The Rag Blog

04/02/08 “ICH” — – Two weeks ago George Bush was sent on a mission to the Middle East to deliver a horse’s head. We all remember the disturbing scene in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” where Lucca Brassi goes to Hollywood to convince a recalcitrant movie producer to use Don Corleone’s nephew in his next film. The “Big shot” producer is finally persuaded to hire the young actor after he wakes up in bed next to the severed head of his prize thoroughbred. I expect that Bush made a similar “offer they could not refuse” to the various leaders of the Gulf States when he met with them earlier this month.

The media tried to portray Bush’s trip to the Middle East as a “peace mission”, but that just a smokescreen. In fact, three days after Bush left Jerusalem, Israel stepped-up its military operations in the occupied territories and resumed its merciless blockade of food, water, medicine and energy to the 1.5 million people of Gaza. Clearly, Bush had green-lighted the operations or Israel’s aggression would have been seen as a slap in the face of the President of the United States.

So, what was the real purpose of Bush’s trip? After all, he has no interest in peace or in honoring his commitment to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. So, why would he choose to visit the Middle East just as his second term as president is winding down and there is no chance of success?

Sometimes personal visits are important. They leave a lasting impression; especially when the nature of the information is so sensitive that the message has to be made face to face. In this case, Bush went to the trouble of traveling half-way around the world to tell the Saudis and their friends in the Gulf States that they were going to continue linking their oil to the dollar or they were going to “sleep with the fishes”. For the last two months, various sheiks and finance ministers have been groaning about the falling dollar — threatening to break from the so-called “dollar-peg” and covert to a basket of currencies. Bush’s trip appears to have rekindled the spirit of brotherly cooperation. The grumbling has ceased and everyone is back “on board”. The regional leaders now seem considerably less bothered by the fact that inflation is gobbling up their economies and driving labor, food, energy and housing through the roof. Reuters summed it up like this:

“After a flurry of public disagreements over currency reform last year, Gulf central bankers are trying to close ranks, talking up the pegs as a source of stability and playing down the dollar’s weakness as a temporary phenomenon.”

Looks like Bush smoothed things over.

In the last two weeks, the Gulf leaders have watched nervously while the Federal Reserve has slashed rates by a whopping 125 basis points. The cuts are steadily eroding the $1 trillion of capital the sheihks have invested in US Treasuries and securities.

“Inflation is at 16-year highs in Saudi Arabia and Oman, a 19-year peak in the United Arab Emirates. Gulf policymakers are intervening directly in loans, property and commodity markets to offset rate cut.” (Reuters)

Property values have skyrocketed. Commercial property in the UAE has doubled since the beginning of 2007. The inflation-bomb has forced other Gulf states to provide food subsidies for their people and a “70% wage rise for some Emirati federal government employees.”

Disgruntled migrant workers rioted in Dubai recently, demanding to be fairly compensated for the sharp increase in prices. The Saudi riyal has climbed to a 21-year peak.

Currency traders expect another 8% rise in the dirham and riyal by April and they are predicting that interest rates will compel Central bankers throughout Gulf states to covert to either the euro or a basket of regional currencies. So far, however, the loyal Saudi princes have continued their support for the dollar.

Defending Dollar Hegemony

So, how important is it that oil continue to be denominated in dollars? Would the United States wage war to defend the dollar’s status as the world’s “reserve currency”?

The answer to this question could come as early as this week, since the long-awaited Iranian Oil Bourse is scheduled to open between February 1-11. According to Iran’s Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari “All preparations have been made to launch the bourse; it will open during the 10-day Dawn (the ceremonies marking the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran) The bourse is considered a direct threat to the continued dominance of the dollar because it will require that Iranian “oil, petrochemicals and gas” be traded in “non-dollar currencies”. (Press TV, Iran)

The petrodollar system is no different than the gold standard. Today’s currency is simply underwritten by the one vital source of energy upon which every industrialized society depends—oil. If the dollar is de-linked from oil; it will no longer serve as the de-facto international currency and the US will be forced to reduce its massive trade deficits, rebuild its manufacturing capacity, and become an export nation again. The only alternative is to create a network of client regimes who repress the collective aspirations of their people so they can faithfully follow directives from Washington.

As to whether the Bush administration would start a war to defend dollar hegemony; that’s a question that should be asked of Saddam Hussein. Iraq was invaded just six months after Saddam converted to the euro. The message is clear; the Empire will defend its currency.

Similarly, Iran switched from the dollar in 2007 and has insisted that Japan pay its enormous energy bills in yen. The “conversion” has infuriated the Bush administration and made Iran the target of US belligerence ever since. In fact, even though 16 US Intelligence agencies issued a report (NIE) saying that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons; and even though the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, found that Iran was in compliance with its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation (NPT) Treaty; a preemptive US-led attack on Iran still appears likely.

And, although the western media now minimizes the prospects of another war in the region; Israel is taking the precautions that suggest that the idea is not so far-fetched. “Israel calls for shelter rooms to be set up in a bid to prepare the public for yet another war, this time, one of raining missiles.” (Press TV, Iran)

“The next war will see a massive use of ballistic weapons against the whole of Israeli territory,” claimed retired general Udi Shani. (Global Research)

Russia also sees a growing probability of hostilities breaking out in the Gulf and has responded by sending a naval task force into the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic.

According to an article on the Global Research site: “The flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva guided missile cruiser, joined up with Russian naval warships in the Mediterranean on January 18 to participate in the current maneuvers….The current operation is the first large-scale Russian Navy exercise in the Atlantic in 15 years. All combat ships and aircraft involved carry full combat ammunition loads. (Global Research)

France is also planning military maneuvers in the Straits of Hormuz. Operation “Gulf Shield 01,” will take place off the coast of Iran and will employ thousands of personnel in combined arms operations that will include simulated attacks on oil platforms.”

Exercises are scheduled to take place from Feb. 23 to March 5, and will involve 1,500 French, 2,500 Emirate, and 1,300 Qatari personnel operating on land, at sea and in the air, the ministry said…Around a half-dozen warships, 40 aircraft and dozens of armored vehicles will be in the war games, Fusalba said. (Source)

Additionally, within the last week, three of the main underwater cables which carry Internet traffic have been cut off in the Persian Gulf and three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East have been lost. Large parts of the Middle East have been plunged into darkness.

Is this merely a coincidence or is something else going on below the surface?

Ian Brockwell, of the American Chronicle said:

“On the assumption that the cables cut were no accident, we must ask ourselves who would do such a thing and why. Clearly Iran, who were most affected, would gain nothing from such an action and are perhaps the target of those responsible? … Maybe this is a prelude to an attack, or perhaps a test run for a future one?

Communication has always been an important factor in military action, and cutting these cables might affect Iran´s ability to defend itself.” (American Chronicle)

Manifestations of Intent

04/02/08 “ICH” — – – Can you smell the smoked fumes of a discombobulated economic engine that has ceased to function, its synergy spitting and sputtering, its many parts thrashed by the claws, and vices, of neoliberal capitalism? Can you feel the dismantling of the economic spark plug, the American consumer, as our livelihoods are sacrificed to the greed, and incompetence, of the establishment and as the value of our lives is further enslaved to the Almighty Dollar and its puppet masters?

