with whom Bush had prior official business while governor. As reported by Tom Kruger in his July 16, 2002 article, Tom Hicks had a relationship with Mr. Bush that afforded Hicks the opportunity to use $9 billion of the University of Texas endowment fund without any accountability. The management fee to Hicks for investing the $9 billion could have exceeded the $350 million he paid for the Texas Rangers. In effect, Bush handed Hicks the money to buy the team as part of his official duties as governor. Last I heard, in order to have a capital gain, you had to make an investment, not receive compensation for services rendered. The IRS agrees, stating in Revenue Procedure 93-27: "…The receipt of a partnership capital interest for services provided to or for the benefit of the partnership is taxable as compensation.” Sounds like a conflict of interest. Sounds like public corruption. Sounds like tax evasion. Sounds a hell of a lot bigger than Whitewater. But wait, there's more: As reported in the Houston Chronicle on April 22, 1997, “The tax reform bill supported by Gov. George W. Bush would have saved at least $2.5 million in school property tax for a company founded by Bush’s billionaire business partner and top campaign contributor, Richard Rainwater of Fort Worth.” Mr. Rainwater headed a public company that was a real estate investment trust traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Bush himself had 4,222 shares of this stock when he proposed the tax reduction that would have benefited this company, Crescent Real Estate Equities, by more than $2.5 million. This same company owned psychiatric hospitals throughout the country that were closed down because of scandalous and fraudulent activities as reported by 60 Minutes and various publications, all before the presidential election of 2000. As if that was not enough, Bush’s policies as governor further benefited Crescent by: 1. Allowing it to receive an extra $10 million stadium tax for a sports stadium used by the Dallas Mavericks 2. The State of Texas sold three office blocks belonging to the teachers’ retirement fund—to Crescent—the sale of one block costing the pension fund system $44 million. 3. The trust fund for the Texas University Public School invested $20 million in Crescent during Bush’s first term as governor. (emphasis mine) Sounds like a conflict of interest. Sounds like public corruption. Sounds a hell of a lot bigger than Whitewater. Should he be prosecuted? Ahh, here's a precedent: In 1972, [Illinois] Gov. [Otto] Kerner was convicted of income tax fraud for influencing public policy that benefited his holdings in a race track corporation. On the advice of his accountants, Gov. Kerner treated the proceeds ($180,000) of his race track stock as long term capital gain subject to the reduced tax. The U.S. Attorney, James Thompson, prosecuted Gov. Kerner for falsely treating these proceeds as a capital gain because Gov. Kerner’s public policies had a substantial effect on the appreciation of the stock. Gov. Kerner was a Democrat, and Mr. Thompson was appointed U.S. Attorney by President Nixon. Thompson later became governor of Illinois. According to an IRS agent who worked on the Kerner case, the government’s theory was based on the idea that a true capital gain is based on the assumption that natural market forces enhance the value of the property sold. Natural market forces can include the legitimate contributions of managing partners. However, the government concluded, and the jury affirmed, the fact that people in official policy positions who enhance the value of their own property in whole or in part are guilty of a corrupt practice, and accordingly the gain is not capital gain. This is consistent with the theory behind giving tax incentives only for legitimate capital appreciation. This has all been public knowledge for some time now. Why has there been no prosecution or investigation of these activities? This isn't the same as the Harken Energy deal, involving some murky notions of trading on inside information. These are purposeful activities on the part of a sitting governor that increased the value of his assets and direct transfers of public wealth to his contributors and business partners. This is the very essence of public corruption, and a flagrant case of law enforcement negligence. If we don't enforce laws, they become meaningless. No wonder Bush feels no obligation to them as President. via Buzzflash Monday, August 19, 2002
Hesiod reminds us that The USA "Meeting World Standards of War" Extravaganza hits just keep on coming. And, at the bottom of the page, the shits just creep on, scumming. To: blam They should have poked holes in the container’s top with a nail. Every seven year old kid with a bug collection knows that. 10 posted on 8/18/02 6:15 PM Pacific by vigl [ To 1 | View Replies ] which receives the reply, To: vigl They should have poked holes in the container’s top with a nail. and then pour gasoline in the holes and light a match! ('they' of course, would be the northern alliance, and not us soldiers.) 13 posted on 8/18/02 6:52 PM Pacific by mlocher [ To 10 | View Replies ] Like the Northern Alliance had shipping containers. Nice. Sunday, August 18, 2002
American Officers Say U.s. Aided Iraq in 80's War Despite Its Use of Poison Gas A covert American program during the Reagan administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program. Those officers, most of whom agreed to speak on the condition that they not be identified, spoke in response to a reporter's questions about the nature of gas warfare on both sides of the conflict between Iran and Iraq from 1981 to 1988. Iraq's use of gas in that conflict is repeatedly cited by President Bush and, this week, by his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as justification for "regime change" in Iraq. The covert program was carried out at a time when President Reagan's top aides, including Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci and Gen. Colin L. Powell, then the national security adviser, were publicly condemning Iraq for its use of poison gas, especially after Iraq attacked Kurds in Halabja in March 1988. During the Iran-Iraq war, the United States