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Attaining World Peace Is Elimination of Injustice
World Peace is More Than Just the Silencing of the Guns
By Peter Chamberlin / October 20, 2008
World peace is more than just the silencing of the guns, it is the elimination of the injustice that has compelled the men to reach for those guns in self-defense against the aggression. In the currently building world war (which is based on lies and deceptions), the mission is to identify all of the men who believe in self-defense and eliminate them. Both sides believe that everyone has the right to self-defense, but the aggressors in this war believe that they have a “divine right” (because of their intellectual superiority) to disarm and rule the rest.
The “war on terror” is the intellectual’s war, the neocon intellectuals. To them, most of the human race is an inferior species, sheep, to be led for their own good. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan, look at the economy, to see how smart they really are and just exactly where they are leading us.
We are standing at the edge of the abyss because we have gone along with all the lies. Without “acceptable” lies, the neocons are nothing but arrogant snobs. Without public acceptance of the “official version” of events, there would never have been a terror war. Without the attack upon our families in New York and Washington in 2001, we would not have been “tickled” into taking-up arms in self-defense against the henchmen and patsies our government offered-up to us to cover its own crimes.
For there to be peace in the midst of a war engineered by a would-be master race the cold penetrating light of reality must emasculate the acceptable lies agreed to in secret back room meetings, which allow sheer gangsterism and extortion from weaker adversaries to masquerade as “diplomacy and negotiations.”
The incessant lies emanating from the Pentagon, the White House and especially from the CIA have to be silenced. If the war of terror, based on lies is to be turned into a world at peace, based on simple truth, then we have to illuminate the secret killings in dark places that show the true face of the war against innocence being waged by Nazi-like regime.
It must be shown that we have been embracing the force of true evil that runs and ruins this Nation today. By exposing the accepted lie that the innocent Muslim people who are merely resisting our aggressions upon their homelands are “terrorists,” we remove the blinders we have accepted from the true authors of terror in the terror war. By accepting US and Pakistani military reports on “collateral” kills, we embrace the popular lie that only “militants and terrorists” were killed by the one-eyed “Terminator” drones. We dishonor ourselves and our ancestors by accepting the lies that babies were “militants!”
We have to get solid evidence out to the world. A good place to start would be to follow the wise example set by the Israeli human rights organization “B’Tselem,” by supplying camcorders to Pakistani families in North and South Waziristan, to document the indiscriminate killing of entire families, the “tickling” operations described so cleverly by CIA Director Michael Hayden. With video evidence (translated into English) of the aftermath of American genocidal attacks it would be much easier to organize resistance to those attacks and serve as evidence in later war crimes trials. It would be beautifully ironic if the American-adopted Israeli tactic of “targeted assassinations” with missiles is exposed by the same video tactic that has revealed Israeli brutality against the helpless in occupied Palestine.
According to Director Hayden, the real value of these attacks with “Hellfire” missiles upon mud-brick family dwellings and religious schools is in the reactions caused by the killings. In other words, the value of the attack is as much in the number of male family members who rise to avenge these terror attacks as it is in the “high value target” occasionally killed. The tactic described by Hayden is the latest manifestation of contemporary American “counter-insurgency” techniques.
The main idea involved in fighting an “insurgency” within a populated area in this manner is to find and co-opt local leaders, like Baitullah Mehsud, around which to create the impression of a growing shadowy “counter-insurgency.” These inept local “contras” get blamed for the ensuing wave of violence committed by US Special Ops, their in addition to the gangster-like attacks they carry-out on their own. These units perform the same task as the Terminator-drones, that of initiating the cycle of retribution. They bomb and murder civilians, in order to motivate their male relatives to take-up arms and avenge their relatives, focusing in particular upon killing of local Shia, to instigate inter-faith conflict.
The concept of fighting a global war by limited means is an evil idea, concocted by the vainest, most self-centered self-worshippers the planet has ever been plagued by. The idea that your intellect is so superior to every other human mind that the best thing that could ever happen to the human race would be for you to rule over them, no matter what it cost in human lives to place you in that position of power, is the idea that drove Adolf Hitler. The men who have brought us the neocon war plan of total world conquest, by limited means, are no less evil, nor less vain than Hitler (the neocon’s favorite bogeyman).
By choosing to fight “the long war,” on a limited basis, they have accepted the idea of killing a major portion of human life, even risking the destruction of the entire planet. The idea of a generational war serves as a sorting mechanism, a gory laboratory for identifying and separating those who will willingly accept the unfair suffering life forced upon them and their families under the new “matrix,” from those persistent independent-minded souls who will resist. The war of terror is to identify potential resisters and to eliminate them, leaving behind only docile malleable slave sheep, to serve as functional “copper-tops.”
The idea that there could ever be world peace as long as the matrix exists is part of the illusion that hinders the formation of a real resistance.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari warned on Friday:
“world peace efforts hampered by credit crunch…The international financial crisis is hampering efforts towards world peace.”
The former Finnish president said a lack of economic development in war-torn countries would make it harder to resolve conflicts:
“It will not help us to solve conflict with no economic development in those countries. It is becoming more and more difficult…We are avoiding taking the tough decisions that are needed.”
This is pure B.S. Contributing to the war of aggression by aiding in reconstruction efforts, while hostilities continue will never bring anything like world peace. The whole idea of “good faith” re-construction by the same monstrous war machine from which the original devastation flowed is an exercise in propaganda and disinformation intended to distract those of us who would form an army of worldwide resistance.
