Author Archives: Lila

Bill Blum on the Obama Cult

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Bill Blum at the Anti-Empire Report:
“The praise heaped on President Obama for his speech to the Muslim world by writers on the left, both here and abroad, is disturbing. I’m referring to people who I think should know better, who’ve taken Politics 101 and can easily see the many hypocrisies in Obama’s talk, as well as the distortions, omissions, and contradictions, the true but irrelevant observations, the lies, the optimistic words without any matching action, the insensitivities to victims.  Yet, these commentators are impressed, in many cases very impressed.  In the world at large, this frame of mind borders on a cult.
In such cases one must look beyond the intellect and examine the emotional appeal.  We all know the world is in big trouble — Three Great Problems: universal, incessant violence; financial crisis provoking economic suffering; environmental degradation.  In all three areas the United States bears more culpability than any other single country. Who better to satisfy humankind’s craving for relief than a new American president who, it appears, understands the problems; admits, to one degree or another, his country’s responsibility for them; and “eloquently” expresses his desire and determination to change US policies and embolden the rest of the world to follow his inspiring example.  Is it any wonder that it’s 1964, the Beatles have just arrived in New York, and everyone is a teenage girl?
I could go through the talk Obama gave in Cairo and point out line by line the hypocrisies, the mere platitudes, the plain nonsense, and the rest.  (“I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States.” — No mention of it being outsourced, probably to the very country he was speaking in, amongst others. … “No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons.” — But this is precisely what the United States is trying to do concerning Iran and North Korea.) But since others have been pointing out these lies very well I’d like to try something else in dealing with the problem — the problem of well-educated people, as well as the not so well-educated, being so moved by a career politician saying “all the right things” to give food for hope to billions starving for it, and swallowing it all as if they had been born yesterday.  I’d like to take them back to another charismatic figure, Adolf Hitler, speaking to the German people two years and four months after becoming Chancellor, addressing a Germany still reeling with humiliation from its being The Defeated Nation in the World War, with huge losses of its young men, still being punished by the world for its militarism, suffering mass unemployment and other effects of the great depression.  Here are excerpts from the speech of May 21, 1935.  Imagine how it fed the hungry German people.
———————
HITLER:
“….. Germany, too, has a democratic Constitution.  Our love of peace perhaps is greater than in the case of others, for we have suffered most from war.  None of us wants to threaten anybody, but we all are determined to obtain the security and equality of our people……….
The German Reich, especially the present German Government, has no other wish except to live on terms of peace and friendship with all the neighboring States. Germany has nothing to gain from a European war.  What we want is liberty and independence.  Because of these intentions of ours we are ready to negotiate non-aggression pacts with our neighbor States.
Germany has neither the wish nor the intention to mix in internal Austrian affairs, or to annex or to unite with Austria.
The German Government is ready in principle to conclude non-aggression pacts with its individual neighbor States and to supplement those provisions which aim at isolating belligerents and localizing war areas…….
Germany is ready to participate actively in any efforts for drastic limitation of unrestricted arming. She sees the only possible way in a return to the principles of the old Geneva Red Cross convention. She believes, to begin with, only in the possibility of the gradual abolition and outlawing of fighting methods which are contrary to this convention, such as dum-dum bullets and other missiles which are a deadly menace to civilian women and children.
To abolish fighting places, but to leave the question of bombardment open, seems to us wrong and ineffective. But we believe it is possible to ban certain arms as contrary to international law and to outlaw those who use them. But this, too, can only be done gradually.  Therefore, gas and incendiary and explosive bombs outside of the battle area can be banned and the ban extended later to all bombing.  As long as bombing is free, a limitation of bombing planes is a doubtful proposition. But as soon as bombing is branded as barbarism, the building of bombing planes will automatically cease.
Just as the Red Cross stopped the killing of wounded and prisoners, it should be possible to stop the bombing of civilians……
The German Government is of the opinion that all attempts effectively to lessen tension between individual States through international agreements or agreements between several States are doomed to failure unless suitable measures are taken to prevent poisoning of public opinion on the part of irresponsible individuals in speech, writing, in the film and the theatre.…… [1]

— End of speech excerpts —

How many people in the world, including numerous highly educated Germans, reading or hearing that speech in 1935, doubted that Adolf Hitler was a sincere man of peace and an inspiring, visionary leader?

