"Crazy Fingers"
Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
Copyright Ice Nine Publishing
Your rain falls like crazy fingers
Peals of fragile thunder keeping time
Recall the days that still are to come
Some sing blue
Hang your heart on laughing willow
Stray down to the water
Deep Sea of Love
Beneath the sweet calm face of the sea
Swift undertow
Life may be sweeter for this, I don't know
See how it feels in the end
May Lady Lullaby sing plainly for you
Soft, strong, sweet and true
Cloud hands reaching from a rainbow
Tapping at the window touch your hair
So swift and bright
Strange figures of light
Float in air
Who can stop what must arrive now?
Something new is waiting to be born
Dark as the night
You're still by my side
Shining side
Gone are the days we stopped to decide
Where we should go
We just ride
Gone are the broken eyes we saw through in dreams
Gone - both dream and lie
Life may be sweeter for this I don't know
Feels like it might be alright
While Lady Lullaby sings plainly for you
Love still rings true
Midnight on a carousel ride
Reaching for the gold ring down inside
Never could reach
It just slips away but I try
Thursday, January 29, 2009
X Games mark the spot
http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_11533146
X Games mark the spot
Once renegade events, action sports are deserving of Olympic status
Story by Scott Willoughby
The Denver Post
01/23/2009
ASPEN — It seems strange to think about the Winter X Games in terms of tradition. The event, after all, is founded on progression, innovation and invention. But that foundation turns 13 this week on the now-renowned slopes of Buttermilk Mountain. That's three Olympic cycles' worth of cutting-edge snowboarding and skiing, with Vancouver 2010 looming only 13 months away.
That may not quite qualify as a full-blown institution, but it's certainly time to establish a trend or two. Case in point: the tradition of X Games events moving from the action sports arena to the international stage that is the Winter Olympic Games.
Few imagined during the early "knuckle-dragging" era of snowboard halfpipe that was the Winter X Games at Big Bear, Calif., in 1997 that the evolution would not only land snowboarding in the Olympics but create international stars the likes of Shaun White and Gretchen Bleiler.
The 1998 addition of snowboarding competition to the Olympic schedule eventually grew to include snowboardcross racing — another X Games staple — at Turin 2006. In Vancouver, skicross takes its turn on the stage.
"The International Olympic Committee is looking for sports that are relevant. They want exciting television and a young demographic," said Bill Marolt, president and CEO of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), the domestic liaison to the Olympics for skiing and snowboarding. "Any of these sports, all you have to do is be creative, figure out formats and create things people are excited about."
For several years, the logical progression of snowboard and ski events transcending the X Games to the Olympics has pointed to skiing superpipe as the encore to the snowboard event. And for several years, the burgeoning sport has been denied. To date, the closest it has come is a current attempt to finance a demonstration event at the Vancouver Games while holding out hope for a shot at Sochi 2014.
Meanwhile, there are the X Games.
"This is definitely like the Olympics for us at this point. It's the biggest event of the year and definitely the most influential event," said Jess Cumming, 25, a Copper Mountain team rider from Edwards competing in her fourth Winter X skipipe. "The push is for 2014. I think the momentum is catching on, but in order for it to get to the Olympics, it has to go through every country's national ski organization.
"That's where we've been kind of lacking in the support. And that's where more support needs to come through to get it into the Olympics."
Cumming and the other seven women competing in the superpipe at Winter X tonight may have found a new friend in Marolt, who appears to be offering just the support they seek.
Looking for new heroes
In an effort to increase American medal tallies at the Winter Olympics, Marolt has become a vocal advocate for the addition of many of the so-called "new school" sports the X Games are known for.
"Skipipe, slopestyle snowboarding — those things are on the table," Marolt said. "My personal thought is when you evaluate a sport, you have to look at critical mass. How many people do you really have involved in it? That will determine the talent level. That will determine the marketing potential. In my mind, skipipe is definitely high on that list.
"Every resort has a pipe. Tons of kids are twin-tipping and riding in the pipe. The heroes are already created. That seems to me the most likely place to go."
Small payoffs
USSA and its international governing body at the International Skiing Federation (FIS) have established a World Cup circuit for superpipe skiing, a necessary step toward Olympic inclusion, with the first World Cup competition in the United States taking place next week in Deer Valley, Utah.
With minimal purses and a scarcity of media attention, World Cup competition has been slow to catch on among the sport's heaviest hitters. While the Winter X Games have created careers for athletes like Tanner Hall and Simon Dumont since pipe skiing was introduced in 2002, there has been little incentive to compete in World Cup competition without the Olympic payoff.
Others are willing to put in their time in hopes of reaping benefits down the road.
"I do all the World Cups and have for years," said two-time defending women's skipipe gold medalist Sarah Burke of Whistler, British Columbia. "The (World Cup) field is there for the women. It's 100 percent X Games athletes. The guys a little less, but five of the guys who are always at all the World Cups qualified for the men's finals."
Among them is Xavier Bertoni of France, who upset the men's superpipe skiing field to win his first Winter X Games gold medal over Hall (second) and Dumont (third) Thursday night. The win marked the first time since Candide Thovex's 2003 victory that anyone other than Hall or Dumont has won the event. Thovex and Bertoni both come from La Clusaz, France.
"It's crazy. I can't believe it," said Bertoni, who used back-to-back 900s and a 1260 with amplitude pushing above 20 feet for the top score of 93.66. "I'm really stoked."
The reintroduction of an international champ to Winter X could enhance the image of World Cup competition by bringing some X Games clout to the field in the future.
And that could translate to a continued tradition.
"Here there are the best skiers in the world, so I prefer to win the X Games than a World Cup," Bertoni said. "I want to do a World Cup with Simon, with Tanner. It will be really good for the sport, because we are not yet in the Olympic Games, but with the level going up in the World Cup, I think that will help the sport to go to the Olympic Games. That's also a dream for me."
Scott Willoughby: 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
X Games mark the spot
Once renegade events, action sports are deserving of Olympic status
Story by Scott Willoughby
The Denver Post
01/23/2009
ASPEN — It seems strange to think about the Winter X Games in terms of tradition. The event, after all, is founded on progression, innovation and invention. But that foundation turns 13 this week on the now-renowned slopes of Buttermilk Mountain. That's three Olympic cycles' worth of cutting-edge snowboarding and skiing, with Vancouver 2010 looming only 13 months away.
That may not quite qualify as a full-blown institution, but it's certainly time to establish a trend or two. Case in point: the tradition of X Games events moving from the action sports arena to the international stage that is the Winter Olympic Games.
Few imagined during the early "knuckle-dragging" era of snowboard halfpipe that was the Winter X Games at Big Bear, Calif., in 1997 that the evolution would not only land snowboarding in the Olympics but create international stars the likes of Shaun White and Gretchen Bleiler.
The 1998 addition of snowboarding competition to the Olympic schedule eventually grew to include snowboardcross racing — another X Games staple — at Turin 2006. In Vancouver, skicross takes its turn on the stage.
"The International Olympic Committee is looking for sports that are relevant. They want exciting television and a young demographic," said Bill Marolt, president and CEO of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), the domestic liaison to the Olympics for skiing and snowboarding. "Any of these sports, all you have to do is be creative, figure out formats and create things people are excited about."
For several years, the logical progression of snowboard and ski events transcending the X Games to the Olympics has pointed to skiing superpipe as the encore to the snowboard event. And for several years, the burgeoning sport has been denied. To date, the closest it has come is a current attempt to finance a demonstration event at the Vancouver Games while holding out hope for a shot at Sochi 2014.
Meanwhile, there are the X Games.
"This is definitely like the Olympics for us at this point. It's the biggest event of the year and definitely the most influential event," said Jess Cumming, 25, a Copper Mountain team rider from Edwards competing in her fourth Winter X skipipe. "The push is for 2014. I think the momentum is catching on, but in order for it to get to the Olympics, it has to go through every country's national ski organization.
"That's where we've been kind of lacking in the support. And that's where more support needs to come through to get it into the Olympics."
Cumming and the other seven women competing in the superpipe at Winter X tonight may have found a new friend in Marolt, who appears to be offering just the support they seek.
Looking for new heroes
In an effort to increase American medal tallies at the Winter Olympics, Marolt has become a vocal advocate for the addition of many of the so-called "new school" sports the X Games are known for.
"Skipipe, slopestyle snowboarding — those things are on the table," Marolt said. "My personal thought is when you evaluate a sport, you have to look at critical mass. How many people do you really have involved in it? That will determine the talent level. That will determine the marketing potential. In my mind, skipipe is definitely high on that list.
"Every resort has a pipe. Tons of kids are twin-tipping and riding in the pipe. The heroes are already created. That seems to me the most likely place to go."
Small payoffs
USSA and its international governing body at the International Skiing Federation (FIS) have established a World Cup circuit for superpipe skiing, a necessary step toward Olympic inclusion, with the first World Cup competition in the United States taking place next week in Deer Valley, Utah.
With minimal purses and a scarcity of media attention, World Cup competition has been slow to catch on among the sport's heaviest hitters. While the Winter X Games have created careers for athletes like Tanner Hall and Simon Dumont since pipe skiing was introduced in 2002, there has been little incentive to compete in World Cup competition without the Olympic payoff.
Others are willing to put in their time in hopes of reaping benefits down the road.
"I do all the World Cups and have for years," said two-time defending women's skipipe gold medalist Sarah Burke of Whistler, British Columbia. "The (World Cup) field is there for the women. It's 100 percent X Games athletes. The guys a little less, but five of the guys who are always at all the World Cups qualified for the men's finals."
Among them is Xavier Bertoni of France, who upset the men's superpipe skiing field to win his first Winter X Games gold medal over Hall (second) and Dumont (third) Thursday night. The win marked the first time since Candide Thovex's 2003 victory that anyone other than Hall or Dumont has won the event. Thovex and Bertoni both come from La Clusaz, France.
"It's crazy. I can't believe it," said Bertoni, who used back-to-back 900s and a 1260 with amplitude pushing above 20 feet for the top score of 93.66. "I'm really stoked."
The reintroduction of an international champ to Winter X could enhance the image of World Cup competition by bringing some X Games clout to the field in the future.
And that could translate to a continued tradition.
"Here there are the best skiers in the world, so I prefer to win the X Games than a World Cup," Bertoni said. "I want to do a World Cup with Simon, with Tanner. It will be really good for the sport, because we are not yet in the Olympic Games, but with the level going up in the World Cup, I think that will help the sport to go to the Olympic Games. That's also a dream for me."
Scott Willoughby: 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
When Gaza and Sports Collide
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jan/23/gaza-sport-football-protests
Politics on the pitch: When Gaza and Sports Collide
By Dave Zirin
In January 2008, Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Aboutreika followed a goal by raising his shirt to reveal the slogan "Sympathise with Gaza". His actions were meant to put a spotlight onto the economic embargo that Israel had imposed on Palestinians in Gaza after the election of the Hamas government.
Days before the ceasefire halted the carnage in Gaza city this month, history repeated as Sevilla (Spain) striker Fredi Kanoute raised his shirt after scoring a goal to reveal a shirt that said "Palestine" in multiple languages. Kanoute is not an obscure player. In 2007, he was named African player of the year, even though he was born in France (his family is from Mali).
After earning a £3,000 fine for his political gesture, famed Barcelona coach, Jose Guardiola stood up for him, saying: "The fine is absolutely excessive. If they always banned these type of things, then journalists would not be able to write columns. ... Every war is absurd, and too many innocent people have died for us to be fining people for things like this."
Welcome to 2009, when Israel's offensive on Gaza, ceasefire or no, is finding expression in the sports world. It's a development that should give supporters of Israel's actions in Gaza a great deal of pause.
Kanoute's actions come on the heels of an event in Ankara, Turkey when the Israeli basketball team, Bnei Hasharon, had to flee the court from what the Associated Press described as "hundreds of fist-pumping, chanting Turkish fans".
Before the game could begin, angry chants of "Israeli killers!" came down from the crowd, as Palestinian flags appeared in their hands. Then, in a scene that would look familiar to George Bush, off came the shoes, and footwear rained down from the stands (the shoes didn't hit any players).
A melee then began between 1,500 police officers and Turkish fans, as the fans advanced toward the court. Both Hasharon and the Turkish team Turk Telecom were hurried to the locker rooms where they remained for two hours.
Hasharon forfeited the contest. It says something that Israel found reckoning on the basketball court long before any kind of International Criminal Court.
According to sports historians, a sporting event hasn't been actually stopped in such a manner - with fans turning the stands into a site of protest - since 25 July 1981, when South Africa's Springbok rugby team had to cancel a game in New Zealand when fans occupied the field of play to protest apartheid.
Israel has historically been adamant that any comparisons between the Israeli state and South Africa are absolutely false and even antisemitic. Jimmy Carter provoked their outrage of course when he published his book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.
But this parallel, when related to sports, should not be taken lightly. One of the most effective tools against apartheid South Africa was the South African Non-Racialised Olympic Committee, which attempted to use sports as a way to highlight and broadcast the inequities of the South African government. Sports can bring a political spotlight and unwanted attention onto a society like few other forces in the international community, galvanising, attention, passion and, as we saw in Turkey, anger.
Israel hasn't helped itself in this regard by making sports a target in the war. On 9 January, the IDF bombed Gaza's Palestine National Stadium. The stadium was also the head of the Palestinian Football Association. The structure was built in 2005 partially with funds from Fifa. The facility will now need to be rebuilt again (in 2006 it was also bombed). It was meant to be a symbol of a Palestinian state, something that united the West Bank and Gaza as an expression of unity. Now it is rubble.
In addition, perhaps fearing a repeat of Ankara, the Israel Football Federation is preventing any club matches from being played in Palestinian towns. As Jimmy Johnson, who works in Jerusalem for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions told me: "These are not Palestinian clubs from the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Gaza, but for Palestinian citizens of Israel, sometimes called Arab Israelis, who are almost 20% of the population, vote in Israeli elections, etc."
This has gotten little press in the US, but in the soccer-mad Middle East, it is altogether insult on top of injury.
Sports, which we are told repeatedly represent a sacredly apolitical space, a place to flee the headaches of the real world, has now been thrust into the heart of a conflict raw with politics in a way we haven't seen in quite some time. Protests against Israeli actions in Gaza are sure to continue in sporting events outside the US. But the ramifications could very easily be felt inside our borders, as political leaders come to the White House and tell the new administration tales of sports fans gone wild.
Dave Zirin is the author of the book: A People's History of Sports in the United States. You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by going to dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com
Politics on the pitch: When Gaza and Sports Collide
By Dave Zirin
In January 2008, Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Aboutreika followed a goal by raising his shirt to reveal the slogan "Sympathise with Gaza". His actions were meant to put a spotlight onto the economic embargo that Israel had imposed on Palestinians in Gaza after the election of the Hamas government.
Days before the ceasefire halted the carnage in Gaza city this month, history repeated as Sevilla (Spain) striker Fredi Kanoute raised his shirt after scoring a goal to reveal a shirt that said "Palestine" in multiple languages. Kanoute is not an obscure player. In 2007, he was named African player of the year, even though he was born in France (his family is from Mali).
After earning a £3,000 fine for his political gesture, famed Barcelona coach, Jose Guardiola stood up for him, saying: "The fine is absolutely excessive. If they always banned these type of things, then journalists would not be able to write columns. ... Every war is absurd, and too many innocent people have died for us to be fining people for things like this."
Welcome to 2009, when Israel's offensive on Gaza, ceasefire or no, is finding expression in the sports world. It's a development that should give supporters of Israel's actions in Gaza a great deal of pause.
Kanoute's actions come on the heels of an event in Ankara, Turkey when the Israeli basketball team, Bnei Hasharon, had to flee the court from what the Associated Press described as "hundreds of fist-pumping, chanting Turkish fans".
Before the game could begin, angry chants of "Israeli killers!" came down from the crowd, as Palestinian flags appeared in their hands. Then, in a scene that would look familiar to George Bush, off came the shoes, and footwear rained down from the stands (the shoes didn't hit any players).
A melee then began between 1,500 police officers and Turkish fans, as the fans advanced toward the court. Both Hasharon and the Turkish team Turk Telecom were hurried to the locker rooms where they remained for two hours.
Hasharon forfeited the contest. It says something that Israel found reckoning on the basketball court long before any kind of International Criminal Court.
According to sports historians, a sporting event hasn't been actually stopped in such a manner - with fans turning the stands into a site of protest - since 25 July 1981, when South Africa's Springbok rugby team had to cancel a game in New Zealand when fans occupied the field of play to protest apartheid.
Israel has historically been adamant that any comparisons between the Israeli state and South Africa are absolutely false and even antisemitic. Jimmy Carter provoked their outrage of course when he published his book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.
But this parallel, when related to sports, should not be taken lightly. One of the most effective tools against apartheid South Africa was the South African Non-Racialised Olympic Committee, which attempted to use sports as a way to highlight and broadcast the inequities of the South African government. Sports can bring a political spotlight and unwanted attention onto a society like few other forces in the international community, galvanising, attention, passion and, as we saw in Turkey, anger.
Israel hasn't helped itself in this regard by making sports a target in the war. On 9 January, the IDF bombed Gaza's Palestine National Stadium. The stadium was also the head of the Palestinian Football Association. The structure was built in 2005 partially with funds from Fifa. The facility will now need to be rebuilt again (in 2006 it was also bombed). It was meant to be a symbol of a Palestinian state, something that united the West Bank and Gaza as an expression of unity. Now it is rubble.
In addition, perhaps fearing a repeat of Ankara, the Israel Football Federation is preventing any club matches from being played in Palestinian towns. As Jimmy Johnson, who works in Jerusalem for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions told me: "These are not Palestinian clubs from the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Gaza, but for Palestinian citizens of Israel, sometimes called Arab Israelis, who are almost 20% of the population, vote in Israeli elections, etc."
This has gotten little press in the US, but in the soccer-mad Middle East, it is altogether insult on top of injury.
Sports, which we are told repeatedly represent a sacredly apolitical space, a place to flee the headaches of the real world, has now been thrust into the heart of a conflict raw with politics in a way we haven't seen in quite some time. Protests against Israeli actions in Gaza are sure to continue in sporting events outside the US. But the ramifications could very easily be felt inside our borders, as political leaders come to the White House and tell the new administration tales of sports fans gone wild.
Dave Zirin is the author of the book: A People's History of Sports in the United States. You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by going to dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com
Magic C Howard sets NBA All-Star voting record
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/2009-01-22-3539912260_x.htm
Magic C Howard sets NBA All-Star voting record
By Tim Reynolds, AP Sports Writer
1-22-9
ORLANDO, Florida — Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard -- leading the NBA in rebounds, blocked shots and double-doubles -- became the first player to receive 3 million votes from fans to lead this season's All-Star team.
He got 3,150,181 votes when the count was released on Thursday, easily topping the previous record of 2,558,278 votes collected by Houston's Yao Ming four years ago.
The Feb. 15 game in Phoenix will mark the third All-Star trip for Howard, who'll be starting for the second time.
"Wow, what a blessing," said Howard, the 6-foot-11 (2.11-meter) center who dressed in full Superman regalia, cape and all, on the way to winning last year's slam dunk competition. "That is what I took it as, a blessing from God and then the fans. It's just a great honor and I was surprised, but like always I thank the fans for everything they have done for us."
The final results of fan balloting didn't exactly bring any major surprises.
Miami's Dwyane Wade (2,741,413) and Detroit's Allen Iverson (1,804,649) will be in the Eastern Conference backcourt, alongside reigning All-Star MVP LeBron James of Cleveland (2,940,823) and Boston's Kevin Garnett (2,066,833), who beat New Jersey's Yi Jianlian for the starting nod by 253,004 votes.
Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers (2,805,397) was the Western Conference's top vote-getter, and will be joined at guard by New Orleans' Chris Paul (2,134,798). At center, Yao (2,532,958) will start for the sixth time, along with forwards Tim Duncan of San Antonio (2,578,168) and Amare Stoudemire of Phoenix (1,460,429).
"When I first heard I was leading in votes, I was shocked, to be honest with you," Howard said. "I really didn't expect anything considering you have guys like Kobe, LeBron and Dwyane."
Howard entered Thursday averaging 20.2 points, 14.1 rebounds and 3.2 blocks for the Magic.
For Garnett, it's his 12th All-Star selection -- second-most among active players behind Shaquille O'Neal's 14 trips. O'Neal could see that total increase by one; he could easily be announced as a reserve when coaches' balloting to fill out the seven remaining spots on each roster are announced next week.
Much like the East, the West voting was a bit predictable.
Stoudemire's spot turned out to be the most vulnerable; he nipped San Antonio's Bruce Bowen -- who wasn't even starting for the Spurs right now -- in the starters' balloting by 68,031 votes.
In all, five players (Howard, James, Bryant, Wade and Duncan) all topped Yao's previous record vote mark.
"It's always an unbelievable honor, because there's so many great players in this league and so many young guys coming in, when you get named a starter from the fans," Wade said.
Magic C Howard sets NBA All-Star voting record
By Tim Reynolds, AP Sports Writer
1-22-9
ORLANDO, Florida — Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard -- leading the NBA in rebounds, blocked shots and double-doubles -- became the first player to receive 3 million votes from fans to lead this season's All-Star team.
He got 3,150,181 votes when the count was released on Thursday, easily topping the previous record of 2,558,278 votes collected by Houston's Yao Ming four years ago.
The Feb. 15 game in Phoenix will mark the third All-Star trip for Howard, who'll be starting for the second time.
"Wow, what a blessing," said Howard, the 6-foot-11 (2.11-meter) center who dressed in full Superman regalia, cape and all, on the way to winning last year's slam dunk competition. "That is what I took it as, a blessing from God and then the fans. It's just a great honor and I was surprised, but like always I thank the fans for everything they have done for us."
The final results of fan balloting didn't exactly bring any major surprises.
Miami's Dwyane Wade (2,741,413) and Detroit's Allen Iverson (1,804,649) will be in the Eastern Conference backcourt, alongside reigning All-Star MVP LeBron James of Cleveland (2,940,823) and Boston's Kevin Garnett (2,066,833), who beat New Jersey's Yi Jianlian for the starting nod by 253,004 votes.
Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers (2,805,397) was the Western Conference's top vote-getter, and will be joined at guard by New Orleans' Chris Paul (2,134,798). At center, Yao (2,532,958) will start for the sixth time, along with forwards Tim Duncan of San Antonio (2,578,168) and Amare Stoudemire of Phoenix (1,460,429).
"When I first heard I was leading in votes, I was shocked, to be honest with you," Howard said. "I really didn't expect anything considering you have guys like Kobe, LeBron and Dwyane."
Howard entered Thursday averaging 20.2 points, 14.1 rebounds and 3.2 blocks for the Magic.
For Garnett, it's his 12th All-Star selection -- second-most among active players behind Shaquille O'Neal's 14 trips. O'Neal could see that total increase by one; he could easily be announced as a reserve when coaches' balloting to fill out the seven remaining spots on each roster are announced next week.
Much like the East, the West voting was a bit predictable.
Stoudemire's spot turned out to be the most vulnerable; he nipped San Antonio's Bruce Bowen -- who wasn't even starting for the Spurs right now -- in the starters' balloting by 68,031 votes.
In all, five players (Howard, James, Bryant, Wade and Duncan) all topped Yao's previous record vote mark.
"It's always an unbelievable honor, because there's so many great players in this league and so many young guys coming in, when you get named a starter from the fans," Wade said.
The Strange Case of Barack Obama's Oath
http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/2009/01/strange-case-of-barack-obamas-oath-of.htmlFriday, January 23, 2009
The Strange Case of Barack Obama's Oath of Office
"At Mr. Obama’s second swearing-in on Wednesday...(t)he photo released by the White House had been taken by its own photographer." (NY Times, Jan. 23, p. A16).
A Cryptogram from the Cryptocracy?
Michael Hoffman investigates
RevisionistHistory.org
"For a couple of smooth-talking constitutional experts, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and President-elect Barack Obama sure had a hard time getting through the constitutional oath of office...The chief justice seemed to say 'to' rather than 'of,' but that was not the main problem. The main problem was that the word 'faithfully' had floated upstream...Mr. Obama seemed to realize this, pausing quizzically after saying 'that I will execute –'
"The chief justice gave it another go, getting closer but still not quite right: “faithfully the office of president of the United States.” This time, he omitted the word 'execute.' Mr. Obama now repeated the chief justice’s initial error of putting 'faithfully' at the end of the phrase. Starting where he had abruptly paused, he said: 'the office of the president of the United States faithfully.” ("I Do Solemnly Swear…(Line, Please?," NY Times, Jan. 20, 2009)
Yes, indeed these two "smooth-talking constitutional experts" couldn't manage to recite the brief oath as it was written. This was largely Chief Justice Roberts' fault. We can believe that this flub was due to human fallibility and that may very well be the case, or we can also wonder whether the very intelligent Chief Justice deliberately mishandled the oath so that it would be administered a second time, under very different circumstances.
Here's how the media reported the second rite: ...After a day’s worth of chatter over whether the president had been properly sworn into office...(i)n 25 seconds, President Obama became president again. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. re-administered the oath to Mr. Obama on Wednesday evening, one day after the two men stumbled over each other’s words during the inauguration ceremony at the Capitol. For their do-over, the two men convened in the White House Map Room at 7:35 p.m. for a brief proceeding that was not announced until it was completed successfully...Only hours after aides told reporters there was no reason to administer the oath again, they concluded it was easier to do it on the first day, rather than have someone challenge the legitimacy of his presidency...Mr. Obama raised his right hand and did not use a Bible....only nine people witnessed the do-over. There were four aides, four reporters and a White House photographer..." (NY Times, Jan. 22, 2009).
This second-time-around doppelganger oath was the real oath, since the flawed first one, done in the sight of millions and upon the Bible of assassinated President Abraham Lincoln was a "challenge (to) the legitimacy of his presidency..."
There was no Bible the second time and with Obama having been compared to John F. Kennedy during the campaign, and with all of the macabre parallels between Kennedy and Lincoln (Lincoln was killed in Ford's theatre, Kennedy was killed in a Ford automobile; Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy, Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln; Lincoln and Kennedy were both succeeded by vice-presidents named Johnson, etc.), I'm not sure that if I were Barack Obama I would have wanted to step into the middle of such a highly charged symbol palimpsest -- unless of course the first inaugural oath-taking was little more more than shadow-play.
What appears to be the authentic inauguration took place in a basement, and was an elite rather than a populist rite, with just nine witnesses. It occurred in former President Franklin Roosevelt's secretive, war-era "map room." Before FDR, under presidents from Chester Arthur through Wilson and Coolidge, it was reputedly used to play the game of billiards.
The omission of the Bible is not invalidating since the father of our country did not use one at his inauguration and Lyndon Johnson, on the plane to Washington after's Kennedy's killing, used a Roman Catholic mass book ("missal"), rather than a Bible. Hence, the absence of a Bible per se does not invalidate the oath, but the peek-a-boo nature of the inaugural Bible may be deliberate, in that its momentous presence at the botched inauguration is all the more glaring in its inexplicable absence at the real inauguration.
If symbolism is a language, what is being signaled by this apparently deliberate omission?
Another equally striking aspect of the second oath are the photographs of the ceremony, which feature the looming presence of a vintage portrait above the mantle on the wall behind the president and the chief justice.
The oath is a ritual and this ritual has an icon hovering over it, as if by way of spiritual benediction and patronage. As of this writing, in all the prominent photos of the second oath which this writer has seen, no caption has been provided by the establishment media that identifies the enigmatic man in the portrait. Yet, symbolically, he is the "genius loci," the presiding spirit of the authentic inaugural ceremony of Barack Obama as President. Like the omission of the Bible after so much was made of its presence at the first oath-taking, the omission of any identification of the figure in the painting at the second oath-taking would seem to be significant.
Let us recall that the second oath was performed in secret: "...the two men convened in the White House Map Room at 7:35 p.m. for a brief proceeding that was not announced until it was completed..."
In Freemasonry the god of the secret societies is covertly substituted for the One True God. This false god is identified in the masonic lodges as "the Great Architect."
The mysterious man in the portrait who silently presides over the authentic inauguration of Barack Obama as Commander and Chief, is Benjamin Latrobe, the great architect of the U.S. Capitol.
Copyright 2009 • All Rights Reserved
Michael Hoffman's latest book is Judaism Discovered, now in its second printing; available from http://www.revisionisthistory.org/
***
Labels: Barack Obama, billiard games, Chief Justice John Roberts, cryptocracy, Freemasonry, Inauguration, Latrobe, Map Room, masonic symbolism, occult, shadow plays
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
You're So Naive, Part 2
Dear Friend,Well I reckon that many (if not most) of you are probably thinking that I’m way out of line about the election of Obama. You could walk with me (eventually) in what I had said about the evils of Bush regime; but Obama? Surely I’ve gone over the top this time — lost the plot — lost my marbles even? Don’t think I don’t ask myself those questions every day? I wrestle with all this night and day. I check and double-check everything that I write for I have no desire to quench genuine hope or report anything which is untruthful. But sometimes one has to stick one’s neck out despite the unpopularity it may bring.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve had to go out on a limb on these issues. Some of you may be old enough to remember that when Tony Blair was elected as Prime Minister of the UK on 2nd May 1997, I wrote a piece to my e-mail list the following day, entitled “Dawn of Darkness”. Here are some extracts of what I wrote on that fateful day nearly twelve years ago:
Amidst all the talk of "A New Day Has Dawned", I awoke today feeling it was instead a dawn of darkness. A blinkered and presumably bewildered electorate voted for the new breed of "democratic" socialism which has now become a leading trend in the political life of the developed countries. They call it “The New Labour Party”.
Tony Blair, Jack Straw and their cabinet colleagues are deceivers who have twisted and turned until they have cultivated a face which will fool the British people into thinking that they are conservatives with a human face. Within the next few years we are going to witness the complete dismantling of the political, moral and spiritual fabric of this land - not to mention its sovereignty. The New Labour Party is not like the Soviet-style socialism of Harold Wilson's era in 1964. Instead it has acquired an almost New Age messianic quality with Tony Blair as the saviour who will mend all ills.
Actually, in many ways, it matters not a jot which political party comes to power in any of the countries of the Western world. The real power lies with other, secret, groupings which most people know nothing at all about. Neither Tony Blair nor John Major could ever be anything other than puppets who must dance to a tune played by those who have nothing whatsoever to do with the democratic political process in the U.K.
Have you not received the impression that we have been watching a poorly scripted movie acted out before our eyes? Why should the Conservative Party suddenly have behaved so suicidally in the last couple of years while New Labour started to be lauded in the media in the most effusive manner? The whole thing has been a set-up. The people of this land have also played their part by walking into the trap in this election. Even the Presidential-style welcome for Blair at Downing Street today was a carefully stage managed event (in which the press fulsomely colluded), with party workers and their children being bussed in by party hacks to wave Union Jacks.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
That was nearly twelve years ago! Does that ring any bells for today? How quickly we forget these “New Days which keep Dawning” but which go straight to dusk without any daylight! Déjà vu. Déjà vu. We need to develop a heightened sense of déjà vu. And now we seem to be here once again. We seem to stagger from one manufactured “New Day Dawning” to another every few years, according to the political time-clock. It is this ability to be so easily manipulated by external events which turn out to have no substance which prompts me to write as I do. It is not that I want to pour cold water on everything that happens. Far from it! My only desire is to expose psychological manipulation and corruption; but it isn’t always immediately obvious to ‘mostpeople’ when that is happening. Thus, when I see it I cannot remain silent.
People are most easily manipulated and most open to suggestion a) when they have previously been driven to desperation (which is why cults and brainwashers like to break their subjects down) and b) when they are infused with a feel-good factor (which is why everyone in adverts smiles inanely all the time). If people have been driven to the edge of desperation and are in need of a feel-good factor in their lives then they can be coerced into believing, saying or doing anything. This is how really effective Public Relations (PR) works, whether in product advertising or political spin. And nowhere does PR come more into its own than when an election looms.
Thus, there are two ‘cycles’ used by the secret powers behind the scenes. I’m not talking here about the President and his immediate associates but about the real, unelected Powers That Be in the intelligence/military/corporate scene who not only manipulate the election of the President and his immediate associates but who also ‘run’ them after they have been elected. In the first cycle they have a rightist style of government which willingly enacts on their behalf a great deal of restrictive, oppressive, anti-freedom legislation (such as the Patriot Acts of the Bush regime) and prosecutes wars and coup d’états all over the world. At first, they manage to manipulate the people through clever PR to support them in all these things. But after some years, there is a general dissatisfaction of the people with that government and, because the PTB have to work within the limitations and pretence of “democracy” for the time being, there has to be a change in the visible aspect of government to keep the people from becoming too seditious and troublesome while at the same time giving them the cosy impression that they have power to change things. Then there is the second cycle, which ensures that the right guy is elected as President at the head of a more leftist style of government. The PTB may then possibly (though not necessarily) — for a few years — have to put up with somewhat less opportunity for restrictive, oppressive and anti-freedom legislation, although wars and coups d’etats can still continue to be prosecuted unabated after convincing the people through spin that they are in the public interest. (The Vietnam war, for example, flourished well under a President of the Democratic Party). Bear in mind that the PTB can generate any situation they wish if they want to bring down the government or create a big change in it at any time (viz. the assassination of JFK or Nixon’s Watergate).
So these two cycles interchange with each other and, over the course of time, regardless of which type of government has been in power, the goals of the PTB will still be achieved. This is not unrelated to the “Bad-Cop, Good-Cop” technique of interrogation. First the really nasty cop lays into you very roughly — maybe even beats you up. Then a nice cop comes into the room, tells the other cop to lay off, apologises to you for such awful behaviour on the part of his colleague, then gets alongside you and — guess what? — you sing like a canary! They’ve got you eating out of the palm of their hand; believing, saying and doing anything they want.
Well that’s how the PTB operate when it comes to controlling the way you think and behave during their political machinations. They put some guy in office through whom they are able to enact all their evil without any restraint; then, when you’ve had all you can take they put some other, seemingly nicer, guy in office to relieve your desperation, provide you with some false hope and a give you a dose of the feel-good factor. At that time, you are wide-open to believe anything he or she says and do anything to support him. The fact is that you will even support him in starting a genocidal war. Just think of all the lefties who supported Tony Blair joining forces with George W. Bush to invade Iraq on a killing spree of a million and more. (Actually, they didn’t even really object that much when Bush and Co. started the genocidal war on Iraq — but that was mainly because of the successful nature of the post-9/11 spin and the lies about WMDs in 2002/2003, which, incidentally, I exposed as lies at the time but was excoriated even by the left in the US who had predictably morphed into patriotic mode!). That’s why the PTB doesn’t mind putting a more leftist government in office. There is very rarely any hassle from the peace movement when a leftist government starts a war. Sad but true. (Consider this very carefully during the coming US administration). As my song, “You’re so Naïve”, states concerning the election of Barack Obama:
“Such a clever move it is; it makes you all relax
Takes the wind out of the sails of protest movements' acts”
I’m reading an extraordinary book at the moment which sums up this overarching PR process in its title: “Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry” (Common Courage Press, 2002). It’s about how PR works. The aim of really effective PR is to make you believe that even Toxic Sludge is good for you. If you can feel good about Toxic Sludge then the PR has succeeded. You won’t even realise that the Toxic Sludge is toxic. It won’t even occur to you. In fact, you’ll think that Toxic Sludge is the very elixir of life! You’ll even do the purveyors of the Toxic Sludge’s job for them by sharply rebuking anyone who dares to call the sludge “toxic”! This is the zenith of successful PR.Now substitute the word “Obama” for the words “Toxic Sludge”. “Obama is good for you!” “Obama is good for you!” “Obama is good for you!” Thus, when the PTB, through cleverly-presented spin, present you with this guy for President — even though you really know nothing about him whatsoever — who seems to press all the right buttons and ring all the right bells, you will not only weep buckets when you hear him speaking but you will fulfil their wishes and elect him to office, regardless of what people like me may say. You will even castigate me as being filled with negativity and gracelessness. Then, instead of experiencing déjà vu, as we should, we will lose ourselves in the hype. But, if I may say so, that is a kind of emotional Hara-Kiri. Hmm… I wrote a song about that many years ago, entitled “The Fool Falls on His Sword”:
I have been there before...
Feeling I'm on a mountaintop and riding high
Though all my instincts tell me that it's all a lie
This is the one I dreamed about my whole life through
Thought I could breathe at last although it's all untrue
Clinging to straws and roses makes it seem so fine
Yet I committed Hara-Kiri every time.
I thought I'd seen the light...
Flashing and swirling round me like a storm at sea
Warning me not to go there cos of where I'd be
Showing me how I'd fall into the poisoned tide
Tearing myself to pieces with that knife inside
But I was like an insect round a candleshine
And I committed Hara-Kiri every time.
I wrote that in relation to a romantic love-relationship but it is surely just as applicable to the situation we have today with Barack Obama. Looking at people’s faces in the crowds at Obama rallies I see people who are in love. No exaggeration. Blind love. So desperate are people that they will hurl their affections at someone who presses the right buttons by saying the right things about freedom, democracy and the future. (This guy has been chosen very carefully and cleverly for this task). But just as we often don’t learn from mistakes we made in relationships year after year, so we don’t seem to learn from our mistaken political affections year after year.
If you doubt what I say, here’s a little exercise: Try and cast your minds back to the time when Bill Clinton was inaugurated in 1993. Again, people had been made desperate and were longing for change during the George Bush Senior years and when Clinton came on the scene — good-looking, charismatic, suave and saxophone-playing, the whole world went for it. Think about it. Remember the euphoria you felt. The New Day Dawning. It was worldwide. This is how the PTB operate. They drive you to desperation with years of evil (which most people only identify as evil by the time the office of the ruler is coming to a close!). Then they feed you some hope which you clutch onto as if it was all there is (which it probably is!).
Here is a YouTube video of Clinton’s inauguration speech. As you listen to it, does it remind you of anything? All that talk of change and renewal and making America great once more. It could be Obama’s speech yesterday. Whoever writes these speeches needs an Oscar for Best Screenplay! The Presidents don’t half do a great job presenting it either. These people are the finest actors! Very polished. They must have been performing weeks of rehearsal in front of a mirror and their wives. They are words which people want to hear so much and they can be said with a great deal of conviction and feeling. But it is all hot air. So just remind yourself of how ecstatic everyone was in that inaugural moment of Bill Clinton’s. Please watch this now:
Bill Clinton inauguration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6VZAuVezuk
Did you cringe? Especially when you remembered how his presidency panned out! The balls held in the evening after that were ecstatic. Aretha Franklin sang “I Dreamed a Dream” [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl5ZM02s7yA ] . An over-the-moon Warren Beatty introduced Barbara Streisand [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgxLyrQ8G08 ]. A whole galaxy of stars said that a new day had dawned, the earth had moved and the world had changed. They all performed well and hagiography had its night. But, at the end of the day, it all issued in another presidency of broken promises and impeachment, during which the usual spate of international US evil took place.
The same euphoria — maybe even more so than with Obama — greeted the election and inauguration of Tony Blair in May 1997. In fact, the razzmatazz had been deliberately designed on the basis of Clinton’s inaugurations in 1993 and 1997 by the savvy PR moguls in Blair’s New Labour party. The Brits don’t normally go in for coronation-style inaugurations. But when Tony Blair came to power after years of increasingly unpopular Conservative rule all the elements were there: people desperate for change and longing for a feel-good factor in their lives. Again, watch this YouTube video of Tony and Cherie Blair entering Downing Street. Unbelievable! Scenes like this have normally only been reserved for Royal coronations. Please watch this:
Tony Blair enters Downing Street, May 1997:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui_YVew5rNU
Déjà vu. Déjà vu. Oh Tony. Oh Bill. What did you do which changed the world? You both presided over illegal genocidal wars. Oh you get your little reward in being able to spend the rest of your lives giving after-lunch speeches for $100,000 a throw. But all that inaugural razzmatazz. All those euphoric enraptured people taken for ride. It’s criminal.
And so it is again on the present ride in Washington. Lot’s of PR work. Lots of Messianic posters depicting Obama as some kind of new guru. Lots of gravitas in the speeches. Lots of euphoria in the balls (which cost a few hundred million dollars to stage!). Another fairground ride for us to be on. This isn’t about cynicism; it’s about realism. It’s time for us to get real and stop behaving like little children whose world is governed by fairy-tale fantasies about Santa Klaus and handsome princes and I’m going to be an engine-driver, an astronaut or Luke Skywalker when I grow up. We have allowed ourselves to become infantilised and dumbed-down to such an extent (could it be all those unreality shows on TV! :o) that we cannot even see what is plainly going on all around us anymore — never mind what’s behind the scenes. We have become fodder for the fraudulent forays of devious politicians who could never make their moves without our sponsorship, which they engineer. Engineered consent. That’s the name of the game. That’s what democracy is all about.
However, just as you wouldn’t give your heart away in a love relationship to a total stranger who used cheap pick-up techniques on the sidewalk, please don’t allow yourself to be so easily taken in by any politician, no matter how great they may seem; but especially by those who use hypnotic techniques with empty platitudes to woo you.
These are times of massive deception. As a friend wrote to me today: “Evil has never looked so good”. Either we get it or we don’t.
If you want to communicate, I’d love to hear from you.
Watch this space. It’s a running story.
Cordially yours,
Alan Morrison
admin@youre-so-naive.com
http://www.youre-so-naive.com/
http://www.forsomeoneschild.com/
http://www.sinceritymusic.com/
You're so Naïve!
http://www.youre-so-naive.com/"The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim"
(Gustave Le Bon)
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind"
(George Orwell)
You're so Naïve!
So now you have a leader who is "young and black and real""Change we can believe in" is the mantra that you feel
But how come I am standing here with heaviness of heart?
It's a tragedy in Grecian style and we all have a part
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
He tapped into the hopes and dreams of desperate girls and boys
Fed-up with war being waged by folks who use bombs just like toys
They thought he was a Kennedy but therein lay their fall
'Cause just like JFK they'll kill him if he won't play ball
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
He never could've made it there unless he had a stash
Of filthy lucre laundered well just like all the white trash
Don't believe the hype which says he's just a guy self-made
Gotta have "connections" or you cannot make the grade
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
Make-believing every day we're going to be free
Hoping that some other guy will offer us the key
When we put a cross upon a sheet (our duty done?)
Imagining he'll pave the way for evil to be gone
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
Such a clever move it is; it makes you all relax
Takes the wind out of the sails of protest movements' acts
Now that your "Messiah" is here you think the world is safe
The only 'safety' you will find is in an ice-cold grave
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
"The saviour of the world has come!" (we've heard it all before)
The papers said "The earth has moved!" (it's déjà vu encore)
First we had the Tony Show and then the one from Bill
Playing the Strat and saxophone to give us all a thrill
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
They lead us by the nose to vote the way they want us to
And then we think democracy's the greatest thing to do
The PR guys have got a phrase (it's "engineered consent")
To help us see the media's role in electoral events
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
It doesn't matter who's the Prez, the same guys run the show
Behind the scenes they just ensure he won't disturb the flow
Of all the evil plans they've made for wars and coup d'etats
Business will be as usual I can guarantee you that
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
In case your sensibilities by my words are upset
I have to tell you frankly that "you ain't seen nothin' yet"!
The subtle machinations of this "obama-ising" time
Are rehearsals for a far worse scene that's further down the line
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
You're so naïve!
© Copyright, Sincerity Music, 2009.***
YOU'RE SO NAÏVE:
COMPOSER'S COMMENTARY
Verse 1:
So now you have a leader who is “young and black and real”
“Change we can believe in“ is the mantra that you feel
But how come I am standing here with heaviness of heart?
It's a tragedy in Grecian style and we all have a part
An interesting thing about Greek Tragedy was that the theatrical productions used certain revealing mechanical devices. One of them was known as an ekkyklema — literally, “a wheeled-out thing”, a cart on wheels which was rolled out onto the stage and on which there was displayed a tableau which represented some vital action which had taken place out of sight of the audience but which was now being revealed to them.
This is why I refer to the election campaign and subsequent election of Barack Obama as “a tragedy in Grecian style”. There is all this action taking place on the face of it; but there is something else going on behind the scenes of which the audience is completely unaware — so unaware (and so utterly desperate to remain unaware) that if anyone dares to reveal it (i.e. by wheeling out the cart!) the audience will jeer him and demand he be thrown out of the theatre! The tragedy in the election of Obama is not so much in the story as in the refusal of the majority of the audience to look at the ekkyklema and absorb its implications after it has been wheeled out. This commentary is wheeling it out. Please don't look away.
“Change we can believe in”. Just what does that mean? So many catchphrases. “Now is the time”. “Yes we can ”. Meaningless strings of soundbite words over which an audience will become hysterically enraptured. The choice which the public was offered in that election was between a George Bush clone and a catchphrase drone. Because they'd had enough of the former they plumbed for the latter. They thought they had a choice but there was none.
My use of the term “mantra” is no exaggeration. For Obama can be shown to have used identifiable hypnotic techniques with which to woo his audience and have them eating out of the palm of his hand. In fact, a very interesting 67-page analysis of Obama's speeches has been carried out by an expert in hypnotism who believes that they have deliberately used hypnotic techniques in order to enrapture the audiences [1]. This is well worth reading. This analysis is supported by many other experts in hypnosis — especially in Neuro-Linguistic Programming. A certified master hypnotist and trainer of hypnotherapy decided to analyze speeches from each of the candidates. He wrote:
“We've all heard rumors that governmental figures are using “mass hypnosis” to influence and sway the people of our great nations. Most of the time, this sounds like some silly conspiracy theory. But after all the recent news about the elections, I think it's time to find out if there's any truth to the rumors”[2];
What he then discovered proves that Obama deliberately used hypnotic techniques to inveigle his audiences. He examined speeches by McCain, Hilary Clinton and Obama, comparing them for controls to speeches by Bill Gates (low use of hypnotic language) and Adolf Hitler (high use of hypnotic language). He then graded each of them in terms of a percentage of hypnotic language. The results? Gates, 12% hypnotic language; McCain, 18% hypnotic language; Hilary Clinton, 32% hypnotic language; Adolf Hitler, 45% hypnotic language; Barack Obama, 58% hypnotic language[3]. This isn't sensationalism; these are the cold, hard facts. Obama and his speechwriter plainly understand hypnotic techniques and used them to great effect on their naïve audiences.
Mantras. All very carefully controlled. Is it any wonder that some of us are standing here with heaviness of heart? Like the boy in “The Emperor's New Clothes”, we are speaking the unspeakable to those who think they see clothes. When someone comes clothed in cool and carries away the masses like a political Pied Piper of Hamelin, we have every right to say what really lies underneath the attire.
Refrain:
You're so naïve!
The PTB are laughing up their sleeve
You're exactly what they need
Their power-games you feed
“The ‘Powers that Be’ are laughing up their sleeve”. Indeed. This song is predicated on the fact that there are those who secretly hold the reins of power — people who have not been elected to hold that power but who hold it nevertheless — people who can control the media (and thus control what you think and how you behave) — people who can start and end wars at will (and who use the media to ensure that you will get the right ‘spin’ about it so you will support it) — people who can gain your approval for all the wars they start by staging false-flag operations which will make you fearful enough to give it to them[4] — people who control the financial institutions and who can thus generate crises which will make you fearful for your wallet and thus give them even more control.
There are a few ways that rulers can intimidate the people and thus manipulate them more easily. In fact, they usually use a three-pronged method of intimidation. The first way is through making the people fearful for their lives, which can be done through permitting, or even actually organizing (e.g. through false-flag operations), widespread terror attacks which make people give their governments vast powers of authority. The second way is to create a general feeling of malaise, via perceived chaos and disorder, which makes people become so traumatized that they are easily manipulated mentally and emotionally by the ‘Powers that Be’. (Just watching The News these days is enough to give you Post Traumatic Shock Syndrome!). The third way is to make people feel so financially insecure and anxious that they will agree to any fiscal package which is proposed by their governments. When all three of these influences are brought to bear on a population, it is easy for a totalitarian (or incipiently totalitarian) government to take the reins of power dictatorially.
The power structure of this world is not at all what it appears to be to the unsuspecting. It operates on a number of different levels. Externally, one has governments (propped up by international bankers and corporations) manipulating and pulling the strings, with the media ensuring that the right spin is always fed to the people who must be kept in a continual state of ignorance. But at the next level down, below the level of visibility, there are the sordid intelligence agencies and organised crime cartels such as the CIA, NSA, KGB/FSB, MI5/MI6, Mossad and the Mafia, etc. (and which all cooperate with each other to maintain the status quo). Then, at the next level down, way below the level of visibility, there are the power-cabals and secret societies such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, the Freemasons (especially the higher degrees), the Knights of Malta, the Skull & Bones, etc. At the back of all that, there are the elite dynasties (e.g. the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Warburgs and Harrimans, etc.) — aristocratic family lines of the world who clandestinely control the direction of world affairs through the banking system and major corporations (of which especially those involved in defence components/contracts, energy production, pharmaceuticals, law firms), etc.
It is these who are the real ‘Powers that Be’ which make all decisions relating to your future and who will do all that they can to ensure that only the few truly curious and dogged (who can always be publicly derided as “kooks” and conspiracy theorists) will ever know much about them.
Please tell me how one little man can stand up to that vast network of corruption? Anyone who has dared to take it on has been liquidated. Although the existence of the network really goes back much further in antiquity, its first real blatant (i.e. public) intrusion into recent national politics was in the killing of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (about which more below).
The ‘Powers that Be’ feed on the ignorance and naïveté of the population. They stage an election campaign every few years just to give you the illusion that you have chosen your leader. This is the grand illusion. For they are simply getting you to endorse someone who they have earmarked for the job — someone who will do their bidding — someone who has already sold their soul to them for a position of power. When we play their game at election time, we feed their power-games.
“You're so naïve; the PTB are laughing up their sleeve ”.
However, is it really a mere naïveté with which we are dealing? I believe that many become so inveigled by these political smooth operators much more because of wilful ignorance than naïveté. There are three kinds of ignorance in this life: happy ignorance, simple ignorance and wilful ignorance.
a) Happy ignorance. This is an ignorance which is profitable for us. There are unspeakable things in this world which it is better for us never to know anything about. The agonized screams of a raped child. The chaotic debacle of mortal combat in battle. It is better that we remain happily ignorant of them. I'm not speaking about escapism or hiding our heads in the sand; for that is something different. I simply mean not being exposed to that which sensitive souls have no need to experience.
b) Simple ignorance. When we don't really understand what binds particles together, that is a simple ignorance. It doesn't affect me whether I know it or not. I can choose, though, to try and understand it. Simple ignorance is a desirable condition if the one afflicted by it is willing to learn! Simple ignorance is a great opportunity for us to do so. An empty vessel is no bad thing because it can always be filled and, indeed, should be.
c) Wilful ignorance. This is when a person is so opposed to expanded knowledge and truth that he or she is actually prepared to resist it. As soon as they hear views different from their own, they do not investigate them to see if they may be correct but begin to slander those who hold those views and then set out to destroy them.
Wilful ignorance is always inexcusable and it is what lies at the heart of so much stupidity in the world today. You can tell the difference between wilful and natural ignorance. Natural ignorance rejoices when it hears things explained more adequately. Whereas the one who is wilfully ignorant becomes puffed up with pride, refuses to accept instruction and even wrongly accuses those with whom he disagrees.
It is said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” - but it is much more paved with wilful ignorance! Wilful ignorance entails the deliberate eschewing of necessary knowledge - a contrived naïveté, if I may put it like that. Such contrivedly naïve people are exactly what the ‘Powers that Be’ feed upon. We sell our souls to them when we contrive to be so naïve. They need such people to form the majority of the population. Then their job is easy; their power-games are nourished and their dark goals will be accomplished.
Verse 2:
He tapped into the hopes and dreams of desperate girls and boys
Fed-up with war being waged by folks who use bombs just like toys
They thought he was a Kennedy but therein lay their fall
'Cause just like JFK they'll kill him if he won't play ball
The image of the President of the USA which is so often presented in Hollywood films (e.g. Pearl Harbor, Independence Day, etc.) , depicting him as a powerful, dependable leader — a safe pair of hands — to whom everyone defers on every issue, is just so wide of the mark as to be laughable. The President of the USA is merely a rotating GUI (Graphical User Interface) to woo the gullible public while the tenebrous characters who really hold the reins of power remain unchanged. (Think of George W. Bush in the Oval Office and you will not have much difficulty absorbing this concept).
Once one realises that the President of the USA does not run the country but that the country is really run by powerful unelected people who run the President then one also sees that there is a cleverly-devised scheme in place which ensures that they always get their way, no matter who is in office. It is in this respect that the two-party adversarial system is so helpful to their objectives. It appears to the unsuspecting public as though there is a choice but Republican and Democrat are merely two sides of the same bent coin.
Although democracy doesn't really exist anywhere in the Western world, the ‘Powers that Be’ want to maintain the pretence of it until such time as even all appearances of it will be ready to be dissolved by them. In the meantime, they work with the system as it is, milking it for all it's worth.
Most of the requirements of the ‘Powers that Be’ can best be fulfilled during a conservative presidency, when there is more or less a mandate from the voting public to go to war on the pretext of some connived threat and then cause as much destruction and powermongering mayhem in the world as possible. But the ‘Powers that Be’ realise that there has to be some relief from all the darkness, bloodshed and destruction every so often. So their scheme caters for changes of presidency to what looks like a less conservative one so that people can continue to imagine that they have the power to change the direction of their country and also undergo a degree of catharsis after years of the openly ruinous policies of the previous years of dummy presidency.
The way that the scheme works can be illustrated by the changes of President over the past couple of decades. First, there was George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993. Then William J. Clinton from 1993 to 2001. Then George W. Bush from 2001 to the present day. Now there is Barack Obama. After George H.W. Bush, people were crying out for change, so they got Bill Clinton. Just as they are doing now with Obama, they crowed with delight, believing that a new day had dawned for freedom, democracy and world peace. In short, Clinton was greeted as a saviour.
However, after eight years of that, the utopian expectations had not materialised, so change was cried out for yet again. But Bill had only been a cunning sideshow. Now the work of the ‘Powers that Be’ could begin in earnest once again as George W. Bush was elected for a further eight years of destruction and war-criminality, beginning with the events on September 11th 2001 which created a convenient pretext for invasion and taking us through wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, killing more than one million people in the process[5]. But now the people were crying out once again for change. They'd had enough. Too many were beginning to see through the parody of power and dummy democracy which created eight years of destruction and incipiently totalitarian legislation. So the ‘Powers that Be’ throw them a bone. “You want a saviour — a Messiah even? Well here he comes. The answer to your hopes and dreams”. A cool-looking dude who is young and black. What better way to make you think that you are on the brink of utopia in a “post-racial” universe? Suddenly, all the damage done in the previous eight years is dissolved in their minds as they whoop with joy at the false hope paraded before them.
The ‘Powers that Be’ played (preyed) upon the hopes and dreams of desperate girls and boys. They have no intention whatsoever of giving up their positions of power. Not at all. But even though you are permitted the illusion of changing the President for one who appears more humane and liberal, the real work behind the scenes does not change at all. And if Obama doesn't play ball with them, he'll be removed from office and from this life just like John Fitzgerald Kennedy. JFK went way too far in ringing in his changes. He had to go.
A president's only role, as far as the ‘Powers that Be’ are concerned, is to maintain the status quo. The status quo is about keeping the corporations swimming in money, keeping the military making perpetual war (which also keeps the corporations swimming in money) and keeping the people in ignorance and darkness (which also keeps the corporations swimming in money). Anyone who tries to step beyond those demarcation lines will be “JFKed”.
It is interesting that some are describing Obama as another JFK. John Fitzgerald Kennedy — although he had his faults and foibles — was a president who sought to go beyond the status quo and to interfere with the 'toys for the boys' and he paid for it with his life. He had already removed Allen Dulles from his role as head of the CIA (especially because of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, not to mention the fact that the CIA was found to be enlisting Mafia hitmen as assassins) and JFK was even threatening to dismantle the CIA altogether. It was said that he was going to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds” [“CIA: Marker of Policy or Tool?”, New York Times. April 25, 1966]. You don't last long in high office when you make threats like that. The heart of the dirty tricks, black ops and grubby business in the USA is the CIA/Military/Mafia enclave. Tinker with that sort of power and you'll be brought down big-time. JFK must have been spinning in his grave to see Allen Dulles on the 8-member Warren Commission after he begged LBJ to be a part of it![6] Lee Harvey Oswald a lone gunman? Not when you see it from the refreshing realism standpoint of The Parallax View .