decided it was imperative that Iran be thwarted, so it could not overrun the important oil-producing states in the Persian Gulf. It has long been known that the United States provided intelligence assistance to Iraq in the form of satellite photography to help the Iraqis understand how Iranian forces were deployed against them. But the full nature of the program, as described by former Defense Intelligence Agency officers, was not previously disclosed. *** In early 1988, after the Iraqi Army, with American planning assistance, retook the Fao Peninsula in an attack that reopened Iraq's access to the Persian Gulf, a defense intelligence officer, Lt. Col. Rick Francona, now retired, was sent to tour the battlefield with Iraqi officers, the American military officers said. He reported that Iraq had used chemical weapons to cinch its victory, one former D.I.A. official said. Colonel Francona saw zones marked off for chemical contamination, and containers for the drug atropine scattered around, indicating that Iraqi soldiers had taken injections to protect themselves from the effects of gas that might blow back over their positions. (Colonel Francona could not be reached for comment.) *** Col. Walter P. Lang, retired, the senior defense intelligence officer at the time, said he would not discuss classified information, but added that both D.I.A. and C.I.A. officials "were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose" to Iran. *** Colonel Lang asserted that the Defense Intelligence Agency "would have never accepted the use of chemical weapons against civilians, but the use against military objectives was seen as inevitable in the Iraqi struggle for survival." Senior Reagan administration officials did nothing to interfere with the continuation of the program, a former participant in the program said. *** The Pentagon's battle damage assessments confirmed that Iraqi military commanders had integrated chemical weapons throughout their arsenal and were adding them to strike plans that American advisers either prepared or suggested. Iran claimed that it suffered thousands of deaths from chemical weapons. The American intelligence officers never encouraged or condoned Iraq's use of chemical weapons, but neither did they oppose it because they considered Iraq to be struggling for its survival, people involved at the time said in interviews. Another former senior D.I.A. official who was an expert on the Iraqi military said the Reagan administration's treatment of the issue — publicly condemning Iraq's use of gas while privately acquiescing in its employment on the battlefield — was an example of the "Realpolitik" of American interests in the war. *** One officer said, "They had gotten better and better" and after a while chemical weapons "were integrated into their fire plan for any large operation, and it became more and more obvious." *** The Pentagon "wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of gas," said one veteran of the program. "It was just another way of killing people — whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference," he said. While this story shouldn't surprise too many people who won't dismiss it outright, it brings up some salient points with regard to our current situation with Iraq: 1) That this story is showing up in the NYT is significant. Its well-documented tendency in favor of covering its collective grey ass indicates the story is well-substantiated. 2) That this story is showing up anywhere is a stark indication of the depth of the armed services' opposition to an invasion of Iraq, and the Bush Administration's underestimation of same, which leads us to... 3) Said opposition (stemming, we must assume, from best-guess projections of unacceptable levels of potential losses) confirms suspicions that the administration hasn't thought through the implications of an invasion, and indicates a shallow motivation behind it, whether wag-the-dog political or personal animus against Saddam. 4) The Bush administration's credibility with the global community is now zero. Many people currently in the administration, and many others with close Bush ties, worked actively to help Saddam use chemical weapons. He was evil then, and we helped him. He's evil now, so we'll invade. Does not compute. The situation only confirms suspicions that Bush Administration foreign policy is utterly amoral. We cannot take the high ground and proclaim that we need to rid the world of the Iraqi menace because it's the right thing to do. Either we need to formulate an argument that Saddam presents a clear and present danger greater than the cost of removing him, or we should just shut up about it. Also, we owe the people of Iran an apology. Friday, August 16, 2002
Avedon Carol hits another one out of the park, this time on the MWO vs. Spinsanity kerfluffle. How can anyone miss this point? Being "reasonable", well-spoken, and truthful has been tried for a very long time - and it was completely trampled by the right wing's willingness to not just name-call, but to lie and to demand extreme measures for the most petty of offenses. The right wing succeeded by doing this. But MWO has not stooped to their level; while they may be partisan and may have let their positions influence their interpretations of events, the fact of the matter is they try very hard to stick to the truth. Even so, by raising the volume, they have done what more serious, thoughtful and restrained commentators had failed to do - they and their arguments have received attention from the media. So much so that now it's time to attack them for daring to be interesting enough to be noticed. Thursday, August 15, 2002
