Peddling Democracy by Tom Engelhardt and Chalmers Johnson: "Exporting the American Model: Markets and Democracy
By Chalmers Johnson
There is something absurd and inherently false about one country trying to impose its system of government or its economic institutions on another. Such an enterprise amounts to a dictionary definition of imperialism. When what's at issue is 'democracy,' you have the fallacy of using the end to justify the means (making war on those to be democratized), and in the process the leaders of the missionary country are invariably infected with the sins of hubris, racism, and arrogance.
We Americans have long been guilty of these crimes. On the eve of our entry into World War I, William Jennings Bryan, President Woodrow Wilson's first secretary of state, described the United States as 'the supreme moral factor in the world's progress and the accepted arbiter of the world's disputes.' If there is one historical generalization that the passage of time has validated, it is that the world could not help being better off if the American president had not believed such nonsense and if the United States had minded its own business in the war between the British and German empires. We might well have avoided Nazism, the Bolshevik Revolution, and another thirty to forty years of the exploitation of India, Indonesia, Indochina, Algeria, Korea, the Philippines, Malaya, and virtually all of Africa by European, American, and Japanese imperialists."
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Bush and Debt
What a Wicked, Monetary World by Bill Bonner: "The Financial Times goes on to note that it took 204 years for the U.S. government to accumulate its first $1 trillion in debt. Now, it adds that much every 18 months. George W. Bush has added more debt than any president who ever lived. In fact, he's added more debt than all the presidents who ever lived...combined."
Truth About Democracy and Freedom
Democracy Versus Freedom by Jarret B. Wollstein: "As Ivan Eland explains in The Empire Has No Clothes, “The three greatest imperial powers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – France, Great Britain, and the United States – were democracies.”
Indeed, in the 20th century, the United States attacked more countries than any other nation. Since the end of World War II, the United States has engaged in more than 200 armed conflicts, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians – waging wars or military actions in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, and Bosnia. In nearly all of these conflicts, there was no threat to the United States.
It is clear from the history of Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, that democracy is no guarantee of peace.
The path to freedom and peace
Throughout the world, thugs and despots – some democratically elected, and some not – solemnly give lip-service to “democracy” and “freedom,” while doing everything in their power to destroy them.
To have a free and peaceful world, we must create societies in which the inalienable rights of the individual person are again respected, and the powers of government are strictly limited.
That means ending confiscation of property without trial, secret arrests, imprisonment without conviction, and torture of prisoners. It means abolishing sovereign-immunity laws, which exempt government agents from legal responsibility when they kidnap, steal, torture, or murder.
It means creating truly independent citizens’ grand juries with the power to investigate and indict corrupt government officials and police.
And it means ceasing government spying on its own citizens and ending foreign invasions to impose “democracy” by force.
No, democracy is not the same as liberty. All too often, building “democracy” has been used as a justification for destroying freedom.
To achieve a free and peaceful world, we must restore freedom and individual liberty, not democracy."
Indeed, in the 20th century, the United States attacked more countries than any other nation. Since the end of World War II, the United States has engaged in more than 200 armed conflicts, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians – waging wars or military actions in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia, and Bosnia. In nearly all of these conflicts, there was no threat to the United States.
It is clear from the history of Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, that democracy is no guarantee of peace.
The path to freedom and peace
Throughout the world, thugs and despots – some democratically elected, and some not – solemnly give lip-service to “democracy” and “freedom,” while doing everything in their power to destroy them.
To have a free and peaceful world, we must create societies in which the inalienable rights of the individual person are again respected, and the powers of government are strictly limited.
That means ending confiscation of property without trial, secret arrests, imprisonment without conviction, and torture of prisoners. It means abolishing sovereign-immunity laws, which exempt government agents from legal responsibility when they kidnap, steal, torture, or murder.
It means creating truly independent citizens’ grand juries with the power to investigate and indict corrupt government officials and police.
And it means ceasing government spying on its own citizens and ending foreign invasions to impose “democracy” by force.
No, democracy is not the same as liberty. All too often, building “democracy” has been used as a justification for destroying freedom.
To achieve a free and peaceful world, we must restore freedom and individual liberty, not democracy."
The Truth Concerning Contemporary 'Conservative' Ideology
The Great Conservative Hoax by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.: "Similarly, when the whole of your intellectual enterprise has been wrapped up in celebrating the nation-state and its wars, condemning civil liberties, casting aspersions on religious liberty, and heralding the jail and the electric chair as the answer to all of society’s problems, you can't complain when your policies produce tin-pot despotic imperialists like Bush. You have no intellectual apparatus with which to beat them back.