Can you hear the roar of authoritarian Machiavelli-types, of which many exist, cheering as the Constitution is discarded like yesterday’s trash, its principles and foundations burned inside the incinerator of fascism? Can you hear the searing of one of the greatest documents of governance ever created by man as it goes up in flames thanks to the kerosene thrown at it by American corporatists in power, its ashes slowly scattering into the realm of nothingness?

Can you see, if not blinded by tele-trash and infotainment, by the propaganda we call news, by the lies and deceit and censorship of the corporate media, by the comforting glow of television, by the charade that is American democracy and by the myriad distractions of bread and circus, the approaching finality of American liberty and freedom, soon to be replaced by Big Brother, a surveillance society, a police state and full-fledged corporatism?

Can you sense the growing momentum of militarism and imperialism rampaging across the nation, and the globe, leaving nothing but hatred and animosity in its wake? Can you sense that imperialism and empire abroad and freedom and democracy at home are mutually exclusive, that to attain the former the latter must be sacrificed, and that inevitably the people must, for imperialism to function, be immersed in tyranny? Do you realize that we are one major shock, one major event away from catapulting our lives into the headwaters of an altogether different America?

If you are not angered, indeed enraged, by the current state of the United States, then you have not been paying attention, or you just do not care enough about the future your children will inherit, and have to live in. If you are not alarmed at where, at present, this course is invariably taking us, then you have abandoned the responsibilities of an informed citizen, preferring the comfortable warmth of ignorance to the absolute frigidity of a most ominous reality.

Indeed, it has been our passivity and acquiescence, bred of comfort, distraction and the erosion of critical thinking, that has facilitated our decent into authoritarian and corporatist waters. It has been our indifference and our “can’t happen here” mentality that is inevitably guaranteeing that it does, in fact, “happen here.” It is our inexperience with tyranny at home and our lack of exposure to authoritarian tendencies such as surveillance, secret police, torture, spying and disappearances, prevalent in many American supported states, encouraged by our government, though until recently non-existent here, that subjects us to a methodical assault by Machiavellian ideologies.

What billions of humans have first-hand experience in, oftentimes thanks to our government’s sponsorship, funding, training, backing, protection and encouragement, we have not yet fully been subjected to. The dirty little secret that the people outside our borders understand fully, and which has been kept from us, is the principle that if America wishes to maintain its empire, it must then continue acting like an empire. This, of course, means maintaining a firm grip over its vassal states, by proxy through its puppets, using the methods any aspiring empire must use, namely tyranny, oppression, and repression along with the tools at the disposal of any credentialed authoritarian.

As the empire expands and seeks more control over lands, resources and people, its methods become more and more brutal, as native peoples become more resistant, with growing imperialism and addiction to hegemony needing greater amounts of military weaponry, violence and tyranny to squash and threaten resistance movements. In order to maintain its overstretched empire, America must therefore become openly fascist, a reality that cannot be fused with the freedoms, rights, liberties and democracy of its own people. The two principles, empire and liberty, are diametrically opposed, incompatible elements in a struggle to determine the future course of the nation.

Given that historically the nation’s elite and its establishment have consistently chosen imperialism, expansion and empire building, there is no reason to believe that this hegemonic drive will decelerate. On the contrary, in a world of finite resources, eager and growing competitors, a globe that only seems to get smaller, with an ever-increasing population and with Washington enraptured in arrogance, self- aggrandizement, self-exceptionalism and greed, it is certain that the elite will invariably chose to sacrifice the Constitution, and the foundations of American society, and hence the freedoms, rights and liberties of the masses, in order to maintain and expand the realm of American hegemony. This paradigm is occurring today, in real time. The transformation is under way, right before our eyes.

For between the coup that was the 2000 general election, allowing entry into the executive branch of corporatists and authoritarians, and the first hours of the American Reichstag, or 9/11, that most catalyzing and transformative of events, the neocon Pearl Harbor, America, already a most vicious and evil empire in the decades before then, seemingly elevated its level of arrogance, unilateralism, defiance, wickedness, inhumanity and violence against the people of the world.

Whereas the 2000 stolen election introduced an era of open hostility, unilateralism and a “we will do what we want” mentality regarding the United States’ view toward world relations, including the planning and green lighting of the attacks, invasions and occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq and other Middle East nations, 9/11 was the shock introducing the world to an America intent on global hegemony, now open and transparent, the new normal, the maker of humanity’s new reality. The inside job of 9/11, aimed as a psychological attack on the American people, designed so the masses would become subservient and acquiescent to otherwise unpopular methods of empire building, also allowed the Pax Americana to begin its quest for hegemony on a more transparent, and thus easier, basis.

Before 9/11, as has been described above, America’s elite were forced to rely on mostly clandestine methods of hegemonic expansion, as well as to at least give the impression of following and adhering to international law, its activities kept secret from its population only to maintain control on the home front, given the unpopularity of tyranny and all its tools. This made it much harder for the empire to achieve its goals. With the end of the Cold War, with its threat of an external bogeyman gone, which was used as an excuse to justify America’s imperial aspirations, supposedly to defend freedom and democracy, new excuses had to be concocted, new enemies had to be created that would engender in the population acceptance towards a continuation of Manifest Destiny.

Hence, new methods of manipulation, such as 9/11, were implemented. The opportunity that was 9/11, a catalyzing and transformative event, allowed American fascists to continue their previous drive forward, only this time in a more open, methodical way, with the full engines of American societal and military might fully behind the endeavor to conquer the strategic lands, resources and peoples of the world in favor of American corporations, particularly the military-industrial-energy complex, and its elite. Today, much more than in the past, the criminality and control is done in full and open arrogance, not caring that the world becomes witness to an imperialism that is as systemic as it tyrannical.

9/11, for all its terror and fear inducing stupor, guaranteed compliance, passivity and even ignorant encouragement on the part of the American people. After all, an external, dark-skinned, unknown bogeyman had dared to attack the empire. It was only natural, then, that the empire fight back, even if those lands of the bogeyman were conveniently also those that had been preemptively chosen months and years before for invasion and attack due to the strategic locations and natural resources claimed by the empire itself. Under this rubric, along with the frivolous claim of bringing “freedom and democracy” to the Middle East and Central Asia, the American people were easy patsies to the maniacal ideology of American fascists in power.

What we call American-style imperialism has thus evolved, with 9/11 acting as its birth pangs, in open arrogance and unilateralism, in open state sponsored terrorism and hostility, in open defiance of and in direct confrontation with the peoples of the globe. Where once clandestine mass murder, violence, war, coups, repression, tyranny, executions, assassinations, disappearances, collective punishment, dehumanization and torture dictated the empire’s maneuvers to control the people and places of the world, with its assortment of dictators, tyrants, juntas, kings, proconsuls, ministers and elite fraudsters helping maintain and expand the fields of empire, the next stage of the empire’s temerity has brought imperialism into plain sight.

