Sir Gerald Kaufman, UK Labor MP, January 16, 2009
Category Archives: Empire
Government Posts Highly Confidential Civilian Nuke Info on Internet
Oh dear. The blunderbuss in Washington strikes again. AP reports:
“WASHINGTON – The government accidentally posted on the Internet a list of government and civilian nuclear facilities and their activities in the United States, but U.S. officials said Wednesday the posting included no information that compromised national security.
However, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, questioned about the disclosure at a House hearing, expressed concern with respect to a uranium storage facility at the department’s Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The facility holds large quantities of highly enriched uranium, which if obtained can be used to fashion a nuclear weapon.
“That’s of great concern,” said Chu, referring to the Y-12 site. “We will be looking hard and making sure physical security of those sites (at Y-12) is sufficient to prevent eco-terrorists and others getting hold of that material.”
But later Chu told reporters that while the disclosure may be embarrassing “there’s no secret classified information that’s been compromised (and) the sites and everything are public knowledge” already available elsewhere.”
My Comment
The rest of the article, which refers to the material as “sensitive” and “highly confidential” and unavailable in one place anywhere else, seems to contradict the phlegmatic Mr. Chu.
But this is bureaucracy in action. Listen up, people. This is the lot that’s scaring you into thinking your safety is their number one priority. Right. That’s why Congress has its underground bunker all fitted out and ready to go in case of some endgame fireworks.
And you have…what? A house. Oh yes. That paper-mache prefab box on which you’re upside down anyway…
That should be a real haven in case of a thermo-nuclear accident in the vicinity.
And I suppose you also have a great permanent job with fantastic medical coverage for you and all your little tots too, in case…just supposing, I mean…that said nuclear incident might have a teeny-weeny negative effect on your health.
Award Winning Research Proves that Fed Fiddled Us Into Disaster
A Distinguished Academic Research Award went to researchers who showed that Bernanke’s tinkering with the interest rate converted a minor recession in 2004 into a full-fledged implosion of the credit markets in 2008:
“In a correlative movement with the rise in the price of oil, the Federal Reserve moved from a low accommodative interest rate policy to one of a steady and consistent increase in interest rates between 2004 and 2007. The switch in policy, to higher interest rates, combined with the financially corrosive effects of low initial variable interest rates, between 2001 to 2004, converting to much higher indexed variable interest rates, between 2005-2008, became a prime cause of the financial services mortgage crisis of 2008. The study suggests that the Federal Reserve’s sustained manipulation of interest rates between 2000-2008 had a deleterious effect on financial lenders and individual borrowers.”
— “Federal Reserve Interest Rate Manipulation between 2000-2007 and the Housing Mortgage Crisis of 2008,” by Dr, Fred M. Carr and Dr. Jane A. Beese, August 8, 2008, of the University of Akron’s .K. Barker Center for Economic Education.
My Comment
(later)
Bail-Out for Insurers
In the news:
“The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. was the first to disclose Thursday that it had been notified by the Treasury Department that it was eligible for $3.4 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Lincoln National Corp., which commonly goes by the name Lincoln Financial Group, said it has been initially approved for a $2.5 billion injection from TARP’s Capital Purchase Program.
Allstate Corp., Ameriprise Financial Inc., Principal Financial Group Inc. and Prudential Financial Inc. also are among insurers receiving preliminary investment approval, Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams confirmed. He declined to disclose the amount of investment each company will receive.
The total capital injection into the six companies will be less than $22 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a person familiar with the situation…”
My Comment
22 billion might not seem like a lot, but insurers’ holdings have taken a big hit in recent months, it seems, and a cut in their ratings would have been likely once their assets fell below a certain level.
So you have government ownership of large parts of the housing market (which itself covers, in all its aspects some 30% of the economy), extensive government intervention in banking and insurance, government run trade, government run schools and colleges, government run social security and medicaid and medicare, and what does the left think the problem is? The free market!