The problem with American conservatism is that it hates the left more than the state, loves the past more than liberty, feels a greater attachment to nationalism than to the idea of self-determination, believes brute force is the answer to all social problems, and thinks it is better to impose truth rather than risk losing one soul to heresy. It has never understood the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society. It has never seen the state as the enemy of what conservatives purport to favor. It has always looked to presidential power as the saving grace of what is right and true about America.
...
For my part, I'm hoping that the whole conservative movement will go down in flames with the decline and fall of the Bush administration. The red-state fascists have had their day and instead of liberty, they gave us the most raw and stupid form of imperial big government one can imagine. They have given America a bad name around the world. They have bamboozled millions. They have looted and bankrupted the country. They have killed tens of thousands.
If they don't crack up on their own, we must do what we can to discredit them and their ideology forever."
The problem with American conservatism is that it hates the left more than the state, loves the past more than liberty, feels a greater attachment to nationalism than to the idea of self-determination, believes brute force is the answer to all social problems, and thinks it is better to impose truth rather than risk losing one soul to heresy. It has never understood the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society. It has never seen the state as the enemy of what conservatives purport to favor. It has always looked to presidential power as the saving grace of what is right and true about America.
...
For my part, I'm hoping that the whole conservative movement will go down in flames with the decline and fall of the Bush administration. The red-state fascists have had their day and instead of liberty, they gave us the most raw and stupid form of imperial big government one can imagine. They have given America a bad name around the world. They have bamboozled millions. They have looted and bankrupted the country. They have killed tens of thousands.
If they don't crack up on their own, we must do what we can to discredit them and their ideology forever."
Common Sense
What Congress Can Do About Soaring Gas Prices by Ron PaulFirst: We must reassess our foreign policy and announce some changes. One of the reasons we went into Iraq was to secure “our” oil. Before the Iraq war oil was less than $30 per barrel; today it is over $70. The sooner we get out of Iraq and allow the Iraqis to solve their own problems the better. Since 2002 oil production in Iraq has dropped 50%. Pipeline sabotage and fires are routine; we have been unable to prevent them. Soaring gasoline prices are a giant unintended consequence of our invasion, pure and simple.
Second: We must end our obsession for a military confrontation with Iran. Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, and according to our own CIA is not on the verge of obtaining one for years. Iran is not in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and has a guaranteed right to enrich uranium for energy – in spite of the incessant government and media propaganda to the contrary. Iran has never been sanctioned by the UN Security Council. Yet the drumbeat grows louder for attacking certain sites in Iran, either by conventional or even nuclear means. Repeated resolutions by Congress stir up unnecessary animosity toward Iran, and create even more concern about future oil supplies from the Middle East. We must quickly announce we do not seek war with Iran, remove the economic sanctions against her, and accept her offer to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the impasse. An attack on Iran, coupled with our continued presence in Iraq, could hike gas prices to $5 or $6 per gallon here at home. By contrast, a sensible approach toward Iran could quickly lower oil prices by $20 per barrel.
Third: We must remember that prices of all things go up because of inflation. Inflation by definition is an increase in the money supply. The money supply is controlled by the Federal Reserve Bank, and responds to the deficits Congress creates. When deficits are excessive, as they are today, the Fed creates new dollars out of thin air to buy Treasury bills and keep interest rates artificially low. But when new money is created out of nothing, the money already in circulation loses value. Once this is recognized, prices rise-- some more rapidly than others. That’s what we see today with the cost of energy.
...
"Oil prices are at a level where consumers reduce consumption voluntarily. The market will work if we let it. But as great as the market economy is, it cannot overcome a foreign policy that is destined to disrupt oil supplies and threaten the world with an expanded and dangerous conflict in the Middle East."
Second: We must end our obsession for a military confrontation with Iran. Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, and according to our own CIA is not on the verge of obtaining one for years. Iran is not in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and has a guaranteed right to enrich uranium for energy – in spite of the incessant government and media propaganda to the contrary. Iran has never been sanctioned by the UN Security Council. Yet the drumbeat grows louder for attacking certain sites in Iran, either by conventional or even nuclear means. Repeated resolutions by Congress stir up unnecessary animosity toward Iran, and create even more concern about future oil supplies from the Middle East. We must quickly announce we do not seek war with Iran, remove the economic sanctions against her, and accept her offer to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the impasse. An attack on Iran, coupled with our continued presence in Iraq, could hike gas prices to $5 or $6 per gallon here at home. By contrast, a sensible approach toward Iran could quickly lower oil prices by $20 per barrel.
Third: We must remember that prices of all things go up because of inflation. Inflation by definition is an increase in the money supply. The money supply is controlled by the Federal Reserve Bank, and responds to the deficits Congress creates. When deficits are excessive, as they are today, the Fed creates new dollars out of thin air to buy Treasury bills and keep interest rates artificially low. But when new money is created out of nothing, the money already in circulation loses value. Once this is recognized, prices rise-- some more rapidly than others. That’s what we see today with the cost of energy.