Today the world entire can see, with the exception of those living inside the empire itself, — for most citizens choose a cocktail of delusion, denial, beliefs in exceptionalism and the inherent goodness of America, an absence of reason and self-imposed ignorance in order to secure an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality – what millions of human beings have experienced for decades. American imperialism and empire building has become an accepted reality, a “new normal,” with its attempts at building and securing hegemonic power throughout the world, through threats, violence, war, economic strangulation and market colonialism, as evident as cold in winter and as real as sunrises in the east.

Transformation

What is new, and what is not fully understood by the vast majority of the 310 million people it affects, however, is that the empire has brought clandestine corporatism and authoritarian rule inside the very shores of America. It has begun importing the very essence of the imperial methods it has and continues to use abroad, most of which have been very successful in controlling its domain, and thus expanding its global hegemony.

This has been achieved by the criminal manipulation of psychology; by the induction of fear into the populace; by the mass propaganda of sacrificing liberty for security – which achieves neither – ; by conditioning the masses to think only in foggy black and white, good versus evil reasoning; by gutting of the economy, thus creating hardship, financial insecurity and a need to scapegoat (classic divide and conquer strategy); by destroying jobs and wages, slowly destroying the middle class, in essence making this group slaves to debt and predatory capitalism; by waging perpetual imperial wars designed to control resources and strategic locations and transfer trillions of dollars from average Americans toward the pockets of the establishment; by the exponential rise in militarism, the military-industrial-energy complex and the subsequent allocation of ever-expanding budgets towards the Department of War and away from other government services; by the decline of critical thinking and reasoning skills by the purposeful decimation of education; by the systemic pattern of lies, deceit, propaganda and brainwashing endemic in corporate media; by the wholesale auctioning off of all branches, departments and agencies of government to the corporate world; and by the embedding of corporatists and fascism’s enablers into all sectors of the United States government and its propaganda apparatus.

With a more than malleable citizenry conditioned for obedience and passivity, it is easy to see why corporatism rises like a phoenix in the nation of the Founding Fathers. It is inside the belly of the beast itself where the empire has declared open war against the American people, in the span of a few years unleashing a devastating assault on the rights, freedoms and liberties of every American. It has been in the last seven years where the policy of eroding the power, strength and wealth of most working and middle class Americans has had its greatest success, thereby creating an almost impotent subservient class of serfs and slaves. It is inside the bowels of the empire itself where the people are under constant attack, with the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people being gutted and eviscerated on a daily basis.

The objective, of course, is simple. Using fear mongering and scapegoating of an external enemy, a dreaded dark skinned bogeyman of unquestionable “evil”, preferably one that is unknown and different, therefore, the very object of fear, one that coincidentally inhabits the lands whose resources and locations you covet, thereby validating war and destruction and conquest and occupation, the populace is bombarded with the recipe of engendered hatred and, of course, perpetual fear. Straight out of the Orwellian playbook, then, the concocted fear of the Arab and Muslim is used both to conquer resources and land needed to expand hegemony, with the acquiescence and passivity of the people, as well as to eviscerate the freedoms of and better control the lives of the population.

A populace in constant fear of “its way of life,” of its cherished “freedoms and liberties,” which the catapulted propaganda spews mercilessly on a daily basis, making the repeated lie a certifiable truth in the eyes of tens of millions, will inevitably place unbridled faith, even if blind, on the elements of government which, by definition, are entrusted to protect and defend the people. If hundreds of millions have no problem placing blind faith in a god that has never before been seen, heard, smelled or felt, relying on the stories and language of our primitive past, refusing to use reason and critical thinking to combat myth and fables, how can we expect them to not place blind faith in a tangible unitary executive acting as father figure – or alpha male for that matter – that offers promises of security and protection in a terribly uncertain and frightening world – albeit a fictional charade at that – while preaching from the bully pulpit?

Along with an approaching economic meltdown – which inevitably causes anger, hatred, scapegoating, false patriotism, xenophobia, racism, crime, hardship, hunger, suffering, poverty, fear, division and insecurity in a large segment of the population, thereby making tens of millions easy targets willing to accept authoritarian and tyrannical rule over their lives – the use of an external enemy as convenient scapegoat the riled masses can concentrate their wrath on virtually guarantees national compliance and acceptance of the erosion of Constitutional guarantees in favor of a police and surveillance state under corporatist rule. This formula has worked wonders for many of modern history’s most ruthless authoritarians.

This combination of economic shock fused with fear of terror and of a very dangerous external enemy that wants to destroy the peoples way of life is a recipe for a successful implementation of corporatist and authoritarian doctrine throughout the nation. The anger, resentment and negative energy of the masses, most afflicted by the hardships of a severe recession or near depression, is easily corralled into an amalgam of anger that can be manipulated and channeled in whatever direction the corporatist elite chose. Under these conditions, and having a scapegoat by which hatred and anger and emotions can be directed at, the corporatist element in leadership can dictate empire’s follies and aggressiveness with reckless abandon.

Together with a spineless and colluding legislature, – nothing but a collection of fraudsters, snake oil salesmen, charlatans, professional liars, opportunists and corrupt politicians, each bending over to the thrusts of the corporatist world, their powers decimated, their significance diminished, having now become but an insignificant opinion-generating entity, firmly under the control and power of the unitary executive, unable to enforce or keep the president-emperor in check – the government in Washington has become the very entity destroying freedoms, liberties and rights and helping to build and secure the infrastructure needed for a permanent corporatist, surveillance society, a police state, an authoritarian reality.

What no terrorist organization could ever accomplish has over the last seven years been done by the same government most Americans believe incapable of wrongdoing, the same government we place blind faith and trust in, the same government we actually believe has an opposition within its ranks. Ironically, what the external bogeyman could never take away is being methodically plundered by our internal “protectors,” and with our unbridled, yet ignorant support and enthusiasm. Taking candy from a baby is a much more difficult endeavor. With the state and corporations colluding together, the masses are left to fend for themselves.

In fact, it has been the government, with the help of the corporate media, that has terrorized the citizenry in an open and continuous act of psychological warfare. It has been the government, along with the Ministry of Truth, that has instilled fear and insecurity into the population. It is they who, under any definition of terrorism, have become our terrorists, our real enemy, our internal bogeyman. Fear mongering has never been so easy and, when the collective trauma of 9/11 wears off, all that is needed to reinvigorate the senses of the masses are lies of further attack, more dehumanization of the enemy, propaganda of imminent threat and insecurity and, if all else fails, one more false flag event.

Part 2 of this article will be posted on Tuesday 05/02/08

Democracy is a beautiful thing, except that part about letting just any old jerk vote.