Thus, if Obama is really just a hapless guy in a cool suit who doesn't know the field and who imagines that he can reverse the murder and destruction of previous years (which is actually very unlikely), he will be taken down before you can say the words “Dallas 1963”.
Verse 3:
He never could've made it there unless he had a stash
Of filthy lucre laundered well just like all the white trash
Don't believe the hype which says he's just a guy self-made
Gotta have “connections” or you cannot make the grade
First golden rule in US politics: Only a multi-millionaire can make it. You have to be sitting on a pile of filthy lucre just to stand for office. First golden rule in Chicago politics: “He who has the gold rules”. The connections between the political world and The Mob are a historical tradition in Chicago, the city of Al Capone and his original gang, “The Chicago Outfit”. We know from the December 2008 revelations about the Governor of Illinois, Rod R. Blagojevich, being arrested for conspiring to sell Obama's vacant Senate seat that this is the way that things are still done in Chicago. It is essentially a cesspit of corruption.
Blagojevich isn't the first. Not by a long chalk! Otto Kerner was Governor from 1961 to 1968 and he received a three year prison sentence in 1973 for bribery, conspiracy and perjury. Daniel Walker was Governor from 1973 to 1977 and received a seven year prison sentence on charges of bank fraud and perjury. Governor William Stratton ran Illinois from 1953 to 1961 and was later indicted but acquitted for tax evasion. Governor George Ryan, who was Governor Blagojevich's immediate predecessor, is still inside jail, doing a six-and-a-half-year sentence on wire fraud and bribery.
Illinois in general and Chicago in particular is surely the most corrupt region in the USA. [7] Please can you tell me how it is possible for a guy to rise from nothing to the President of the USA via a Chicago-based Senatorship without being in some way in the pocket of The Chicago Mob or having good connections to them?
As it happens, Obama was listed as no.8 in Judicial Watch's “List of Washington's Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians for 2007” (sandwiched in between I. Lewis Scooter Libby and Nancy Pelosi). [8] Furthermore, “as news of the Blagojevich's arrest broke, a Judicial Watch press release declared: 'This is a burgeoning crisis for Obama that should shake his presidency to its core. The criminal complaint filed today indicates that Obama and his team knew about Blagojevich's efforts to sell Obama's Senate seat. ('Tony' Rezko, Obama friend, fundraiser and real estate partner, is once again implicated in the corrupt activities exposed today)”. [9]
Obama has had close dealings with corrupt businessmen which became an embarrassment when his presidential campaign took off. In a June 2007 report in the New York Times, entitled “An Obama Patron and Friend Until an Indictment”, Obama's close relationship with Tony Rezko was scrutinised. In Autumn 2006, Rezko had been indicted on federal charges of business fraud and influence peddling involving the administration of Governor of Illinois, Rod R. Blagojevich. The paper stated: “Now, as Mr. Obama runs for president, the once-beneficial relationship with his old friend and patron has become problematic”.[10] So, essentially, Obama distanced himself and played everything down.
Reports in this investigative vein could be filed in 2007 and before, but as Obama's campaign gathered steam and the media were under pressure to get behind him so that any nefarious dealings would be obfuscated, as the November 2008 election day loomed any serious whiff of a stain on Obama's clothes would be airbrushed out long before it hit the newsstands. One exception found its way into a corner of the Chicago Tribune. Writing in October 2008, John Kass said:
“Obama's gauzy references to Chicago involve baseball and where he met Michelle and those blissful hours he spent as a community organizer. What he doesn't want discussed is his evolution from independent Democrat to potential White House enabler of the corrupt Chicago Democratic machine”. [11]
This is precisely my original point: Please can you tell me how it is possible for a guy to rise from nothing to the President of the USA via a Chicago-based Senatorship without being in some way in the pocket of The Chicago Mob or having good connections to them? Kass continues:
“Any child in Illinois knows the Chicago Way leads through the most politically corrupt city in America, in a politically corrupt state, where muscle trumps reason, where Democratic warlords brazenly promote their offspring into public office, where even souls are offered up for sale.
The national media have never wanted to understand, much less expose, political corruption here, or examine how Obama prospered under the Daley machine's guidance. A trip down the Chicago Way would force them to re-examine their ridiculous narrative that sets Obama as a political reformer riding a white horse, or is that a winged unicorn?” [12]
So how has Obama managed to keep his nose clean and project himself to his adulating supporters as being a corruption-free zone? Kass's Chicago Tribune piece claims that “the national urgency to view Obama as a political life-form several evolutionary rungs above Chicago's common political hacks is not only a mistake, it's disingenuous”.[13] He then cites a number of Obama's nefarious connections and concludes:
“Is Obama corrupt, the way the caricature of Chicago-style corruption is often drawn, with some beefeater alderman reeking of gin, stuffing an envelope into his breast pocket? No, though he came close with Rezko in that smelly deal for the purchase of Obama's home. But Obama looked the other way in order to prosper and assiduously avoided conflict with the machine to the point of embrace. In this, he offered Americans a glimpse at the real man inside that nice suit, the Chicago Way”. [14]
He “looked the other way in order to prosper and assiduously avoided conflict with the machine to the point of embrace”.[15] That is the key to how Obama has managed to rise to the surface of the scum-machine in Chicago. It is not so much that he regularly dirtied his own hands indelibly like so many other Chicago politicians. Rather that when they dirtied theirs, he looked the other way as he rode his white horse to the White House, thus tacitly approving it all. No wonder they tolerated him. He is the 'squeaky-clean' looking Chicago apparatchik who would be able to smooth their path from the highest office in the land. In the office which he is soon to take up, he will be useful to their world, as he evolves “from independent Democrat to potential White House enabler of the corrupt Chicago Democratic machine”.[16]
One of Obama's main selling-points in the minds of the idealistic young and liberal left is that he is in no one's pocket; that he is an independent with no lobbyists hanging on his shirt-tails — that he's in hock to no one. Is this true? Unfortunately not. In an August 2008 Boston Globe article, headlined “PACs and lobbyists aided Obama's rise. Data contrast with his theme”, Scott Hellman writes:
“Using campaign appearances, e-mails to supporters, and Iowa TV ads, Illinois Senator Barack Obama has repeatedly reminded voters that his presidential campaign does not accept contributions from lobbyists or political action committees, casting his decision as a noble departure from the ways of Washington... But behind Obama's campaign rhetoric about taking on special interests lies a more complicated truth. A Globe review of Obama's campaign finance records shows that he collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from lobbyists and PACs as a state legislator in Illinois, a US senator, and a presidential aspirant”. [17]
In a London Evening Standard article headed “£500m election fund ‘bought Obama victory’”, Paul Thompson writes:
“Barack Obama is likely to face calls that he ‘bought’ his election victory after the final sums for his astonishing fund raising campaign are revealed. Figures being presented to the Federal Election Commission are likely to show he raised £500 million ($750 million). The massive amount not only allowed Mr Obama to outspend John McCain, who raised £333 million ($480 million), in TV advertisements but changed the face of US politics”. [18]
So much was Obama's desire not to be stuck with a ceiling on his spending for the campaign that he “declined public financing and the spending limits that came with it, making him the first major-party candidate since the system was created to reject taxpayers' money for the general election”. [19]
We need to get some due diligence and discernment together here. Nobody, but nobody, rises to be a Senator in Chicago without “connections”. I'm talking about money connections. Big money connections. Chicago corruption-style money connections. Whatever one may think of arch-villain Karl Rove, one is forced to agree with him when he said: “Rather than showing the success of a new style of post-partisan politics, Mr Obama's victory may show the enduring truth of the old Chicago Golden Rule: he who has the gold rules”. Money doesn't merely talk in Chicago; it simply shrieks! One day, it may have a lot to say about a certain former President of the USA. Such exposés are generally reserved for the time when the ‘Powers that Be’ want a President removed from office and the media spin-machine is allowed to move into top gear.
Verse 4:
Make-believing every day we're going to be free
Hoping that some other guy will offer us the key
When we put a cross upon a sheet (our duty done?)
Imagining he'll pave the way for evil to be gone
This is the great failure of “democracy”. It is also one of the coups de grace of the ‘Powers that Be’ in their deception of the population. They get us to go out once every four years or so to put a cross on a piece of paper and then tell us that we have partaken in a wonderful thing called Democracy which is worth killing for. They tell us that many people already gave their lives in order to achieve the vote for us so we must feel super-guilty if we don't vote ourselves.
But, as we show in this commentary — and as can be seen in the election of Barack Obama — public opinion is easier to manipulate than a broomstick in a tub of molten lard! To put a cross on a piece of paper every four years and think that we've somehow participated meaningfully in the making of a leader and the political process is so woefully inadequate in terms of true democracy as to be laughable.
We imagine we can attain freedom and rid the world of evil by giving high office to some guy who simply had the best PR machine. Freedom can never be attained by absolving ourselves of responsibility for the world by handing power over to a clever PR manipulator. But the ‘Powers that Be’ want us to believe that this is possible. Even though we've been let down over and over again we still continue to believe it, like the punch-drunk boxer who keeps staggering across the ring into the path of his opponent's glove!
Verse 5:
Such a clever move it is; it makes you all relax
Takes the wind out of the sails of protest movements' acts
Now that your “Messiah” is here you think the world is safe
The only 'safety' you will find is in an ice-cold grave
Deflation of the opposition is a key element in getting a guy like Obama into office. This is a major part of the strategy of the ‘Powers that Be’. For as soon as a left-leaning/liberal politician is in what people perceive to be the driving seat of the country, one doesn't hear a whimper out of the peace movement or any other radical protest groups in society. Even though policy will remain fundamentally unchanged from the previous order, the left/liberals can be guaranteed to keep their mouths shut because of their doctrinaire mentality which dictates that there should be no dissent in any event while their golden boy is in office.
Let me give an example. Not long after the US military “Shock & Awe” bombing campaign in Baghdad, in which countless children and innocent adults had been killed, I went on a residential songwriting course. At one stage in the course I wanted to share a new song I had written about that episode in history, entitled “Anthem for Someone's Child” [hear the song and read the lyrics at www.forsomeoneschild.com ]. I might as well have proposed a song about gang rape! The response was one of ostrich head-burying as an embarrassed disquiet was expressed about such a song by those to whom I proposed it. The war criminal and Bush lapdog, Tony Blair, was in power with his Labour Party and when a Labour Party is in power the lefties and liberals (which describes virtually all those on the course) get very upset if you dare to criticise anything that they do. Their reasoning is that it is far better to have a Left government in power — no matter how badly they behave, even if they wage illegal wars or commit genocide — so long as they keep the Right out of power. The ‘Powers that Be’ understand this mentality only too well. In fact, it suits their purpose because when a Left government is in power it means that any opposition to the PTB's endless wars and coup d'etats simply dissolves to less than a whimper. Thus, their work goes unhindered no matter whether a right or left-leaning President is in office.
Any protest group which tries to lobby Obama about a war will be told by party hacks: “Don't worry, the President will deal with it. Just give him time. It isn't easy”. Just as the Democrats said after they were given a majority in both seats of government in 2006 “It takes time. We can't undo everything overnight”. Many outside observers wanted the Democratic party to move to impeachment of the Bush regime's war criminals. They might as well have wished for a peaceful war in Iraq!
Another interesting aspect of all this is that throughout the election campaign, it was almost as if Obama was being presented as a Messiah — the saviour who can make all things right for you and for the world. In fact, a website was set up to depict this aspect of the campaign[20]. It started off as tongue-in-cheek but grew into an extraordinary repository of the kind of obeisance which was being paid to Obama. If you visit this site, I promise that you will be astonished by the factual reports you find there. It is a measure of the ignorant desperation in the USA that so many are so willing to ascribe virtual divinity to a man about whom they know nothing and whose only relationship with them is the groovy repetition of a few empty phrases. Raised on soundbite TV, they easily come to worship a soundbite President.
Verse 6:
“The saviour of the world has come!” (we've heard it all before)
The papers said “The earth has moved!” (it's déjà vu encore)
First we had the Tony Show and then the one from Bill
Playing the Strat and saxophone to give us all a thrill
“The Earth has Moved”, said one front-page headline after the election of Obama. (Isn't that what a woman says after she's had an extraordinary sexual experience?). “It's a New World”, said another. “The World Changes”, said another. But nothing in the world had changed except that the PR machine of the ‘Powers that Be’ had managed to inveigle the American people into voting a certain way. Such headlines were repeated across the world. It was utterly verboten to print anything which would detract from the universal adulation in the media. (The media, being fawning courtiers to the ‘Powers that Be’ rather than investigative journalists who want to be free, know very well how to behave under these circumstances). The same thing happened when Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were elected. We've seen and heard it all before. It's déjà vu encore.
This universal hagiographic approach was echoed by the readers of all those rags too. Here is a transcript of a conversation (conflated from those I have both had personally and seen elsewhere) with starry-eyed Obama devotees (often referred to as ‘O-bots’) who were elated with Obama's election:
SHE: Isn't it wonderful that Barack Obama got in! I'm over the moon.
ME: Er... no.
SHE (shrilly): What? How could you say no?
ME (coolly): Because I have history as my precedent.
SHE: But Bush has gone.
ME: Bush as the desired figurehead may be gone but those who pulled his strings haven't gone anywhere.
SHE: Are you a Bush supporter?
ME: Er... no.
SHE: So how could you not be pleased that Obama is in power?
ME: I told you. I have history as my precedent.
SHE: Meaning?
ME: Meaning that we've been here before. It's déjà vu encore. Weren't you “over the moon” when Bill Clinton was elected as President, just the same as you are now?
Weren't you over the moon when Tony Blair was elected as Prime Minister, just the same as you are now? It was just the same then. All the liberals and lefties thinking that their saviour had arrived. But they were just two more chimeras pulled out of the hat by the real ‘Powers that Be’ to keep you quiet and happy for a while. King Tony. Bill the Saviour.
We've been there before. Don't you remember how elated you were when they got in but how deflated and disillusioned you were after a few years of their tenure of office?
SHE: Well, yes, there is that, but this is completely different.
ME: No, it isn't at all different. That's the point. It is you being taken for a ride for the third time in a few short years while the people who really control your world are laughing up their sleeve at how easily manipulated you are.
SHE: Oh don't give me all that conspiracy theory nonsense! We've got to have hope. Other people may have messed up but that's no reason to lose hope.
ME: In political terms, hope is one of the most empty emotions in the universe. It is always based on wishful thinking and delusion. It is just another way of leading you by the nose. These people who raise your hopes are just a graphical user interface put there by the ‘Powers that Be’ in order to make you think you're getting some really cool guys to fulfil your dreams. But they're always just as much of a criminal and shyster as the rightist leaders you despise so much.
King Tony regularly played his Fender Stratocaster so he'd look really kool and youthful. (In fact, the war criminal, Blair, was given 24 guitars — including 12 Strats — while he was in office by individuals and organisations such as Fender Musical Instruments, Bryan Adams, Bono, and the Governments of Romania, Mexico, Portugal, China and France!).
While he was on the campaign trail, Bill Clinton played the sax in a pair of shades at the Arsenio Hall Show — an act which turned his campaign around as all the jazz folks said he would be “the first black president”! Boy, do these guys know how to get into the hearts of idealistic young people desperate for someone else to change the world for the better!
All the ‘stars’ were “over the moon” when Bill came to power in 1993 (see, for example, this embarrassing footage of Judy Collins telling how Bill being elected to President was one of the biggest high-spots of her life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGrJX6qfPCY ). You'd think folks would be overcome with déjà vu now that Obama is in town. But no. The phoney dream must be kept alive and the ‘Powers that Be’ must maintain the status quo. So long as those patsy presidents and prime ministers play those Strats and saxophones and look really trendy they can convince the young, naive and gullible that they're cool and that it is possible to put human beings into power who will make the world into the utopia they so crave. Such leaders provide a necessary intermezzo to mitigate the blatantly oppressive episodes which bring about the continuing subjugation of the American people to the secret powers which control their country.
Verse 7:
They lead us by the nose to vote the way they want us to
And then we think democracy's the greatest thing to do
The PR guys have got a phrase (it's “engineered consent”)
To help us see the media's role in electoral events
The election campaign of Obama was a triumph for Public Relations (PR). It is PR which determines the outcome of presidential elections rather than any innate statesmanlike ability on the part of the candidates. Barack Obama spent £500 million ($750 million) on his election campaign. John McCain spent £333 million ($480 million) on his. Money talks — especially in the world of PR and spin via the media.
One of the “founding fathers” of Public Relations as we know it today was the Viennese-born Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995) who emigrated to the USA with his parents in 1892. Bernays was the nephew of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. His mother, Anna, was Freud's sister.
Bernays described his uncle as his mentor whose theories of the “unconscious” influenced his ideas concerning the manipulation of the thinking of the masses. It is widely recognised today that Bernays laid the ground for all the spin-doctoring of today. In late 1991, Life Magazine named him as one of the most influential men in the history of the USA, yet most people have never even heard of him. He was a prolific writer on PR techniques and served as personal PR advisor (spin-doctor) to many of the famous and influential — including US Presidents and other leaders, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower to Golda Meir (Prime Minister of Israel, 1969-1974).
It was more than ironic that Bernays (who was Jewish) should have been one of the key influences (especially via his book “Crystallizing Public Opinion”) on the life and thought of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda! Bernays' books lived on Goebbels' library shelves and shaped the thinking of this Nazi social engineer in his selling of Hitler and his policies to the gullible public. Any portentous bells ringing here?
Bernays' many books have shaped the manipulative policies of the governments of the Western world throughout the past eighty years. One of these was entitled “Propaganda”, written in 1927. Here are a couple of quotes:
“If we understand the mechanisms and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it”[21].
And again:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of”[22].
Bear in mind that Bernays was not at all disapproving of these manipulations but encouraging. Note especially how the phrase “democratic society” has been used here. To read the works of Bernays is to discover the Big Lie which lurks behind all government propaganda—especially concerning their alleged fostering of democracy. All democracy is a form of incipient totalitarianism in disguise. For the people who are elected by the people are not the rulers of their country. As Bernays says, there is “an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country”.
In 1955, Bernays edited a book about how democracy should work, entitled “The Engineering of Consent”, a phrase which he actually used as a definition of public relations. Think about that phrase carefully: The engineering of consent. Is that not what so-called democracy today is really all about? The manipulation of the people into making a choice which they think of as their own but which has been dictated for them is the engineering of consent. Is it any wonder that Bernays' techniques have been so much in use by allegedly “democratic” politicians?
Truly, the legacy of Bernays in political and governmental circles has been massive. Yet most people in the world have never even heard of this man who has shaped their world.
There is a major connection here between this Bernays legacy and the rise of Tony Blair in the UK with his magically-generated “New Labour Party”, which was one of the greatest PR manipulations and spin-doctor successes in the entire history of Britain. In the press release advertising two BBC TV programmes screened in March 2002, entitled “The Rise of the All-Consuming Self and the Influence of the Freud Dynasty — from Sigmund to Matthew”, it is stated:
“The Freud dynasty is at the heart of this compelling social history, from Sigmund to Matthew: Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis; Edward Bernays [Freud's nephew], who invented public relations; Anna Freud, Sigmund's devoted daughter; and present-day PR guru and Sigmund's great grandson, Matthew Freud, who became part of the new marketing culture that took over politics in Britain when New Labour swept to power in the 1990s”[23].
Marketing culture? What does that have to do with government, you may ask? Everything. Matthew Freud — whose wife is Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of media magnate, Rupert Murdoch — is a close friend of Peter Mandelson, one of the heartbeats of the Labour Party in the UK. He has also been unofficial PR advisor to Tony Blair for years and organised the watershed 1998 Labour Party Conference which turned the party's fortunes by concealing all blemishes from the public. These people know how to make darkness seem like light; evil seem like good; black things seem like white; and truth come out of falsehood. PR is the twenty-first century's own brand of sorcery.
Government propaganda based on PR models of manipulation now moulds and controls people's minds in ways never before imagined.[24] This was especially so with the UK election of Tony Blair at the helm of the “New Labour” Party, which was merely 'Stalinism Lite' disguised as democratic socialism. The election campaign and subsequent victory of Obama has also been a triumph of PR and marketing, mingled with naïve people's desperation for a true statesman. As one observer of public relations states:
“A single public relations professional with access to media, a basic understanding of mass psychology, and a fistful of dollars can unleash in society forces that make permanent winners out of otherwise-evident losers — whether they be products, politicians, corporations or ideas”[25].
Exactly. Point made.
Today, we have the fulfilment of the manipulated election of a man who looks like a cool rapper in a smart suit — someone to whom the young can relate and who can help the old to be unburdened from their guilt about historic racism in the USA. Appearing from nowhere like a cross between Melchizedek, a reincarnated JFK and the Lost Messiah of America, Obama has hypnotized the people into regarding him as their Saviour. This has been a very clever move on the part of the PR moguls behind his election campaign. Looking every bit the opposite of his predecessor (i.e. he appears to be intelligent and articulate), he is greeted with open arms as a clean pair of hands who can change the world. But as an obedient advocate of Zionism[26] and a front for the bankers and corporations who will run him,[27] he is perfectly placed not only to ensure that the status quo remains the same but that the global government agenda of the New World Order will steam ahead as planned. In short, he is a patsy – chosen by the powerbrokers to front their agenda.
Verse 8:
It doesn't matter who's the Prez, the same guys run the show
Behind the scenes they just ensure he won't disturb the flow
Of all the evil plans they've made for wars and coups d'etats
Business will be as usual, I can guarantee you that
This is the kernel of all that we are saying here. As already stated above “The President is just a rotating GUI (Graphical User Interface) to woo the gullible public while the tenebrous characters who really hold the reins (reigns?) of power remain unchanged”. All he has to do is go along with the status quo and make smooth the pathway for the plans of the ‘Powers that Be’.
Let's face it, Presidents have come and gone over the years but no matter who has been in that role the USA has continued to carry out its programme of subversion by stealth of all those countries which can be useful to their cause or which have proved an irritant to it. All the wars and coups d'etats have continued unabated no matter who has been in power. The Democratic party is just as corrupt as the Republican. So it won't be any different when Obama is in the role. In fact, all the pointers are that business will be as usual. So far, Obama has either maintained the same personnel as the Bush administration (e.g. Robert Gates as Defense Secretary) or appointed Chicago cronies and insiders from the Clinton administration. There's no change we can believe in there. None whatsoever. But then all this is only to be expected. When the Democratic Party obtained a majority in Congress and the House of Representatives in 2006 all the liberals and lefties assumed that the peccadilloes of the Bush administration's six years in office would begin to be overturned. Another wasted dream. Nothing changed. In fact, the debacle only deepened and more anti-freedom legislation was passed with barely a whimper from the 'opposition'. As the old song says: “When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?”
When Obama takes office, there will be no sending of all the serial liars and war criminals from the previous administration to The Hague for prosecution. There will be no criminal proceedings for those who advocated and practised torture in the previous administration. When ABC host, George Stephanopoulos, asked future Vice-President, Joe Biden, whether Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other high-level Bush administration officials should be prosecuted for prisoner and child abuse, torture and murder in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, he said: “President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past. We're focusing on the future... I'm not ruling it in and not ruling it out. I just think we should look forward. I think we should be looking forward, not backwards”[28]. Classic fudge. Stonewalling. Biden is the gatekeeper to ptotect the Obama administration from any rogue questions in the media. He's an old hand. He knows how to play the game.
Most people fail to realise that the liberal corporate types, such as Barack Obama, can often be even more Stalinist and corrupt than conservative rightists (witness Tony Blair and his New Labour Party in the UK). There will be no prosecutions of anyone in the previous administration (unless some easy target fall guy of little consequence is singled out to take the rap). There will be no abolishing of the treacherous Patriot Acts passed by the Bush regime. There will be no real undoing of any of the great evil that was done by the previous administration. Obama has too many evil people backing him for that to happen.[29]
At this point, you may say: “But what about Guantanamo Bay? He's already said that he's going to close it. So doesn't that prove you wrong?” To which I reply: Not at all. It is quite likely that he will move towards closing Guantanamo Bay. But that will just be a bit of window-dressing to mislead the easily inveigled minds of today. This is a classic manoeuvre of the corrupt. There are many secret Guantanamo Bays around the world, set up by the CIA as part of their “Extraordinary Rendition” program.[30] So they close down the publicly-known Guantanamo Bay to make you think that such atrocities have been stopped. However, the remainder of the torture chambers which they have set up in secret in countries where such activity is the norm will continue unhindered — and mostpeople will continue to imagine that Obama is their knight in shining armour.
So there will be no real undoing of any of the great evil that was done by the previous administration. On the contrary, the CIA will carry on its policy of subversion and terrorism across the world. The military will carry on waging the illegal wars that the power cabals and corporations want them to wage. Wall Street will continue to embezzle and the media will continue to muzzle.
Business will be as usual; I can guarantee you that.
Verse 9:
In case your sensibilities by my words are upset
I have to tell you frankly that “you ain't seen nothin' yet!”
The subtle machinations of this “obama-ising” time
Are rehearsals for a far worse scene that's further down the line
No doubt many people will be irate to read what has been written in this song and commentary. Some will be incensed beyond belief. But not only will I retract not a word (unless it can be shown to be false) but I will go further than I have already gone by saying that the whole Obamarama roadshow is a mere rehearsal for the events of the future. The ‘Powers that Be’ love to experiment with our psyches to see how far they can go with their audacious mind-control projects. At one time such experiments would be conducted on a comparatively small, unknown and (from their point of view) 'expendable' element of the population (prison or mental hospital inmates and Californian hippies).[31] Today they brazenly toy with the mass of people's minds in Psyops-based election campaigns.[32] Understanding this process is a vital part of our self-education.
The world is moving towards a scenario which will make Orwell's masterpiece, “1984” (essential reading for all self-educators), seem like a boy scout's garden party. All the elements are falling into place. We need to awaken from our slumber and see the 2008 US election for what it was: The stealing of people's minds and the swaying of their hearts to accept a Trojan Horse into their lives. “It's a tragedy in Grecian style and we all have a part”..
© Copyright, Sincerity Music, 2009.
[1]See http://www.scribd.com/doc/7470439/Obamas-hypnosis-Speeches
[2]See, e.g. http://www.transformdestiny.com/blog/?p=48'.
[3]Ibid.
[4]A false-flag operation is when governments or organisations themselves stage an atrocity (which they blame on others) or create a bogus enemy in order to capitalise on the wave of fear and indignation which it generates.
[5]If we weigh up the real evidence, we must surely conclude that 9/11 was a classic false-flag operation. It was either enacted by forces directed by the ‘Powers that Be’ or, at the very least, was permitted to happen (i.e. not prevented from happening) by a PTB which saw the advantage of capitalising on such a dreadful event.
[6]Most of the starry-eyed young folks who voted for Obama probably haven't even heard of the Warren Commission, let alone worked out that Kennedy was assassinated by his own people!
[7] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2008/12/is_illinois_the_most_corrupt_s.html
[8] http://www.judicialwatch.org/judicial-watch-announces-list-washington-s-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2007
[9] http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2008/12/judicial-watch-to-testify-in-blagojevich-hearings.html
[10] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/us/politics/14rezko.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
[11] http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/oct/05/opinion/chi-kass-0510
[12]Ibid.
[13]Ibid.
[14]Ibid.
[15]Ibid.
[16]Ibid.
[17] http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/09/_obamas_rise/
[18] http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23597624-details/500m+election+fund+%27bought+Obama+victory%27/article.do
[19]Op. cit. Scott Hellman article in Boston Globe.
[20] See http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/
[21] “Propaganda”, Edward L. Bernays, p.71.
[22] Ibid., p.9.
[23] See the revealing link at the press office of the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/stories/02/0202/28/centuryoftheself.shtml
[24] See “What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda & the New Face of American Politics”, by Andras Szanto, Public Affairs, 2007
[25] “Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry”, John C. Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, Common Courage Press, 1995.
[26] Many Zionists put him into office from the beginning. See http://www.chicagojewishnews.com/story.htm?sid=212226&id=252218
[27] http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=240 & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MouUJNG8f2k & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-KJCMWcoms
[28] http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2008/12/biden-not-rulin.html
[29] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MouUJNG8f2k & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-KJCMWcoms
[30] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
[31] See Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain, “Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond” (Grove Press, 1986). Further details about the book are also in the review article “LSD and the CIA”, which can be found at http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/lsd/. See also George Andrews, “MKULTRA: The CIA's Top Secret Program in Human Experimentation and Behavior Modification”, Healthnet Press, 2001. For further copious details about the CIA's secret programmes involving mind-control see Andrew Smith's article “Mind Control, LSD, the CIA and the American People: What the Government Does Not Want You to Know”, at http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/lsd-mc-cia.htm . See also Jim Huck's website at http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/jphuck/ and click on the article entitled “The Secret Government”. For an article on the vast use of psychiatrists enlisted for research on MK-Ultra see “CIA Shrinks & LSD” by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, at http://www.counterpunch.org/ciashrinks.html . See also the entire transcript of the U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence proceedings on August 3rd 1977, which was set up to look into the abuses of the CIA's MK-Ultra mind-control experiments which was entitled “Project MKULTRA, The CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification”.The index link for this can be found here: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/e1950/mkultra/index.htm
[32] Psyops is short for Psychological Operations, in which techniques are used to alter people's behaviour through forms of mind-control and manipulation.
New Spore Games Target Kids, Wii Players
http://blog.wired.com/games/2009/01/electronic-arts.html
New Spore Games Target Kids, Wii Players
By Nate Ralph
January 22, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — The long-awaited release of Will Wright's evolution game, Spore, wasn't the end of the journey. It was just the beginning.
At a chic San Francisco art gallery Wednesday evening, Electronic Arts unveiled its plans to expand on the franchise in 2009. Wright and Co. are looking to bring a wide variety of new players into the Spore universe. A new Creature Keeper game is aimed at young kids who want to play Tamagotchi with the monsters they create. Spore Hero is an action-adventure game for Wii. And a new expansion pack to the flagship PC game allows players to tweak the gameplay, creating their own adventures and challenging other players.
Spore, which was released last September, had years of hype behind it. The game promised to recreate the entire path of evolution, from cells swimming in the primordial ooze all the way to space travel. Critics were largely in agreement that while the game's creature-creation tools and procedurally-generated universes were stunning in their complexity, the gameplay laid on top of it was lacking.
Electronic Arts hopes it can evolve the series this year.
One of the most praised parts of Spore was the creature creator that allowed players to pull and prod body parts every which way to design amazing creatures, which would then animate in a lifelike fashion. Spore Creature Keeper takes those monsters and dumps them into a virtual-pet game aimed at kids.
In addition to ensuring that their little creation gets its daily exercise, players will be able to decorate their critter's living space, and invite friends over for play dates.
EA says it expects to release Creature Keeper in the summer.
Will Wright has said repeatedly that his company had planned on releasing a version of Spore for Nintendo's Wii console. EA finally made the official announcement last night: Spore Hero will be available this fall.
Spore Hero will allow players to create and interact with a fully rendered creature, and then lead them on a casual adventure to become their galaxy's champion, with a number of challenges along the way. While EA held back on the details, it said that the game will maintain the franchise's focus on creating content and interacting with friends. But the Wii format will bring new challenges — it'll use the console's motion controls — and probably a whole new audience.
A Nintendo DS version of the game, Spore Hero Arena, is also scheduled for a fall release.
The highlight of the event was Spore Galactic Adventures (pictured above), the game's first expansion pack for PC and Mac. It expands the creative pathways open to players by allowing them to create their own gameplay.
Spore allows you to play God: prodding a single-celled organism along the evolutionary road, you design entire civilizations to explore vast tracts of space, befriending (or conquering) neighbors. And with the social networking trappings of "Sporepedia," a compendium of user-created content, your universe is automatically populated by the creations of other players hooked in to the network. (EA said Wednesday that over 65 million creations are currently on the servers.)
But once you reach the final Space stage of Spore, the gameplay becomes a bit underwhelming — once countless solar systems are at your fingertips, you'll quickly realize that there isn't very much to do. Galactic Adventures seeks to flesh out the final bits of Spore by adding a potent new tool set dubbed the "Adventure Creator," which allows you to create their own challenging levels and play others.
While we weren't allowed to get hands-on with the world-shaping, the demo that EA showed us demonstrated that Adventure Creator should be just as intuitive a tool as all of Spore's others. You won't be able to alter the size or shape of a planet, but geological features like lofty volcanoes or winding lakes can be planted with a click of your mouse. You can change the temperature from a ball of magma to a frigid wasteland or anything in between.
Once you've crafted the ideal layout, the full bulk of the Sporepedia will be available, allowing you to populate your world with any number of creatures, buildings, vehicles and objects that other users have created.
Once the stage is set, it's time to start crafting an adventure. Much like Sony's creative PlayStation 3 game LittleBigPlanet, the definition of an adventure will largely be up to the individual designer. One quest I saw involved rescuing a princess from the clutches of a massive predator, while another challenged players to defend creatures from their hostile neighbors, as they migrated from one end of a planet to another.
Players will be able to create vehicle races, hedge mazes, or even platforming puzzles based on navigating a hazardous environment. The tools are fairly open-ended, and adventure-designers will have a great deal of control over how characters and objects interact with one another, including adding dialogue or controlling the feelings and reactions that a particular quest's actor has towards a player's character.
Every adventure is tied to the planet that you create. Once you've completed your opus and uploaded it to the Sporepedia, it functions much like any other user-created object will — you can search the web page for new content, or simply play the game as you normally would, and wait for the adventures to come to you. As you travel around the Spore universe, you'll occasionally encounter a player-created quest, and Galactic Adventures will allow your creature to beam down onto the surface of a planet to explore.
New equipment and abilities will be added with this expansion pack, tools of the trade that no self-respecting spacefarer should be without. These include all sorts of rocket launchers and laser blasters to ward off hostiles, in addition to jet packs and hover boots, to help space explorers navigate treacherous terrain.
Players will be able to rate the adventures they encounter, and popular levels with higher ratings will spread about the Spore-universe, while the drivel will fade into obscurity. Adventures will also have leaderboards, so that players who complete a level will be able to see how well they performed, when compared to players around the world.
When Galactic Adventures debuts later this spring, it will ship with a few dozen adventures crafted by the game's designers, but it will largely be up to players to create the universe as they see fit. If the success of the current content creators are any indication — over 200,000 new items are being uploaded every day — it's going to be an exciting time to be a Spore fan.
New Spore Games Target Kids, Wii Players
By Nate Ralph
January 22, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — The long-awaited release of Will Wright's evolution game, Spore, wasn't the end of the journey. It was just the beginning.
At a chic San Francisco art gallery Wednesday evening, Electronic Arts unveiled its plans to expand on the franchise in 2009. Wright and Co. are looking to bring a wide variety of new players into the Spore universe. A new Creature Keeper game is aimed at young kids who want to play Tamagotchi with the monsters they create. Spore Hero is an action-adventure game for Wii. And a new expansion pack to the flagship PC game allows players to tweak the gameplay, creating their own adventures and challenging other players.
Spore, which was released last September, had years of hype behind it. The game promised to recreate the entire path of evolution, from cells swimming in the primordial ooze all the way to space travel. Critics were largely in agreement that while the game's creature-creation tools and procedurally-generated universes were stunning in their complexity, the gameplay laid on top of it was lacking.
Electronic Arts hopes it can evolve the series this year.
One of the most praised parts of Spore was the creature creator that allowed players to pull and prod body parts every which way to design amazing creatures, which would then animate in a lifelike fashion. Spore Creature Keeper takes those monsters and dumps them into a virtual-pet game aimed at kids.
In addition to ensuring that their little creation gets its daily exercise, players will be able to decorate their critter's living space, and invite friends over for play dates.
EA says it expects to release Creature Keeper in the summer.
Will Wright has said repeatedly that his company had planned on releasing a version of Spore for Nintendo's Wii console. EA finally made the official announcement last night: Spore Hero will be available this fall.
Spore Hero will allow players to create and interact with a fully rendered creature, and then lead them on a casual adventure to become their galaxy's champion, with a number of challenges along the way. While EA held back on the details, it said that the game will maintain the franchise's focus on creating content and interacting with friends. But the Wii format will bring new challenges — it'll use the console's motion controls — and probably a whole new audience.
A Nintendo DS version of the game, Spore Hero Arena, is also scheduled for a fall release.
The highlight of the event was Spore Galactic Adventures (pictured above), the game's first expansion pack for PC and Mac. It expands the creative pathways open to players by allowing them to create their own gameplay.
Spore allows you to play God: prodding a single-celled organism along the evolutionary road, you design entire civilizations to explore vast tracts of space, befriending (or conquering) neighbors. And with the social networking trappings of "Sporepedia," a compendium of user-created content, your universe is automatically populated by the creations of other players hooked in to the network. (EA said Wednesday that over 65 million creations are currently on the servers.)
But once you reach the final Space stage of Spore, the gameplay becomes a bit underwhelming — once countless solar systems are at your fingertips, you'll quickly realize that there isn't very much to do. Galactic Adventures seeks to flesh out the final bits of Spore by adding a potent new tool set dubbed the "Adventure Creator," which allows you to create their own challenging levels and play others.
While we weren't allowed to get hands-on with the world-shaping, the demo that EA showed us demonstrated that Adventure Creator should be just as intuitive a tool as all of Spore's others. You won't be able to alter the size or shape of a planet, but geological features like lofty volcanoes or winding lakes can be planted with a click of your mouse. You can change the temperature from a ball of magma to a frigid wasteland or anything in between.
Once you've crafted the ideal layout, the full bulk of the Sporepedia will be available, allowing you to populate your world with any number of creatures, buildings, vehicles and objects that other users have created.
Once the stage is set, it's time to start crafting an adventure. Much like Sony's creative PlayStation 3 game LittleBigPlanet, the definition of an adventure will largely be up to the individual designer. One quest I saw involved rescuing a princess from the clutches of a massive predator, while another challenged players to defend creatures from their hostile neighbors, as they migrated from one end of a planet to another.
Players will be able to create vehicle races, hedge mazes, or even platforming puzzles based on navigating a hazardous environment. The tools are fairly open-ended, and adventure-designers will have a great deal of control over how characters and objects interact with one another, including adding dialogue or controlling the feelings and reactions that a particular quest's actor has towards a player's character.
Every adventure is tied to the planet that you create. Once you've completed your opus and uploaded it to the Sporepedia, it functions much like any other user-created object will — you can search the web page for new content, or simply play the game as you normally would, and wait for the adventures to come to you. As you travel around the Spore universe, you'll occasionally encounter a player-created quest, and Galactic Adventures will allow your creature to beam down onto the surface of a planet to explore.
New equipment and abilities will be added with this expansion pack, tools of the trade that no self-respecting spacefarer should be without. These include all sorts of rocket launchers and laser blasters to ward off hostiles, in addition to jet packs and hover boots, to help space explorers navigate treacherous terrain.
Players will be able to rate the adventures they encounter, and popular levels with higher ratings will spread about the Spore-universe, while the drivel will fade into obscurity. Adventures will also have leaderboards, so that players who complete a level will be able to see how well they performed, when compared to players around the world.
When Galactic Adventures debuts later this spring, it will ship with a few dozen adventures crafted by the game's designers, but it will largely be up to players to create the universe as they see fit. If the success of the current content creators are any indication — over 200,000 new items are being uploaded every day — it's going to be an exciting time to be a Spore fan.
Nazi Josef Mengele 'created twin town in Brazil'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/brazil/4307262/Nazi-angel-of-death-Josef-Mengele-created-twin-town-in-Brazil.htmlNazi angel of death Josef Mengele 'created twin town in Brazil'
The Nazi doctor Josef Mengele is responsible for the astonishing number of twins in a small Brazilian town, an Argentine historian has claimed.
One in five pregnancies in the small Brazilian town have resulted in twins - most of them blond haired and blue eyed.
By Nick Evans in Buenos Aires
21 Jan 2009
The steely hearted "Angel of Death", whose mission was to create a master race fit for the Third Reich, was the resident medic at Auschwitz from May 1943 until his flight in the face of the Red Army advance in January 1945.
His task was to carry out experiments to discover by what method of genetic quirk twins were produced – and then to artificially increase the Aryan birthrate for his master, Adolf Hitler.
Now, a historian claims, Mengele's notorious experiments may have borne fruit.
For years scientists have failed to discover why as many as one in five pregnancies in a small Brazilian town have resulted in twins – most of them blond haired and blue eyed.
But residents of Candido Godoi now claim that Mengele made repeated visits there in the early 1960s, posing at first as a vet but then offering medical treatment to the women of the town.
Shuttling between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, he managed to evade justice before his death in 1979, but his dreams of a Nazi master race appeared unfulfilled.
In a new book, Mengele: the Angel of Death in South America, the Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa, a specialist in the post-war Nazi flight to South America, has painstakingly pieced together the Nazi doctor's mysterious later years.
After speaking to the townspeople of Candido Godoi, he is convinced that Mengele continued his genetic experiments with twins – with startling results.
He reveals how, after working with cattle farmers in Argentina to increase their stock, Mengele fled the country after fellow Nazi, Adolf Eichmann, was kidnapped by Israeli agents.
He claims that Mengele found refuge in the German enclave of Colonias Unidas, Paraguay, and from there, in 1963, began to make regular trips to another predominantly German community just over the border in Brazil – the farming community of Candido Godoi.
And, Mr Camaras claims, it was here that soon after the birthrate of twins began to spiral.
"I think Candido Godoi may have been Mengele's laboratory, where he finally managed to fulfil his dreams of creating a master race of blond haired, blue eyed Aryans," he said.
"There is testimony that he attended women, followed their pregnancies, treated them with new types of drugs and preparations, that he talked of artificial insemination in human beings, and that he continued working with animals, proclaiming that he was capable of getting cows to produce male twins."
The urbane German who arrived in Candido Godoi was remembered with fondness by many of the townspeople.
"He told us he was a vet," said Aloisi Finkler, a local farmer interviewed by Mr Camarasa. "He asked about illnesses we had among our animals, and told us not to worry, he could cure them. He appeared a cultured and dignified man."
Another farmer, Leonardo Boufler, said: "He went from farm to farm checking the animals. He checked them for TB, and injected those that were infected. He said he could carry out artificial insemination of cows and humans, which we thought impossible as in those days it was unheard of."
But the Nazi eugenicist did not concentrate on animals alone.
A former mayor and town doctor, Anencia Flores da Silva, set out to try to solve the town's mystery. He interviewed hundreds of people, and discovered one character who crept on cropping up: an itinerant medic calling himself Rudolph Weiss.
Dr da Silva said: "In the testimonies we collected we came across women who were treated by him, he appeared to be some sort of rural medic who went from house to house. He attended women who had varicose veins and gave them a potion which he carried in a bottle, or tablets which he brought with him. Sometimes he carried out dental work, and everyone remembers he used to take blood."
The people of Candido Godoi now largely accept that a Nazi war criminal was an inadvertent guest of theirs for several years in the early 1960s. The town's official crest shows two identical profiles and a road sign welcomes visitors to a "Farming Community and Land of the Twins". There is also a museum, the House of the Twins.
While the twins birthrate varies widely in different countries, it is typically about one in 80 pregnancies – a statistic that has left Mr Camarasa certain in his claim that Mengele was successfully pursuing his dreams of creating a master race, a real-life Boys from Brazil.
"Nobody knows for sure exactly what date Mengele arrived in Candido Godoi, but the first twins were born in 1963, the year in which we first hear reports of his presence," he said.
Something fishy?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-01-19-fake-foods_N.htm
Something fishy? Counterfeit foods enter the U.S. market
1-19-9
By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
Some of your favorite foods may be fakes.
Foods masquerading as something else — a more nutritious something else — have been big news in the past two years. Chinese food companies in particular have been blamed for making deadly alterations to dairy, baby and pet foods by adding melamine. The chemical makes it appear that the food or beverage has the required level of protein.
But what about food producers in this country? What fraudulent foods do U.S. consumers have to fear from American companies?
Experts say dangerous U.S.-produced foods are comparatively few, but producers have been known to practice "economic adulteration" — adding a little to their bottom line by padding, thinning or substituting something cheap for something expensive.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration regulate the food industry, but with safety issues to deal with, economic adulteration has "really been back-burnered," says Bruce Silverglade of the non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest. So in a caveat emptor world, what should consumers look out for?
Fish is the most frequently faked food Americans buy. In the business, it's called "species adulteration" — selling a cheaper fish such as pen-raised Atlantic salmon as wild Alaska salmon.
When Consumer Reports tested 23 supposedly wild-caught salmon fillets bought nationwide in 2005-2006, only 10 were wild salmon. The rest were farmed. In 2004, University of North Carolina scientists found 77% of fish labeled red snapper was actually something else. Last year, the Chicago Sun-Times tested fish at 17 sushi restaurants and found that fish being sold as red snapper actually was mostly tilapia.
"It's really just fraud, plain and simple," says Gavin Gibbons of the National Fisheries Institute, an industry group.
One thing consumers don't need to worry about is scallops. Tales of skate wings cut into circles and sold as scallops are common. But Randolph says the FDA has never found an actual case of it.
Salmon is tricky. Randolph does have one tip, though. Farmed salmon gets its coloring from dyes added to food pellets the fish are fed, while wild salmon gets it from the plankton they eat.
"When you cook it, the wild salmon retains its color, and in the aquaculture salmon, the color tends to leak out," she says. Suspicious consumers can call the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Nutrition hotline at 1-888-SAFEFOOD.
Olive oil
This luxury oil, touted for its heart-health properties and taste, has become a gourmet must-have. Americans consumed about 575 million pounds of the silky stuff last year, according to the North American Olive Oil Association. Sixty-three percent was the higher-grade extra virgin, which comes from the first pressing of the olives.
It's also one of the most frequently counterfeited food products, says Martin Stutsman, the FDA's consumer safety officer for edible oils.
There are no national figures on olive-oil fakery. But after complaints, Connecticut began testing two years ago. "We were coming across a lot of products labeled as extra-virgin olive oil that contained up to 90% soybean oil," says Jerry Farrell Jr., Connecticut's commissioner of consumer protection.
Most name brands were fine, Farrell says. It was often off-brands sold in discount stores that were the problem.
Connecticut was so concerned that in November, it became the first state in the nation to set standards for olive oil, enabling officials there to levy fines and pull adulterated products off store shelves. California is set to create its own standards this year. Reports from panels of testers have found as much as 60% to 70% of the olive oil sold as extra virgin in the state is a lower-quality olive oil, says Dan Flynn of the Olive Center at the University of California-Davis.
The easiest thing is for fakers to add 10% vegetable oil in extra virgin, says Stutsman. "It will still smell as it should, but you've saved 10% of the cost."
Bob Bauer, president of the North American Olive Oil Association, says it's more of a problem in restaurants than in supermarkets.
Honey
An expensive natural product that's mostly sugar, honey is easily faked. "If you can substitute a less expensive source of sugar for the expensive one, you can save some money and gain market share," says the FDA's Stutsman.
It used to be that cane sugar or high-fructose corn syrup was mostly used to thin out honey. But chemically, that was easy to spot. FDA used an isotope test that would easily identify the adulteration.
So counterfeiters got wily and started using beet sugar. Its profile is similar to honey, so the FDA had to switch to a much more complicated, multistep test comparing the sugar profiles to see if the proportions and trace materials match.
"But once we started catching people, they create a moving target. They'll switch to something more difficult (to detect)," says Stutsman.
Maple syrup
Maple syrup is another high-value item that can be adulterated. In these tough economic times, Vermont, the USA's largest supplier to flapjacks everywhere, may up its testing programs.
The boiled-down sap of the sugar maple tree can be diluted with water or sugar by sellers "trying to get more bang for the buck," says Kristin Haas, food safety director in the state's Agency for Agriculture, Food and Markets.
Vermont's testing program has found fraud only three times in the past 17 years, says Haas, but it's not taken lightly. "A couple of years back, there was a gentleman who actually went to prison because of this issue."
When times get tight, the incentive to cheat can rise like sap in the spring, so the state may have to work harder to keep its premier product pure.
Vanilla
A product of the tropics, vanilla pods can be soaked in milk or stored in sugar to impart a delicate vanilla scent to foods. More commonly, they're soaked in alcohol that is then used as a flavoring.
But vanillin (pronounced VAN-ah-lynn), a chemical copy of the richly organic vanilla flavor, was created in the laboratory in the 19th century. When used in foods, it's supposed to be labeled as an artificial flavor and usually is.
One "too good to be true" product to watch out for is really inexpensive vanilla extract sometimes sold in Mexico and Latin America, says the FDA. It's often made with coumarin, a toxic substance that has been banned in U.S. foods since 1954.
Coumarin is chemically related to warfarin, a blood thinner, and can be dangerous. It's "no bargain," the FDA says.
Something fishy? Counterfeit foods enter the U.S. market
1-19-9
By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
Some of your favorite foods may be fakes.
Foods masquerading as something else — a more nutritious something else — have been big news in the past two years. Chinese food companies in particular have been blamed for making deadly alterations to dairy, baby and pet foods by adding melamine. The chemical makes it appear that the food or beverage has the required level of protein.
But what about food producers in this country? What fraudulent foods do U.S. consumers have to fear from American companies?
Experts say dangerous U.S.-produced foods are comparatively few, but producers have been known to practice "economic adulteration" — adding a little to their bottom line by padding, thinning or substituting something cheap for something expensive.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration regulate the food industry, but with safety issues to deal with, economic adulteration has "really been back-burnered," says Bruce Silverglade of the non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest. So in a caveat emptor world, what should consumers look out for?
Fish is the most frequently faked food Americans buy. In the business, it's called "species adulteration" — selling a cheaper fish such as pen-raised Atlantic salmon as wild Alaska salmon.
When Consumer Reports tested 23 supposedly wild-caught salmon fillets bought nationwide in 2005-2006, only 10 were wild salmon. The rest were farmed. In 2004, University of North Carolina scientists found 77% of fish labeled red snapper was actually something else. Last year, the Chicago Sun-Times tested fish at 17 sushi restaurants and found that fish being sold as red snapper actually was mostly tilapia.
"It's really just fraud, plain and simple," says Gavin Gibbons of the National Fisheries Institute, an industry group.
One thing consumers don't need to worry about is scallops. Tales of skate wings cut into circles and sold as scallops are common. But Randolph says the FDA has never found an actual case of it.
Salmon is tricky. Randolph does have one tip, though. Farmed salmon gets its coloring from dyes added to food pellets the fish are fed, while wild salmon gets it from the plankton they eat.
"When you cook it, the wild salmon retains its color, and in the aquaculture salmon, the color tends to leak out," she says. Suspicious consumers can call the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Nutrition hotline at 1-888-SAFEFOOD.
Olive oil
This luxury oil, touted for its heart-health properties and taste, has become a gourmet must-have. Americans consumed about 575 million pounds of the silky stuff last year, according to the North American Olive Oil Association. Sixty-three percent was the higher-grade extra virgin, which comes from the first pressing of the olives.
It's also one of the most frequently counterfeited food products, says Martin Stutsman, the FDA's consumer safety officer for edible oils.
There are no national figures on olive-oil fakery. But after complaints, Connecticut began testing two years ago. "We were coming across a lot of products labeled as extra-virgin olive oil that contained up to 90% soybean oil," says Jerry Farrell Jr., Connecticut's commissioner of consumer protection.
Most name brands were fine, Farrell says. It was often off-brands sold in discount stores that were the problem.
Connecticut was so concerned that in November, it became the first state in the nation to set standards for olive oil, enabling officials there to levy fines and pull adulterated products off store shelves. California is set to create its own standards this year. Reports from panels of testers have found as much as 60% to 70% of the olive oil sold as extra virgin in the state is a lower-quality olive oil, says Dan Flynn of the Olive Center at the University of California-Davis.
The easiest thing is for fakers to add 10% vegetable oil in extra virgin, says Stutsman. "It will still smell as it should, but you've saved 10% of the cost."
Bob Bauer, president of the North American Olive Oil Association, says it's more of a problem in restaurants than in supermarkets.
Honey
An expensive natural product that's mostly sugar, honey is easily faked. "If you can substitute a less expensive source of sugar for the expensive one, you can save some money and gain market share," says the FDA's Stutsman.
It used to be that cane sugar or high-fructose corn syrup was mostly used to thin out honey. But chemically, that was easy to spot. FDA used an isotope test that would easily identify the adulteration.
So counterfeiters got wily and started using beet sugar. Its profile is similar to honey, so the FDA had to switch to a much more complicated, multistep test comparing the sugar profiles to see if the proportions and trace materials match.
"But once we started catching people, they create a moving target. They'll switch to something more difficult (to detect)," says Stutsman.
Maple syrup
Maple syrup is another high-value item that can be adulterated. In these tough economic times, Vermont, the USA's largest supplier to flapjacks everywhere, may up its testing programs.
The boiled-down sap of the sugar maple tree can be diluted with water or sugar by sellers "trying to get more bang for the buck," says Kristin Haas, food safety director in the state's Agency for Agriculture, Food and Markets.
Vermont's testing program has found fraud only three times in the past 17 years, says Haas, but it's not taken lightly. "A couple of years back, there was a gentleman who actually went to prison because of this issue."
When times get tight, the incentive to cheat can rise like sap in the spring, so the state may have to work harder to keep its premier product pure.
Vanilla
A product of the tropics, vanilla pods can be soaked in milk or stored in sugar to impart a delicate vanilla scent to foods. More commonly, they're soaked in alcohol that is then used as a flavoring.
But vanillin (pronounced VAN-ah-lynn), a chemical copy of the richly organic vanilla flavor, was created in the laboratory in the 19th century. When used in foods, it's supposed to be labeled as an artificial flavor and usually is.
One "too good to be true" product to watch out for is really inexpensive vanilla extract sometimes sold in Mexico and Latin America, says the FDA. It's often made with coumarin, a toxic substance that has been banned in U.S. foods since 1954.
Coumarin is chemically related to warfarin, a blood thinner, and can be dangerous. It's "no bargain," the FDA says.
It’s getting warmer in Antarctica
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/01/21/its-getting-warmer-in-antarctica/
It’s getting warmer in Antarctica
By Pete Spotts
01.21.09
For years Antarctica has been AWOL when it comes to continent-wide evidence of warming temperatures. Serious warming appeared limited to the Antarctic Peninsula, a mountainous finger of land jutting north toward South America.
No longer, if results from a new study hold up.
The continent is still bitingly frigid and largely a desert. The average annual temperature for the interior is -58 degrees Farhenheit. Along the coast, it ranges from 5 to 14 degrees F.
But over the past 50 years, the continent as a whole has warmed (or grown less cold, if you like) by an average of 0.2 degrees F. per decade, according to a team led by Eric Steig, a geochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle. The pace is comparable to the rate of warming the southern hemisphere as a whole has undergone during that time, the team notes.
Warming usually seen on the Antarctic Peninsula now appears to extend across all of West Antarctica. The team estimated that temperatures on the peninsula have risen by 0.2 degrees F. per decade. West Antarctica has warmed at a rate of 0.3 degrees F. per decade. And East Antarctica has warmed at a 0.18 degrees F. per decade pace.
The team is a reluctant to unequivocally point a finger at human-triggered global warming just yet. A 50-year record is too short to allow researchers to sort out the relative contribution of human and natural influences to the trends they see at the bottom of the world.
Still, the results “are consistent with the general warming we get from greenhouse gases,” says Drew Shindell, a climate-modeler at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Dr. Shindell is a member of the research team.
An understatement?
Indeed, the results may understate warming in some areas, suggests Gareth Marshall, a climatologist with the British Antarctic Survey. In an email exchange, he notes that the rate of warming as measured by stations on the Antarctic Peninsula have been somewhat higher than the rate Steig and his colleagues derived.
Still, he offers, the new results illustrate “that over the past 50 years overall, Antarctica has warmed at a similar rate to the rest of the Southern Hemisphere. This suggests that Antarctica, like the six other continents, is being affected by anthropogenic climate change.”
Portions of the new results appear to enjoy the beginnings of independent confirmation. A team of scientists from Swansea University and the British Antarctic Survey have found that temperatures at one location in West Antarctica have risen by 0.17 degrees C per decade since 1930. That’s virtually identical to the rate Steig’s team found for West Antarctica as well.
The British results are estimates based on temperature measurements the team made at various depths in a bore hole they drilled into the Rutford Ice Stream in West Antarctica. The hole is 1,000 feet deep. The results have been accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Review Letters.
But one bore hole isn’t representative of a region, as the researchers readily acknowledge. They call on colleagues to make similar measurements to better pin down the rates and geographic reach of warming in West Antarctica.
Still, the two efforts “complement each other in a very nice way,” notes Brian Barrett, the lead author on the Geophysical Review Letters paper.