...
"Oil prices are at a level where consumers reduce consumption voluntarily. The market will work if we let it. But as great as the market economy is, it cannot overcome a foreign policy that is destined to disrupt oil supplies and threaten the world with an expanded and dangerous conflict in the Middle East."
Partisan Blindness to Truth
This piece serves to explain the problem with American public, it is by definition unwilling to hear the other side. Left and right only reads and hears what cannot seriouly challenge its ideological persuasion.
The Fox News Effect: "On the other hand, Democrats avoided Fox when it came to political news and preferred National Public Radio and CNN. And when the news focused on controversial issues such as the Iraq war and politics, 'partisans are especially likely to screen out sources they consider opposed to their political views,' said Stanford professor Shanto Iyengar, director of the communication lab."
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Another Credibility Gap - Propaganda and Science Journals
For Science's Gatekeepers, a Credibility Gap - New York Times: "Journals have devolved into information-laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry, say Dr. Richard Smith, the former editor of BMJ, the British medical journal, and Dr. Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet, also based in Britain.
The journals rely on revenues from industry advertisements. But because journals also profit handsomely by selling drug companies reprints of articles reporting findings from large clinical trials involving their products, editors may 'face a frighteningly stark conflict of interest' in deciding whether to publish such a study, Dr. Smith said."
The journals rely on revenues from industry advertisements. But because journals also profit handsomely by selling drug companies reprints of articles reporting findings from large clinical trials involving their products, editors may 'face a frighteningly stark conflict of interest' in deciding whether to publish such a study, Dr. Smith said."
Beams on Christian Eyes
Beam Christians by Laurence M. Vance: "Beams on Christian Eyes
These beams can take many forms. For some the beam is President Bush. Because they are so blinded to Bush’s pseudo-Christianity, some Christians actually believe that Bush is "God ordained" or "God’s anointed" or "one of us." For others the beam is conservatism. Christians who are theologically conservative have made a terrible mistake in identifying with the conservative movement, with is propensity for nationalism and power at the expense of liberty. For some the beam is the Republican Party. They know the Democratic Party is too far to the left to even consider. But in spite of the bones it throws to the free market, the Republican Party is no better. It is the party of militarism, big government, plunder, compromises, and sellouts. For others the beam is the military. They actually think that the Department of Defense is defending our freedoms by meddling in the affairs of other countries all over the globe. The fact that the United States spends more on its military than Russia, China, Japan, Britain, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Brazil, India, Italy, South Korea, Iran, Israel, Taiwan, Canada, Spain, Australia, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Singapore put together doesn’t seem to raise a red flag with these people. In some cases it is the U.S. government that is the beam which blinds these Christians. They can be spotted by the sound of their mantra: "obey the powers that be." They want so much to believe that the U.S. government is a force for good in the world instead of the force for evil that it currently is because of its military adventures and its interventionist foreign policy.
Beam Christians are shallow thinkers. They foolishly reason that because some outspoken liberals are opposed to this war then they should support it. These Christians have such a beam in their eye that it has gone into their brain and affected their thinking. It doesn’t seem to have ever occurred to these people that it is the retired generals and groups like Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans against the War that oppose the war that anti-war Christians are in agreement with, not some Hollywood leftist who only opposes the war because a Republican president started it.
Some Christians are blinded by indifference. Don’t ask them their view about Bush and his war – "What difference does it make?" is their only reply. Perhaps the greatest beam that blinds some Christians is pride. They will not publicly admit that they were deceived into supporting the war and were wrong about Bush, wrong about the conservative movement, wrong about the Republican Party, wrong about the military, and wrong about the government’s foreign policy.
...
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Goering: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
Unfortunately, and to their shame, it works the same way with Christians as well. From the discord-sowing, self-proclaimed champion e-mail debater to the indifferent, washed-up evangelist, to the blind government-respecting employee of a Christian ministry – it works the same way every time. They are all beam Christians."
These beams can take many forms. For some the beam is President Bush. Because they are so blinded to Bush’s pseudo-Christianity, some Christians actually believe that Bush is "God ordained" or "God’s anointed" or "one of us." For others the beam is conservatism. Christians who are theologically conservative have made a terrible mistake in identifying with the conservative movement, with is propensity for nationalism and power at the expense of liberty. For some the beam is the Republican Party. They know the Democratic Party is too far to the left to even consider. But in spite of the bones it throws to the free market, the Republican Party is no better. It is the party of militarism, big government, plunder, compromises, and sellouts. For others the beam is the military. They actually think that the Department of Defense is defending our freedoms by meddling in the affairs of other countries all over the globe. The fact that the United States spends more on its military than Russia, China, Japan, Britain, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Brazil, India, Italy, South Korea, Iran, Israel, Taiwan, Canada, Spain, Australia, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Singapore put together doesn’t seem to raise a red flag with these people. In some cases it is the U.S. government that is the beam which blinds these Christians. They can be spotted by the sound of their mantra: "obey the powers that be." They want so much to believe that the U.S. government is a force for good in the world instead of the force for evil that it currently is because of its military adventures and its interventionist foreign policy.