This requires a change of attitude on the part of the aggressor, first, admitting that the US and its allies are the aggressors. The entire terror war has been a manufactured event designed to maintain the US position of global authority. We have to refute the acceptable lie that we have been a victim and that our great war plan simply failed, while we openly admit that the war has been a criminal act of aggression in every conceivable way, from the very beginning. We have committed the most serious crimes in pursuit of our plans to plunder and subjugate the earth, crimes against the human race, crimes against Our Creator, Himself.
We have destroyed entire nations in our mad rush to fend for ourselves and perpetuate our system of inequality that creates immense wealth for true believers by siphoning-off the bread of life from the rest. Until this warfare of greed stops decimating the human race there can never be world peace.
For their ever to be peace, there must be an end to the hostile force that drives men’s aggression and turns simple day-to-day existence into a daily fight for life. The forces that are driving the individual wars that are being merged into one big war, must be stopped. The lands and peoples devastated in their aggression must be rebuilt and compensated for the crimes committed upon them, out of the US Treasury, with money which would formerly have been allotted to further military aggression.
Source / Information Clearing House
They’re Not Done Robbing Us Yet !!!!!
Administration Floats New Stimulus Plan
By Jeannine Aversa / October 20, 2008
Momentum is building for a fresh dose of economic stimulants to boost the country out of the doldrums – perhaps by putting more money in Americans’ pockets. The White House said Monday that President Bush was open to some sort of action after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned the slump could drag on without the extra bracing tonic.
On Wall Street, stocks bolted higher, with the Dow Jones industrials rising 413 points. There also were some new signs that credit conditions were thawing a bit.
The national economy, already wobbling, has been rocked by a trio of hard punches from the housing, credit and financial crises. With a recession widely seen as inevitable, if not already under way, the focus in Washington has shifted to the questions of how bad, how long and how to limit the pain.
There is increasing talk of a post-election special session calling Congress back to the Capitol. But urgency varies greatly according to whom you talk to – and when.
“We’re continuing to have conversations with members of Congress, and we’re open to ideas that they would put forward … that would stimulate the economy and help us pull out of this downturn faster,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said around noon Monday, shortly after Bernanke endorsed the need for a fresh and “significant” round of government action.
A couple of hours later, Bush seconded Perino’s remarks, but he also said in a more optimistic tone: “I have heard that people’s attitudes are beginning to change from a period of intense concerns – I would call it near panic – to being more relaxed.” He commented after a closed meeting with business leaders in Alexandria, La.
If congressional leaders and Bush – who has been cool to more federal stimulus spending given already exploding budget deficits – were to hash out an acceptable package, it would require a special session after the Nov. 4 elections.
If an agreement can’t be worked out, the effort probably would be taken up by the next Congress and the next president. Democrat Barack Obama has strongly advocated more government stimulus, while Republican John McCain is keeping his options open.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and fellow congressional Democrats are pushing a package that could cost as much as $150 billion. Some economists, however, have advised them in recent days that to have a real impact, the total would have to be far larger, as much as $300 billion.
As part of that package, Democrats want to resurrect a $61 billion House-passed measure that included about $37 billion in public works spending, $6 billion to extend jobless benefits, $15 billion to help states to pay their Medicaid bills and $3 billion in food stamp assistance for the poor.
The Democrats also are considering a second round of tax rebates to follow the $600 to $1,200 checks most individuals and couples got earlier this year. That money, going directly to consumers in hopes they would spend it, could push the price tag much higher.
Unemployment – now at 6.1 percent – is expected to hit 7.5 percent or higher next year. And millions of Americans have been watching their retirement nest eggs and home values shrivel.
One-third of Americans are worried about losing their jobs, half fret they will be unable to keep up with mortgage and credit card payments, and seven in 10 are anxious that their stocks and retirement investments are losing value, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll of likely voters released Monday.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Democratic leadership, predicted Congress would return in November. “We couldn’t have gotten a better supporter for a stimulus package than Ben Bernanke,” Schumer said. “His support will change the stimulus from a possibility to a reality.”
Pelosi said, “I call on President Bush and congressional Republicans to once again heed Chairman Bernanke’s advice and as they did in January, work with Democrats in Congress to enact a targeted, timely and fiscally responsible economic recovery and job creation package.”
However, in an interview with The Associated Press last Friday, Pelosi had said Congress is unlikely to approve a tax rebate before Bush leaves office, and she signaled that prospects were dim that Democrats would be able to strike a deal with the president on an economic aid package during a post-election session.
In February, Congress enacted a $168 billion stimulus package that included tax rebates for people and tax breaks for businesses. The rebate checks did help to lift economic growth in the spring. After that, though, consumers cut back sharply and businesses have retrenched in turn.
“With the economy likely to be weak for several quarters, and with some risk of a protracted slowdown, consideration of a fiscal package by the Congress at this juncture seems appropriate,” Bernanke told the House Budget Committee. It marked the first time Bernanke endorsed the need for another round of economic stimulus.
The Fed chief suggested that Congress design the package to limit the longer-term affects on the government’s budget deficit, which hit a record in the recently ended budget year and is undoubtedly headed higher.
Bernanke said the package also should include provisions “to help improve access to credit by consumers, home buyers, businesses and other borrowers.”
He also left the door open to further interest rate reductions by the Federal Reserve itself.
Fed policymakers meet next on Oct. 28-29, and many economists believe they will again lower their key rate – now at 1.50 percent – to bolster the economy. Just a few weeks ago, the Fed and the world’s other major central banks joined forces to ratchet down rates, the first coordinated action of that kind in the Fed’s history.