NOTES
[1] The entire speech can be found at: http://members.tripod.com/~Comicism/350521.html

Reiki Therapy at Maryland Trauma Center

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Alternative medicine gets some recognition at the University of Maryland:

“At one of the nation’s top trauma hospitals, a nurse circles a patient’s bed, humming and waving her arms as if shooing evil spirits. Another woman rubs a quartz bowl with a wand, making tunes that mix with the beeping monitors and hissing respirator keeping the man alive.

They are doing Reiki therapy, which claims to heal through invisible energy fields. The anesthesia chief, Dr. Richard Dutton, calls it “mystical mumbo jumbo.” Still, he’s a fan.

“It’s self-hypnosis” that can help patients relax, he said. “If you tell yourself you have less pain, you actually do have less pain.”

More in this AP report.

Time to Run

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My latest piece, “Time to Run”, at Lew Rockwell:

“Is it time to run?

That’s what I’ve been asking myself for three years now.

Before that, I thought it was simply a matter of finding a better place to live. A place that was quieter and cheaper. Where flippers and developers hadn’t taken over the neighborhood. Somewhere safe I could park my car on the street and not worry about it.

But by the time I found it, I also found that the thieves were inside the house, not on the street. There’s really no hiding from them. And no hiding from what they can do.
Our mene, mene, tekel upharsin is on the wall.

It’s time to run, not hide.
I mean that. We’re in the throes of an economic collapse of a kind last seen in the 1930s. The government is intent on grabbing control of whatever it can. American firms are dropping like flies. Unemployment is soaring. Debt is soaring. The money supply is soaring. Our foreign policy is a wreck – we have more enemies than we can count. We have a drug war on the borders, we have gang war in the ghettos, we have culture wars in the academy and media.

We have criminals in government.
The future isn’t any brighter. Subprime is only the first leg down. We still have a second wave of housing trouble in store, centering around commercial real estate and option ARM loans.

Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research, wrote a piece last year predicting that by 2012 there would be food riots, tax rebellion, and revolution across the country. Celente has a good track record in the forecasting business.

Experts predict a 100% rise in prices across the board. In the best-case scenario, it will happen over ten years. In the worst case, it might happen within months….”

Read the rest at Lew Rockwell

Paul Craig Roberts on the End of Empire (comment added)

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Washington Arrogance Has Fomented a Muslim Revolution
by Paul Craig Roberts

Hat-tip to David Redick for the link

“In a government of law, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”

~ Justice Louis Brandeis

Is Pakistan responsible for the Mumbai attack in India? No.
Is India’s repression of its Muslim minority responsible? No.
Is the United States government responsible? Yes.

The attack on Mumbai required radicalized Muslims. Radicalized Muslims resulted from; (Item numbers inserted by ARTS)

1. the US overthrowing the elected government in Iran and imposed the Shah;
2. from the US stationing troops in Saudi Arabia;
3. from the US invading and attempting to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq,
4. bombing weddings, funerals, and children’s soccer games;
5. from the US violating international and US law by torturing its Muslim victims
6. from the US enlisting Pakistan in its war against the Taliban;
7. from the US violating Pakistan’s sovereignty by conducting military operations on Pakistani territory, killing Pakistani civilians;
8. from the US government supporting a half century of Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their lands, towns and villages;
9. from the assault of American culture on Muslim values;
10. from the US purchasing the government of Egypt to act as its puppet;
11. from US arrogance that America is the supreme arbiter of morality.

As Justice Brandeis said, crime is contagious. Government teaches by example, and America’s example is lawlessness. America’s brutal crimes against the Muslim world have invited every Muslim to become a law unto himself – a revolutionary. It is not terror that Washington confronts but revolution……

The change over which Obama will preside will have no American victories. The change will come from

1. America as a failed state,
2. from the dollar dethroned as reserve currency,
3. from America repudiated by its allies and paid puppets,
4. from massive unemployment for which there is no solution,
5. from hyperinflation that produces anarchy.
6. The day might arrive when Washington is faced with revolution at home as well as abroad.