Beam Christians are shallow thinkers. They foolishly reason that because some outspoken liberals are opposed to this war then they should support it. These Christians have such a beam in their eye that it has gone into their brain and affected their thinking. It doesn’t seem to have ever occurred to these people that it is the retired generals and groups like Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans against the War that oppose the war that anti-war Christians are in agreement with, not some Hollywood leftist who only opposes the war because a Republican president started it.
Some Christians are blinded by indifference. Don’t ask them their view about Bush and his war – "What difference does it make?" is their only reply. Perhaps the greatest beam that blinds some Christians is pride. They will not publicly admit that they were deceived into supporting the war and were wrong about Bush, wrong about the conservative movement, wrong about the Republican Party, wrong about the military, and wrong about the government’s foreign policy.
...
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Goering: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
Unfortunately, and to their shame, it works the same way with Christians as well. From the discord-sowing, self-proclaimed champion e-mail debater to the indifferent, washed-up evangelist, to the blind government-respecting employee of a Christian ministry – it works the same way every time. They are all beam Christians."
State Terrorism
Hideous Kinky by Chris Floyd: "And so it was again this week when The Washington Post outlined the Pentagon's plan to put dirty war – by death squad, snatch squad, secret armies, subversion, torture and terrorism – at the very heart of America's military philosophy. Not defense against declared enemies, not deterrence of potential foes, but conducting "continuous" covert military operations in countries "where the United States is not at war" is now the Pentagon's "highest priority," according to the new "campaign plan for the global war on terror" issued by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
What's more, the plan makes it clear that Rumsfeld, far from being politically vulnerable, has in fact been exalted above every other institution and official of the U.S. government, with the exception of the twin tyrants in the White House, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The Pentagon warlord has been given carte blanche to send the 53,000 secret soldiers of the Special Operations Command into any nation he pleases, to undertake any mission he pleases, without congressional approval, legal restraint or the authority of the target nation's U.S. ambassador. Thus America's diplomats, the ostensible representatives of the nation abroad, have been reduced to mere frontmen, pathetic beards for black ops savaging the laws, sovereignty and citizens of their hosts.
The plan is the culmination and codification of an ad hoc array of programs and powers that Bush has doled out to Rumsfeld over the years, including a series of executive orders signed after the 2004 election that essentially turned the world into a "global free-fire zone" for the Pentagon's secret armies and proxy foreign militias, as a top Pentagon official told The New Yorker. "We're going to be riding with the bad boys," another Bush insider said. Yet another courtier compared it to the glory days of the Reagan-Bush years: "Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador? We founded them and we financed them. The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren't going to tell Congress about it." The overriding ethos of the plan is brutally simple: "The rules are, 'Grab whom you must. Do what you want,'" an intelligence official told The New Yorker.
Perhaps most ominously, the plan makes copious preparations for expanding the range of the war on terror even further. The trigger for these new actions is another terrorist strike on U.S. soil. Oddly enough, the Bush faction views such an unspeakable horror as an "opportunity," Pentagon officials told the Post; it would provide a "justification," they said, for hitting already-targeted individuals, groups and states that for various political reasons have not yet been subjected to what Bush likes to call, in his bloodthirsty parlance, "the path of action."
Rumsfeld's 'campaign plan' is itself a blueprint for state terrorism, an open license to break any and every law on earth and inflict human suffering on a global scale. Yet the only controversial aspect of this sinister program noted by the Post was the potential turf battles it might spark within the national security bureaucracy. Not a single question was raised about the morality or legality of the undertaking; the Pentagon's assertion that only 'bad guys' would be hit was simply swallowed whole – despite the glaring fact that tens of thousands of innocent people have already been killed or falsely imprisoned in the so-called 'war on terror.'"
What's more, the plan makes it clear that Rumsfeld, far from being politically vulnerable, has in fact been exalted above every other institution and official of the U.S. government, with the exception of the twin tyrants in the White House, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The Pentagon warlord has been given carte blanche to send the 53,000 secret soldiers of the Special Operations Command into any nation he pleases, to undertake any mission he pleases, without congressional approval, legal restraint or the authority of the target nation's U.S. ambassador. Thus America's diplomats, the ostensible representatives of the nation abroad, have been reduced to mere frontmen, pathetic beards for black ops savaging the laws, sovereignty and citizens of their hosts.