There were some signs that credit problems were improving a bit. Bank-to-bank lending rates fell for a sixth straight day on Monday. Demand for Treasury bills, regarded as the world’s safest investment, lessened somewhat but remained relatively high in a sign that there was still much fear in the markets.
Last week, the Treasury Department announced it would inject up to $250 billion in U.S. banks in return for partial ownership. So far this year, 15 banks have failed, including the largest U.S. bank failure in history, compared with three last year. And major Wall Street investment firms have been swallowed by other companies, have filed bankruptcy or have converted themselves into commercial banks to weather the financial storm.
Associated Press Writers Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Andrew Taylor and Ben Feller contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Source / America On Line
Thanks to Mariann Wizard / The Rag Blog
Camilo Mejia in Austin : Private Rebellion, Public Resistance
‘Mejia’s primary message is that conscience, not combat, is the source of our freedom.’
By Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog / October 20, 2008
When Camilo Mejia walked into the auditorium of UT’s Garrison Hall where he was to speak last Thursday night, his first reaction was to shake his head at the large book-cover images of himself that were projected onto screens in front. He’s a humble guy, and self-promotion is not his leaning.
But, he’s on the Resisting Empire speaking tour with the new Haymarket Books publication of The Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia: An Iraq War Memoir, so he was in Austin to promote both the book and the mission of his fellow Iraq Veterans Against the War: immediate and unconditional withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraq, adequate care for all veterans and reparations for Iraq.
With his youthful good looks, casual attire and backpack slung over his shoulder, Mejia could have been one of the many students in his audience. But, when he began to speak, his seriousness revealed a deeper level of experience. He invited the five other members of Iraq Veterans Against the War who were present to join him in the front and take questions from the crowd, creating an instant IVAW panel that personified the variety of membership within the rapidly growing organization.
As chair of the board of IVAW, Mejia reported that from seven original members who organized the group in July 2004, IVAW membership has expanded to about 1400, including the most quickly growing contingent: active duty soldiers. One of the newest chapters formed at Ft. Hood this year.
Mejia stressed the importance of the camaraderie that he and other vets experience through their involvement with IVAW. The sense of shared purpose and belonging mirrors an aspect of military life they value. He also said that in his role with IVAW, he has learned a new sense of what leadership entails: “respect, communication and shared ideals,” rather than leadership based on fear and punishment that he was trained to demonstrate as an army staff sergeant.
Mejia’s primary message is that conscience, not combat, is the source of our freedom. When a soldier is in the midst of combat, it is very difficult to think about moral implications. “You’re under so much pressure; there’s so much fear, so much fatigue.” Soldiers can’t be expected to weigh right and wrong in the middle of a firefight. Drilled in reflexive fire training and armed with powerful weapons, they don’t have to get an order to kill civilians; they’re just thrown into situations where they do it. Mejia said that in the five months he was in Iraq, his unit killed 33 civilians. Only three were armed.
Mejia talked about following orders to abuse Iraqi prisoners. He describes this also in the new film, Soldiers of Conscience, a documentary that happened to air in Austin the same night that Mejia spoke here. While in Iraq, Mejia felt conflicted about what he was doing, but it wasn’t until he was home on a two week leave that he had the time and distance to really think about it. “Some people say, ‘once a soldier, always a soldier,'” he says in the film. “Well, once a human being, always a human being.”
Through his interviews, his appearances in documentaries like Soldiers of Conscience and The Ground Truth, his speaking tours and in his own incisive writing, Mejia has modeled what IVAW has been aiming to do as a group through the “Winter Soldier” hearings and panels. As he said in the concluding remarks of the initial Winter Soldier hearings held in March ’08 — now transcribed in a new book (also published by Haymarket Books), Winter Soldier, Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations,
“Iraq Veterans Against the War has become a source of stress to the military brass and to the government … We have become a dangerous group of people not because of our military training, but because we have dared to challenge the official story. We are dangerous because we have dared to share our experiences, to think for ourselves, to analyze and be critical, to follow our conscience, and because we have dared to go beyond patriotism to embrace humanity.”
Winter Soldier testimony from the March hearings can be seen on the IVAW website, and the book can be ordered there, too.
As terrible as it is to hear the testimonies of these veterans, it is even more terrible to have lived the stories, either as a soldier or as an Iraqi or Afghan civilian. As US Marine veteran Anthony Swofford writes in his foreword to Winter Soldier, “Do not turn away from these stories. They are yours, too.”
As I walked home from Mejia’s presentation, I passed the brilliantly burnt orange-lit UT tower, on which is inscribed the new testament passage, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I passed the Cesar Chavez statue that includes several Chavez quotes, such as “You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore,” and “You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride.”
We don’t turn away from civil rights stories, from freedom movement stories, because they are our stories. Veterans who are using their voices and actions to try to stop war are joining this proud legacy, exchanging weapons for the power of truth. The freedom they are gaining is ours, too.
During the final presidential debate, the candidates and the moderator prodded one another to explain how they would pay for particular programs and policies they believe will help the US recover from its economic crisis.
Yet, with all the talk about taxes and scarcity of federal funds for what America needs, the candidates and the moderator avoided discussing the primary reason that funds for education, health care, alternative energy and civic infrastructure are in such short supply: war spending. In fact, even apart from the huge costs of the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the US uses approximately half of it’s federal tax revenue, excluding trust funds like Social Security, to fund the military budget.