“The people can have anything they want.
The trouble is, they do not want anything.
At least they vote that way on election day.”
Eugene Debs, American socialist leader, early 20th century

03/02/08 “ICH” — — Why was the primary vote for former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich so small when anti-Iraq war sentiment in the United States is supposedly so high, and Kucinich was easily the leading anti-war candidate in the Democratic race, indeed the only genuine one after former Senator Mike Gravel withdrew? Even allowing for his being cut out of several debates, Kucinich’s showing was remarkably poor. In Michigan, on January 15, it was only Kucinich and Clinton running. Clinton got 56% of the vote, the “uncommitted” vote (for candidates who had withdrawn but whose names were still on the ballot) was 39%, and Kucinich received but 4%. And Clinton, remember, has been the leading pro-war hawk of all the Democratic candidates.

I think much of the answer lies in the fact that the majority of the American people — like the majority of people all over the world — aren’t very sophisticated politically, and many of them aren’t against the war for very cerebral reasons. Their opposition perhaps stems mainly from the large number of American soldiers who’ve lost their lives, or because the United States is not “winning”, or because America’s reputation in the world is being soiled, or because a majority of other Americans express their opposition to the war, or because of George W.’s multiple character defects, or because of a number of other reasons you couldn’t even guess at. Not much especially perceptive or learned in this collection.

I think there are all kinds of intelligence in this world: musical, scientific, mathematical, artistic, academic, literary, mechanical, and so on. Then there’s political intelligence, which I would define as the ability to see through the bullshit which the leaders and politicians of every society, past, present and future, feed their citizens from birth on to win elections and assure continuance of the prevailing ideology.

This is why it’s so important for all of us to continue “preaching to the choir” and “preaching to the converted”. That’s what speakers and writers and other activists are often scoffed at for doing — saying the same old thing to the same old people, just spinning their wheels. But long experience as speaker, writer and activist in the area of foreign policy tells me it just ain’t so. From the questions and comments I regularly get from my audiences, via email and in person, and from other people’s audiences as well, I can plainly see that there are numerous significant information gaps and misconceptions in the choir’s thinking, often leaving them unable to see through the newest government lie or propaganda trick; they’re unknowing or forgetful of what happened in the past that illuminates the present; knowing the facts but unable to apply them at the appropriate moment; vulnerable to being led astray by the next person who offers a specious argument that opposes what they currently believe, or think they believe. The choir needs to be frequently reminded and enlightened.

As cynical as others may think they are, the choir is frequently not cynical enough about the power elite’s motivations. They underestimate the government’s capacity for deceit, clinging to the belief that their government somehow means well; they’re moreover insufficiently skilled at reading between the media’s lines. And this all applies to how they view political candidates as well. Try asking “anti-war” supporters of Hillary Clinton if they know what a hawk she is, that — as but one example — she’s promised that American forces will not leave Iraq while she’s president. (And Obama loves the empire as much as Clinton.) When Ronald Reagan was president, on several occasions polls revealed that many, if not most, people who supported him were actually opposed to many of his specific policies.

In sum, even when the hearts of the chorus may be in the right place, their heads still need working on, on a recurring basis. And in any event, very few people are actually born into the choir; they achieve choir membership only after being preached to, multiple times.

When I speak in public, and when I can mention it in an interview, I raise the question of the motivations of the administration. As long as people believe that our so-called leaders are well-intentioned, the leaders can, and do, get away with murder. Literally.

“How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It’s the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It’s been 200 years at it. It’s superb.” Gore Vidal

Another interesting view of the American electoral system comes from Cuban leader Raúl Castro. He recently noted that the United States pits two identical parties against one another, and joked that a choice between a Republican and Democrat is like choosing between himself and his brother Fidel.

“We could say in Cuba we have two parties: one led by Fidel and one led by Raúl, what would be the difference?” he asked. “That’s the same thing that happens in the United States … both are the same. Fidel is a little taller than me, he has a beard and I don’t.”[1]

Speaking of political intelligence … take a little stroll with Alice through the American wonderland … just for laughs

“This war [in Iraq] is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S. democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan. … it is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad.” — Thomas Friedman, much-acclaimed New York Times foreign-affairs analyst, November 2003[2]

“President Bush has placed human rights at the center of his foreign policy agenda in unprecedented ways.” — Michael Gerson, columnist for the Washington Post, 2007[3]

The war in Iraq “is one of the noblest endeavors the United States, or any great power, has ever undertaken.” — David Brooks, New York Times columnist and National Public Radio (NPR) commentator (2007)[4]

If this is what leading American public intellectuals believe and impart to their audiences, is it any wonder that the media can short circuit people’s critical faculties altogether? It should as well be noted that these three journalists are all with “liberal” media.

And when Hillary Clinton says in the January 31 debate with Barack Obama: “We bombed them [Iraq] for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors,” and the fact is that the UN withdrew its weapons inspectors because the Clinton administration had made it clear that it was about to start bombing Iraq …

Obama didn’t correct her. Neither did any of the eminent journalists on the panel, though this particular piece of disinformation has been repeated again and again in the media, and has been corrected again and again by those on the left. Comrades, we have our work cut out for us. The chorus needs us. America needs us. Keep preaching.

Teaching political intelligence

If you’re a high school or college teacher, you might want to look at http://www.teachpeace.com/highschoolkit.htm for teaching aids to impart a progressive outlook on US foreign policy and related issues to your students.

NOTES

1 Associated Press, CNN.com, December 25, 2007

[2] New York Times, November 30, 2003

[3] Washington Post, September 7, 2007

[4] Mary Eberstadt, ed., “Why I turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys” (2007), p.73

Dear Tom Petty folks,

I am a musician, writer and political activist, and a longtime Tom Petty fan. I am writing to tell you that I am very distressed by the fact that Tom is planning to perform at the Super Bowl this Sunday. The biggest cause of this distress is the fact that the main sponsor of the half-time event is, as I am sure you are aware, Bridgestone/Firestone. Perhaps you are unaware that Bridgestone/Firestone operates the largest rubber plantation in the world in Liberia, where it has employed child labor for much, if not all, of the past 82 years. Currently, workers there receive as pay the equivalent of $3.19 per day. Most live in company housing with no running water, in buildings that have not been renovated since they were constructed in 1926. The workers (and their families) are routinely exposed to toxic chemicals. Recent attempts at unionization have been brutally suppressed by police, in violation of internationally recognized labor and human rights.

Of course, Bridgestone/Firestone, the largest tire manufacturer in the world, is looking to raise its visibility and improve its image with the American public. I can hardly believe that Mr. Petty would participate in this effort by lending his name and talent in support of this despicable corporate misbehavior if he were to be made aware of the issues involved.

Mr. Petty has been (to this point) associated in my mind with rebels, rock and roll, and also loosely with a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood that emerged from the activism and camaraderie of the global peace, justice and solidarity movement of the 1960s and ’70s. But his association with Bridgestone/Firestone and scheduled participation in this Super Bowl is giving me a new impression.

I know there is a great deal of money to be made from exposure to such a mass audience, but at what cost? I am willing to assume that lending tacit support to the brutal exploitation of the labor of desperate people trying to make a decent life for themselves is not something that Mr. Petty would support were he to be made aware of the extensively documented antisocial and brutal behavior of his corporate sponsor.