The plan is the culmination and codification of an ad hoc array of programs and powers that Bush has doled out to Rumsfeld over the years, including a series of executive orders signed after the 2004 election that essentially turned the world into a "global free-fire zone" for the Pentagon's secret armies and proxy foreign militias, as a top Pentagon official told The New Yorker. "We're going to be riding with the bad boys," another Bush insider said. Yet another courtier compared it to the glory days of the Reagan-Bush years: "Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador? We founded them and we financed them. The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren't going to tell Congress about it." The overriding ethos of the plan is brutally simple: "The rules are, 'Grab whom you must. Do what you want,'" an intelligence official told The New Yorker.
Perhaps most ominously, the plan makes copious preparations for expanding the range of the war on terror even further. The trigger for these new actions is another terrorist strike on U.S. soil. Oddly enough, the Bush faction views such an unspeakable horror as an "opportunity," Pentagon officials told the Post; it would provide a "justification," they said, for hitting already-targeted individuals, groups and states that for various political reasons have not yet been subjected to what Bush likes to call, in his bloodthirsty parlance, "the path of action."
Rumsfeld's 'campaign plan' is itself a blueprint for state terrorism, an open license to break any and every law on earth and inflict human suffering on a global scale. Yet the only controversial aspect of this sinister program noted by the Post was the potential turf battles it might spark within the national security bureaucracy. Not a single question was raised about the morality or legality of the undertaking; the Pentagon's assertion that only 'bad guys' would be hit was simply swallowed whole – despite the glaring fact that tens of thousands of innocent people have already been killed or falsely imprisoned in the so-called 'war on terror.'"
Monday, May 01, 2006
Bushisms: True or false?
A 'Don't Misunderestimate Bush quiz"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/fungames/quizcorner.shtml
1 In July 2002, President George W Bush told Tony Blair, "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur." True or false?
True!
Correct! The comment was reported in The Times on 9 July, 2002.
2 While on a tour of Asia, George W used the word "devaluation" instead of "deflation" and immediately triggered a big drop in Japan's currency, the yen. True or false?
True!
Correct! He said it in February 2002. Bush aides hastened to clear up the confusion saying the president had "misspoken".
3 In June last year, the US president told Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, "I said you were a man of peace. I want you to know I took immense crap for that." True or false?
True!
Correct! The comment was reported in the Washington Post on 3 June.
4 In April, George W said this about Iraq, "It will take time to restore chaos and order." True or false?
True!
Correct! He said it to reporters while talking about Iraqi POWs.
5 In September 2000, Dubya revealed to his fellow Americans that "more and more of our imports come from overseas". True or false?
True!
Correct! He came out with this gem in 2000 during his campaign for the presidency.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/fungames/quizcorner.shtml
1 In July 2002, President George W Bush told Tony Blair, "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur." True or false?
True!
Correct! The comment was reported in The Times on 9 July, 2002.
2 While on a tour of Asia, George W used the word "devaluation" instead of "deflation" and immediately triggered a big drop in Japan's currency, the yen. True or false?
True!
Correct! He said it in February 2002. Bush aides hastened to clear up the confusion saying the president had "misspoken".
3 In June last year, the US president told Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, "I said you were a man of peace. I want you to know I took immense crap for that." True or false?
True!
Correct! The comment was reported in the Washington Post on 3 June.
4 In April, George W said this about Iraq, "It will take time to restore chaos and order." True or false?
True!
Correct! He said it to reporters while talking about Iraqi POWs.
5 In September 2000, Dubya revealed to his fellow Americans that "more and more of our imports come from overseas". True or false?
True!
Correct! He came out with this gem in 2000 during his campaign for the presidency.
Respecting the Dignity of All
What leads millions of people to transgress the law of inmigration? Could it be possible that the law itself is to blame? Is the law justifying plunder?
If people want to work and employers want the workers, isn't it the responsibility of the law to secure the means for this to happen in a just manner without plunder or explotation, respecting the dignity of all?
Most people are missing to point, Legally right does not mean Morally right.
If you want clarity concerning this issue, ask yourself the following questions: who is making a profit out of the current state of affairs?, and ask also if they have any say in setting up the laws that underlay the whole problem.
If people want to work and employers want the workers, isn't it the responsibility of the law to secure the means for this to happen in a just manner without plunder or explotation, respecting the dignity of all?
Most people are missing to point, Legally right does not mean Morally right.
If you want clarity concerning this issue, ask yourself the following questions: who is making a profit out of the current state of affairs?, and ask also if they have any say in setting up the laws that underlay the whole problem.