How they gathered their numbers
Steig and his colleagues had more data to work with. But they faced a problem. Of the 42 stations with records dating as far back as 1957 (the International Geophysical Year), only two sit within the continent’s interior. The rest dot the continent’s coast. So the team also tapped data from 65 temporary stations that scientists set up periodically for a few years as they conducted research away from long-established sites.
But that’s still sparse for an entire continent. So the team tapped satellite data to look at the continent as a whole. Measurements from on high only reach back 25 years. So the team used a statistical approach it developed to turn data from ground and space into a 50-year reconstruction of temperature trends.
Like Dr. Barrett, Steig encourages colleagues to begin taking more bore-hole measurements as an independent test of the results.
Even if the warming rate the team claims for East Antarctica — higher and colder than the western part of the continent — turns out to be more ify than results for other regions of the continent, the results for West Antarctica alone should be a wake-up call, researchers agree. This is the area where large ice shelves are breaking up and the region’s ice sheet is thought to be the most vulnerable to melting over the coming centuries if industrial greenhouse-gas emissions and deforestation remain unchecked.
It’s getting warmer in Antarctica
By Pete Spotts
01.21.09
For years Antarctica has been AWOL when it comes to continent-wide evidence of warming temperatures. Serious warming appeared limited to the Antarctic Peninsula, a mountainous finger of land jutting north toward South America.
No longer, if results from a new study hold up.
The continent is still bitingly frigid and largely a desert. The average annual temperature for the interior is -58 degrees Farhenheit. Along the coast, it ranges from 5 to 14 degrees F.
But over the past 50 years, the continent as a whole has warmed (or grown less cold, if you like) by an average of 0.2 degrees F. per decade, according to a team led by Eric Steig, a geochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle. The pace is comparable to the rate of warming the southern hemisphere as a whole has undergone during that time, the team notes.
Warming usually seen on the Antarctic Peninsula now appears to extend across all of West Antarctica. The team estimated that temperatures on the peninsula have risen by 0.2 degrees F. per decade. West Antarctica has warmed at a rate of 0.3 degrees F. per decade. And East Antarctica has warmed at a 0.18 degrees F. per decade pace.
The team is a reluctant to unequivocally point a finger at human-triggered global warming just yet. A 50-year record is too short to allow researchers to sort out the relative contribution of human and natural influences to the trends they see at the bottom of the world.
Still, the results “are consistent with the general warming we get from greenhouse gases,” says Drew Shindell, a climate-modeler at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Dr. Shindell is a member of the research team.
An understatement?
Indeed, the results may understate warming in some areas, suggests Gareth Marshall, a climatologist with the British Antarctic Survey. In an email exchange, he notes that the rate of warming as measured by stations on the Antarctic Peninsula have been somewhat higher than the rate Steig and his colleagues derived.
Still, he offers, the new results illustrate “that over the past 50 years overall, Antarctica has warmed at a similar rate to the rest of the Southern Hemisphere. This suggests that Antarctica, like the six other continents, is being affected by anthropogenic climate change.”
Portions of the new results appear to enjoy the beginnings of independent confirmation. A team of scientists from Swansea University and the British Antarctic Survey have found that temperatures at one location in West Antarctica have risen by 0.17 degrees C per decade since 1930. That’s virtually identical to the rate Steig’s team found for West Antarctica as well.
The British results are estimates based on temperature measurements the team made at various depths in a bore hole they drilled into the Rutford Ice Stream in West Antarctica. The hole is 1,000 feet deep. The results have been accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Review Letters.
But one bore hole isn’t representative of a region, as the researchers readily acknowledge. They call on colleagues to make similar measurements to better pin down the rates and geographic reach of warming in West Antarctica.
Still, the two efforts “complement each other in a very nice way,” notes Brian Barrett, the lead author on the Geophysical Review Letters paper.
How they gathered their numbers
Steig and his colleagues had more data to work with. But they faced a problem. Of the 42 stations with records dating as far back as 1957 (the International Geophysical Year), only two sit within the continent’s interior. The rest dot the continent’s coast. So the team also tapped data from 65 temporary stations that scientists set up periodically for a few years as they conducted research away from long-established sites.
But that’s still sparse for an entire continent. So the team tapped satellite data to look at the continent as a whole. Measurements from on high only reach back 25 years. So the team used a statistical approach it developed to turn data from ground and space into a 50-year reconstruction of temperature trends.
Like Dr. Barrett, Steig encourages colleagues to begin taking more bore-hole measurements as an independent test of the results.
Even if the warming rate the team claims for East Antarctica — higher and colder than the western part of the continent — turns out to be more ify than results for other regions of the continent, the results for West Antarctica alone should be a wake-up call, researchers agree. This is the area where large ice shelves are breaking up and the region’s ice sheet is thought to be the most vulnerable to melting over the coming centuries if industrial greenhouse-gas emissions and deforestation remain unchecked.
81st Academy Awards nominations
http://www.variety.com/awardcentral_article/VR1117998919.html
81st Academy Awards nominations
The full list of Oscar nominees
By VARIETY STAFF
Thurs., Jan. 22, 2009
And the nominees are:
BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
(Paramount and Warner Bros.) A Kennedy/Marshall Production; Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
"Frost/Nixon"
(Universal) A Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment
and Working Title Production; Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Eric Fellner, Producers
"Milk"
(Focus Features) A Groundswell and Jinks/Cohen Company Production; Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, Producers
"The Reader"
(The Weinstein Company) A Mirage Enterprises and Neunte Babelsberg Film GmbH Production; Nominees to be determined
"Slumdog Millionaire"
(Fox Searchlight) A Celador Films Production; Christian Colson, Producer
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Richard Jenkins in "The Visitor" (Overture Films)
Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon" (Universal)
Sean Penn in "Milk" (Focus Features)
Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" (Fox Searchlight)
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Josh Brolin in "Milk" (Focus Features)
Robert Downey Jr. in "Tropic Thunder" (DreamWorks, Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Doubt" (Miramax)
Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.)
Michael Shannon in "Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage)
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Anne Hathaway in "Rachel Getting Married" (Sony Pictures Classics)
Angelina Jolie in "Changeling" (Universal)
Melissa Leo in "Frozen River" (Sony Pictures Classics)
Meryl Streep in "Doubt" (Miramax)
Kate Winslet in "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company)
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Amy Adams in "Doubt" (Miramax)
Penélope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (The Weinstein Company)
Viola Davis in "Doubt" (Miramax)
Taraji P. Henson in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
Marisa Tomei in "The Wrestler" (Fox Searchlight)
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
(Paramount and Warner Bros.) Screenplay by Eric Roth; Screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
"Doubt" (Miramax) Written by John Patrick Shanley
"Frost/Nixon" (Universal) Screenplay by Peter Morgan
"The Reader" (The Weinstein Company) Screenplay by David Hare
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"Frozen River" (Sony Pictures Classics); Written by Courtney Hunt
"Happy-Go-Lucky" (Miramax); Written by Mike Leigh
"In Bruges" (Focus Features); Written by Martin McDonagh
"Milk" (Focus Features); Written by Dustin Lance Black
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney); Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon; Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM OF THE YEAR
"Bolt" (Walt Disney) Chris Williams and Byron Howard
"Kung Fu Panda" (DreamWorks Animation, Distributed by Paramount) John Stevenson and Mark Osborne
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) Andrew Stanton
ACHIEVEMENT IN ART DIRECTION
"Changeling" (Universal) Art Direction: James J. Murakami, Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Art Direction: Donald Graham Burt, Set Decoration: Victor J. Zolfo
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Art Direction: Nathan Crowley, Set Decoration: Peter Lando
"The Duchess" (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films) Art Direction: Michael Carlin, Set Decoration: Rebecca Alleway
"Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage) Art Direction: Kristi Zea, Set Decoration: Debra Schutt
ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
"Changeling" (Universal) Tom Stern
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Claudio Miranda
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Wally Pfister
"The Reader" (The Weinstein Company) Chris Menges and Roger Deakins
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Anthony Dod Mantle
ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN
"Australia" (20th Century Fox) Catherine Martin
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Jacqueline West
"The Duchess" (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films) Michael O'Connor
"Milk" (Focus Features) Danny Glicker
"Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage) Albert Wolsky
ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) David Fincher
"Frost/Nixon" (Universal) Ron Howard
"Milk" (Focus Features) Gus Van Sant
"The Reader" (The Weinstein Company) Stephen Daldry
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Danny Boyle
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
"The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)" (Cinema Guild) A Pandinlao Films Production, Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
"Encounters at the End of the World" (THINKFilm and Image Entertainment) A Creative Differences Production, Werner Herzog and Henry Kaiser
"The Garden" A Black Valley Films Production, Scott Hamilton Kennedy
"Man on Wire" (Magnolia Pictures) A Wall to Wall Production, James Marsh and Simon Chinn
"Trouble the Water" (Zeitgeist Films) An Elsewhere Films Production, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
"The Conscience of Nhem En" A Farallon Films Production Steven Okazaki
"The Final Inch" A Vermilion Films Production, Irene Taylor Brodsky and Tom Grant
"Smile Pinki" A Principe Production, Megan Mylan
"The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306" A Rock Paper Scissors Production, Adam Pertofsky and Margaret Hyde
ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Lee Smith
"Frost/Nixon" (Universal) Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
"Milk" (Focus Features) Elliot Graham
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Chris Dickens
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR
"The Baader Meinhof Complex" A Constantin Film Production; Germany
"The Class" (Sony Pictures Classics) A Haut et Court Production; France
"Departures" (Regent Releasing) A Departures Film Partners Production; Japan
"Revanche" (Janus Films) A Prisma Film/Fernseh Production; Austria
"Waltz with Bashir" (Sony Pictures Classics) A Bridgit Folman Film Gang Production; Israel
ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
(Paramount and Warner Bros.) Greg Cannom
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O'Sullivan
"Hellboy II: The Golden Army" (Universal) Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz
ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SCORE)
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Alexandre Desplat
"Defiance" (Paramount Vantage) James Newton Howard
"Milk" (Focus Features) Danny Elfman
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) A.R. Rahman
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) Thomas Newman
ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SONG)
"Down to Earth" from "WALL-E" (Walt Disney) Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman; Lyrics by Peter Gabriel
"Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Music by A.R. Rahman; Lyrics by Gulzar
"O Saya" from "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Music and Lyrics by A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
"La Maison en Petits Cubes" A Robot Communications Production; Kunio Kato
"Lavatory - Lovestory" A Melnitsa Animation Studio and CTB Film Company Production; Konstantin Bronzit
"Oktapodi"(Talantis Films) A Gobelins, L'école de l'image Production; Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand
"Presto" (Walt Disney) A Pixar Animation Studios Production; Doug Sweetland
"This Way Up" A Nexus Production; Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
"Auf der Strecke (On the Line)" (Hamburg Shortfilmagency); An Academy of Media Arts Cologne Production; Reto Caffi
"Manon on the Asphalt" (La Luna Productions) A La Luna Production; Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont
"New Boy" (Network Ireland Television) A Zanzibar Films Production; Steph Green and Tamara Anghie
"The Pig"An M & M Production; Tivi Magnusson and Dorte Høgh
"Spielzeugland (Toyland)" A Mephisto Film Production; Jochen Alexander Freydank
ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Richard King
"Iron Man" (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment) Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Tom Sayers
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
"Wanted" (Universal) Wylie Stateman
ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Mark Weingarten
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Ben Burtt
"Wanted" (Universal) Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño and Petr Forejt
ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin
"Iron Man" (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment) John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan
***
81st Academy Awards nominations
The full list of Oscar nominees
By VARIETY STAFF
Thurs., Jan. 22, 2009
And the nominees are:
BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
(Paramount and Warner Bros.) A Kennedy/Marshall Production; Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
"Frost/Nixon"
(Universal) A Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment
and Working Title Production; Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Eric Fellner, Producers
"Milk"
(Focus Features) A Groundswell and Jinks/Cohen Company Production; Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, Producers
"The Reader"
(The Weinstein Company) A Mirage Enterprises and Neunte Babelsberg Film GmbH Production; Nominees to be determined
"Slumdog Millionaire"
(Fox Searchlight) A Celador Films Production; Christian Colson, Producer
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Richard Jenkins in "The Visitor" (Overture Films)
Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon" (Universal)
Sean Penn in "Milk" (Focus Features)
Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" (Fox Searchlight)
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Josh Brolin in "Milk" (Focus Features)
Robert Downey Jr. in "Tropic Thunder" (DreamWorks, Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Doubt" (Miramax)
Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.)
Michael Shannon in "Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage)
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Anne Hathaway in "Rachel Getting Married" (Sony Pictures Classics)
Angelina Jolie in "Changeling" (Universal)
Melissa Leo in "Frozen River" (Sony Pictures Classics)
Meryl Streep in "Doubt" (Miramax)
Kate Winslet in "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company)
PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Amy Adams in "Doubt" (Miramax)
Penélope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (The Weinstein Company)
Viola Davis in "Doubt" (Miramax)
Taraji P. Henson in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
Marisa Tomei in "The Wrestler" (Fox Searchlight)
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
(Paramount and Warner Bros.) Screenplay by Eric Roth; Screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
"Doubt" (Miramax) Written by John Patrick Shanley
"Frost/Nixon" (Universal) Screenplay by Peter Morgan
"The Reader" (The Weinstein Company) Screenplay by David Hare
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"Frozen River" (Sony Pictures Classics); Written by Courtney Hunt
"Happy-Go-Lucky" (Miramax); Written by Mike Leigh
"In Bruges" (Focus Features); Written by Martin McDonagh
"Milk" (Focus Features); Written by Dustin Lance Black
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney); Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon; Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM OF THE YEAR
"Bolt" (Walt Disney) Chris Williams and Byron Howard
"Kung Fu Panda" (DreamWorks Animation, Distributed by Paramount) John Stevenson and Mark Osborne
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) Andrew Stanton
ACHIEVEMENT IN ART DIRECTION
"Changeling" (Universal) Art Direction: James J. Murakami, Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Art Direction: Donald Graham Burt, Set Decoration: Victor J. Zolfo
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Art Direction: Nathan Crowley, Set Decoration: Peter Lando
"The Duchess" (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films) Art Direction: Michael Carlin, Set Decoration: Rebecca Alleway
"Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage) Art Direction: Kristi Zea, Set Decoration: Debra Schutt
ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
"Changeling" (Universal) Tom Stern
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Claudio Miranda
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Wally Pfister
"The Reader" (The Weinstein Company) Chris Menges and Roger Deakins
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Anthony Dod Mantle
ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN
"Australia" (20th Century Fox) Catherine Martin
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Jacqueline West
"The Duchess" (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films) Michael O'Connor
"Milk" (Focus Features) Danny Glicker
"Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage) Albert Wolsky
ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) David Fincher
"Frost/Nixon" (Universal) Ron Howard
"Milk" (Focus Features) Gus Van Sant
"The Reader" (The Weinstein Company) Stephen Daldry
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Danny Boyle
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
"The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)" (Cinema Guild) A Pandinlao Films Production, Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
"Encounters at the End of the World" (THINKFilm and Image Entertainment) A Creative Differences Production, Werner Herzog and Henry Kaiser
"The Garden" A Black Valley Films Production, Scott Hamilton Kennedy
"Man on Wire" (Magnolia Pictures) A Wall to Wall Production, James Marsh and Simon Chinn
"Trouble the Water" (Zeitgeist Films) An Elsewhere Films Production, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
"The Conscience of Nhem En" A Farallon Films Production Steven Okazaki
"The Final Inch" A Vermilion Films Production, Irene Taylor Brodsky and Tom Grant
"Smile Pinki" A Principe Production, Megan Mylan
"The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306" A Rock Paper Scissors Production, Adam Pertofsky and Margaret Hyde
ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Lee Smith
"Frost/Nixon" (Universal) Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
"Milk" (Focus Features) Elliot Graham
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Chris Dickens
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR
"The Baader Meinhof Complex" A Constantin Film Production; Germany
"The Class" (Sony Pictures Classics) A Haut et Court Production; France
"Departures" (Regent Releasing) A Departures Film Partners Production; Japan
"Revanche" (Janus Films) A Prisma Film/Fernseh Production; Austria
"Waltz with Bashir" (Sony Pictures Classics) A Bridgit Folman Film Gang Production; Israel
ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
(Paramount and Warner Bros.) Greg Cannom
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O'Sullivan
"Hellboy II: The Golden Army" (Universal) Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz
ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SCORE)
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Alexandre Desplat
"Defiance" (Paramount Vantage) James Newton Howard
"Milk" (Focus Features) Danny Elfman
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) A.R. Rahman
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) Thomas Newman
ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SONG)
"Down to Earth" from "WALL-E" (Walt Disney) Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman; Lyrics by Peter Gabriel
"Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Music by A.R. Rahman; Lyrics by Gulzar
"O Saya" from "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Music and Lyrics by A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
"La Maison en Petits Cubes" A Robot Communications Production; Kunio Kato
"Lavatory - Lovestory" A Melnitsa Animation Studio and CTB Film Company Production; Konstantin Bronzit
"Oktapodi"(Talantis Films) A Gobelins, L'école de l'image Production; Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand
"Presto" (Walt Disney) A Pixar Animation Studios Production; Doug Sweetland
"This Way Up" A Nexus Production; Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
"Auf der Strecke (On the Line)" (Hamburg Shortfilmagency); An Academy of Media Arts Cologne Production; Reto Caffi
"Manon on the Asphalt" (La Luna Productions) A La Luna Production; Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont
"New Boy" (Network Ireland Television) A Zanzibar Films Production; Steph Green and Tamara Anghie
"The Pig"An M & M Production; Tivi Magnusson and Dorte Høgh
"Spielzeugland (Toyland)" A Mephisto Film Production; Jochen Alexander Freydank
ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Richard King
"Iron Man" (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment) Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Tom Sayers
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
"Wanted" (Universal) Wylie Stateman
ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Mark Weingarten
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick
"Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight) Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty
"WALL-E" (Walt Disney) Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Ben Burtt
"Wanted" (Universal) Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño and Petr Forejt
ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.) Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron
"The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.) Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin
"Iron Man" (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment) John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan
***
'Benjamin' buttons down 13 Oscar nominations
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/movieawards/oscars/2009-01-22-oscar-nominations_N.htm
'Benjamin' buttons down 13 Oscar nominations
1-22-9
By Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY
Batman and Clint Eastwood? Forget about it.
The Dark Knight, the superhero thriller that was expected to make history as the first comic-book adaptation to take a best-picture nomination, and Gran Torino, which the Hollywood veteran starred in and directed, were left out of the contest for Oscar's top prize.
Instead, the far more serious Holocaust-themed The Reader took the fifth berth and its director, Stephen Daldry, also managed to slip into his category.
The other nominees announced for top prize in the 81st Academy Awards Thursday morning in Los Angeles followed the script of the prognosticators: the era-spanning fable The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which led the crowd with 13 nominations; gay-themed political biopic Milk; TV-landmark drama Frost/Nixon; and romantic crowd-pleaser Slumdog Millionaire.
As expected, Heath Ledger's vividly twisted take on the villainous Joker in The Dark Knight scored a supporting nomination for the Australian actor, who died a year ago today at age 28 after suffering an accidental prescription-drug overdose. He's the seventh actor to compete posthumously in the race, though only Peter Finch won a best-actor trophy for 1976's Network.
Going up against Ledger are Philip Seymour Hoffman as a problematic priest in Doubt, Josh Brolin as a city supervisor turned assassin in Milk, Robert Downey Jr. as the ultimate Method actor in Tropic Thunder and Michael Shannon as a perceptive mental patient in Revolutionary Road.
After her two Golden Globe wins, Kate Winslet was expected to earn a supporting nomination for her tormented concentration-camp guard in The Reader as well as a lead spot as a distraught suburban housewife in Revolutionary Road.
Instead, only her work in Reader was recognized. The British actress, 33, has been up for an Oscar five times before without a win.
Others in the lead-actress lineup are Meryl Streep as a formidable nun in Doubt, Anne Hathaway as the black-sheep sister in Rachel Getting Married, Angelinia Jolie as the troubled mother of a missing boy in The Changeling and Melissa Leo as a struggling single mom in Frozen River.
Making up the supporting-actress category: Penelope Cruz's tempestuous ex-wife in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Viola Davis as the mother of a possible abuse victim in Doubt, Taraji P. Henson as a loving adoptive mother in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Marisa Tomei as a worn-out stripper in The Wrestler and Amy Adams as a naïve nun in Doubt.
Making it into the lead actor lineup: Sean Penn as an openly gay politician in Milk, Mickey Rourke as a washed-up grappler in The Wrestler, Frank Langella as the ever-enigmatic Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon, Brad Pitt as the foundling who ages backward in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Richard Jenkins as the burnt-out professor who gains a new lease on life in The Visitor.
Joining Daldry in the director's race: David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Gus Van Sant for Milk, Ron Howard for Frost/Nixon and Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire.
The Oscar ceremony will air Feb. 22 on ABC with Hugh Jackman stepping into the host spot for the first time.
'Benjamin' buttons down 13 Oscar nominations
1-22-9
By Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY
Batman and Clint Eastwood? Forget about it.
The Dark Knight, the superhero thriller that was expected to make history as the first comic-book adaptation to take a best-picture nomination, and Gran Torino, which the Hollywood veteran starred in and directed, were left out of the contest for Oscar's top prize.
Instead, the far more serious Holocaust-themed The Reader took the fifth berth and its director, Stephen Daldry, also managed to slip into his category.
The other nominees announced for top prize in the 81st Academy Awards Thursday morning in Los Angeles followed the script of the prognosticators: the era-spanning fable The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which led the crowd with 13 nominations; gay-themed political biopic Milk; TV-landmark drama Frost/Nixon; and romantic crowd-pleaser Slumdog Millionaire.
As expected, Heath Ledger's vividly twisted take on the villainous Joker in The Dark Knight scored a supporting nomination for the Australian actor, who died a year ago today at age 28 after suffering an accidental prescription-drug overdose. He's the seventh actor to compete posthumously in the race, though only Peter Finch won a best-actor trophy for 1976's Network.
Going up against Ledger are Philip Seymour Hoffman as a problematic priest in Doubt, Josh Brolin as a city supervisor turned assassin in Milk, Robert Downey Jr. as the ultimate Method actor in Tropic Thunder and Michael Shannon as a perceptive mental patient in Revolutionary Road.
After her two Golden Globe wins, Kate Winslet was expected to earn a supporting nomination for her tormented concentration-camp guard in The Reader as well as a lead spot as a distraught suburban housewife in Revolutionary Road.
Instead, only her work in Reader was recognized. The British actress, 33, has been up for an Oscar five times before without a win.
Others in the lead-actress lineup are Meryl Streep as a formidable nun in Doubt, Anne Hathaway as the black-sheep sister in Rachel Getting Married, Angelinia Jolie as the troubled mother of a missing boy in The Changeling and Melissa Leo as a struggling single mom in Frozen River.
Making up the supporting-actress category: Penelope Cruz's tempestuous ex-wife in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Viola Davis as the mother of a possible abuse victim in Doubt, Taraji P. Henson as a loving adoptive mother in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Marisa Tomei as a worn-out stripper in The Wrestler and Amy Adams as a naïve nun in Doubt.
Making it into the lead actor lineup: Sean Penn as an openly gay politician in Milk, Mickey Rourke as a washed-up grappler in The Wrestler, Frank Langella as the ever-enigmatic Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon, Brad Pitt as the foundling who ages backward in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Richard Jenkins as the burnt-out professor who gains a new lease on life in The Visitor.
Joining Daldry in the director's race: David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Gus Van Sant for Milk, Ron Howard for Frost/Nixon and Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire.
The Oscar ceremony will air Feb. 22 on ABC with Hugh Jackman stepping into the host spot for the first time.
Nominees List of the 29th Annual Razzie Awards
Complete Nominees List of the 29th Annual Razzie Awards:
Worst Picture:
"Disaster Movie" and "Meet the Spartans"
"The Happening"
"The Hottie and the Nottie"
"In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale"
"The Love Guru"
Worst Actor:
Larry the Cable Guy, "Witless Protection"
Eddie Murphy, "Meet Dave"
Mike Myers, "The Love Guru"
Al Pacino, "88 Minutes" and "Righteous Kill"
Mark Wahlberg, "The Happening" and "Max Payne"
Worst Actress:
Jessica Alba, "The Eye" and "The Love Guru"
Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith and Meg Ryan, the Cast of "The Women"
Cameron Diaz, "What Happens in Vegas..."
Paris Hilton, "The Hottie and the Nottie"
Kate Hudson, "Fool's Gold" and "My Best Friend's Girl"
Worst Supporting Actor:
Uwe Boll, "Postal"
Pierce Brosnan, "Mamma Mia!"
Ben Kingsley, "The Love Guru", "War, Inc." and "The Wackness"
Burt Reynolds, "Deal" and "In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale"
Verne Troyer, "The Love Guru" and "Postal"
Worst Supporting Actress:
Carmen Electra, "Disaster Movie" and "Meet The Spartans"
Paris Hilton, "Repo: The Genetic Opera"
Kim Kardashian, "Disaster Movie"
Jenny McCarthy, "Witless Protection"
Leelee Sobieski, "88 Minutes" and "In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale"
Worst Screen Couple:
Uwe Boll and ANY Actor, Camera or Screenplay
Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, "What Happens in Vegas..."
Paris Hilton and either Christine Lakin or Joel David Moore, "The Hottie and the Nottie"
Larry the Cable Guy and Jenny McCarthy, "Witless Protection"
Eddie Murphy IN Eddie Murphy, "Meet Dave"
Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel:
"The Day the Earth Stood Still"
"Disaster Movie" and "Meet The Spartans"
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"
"Speed Racer"
"Star Wars: The Clone Wars"
Worst Director:
Uwe Boll, "Tunnel Rats", In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" and "Postal"
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, "Disaster Movie" and "Meet The Spartans"
Tom Putnam, "The Hottie and the Nottie"
Marco Schnabel, "The Love Guru"
M. Night Shyamalan, "The Happening"
Worst Screenplay:
"Disaster Movie" and "Meet The Spartans" - Both Written by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
"The Happening" - Written by M. Night Shyamalan
"The Hottie And The Nottie" - Written by Heidi Ferrer
"In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" - Screenplay by Doug Taylor
"The Love Guru" - Written by Mike Myers and Graham Gordy
Worst Career Achievement (Special Category!): Uwe Boll (Germany's Answer to Ed Wood)
Worst Picture:
"Disaster Movie" and "Meet the Spartans"
"The Happening"
"The Hottie and the Nottie"
"In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale"
"The Love Guru"
Worst Actor:
Larry the Cable Guy, "Witless Protection"
Eddie Murphy, "Meet Dave"
Mike Myers, "The Love Guru"
Al Pacino, "88 Minutes" and "Righteous Kill"
Mark Wahlberg, "The Happening" and "Max Payne"
Worst Actress:
Jessica Alba, "The Eye" and "The Love Guru"
Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith and Meg Ryan, the Cast of "The Women"
Cameron Diaz, "What Happens in Vegas..."
Paris Hilton, "The Hottie and the Nottie"
Kate Hudson, "Fool's Gold" and "My Best Friend's Girl"
Worst Supporting Actor:
Uwe Boll, "Postal"
Pierce Brosnan, "Mamma Mia!"
Ben Kingsley, "The Love Guru", "War, Inc." and "The Wackness"
Burt Reynolds, "Deal" and "In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale"
Verne Troyer, "The Love Guru" and "Postal"
Worst Supporting Actress:
Carmen Electra, "Disaster Movie" and "Meet The Spartans"
Paris Hilton, "Repo: The Genetic Opera"
Kim Kardashian, "Disaster Movie"
Jenny McCarthy, "Witless Protection"
Leelee Sobieski, "88 Minutes" and "In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale"
Worst Screen Couple:
Uwe Boll and ANY Actor, Camera or Screenplay
Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, "What Happens in Vegas..."
Paris Hilton and either Christine Lakin or Joel David Moore, "The Hottie and the Nottie"
Larry the Cable Guy and Jenny McCarthy, "Witless Protection"
Eddie Murphy IN Eddie Murphy, "Meet Dave"
Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel:
"The Day the Earth Stood Still"
"Disaster Movie" and "Meet The Spartans"
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"
"Speed Racer"
"Star Wars: The Clone Wars"
Worst Director:
Uwe Boll, "Tunnel Rats", In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" and "Postal"
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, "Disaster Movie" and "Meet The Spartans"
Tom Putnam, "The Hottie and the Nottie"
Marco Schnabel, "The Love Guru"
M. Night Shyamalan, "The Happening"
Worst Screenplay:
"Disaster Movie" and "Meet The Spartans" - Both Written by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
"The Happening" - Written by M. Night Shyamalan
"The Hottie And The Nottie" - Written by Heidi Ferrer
"In The Name of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale" - Screenplay by Doug Taylor
"The Love Guru" - Written by Mike Myers and Graham Gordy
Worst Career Achievement (Special Category!): Uwe Boll (Germany's Answer to Ed Wood)
2008 RAZZIE® Worsts
http://razzies.com/
Celebrating 29 years of Dis-honoring Hollywood’s Worst
Paris’ NOTTIE, Myers’ GURU, Shyamalan’s THE HAPPENING, DISASTER MOVIE and Uwe Boll Rank Among 2008 RAZZIE® Worsts
It wasn’t just the American economy that took a disastrous downturn in 2008 — so did the quality of Hollywood movie-making. Of the 573 films released last year a record 75 rated forum discussions on the official RAZZIE® Awards web site. This plethora of putrid motion pictures proved a double-edged sword — It meant Golden Raspberry Award voters had plenty to choose from — but it also made their task of culling the crud down to a mere five contenders each in nine categories berry complicated. What they selected as nominees for this year's 29th Annual RAZZIE® Awards is the subject of this press release. The eventual “winners” will be unveiled in intentionally tacky ceremonies set for the now traditional Oscar® eve, Saturday night February 21, 2009 at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Hollywood.
Among the contenders for the Worst Picture are several laugh-free comedies, the year's most laughable vision of the apocalypse, a pair of puerile parodies, a couple of big budget B.O. bombs, and a decidedly un-romantic “romantic comedy” co-produced by Paris Hilton. The list includes the first ever dual Worst Picture nominees, two films from the same two talent-free writer/directors, both featuring essentially the same cast — those twin towers of pop culture babble, DISASTER MOVIE (which lived up — or down — to its title) and MEET THE SPARTANS (a “parody” of THE 300 which somehow managed to work references to Britney Spears into an ancient Spartan “plot”). Other Worst Picture picks: The latest “mystery with a twist” from that self-important twit (and multiple RAZZIE® “winner”) M. Night Shyamalan, THE HAPPENING, an eco-disaster tale whose “villain” drew more guffaws than gasps; The robotic rom-com THE HOTTIE AND THE NOTTIE copping Hilton three of her four RAZZIE® nominations this year alone as the film’s producer and star; Bad Movie Uber-Meister Uwe Boll’s video-game-based fiasco IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE, which grossed under $5 million on a $60 million budget and was also a factor in Boll being selected to receive the first Worst Career Achievement RAZZIE® awarded since 1987. And last (and possibly least) the year’s biggest box office bomb, Mike Myers as a platitude-spouting mystic in the decidedly unloved LOVE GURU. Also singled out for dis-honor: The year’s third-highest-grossing (and most disappointing) movie, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, as Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel, 2007 Triple Crown RAZZIE® “winner” Eddie Murphy, back for more abuse in two categories for MEET DAVE; Oscar® winner Al Pacino sporting his third RAZZIE® nomination for both 88 MINUTES and RIGHTEOUS KILL, Pierce Brosnan singing(!) in MAMMA, MIA! as Worst Supporting Actor, Worst Actor choice Larry the Cable Guy, all five top-billed stars of THE WOMEN (jointly vying as Worst Actress)...and more!
Nominees were determined by mailing ballots to 687 voters in 45 U.S. states and 19 foreign countries. The RAZZIES® were created in 1980 as a logical antidote to Tinsel Town’s annual glut of self-congratulatory awards by John Wilson, author of THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE® MOVIE GUIDE and EVERYTHING I KNOW I LEARNED AT THE MOVIES. The Barnsdall Theatre is a facility of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. STATS on RAZZIE® WORST PICTURE NOMINEES for 2008
Disaster Movie
6 Nominations: Worst Picture, Supporting Actress (2x) Rip-Off, Director(s) and Screenplay
Released
Aug. 29, 2008 by Lionsgate
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
98% Negative
Box Office
$14,190,901
Budget
$20 million (estimated)
(Recently Ranked #2 on IMDb’s Bottom 100 Worst Movies of All Time)
The Happening
4 Nominations: Worst Picture, Actor, Director and Screenplay
Released
June 13, 2008 by 20th Century-Fox
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
81% Negative
Box Office
$64,506,874
Budget
$48 million
The Hottie And The Nottie
5 Nominations: Worst Picture, Actress, Screen Couple, Director and Screenplay
Released
Feb. 8, 2008 by Regency Releasing
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
95% Negative
Box Office
$27,696
Budget
$2 million (estimated)
(Recently Ranked #17 on IMDb’s Bottom 100 Worst Movies of All Time)
In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
5 Nominations: Worst Picture, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director and Screenplay
Released
Jan. 11, 2008 by Boll KG
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
96% Negative
Box Office
$4,775,656
Budget
$60 million (estimated)
The Love Guru
5 Nominations: Worst Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor (2x) Director and Screenplay
Released
June 20, 2008 by Paramount
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
86% Negative
Box Office
$32,200,122
Budget
$62 million
Meet The Spartans
5 Nominations: Worst Picture, Supporting Actress, Rip-Off, Director(s) and Screenplay
Released
Jan. 25, 2008 by 20th Century-Fox
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
98% Negative
Box Office
$38,233,676
Budget
$20 million (estimated)
SOURCES: Internet Movie Database, Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office MoJo
For more information on the awards’ history, or to arrange an interview with Wilson, please visit the official RAZZIE® web site (www.razzies.com) or contact HeadRAZZberry@razzies.com.
Celebrating 29 years of Dis-honoring Hollywood’s Worst
Paris’ NOTTIE, Myers’ GURU, Shyamalan’s THE HAPPENING, DISASTER MOVIE and Uwe Boll Rank Among 2008 RAZZIE® Worsts
It wasn’t just the American economy that took a disastrous downturn in 2008 — so did the quality of Hollywood movie-making. Of the 573 films released last year a record 75 rated forum discussions on the official RAZZIE® Awards web site. This plethora of putrid motion pictures proved a double-edged sword — It meant Golden Raspberry Award voters had plenty to choose from — but it also made their task of culling the crud down to a mere five contenders each in nine categories berry complicated. What they selected as nominees for this year's 29th Annual RAZZIE® Awards is the subject of this press release. The eventual “winners” will be unveiled in intentionally tacky ceremonies set for the now traditional Oscar® eve, Saturday night February 21, 2009 at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Hollywood.
Among the contenders for the Worst Picture are several laugh-free comedies, the year's most laughable vision of the apocalypse, a pair of puerile parodies, a couple of big budget B.O. bombs, and a decidedly un-romantic “romantic comedy” co-produced by Paris Hilton. The list includes the first ever dual Worst Picture nominees, two films from the same two talent-free writer/directors, both featuring essentially the same cast — those twin towers of pop culture babble, DISASTER MOVIE (which lived up — or down — to its title) and MEET THE SPARTANS (a “parody” of THE 300 which somehow managed to work references to Britney Spears into an ancient Spartan “plot”). Other Worst Picture picks: The latest “mystery with a twist” from that self-important twit (and multiple RAZZIE® “winner”) M. Night Shyamalan, THE HAPPENING, an eco-disaster tale whose “villain” drew more guffaws than gasps; The robotic rom-com THE HOTTIE AND THE NOTTIE copping Hilton three of her four RAZZIE® nominations this year alone as the film’s producer and star; Bad Movie Uber-Meister Uwe Boll’s video-game-based fiasco IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SIEGE TALE, which grossed under $5 million on a $60 million budget and was also a factor in Boll being selected to receive the first Worst Career Achievement RAZZIE® awarded since 1987. And last (and possibly least) the year’s biggest box office bomb, Mike Myers as a platitude-spouting mystic in the decidedly unloved LOVE GURU. Also singled out for dis-honor: The year’s third-highest-grossing (and most disappointing) movie, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, as Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel, 2007 Triple Crown RAZZIE® “winner” Eddie Murphy, back for more abuse in two categories for MEET DAVE; Oscar® winner Al Pacino sporting his third RAZZIE® nomination for both 88 MINUTES and RIGHTEOUS KILL, Pierce Brosnan singing(!) in MAMMA, MIA! as Worst Supporting Actor, Worst Actor choice Larry the Cable Guy, all five top-billed stars of THE WOMEN (jointly vying as Worst Actress)...and more!
Nominees were determined by mailing ballots to 687 voters in 45 U.S. states and 19 foreign countries. The RAZZIES® were created in 1980 as a logical antidote to Tinsel Town’s annual glut of self-congratulatory awards by John Wilson, author of THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE® MOVIE GUIDE and EVERYTHING I KNOW I LEARNED AT THE MOVIES. The Barnsdall Theatre is a facility of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. STATS on RAZZIE® WORST PICTURE NOMINEES for 2008
Disaster Movie
6 Nominations: Worst Picture, Supporting Actress (2x) Rip-Off, Director(s) and Screenplay
Released
Aug. 29, 2008 by Lionsgate
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
98% Negative
Box Office
$14,190,901
Budget
$20 million (estimated)
(Recently Ranked #2 on IMDb’s Bottom 100 Worst Movies of All Time)
The Happening
4 Nominations: Worst Picture, Actor, Director and Screenplay
Released
June 13, 2008 by 20th Century-Fox
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
81% Negative
Box Office
$64,506,874
Budget
$48 million
The Hottie And The Nottie
5 Nominations: Worst Picture, Actress, Screen Couple, Director and Screenplay
Released
Feb. 8, 2008 by Regency Releasing
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
95% Negative
Box Office
$27,696
Budget
$2 million (estimated)
(Recently Ranked #17 on IMDb’s Bottom 100 Worst Movies of All Time)
In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
5 Nominations: Worst Picture, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director and Screenplay
Released
Jan. 11, 2008 by Boll KG
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
96% Negative
Box Office
$4,775,656
Budget
$60 million (estimated)
The Love Guru
5 Nominations: Worst Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor (2x) Director and Screenplay
Released
June 20, 2008 by Paramount
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
86% Negative
Box Office
$32,200,122
Budget
$62 million
Meet The Spartans
5 Nominations: Worst Picture, Supporting Actress, Rip-Off, Director(s) and Screenplay
Released
Jan. 25, 2008 by 20th Century-Fox
Rotten Tomatoes Rating
98% Negative
Box Office
$38,233,676
Budget
$20 million (estimated)
SOURCES: Internet Movie Database, Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office MoJo
For more information on the awards’ history, or to arrange an interview with Wilson, please visit the official RAZZIE® web site (www.razzies.com) or contact HeadRAZZberry@razzies.com.
Barky Team Already Rejects Afghan Peace Plan
http://rense.com/general84/djjwe.htm
Barky Team Already Rejects Afghan Peace Plan
From Webster Tarpley
1-21-9
The Obama transition team has already rejected out of hand a plan for a negotiated peace settlement in Afghanistan which had been approved by the Karzai government as well as by its opponents.
A leading mainstream German Afghanistan expert, Christoph Hörstel, who had attempted to play the role of a back channel between Afghan circles and the Obama team, reports that his approach with this peace plan was brusquely rejected by Obama's top Afghan advisor, who is not named in the report. This story is reported on the Swiss-German blog Alles Schall und Rauch.
According to Hörstel, Afghan mujaheddin circles also report that their efforts to negotiate with the incoming Obama regime have also been rejected, despite the fact that Kabul is now virtually surrounded and coulld fall to the Taliban at any time.
Hoerstel is the author of two recent books on Afghanistan.
The German language audio tape of the Hoerstel interview is available at the link given below:
http://alles-schallundrauch.blogspot.com/2009/01/interview-mit-christoph-r-hrstel.html
Barky Team Already Rejects Afghan Peace Plan
From Webster Tarpley
1-21-9
The Obama transition team has already rejected out of hand a plan for a negotiated peace settlement in Afghanistan which had been approved by the Karzai government as well as by its opponents.
A leading mainstream German Afghanistan expert, Christoph Hörstel, who had attempted to play the role of a back channel between Afghan circles and the Obama team, reports that his approach with this peace plan was brusquely rejected by Obama's top Afghan advisor, who is not named in the report. This story is reported on the Swiss-German blog Alles Schall und Rauch.
According to Hörstel, Afghan mujaheddin circles also report that their efforts to negotiate with the incoming Obama regime have also been rejected, despite the fact that Kabul is now virtually surrounded and coulld fall to the Taliban at any time.
Hoerstel is the author of two recent books on Afghanistan.
The German language audio tape of the Hoerstel interview is available at the link given below:
http://alles-schallundrauch.blogspot.com/2009/01/interview-mit-christoph-r-hrstel.html
Obama pick for treasury secretary tells Senate
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/econ-j22.shtml
Obama pick for treasury secretary tells Senate: Trillions for the banks, austerity for the people
By Patrick O’Connor
22 January 2009
President Barack Obama's nominee for treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, testified Wednesday at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. Without providing specific details, Geithner said that he and the White House economic staff were working on a plan involving a handover to the banks of enormous sums, potentially trillions of dollars, in additional public funds.
The treasury secretary-designee's performance was welcomed by Wall Street. Stock indexes closed higher yesterday, clawing back most of the value lost in Tuesday's Inauguration Day market plunge. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 3.5 percent to 8,228, the S&P 500 rose by 4.4 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 4.6 percent. Geithner's promise of further bailout measures drove banking stocks higher, with Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase all gaining more than 10 percent.
These gains represented a vote of confidence in the Obama administration's pledge to place virtually unlimited public funds at the disposal of the financial elite.
Geithner is expected to be endorsed by the Senate Finance Committee Thursday morning and the Senate proper next week, with both Democratic and Republican support. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Geithner was directly involved in the bailout measures taken last year, including the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Speaking before the Finance Committee, he defended the various measures taken by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, merely suggesting that the previous bailout measures were not "aggressive" enough—that is, did not involve enough money.
Republican senators raised some questions about Geithner's failure to pay more than $30,000 in personal taxes from 2001 to 2004. But, as the New York Times noted, these were "lapses that might have doomed the nomination of a candidate less experienced and less respected among Republicans than Mr. Geithner." The nomination hearing was entirely amiable, with Geithner and the Democratic and Republican senators in agreement on all the central issues.
No one objected from either party when Geithner, in his opening statement, indicated that the Obama administration intends to deal with ballooning budget deficits resulting from government handouts to the banks by slashing bedrock social programs such as Social Security and Medicare. He told the committee, "Our program to restore economic growth has to be accompanied—and I want to emphasize this—has to be accompanied by a clear strategy to get us back as quickly as possible to a sustainable fiscal position." It was necessary to demonstrate, he added, that "we as a nation will return to living within our means."
Marketwatch noted: "He [Geithner] said the budget would have to tamed on a five-year horizon. Along these lines, Obama is looking for a ‘mechanism' to move forward on entitlement reform on a bipartisan basis."
Meanwhile, the banks are being rewarded with a new bailout package involving sums of public money substantially larger than that already committed by the Bush administration under TARP and related programs.
Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve chief and current chairman of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, endorsed Geithner's nomination in remarks to the Finance Committee. Volcker said that the banking system was "broken" and fixing it would require "several trillions of dollars"—an estimate that no one challenged.
Geithner refused to give details of Obama's bank bailout program, which is expected to be unveiled in the next few weeks. He admitted, however, that one plan being considered involves the creation of a "bad bank," which would use public funds to buy and quarantine subprime mortgage and other "toxic assets" currently held by the banks. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer told the hearing that economic experts had advised him that such a plan would cost more than $3 trillion.
The "bad bank" option is the preferred course of many in the financial sector because it does not involve the federal government directly purchasing large stakes of the banks' and financial institutions' stock. Fears of such a partial "nationalization," which would largely wipe out the investments of major shareholders, have contributed to driving down the share values of many major banks, compounding their solvency crisis.
An article in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, "Banks Hit By Nationalization Fears," explained: "The common stock of the major banks tracked by the Dow Jones Wilshire US Banks Index has fallen roughly $287 billion in value since Jan. 2, a 43 percent decline in just over two weeks. Banks that have sought further government aid have suffered the most, with Citigroup's market value falling 61 percent and Bank of America's 64 percent. The market value of JPMorgan Chase, which hasn't sought new government aid, has fallen 42 percent."
The accelerating American and world recession, initially triggered by the subprime mortgage market collapse, is in turn rebounding on the financial system.
The latest economic data from the US includes record low homebuilder sentiment, as recorded by the National Association of Home Builders' (NAHB) Housing Market Index. The gauge was 8 in January, down from 9 in December—the lowest level recorded since the index began in January 1985. The NAHB added that it expected the current housing downturn—the worst in more than six decades—will further worsen this year.
General Motors has lost its status as the world's largest manufacturer, with its 8.35 million vehicles sold in 2008 falling short of Toyota's 8.97 million. GM had previously been the largest automaker in every year since 1931. President Fritz Henderson admitted yesterday that GM's January sales were looking no better than the month before, when they plummeted by 31 percent. He also warned that unless the company received the second part of the federal bridge loan next month, it would run out of cash and face bankruptcy.
Major corporate layoffs continue apace. Manufacturer and auto supplier Eaton Corp has announced 5,200 job cuts. Taken together with the 3,400 workers Eaton laid off late last year, the company has eliminated 10 percent of its total workforce. United Airlines announced that it is sacking another 1,000 workers. Mining giant BHP Billiton is to reduce its workforce by 6 percent, affecting 6,000 positions. Most of these are in Australia and Chile, while about 550 workers in Arizona will also reportedly be laid off.
Global economic activity is contracting at an accelerating rate. The International Monetary Fund has warned that it will sharply cut world growth forecasts in a new report due to be released in the next few days. "Things are not improving," IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the BBC.
In Japan, the world's second-largest economy, the government has downgraded its assessment of the national economy for the fourth straight month. Also in Asia, Singaporean officials said yesterday they expected gross domestic product to decline this year by 2 to 5 percent, revising an earlier forecast issued just three weeks ago of growth ranging from negative 2 percent to 1 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2008, Singapore's largely export-driven economy contracted by 16.9 percent on an annualized basis.
In Europe, the German government yesterday cut its 2009 GDP forecast to negative 2.25 percent—down from the 0.2 growth predicted last October—marking the deepest recession since World War II. Portugal had its credit status downgraded by rating agency Standard and Poor's—making it the third Eurozone country, after Spain and Greece, to be hit in recent days by revised credit ratings. Other economies are expected to soon follow.
Obama pick for treasury secretary tells Senate: Trillions for the banks, austerity for the people
By Patrick O’Connor
22 January 2009
President Barack Obama's nominee for treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, testified Wednesday at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. Without providing specific details, Geithner said that he and the White House economic staff were working on a plan involving a handover to the banks of enormous sums, potentially trillions of dollars, in additional public funds.
The treasury secretary-designee's performance was welcomed by Wall Street. Stock indexes closed higher yesterday, clawing back most of the value lost in Tuesday's Inauguration Day market plunge. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 3.5 percent to 8,228, the S&P 500 rose by 4.4 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite gained 4.6 percent. Geithner's promise of further bailout measures drove banking stocks higher, with Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase all gaining more than 10 percent.
These gains represented a vote of confidence in the Obama administration's pledge to place virtually unlimited public funds at the disposal of the financial elite.
Geithner is expected to be endorsed by the Senate Finance Committee Thursday morning and the Senate proper next week, with both Democratic and Republican support. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Geithner was directly involved in the bailout measures taken last year, including the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Speaking before the Finance Committee, he defended the various measures taken by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, merely suggesting that the previous bailout measures were not "aggressive" enough—that is, did not involve enough money.
Republican senators raised some questions about Geithner's failure to pay more than $30,000 in personal taxes from 2001 to 2004. But, as the New York Times noted, these were "lapses that might have doomed the nomination of a candidate less experienced and less respected among Republicans than Mr. Geithner." The nomination hearing was entirely amiable, with Geithner and the Democratic and Republican senators in agreement on all the central issues.
No one objected from either party when Geithner, in his opening statement, indicated that the Obama administration intends to deal with ballooning budget deficits resulting from government handouts to the banks by slashing bedrock social programs such as Social Security and Medicare. He told the committee, "Our program to restore economic growth has to be accompanied—and I want to emphasize this—has to be accompanied by a clear strategy to get us back as quickly as possible to a sustainable fiscal position." It was necessary to demonstrate, he added, that "we as a nation will return to living within our means."
Marketwatch noted: "He [Geithner] said the budget would have to tamed on a five-year horizon. Along these lines, Obama is looking for a ‘mechanism' to move forward on entitlement reform on a bipartisan basis."
Meanwhile, the banks are being rewarded with a new bailout package involving sums of public money substantially larger than that already committed by the Bush administration under TARP and related programs.
Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve chief and current chairman of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, endorsed Geithner's nomination in remarks to the Finance Committee. Volcker said that the banking system was "broken" and fixing it would require "several trillions of dollars"—an estimate that no one challenged.
Geithner refused to give details of Obama's bank bailout program, which is expected to be unveiled in the next few weeks. He admitted, however, that one plan being considered involves the creation of a "bad bank," which would use public funds to buy and quarantine subprime mortgage and other "toxic assets" currently held by the banks. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer told the hearing that economic experts had advised him that such a plan would cost more than $3 trillion.
The "bad bank" option is the preferred course of many in the financial sector because it does not involve the federal government directly purchasing large stakes of the banks' and financial institutions' stock. Fears of such a partial "nationalization," which would largely wipe out the investments of major shareholders, have contributed to driving down the share values of many major banks, compounding their solvency crisis.
An article in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, "Banks Hit By Nationalization Fears," explained: "The common stock of the major banks tracked by the Dow Jones Wilshire US Banks Index has fallen roughly $287 billion in value since Jan. 2, a 43 percent decline in just over two weeks. Banks that have sought further government aid have suffered the most, with Citigroup's market value falling 61 percent and Bank of America's 64 percent. The market value of JPMorgan Chase, which hasn't sought new government aid, has fallen 42 percent."
The accelerating American and world recession, initially triggered by the subprime mortgage market collapse, is in turn rebounding on the financial system.
The latest economic data from the US includes record low homebuilder sentiment, as recorded by the National Association of Home Builders' (NAHB) Housing Market Index. The gauge was 8 in January, down from 9 in December—the lowest level recorded since the index began in January 1985. The NAHB added that it expected the current housing downturn—the worst in more than six decades—will further worsen this year.
General Motors has lost its status as the world's largest manufacturer, with its 8.35 million vehicles sold in 2008 falling short of Toyota's 8.97 million. GM had previously been the largest automaker in every year since 1931. President Fritz Henderson admitted yesterday that GM's January sales were looking no better than the month before, when they plummeted by 31 percent. He also warned that unless the company received the second part of the federal bridge loan next month, it would run out of cash and face bankruptcy.
Major corporate layoffs continue apace. Manufacturer and auto supplier Eaton Corp has announced 5,200 job cuts. Taken together with the 3,400 workers Eaton laid off late last year, the company has eliminated 10 percent of its total workforce. United Airlines announced that it is sacking another 1,000 workers. Mining giant BHP Billiton is to reduce its workforce by 6 percent, affecting 6,000 positions. Most of these are in Australia and Chile, while about 550 workers in Arizona will also reportedly be laid off.
Global economic activity is contracting at an accelerating rate. The International Monetary Fund has warned that it will sharply cut world growth forecasts in a new report due to be released in the next few days. "Things are not improving," IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the BBC.
In Japan, the world's second-largest economy, the government has downgraded its assessment of the national economy for the fourth straight month. Also in Asia, Singaporean officials said yesterday they expected gross domestic product to decline this year by 2 to 5 percent, revising an earlier forecast issued just three weeks ago of growth ranging from negative 2 percent to 1 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2008, Singapore's largely export-driven economy contracted by 16.9 percent on an annualized basis.
In Europe, the German government yesterday cut its 2009 GDP forecast to negative 2.25 percent—down from the 0.2 growth predicted last October—marking the deepest recession since World War II. Portugal had its credit status downgraded by rating agency Standard and Poor's—making it the third Eurozone country, after Spain and Greece, to be hit in recent days by revised credit ratings. Other economies are expected to soon follow.
Obama inauguration got unprecedented coverage
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50K6E320090121
Obama inauguration got unprecedented news coverage
Wed Jan 21, 2009
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's inauguration generated an unprecedented 35,000 stories in the world's major newspapers, television and radio broadcasts over the past day -- about 35 times more than the last presidential swearing-in -- a monitoring group said on Wednesday.
The Texas-based Global Language Monitor said there had also been 6 million new Obama-related mentions on the Internet since December 31.
By comparison, the last U.S. presidential inauguration, of George W. Bush in January 2005, resulted in about 1,000 stories in major media worldwide, Paul JJ Payack, president of Global Language Monitor said.
"The Obama numbers are unprecedented and speak volumes to the global fascination with the new American president, his wife and young family," Payack told Reuters. "Obama is the biggest story of the century so far."
U.S. television audience ratings for Tuesday's inauguration ceremony, which was shown live on major broadcast networks and cable news channels, are expected to show record numbers tuning in when they are released later on Wednesday.
Payack said that according to his group's monitoring, the Obama campaign and election story had generated 717,000 citations in print, television and radio across the world in 2008 and 254 million mentions on the Internet and in Web blogs.
That surpassed media interest generated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the global financial meltdown in 2008, the Iraq War in 2003 and the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Payack said.
The tallies were calculated using the group's proprietary algorithm which tracks the frequency of words and phrases in the global print and electronic media, the Internet and major databases.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Obama inauguration got unprecedented news coverage
Wed Jan 21, 2009
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's inauguration generated an unprecedented 35,000 stories in the world's major newspapers, television and radio broadcasts over the past day -- about 35 times more than the last presidential swearing-in -- a monitoring group said on Wednesday.
The Texas-based Global Language Monitor said there had also been 6 million new Obama-related mentions on the Internet since December 31.
By comparison, the last U.S. presidential inauguration, of George W. Bush in January 2005, resulted in about 1,000 stories in major media worldwide, Paul JJ Payack, president of Global Language Monitor said.
"The Obama numbers are unprecedented and speak volumes to the global fascination with the new American president, his wife and young family," Payack told Reuters. "Obama is the biggest story of the century so far."
U.S. television audience ratings for Tuesday's inauguration ceremony, which was shown live on major broadcast networks and cable news channels, are expected to show record numbers tuning in when they are released later on Wednesday.
Payack said that according to his group's monitoring, the Obama campaign and election story had generated 717,000 citations in print, television and radio across the world in 2008 and 254 million mentions on the Internet and in Web blogs.
That surpassed media interest generated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the global financial meltdown in 2008, the Iraq War in 2003 and the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Payack said.
The tallies were calculated using the group's proprietary algorithm which tracks the frequency of words and phrases in the global print and electronic media, the Internet and major databases.
(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Obama's Malaise Speech?
http://blogs.abcnews.com/liveblogging/2009/01/obamas-malaise.html
Obama's Malaise Speech?
January 20, 2009
A lot of talk about Obama’s speech already; was it more like Roosevelt’s or Kennedy’s?
I have a weird one to throw out there -- how about Jimmy Carter’s "malaise" speech?
Carter never actually used that word, but back in July of 1979, with the country in crisis, President Carter spoke of the dour national mood:
"The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America."
And somewhat surprisingly, to me at least, today President Obama said America is suffering from: "a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights."
Boy, sounds like he is saying America is suffering a kind of malaise. Carter was pounded in the press for his speech. Obama will not be. Perhaps it shows how times have changed.
Obama's Malaise Speech?
January 20, 2009
A lot of talk about Obama’s speech already; was it more like Roosevelt’s or Kennedy’s?
I have a weird one to throw out there -- how about Jimmy Carter’s "malaise" speech?
Carter never actually used that word, but back in July of 1979, with the country in crisis, President Carter spoke of the dour national mood:
"The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America."
And somewhat surprisingly, to me at least, today President Obama said America is suffering from: "a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights."
Boy, sounds like he is saying America is suffering a kind of malaise. Carter was pounded in the press for his speech. Obama will not be. Perhaps it shows how times have changed.
Celebrities Compare Obama To Biblical Figures
http://www.prisonplanet.com/celebrities-onlookers-compare-obama-to-biblical-figures.html
Celebrities, Onlookers Compare Obama To Biblical Figures
Messianic symbolism pushed by corporate media
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Wednesday, Jan 21st, 2009
In a frightening confirmation of the new president’s dangerously inflated “messianic” status, inaugural attendees yesterday described Obama as having changed their lives, comparing him to Biblical apostles.
