The First 100 Days: What Did You Do?

Barack Obama was largely elected in response to the failures of the Bush administration. Has he or is he on his way to fixing anything? If so, what? Today we complete the first 100 days of Barack Obama's presidency and look back to see what we learned and how everyone has performed so far.

The Citizens of the US, Grade C+ (But YOU get an A)

Several important questions come to mind in the midst of a rapidly growing federal government that spoon feeds record profits for the defense, security, oil, banking, organized crime and pharmaceutical industries:

1) Is the government regulating industry or is it a tool of industry?

2) Why are the profits increasing for these industries while the quality of their work decreases? (ie, we have an increase in terrorism, war, bad banking, oil supply disruptions and illnesses)?

3) Does the president control the government or do industry and the government control the president?

4) How can we change things?

Is the general public asking any of these questions? I think more-so than usual, yes, thus the increase in political blogs. Most blogs, this one included somewhat, are however constantly reacting to what we're handed as opposed to driving agendas.

I understand the answers to 1-3:

1) Is the government regulating industry or is it a tool of industry?

 We've seen a slight improvement in this area under Barack Obama, but the government has been a tool of industry until we see otherwise. The Wall Street that sabotaged us, with ties to organized crime,  was catered to, without the promised oversight and just ahead of record profits. There is still hope for change in this area under a Barack Obama administration, but let's focus on the reality over the perceptions that the speeches leave us with.

2) Why are the profits increasing for these industries while the quality of their work decreases?

These are businesses, not altruistic entities. The government is giving them money but not demanding results or providing oversight. Was Iraq a failure or a success? A huge success for many companies. Ask questions. Use logic. Think for yourself. Be brave and vigilant. Ignore the alleged wisdom of crowds.

3) Does the president control the government or do industry and the government control the president?

When a puppet like Bush Jr is president, the answer is obvious, but even with someone who seeks to be a strong leader like Barack Obama, the balance may tilt a bit toward the president, but not by much. Just recently NYC's Ground Zero was buzzed by the US military without Barack Obama's knowledge. He is alleged to be furious.

4) How can we change things?

I don't have the answer other than what I've posted on this blog. Throughout history there has been a battle between the powerless many and the powerful few. US Democracy seemed to be the most recent evolution and response to this dilemna. It had been working quite well until financial entities became more powerful than governments. (For an entertaining comedy on the subject, see the movie Network.) In my opinion, in broadstroke, the nation did well to elect Barack Obama, but then expected Barack Obama to fix everything without giving enough time or input to the problems at hand. Are we now on the way to global government? Many might think that's a good idea, but isn't government today a misnomer? Until governments actually regulate and police the large-scale "bad guys" they are tools for them.

I know this: that we can change ourselves without government and that we can affect government by making our own culture, but that as a society many of us are too addicted to the culture that is made for us; we're too tired, we're too busy, we're too lazy. I can be guilty of these things as well, though I strive not to be.

A C+ is a bit rough, but as the world evolves, what we need to do becomes greater. Every reader of this blog and every post from readers of this blog gets an A, regardless of whether I agreed or not. Simply by taking the time to read what I shared or pointed to and to post your thoughts is being involved and does make a difference. Society is viral. You have affected me and that's one more independent input coming from a human being and not an industry. For that, I thank you....very much. I only needed one reader to motivate myself to write. We don't all need to be leaders of society, but if we're leaders of our own lives and always step up just a bit more, we'll always increase our opportunities for positive change.

The Federal Government, Grade F

The federal government is a huge place and most of it remains in place from president to president. During the past 100 days we heard that Dick Cheney essentially had a second chain of command running up to him, which included an assasination ring and with personnel that are still working against Barack Obama from within the government. There seems to be a never ending battle within the cowboy world of intelligence agencies; with one hand of the government fighting the other, one hand hurting the US and the other trying to help it. The size of it increases as it becomes more and more privatized. The contract process has not changed, with no bid contracts (no competition) and cost+ contracts (incentivized to run over budget) still being the norm. Despite rhetoric in Obama's speeches, there is still little to no oversight anywhere in government. It's as if the politicians and department heads mereley serve to distribute contracts while putting on a good show for the public.