Control Over Higher Learning
The 'Academic Bill of Rights' by Ron Paul: "Opponents of increased federalization of higher education should be especially concerned about HR 609's 'Academic Bill of Rights.' This provision takes a step toward complete federal control of college curricula, grading, and teaching practices. While the provision is worded as a 'sense of Congress,' the clear intent is to intimidate college administrators into ensuring professors' lectures and lesson plans meet with federal approval."
Friday, April 28, 2006
The Real Up-coming Crisis
What the Price of Gold Is Telling Us by Ron Paul: "The best analogy to our affinity for government spending, borrowing, and inflating is that of a drug addict who knows if he doesn’t quit he’ll die; yet he can’t quit because of the heavy price required to overcome the dependency. The right choice is very difficult, but remaining addicted to drugs guarantees the death of the patient, while our addiction to deficit spending, debt, and inflation guarantees the collapse of our economy.
Special interest groups, who vigorously compete for federal dollars, want to perpetuate the system rather than admit to a dangerous addiction. Those who champion welfare for the poor, entitlements for the middle class, or war contracts for the military industrial corporations, all agree on the so-called benefits bestowed by the Fed’s power to counterfeit fiat money. Bankers, who benefit from our fractional reserve system, likewise never criticize the Fed, especially since it’s the lender of last resort that bails out financial institutions when crises arise. And it’s true, special interests and bankers do benefit from the Fed, and may well get bailed out – just as we saw with the Long-Term Capital Management fund crisis a few years ago. In the past, companies like Lockheed and Chrysler benefited as well. But what the Fed cannot do is guarantee the market will maintain trust in the worthiness of the dollar. Current policy guarantees that the integrity of the dollar will be undermined. Exactly when this will occur, and the extent of the resulting damage to financial system, cannot be known for sure – but it is coming. There are plenty of indications already on the horizon.
...
Foreign policy contributes to the crisis when the spending to maintain our worldwide military commitments becomes prohibitive, and inflationary pressures accelerate. But the real crisis hits when the world realizes the king has no clothes, in that the dollar has no backing, and we face a military setback even greater than we already are experiencing in Iraq. Our token friends may quickly transform into vocal enemies once the attack on the dollar begins.
...
Empires always fail, and expenses always exceed projections. Harmful unintended consequences are the rule, not the exception. Welfare for the poor is inefficient and wasteful. The beneficiaries are rarely the poor themselves, but instead the politicians, bureaucrats, or the wealthy. The same is true of all foreign aid – it’s nothing more than a program that steals from the poor in a rich country and gives to the rich leaders of a poor country. Whether it’s war or welfare payments, it always means higher taxes, inflation, and debt. Whether it’s the extraction of wealth from the productive economy, the distortion of the market by interest rate manipulation, or spending for war and welfare, it can’t happen without infringing upon personal liberty.
At home the war on poverty, terrorism, drugs, or foreign rulers provides an opportunity for authoritarians to rise to power, individuals who think nothing of violating the people’s rights to privacy and freedom of speech. They believe their role is to protect the secrecy of government, rather than protect the privacy of citizens. Unfortunately, that is the atmosphere under which we live today, with essentially no respect for the Bill of Rights.
...
Energy prices are rising for many reasons: Inflation; increased demand from China and India; decreased supply resulting from our invasion of Iraq; anticipated disruption of supply as we push regime change in Iran; regulatory restrictions on gasoline production; government interference in the free market development of alternative fuels; and subsidies to big oil such as free leases and grants for research and development."
Special interest groups, who vigorously compete for federal dollars, want to perpetuate the system rather than admit to a dangerous addiction. Those who champion welfare for the poor, entitlements for the middle class, or war contracts for the military industrial corporations, all agree on the so-called benefits bestowed by the Fed’s power to counterfeit fiat money. Bankers, who benefit from our fractional reserve system, likewise never criticize the Fed, especially since it’s the lender of last resort that bails out financial institutions when crises arise. And it’s true, special interests and bankers do benefit from the Fed, and may well get bailed out – just as we saw with the Long-Term Capital Management fund crisis a few years ago. In the past, companies like Lockheed and Chrysler benefited as well. But what the Fed cannot do is guarantee the market will maintain trust in the worthiness of the dollar. Current policy guarantees that the integrity of the dollar will be undermined. Exactly when this will occur, and the extent of the resulting damage to financial system, cannot be known for sure – but it is coming. There are plenty of indications already on the horizon.
...
Foreign policy contributes to the crisis when the spending to maintain our worldwide military commitments becomes prohibitive, and inflationary pressures accelerate. But the real crisis hits when the world realizes the king has no clothes, in that the dollar has no backing, and we face a military setback even greater than we already are experiencing in Iraq. Our token friends may quickly transform into vocal enemies once the attack on the dollar begins.