Didn't see it, because I was too busy fuming, but Max beat me to it (and did a much better job, too). Whoops, so did Demosthenes. "Transnational Progressivism?" Why not just call it, "Everyone who disagrees with me about anything?" Conservatives were stunned by the size and coherence of the protests in Seattle, Quebec, et al., and have been wracking their brains to account for it ever since. Now they've named their bogey, and in doing so, have hit upon what I'm sure they feel is a master stroke: creating a monolithic, all-destroying enemy that can take the place of communism. Steven Den Beste explains in his discussion of John Fonte's The Ideological War Within the West: This article shows that a completely new international political movement has formed, which opposes liberal democracy as we in the US practice it. [Fonte] refers to it as transnational progressivism and makes a persuasive case that it is the underlying philosophy behind such apparently disparate phenomena as the anti-globalist movement, the "sustainable development" movement, those who support the International Criminal Court, much of forces supporting "multiculturalism" in the liberal academia, the apparent hypocrisy of international human rights organizations who are eager to condemn the US while ignoring much worse abuse by third world nations, and the formation of the European Union and the structure of the European Commission in Brussels. Soon the gentle smacks of palms contacting foreheads will reverborate throughout the land: Of course! It was the EU that was behind the protests in Genoa. Crafty devils, setting up against their own police forces; we're going to need a lot of elbow grease to rid the world of scum that evil. That whole bit about antiglobalization protestors being displaced workers and people disgusted at the standard of living of the third world folks who work at our corporations' factories, man, we almost got suckered into falling for it. Yeah, you 'sustainable development' jackals, we see through you, too. "[sarcastic, sing-song whine] We want to leave our chil-dren a living pla-net! [/sarc.]" It won't do you much good where you're going. The European Union is not primarily about economic integration. That's what they want you to think. They're up to something, I tell you. They want to speak Spanish? Here in the US of A? Let's go assimilate 'em, boys. It's all the eggheads' fault. Damned eggheads. This is how we treat our allies. Don't piss us off. After the Americans bombed a wedding party in Uruzgan on 30 June – the death toll reliably stands at 55 after several more wounded died – Pashtuns were outraged at eyewitness accounts of US troops preventing survivors helping the wounded. They were especially infuriated by a report that the Americans had taken photographs of the naked bodies of dead Afghan women. An explanation is not difficult to find. For their own investigation, US forces may well have taken pictures of the dead after the Uruzgan raid and, since bombs generally blast the clothes off their victims, dead female Afghans would be naked. But the story has become legend. Americans take pictures of naked Afghan women. It's easy to see how this can turn potential Afghan friends into enemies. via Robot Wisdom Wow. An acknowledgement that we're pissing off the entire world, and that it's a bad thing. On the front page of USA Today. Philadelphia transplant Susan Steele, head of Forum management company in London, has noticed that many Europeans have started using the phrase "that's American," which is shorthand, Steele says, for "not taking anyone else into consideration." It's open season, folks. via Bartcop Wednesday, August 14, 2002
The point behind the abrogation of rights of "enemy combatants" is this: if you have enemy combatants, it is presumed you're at war, and have better things to do than dig up lawyers, convene trials, and go through all the niceties of constitutional courtroom procedure. It's also presumed that, until recently, the guy in the brig was on the other side of a battlefield with a bunch of other guys, all of them shooting at you. That is the difference between battlefield law and 'normal' law. Nothing else has changed. Not the nature of truth, the means of getting at it, nor the means of avoiding falsehood. All of which are pretty well provided for in our 'normal' legal system, should one be interested in getting at the truth. It is considered barbaric to kill off prisoners of war, or even to treat them badly. For the grave offense of taking up arms against our country, we punish enemy combatants in actual wars with...nothing. Just imprisonment until the end of the war or a swap of prisoners, and that's it. Notice is taken of the honor of fighting for one's country, even if it is against our own, and the prisoners are released. We go to war with a country, a government; we do not assign the blame for instigating or perpetuating it to the individual soldiers. Kill them on the battlefield until your heart's content, but when they surrender, they become POWs. Our government has been careful to refer to those captured in the War on Terrorism as "detainees," and not prisoners of war, to avoid the strictures of the Geneva Convention, to allow the prisoners to be held incommunicado, without hearings or trials, indefinitely. Apparently, all the evidence it takes to do so is a two-page letter from "a special advisor to the undersecretary of defense for policy." In such letters, it is to be assumed, facts are self-evident, and not in need of corroboration. If I'm sitting and minding my own business here in New York and they come for me and throw me into a cell, all that needs to happen is for someone to call me an enemy combatant, and it's over. I'm as good as dead, and my family may never find out what happened to me. As Judge Doumar pointed out, there's nothing stopping the feds from putting Hamdi in a vat of boiling oil. If we assume that Hamdi, Padilla and the rest are, in fact, "enemy combatants," then we have no right to punish them at all. The Taliban has been defeated, and under international law they are to be released. If they are not, then they are entitled to the rights and protections guaranteed in the United States Constitution. It's as simple as that. One of the great faults of this age is that a great many people have become convinced they are incapable of grasping current events. No one feels himself smart or informed enough to be trusted with independent assessments of his environment; we need academics and ‘pundits’ for that. The glib shall lead us. Ugh. The complexity of the obvious is stressed at every moment, facts are multiplied, and sloppy but thorough argotization of every field disqualifies all but specialists from comment. What should