“Corporatist System
But BP’s defenders and statist critics both have it wrong. This is not the story of a well-meaning or negligent firm operating in the free market. Negligent or not, BP is a player in a corporatist system that for generations has featured a close relationship between government and major business firms. (It wouldn’t have surprised Adam Smith.) Prominent companies have always been influential at all levels of government — and no industry more so than oil, which has long been a top concern of the national policy elite, most particularly the foreign-policy establishment. Continue reading
Is The Flotilla Story About Perception Or Reality?
“The bid to shape global perceptions by portraying the Palestinians as victims of Israel (my emphasis) was the first prong of a longtime two-part campaign. The second part of this campaign involved armed resistance against the Israelis.”
— Stratfor (George Friedman) cited by John Mauldin’s Outside the Box Continue reading
Glenn Greenwald: US No Different From Israel
“One can express all sorts of outrage over the Obama administration’s depressingly predictable defense of the Israelis, even at the cost of isolating ourselves from the rest of the world, but ultimately, on some level, wouldn’t it have been even more indefensible — or at least oozingly hypocritical — if the U.S. had condemned Israel? After all, what did Israel do in this case that the U.S. hasn’t routinely done and continues to do? Continue reading
Citigroup Fires Banker For Being Too Hot
Update:
Ms. Lorenzana apparently had some pictures of herself on facebook…Doesn’t sound so professional…
And Citi seems to be claiming that her allegations are false. The ostensible reason for her firing is that she was incompetent – behind on sales.
So let’s wait for more information… Continue reading
We’re Too Broke To Be This Stupid
“The Spanish government pays over $800,000 for every “green job” on a solar-panel assembly line. This money is taken from real workers with real jobs at real businesses whose growth is being squashed to divert funds to endeavours that have no rationale other than their government subsidies—and which would collapse as soon as the subsidies end. Yet Tim Flannery, the Aussie climate-alarmist who chaired the Copenhagen racket, says we need to redouble our efforts. “We’re trying to act as a species,” he says, “to regulate the atmosphere.” Continue reading
Was Atheism The Source Of Communist Cruelty?
Peter Hitchens, brother of Christopher, the well-known journalist and professional atheist, reflects on the role of religion in restraining human beings from evil actions (Daily Mail, March 15, 2010):
“Left to himself, Man can in a matter of minutes justify the incineration of populated cities; the deportation, slaughter, disease and starvation of inconvenient people and the mass murder of the unborn. I have heard people who believe themselves to be good, defend all these things, and convince themselves as well as others. Quite often the same people will condemn similar actions committed by different countries, often with great vigour. Continue reading
9-11 Related Stock Fraudster Elgindy Tipped Off By SEC Officers
“Two U.S. Securities and Exchange enforcement officers released nonpublic SEC information to a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and a short seller who were convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy in 2005, an SEC watchdog’s report said Tuesday. One SEC officer on several occasions talked with the FBI special agent about the progress of agency probes of companies, Inspector General David Kotz said in his semi Continue reading
Privileged Victims Versus Unprivileged Victims
Michael Neumann (at Counterpunch) is to be commended for his bravery in stating what’s obvious to the non-Western world but seems to elude many Western commentators (yes, and that’s “collectivist” – it’s a generalization, but it happens to be accurate):
:”What is remarkable about the story of Canada and wartime Jewry is not the callousness, but the pangs of conscience, which highlight the morally privileged position of Jews vis-à-vis other victims of oppression. Despite the antisemitism of at least some immigration officials, there is no reason to suppose that Canada’s policy on Jewish refugees was itself antisemitic, or that it victimized Jews. Continue reading
Spilling The Wrong Blood
From Lynda Brayer, a human rights lawyer living in Haifa, Palestine, who is an active participant in the One State in Palestine movement and supports the Return of Palestinian Refugees to Palestine.
“Furthermore, what exacerbates the image problem for the Israeli government is that it is no longer Arab blood that has been spilt, but nice “white” or “European” blood that, in the West, is different from Arab or Muslim blood. The international reverberations and the trial against Israeli officials in the case of Rachel Corrie, who was deliberately murdered by an Israeli bulldozer driver for attempting to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home, should have provided sufficient warning to the Israeli regime of what is now about to unfold. Having chosen to confront the flotilla, it has now fallen into the proverbial biblical pit of its own making! Continue reading
Strategies Of Tension
The Daily Bell on the tensions between Israel and the world as an elite manipulation:
“The creation of the tiny theocratic state of Israel was not something that came about because of an upsurge in sentiment that such a state was needed. Even Dr. John Coleman, who has written a recent (fairly vituperative) history of the Rothschilds, explains that the Jewish state was an invention of the elites – especially the Rothschilds – not a movement that bubbled up from Jewish populations around the world. The book, written in 2007, certainly makes a case for the Rothschilds as the driving force in the political developments and wars of the 19th and 20th century, especially. The motivating idea – the goal – is one-world government, though Dr. Coleman does not spell out the linkage between the state of Israel itself and the larger issue of global governance. Continue reading