Nicholas von Hoffman on Kevin Phillips’ ‘Bad Money’

Nicholas von Hoffman | Truthdig | October 31, 2008

Americans, rich or poor, have consciously or otherwise bought into the master-nation proposition that really bad things do not happen to the USA. We might suffer setbacks and commit a blunder once in a while, but we are too big, too rich, too smart, too powerful and too blessed to be visited by a national catastrophe. That the whole goddamn economy could melt right out from under our feet is an unimaginable event, an occurrence out of history when crackly voiced recordings captured President Franklin Roosevelt talking to the Okies.

Such disasters may overtake Argentines or Malaysians or Bulgarians or Russians or even, occasionally, the English, but not the red, white and blue über-nation. Yet in the space of a year the U.S. has gone from über-nation to under-nation, or at least a nation under water as hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs, been tossed out of their homes and seen the savings of a lifetime decimated. Americans have seen many of the most respected business institutions revealed as organizations run by confidence men whose cupidity is yoked to their pride and their stupidity in believing that they could run their ruinous games forever.

Peter Dale Scott & former Democratic Congressman Dan Hamburg on Continuity of Government

Recorded August 8, 2008, Peter Dale Scott and former Democratic Congressman Dan Hamburg discuss Continuity of Government, the upcoming election, and Deep Politics. Thanks to John Bertucci, for making the video available.

Also, Scott’s remarks from the Making Sense of the 60s conference have been published at 911truth.org;

Part 1/5 – Peter Dale Scott & Dan Hamburg on COG

Part 2/5 – Peter Dale Scott & Dan Hamburg on COG

Part 3/5 – Peter Dale Scott & Dan Hamburg on COG

Part 4/5 – Peter Dale Scott & Dan Hamburg on COG

Part 5/5 – Peter Dale Scott & Dan Hamburg on COG

After Waking Up to the Threat to Liberty, What Do You Do?

Naomi Wolf On Today Show Oct 17,2008

Rob Kall | OpEdNews | October 30, 2008

My interview with Naomi Wolf went VERY well.

We discussed liberty, democracy, the coup that took place on Oct. 1, the bailout and ways progressives can be a part of the revolution the declaration of independence demands we participate in. Access the link to download the MP3 recording here:

Naomi Wolf Recording Download Link (Right-click the link and select “Save Link to Disk…”)

In my conversation with Naomi Wolf, we agreed that millions of people were awakened from their slumber of the past horrific Bush years. Perhap’s you’re one of them. Now that you are awake, it’s time to face the fact that the Declaration of Independence and the constitution literally make you RESPONSIBLE to do what it takes to make sure liberty and justice are not only protected and maintained but taken even further and better. That means that YOU have an obligation to DO something. Not just once, not just a note to the editor– but systematically, commitedly, on a regular basis.

Don’t depend on the 80 – 20 pattern, letting others do most of the work. Listen to the free MP3 interview for a ton of ideas on what you can do. Get some training as an activist or community organizer. You can do this– you have a responsibility to your SELF to raise your functioning to its highest potential. Fighting for and defending liberty is part of that.

Last night, Obama talked about defending liberty, but all he ended up mentioning was military action. Thats pseudo fighting for liberty, really, a lie. The true fight for and defense of liberty must be done here in the US, where the congress and politicians, corporations and theocons have done all they can to whittle down the beautiful edifice which the founders of America built.

Do something. TODAY!

Is George W. Bush Sane?

Sherwood Ross | OpEdNews | October 28, 2008

The judgment of history may well be that the United States has been “taken into, and kept in, the Iraq War by a guy who is not quite right in his head,” a distinguished legal scholar says.

“It may take 25 or 50 years, but it is almost certain that one day this character will be exhibit number one for the danger of having a nut job in the oval office,” says Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.

Writing in his “An Enemy of the People,” (Doukathsan Press) Velvel said, “In everyday life, someone who refuses to recognize the actual facts of the world around him, and who instead lives in a dream world in his head, is regarded as not being sane, as being, to use the blunt words, insane or crazy. Why is it different when it is a national leader who refuses to recognize facts in the world and instead lives in a dream world in his head?”

Velvel goes on to say, “Most interesting is the idea that Bush suffers from a condition called ‘dry drunk’. Essentially, this means that even if one eventually stops drinking, as Bush did, years of alcoholism cause irreversible damage to brain chemistry. Results of this damage include such Bushian traits as rigid judgmentalism, irritability, impatience, grandiosity, obsessive thought patterns, incoherent speech and other unlovely characteristics.”