Insiders Selling the Rally
Insiders are selling this rally like crazy, so says The Pragmatic Capitalist:
“I recently wrote about reports that insider selling was at record highs and buying was practically non-existent. The selling has become even more alarming in the last week and the buying has slowed to an absolute trickle. Below you’ll find the list of latest insider buys and sells. The sells are staggering with the amounts ranging from $3MM to $63MM (and I was only able to copy one page). The buys, on the other hand, are meager and range from $100K to $635K (the $800K purchase is a few months old and shouldn’t be in the data). You’ll also notice that the screen came up with just 18 total purchases vs 170 total sales (the lowest of sell screen data were sales of over $400K which is not shown here due to the large size of the results…”
My Comment
Wall Street, as well as the administration, both want to boost the market for reasons that partially overlap. The administration wants to be able to justify the bail-outs and retain some of the shine of of the pre-election rhetoric of “change”. But too much optimism will work against legislation/reforms that need a certain amount of panic to be passed.
Wall Street, on the other hand, doesn’t want panic at any price. It wants stability and optimism. And is eager to jump at any positive news it gets.
Mike Martin at MartinKronicle has a long and interesting interview with Victor Sperandeo (of “Trader Vic”), who calls it – as most informed commentators do – a bear market rally. Sperandeo’s voice is a bit hard to follow but Martin’s questions are searching and cover a lot of ground.
Two points:
Sperandeo (like nearly everyone else) thinks currency depreciation is inevitable and massive inflation around the corner.
He’s pessimistic about the Middle East situation and anticipates more friction with Iran.
Bernanke and Paulson Pressured BOA-Merrill Merger
More evidence of behind-the-scenes string-pulling in the banking crisis:
NEW YORK (Reuters) –
Bank of America Corp CEO Kenneth Lewis testified under oath that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pressured him to keep quiet about losses at Merrill Lynch & Co, which the bank was buying, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Testifying before New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in February, Lewis said “it wasn’t up to me” to reveal Merrill’s fourth-quarter losses as they were becoming apparent in December, the newspaper said, citing a deposition transcript.
Shareholders of Merrill and Bank of America voted to approve the merger on December 5, and the transaction closed on January 1. Bank of America subsequently reported that Merrill lost $15.84 billion in the fourth quarter.
At Bank of America’s April 29 annual meeting, shareholders will vote on whether to force Lewis to step down as chairman of the largest U.S. bank or leave its board, because of Merrill and a falling share price…”
Read more at Reuters
My Comment
Why do people think nationalization will improve matters?
We’ve nationalized already…. unofficially.
Making it official won’t improve anything. It will just get people to accept what’s going on and legitimize the swindle.
We’re like bystanders at a mugging fighting over who ought to get the money the mugger left behind when he fled.
No. See mugging, call cops.
That’s how it’s supposed to go.
India’s Illegal Rendition?
Just saw this really interesting piece of news from early March 2009 on what looks like an illegal rendition (ala the CIA and Mossad) of an accused terrorist associated with the Bangalore blasts [July 2008]:
“In a top secret mission, a team of the Research and Analysis Wing tracked down an absconding accused in the Bangalore serial blasts case in Muscat, and sneaked him out of Oman, since India doesn’t have an extradition treaty with that
Sarfaraz Nawaz, 32, who allegedly played a major role in
Investigating officials told rediff.com that a RAW team managed to track down Nawaz in Muscat. They added that Nawaz was ‘smuggled into’ Bangalore on a chartered aircraft.
The entire operation was so secretive that even the Air Traffic Control was taken aback when they received a message to help the chartered aircraft land at the Bengaluru [Images] International Airport.
After landing at the airport, officials of the RAW and the Intelligence Bureau called top Central Industrial
The officials handed over Nawaz to the Bangalore police, who are currently questioning him.
Abdul Sattar, the prime accused in the case, had revealed Nawaz’s role in the serial blasts during his interrogation.
Nawaz was reportedly close to Riyaz Bhatkal, a key Lashkar-e-Tayiba [Images] operative, who later took over the charge of the Indian Mujahideen [Images].
With Nawaz’s arrest, the Bangalore police are hopeful of tracking down the remaining suspects, who might have fled the country after the Bangalore blasts.”
More here at Rediff.com
My Comment:
Here’s a piece I did a few years ago on jihad in India, specifically, in Bangalore, Jihad and Cyberworld.
And here’s a perspective from the Indian left, by Pankaj Mishra.