Barack Obama, Grade B-

The campaign speeches Barack Obama gave in that amazing and inspiring hard-working campaign he ran indicated that he knew what the problems in our country were -- he talked about corruption, he pointed out that the Iraq occupation had empowered Iran and made Israel weaker and he even mentioned the contract process I mentioned above. Some of his critics said that he was nothing more than a master politician. I have not been thrilled by his presidency yet. I do think he's an improvement over Bush, but if you raise a plane up by 20 degrees that is heading downward at 45 degrees, the plane is still going downward. 

On the positive, Obama has improved perceptions of the US simply by using the bully pulpit and sounding intelligent and rational. He's tackling the deep economic problems with a stimulus package I agree with (I wasn't however a fan of the bailouts -- let bad businesses fail). What about wars for profit? What about regulations? Oversight that was promised? Why is he protecting the Bush administration's secrets?

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) on Tuesday released a report card-style review of the Obama administration’s progress in overturning President Bush’s controversial national security measures, giving President Obama high marks for most actions except for a “troubling” use of secrecy.

We need more. He has time, but I believe he needs our help. He's going to respond to the loudest voices. Who are those going to be?

Eureka for the Pharmaceutical Industry!

Pharmaceutical Companies are going to make a lot of money on flu. The federal government is seeking an additional $1.5 billion for swine flu vaccinations.

Three years ago, the Bush administration awarded about $1 billion to vaccine makers as a way to increase and speed production. Several vaccine makers, including Baxter and Sanofi-Aventis, the "Blackwater of bugs", were awarded multimillion-dollar contracts: :Sanofi Aventis Invests 100 Million Euros In New Facility In Mexico to Produce Seasonal and Pandemic Influenza Vaccine.

Legitgov.org is tracking interesting oddities about the flu here. One oddity is the name: Swine Flu, whereas swine can't get this strain -- only humans.

If you are going to get vaccinated against it, should you be concerned about Baxter's vaccination? They are making a vaccination, but previously one of their vaccinations CONTAINED H5N1 (the human form of avian flu). They sent it to labs in Czech Republic, Germany and Slovenia. Initially, Baxter refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1, invoking “trade secrets.” After increased pressure, they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident.

A container of swine virus samples packed in dry ice exploded on a Swiss train, injuring one person but posing no other risks to humans, police said on Tuesday. The box held vials of swine flu virus, although a different strain than the H1N1 variety that has caused about 150 deaths in Mexico and infected people in the United States, Canada, Spain and Britain. A technician was transporting the container on Monday night to the Swiss national flu centre in Geneva, where scientists are developing a flu test for humans, police said.

The U.S. Army is finishing an investigation into the disappearance of three vials of a potentially lethal pathogen from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Feb. 10). 

Scientists have shown that tiny changes to modern flu viruses could render them as deadly as the 1918 strain which killed millions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3719990.stm

Flashback: CDC to mix avian, human flu viruses in pandemic study

The United States has flatly denied allegations it was producing biological weapons from bird flu samples sent by Indonesia to the World Health Organization, the English daily The Jakarta Post reported Monday. Michael H. Anderson, counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia, [has issued the denial]. However, Indonesian senior biodefense researcher Isro Samihardjo said the U.S. could use bird flu virus samples from Indonesia to develop weapons at the Los Alamos Laboratory. Isro was speaking at a meeting about Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari's newly released book here Saturday. In her book "It's Time for the World to Change, Divine Hands behind Bird Flu," Siti writes of her suspicions about a conspiracy between the U.S. and the WHO.

What is the US government but a bunch of private companies, no?

Jan 14, 2004 (CIDRAP News) – One of the worst fears of infectious disease experts is that the H5N1 avian influenza virus now circulating in parts of Asia will combine with a human-adapted flu virus to create a deadly new flu virus that could spread around the world.

That could happen, scientists predict, if someone who is already infected with an ordinary flu virus contracts the avian virus at the same time. The avian virus has already caused at least 48 confirmed human illness cases in Asia, of which 35 have been fatal. The virus has shown little ability to spread from person to person, but the fear is that a hybrid could combine the killing power of the avian virus with the transmissibility of human flu viruses.

Speaking at a conference to reassure the public over hers government's response to the swine flu threat, Indonesian Heath Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said Tuesday that the controversial virus could have been man-made.