Here are just a couple of links. Please take a moment to review this material:

* “Super Bowl of Shame” (by Jamie Menutis, Foreign Policy in Focus, 1/28/08)

* “Stopping Firestone: Getting Rubber to Meet the Road” (by Roxanne Lawson and Tim Newman, Foreign Policy in Focus, 12/7/06)

I would very much appreciate it if you would pass this message, these links, or a synopsis of this plea to Mr. Petty.

Actions, they say, always speak louder than words, or song lyrics, or images of rock and roll rebellion. I really don’t want to believe that Mr. Petty values money and career advancement over the lives and welfare of children in Liberia, or of working people anywhere. That is why I have taken the time to try and make Tom Petty and your entire organization aware of the harsh realities that these desperate workers and their families face at the hands of the folks at Bridgestone/Firestone.

To my way of thinking, a rock and roll hero that knowingly lends a hand (or his good name) to corporate abusers is no hero at all, and deserves to have his image adjusted accordingly.

Unquestionably, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would receive a career boost from exposure to a huge Super Bowl audience. I cannot help thinking, though, that their legacy would be better served if Petty were to announce his intention to back out of participation in the Super Bowl in order to better stand for principle over profit. That would be my idea of an action worthy of a respectable rock icon.

Thanks for your time and consideration,

Paul Dean
Sebastopol, CA

In Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton lied again about Iraq.

At the forum in Los Angeles, Hillary Clinton declared, “We bombed them for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors.”

That statement was totally false. The bombing campaign had been planned for months and the inspectors were not thrown out. They were ordered out by President Bill Clinton in anticipation of the four-day U.S.-led bombing campaign.

The chronology, which is on the public record, is as follows:

In early 1998, the Clinton Administration began to raise concerns about Iraq’s refusal to allow inspectors of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) to visit so-called “presidential sites,” a liberally-defined series of buildings and grounds across the country that Iraq claimed were used by government officials. Even though subsequent evidence has revealed that the Iraqis had nothing to hide, since all proscribed weapons and weapons material had long since been eliminated, Saddam Hussein held firm. Given that a number of prominent American political leaders from both parties had called openly for assassinating him, however, the Iraqi leader’s reluctance to allow Americans into presidential palaces may have been a result of concerns that such access would make him and other top officials personally vulnerable. Furthermore, the Iraqis had complained that, despite a stated policy of avoiding staffing UNSCOM with experts from “intelligence providing states,” there was a disproportionate number of Americans involved in the inspections, who would deliberately prolong the process and could potentially provide information to the U.S. military. The Iraqi dictator also reportedly had an obsessive compulsive disorder which led him to order that his palaces be kept meticulously clean and made him particularly reluctant to allow large groups of foreigners to move about his homes.

The Clinton administration’s insistence upon raising this issue at that time was rather suspect: Such Iraqi restrictions on these “presidential sites” had existed since the beginning of the sanctions regime nearly seven years earlier without any concerns publically expressed by United Nations officials. Yet suddenly, in January 1998, the Clinton administration decided that it had become an intolerable violation of UN Security Council resolution 687, which called upon Iraq to verify its disarmament, and warned Iraq that the United States – despite the lack of Security Council approval as required – would engage in a sustained bombing campaign against their country if the Iraqis did not allow these inspections of presidential palaces to go ahead. By February, a large-scale U.S. military assault seemed likely. However, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was able to broker a deal late that month that opened the presidential palaces to UN inspectors, but with an additional diplomatic presence in recognition of the sites’ special status.

The disappointment by Clinton administration officials that the bombing campaign would not be able to go ahead as planned was palpable. Clinton did not give up on its search for an excuse to attack Iraq, however.

At the end of October, Iraq imposed new restrictions on UNSCOM as a result of revelations that the United States was indeed illegally using UNSCOM as a vehicle for spying on the Iraqi government. On November 10, in response to pressure from President Clinton, UNSCOM chairman Richard Butler announced his decision to pull UNSCOM out of Iraq without the required authorization from the Security Council. Iraq then reversed itself and agreed to allow the inspectors to resume their activities. The United States, however, was eager to launch military action, particularly by mid-December in order to take advantage of overlapping American military units on rotation in the Persian Gulf, which made it a particularly auspicious time for major air strikes.

According to former chief weapons inspector Scott Ritter, Clinton’s National Security Advisor Sandy Berger – now a major advisor for Senator Clinton – met with Butler on November 30, when the UNSCOM director was instructed to provoke Iraq into breaking its agreement to fully cooperate with UNSCOM. Without consulting the UN Security Council as required, Butler announced to the Iraqis that he was nullifying previously agreed-upon modalities dealing with sensitive sites that limited the number of UNSCOM inspectors. He chose the Baath Party headquarters in Baghdad as the site to demand unfettered access, a very unlikely place to store weapons of mass destruction but one very likely to provoke a negative reaction. The Iraqis refused to allow the large group into their party headquarters, but did allow them unrestricted access to a series of sensitive military installations.

At that point, Butler and the Clinton Administration unilaterally ordered UN inspectors out of Iraq in order to remove them from the risk of being harmed by the massive U.S. air and missile strikes that were forthcoming. Back in New York, American officials then helped Butler draft a report blaming Iraq exclusively for the impasse in a late night session at the U.S. Mission across from the United Nations headquarters. As the UN Security Council was meeting in an emergency special session on how to implement a unified response to Iraq’s non-cooperation, the United States – with support from Great Britain – launched an unauthorized four-day series of sustained air strikes against Iraq in what became known as Operation Desert Fox. In response, Iraq forbade UNSCOM from returning.

Surely Senator Clinton knew all this, since she has emphasized as evidence of her supposed experience in foreign affairs her close consultation with her husband and his national security advisors during these crises. Her claims during the debate, then, that the bombing took place because Saddam Hussein “threw out inspectors” is a boldface lie to rationalize for a four-day bombing campaign that killed hundreds of people, many of whom were innocent civilians, and which gave Saddam Hussein an excuse to refuse to allow inspectors to return to Iraq for the next four years. A number of strategic analysts (including me) publically warned prior to the December 1998 attacks that launching such massive air strikes would result in an end to the UN inspections and would result in reducing Iraqi compliance from 95% to 0%. President Clinton clearly wanted the inspections regime to end, however, presumably because – as Senator Clinton has acknowledged – the administration had shifted U.S. policy from containment of Iraq to regime change. Indeed, the resulting absence of inspectors became the principal rationale for President George W. Bush, Senator Clinton and others to support an invasion of Iraq four years later.

Indeed, in Thursday night’s debate, Senator Clinton claims that she voted to authorize war against Iraq in October 2002 because “we needed to put inspectors in.” However, this was also a lie, since Saddam Hussein had by that time already agreed for a return of the weapons inspectors. Furthermore, Senator Clinton voted against the substitute Levin amendment, which would have also granted President Bush authority to use force, but only if Iraq defied subsequent UN demands regarding the inspections process. Instead, Senator Clinton voted for the Republican-sponsored resolution to give President Bush the authority to invade Iraq at the time and circumstances of his own choosing regardless of whether inspectors returned. Indeed, unfettered large-scale weapons inspections had been going on in Iraq for nearly four months at the time the Bush administration launched the March 2003 invasion that Senator Clinton had voted to authorize.