be a tip-off that the whole show is mostly a sham is that these 'specialists,' who are supposed to know, who are paid to know, often disagree with one another on every issue, their mutual starting point of 'conventional wisdom' being largely content-free. It is assumed in media circles nowadays that every speaker on every topic has a political affiliation. It is assumed that everything said by said speakers will be in accord with their political views. The inescapable inference is that there is a higher authority to which our academics and pundits answer which trumps mere objectivity. The last assumption is that the two sides will never come to agreement about anything but the most screamingly obvious points. The truth is never really at issue, as honest, best-guess approximations almost invariably fall into the no-man's-land between Left and Right. When the debate is between Right and Center, as has become routine, the centrist position is tainted a priori by virtue of its being one of the two poles. Where it turns ridiculous is that practically all votes are cast by laymen. Our system presupposes, at the very least, that citizens will vote according to their interests. But many actual and potential voters are unable to define their interests, much less determine which candidate in a given race is more likely to foster them. For those unable or unwilling to dig around the spin and form some semblance of their own opinions, all they've got are the media. Possibly one reason so many people don't vote is because they don't feel knowledgeable enough to make the right choices, and they don't trust the media to help them. Many of those who do vote jump on the political bandwagon of either of the parties, often for cosmetic or hazy ideological reasons bearing little relation to their interests. People who say "well, all politicians are full of crap, anyway," are indirectly indicting the media as well for their inability or unwillingness to cut through the "crap." Did the Republican rump--the non-wealthy, anti-tax, knee-jerk anti-big government types--really think things would be better for them under a party that was mostly concerned with lowering the taxes of the rich and gutting government services and protections? As for the party line about increasing investment by giving the rich more of 'their own money,' since when did the rump start thinking long-term? Did anyone in the mainstream media, save for a few lonely voices, point out the contradictions in Bush's tax plan? Did everyone in the media point out the obvious fact that he was counting the same money twice in his plan to privatize Social Security? The answer to both questions is no, which is why the rump didn’t know any better. The same holds true for the attention paid to the Clinton “scandals.” Concentration of the media among a few wealthy owners has created a great incentive to get citizens to give up thinking for themselves. It is they and their friends who will receive the tax cuts and government contracts, it is they who will fatten their profits by eliminating regulations, unions, and workplace safeguards. Best of all, gab-fests cost less to produce than ‘real’ news programs. The media has blinded the sheep, and with reassuring words and pats on the head, leads them to slaughter. Tuesday, August 13, 2002
Oh, this is refreshing. SOMERSET, Pa.- The miners' union and the former head of a federal mine safety agency say public hearings are needed to determine what caused a flood that trapped nine coal miners underground for more than three days. But the current head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration said a public hearing, which would give investigators power to subpoena witnesses and documents, wouldn't reveal any more information than the routine investigation already under way into the accident at the Quecreek mine. via Nathan Newman Monday, August 12, 2002
I was all ready to ignore the anonymity debate now swirling through Blogspace. It's a choice you make when you start your blog, that's about it. In the end, unless you are already well-known, even 'real' names could be faked, as you don't need to present ID to get a Blogger account. This is the first time I've done anything, er, onymous, on the web. It's an experiment, more than anything. I agree with Demosthenes and Atrios, in the context of blogging, whether or not one is anonymous is largely irrelevant. Whether the writer makes sense, is a bearable or entertaining read, and his/her sources check out should be the main criteria for judgement. It's really not worth discussing much further than that. One of the reasons cited for anonymity did, upon reflection, hit me like a ton of bricks. Atrios writes: I'm anonymous because I worry about employment and personal consequences of what I write here. Given the excitability of certain online elements, I don't think the latter concern is that unreasonable. As for the former - maybe that's paranoia but given the long memory of Google I don't want my current and future employers being able to hold my words against me. A casual overview of what other Bloggers do tells me that many are either self-employed or otherwise have either financial/job security or careers which appear not too likely to be impacted by doing this type of thing. I don't make a living doing this, so I have to worry about that. Reading that paragraph brought home to me just how intolerant so many people are of contrary opinions. We Americans (along with Canadians, most Europeans and Japanese) pat ourselves on the back for the freedoms we enjoy, but they aren't worth all that much. As it turns out, we only value freedom of expression in the abstract. We'll go on and on about how damned 'superior' we are to other countries that officially censor their citizens, but it's all just hollow claptrap unless, as free citizens, we honor, or at least tolerate, those who actually do express themselves. I guess I've always taken for granted there are situations that demand of people that they keep their cards close to the vest. Although we have the right to express ourselves free from governmental obstruction and/or discrimination, no such restriction is upon private citizens. Employers can (and certainly do) Google job applicants and possibly reject them based on what pops up. Some nut can look up your information and publish your home address, and encourage others, say, to "go see him and give him a piece of your mind." Nothing illegal there. With a shred of neither shame nor irony, corporate and moneyed interests buy the actions of politicians and the opinions of the masses. Lobbying and campaign contributions are seen by most as a necessary evil at worst. They're just "protecting their interests." The Supreme Court has equated the money used to buy politicians to speech, and protected it under the First Amendment. But some schmoe, writing his opinion for free on a web page somewhere, because he truly believes in it, lives in fear that his professional and personal lives will be trashed if the wrong people find out. Has it really come to this? Assuming 'the other guy' isn't going to play fair, must we act by any means necessary to defeat him? Or can this great nation withstand the terrible battering assult of contrary opinions? I don't know what to make of Alvaro Uribe's declaration of a state of emergency in Colombia. The country's been in a civil war for 38 years. How much more of an emergency could there be? However, this tidbit caught my eye: Rights activists are particularly worried about Uribe's program to create an army of 1 million civilian informers in the lawless countryside to help the military and the police. Where'd he get the idea? The administration's party line on the TIPS program is, to put it politely, a crock of shit. Under the program, the government would encourage tips from everyday citizens about suspicious activities. [Assistant Attorney General Michael] Chertoff denied it would encourage Americans to spy on one another. "The government is asking people to do this, not making them," he said. "I would suspect most of them (tips) will wash out." He also said, "We're not looking for a community of snoops." From dictionary.com: snoop Pronunciation Key (snp) intr.v. snooped, snoop·ing, snoops To pry into the private affairs of others, especially by prowling about. n. One who snoops. Y'see, the way we have things set up now, with local police, state police, the FBI and god-knows-what-all else, isn't going to work. If you use an existing phone line to any of these organizations, you have to have some compelling reason, or they'll smack your wrists for 'wasting their time.' To fight terrorism, we need to open up the machinery of justice for people with hunches and suspicions and 'funny feelings.' People aren't coming forward with these kinds of 'unfounded' semi-allegations because law enforcement scares them. It's too serious; it looks as if it's always going to do something heavy, like shoot someone. Heck, even I'd think twice before calling those goons. We don't have any petty-minded folks in this country who'd blow someone in to make a buck or for spite. Anyway, our government is impartial and unbiased. It treats all citizens equally, so there's absolutely no danger that any innocent people will be imprisoned or that anyone's rights will be violated. Now go fool around with your barbecues or something. Thursday, August 08, 2002
If this Times of London article is accurate, there is an awful lot more riding on the Iraq invasion than whether 100 or 1,000 US troops are killed, or whether it takes 3 months or a year. Instead, we'll have ourselves a nice little nuclear war. An assessment of Iraq’s capabilities says that the US is unlikely to knock out many, if any, of President Saddam Hussein’s mobile missile-launchers in a first wave of airstrikes. It raises the possibility of Baghdad hitting an Israeli city with a missile carrying biological agents, saying that Saddam is likely to use chemical and biological weapons. Israel’s likely reaction would be nuclear ground bursts against every Iraqi city not already occupied by US-led coalition forces. Senators were told that, unlike the 1991 Gulf War, when Washington urged Israel not to retaliate against Iraqi missile strikes, Israeli leaders have decided that their credibility would be hurt if they failed to react this time. This hypothesis was put forward to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Anthony Cordesman, late of the Pentagon and State Department, and now the Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Just so we know he's not a left-wing loony, hell-bent on the destruction of America, the board of CSIS includes Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and, wait for it...Henry Kissenger. If this is what they think, then what in the bloody blue blazes are Bush & Co. doing? via Robot Wisdom Wednesday, August 07, 2002
This piece on the financial devastation in Argentina mentions several of the factors believed to be responsible for the meltdown: huge external debt, corruption, harsh IMF policies, and too much government spending. All of this, along with the 1-to-1 peg of the peso to the US dollar, has been common knowledge for some time. This passage, however, was news to me: Most banks here are subsidiaries of major U.S. and European financial giants that arrived with promises of providing stability and safety to the local banking system. But many Argentines who did not get their money out in time -- more than 7 million, mostly middle-class depositors, did not -- faced a bitter reality: Their life savings in those institutions, despite names such as Citibank and BankBoston, were practically wiped out. Virtually all had kept their savings in U.S. dollar-denominated accounts. But when the government devalued the peso, it gave troubled banks the right to convert those dollar deposits into pesos. So the Gonzalez family's $42,000 nest egg, now converted into pesos, is worth less than $11,600. It's nothing new for banks to use their political leverage to avoid paying the piper when times are tough, but this is outrageous. Presumably eager for more loans to bail the country out of the situation, it's pretty certain the government would have done anything the banks asked. The banks (the foreign ones, at any rate) were not failing; they could have paid the depositors back their money fairly easily. Perhaps if they had shown