I’m generally sympathetic to the view presented by Mishra’s pieces, but there are some angles that strike me as off-base.
What I agree with
As I wrote in another piece on the subject (“Operation Romeo: Lessons On Terror Laws In Indian Country”), terror laws in India haven’t worked very well. It’s unlikely that adopting CIA/Mossad-type renditions (what next? assassinations?) will do better. Whatever immediate successes Indians might hope to gain from them will be marginal and fleeting next to the precedent renditions set for more secrecy, coverts ops and violation of international and national laws. There’s just too much scope for abuse of power.
What I disagree with is a passage like this one
Mishra:
“Apparently, no inconvenient truths are allowed to mar what Foreign Affairs, the foreign policy journal of America’s elite, has declared a “roaring capitalist success story”. Add Bollywood’s singing and dancing stars, beauty queens and Booker prize-winning writers to the Tatas, the Mittals and the IT tycoons, and the picture of Indian confidence, vigour and felicity is complete.
The passive consumer of this image, already puzzled by recurring reports of explosions in Indian cities, may be startled to learn from the National Counterterrorism Centre (NCTC) in Washington that the death toll from terrorist attacks in India between January 2004 and March 2007 was 3,674, second only to that in Iraq. (In the same period, 1,000 died as a result of such attacks in Pakistan, the “most dangerous place on earth” according to the Economist, Newsweek and other vendors of geopolitical insight.)”
Here’s my caveat:
Comparing India’s death toll from terrorism between 2004-2007 (3,674) to the death toll from terrorists in Pakistan (1000) and in Iraq is disingenuous, given the vast difference in the population and size of the three countries.
Per wiki:
India: Area 3,287,240 sq. k. Population 1,147,995,904 (2008 estimate)
Pakistan: Area 803,940 sq. k. Population 165,900,000 (2008 estimate)
Even if Mishra’s death numbers are right, India is only about four times the size of Pakistan, but it’s roughly seven times as populous. Indian deaths from terrorism, however, are only about four times as many as Pakistani deaths. That is, the number of deaths from terrorism is a bit over half of what it is in Pakistan.
That’s quite a bit of a difference. India’s far from being free of terrorist violence as “India Shining” advocates would have you believe.
But it’s also not as riven with violence as Pakistan. And, for whatever reasons, terrorists do in fact find safe harbor and training grounds in Pakistan.
Greenwald Calls Out Right-Wing Amnesiacs
From Salon, the tireless Glenn Greenwald calls out the amnesiacs on the right for double standards:
“Conservatives have responded to this disclosure as though they’re on the train to FEMA camps. The Right’s leading political philosopher and intellectual historian, Jonah Goldberg, invokes fellow right-wing giant Ronald Reagan and says: “Here we go Again,” protesting that “this seems so nakedly ideological.” Michelle Malkin, who spent the last eight years cheering on every domestic surveillance and police state program she could find, announces that it’s “Confirmed: The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real!” Lead-War-on-Terror-cheerleader Glenn Reynolds warns that DHS – as a result of this report (but not, apparently, anything that happened over the last eight years) – now considers the Constitution to be a “subversive manifesto.” Super Tough Guy Civilization-Warrior Mark Steyn has already concocted an elaborate, detailed martyr fantasy in which his house is surrounded by Obama-dispatched, bomb-wielding federal agents. Malkin’s Hot Air stomps its feet about all “the smears listed in the new DHS warning about ‘right-wing extremism.'”
Amazing chutzpah. Malkin’s, especially, considering that her magnum opus was a celebration of the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II, precisely the kind of violation of liberties she’s exercised about now.
No. Libertarians have to wash their hands off the two-party system entirely and admit that both parties are too compromised by their records to pose as civil libertarians and constitutionalists at this hour. Give the mic to the people whose record holds up, please.
Or to anyone else but these folks.
The Shill World Order
From a face-book link, The Shill World Order: Pushers of the False Left-Right Paradigm
“Now with the election of Obama, we see the friends that joined us under Bush, retreat to their liberal corner and take on the role the neo-cons did, in order to shield Obama from criticism. Therefore under Obama, government dissent equates to fascist extremist who hate blacks. This is the standard program that the corporate left uses in order to quell government dissent by hyping militia groups and racists. Just think back to all the subterfuge associated with groups on the right, who were against government corruption under Clinton. An unbiased look at the political environment back in the 90’s would show that they were not all extremist, and the events hyped up in the media had the fingerprints of COINTELPRO all over it.