This is part of a longstanding pattern of Senator Hillary Clinton misleading the American public about Iraq in order to justify her militaristic policies. It is important to remember that, back in October 2002, despite widespread and public skepticism expressed by arms control experts over the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq had somehow re-armed itself, Senator Clinton was insisting that Iraq’s possession of biological and chemical weapons was “not in doubt” and was “undisputed.” She also claimed, despite the reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iraq’s nuclear program had been completely eliminated, that Iraq was “trying to develop nuclear weapons.”

This inevitably raises concerns that if Hillary Clinton is elected president, she will have no qualms about lying once again to the American people in order to justify going to war.

Ever since the President’s illegal warrantless eavesdropping program was revealed by the New York Times‘ Jim Risen and Eric Lichtblau back in December, 2005, there has been a faction of neoconservatives and other extremists on the Right calling for the NYT reporters and editors to be criminally prosecuted — led by the likes of Bill Kristol (now of the NYT), Bill Bennett (of CNN), Commentary Magazine and many others. In May, 2006, Alberto Gonzales went on ABC News and revealed that the DOJ had commenced a criminal investigation into the leak, and then “raised the possibility [] that New York Times journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information.”

That was one of the more revealing steps ever taken by Bush’s DOJ under Gonzales: the administration violated multiple federal laws for years in spying on Americans, blocked all efforts to investigate what they did or subject it to the rule of law, but then decided that the only real criminals were those who alerted the nation to their lawbreaking — whistleblowers and journalists alike. Even Gonzales’ public musing about criminal prosecutions could have had a devastating effect — if you’re a whistleblower or journalist who uncovers secret government lawbreaking, you’re obviously going to think twice (at least) before bringing it to light, given the public threats by the Attorney General to criminally prosecute those who do.

Eighteen months have passed since Gonzales’ threats, and while there have been some signs that the investigation continues — former DOJ official Jack Goldsmith, for instance, described how he was accosted and handed a Subpoena by FBI agents in the middle of Harvard Square, demanding to know what he knew about the NSA leak — there had no further public evidence that the DOJ intended to pursue Risen and Lichtblau. Until now.

Yesterday, the NYT reported that Jim Risen was served with a grand jury Subpoena, compelling him to disclose the identity of the confidential source(s) for disclosures in his 2006 book, State of War. The Subpoena seeks disclosure of Risen’s sources not for the NSA program (for which he and Lichtblau won a Pulitzer Prize), but rather, for Risen’s reporting on CIA efforts to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear program. Nonetheless, Risen’s work on State of War is what led to his discovery that the Bush administration was illegally spying on Americans without the warrants required by law.

The issuance of a grand jury Subpoena to a reporter seeking the disclosure of confidential sources is one of the most serious steps the DOJ can take. If the reporter refuses to disclose his source(s) — as reporters feel duty-bound to do, and, independently, as their future ability to uncover government secrets requires — the reporter can be held in contempt and consigned to prison (Risen has indicated he will not comply). Judy Miller’s refusal to disclose her sources in the Libby case, in response to a grand jury Subpoena, is what led to her imprisonment for 85 days, until she finally relented and revealed her sources. Had she not done so, she could have (and likely would have) remained imprisoned indefinitely.

Risen’s book, State of War, was published in early January, 2006 — more than two years ago. Why is it now, suddenly, that he is being subpoenaed to reveal his sources?

Issuing a Subpoena to a journalist poses such serious First Amendment threats that the DOJ has promulgated guidelines for what must occur in order for that to happen. Pursuant to Section III(A)(2)(l) of those guidelines — “Subpoenas to the Media”:

If the investigation involves media news gathering functions, the staff should first attempt to obtain the necessary information from non-media sources before considering subpoenaing members of the news media. If these attempts are unsuccessful and news media sources are the only reasonable sources of the relevant information, the staff should attempt to negotiate with the news media member or organization to obtain the information voluntarily. If such negotiations fail, the staff must seek the express approval of the Attorney General before issuing a subpoena.

Although one can’t say for certain, it seems rather likely that what has led to the issuance of this grand jury Subpoena to Risen is that Michael Mukasey has apparently decided to make criminal investigations of such leaks one of his top priorities, and is prepared for a massive First Amendment fight with Risen and his publisher, Simon & Schuster, which likely will include a willingness to imprison Risen if he fails to comply — just as the Neoconservative Right, still seething over Risen’s role in exposing the President’s NSA lawbreaking, has been demanding for some time.

One of the leading theorists of the “Imprison-the-NYT” movement has been Gabriel Schoenfeld of Norm Podhoretz’s Commentary Magazine. He wrote a widely-cited article back in March, 2006 arguing that Risen, Lichtblau and even NYT Editor Bill Keller should all be criminally prosecuted under the Espionage Act and other statutes for publishing the NSA story:

The real question that an intrepid prosecutor in the Justice Department should be asking is whether, in the aftermath of September 11, we as a nation can afford to permit the reporters and editors of a great newspaper to become the unelected authority that determines for all of us what is a legitimate secret and what is not. Like the Constitution itself, the First Amendment’s protections of freedom of the press are not a suicide pact. The laws governing what the Times has done are perfectly clear; will they be enforced?

On his Commentary blog yesterday, Schoenfeld gloated about the Subpoena to Risen and suggested a possible connection to not only Risen’s work on the NSA story, but also Schoenfeld’s own agitating for the imprisonment of these journalists. Schoenfeld wrote (referring to himself in the third person by the name of his blog, “Connecting the Dots”):

Finally, action. A federal prosecutor has issued a subpoena to James Risen of the New York Times, one of two reporters at the paper who compromised the National Security Agency’s (NSA) Terrorist Surveillance Program in December 1995 (sic). . . .

Why is this investigation proceeding now? Connecting the Dots has no inside information. But Connecting the Dots was seated at the same table as Michael Mukasey and his wife at two dinners in the last three years, back when the future Attorney General was still a mere federal judge. The leaks in the New York Times did not come up for discussion, but Mukasey made plain he was a close reader of COMMENTARY.

Did he read a certain article in COMMENTARY entitled Has the New York Times Violated the Espionage Act? That’s a question James Risen — and Bill Keller, too — should be thinking about.

It’s entirely unsurprising that Michael Mukasey sat socially with our nation’s most extremist neoconservatives and declared himself a “close reader of COMMENTARY.” After all, before his nomination was formally announced, the White House chose Bill Kristol to announce his selection and, in a lengthy article, to vouch to conservatives for what a fine AG Mukasey would make.

Mukasey was a long-time supporter of the neocons’ favorite candidate, Rudy Giuliani and, prior to becoming Attorney General, was part of the Giuliani campaign. And it was Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer — both with neoconservative leanings (war supporters both, among other things) — who jointly enabled Mukasey’s confirmation by becoming the only Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote in his favor.