December 5, 2008

My Comment

Roberts’s piece is provocatively stated, so I thought should add this comment.  I think he’s fairly correct to state that the Pakistani and Indian governments are not to blame, fundamentally, for what’s happening. However, to the degree that these governments – like others – tend to take the line of least resistance and  go along with Washington’s agenda, or buy into it, or stand on the sidelines while that agenda is enacted elsewhere, they encourage the misdeeds of the prime culprit. And, to the degree that they are themselves corrupt or lawless,  they don’t help the situation…

(Not following either of the two countries’ internal politics, I can’t do more than make a general statement).

How not to go along, you might ask?

Well, there’s Angela Merkel’s recent condemnation of global central bank interventionism. Why can’t we hear more of that from the global community?

Or has the cat got its tongue on every issue but the issue of Israel-Palestine?

What’s the Point of Dollar Devaluation?

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“If all a country needed to do to achieve manufacturing supremacy and economic dominance was devalue their currency then Georgia and Bosnia would be considered paragons of economic prosperity.”

—   Michael Pento, via 321 gold.

Aha. The folly of naivete. Mr. Pento’s mistake is to think that manufacturing supremacy is what our oligarchs have in mind for the US.  He must be kidding.

The goal is to destroy US economic independence (let alone dominance) and subjugate it to an international cabal centering around….guess who…the oligarchs.

The Muddled Market

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The market is talking out of all sides of its many mouths:

  • USD/JPY is rallying and most currencies strengthened against the dollar, except the pound, suggesting a return to the risk trade.
  • But……the pound sank..suggesting risk aversion
  • But…the stock markets are up, suggesting an increase in risk appetite
  • But……. the bond  market is teetering as long bond yields are soaring, an indication that bond traders are skeptical about the future outlook
  • But…..gold and silver prices are hitting resistance and falling back, suggesting either technical exhaustion or some return of risk appetite
  • But….gold and silver prices are still high, especially for the season, which suggests widespread uncertainty about the economy
  • But….jobless claims are down, which is good news for the economy

What does your earnest blogging-trader do on a day like this? She sits on the sidelines and spends the day printing charts of the indices. She also reviews her most recent trading sins and repents. Here’s her mea culpa.

I repent that I entered a trade with panic rather than reason.

I repent that I entered it on a Friday morning before a long weekend (last week) when the markets were thin and volatility greater than normal.  I also didn’t calculate the spread and bought higher than I should have.

I repent that I forgot about position size and just dumped whatever I could into it

I repent that when the trade moved in my favor, I didn’t sell the whole position but left half in

I repent that I didn’t do the fundamental analysis but did a multicultural trade – picking 12 currencies that sounded good to me.

I came out alright, but it was pure fluke.

Your blogging-trader did not lose money. She made a bit. Enough to pay some pressing bills. She should be thankful, but being a trader, she knows that making money on a bad trade, is not the way to go.

Update: Non-farm payrolls came in at negative 345k after an expected negative 525k – signaling that the recession could have bottomed. This should feed the risk trade, which means my multi-currency trade (Koruna, Nordic currencies, and Singapore dollar) should end up alright (I’m a bit in the red now).  The time frame is one more week or two)

Is Madoff’s Ethnicity Relevant?

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Dr. Phyllis Chesler comments on the Madoff fraud,at Pajamas Media (originally published at Jewcy).

“Yes, of course, Madoff’s betrayal is unforgivable. He has gutted an entire generation of Jewish philanthropic wealth, destroyed trust within the Jewish philanthropic world but, far more important, impoverished widows, orphans, and the elderly and, in so doing, endangered and shamed the Jewish people at a time when we have many real, not merely neurotically imagined enemies.……..

In the Middle East, graft and nepotism make the wheels turn. Everyone is on the take. Beggars aren’t beggars, entire civil services are staffed by one or two clans. I could tell you a thing or two about corruption in southern Asia today, let’s say in Afghanistan, that would make Heller’s Catch-22 seem like child’s play. Everyone, from the President on down is on the take and opium is a most abundant and attractive cash crop. The Afghan drug lords are addicting, infecting, and murdering entire global populations with their poppies as are those who buy and sell the heroin. No one holds the Afghans accountable. But woe to the Jewish nation that has harbored, abetted, profited from, or has even been fleeced by Madoff, the greedmaster.”

My Comment

This is an interesting commentary from just after the Madoff story broke and it makes some good points.But I think it’s on shaky grounds in one or two other places..