She declined to elaborate on her claim but she had previously accused Western governments of making and spreading viruses in the developing world to boost pharmaceutical companies' profits, AFP reported.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=92794&sectionid=3510212

Warning: Extreme right-wing groups are dangerous & growing

And here I thought extreme right-wing had become the acceptable norm: famous right-wingers like Cheney, Netanyahu, Ahmadinejad and Osama Bin Laden were previously always invited to the tea party, no? Does Osama signify a real, a perceived shift or a little of both?

Right-wing extremists are the biggest danger to the US. That upsets our right-wing politicians and business leaders.

Right-wing billionaires are manufacturing rowdy tea-parties.

Libertarians say republicans are hijacking their tea parties.

Obama may protect extreme right-wingers re: torture.

Hate groups increase dramatically.

Somalians accuse the west of pirate-like activities in dumping nuclear waste on their coast.

Extreme left-wing, extreme right-wing; either one leads to larger more centralized government, generally corrupted by business interests and organized crime and generally blaming extremists as a justification for their own extremism.

No?

Physics

Interesting.



"Scientists found an active high-quality ‘super-explosive’ in the dust collected after the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001 and the finding is completely contradictory to the findings of the official investigation financed by the American administration with George W. Bush at the helm.

The Open Chemical Physics Journal published a peer reviewed study by retired professor Steven E. Jones, doctor Niels Harrit and other scientists who scientifically proved that traces of “a highly engineered explosive” had been found in the rubble and dust collected after the falls of WTC 1, 2 and 7.

According to the U.S. government, “The cost and production rate of super-thermite composites has limited the use of these materials in DoD applications”.

"

What?!?

"A team of nine scientists have released a startling new report on the events of 9/11, using data from dust gathered in the days and weeks after the towers came down. They discovered that scattered throughout the dust samples were red and gray chips of 'active thermitic material', or an un-reacted pyrotechnic explosive.

"In a study published by the Open Chemical Physics Journal -- a peer-reviewed, scientific publication -- Steven E. Jones and Niels Harrit level a stark allegation: that within the dust and rubble of the World Trade Center towers lays evidence of "a highly engineered explosive," contrary to all federal studies of the collapses."

"HONG KONG -- A quarter of the world's companies, and 40 percent in the United States, plan to freeze salaries this year, but employees in South America and India can look forward to robust rises, a global survey shows on Tuesday."

"The high-profile proprietor of a second feeder fund has been charged in connection with Bernie Madoff's multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme."


Your Job:
Take the day off

Shake down

Organized crime has long been involved in drug traffic, money laundering, arms dealing and terror financing and over the recent past, more and more, media and government. The American public consequently more and more gets its news, information and government from...organized crime. This would have seemed outlandish years ago, but now it's just one more piece of information that just passes us by while we do...what are we doing?

One hand of the government is creating problems while the other hand tries to solve them. It's an an ever-growing multi-dimensional cottage industry but cottage industries provide jobs...

Decriminalizing drugs leads to less drug abuse?

Champions of harsh drug criminalization laws as the best solution to curbing drug use will be chagrined to find that Portugal’s eight year history of decriminalization has led to lower drug usage rates.

Mexican President: US officials are involved in drug trade.

Obama protecting illegal Bush programs

President Barack Obama invoked "state secrets" to prevent a court from reviewing the legality of the National Security Agency's warantless wiretapping program, moving late Friday to have a lawsuit that challenged the program dismissed.

Some might say this science is a smoking gun that should be investigated. Some might say that the story will get legs even if the TV news ignores it:

The Open Chemical Physics Journal: Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade

We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples we have studied of the dust produced by the destruction of the World Trade Center. Examination of four of these samples, collected from separate sites, is reported in this paper. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. One sample was collected by a Manhattan resident about ten minutes after the collapse of the second WTC Tower, two the next day, and a fourth about a week later. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red material contains grains approximately 100 nm across which are largely iron oxide, while aluminum is contained in tiny plate-like structures. Separation of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum are intimately mixed in the red material. When ignited in a DSC device the chips exhibit large but narrow exotherms occurring at approximately 430 °C, far below the normal ignition temperature for conventional thermite. Numerous iron-rich spheres are clearly observed in the residue following the ignition of these peculiar red/gray chips. The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.

I like enjoying life and being as uplifting as possible, so I'm fighting the cynicism that tells me we are incapable as a society of processing, investigating, comprehending, accepting or responding to such a smoking gun.