a firm committment to doing so, there wouldn't have been a run on deposits. They were willing enough to take people's deposits, and would have screamed bloody murder if the government attempted to expropriate their profits. But they've got a bottom line to protect, and if it means people have to starve, sicken and die, well, to hell with 'em. Demosthenes has posted a very interesting analysis of last Wednesday's Donahue, which featured former UN Assistant Secretary General Hans Von Sponeck on the subject of Iraq: Iraq has said they're willing to let in the inspectors, and what was the American reaction? "No dice, we don't care, we want to invade anyway". This makes sense; the Bush administration has never really cared about WMD except as an excuse to "get Saddam". The warblogging community and the far right doesn't appear to be much different, and this "humiliation" argument makes a hell of a lot more sense now that it looks like Iraq isn't nearly as dangerous as people are saying it was. The humiliation argument doesn't rely on Iraq being dangerous to the United States or its neighbours, so it's the one being erected now that the "he'll invade his neighbours" and "he'll arm terrorist" justifications are slipping away. It's utterly mindless, of course (why Iraq, as opposed to anybody else?) but it's not intended to be a reason, just a justification- a flexible end to justify the means. "Intrusive discovery." That's what prosecutors in Yaser Esam Hamdi's "enemy combatant" case are calling a federal judge Robert G. Doumar's request for "copies of Hamdi's statements, notes from interviewers, a chronology of his locations, and the names and addresses of his interrogators." Because a determination of whether or not Hamdi is, in fact, an enemy combatant made by someone other than those prosecuting him for it would be too "intrusive," the Justice Department has defied Doumar's order that it hand over the documents. Stephen Dycus, a national security law expert at the University of Vermont, said he could not think of any other time the government ignored a court's order. "I don't think the Justice Department has the power to simply defy the court," he said. " . . . I don't remember anything in the 4th Circuit's order that would limit the District Court's ability to look into the national security necessity for keeping this guy." This is not ok. via Buzzflash Tuesday, August 06, 2002
US tries to halt rights suit against Exxon The US is trying to quash a human rights lawsuit launched by Indonesian villagers against Exxon Mobil, claiming it could undermine the war on terrorism. The State Department warned that the action alleging complicity in human rights abuses by the oil group could have a "potentially serious adverse impact" on US interests and the struggle against terrorism. The lawsuit was filed last year by the International Labour Rights Fund on behalf of 11 villagers in the Indonesian province of Aceh. They claim Exxon Mobil, which operates a natural gas field in the province, paid and directed Indonesian security forces that carried out murder, torture and rape in the course of protecting the company's operations in the 1990s. *** Washington says, the lawsuit could discourage foreign investment in Indonesia, particularly in the energy and mining industries. That would in turn hurt government revenues and further weaken a key US ally. Exxon Mobil lawyers had argued for the State Department to intervene on foreign policy grounds. I guess the argument from Exxon goes something like this: "Well, if we can't sponsor murder, torture, and rape to get what we want in a country, then it's not worth it for us to invest there." Other companies, looking to Exxon's example will reason likewise, it is presumed. No wonder so many people hate us. via Buzzflash Muriel Siebert's suggestion, that all the economy needs is incentives for investors to pump more air into the bubble, is laughable. The most effective way to meet these objectives would be to double for three to five years the amount that investors can put into their 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts. Currently individuals can contribute $3,000 annually to their I.R.A.'s and $11,000 annually to their 401(k) plans. These limits were increased slightly last year. Doubling them would benefit individual investors in several ways, providing additional income tax deductions and replenishing their tax-deferred portfolios. Investors are, ever so slowly, wising up, and aren't very likely to go throwing good money after bad. If there isn't growth in the value of the companies that correspond to stock shares, it is senseless to bid up their prices. That is the definition of a bubble, too much money chasing after too few assets. She's able to dismiss the objection with "Longer term, however, history suggests that equities are the better investment: returns are higher than the alternatives," which is precisely the sort of claptrap used by financial advisors to keep the little guy in the markets when things started looking dodgy. Hopefully, they won't fall for it again. It just doesn't make sense to buy into a badly shaken market. What makes Siebert so confident? Duh, of course! She's a stockbroker. Monday, August 05, 2002
Oh, this is just wonderful. The estimable Instapundit applauds some yutz, who opines: But there's a much more basic reason to crush Saddam Hussein's regime. The Islamic world -- mainly the Arab Islamic world -- needs to realize that it has failed. Medieval Islam cannot compete with liberal capitalism either economically or culturally. Unfortunately, that message has taken several hundred years to filter through. There is nothing like cataclysmic military defeat to teach the lesson more rapidly. The yutz moves from arguing which is best justification for the preconceived war on Iraq, in the process rejecting three sane, if not politically viable or realistic, options, and settles on the above gem, which is presented as a real reason to go after Saddam. One could point at the examples of Japan and Germany after the Second World War. But the Muslim world provides its own case study. Ottoman Turkey only began to pay attention to Western science and organization