I’m  posting it today because I recently posted two pieces that some might see as critical of the Jewish people. Mind you, I don’t.  I see criticism of Madoff or of US Israeli policy as simply criticism of a conman and of international criminality.

On the other hand, I also don’t think religion or ethnicity is irrelevant to that criticism, any more than religion or ethnicity was irrelevant to criticism of George Bush (hmmm…did I hear any voices raised to protest the attacks on fundamentalist Christianity, whites, Anglos, Wasps? No, I think not).

And  is there any let up whatever in the criticism of Islam (Islamofascists), Muslim extremism, jihadis, violent Middle Easterners, etc. etc? None whatever. Doesn’t the color black get dragged into discussion of crime in the ghetto? Didn’t the phrase “Hindu extremism” pop up in discussions about Godhra?

It seems pretty natural to me that people would point out the religion or ethnicity of conmen, especially when the con men are relying on both to play their con game.

Torture Pictures You Can See and Torture Pictures You Can’t…

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In the news last month, was a torture tape that implicates a UAE royal sheikh (who isn’t in the government) in acts of sadism. In it a uniformed policeman watches as the victim (who shortchanged the Sheikh in a grain deal) is whipped, beaten, electrocuted, and run over by an SUV).  From an ABC report on the tape:

“The Sheikh begins by stuffing sand down the man’s mouth, as the police officers restrains the victim. Then he fires bullets from an automatic rifle around him as the man howls incomprehensibly…..

He uses an electric cattle prod against the man’s testicles and inserts it in his anus. At another point, as the man wails in pain, the Sheikh pours lighter fluid on the man’s testicles and sets them aflame…….

The Sheikh then pulls down the pants of the victim and repeatedly strikes him with board and its protruding nail. At one point, he puts the nail next to the man’s buttocks and bangs it through the flesh.

“Where’s the salt,” asks the Sheikh as he pours a large container of salt on to the man’s bleeding wounds. The victim pleads for mercy, to no avail.

The final scene on the tape shows the Sheikh positioning his victim on the desert sand and then driving over him repeatedly. A sound of breaking bones can be heard on the tape.”

This is all pretty gruesome and horrific. The Sheikh is clearly a monster. But that torture exists in Arab countries is not new. Can there be more to explain the media highlighting of this tape? Remember, it took CBS several years before it got around to the Iraq torture story (it was first reported in the US in 2001. The CBS expose of Abu Ghraib was in 2004).

Could it have anything to do with a recent piece of legislation?

Barack Obama, is throwing his weight behind The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009,  passed on June 1, 2009. What this does is make the Secretary of Defense certify whether any images of prisoner treatment between September 11, 2009 and January 22, 2009 would endanger military personnel or US citizens, and at his discretion and without any possible review, prevent their disclosure. The certification lasts for three years and can be renewed indefinitely.

Here’s Glenn Greenwald on the subject:

“For decades, we had laws in place authorizing citizens to sue their telecommunication carriers if the telecoms allowed government spying on their communications in violation of the law, but when it was revealed that the telecoms did exactly this, the Congress simply changed the law retroactively so that it no longer applied.  For decades, we had laws imposing civil and criminal liability on government officials who engaged in or authorized torture, but when it was revealed that our government did that, the Congress just retroactively changed the law to protect the torturers.  And now that courts have ruled that our decades-old transparency law compels disclosure of this torture evidence, the Congress is just going to retroactively change the law — again — this time to empower the President to suppress that evidence anyway.”

Greenwald acts surprised, which is a bit funny. What did he think? That Obama was going to change things?

It makes you wonder if the Abu Dhabi tape was given airtime simply to provide enough impetus (as in, See, they do it too – and  so much worse ) to pass this horrible bill.

Madoff Feeder Funds Sued for Complicity in Fraud

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After having said I won’t touch the Madoff story until my site gets a bit more protection, I
couldn’t resist this latest confirmation of something I said way back in December – that the feeder funds probably knew perfectly well what was going on and that “philanthropy” in many instances was just a cover for criminal activity or for misuse of funds.  Note the similarity to the scandals at Fannie and Acorn, where the mandate to help poorer people get housing loans also provided moral cover for crime.