Only good news will do

The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008, by Bob Woodward

Christopher Meyer | Spectator | Wednesday, 22nd October 2008

There is a startling passage in this book. It recounts an intimate moment (among many, it should be said) between the President of the United States, George W. Bush, and his Secretary of State and long-time adviser, Condoleezza Rice. They are sitting on the porch of Bush’s Texas ranch. It is December 2006 and, after more than three years of war, the situation in Iraq is dire. Bush and Rice are debating the pros and cons of a ‘surge’ — the despatch of five extra brigades to pacify Baghdad. Condi has her doubts, Bush has none. She tells him that if he goes ahead, he has to get it right ‘because you are one of the four or five most consequential Presidents … maybe in our history’. She asks what will happen if the surge does not work. Bush dodges the question.

Astonishing stuff: a supremely confidential and private exchange about a decision that would affect the lives of millions, the fate of nations and Bush’s place in history — willingly revealed to a journalist-author for his next book. Compare and contrast with our own dear government. It is still fighting a rearguard action with the Information Commissioner to stop the release of papers that would tell the voter why the Cabinet backed Blair’s decision to join Bush in Iraq.

Bob Woodward specialises in revelations of this kind. They are scattered like truffles in the somewhat arid soil of this latest of four books about the life and times of the Bush administration after 9/11. They are no masterpieces of literature. The best that can be said for Woodward is that he has the functional competence of the experienced journalist. I cannot imagine The War Within, any more than its three predecessors, having broad appeal in Britain. But, if, like your reviewer, you have the aficionado’s delight in the minutely detailed cut-and-thrust of Washington decision-taking — and what this reveals of Bush the President and man — The War Within is a treasure trove.

Gabriel García Márquez: Hero to a continent

Gabriel García Márquez, by Gerald Martin

Philip Hensher | Spectator | Wednesday, 22nd October 2008

In July 1965, or so the story goes, a Colombian writer in early middle age, living in Mexico City, decided to take his wife and two young sons on a short and much needed holiday to Acapulco. He had had some small successes, and was respected in the small world of Latin American letters. Still, money was tight and imaginative writing had to be supplemented with income from other sources — journalism, the writing of advertising copy. He had driven some way on the winding road to Acapulco when suddenly, ‘from nowhere’ he afterwards said, a sentence came into his head:

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía would remember the day his father took him to discover the ice.

Gabriel García Márquez, it is said — though Gerald Martin, as a respectable Anglo-Saxon mythbusting biographer, disputes the version of the story — promptly braked the car and drove back to Mexico City, where he sat down at a typewriter and did not get up until his great novel was finished.

Militarization of the American Homeland: Suppression of “Civil Disturbances”

ACLU Demands Information on U.S. Military Domestic Operations

Tom Burghardt | Global Research, October 25, 2008

On October 2, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request demanding information from the government on U.S. Northern Command’s (NORTHCOM) deployment of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Combat Brigade Team (BCT) on U.S. soil for “civil unrest” and “crowd control” duties.

Last month, Army Times published a piece detailing how the 1st BCT spent “35 of the last 60 months in Iraq.” The 1st BCT–also known as the “Raiders”–carried out house-to-house raids and engaged in close-quarters combat in the city of Ramadi to suppress Iraqi resistance to U.S. occupation, according to a report on the World Socialist Website.

Readers will recall my October 11 piece, “Militarizing the Homeland:” NORTHCOM’s Joint Task Force-Civil Support,” that described NORTHCOM’s Vibrant Response exercise at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

In tandem with the elite 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, the 1st BCT participated in mock drills designed to “coordinate with local governments and interagency organizations such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” U.S. Northern Command News reported.

The Pentagon revealed that 1st BCT is a key component of NORTHCOM’s Joint Task Force-Civil Support (JTF-CS), designed to “execute both homeland defense and civil support missions.” As I pointed out in a piece earlier this month, current Army doctrine is heavily-weighted towards contingency planning for “civil disturbances.”

Indeed, Army Times reported that the 1st BCT would be kitted out with “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded.” The publication reported, “the package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.” But after spilling the proverbial beans, Army Times retracted that portion of their report.