after its first serious military defeats at the hands of Austria and Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries. The US needs to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime because he's a bad man, sure, because he may conceivably be connected with Al-Qaeda, because he's developing weapons of mass destruction, because a friendly Iraq would alter the balance of power in the Middle East, sure, because of all of that. But the US needs to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime mainly because the West needs to humiliate the Arab world, and dispel the Islamic millenial fantasy. What next? Congo? Burma? Sierra Leone? Angola? All we have to do is bomb them, and they'll see the error of their ways. They won't come to the conclusion that we're heartless bastards with a morally abhorrent system that must be stopped, no matter what the price, nope. In their anguish and desperation, the remaining Iraqis won't, to a man, woman, and child, dedicate the entirety of their lives to our destruction. The rest of the countries of the 'civilized' world will come to their senses and applaud the selfless generosity with which we dispensed the beneficence of fire, death, and destruction upon the less-fortunate members of the global community. This is not ok. When a candidate for public office sponsors the coercion of a public entity for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election, it is not ok. When those involved rub our noses in it, throwing a big party featuring Wayne Newton, and don't even have the decency to hide the fact that the principals called to thank the participants, it's not ok. News cameras captured the chaotic scene outside the canvassing board's offices. The protesters shouted slogans and banged on the doors and walls. The unruly protest prevented official observers and members of the press from reaching the room. Miami-Dade county spokesman Mayco Villafana was pushed and shoved. Security officials feared the confrontation was spinning out of control. *** Despite the use of intimidation to influence actions by election officials, Bush and his top aides remained publicly silent about these disruptive tactics. The Washington Post reported that "even as the Bush campaign and the Republicans portray themselves as above the fray," national Republicans actually had joined in and helped finance the raucous protests. [Washington Post, Nov. 27, 2000] *** Unlike the Chicago Seven case three decades earlier, no one faced charges for disrupting the Miami recount. In the Chicago Seven case, the jury acquitted all defendants of conspiracy charges, though finding five defendants – David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin – individually guilty of inciting a riot, charges that later were reversed on appeal. Separate government investigations also faulted the Chicago police for using excessive violence to quell the 1968 protests. Ironically, the kind of documentary evidence that might have proved valuable in tying up the loose ends of the Chicago Seven conspiracy is present in the new filings that the Bush recount committee made to the IRS. The evidence is clear that the Bush committee organized the movement of protesters across state lines, paid for their lodging, moved them into a position for the riot, and then defended their actions. Are charges filed? Does anyone decry this obvious and illegal operation to disrupt legitimate electoral process? Let's do the exercise one more time: if it had been the Democrats..." It is not ok. Sunday, August 04, 2002
It seems that many economists, who provide the data and opinions upon which public and investment policies are based, are nothing more than whores. The glum labor report, which helped send the stock market down again, came as a number of economists moved from expecting a strong recovery in the second half of the year to concern that the economy might face a longer period of weak growth. Reinforcing that impression, the Commerce Department reported yesterday that factory orders fell sharply in June, indicating a setback in industrial output after several months of improvement. Supposedly, these are the people who keep on top of trends and developments in...oh yes, the economy. Surely they were privy to the spate of recent awful economic data and the impossibility of real improvements in the near- to mid-term. After all, it was their consensus that the 1Q 2002 GDP bounce was powered by a dropoff in inventory reduction, and not much else. Nothing else improved. It's this blogger's guess that they are bailing out of unrealistically positive analyses they were holding on behalf of some entrenched interests, perhaps in the interest of keeping the roar over corporate malfeasance to a minimum, or making their tax cut plans look a little less ridiculous. In any event, things are getting to the point where our esteemed economists can no longer keep the blinders on, for fear of bursting into flames. Friday, August 02, 2002
We shoulda known. Companies relocating in other countries is our own darn fault. "The United States is at fault, not Bermuda," Aufhauser said during a business symposium called "The New Ethos of Doing Business," held in Hamilton, Bermuda. "Incentives to relocate to Bermuda ... arise out of our own tax code," he said. "The incidence of tax in Bermuda is lower, which we regard as healthy tax competition." He said amending the U.S. tax code would be the best way to remove such unintended incentives, but he was not specific about how the tax code should be changed. Sure, just lower the taxes, and it'll be like everyone's incorporated in Bermuda. This guy's pretty sharp. What else has he been up to? via Unknown News A lot of people in and out of the media said that the Patriot Act and sundry other abrogations of civil rights wouldn't have any effects on regular US citizens. Like water running downhill, they were wrong. Leave something out long enough and someone will steal it. Give cops and prosecutors another way to go after people, and someone will use it. via Unknown News Friday is my favorite day of the week for a lot of reasons. It's the last day of the work week, 'casual day' at the office, and the best party night of