Celebrities, including Jay-Z, Smokey Robinson, Don King, Denzel Washington, and Oprah Winfrey, spoke in the hours before the inauguration just a few feet from the rostrum where Obama was sworn-in as the nation’s 44th president, CNS News reports.
They spoke about how Obama had changed their lives and which Biblical character they think he most resembles, the report states.
“I would say that he would be Joshua going across to the Promised Land,” Boxing promoter Don King said. “Martin Luther King Jr. went to the mountaintop like Moses, and he said, ‘I might not get there with you, but I can see the Promised Land.’ But we gonna’ get to the Promised Land. So Joshua carried them across. Martin Luther King, Jr. was prevented from going into the Promised Land.”
R&B singer Smokey Robinson described Obama as a “world leader” and said that “There are so many Biblical figures who had the same task,” as the new president.
“If you are an American citizen, he has changed all of our lives.” the songwriter added, comments that were echoed by hip hopper Jay Z who said “Obama changed my life in the same way he has changed your life,”.
Lennis Washington, the mother of actor Denzel Washington described Obama as being like any of the biblical leaders. “The apostle Paul, Moses, John the Baptist – any one of them. Seriously, he is like one of those apostles for our day. He came to lead us to the original design of what we are supposed to do on this earth.” she said.
The actor himself, to his credit, refused to compare the new president to a religious icon.
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who has previously described Obama as having “evolved to a higher plane”, admitted Obama had changed her life and commented “He makes me want to be a better human being.”
Yesterday we reported on how flocks of celebrities are encouraging Americans to “pledge service” to Obama, a disturbing notion given the fact that Obama has promised to found a “national civilian security force” and institute forms of compulsory community service for all Americans.
The fervor with which Obama is being received by portions of the American public is reaching a frightening level. It has come to the point where the new president is literally being painted as the anointed savior of humanity.
The symbolism evident during yesterday’s Inauguration was entirely overwhelming, the desperate throngs of people, the tears, people reaching out and looking to the heavens with unremitting expressions of relief and joy.
The image of Obama as Messiah is being pushed evermore by the corporate media. The London Telegraph reports that a vast amount of pictures taken over the past few days and weeks have shown the new president and his wife with a light source behind him so that light is thrown around his head like a halo. “Obviously this plays well for the image of Obama the messiah and it can result in some stunning pictures.” the newspaper comments.
Meanwhile, headlines around the world declare “America has its messiah“, “Obama offers hope to an ailing world“, “The savior America needs?” etc etc.
Of course, the most dangerous aspect to all this is that if you treat a man like a God, he will soon come to think of himself as one.
Celebrities, Onlookers Compare Obama To Biblical Figures
Messianic symbolism pushed by corporate media
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Wednesday, Jan 21st, 2009
In a frightening confirmation of the new president’s dangerously inflated “messianic” status, inaugural attendees yesterday described Obama as having changed their lives, comparing him to Biblical apostles.
Celebrities, including Jay-Z, Smokey Robinson, Don King, Denzel Washington, and Oprah Winfrey, spoke in the hours before the inauguration just a few feet from the rostrum where Obama was sworn-in as the nation’s 44th president, CNS News reports.
They spoke about how Obama had changed their lives and which Biblical character they think he most resembles, the report states.
“I would say that he would be Joshua going across to the Promised Land,” Boxing promoter Don King said. “Martin Luther King Jr. went to the mountaintop like Moses, and he said, ‘I might not get there with you, but I can see the Promised Land.’ But we gonna’ get to the Promised Land. So Joshua carried them across. Martin Luther King, Jr. was prevented from going into the Promised Land.”
R&B singer Smokey Robinson described Obama as a “world leader” and said that “There are so many Biblical figures who had the same task,” as the new president.
“If you are an American citizen, he has changed all of our lives.” the songwriter added, comments that were echoed by hip hopper Jay Z who said “Obama changed my life in the same way he has changed your life,”.
Lennis Washington, the mother of actor Denzel Washington described Obama as being like any of the biblical leaders. “The apostle Paul, Moses, John the Baptist – any one of them. Seriously, he is like one of those apostles for our day. He came to lead us to the original design of what we are supposed to do on this earth.” she said.
The actor himself, to his credit, refused to compare the new president to a religious icon.
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who has previously described Obama as having “evolved to a higher plane”, admitted Obama had changed her life and commented “He makes me want to be a better human being.”
Yesterday we reported on how flocks of celebrities are encouraging Americans to “pledge service” to Obama, a disturbing notion given the fact that Obama has promised to found a “national civilian security force” and institute forms of compulsory community service for all Americans.
The fervor with which Obama is being received by portions of the American public is reaching a frightening level. It has come to the point where the new president is literally being painted as the anointed savior of humanity.
The symbolism evident during yesterday’s Inauguration was entirely overwhelming, the desperate throngs of people, the tears, people reaching out and looking to the heavens with unremitting expressions of relief and joy.
The image of Obama as Messiah is being pushed evermore by the corporate media. The London Telegraph reports that a vast amount of pictures taken over the past few days and weeks have shown the new president and his wife with a light source behind him so that light is thrown around his head like a halo. “Obviously this plays well for the image of Obama the messiah and it can result in some stunning pictures.” the newspaper comments.
Meanwhile, headlines around the world declare “America has its messiah“, “Obama offers hope to an ailing world“, “The savior America needs?” etc etc.
Of course, the most dangerous aspect to all this is that if you treat a man like a God, he will soon come to think of himself as one.
Bowing to the right on Inauguration Day
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/pers-j22.shtml
Bowing to the right on Inauguration Day
Bill Van Auken
22 January 2009
The inauguration speech delivered by President Barack Obama Tuesday has been the object of near-delirious praise from the mass media and the editorial pages of the major US dailies. Even those forced to acknowledge that the 18-minute address was flat in its delivery, banal in much of its content and lacking any oratory that will be long remembered insist that it mattered little what Obama actually said. The important thing was his very presence on the steps of the Capitol—and that of the massive crowd on the Washington Mall—symbolizing “change.”
Eschewing genuine analysis and dedicating its coverage instead to self-delusion and deluding others, the media almost universally fails to grasp the immense contradiction between the sentiments that brought nearly two million people to Washington for the event and the politics that underlay what Obama actually said.
Those standing in the cold came to celebrate the exit from the political stage of a hated president, George W. Bush, and what many hoped would be the beginning of fundamental change. The speech itself, however, was crafted in large measure to appease the Republican right and signal continuity with its essential policies.
Most glaring in this regard were the first substantive lines describing the crisis enveloping the United States as Obama assumes the presidency. Before even referring to the profound economic crisis that has claimed some 3 million jobs and is destroying hundreds of thousands more every month, Obama took his cue from Bush, painting terrorism as the nation’s preeminent challenge.
“Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred,” he declared.
With these few words, Obama gave his assurance that the “global war on terror” will remain the lasting legacy of Bush, Cheney and Co., providing the continued pretext for aggressive war abroad and the violation of democratic rights at home.
Contained in this formulation is the continuation of all the lies and political intimidation methods utilized by the last administration to foist the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq onto the American people. Principal among them is the fraudulent claim that the American military has been sent to occupy these countries and kill large numbers of their citizens in order to fight terrorism, when, in fact, the real reason for these wars is the drive for American imperialist hegemony over the vast energy reserves of Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.
Continuity, rather than change, is the hallmark of the incoming administration’s attitude towards both of these wars. To the extent that a partial drawdown of troops is to be carried out in Iraq, it will be done under the timetable worked out by the Bush administration and for the purpose of escalating the counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan. Overseeing the process, moreover, will be Bush’s secretary of defense, Robert Gates, as well as the senior commanders picked by the Republican president.
By invoking an undefined “far-reaching network” of worldwide terror Obama kept in place the ideological pretext for wars yet to come, potentially against Iran, Pakistan or countries as yet unnamed.
This element of the speech won firm approval from the virulently right-wing editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. In its lead editorial, the Journal applauded Obama for his “clear declaration that we are indeed fighting a ‘war’” against terrorism. It continued: “Many of his supporters on the left, and around the world, have been hoping that Mr. Obama will return US national security policy to its pre-9/11 assumptions. The Democrat was warning our adversaries—and some of our allies—that his foreign policy will have as much continuity as change, and that he isn't about to jettison policies that protect Americans.”
In other words, the speech reassured the predominant sections of the American financial elite, whose interests the Journal consistently defends, that policies of militarism and aggression that it sees as vital to maintaining and advancing its global aims will continue unabated.
As for Obama’s “supporters on the left”—i.e., the majority of the American people who want an end to war and voted for him in large measure to achieve that aim—they have once again been politically disenfranchised by the two-party system.
The speech received general applause from the media pundits of the right. Former Nixon speech-writer Peggy Noonan noted that Obama used “language with which traditional Republicans would be thoroughly at home.”
Most popular among this socio-political layer were the sections of the speech suggesting that the economic collapse precipitated by Wall Street is the fault of the American people as a whole, who now must accept sacrifice in the interests of the nation. In particular, they fastened on the lines about a “new era of responsibility” and the financial meltdown being the result of “greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.”
Columnist George Will, who hosted Obama at a pre-inauguration dinner with other right-wing commentators, praised in particular his use of the Biblical phrase, “The time has come to set aside childish things,” interpreting it as an admonition to the vast majority of the American people for demanding “more goods and services than they are willing to pay for.” Driven by his contempt for working people, Will happily endorses the demand that they give up such “childish things” as the belief that they have a right to a job, a home, health care and a decent income.
Similarly, the Wall Street Journal noted approvingly in its main article on the inauguration, “The implicit message is that it isn’t sufficient to blame the Bush administration, or Wall Street or the man down the street for today’s economic pain, but to accept that a whole nation is complicit in it.”
This indeed is the implication of Obama’s words. How are workers, who have faced an ever more uphill battle to make ends meet off of steadily declining real wages, “complicit” in the financial fraud and criminality that have dominated Wall Street, generating obscene fortunes for those at the top, while dragging the economy into ruin? This neither Obama nor his right-wing admirers bother to explain.
Absent from Obama’s speech was any reference to the most salient feature of modern-day American life: the uninterrupted growth in social inequality. Only by deliberately ignoring the reality of a society in which the top 1 percent controls 40 percent of the wealth and where a CEO makes 344 times the income of an average worker could the Democratic president weave into his speech the false and deeply reactionary notions of “collective failure” and “equality” of responsibility.
The meaning of these arguments is unmistakable. The advent of Obama will signal no reprise of the New Deal or the Great Society. There will be no revival of social reformism, but rather a turn to fiscal austerity and counter-reforms directed against what little remains of a social safety net in America, embodied in such programs as Social Security and Medicare.
The central political aim of the new administration, like the one that it is replacing, will be protecting the interests and wealth of a narrow financial elite, who will be bailed out at the expense of millions of American workers and their families.
As this policy unfolds—and as the economic crisis deepens—the media attempts to cast Barack Obama as the personal embodiment of change will inevitably fall flat. The reality that the new American president is an utterly conventional politician, the product of a corrupt political machine and the faithful servant of the financial and corporate interests that funded his election campaign will begin to set in.
At that point, the stark contradiction between the aspirations and objective interests of the large numbers of working people on the Washington Mall Tuesday and the class nature of the Obama administration will find its expression in the eruption of social struggles directed against this government itself.
Bowing to the right on Inauguration Day
Bill Van Auken
22 January 2009
The inauguration speech delivered by President Barack Obama Tuesday has been the object of near-delirious praise from the mass media and the editorial pages of the major US dailies. Even those forced to acknowledge that the 18-minute address was flat in its delivery, banal in much of its content and lacking any oratory that will be long remembered insist that it mattered little what Obama actually said. The important thing was his very presence on the steps of the Capitol—and that of the massive crowd on the Washington Mall—symbolizing “change.”
Eschewing genuine analysis and dedicating its coverage instead to self-delusion and deluding others, the media almost universally fails to grasp the immense contradiction between the sentiments that brought nearly two million people to Washington for the event and the politics that underlay what Obama actually said.
Those standing in the cold came to celebrate the exit from the political stage of a hated president, George W. Bush, and what many hoped would be the beginning of fundamental change. The speech itself, however, was crafted in large measure to appease the Republican right and signal continuity with its essential policies.
Most glaring in this regard were the first substantive lines describing the crisis enveloping the United States as Obama assumes the presidency. Before even referring to the profound economic crisis that has claimed some 3 million jobs and is destroying hundreds of thousands more every month, Obama took his cue from Bush, painting terrorism as the nation’s preeminent challenge.
“Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred,” he declared.
With these few words, Obama gave his assurance that the “global war on terror” will remain the lasting legacy of Bush, Cheney and Co., providing the continued pretext for aggressive war abroad and the violation of democratic rights at home.
Contained in this formulation is the continuation of all the lies and political intimidation methods utilized by the last administration to foist the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq onto the American people. Principal among them is the fraudulent claim that the American military has been sent to occupy these countries and kill large numbers of their citizens in order to fight terrorism, when, in fact, the real reason for these wars is the drive for American imperialist hegemony over the vast energy reserves of Central Asia and the Persian Gulf.
Continuity, rather than change, is the hallmark of the incoming administration’s attitude towards both of these wars. To the extent that a partial drawdown of troops is to be carried out in Iraq, it will be done under the timetable worked out by the Bush administration and for the purpose of escalating the counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan. Overseeing the process, moreover, will be Bush’s secretary of defense, Robert Gates, as well as the senior commanders picked by the Republican president.
By invoking an undefined “far-reaching network” of worldwide terror Obama kept in place the ideological pretext for wars yet to come, potentially against Iran, Pakistan or countries as yet unnamed.
This element of the speech won firm approval from the virulently right-wing editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. In its lead editorial, the Journal applauded Obama for his “clear declaration that we are indeed fighting a ‘war’” against terrorism. It continued: “Many of his supporters on the left, and around the world, have been hoping that Mr. Obama will return US national security policy to its pre-9/11 assumptions. The Democrat was warning our adversaries—and some of our allies—that his foreign policy will have as much continuity as change, and that he isn't about to jettison policies that protect Americans.”
In other words, the speech reassured the predominant sections of the American financial elite, whose interests the Journal consistently defends, that policies of militarism and aggression that it sees as vital to maintaining and advancing its global aims will continue unabated.
As for Obama’s “supporters on the left”—i.e., the majority of the American people who want an end to war and voted for him in large measure to achieve that aim—they have once again been politically disenfranchised by the two-party system.
The speech received general applause from the media pundits of the right. Former Nixon speech-writer Peggy Noonan noted that Obama used “language with which traditional Republicans would be thoroughly at home.”
Most popular among this socio-political layer were the sections of the speech suggesting that the economic collapse precipitated by Wall Street is the fault of the American people as a whole, who now must accept sacrifice in the interests of the nation. In particular, they fastened on the lines about a “new era of responsibility” and the financial meltdown being the result of “greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.”
Columnist George Will, who hosted Obama at a pre-inauguration dinner with other right-wing commentators, praised in particular his use of the Biblical phrase, “The time has come to set aside childish things,” interpreting it as an admonition to the vast majority of the American people for demanding “more goods and services than they are willing to pay for.” Driven by his contempt for working people, Will happily endorses the demand that they give up such “childish things” as the belief that they have a right to a job, a home, health care and a decent income.
Similarly, the Wall Street Journal noted approvingly in its main article on the inauguration, “The implicit message is that it isn’t sufficient to blame the Bush administration, or Wall Street or the man down the street for today’s economic pain, but to accept that a whole nation is complicit in it.”
This indeed is the implication of Obama’s words. How are workers, who have faced an ever more uphill battle to make ends meet off of steadily declining real wages, “complicit” in the financial fraud and criminality that have dominated Wall Street, generating obscene fortunes for those at the top, while dragging the economy into ruin? This neither Obama nor his right-wing admirers bother to explain.
Absent from Obama’s speech was any reference to the most salient feature of modern-day American life: the uninterrupted growth in social inequality. Only by deliberately ignoring the reality of a society in which the top 1 percent controls 40 percent of the wealth and where a CEO makes 344 times the income of an average worker could the Democratic president weave into his speech the false and deeply reactionary notions of “collective failure” and “equality” of responsibility.
The meaning of these arguments is unmistakable. The advent of Obama will signal no reprise of the New Deal or the Great Society. There will be no revival of social reformism, but rather a turn to fiscal austerity and counter-reforms directed against what little remains of a social safety net in America, embodied in such programs as Social Security and Medicare.
The central political aim of the new administration, like the one that it is replacing, will be protecting the interests and wealth of a narrow financial elite, who will be bailed out at the expense of millions of American workers and their families.
As this policy unfolds—and as the economic crisis deepens—the media attempts to cast Barack Obama as the personal embodiment of change will inevitably fall flat. The reality that the new American president is an utterly conventional politician, the product of a corrupt political machine and the faithful servant of the financial and corporate interests that funded his election campaign will begin to set in.
At that point, the stark contradiction between the aspirations and objective interests of the large numbers of working people on the Washington Mall Tuesday and the class nature of the Obama administration will find its expression in the eruption of social struggles directed against this government itself.
NSA Monitored All Communications
http://www.prisonplanet.com/nsa-monitored-all-communications.html
NSA Monitored All Communications
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, January 22, 2009
On January 21, former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice appeared Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC show. Tice, who helped expose the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, told Olbermann government programs designed to spy on the American people are more extensive and far reaching than previously admitted. “The National Security Agency had access to all Americans’ communications — faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications,” Tice said. “It didn’t matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications.”
During the Bush administration, it was claimed the intercepts involved foreign communications and the intelligence gathered was integral to the conduct of the so-called global war on terrorism. In order to get around the warrant requirements of FISA, a bill authorizing the use of United States Armed Forces against those supposedly responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001, was passed (Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists). The authorization granted Bush the authority to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those whom he determined “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11th attacks, or those who harbored said persons or groups. AUMF allowed the Bush administration to avoid FISA and Wiretap Act restrictions.
But according to Tice, the NSA program was not limited to alleged al-Qaeda members, as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claimed at the time, but included “news organizations and reporters and journalists” in the United States. The data “was digitized and put on databases somewhere.” It was not simply journalists, however, the NSA spied on and likely continues to spy now.
“Spying on Americans by the super-secret National Security Agency is not only more widespread than President George W. Bush admits but is part of a concentrated, government-wide effort to gather and catalog information on U.S. citizens, sources close to the administration say,” Doug Thompson wrote for Capitol Hill Blue on December 27, 2005. “Besides the NSA, the Pentagon, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and dozens of private contractors are spying on millions of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.”
According to Thompson and his sources in the government, the “Pentagon has built a massive database of Americans it considers threats, including members of antiwar groups, peace activists and writers opposed to the war in Iraq.” In response to publicity, the Pentagon claimed it was “reviewing the files” to determine if the information was necessary to the conduct of the putative war on terrorism. “Given the military’s legacy of privacy abuses, such vague assurances are cold comfort,” Gene Healy of the CATO Institute told Thompson. “There’s a long and troubling history of military surveillance in this country,” added Healy. “That history suggests that we should loathe allowing the Pentagon access to our personal information.”
In addition to spying by the NSA and the Pentagon, documents released in 2006 revealed the FBI and its Joint Terrorism Task Force monitored and infiltrated several nonviolent activist groups. “Labeling law abiding groups and their members ‘domestic terrorists’ is not only irresponsible, it has a chilling effect on the vibrant tradition of political dissent in this country,” Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU, said at the time.
According to a Washington Post report, the NSA has turned over information to the Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI, CIA and Department of Homeland Security.
Although the NSA monitors all communications — faxes, phone calls, and computer communications — it is impossible to collect all of this data, according to Tice. “What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata … and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected,” he told Olbermann.
Obviously, the NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, and the Department of Homeland Security are not interested in “every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York,” as Olbermann sarcastically put it. They are primarily interested in the communications of “domestic terrorists,” or those opposed to government policies.
Well before president Truman established the NSA in 1952, government cryptologists were spying on Americans under the Armed Forces Security Agency’s Project Shamrock, a program that worked with telegraphic companies to turn over the telegraphic correspondence of Americans to the government. “The NSA kicked its spy campaign into high gear in the 1960s,” writes Earl Ofari Hutchinson. “The FBI demanded that the NSA monitor antiwar activists, civil rights leaders, and drug peddlers. The Senate Select Committee that investigated government domestic spying in 1976 pried open a tiny public window into the scope of NSA spying,” but this window was slammed shut in the name of national security. “The few feeble Congressional attempts over the years to probe NSA domestic spying have gone nowhere. Even though rumors swirled that NSA eyes were riveted on more than a few Americans, Congressional investigators showed no stomach to fight the NSA’s entrenched code of silence.”
More recently, Congress has not only “showed no stomach” when it comes to illegal and unconstitutional spying of Americans, it has worked hand-in-hand with the executive and intelligence agencies to facilitate this process. In essence, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security serve as a domestic political police force little different than the NKVD of the former Soviet Union. The domestic political police force in the United States, like the NKVD’s Special Board, is interested in “socially dangerous” people, that is to say people opposed to the government.
Unlike Stalin’s NKVD, the FBI and Homeland Security have yet to engage in a Great Purge of arrests, interrogation, torture, imprisonment, and deportation. Bush, however, through the Military Commissions Act and other draconian legislation, has set the stage for a political purge, especially if another false flag attack occurs in the United States. Executive Orders associated with FEMA stand ready to suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and round up “socially dangerous” people and send them to newly constructed KBR concentration camps.
Unfortunately, far too many people naively believe all of this will change under Barack Obama. Mr. Obama, however, is merely a figurehead and window dressing packaged for public consumption, a friendly and smiling face slapped as a deceptive cover on the secret government of the bankers. If and when push comes to shove — another manufactured terrorist attack or civil disturbances related to an economic depression — Obama will pen an executive order sending “socially dangerous” people to concentration camps.
NSA Monitored All Communications
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, January 22, 2009
On January 21, former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice appeared Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC show. Tice, who helped expose the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, told Olbermann government programs designed to spy on the American people are more extensive and far reaching than previously admitted. “The National Security Agency had access to all Americans’ communications — faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications,” Tice said. “It didn’t matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications.”
During the Bush administration, it was claimed the intercepts involved foreign communications and the intelligence gathered was integral to the conduct of the so-called global war on terrorism. In order to get around the warrant requirements of FISA, a bill authorizing the use of United States Armed Forces against those supposedly responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001, was passed (Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists). The authorization granted Bush the authority to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those whom he determined “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11th attacks, or those who harbored said persons or groups. AUMF allowed the Bush administration to avoid FISA and Wiretap Act restrictions.
But according to Tice, the NSA program was not limited to alleged al-Qaeda members, as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claimed at the time, but included “news organizations and reporters and journalists” in the United States. The data “was digitized and put on databases somewhere.” It was not simply journalists, however, the NSA spied on and likely continues to spy now.
“Spying on Americans by the super-secret National Security Agency is not only more widespread than President George W. Bush admits but is part of a concentrated, government-wide effort to gather and catalog information on U.S. citizens, sources close to the administration say,” Doug Thompson wrote for Capitol Hill Blue on December 27, 2005. “Besides the NSA, the Pentagon, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and dozens of private contractors are spying on millions of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.”
According to Thompson and his sources in the government, the “Pentagon has built a massive database of Americans it considers threats, including members of antiwar groups, peace activists and writers opposed to the war in Iraq.” In response to publicity, the Pentagon claimed it was “reviewing the files” to determine if the information was necessary to the conduct of the putative war on terrorism. “Given the military’s legacy of privacy abuses, such vague assurances are cold comfort,” Gene Healy of the CATO Institute told Thompson. “There’s a long and troubling history of military surveillance in this country,” added Healy. “That history suggests that we should loathe allowing the Pentagon access to our personal information.”
In addition to spying by the NSA and the Pentagon, documents released in 2006 revealed the FBI and its Joint Terrorism Task Force monitored and infiltrated several nonviolent activist groups. “Labeling law abiding groups and their members ‘domestic terrorists’ is not only irresponsible, it has a chilling effect on the vibrant tradition of political dissent in this country,” Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU, said at the time.
According to a Washington Post report, the NSA has turned over information to the Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI, CIA and Department of Homeland Security.
Although the NSA monitors all communications — faxes, phone calls, and computer communications — it is impossible to collect all of this data, according to Tice. “What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata … and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected,” he told Olbermann.
Obviously, the NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, and the Department of Homeland Security are not interested in “every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York,” as Olbermann sarcastically put it. They are primarily interested in the communications of “domestic terrorists,” or those opposed to government policies.
Well before president Truman established the NSA in 1952, government cryptologists were spying on Americans under the Armed Forces Security Agency’s Project Shamrock, a program that worked with telegraphic companies to turn over the telegraphic correspondence of Americans to the government. “The NSA kicked its spy campaign into high gear in the 1960s,” writes Earl Ofari Hutchinson. “The FBI demanded that the NSA monitor antiwar activists, civil rights leaders, and drug peddlers. The Senate Select Committee that investigated government domestic spying in 1976 pried open a tiny public window into the scope of NSA spying,” but this window was slammed shut in the name of national security. “The few feeble Congressional attempts over the years to probe NSA domestic spying have gone nowhere. Even though rumors swirled that NSA eyes were riveted on more than a few Americans, Congressional investigators showed no stomach to fight the NSA’s entrenched code of silence.”
More recently, Congress has not only “showed no stomach” when it comes to illegal and unconstitutional spying of Americans, it has worked hand-in-hand with the executive and intelligence agencies to facilitate this process. In essence, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security serve as a domestic political police force little different than the NKVD of the former Soviet Union. The domestic political police force in the United States, like the NKVD’s Special Board, is interested in “socially dangerous” people, that is to say people opposed to the government.
Unlike Stalin’s NKVD, the FBI and Homeland Security have yet to engage in a Great Purge of arrests, interrogation, torture, imprisonment, and deportation. Bush, however, through the Military Commissions Act and other draconian legislation, has set the stage for a political purge, especially if another false flag attack occurs in the United States. Executive Orders associated with FEMA stand ready to suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and round up “socially dangerous” people and send them to newly constructed KBR concentration camps.
Unfortunately, far too many people naively believe all of this will change under Barack Obama. Mr. Obama, however, is merely a figurehead and window dressing packaged for public consumption, a friendly and smiling face slapped as a deceptive cover on the secret government of the bankers. If and when push comes to shove — another manufactured terrorist attack or civil disturbances related to an economic depression — Obama will pen an executive order sending “socially dangerous” people to concentration camps.
Sen. Rockefeller: NSA may have spied on me
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Rockefeller_NSA_may_have_spied_on_0122.html
Sen. Rockefeller: NSA may have spied on me
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Thursday January 22, 2009
Russell Tice has been heard. Loud and Clear.
Following Wednesday's revelation by the former National Security Agency analyst that President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program had spied on everyone, quite contrary to what the administration had claimed, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) told MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Thursday that he was "quite prepared to believe" the allegations.
He added: "I think they went after anyone they could get -- including me."
Tice, during an appearance on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann the prior evening, proclaimed, "The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications -- faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications. It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications."
"In one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations, just supposedly so that we would not target them," Tice told Olbermann. "What I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7 and 365 days a year -- and it made no sense. ... I started to investigate that. That's about the time when they came after me to fire me."
When Olbermann pressed him for specifics, Tice offered, "An organization that was collected on were US news organizations and reporters and journalists."
The allegation essentially changes America's debate about domestic spying by the government, from one of listening to terrorists, as the Bush administration had framed it, to that of an intelligence operation beyond President Nixon's greatest aspirations, if it's true.
It should also raise new questions about a 2004 revelation in the New York Times that the paper had withheld a story for over a year, at the administration's request, which described scant few, albeit now-known false details of the program.
"While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it said the N.S.A. eavesdropped without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time," the Times wrote, shortly after the 2004 election. "The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands over the past three years, several officials said. Overseas, about 5,000 to 7,000 people suspected of terrorist ties are monitored at one time, according to those officials."
The paper also notes that additional information was omitted, again at the request of the Bush administration. The allegations at hand would seem to quickly dovetail into, 'Why?'
Make that, Senators too?
On July 9, 2008, the US Senate passed a bill expanding legal authority for electronic wiretaps by spy agencies, handing victory to President George W. Bush after a standoff over anti-terror strategy. Then-Senator Obama, along with newly appointed Secretary of State Clinton, said they would support Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn) in filibustering the GOP effort, specifically when it came to immunity for the private telecom companies which allowed the NSA to conduct warrantless spying.
Obama ultimately "compromised," saying: "The President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance – making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people."
Clinton maintained her position, voting against the majority.
"I've never seen contempt for the rule of law such as this," said Sen. Dodd in Dec. 2007.
With this latest round of revelations, perhaps another new question should be, 'Has Obama?'
Tice reappeared on Countdown the following night, bearing new allegations against the NSA.
Sen. Rockefeller: NSA may have spied on me
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Thursday January 22, 2009
Russell Tice has been heard. Loud and Clear.
Following Wednesday's revelation by the former National Security Agency analyst that President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program had spied on everyone, quite contrary to what the administration had claimed, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) told MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Thursday that he was "quite prepared to believe" the allegations.
He added: "I think they went after anyone they could get -- including me."
Tice, during an appearance on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann the prior evening, proclaimed, "The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications -- faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications. It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications."
"In one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations, just supposedly so that we would not target them," Tice told Olbermann. "What I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7 and 365 days a year -- and it made no sense. ... I started to investigate that. That's about the time when they came after me to fire me."
When Olbermann pressed him for specifics, Tice offered, "An organization that was collected on were US news organizations and reporters and journalists."
The allegation essentially changes America's debate about domestic spying by the government, from one of listening to terrorists, as the Bush administration had framed it, to that of an intelligence operation beyond President Nixon's greatest aspirations, if it's true.
It should also raise new questions about a 2004 revelation in the New York Times that the paper had withheld a story for over a year, at the administration's request, which described scant few, albeit now-known false details of the program.
"While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it said the N.S.A. eavesdropped without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time," the Times wrote, shortly after the 2004 election. "The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands over the past three years, several officials said. Overseas, about 5,000 to 7,000 people suspected of terrorist ties are monitored at one time, according to those officials."
The paper also notes that additional information was omitted, again at the request of the Bush administration. The allegations at hand would seem to quickly dovetail into, 'Why?'
Make that, Senators too?
On July 9, 2008, the US Senate passed a bill expanding legal authority for electronic wiretaps by spy agencies, handing victory to President George W. Bush after a standoff over anti-terror strategy. Then-Senator Obama, along with newly appointed Secretary of State Clinton, said they would support Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn) in filibustering the GOP effort, specifically when it came to immunity for the private telecom companies which allowed the NSA to conduct warrantless spying.
Obama ultimately "compromised," saying: "The President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance – making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people."
Clinton maintained her position, voting against the majority.
"I've never seen contempt for the rule of law such as this," said Sen. Dodd in Dec. 2007.
With this latest round of revelations, perhaps another new question should be, 'Has Obama?'
Tice reappeared on Countdown the following night, bearing new allegations against the NSA.
NSA even collected credit card records
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Whistleblower_NSA_collected_credit_card_records_0122.html
Whistleblower: NSA even collected credit card records
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Published: Thursday January 22, 2009
Ex-analyst believes program actually the remnants of 'Total Information Awareness,' shut down by Congress in 2003
On Wednesday night, when former NSA analyst Russell Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann that the Bush administration's National Security Agency spied on everyone in the United States, specifically targeting journalists, the Countdown host was so flabbergasted that Tice was invited back for a second interview.
On Thursday, he returned to the airwaves with expanded allegations against the NSA, claiming the agency collected Americans' credit card records, and adding that he believes the massive, warrantless data vacuum to be the remnants of the Total Information Awareness program, shut down by Congress in 2003.
Asked for comment by Olbermann's staff, the agency responded, "NSA considers the constitutional rights of US citizens to be sacrosanct. The intelligence community faces immense challenges in protecting our nation. No matter the challenges, NSA remains dedicated to performing its mission under the rule of law."
Olbermann ran the quote under a banner which read, "Non-denial denial."
"As far as the wiretap information that made it though NSA, there was also data-mining that was involved," Tice told Olbermann during the pair's second interview. "At some point, information from credit card records and financial transactions was married in with that information."
At this point on the audio track, Olbermann can be heard taking a deep breath.
"So, lucky American citizens, tens of thousands of whom are now on digital databases at NSA, who have no idea of this, also have that information included in those digital files that have been warehoused," said Tice.
"... Do you have any idea what all this stuff was used for?" asked the stunned host.
"The obvious explanation would be, if you did have a potential terrorist, you'd want to know where they're spending money, whether they purchased an airline ticket, that sort of thing," said Tice. "But, once again, we're talking about tens of thousands of innocent US citizens that have been caught up into this trap. They have no clue.
"This thing could sit there for 10 years, then all the sudden it marries up with something else 10 years from now, and 10 years from now they get put on a no-fly list and they of course won't have a clue why."
Tice added that "in most cases," spied-upon Americans didn't have to do anything suspicious in order to trigger the surveillance.
"This is garnered from algorithms that have been put together to try to just dream up scenarios that might be information that is associated with how a terrorist could operate," he said.
Ultimately, the technical explanation boils down to this: "If someone just talked about the daily news and mentioned something about the Middle East, they could easily be brought to the forefront of having that little flag put by their name that says potential terrorist," said Tice.
"Do you know, or do you have an educated guess, as to who authorized this? Who developed this?" asked Olbermann.
"I have a guess, where it was developed," he replied. "I think it was probably developed out of the Department of Defense, and this is probably the remnants of Total Information Awareness, that came out of DARPA. That's my guess, I don't know that for sure."
Olbermann then asked if Tice knows who had access to the data.
"I started looking into this, and that's when ultimately they came after me to fire me," said Tice. "They must have realized that I'd stumbled onto something, and after that point I of course had no ability to find anything else out."
Tice concluded that he does not know if the program, as he understands it, continues to this day, and he refused to specifically state which media organizations the Bush administration's NSA had targeted for surveillance.
Whistleblower: NSA even collected credit card records
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
Published: Thursday January 22, 2009
Ex-analyst believes program actually the remnants of 'Total Information Awareness,' shut down by Congress in 2003
On Wednesday night, when former NSA analyst Russell Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann that the Bush administration's National Security Agency spied on everyone in the United States, specifically targeting journalists, the Countdown host was so flabbergasted that Tice was invited back for a second interview.
On Thursday, he returned to the airwaves with expanded allegations against the NSA, claiming the agency collected Americans' credit card records, and adding that he believes the massive, warrantless data vacuum to be the remnants of the Total Information Awareness program, shut down by Congress in 2003.
Asked for comment by Olbermann's staff, the agency responded, "NSA considers the constitutional rights of US citizens to be sacrosanct. The intelligence community faces immense challenges in protecting our nation. No matter the challenges, NSA remains dedicated to performing its mission under the rule of law."
Olbermann ran the quote under a banner which read, "Non-denial denial."
"As far as the wiretap information that made it though NSA, there was also data-mining that was involved," Tice told Olbermann during the pair's second interview. "At some point, information from credit card records and financial transactions was married in with that information."
At this point on the audio track, Olbermann can be heard taking a deep breath.
"So, lucky American citizens, tens of thousands of whom are now on digital databases at NSA, who have no idea of this, also have that information included in those digital files that have been warehoused," said Tice.
"... Do you have any idea what all this stuff was used for?" asked the stunned host.
"The obvious explanation would be, if you did have a potential terrorist, you'd want to know where they're spending money, whether they purchased an airline ticket, that sort of thing," said Tice. "But, once again, we're talking about tens of thousands of innocent US citizens that have been caught up into this trap. They have no clue.
"This thing could sit there for 10 years, then all the sudden it marries up with something else 10 years from now, and 10 years from now they get put on a no-fly list and they of course won't have a clue why."
Tice added that "in most cases," spied-upon Americans didn't have to do anything suspicious in order to trigger the surveillance.
"This is garnered from algorithms that have been put together to try to just dream up scenarios that might be information that is associated with how a terrorist could operate," he said.
Ultimately, the technical explanation boils down to this: "If someone just talked about the daily news and mentioned something about the Middle East, they could easily be brought to the forefront of having that little flag put by their name that says potential terrorist," said Tice.
"Do you know, or do you have an educated guess, as to who authorized this? Who developed this?" asked Olbermann.
"I have a guess, where it was developed," he replied. "I think it was probably developed out of the Department of Defense, and this is probably the remnants of Total Information Awareness, that came out of DARPA. That's my guess, I don't know that for sure."
Olbermann then asked if Tice knows who had access to the data.
"I started looking into this, and that's when ultimately they came after me to fire me," said Tice. "They must have realized that I'd stumbled onto something, and after that point I of course had no ability to find anything else out."
Tice concluded that he does not know if the program, as he understands it, continues to this day, and he refused to specifically state which media organizations the Bush administration's NSA had targeted for surveillance.
NSA spied on everyone, targeted journalists
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Whistleblower_Bushs_NSA_targeted_reporters_0121.html
Whistleblower: NSA spied on everyone, targeted journalists
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Wednesday January 21, 2009
Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.
"The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications -- faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications," Tice claimed. "It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications."
Tice further explained that "even for the NSA it's impossible to literally collect all communications. ... What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata ... and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected."
According to Tice, in addition to this "low-tech, dragnet" approach, the NSA also had the ability to hone in on specific groups, and that was the aspect he himself was involved with. However, even within the NSA there was a cover story meant to prevent people like Tice from realizing what they were doing.
"In one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations, just supposedly so that we would not target them," Tice told Olbermann. "What I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7 and 365 days a year -- and it made no sense. ... I started to investigate that. That's about the time when they came after me to fire me."
When Olbermann pressed him for specifics, Tice offered, "An organization that was collected on were US news organizations and reporters and journalists."
"To what purpose?" Olbermann asked. "I mean, is there a file somewhere full of every email sent by all the reporters at the New York Times? Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York?"
Tice did not answer directly, but simply stated, "If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything." He added, however, that he had no idea what was ultimately done with the information, except that he was sure it "was digitized and put on databases somewhere."
Tice first began alleging that there were illegal activities going on at both the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency in December 2005, several months after being fired by the NSA. He also served at that time as a source for the New York Times story which revealed the existence of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.
Over the next several months, however, Tice was frustrated in his attempts to testify before Congress, had his credibility attacked by Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in an apparent attempt at intimidation.
Tice is now coming forward again now because George Bush is finally out of office. He told Olbermann that the Obama administration has not been in touch with him about his latest revelations, but, "I did send a letter to, I think it's [Obama intelligence adviser John] Brennan -- a handwritten letter, because I knew all my communications were tapped, my phones, my computer, and I've had the FBI on me like flies on you-know-what ... and I'm assuming that he gave the note to our current president -- that I intended to say a little bit more than I had in the past."
Whistleblower: NSA spied on everyone, targeted journalists
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Wednesday January 21, 2009
Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.
"The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications -- faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications," Tice claimed. "It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications."
Tice further explained that "even for the NSA it's impossible to literally collect all communications. ... What was done was sort of an ability to look at the metadata ... and ferret that information to determine what communications would ultimately be collected."
According to Tice, in addition to this "low-tech, dragnet" approach, the NSA also had the ability to hone in on specific groups, and that was the aspect he himself was involved with. However, even within the NSA there was a cover story meant to prevent people like Tice from realizing what they were doing.
"In one of the operations that I was in, we looked at organizations, just supposedly so that we would not target them," Tice told Olbermann. "What I was finding out, though, is that the collection on those organizations was 24/7 and 365 days a year -- and it made no sense. ... I started to investigate that. That's about the time when they came after me to fire me."
When Olbermann pressed him for specifics, Tice offered, "An organization that was collected on were US news organizations and reporters and journalists."
"To what purpose?" Olbermann asked. "I mean, is there a file somewhere full of every email sent by all the reporters at the New York Times? Is there a recording somewhere of every conversation I had with my little nephew in upstate New York?"
Tice did not answer directly, but simply stated, "If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything." He added, however, that he had no idea what was ultimately done with the information, except that he was sure it "was digitized and put on databases somewhere."
Tice first began alleging that there were illegal activities going on at both the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency in December 2005, several months after being fired by the NSA. He also served at that time as a source for the New York Times story which revealed the existence of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.
Over the next several months, however, Tice was frustrated in his attempts to testify before Congress, had his credibility attacked by Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, and was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in an apparent attempt at intimidation.
Tice is now coming forward again now because George Bush is finally out of office. He told Olbermann that the Obama administration has not been in touch with him about his latest revelations, but, "I did send a letter to, I think it's [Obama intelligence adviser John] Brennan -- a handwritten letter, because I knew all my communications were tapped, my phones, my computer, and I've had the FBI on me like flies on you-know-what ... and I'm assuming that he gave the note to our current president -- that I intended to say a little bit more than I had in the past."
Obama's orders leave framework of torture
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/guan-j23.shtml
Obama's orders leave framework of torture, indefinite detention intact
By Tom Eley
23 January 2009
On Thursday, President Barack Obama issued executive orders mandating the closure of the Guantánamo Bay prison camp in a year’s time, requiring that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and military personnel follow the Army Field Manual’s prohibitions on torture, and closing secret CIA prisons overseas.
While the media is portraying these orders as a repudiation of the detention and interrogation policies of the Bush administration, they actually change little. They essentially represent a public relations effort to refurbish the image of the United States abroad after years of torture and extralegal detentions and shield high-ranking American officials from potential criminal prosecution.
In cowardly fashion, Obama staged his signing of the orders in a manner aimed at placating the political right and defenders of Guantánamo and torture and underscoring his intention to continue the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” He was flanked by 16 retired generals and admirals who have pushed for the closure of the prison camp in Cuba on the grounds that it impedes the prosecution of the global “war” and reiterated in his own remarks his determination to continue the basic political framework of the Bush administration’s foreign policy.
The continuation of the ideological pretext for wars of aggression and attacks on democratic rights ensures that the police state infrastructure erected under the Bush administration will remain intact. This is further reinforced by Obama’s assurances that his administration will not investigate or prosecute those officials—including Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and others—who were responsible for the policies of torture and illegal detention.
The orders signed by Obama do not undo the Bush administration’s attacks on constitutional and international law. They do not challenge the supposed right of the president to unilaterally imprison any individual, without trial and without charges, by declaring him to be an “enemy combatant.” Nor do they end the procedure known as “extraordinary rendition,” by which the United States during the Bush years kidnapped alleged terrorists and shipped them to foreign countries or secret CIA prisons outside the US, where they were subjected to torture.
They do not affect the hundreds of prisoners—600 at the Bagram prison camp in Afghanistan alone—incarcerated beyond the barbed wire of Guantánamo. If and when Guantánamo is closed, the US government will simply ship alleged terrorists caught up its international dragnet to other American-run prison camps.
On the question of so-called “harsh interrogation techniques,” i.e., torture, Obama’s orders leave room for their continuation. White House Counsel Gregory Craig told reporters the administration was prepared to take into account demands from the CIA that such methods be allowed. Obama announced the creation of a task force that will consider new interrogation methods beyond those sanctioned by the Army Field Manual, which now accepts 19 forms of interrogation, as well as the practice of extraordinary rendition.
Retired Admiral Dennis Blair, Obama’s nominee for director of national intelligence, told a Senate confirmation hearing that the Army Field Manual would itself be changed, potentially allowing new forms of harsh interrogation, but that such changes would be kept secret.
Obama also announced a second task force that is to consider the fate of the 245 detainees remaining at Guantánamo. Earlier this week he suspended the military commission procedures at the prison camp, but has not abolished the military commissions themselves.
The new administration has ruled out the only constitutional remedy for those who have been held under barbaric conditions, without due process, for years—either releasing them or giving them a speedy trial in a civilian court, with all of the accompanying legal protections and guarantees. There has been a great deal of speculation that the administration may support the establishment of a special National Security Court within the civilian court system to try Guantánamo prisoners and other alleged terrorists. This would represent yet another attack on civil liberties, setting up a drumhead court system to railroad those charged with terrorism—something that could in future be used to repress political opposition.
According to NBC Nightly News on Thursday, the administration is considering keeping some 20 Guantánamo detainees, including the five alleged 9/11 conspirators currently facing military commission trials, imprisoned indefinitely without charges in a military brig within the US.
Commentators have noted that the Obama administration wants to prevent noncitizens detained as terrorists from being able to exercise habeas corpus rights.
Two separate measures taken Tuesday and Thursday by Obama point to a further major consideration behind his moves to close Guantánamo and finesse the issue of torture. On Thursday the administration requested a stay in the habeas corpus appeal to the Supreme Court by the only alleged enemy combatant now held on US soil—Ali al-Marri, of Qatar, whom Obama has called “dangerous.” Al-Marri’s lawyers are challenging the right of the president to arrest and jail individuals by declaring them enemy combatants, and it was expected that the Supreme Court’s hearing of the appeal would force Obama to reveal his position on the issue.
This followed Tuesday’s request for a stay from the Federal District Court in Washington in similar appeals that could affect the cases of more than 200 Guantánamo prisoners.
Thus, the immediate effect of the new administration’s moves is to halt civilian trials that could prove immensely damaging to the government by revealing systematic torture of the detainees and could potentially entangle high government officials.
Obama's orders leave framework of torture, indefinite detention intact
By Tom Eley
23 January 2009
On Thursday, President Barack Obama issued executive orders mandating the closure of the Guantánamo Bay prison camp in a year’s time, requiring that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and military personnel follow the Army Field Manual’s prohibitions on torture, and closing secret CIA prisons overseas.
While the media is portraying these orders as a repudiation of the detention and interrogation policies of the Bush administration, they actually change little. They essentially represent a public relations effort to refurbish the image of the United States abroad after years of torture and extralegal detentions and shield high-ranking American officials from potential criminal prosecution.
In cowardly fashion, Obama staged his signing of the orders in a manner aimed at placating the political right and defenders of Guantánamo and torture and underscoring his intention to continue the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” He was flanked by 16 retired generals and admirals who have pushed for the closure of the prison camp in Cuba on the grounds that it impedes the prosecution of the global “war” and reiterated in his own remarks his determination to continue the basic political framework of the Bush administration’s foreign policy.
The continuation of the ideological pretext for wars of aggression and attacks on democratic rights ensures that the police state infrastructure erected under the Bush administration will remain intact. This is further reinforced by Obama’s assurances that his administration will not investigate or prosecute those officials—including Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and others—who were responsible for the policies of torture and illegal detention.
The orders signed by Obama do not undo the Bush administration’s attacks on constitutional and international law. They do not challenge the supposed right of the president to unilaterally imprison any individual, without trial and without charges, by declaring him to be an “enemy combatant.” Nor do they end the procedure known as “extraordinary rendition,” by which the United States during the Bush years kidnapped alleged terrorists and shipped them to foreign countries or secret CIA prisons outside the US, where they were subjected to torture.
They do not affect the hundreds of prisoners—600 at the Bagram prison camp in Afghanistan alone—incarcerated beyond the barbed wire of Guantánamo. If and when Guantánamo is closed, the US government will simply ship alleged terrorists caught up its international dragnet to other American-run prison camps.
On the question of so-called “harsh interrogation techniques,” i.e., torture, Obama’s orders leave room for their continuation. White House Counsel Gregory Craig told reporters the administration was prepared to take into account demands from the CIA that such methods be allowed. Obama announced the creation of a task force that will consider new interrogation methods beyond those sanctioned by the Army Field Manual, which now accepts 19 forms of interrogation, as well as the practice of extraordinary rendition.
Retired Admiral Dennis Blair, Obama’s nominee for director of national intelligence, told a Senate confirmation hearing that the Army Field Manual would itself be changed, potentially allowing new forms of harsh interrogation, but that such changes would be kept secret.
Obama also announced a second task force that is to consider the fate of the 245 detainees remaining at Guantánamo. Earlier this week he suspended the military commission procedures at the prison camp, but has not abolished the military commissions themselves.
The new administration has ruled out the only constitutional remedy for those who have been held under barbaric conditions, without due process, for years—either releasing them or giving them a speedy trial in a civilian court, with all of the accompanying legal protections and guarantees. There has been a great deal of speculation that the administration may support the establishment of a special National Security Court within the civilian court system to try Guantánamo prisoners and other alleged terrorists. This would represent yet another attack on civil liberties, setting up a drumhead court system to railroad those charged with terrorism—something that could in future be used to repress political opposition.
According to NBC Nightly News on Thursday, the administration is considering keeping some 20 Guantánamo detainees, including the five alleged 9/11 conspirators currently facing military commission trials, imprisoned indefinitely without charges in a military brig within the US.
Commentators have noted that the Obama administration wants to prevent noncitizens detained as terrorists from being able to exercise habeas corpus rights.
Two separate measures taken Tuesday and Thursday by Obama point to a further major consideration behind his moves to close Guantánamo and finesse the issue of torture. On Thursday the administration requested a stay in the habeas corpus appeal to the Supreme Court by the only alleged enemy combatant now held on US soil—Ali al-Marri, of Qatar, whom Obama has called “dangerous.” Al-Marri’s lawyers are challenging the right of the president to arrest and jail individuals by declaring them enemy combatants, and it was expected that the Supreme Court’s hearing of the appeal would force Obama to reveal his position on the issue.
This followed Tuesday’s request for a stay from the Federal District Court in Washington in similar appeals that could affect the cases of more than 200 Guantánamo prisoners.
Thus, the immediate effect of the new administration’s moves is to halt civilian trials that could prove immensely damaging to the government by revealing systematic torture of the detainees and could potentially entangle high government officials.
Orders may not reform Gitmo, expert says
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/01/23/Orders_may_not_reform_Gitmo_expert_says/UPI-53461232726039/
Orders may not reform Gitmo, expert says
Jan. 23, 2009
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- U.S. policy regarding accused terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may not deviate much from what it was under the Bush administration, experts said.
President Barack Obama signed an executive order directing the detention facility be closed within a year. However, observers told Politico that the effect of that order could be blunted.
"I think the administration's commitment to close Guantanamo is heartening; the fact they want to give themselves a year to do it, not so much," said Ramzi Kassem, a Yale Law School lecturer who represents inmate Ahmed Zuhair, who was captured in Pakistan in 2001. "That would bring men like my client to eight years imprisonment for no apparent reason."
Obama ordered Defense Secretary Robert Gates to conduct a review of Guantanamo conditions to ensure they're legal and follow the Geneva Convention. Gates has headed the Pentagon for more than two years and was ultimately responsible for its operations.
"He's not exactly impartial," Kassem said.
Obama's order directing that all agencies follow the Army Field Manual when interrogating prisoners also could be suspect, the Washington publication said. Obama also signed an executive order Thursday creating an interagency commission to examine whether to create "additional or different guidance" for non-military agencies such as the CIA, which could potentially permit harsh interrogation techniques in the future.
Orders may not reform Gitmo, expert says
Jan. 23, 2009
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- U.S. policy regarding accused terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may not deviate much from what it was under the Bush administration, experts said.
President Barack Obama signed an executive order directing the detention facility be closed within a year. However, observers told Politico that the effect of that order could be blunted.
"I think the administration's commitment to close Guantanamo is heartening; the fact they want to give themselves a year to do it, not so much," said Ramzi Kassem, a Yale Law School lecturer who represents inmate Ahmed Zuhair, who was captured in Pakistan in 2001. "That would bring men like my client to eight years imprisonment for no apparent reason."
Obama ordered Defense Secretary Robert Gates to conduct a review of Guantanamo conditions to ensure they're legal and follow the Geneva Convention. Gates has headed the Pentagon for more than two years and was ultimately responsible for its operations.
"He's not exactly impartial," Kassem said.
Obama's order directing that all agencies follow the Army Field Manual when interrogating prisoners also could be suspect, the Washington publication said. Obama also signed an executive order Thursday creating an interagency commission to examine whether to create "additional or different guidance" for non-military agencies such as the CIA, which could potentially permit harsh interrogation techniques in the future.
Radical justice
Robalini's Note: On the other hand...
http://news.google.com/news?btcid=9cde01934c14c188
Comment by Vincent Warren, Exec. Director, Center for Constitutional Rights
Radical justice
1-22-9
For those of us who were there at the beginning, when we filed the first habeas corpus cases almost seven years ago to the day that President Obama ordered Guantanamo closed, today's executive orders are far from radical, although greatly appreciated and much overdue. A long-awaited sigh of relief was heard all around. At last, we have a president in Barack Obama who has committed the nation to uphold the rule of law, restore the constitution and comply with international law.
A radical concept? Not at all. Yet, after the last eight years of rampant and defiant government lawlessness, Barack Obama's executive orders to close Guantanamo and the secret CIA black sites and comply with the Geneva Conventions appear to many as a radical shift.
Still, we are concerned by the lack of specificity in the President's order and its vague timeline. Sadly, the very two issues that prompted the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) to intervene in 2002 remain of concern even in the wake of these remarkable orders. The first issue is what to do about detention, and the second is what we mean by dangerous and who we trust to define it.
If the men at Guantanamo cannot be immediately charged, they must be released or (for those who would face torture or persecution) found safe havens - our Constitution demands it. Those were among the very first words that lawyers uttered on this issue seven years ago. Two presidents, three attorneys general and two secretaries of defense later, we are still saying the same thing. It is clear that President Obama will comply with the rule of law. The men in Guantanamo who have been sitting in jail for years, however, have heard this before. We continue to remind the decision-makers that each additional day being held illegally deepens the injustice for these men. And, for our nation, each additional day these men are held illegally under the Obama administration means the weakening of his promise to uphold our values and the mandates of our law.
CCR issued a report just last week outlining three simple steps to close Guantanamo and put an end to the dark legacy of torture that exists there. We continue to emphasize that there are at least 60 men who are detained at Guantanamo Bay who are at risk of torture or persecution were they to be returned to their countries of origin, and no plan has been detailed for finding them safe haven.
It took George Bush days to send the men into a black hole. Justice demands that this new government work to get them out with in the first 100 days.
On the second issue, who is dangerous and who do we trust to tell us so? Seven years ago, George Bush declared that the first 20 men sent to Guantánamo were the "worst of the worst." The country was scared. CCR and others challenged the government to give us more than just the simple assurance: "trust us." We went to the courts to get the government to put up or shut up by means of the age-old writ of habeas corpus -- the right to go before an impartial court and know the charges against one. First, the government delayed, and when it lost in the courts, it delayed some more, all the time releasing 500 men out of the back door of Guantanamo. Why? Because when we pressed the government through the courts, they could no longer deny the truth - that the vast majority of the men in Guantanamo shouldn't have been there in the first place.
Seven years later, the Bush administration has passed the mantle. Yet all around us, the echoes of the outgoing administration tell us, trust us, these last 245 guys are really the worst of the worst. There are 50, no 80, no 100 who we somehow know are guilty but we don't have the evidence to prosecute or we somehow know may be dangerous in the future so we have to find a way to keep them detained.
What we expect Barack Obama to understand is that our values and the rule of law compel us to challenge him to tell us more than "trust us." In addition, he has the added burden of taking office after some of these men have been in illegal detention for close to a decade. To delay justice is to deny it. We said it then, and we say it now. This time, we are asking the Obama administration to make quick determinations - within 100 days - as to who they intend to try in federal courts and who they intend to release. Then to get to the business of doing both with the speed and efficiency that, up until this moment, defined only illegal government activities. A radical concept? Not at all.
http://news.google.com/news?btcid=9cde01934c14c188
Comment by Vincent Warren, Exec. Director, Center for Constitutional Rights
Radical justice
1-22-9
For those of us who were there at the beginning, when we filed the first habeas corpus cases almost seven years ago to the day that President Obama ordered Guantanamo closed, today's executive orders are far from radical, although greatly appreciated and much overdue. A long-awaited sigh of relief was heard all around. At last, we have a president in Barack Obama who has committed the nation to uphold the rule of law, restore the constitution and comply with international law.
A radical concept? Not at all. Yet, after the last eight years of rampant and defiant government lawlessness, Barack Obama's executive orders to close Guantanamo and the secret CIA black sites and comply with the Geneva Conventions appear to many as a radical shift.
Still, we are concerned by the lack of specificity in the President's order and its vague timeline. Sadly, the very two issues that prompted the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) to intervene in 2002 remain of concern even in the wake of these remarkable orders. The first issue is what to do about detention, and the second is what we mean by dangerous and who we trust to define it.
