October 2008

Iraq and the Arrogance of Washington
Posted: Sunday, October 26, 2008

¤ Chagos islanders lose battle to return
¤ Oil prices plunge, gas prices follow
¤ Bush welcomes Albania, Croatia into NATO
¤ Pound falls to five-year low as Bank head admits recession is here

¤ It's official: the economy is shrinking
The Bank of England was under intense pressure last night to cut interest rates after new figures showed the economy had contracted for the first time in 16 years as it heads into recession.
The news hammered the FTSE 100 index, which lost as much as 9% of its value at one point, wiping £90bn off the value of leading shares. It also clobbered the pound, which suffered its biggest fall against the dollar since 1992, to below $1.53 - a six-year low. As recently as July, the pound would buy $2, but it has been falling rapidly on evidence that the economy is slumping. The pound also hit a record low against the euro yesterday of just under 82p.

¤ Police Declare 'Mutilation' of McCain Worker in Pittsburgh a Hoax
It had drawn wide local and national--even political attention, with some of the candidates for president/vice president weighing in or even calling -- but now the story has fallen apart. Police in Pittsburgh have declared it all a hoax and are charging the McCain worker at the center of the episode.

¤ Police: McCain volunteer made up robbery story

¤ Waiting for the Curtain to Rise
So what happened to the Bush/Cheney pre-election attack on Iran? It’s like everything else. You think you have months. You put it on one side, in the “things to be done tomorrow” pile. Suddenly it’s a matter of weeks, then days. Then the moment just slips away. The father of one of my neighbors here in Petrolia had been a captain in the Wehrmacht and fought at Stalingrad. He’s dead now but a few years ago my brother Andrew once asked him, “Captain, what happened at Stalingrad?” “Vell, Andrew, the Fuehrer didn’t wanted to avoid casualties. Und then the equipment was running out. A tank here, a tank there. Und then..then it was too late!”

¤ Manufacturing Sympathy

¤ Iraq and the Arrogance of Washington
I should be used to it by now, but I'm not. When I read statements from US policymakers telling the world that Iraq is still not capable of defending itself without US help, I am still angered and amazed at the bold-faced arrogance. Most recently, several US political leaders and generals have told the Iraqi and American people that only they know when it is time for US troops to leave Iraq.

¤ Bolivia Rejects Neoliberalism
¤ Domestic Violence and Financial Stress
¤ Pakistan Rejects 'America's War' On Extremists

¤ Under Cover of Racist Myth, a New Land Grab in Australia
Its banks secured in the warmth of the southern spring, Australia is not news. It ought to be. An epic scandal of racism, injustice and brutality is being covered up in the manner of apartheid South Africa. Many Australians conspire in this silence, wishing never to reflect upon the truth about their society's Untermenschen, the Aboriginal people.

¤ The United States is supporting Israeli-sponsored terrorism
¤ But Wait ... By Palin's Definition, Mohamed Atta Isn't A Terrorist

Rich-Poor Divide Worst Among Rich Countries
Posted: Wednesday, October 22, 2008

by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - The "American Dream" of upward social mobility appears to have emigrated from its birthplace in the United States to northern Europe, according to a major new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the growth of economic equality over the past 20 years.

Of its 30 member states, most of which are also members of the European Union, the United States has the largest gap between its wealthiest and poorest households after Mexico and Turkey, according to the report, "Growing Unequal?", which was released at OECD headquarters in Paris Tuesday.

That gap has grown particularly large in the U.S. since 2000 -- that is, under the administration of President George W. Bush -- according to the report, which found that the gap between the U.S. middle class and the wealthiest 10 percent has also increased.