From one of our readers:Escape from the Zombie Food Court

No matter how smart we may think we are, the larger world cannot and does not exist for most of us in this room, except through media and maybe through the shallow experience of tourism, or in the minority instance, we may know of it through higher education. The world however, is not a cultural history course, a National Geographic special or recreational destination. It is a real place with many fast developing disasters, economic and ecological collapse being just two. The more aware among us grasp that there is much at stake. Yet, even the most informed and educated Americans have cultural conditioning working against them round the clock.

Your Job:
Speak up

Look over there

If the attacks on 9/11 were allowed to happen or if the severity of the attacks were augmented, wouldn't scientists be able to demonstrate that?

Scientists insinuate the WTC towers came down from secondary explosions.

A team of nine scientists have released a startling new report on the events of 9/11, using data from dust gathered in the days and weeks after the towers came down. They discovered that scattered throughout the dust samples were red and gray chips of 'active thermitic material', or an un-reacted pyrotechnic explosive.

Banks Knowingly Allowed Fraud, Geithner Covering UP

In an explosive interview on PBS' Bill Moyers Journal, William K. Black, a professor of economics and law with the University of Missouri, alleged that American banks and credit agencies conspired to create a system in which so-called "liars loans" could receive AAA ratings and zero oversight, amounting to a massive "fraud" at the epicenter of US finance.

Your Job:
Tell ME what to do. These are two huge stories, but why won't they affect us?

How will we react to another terror attack?

Will we rally around revenge while again marginalizing all those not focused on counter-attacking someone, anyone, whoever seems to be loosely guilty. Will there be time to investigate the crime, go after all that helped let it happen and truly end the financing and training of the militants? "Why are you waiting," the public might ask. "Why aren't we attacking Iran now?" the politicians and media talking heads might demand. Advertising rates will increase as the public tunes in to hear all about this group called "Al Qaeda of Iran" while obvious oddities are ignored. When the public is mourning and afraid, they are eager to trust leadership and get revenge, regardless of who it's against. Revenge is sloppy. Tragedy changes things.

Obama runs the government, right? He's a good guy; the days of questionable terror events, war and torture that fosters terrorism, the politicization and profiteering of terrorism are over, right? Obama's in charge and Dick Cheney is gone, right? The questionable connections between terrorism, organized crime, terror financing and politicians are a thing of the past, no? The defense industry and organized crime are too busy taking over banks to.... but wait, wars and a response to terrorism are very profitable ways (for banks, defense/security industries and organized crime) to get out of a deep recession....

So what's the harm in being a bit more alert right now? Fear is the wrong response to terrorism though it's the one that politicians and war/security businesses would probably rather have you experience. Revenge is sloppy and we're easily misled.

Dick Cheney has not left the building.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has moles in the Obama government which report back to him from the Pentagon, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh told NPR and MSNBC on Tuesday.

Speaking with NPR's Terri Gross, Hersh revealed that the former Vice President -- who he characterized as "really smart" -- has individuals that report back to him from key positions in government. He called these individuals "stay-behinds," an intelligence term generally applied to insiders left behind in foreign governments after the occupying power is driven out.

"He’s put people back," Hersh said. "They call it a stay-behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay-behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do.

"Cheney’s left a stay behind," Hersh continued. "He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence."

So who has more influence over the Pentagon, Dick Cheney and Israel (who also have "moles in the Pentagon") or Barack Obama?

What's Barack Obama going to do about any of this -- Dick Cheney ran an assassination ring and nothing happens. Does the president run the government or does the government run the president? You know what I think.

Your Job:
Pay attention. Be alert. Don't be afraid.

Revolution, Evolution, Devolution

Revolutions can be profitable.

Type	Who Profits	Pro	Con
Cultural	General public, artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, creators, media distributors and related	Potential for societal evolution and increase of power to the people	None, from the perspective of the general public
Technological	Creators, users and distributors of technology	Potential for societal evolution and increase of power to the people	May lesson power of public while increasing power of government/big industry
Physical (Storm the capital)	Government, defense & security industry, gun makers	None - not possible in the US/illegal to suggest	Lessons power of public while increasing power of government/big industry

Is not our best hope to change ourselves through culture? Maybe my assumptions are wrong -- what do you think?

Take Time to Smell the Flowers

So many other things stink.

Historically we're a hard-working, hard-playing nation that has had little time for smelling flowers, but the saying is still appropriate -- is it not a good idea to MAKE time in order to appreciate life? If we don't appreciate what we still DO have, what are we fighting for? But wait, who's fighting to make the nation a better place? Aren't most people too busy doing other things, like working, playing and watching people smell flowers on TV?