Read more…

Behind the Panic: Financial Warfare and the Future of Global Bank Power

F. William Engdahl | Global Research, October 9, 2008

What’s clear from the behavior of European financial markets over the past two weeks is that the dramatic stories of financial meltdown and panic are deliberately being used by certain influential factions in and outside the EU to shape the future face of global banking in the wake of the US sub-prime and Asset-Backed Security (ABS) debacle. The most interesting development in recent days has been the unified and strong position of the German Chancellor, Finance Minister, Bundesbank and coalition Government, all opposing an American-style EU Superfund bank bailout. Meanwhile Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pursues his Crony Capitalism to the detriment of the nation and benefit of his cronies in the financial world. It’s an explosive cocktail that need not have been.

Stock market falls of 7 to 10% a day make for dramatic news headlines and serve to foster a broad sense of unease bordering on panic among ordinary citizens. The events of the last two weeks among EU banks since the dramatic state rescues of Hypo Real Estate, Dexia and Fortis banks, and the announcement by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling of a radical shift in policy in dealing with troubled UK banks, have begun to reveal the outline of a distinctly different European response to what in effect is a crisis ‘Made in USA.’

There is serious ground to believe that US Goldman Sachs ex CEO Henry Paulson, as Treasury Secretary, is not stupid. There is also serious ground to believe that he is actually moving according to a well-thought-out long-term strategy. Events as they are now unfolding in the EU tend to confirm that. As one senior European banker put it to me in private discussion, ‘There is an all-out war going on between the United States and the EU to define the future face of European banking.’

Who is Behind the Financial Meltdown?

Market Manipulation and the Institutional Speculator

Michel Chossudovsky |
Global Research, October 11, 2008

The market is heavily manipulated. The driving force behind the meltdown is speculative trade. The system of “private regulation” serves the interests of the speculators.

While most individual investors loose when the market falls, the institutional speculator makes money when there is a financial collapse.

In fact, triggering market collapse can be a very profitable undertaking.

There are indications that the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) regulators have created an environment which supports speculative transactions.

There are several instruments including futures, options, index funds, derivative securities, etc. used to make money when the stock market crumbles.

The more it falls, the greater the gains.

Those who make it fall are also speculating on its decline.

With foreknowledge and inside information, a collapse in market values constitutes a lucrative and money-spinning opportunity, for a select category of powerful speculators who have the ability to manipulate the market in the appropriate direction at the appropriate time.

Read more…

Financial Meltdown: The Greatest Transfer of Wealth in History

How to Reverse the Tide and Democratize the US Monetary System

by Ellen Brown | Global Research, October 17, 2008

“Admit it, mes amis, the rugged individualism and cutthroat capitalism that made America the land of unlimited opportunity has been shrink-wrapped by half a dozen short sellers in Greenwich, Conn., and FedExed to Washington, D.C., to be spoon-fed back to life by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. We’re now no different from any of those Western European semi-socialist welfare states that we love to deride.”– Bill Saporito, “How We Became the United States of France,” Time (September 21, 2008)

On October 15, the Presidential candidates had their last debate before the election. They talked of the baleful state of the economy and the stock market; but omitted from the discussion was what actually caused the credit freeze, and whether the banks should be nationalized as Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is now proceeding to do. The omission was probably excusable, since the financial landscape has been changing so fast that it is hard to keep up. A year ago, the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke through 14,000 to make a new all-time high. Anyone predicting then that a year later the Dow would drop nearly by half and the Treasury would move to nationalize the banks would have been regarded with amused disbelief. But that is where we are today.1

Congress hastily voted to approve Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s $700 billion bank bailout plan on October 3, 2008, after a tumultuous week in which the Dow fell dangerously near the critical 10,000 level. The market, however, was not assuaged. The Dow proceeded to break through not only 10,000 but then 9,000 and 8,000, closing at 8,451 on Friday, October 10. The week was called the worst in U.S. stock market history.

On Monday, October 13, the market staged a comeback the likes of which had not been seen since 1933, rising a full 11% in one day. This happened after the government announced a plan to buy equity interests in key banks, partially nationalizing them; and the Federal Reserve led a push to flood the global financial system with dollars.

The reversal was dramatic but short-lived. On October 15, the day of the Presidential debate, the Dow dropped 733 points, crash landing at 8,578. The reversal is looking more like a massive pump and dump scheme – artificially inflating the market so insiders can get out – than a true economic rescue. The real problem is not in the much-discussed subprime market but is in the credit market, which has dried up. The banking scheme itself has failed. As was learned by painful experience during the Great Depression, the economy cannot be rescued by simply propping up failed banks. The banking system itself needs to be overhauled.