Although there are still facts missing — such as whether this Subpoena was actually approved by Mukasey rather than Gonzales — it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Grand Jury Subpoena was done at least with Mukasey’s assent. It seems rather clearly to signify the intent of his Justice Department to more aggressively pursue reporters who disclose information embarrassing to the President.

It’s hard to overstate how threatening this behavior is. The Bush administration has erected an unprecedented wall of secrecy around everything it does. Beyond illegal spying, if one looks at the instances where we learned of lawbreaking and other forms of lawless radicalism — CIA black sites, rendition programs, torture, Abu Ghraib, pre-war distortion of intelligence, destruction of CIA torture videos — it is, in every case, the by-product of two forces: government whistleblowers and reporters willing to expose it.

Grand Jury Subpoenas such as the one issued to Risen have as their principal purpose shutting off that avenue of learning about government wrongdoing — the sole remaining avenue for a country plagued by a supine, slothful, vapid press and an indescribably submissive Congress. Mukasey has quickly demonstrated that he has no interest in investigating and pursuing lawbreaking by high government officials, but now, he (or at least the DOJ he leads) seems to be demonstrating something even worse: a burgeoning interest in investigating and pursuing those who expose such governmental lawbreaking and turning those whistleblowers and investigative journalists into criminals.

Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book “How Would a Patriot Act?,” a critique of the Bush administration’s use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, “A Tragic Legacy“, examines the Bush legacy.

The Stepford Wives tells the chilling story of once smart, independent women who get abducted and turned into tamed, mindless robots.

I have a theory about a similarly subversive process that turns grown men once capable of independent and reasoned thought into robotic extremists. Call them Stepford Republicans. The nefarious transformation always occurs before the individual gets close to becoming a Republican president or vice president.

Stepford Wives become robotically subservient only to their husbands; they pose no threat to the rest of us. But Stepford Republicans become subservient to right-wing forces of corporatism, war and prejudice. Once converted into mindless ideologues, Stepford Republicans are a threat to us all.

The prototype of a Stepford Republican is PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN. After his apparent abduction and alteration, he became an instrument of corporate power in the White House: union-busting, downsizing, cutting school lunch funding. This is the Reagan many remember: champion of the overdog.

But when Reagan was still a sentient being, he was actually a bleeding-heart advocate for working people. He denounced budget cuts (“millions of children have been deprived of milk once provided through the federal school lunch program”) and tax cuts that “benefit the higher income brackets alone.” He assailed corporate profiteering, and labeled a top Republican “the banner carrier for Wall Street.” He hailed unions and complained that “labor has been handcuffed by the vicious Taft-Hartley law.”

In other words, before he was robotized, Ronald Reagan could be a warm, compassionate human being — and I offer a remarkable tape to prove my theory.

Many Americans have long suspected that VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY is an android. What they may not know is that — before being Stepfordized into a neoconservative drone — he was capable of non-ideological thought that would allow him to choose a peace option over war, able to use human reason to figure out why invading Iraq would inevitably lead to “quagmire.” This short video clip offers compelling evidence.

Today, MITT ROMNEY is such a robotically rabid spouter of social-conservative dogma that he’s won the praise of radio rightists like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Offered as evidence of his Stepfordization is this video revealing a once human and tolerant Romney who seemed to care deeply about women’s rights and abortion rights, and resisted any connection to the policies of Reagan-Bush. It was this pre-abduction Romney who boasted that he would do more for gay equality than Ted Kennedy.

JOHN MCCAIN was also horrifically rewired toward servile courtship of the Religious Right. Dramatic evidence of McCain’s Stepfordization is caught on video: “Before” footage shows you a strong human speaking bravely against right-wing “agents of intolerance” like Jerry Falwell; “after” footage reveals a lifeless, docile tool of those same forces.

Perhaps you can’t accept my theory — despite the powerful taped evidence I offer — that these Republican icons are victims of Stepford-like abduction and transplant.

If so, I’d like to hear an alternative theory as to why these individuals betray their own principles or intellect — why they turn themselves into fawning servants of economic forces or ideologies or social movements they once abhorred.

The blind pursuit of power, you say? I’m simply unwilling to believe that human beings — even top Republicans — are so inherently opportunistic and corrupt.

The biggest news of the record $3-trillion-plus federal budget that President Bush plans to propose to Congress on Monday may be the potential deficit that comes with it.

After years of White House boasting that it is getting the deficit under control – cutting it by $250 billion during the past two years – the administration appears ready to concede that the deficit will rise to $400 billion or more in the coming year. That’s a near-return to the record $413-billion deficit reached in 2004…

The cost of the war has driven much of Bush’s spending. The president already has secured more than $600 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with “supplemental budgets” sought outside the parameters of the normal federal budget, and is seeking nearly $200 billion more for the year ahead.

“What we’ve seen this year is the continuation of another pattern of outright dishonesty,” Ornstein has said. “This has not been an effort to achieve a rational dialog about national priorities and fiscal discipline… We’ve had funding for the war drawn through the back door of supplemental and emergency spending… It’s one thing if you have an emergency, but this has been funding the traditional cost of the wars in a way that tries to disguise the spending in the eyes of the public.”

The average annual growth in defense spending has run 5.7 percent on Bush’s watch – a greater rate than any post-World War II president achieved, the Cato Institute has found. It was down 1.7 percent a year, on average, during Clinton’s terms. Johnson, waging a war in Vietnam, had boosted it by 4.9 percent a year.

Yet this president hasn’t always paid for the war at the expense of social programs: Bush has bought guns, and butter, too. But in the balance, the share of the federal pie for the Pentagon has grown far greater than the share for domestic spending.

Defense Department has grown by more than 60 percent since the start of Bush’s presidency. Between fiscal 2002, the first year over which Bush had full control of the budget, and last year, national defense spending grew to $572 billion, up 64 percent….

In response to a Marine Corps recruiting office established in Berkeley last year, local activists are trying to make it more difficult for future recruiting centers to open in the city.

If passed by a majority of Berkeley voters, a proposed initiative would require military recruiting offices and private military companies in Berkeley to first acquire a special use permit.

To obtain this permit, a business must hold public hearings and a public comment period.

If the initiative passes, recruitment offices could not be opened within 600 feet of residential districts, public parks, public health clinics, public libraries, schools or churches.

Currently, a recruiting office is held to the same standards as most other businesses, which do not require a public hearing or have limits on where offices can be established.

The author of the initiative, Berkeley-based lawyer Sharon Adams, modeled the initiative after current zoning law that restricts the location of adult-oriented businesses.

“In the same way that many communities limit the location of pornographic stores, that’s the same way we feel about the military recruiting stations,” said PhoeBe sorgen, an initiative proponent and a member of the city’s Peace and Justice Commission. “Teenagers that really want to find them will be able to seek them out and find them, but we don’t want them in our face.”

The initiative lists complaints against the military including the invasion of Iraq, abuses at Abu Ghraib, discrimination based on sexual orientation and recruiters who mislead potential recruits about benefits and duties.

Recruiters from the office declined to comment.

The primary purpose of the new zoning law would be to protect young people from undue influence from military recruiters, supporters say.