If the men at Guantanamo cannot be immediately charged, they must be released or (for those who would face torture or persecution) found safe havens - our Constitution demands it. Those were among the very first words that lawyers uttered on this issue seven years ago. Two presidents, three attorneys general and two secretaries of defense later, we are still saying the same thing. It is clear that President Obama will comply with the rule of law. The men in Guantanamo who have been sitting in jail for years, however, have heard this before. We continue to remind the decision-makers that each additional day being held illegally deepens the injustice for these men. And, for our nation, each additional day these men are held illegally under the Obama administration means the weakening of his promise to uphold our values and the mandates of our law.
CCR issued a report just last week outlining three simple steps to close Guantanamo and put an end to the dark legacy of torture that exists there. We continue to emphasize that there are at least 60 men who are detained at Guantanamo Bay who are at risk of torture or persecution were they to be returned to their countries of origin, and no plan has been detailed for finding them safe haven.
It took George Bush days to send the men into a black hole. Justice demands that this new government work to get them out with in the first 100 days.
On the second issue, who is dangerous and who do we trust to tell us so? Seven years ago, George Bush declared that the first 20 men sent to Guantánamo were the "worst of the worst." The country was scared. CCR and others challenged the government to give us more than just the simple assurance: "trust us." We went to the courts to get the government to put up or shut up by means of the age-old writ of habeas corpus -- the right to go before an impartial court and know the charges against one. First, the government delayed, and when it lost in the courts, it delayed some more, all the time releasing 500 men out of the back door of Guantanamo. Why? Because when we pressed the government through the courts, they could no longer deny the truth - that the vast majority of the men in Guantanamo shouldn't have been there in the first place.
Seven years later, the Bush administration has passed the mantle. Yet all around us, the echoes of the outgoing administration tell us, trust us, these last 245 guys are really the worst of the worst. There are 50, no 80, no 100 who we somehow know are guilty but we don't have the evidence to prosecute or we somehow know may be dangerous in the future so we have to find a way to keep them detained.
What we expect Barack Obama to understand is that our values and the rule of law compel us to challenge him to tell us more than "trust us." In addition, he has the added burden of taking office after some of these men have been in illegal detention for close to a decade. To delay justice is to deny it. We said it then, and we say it now. This time, we are asking the Obama administration to make quick determinations - within 100 days - as to who they intend to try in federal courts and who they intend to release. Then to get to the business of doing both with the speed and efficiency that, up until this moment, defined only illegal government activities. A radical concept? Not at all.
CCR Praises Obama Orders
http://www.ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/ccr-praises-obama-orders,-cautions-against-escape-hatch-torture
CCR Praises Obama Orders, Cautions Against Escape Hatch for Torture
CONTACT: press@ccrjustice.org
January 22, 2009, New York – In response to President Obama’s signing of new executive orders today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) issued the following statement:
We welcome the beginning of the end of lawlessness. Under the previous administration, executive orders became synonymous with secrecy, torture and attempts to override the Constitution. It is genuinely uplifting to see them now used to set things right. President Obama’s orders today are an important first step in restoring the rule of law; let us take the next steps with great care not to open the way for a return to the darkness of these last years.
The order to close Guantánamo, though it provides little detail and allows perhaps too much time to get it done given the pressing issues at stake, is a good start. We believe the president will be able to close Guantánamo in less than a year: the priority must be to repatriate the many men who can go home and find safe havens for the approximately 60 who would face torture or persecution.
The government has to charge the rest of the detainees in federal criminal court. There can be no third way, no new schemes for indefinite or preventive detention or alternative national security courts. Any move in that direction would discredit all of the new administration’s efforts in the eyes of the world.
The order to close the CIA black sites where people were held in secret for the purpose of torture is to be applauded. There is no place for such black holes in a democracy. Their intended purpose is to circumvent the Geneva conventions and our own laws. If the order leaves the option of reviving those sites, it is more symbolic than a true reversal.
The order to make all agencies abide by the Army Field Manual’s acceptable interrogation tactics is perhaps the most important gesture toward restoring our moral authority as a nation. The Center for Constitutional Rights represents so many men who were brutally tortured by our government that this hits home for us in a way that it may not for those with no faces and lives to attach to the story.
Again, we caution that the order may leave an escape hatch if the CIA should want more tactics, i.e. torture, available in its arsenal. The Geneva conventions should be the only arbiter of what is possible for governments to do to human beings.
Today’s orders are filled with promise. In addition, to ensure no future administration will take us back to these dark times, there needs to be individual accountability for the torture program, and other crimes committed. Prosecution is the only way to deter future lawbreakers. These orders are the right start, let us make sure this does not happen again.
CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years – sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the first attorney to meet with a former CIA “ghost detainee.” CCR has been responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro bono lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at Guantanamo, ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal representation. CCR represented the detainees with co-counsel in the most recent argument before the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.
To read Obama's executive orders:
http://www.ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/text-executive-orders-signed-president-obama-january-22,-2009
CCR Praises Obama Orders, Cautions Against Escape Hatch for Torture
CONTACT: press@ccrjustice.org
January 22, 2009, New York – In response to President Obama’s signing of new executive orders today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) issued the following statement:
We welcome the beginning of the end of lawlessness. Under the previous administration, executive orders became synonymous with secrecy, torture and attempts to override the Constitution. It is genuinely uplifting to see them now used to set things right. President Obama’s orders today are an important first step in restoring the rule of law; let us take the next steps with great care not to open the way for a return to the darkness of these last years.
The order to close Guantánamo, though it provides little detail and allows perhaps too much time to get it done given the pressing issues at stake, is a good start. We believe the president will be able to close Guantánamo in less than a year: the priority must be to repatriate the many men who can go home and find safe havens for the approximately 60 who would face torture or persecution.
The government has to charge the rest of the detainees in federal criminal court. There can be no third way, no new schemes for indefinite or preventive detention or alternative national security courts. Any move in that direction would discredit all of the new administration’s efforts in the eyes of the world.
The order to close the CIA black sites where people were held in secret for the purpose of torture is to be applauded. There is no place for such black holes in a democracy. Their intended purpose is to circumvent the Geneva conventions and our own laws. If the order leaves the option of reviving those sites, it is more symbolic than a true reversal.
The order to make all agencies abide by the Army Field Manual’s acceptable interrogation tactics is perhaps the most important gesture toward restoring our moral authority as a nation. The Center for Constitutional Rights represents so many men who were brutally tortured by our government that this hits home for us in a way that it may not for those with no faces and lives to attach to the story.
Again, we caution that the order may leave an escape hatch if the CIA should want more tactics, i.e. torture, available in its arsenal. The Geneva conventions should be the only arbiter of what is possible for governments to do to human beings.
Today’s orders are filled with promise. In addition, to ensure no future administration will take us back to these dark times, there needs to be individual accountability for the torture program, and other crimes committed. Prosecution is the only way to deter future lawbreakers. These orders are the right start, let us make sure this does not happen again.
CCR has led the legal battle over Guantanamo for the last six years – sending the first ever habeas attorney to the base and sending the first attorney to meet with a former CIA “ghost detainee.” CCR has been responsible for organizing and coordinating more than 500 pro bono lawyers across the country in order to represent the men at Guantanamo, ensuring that nearly all have the option of legal representation. CCR represented the detainees with co-counsel in the most recent argument before the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.
To read Obama's executive orders:
http://www.ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/text-executive-orders-signed-president-obama-january-22,-2009
Obama signs executive order to close Guantanamo
Robalini's Note: Despite my low opinion of Obama and the cult worship surrounding him, I do give him credit for at least doing the following...
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/guantanamo.order/
Obama signs executive order to close Guantanamo Bay
1-22-9
Story Highlights
President Obama signs orders to close Gitmo, ban torture
Sen. John McCain issues statement supporting Gitmo closure
Some congressional Republicans slam "politically correct" policies
GOP congressman says he's worried about where to house detainees
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Promising to return America to the "moral high ground" in the war on terror, President Barack Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration -- including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.
During a signing ceremony at the White House, Obama reaffirmed his inaugural pledge that the United States does not have "to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals."
The president said he was issuing the order to close the Guantanamo detention facility in order to "restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great even in the midst of war, even in dealing with terrorism."
A second executive order formally bans torture by requiring that the Army field manual be used as the guide for terror interrogations. That essentially ends the Bush administration's CIA program of enhanced interrogation methods.
"We believe that the Army field manual reflects the best judgment of our military, that we can abide by a rule that says we don't torture, but that we can still effectively obtain the intelligence that we need," Obama said.
"This is me following through ... on an understanding that dates back to our founding fathers, that we are willing to observe core standards of conduct not just when it's easy but also when it's hard."
A third executive order establishes an interagency task force to lead a systematic review of detention policies and procedures and a review of all individual cases.
The task force, Obama stated, will also "provide me with information in terms of how we are able to deal (with) the disposition of some of the detainees that may be currently in Guantanamo that we cannot transfer to other countries, who could pose a serious danger to the United States."
The president also signed a memorandum delaying the trial of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident who has been contesting his detention for more than five years as an enemy combatant in a military brig without the government bringing any charges against him.
Al-Marri's case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Al-Marri "is clearly a dangerous individual," Obama said. "We have asked for a delay in going before the Supreme Court to properly review the evidence against him."
During the second Bush term, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay became a lightning rod for critics who charged the Bush administration with torturing terror detainees. President George W. Bush and other senior officials repeatedly denied that the U.S. government had used torture to extract intelligence from terror suspects.
The decision to close the detention facility received immediate backing from Obama's general election opponent, Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain.
McCain, in a joint statement released with South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, said he supported Obama's decision to "reaffirm America's adherence to the Geneva Conventions, and begin a process that will, we hope, lead to the resolution of all cases of Guantanamo detainees."
A number of congressional Republicans, however, split with their former party standard-bearer and criticized Obama's decision.
"We cannot risk going back to the politically correct national security policies that left us vulnerable in the lead-up to 9/11," Michigan GOP Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a written statement. "Without a clear plan for the detention and interrogation of captured terrorists and combatants, we are unnecessarily risking the safety of our nation."
Obama's move also highlights a fierce struggle over where the prison's detainees will go next.
"The key question is where do you put these terrorists," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement issued Wednesday. "Do you bring them inside our borders? Do you release them back into the battlefield?"
Rep. Bill Young, R-Florida, said he has "quite a bit of anxiety" about the possibility of transferring detainees to United States facilities.
"Number one, they're dangerous," Young said. "Secondly, once they become present in the United States, what is their legal status? What is their constitutional status? I worry about that, because I don't want them to have the same constitutional rights that you and I have. They're our enemy."
Young said he asked White House Counsel Greg Craig what the government plans to do with two recently built facilities at the Guantanamo base, which he said cost half a billion dollars. He said Craig had not thought about what to do with them but pledged to discuss the issue further.
Young said he suggested reopening Alcatraz, the closed federal prison on an island in California's San Francisco Bay -- in current Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district.
"Put them in Alcatraz where supposedly they can't escape from," Young said. But he added that the suggestion "didn't go over well."
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/guantanamo.order/
Obama signs executive order to close Guantanamo Bay
1-22-9
Story Highlights
President Obama signs orders to close Gitmo, ban torture
Sen. John McCain issues statement supporting Gitmo closure
Some congressional Republicans slam "politically correct" policies
GOP congressman says he's worried about where to house detainees
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Promising to return America to the "moral high ground" in the war on terror, President Barack Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration -- including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.
During a signing ceremony at the White House, Obama reaffirmed his inaugural pledge that the United States does not have "to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals."
The president said he was issuing the order to close the Guantanamo detention facility in order to "restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great even in the midst of war, even in dealing with terrorism."
A second executive order formally bans torture by requiring that the Army field manual be used as the guide for terror interrogations. That essentially ends the Bush administration's CIA program of enhanced interrogation methods.
"We believe that the Army field manual reflects the best judgment of our military, that we can abide by a rule that says we don't torture, but that we can still effectively obtain the intelligence that we need," Obama said.
"This is me following through ... on an understanding that dates back to our founding fathers, that we are willing to observe core standards of conduct not just when it's easy but also when it's hard."
A third executive order establishes an interagency task force to lead a systematic review of detention policies and procedures and a review of all individual cases.
The task force, Obama stated, will also "provide me with information in terms of how we are able to deal (with) the disposition of some of the detainees that may be currently in Guantanamo that we cannot transfer to other countries, who could pose a serious danger to the United States."
The president also signed a memorandum delaying the trial of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident who has been contesting his detention for more than five years as an enemy combatant in a military brig without the government bringing any charges against him.
Al-Marri's case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Al-Marri "is clearly a dangerous individual," Obama said. "We have asked for a delay in going before the Supreme Court to properly review the evidence against him."
During the second Bush term, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay became a lightning rod for critics who charged the Bush administration with torturing terror detainees. President George W. Bush and other senior officials repeatedly denied that the U.S. government had used torture to extract intelligence from terror suspects.
The decision to close the detention facility received immediate backing from Obama's general election opponent, Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain.
McCain, in a joint statement released with South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, said he supported Obama's decision to "reaffirm America's adherence to the Geneva Conventions, and begin a process that will, we hope, lead to the resolution of all cases of Guantanamo detainees."
A number of congressional Republicans, however, split with their former party standard-bearer and criticized Obama's decision.
"We cannot risk going back to the politically correct national security policies that left us vulnerable in the lead-up to 9/11," Michigan GOP Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a written statement. "Without a clear plan for the detention and interrogation of captured terrorists and combatants, we are unnecessarily risking the safety of our nation."
Obama's move also highlights a fierce struggle over where the prison's detainees will go next.
"The key question is where do you put these terrorists," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement issued Wednesday. "Do you bring them inside our borders? Do you release them back into the battlefield?"
Rep. Bill Young, R-Florida, said he has "quite a bit of anxiety" about the possibility of transferring detainees to United States facilities.
"Number one, they're dangerous," Young said. "Secondly, once they become present in the United States, what is their legal status? What is their constitutional status? I worry about that, because I don't want them to have the same constitutional rights that you and I have. They're our enemy."
Young said he asked White House Counsel Greg Craig what the government plans to do with two recently built facilities at the Guantanamo base, which he said cost half a billion dollars. He said Craig had not thought about what to do with them but pledged to discuss the issue further.
Young said he suggested reopening Alcatraz, the closed federal prison on an island in California's San Francisco Bay -- in current Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district.
"Put them in Alcatraz where supposedly they can't escape from," Young said. But he added that the suggestion "didn't go over well."
Obama flashes irritation in press room
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17831.html
Obama flashes irritation in press room
By JONATHAN MARTIN & CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN
1/22/09
President Obama made a surprise visit to the White House press corps Thursday night, but got agitated when he was faced with a substantive question.
Asked how he could reconcile a strict ban on lobbyists in his administration with a Deputy Defense Secretary nominee who lobbied for Raytheon, Obama interrupted with a knowing smile on his face.
"Ahh, see," he said, "I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here."
Pressed further by the Politico reporter about his Pentagon nominee, William J. Lynn III, Obama turned more serious, putting his hand on the reporter's shoulder and staring him in the eye.
"Alright, come on" he said, with obvious irritation in his voice. "We will be having a press conference at which time you can feel free to [ask] questions. Right now, I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you guys - that's all I was trying to do."
The president was quickly saved by a cameraman in the room who called out: “I’d like to say it one more time: ‘Mr. President.’ ”
Obama spent about 10 minutes total, winding his way through a crush of reporters and photographers between the upper and lower floors of the journalists' workspace and asking questions about who worked where and how the booths and desks were assigned.
Reporters had little warning about the impromptu visit by the new president, and those who were in the downstairs portion of the press quarters only came to the briefing room after an unexpected and cryptic announcement on the internal intercom that they do so.
"This is worse than the Middle East," he joked, alluding to the territorial claims staked on the cramped corridor. "Who's sitting where and all that stuff."
He revealed that he had already gotten in two work outs since being sworn in Tuesday.
"Turns out I have a little gym up there," he said with a smile.
Obama said he had watched press secretary Robert Gibbs debut briefing "in anticipation of some flop sweat. ... I just want to thank you for not completely ripping up Gibbs," Obama said.
"I am very proud of him today. He got a fist bump from me."
2009 Heralds “A New Age Of Rebellion”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/2009-heralds-a-new-age-of-rebellion.html
2009 Heralds “A New Age Of Rebellion”
Riots over economic crisis to escalate from March-May as Icelandic government teeters on brink of collapse
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
2009 heralds the start of a “new age of rebellion” according to an editorial in the highly influential London Times newspaper, and the year in which masses of people will take to the streets to riot in response to drastically falling standards of living.
Riot police were again deployed to combat demonstrators in Iceland last night after protesters all but stormed the parliament building in Reykjavik during its first session of chamber after the Christmas holiday. Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde also became the target of an angry mob today who pelted his car with eggs.
According to a London Guardian report, the Icelandic government is now on the verge of collapse as “the first revolution in the history of the republic” unfolds.
Similar scenes have unfolded in Bulgaria and Latvia, where rapid growth has been replaced by large GDP contractions, wage cuts and unemployment. Greece was also recently gripped by some of the worst riots in its turbulent history in response to both police brutality and the economic downturn.
According to Times columnist Roger Boyes, this is merely a “sign of things to come: a new age of rebellion”.
Boyes notes that Iceland, Bulgaria, and Latvia are not natural protest cultures and that something is worryingly amiss.
He cites the warning of respected LSE economist Robert Wade, who recently told a protest meeting in Reykjavik that the world was approaching a tipping point and that March to May would be marked by widespread global civil unrest.
“It will be caused by the rise of general awareness throughout Europe, America and Asia that hundreds of millions of people in rich and poor countries are experiencing rapidly falling consumption standards; that the crisis is getting worse not better; and that it has escaped the control of public authorities, national and international,” said Wade.
He’s not alone in his foreboding prediction. Trends forecaster Gerald Celente has echoed similar sentiments, predicting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years. Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.
Boyes forecasts that Ukraine and Russia could be the next to see widespread rioting as the crisis deepens.
2009 Heralds “A New Age Of Rebellion”
Riots over economic crisis to escalate from March-May as Icelandic government teeters on brink of collapse
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
2009 heralds the start of a “new age of rebellion” according to an editorial in the highly influential London Times newspaper, and the year in which masses of people will take to the streets to riot in response to drastically falling standards of living.
Riot police were again deployed to combat demonstrators in Iceland last night after protesters all but stormed the parliament building in Reykjavik during its first session of chamber after the Christmas holiday. Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde also became the target of an angry mob today who pelted his car with eggs.
According to a London Guardian report, the Icelandic government is now on the verge of collapse as “the first revolution in the history of the republic” unfolds.
Similar scenes have unfolded in Bulgaria and Latvia, where rapid growth has been replaced by large GDP contractions, wage cuts and unemployment. Greece was also recently gripped by some of the worst riots in its turbulent history in response to both police brutality and the economic downturn.
According to Times columnist Roger Boyes, this is merely a “sign of things to come: a new age of rebellion”.
Boyes notes that Iceland, Bulgaria, and Latvia are not natural protest cultures and that something is worryingly amiss.
He cites the warning of respected LSE economist Robert Wade, who recently told a protest meeting in Reykjavik that the world was approaching a tipping point and that March to May would be marked by widespread global civil unrest.
“It will be caused by the rise of general awareness throughout Europe, America and Asia that hundreds of millions of people in rich and poor countries are experiencing rapidly falling consumption standards; that the crisis is getting worse not better; and that it has escaped the control of public authorities, national and international,” said Wade.
He’s not alone in his foreboding prediction. Trends forecaster Gerald Celente has echoed similar sentiments, predicting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years. Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.
Boyes forecasts that Ukraine and Russia could be the next to see widespread rioting as the crisis deepens.
Israel 'admits' using white phosphorus munitions
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5556027.ece
January 21, 2009
Israel 'admits' using white phosphorus munitions
Children play with a flaming lump, allegedly containing white phosphorus, in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday
Martin Fletcher in Jerusalem
The Israeli military came close to acknowledging for the first time yesterday its use of white phosphorus munitions during the war in Gaza, but continued to insist that it did not breach international law.
As fresh evidence emerged of Gazan civilians being burned by phosphorus, Avital Leibovich, the army spokeswoman, said its use was “legal according to international law...All the munitions we were using were legal, like the French, American and British armies. We used munitions according to international law.
“They [Hamas] were committing war crimes by putting the civilians in the front line,” she said. “If Hamas chooses to locate training camps, command centres...in the middle of the [civilian population]...look how populated it is...naturally they are endangering the lives of civilians. Hamas is accountable for the loss of the civilians.”
Major-General Amir Eshel, the army's head of strategic planning, said that firing shells to provide a smoke screen was legal. “It is the most nonlethal kind of weapon we used. I don't see any issue with that,” he said.
The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had privately admitted using phosphorus bombs, and that the Judge Advocate General's Office and Southern Command were investigating.
The Times first accused Israeli forces of using white phosphorus on January 5, but the IDF has denied the charge repeatedly. Phosphorus bombs can be used to create smoke screens, but their use as weapons of war in civilian areas is banned by the Geneva Conventions.
Yesterday reports emerged from Gaza about the killing of five members of the Halima family, when a single white phosphorus shell dropped on their house in the town of Atatra on January 3. Two others were in a coma and three were seriously wounded, according to doctors and survivors.
Salima Halima, 44, who is in Gaza City's Shifa hospital, said that the chemical burst in all directions after hitting her living room.
Nafiz Abu Shahbah, a doctor who trained in Britain and America, said he was sure white phosphorus was responsible. Her wounds at first appeared superficial “but it eats at the flesh, it digs deeper and gets to the bone...The whole body becomes toxic,” he said.
In the Jabaliya refugee camp, the Associated Press found a crater that was still producing acrid smoke days after the war ended, and in the town of Beit Lahiya a lump of white phosphorus burst into flames after some boys dug it up from beneath some sand.
Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, expressed outrage at Israel's destruction of Gaza yesterday, when he became the first world leader to visit the Palestinian territory since the end of the war. “This is shocking and alarming,” he declared while visiting a UN warehouse that was still smouldering after being hit on Thursday, allegedly by white phosphorus shells. “I'm just appalled.”
Visibly angry, he condemned Israel's “excessive” use of force, and demanded that those responsible for shelling schools and other facilities run by the UN Relief and Works Agency during the 22-day offensive should be held to account. “It is an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack on the United Nations,” he said.
Israel has apologised for attacks on UN facilities but insisted in almost every case that Hamas fighters were using the buildings for cover.
January 21, 2009
Israel 'admits' using white phosphorus munitions
Children play with a flaming lump, allegedly containing white phosphorus, in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday
Martin Fletcher in Jerusalem
The Israeli military came close to acknowledging for the first time yesterday its use of white phosphorus munitions during the war in Gaza, but continued to insist that it did not breach international law.
As fresh evidence emerged of Gazan civilians being burned by phosphorus, Avital Leibovich, the army spokeswoman, said its use was “legal according to international law...All the munitions we were using were legal, like the French, American and British armies. We used munitions according to international law.
“They [Hamas] were committing war crimes by putting the civilians in the front line,” she said. “If Hamas chooses to locate training camps, command centres...in the middle of the [civilian population]...look how populated it is...naturally they are endangering the lives of civilians. Hamas is accountable for the loss of the civilians.”
Major-General Amir Eshel, the army's head of strategic planning, said that firing shells to provide a smoke screen was legal. “It is the most nonlethal kind of weapon we used. I don't see any issue with that,” he said.
The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had privately admitted using phosphorus bombs, and that the Judge Advocate General's Office and Southern Command were investigating.
The Times first accused Israeli forces of using white phosphorus on January 5, but the IDF has denied the charge repeatedly. Phosphorus bombs can be used to create smoke screens, but their use as weapons of war in civilian areas is banned by the Geneva Conventions.
Yesterday reports emerged from Gaza about the killing of five members of the Halima family, when a single white phosphorus shell dropped on their house in the town of Atatra on January 3. Two others were in a coma and three were seriously wounded, according to doctors and survivors.
Salima Halima, 44, who is in Gaza City's Shifa hospital, said that the chemical burst in all directions after hitting her living room.
Nafiz Abu Shahbah, a doctor who trained in Britain and America, said he was sure white phosphorus was responsible. Her wounds at first appeared superficial “but it eats at the flesh, it digs deeper and gets to the bone...The whole body becomes toxic,” he said.
In the Jabaliya refugee camp, the Associated Press found a crater that was still producing acrid smoke days after the war ended, and in the town of Beit Lahiya a lump of white phosphorus burst into flames after some boys dug it up from beneath some sand.
Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, expressed outrage at Israel's destruction of Gaza yesterday, when he became the first world leader to visit the Palestinian territory since the end of the war. “This is shocking and alarming,” he declared while visiting a UN warehouse that was still smouldering after being hit on Thursday, allegedly by white phosphorus shells. “I'm just appalled.”
Visibly angry, he condemned Israel's “excessive” use of force, and demanded that those responsible for shelling schools and other facilities run by the UN Relief and Works Agency during the 22-day offensive should be held to account. “It is an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack on the United Nations,” he said.
Israel has apologised for attacks on UN facilities but insisted in almost every case that Hamas fighters were using the buildings for cover.
Another real estate crisis is about to hit
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4274.shtml
Another real estate crisis is about to hit
By Paul Craig Roberts
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jan 23, 2009
For a picture of the US real estate crisis, imagine New Orleans wrecked by Hurricane Katrina, and before the waters even begin to recede, a second Katrina hits.
The 1,120,000 lost US retail jobs in 2008 are a signal that the second stage of the real estate bust is about to hit the economy. This time it will be commercial real estate -- shopping malls, strip malls, warehouses, and office buildings. As businesses close and rents decline, the ability to service the mortgages on the over-built commercial real estate disappears.
The over-building was helped along by the irresponsibly low interest rates, but the main impetus came from the slide of the US saving rate to zero and the rise in household indebtedness. The shrinkage of savings and the increase in debt raised consumer spending to 72 percent of GDP. The proliferation of malls and the warehouses that service them reflect the rise in consumer spending as a share of GDP.
Like the federal government, consumers spent more than they earned and borrowed to cover the difference. Obviously, this could not go on forever, and consumer debt has reached its limit.
Shopping malls are losing anchor stores, and large chains are closing stores and even going out of business altogether. Developers who borrowed to finance commercial ventures are in trouble as are the holders of the mortgages, derivatives and other financial junk associated with the loans.
The main source of the economic crisis is the infantile belief of US policymakers that an economy could be based on debt expansion. As offshoring moved jobs, incomes, and GDP out of the country, debt expanded to take the place of the missing income. When the offshored goods and services were brought back to be sold to Americans, the trade deficit rose, adding another level of financing for an economy that consumes more than it produces.
The growth of debt has outpaced the growth of real output. Yet, the solution offered by Obama’s economic team is to expand debt further. This is not surprising as Obama’s economic team consists of the very people who brought on the debt crisis. Now they are going to make it worse.
The unexamined question is: Who is going to finance the next wave of debt?
The US budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 already appears to be on a path to $2 trillion, and that is before Obama’s stimulus program. What we are looking at is a $3 trillion budget deficit if Obama’s program is enacted in time to impact the economy this year.
Foreign countries can finance a $500 billion US budget deficit out of their trade surpluses with the US. But foreigners do not have the funds to finance a US budget deficit in the trillions of dollars, and they would not finance such a deficit even if they had the funds. Foreigners are over-weighted in dollar holdings and prefer to lighten their holding than to add to them. America’s economic prospects are dim as are the dollar’s prospects as reserve currency. An annual budget deficit in the trillions of dollars makes the dollar’s prospects appear even dimmer.
The federal government’s likely solution to the debt problem will be to monetize the debt, that is, the government will finance its deficit by printing money. Debt will be inflated away. But for those Americans without jobs or whose incomes do not rise with inflation, life will be cruel.
Life is already cruel for Americans living on retirement savings. Not only has the stock market bust reduced their wealth by half, but also their remaining assets are producing no income. Interest rates are so low that debt instruments produce no income, and there are scant capital gains in the stock market. Retirees are living by consuming their capital.
America’s economic policy of low interest rates and debt expansion bodes ill for everyone living off their savings. Their future prospects are even worse as high inflation will destroy the value of their savings, especially if held in cash or debt instruments, including “safe” US Treasuries.
There are more intelligent ways to try to escape from the current crisis. However, the financial gangsters and their shills that Obama has put in charge of economic policy are thinking only of their own interests. What happens to the American people is not a concern.
A compassionate government would handle the crisis in this way:
The trillions of dollars in credit default swaps (CDS) should be declared null and void. These “swaps” are simply bets that financial instruments and companies will fail, and the bulk of the bets are made by people and institutions that do not hold the financial instruments or shares in the companies. The ideology that financial markets were self-regulating allowed illegal gambling free rein. There is no reason under the sun for taxpayers to bail out gamblers.
The bailout money, instead of being given to favored financial institutions to finance their acquisition of other institutions, should be used to refinance the defaulting mortgages. This would slow, if not stop, the growing inventory of foreclosed properties that is driving down home prices.
The mark-to-market rule should be suspended until the real values of the troubled properties and instruments can be determined. Suspension of the rule would prevent the failure of sound institutions and lessen the need for a bailout.
Interest rates have to be raised in order to encourage saving and to provide incomes to retirees.
To preserve the dollar’s status as reserve currency, a credible policy of reducing both budget and trade deficits must be announced. In the near term the budget deficit can be reduced by $500 billion by withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan and by cutting a bloated defense budget that represents the now unattainable goal of US world hegemony.
The trade deficit can be significantly reduced by bringing offshored jobs back to America. One way to do this is to tax corporations according to the value added to their output that occurs in the US. Corporations that produce their products for US markets abroad would have high tax rates; those that produce domestically would have low tax rates.
This approach to the economic crisis stands in marked contrast with the approach of the gangsters running US economic policy. The gangsters are using the crisis as an opportunity to steal from taxpayers and to finance their misdeeds and exorbitant salaries with Federal Reserve loans. Their shills among economists and the financial press tell the people that the solution is to fatten up the banks with funds so they will resume lending to an over-indebted public that will then return to the shopping malls.
This unrealistic approach to a serious crisis indicates a leadership crisis on top of an economic crisis.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.
Darby library faces the ax
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20090122_Darby_library_faces_the_ax__Oldest_in_U_S___it_s_in___pinch.html
Thu, Jan. 22, 2009
Darby library faces the ax
Oldest in U.S., it's in $ pinch
By WILLIAM BENDER
Philadelphia Daily News
benderw@phillynews.com
215-854-5255
AS THE NUTTER administration prepares to ask a court for approval to shutter 11 Philadelphia libraries as part of a cost-cutting plan, a national treasure just outside the city limits is on the verge of collapse.
Delaware County's Darby Free Library, which was founded in 1743 and is believed to be the oldest continuously operating public library in America, will be forced to close its doors at year's end if somebody doesn't write a fat check, the Daily News has learned.
"We're on the chopping block," said Susan Borders, director of the library at 10th and Main streets, near the Southwest Philly border. "We thought we may have had four years left, but after going over our finances, we only have this year."
Founded by 29 Quaker townsmen, the library received its first shipment of 45 volumes from London in November 1743, with the assistance of botanist John Bartram.
"It's older than our country," said Raymond Trent, a longtime bibliographic assistant at the University of Pennsylvania Law School who has donated books, DVDs and other reference materials to Darby's library.
"I appreciate the phone call, but to receive news like this is devastating," Trent told a reporter yesterday.
He was preparing to donate another shipment of books, including Michelle Obama's biography.
"Since I grew up in Darby, it was my way of giving back to the community," Trent said.
"This comes as really bad news to my ears, because I have poured my heart and soul into trying to make Darby library one of the best libraries around."
Michael Race, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, which funds local libraries, said that the Darby Free Library is the state's longest-operating public library. He said that his department is unaware of any library in the United States that predates it.
"It would be a tragedy if they have to close it," said Lindy Wardell, president of the Darby Borough Historical and Preservation Society.
Some books from its original collection - including John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and Sir Walter Raleigh's The History of the World - are still displayed in the two-story brick building, built by Charles Bonsall in 1872 at a cost of $8,895.54. Others are at the Library Company of Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731 as a subscription library.
While the historical significance of Darby's library - located in a rough-and-tumble town that was once a stop on the Underground Railroad - cannot be overstated, there is also a practical reason to keep it open, supporters say.
It provides high-speed Internet access to the borough of 10,000 residents, some of whom can't afford a computer, and a safe haven for schoolchildren to do research and homework, said Jan Haigis, who sits on the Darby Library Company board.
"It keeps them off occasionally mean streets," Haigis said.
"They pour in here every day with their papers and homework," said Shelly McNear, 48, a former Philadelphia teacher who visits the library several times a week with her 11-year-old daughter. McNear said that having a library in the neighborhood encourages her daughter and other kids to read.
The library also runs programs for children and adults.
"It's easier for us to make it a family thing," said McNear, who was checking her e-mail yesterday at a computer in the library and hadn't heard of the dire financial situation.
The library has more than 10,000 books, but it also serves as a local access point to the 1.5 million books at the 27 other libraries in the Delaware County Library System, because books can be shipped from one building to another.
The Darby Free Library had survived on private contributions and an old endowment.
In the 1990s, voters approved a dedicated real-estate tax for the library that typically generates between $18,000 and $20,000 a year, Borders said.
It also receives about $28,000 a year from the state, but that money is contingent on adequate local funding.
Borders said that the library had been using interest from its endowment to close the funding gap, but in recent years it has been dipping into the endowment itself - withdrawing about $20,000 a year - to cover operating expenses and capital improvements.
This year, expenses are projected at $85,353, which will create a $27,653 shortfall.
"If it does not get support now, it will not survive," Borders wrote in a summary to the Darby Library Company board at last week's meeting, when the possible closure was announced.
It is unlikely that the borough could bail out the library. The national economic downturn has forced it to implement a hiring freeze for the year and to cap spending on part-time police officers, among other cost-saving measures.
"Maybe a fundraiser or, like the fire company does, send a letter to everybody's house asking for a donation," said Borough Council President Janice Davis. "That's what I thought would be a good thing. It would be worth a try. We have to keep it open."
But the level of state funding that libraries will receive in the next fiscal year is uncertain, Race said.
In Philadelphia, Mayor Nutter is asking Commonwealth Court to overrule last month's Common Pleas Court ruling that blocked him from closing 11 branches.
Library patrons and three Council members managed to halt the closures with a lawsuit, but Nutter says that they are necessary to balance the city budget.
The Darby library was once the subject of a question on the TV game show "Jeopardy," Borders said. Now its existence is in jeopardy.
Trent said that Darby must find a way to keep its library open.
Or someone with deep pockets, who understands its value, needs to step up to the plate.
"I just hope," he said, "that Darby library is able to hang in there."
Staff writer Chris Brennan contributed to this report.
Tax-deductible contributions can be sent to the Darby Library Company, P.O. Box 164, Darby, PA 19023.
Thu, Jan. 22, 2009
Darby library faces the ax
Oldest in U.S., it's in $ pinch
By WILLIAM BENDER
Philadelphia Daily News
benderw@phillynews.com
215-854-5255
AS THE NUTTER administration prepares to ask a court for approval to shutter 11 Philadelphia libraries as part of a cost-cutting plan, a national treasure just outside the city limits is on the verge of collapse.
Delaware County's Darby Free Library, which was founded in 1743 and is believed to be the oldest continuously operating public library in America, will be forced to close its doors at year's end if somebody doesn't write a fat check, the Daily News has learned.
"We're on the chopping block," said Susan Borders, director of the library at 10th and Main streets, near the Southwest Philly border. "We thought we may have had four years left, but after going over our finances, we only have this year."
Founded by 29 Quaker townsmen, the library received its first shipment of 45 volumes from London in November 1743, with the assistance of botanist John Bartram.
"It's older than our country," said Raymond Trent, a longtime bibliographic assistant at the University of Pennsylvania Law School who has donated books, DVDs and other reference materials to Darby's library.
"I appreciate the phone call, but to receive news like this is devastating," Trent told a reporter yesterday.
He was preparing to donate another shipment of books, including Michelle Obama's biography.
"Since I grew up in Darby, it was my way of giving back to the community," Trent said.
"This comes as really bad news to my ears, because I have poured my heart and soul into trying to make Darby library one of the best libraries around."
Michael Race, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, which funds local libraries, said that the Darby Free Library is the state's longest-operating public library. He said that his department is unaware of any library in the United States that predates it.
"It would be a tragedy if they have to close it," said Lindy Wardell, president of the Darby Borough Historical and Preservation Society.
Some books from its original collection - including John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and Sir Walter Raleigh's The History of the World - are still displayed in the two-story brick building, built by Charles Bonsall in 1872 at a cost of $8,895.54. Others are at the Library Company of Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731 as a subscription library.
While the historical significance of Darby's library - located in a rough-and-tumble town that was once a stop on the Underground Railroad - cannot be overstated, there is also a practical reason to keep it open, supporters say.
It provides high-speed Internet access to the borough of 10,000 residents, some of whom can't afford a computer, and a safe haven for schoolchildren to do research and homework, said Jan Haigis, who sits on the Darby Library Company board.
"It keeps them off occasionally mean streets," Haigis said.
"They pour in here every day with their papers and homework," said Shelly McNear, 48, a former Philadelphia teacher who visits the library several times a week with her 11-year-old daughter. McNear said that having a library in the neighborhood encourages her daughter and other kids to read.
The library also runs programs for children and adults.
"It's easier for us to make it a family thing," said McNear, who was checking her e-mail yesterday at a computer in the library and hadn't heard of the dire financial situation.
The library has more than 10,000 books, but it also serves as a local access point to the 1.5 million books at the 27 other libraries in the Delaware County Library System, because books can be shipped from one building to another.
The Darby Free Library had survived on private contributions and an old endowment.
In the 1990s, voters approved a dedicated real-estate tax for the library that typically generates between $18,000 and $20,000 a year, Borders said.
It also receives about $28,000 a year from the state, but that money is contingent on adequate local funding.
Borders said that the library had been using interest from its endowment to close the funding gap, but in recent years it has been dipping into the endowment itself - withdrawing about $20,000 a year - to cover operating expenses and capital improvements.
This year, expenses are projected at $85,353, which will create a $27,653 shortfall.
"If it does not get support now, it will not survive," Borders wrote in a summary to the Darby Library Company board at last week's meeting, when the possible closure was announced.
It is unlikely that the borough could bail out the library. The national economic downturn has forced it to implement a hiring freeze for the year and to cap spending on part-time police officers, among other cost-saving measures.
"Maybe a fundraiser or, like the fire company does, send a letter to everybody's house asking for a donation," said Borough Council President Janice Davis. "That's what I thought would be a good thing. It would be worth a try. We have to keep it open."
But the level of state funding that libraries will receive in the next fiscal year is uncertain, Race said.
In Philadelphia, Mayor Nutter is asking Commonwealth Court to overrule last month's Common Pleas Court ruling that blocked him from closing 11 branches.
Library patrons and three Council members managed to halt the closures with a lawsuit, but Nutter says that they are necessary to balance the city budget.
The Darby library was once the subject of a question on the TV game show "Jeopardy," Borders said. Now its existence is in jeopardy.
Trent said that Darby must find a way to keep its library open.
Or someone with deep pockets, who understands its value, needs to step up to the plate.
"I just hope," he said, "that Darby library is able to hang in there."
Staff writer Chris Brennan contributed to this report.
Tax-deductible contributions can be sent to the Darby Library Company, P.O. Box 164, Darby, PA 19023.
Freyda Miller's "Fertile Dreams"
lynn@greengalactic.com
January 22, 2009
Freyda Miller's "Fertile Dreams" 2/7/09 at Art Dimensions in Westwood
Hello, Art Lovers-
Please allow me to resend to you, my client's press release that hit your In Boxes a week ago...
"Freyda Miller's "Fertile Dreams" exhibit opens at Art Dimensions in Westwood on Sat. Feb. 7th and we'd love for you to join us at the opening night reception from 5:00 - 8:00pm."
I mistakenly inserted the word "first" to describe this solo exhibit, which was highly inaccurate given Miller's very active career over the past three decades.
Besides numerous exhibits - both solo and group shows – nationally, Miller’s work is in the permanent collections of the St. Louis Museum of Art, The New Orleans Museum of Art, UCLA Library, Dept. of Special Collections, and museums in Amsterdam and Tokyo.
Her photography has also been seen on various TV shows including Will & Grace, ER, Miss/Match, Becker, nip/tuck, Hidden Hills, CSI, Three Sisters, Gilmore Girls, and more.
Hope to see you soon~
:L)
To view the full corrected press release again:
http://robalini.blogspot.com/2009/01/fertile-dreams.html
January 22, 2009
Freyda Miller's "Fertile Dreams" 2/7/09 at Art Dimensions in Westwood
Hello, Art Lovers-
Please allow me to resend to you, my client's press release that hit your In Boxes a week ago...
"Freyda Miller's "Fertile Dreams" exhibit opens at Art Dimensions in Westwood on Sat. Feb. 7th and we'd love for you to join us at the opening night reception from 5:00 - 8:00pm."
I mistakenly inserted the word "first" to describe this solo exhibit, which was highly inaccurate given Miller's very active career over the past three decades.
Besides numerous exhibits - both solo and group shows – nationally, Miller’s work is in the permanent collections of the St. Louis Museum of Art, The New Orleans Museum of Art, UCLA Library, Dept. of Special Collections, and museums in Amsterdam and Tokyo.
Her photography has also been seen on various TV shows including Will & Grace, ER, Miss/Match, Becker, nip/tuck, Hidden Hills, CSI, Three Sisters, Gilmore Girls, and more.
Hope to see you soon~
:L)
To view the full corrected press release again:
http://robalini.blogspot.com/2009/01/fertile-dreams.html
Sunday, January 25, 2009
When a Rock Star CEO Leaves the Stage
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/17/AR2009011700356.html
When a Rock Star CEO Leaves the Stage
Sunday, January 18, 2009; Page F02
Frank Ahrens
Companies run by charismatic, high-profile chief executives are exciting to follow, but are they a good investment? Can too much of the company's value depend on one person?
An example to look at is Apple and its founder and rock star chief executive, Steve Jobs.
Jobs, a pancreatic-cancer survivor, has lost a great deal of weight and has appeared less frequently over the past year, stoking rumors of poor health.
Last week, Jobs said his health problems turned out to be "more complex" than previously revealed. He's taking a five-month leave of absence from Apple, turning over day-to-day operations to Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook.
Shares of Apple took a hit. Maybe no American chief executive is perceived as being more crucial to his company's future than Jobs is to Apple's.
Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 but was ousted in a power struggle in 1985. Apple's results were mixed without him, and the company wandered strategically. In late 1997, Jobs returned. Apple's share price immediately began climbing as Jobs focused his company.
It soared when he introduced the revolutionary iPod and iTunes in 2001 and kept rising with the rollout of the innovative iPhone, hitting nearly $200 per share in December 2007, from about $3 in 1997, adjusted for splits and dividends. It has dropped by more than half since that peak, closing yesterday at $82.33 per share, clearly hurt by the recession. Its losses over the past half-year have been comparable in percentage to those at Dell and Microsoft, but analysts speculate that the stock would be trading higher were Jobs healthy and visible.
If you're an Apple shareholder, you're wondering how deep Apple's bench is.
If you're not, you may be looking around at other "cult of personality" companies with a wary eye.
Consider Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. -- a vast media and entertainment empire that includes movies, newspapers and satellite networks. All of which the 77-year-old Murdoch will turn over to his 36-year-old son James at some point.
World's Richest Man Warren E. Buffett is inextricably linked to his Berkshire Hathaway investment firm. The 78-year-old Buffett has said he has identified potential successors.
An example of a cult stock that has managed the exit of its leader while keeping a relative handle on investor value is Microsoft. Shares of the company's stock held fairly steady in the upper $20s throughout the beginning and middle of last year as founder and icon Bill Gates stepped aside to make way for the company's new chief executive, Steve Ballmer.
When a Rock Star CEO Leaves the Stage
Sunday, January 18, 2009; Page F02
Frank Ahrens
Companies run by charismatic, high-profile chief executives are exciting to follow, but are they a good investment? Can too much of the company's value depend on one person?
An example to look at is Apple and its founder and rock star chief executive, Steve Jobs.
Jobs, a pancreatic-cancer survivor, has lost a great deal of weight and has appeared less frequently over the past year, stoking rumors of poor health.
Last week, Jobs said his health problems turned out to be "more complex" than previously revealed. He's taking a five-month leave of absence from Apple, turning over day-to-day operations to Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook.
Shares of Apple took a hit. Maybe no American chief executive is perceived as being more crucial to his company's future than Jobs is to Apple's.
Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 but was ousted in a power struggle in 1985. Apple's results were mixed without him, and the company wandered strategically. In late 1997, Jobs returned. Apple's share price immediately began climbing as Jobs focused his company.
It soared when he introduced the revolutionary iPod and iTunes in 2001 and kept rising with the rollout of the innovative iPhone, hitting nearly $200 per share in December 2007, from about $3 in 1997, adjusted for splits and dividends. It has dropped by more than half since that peak, closing yesterday at $82.33 per share, clearly hurt by the recession. Its losses over the past half-year have been comparable in percentage to those at Dell and Microsoft, but analysts speculate that the stock would be trading higher were Jobs healthy and visible.
If you're an Apple shareholder, you're wondering how deep Apple's bench is.
If you're not, you may be looking around at other "cult of personality" companies with a wary eye.
Consider Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. -- a vast media and entertainment empire that includes movies, newspapers and satellite networks. All of which the 77-year-old Murdoch will turn over to his 36-year-old son James at some point.
World's Richest Man Warren E. Buffett is inextricably linked to his Berkshire Hathaway investment firm. The 78-year-old Buffett has said he has identified potential successors.
An example of a cult stock that has managed the exit of its leader while keeping a relative handle on investor value is Microsoft. Shares of the company's stock held fairly steady in the upper $20s throughout the beginning and middle of last year as founder and icon Bill Gates stepped aside to make way for the company's new chief executive, Steve Ballmer.
Wall paper house offers cheap dry home for poor
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5532512.eceJanuary 17, 2009
The Wall paper house offers cheap dry home for poor and displaced
The house has built-in single and double beds and a veranda with a sealed-off area housing a shower and lavatory
Roger Boyes in Berlin
The property market is in the doldrums, mortgages are elusive but there is still some hope for the first-time buyer: the paper house.
Retailing for about $5,000 (£3,375), the house is supposed to brighten up Third World shantytowns and provide quick shelter for long-term refugees. The Universal World House can be used almost anywhere: light, easily assembled, environmentally friendly, earthquake-proof and, crucially in the age of recession, a bit of a bargain.
Gerd Niemoeller, its inventor, says that the 36sq m paper house weighs barely 800kg (1,763lb) — lighter than a VW Golf. “Without the foundation block, the whole house actually weighs in at about 400kg,” says the design engineer. It will not, however, simply blow away. The basic material is resin-soaked cellulose recovered from recycled cardboard and newspapers.
Add heat and pressure and the paper becomes extremely stable. The interior of the prefabricated building panels resemble honeycombs; an air vacuum fills each of the units. The result: a strong and stable exterior wall, well insulated. A similar construction technique is used in aircraft and high-speed yachts.
“But they are working with aluminium and other alloys, which is expensive, time consuming, energy intensive,” said Mr Niemoeller, who has patented the invention under the name of his Swiss-based company The Wall AG. “That’s not suitable for the Third World.” The prime purpose is to create intelligent housing settlements almost instantly for the displaced and the urban poor.
“People don’t want to flee their countries, they’ve been driven to leave their homes out of the need to survive,” said the 58-year-old engineer. “The number of migrants, refugees living in improvised housing, is going to grow with climate change, and we offer an alternative.” An alternative, that is, to the corrugated-iron sheds and lean-tos so often seen in the slums of the developing world.
The house has eight built-in single and double beds and a veranda with a sealed-off area housing a shower and a lavatory. It has been designed together with the German development aid agency GTZ, and with the architect Dirk Donath, from the Bauhaus University in Weimar.
Apart from the sleeping area, there are shelves, a table and benches. “It has been designed so that a family can slaughter an animal on the veranda, wash it in the shower and hang it, along with fish, on an integrated washing line.” The whole wall of the kitchen can be tipped open to let air in and to blur the distinction between inside and outside.
First inquiries have come from the Delta State oil developers in Nigeria, and from Angola. More than 2,000 houses have been ordered by another Nigerian company. Development aid agencies are considering whether the houses could be used to accommodate those fleeing from the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe. South America, too, is interested.
The aim is to build the machines in northern Germany, near Kiel, and then send them, along with the raw materials, to the target country. The houses are then put together on the spot, creating local jobs and reducing transport costs.
But there is no reason why the paper houses should not be used in Europe.
The panels are rain resistant — and it is not compulsory to butcher a goat on the veranda.
Palm oil frenzy threatens to wipe out orangutans
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h9o2SE_tEvBAHt3Odkr4gM1_o9OAD95PN2UG0
Palm oil frenzy threatens to wipe out orangutans
By ROBIN MCDOWELL
1-18-9
TANJUNG PUTING NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia (AP) — Hoping to unravel the mysteries of human origin, anthropologist Louis Leakey sent three young women to Africa and Asia to study our closest relatives: It was chimpanzees for Jane Goodall, mountain gorillas for Dian Fossey and the elusive, solitary orangutans for Birute Mary Galdikas.
Nearly four decades later, 62-year-old Galdikas, the least famous of his "angels," is the only one still at it. And the red apes she studies in Indonesia are on the verge of extinction because forests are being clear-cut and burned to make way for lucrative palm oil plantations.
Galdikas worries many questions may never be answered. How long do orangutans live in the wild? How far do the males roam? And how many mates do they have in their lifetime?
"I try not to get depressed, I try not to get burned out," says the Canadian scientist, pulling a wide-rimmed jungle hat over her shoulder-length gray hair in Tanjung Puting National Park. She gently leans over to pick up a tiny orangutan, orphaned when his mother was caught raiding crops.
"But when you get up in the air you start gasping in horror; there's nothing but palm oil in an area that used to be plush rain forest. Elsewhere, there's burned-out land, which now extends even within the borders of the park."
The demand for palm oil is rising in the U.S. and Europe because it is touted as a "clean" alternative to fuel. Indonesia is the world's top producer of palm oil, and prices have jumped by almost 70 percent in the last year.
But palm oil plantations devastate the forest and create a monoculture on the land, in which orangutans cannot survive. Over the years, Galdikas has fought off loggers, poachers and miners, but nothing has posed as great a threat to her "babies" as palm oil.
There are only an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 90 percent of them in Indonesia, said Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa. Most live in small, scattered populations that cannot take the onslaught on the forests much longer.
Trees are being cut at a rate of 300 football fields every hour. And massive land-clearing fires have turned the country into one of the top emitters of carbon.
Tanjung Puting, which has 1,600 square miles, clings precariously to the southern tip of Borneo island. Its 6,000 orangutans — one of the two largest populations on the planet, together with the nearby Sebangau National Park — are less vulnerable to diseases and fires.
That has allowed them, to a degree, to live and evolve as they have for millions of years.
"I am not an alarmist," says Galdikas, speaking calmly but deliberately, her brow slightly furrowed. "But I would say, if nothing is done, orangutan populations outside of national parks have less than 10 years left."
Even Tanjung Puting is not safe, in part because of a border dispute between the central government, which argues in favor of a 1996 map, and provincial officials, who are pushing for a much smaller 1977 map. If local officials win, the park could be slashed by up to 25 percent.
Galdikas, of Lithuanian descent, was an anthropology student at the University of California in Los Angeles when she approached Leakey, a visiting lecturer, in 1969. She follows on the heels of Goodall, who today devotes virtually all of her time to advocacy for chimps, and Fossey, who was brutally murdered in her Rwandan hut in 1985.
Two and a half years later, she and her then husband, Rod Brindamour, arrived in Tanjung Puting and settled into a primitive thatch hut in the heart of one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, with millions of plant and animal species.
Twice featured on the cover of National Geographic Magazine, she wrote an autobiography, "Reflections of Eden," describing how she fell in love with the sound of cicadas, and marveled at the sudden shifts of light that in an instant transformed drab greens and browns into translucent shades of emerald.
Her first challenge was simply finding the well-camouflaged orangutans in 100-foot-high trees. But eventually she was able to track them, sometimes for several weeks at a time.
She discovered that female orangutans give birth when they are around 15 and then only once every eight or nine years, making them especially vulnerable to extinction. They also have one of the most intense maternal-offspring relationships of all mammals, remaining inseparable for the first seven or eight years.
While orangutans are at first very gregarious, as adults they live largely solitary lives, foraging for fruit or sleeping. Orangutan" means "man of the forest."
One of her main projects today is her rehabilitation center in a village outside Tanjung Puting, overflowing with more than 300 animals orphaned when their mothers were killed by palm oil plantation workers.
With forests disappearing, the red apes raid crops, grabbing freshly planted shoots from the fields.
"Many come in very badly wounded, suffering from malnutrition, psychological and emotional and even physical trauma," says Galdikas, as she watches members of her staff prepare six young orangutans for release one overcast Saturday afternoon.
It is a three-hour journey along bumpy roads to the release site. By the time they arrive, it is raining and the last gray light is feebly pushing its way through the deep canopy of trees.
After years of being cared for, fed and taught the ways of the woods, the young orangutans scramble nimbly to the tops of trees. Branches snap as they make their nests for the night.
"It is getting harder and harder to find good, safe forest in which to free them," says Galdikas, who today spends half her time in Indonesia and most of the rest teaching at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
Forestry Minister Malem Kaban says the government is committed to protecting Indonesia's dense, primary forests and that no permit should be granted within a half-mile of a national park. Even so, one palm oil company has started clearing trees within Tanjung Puting's northern perimeter, leaving a wasteland of churned-up peat and charred trunks. Four others are seeking concessions along its eastern edge.
Derom Bangun, executive chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association, says while his 300 members have vowed to stay clear of national parks, others have been known to operate within areas that should be off-limits. Sometimes it is not their fault, he notes, pointing to the need for better coordination between central and local government on border issues.
Galdikas, a passionate field researcher, says one of her great regrets is that she does not share Goodall's skills in raising awareness and funds for the great apes. But she is happy Tanjung Puting has over the years grown into a popular tourist destination. She says there's no better advertisement for conservation than being in a rain forest.
Some visitors are even lucky enough to come face to face with an orangutan on a slippery jungle trail.
"As he passes you, you nod and he nods back to you and continues on his way," she says, adding that looking in the eyes of a great ape, it instantly becomes clear that there is no separation between humans and nature.
"If they go extinct, we will have one less kin to call our own in this world," says Galdikas, who is also president of the Los Angeles-based Orangutan Foundation International. "And do we really want to be alone on this planet?"
On the Net:
Orangutan Foundation International:
http://www.orangutan.org
Palm oil frenzy threatens to wipe out orangutans
By ROBIN MCDOWELL
1-18-9
TANJUNG PUTING NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia (AP) — Hoping to unravel the mysteries of human origin, anthropologist Louis Leakey sent three young women to Africa and Asia to study our closest relatives: It was chimpanzees for Jane Goodall, mountain gorillas for Dian Fossey and the elusive, solitary orangutans for Birute Mary Galdikas.
Nearly four decades later, 62-year-old Galdikas, the least famous of his "angels," is the only one still at it. And the red apes she studies in Indonesia are on the verge of extinction because forests are being clear-cut and burned to make way for lucrative palm oil plantations.
Galdikas worries many questions may never be answered. How long do orangutans live in the wild? How far do the males roam? And how many mates do they have in their lifetime?
"I try not to get depressed, I try not to get burned out," says the Canadian scientist, pulling a wide-rimmed jungle hat over her shoulder-length gray hair in Tanjung Puting National Park. She gently leans over to pick up a tiny orangutan, orphaned when his mother was caught raiding crops.
"But when you get up in the air you start gasping in horror; there's nothing but palm oil in an area that used to be plush rain forest. Elsewhere, there's burned-out land, which now extends even within the borders of the park."
The demand for palm oil is rising in the U.S. and Europe because it is touted as a "clean" alternative to fuel. Indonesia is the world's top producer of palm oil, and prices have jumped by almost 70 percent in the last year.
But palm oil plantations devastate the forest and create a monoculture on the land, in which orangutans cannot survive. Over the years, Galdikas has fought off loggers, poachers and miners, but nothing has posed as great a threat to her "babies" as palm oil.
There are only an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 90 percent of them in Indonesia, said Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa. Most live in small, scattered populations that cannot take the onslaught on the forests much longer.
Trees are being cut at a rate of 300 football fields every hour. And massive land-clearing fires have turned the country into one of the top emitters of carbon.
Tanjung Puting, which has 1,600 square miles, clings precariously to the southern tip of Borneo island. Its 6,000 orangutans — one of the two largest populations on the planet, together with the nearby Sebangau National Park — are less vulnerable to diseases and fires.