Would a 1900s American fight to stop this:
- 20% reduction in pay
- 25% reduction in home value
- Increase in rent costs
- 500% increase in the cost of milk

- 500% increase in the cost of produce

- Increased terror, violence and war, all for profit

??

The numbers may be inaccurate, but this what we're faced with today. I'm asking you, do we a fight IN us? How can we work hard for less money, play hard at a higher cost and now FIGHT while still smelling the flowers?

Our ancestors I think WOULD fight for that. They fought against being taxed and unrepresented. Do we have any fight left in us or put a fork in us, we're done? This is a challenge, not a statement of pessimism.

There are REASONS prices are going up and your pay is going down. Are you resigned to accept this?

I still like Barack Obama, but prior to him being elected, I wrote that liberals would be dissatisfied with his government, not because of any distrust in Barack Obama, but because I see our system in charge of our politicians, not our politicians in charge of our system. Sure, there are some differences between the parties and certainly between George Bush and Barack Obama, but liberals and conservatives need to realize our system wants little to do with fiscal conservatism, social programs or free markets.....unless MAYBE we fight HARD for those things. We can fight for the nominal difference between parties during elections, but now is the time to come together as a PEOPLE, OUTSIDE of the traditional channels of mainstream media and take back our nation. Is that even possible?



The Quiet Coup:Former IMF Chief Economist: The US is a Banana Republic:

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

In other financial industry/organized crime news and just when you thought AIG couldn't be any more screwed up, Wayne Madsen, who was arrested/intimidated recently while working on this story, writes about AIG's airplane business and ties to Stanford and US covert ops.

Comments:
BlankPhotog said (re: WHO ARE WE?)...
"We live in a stacked set of petri dishes. Workplace culture, street culture, coffee house culture, art culture, shopping culture, road culture... bike culture. Most people have a hard enough time affecting one culture, let alone the whole stack. There's carryover. Spillover. Runoff. We let the bad people/culture/pathways fester, or reward them (both are as evil) and we get some bad germs/memes infecting the stack. We go the other way, and we get some kind of antibacterial cleansing. Nasty! But to embrace the notion that there's any kind of short term balance between these two may lead one to abandon the idea of cultural change. We're making the cultural poisons as we consume them, adapt to them, jam on them. They kill us; others take our/their place. Stronger, weaker, weirder. But are we weird enough? I think not."

Your Job:
Make time for "smelling the flowers", but if you don't also make time helping ween our government from the various powers that be, such as the financial industry, the result might be that the government seizes the flowers, privatizes them and then docks your paycheck everytime you want to smell them. 

Who ARE We?

What is US culture? TV shows, bad movies and hamburgers? Rock n roll? Weapons? Fast food? Big cars? Baseball? Apple pie from Walmart? China? Your local musician, artist and filmmaker?

Is US culture outsourced? Can we make our own culture?

Can we control our own culture? Me, me, me, I know that one. YES, we can!



Every day I react to the news I read. When this blog is more about pointing out what's going on instead of pointing out what we CAN DO differently, I'm at best, giving myself therapy, raising awareness of issues, providing a unique perspective, highlighting or making a specific criticism or motivating someone.....to do what? Anger without action...what good does that do? Am I creating something new or am I just tweaking the wake from the motorboat of mainstream media?

We can change ourselves and others by improving, creating and defining our own culture. This might be the most under-appreciated tool we have. It may be the most powerful tool we have.

So how does one change their culture? Via improved consumption, creation and advocacy. Give good stuff more attention and bad stuff less attention. Good and bad are of course subjective but without subjectivity, there'd be no diversity. Advocate that good stuff and don't advocate or give power to the bad stuff (via attention) -- ie, tell people about stuff. Create something if you can, and that can be anything from writing a comment on a blog to making an independent movie. All three of these are powerful. Pick any and go!

What do YOU think?

What power (foreign) lobbyists?

Earlier this month Charles Freeman, once the ambassador to Saudi Arabia, after being rumored to be nominated to the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, was attacked by many pro-Israeli groups for his outspoken views on Israel and alleged ties to Saudi Arabia and China. On his way out he claimed that pro-Israeli groups have a stronghold on US politics:

"The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.