Whether or not one approves of this federal spending priority — and I obviously don’t — the fact of its effect on our economic crisis should be faced squarely, not swept under the table.
If candidates won’t talk about the war’s costs, there are war veterans who will.
Camilo Mejía grew up in Nicaragua and Costa Rica before moving to the United States in 1994. He joined the military at the age of nineteen, serving as an infantryman in the active-duty army for three years before transferring to the Florida National Guard. After fighting in Iraq for five months, Mejía became the first known Iraq veteran to refuse to continue to fight in Iraq, citing moral concerns about the war and occupation. He was eventually convicted of desertion by a military court and sentenced to a year in prison.
Mejía currently serves as the chair of the board of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and is the author of Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia: An Iraq War Memoir (new edition, Haymarket Books 2008). In Road from Ar Ramadi, Mejía tells his own story, from his upbringing in Central America and his experience as a working-class immigrant in the United States to his service in Iraq – where he witnessed prisoner abuse and was deployed in the Sunni triangle – and time in prison. In this stirring book, he argues passionately for human rights and the end to an unjust war.
Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog
[Susan Van Haitsma also blogs as makingpeace at Statesman.com and at makingpeace.]
Find Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia at amazon.com.
Posted in Rag Bloggers
Tagged Anti-War GIs, Authors, Books, Iraq Veterans, Social Action, War Resisters
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Signs of a Sick Society: the Election
Who says conservatives don’t understand political theatre? This is one of the finest examples of agit-prop ever caught on video. A really grand nation we’ve got here, filled with cynical, self-serving racist folks. Wonderful place …
Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog
Muslims for McCain Reject Protesters
October 20, 2008
In a confrontation caught on video, three people outside a John McCain presidential rally in Woodbridge, Va., this past weekend handed out “Obama for Change” bumper stickers that featured the Communist hammer and sickle and the Islamic crescent on them.
One of the anti-Barack Obama protesters told McCain supporters that Islam teaches its followers to “deceive the infidels in order to progress Islam.”
The man, who chose not to give his name, said Obama “is a socialist with Islamic background.” When pushed to back up his claim, he said, “There’s a lot of background … I can’t do that right now.”
Several moderate McCain supporters, that included both Muslims and Christians, angrily denounced the group distributing the anti-Obama materials. A man who identified himself as a Muslim McCain delegate from the GOP convention even stepped in and said the campaign doesn’t endorse this kind of message. Under pressure, the protesters eventually left the premises.
Source / America On Line
Freddie/Fannie Pay to Prevent Regulatory Reform
Mortgage firm arranged stealth campaign
By Pete Yost / October 20, 2008
WASHINGTON — Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.
In the cross hairs of the campaign carried out by DCI of Washington were Republican senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. DCI’s chief executive is Doug Goodyear, whom John McCain’s campaign later hired to manage the GOP convention in September.
Freddie Mac’s payments to DCI began shortly after the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee sent Hagel’s bill to the then GOP-run Senate on July 28, 2005. All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it.
In the midst of DCI’s yearlong effort, Hagel and 25 other Republican senators pleaded unsuccessfully with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to allow a vote.
“If effective regulatory reform legislation … is not enacted this year, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole,” the senators wrote in a letter that proved prescient.
Unknown to the senators, DCI was undermining support for the bill in a campaign targeting 17 Republican senators in 13 states, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The states and the senators targeted changed over time, but always stayed on the Republican side.
In the end, there was not enough Republican support for Hagel’s bill to warrant bringing it up for a vote because Democrats also opposed it and the votes of some would be needed for passage. The measure died at the end of the 109th Congress.
McCain, R-Ariz., was not a target of the DCI campaign. He signed Hagel’s letter and three weeks later signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill.
By the time McCain did so, however, DCI’s effort had gone on for nine months and was on its way toward killing the bill.
In recent days, McCain has said Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were “one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire” of the global credit crisis. McCain has accused Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of taking advice from former executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and failing to see that the companies were heading for a meltdown.
McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, or his lobbying firm has taken more than $2 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dating to 2000. In December, Freddie Mac contributed $250,000 to last month’s GOP convention.
Obama has received $120,349 in political donations from employees of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae; McCain $21,550.
The Republican senators targeted by DCI began hearing from prominent constituents and financial contributors, all urging the defeat of Hagel’s bill because it might harm the housing boom. The effort generated newspaper articles and radio and TV appearances by participants who spoke out against the measure.
Inside Freddie Mac headquarters in 2005, the few dozen people who knew what DCI was doing referred to the initiative as “the stealth lobbying campaign,” according to three people familiar with the drive.
They spoke only on condition of anonymity, saying they fear retaliation if their names were disclosed.
Freddie Mac executive Hollis McLoughlin oversaw DCI’s drive, according to the three people.
“Hollis’s goal was not to have any Freddie Mac fingerprints on this project and DCI became the hidden hand behind the effort,” one of the three people told the AP.
Before 2004, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were Democratic strongholds. After 2004, Republicans ran their political operations. McLoughlin, who joined Freddie Mac in 2004 as chief of staff, has given $32,250 to Republican candidates over the years, including $2,800 to McCain, and has given none to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.
On Friday night, Hagel’s chief of staff, Mike Buttry, said Hagel’s legislation “was the last best chance to bring greater oversight and tighter regulation to Freddie and Fannie, and they used every means they could to defeat Sen. Hagel’s legislation every step of the way.”