That has allowed them, to a degree, to live and evolve as they have for millions of years.
"I am not an alarmist," says Galdikas, speaking calmly but deliberately, her brow slightly furrowed. "But I would say, if nothing is done, orangutan populations outside of national parks have less than 10 years left."
Even Tanjung Puting is not safe, in part because of a border dispute between the central government, which argues in favor of a 1996 map, and provincial officials, who are pushing for a much smaller 1977 map. If local officials win, the park could be slashed by up to 25 percent.
Galdikas, of Lithuanian descent, was an anthropology student at the University of California in Los Angeles when she approached Leakey, a visiting lecturer, in 1969. She follows on the heels of Goodall, who today devotes virtually all of her time to advocacy for chimps, and Fossey, who was brutally murdered in her Rwandan hut in 1985.
Two and a half years later, she and her then husband, Rod Brindamour, arrived in Tanjung Puting and settled into a primitive thatch hut in the heart of one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, with millions of plant and animal species.
Twice featured on the cover of National Geographic Magazine, she wrote an autobiography, "Reflections of Eden," describing how she fell in love with the sound of cicadas, and marveled at the sudden shifts of light that in an instant transformed drab greens and browns into translucent shades of emerald.
Her first challenge was simply finding the well-camouflaged orangutans in 100-foot-high trees. But eventually she was able to track them, sometimes for several weeks at a time.
She discovered that female orangutans give birth when they are around 15 and then only once every eight or nine years, making them especially vulnerable to extinction. They also have one of the most intense maternal-offspring relationships of all mammals, remaining inseparable for the first seven or eight years.
While orangutans are at first very gregarious, as adults they live largely solitary lives, foraging for fruit or sleeping. Orangutan" means "man of the forest."
One of her main projects today is her rehabilitation center in a village outside Tanjung Puting, overflowing with more than 300 animals orphaned when their mothers were killed by palm oil plantation workers.
With forests disappearing, the red apes raid crops, grabbing freshly planted shoots from the fields.
"Many come in very badly wounded, suffering from malnutrition, psychological and emotional and even physical trauma," says Galdikas, as she watches members of her staff prepare six young orangutans for release one overcast Saturday afternoon.
It is a three-hour journey along bumpy roads to the release site. By the time they arrive, it is raining and the last gray light is feebly pushing its way through the deep canopy of trees.
After years of being cared for, fed and taught the ways of the woods, the young orangutans scramble nimbly to the tops of trees. Branches snap as they make their nests for the night.
"It is getting harder and harder to find good, safe forest in which to free them," says Galdikas, who today spends half her time in Indonesia and most of the rest teaching at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
Forestry Minister Malem Kaban says the government is committed to protecting Indonesia's dense, primary forests and that no permit should be granted within a half-mile of a national park. Even so, one palm oil company has started clearing trees within Tanjung Puting's northern perimeter, leaving a wasteland of churned-up peat and charred trunks. Four others are seeking concessions along its eastern edge.
Derom Bangun, executive chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association, says while his 300 members have vowed to stay clear of national parks, others have been known to operate within areas that should be off-limits. Sometimes it is not their fault, he notes, pointing to the need for better coordination between central and local government on border issues.
Galdikas, a passionate field researcher, says one of her great regrets is that she does not share Goodall's skills in raising awareness and funds for the great apes. But she is happy Tanjung Puting has over the years grown into a popular tourist destination. She says there's no better advertisement for conservation than being in a rain forest.
Some visitors are even lucky enough to come face to face with an orangutan on a slippery jungle trail.
"As he passes you, you nod and he nods back to you and continues on his way," she says, adding that looking in the eyes of a great ape, it instantly becomes clear that there is no separation between humans and nature.
"If they go extinct, we will have one less kin to call our own in this world," says Galdikas, who is also president of the Los Angeles-based Orangutan Foundation International. "And do we really want to be alone on this planet?"
On the Net:
Orangutan Foundation International:
http://www.orangutan.org
More links from Rense.com, PrisonPlanet.com
More links from Rense.com, PrisonPlanet.com and others...
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Waiora is a world-class company dedicated to helping people maintain their health as they age. Our healthy living and aging philosophy is simple - eat well-balanced meals that include multiple servings of foods high in fiber, like fruits, vegetables, and bran, exercise regularly and incorporate a nutritional regimen that addresses aging at the root of the problem, from a cellular and biological level."
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Skinny Guy “Saviour” comes forth and blows the lid off the bodybuilding and supplement conspiracy to reveal why it’s not your fault that you’re still a struggling hard gainer…
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Obama’s inaugural address
http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/pers-j21.shtml
Obama’s inaugural address: Amid banalities, a call for austerity
21 January 2009
Bill Van Auken
In his inaugural address Tuesday, President Barack Obama offered nothing in the way of concrete pledges or programs to confront the economic crisis or bring an end to war. Instead, he indicated that the American people would have to accept even greater sacrifices.
The pomp and ceremony dating back 220 years to the birth of the American republic, reinforced by the accession of the first African-American to the presidency, stood in sharp contrast to the banality of Obama's words and the hollowness of his message.
For the millions who packed the Washington Mall, the emotions of the day were driven by hopes that the coming to power of an African-American would signify genuine change and by relief at the exit of George W. Bush, whose first appearance on the Capitol steps drew loud boos from the assembled crowd. At the end of the ceremony, the departure over the Mall of the helicopter bearing Bush, the most hated president in the country's history, drew a chant from the crowd most often heard from sports fans jeering an opposing team: "Na-na-na-na, Na-na-na-na, Hey Hey, Goodbye."
There was a general hope that the inauguration of a new president would signal an end to an eight-year national nightmare that began with a stolen election and brought two wars of aggression, historically unprecedented attacks on constitutional rights, an uninterrupted growth of social inequality and the deepest economic crisis in modern American history. These sentiments were shared by people around the world who watched international broadcasts of the ceremony.
Yet Obama's speech seemed crafted in large measure with the aim of damping down such expectations. The message universally trumpeted by the corporate media, headlining the lead stories on the web sites of both the New York Times and the Washington Post, was Obama's call for a "new era of responsibility."
There is more than a small dose of irony in this invocation, as the principle of responsibility is to be very selectively applied. In recent weeks, Obama and his advisors have repeatedly made clear that they have no intention of holding Bush, Cheney or other senior officials in any way accountable for policies that constituted war crimes and crimes against the Constitution during their tenure in office.
As for the deepest financial crisis in the history of American capitalism, no one at the top bears any particular responsibility, at least in Obama's estimation. "Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age," he declared at the beginning of the speech.
This formulation holds tens of millions of workers facing the loss of their jobs and homes through no fault of their own equally responsible for the present crisis as Wall Street executives and hedge fund managers whose financial parasitism and criminality helped drag their own institutions and the world economy into ruin.
Now Obama is telling working people that they must take "responsibility" for the crisis that is destroying their livelihoods by accepting deeper attacks on jobs, wages and social benefits, even as trillions of dollars in public funds are used to bail out Wall Street while its CEOs continue to draw down their seven- and eight-figure compensation packages.
In some of Obama's rhetoric there were indications that he and his speechwriters had attempted to mine the first inaugural address given by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression. Clearly there are historical parallels, made ever more apparent as the stock market plunged below the 8,000 mark Tuesday, its broadest index losing over 5 percent of its value even as Obama was being sworn in.
Yet what was most notable was Obama's inability to speak in the frank manner of Roosevelt 76 years ago. What characterized the new president's inaugural address above all was an appalling lack of concreteness about anything.
When Roosevelt addressed the nation, he vowed to "speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly." While he certainly did not do that, and his aim was to save capitalism from social revolution, he did speak in fairly explicit terms about what had created the crisis and what he intended to do about it.
The crisis of the 1930s, Roosevelt declared, had arisen not because of any lack of nature's "bounty" or "human efforts" to multiply it, but because "the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence." He continued: "Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men."
Obama appeared to have drawn part of his speech from the first part of this conception, declaring, "Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year." Left unstated, however, was why, if this is the case, the economy is spiraling downward into depression with nearly 3 million jobs wiped out in the US over the last year alone.
Involved in this evasion is a stunning level of contempt and condescension towards those who support him. He obviously feels he owes them no such explanation, and the less said the better.
Obama is unable to even mention the role of today's "money changers," who paid a large share of the money for his campaign and bankrolled the inauguration itself. All of the vague rhetoric about "equality" notwithstanding, it is their interests he intends to defend at the expense of the broad mass of American working people.
This is the real significance of his claims to have transcended the "stale political arguments of the past" about the role of government and the capitalist market, and his vow that the time for "putting off unpleasant decisions has ended."
"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works... Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward," he said. "Where the answer is no, programs will end." Again, there was no specificity about what programs will be terminated, but in the past week he has indicated his intention to radically cut back bedrock social programs, including Social Security and Medicare, as a means of attacking the government's fiscal crisis.
"Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill," Obama continued. "Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched." He allowed that the present crisis showed the need for a "watchful eye" and voiced the belief that the "reach of prosperity" should be extended by offering "opportunity to every willing heart." There is nothing here that could not have been lifted from the speeches of Ronald Reagan or any of the other right-wing politicians that have ruled on behalf of Wall Street and corporate America for the last three decades.
It was no accident that, in illustrating the kind of actions he sees as vital to overcoming the crisis, Obama cited the "the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job." This, under conditions where workers all over the country are being hit with cuts in hours and pay in the name of saving jobs, even as bailed-out bankers reject any sacrifice whatsoever.
"War on terror" to go on
There was a second fundamental theme that ran through the speech, which was that America's bellicosity and militarism will continue, albeit with slightly greater attention to wrapping a predatory foreign policy in the rhetoric of morality and altruism.
In the first substantive line of the speech, Obama declared, "Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred." The implication was unmistakable: The "global war on terror," the pretext used by the Bush administration for launching two wars of aggression, carrying out torture, extraordinary rendition, unlawful detentions and domestic spying, continues unabated.
Obama vowed that under his administration, "We'll begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan." There was not a word of criticism, however, for the decision to launch these wars. Indeed, the incoming administration has already indicated that far from leaving Iraq "to its people," occupation, on a more economical scale, will continue indefinitely, while tens of thousands of additional US troops are to be sent to Afghanistan in an escalation of the war there.
There was an ugly note of arrogance and jingoism in the speech, with Obama declaring, "We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense" and his chastisement of foreign leaders--presumably in the historically oppressed countries of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America--who "blame their society's ills on the West."
He issued a rhetorical challenge to "those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents," vowing, "We will defeat you." Coming in the wake of Israel's three-week onslaught against Gaza in which thousands of Palestinian innocents were killed or maimed with US supplied weapons and the tacit support of a silent Obama, these words reeked of hypocrisy.
Finally, Obama paid tribute to the US troops "who at this very hour patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains," declaring "their spirit of service" to be "precisely [the] spirit that must inhabit us all."
The newly inaugurated president thus provided a textbook definition of modern militarism--upholding the ethos and spirit of the military as the ideal for the nation--as the substance of his "vision" for reviving America.
It was noteworthy, given the inauguration of the first African-American president, that what went completely unmentioned was the civil rights struggle—or, for that matter, any form of social struggle.
There are two reasons for such an omission. Obama has no intention of encouraging such mass social struggles today, and he is anxious not to offend the forces of social reaction upon which he rests and which now surround him.
Whatever his intentions, however, the immense economic and social crisis that is now unfolding in America and across the globe will produce such struggles and on an even greater scale. The policies that are only hinted at in what was a banal and dishonest inauguration speech are completely at odds with the social interests and aspirations of the vast majority of the American people. Sooner rather than later, they will produce a political confrontation and a new eruption of class struggle that will challenge the foundations of US capitalism.
Obama’s inaugural address: Amid banalities, a call for austerity
21 January 2009
Bill Van Auken
In his inaugural address Tuesday, President Barack Obama offered nothing in the way of concrete pledges or programs to confront the economic crisis or bring an end to war. Instead, he indicated that the American people would have to accept even greater sacrifices.
The pomp and ceremony dating back 220 years to the birth of the American republic, reinforced by the accession of the first African-American to the presidency, stood in sharp contrast to the banality of Obama's words and the hollowness of his message.
For the millions who packed the Washington Mall, the emotions of the day were driven by hopes that the coming to power of an African-American would signify genuine change and by relief at the exit of George W. Bush, whose first appearance on the Capitol steps drew loud boos from the assembled crowd. At the end of the ceremony, the departure over the Mall of the helicopter bearing Bush, the most hated president in the country's history, drew a chant from the crowd most often heard from sports fans jeering an opposing team: "Na-na-na-na, Na-na-na-na, Hey Hey, Goodbye."
There was a general hope that the inauguration of a new president would signal an end to an eight-year national nightmare that began with a stolen election and brought two wars of aggression, historically unprecedented attacks on constitutional rights, an uninterrupted growth of social inequality and the deepest economic crisis in modern American history. These sentiments were shared by people around the world who watched international broadcasts of the ceremony.
Yet Obama's speech seemed crafted in large measure with the aim of damping down such expectations. The message universally trumpeted by the corporate media, headlining the lead stories on the web sites of both the New York Times and the Washington Post, was Obama's call for a "new era of responsibility."
There is more than a small dose of irony in this invocation, as the principle of responsibility is to be very selectively applied. In recent weeks, Obama and his advisors have repeatedly made clear that they have no intention of holding Bush, Cheney or other senior officials in any way accountable for policies that constituted war crimes and crimes against the Constitution during their tenure in office.
As for the deepest financial crisis in the history of American capitalism, no one at the top bears any particular responsibility, at least in Obama's estimation. "Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age," he declared at the beginning of the speech.
This formulation holds tens of millions of workers facing the loss of their jobs and homes through no fault of their own equally responsible for the present crisis as Wall Street executives and hedge fund managers whose financial parasitism and criminality helped drag their own institutions and the world economy into ruin.
Now Obama is telling working people that they must take "responsibility" for the crisis that is destroying their livelihoods by accepting deeper attacks on jobs, wages and social benefits, even as trillions of dollars in public funds are used to bail out Wall Street while its CEOs continue to draw down their seven- and eight-figure compensation packages.
In some of Obama's rhetoric there were indications that he and his speechwriters had attempted to mine the first inaugural address given by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression. Clearly there are historical parallels, made ever more apparent as the stock market plunged below the 8,000 mark Tuesday, its broadest index losing over 5 percent of its value even as Obama was being sworn in.
Yet what was most notable was Obama's inability to speak in the frank manner of Roosevelt 76 years ago. What characterized the new president's inaugural address above all was an appalling lack of concreteness about anything.
When Roosevelt addressed the nation, he vowed to "speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly." While he certainly did not do that, and his aim was to save capitalism from social revolution, he did speak in fairly explicit terms about what had created the crisis and what he intended to do about it.
The crisis of the 1930s, Roosevelt declared, had arisen not because of any lack of nature's "bounty" or "human efforts" to multiply it, but because "the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence." He continued: "Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men."
Obama appeared to have drawn part of his speech from the first part of this conception, declaring, "Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year." Left unstated, however, was why, if this is the case, the economy is spiraling downward into depression with nearly 3 million jobs wiped out in the US over the last year alone.
Involved in this evasion is a stunning level of contempt and condescension towards those who support him. He obviously feels he owes them no such explanation, and the less said the better.
Obama is unable to even mention the role of today's "money changers," who paid a large share of the money for his campaign and bankrolled the inauguration itself. All of the vague rhetoric about "equality" notwithstanding, it is their interests he intends to defend at the expense of the broad mass of American working people.
This is the real significance of his claims to have transcended the "stale political arguments of the past" about the role of government and the capitalist market, and his vow that the time for "putting off unpleasant decisions has ended."
"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works... Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward," he said. "Where the answer is no, programs will end." Again, there was no specificity about what programs will be terminated, but in the past week he has indicated his intention to radically cut back bedrock social programs, including Social Security and Medicare, as a means of attacking the government's fiscal crisis.
"Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill," Obama continued. "Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched." He allowed that the present crisis showed the need for a "watchful eye" and voiced the belief that the "reach of prosperity" should be extended by offering "opportunity to every willing heart." There is nothing here that could not have been lifted from the speeches of Ronald Reagan or any of the other right-wing politicians that have ruled on behalf of Wall Street and corporate America for the last three decades.
It was no accident that, in illustrating the kind of actions he sees as vital to overcoming the crisis, Obama cited the "the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job." This, under conditions where workers all over the country are being hit with cuts in hours and pay in the name of saving jobs, even as bailed-out bankers reject any sacrifice whatsoever.
"War on terror" to go on
There was a second fundamental theme that ran through the speech, which was that America's bellicosity and militarism will continue, albeit with slightly greater attention to wrapping a predatory foreign policy in the rhetoric of morality and altruism.
In the first substantive line of the speech, Obama declared, "Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred." The implication was unmistakable: The "global war on terror," the pretext used by the Bush administration for launching two wars of aggression, carrying out torture, extraordinary rendition, unlawful detentions and domestic spying, continues unabated.
Obama vowed that under his administration, "We'll begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan." There was not a word of criticism, however, for the decision to launch these wars. Indeed, the incoming administration has already indicated that far from leaving Iraq "to its people," occupation, on a more economical scale, will continue indefinitely, while tens of thousands of additional US troops are to be sent to Afghanistan in an escalation of the war there.
There was an ugly note of arrogance and jingoism in the speech, with Obama declaring, "We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense" and his chastisement of foreign leaders--presumably in the historically oppressed countries of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America--who "blame their society's ills on the West."
He issued a rhetorical challenge to "those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents," vowing, "We will defeat you." Coming in the wake of Israel's three-week onslaught against Gaza in which thousands of Palestinian innocents were killed or maimed with US supplied weapons and the tacit support of a silent Obama, these words reeked of hypocrisy.
Finally, Obama paid tribute to the US troops "who at this very hour patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains," declaring "their spirit of service" to be "precisely [the] spirit that must inhabit us all."
The newly inaugurated president thus provided a textbook definition of modern militarism--upholding the ethos and spirit of the military as the ideal for the nation--as the substance of his "vision" for reviving America.
It was noteworthy, given the inauguration of the first African-American president, that what went completely unmentioned was the civil rights struggle—or, for that matter, any form of social struggle.
There are two reasons for such an omission. Obama has no intention of encouraging such mass social struggles today, and he is anxious not to offend the forces of social reaction upon which he rests and which now surround him.
Whatever his intentions, however, the immense economic and social crisis that is now unfolding in America and across the globe will produce such struggles and on an even greater scale. The policies that are only hinted at in what was a banal and dishonest inauguration speech are completely at odds with the social interests and aspirations of the vast majority of the American people. Sooner rather than later, they will produce a political confrontation and a new eruption of class struggle that will challenge the foundations of US capitalism.
Why is Marijuana Illegal?
http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html
Why is Marijuana Illegal?
A brief history of the criminalization of cannabis
7000-8000 B.C.
First woven fabric believed to be from hemp.
1619
Jamestown Colony, Virginia passes law requiring farmers to grow hemp.
1700s
Hemp was the primary crop grown by George Washington at Mount Vernon, and a secondary crop grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello.
1884
Maine is the first state to outlaw alcohol.
1906
Pure Food and Drug Act is passed, forming the Food and Drug Administration. First time that drugs have any government oversight.
1913
California, apparently, passes the first state marijuana law, though missed by many because it referred to "preparations of hemp, or loco weed."
1914
Harrison Act passed, outlawing opiates and cocaine (taxing scheme)
1915
Utah passes state anti-marijuana law.
1919
18th Amendment to the Constitution (alcohol prohibition) is ratified.
1930
Harry J. Anslinger given control of the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics (he remains in the position until 1962)
1933
21st Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, repealing alcohol prohibition.
1937
Marijuana Tax Act
1938
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act
1951
Boggs Amendment to the Harrison Narcotic Act (mandatory sentences)
1956
Narcotics Control Act adds more severe penalties
1970
Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. Replaces and updates all previous laws concerning narcotics and other dangerous drugs. Empasis on law enforcement. Includes the Controlled Substances Act, where marijuana is classified a Schedule 1 drug (reserved for the most dangerous drugs that have no recognized medical use).
1972
Drug Abuse Office and Treatment Act. Establishes federally funded programs for prevention and treatment
1973
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Changes Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs into the DEA
1974 and 1978
Drug Abuse Treatment and Control Amendments. Extends 1972 act
1988
Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Establishes oversight office: National Office of Drug Control Policy and the Drug Czar
1992
ADAMHA Reorganization. Transfers NIDA, NIMH, and NIAAA to NIH and incorporates ADAMHA's programs into the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug.
The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You'll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.
You'll also see that the history of marijuana's criminalization is filled with:
Racism
Fear
Protection of Corporate Profits
Yellow Journalism
Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
Personal Career Advancement and Greed
These are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal.
Background
For most of human history, marijuana has been completely legal. It's not a recently discovered plant, nor is it a long-standing law. Marijuana has been illegal for less than 1% of the time that it's been in use. Its known uses go back further than 7,000 B.C. and it was legal as recently as when Ronald Reagan was a boy.
The marijuana (hemp) plant, of course, has an incredible number of uses. The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp, and over the centuries the plant was used for food, incense, cloth, rope, and much more. This adds to some of the confusion over its introduction in the United States, as the plant was well known from the early 1600's, but did not reach public awareness as a recreational drug until the early 1900's.
America's first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law "ordering" all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other "must grow" laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp -- try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements - rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.
The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp "plantations" (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.
The Mexican Connection
In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing's army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce.
One of the "differences" seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them, and it was through this that California apparently passed the first state marijuana law, outlawing "preparations of hemp, or loco weed."
However, one of the first state laws outlawing marijuana may have been influenced, not just by Mexicans using the drug, but, oddly enough, because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church's reaction to this may have contributed to the state's marijuana law. (Note: the source for this speculation is from articles by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law at USC Law School in a paper for the Virginia Law Review, and a speech to the California Judges Association (sourced below). Mormon blogger Ardis Parshall disputes this.)
Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to be specifically targeted against the Mexican-American population.
When Montana outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator's comment: "When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff... he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies." In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy."
Jazz and Assassins
In the eastern states, the "problem" was attributed to a combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians. Marijuana and jazz traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to Harlem, where marijuana became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the time (Louis Armstrong's "Muggles", Cab Calloway's "That Funny Reefer Man", Fats Waller's "Viper's Drag").
Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: "Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice."
Two other fear-tactic rumors started to spread: one, that Mexicans, Blacks and other foreigners were snaring white children with marijuana; and two, the story of the "assassins." Early stories of Marco Polo had told of "hasheesh-eaters" or hashashin, from which derived the term "assassin." In the original stories, these professional killers were given large doses of hashish and brought to the ruler's garden (to give them a glimpse of the paradise that awaited them upon successful completion of their mission). Then, after the effects of the drug disappeared, the assassin would fulfill his ruler's wishes with cool, calculating loyalty.
By the 1930s, the story had changed. Dr. A. E. Fossier wrote in the 1931 New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal: "Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp." Within a very short time, marijuana started being linked to violent behavior.
Alcohol Prohibition and Federal Approaches to Drug Prohibition
During this time, the United States was also dealing with alcohol prohibition, which lasted from 1919 to 1933. Alcohol prohibition was extremely visible and debated at all levels, while drug laws were passed without the general public's knowledge. National alcohol prohibition happened through the mechanism of an amendment to the constitution.
Earlier (1914), the Harrison Act was passed, which provided federal tax penalties for opiates and cocaine.
The federal approach is important. It was considered at the time that the federal government did not have the constitutional power to outlaw alcohol or drugs. It is because of this that alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment.
At that time in our country's history, the judiciary regularly placed the tenth amendment in the path of congressional regulation of "local" affairs, and direct regulation of medical practice was considered beyond congressional power under the commerce clause (since then, both provisions have been weakened so far as to have almost no meaning).
Since drugs could not be outlawed at the federal level, the decision was made to use federal taxes as a way around the restriction. In the Harrison Act, legal uses of opiates and cocaine were taxed (supposedly as a revenue need by the federal government, which is the only way it would hold up in the courts), and those who didn't follow the law found themselves in trouble with the treasury department.
In 1930, a new division in the Treasury Department was established -- the Federal Bureau of Narcotics -- and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This, if anything, marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana.
Harry J. Anslinger
Anslinger was an extremely ambitious man, and he recognized the Bureau of Narcotics as an amazing career opportunity -- a new government agency with the opportunity to define both the problem and the solution. He immediately realized that opiates and cocaine wouldn't be enough to help build his agency, so he latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal level.
Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. He also promoted and frequently read from "Gore Files" -- wild reefer-madness-style exploitation tales of ax murderers on marijuana and sex and... Negroes. Here are some quotes that have been widely attributed to Anslinger and his Gore Files:
"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others."
"...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."
"Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death."
"Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."
"Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing"
"You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."
"Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind."
And he loved to pull out his own version of the "assassin" definition:
"In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins, whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason: the members were confirmed users of hashish, or marihuana, and it is from the Arabs' 'hashashin' that we have the English word 'assassin.'"
Yellow Journalism
Harry Anslinger got some additional help from William Randolf Hearst, owner of a huge chain of newspapers. Hearst had lots of reasons to help. First, he hated Mexicans. Second, he had invested heavily in the timber industry to support his newspaper chain and didn't want to see the development of hemp paper in competition. Third, he had lost 800,000 acres of timberland to Pancho Villa, so he hated Mexicans. Fourth, telling lurid lies about Mexicans (and the devil marijuana weed causing violence) sold newspapers, making him rich.
Some samples from the San Francisco Examiner:
"Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days -- Hashish goads users to bloodlust."
"By the tons it is coming into this country -- the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms.... Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him...."
And other nationwide columns...
"Users of marijuana become STIMULATED as they inhale the drug and are LIKELY TO DO ANYTHING. Most crimes of violence in this section, especially in country districts are laid to users of that drug."
"Was it marijuana, the new Mexican drug, that nerved the murderous arm of Clara Phillips when she hammered out her victim's life in Los Angeles?... THREE-FOURTHS OF THE CRIMES of violence in this country today are committed by DOPE SLAVES -- that is a matter of cold record."
Hearst and Anslinger were then supported by Dupont chemical company and various pharmaceutical companies in the effort to outlaw cannabis. Dupont had patented nylon, and wanted hemp removed as competition. The pharmaceutical companies could neither identify nor standardize cannabis dosages, and besides, with cannabis, folks could grow their own medicine and not have to purchase it from large companies.
This all set the stage for...
The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.
After two years of secret planning, Anslinger brought his plan to Congress -- complete with a scrapbook full of sensational Hearst editorials, stories of ax murderers who had supposedly smoked marijuana, and racial slurs.
It was a remarkably short set of hearings.
The one fly in Anslinger's ointment was the appearance by Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Council of the American Medical Association.
Woodward started by slamming Harry Anslinger and the Bureau of Narcotics for distorting earlier AMA statements that had nothing to do with marijuana and making them appear to be AMA endorsement for Anslinger's view.
He also reproached the legislature and the Bureau for using the term marijuana in the legislation and not publicizing it as a bill about cannabis or hemp. At this point, marijuana (or marihuana) was a sensationalist word used to refer to Mexicans smoking a drug and had not been connected in most people's minds to the existing cannabis/hemp plant. Thus, many who had legitimate reasons to oppose the bill weren't even aware of it.
Woodward went on to state that the AMA was opposed to the legislation and further questioned the approach of the hearings, coming close to outright accusation of misconduct by Anslinger and the committee:
"That there is a certain amount of narcotic addiction of an objectionable character no one will deny. The newspapers have called attention to it so prominently that there must be some grounds for [their] statements [even Woodward was partially taken in by Hearst's propaganda]. It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence. We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marihuana addiction. We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime.
But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marihuana habit. An informed inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point.
You have been told that school children are great users of marihuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children's Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit, among children.
Inquiry of the Children's Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and know nothing particularly of it.
Inquiry of the Office of Education--- and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among the school children of the country, if there is a prevalent habit--- indicates that they have had no occasion to investigate and know nothing of it.
Moreover, there is in the Treasury Department itself, the Public Health Service, with its Division of Mental Hygiene. The Division of Mental Hygiene was, in the first place, the Division of Narcotics. It was converted into the Division of Mental Hygiene, I think, about 1930. That particular Bureau has control at the present time of the narcotics farms that were created about 1929 or 1930 and came into operation a few years later. No one has been summoned from that Bureau to give evidence on that point.
Informal inquiry by me indicates that they have had no record of any marihuana of Cannabis addicts who have ever been committed to those farms.
The bureau of Public Health Service has also a division of pharmacology. If you desire evidence as to the pharmacology of Cannabis, that obviously is the place where you can get direct and primary evidence, rather than the indirect hearsay evidence."
Committee members then proceeded to attack Dr. Woodward, questioning his motives in opposing the legislation. Even the Chairman joined in:
The Chairman: If you want to advise us on legislation, you ought to come here with some constructive proposals, rather than criticism, rather than trying to throw obstacles in the way of something that the Federal Government is trying to do. It has not only an unselfish motive in this, but they have a serious responsibility.
Dr. Woodward: We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman, why this bill should have been prepared in secret for 2 years without any intimation, even, to the profession, that it was being prepared.
After some further bantering...
The Chairman: I would like to read a quotation from a recent editorial in the Washington Times:
The marihuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities.
The Nation is almost defenseless against it, having no Federal laws to cope with it and virtually no organized campaign for combating it.
The result is tragic.
School children are the prey of peddlers who infest school neighborhoods.
High school boys and girls buy the destructive weed without knowledge of its capacity of harm, and conscienceless dealers sell it with impunity.
This is a national problem, and it must have national attention.
The fatal marihuana cigarette must be recognized as a deadly drug, and American children must be protected against it.
That is a pretty severe indictment. They say it is a national question and that it requires effective legislation. Of course, in a general way, you have responded to all of these statements; but that indicates very clearly that it is an evil of such magnitude that it is recognized by the press of the country as such.
And that was basically it. Yellow journalism won over medical science.
The committee passed the legislation on. And on the floor of the house, the entire discussion was:
Member from upstate New York: "Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?"
Speaker Rayburn: "I don't know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it's a narcotic of some kind."
"Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?"
Member on the committee jumps up and says: "Their Doctor Wentworth[sic] came down here. They support this bill 100 percent."
And on the basis of that lie, on August 2, 1937, marijuana became illegal at the federal level.
The entire coverage in the New York Times: "President Roosevelt signed today a bill to curb traffic in the narcotic, marihuana, through heavy taxes on transactions."
Anslinger as precursor to the Drug Czars
Anslinger was essentially the first Drug Czar. Even though the term didn't exist until William Bennett's position as director of the White House Office of National Drug Policy, Anslinger acted in a similar fashion. In fact, there are some amazing parallels between Anslinger and the current Drug Czar John Walters. Both had kind of a carte blanche to go around demonizing drugs and drug users. Both had resources and a large public podium for their voice to be heard and to promote their personal agenda. Both lied constantly, often when it was unnecessary. Both were racists. Both had the ear of lawmakers, and both realized that they could persuade legislators and others based on lies, particularly if they could co-opt the media into squelching or downplaying any opposition views.
Anslinger even had the ability to circumvent the First Amendment. He banned the Canadian movie "Drug Addict," a 1946 documentary that realistically depicted the drug addicts and law enforcement efforts. He even tried to get Canada to ban the movie in their own country, or failing that, to prevent U.S. citizens from seeing the movie in Canada. Canada refused. (Today, Drug Czar John Walters is trying to bully Canada into keeping harsh marijuana laws.)
Anslinger had 37 years to solidify the propaganda and stifle opposition. The lies continued the entire time (although the stories would adjust -- the 21 year old Florida boy who killed his family of five got younger each time he told it). In 1961, he looked back at his efforts:
"Much of the most irrational juvenile violence and that has written a new chapter of shame and tragedy is traceable directly to this hemp intoxication. A gang of boys tear the clothes from two school girls and rape the screaming girls, one boy after the other. A sixteen-year-old kills his entire family of five in Florida, a man in Minnesota puts a bullet through the head of a stranger on the road; in Colorado husband tries to shoot his wife, kills her grandmother instead and then kills himself. Every one of these crimes had been proceeded [sic] by the smoking of one or more marijuana "reefers." As the marijuana situation grew worse, I knew action had to be taken to get the proper legislation passed. By 1937 under my direction, the Bureau launched two important steps First, a legislative plan to seek from Congress a new law that would place marijuana and its distribution directly under federal control. Second, on radio and at major forums, such that presented annually by the New York Herald Tribune, I told the story of this evil weed of the fields and river beds and roadsides. I wrote articles for magazines; our agents gave hundreds of lectures to parents, educators, social and civic leaders. In network broadcasts I reported on the growing list of crimes, including murder and rape. I described the nature of marijuana and its close kinship to hashish. I continued to hammer at the facts.
I believe we did a thorough job, for the public was alerted and the laws to protect them were passed, both nationally and at the state level. We also brought under control the wild growing marijuana in this country. Working with local authorities, we cleaned up hundreds of acres of marijuana and we uprooted plants sprouting along the roadsides."
After Anslinger
On a break from college in the 70s, I was visiting a church in rural Illinois. There in the literature racks in the back of the church was a lurid pamphlet about the evils of marijuana -- all the old reefer madness propaganda about how it caused insanity and murder. I approached the minister and said "You can't have this in your church. It's all lies, and the church shouldn't be about promoting lies." Fortunately, my dad believed me, and he had the material removed. He didn't even know how it got there. But without me speaking up, neither he nor the other members of the church had any reason NOT to believe what the pamphlet said. The propaganda machine had been that effective.
The narrative since then has been a continual litany of:
Politicians wanting to appear tough on crime and passing tougher penalties
Constant increases in spending on law enforcement and prisons
Racist application of drug laws
Taxpayer funded propaganda
Stifling of opposition speech
Political contributions from corporations that profit from marijuana being illegal (pharmaceuticals, alcohol, etc.)
... but that's another whole story.
This account only scratches the surface of the story. If you want to know more about the history of marijuana, Harry Anslinger, and the saga of criminalization in the United States and elsewhere, visit some of the excellent links below. (All data and quotes for this piece came from these sources as well).
The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School. A Speech to the California Judges Association 1995 annual conference.
THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT AND THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE: AN INQUIRY INTO THE LEGAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN MARIJUANA PROHIBITION by Richard J. Bonnie & Charles H. Whitebread, II. VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW. VOLUME 56 OCTOBER 1970 NUMBER 6
The Consumers Union Report - Licit and Illicit Drugs by Edward M. Brecher and the Editors of Consumer Reports Magazine
The History of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 By David F. Musto, M.D., New Haven, Conn. Originally published in Arch. Gen. Psychiat. Volume 26, February, 1972
The Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse I. Control of Marihuana, Alcohol and Tobacco. History of Marihuana Legislation
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The history of how the Marihuana Tax Act came to be the law of the land.
Marijuana - The First Twelve Thousand Years by Ernest L. Abel, 1980
Why is Marijuana Illegal?
A brief history of the criminalization of cannabis
7000-8000 B.C.
First woven fabric believed to be from hemp.
1619
Jamestown Colony, Virginia passes law requiring farmers to grow hemp.
1700s
Hemp was the primary crop grown by George Washington at Mount Vernon, and a secondary crop grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello.
1884
Maine is the first state to outlaw alcohol.
1906
Pure Food and Drug Act is passed, forming the Food and Drug Administration. First time that drugs have any government oversight.
1913
California, apparently, passes the first state marijuana law, though missed by many because it referred to "preparations of hemp, or loco weed."
1914
Harrison Act passed, outlawing opiates and cocaine (taxing scheme)
1915
Utah passes state anti-marijuana law.
1919
18th Amendment to the Constitution (alcohol prohibition) is ratified.
1930
Harry J. Anslinger given control of the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics (he remains in the position until 1962)
1933
21st Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, repealing alcohol prohibition.
1937
Marijuana Tax Act
1938
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act
1951
Boggs Amendment to the Harrison Narcotic Act (mandatory sentences)
1956
Narcotics Control Act adds more severe penalties
1970
Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. Replaces and updates all previous laws concerning narcotics and other dangerous drugs. Empasis on law enforcement. Includes the Controlled Substances Act, where marijuana is classified a Schedule 1 drug (reserved for the most dangerous drugs that have no recognized medical use).
1972
Drug Abuse Office and Treatment Act. Establishes federally funded programs for prevention and treatment
1973
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Changes Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs into the DEA
1974 and 1978
Drug Abuse Treatment and Control Amendments. Extends 1972 act
1988
Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Establishes oversight office: National Office of Drug Control Policy and the Drug Czar
1992
ADAMHA Reorganization. Transfers NIDA, NIMH, and NIAAA to NIH and incorporates ADAMHA's programs into the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug.
The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You'll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.
You'll also see that the history of marijuana's criminalization is filled with:
Racism
Fear
Protection of Corporate Profits
Yellow Journalism
Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
Personal Career Advancement and Greed
These are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal.
Background
For most of human history, marijuana has been completely legal. It's not a recently discovered plant, nor is it a long-standing law. Marijuana has been illegal for less than 1% of the time that it's been in use. Its known uses go back further than 7,000 B.C. and it was legal as recently as when Ronald Reagan was a boy.
The marijuana (hemp) plant, of course, has an incredible number of uses. The earliest known woven fabric was apparently of hemp, and over the centuries the plant was used for food, incense, cloth, rope, and much more. This adds to some of the confusion over its introduction in the United States, as the plant was well known from the early 1600's, but did not reach public awareness as a recreational drug until the early 1900's.
America's first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law "ordering" all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other "must grow" laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp -- try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements - rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.
The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp "plantations" (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.
The Mexican Connection
In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing's army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce.
One of the "differences" seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them, and it was through this that California apparently passed the first state marijuana law, outlawing "preparations of hemp, or loco weed."
However, one of the first state laws outlawing marijuana may have been influenced, not just by Mexicans using the drug, but, oddly enough, because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church's reaction to this may have contributed to the state's marijuana law. (Note: the source for this speculation is from articles by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law at USC Law School in a paper for the Virginia Law Review, and a speech to the California Judges Association (sourced below). Mormon blogger Ardis Parshall disputes this.)
Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to be specifically targeted against the Mexican-American population.
When Montana outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator's comment: "When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff... he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies." In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy."
Jazz and Assassins
In the eastern states, the "problem" was attributed to a combination of Latin Americans and black jazz musicians. Marijuana and jazz traveled from New Orleans to Chicago, and then to Harlem, where marijuana became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the time (Louis Armstrong's "Muggles", Cab Calloway's "That Funny Reefer Man", Fats Waller's "Viper's Drag").
Again, racism was part of the charge against marijuana, as newspapers in 1934 editorialized: "Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men's shadows and look at a white woman twice."
Two other fear-tactic rumors started to spread: one, that Mexicans, Blacks and other foreigners were snaring white children with marijuana; and two, the story of the "assassins." Early stories of Marco Polo had told of "hasheesh-eaters" or hashashin, from which derived the term "assassin." In the original stories, these professional killers were given large doses of hashish and brought to the ruler's garden (to give them a glimpse of the paradise that awaited them upon successful completion of their mission). Then, after the effects of the drug disappeared, the assassin would fulfill his ruler's wishes with cool, calculating loyalty.
By the 1930s, the story had changed. Dr. A. E. Fossier wrote in the 1931 New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal: "Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp." Within a very short time, marijuana started being linked to violent behavior.
Alcohol Prohibition and Federal Approaches to Drug Prohibition
During this time, the United States was also dealing with alcohol prohibition, which lasted from 1919 to 1933. Alcohol prohibition was extremely visible and debated at all levels, while drug laws were passed without the general public's knowledge. National alcohol prohibition happened through the mechanism of an amendment to the constitution.
Earlier (1914), the Harrison Act was passed, which provided federal tax penalties for opiates and cocaine.
The federal approach is important. It was considered at the time that the federal government did not have the constitutional power to outlaw alcohol or drugs. It is because of this that alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment.
At that time in our country's history, the judiciary regularly placed the tenth amendment in the path of congressional regulation of "local" affairs, and direct regulation of medical practice was considered beyond congressional power under the commerce clause (since then, both provisions have been weakened so far as to have almost no meaning).
Since drugs could not be outlawed at the federal level, the decision was made to use federal taxes as a way around the restriction. In the Harrison Act, legal uses of opiates and cocaine were taxed (supposedly as a revenue need by the federal government, which is the only way it would hold up in the courts), and those who didn't follow the law found themselves in trouble with the treasury department.
In 1930, a new division in the Treasury Department was established -- the Federal Bureau of Narcotics -- and Harry J. Anslinger was named director. This, if anything, marked the beginning of the all-out war against marijuana.
Harry J. Anslinger
Anslinger was an extremely ambitious man, and he recognized the Bureau of Narcotics as an amazing career opportunity -- a new government agency with the opportunity to define both the problem and the solution. He immediately realized that opiates and cocaine wouldn't be enough to help build his agency, so he latched on to marijuana and started to work on making it illegal at the federal level.
Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. He also promoted and frequently read from "Gore Files" -- wild reefer-madness-style exploitation tales of ax murderers on marijuana and sex and... Negroes. Here are some quotes that have been widely attributed to Anslinger and his Gore Files:
"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others."
"...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."
"Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death."
"Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."
"Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing"
"You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."
"Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind."
And he loved to pull out his own version of the "assassin" definition:
"In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins, whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason: the members were confirmed users of hashish, or marihuana, and it is from the Arabs' 'hashashin' that we have the English word 'assassin.'"
Yellow Journalism
Harry Anslinger got some additional help from William Randolf Hearst, owner of a huge chain of newspapers. Hearst had lots of reasons to help. First, he hated Mexicans. Second, he had invested heavily in the timber industry to support his newspaper chain and didn't want to see the development of hemp paper in competition. Third, he had lost 800,000 acres of timberland to Pancho Villa, so he hated Mexicans. Fourth, telling lurid lies about Mexicans (and the devil marijuana weed causing violence) sold newspapers, making him rich.
Some samples from the San Francisco Examiner:
"Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days -- Hashish goads users to bloodlust."
"By the tons it is coming into this country -- the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms.... Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him...."
And other nationwide columns...
"Users of marijuana become STIMULATED as they inhale the drug and are LIKELY TO DO ANYTHING. Most crimes of violence in this section, especially in country districts are laid to users of that drug."
"Was it marijuana, the new Mexican drug, that nerved the murderous arm of Clara Phillips when she hammered out her victim's life in Los Angeles?... THREE-FOURTHS OF THE CRIMES of violence in this country today are committed by DOPE SLAVES -- that is a matter of cold record."
Hearst and Anslinger were then supported by Dupont chemical company and various pharmaceutical companies in the effort to outlaw cannabis. Dupont had patented nylon, and wanted hemp removed as competition. The pharmaceutical companies could neither identify nor standardize cannabis dosages, and besides, with cannabis, folks could grow their own medicine and not have to purchase it from large companies.
This all set the stage for...
The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.
After two years of secret planning, Anslinger brought his plan to Congress -- complete with a scrapbook full of sensational Hearst editorials, stories of ax murderers who had supposedly smoked marijuana, and racial slurs.
It was a remarkably short set of hearings.
The one fly in Anslinger's ointment was the appearance by Dr. William C. Woodward, Legislative Council of the American Medical Association.
Woodward started by slamming Harry Anslinger and the Bureau of Narcotics for distorting earlier AMA statements that had nothing to do with marijuana and making them appear to be AMA endorsement for Anslinger's view.
He also reproached the legislature and the Bureau for using the term marijuana in the legislation and not publicizing it as a bill about cannabis or hemp. At this point, marijuana (or marihuana) was a sensationalist word used to refer to Mexicans smoking a drug and had not been connected in most people's minds to the existing cannabis/hemp plant. Thus, many who had legitimate reasons to oppose the bill weren't even aware of it.
Woodward went on to state that the AMA was opposed to the legislation and further questioned the approach of the hearings, coming close to outright accusation of misconduct by Anslinger and the committee:
"That there is a certain amount of narcotic addiction of an objectionable character no one will deny. The newspapers have called attention to it so prominently that there must be some grounds for [their] statements [even Woodward was partially taken in by Hearst's propaganda]. It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence. We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marihuana addiction. We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime.
But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marihuana habit. An informed inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point.
You have been told that school children are great users of marihuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children's Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit, among children.
Inquiry of the Children's Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and know nothing particularly of it.
Inquiry of the Office of Education--- and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among the school children of the country, if there is a prevalent habit--- indicates that they have had no occasion to investigate and know nothing of it.
Moreover, there is in the Treasury Department itself, the Public Health Service, with its Division of Mental Hygiene. The Division of Mental Hygiene was, in the first place, the Division of Narcotics. It was converted into the Division of Mental Hygiene, I think, about 1930. That particular Bureau has control at the present time of the narcotics farms that were created about 1929 or 1930 and came into operation a few years later. No one has been summoned from that Bureau to give evidence on that point.
Informal inquiry by me indicates that they have had no record of any marihuana of Cannabis addicts who have ever been committed to those farms.
The bureau of Public Health Service has also a division of pharmacology. If you desire evidence as to the pharmacology of Cannabis, that obviously is the place where you can get direct and primary evidence, rather than the indirect hearsay evidence."
Committee members then proceeded to attack Dr. Woodward, questioning his motives in opposing the legislation. Even the Chairman joined in:
The Chairman: If you want to advise us on legislation, you ought to come here with some constructive proposals, rather than criticism, rather than trying to throw obstacles in the way of something that the Federal Government is trying to do. It has not only an unselfish motive in this, but they have a serious responsibility.
Dr. Woodward: We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman, why this bill should have been prepared in secret for 2 years without any intimation, even, to the profession, that it was being prepared.
After some further bantering...
The Chairman: I would like to read a quotation from a recent editorial in the Washington Times:
The marihuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities.
The Nation is almost defenseless against it, having no Federal laws to cope with it and virtually no organized campaign for combating it.
The result is tragic.
School children are the prey of peddlers who infest school neighborhoods.
High school boys and girls buy the destructive weed without knowledge of its capacity of harm, and conscienceless dealers sell it with impunity.
This is a national problem, and it must have national attention.
The fatal marihuana cigarette must be recognized as a deadly drug, and American children must be protected against it.
That is a pretty severe indictment. They say it is a national question and that it requires effective legislation. Of course, in a general way, you have responded to all of these statements; but that indicates very clearly that it is an evil of such magnitude that it is recognized by the press of the country as such.
And that was basically it. Yellow journalism won over medical science.
The committee passed the legislation on. And on the floor of the house, the entire discussion was:
Member from upstate New York: "Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?"
Speaker Rayburn: "I don't know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it's a narcotic of some kind."
"Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?"
Member on the committee jumps up and says: "Their Doctor Wentworth[sic] came down here. They support this bill 100 percent."
And on the basis of that lie, on August 2, 1937, marijuana became illegal at the federal level.
The entire coverage in the New York Times: "President Roosevelt signed today a bill to curb traffic in the narcotic, marihuana, through heavy taxes on transactions."
Anslinger as precursor to the Drug Czars
Anslinger was essentially the first Drug Czar. Even though the term didn't exist until William Bennett's position as director of the White House Office of National Drug Policy, Anslinger acted in a similar fashion. In fact, there are some amazing parallels between Anslinger and the current Drug Czar John Walters. Both had kind of a carte blanche to go around demonizing drugs and drug users. Both had resources and a large public podium for their voice to be heard and to promote their personal agenda. Both lied constantly, often when it was unnecessary. Both were racists. Both had the ear of lawmakers, and both realized that they could persuade legislators and others based on lies, particularly if they could co-opt the media into squelching or downplaying any opposition views.
Anslinger even had the ability to circumvent the First Amendment. He banned the Canadian movie "Drug Addict," a 1946 documentary that realistically depicted the drug addicts and law enforcement efforts. He even tried to get Canada to ban the movie in their own country, or failing that, to prevent U.S. citizens from seeing the movie in Canada. Canada refused. (Today, Drug Czar John Walters is trying to bully Canada into keeping harsh marijuana laws.)
Anslinger had 37 years to solidify the propaganda and stifle opposition. The lies continued the entire time (although the stories would adjust -- the 21 year old Florida boy who killed his family of five got younger each time he told it). In 1961, he looked back at his efforts:
"Much of the most irrational juvenile violence and that has written a new chapter of shame and tragedy is traceable directly to this hemp intoxication. A gang of boys tear the clothes from two school girls and rape the screaming girls, one boy after the other. A sixteen-year-old kills his entire family of five in Florida, a man in Minnesota puts a bullet through the head of a stranger on the road; in Colorado husband tries to shoot his wife, kills her grandmother instead and then kills himself. Every one of these crimes had been proceeded [sic] by the smoking of one or more marijuana "reefers." As the marijuana situation grew worse, I knew action had to be taken to get the proper legislation passed. By 1937 under my direction, the Bureau launched two important steps First, a legislative plan to seek from Congress a new law that would place marijuana and its distribution directly under federal control. Second, on radio and at major forums, such that presented annually by the New York Herald Tribune, I told the story of this evil weed of the fields and river beds and roadsides. I wrote articles for magazines; our agents gave hundreds of lectures to parents, educators, social and civic leaders. In network broadcasts I reported on the growing list of crimes, including murder and rape. I described the nature of marijuana and its close kinship to hashish. I continued to hammer at the facts.
I believe we did a thorough job, for the public was alerted and the laws to protect them were passed, both nationally and at the state level. We also brought under control the wild growing marijuana in this country. Working with local authorities, we cleaned up hundreds of acres of marijuana and we uprooted plants sprouting along the roadsides."
After Anslinger
On a break from college in the 70s, I was visiting a church in rural Illinois. There in the literature racks in the back of the church was a lurid pamphlet about the evils of marijuana -- all the old reefer madness propaganda about how it caused insanity and murder. I approached the minister and said "You can't have this in your church. It's all lies, and the church shouldn't be about promoting lies." Fortunately, my dad believed me, and he had the material removed. He didn't even know how it got there. But without me speaking up, neither he nor the other members of the church had any reason NOT to believe what the pamphlet said. The propaganda machine had been that effective.
The narrative since then has been a continual litany of:
Politicians wanting to appear tough on crime and passing tougher penalties
Constant increases in spending on law enforcement and prisons
Racist application of drug laws
Taxpayer funded propaganda
Stifling of opposition speech
Political contributions from corporations that profit from marijuana being illegal (pharmaceuticals, alcohol, etc.)
... but that's another whole story.
This account only scratches the surface of the story. If you want to know more about the history of marijuana, Harry Anslinger, and the saga of criminalization in the United States and elsewhere, visit some of the excellent links below. (All data and quotes for this piece came from these sources as well).
The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School. A Speech to the California Judges Association 1995 annual conference.
THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT AND THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE: AN INQUIRY INTO THE LEGAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN MARIJUANA PROHIBITION by Richard J. Bonnie & Charles H. Whitebread, II. VIRGINIA LAW REVIEW. VOLUME 56 OCTOBER 1970 NUMBER 6
The Consumers Union Report - Licit and Illicit Drugs by Edward M. Brecher and the Editors of Consumer Reports Magazine
The History of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 By David F. Musto, M.D., New Haven, Conn. Originally published in Arch. Gen. Psychiat. Volume 26, February, 1972
The Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse I. Control of Marihuana, Alcohol and Tobacco. History of Marihuana Legislation
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The history of how the Marihuana Tax Act came to be the law of the land.
Marijuana - The First Twelve Thousand Years by Ernest L. Abel, 1980
Inside The LC: Part IV
http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr96.html
Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation
Part IV
May 19, 2008
Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation
Part IV
May 19, 2008
The bridge of the USS Bon Homme Richard, January 1964. Just months later, the guy on the right
would guide his ship into the Tonkin Gulf, and the young man on the left would begin a remarkable
transformation into a brooding rock god. The Bon Homme Richard, by the way, was launched on April 29,
1944, under the sponsorship of Catherine McCain, the grandmother of a certain presidential contender.
Until around 1913, Laurel Canyon remained an undeveloped (and unincorporated) slice of LA – a pristine wilderness area rich in native flora and fauna. That all began to change when Charles Spencer Mann and his partners began buying up land along what would become Laurel Canyon Boulevard, as well as up Lookout Mountain. A narrow road leading up to the crest of Lookout Mountain was carved out, and upon that crest was constructed a lavish 70-room inn with sweeping views of the city below and the Pacific Ocean beyond. The Lookout Inn featured a large ballroom, riding stables, tennis courts and a golf course, among other amenities. But the inn, alas, would only stand for a decade; in 1923, it burned down, as tends to happen rather frequently in Laurel Canyon.
In 1913, Mann began operating what was billed as the nation’s first trackless trolley, to ferry tourists and prospective buyers from Sunset Boulevard up to what would become the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Lookout Mountain Avenue. Around that same time, he built a massive tavern/roadhouse on that very same corner. Dubbed the Laurel Tavern, the structure boasted a 2,000+ square-foot formal dining room, guest rooms, and a bowling alley on the basement level. The Laurel Tavern, of course, would later be acquired by Tom Mix, after which it would be affectionately known as the Log Cabin.
Shortly after the Log Cabin was built, a department store mogul (or a wealthy furniture manufacturer; there is more than one version of the story, or perhaps the man owned more than one business) built an imposing, castle-like mansion across the road, at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and what would become Willow Glen Road. The home featured rather creepy towers and parapets, and the foundation is said to have been riddled with secret passageways, tunnels, and hidden chambers. Similarly, the grounds of the estate were (and still are) laced with trails leading to grottoes, elaborate stone structures, and hidden caves and tunnels.
Across Laurel Canyon Boulevard, the grounds of the Laurel Tavern/Log Cabin were also laced with odd caves and tunnels. As Michael Walker notes in Laurel Canyon, “Running up the hillside, behind the house, was a collection of man-made caves built out of stucco, with electric wiring and light bulbs inside.” According to various accounts, one secret tunnel running under what is now Laurel Canyon Boulevard connected the Log Cabin (or its guesthouse) to the Houdini estate. This claim is frequently denounced as an urban legend, but given that both properties are known to possess unusual, uhmm, geological features, it’s not hard to believe that the tunnel system on one property was connected at one time to the tunnel system on the other. The Tavern itself, as Gail Zappa would later describe it, was “huge and vault-like and cavernous.”
In 1913, Mann began operating what was billed as the nation’s first trackless trolley, to ferry tourists and prospective buyers from Sunset Boulevard up to what would become the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Lookout Mountain Avenue. Around that same time, he built a massive tavern/roadhouse on that very same corner. Dubbed the Laurel Tavern, the structure boasted a 2,000+ square-foot formal dining room, guest rooms, and a bowling alley on the basement level. The Laurel Tavern, of course, would later be acquired by Tom Mix, after which it would be affectionately known as the Log Cabin.
Shortly after the Log Cabin was built, a department store mogul (or a wealthy furniture manufacturer; there is more than one version of the story, or perhaps the man owned more than one business) built an imposing, castle-like mansion across the road, at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and what would become Willow Glen Road. The home featured rather creepy towers and parapets, and the foundation is said to have been riddled with secret passageways, tunnels, and hidden chambers. Similarly, the grounds of the estate were (and still are) laced with trails leading to grottoes, elaborate stone structures, and hidden caves and tunnels.
Across Laurel Canyon Boulevard, the grounds of the Laurel Tavern/Log Cabin were also laced with odd caves and tunnels. As Michael Walker notes in Laurel Canyon, “Running up the hillside, behind the house, was a collection of man-made caves built out of stucco, with electric wiring and light bulbs inside.” According to various accounts, one secret tunnel running under what is now Laurel Canyon Boulevard connected the Log Cabin (or its guesthouse) to the Houdini estate. This claim is frequently denounced as an urban legend, but given that both properties are known to possess unusual, uhmm, geological features, it’s not hard to believe that the tunnel system on one property was connected at one time to the tunnel system on the other. The Tavern itself, as Gail Zappa would later describe it, was “huge and vault-like and cavernous.”
Lookout Mountain InnWith these two rather unusual structures anchoring an otherwise undeveloped canyon, and the Lookout Inn sitting atop uninhabited Lookout Mountain, Mann set about marketing the canyon as a vacation and leisure destination. The land that he carved up into subdivisions with names like “Bungalow Land” and “Wonderland Park” was presented as the ideal location to build vacation homes. But the new inn and roadhouse, and the new parcels of land for sale, definitely weren’t for everyone. The roadhouse was essentially a country club, or what Jack Boulware of Mojo Magazine described as “a masculine retreat for wealthy men.” And Bungalow Land was openly advertised as “a high class restricted park for desirable people only.”