There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies (re: his alleged influence by Saudi Arabia and China) by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States. "

"The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired. The tactics of the Israel lobby plumb the depths of dishonour and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the wilful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth."

"The aim of this lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favours."

In the New York Times Freeman had said “Israel is driving itself toward a cliff, and it is irresponsible not to question Israeli policy and to decide what is best for the American people.”



Debate over Freeman himself aside, this raises a few questions which beg discussion where discussion seems taboo. Two of them are:

1 - Do foreign lobbies have too much power over the US political process? Who has more power, the US citizen or Saudi Arabia? At the time of the Katrina hurricane, more US money was being spent on displaced settlers in Israel than displaced New Orleans residents. On one hand, character assassination has indeed been used to stifle discussion, but on the other hand, many critics are bigots that have stereotyped entire populations based on religion -- the result is that most people simply don't want to talk about any of this. It's too controversial. How do we get past that? Regardless of how much power various foreign lobbies have, or who has the most or the second most, etc, foreign lobbies certainly have power. Whenever discussing power is taboo we have a problem, as citizens of a country that need it's government to prioritize us as #1.

2 - Are the foreign lobbies helping themselves? Is US foreign policy helping the US, Saudi Arabia or Israel? (or China, etc)Specific hard-right policies have been espoused by foreign lobbies in the name of the foreign entities that they represent. Have those actually been helpful or hurtful to their causes? Foreign nations have a problem when narrow-minded or radical groups wholly represent them. For instance, the occupation of Iraq has empowered Iran. That hasn't helped Saudi Arabia or Israel. Right-wing radicalism, from any nation, seems to encourage more right-wing radicalism. Barack Obama seems to get this, but what's he going to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

My goal here is not to condemn foreign (or domestic) lobbies but to encourage discussion about them. Lobbying of all kinds continues to dramatically increase, meaning money & power continue to increase their hold on whoever we vote in.

Your Job:
Break a taboo. Discuss openly the above issues, either here or in everyday life, with an open-mind and without bigotry.

Happy Monday!

"WE have to change"

One reader (BlankPhotog) makes some excellent points and suggestions:

"Obama is a necessary shift away from the Bushites, but he's still safely ensconced in the politics of a self-perpetuating two-party system that's built on the bubble of an ever-growing economy by-any-means-necessary. I happen to like Obama. But for America to reap the benefits of change, WE have to change. And to some extent that's an unreasonable expectation. Real, sustainable change would be a shock to everything about how we live, our expectations of the future for ourselves and our children, and what we must do to survive. Historically we don't handle such shocks well as human beings or as Americans. We overreact. We underreact. We point fingers and switch parties, and the system remains the same, or on the same disastrous course.

A President reacting to the real crises we have been facing for the last 15-20 years would have had more of a chance to fix and prevent problems than Obama will have. My expectations for Obama are few, as a result...

We need to fire the economic system that supports and defends private profit at public cost. "

Your Job:
It's Suggestion Sunday. What do you suggest we do?

"The Big Takeover"

Wall Street robbed you and then used the robbery to gain significant control.

Don't read the excerpts that I quoted below from Matt Taibbi's MUST-READ Rolling Stone article. Instead, just go read the article. It's one of the best, if not the best, on what's taken place.

It's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity...

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — "our partners in the government," as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.

The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers...

As complex as all the finances are, the politics aren't hard to follow. By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future.

Know Thy Disaster Capitalism

Oil prices rose when two US navy vessels collided. 

"The book and film, THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, argue that the free market policies of Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics have risen to prominence in countries such as Chile under Pinochet, Russia under Yeltsin, the United States (for example in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina), and the privatization of Iraq's economy under the Coalition Provisional Authority not because they were democratically popular, but because they were pushed through while the citizens of these countries were reacting to disasters or upheavals. It is implied that some of these shocks, such as the Falklands war, may have been created with the intention of being able to push through these unpopular reforms in the wake of the crisis.

Disaster Capitalists Reap Profits

The rise of disaster capitalism

Olberman: Break Up the Banks

""Break up the banks. Regulate the financial industries, to within an inch of their existences. Roll back corporate legal protections. Make liable the officers of corporations for their debts and for their deeds. Resurrect the rallying cry of a hundred years past: bust the trusts!"

Who's in charge?

And what are they in charge of?