“It is outrageous that a congressionally chartered government-sponsored enterprise would lobby against a member of Congress’s bill that would strengthen the regulation and oversight of that institution,” Buttry said in a statement. “America has paid an extremely high price for the reckless, and possibly criminal, actions of the leadership at Freddie and Fannie.”
Nine of the 17 targeted Republican senators did not sign Hagel’s letter: Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Christopher “Kit” Bond and Jim Talent of Missouri, Conrad Burns of Montana, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and George Allen of Virginia. Aside from the nine, 20 other Republican senators did not sign Hagel’s letter.
McConnell’s office said members of leadership do not sign letters to the leader. McConnell was majority whip at the time.
Eight of the targeted senators did sign it: Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Larry Craig of Idaho, John Ensign of Nevada, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, George Voinovich of Ohio and David Vitter of Louisiana. Santorum, Crapo and Bunning were on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and had voted in favor of sending the bill to the full Senate.
On Thursday, Freddie Mac acknowledged that the company “did retain DCI to provide public affairs support at the state and local level.” On Friday, DCI issued a four-sentence statement saying it complied with all applicable federal and state laws and regulations in representing Freddie Mac. Neither Freddie Mac nor DCI would say how much Goodyear’s consulting firm was paid.
Freddie Mac paid DCI $10,000 a month for each of the targeted states, so the more states, the more money for DCI, according to the three people familiar with the program. In addition, Freddie Mac paid DCI a group retainer of $40,000 a month plus $20,000 a month for each regional manager handling the project, the three people said.
Last month, the concerns of the 26 Republican senators who signed Hagel’s bill became a reality when the government seized control of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae amid their near financial collapse. Federal prosecutors are investigating accounting, disclosure and corporate governance issues at both companies, which own or guarantee more than $5 trillion in mortgages, roughly equivalent to half of the national debt.
Freddie Mac was so pleased with DCI’s work that it retained the firm for other jobs, finally cutting DCI loose last month after the government takeover, according to the three people familiar with the situation.
Freddie Mac’s problems began when Hagel’s legislation won approval from the Senate committee.
Democrats did not like the harshest provision, which would have given a new regulator a mandate to shrink Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae by forcing them to sell off part of their portfolios. That approach, the Democrats feared, would cut into the ability of low- and moderate-income families to buy houses.
The political backdrop to the debate “was like bizarre-o-world,” said the second of three people familiar with the program. “The Republicans were pro-regulation and the Democrats were against it; it was upside down.”
Sen. Richard Shelby, the committee chairman at the time, underscored that in a statement Wednesday, saying that with Democrats already on their side, it was not surprising that Freddie Mac and Freddie Mae went after Republicans. “Unfortunately,” said Shelby, R-Ala., “efforts then to derail reform were successful.”
In a sign of bad things to come, Freddie Mac was already having serious problems in 2005. Auditors had exposed massive accounting issues, so improved regulation was one obvious remedy.
Once Freddie Mac’s in-house lobbyists failed to keep Hagel’s bill bottled up in the committee, McLoughlin responded by secretly hiring DCI.
DCI never filed lobbying reports with Congress about what it was doing because the firm was relying on a long-recognized gap in the disclosure law.
Federal lobbying law only requires reporting and registration when there are contacts with a legislator or staff.
“To have it stealthy, not to let people know who is behind this, in my opinion is unethical,” said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University who long has taught courses about lobbying.
Goodyear is a longtime political consultant from Arizona who resigned from the Republican convention job this year after Newsweek magazine revealed he had lobbied for the repressive military junta of Myanmar.
McLoughlin, Freddie Mac’s senior vice president for external relations, was assistant treasury secretary from 1989 through 1992 in the administration of President Bush’s father. McLoughlin served as chief of staff to Sen. Nicholas Brady, R-N.J., in 1982 and to Rep. Millicent Fenwick, R-N.J., from 1975-79.
Seven of the 17 targeted Republican senators were in the midst of re-election campaigns in 2006, and according to one of the three people familiar with the program, Freddie Mac and DCI hoped those facing tough races would tell their Republican colleagues back in Washington that “we’ve got enough trouble; you’re making it worse with Hagel’s bill.”
Five of the seven DCI targets who ran for re-election in 2006 lost, and Senate control switched to the Democrats.
A Freddie Mac e-mail on May 4, 2006 _ the day before Hagel’s letter _ details the behind-the-scenes effort that Freddie Mac and DCI generated to hold down the number of Republicans signing Hagel’s letter urging a full Senate vote. It said:
“What I’m asking is that DCI get a few of their key well-connected constituents from each state to call in to the DC office of their Republican senators and speak to the (legislative director) or (chief of staff) and urge them not to sign the letter. The following could be used as a short script.”
The proposed script read: “We can all agree that Fannie’s and Freddie’s regulator should be strengthened but unfortunately, S.190 goes too far and could potentially have damaging effects on Georgia’s _ example _ home buyers.”
According to the third of the three people familiar with the program, “DCI was asked to help keep senators from signing; it was a big part of their effort that year and it was viewed as a success since many DCI targets did not sign the letter.”
DCI’s progress after the first four months of the campaign was spelled out in a 19-page document dated Dec. 12, 2005, and titled, “Freddie Mac Field Program State by State Summary Report.”