Just recently in Philadelphia, 2 undercover officers organized a KKK rally and they were the only ones who showed up. Several people showed up to protest these racist who were actually cops. The anti-racist activists smashed the car of the posing skinheads, after they antagonized the protesters. An excerpt of witness testimony to the court is below.”
My Comment
Well, this has been my experience too. When you step outside the box and tell it like it is (and since I am a true outsider it’s been easier for me to do), you’ll get trouble.
First, you’ll be ignored.
This will be enough to get most novice writers to shut up and move to some safer ground. Maybe give up writing anything except what fits the mold of the alternative press (they have a mold too).
If by chance you survive that and still manage to get heard, you won’t get attributed. You may be read, but you’ll be subtly tarnished as a possible kook, racist (it doesn’t matter that you’ve never written anything remotely racist) or whack-job. Expect to be called a “wing-nut” if you’re anything other than a socialist. Criticize any of the following: Israel, the Israeli lobby, the media, the financial industry, the banksters. the Federal Reserve, drug and money laundering through the stock market, and also be a believing Christian or sympathetic to Christians and you can expect to be called anti-Semitic. (And if you’re also an immigrant from a developing/third-world/less developed (take your pick of the label, I can’t keep track) country, you’re obviously even less welcome as a critic – I mean, don’t you have enough to criticize in your own country?)
Expect everyone to nonetheless take your work and leads and run right on ahead without a blush of shame. They will, because they can. Those are the kind of people who are in charge. Shame isn’t in their vocabulary. They would have all resigned and taken up jobs in the post office if it was.
No matter what your credentials or your credibility, you will be ignored and tacitly coerced into shutting up and conforming.
If that also doesn’t work, expect other kinds of pressure…. to steer you in ways different from what you would want.
Next comes provocation. You’ll get blatantly racist or antisemitic emails that seem to contain news-worthy items. The idea is to bait you into replying so that it looks as if you’re in close contact with or pick up your ideas from unworthy material or sources.
Then come attacks. Emails calling you various nasty epithets from mild (moron) to severe (crack-pot bitch) will land up in your mailbox. Your mail will vanish or get deleted or moved around in your mailbox. Blog posts will show up on forums. Old articles go missing or get subtly vandalized.
(Correction: I’m now told that wordpress blogs aren’t easy to hack at all. So I might be okay there …)
You may get death threats – real or simply malicious foolery (last week’s episode).
I don’t expect any sympathy for this. Journalists have had their heads blown off for doing nothing much different. I only mention it to keep people’s eyes focused where they should be – on the government, not on all the divisions – class, race, color, religion – that the media keeps bringing up…
The Verdict Is In….
“In Lafayette Park, Washington D.C., of all places to protest, the plan was to dump one million tea bags in the park, but the brave dissidents never did it because they forgot to get the proper permits. Are you kidding me? What is civil disobedience without civil disobedience? They even went so far as to say that they were willing to put down plastic tarps and clean up after themselves.
That’s like saying we don’t agree with your oppressive, unconstitutional despotism of our nation and to show our ire in no uncertain terms we’re going to break public law and disrupt the peace so take that, nah- nah-ne-boo-boo. But don’t worry because we’ll put everything back when we’re done as if nothing happened cuz we don’t want any trouble!
Videos on the Internet of Lafayette Park show people standing around in their trendy turtlenecks and Tommy Hilfiger and North Face jackets, chatting, socializing, drinking coffee and talking on their cell phones. Some dressed in colonial garb (how cute) and waving flags. Others even break into a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner followed by a chant of “USA, USA, USA.” What a terrific show of meaningless symbolism….”
My Comment
My fear is that it’s not meaningless symbolism. It’s meaningful…but in the wrong way.
It’s meaningful because it focuses energy away from action that works to dressing up, going out, socializing, talking, waving flags etc. etc.
Which is why, with all due respect, I sat it out…..