Some people expect Barack Obama to be capable of fixing everything. Why hasn't Obama made Congress less corrupt? or Why hasn't he fixed the potholes on my street?

But he should be in charge of the executive branch, no? There's a discrepancy between how people perceive the government to be run as a top-down organization and the reality that politicians are for the most part puppets to advisors, lobbyists and industry.  Is that also true about Barack Obama? He speaks as if he's trying to change that.

Neocons designed a policy which made money for the defense and security industries and appeased hard-core right-wingers in Al Qaeda, organized crime, Israel and Iran, to name a few. Bush was a puppet. Obama and Clinton seem like strong personalities that wouldn't be puppets. How much power does the US president have however? Do they tend to simply approve and sign what is handed to them? Why did Obama pick the advisors he picked? Were they handed to him?

Who's in charge; the financial elite, with it's ever-growing military and organized crime ownership or Barack Obama? The first group is tied to oil, arms and drug trades and money laundering. Is the president a weak individual or is Barack Obama another public face of the financial elite's drive to destroy that which we cherish and they find to be burdensome overhead; democracy, independence and the US Constitution, for example. I believe we should consider the former, that Obama's political speeches aren't total lies, that he is trying to make change, but that he's one man against a tidal wave of people who don't want change or to help the everyday American, but that every US president ends up being put in a bubble of limited information and disinformation and ultimately controlled by advisors, lobbyists and industry.

Josh Marshal writes:

What is so damaging about this isn't the money... The problem is what appears to be the president's mortifying impotence in the face of bankers and financiers who created the problem. The president speaks and acts for the federal government, which is to say, the American people, who have mobilized more than a trillion dollars and all powers of the state to repair the damage emerging out of the financial sector. And with all that, he's jacked up on a employment agreement between a company the government now owns and derivatives traders who sank the world economy and may quite likely be looking at criminal charges for their activities in the not too distant future?

How strong is the US President? Does he need to fire Geithner? David Lindoff thinks so:

He should promptly demand Geithner's and Summers' resignations, and should also fire the CEO of AIG, Edward Liddy (as 80% owner of AIG, the US has the power to do that anytime). It would also be a good idea at the same time to fire the CEOs of all the leading banks that are at this point surviving on government bailouts.

This would allow Obama to correct the fundamental mistake he made during the transition period following the November election in installing a bunch of Clinton-era economic advisors and Bush holdovers to be his economic team.

Was the bailout itself a scam?

Rober Scheer says:

It's an important glimpse into the cesspool that is Wallstree, but it’s a side show, you know, and I know it’s confusing—millions, billions, trillions. But the real scandal is—the money—AIG is basically a shell game at this point, and they’re passing the money through AIG to the big banks, the former stockbrokers and so forth. Goldman Sachs got the biggest amount, $12.5 billion. The head of AIG was on the board of directors and the head of the audit committee for Goldman Sachs for five years. The Treasury Secretary that put this deal together, Paulson, under Bush was the head, was the CEO of Goldman Sachs. The guy who administered the TARP fund was a vice president at Goldman Sachs. The Democrat who made all of this deregulation possible, Robert Rubin, when he was Secretary of Treasury, and then Lawrence Summers who followed him, Rubin had been the head of Goldman Sachs. And they pushed through the basic deregulation that allowed these banks to become too big to allow to fail.

So while I think it’s a terrific teaching moment to see how excessive the pay is for people who basically brought the world economy to its knees, which are these so-called executives, and I think there is a real phony in that they had to be given these bonuses for retention—Andrew Cuomo, in his letter to Barney Frank, pointed out that the eleven of the top people who got these bonuses have already left the firm, so that really doesn’t hold water. But I think the real scandal here is that we’re supposed to own 80 percent of AIG, and maybe the Fed and the Treasury are in on it, but basically it’s being used as a shell to pass on money to these banks, Goldman Sachs being the leading one, and that should be examined, because I think that is really a criminal waste of our money.

As readers know, organized crime and the Carlyle Group (uber war profiteering venture fund) has been buying up banks at discount rates. A few people related are getting in trouble:

The indictment charges that Morris and others corrupted billions of dollars worth of investments from which they reaped more than $30 million in undisclosed fees, gifts, and bribes. Over twenty investment deals were allegedly tainted by the defendants’ kickback schemes and fraudulent self-dealing, including the following:

...Five investments involving The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity funds, totaling approximately $730 million in capital commitments from the State pension fund. Morris and his partner obtained over $13 million in sham placement fees.