“Desirable people,” of course, tended to be wealthy people without a great deal of skin pigmentation.
As the website of the current Laurel Canyon Association notes, “restrictive covenants were attached to the new parcel deeds. These were thinly veiled attempts to limit ownership to white males of a certain class. While there are many references to the bigotry of the developers in our area, it would appear that some residents were also prone to bias and lawlessness. This article was published in a local paper in 1925:
Frank Sanceri, the man who was flogged by self-styled ‘white knights’ on Lookout Mountain in Hollywood several months ago, was found not guilty by a jury in Superior Judge Shea’s courtroom of having unlawfully attacked Astrea Jolley, aged 11.
“Wealthier residents were also attracted to Laurel Canyon. With the creation of the Hollywood film industry in 1910, the canyon attracted a host of ‘photoplayers,’ including Wally Reid, Tom Mix, Clara Bow, Richard Dix, Norman Kerry, Ramon Navarro, Harry Houdini and Bessie Love.”
The author of this little slice of Laurel Canyon history would clearly like us to believe that the “wealthier residents” were a group quite separate from the violent hooligans roaming the canyon. The history of such groups in Los Angeles, however, clearly suggests otherwise. Paul Young, for example, has written in L.A. Exposed of Los Angeles’ early “vigilance committees, which stepped in to take care of outlaws on their own, often with the complete absolution of the mayor himself. Judge Lynch, for example, formed the Los Angeles Rangers in 1854 with some of the city’s top judges, lawyers, and businessmen including tycoon Phineas Banning of the Banning Railroad. And there was the Los Angeles Home Guard, another bloodthirsty paramilitary organization, made up of notable citizens, and the much-feared El Monte Rangers, a group of Texas wranglers that specialized in killing Mexicans. As one would expect, there was no regard for the victim’s rights in such kangaroo courts. Victims were often dragged from their homes, jail cells, even churches, and beaten, horse-whipped, tortured, mutilated, or castrated before being strung up on the nearest tree.”
And that, dear readers, is how we do things out here on the ‘Left’ Coast.
“Desirable people,” of course, tended to be wealthy people without a great deal of skin pigmentation.
As the website of the current Laurel Canyon Association notes, “restrictive covenants were attached to the new parcel deeds. These were thinly veiled attempts to limit ownership to white males of a certain class. While there are many references to the bigotry of the developers in our area, it would appear that some residents were also prone to bias and lawlessness. This article was published in a local paper in 1925:
Frank Sanceri, the man who was flogged by self-styled ‘white knights’ on Lookout Mountain in Hollywood several months ago, was found not guilty by a jury in Superior Judge Shea’s courtroom of having unlawfully attacked Astrea Jolley, aged 11.
“Wealthier residents were also attracted to Laurel Canyon. With the creation of the Hollywood film industry in 1910, the canyon attracted a host of ‘photoplayers,’ including Wally Reid, Tom Mix, Clara Bow, Richard Dix, Norman Kerry, Ramon Navarro, Harry Houdini and Bessie Love.”
The author of this little slice of Laurel Canyon history would clearly like us to believe that the “wealthier residents” were a group quite separate from the violent hooligans roaming the canyon. The history of such groups in Los Angeles, however, clearly suggests otherwise. Paul Young, for example, has written in L.A. Exposed of Los Angeles’ early “vigilance committees, which stepped in to take care of outlaws on their own, often with the complete absolution of the mayor himself. Judge Lynch, for example, formed the Los Angeles Rangers in 1854 with some of the city’s top judges, lawyers, and businessmen including tycoon Phineas Banning of the Banning Railroad. And there was the Los Angeles Home Guard, another bloodthirsty paramilitary organization, made up of notable citizens, and the much-feared El Monte Rangers, a group of Texas wranglers that specialized in killing Mexicans. As one would expect, there was no regard for the victim’s rights in such kangaroo courts. Victims were often dragged from their homes, jail cells, even churches, and beaten, horse-whipped, tortured, mutilated, or castrated before being strung up on the nearest tree.”
And that, dear readers, is how we do things out here on the ‘Left’ Coast.
Vintage Laurel Canyon Map
Before moving on, I need to mention here that, of the eight celebrity residents of Laurel Canyon listed by the Association, fully half died under questionable circumstances, and three of the four did so on days with occult significance. While Bessie Love, Norman Kerry, Richard Dix and Clara Bow all lived long and healthy lives, Ramon Navarro, as we have already seen, was ritually murdered in his home on Laurel Canyon Boulevard on the eve of Halloween, 1968. Nearly a half-century earlier, on January 18, 1923, matinee idol Wallace Reid was found dead in a padded cell at the mental institution to which he had been confined. Just thirty-one years old, Reid’s death was attributed to morphine addiction, though it was never explained how he would have fed that habit while confined to a cell in a mental hospital.
Tom Mix died on a lonely stretch of Arizona highway in the proverbial single-car crash on October 12, 1940 (the birthday of notorious occultist Aleister Crowley), when he quite unexpectedly encountered some temporary construction barricades that had been set up alongside a reportedly washed-out bridge. Although he wasn’t speeding (by most accounts), Mix was nevertheless allegedly unable to stop in time and veered off the road, while a crew of what were described as “workmen” reportedly looked on. It wasn’t the impact that killed Mix though, but rather a severe blow to the back of the head and neck, purportedly delivered during the crash by an aluminum case he had been carrying in the back seat of his car. There is now a roadside marker at the spot where Mix died. If you should happen to stop by to have a look, you might as well pay a visit to the Florence Military Reservation as well, since it’s just a stone’s throw away.
Harry Houdini died on Halloween day, 1926, purportedly of an attack of appendicitis precipitated by a blow to the stomach. The problem with that story, however, is that medical science now recognizes it to be an impossibility. According to a recent book about the famed illusionist (The Secret Life of Houdini, by William Kalush and Larry Sloman), Houdini was likely murdered by poisoning. Questions have been raised, the book notes, by the curious lack of an autopsy, an “experimental serum” that Houdini was apparently given in the hospital, and indications that his wife, Bess, may have been poisoned as well (though she survived). On March 23, 2007, an exhumation of Houdini’s remains was formally requested by his surviving family members. It is unclear at this time when, or even if, that will happen.
Houdini’s death, on October 31, 1926, came exactly eight years after the first death to occur in what would become known as the “Houdini house.” In 1918, not long after the home was built, a lover’s quarrel arose on one of the home’s balconies during a Halloween/birthday party. The gay lover of the original owner’s son reportedly ended up splattered on the ground below. According to legend, the businessman managed to get his son off, but only after paying off everyone he could find to pay off, including the trial judge. The aftermath of the party proved to be financially devastating for the family, and the home was apparently put up for sale.
Not long after that, as fate would have it, Harry Houdini was looking for a place to stay in the Hollywood area, as he had decided to break into the motion picture business. He found the perfect home in Laurel Canyon – the home that would, forever after, carry his name. By most accounts, he lived there from about 1919 through the early 1920s, during a brief movie career in which he starred in a handful of Hollywood films. A key scene in one of those films, “The Grim Game,” was reportedly shot at the top of Lookout Mountain, near where the Lookout Inn then stood.
Tom Mix died on a lonely stretch of Arizona highway in the proverbial single-car crash on October 12, 1940 (the birthday of notorious occultist Aleister Crowley), when he quite unexpectedly encountered some temporary construction barricades that had been set up alongside a reportedly washed-out bridge. Although he wasn’t speeding (by most accounts), Mix was nevertheless allegedly unable to stop in time and veered off the road, while a crew of what were described as “workmen” reportedly looked on. It wasn’t the impact that killed Mix though, but rather a severe blow to the back of the head and neck, purportedly delivered during the crash by an aluminum case he had been carrying in the back seat of his car. There is now a roadside marker at the spot where Mix died. If you should happen to stop by to have a look, you might as well pay a visit to the Florence Military Reservation as well, since it’s just a stone’s throw away.
Harry Houdini died on Halloween day, 1926, purportedly of an attack of appendicitis precipitated by a blow to the stomach. The problem with that story, however, is that medical science now recognizes it to be an impossibility. According to a recent book about the famed illusionist (The Secret Life of Houdini, by William Kalush and Larry Sloman), Houdini was likely murdered by poisoning. Questions have been raised, the book notes, by the curious lack of an autopsy, an “experimental serum” that Houdini was apparently given in the hospital, and indications that his wife, Bess, may have been poisoned as well (though she survived). On March 23, 2007, an exhumation of Houdini’s remains was formally requested by his surviving family members. It is unclear at this time when, or even if, that will happen.
Houdini’s death, on October 31, 1926, came exactly eight years after the first death to occur in what would become known as the “Houdini house.” In 1918, not long after the home was built, a lover’s quarrel arose on one of the home’s balconies during a Halloween/birthday party. The gay lover of the original owner’s son reportedly ended up splattered on the ground below. According to legend, the businessman managed to get his son off, but only after paying off everyone he could find to pay off, including the trial judge. The aftermath of the party proved to be financially devastating for the family, and the home was apparently put up for sale.
Not long after that, as fate would have it, Harry Houdini was looking for a place to stay in the Hollywood area, as he had decided to break into the motion picture business. He found the perfect home in Laurel Canyon – the home that would, forever after, carry his name. By most accounts, he lived there from about 1919 through the early 1920s, during a brief movie career in which he starred in a handful of Hollywood films. A key scene in one of those films, “The Grim Game,” was reportedly shot at the top of Lookout Mountain, near where the Lookout Inn then stood.
Ruins of the Harry Houdini houseOn October 31, 1959, precisely thirty-three years after Houdini’s death, and forty-one years after the unnamed party guest’s death, the distinctive mansion on the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Willow Glen Road burned to the ground in a fire of mysterious origin (the ruins of the estate remain today, undisturbed for nearly fifty years). On October 31, 1981, exactly twenty-two years after the fire across the road, the legendary Log Cabin on the other side of Laurel Canyon Boulevard also burned to the ground, in yet another fire of mysterious origin (some reports speculated that it was a drug lab explosion). And twenty-five years after that, on October 31, 2006, The Secret Life of Houdini was published, challenging the conventional wisdom on Houdini’s death.
Far more compelling than the revelations about Houdini’s death, however, was something else about the illusionist that the book revealed for the first time: Harry Houdini was a spook working for both the U.S. Secret Service and Scotland Yard. And his traveling escape act, as it turns out, was pretty much a cover for intelligence activities. Just as, as I think I wrote in a previous newsletter, John Wilkes Booth used his career as a traveling stage performer as a cover for intelligence operations. And just as – sorry to have to break it to you – many of your favorite movie and television actors and musical artists continue in that tradition today.
The book, of course, doesn’t make such reckless allegations about any performers other than Houdini. I added all of that. What the book does do, however, is compellingly document that Houdini was, in fact, an intelligence asset who used his magic act as a cover. Not only did the authors obtain corroborating documentation from Scotland Yard, they also received an endorsement of their claim from no less an authority than John McLaughlin, former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (who knew it was that easy? – maybe I should give John a call and run some of my theories by him).
It appears then that, of the eight celebrity residents of Laurel Canyon listed on the Laurel Canyon Association website, at least two (Novarro and Houdini), and possibly as many as four, were murdered. That seemed like a rather high homicide rate to me, so I looked up a recent study on the Internet and found that, on average, a white person in this country has about a 1-in-345 chance of being murdered. Non-white persons, of course, have a far greater chance of being murdered, but nowhere near the 1-in-4 to 1-in-2 odds that a white celebrity living in Laurel Canyon faces.
Statistically speaking, if you were a famous actor in the 1920s, you would have been better off playing a round of Russian Roulette than living in Laurel Canyon.
Anyway … two ambitious projects in the 1940s brought significant changes to Laurel Canyon. First, Laurel Canyon Boulevard was extended into the San Fernando Valley, providing access to the canyon from both the north and the south. The widened boulevard was now a winding thoroughfare, providing direct access to the Westside from the Valley. Traffic, needless to say, increased considerably, which probably worked out well for the planners of the other project, because it meant that the increased traffic brought about by that other project probably wasn’t noticed at all. And that’s good, you see, because the other project was a secret one, so if I tell you about it, you have to promise not to tell anyone else.
What would become known as Lookout Mountain Laboratory was originally envisioned as an air defense center. Built in 1941 and nestled in two-and-a-half secluded acres off what is now Wonderland Park Avenue, the installation was hidden from view and surrounded by an electrified fence. By 1947, the facility featured a fully operational movie studio. In fact, it is claimed that it was perhaps the world’s only completely self-contained movie studio. With 100,000 square feet of floor space, the covert studio included sound stages, screening rooms, film processing labs, editing facilities, an animation department, and seventeen climate-controlled film vaults. It also had underground parking, a helicopter pad and a bomb shelter.
Over its lifetime, the studio produced some 19,000 classified motion pictures – more than all the Hollywood studios combined (which I guess makes Laurel Canyon the real ‘motion picture capital of the world’). Officially, the facility was run by the U.S. Air Force and did nothing more nefarious than process AEC footage of atomic and nuclear bomb tests. The studio, however, was clearly equipped to do far more than just process film. There are indications that Lookout Mountain Laboratory had an advanced research and development department that was on the cutting edge of new film technologies. Such technological advances as 3-D effects were apparently first developed at the Laurel Canyon site. And Hollywood luminaries like John Ford, Jimmy Stewart, Howard Hawks, Ronald Reagan, Bing Crosby, Walt Disney and Marilyn Monroe were given clearance to work at the facility on undisclosed projects. There is no indication that any of them ever spoke of their work at the clandestine studio.
Lookout Mountain Laboratory
Screen capture from a Lookout Mountain Laboratory propaganda filmThe facility retained as many as 250 producers, directors, technicians, editors, animators, etc., both civilian and military, all with top security clearances – and all reporting to work in a secluded corner of Laurel Canyon. Accounts vary as to when the facility ceased operations. Some claim it was in 1969, while others say the installation remained in operation longer. In any event, by all accounts the secret bunker had been up and running for more than twenty years before Laurel Canyon’s rebellious teen years, and it remained operational for the most turbulent of those years.
The existence of the facility remained unknown to the general public until the early 1990s, though it had long been rumored that the CIA operated a secret movie studio somewhere in or near Hollywood. Filmmaker Peter Kuran was the first to learn of its existence, through classified documents he obtained while researching his 1995 documentary, “Trinity and Beyond.” And yet even today, some 15 years after its public disclosure, one would have trouble finding even a single mention of this secret military/intelligence facility anywhere in the ‘conspiracy’ literature.
I think we can all agree though that there is nothing the least bit suspicious about any of that, so let’s move on.
In the 1950s, as Barney Hoskyns has written in Hotel California, Laurel Canyon was home to all “the hippest young actors,” including, according to Hoskyns, Marlon Brando, James Dean, James Coburn and Dennis Hopper. In addition to Hopper and Dean, yet another of the young stars of “Rebel Without a Cause” found a home in the canyon as well: Natalie Wood. In fact, Natalie lived in the very home that Cass Elliot would later turn into a Laurel Canyon party house. A fourth young star of the film, Sal Mineo, lived at the mouth of the canyon, and the fifth member of the “Rebel Without a Cause” posse, Nick Adams, lived just a mile or so away (as the crow flies) in neighboring Coldwater Canyon.
With the exception of Hopper, all of their lives were tragically cut short, proving once again that Laurel Canyon can be a very dangerous place to live.
First there was that great American icon, James Dean, who ostensibly died in a near head-on collision on September 30, 1955, at the tender age of twenty-four. Next to fall was Nick Adams, who had known Dean before either were stars, when both were working the mean streets of Hollywood as young male prostitutes. Adams died on February 6, 1968, at the age of thirty-six, in his home at 2126 El Roble Lane in Coldwater Canyon. His official cause of death was listed as suicide, of course, but as actor Forrest Tucker has noted, “All of Hollywood knows Nick Adams was knocked off.” Nick’s relatives reportedly received numerous hang-up calls on the day of his death, and his tape recorder, journals and various other papers and personal effects were conspicuously missing from his home. His lifeless body, sitting upright in a chair, was discovered by his attorney, Ervin “Tip” Roeder. On June 10, 1981, Roeder and his wife, actress Jenny Maxwell (best known for being spanked by Elvis in “Blue Hawaii”), were gunned down outside their Beverly Hills condo.
Next in line was Sal Mineo, whose murder on February 12, 1976 we have already covered. Last to fall was Natalie Wood, who died on November 29, 1981 in a drowning incident that has never been adequately explained. Before being found floating in the waters off Catalina Island, Wood had been aboard a private yacht in the company of actors Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken. She was forty-three when she was laid to rest.
The list of famous former residents of the canyon also includes the names of W.C. Fields, Mary Astor, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Errol Flynn, Orson Welles, and Robert Mitchum, who was infamously arrested on marijuana charges in 1948 at 8334 Ridpath Drive, the same street that would later be home to rockers Roger McGuinn, Don Henley and Glen Frey, as well as to Paul Rothchild, producer of both The Doors and Love. Mitchum’s arrest, by the way, appears to have been a thoroughly staged affair that cemented his ‘Hollywood bad boy’ image and gave his career quite a boost, but I guess that’s not really relevant here.
Another famous resident of Laurel Canyon, apparently in the 1940s, was science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein, who reportedly resided at 8775 Lookout Mountain Avenue. Like so many other characters in this story, Heinlein was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and he had served as a naval officer. After that, he embarked on a successful writing career. And despite the fact that he was, by any objective measure, a rabid right-winger, his work was warmly embraced by the Flower Power generation.
Heinlein’s best-known work is the novel Stranger in a Strange Land, which many in the Laurel Canyon scene found to be hugely influential. Ed Sanders has written, in The Family, that the book “helped provide a theoretical basis for Manson’s family.” Charlie frequently used Strange Land terminology when addressing his flock and he named his first Family-born son Valentine Michael Manson, in honor of the book’s lead character.
David Crosby was a big Heinlein fan as well. In his autobiography, he references Heinlein on more than one occasion, and proclaims that, “In a society where people can go armed, it makes everybody a little more polite, as Robert A. Heinlein says in his books.” Frank Zappa was also a member of the Robert Heinlein fan club. Barry Miles notes in his biography of the rock icon that his home contained “a copy of Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince and other essential sixties reading, including Robert Heinlein’s sci-fi classic, Stranger in a Strange Land, from which Zappa borrowed the word ‘discorporate’ for [the song] ‘Absolutely Free.’”
And that, fearless readers, more or less brings us to the Laurel Canyon era that we are primarily concerned with, the wild and wooly 1960s, which we will take a closer look at in the next chapter of this saga.
So what, if anything, have we learned today? We have learned that murder and random acts of violence have been a part of the culture of the canyon since the earliest days of its development. We have also learned that spooks posing as entertainers have likewise been a part of the canyon scene since the earliest days. And, finally, we have learned that spooks who didn’t even bother to pose as entertainers were streaming into the canyon to report to work at Lookout Mountain Laboratory for at least twenty years before the first rock star set foot there.
One final note is in order here: we are supposed to believe that all of these musical icons just sort of spontaneously came together in Laurel Canyon (one finds the words “serendipitous” sprinkled freely throughout the literature). But how many peculiar coincidences do we have to overlook in order to believe that this was just a chance gathering?
Let’s suppose, hypothetically speaking, that you are the young man in the photo at the top of this post, and you have recently arrived in Laurel Canyon and now find yourself fronting a band that is on the verge of taking the country by storm. Just a mile or so down Laurel Canyon Boulevard from you lives another guy who also recently arrived in Laurel Canyon, and who also happens to front a band on the verge of stardom. He happens to be married to a girl that you attended kindergarten with, and her dad, like yours, was involved in atomic weapons research and testing (Admiral George Morrison for a time did classified work at White Sands). Her husband’s dad, meanwhile, is involved in another type of WMD research: chemical warfare.
This other guy’s business partner/manager is a spooky ex-Marine who just happens to have a cousin who, bizarrely enough, also fronts a rock band on the verge of superstardom. And this third rock-star-on-the-rise also happens to live in Laurel Canyon, just a mile or two from your house. Just down a couple of other streets, also within walking distance of your home, live two other kids who – wouldn’t you know it? – also happen to front a new rock band. These two kids happened to attend the same Alexandria, Virginia high school that you attended, and one of them also attended Annapolis, just like your dad did, and just like your kindergarten friend’s dad did.
Though almost all of you hail from (or spent a substantial portion of your childhood in) the Washington, D.C. area, you now find yourselves on the opposite side of the country, in an isolated canyon high above the city of Los Angeles, where you are all clustered around a secret military installation. Given his background in research on atomic weapons, your father is probably familiar to some extent with the existence and operations of Lookout Mountain Laboratory, as is the father of your kindergarten friend, and probably the fathers of a few other Laurel Canyon figures as well.
My question here, I guess, is this: what do you suppose the odds are that all of that just came together purely by chance?
To Be Continued …
The existence of the facility remained unknown to the general public until the early 1990s, though it had long been rumored that the CIA operated a secret movie studio somewhere in or near Hollywood. Filmmaker Peter Kuran was the first to learn of its existence, through classified documents he obtained while researching his 1995 documentary, “Trinity and Beyond.” And yet even today, some 15 years after its public disclosure, one would have trouble finding even a single mention of this secret military/intelligence facility anywhere in the ‘conspiracy’ literature.
I think we can all agree though that there is nothing the least bit suspicious about any of that, so let’s move on.
In the 1950s, as Barney Hoskyns has written in Hotel California, Laurel Canyon was home to all “the hippest young actors,” including, according to Hoskyns, Marlon Brando, James Dean, James Coburn and Dennis Hopper. In addition to Hopper and Dean, yet another of the young stars of “Rebel Without a Cause” found a home in the canyon as well: Natalie Wood. In fact, Natalie lived in the very home that Cass Elliot would later turn into a Laurel Canyon party house. A fourth young star of the film, Sal Mineo, lived at the mouth of the canyon, and the fifth member of the “Rebel Without a Cause” posse, Nick Adams, lived just a mile or so away (as the crow flies) in neighboring Coldwater Canyon.
With the exception of Hopper, all of their lives were tragically cut short, proving once again that Laurel Canyon can be a very dangerous place to live.
First there was that great American icon, James Dean, who ostensibly died in a near head-on collision on September 30, 1955, at the tender age of twenty-four. Next to fall was Nick Adams, who had known Dean before either were stars, when both were working the mean streets of Hollywood as young male prostitutes. Adams died on February 6, 1968, at the age of thirty-six, in his home at 2126 El Roble Lane in Coldwater Canyon. His official cause of death was listed as suicide, of course, but as actor Forrest Tucker has noted, “All of Hollywood knows Nick Adams was knocked off.” Nick’s relatives reportedly received numerous hang-up calls on the day of his death, and his tape recorder, journals and various other papers and personal effects were conspicuously missing from his home. His lifeless body, sitting upright in a chair, was discovered by his attorney, Ervin “Tip” Roeder. On June 10, 1981, Roeder and his wife, actress Jenny Maxwell (best known for being spanked by Elvis in “Blue Hawaii”), were gunned down outside their Beverly Hills condo.
Next in line was Sal Mineo, whose murder on February 12, 1976 we have already covered. Last to fall was Natalie Wood, who died on November 29, 1981 in a drowning incident that has never been adequately explained. Before being found floating in the waters off Catalina Island, Wood had been aboard a private yacht in the company of actors Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken. She was forty-three when she was laid to rest.
The list of famous former residents of the canyon also includes the names of W.C. Fields, Mary Astor, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Errol Flynn, Orson Welles, and Robert Mitchum, who was infamously arrested on marijuana charges in 1948 at 8334 Ridpath Drive, the same street that would later be home to rockers Roger McGuinn, Don Henley and Glen Frey, as well as to Paul Rothchild, producer of both The Doors and Love. Mitchum’s arrest, by the way, appears to have been a thoroughly staged affair that cemented his ‘Hollywood bad boy’ image and gave his career quite a boost, but I guess that’s not really relevant here.
Another famous resident of Laurel Canyon, apparently in the 1940s, was science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein, who reportedly resided at 8775 Lookout Mountain Avenue. Like so many other characters in this story, Heinlein was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and he had served as a naval officer. After that, he embarked on a successful writing career. And despite the fact that he was, by any objective measure, a rabid right-winger, his work was warmly embraced by the Flower Power generation.
Heinlein’s best-known work is the novel Stranger in a Strange Land, which many in the Laurel Canyon scene found to be hugely influential. Ed Sanders has written, in The Family, that the book “helped provide a theoretical basis for Manson’s family.” Charlie frequently used Strange Land terminology when addressing his flock and he named his first Family-born son Valentine Michael Manson, in honor of the book’s lead character.
David Crosby was a big Heinlein fan as well. In his autobiography, he references Heinlein on more than one occasion, and proclaims that, “In a society where people can go armed, it makes everybody a little more polite, as Robert A. Heinlein says in his books.” Frank Zappa was also a member of the Robert Heinlein fan club. Barry Miles notes in his biography of the rock icon that his home contained “a copy of Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince and other essential sixties reading, including Robert Heinlein’s sci-fi classic, Stranger in a Strange Land, from which Zappa borrowed the word ‘discorporate’ for [the song] ‘Absolutely Free.’”
And that, fearless readers, more or less brings us to the Laurel Canyon era that we are primarily concerned with, the wild and wooly 1960s, which we will take a closer look at in the next chapter of this saga.
So what, if anything, have we learned today? We have learned that murder and random acts of violence have been a part of the culture of the canyon since the earliest days of its development. We have also learned that spooks posing as entertainers have likewise been a part of the canyon scene since the earliest days. And, finally, we have learned that spooks who didn’t even bother to pose as entertainers were streaming into the canyon to report to work at Lookout Mountain Laboratory for at least twenty years before the first rock star set foot there.
One final note is in order here: we are supposed to believe that all of these musical icons just sort of spontaneously came together in Laurel Canyon (one finds the words “serendipitous” sprinkled freely throughout the literature). But how many peculiar coincidences do we have to overlook in order to believe that this was just a chance gathering?
Let’s suppose, hypothetically speaking, that you are the young man in the photo at the top of this post, and you have recently arrived in Laurel Canyon and now find yourself fronting a band that is on the verge of taking the country by storm. Just a mile or so down Laurel Canyon Boulevard from you lives another guy who also recently arrived in Laurel Canyon, and who also happens to front a band on the verge of stardom. He happens to be married to a girl that you attended kindergarten with, and her dad, like yours, was involved in atomic weapons research and testing (Admiral George Morrison for a time did classified work at White Sands). Her husband’s dad, meanwhile, is involved in another type of WMD research: chemical warfare.
This other guy’s business partner/manager is a spooky ex-Marine who just happens to have a cousin who, bizarrely enough, also fronts a rock band on the verge of superstardom. And this third rock-star-on-the-rise also happens to live in Laurel Canyon, just a mile or two from your house. Just down a couple of other streets, also within walking distance of your home, live two other kids who – wouldn’t you know it? – also happen to front a new rock band. These two kids happened to attend the same Alexandria, Virginia high school that you attended, and one of them also attended Annapolis, just like your dad did, and just like your kindergarten friend’s dad did.
Though almost all of you hail from (or spent a substantial portion of your childhood in) the Washington, D.C. area, you now find yourselves on the opposite side of the country, in an isolated canyon high above the city of Los Angeles, where you are all clustered around a secret military installation. Given his background in research on atomic weapons, your father is probably familiar to some extent with the existence and operations of Lookout Mountain Laboratory, as is the father of your kindergarten friend, and probably the fathers of a few other Laurel Canyon figures as well.
My question here, I guess, is this: what do you suppose the odds are that all of that just came together purely by chance?
To Be Continued …
The Top 43 Who Helped Make Bush The Worst
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/17/bush-43-worst/
The Top 43 Appointees Who Helped Make Bush The Worst President Ever
Next week, “change is coming to America,” as President George W. Bush wraps up his tenure as one of the worst American presidents ever. He wasn’t able to accomplish such an ignominious feat all by himself, however; he had a great deal of help along the way. The ThinkProgress team heralds the conclusion of the Bush 43 presidency by bringing you our list of the top 43 worst Bush appointees. Did we miss anyone? Who should have been ranked higher? Let us know what you think.
1. Dick Cheney — The worst Dick since Nixon. The man who shot his friend while in office. The “most powerful and controversial vice president.” Until he got the job, people used to actually think it was a bad thing that the vice presidency has historically been a do-nothing position. Asked by PBS’s Jim Lehrer about why people hate him, Cheney rejected the premise, saying, “I don’t buy that.” His top placement in our survey says otherwise.
2. Karl Rove — There wasn’t a scandal in the Bush administration that Rove didn’t have his fingerprints all over — see Plame, Iraq war deception, Gov. Don Siegelman, U.S. Attorney firings, missing e-mails, and more. As senior political adviser and later as deputy chief of staff, “The Architect” was responsible for politicizing nearly every agency of the federal government.
3. Alberto Gonzales — Fundamentally dishonest and woefully incompetent, Gonzales was involved in a series of scandals, first as White House counsel and then as Attorney General. Some of the most notable: pressuring a “feeble” and “barely articulate” Attorney General Ashcroft at his hospital bedside to sign off on Bush’s illegal wiretapping program; approving waterboarding and other torture techniques to be used against detainees; and leading the firing of U.S. Attorneys deemed not sufficiently loyal to Bush.
4. Donald Rumsfeld — After winning praise for leading the U.S. effort in ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001, the former Defense Secretary strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq and then grossly misjudged and mishandled its aftermath. Rumsfeld is also responsible for authorizing the use of torture against terror detainees in U.S. custody; according to a bipartisan Senate report, Rumsfeld “conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.”
5. Michael Brown — This former commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association was appointed by Bush to head FEMA in 2003. After Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, Brownie promptly did a “heck of a job” bungling the government’s relief efforts, and was sent back to Washington a few days later. He was forced to resign shortly thereafter.
6. Paul Wolfowitz — As Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2005, Wolfowitz was one of the primary architects of the Iraq war, arguing for the invasion as early as Sept. 15, 2001. Testifying before Congress in February 2003, Wolfowitz said that it was “hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself.” Wolfowitz eventually admitted that “for bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction,” as a justification for war, “because it was the one reason everyone [in the administration] could agree on.”
7. David Addington — “Cheney’s Cheney” was the “most powerful man you’ve never heard of.” As the leader of Bush’s legal team and Cheney’s chief of staff, Addington was the biggest proponent of some of Bush’s most notorious legal abuses, such as torture and warrantless surveillance, and is a loyal follower of the so-called unitary executive theory.
8. Stephen Johnson — The “Alberto Gonzales of the environment,” EPA Administrator Johnson subverted the agency’s mission at the behest of the White House and corporate interests, suppressing staff recommendations on pesticides, mercury, lead paint, smog, and global warming.
9. Douglas Feith — Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from 2001-2005, Feith headed up the notorious Office of Special Plans, an in-house Pentagon intelligence shop devised by Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz to produce intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. A subsequent investigation by the Pentagon’s Inspector General found the OSP’s work produced “conclusions that were not fully supported by the available intelligence.”
10. John Bolton — As Undersecretary of State, Bolton offered a strong voice in favor of invading Iraq and pushed for the U.S. to disengage from the International Criminal Court and key international arms control agreements. A recess appointment landed Bolton the job of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, despite his stringent animosity toward the world body. Today, he spends his time calling for war with Iran.
11. John Yoo — As a lawyer for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Yoo authored a series of legal memosdetainee to be buried alive.
12. Ari Fleischer — Bush’s first press secretary helped redefine the role as that of liar-in-chief rather than informer of the public, earning a reputation as “the world’s most dishonest flack.” Whereas his successors sometimes looked uncomfortable lying, Fleischer was having fun, spinning a cowed and gullible press corps through two massive tax cuts and the initiation of a war undertaken on false pretenses.
13. John Ashcroft — In 2003, as Bush’s first Attorney General, Ashcroft approved waterboarding and other torture techniques on detainees. Ashcroft’s nomination was controversial, as he had a history of opposing school desegregation. The chief architect of the invasive Patriot Act, Ashcroft maintains to this day that Bush is “among the most respectful of all leaders ever” of civil liberties.
14. Henry Paulson — Even as the financial system was crashing down around him, Treasury Secretary Paulson insisted for months that the banking system was “safe and sound.” Once he decided that the economy needed saving, Paulson requested nearly unfettered authority to send billions of taxpayer dollars to banks with no oversight.
15. L. Paul Bremer — This Presidential Medal of Freedom winner took over the Coalition Provisional Authority in May 2003. Under his mismanagement, the insurgency exploded in Iraq. Bremer claimed he had all the troops he needed to secure the country, overestimated the strength of the new U.S.-trained Iraqi army, disbanded the Iraqi army leaving thousands of Iraqi soldiers with no income and no occupation, and enacted a de-Baathification law that barred many experienced Iraqis from government positions.
16. Bradley Schlozman — As a recent DOJ Inspector General report demonstrates, Schlozman was a central figure in Bush’s politicization of the Justice Department. Violating civil service laws, Schlozman used political and ideological considerations to ensure that only “right-thinking Americans” received jobs. He eventually lied to Congress about his efforts.
17. J. Steven Griles — A former energy lobbyist and no. 2 official in the Interior Department, Griles went to jail for lying to Congress about illegal favors he did for corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Griles also abused his position “to unlock nearly every legal barrier to exploitation” of our nation’s oil and mineral reserves. Before his conviction, Griles left the White House to become a lobbyist for ConocoPhillips.
18. Condoleezza Rice — As Bush’s national security adviser, Rice was another strong advocate for invading Iraq, once famously warning that the U.S. should attack Iraq and not wait for solid proof of its WMD because “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Rice also ignored an urgent warning from the CIA before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that a strike inside the U.S. was imminent.
19. Scooter Libby — Cheney’s former chief of staff was a key player in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame as part of the Bush administration’s quest to punish Plame’s husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for publishing an op-ed debunking one of the White House’s main justifications for invading Iraq. Libby was ultimately convicted of perjury and obstructing justice in a federal investigation into Plame’s outing but later had his 30-month prison sentence commuted by Bush.
20. Monica Goodling — Goodling was the most notorious graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University during her tenure in the Justice Department. As the White House liaison at the DOJ, she based the department’s hiring of candidates on their sexual preference, GOP loyalty, and adherence to conservative ideology.
21. Alphonso Jackson — As Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Jackson let the U.S. housing market crumble while he was busy giving lucrative contracts to his golfing buddies, retaliating against Bush critics, and erecting giant photo homages to himself.
22. Michael Hayden — As director of the National Security Agency, Hayden ran Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program and misled Congress about the program’s legality. After moving to the CIA, he dismissed the destruction of evidence implicating the CIA in torture as “in line with the law.”
23. Lurita Doan — The former head of the General Services Administration (GSA)who doled out a no-bid contract to a friend, Doan famously hosted a meeting of White House political operatives where she asked how GSA employees could “help ‘our candidates’ in the next election.” After the Office of Special Counsel called for her firing, she was forced to resign
24. Gale Norton — A former industry lobbyist and Bush’s first Secretary of the Interior, Norton pushed a radical ideological agenda “through regulatory rollbacks, suppression of science, preferential treatment, and collusion with industry” — including doctoring scientific findings on the impacts of oil drilling on caribou. After resigning under the cloud of ties to Jack Abramoff, she joined Shell Oil.
25. Lester Crawford — After promising to act on the morning-after contraceptive pill during his confirmation hearings, the former FDA Commissioner “indefinitely postponed nonprescription sales of emergency contraception over the objections of staff scientists who had declared the pill safe.” Crawford resigned after just two months on the job and later pleaded guilty “to charges that he hid his ownership of stock in food and drug companies that his agency regulated.”
26. Harriet Miers — Well-known for being Bush’s failed Supreme Court nominee, Miers also thought it was “important” to her as White House Counsel that Rove protege Tim Griffin was installed as a U.S. Attorney, making her a central figure in the U.S. Attorney scandal. She is said to have called Bush “the most brilliant man she had ever met.”
27. Hans Von Spakovsky — Originally a political appointee in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, Spakovsky “injected partisan political factors into decision-making” and used every opportunity “to make it difficult for voters — poor, minority and Democratic — to go to the polls.” In 2008, Spakovsky withdrew his name from consideration for the FEC, following months of opposition from lawmakers and civil rights groups.
28. Tommy Franks — As head of U.S. Central Command from 2000 to 2003, Franks oversaw Osama bin Laden’s great escape from Afghanistan, gave orders for the stabilization of Iraq via PowerPoint, assumed that the U.S. would draw down to 25,000 troops by the end of 2004, and had American soldiers stand idly by as chaos and lawlessness took hold after the invasion.
29. Thomas Scully — As chief administrator for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Scully was the White House’s head negotiator on the Medicare prescription drug bill. Scully threatened to fire chief actuary Richard Foster if he revealed that Bush’s Medicare Part D legislation “would cost 25% to 50% more than the Bush administration’s public estimates.”
30. Julie MacDonald — A top Interior Department appointee, MacDonald “interjected herself personally and profoundly” and “tainted nearly every decision made on the protection of endangered species” over a five-year period, intimidating the staff with “abrupt and abrasive, if not abusive” tactics. MacDonald also leaked government documents to a young acquaintance whom she met while playing “internet role-playing games.”
31. William Haynes — As the former general counsel at the Defense Department, he was part of a five-person team of high-level administration lawyers, dubbed the “War Council,” that tossed the Geneva Conventions aside and hatched out the legal framework for torture in secret meetings.
32. David Safavian — Safavian was (twice) tried and convicted for his role in the jack Abramoff scandal. Safavian was found guilty of “lying and obstructing justice” in an attempt to cover-up “his many efforts to assist Abramoff in acquiring two properties controlled by the GSA.”
33. James Connaughton — As chairman of the White House Council of Environmental Quality, Connaughton wrote EPA press releases downplaying the danger of the air quality in lower Manhattan following 9/11. “A former lobbyist for utilities, mining, chemical, and other industrial polluters,” Connaughton insisted “there’s a lot of disagreement” about humans’ impact on global warming, and he touted a bogus study purporting to show that the 20th century was not unusually warm.
34. William Luti — A former Navy officer and Cheney aide, Luti was dispatched to the Pentagon in 2001 to work underneath Feith to find “evidence” to support his boss’s belief in conspiracy theories linking Saddam to al Qaeda. Luti was an integral component of Cheney’s campaign to pressure intelligence professionals to conform their judgments to administration policy rather than reality.
35. Susan Orr — As Assistant Deputy Secretary for Population Affairs, this former Family Research Council officialIt’s not a medical necessity that you have [contraception].”
36. Christopher Cox — Under Chairman Cox, the Securities and Exchange Commission censored internal reports showing that it ignored critical signs pointing to Wall Street’s meltdown. Cox’s SEC also failed to detect Bernie Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme, despite a decade of warnings.
37. Elliott Abrams — An Iran-Contra convict pardoned by Bush 41, Abrams was named by Bush 43 as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Operations. As a foundingIsrael’s 2006 bombing of Lebanon into Syria and advocated a Fatah coup after Hamas won the February 2006 Palestinian elections.
38. Philip Cooney — A former oil lobbyist who served as chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Cooney doctored climate reports to “soften” words and phrases linking greenhouse gas emissions to global warming. After his political interference was revealed, Cooney left the White House to become a lobbyist for Exxon.
39. Colin Powell — Though Bush called him “an American hero” when he appointed him to be the first African-American Secretary of State, Powell placed an ugly “blot” on his record when he pushed the Bush administration’s faulty case for the Iraq war in a speech to the U.N. on Feb.5, 2003, using inaccurate information. Liberal hawks and the media rallied around Powell’s false case, calling it the “winning hand” for war.
40. Elaine Chao — The Labor Secretary made it through all eight years of the Bush administration, driving morale at the Labor Department so low that staffers threw a “good-riddance party” to cheer her departure. She leaves behind a “deeply troubled department” that “spent eight years attacking workers’ rights, strong workplace health and safety rules, and unions while they carried the water for Big Business.”
41. Julie Myers — After being hired as head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement based on little more than her personal connections, Myers made herself famous by awarding “Most Original Costume” to an employee who dressed up in blackface and a prison costume for Halloween. She was also heavily criticized for conducting politically-motivated immigration raids.
42. Wade Horn — As Assistant Secretary for Community Initiatives at the Department of Health and Human Services, Horn funneled millions of tax-payer dollars into right-wing abstinence-only programs. Shortly before he resigned, it was revealed that he had given nearly $1 million “to the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI), where he was the president for at least three years until joining the Bush administration in 2001.”
43. George Deutsch — As a young, inexperienced press officer for NASA, Deutsch “told public affairs workers to limit reporters’ access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word ‘theory’ at every mention of the Big Bang.” He resigned in 2006 after it was discovered he had lied on his resume, falsely claiming that he had a journalism degree from Texas A&M.
Dishonorable Mentions: Bush appointees who didn’t quite make the list included a child pornography aficionado, a patron of hookers, a shoplifter, a mail fraudster, an operator of an illegal horse gambling ring, and a CIA official who took bribes in the form of prostitutes.
The Top 43 Appointees Who Helped Make Bush The Worst President Ever
Next week, “change is coming to America,” as President George W. Bush wraps up his tenure as one of the worst American presidents ever. He wasn’t able to accomplish such an ignominious feat all by himself, however; he had a great deal of help along the way. The ThinkProgress team heralds the conclusion of the Bush 43 presidency by bringing you our list of the top 43 worst Bush appointees. Did we miss anyone? Who should have been ranked higher? Let us know what you think.
1. Dick Cheney — The worst Dick since Nixon. The man who shot his friend while in office. The “most powerful and controversial vice president.” Until he got the job, people used to actually think it was a bad thing that the vice presidency has historically been a do-nothing position. Asked by PBS’s Jim Lehrer about why people hate him, Cheney rejected the premise, saying, “I don’t buy that.” His top placement in our survey says otherwise.
2. Karl Rove — There wasn’t a scandal in the Bush administration that Rove didn’t have his fingerprints all over — see Plame, Iraq war deception, Gov. Don Siegelman, U.S. Attorney firings, missing e-mails, and more. As senior political adviser and later as deputy chief of staff, “The Architect” was responsible for politicizing nearly every agency of the federal government.
3. Alberto Gonzales — Fundamentally dishonest and woefully incompetent, Gonzales was involved in a series of scandals, first as White House counsel and then as Attorney General. Some of the most notable: pressuring a “feeble” and “barely articulate” Attorney General Ashcroft at his hospital bedside to sign off on Bush’s illegal wiretapping program; approving waterboarding and other torture techniques to be used against detainees; and leading the firing of U.S. Attorneys deemed not sufficiently loyal to Bush.
4. Donald Rumsfeld — After winning praise for leading the U.S. effort in ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001, the former Defense Secretary strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq and then grossly misjudged and mishandled its aftermath. Rumsfeld is also responsible for authorizing the use of torture against terror detainees in U.S. custody; according to a bipartisan Senate report, Rumsfeld “conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.”
5. Michael Brown — This former commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association was appointed by Bush to head FEMA in 2003. After Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, Brownie promptly did a “heck of a job” bungling the government’s relief efforts, and was sent back to Washington a few days later. He was forced to resign shortly thereafter.
6. Paul Wolfowitz — As Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2005, Wolfowitz was one of the primary architects of the Iraq war, arguing for the invasion as early as Sept. 15, 2001. Testifying before Congress in February 2003, Wolfowitz said that it was “hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself.” Wolfowitz eventually admitted that “for bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction,” as a justification for war, “because it was the one reason everyone [in the administration] could agree on.”
7. David Addington — “Cheney’s Cheney” was the “most powerful man you’ve never heard of.” As the leader of Bush’s legal team and Cheney’s chief of staff, Addington was the biggest proponent of some of Bush’s most notorious legal abuses, such as torture and warrantless surveillance, and is a loyal follower of the so-called unitary executive theory.
8. Stephen Johnson — The “Alberto Gonzales of the environment,” EPA Administrator Johnson subverted the agency’s mission at the behest of the White House and corporate interests, suppressing staff recommendations on pesticides, mercury, lead paint, smog, and global warming.
9. Douglas Feith — Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from 2001-2005, Feith headed up the notorious Office of Special Plans, an in-house Pentagon intelligence shop devised by Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz to produce intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. A subsequent investigation by the Pentagon’s Inspector General found the OSP’s work produced “conclusions that were not fully supported by the available intelligence.”
10. John Bolton — As Undersecretary of State, Bolton offered a strong voice in favor of invading Iraq and pushed for the U.S. to disengage from the International Criminal Court and key international arms control agreements. A recess appointment landed Bolton the job of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, despite his stringent animosity toward the world body. Today, he spends his time calling for war with Iran.
11. John Yoo — As a lawyer for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Yoo authored a series of legal memosdetainee to be buried alive.
12. Ari Fleischer — Bush’s first press secretary helped redefine the role as that of liar-in-chief rather than informer of the public, earning a reputation as “the world’s most dishonest flack.” Whereas his successors sometimes looked uncomfortable lying, Fleischer was having fun, spinning a cowed and gullible press corps through two massive tax cuts and the initiation of a war undertaken on false pretenses.
13. John Ashcroft — In 2003, as Bush’s first Attorney General, Ashcroft approved waterboarding and other torture techniques on detainees. Ashcroft’s nomination was controversial, as he had a history of opposing school desegregation. The chief architect of the invasive Patriot Act, Ashcroft maintains to this day that Bush is “among the most respectful of all leaders ever” of civil liberties.
14. Henry Paulson — Even as the financial system was crashing down around him, Treasury Secretary Paulson insisted for months that the banking system was “safe and sound.” Once he decided that the economy needed saving, Paulson requested nearly unfettered authority to send billions of taxpayer dollars to banks with no oversight.
15. L. Paul Bremer — This Presidential Medal of Freedom winner took over the Coalition Provisional Authority in May 2003. Under his mismanagement, the insurgency exploded in Iraq. Bremer claimed he had all the troops he needed to secure the country, overestimated the strength of the new U.S.-trained Iraqi army, disbanded the Iraqi army leaving thousands of Iraqi soldiers with no income and no occupation, and enacted a de-Baathification law that barred many experienced Iraqis from government positions.
16. Bradley Schlozman — As a recent DOJ Inspector General report demonstrates, Schlozman was a central figure in Bush’s politicization of the Justice Department. Violating civil service laws, Schlozman used political and ideological considerations to ensure that only “right-thinking Americans” received jobs. He eventually lied to Congress about his efforts.
17. J. Steven Griles — A former energy lobbyist and no. 2 official in the Interior Department, Griles went to jail for lying to Congress about illegal favors he did for corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Griles also abused his position “to unlock nearly every legal barrier to exploitation” of our nation’s oil and mineral reserves. Before his conviction, Griles left the White House to become a lobbyist for ConocoPhillips.
18. Condoleezza Rice — As Bush’s national security adviser, Rice was another strong advocate for invading Iraq, once famously warning that the U.S. should attack Iraq and not wait for solid proof of its WMD because “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Rice also ignored an urgent warning from the CIA before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that a strike inside the U.S. was imminent.
19. Scooter Libby — Cheney’s former chief of staff was a key player in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame as part of the Bush administration’s quest to punish Plame’s husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for publishing an op-ed debunking one of the White House’s main justifications for invading Iraq. Libby was ultimately convicted of perjury and obstructing justice in a federal investigation into Plame’s outing but later had his 30-month prison sentence commuted by Bush.
20. Monica Goodling — Goodling was the most notorious graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University during her tenure in the Justice Department. As the White House liaison at the DOJ, she based the department’s hiring of candidates on their sexual preference, GOP loyalty, and adherence to conservative ideology.
21. Alphonso Jackson — As Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Jackson let the U.S. housing market crumble while he was busy giving lucrative contracts to his golfing buddies, retaliating against Bush critics, and erecting giant photo homages to himself.
22. Michael Hayden — As director of the National Security Agency, Hayden ran Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program and misled Congress about the program’s legality. After moving to the CIA, he dismissed the destruction of evidence implicating the CIA in torture as “in line with the law.”
23. Lurita Doan — The former head of the General Services Administration (GSA)who doled out a no-bid contract to a friend, Doan famously hosted a meeting of White House political operatives where she asked how GSA employees could “help ‘our candidates’ in the next election.” After the Office of Special Counsel called for her firing, she was forced to resign
24. Gale Norton — A former industry lobbyist and Bush’s first Secretary of the Interior, Norton pushed a radical ideological agenda “through regulatory rollbacks, suppression of science, preferential treatment, and collusion with industry” — including doctoring scientific findings on the impacts of oil drilling on caribou. After resigning under the cloud of ties to Jack Abramoff, she joined Shell Oil.
25. Lester Crawford — After promising to act on the morning-after contraceptive pill during his confirmation hearings, the former FDA Commissioner “indefinitely postponed nonprescription sales of emergency contraception over the objections of staff scientists who had declared the pill safe.” Crawford resigned after just two months on the job and later pleaded guilty “to charges that he hid his ownership of stock in food and drug companies that his agency regulated.”
26. Harriet Miers — Well-known for being Bush’s failed Supreme Court nominee, Miers also thought it was “important” to her as White House Counsel that Rove protege Tim Griffin was installed as a U.S. Attorney, making her a central figure in the U.S. Attorney scandal. She is said to have called Bush “the most brilliant man she had ever met.”
27. Hans Von Spakovsky — Originally a political appointee in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, Spakovsky “injected partisan political factors into decision-making” and used every opportunity “to make it difficult for voters — poor, minority and Democratic — to go to the polls.” In 2008, Spakovsky withdrew his name from consideration for the FEC, following months of opposition from lawmakers and civil rights groups.
28. Tommy Franks — As head of U.S. Central Command from 2000 to 2003, Franks oversaw Osama bin Laden’s great escape from Afghanistan, gave orders for the stabilization of Iraq via PowerPoint, assumed that the U.S. would draw down to 25,000 troops by the end of 2004, and had American soldiers stand idly by as chaos and lawlessness took hold after the invasion.
29. Thomas Scully — As chief administrator for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Scully was the White House’s head negotiator on the Medicare prescription drug bill. Scully threatened to fire chief actuary Richard Foster if he revealed that Bush’s Medicare Part D legislation “would cost 25% to 50% more than the Bush administration’s public estimates.”
30. Julie MacDonald — A top Interior Department appointee, MacDonald “interjected herself personally and profoundly” and “tainted nearly every decision made on the protection of endangered species” over a five-year period, intimidating the staff with “abrupt and abrasive, if not abusive” tactics. MacDonald also leaked government documents to a young acquaintance whom she met while playing “internet role-playing games.”
31. William Haynes — As the former general counsel at the Defense Department, he was part of a five-person team of high-level administration lawyers, dubbed the “War Council,” that tossed the Geneva Conventions aside and hatched out the legal framework for torture in secret meetings.
32. David Safavian — Safavian was (twice) tried and convicted for his role in the jack Abramoff scandal. Safavian was found guilty of “lying and obstructing justice” in an attempt to cover-up “his many efforts to assist Abramoff in acquiring two properties controlled by the GSA.”
33. James Connaughton — As chairman of the White House Council of Environmental Quality, Connaughton wrote EPA press releases downplaying the danger of the air quality in lower Manhattan following 9/11. “A former lobbyist for utilities, mining, chemical, and other industrial polluters,” Connaughton insisted “there’s a lot of disagreement” about humans’ impact on global warming, and he touted a bogus study purporting to show that the 20th century was not unusually warm.
34. William Luti — A former Navy officer and Cheney aide, Luti was dispatched to the Pentagon in 2001 to work underneath Feith to find “evidence” to support his boss’s belief in conspiracy theories linking Saddam to al Qaeda. Luti was an integral component of Cheney’s campaign to pressure intelligence professionals to conform their judgments to administration policy rather than reality.
35. Susan Orr — As Assistant Deputy Secretary for Population Affairs, this former Family Research Council officialIt’s not a medical necessity that you have [contraception].”
36. Christopher Cox — Under Chairman Cox, the Securities and Exchange Commission censored internal reports showing that it ignored critical signs pointing to Wall Street’s meltdown. Cox’s SEC also failed to detect Bernie Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme, despite a decade of warnings.
37. Elliott Abrams — An Iran-Contra convict pardoned by Bush 41, Abrams was named by Bush 43 as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Operations. As a foundingIsrael’s 2006 bombing of Lebanon into Syria and advocated a Fatah coup after Hamas won the February 2006 Palestinian elections.
38. Philip Cooney — A former oil lobbyist who served as chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Cooney doctored climate reports to “soften” words and phrases linking greenhouse gas emissions to global warming. After his political interference was revealed, Cooney left the White House to become a lobbyist for Exxon.
39. Colin Powell — Though Bush called him “an American hero” when he appointed him to be the first African-American Secretary of State, Powell placed an ugly “blot” on his record when he pushed the Bush administration’s faulty case for the Iraq war in a speech to the U.N. on Feb.5, 2003, using inaccurate information. Liberal hawks and the media rallied around Powell’s false case, calling it the “winning hand” for war.
40. Elaine Chao — The Labor Secretary made it through all eight years of the Bush administration, driving morale at the Labor Department so low that staffers threw a “good-riddance party” to cheer her departure. She leaves behind a “deeply troubled department” that “spent eight years attacking workers’ rights, strong workplace health and safety rules, and unions while they carried the water for Big Business.”
41. Julie Myers — After being hired as head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement based on little more than her personal connections, Myers made herself famous by awarding “Most Original Costume” to an employee who dressed up in blackface and a prison costume for Halloween. She was also heavily criticized for conducting politically-motivated immigration raids.
42. Wade Horn — As Assistant Secretary for Community Initiatives at the Department of Health and Human Services, Horn funneled millions of tax-payer dollars into right-wing abstinence-only programs. Shortly before he resigned, it was revealed that he had given nearly $1 million “to the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI), where he was the president for at least three years until joining the Bush administration in 2001.”
43. George Deutsch — As a young, inexperienced press officer for NASA, Deutsch “told public affairs workers to limit reporters’ access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word ‘theory’ at every mention of the Big Bang.” He resigned in 2006 after it was discovered he had lied on his resume, falsely claiming that he had a journalism degree from Texas A&M.
Dishonorable Mentions: Bush appointees who didn’t quite make the list included a child pornography aficionado, a patron of hookers, a shoplifter, a mail fraudster, an operator of an illegal horse gambling ring, and a CIA official who took bribes in the form of prostitutes.
24 THINGS ABOUT TO BECOME EXTINCT
24 THINGS ABOUT TO BECOME EXTINCT IN AMERICA
24. Yellow Pages This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodle Factors like an acceleration of the print 'fade rate' and the looming recession will contribute to the onslaught. One research firm predicts the falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year -- much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.
23. Classified Ads The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could signal the end of civilization as we know it. The argument is that if newspaper classifieds are replaced by free online listings at sites like Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them.
22. Movie Rental Stores While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000 left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is down considerably in 2008, especially since the company gave up a quest of Circuit City . Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-po p stores have given up th e ghost already.
21. Dial-up Internet Access Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008. The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.
20. Phone Landlines According to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and, of those homes that had landlines, one in eight only received calls on their cells.
19. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs Maryland 's icon, the blue crab, has been fading away in Chesapeake Bay . Last year Maryland saw the lowest harvest (22 million pounds) since 1945. Just four decades ago the bay produced 96 million pounds. The population is down 70% since 1990, when they first did a formal count. There are only about 120 million crabs in the bay and they think they need 200 million for a sustainable population. Overfishing, pollution, invasive species and global warming get the blame.
18. VCRs For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found. They served us so well.
17. Ash Trees In the late 1990s, a pretty, iridescent green species of beetle, now known as the emerald ash borer, hitched a ride to North America with ash wood products imported from eastern Asia . In less than a decade, i ts larvae have killed millions of trees in the Midwest, and continue to spread. They've killed more than 30 million ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone, with tens of millions more lost in Ohio and Indiana . More than 7.5 billion ash trees are currently at risk.
16. Ham Radio Amateur radio operators enjoy personal (and often worldwide) wireless communications with each other and are able to support their communities with emergency and disaster communications if necessary, while increasing their personal knowledge of electronics and radio theory. However, proliferation of the Internet and its popularity among youth has caused the decline of amateur radio. In the past five years alone, the number of people holding active ham radio licenses has dropped by 50,000, even though Morse Code is no longer a requirement.
15. The Swimming Hole Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming a thing of the past. '20/20' reports that swimming hole owners, like Robert Every in High Falls, N.Y., are shutting them down out of worry that if someone gets hurt they'll sue. And that's exactly what happened in Seattle . The city of Bellingham was sued by Katie Hofstetter who was paralyzed in a fall at a popular swimming hole in Whatcom Falls Park . As injuries occur and lawsuits follow, expect more swimming holes to post 'Keep out!' signs.