A snippet of a senator-by-senator breakdown of the efforts says this about Maine’s Snowe:
“Philip Harriman, former state senator, co-chair of Snowe’s 2006 campaign, personal Snowe friend, major GOP donor and investment adviser, has written the senator a personal letter on this issue. Dick Morin, vice president Maine Association of Mortgage Brokers, has been in direct contact with Sen. Snowe’s committee staff, has sent a letter to Snowe, and is pursuing a dozen(s) of letters from his members.”
On Wednesday, Snowe’s office issued a statement saying that she “literally gets hundreds of ‘Dear Colleague’ letters seeking support for their positions that she does not sign. Had this legislation come up for a vote in 2006, she certainly would have considered it on its merits _ as she does every vote. Just last July, she voted for the housing bill that established a new, stronger regulator.”
Rosario Marin, a staunch McCain supporter who spoke at the GOP convention in September, was among the people DCI used in carrying out the campaign.
Marin, the U.S. treasurer during the first term of the Bush administration, went to Missouri and to Montana, Burns’ state, where she spoke out against Hagel’s bill.
At the time, Burns, who ended up losing his re-election bid, was caught up in a Washington influence peddling scandal centering on disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Marin’s visit triggered a local newspaper story in which the reporter contacted Burns’ staff for comment. Burns’ office told the newspaper the senator was not supportive of the latest version of Hagel’s bill.
On Wednesday, Marin, now state consumer services secretary in California, issued a statement confirming that her trips to Missouri and Montana were in her capacity as a DCI consultant.
The December 2005 summary listing 17 Republican targets outlines the inroads DCI was making.
“On day one” of the effort, Sen. George Allen of Virginia had not addressed Hagel’s bill and his legislative aide for housing was not assigned to it, the report said.
“Today,” the report added, “the senator is aware of the issue and … at the moment he is undecided.” Allen’s deputy chief of staff “has said that the senator will take into consideration before he decides that Freddie Mac is located in Virginia and is one of the largest Virginia employers.”
“Grasstops/opinion leaders James Todd, president, the Peterson Companies wrote to both senators,” the report added. “Milt Peterson, the founder and CEO of the company is one of Allen’s major donors.”
In the end, Allen, who lost his bid for re-election in 2006, did not sign Hagel’s letter.
Source / Huffington Post
Posted in RagBlog
Tagged Bank Bailouts, Bankruptcy, Congress, Lobbyists, Republican Party
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John McCain’s Medical Records : The X Files
Why is McCain stonewalling?
By Larry Ray / October 18, 2008
There are only a couple of weeks before we vote for a new president. Americans deserve to see the current medical records of both candidates before making up their minds. Senator McCain still refuses to provide his current medical records. Senator Obama fully complied just a few months ago, undergoing a complete medical checkup. His publicly available records describe Obama as “in excellent health, lean and muscular with no excess body fat.” Senator Biden released a current update, Monday, Oct. 20th, and appears in good health for a guy his age. Sarah Palin, has released no medical information on herself whatsoever.
In McCain’s U.S. Navy aircraft carrier flying days, passing a flight medical exam was easy for him. But as we get older it can become harder to pass that annual flight physical. I am only a few years younger than Sen. McCain and am a private pilot, so I know all about having a “current medical.” I am in decent health but am not “current.” McCain is tough. But it is also tough to imagine being shot out of the air by an enemy missile, surviving a bail-out with broken bones, then enduring five and a half years of torture as a POW some 41 years ago and today being in a third remission from melanoma cancer. All that could certainly make getting a clean bill of health tougher, but not impossible. I have several pilot buddies McCain’s age who are “current” and still having a dandy time flying. But none are running for president.
Remember why the pilot and co-pilot on commercial airliners eat different in-flight meals off the menu? If one meal is tainted, like bad tuna salad, both pilots don’t become incapacitated, leaving one to fly and land the plane safely. But we are not talking about toxic tuna salad here. And we are not talking about United Airlines. We’re talking about the United States, with John McCain as our possible president and his VP candidate, Sarah Palin, as our potential co-pilot. Showing us all he has a clean bill of health would clearly help the 72 year old McCain’s faltering campaign right now. It’s fair enough to ask why he doesn’t. Ms. Palin’s lungs do seem to be in tip top condition, but that’s all we have been permitted to know about her state of physical health.
While McCain invokes his discredited folk hero, “Joe the Plumber” and Palin whips up “the base” with her nasal, hate-tinged talking points, the noise they are making still can not drown out that basic question in voters’ minds, “Is candidate McCain healthy enough to take over an America which has just lost power in its engines and is flying in a fog of uncertainty? And what about his co-pilot?”
Source / The iHandbill
Posted in RagBlog
Tagged Campaign Tactics, John McCain, Medical Records, Presidential Campaign, Transparency
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American Indians and the CIA : Buying Silence With Advertising
How advertisers like the CIA and FBI use dollars to control and silence people.
By Brenda Norrell
In case you noticed the alarming, large advertisements by the CIA Clandestine Services on the front web page of a national American Indian newspaper this week, or the ad by the FBI as one of the main sponsors of the National Congress of American Indians annual convention [Oct. 19-24] in Phoenix, it is good to remember how advertisers and funders control the media and organizations.
First, for newspapers, there is the outpouring of dollars for large ad spaces in prime sites. For Indian organizations, there is financial backing for events or programs.
When the newspaper, or Indian organization, does something the funder doesn’t like, they often threaten to halt the advertising dollars. “We can’t go along with that,” they say, or “We can’t support you if you do this …”
If it means losing a large sum of money, the publisher or Indian organization is likely to concede to the demands. This may mean refusing to publish an article, firing a staff member, dropping a columnist or speaker, or halting the spread of certain ideas and issues. This is one reason that the media in the United States is heavily censored now, as advertising dollars dry up and sales decline.