One critic correctly points out that Madoff targeted charities, precisely because their pay out every year was only 5% of their capital. This was ideal for a Ponzi scheme, since it allowed Madoff to give out very little of what he took in each year.

“the American Jewish Congress which “defends Jewish interests at home and abroad through public policy advocacy using diplomacy, legislation and the courts.” It reported about 24 million dollars in assets, but only spends about 3 million dollars per year. At that rate, it could have continued its work through 2017 without further fundraising or investment income. Instead they invested their money with Bernie Madoff, losing 87% of the endowment!” [Who Made Off With Our Tzedakkah? Time to blame the victims,” Daniel E. Loeb]

I told you back then that people who’d made out like bandits would be suing as though they were victims. How did I know that? Well – I taught high school.  There’s nothing about human nature, good and bad, you don’t see there..

I know how well-heeled non-profits operate. Half the time, money meant to benefit children never gets to them. It ends up in the pockets of administrators, lawyers, and various salesmen and middlemen.

The whole educational/research establishment is rife with fraud of all kinds. Some of it is unintentional fraud – where the money gets to the intended recipient, although the activity of the recipient (the research or whatever else) is pretty much a dead-end or a waste. But in other cases, the fraud is intentional, as below.

Here’s the latest from Fox News:

“Also among those sued Tuesday is one of the leading educational philanthropies in the United States, which claims it was wiped out by Madoff’s far-reaching fraud.

The complaint filed Tuesday alleges the Picower Foundation and several related entities made nearly $7 billion by investing with Madoff. At least $5.1 billion of that came out of the pockets of victims of a giant Ponzi scheme, and should be returned, it [the complaint by court-appointed trustee Irving Picard] said.”

And more:

“The Palm Beach, Fla.-based foundation had given millions to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Human Rights First and the New York Public Library. It also funded diabetes research at Harvard Medical School.

The trustee’s Picower complaint says Madoff managed accounts that earned astronomical returns over 13 years. One purported to earn 950 percent in 1999.”

My Comment

Very different from the spin we first heard, right? Remember they were telling us back in January that the funds returned very average earnings and no one could be expected to have seen through the scheme? Turns out that that wasn’t quite the way it was.  Nearly thousand percent returns? How hard is that to question?

This also confirms what I said in “Nationalization in a Time of Monopoly,” as well as in a later piece “Nightmare on Wall Street”:  A lot of the fraud was committed at the height of the bubble economy and involved a number of players. [Note: Obviously, Picard’s allegations are just that at the moment. We will have to wait and see how the suit plays out to get a better idea and hear more of the evidence on either side].

Far-fetched conspiracy theory?

Not at all. There are only a limited set of powerful actors at the highest levels of Wall Street. Bernie Madoff wasn’t a sidekick. He played at the top.  The people at the top knew him (I mean, SEC honchos, leading bankers and money managers, government bigwigs). He didn’t do all this without a wink and a nod.

Which means there’s more going on here than meets even Picard’s eye. But  until I get my site better protected, I’m not planning on digging any more…

Meanwhile, on the Madoff connection to the mob, there’s an interesting post at Deep Capture blog, which has this:

“After Milken was indicted, Black rallied to Milken’s defense. It was Black [Leon Black], more than anyone, who prevented Drexel from firing Milken. And Black has remained obstinately loyal to the criminal Milken ever since. After Milken went to prison, Black founded the Apollo Group, an investment partnership that received most of its initial funding from a French aristocrat named Rene Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet.

Among Black’s first moves as an independent “prominent investor” was to launch a takeover bid for Executive Life, a bankrupt insurance and financial services conglomerate…….Later, though, it emerged that Black’s takeover of Executive Life had been illegal because he had secretly been fronting for certain French investors, including Monsieur Rene Thierry de La Villehuchet. Some of the French investors had illegally parked stock with Black to hide their involvement (“parking stock” being one of the favorite techniques of the Milken-Boesky-Thorp crew, and a recurrent theme in the 98-count indictment that sent Milken to jail).”

The French aristocrat, Rene Thierry de la Villehuchet, was the manager of one of the Madoff feeder funds. He killed himself earlier this year,  reportedly from a sense of honor toward his clients whose money was lost in the scam. But if the account at DeepCapture is to be believed, he seems to have been involved in rather shady deals even before getting together with Madoff.