Full Article : commondreams.org

The New Kleptocracy
Posted: Tuesday, October 21, 2008

¤ Wall Street higher on hopes of credit recovery
¤ The New Kleptocracy
¤ Chavez says "Comrade Bush" turns left in crisis
¤ 991 suspected militants indicted in Saudi Arabia
¤ Oil rises to $75 as OPEC eyes production cut
¤ Big Brother database threatens to 'break the back of freedom'
¤ On Columbus Day, Correcting Columbus’ Legacy
¤ U.S. gasoline price marks biggest drop ever: survey
¤ Peru's Garcia Accepts Resignation of Entire Cabinet
¤ China cancels military contacts with US

¤ Racism, Obama and the Fall of the American Economy
Trade, within a society and between countries, is the exchange of goods and services produced by human beings. The owners of the means of production appropriate the profits. As a class, they are the leaders of the capitalist state and they boast of fostering development and social wellbeing through market. This they worship as an infallible God.
In every country there is competition between the strongest and the weakest; the ones with more physical energy and better fed, those who learned how to read and write, who attended school and have more experience accumulated; the ones with more extensive social relations and more resources, and those within society who fail to have these advantages.

¤ The God That Failed: The 30-Year Lie of the Market Cult
¤ Human Rights Watch Exposes Hugo Chavez Yet Again

¤ Why the Rescue Plan is Fraudlent
The Wall Street took the US (and the world) hostage and extracted a heavy ransom. But while the enormous ransom was successfully extracted, there are no guarantees that the hostages will be set free from the shackles of trickle down economics. On the contrary, there are strong indications that the fraudulent (and perhaps criminal) bailout may turn the current crisis into a protracted agony of a long bleeding economic depression.

¤ Fed aids money markets; Wall Street falls
The Federal Reserve and governments around the world loosened strained financial markets on Tuesday by pumping in more money and launching bank rescues, but poor corporate profits and recession fears drove down commodities and U.S. stocks.

¤ When Ike Hit Haiti

¤ Prosecuting Bush
Might it be possible that President George Bush and his co-conspirators in military aggression will some day be held to the same international standards as the designated enemies – to the very norms that U.S. leaders themselves so righteously champion when it comes to Serbs and others? Could Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney, secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, and the entire gang of neocon ideologues responsible for bringing the Iraq debacle to the world ever be judged according to the principles of Nuremberg, the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. Charter, and other canons of international law? Within prevailing American discourse, the very idea that U.S. leaders might be prosecuted for war crimes is, more than ever, beyond the scope of tolerable debate.

¤ When Greed is Rewarded
Just as the Bush regime’s wars have been used to pour billions of dollars into the pockets of its military-security donor base, the Paulson bailout looks like a Bush regime scheme to incur $700 billion in new public debt in order to transfer the money into the coffers of its financial donor base. The US taxpayers will be left with the interest payments in perpetuity (or inflation if the Fed monetizes the debt), and the number of Wall Street billionaires will grow. As for the US and European governments’ purchases of bank shares, that is just a cover for funneling public money into private hands.

¤ How the Banksters are Making a Killing Off the Bailout
In 1897, when 8-year old Virginia O’Hanlon posed her Santa Claus query to the New York Sun, she received a heart-warming editorial response reassuring her that “He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist...”
Today, we hand our 8 year olds a $13 trillion national debt while our Congress hands Wall Street banksters the national purse without so much as a hearing to determine the cause of the debt collapse. Worse still, the money is doled out to the very same individuals who leveraged their institutions to casino status.

¤ Cuba's Oil Reserves

¤ Empire and White Supremacy
What happens to a nation once its most privileged symbols have been thoroughly discredited? Where does a country turn to begin again?
After eight years of the Bush-Cheney regime, the United States confronts these questions in light of a deep and profound crisis of legitimacy. The current crisis is intimately shaped by the demands of 21st century American imperialism and is reflected in the (un)spoken language of white supremacy.