Sometimes, the funder doesn’t have to say anything, by accepting the dollars, compliance is bought and sold.
Along the US/Mexico border, the threat of the loss of US dollars in appropriations often means that elected Native American officials will not voice the truth about Homeland Security and the construction of the US border wall. The issues of Indian sovereignty, desecration of burial places and the violation of federal environmental laws are silenced.
During NCAI’s convention in Phoenix in October, will those border issues be presented? Will the truth be told about the worldwide carbon scam, which offers fictional carbon credits to enrich the World Bank?
Will the assassinations of Indigenous Peoples by mining corporations in the Americas be exposed, or the diseases resulting from mining, power plants, drilling and pollution in Indian country in the US and Canada be addressed?
Will the casino rich tribes in southern Arizona, with the crowds pouring into their casinos, explain why so many of their own members are still living in poverty?
Years ago, one of the Hopi elders, Dan Evehema, sitting on a couch at his home on the Hopi mesa, warned: “Don’t take grant funding, they will control you.”
Urging Hopi to resist the formation of the US puppet tribal council, Evehema was among the Hopi Sinom that warned if coal mining was carried out on Black Mesa, and Navajos were relocated to make way for the mining, calamities would occur in the world, including natural disasters.
Meanwhile, watch the advertisements for sponsors and financial backers. These will tell you a great deal about who is really in control and why you are reading, hearing and seeing, what is in front of you.
As always, follow the money and resist.
Source / Censored News / Posted Oct. 11, 2008
Dialing for Dollars : Hang Up on War
Hey Bush! Here’s where all the money went!
Members of MDS/Austin, CodePink and Iraq Veterans Against the War demonstrate outside the state capitol in Austin Friday, Oct. 16, as part of the national monthly Iraq Moratorium. Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Posted in RagBlog
Tagged Austin, CodePink, Iraq Moratorium, Iraq War, MDS, Peace Movement, Texas
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Mariann Wizard: García Lorca’s Grave
García Lorca’s Grave
García Lorca’s grave
has been found, they say,
in Spain –
in Spain, where the rain
fell on Abel and on Cain –
where those without fear
were shortly seen to disappear –
in Spain, where the brave
fell mainly into mass graves –
in fascist Spain.
García Lorca’s grave has been found
just where it should be, of course, in Spain!
For people don’t just “disappear”,
not him, nor any of the tens of thousands of
poets, patriots, shopkeepers,
communists, loudmouths,
troublemakers who didn’t know
when to Shut Up
and who still, it seems,
have something to say.
His books were burned, then banned; what’s left to save?
Ah, but words don’t need books; they whisper on the waves!
Federico, hermano, ¿que dices?
“The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,
nor the horses, nor the ants in your own house.
The child and the afternoon do not know you…
“Because you have died for ever…
like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of lifeless dogs.”
So he wrote, and so it was;
he was no wraith to walk in wishful dreams,
but a man full of bullets, covered with dirt.
As Whitman sang, of himself, of the body, of fragile Life,
of ordinary people and ordinary strife,
and, in the hearing, self-awareness rose –
so in García Lorca’s work this ferment grows:
“Nobody knows you. No. But I sing of you.”
Now the faggot poet’s bones are rising,
entwined with all the bones with which our “Spain” is paved,
for nothing hidden is ever truly lost,
and nothing true remains forever hidden,
nor will the people’s voice be silenced in the common grave.
García Lorca’s grave has been found
in Spain, where shells fell, in an uncivil hell,
and bells tolled, for the young and the bold –
in Spain, in this bloody, hallowed ground.
— © Mariann G. Wizard
October 19, 2008
The Newest Presidential Candidates
Announcing the Candidacy of Plumber/Sixpack
By Daniel O’Brien / October 17, 2008
This announcement was inevitable. Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long. These two possibly-real figures have been brought up in more speeches and on more news shows lately than Joe Biden. With all the attention that both Joe’s have been getting, it’s pretty clear that America, in general is more concerned about Plumber and Sixpack than anyone else on the planet.
They made their announcement late last night and we saw an almost immediate dramatic shift in the polls. The Joe Dream Team is now up by 15 points.
I recently sat down with the candidates so they could tell their stories, in their own words. Before we go any further, I’d like to point out that, when asked what party they’d be running under, Joe Sixpack said “Party…Til You Puke.” I asked him if he was referring to 2000 EP from Andrew WK and he stuck his tongue out and swung his head around, so to suggest that yes, he was.
Let’s meet our new candidates, shall we?
Joe The Plumber
Everybody’s been talking about me a lot lately, because of some stuff I said to Obama. I don’t really follow the polls that much, to be honest, but I assume that since everyone’s talking about me so much, they must want me to be president, so I’ll do that. What’s my campaign about? Money, mostly.
As I said in a recent Times interview that I was asked to give for no discernible reason, it’s my discretion who I want to give my money to, it’s not for the government to decide I make a little too much and so I need to share it with other people. That’s not the American dream. That is a belief I will hold until the day I die: The government doesn’t decide who I give my money to. I do.
Also, I’ve decided not to give it to anyone.
Senator Obama thinks of himself as a “Robin Hood” figure, taking money from the greedy, evil corporations and redistributing it to the peasants. Again, as stated in the Times, I resent being called a “peasant.” And if, as some have pointed out, Obama meant that I’m the greedy, evil corporation, I resent that, too. Hell, even if I’m supposed to be Robin Hood in this tricky, poorly-conceived metaphor, I’m still full of resentment. Basically I just don’t want anyone touching my money.