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Empires always fail, and expenses always exceed projections. Harmful unintended consequences are the rule, not the exception. Welfare for the poor is inefficient and wasteful. The beneficiaries are rarely the poor themselves, but instead the politicians, bureaucrats, or the wealthy. The same is true of all foreign aid – it’s nothing more than a program that steals from the poor in a rich country and gives to the rich leaders of a poor country. Whether it’s war or welfare payments, it always means higher taxes, inflation, and debt. Whether it’s the extraction of wealth from the productive economy, the distortion of the market by interest rate manipulation, or spending for war and welfare, it can’t happen without infringing upon personal liberty.
At home the war on poverty, terrorism, drugs, or foreign rulers provides an opportunity for authoritarians to rise to power, individuals who think nothing of violating the people’s rights to privacy and freedom of speech. They believe their role is to protect the secrecy of government, rather than protect the privacy of citizens. Unfortunately, that is the atmosphere under which we live today, with essentially no respect for the Bill of Rights.
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Energy prices are rising for many reasons: Inflation; increased demand from China and India; decreased supply resulting from our invasion of Iraq; anticipated disruption of supply as we push regime change in Iran; regulatory restrictions on gasoline production; government interference in the free market development of alternative fuels; and subsidies to big oil such as free leases and grants for research and development."
Thursday, April 27, 2006
The Decider's Dictatorship
A Democratic Dictatorship by Jacob G. Hornberger: "Yet we now live in a nation in which the president has the omnipotent power to ignore all constitutional restraints on his power. That might not be the way the president and his legal advisors put it, but that is the practical effect of what they are saying to justify his powers. They effectively claim that the Constitution vests the president – as military commander in chief during the “war on terrorism” – with such extraordinary powers that he is able to ignore restraints on his powers imposed both by the Constitution and by Congress.
No restraints on declaring and waging war against other nations. No restraints on the power to secretly record telephone conversations of the American people. No restraints on the power to kidnap and send people into overseas concentration camps for the purpose of torture and even execution. No restraints on the power to take Americans into custody as “enemy combatants” and punish them – even torture and execute them – without due process of law and jury trials.
...
Unless the American people figure out a way to reverse what has happened to their country – and have the will to do something about it – they will earn the mark of shame reserved for those people in history who voluntarily relinquished their freedom in exchange for the aura of security. Like all others in history who have chosen such a course, they will ultimately learn that they have lost both their freedom and their security."
No restraints on declaring and waging war against other nations. No restraints on the power to secretly record telephone conversations of the American people. No restraints on the power to kidnap and send people into overseas concentration camps for the purpose of torture and even execution. No restraints on the power to take Americans into custody as “enemy combatants” and punish them – even torture and execute them – without due process of law and jury trials.
...
Unless the American people figure out a way to reverse what has happened to their country – and have the will to do something about it – they will earn the mark of shame reserved for those people in history who voluntarily relinquished their freedom in exchange for the aura of security. Like all others in history who have chosen such a course, they will ultimately learn that they have lost both their freedom and their security."
State Plunder
The President and Page County by Karen Kwiatkowski: "What happened, and what continues to happen in Page County, Virginia, demonstrates how ordinary citizens and taxpayers are abused by a notion that governments – even local governments – are sovereign, all-powerful and can join with criminals to rape the public, without the slightest fear of punishment.
Let’s review. From Washington to Richmond to the Board of Supervisors of Page County, we have government officials who don’t have to explain their actions, who operate above and outside the law, and who consort profitably with criminals in government and private industry. Taxpayers and common Americans are shafted, stolen from, lied to and wronged."
Let’s review. From Washington to Richmond to the Board of Supervisors of Page County, we have government officials who don’t have to explain their actions, who operate above and outside the law, and who consort profitably with criminals in government and private industry. Taxpayers and common Americans are shafted, stolen from, lied to and wronged."
Monday, April 24, 2006
Economist's View: Paul Krugman: CSI Trade Deficit
Economist's View: Paul Krugman: CSI Trade Deficit: "That's more or less what's going on right now among international finance experts. The crime in question is the U.S. trade deficit, which ... reached an amazing $805 billion last year. The mystery is how we've been able to run huge deficits ... with so few visible adverse consequences. And the future of the U.S. economy depends on which of two proposed solutions to the mystery is right.
Here's the puzzle: the trade deficit means that America is ... spending far more than it earns. ... To pay for the excess of imports over exports, the United States has ... borrowed more than $3 trillion just since 1999.
...