¤ How Inflation Works
¤ Wealth's Apostles
¤ Why Wont The Bail Out Work? Video
¤ The Grand Illusion of American Power
¤ The Idiots Who Rule America
¤ Why Is America So Content With Mediocrity?
¤ The Great Reagan Pyramid Scheme Comes Crashing Down
¤ About 200K Ohio voters have records discrepancies
¤ The Partial Nationalization of US Banks

Afghan Peace Talks Widen US-UK Rift on War Policy
Posted: Friday, October 10, 2008

By Gareth Porter
October 10, 2008

WASHINGTON - The beginning of political talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban revealed by press accounts this week is likely to deepen the rift that has just erupted in public between the United States and its British ally over the U.S. commitment to an escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

According to a French diplomatic cable that leaked to a French magazine last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government is looking for an exit strategy from Afghanistan rather than an endless war, and it sees a U.S. escalation of the war as an alternative to a political settlement rather than as supporting such an outcome.

The first meetings between the two sides were held in Saudi Arabia in the presence of Saudi King Abdullah Sep. 24 to 27, as reported by CNN's Nic Robertson from London Tuesday. Eleven Taliban delegates, two Afghan government officials and a representative of independent former mujahideen commander Gulfadin Hekmatyar participated in the meetings, according to Robertson.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith of the British command in Afghanistan enthusiastically welcomed such talks. He was quoted by The Sunday Times of London as saying, 'We want to change the nature of the debate from one where disputes are settled through the barrel of the gun to one where it is done through negotiations.'

Full Article : ipsnorthamerica.net

Now it all makes sense
Posted: Thursday, October 9, 2008

¤ Dow plunges 679 for 6th triple-digit loss in a row

¤ Now it all makes sense
I must admit that I have always wondered about the reason(s) the US had when it used all of that military power in the last war, which caused Iraq to return to the Stone Age. I also wondered about why the US had to build the two biggest military bases in the world there, when it had bases pretty much everywhere in that region.
I wondered about these things, not because I am naive and I do not know how ruthless the US is, I wondered because it is obvious that there were many ways the US could have used to take control of Iraq without using this tremendous force and this degree of destruction and it chose this way. Now I believe, I know why it all happened the way it did.

¤ From Enron to the Current Meltdown

¤ Latin American and Caribbean Unity
The initiatives taken in Venezuela have had a significant impact throughout the subcontinent, what has now come to be called "the pink tide." The impact is revealed within the individual countries, most recently Paraguay, and in the regional institutions that are in the process of formation.

¤ The West is Broke
October the 7th was a day of high drama and panic on both sides of the Atlantic. The New York Stock Exchange suffered further massive losses, despite the $700 billion rescue package coming into force. In London, shares in the banking sector collapsed, some falling by as much as 40 percent. The Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, admitted that the risk of a deeper economic slump had increased. And George W. Bush, whose presidency looks destined for an ignominious end, pleaded for coordinated action by the leading industrialized countries. The International Monetary Fund estimates financial losses of around $1.4 trillion. But there is no certainty. They could be higher.

¤ The Shadow of the Pitchfork: Elite Panic as Bailout Goes Bust
¤ US May Take Ownership Stake in Banks
¤ Global gamble: the fightback begins...

¤ The Dow Tanks as Bank Bailout Fails to Restore Confidence
¤ A Futile Bailout as Darkness Falls on America
¤ Bailout Dish Has Heaping Side of Pork

¤ Making Some Sense of $700b
How much is 700 billion? The mind registers the number with such imprecision as to make it meaningless. One blogger proposed this way of grasping the figure: As a stack of $100 bills, it would reach 54 miles high. But who can imagine that? On the other hand, someone at the Smithsonian once calculated that counting to one billion, at the rate of one digit per second, would take 30 years. By that scale, counting to 700 billion would take 21,000 years.