America, I’m a simple man. All I want in this life is all of the money in the world. That’s it. I want to be rich, and I just don’t want anyone screwing with my hard-earned toilet money. I’m just your average plumber earning a quarter of a million dollars a year, looking to expand my empire and make sure the government isn’t involved in any way. So what if I refuse to pay taxes and am not technically a licensed plumber? Should that stop me from being a plumber who wants the government to play fair? If I’m president, it will not.
This is, really, the only issue I can concretely say I’m running on. If elected, I promise the American People that no one will touch my money. Not a God Damn cent. The other issues, as well as your money, aren’t really concerns of mine. I only really get inspired to raise my voice when someone is indirectly suggesting that I should have less money than I think I should, which is to say, “assloads.”
Joe Sixpack
Hey, I’m Joe Sixpack, and I think I should be your president, I guess. I don’t really think I’d be a good president, but according to the news, America wants “someone like Joe Sixpack” to be president, and I’m more Joe Sixpack than anyone I know, so I figured Hell, why not go with the real deal, you know? Got shit else to do.
Anyway, ever since she got the nomination, Sarah Palin’s been talking about how much she cares about Joe Sixpack, and everyone’s calling her The Joe Sixpack Candidate. As a response, it turns out that Biden’s pretty Sixpacky too, because he’s from a small town in Pennsylvania and often rides on the train, or whatever. Basically, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are two people who claim to be very in touch with blue-collar, hardworking “Joe Sixpack types.”
Hey, here’s a thing. Let’s play a little game. Let’s say someone asked you to come up with a list of occupations that a blue-collar, hardworking “Joe Sixpack type” would have. I could come up with a few things. Carpenter. Construction Worker. Plumber, like my esteemed running mate, Joe. But you know what jobs wouldn’t make that list?
Governor and Senator.
Laying rat traps is a blue collar job. Cleaning out gutters is. Building stuff, that too. Being in charge of Alaska is not.
I don’t care what town you were born in; the second you show up on CSPAN wearing TV-makeup and expensive clothing, you’ve officially abandoned your right to call yourself the “Joe Sixpack Candidate.”
Oh, and let’s talk about riding trains, since that’s evidently an important factor in deciding who should lead our country. So, Biden rides trains to get from Point A to Point B. Great. But, if Point A is the floor of the Senate and Point B is an interview with Larry King, it doesn’t matter what you take to get there. If you load up a shopping cart with some kitchen appliance and push it around your mansion, does that mean you’re in touch with homeless people?
So, when you take a train—and then use it as a talking point—all it means is that you’re aware of just one superficial aspect of blue collar life.
Folks, I am not Joe Biden or Sarah Palin. I am Joe Sixpack. That is, legally, my name. My dad made me change it when I crashed his car. Something about not deserving the family name. I don’t quite remember. I was pretty blitzed. But ask yourself this: do you want a down-to-earth candidate, or do you want some rich, out-of-touch yuppy who does a good job at feigning down-to-earthness? If it’s the second one, you’ve got two options there.
If it’s the first one, vote for me. I’m Joe Sixpack. I work hard. I eat lunch and whistle at women who walk by. I take the train if I can afford it, but mostly I just wander around. I drink cheap beer out of an empty Jelly jar and I scream at my television when a black quarterback makes a mistakes. I gamble on dog fights. I might have a kid somewhere. Sometimes I just like to get drunk on a set of stairs and put on a hat I found. I’m just like you.
I’m aware that my running mate also said he’s running for president, and I’m cool with that. We’re both kinda running for president, I guess.
Thanks to Diane Stirling-Stevens / Source / Cracked
On Voting, the Economy, and the Stock Market
The Record: Stock Market, Economy Do Better Under Democrats
By Avenging Angel / October 15, 2008
On Wednesday, the New York Times performed an election year public service with an analysis that was part history lesson and part thought exercise. Taking the example of the S&P 500 going back to Herbert Hoover, the Times rightly concluded that the Democratic Party “has been better for American pocketbooks and capitalism as a whole.” But the Democrats’ proven track record isn’t limited to the S&P index. As history has proven time and again, Wall Street and the economy overall simply do better under Democratic presidents.
To make its case, the New York Times asked readers to imagine having put their money where its mouth is. Contrary to Republican mythology, Americans fare better – much, much better – under Democratic administrations:
As of Friday, a $10,000 investment in the S.& P. stock market index would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only, although that would be $51,211 if we exclude Herbert Hoover’s presidency during the Great Depression. Invested under Democratic presidents only, $10,000 would have grown to $300,671 at a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years.
(For the eye-popping chart of the S&P’s performance under each of the presidents from Hoover through Bush 43, visit here.)
As the broader record shows, the best path to prosperity is to elect Democratic presidents.
The superior performance of Democratic presidents covers virtually the entire spectrum of economic indicators. As Elliott Parker of the University of Nevada, Reno detailed in a 2006 paper, since 1949 Democratic administrations have done better than Republican ones when it comes to unemployment (5.2% to 6.0%), job creation (-.0.4% decrease in unemployment, compared to 0.3% increase), GDP growth rate (4.2% to 2.9%), and even corporate profits as a share of GDP. And to be sure, he found the Dow benefits from Democrats in the White House.
Thanks to Diane Stirling-Stevens / Read all of it here. / Daily Kos