“We feel that as a community we need to protect the youth,” Adams said. “We’re trying to level the playing field.”

Berkeley Councilmember Dona Spring said she supports the wording of the initiative, but said she would prefer the issue be passed by council so it can be enacted faster rather than waiting for the initiative to be placed on the ballot in November.

“I think we should just go ahead and pass it,” she said. “We can’t take everything to the voters.”

But some proponents are hesitant to pass the ordinance through the council because they feel it might be watered down by other council members.

In addition to making it more difficult for future military recruiting centers to be established, Spring also said she would support action that would remove the current office, which is in her district.

“I do want to do something, whatever we can do, to shut down an agency that offends our public standards,” she said. “It’s a detriment, it’s a danger to the public.”

Code Pink has staged demonstrations against the recruitment center every Wednesday in front of the center on Shattuck Avenue since Sept. 26.

The Marine Recruitment Center, which has been located in Berkeley since mid-2007, is the only military recruitment center in Berkeley.

Proponents hope that this ordinance will become a template for communities around the country to follow.

Another giveaway to the rich by Congress, White House

The “economic stimulus” plan agreed to by the Democrats in Congress and the Bush White House is another giveaway to the rich.

There is a mini one-time payment of $300 to $600 to anyone who is employed. That’s not a significant amount, considering that the average rent for an apartment in the U.S. is $1,027 a month. (Business Week, Jan. 17)

If you are jobless, you get no payment; a minimum yearly income of $6,000 is required to get the one-time rebate. The jobless don’t even get an extension of unemployment benefits, which usually adds 16 weeks of payments, or food stamps. Adding those to the plan would have put thousands of dollars in the pockets of the people who need it most.

Unlike the one-time rebate, which won’t happen for months, an extension of jobless benefits and food stamp increases would put money into the economy immediately.

The original plan proposed in the House of Representatives included an extension of benefits for the jobless and an increase in food stamp money for the 35 million low-income households eligible for payments. In a logic-defying statement, top Democrat Nancy Pelosi claimed the Democrats agreed with Bush to drop those benefits in order to help “the middle class.” (New York Times, Jan. 24)

The “stimulus” plan also includes more than $50 billion in tax breaks for businesses.

The mini payment and the tax break for businesses have gotten most of the publicity. But neither of them is the really big item in the package. Most significant is a bailout of the banks and mortgage companies and a giveaway of a housing loan guarantee to the rich.

The details of this part of the plan can’t be found in either the White House statement or the Democrats’ summary of the plan; the inside story is hidden in the financial pages of the media.

“The plan tries to make it easier to secure or refinance mortgages for more expensive homes. First it would allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for a year, to buy loans of up to $729,750. The current limit is $417,000. The package would similarly increase the $362,790 limit on loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, while making it easier for borrowers to qualify,” USA Today reported in its business section on Jan. 24.

The report adds that the plan also shifts the “risk” for financing the more expensive loans to working people, whose taxes will now be used to insure the loans for expensive houses.

The plan was falsely labeled a stimulant in order to pass it through Congress quickly, without any further review.

But could any plan really be a stimulant and stop the spiraling economic downturn?

Dangers of the military stimulant

The current capitalist cycle started its upward climb following the stock market crash in 2002, often referred to as the bursting of the Internet bubble. The U.S. was in a recession; the economy was stagnant with no recovery in sight. The massive military buildup that started then, estimated at over $2 trillion over the last five years, was a huge stimulus.

But a military stimulus is not the same as normal capitalist production. Military expansion by no means guarantees an economic recovery with full employment. In fact, its expansion may well spell a deepening of the economic crisis and may be depressing the economy instead.

The cyclical capitalist upturn that began after the crash in 2002 has been one of the weakest recoveries on record. It has frequently been described as a jobless recovery, meaning that while profits for the rich recovered, there was not the usual rise in employment that goes with a rising economy. Unemployment didn’t increase, but jobs didn’t grow in the way usually seen during a recovery.

Now the unemployment rate is starting to increase. The official figure, which by design underreports the levels of joblessness, for December showed a significant increase to 5 percent.

“An uptick of this magnitude (up 0.3 percent in December),” says the Economic Policy Institute, “has historically been either a symptom or a harbinger of recession. Moreover, the increase in unemployment was not isolated among any one group—joblessness increased significantly among all demographic groups.” (www.epi.org)

In a recession, the first thing that happens is that people lose their jobs; the reserve army of unemployed workers grows. The length and depth of the recession determines the severity of the unemployment, the spread of homelessness and loss of food.

For the working class—the ones that bear the brunt of a recession—the most important issue is jobs. For the capitalist, the only issue is profits. Government “stimulus” plans are aimed at restoring profits.

For anyone but the rich, what is needed is a rescue plan—a guarantee of a job, no evictions/foreclosures and adequate food. Any plan that isn’t about jobs, housing and food isn’t responding to the real crisis.

Crisis of overproduction

A recession is most often the result of what Karl Marx called a capitalist crisis of overproduction. Capitalist overproduction is poorly understood, partly because the capitalists want to obscure the reasons for recessions and the misery they cause.

A crisis of overproduction comes because the capitalists, in chasing after profits, try to get a market advantage by lowering the production cost of each individual item. This is most often done by introducing labor-saving technology that can turn out more products at the same or a lower overall cost. Capitalists are driven to constantly accumulate new machinery, new technology in order to compete.

Each capitalist tries to outdo the others in revolutionizing the means of production and lowering the unit price of the products—be they computers or clothing or corn. But eventually the new technology becomes the norm and many more products are being produced by fewer workers. This crisis of overproduction then reveals itself as an inability to sell at an acceptable rate of profit all that’s been produced. Bankruptcies, layoffs and shutdowns follow.

Marx showed that all new value comes from the direct application of labor power in the production process. Unlike raw materials and plant and equipment, labor power is the only commodity that, in the course of being used up in the production process, creates new value.

This dual character of labor power—that workers get paid only what it takes to keep them alive as a class, while at the same time they produce much more than that in new value—is the basis for exploitation and the immense profits taken by the capitalists.

Marx also explained why the rate of profit drops as the proportion of investment in machinery and technology—Marx calls this constant capital—keeps rising in relation to wages, or variable capital. Variable capital is the source of profit, but it becomes a smaller part of the total investment.

Overproduction of capital, for Marx, is the over-accumulation of constant capital.

When over-accumulation sets in and profit rates fall, capitalists begin to shift the investment funds at their disposal out of machinery, technology and labor and into financial assets. Eventually there is a shortage of profitable financial investment outlets.

When that happens, capitalist investors often bid up the prices of various social goods without increasing the real wealth in society or expanding productivity. The sub-prime loan crisis is exactly such a scheme, aggravated by easy credit.

The economic downturn that is now unfolding can’t be prevented by acts of Congress. Short of getting rid of capitalism, there is no means to prevent such economic disasters. But Marx did show that the workers, through struggle, can lessen the devastating impact of such crises on their lives and also gain the consciousness and organization to begin to challenge the system itself.