the week. It's also when Chris Floyd's Global Eye comes out. This week: the bankruptcy bill. "The new bill -- which was actually written by 'financial services' lobbyists -- would 'protect' the little lambs of Wall Street from all the vicious single mothers, unemployed fathers, ghetto scum and trailer-park trash out there who have collapsed beneath the debt they've taken on at the frantic urging of, er, Wall Street. For years, the 'financial services industry' has deliberately targeted the most vulnerable people in American society -- those on the economic margins, young kids just starting out in life, working parents stretching to pay the bills, sick people laden with medical costs, the luckless, the desperate, the ill-educated, the naive -- and plied them with promises of 'instant credit' and 'preapproved loans' in slick advertising campaigns and junk-mail bombardments. *** "Well-heeled supporters of the bill -- like the insider-trading wastrel in the White House, who never risked a dime of his own money while making millions in politically connected sweetheart deals -- claim the strongarm measure is in fact a godly edict, forcing the rabble to face up to their 'unhealthy values' and 'irresponsibility.' Indeed, Senator Charles Grassley, one of the bill's champions, says it will even stem 'the eroding moral values of some people.' Those would be the little people -- the unconnected people -- of course. Not the kind of people who rake in more than $300,000 in 'hard money' contributions to their presidential campaigns from MBNA -- the largest single corporate briber to the Bush team in 2000, outpointing even Kenny Boy Lay. Or the kind of people who receive $447,000 low-interest loans from MBNA just four days before becoming a chief sponsor of the bill -- like House Democrat James Moran. Or the hundreds of other congressmen who pocketed a total of $37.7 million in 'financial services' baksheesh in 2000 -- and God only knows how much since then. No, their 'moral values' are firm and uneroded." Atrios points to this article, that says the FBI is requesting intelligence committee members in both houses to take lie detector tests to find out who leaked certain information about the 9/11 attacks. Investigators are trying to determine who leaked information to CNN about communications in Arabic that made vague references to an impending attack on the United States. The communications were intercepted by the National Security Agency on Sept. 10. An intelligence source later told The Associated Press they contained the phrases, "Tomorrow is zero hour" and "The match is about to begin." The intercepts weren't translated until Sept. 12. *** White House spokesman Ari Fleischer has called the disclosure of the language "alarmingly specific." "The selective, inappropriate leaking of snippets of information risks undermining national security, and it risks undermining the promises made to protect this sensitive information," he said. Geez, all that work we did trying to find out what these people are up to is down the drain, now that they know we're trying to listen to their conversations. We'll never be safe again. What a load of garbage. US intelligence would prefer to screw up in secret, thank you. Paul Krugman's latest column is, as usual, right on the money. But he doesn't go far enough. If the only thing between us and a serious recession is the strength of the housing market, we've got bad troubles. Among the problems we're facing: GDP figures trending strongly downward, a crisis of investor faith, shaky corporate profits, huge pension liabilities, an unprecedented decrease in the wealth of consumers, extremely high levels of consumer debt, a near-certain liquidity crunch due to serious bank troubles, a sliding dollar which is both the result, and cause of further, declines in foreign investment, rising unemployment, and a ballooning federal budget defecit that will soon put strong upward pressure on interest rates. At least the fundamentals are strong. A couple of things on Iraq: Saddam may or may not have biological and/or chemical weapons, and may or may not have a nuclear program. With all the reports coming out, it's really hard to tell in the absence of proof. One thing we do know is that he has not substantially threatened any of his neighbors, directly or otherwise, since the invation of Kuwait, for which it is said that he had either encouragement from, or an understanding with, the US. In fact, reports indicate considerable arab support for Iraq. If Saddam does, as the Bush administration strenuously maintains, have weapons of mass destruction, the question is, why? Another thing we know about the man is that he has strong instinct for self-preservation. He knows, from bitter experience, that attacks on other countries can have dire consequences. Although it is fairly evident that he doesn't care much about the welfare of his citizens, the kind of retaliation he would face after using these weapons seems like exactly the kind of thing he doesn't want. So why would he have them? The answer is simple. He knows that, should he lose power, he's a dead man. Under no circumstances can he allow himself to be deposed. If he has significant biological and chemical capabilities, they are almost certainly intended for use as a last-ditch defense against attack, which (leaving the US to one side) is most likely to come from his own citizens. Basically, then, whatever weapons of mass destructions exist in Iraq are there as a deterrent to those who might seek to overthrow Hussein, and to be used if he's backed into a corner and has no other alternatives. So what do we intend? To send our own boys, without the benefit of cannon-fodder allies, over to Iraq to back him into a corner when, it appears, there may be alternatives. If the whole idea of invasion is to keep biological and chemical weapons from being used, we've sure got a funny way of going about it. Thursday, August 01, 2002
To anyone who can read this, Blogger/Blogspot have gone kerflooie. Posts show up in the archives, but not on the main page. I've been trying to fix this all day, but will get back to posting, because I can't think of anything else to do. Thanks for your patience. |