If Mr. Gros is right, the true position of the U.S. economy isn't as bad as you think — it's worse. The true trade deficit ... isn't $800 billion — it's more than $900 billion. And America's foreign debt ... is at least $1 trillion bigger than the official numbers say.
Of course, optimists have a comeback: if things are really that bad, why are so many foreign investors still buying U.S. bonds? ... But I have two words for those who place their faith in the judgment of investors...: Nasdaq 5,000.
Right now, forensic analysis seems to say that the U.S. trade position is worse, not better, than it looks. And the answer to the question, "Why haven't we paid a price for our trade deficit?" is, just you wait."
Here's the puzzle: the trade deficit means that America is ... spending far more than it earns. ... To pay for the excess of imports over exports, the United States has ... borrowed more than $3 trillion just since 1999.
...
If Mr. Gros is right, the true position of the U.S. economy isn't as bad as you think — it's worse. The true trade deficit ... isn't $800 billion — it's more than $900 billion. And America's foreign debt ... is at least $1 trillion bigger than the official numbers say.
Of course, optimists have a comeback: if things are really that bad, why are so many foreign investors still buying U.S. bonds? ... But I have two words for those who place their faith in the judgment of investors...: Nasdaq 5,000.
Right now, forensic analysis seems to say that the U.S. trade position is worse, not better, than it looks. And the answer to the question, "Why haven't we paid a price for our trade deficit?" is, just you wait."
Friday, April 21, 2006
Stephen Kinzer, Author of "All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror" - A BuzzFlash Interview
Stephen Kinzer, Author of "All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror" - A BuzzFlash Interview: "The Islamic regime in Iran also inspired religious fanatics in many other countries, including those who went on to form the Taliban in Afghanistan and give refuge to terrorists who went on to attack the United States. The anger against the United States that flooded out of Iran following the 1979 revolution has its roots in the American role in crushing Iranian democracy in 1953. Therefore, I think it’s not an exaggeration to say that you can draw a line from the American sponsorship of the 1953 coup in Iran, through the Shah’s repressive regime, to the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the spread of militant religious fundamentalism that produced waves of anti-Western terrorism."
Another Day in the Empire
Another Day in the Empire: "Instead of asking the “pragmatist and hard-liner” Hu Jintao why he condones torture and organ harvesting of dissidents, “Bush, standing next to Hu, leaned over and whispered to Hu, ‘You’re OK,’ indicating the Chinese leader should proceed with his opening remarks…. expected to focus on trade, human rights and the diplomatic standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.”
Jintao and Bush are OK, but the rest of us are screwed. In addition to our globalist rulers selling out the country to China in return for low-interest loans (newspaper op-ed scribes like to call this “fiscal irresponsibility”) and flooding our multinational and mega-corporate chainstores and strip malls with cheap products manufactured by slaves and political prisoners, it is obvious to those of us who pay attention the United States under the rule of the neoliberal and neocon elite is in the process of transforming itself into a totalitarian state that will one day (and sooner before later) become as brutal and sadistic as China. Government—unchecked, unbalanced, and left to its own devices—always becomes a tyrannical leviathan."
Jintao and Bush are OK, but the rest of us are screwed. In addition to our globalist rulers selling out the country to China in return for low-interest loans (newspaper op-ed scribes like to call this “fiscal irresponsibility”) and flooding our multinational and mega-corporate chainstores and strip malls with cheap products manufactured by slaves and political prisoners, it is obvious to those of us who pay attention the United States under the rule of the neoliberal and neocon elite is in the process of transforming itself into a totalitarian state that will one day (and sooner before later) become as brutal and sadistic as China. Government—unchecked, unbalanced, and left to its own devices—always becomes a tyrannical leviathan."
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Bush, the infallible decider
Here's Donny! In His Defense, a Show Is Born - New York Times: "'I'm the decider, and I decide what's best,' Mr. Bush said in the Rose Garden. 'And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.'"
Monday, April 17, 2006
The One Thing a President Can Do by Tom White
The One Thing a President Can Do by Tom White: "So my challenge to Mr. Bush is: show some real strength, do the unexpected. Be brave. Be sane. Follow the way of the Lord Jesus Christ, take to heart the lesson of the Story of Stories we heard again just last week. Or was that, for all our church attendance, just foolishness?
The real sanity, the real bravery, is to oppose the warmongers, the Mammonites who worship money and violence and are nourished by the blood baths both always produce.
Bush could become the greatest of all our Presidents if he would turn about and risk all for Christ, the Prince of Peace."
The real sanity, the real bravery, is to oppose the warmongers, the Mammonites who worship money and violence and are nourished by the blood baths both always produce.
Bush could become the greatest of all our Presidents if he would turn about and risk all for Christ, the Prince of Peace."
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