¤ Brazil, Argentina abandon US dollar
¤ The Good News About the Bailout
¤ Russian stock exchanges shut down until Friday as prices plummet
¤ Bush to America: Hang in there

¤ US Has the Most Prisoners in the World
¤ It Takes a Village to Raise an Idiot: California and Parental Rights
¤ IMF: World economy to slow sharply, led by US

¤ Rural Communities Best Equipped To Cope With Climate Change
¤ Americans’ Satisfaction at All-Time Low of 9%
¤ The Cop-Out Election
¤ Time To Face The Facts On Afghanistan

¤ Dehumanizing Metaphors in 'War on Terror'
"As the Bush term nears its end, it remains clear that the ‘war on terror’ – though discredited and acknowledged as illegitimate – will be pursued under the watch of either Obama or McCain. Neither of them has given any clue that they are aware of the nightmare of Bush’s legacy from which people are struggling to awake."

¤ Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets

¤ Men with sexist views 'earn more'

¤ Without a Trace: The Smokeless Gun of Flagrant Election Fixing
¤ Why America's Problem Is Cultural, Not Political
¤ US, NATO Attacks Killed 3,200 Afghan Civilians Since 2005: Study
¤ Ecuador's Choice
¤ US Inquiry Revises Herat Civilian Toll, Still Disputes UN, Afghan Accounts

Vladimir Putin lashes US for economic failures
Posted: Wednesday, October 1, 2008

¤ Vladimir Putin lashes US for economic failures
The Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States today for what he said was its inability to deal with the financial crisis affecting the global economy.
In remarks unlikely to go down well in Washington, Mr Putin was especially critical of Congress's rejection of a $700 billion bank bailout – a rejection that hit Russian financial markets particularly hard.

¤ America Loses Its Dominant Economic Role

¤ Wall Street's Masters of the Universe are dethroned
Wall Street looks the same: the same sharp-suited brokers swinging the same monogrammed attaché cases; the blue-jacketed traders smoking and gossiping outside the Stock Exchange; the same air of ambient wealth, gambling and nervous expectation.
Yet Wall Street has changed for ever, and everyone on it knows

¤ Soros floats alternative bailout plan with Dems

¤ Money sent home by Mexicans in US drops 12 percent
Mexicans living in the U.S. sent home 12 percent less money in August, the largest drop on record since the Bank of Mexico began tracking remittances 12 years ago, the central bank reported on Wednesday.
After years of record gains, remittances have dropped across Latin America. In Brazil, immigration to the U.S. dropped dramatically after the real rose in value against the dollar.
In Mexico, Mexicans began sending less money home this year, economically stranding many small towns and neighborhoods that live off the stipends. The Bank of Mexico said remittances will likely continue to fall in the coming months because of the "difficult problems the U.S. economy faces."

¤ 'Is testosterone to blame for the financial crisis?'
¤ Severe fuel shortage grips parts of US southeast

¤ Bailing on Poverty and Ordinary Americans
¤ Congratulations, Corporate Crime Fighters!
¤ Blind Men Bluffed, and Won. We Lost.
¤ Government Is the Grave Threat
¤ Stop the Bailout!

¤ Political Jabs, Sarah Sinking, and the Bailout Opera
"Since the U.S. and world markets started tanking after the House vote, it seems imperative that Congress immediately set to work to craft another bill to somehow prop up the financial system -- so as to let the markets quickly know that something is being done to solve the badly damaged credit system. But Congress must now take into account many of the objections that sunk the Paulson plan, chief among them the size of the bailout and the crushing debt-burden that would harm U.S. taxpayers for generations."

¤ Republicans on the Left and Democrats on the Right
¤ The Last Hold Up

¤ Why Not a Bailout for the Rest of Us?
As the smoke cleared after Monday's stunning House of Representatives vote against a $700 billion financial bailout for Wall Street, the politicians immediately got down to the business of blaming each other--and scheming about the next attempt to push through this rescue of the super-rich.
But for working people trying to figure out what the hell has happened to the U.S. financial system--and why the leaders of the U.S. government, apparently regardless of political party, are prepared to spend more than $2,000 for every man, woman and child in this country to save Wall Street--the reaction was different.

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