Many people tortured at Gitmo are innocent. Are we manufacturing future terrorists?

U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar

Obama on Leno:

One reader, BlankPhotog, posted this, showing again how we're experiencing more of a correction, than a depression or recession:

Americans lived in a "Made-off" and Ponzi bubble economy for a decade or even longer. Madoff is the mirror of the American economy and of its over-leveraged agents: a house of cards of leverage over leverage by households, financial firms and corporations that has now collapsed in a heap.

When you put zero down on your home, and you thus have no equity in your home, your leverage is literally infinite and you are playing a Ponzi game.

And the bank that lent you, with zero down, a NINJA (no income, no jobs and assets) liar loan that was interest-only for a while, with negative amortization and an initial teaser rate, was also playing a Ponzi game.

And private equity firms that did over a $1 trillion of leveraged buyouts (LBOs) in the last few years with a debt-to-earnings ratio of 10 or above were also Ponzi firms playing a Ponzi game.

A government that will issue trillions of dollars of new debt to pay for this severe recession and socialize private losses may risk becoming a Ponzi government if--in the medium term--it does not return to fiscal discipline and debt sustainability.

A country that has--for over 25 years--spent more than income and thus run an endless string of current account deficit--and has thus become the largest net foreign debtor in the world (with net foreign liabilities that are likely to be over $3 trillion by the end of this year)--is also a Ponzi country that may eventually default on its foreign debt if it does not, over time, tighten its belt and start running smaller current account deficits and actual trade surpluses.

Whenever you persistently consume more than your income year after year (a household with negative savings, a government with budget deficit, a firm or financial institution with persistent losses, a country with a current account deficit) you are playing a Ponzi game. In the jargon of formal economics, you are not satisfying your long-run inter-temporal budget constraint as you borrow to finance the interest rate on your previous debt, and are thus following an unsustainable debt dynamics that eventually leads to outright insolvency.

According to Hyman Minsky and economic theory, Ponzi agents (households, firms, banks) are those who need to borrow more to repay both principal and interest on their previous debt; i.e., Minsky's "Ponzi borrowers" cannot service either interest or principal payments on their debts. They are called "Ponzi borrowers" as they need persistently increasing prices of the assets they invested in to keep on refinancing their debt obligations.

By this standard, U.S. households whose debt relative to income went from 65% 15 years ago, to 100% in 2000, to 135% today were playing a Ponzi game.

And an economy where the total debt to GDP ratio (of households, financial firms and corporations) is now 350% is a Made-Off Ponzi economy. And now that home values have fallen 20% (and they will fall another 20% before they bottom out) and equity prices have fallen over 50% (and may fall further), using homes as an ATM to finance Ponzi consumption is not feasible any more. The party is over for households, banks and non-bank highly leveraged corporations.

The bursting of the housing bubble, the equity bubble, the hedge funds bubble and the private equity bubble showed that most of the "wealth" that supported the massive leverage and overspending of agents in the economy was a fake bubble-driven wealth. Now that these bubble have burst, it is clear that the emperor had no clothes, and that we are the naked emperor. A rising bubble tide was hiding the fact that most Americans and their banks were swimming naked; and the bursting of the bubble is the low tide that shows who was naked.

Madoff may now spend the rest of his life in prison. U.S. households, financial and non-financial firms, and government may spend the next generation in debtor's prison having to tighten their belts to pay for the losses inflicted by a decade or more of reckless leverage, over-consumption and risk-taking.

Americans, let us look at ourselves in the mirror: Madoff is us and Mr. Ponzi is us!

Your Job:

What are you thoughts on Barack Obama?

Change

Obama's Treasury Department pushed to allow the executive bonuses.

Homeland Security has internment camps for protesters.

Wayne Madsen was arrested:

"In the eight years of the Bush-Cheney administration, I covered anti-war protests in Washington and never once did I face an arrest situation, although there were some close calls. My arrest-free journalism record was shattered last night in Alexandria, Virginia, while meeting a confidential source.

I hoped to report today on a significant link between “Sir” Allen Stanford’s collapsed Stanford Financial Group and a top Democratic Party lobbyist who is close to the Obama administration. I also hoped to report on the covert activities of Stanford’s operations in Venezuela and Panama."

Still no torture indictments from Obama admin

National Service now mandatory for young people