14. Answering Machines The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly tied to No 20 our list -- the decline of landlines. According to USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped 159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad in New York ; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It's logical that as cell phones rise, many of them replacing traditional landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.
13 . Cameras That Use Film It doesn't require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the film camera in America . Just look to companies like Nikon, the professional's choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006, it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market -- only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to 75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.
12. Incandescent Bulbs Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt) bulb was the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green movement and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. The EPA reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market. And according to USA Toda y, a new energy bill plans to phase out incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.
11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys BowlingBalls.US claims there are still 60 million Americans who bowl at least once a year, but many are not bowling in stand-alone bowling alleys. Today most new bowling alleys are part of facilities for all types or recreation including laser tag, go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades, climbing walls and glow miniature golf. Bowling lanes also have been added to many non-traditional venues such as adult communities, hotels and resorts, and gambling casinos.
10. The Milkman According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1950, over half of the milk delivered was to the home in quart bottles, by 1963, it was about a third and by 2001, it represented only 0 .4% percent. Nowadays most milk is sold th rough supermarkets in gallon jugs. The steady decline in home-delivered milk is blamed, of course, on the rise of the supermarket, better home refrigeration and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen still make the rounds in pockets of the U.S. , they are certainly a dying breed.
9 Hand-Written Letters In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world's population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?
8. Wild Horses ; It is estimated that 100 years ago, as many as two million horses were roaming free within the United States . In 2001, National Geographic News estimated that the wild horse population had decreased to about 50,000 head. Currently, the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory board states that there are 32,000 free roaming horses in ten Western states, with half of them residing in Nevada . The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce the total number of free range horses to 27,000, possibly by selective euthanasia.
7. Personal Checks According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, a net 23% of consumers plan to decrease their use of checks over the next two years, while a net 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit. Bill payment remains the last stronghold of paper-based pa yments -- for the time being. Checks continue to be the most commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of c onsumers paying at least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However, on a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers' recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).
6. Drive-in Theaters During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in theaters in this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were still operating. Exactly zero new drive-ins have been built since 2005. Only one reopened in 2005 and five reopened in 2006, so there isn't much of a movement toward reviving the closed ones.
5 Mumps & Measles Despite what's been in the news lately, the measles and mumps actually, truly are disappearing from the United States . In 1964, 212,000 cases of mumps were reported in the U.S. By 1983, this figure had dropped to 3,000, thanks to a vigorous vaccination program. Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine, approximately half a million cases of measles were reported in the U.S. annually, resulting in 450 deaths. In 2005, only 66 cases were recorded.
4. Honey Bees Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing America is so dire; plummeting so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the honey bee. Very scary. 'Colony Collapse Disorder,' or CCD, has spread throughout the U.S and Europe over the past few years, wiping out 50% to 90% of the c olonies of many beekeepers -- and along with it, their livelihood.
3. News Magazines and TV News While the TV evening newscasts haven't gone anywhere over the last several decades, their audiences have. In 1984, in a story about the diminishing returns of the evening news, the New York Times reported that all three network evening-news programs combined had only 40.9 million viewers. Fast forward to 2008, and what they have today is half that.
2. Analog TV According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in the U.S. get their television programming through cable or satellite providers. For the remaining 15% -- or 13 million individuals -- who are using rabbit ears or a large outdoor antenna to get their local stations, change is in the air. If you are one of these people you'l l need to get a new TV or a converter box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast in digital.
1. The Family Farm Since the 1930s, the number of family farms has been declining rapidly. According to the USDA, 5.3 million farms dotted the nation in 1950, but this number had declined to 2.1 million by the 2003 farm census (data from the 2007 census hasn't yet been published). Ninety-one percent of the U.S.farms are small family farms.
24. Yellow Pages This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodle Factors like an acceleration of the print 'fade rate' and the looming recession will contribute to the onslaught. One research firm predicts the falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year -- much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.
23. Classified Ads The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could signal the end of civilization as we know it. The argument is that if newspaper classifieds are replaced by free online listings at sites like Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them.
22. Movie Rental Stores While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000 left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is down considerably in 2008, especially since the company gave up a quest of Circuit City . Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-po p stores have given up th e ghost already.
21. Dial-up Internet Access Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008. The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.
20. Phone Landlines According to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and, of those homes that had landlines, one in eight only received calls on their cells.
19. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs Maryland 's icon, the blue crab, has been fading away in Chesapeake Bay . Last year Maryland saw the lowest harvest (22 million pounds) since 1945. Just four decades ago the bay produced 96 million pounds. The population is down 70% since 1990, when they first did a formal count. There are only about 120 million crabs in the bay and they think they need 200 million for a sustainable population. Overfishing, pollution, invasive species and global warming get the blame.
18. VCRs For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found. They served us so well.
17. Ash Trees In the late 1990s, a pretty, iridescent green species of beetle, now known as the emerald ash borer, hitched a ride to North America with ash wood products imported from eastern Asia . In less than a decade, i ts larvae have killed millions of trees in the Midwest, and continue to spread. They've killed more than 30 million ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone, with tens of millions more lost in Ohio and Indiana . More than 7.5 billion ash trees are currently at risk.
16. Ham Radio Amateur radio operators enjoy personal (and often worldwide) wireless communications with each other and are able to support their communities with emergency and disaster communications if necessary, while increasing their personal knowledge of electronics and radio theory. However, proliferation of the Internet and its popularity among youth has caused the decline of amateur radio. In the past five years alone, the number of people holding active ham radio licenses has dropped by 50,000, even though Morse Code is no longer a requirement.
15. The Swimming Hole Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming a thing of the past. '20/20' reports that swimming hole owners, like Robert Every in High Falls, N.Y., are shutting them down out of worry that if someone gets hurt they'll sue. And that's exactly what happened in Seattle . The city of Bellingham was sued by Katie Hofstetter who was paralyzed in a fall at a popular swimming hole in Whatcom Falls Park . As injuries occur and lawsuits follow, expect more swimming holes to post 'Keep out!' signs.
14. Answering Machines The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly tied to No 20 our list -- the decline of landlines. According to USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped 159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad in New York ; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It's logical that as cell phones rise, many of them replacing traditional landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.
13 . Cameras That Use Film It doesn't require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the film camera in America . Just look to companies like Nikon, the professional's choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006, it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market -- only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to 75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.
12. Incandescent Bulbs Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt) bulb was the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green movement and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. The EPA reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market. And according to USA Toda y, a new energy bill plans to phase out incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.
11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys BowlingBalls.US claims there are still 60 million Americans who bowl at least once a year, but many are not bowling in stand-alone bowling alleys. Today most new bowling alleys are part of facilities for all types or recreation including laser tag, go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades, climbing walls and glow miniature golf. Bowling lanes also have been added to many non-traditional venues such as adult communities, hotels and resorts, and gambling casinos.
10. The Milkman According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1950, over half of the milk delivered was to the home in quart bottles, by 1963, it was about a third and by 2001, it represented only 0 .4% percent. Nowadays most milk is sold th rough supermarkets in gallon jugs. The steady decline in home-delivered milk is blamed, of course, on the rise of the supermarket, better home refrigeration and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen still make the rounds in pockets of the U.S. , they are certainly a dying breed.
9 Hand-Written Letters In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world's population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?
8. Wild Horses ; It is estimated that 100 years ago, as many as two million horses were roaming free within the United States . In 2001, National Geographic News estimated that the wild horse population had decreased to about 50,000 head. Currently, the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory board states that there are 32,000 free roaming horses in ten Western states, with half of them residing in Nevada . The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce the total number of free range horses to 27,000, possibly by selective euthanasia.
7. Personal Checks According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, a net 23% of consumers plan to decrease their use of checks over the next two years, while a net 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit. Bill payment remains the last stronghold of paper-based pa yments -- for the time being. Checks continue to be the most commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of c onsumers paying at least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However, on a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers' recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).
6. Drive-in Theaters During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in theaters in this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were still operating. Exactly zero new drive-ins have been built since 2005. Only one reopened in 2005 and five reopened in 2006, so there isn't much of a movement toward reviving the closed ones.
5 Mumps & Measles Despite what's been in the news lately, the measles and mumps actually, truly are disappearing from the United States . In 1964, 212,000 cases of mumps were reported in the U.S. By 1983, this figure had dropped to 3,000, thanks to a vigorous vaccination program. Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine, approximately half a million cases of measles were reported in the U.S. annually, resulting in 450 deaths. In 2005, only 66 cases were recorded.
4. Honey Bees Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing America is so dire; plummeting so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the honey bee. Very scary. 'Colony Collapse Disorder,' or CCD, has spread throughout the U.S and Europe over the past few years, wiping out 50% to 90% of the c olonies of many beekeepers -- and along with it, their livelihood.
3. News Magazines and TV News While the TV evening newscasts haven't gone anywhere over the last several decades, their audiences have. In 1984, in a story about the diminishing returns of the evening news, the New York Times reported that all three network evening-news programs combined had only 40.9 million viewers. Fast forward to 2008, and what they have today is half that.
2. Analog TV According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in the U.S. get their television programming through cable or satellite providers. For the remaining 15% -- or 13 million individuals -- who are using rabbit ears or a large outdoor antenna to get their local stations, change is in the air. If you are one of these people you'l l need to get a new TV or a converter box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast in digital.
1. The Family Farm Since the 1930s, the number of family farms has been declining rapidly. According to the USDA, 5.3 million farms dotted the nation in 1950, but this number had declined to 2.1 million by the 2003 farm census (data from the 2007 census hasn't yet been published). Ninety-one percent of the U.S.farms are small family farms.
King fan publishes Shining's Jack Torrance's novel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/07/stephen-king-shining-novelStephen King fan publishes Shining's Jack Torrance's novel
Alison Flood
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 January 2009
A Stephen King fan has published an 80-page version of the book which novelist Jack Torrance obsessively writes during King's The Shining, where his descent into madness is revealed when his wife discovers that his work consists of just one phrase, endlessly repeated.
Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in terrifying form in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film, is a frustrated writer who goes with his wife and son to spend the winter in the isolated Overlook Hotel in an attempt to get the novel he has always wanted to write started. But the hotel's grisly past and unquiet ghosts have their way with him, and his wife Wendy eventually finds that the manuscript he has been working on actually only contains the phrase "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", typed over and over again.
Now New York artist Phil Buehler, who describes himself as "a big fan of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King", has self-published a book credited to Torrance, repeating the phrase throughout but formatting each page differently, using the words to create different shapes from zigzags to spirals.
"The idea has probably been marinating for years, because I loved the movie and the Stephen King book," said Buehler. "I'd just finished my own obsessive art project [and] it was an idea I had over the Christmas holidays."
He said he decided to stick to type and formatting that could have been created on a typewriter, with the first ten pages duplicating shots of Torrance's work from the film. "I thought 'if he continues to get crazier, what would those pages look like?'" he said. "I hit writer's block about 60 pages in, and I had to get to 80 - that went on for about a week." His fiancée, who had neither read the book nor seen the film, became a little concerned about his actions. "I finally showed her the movie, and she realised I wasn't really losing it," said Buehler.
He's included a spoof review from the blog OverThinkingIt.com on the book's back jacket, which compares it to "the best of Beckett" in its "lack of forward momentum", and considers the struggles of the author, "heroically pitting himself against the Sisyphusean sentence". "It's that metatextual struggle of Man vs. Typewriter that gives this book its spellbinding power," the review says. "Some will dismiss it as simplistic; that's like dismissing a Pollack canvas as mere splatters of paint."
So far, Buehler says that around 1,000 people have viewed the book, for sale on Blurb.com for $8.95 in paperback, or $22.95 in hardback, and he's sold "a few" copies, with sales now starting to pick up steam. "A few people have asked me to sign it - they're looking it as a piece of art rather than a funny thing to give to a Kubrick fan," he said. "If you're not a Kubrick or King fan, you might not even get it."
Chrysler's Italian job
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/20/autos/chrysler_fiat/
Chrysler's Italian job
Italian automaker Fiat, which has recently come through a makeover of its own, could be a good fit for the struggling Chrysler.
Peter Valdes-Dapena
January 20, 2009
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- For Chrysler, the big benefit from its new alliance with Fiat might be public perception: The automaker, under pressure by the U.S. government to restructure, is taking action to help itself.
An alliance with Fiat holds the promise of more attractive small, fuel-efficient cars for Chrysler down the road as well as better access to important global markets. Up to now, Chrysler hasn't been competitive in either area.
In the short term, with a Feb. 17 deadline looming for Chrysler to submit a workable turnaround plan, this plan may be key to helping the carmaker hold on to $4 billion in federal loan money.
"It makes their chances for viability much better," said George Magliano, an auto industry analyst with consultants IHS Global Insight. "And it might get the government to fund more cash into Chrysler."
That short-term benefit is probably the first thing on Chrysler executives' minds, said Jim Hossack of industry consultancy AutoPacific.
"Your first goal when you come in each day is to survive the day," he said.
Neither Chrysler nor Fiat responded to requests for comment beyond written corporate statements.
On Tuesday, the companies announced the basic terms of a tentative "global strategic alliance": Fiat, Italy's largest automaker, will provide no cash of its own to the struggling American automaker. Instead, in exchange for a 35% equity stake, Fiat will provide Chrysler with "technology," including the engineering underlying some of Fiat's small cars, which have proven popular in Europe.
"They've got some beautiful stuff over there," said Magliano, "and a lot of these things can be sold in the U.S."
Unlike Chrysler, Fiat is known to specialize in small, fuel-efficient cars that are popular in Europe. But the sort of "platform sharing" envisioned for Chrysler and Fiat takes years to bear fruit, so don't expect to see a Dodge version of the Fiat Punto at your Chrysler dealer anytime soon, said Magliano.
"It's difficult to have cross-cultural alliances like this," Magliano said, adding that language and cultural differences, as much as anything else, can hamper progress.
Besides products, Chrysler will also get the attention of Fiat executives, individuals who have themselves just pushed through an impressive turnaround over the past few years.
In 2004, Fiat lost more than $1 billion, according to a 2007 Fortune magazine report. The year after that, General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) spent $2 billion just to get out of an alliance it had formed with Fiat in 2000.
Despite a global downturn, Fiat earned $4 million more this year than last, according to Reuters, including results from the company's tractor and truck units. Fiat is now considered a relatively strong automaker partly on the basis of improved product designs and quality, analysts said.
A taste of Italy
For its part, Chrysler has promised to assist Fiat with bringing its brands to the U.S. market. Only Ferrari and Maserati are currently sold here and Fiat has long wanted to bring the luxury Alfa Romeo name back to the U.S.
In addition to those brands and the mass-market Fiat brand, the Italian carmaker also makes and sells the Lancia brand.
In order to move Fiat small cars more quickly into its dealerships, Chrysler could forgo restyling them as Chrysler or Dodge products, said David Soya, editorial director for auto industry news site WardsAuto.com.
In the short term, Magliano suggested that Chrysler and Fiat could make minor changes to Fiat products - just enough to meet U.S. crash safety and emissions standards - and simply sell them through the Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep dealer network under the original Fiat name.
Fiat's 500 subcompact "city car" has been a hit in Europe. Taking a cue from BMW's success with the retro-styled Mini Cooper, the current Fiat 500 is clearly an updated remake of the 1960s classic. (The classic 500 is probably best known to Americans in the role of Luigi the tire salesman in the 2006 Pixar movie "Cars.")
But Hossack thinks the 500 is probably too small for American tastes. "A relatively large car for Fiat may be appropriate for Chrysler here," he said, suggesting that something like the mid-sized Bravo or the mid-sized Grand Punto might stand a better chance here.
Fiat could also use some of Chrysler's under-utilized manufacturing facilities to build its products here. That would help Fiat by avoiding monetary exchange-rate problems that have hampered other European automakers that sell cars in the United States but don't manufacture them here.
Quid pro quo
For its part, Fiat could help Chrysler move more strongly into overseas markets. Chrysler relies much more heavily on the U.S. market than do its domestic rivals Ford and GM. That has meant that Chrysler has suffered even more as the domestic auto market has shrunk and shifted away from high-profit trucks and SUVs recently.
Fiat's greatest benefit to Chrysler, in terms of overseas growth, will be in emerging markets like South America and Asia, said Soya. That's really where a car like the tiny 500 could help.
"Chrysler has expressed interest in having a car that size for emerging markets," he said.
Deals like this will become more common in the years ahead, said Paul McCarthy, head of PriceWaterhouseCoopers automotive practice. Merger and alliance activity in the auto industry is cyclical he said, and surges whenever there's a contraction.
"After that, we have a period of dis-integration," he said. That's the sort of thing that led to Chrysler's split-off from Daimler and GM giving up its share of Fiat.
Both Fiat and Chrysler will likely proceed with caution this time, said Magliano.
"Both of these guys have been burned in the past with relationships," said Hossack.
Chrysler's Italian job
Italian automaker Fiat, which has recently come through a makeover of its own, could be a good fit for the struggling Chrysler.
Peter Valdes-Dapena
January 20, 2009
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- For Chrysler, the big benefit from its new alliance with Fiat might be public perception: The automaker, under pressure by the U.S. government to restructure, is taking action to help itself.
An alliance with Fiat holds the promise of more attractive small, fuel-efficient cars for Chrysler down the road as well as better access to important global markets. Up to now, Chrysler hasn't been competitive in either area.
In the short term, with a Feb. 17 deadline looming for Chrysler to submit a workable turnaround plan, this plan may be key to helping the carmaker hold on to $4 billion in federal loan money.
"It makes their chances for viability much better," said George Magliano, an auto industry analyst with consultants IHS Global Insight. "And it might get the government to fund more cash into Chrysler."
That short-term benefit is probably the first thing on Chrysler executives' minds, said Jim Hossack of industry consultancy AutoPacific.
"Your first goal when you come in each day is to survive the day," he said.
Neither Chrysler nor Fiat responded to requests for comment beyond written corporate statements.
On Tuesday, the companies announced the basic terms of a tentative "global strategic alliance": Fiat, Italy's largest automaker, will provide no cash of its own to the struggling American automaker. Instead, in exchange for a 35% equity stake, Fiat will provide Chrysler with "technology," including the engineering underlying some of Fiat's small cars, which have proven popular in Europe.
"They've got some beautiful stuff over there," said Magliano, "and a lot of these things can be sold in the U.S."
Unlike Chrysler, Fiat is known to specialize in small, fuel-efficient cars that are popular in Europe. But the sort of "platform sharing" envisioned for Chrysler and Fiat takes years to bear fruit, so don't expect to see a Dodge version of the Fiat Punto at your Chrysler dealer anytime soon, said Magliano.
"It's difficult to have cross-cultural alliances like this," Magliano said, adding that language and cultural differences, as much as anything else, can hamper progress.
Besides products, Chrysler will also get the attention of Fiat executives, individuals who have themselves just pushed through an impressive turnaround over the past few years.
In 2004, Fiat lost more than $1 billion, according to a 2007 Fortune magazine report. The year after that, General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) spent $2 billion just to get out of an alliance it had formed with Fiat in 2000.
Despite a global downturn, Fiat earned $4 million more this year than last, according to Reuters, including results from the company's tractor and truck units. Fiat is now considered a relatively strong automaker partly on the basis of improved product designs and quality, analysts said.
A taste of Italy
For its part, Chrysler has promised to assist Fiat with bringing its brands to the U.S. market. Only Ferrari and Maserati are currently sold here and Fiat has long wanted to bring the luxury Alfa Romeo name back to the U.S.
In addition to those brands and the mass-market Fiat brand, the Italian carmaker also makes and sells the Lancia brand.
In order to move Fiat small cars more quickly into its dealerships, Chrysler could forgo restyling them as Chrysler or Dodge products, said David Soya, editorial director for auto industry news site WardsAuto.com.
In the short term, Magliano suggested that Chrysler and Fiat could make minor changes to Fiat products - just enough to meet U.S. crash safety and emissions standards - and simply sell them through the Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep dealer network under the original Fiat name.
Fiat's 500 subcompact "city car" has been a hit in Europe. Taking a cue from BMW's success with the retro-styled Mini Cooper, the current Fiat 500 is clearly an updated remake of the 1960s classic. (The classic 500 is probably best known to Americans in the role of Luigi the tire salesman in the 2006 Pixar movie "Cars.")
But Hossack thinks the 500 is probably too small for American tastes. "A relatively large car for Fiat may be appropriate for Chrysler here," he said, suggesting that something like the mid-sized Bravo or the mid-sized Grand Punto might stand a better chance here.
Fiat could also use some of Chrysler's under-utilized manufacturing facilities to build its products here. That would help Fiat by avoiding monetary exchange-rate problems that have hampered other European automakers that sell cars in the United States but don't manufacture them here.
Quid pro quo
For its part, Fiat could help Chrysler move more strongly into overseas markets. Chrysler relies much more heavily on the U.S. market than do its domestic rivals Ford and GM. That has meant that Chrysler has suffered even more as the domestic auto market has shrunk and shifted away from high-profit trucks and SUVs recently.
Fiat's greatest benefit to Chrysler, in terms of overseas growth, will be in emerging markets like South America and Asia, said Soya. That's really where a car like the tiny 500 could help.
"Chrysler has expressed interest in having a car that size for emerging markets," he said.
Deals like this will become more common in the years ahead, said Paul McCarthy, head of PriceWaterhouseCoopers automotive practice. Merger and alliance activity in the auto industry is cyclical he said, and surges whenever there's a contraction.
"After that, we have a period of dis-integration," he said. That's the sort of thing that led to Chrysler's split-off from Daimler and GM giving up its share of Fiat.
Both Fiat and Chrysler will likely proceed with caution this time, said Magliano.
"Both of these guys have been burned in the past with relationships," said Hossack.
Mexican Billionaire Invests in Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/business/media/20times.html
Mexican Billionaire Invests in Times Company
By ERIC DASH
January 19, 2009
The New York Times Company said Monday it had reached an agreement with the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú for a $250 million loan intended to help the newspaper company finance its businesses.
Under the terms of the deal, Mr. Slim, who already owns 6.9 percent of the Times Company, would invest $250 million in the form of six-year notes with warrants that are convertible into common shares, the company said in a statement. The notes also carry a 14 percent interest rate, with 11 percent paid in cash and 3 percent in additional bonds.
The deal comes as the Times Company looks to raise money amid flagging advertising sales and approaching deadlines to pay back $1.1 billion in debt in the next few years.
The company will use the proceeds from the transaction to refinance its existing debt. One of its two $400 million revolving credit lines is set to expire in May. The $250 million investment should help free some of the company’s borrowing capacity.
“This agreement provides us with increased financial flexibility to continue to execute on our long-term strategy,” Janet L. Robinson, chief executive of the Times Company, said in a statement. “We continue to explore other financing initiatives and are focused on reducing our total debt through the cash we generate from our businesses and other decisive steps.”
The company has also put its stake in the Boston Red Sox up for sale and said last year that it would borrow as much as $225 million against its new headquarters in Manhattan through a sale-leaseback agreement.
Mr. Slim will receive no representation on the company’s board or any shares with special voting rights like those of the Sulzberger family, which controls the company. Nonetheless, when Mr. Slim exercises the warrants, he will be among the largest single shareholders in the Times Company, owning up to 17 percent of the common shares outstanding.
The Sulzberger family members own about 19 percent of company and control it with a special class of voting shares.
Mr. Slim, one of the wealthiest people in the world, controls phone companies and has major investments in retailing, construction, banking, insurance, railroads and mining. In March, Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at $60 billion.
Mr. Slim first approached the Times Company in November, people briefed on the discussions said.
A version of this article appeared in print on January 20, 2009, on page B11 of the New York edition.
Mexican Billionaire Invests in Times Company
By ERIC DASH
January 19, 2009
The New York Times Company said Monday it had reached an agreement with the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú for a $250 million loan intended to help the newspaper company finance its businesses.
Under the terms of the deal, Mr. Slim, who already owns 6.9 percent of the Times Company, would invest $250 million in the form of six-year notes with warrants that are convertible into common shares, the company said in a statement. The notes also carry a 14 percent interest rate, with 11 percent paid in cash and 3 percent in additional bonds.
The deal comes as the Times Company looks to raise money amid flagging advertising sales and approaching deadlines to pay back $1.1 billion in debt in the next few years.
The company will use the proceeds from the transaction to refinance its existing debt. One of its two $400 million revolving credit lines is set to expire in May. The $250 million investment should help free some of the company’s borrowing capacity.
“This agreement provides us with increased financial flexibility to continue to execute on our long-term strategy,” Janet L. Robinson, chief executive of the Times Company, said in a statement. “We continue to explore other financing initiatives and are focused on reducing our total debt through the cash we generate from our businesses and other decisive steps.”
The company has also put its stake in the Boston Red Sox up for sale and said last year that it would borrow as much as $225 million against its new headquarters in Manhattan through a sale-leaseback agreement.
Mr. Slim will receive no representation on the company’s board or any shares with special voting rights like those of the Sulzberger family, which controls the company. Nonetheless, when Mr. Slim exercises the warrants, he will be among the largest single shareholders in the Times Company, owning up to 17 percent of the common shares outstanding.
The Sulzberger family members own about 19 percent of company and control it with a special class of voting shares.
Mr. Slim, one of the wealthiest people in the world, controls phone companies and has major investments in retailing, construction, banking, insurance, railroads and mining. In March, Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at $60 billion.
Mr. Slim first approached the Times Company in November, people briefed on the discussions said.
A version of this article appeared in print on January 20, 2009, on page B11 of the New York edition.
Gaza homeless toll 'hits 50,000'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7838618.stm
Monday, 19 January 2009
Gaza homeless toll 'hits 50,000'
The BBC's Aleem Maqbool views the damage in one Gaza City neighbourhood
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been left destitute by Israel's three-week offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, the UN estimates.
The United Nations says that some 50,800 people are now homeless and 400,000 are without running water.
Correspondents in Gaza City say entire neighbourhoods have been flattened and bodies are still being recovered.
Israel says it will allow 143 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid into Gaza plus 60,000 litres of fuel.
An International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman said on Monday evening that 10 ambulances carrying medical supplies had travelled into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south.
Earlier, Israeli spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC: "Medicines, foodstuffs, energy, all will be reaching the Gaza Strip in the volume that is required and in an expeditious manner."
The BBC was unable to verify whether the food and fuel convoys reached Gaza.
Palestinian medical sources say at least 1,300 Palestinians have been killed and 5,500 injured during the conflict. Thirteen Israelis have been killed since the offensive began on 27 December.
Israel called a ceasefire on Saturday, saying it had met its war aims. Hamas later declared its own truce, with one of its leaders claiming a "great victory" over Israel.
Scrap metal
As the ceasefire continues to hold, Palestinians in Gaza have been returning home to assess the damage.
The BBC's Christian Fraser travelled to Jabaliya on the northern edge of Gaza City, where the Israeli tanks first crossed over the border. He says entire neighbourhoods have disappeared.
He met 67-year-old Fatma Umanim, sitting beside the remains her collapsed house, her neighbours building a makeshift shelter for her next to the rubble.
Our correspondent says an industry is growing out of the destruction in broken wood and scrap metal - Gaza's poorest salvaging whatever they can.
The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, is planning to visit Gaza on Tuesday to inspect the damage, but that his trip "could be subject to change", Israeli officials said.
The director of operations in Gaza for Unrwa, the UN relief agency, John Ging, said most important now was how to get basic supplies into the territory.
"We have a big recovery operation ahead of us, reconstruction - none of it will be possible of course, on any scale, until we get crossing points open," he told the BBC.
Unrwa was keen to reopen its schools, Mr Ging said, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been sheltering.
Quick pullout
Divisions among Arab countries have re-emerged at an Arab League summit in Kuwait that has been dominated by the crisis in Gaza.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Hamas had invited the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip by refusing to extend a six-month truce that expired in December.
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad said Arab leaders should adopt a resolution declaring Israel a terrorist entity, and support what he called the "Palestinian resistance".
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for immediate reconciliation talks among Palestinian factions, along with parliamentary and presidential elections.
Analysts say Mr Abbas is facing challenges to his legitimacy, with Hamas claiming his term is over and many of his supporters angered by criticisms he made of the militant group while it was under fire from Israel.
Previous talks on a unity government have broken down, and the two sides remain divided over the timing of possible elections.
Israelis and Palestinians give their views on Israel's ceasefire announcement
The league discussed a proposal for a $2bn (£1.3bn) fund for reconstruction in Gaza, with Saudi King Abdullah saying his country would donate $1bn.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he wanted troops to leave Gaza "as quickly as possible", and some have already left.
Anonymous Israeli officials, quoted by AP news agency, said the withdrawal would be completed before US President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration on Tuesday.
But analysts say big questions remain, such as who will police Gaza's southern border with Egypt and how much power Hamas still has.
Hamas has said it would hold fire for a week to give Israel time to withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip.
But a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, Abu Ubaida, said its rocket capabilities had not been affected by the conflict and that "the enemy will receive more rockets".
CONFLICT IN FIGURES
More than 1,300 Palestinians killed
Thirteen Israeli deaths
More than 4,000 buildings destroyed in Gaza, more than 20,000 severely damaged
50,800 Gazans homeless and 400,000 without running water
Monday, 19 January 2009
Gaza homeless toll 'hits 50,000'
The BBC's Aleem Maqbool views the damage in one Gaza City neighbourhood
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been left destitute by Israel's three-week offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, the UN estimates.
The United Nations says that some 50,800 people are now homeless and 400,000 are without running water.
Correspondents in Gaza City say entire neighbourhoods have been flattened and bodies are still being recovered.
Israel says it will allow 143 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid into Gaza plus 60,000 litres of fuel.
An International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman said on Monday evening that 10 ambulances carrying medical supplies had travelled into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south.
Earlier, Israeli spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC: "Medicines, foodstuffs, energy, all will be reaching the Gaza Strip in the volume that is required and in an expeditious manner."
The BBC was unable to verify whether the food and fuel convoys reached Gaza.
Palestinian medical sources say at least 1,300 Palestinians have been killed and 5,500 injured during the conflict. Thirteen Israelis have been killed since the offensive began on 27 December.
Israel called a ceasefire on Saturday, saying it had met its war aims. Hamas later declared its own truce, with one of its leaders claiming a "great victory" over Israel.
Scrap metal
As the ceasefire continues to hold, Palestinians in Gaza have been returning home to assess the damage.
The BBC's Christian Fraser travelled to Jabaliya on the northern edge of Gaza City, where the Israeli tanks first crossed over the border. He says entire neighbourhoods have disappeared.
He met 67-year-old Fatma Umanim, sitting beside the remains her collapsed house, her neighbours building a makeshift shelter for her next to the rubble.
Our correspondent says an industry is growing out of the destruction in broken wood and scrap metal - Gaza's poorest salvaging whatever they can.
The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, is planning to visit Gaza on Tuesday to inspect the damage, but that his trip "could be subject to change", Israeli officials said.
The director of operations in Gaza for Unrwa, the UN relief agency, John Ging, said most important now was how to get basic supplies into the territory.
"We have a big recovery operation ahead of us, reconstruction - none of it will be possible of course, on any scale, until we get crossing points open," he told the BBC.
Unrwa was keen to reopen its schools, Mr Ging said, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been sheltering.
Quick pullout
Divisions among Arab countries have re-emerged at an Arab League summit in Kuwait that has been dominated by the crisis in Gaza.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Hamas had invited the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip by refusing to extend a six-month truce that expired in December.
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad said Arab leaders should adopt a resolution declaring Israel a terrorist entity, and support what he called the "Palestinian resistance".
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called for immediate reconciliation talks among Palestinian factions, along with parliamentary and presidential elections.
Analysts say Mr Abbas is facing challenges to his legitimacy, with Hamas claiming his term is over and many of his supporters angered by criticisms he made of the militant group while it was under fire from Israel.
Previous talks on a unity government have broken down, and the two sides remain divided over the timing of possible elections.
Israelis and Palestinians give their views on Israel's ceasefire announcement
The league discussed a proposal for a $2bn (£1.3bn) fund for reconstruction in Gaza, with Saudi King Abdullah saying his country would donate $1bn.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he wanted troops to leave Gaza "as quickly as possible", and some have already left.
Anonymous Israeli officials, quoted by AP news agency, said the withdrawal would be completed before US President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration on Tuesday.
But analysts say big questions remain, such as who will police Gaza's southern border with Egypt and how much power Hamas still has.
Hamas has said it would hold fire for a week to give Israel time to withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip.
But a spokesman for Hamas' military wing, Abu Ubaida, said its rocket capabilities had not been affected by the conflict and that "the enemy will receive more rockets".
CONFLICT IN FIGURES
More than 1,300 Palestinians killed
Thirteen Israeli deaths
More than 4,000 buildings destroyed in Gaza, more than 20,000 severely damaged
50,800 Gazans homeless and 400,000 without running water
Jeff Monson charged with mischief
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/mma_experts/post/Jeff-Monson-charged-with-mischief-ESPN-not-an-a?urn=mma,134737Thu Jan 15, 2009
Jeff Monson charged with mischief; ESPN not an accomplice
By Maggie Hendricks
Jeff Monson is either really dumb or really smart. I'm leaning towards the latter.
The fighter, who last appeared in the Mixed Fighting Alliance, winning over Ricco Rodriguez in December, has a warrant against him for defacing the Capitol building in Olympia, Wash. This warrant was issued after pictures of him painting an anarchist symbol on the building appeared in ESPN the Magazine.
See, Monson is an outspoken anarchist. He has said many times that he wants to do away with the social hierarchies that govern our world. The best way for Monson to share these theories is through the mass media, so publicity is his friend.
Is Monson so dumb that he would expect ESPN to not use photographs of him committing a crime? Of course not. This is a man with a Master's degree in psychology. He understands the ramifications of civil disobedience. If he didn't want attention brought to his cause, he would have asked ESPN to photograph him sitting at home, enjoying dinner.
Monson was charged with first-degree malicious mischief, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of a $20,000 fine and 10 years in prison. ESPN did not do him a favor by running that picture, but it's not their job to protect athletes. It's their job to cover them, a fact which Monson has used to make sure that everyone is discussing his cause today.
Humor Break
A husband and wife were sitting watching a TV program about psychology when he turned to his wife and said: "Honey, I bet you can't tell me something that will make me both happy and sad at the same time."
She replied: "You have the biggest penis out of all your friends."
She replied: "You have the biggest penis out of all your friends."
The Suburban Challenge
http://www.newsweek.com/id/180028
The Suburban Challenge
Washington needs to recognize that many of the country's biggest problems—and biggest opportunities—have moved beyond the city limits to the burbs.
Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Jan 26, 2009
The suburb is one of America's most treasured stereotypes. Writers can argue whether suburbs are the apotheosis of the American Dream or a suffocating nightmare of sameness, but there's general agreement on their defining characteristics. Suburbs are middle-class family values expressed in stucco, brick and carpet grass. They're all the things that America's noisy, diverse, striving, poor cities are not.
But the suburbs as we think of them are vanishing.
They no longer represent a retreat from the tumult of American life, but the locus of it. What do we do now that they resemble our cities, in good ways and bad?
Suburbs now provide more jobs than cities. Only about 22 percent of jobs in major metropolitan areas are located within three miles of a traditional downtown; twice as many are more than 10 miles out. Suburbs also host more immigrants: in the largest metropolitan areas, nearly six in 10 foreign-born residents now live in the suburbs. In places like Charlotte, N.C., Minneapolis, Sacramento, Calif., and Washington, the first address of many new Americans is most likely down a suburban lane.
Then there are the downsides. Nationwide, a million more suburbanites are living below the poverty line than city dwellers. Suburban St. Louis County, Mo., has 50 percent more working-poor families than the city of St. Louis itself. The mortgage crisis only adds to the problems. The foreclosure rate in Clayton County, which encompasses many of Atlanta's southern suburbs, is twice as high as that in Atlanta. Homes in neighborhoods close to downtown Chicago, Pittsburgh and Portland, Ore., have held their value, while prices for homes far from those urban cores have plummeted, according to new research by Joe Cortright, an economist at Impresa Consulting.
America can't ensure its leading place in the global economy unless we grapple with the problems and opportunities of our suburbs. Nonprofits, long focused on inner cities, need to reach out to poor families and immigrants in the suburbs. The federal government should support the production and preservation of affordable housing there. Even more important, Washington needs to recognize that suburban governments are being flattened by the housing crisis—they don't have the experience or the capacity to slow the tide of foreclosures or deal with neighborhoods strafed by vacancies. The Feds need to use some of the billions in recovery funding to help local governments buy up foreclosed properties and put that land to productive use.
The challenge goes beyond the current crisis. The mental line between city and suburb no longer makes much sense; policies need to treat metropolitan areas as a whole. Washington should support regional clusters for high-tech industries and other sectors. Such clusters foster innovation and economic growth, and they don't gather neatly in one municipality or another. That's why we speak of Silicon Valley and Route 128, rather than San Jose or Boston. Federal job-training funds should reflect the way metropolitan economies actually work: in clusters of firms that span boundaries.
And all levels of government need to reinvent the physical landscape. We need to create walkable communities and more public transit to link people in the burbs to jobs, schools, concert halls and sports fields that may be in the next neighborhood, the next municipality or the next county. As much as they may love their SUVs, suburbanites would benefit from lower greenhouse-gas emissions, less traffic and higher housing values (proximity to transit boosts home prices).
The federal government has a key role to play by providing funds and lowering regulatory hurdles. Certainly President Barack Obama seems aware of the challenge: he has decried the "outdated 'urban' agenda that focuses exclusively on the problems in our cities, and ignores our growing metro areas" and has pledged "a strategy that's about South Florida as much as Miami; that's about Mesa and Scottsdale as much as Phoenix; that's about Stamford and northern New Jersey as much as New York City." His office of urban policy promises to be the generator of that strategy.
The end of the (traditional) suburbs was inevitable. Hopeful, mobile Americans may once have thought they could leave behind the pressures, demands and compromises of city life. But social concerns inexorably follow society. Our leaders, starting with a metro-minded president, now have to make the mental jump across the urban-suburban boundary, and catch up.
Katz is a vice president at the Brookings Institution and founder and director of its Metropolitan Policy Program. Bradley is a senior research associate there.
The Suburban Challenge
Washington needs to recognize that many of the country's biggest problems—and biggest opportunities—have moved beyond the city limits to the burbs.
Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Jan 26, 2009
The suburb is one of America's most treasured stereotypes. Writers can argue whether suburbs are the apotheosis of the American Dream or a suffocating nightmare of sameness, but there's general agreement on their defining characteristics. Suburbs are middle-class family values expressed in stucco, brick and carpet grass. They're all the things that America's noisy, diverse, striving, poor cities are not.
But the suburbs as we think of them are vanishing.
They no longer represent a retreat from the tumult of American life, but the locus of it. What do we do now that they resemble our cities, in good ways and bad?
Suburbs now provide more jobs than cities. Only about 22 percent of jobs in major metropolitan areas are located within three miles of a traditional downtown; twice as many are more than 10 miles out. Suburbs also host more immigrants: in the largest metropolitan areas, nearly six in 10 foreign-born residents now live in the suburbs. In places like Charlotte, N.C., Minneapolis, Sacramento, Calif., and Washington, the first address of many new Americans is most likely down a suburban lane.
Then there are the downsides. Nationwide, a million more suburbanites are living below the poverty line than city dwellers. Suburban St. Louis County, Mo., has 50 percent more working-poor families than the city of St. Louis itself. The mortgage crisis only adds to the problems. The foreclosure rate in Clayton County, which encompasses many of Atlanta's southern suburbs, is twice as high as that in Atlanta. Homes in neighborhoods close to downtown Chicago, Pittsburgh and Portland, Ore., have held their value, while prices for homes far from those urban cores have plummeted, according to new research by Joe Cortright, an economist at Impresa Consulting.
America can't ensure its leading place in the global economy unless we grapple with the problems and opportunities of our suburbs. Nonprofits, long focused on inner cities, need to reach out to poor families and immigrants in the suburbs. The federal government should support the production and preservation of affordable housing there. Even more important, Washington needs to recognize that suburban governments are being flattened by the housing crisis—they don't have the experience or the capacity to slow the tide of foreclosures or deal with neighborhoods strafed by vacancies. The Feds need to use some of the billions in recovery funding to help local governments buy up foreclosed properties and put that land to productive use.
The challenge goes beyond the current crisis. The mental line between city and suburb no longer makes much sense; policies need to treat metropolitan areas as a whole. Washington should support regional clusters for high-tech industries and other sectors. Such clusters foster innovation and economic growth, and they don't gather neatly in one municipality or another. That's why we speak of Silicon Valley and Route 128, rather than San Jose or Boston. Federal job-training funds should reflect the way metropolitan economies actually work: in clusters of firms that span boundaries.
And all levels of government need to reinvent the physical landscape. We need to create walkable communities and more public transit to link people in the burbs to jobs, schools, concert halls and sports fields that may be in the next neighborhood, the next municipality or the next county. As much as they may love their SUVs, suburbanites would benefit from lower greenhouse-gas emissions, less traffic and higher housing values (proximity to transit boosts home prices).
The federal government has a key role to play by providing funds and lowering regulatory hurdles. Certainly President Barack Obama seems aware of the challenge: he has decried the "outdated 'urban' agenda that focuses exclusively on the problems in our cities, and ignores our growing metro areas" and has pledged "a strategy that's about South Florida as much as Miami; that's about Mesa and Scottsdale as much as Phoenix; that's about Stamford and northern New Jersey as much as New York City." His office of urban policy promises to be the generator of that strategy.
The end of the (traditional) suburbs was inevitable. Hopeful, mobile Americans may once have thought they could leave behind the pressures, demands and compromises of city life. But social concerns inexorably follow society. Our leaders, starting with a metro-minded president, now have to make the mental jump across the urban-suburban boundary, and catch up.
Katz is a vice president at the Brookings Institution and founder and director of its Metropolitan Policy Program. Bradley is a senior research associate there.
Beast of the Month - October 2008
Beast of the Month - October 2008
The Wall Street $700 Billion Bailout Swindle, Gigantic Financial Scam
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
"This plan is immoral. This plan is a disgrace. It bails out people on Wall Street who have speculated and who would drive this economy into the ground unless we have some controls on them... What's happening is this bailout proposal helps the few at the expense of the many."
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a rare voice of honesty, on the Wall Street swindle
Even in the world of Beasthood, what we refer to as "The Wall Street $700 Billion Bailout Swindle" took an unusual path to winning The Konformist Beast of the Month.
After all, the Wall Street bailout (or, as it has since been rebranded in much of the mainstream press, the Wall Street "rescue" - as, for some strange reason, the term "bailout" has led the plan to be viewed in the public as some sort of rip-off) didn't even exist before September 20th. That's when it was first proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, George W. Bush's point man for the continuing economic crisis. Of course, the fact that the bailout was cooked up by Bush and his minions was the first reason the public was rightfully skeptical about the whole scheme.
Which leads to the second reason: the amount. $700 billion, of course, is a hell of a lot of money. So the question needs to be asked, just how was this amount decided? Certainly there must have been some kind of elaborate economic study where the amount was derived from, right? Well, actually, according to Forbes Magazine, a Treasury spokeswoman explained: "It’s not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number.” Or, more to the point, a number large enough to put the public in a panic so they would quickly support it without debate.
This leads to the third reason: isn't there a bit of deja vu in this whole set-up? After all, the attempt to use hysteria to ram a controversial bill through Congress without debate, isn't this what happened after 9/11 with the Patriot Act? And wasn't this irrational propaganda push exactly what preceded the Iraq War as well? Hasn’t the American public played Charlie Brown to Bush's Lucy Van Pelt enough times to know that Team Bush can't be trusted?
The good news is that the public DID conclude Team Bush couldn't be trusted. According to Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, sentiments on the bailout from voters was "universally negative" by a rate of 95 percent. Her assessment seemed to be echoed by her cohorts in Congress: California Senator Dianne Feinstein declared she had received more than 50,000 calls and letters over the bailout plan, with the overwhelming majority opposed to it. California's other Senator was more specific: according to Barbara Boxer, only 40 out of over 2,000 calls to her California office were for the bailout, and her D.C. office had opposition at 917 to 1. Meanwhile, a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times September 19-22 poll found opposition to the bailout 55 to 31 percent, and a USA Today/Gallup September 24 survey found 56 to 22 percent that the public wanted Congress to pass a plan different from the Paulson proposal.
The bad news is that the negative public sentiments weren't echoed in the korporate media, which went out of its way to propagandize for the scam. The thinly concealed bailout PR went into overdrive after it was stunningly rejected in the House by a vote of 228 to 205 on September 29. Beyond the yellow journalism used to propagandize for the bailout, arm-twisting in the Beltway hit new lows. Southern Cal Congressman Brad Sherman had this to say about the DC political atmosphere: “The one thing that’s been proven is the absolute fear-mongering that’s being used to drive us is false. I’ve seen members turn to each other and say if we don’t pass this bill, we’re going to have martial law in the United States.” Despite this climate, a few politicians had some rather observant comments to make about the bailout. Spencer Bachus, a Republican, declared: "It caught all of us on the Hill by surprise. It was a gun to our head. And any time we rush on that stuff we make mistakes." Democrat Pete Stark of Northern California concluded: "I think we are being railroaded in the same manner we were to vote for Iraq." House Republican leader John Boehner called it class warfare, saying, "We should not be bailing out Wall Street on the backs of the American taxpayers." Dennis Kucinich was even more to the point, stating it was "too much money, in too short of a time, going to too few people, while too many questions remain unanswered... Is this the U.S. Congress or the board of directors at Goldman Sachs?" Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (chairman of the Senate Banking Committee) summed it up thusly: "It does nothing in my view to help a single family save a home."
Even with these comments and widespread opposition, the fix was in. A slightly modified version of the bill was passed in the Senate on October 1, by a vote of 74-25. (To evade the Constitutional requirement that spending bills begin in the House, it was introduced as an "amendment" to an existing bill already passed by the House, replacing the entire text.) It was then resubmitted to the House, who this time passed the bill 263-171 on October 3rd. This despite the following issues:
* CONCENTRATED POWERS: The original proposal by Paulson made the Treasury Secretary's decisions non-reviewable by any court or administrative agency. On this point, noted economist Nouriel Roubini commented: "He's asking for a huge amount of power. He's saying, 'Trust me, I'm going to do it right if you give me absolute control.' This is not a monarchy." Frank Razzano, a former SEC attorney, described it as "dictatorial power unreviewable by the third branch of government, the courts, to try to resolve the crisis. We are taking a huge leap of faith." This point became so controversial, it was dropped from the final bill, but even without it, it provided one man unprecedented powers to influence and interfere with the economic marketplace with a gigantic sum of money.
* CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Making matters worse, the one man given these unprecedented powers was Paulson himself, the unelected Treasury head who impersonated Nero on a fiddle while the subprime crisis morphed into the financial crisis. (For this, Paulson received the prestigious BOTM trophy in April. Great job, Hank!) Paulson is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, which stands to reap huge benefits from the plan, as do many of his former associates and colleagues. It is also plausible to assume Paulson will cover-up any criminal activity by corporations and executives involved in the financial meltdown. Congressman Peter DeFazio cynically suspected Congress was being "rolled by a Wall Street executive who is masquerading as the secretary of the Treasury."
* ALL THE MONEY WILL LIKELY DISAPPEAR: The bailout calls for using the $700 billion to buy toxic assets from banks. This means that the Treasury will receive the worst of the assets from Wall Street, the ones with the lowest likelihood of any return. Meanwhile, as noted on the Calculated Risk blog, the bill doesn't merely give the Treasury Secretary $700 billion to use as he pleases once, but rather a total of $700 billion at one time. This means if any money is actually returned to the Treasury, it can be poured back into Wall Street. Such a strategy seems doomed to leave the Treasury stuck with $700 billion in the most toxic of investments, with Wall Street off scot-free and the American taxpayer left holding the bag.
* WALL STREET EXECUTIVES GET A FREE RIDE: The plan calls for no limits on pay to CEOs and other executives of companies receiving the funds, a point that lead to deserved criticism. If the American public gives $700 billion to Wall Street in these tough economic times, shouldn't the heads of these companies (who created the crisis with their own reckless decisions) be willing to make some sacrifice in return? Not according to Paulson, who claims such limits would lead to companies not participating in the bailout. Despite much feigned outrage and finger wagging from the Democrats (including House Financial Services chairman Barney Frank stating that CEOs who refuse pay cuts are "selfish and unpatriotic") the final plan passed without changing this.
* COST: As previously pointed out, $700 billion is a lot of money. The amount would also likely push the 2009 budget deficit over $1 trillion, possibly even to the astounding level of $1.5 trillion. Even at $1 trillion, the amount of the deficit would be nearly 2.5 times the previous record amount set in 2004, and at 7 percent of GDP, it would best the previous record during 1983, when Ronald Reagan's "Voodoo Economics" and a major recession led to a 6 percent rate. This will fuel political demands for cuts in social services to the poor and middle class, while Wall Street executives continue to live large.
* $700 BILLION IS TIP OF THE ICEBERG: As noted by CNBC on September 21, Wall Street had already received $1.1 trillion dollars in bailout money this year already, meaning the total now amounts to $1.8 trillion. Meanwhile, Bloomberg TV analyst Marc Faber predicts the total bailout for Wall Street will eventually amount to an astounding $5 trillion. Economist Michael Hudson (who was Dennis Kucinich’s Chief Economic Advisor during his presidential campaign) has warned that funneling these gigantic sums of money into Wall Street is a "once in a century rip-off" that could lead to hyperinflation and the collapse of the dollar, the same things which destroyed Germany's Weimar Republic and created Hitler's Third Reich.
* ZERO FOR THE POOR & MIDDLE CLASS: As early as March, The Konformist was noting the gross inequity in what was being pumped into Wall Street and what was being done for those facing foreclosure due to the subprime crisis. Cut to October, and still not a penny of federal money or help has gone to the American working class. It's time to call class warfare what it is. As Michael Hudson put it: "It’s not a bailout, it's a give away and it's a give away that will create a new Kleptocracy of billionaires."
Of course, all these objections are met by establishment mouthpieces with the following predictable refrain: "Well, we have to do something." Of course, "something" shouldn't mean "the worst plan cooked up by the most cynically exploitative political mob in the history of America." Here are some alternative views that could have been explored instead of Bush's Wall Street Swindle:
* New York Times economist Paul Krugman recommended the Treasury purchase equity capital instead of toxic assets. Instead of being stuck with bad investments, the Treasury would be invested in companies and could expect some returns from their $700 billion. This is precisely what was done during the S&L bailout and the highly successful Swedish banking rescue of the 1990s.
* In The Wall Street Journal, Hillary Clinton called for helping regular homeowners instead of just throwing money to Wall Street. She advocated creating a new Home Owners' Loan Corporation, modeled after the New Deal program. The HOLC would help homeowners refinance their mortgages, combined with a moratorium on foreclosures and freezing of rate hikes in ARM loans.
* Economist Nouriel Roubini combined reviving the HOLC along with a new Resolution Trust Corporation (used to recover funds during the S&L crisis) and Reconstruction Finance Corporation (another New Deal plan to provide liquidity to the banking system) to battle the crisis. He would also comment: "It is pathetic that Congress did not consult any of the many professional economists that have presented – many on the Monitor Finance blog forum – alternative plans that were more fair and efficient."
* Filmmaker Michael Moore may not be a respected economist or a politician, but his populist instincts are central to his popularity. On his Website, he advocated a policy that combined the following principals: have any bailout paid for by taxes on the wealthy, corporations and investors; equity capital in all banks for any bailout money; limiting executive pay to 40 times what their average wor
The Wall Street $700 Billion Bailout Swindle, Gigantic Financial Scam
"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"
"This plan is immoral. This plan is a disgrace. It bails out people on Wall Street who have speculated and who would drive this economy into the ground unless we have some controls on them... What's happening is this bailout proposal helps the few at the expense of the many."
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a rare voice of honesty, on the Wall Street swindle
Even in the world of Beasthood, what we refer to as "The Wall Street $700 Billion Bailout Swindle" took an unusual path to winning The Konformist Beast of the Month.
After all, the Wall Street bailout (or, as it has since been rebranded in much of the mainstream press, the Wall Street "rescue" - as, for some strange reason, the term "bailout" has led the plan to be viewed in the public as some sort of rip-off) didn't even exist before September 20th. That's when it was first proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, George W. Bush's point man for the continuing economic crisis. Of course, the fact that the bailout was cooked up by Bush and his minions was the first reason the public was rightfully skeptical about the whole scheme.
Which leads to the second reason: the amount. $700 billion, of course, is a hell of a lot of money. So the question needs to be asked, just how was this amount decided? Certainly there must have been some kind of elaborate economic study where the amount was derived from, right? Well, actually, according to Forbes Magazine, a Treasury spokeswoman explained: "It’s not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number.” Or, more to the point, a number large enough to put the public in a panic so they would quickly support it without debate.
This leads to the third reason: isn't there a bit of deja vu in this whole set-up? After all, the attempt to use hysteria to ram a controversial bill through Congress without debate, isn't this what happened after 9/11 with the Patriot Act? And wasn't this irrational propaganda push exactly what preceded the Iraq War as well? Hasn’t the American public played Charlie Brown to Bush's Lucy Van Pelt enough times to know that Team Bush can't be trusted?
The good news is that the public DID conclude Team Bush couldn't be trusted. According to Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, sentiments on the bailout from voters was "universally negative" by a rate of 95 percent. Her assessment seemed to be echoed by her cohorts in Congress: California Senator Dianne Feinstein declared she had received more than 50,000 calls and letters over the bailout plan, with the overwhelming majority opposed to it. California's other Senator was more specific: according to Barbara Boxer, only 40 out of over 2,000 calls to her California office were for the bailout, and her D.C. office had opposition at 917 to 1. Meanwhile, a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times September 19-22 poll found opposition to the bailout 55 to 31 percent, and a USA Today/Gallup September 24 survey found 56 to 22 percent that the public wanted Congress to pass a plan different from the Paulson proposal.
The bad news is that the negative public sentiments weren't echoed in the korporate media, which went out of its way to propagandize for the scam. The thinly concealed bailout PR went into overdrive after it was stunningly rejected in the House by a vote of 228 to 205 on September 29. Beyond the yellow journalism used to propagandize for the bailout, arm-twisting in the Beltway hit new lows. Southern Cal Congressman Brad Sherman had this to say about the DC political atmosphere: “The one thing that’s been proven is the absolute fear-mongering that’s being used to drive us is false. I’ve seen members turn to each other and say if we don’t pass this bill, we’re going to have martial law in the United States.” Despite this climate, a few politicians had some rather observant comments to make about the bailout. Spencer Bachus, a Republican, declared: "It caught all of us on the Hill by surprise. It was a gun to our head. And any time we rush on that stuff we make mistakes." Democrat Pete Stark of Northern California concluded: "I think we are being railroaded in the same manner we were to vote for Iraq." House Republican leader John Boehner called it class warfare, saying, "We should not be bailing out Wall Street on the backs of the American taxpayers." Dennis Kucinich was even more to the point, stating it was "too much money, in too short of a time, going to too few people, while too many questions remain unanswered... Is this the U.S. Congress or the board of directors at Goldman Sachs?" Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (chairman of the Senate Banking Committee) summed it up thusly: "It does nothing in my view to help a single family save a home."
Even with these comments and widespread opposition, the fix was in. A slightly modified version of the bill was passed in the Senate on October 1, by a vote of 74-25. (To evade the Constitutional requirement that spending bills begin in the House, it was introduced as an "amendment" to an existing bill already passed by the House, replacing the entire text.) It was then resubmitted to the House, who this time passed the bill 263-171 on October 3rd. This despite the following issues:
* CONCENTRATED POWERS: The original proposal by Paulson made the Treasury Secretary's decisions non-reviewable by any court or administrative agency. On this point, noted economist Nouriel Roubini commented: "He's asking for a huge amount of power. He's saying, 'Trust me, I'm going to do it right if you give me absolute control.' This is not a monarchy." Frank Razzano, a former SEC attorney, described it as "dictatorial power unreviewable by the third branch of government, the courts, to try to resolve the crisis. We are taking a huge leap of faith." This point became so controversial, it was dropped from the final bill, but even without it, it provided one man unprecedented powers to influence and interfere with the economic marketplace with a gigantic sum of money.
* CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Making matters worse, the one man given these unprecedented powers was Paulson himself, the unelected Treasury head who impersonated Nero on a fiddle while the subprime crisis morphed into the financial crisis. (For this, Paulson received the prestigious BOTM trophy in April. Great job, Hank!) Paulson is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, which stands to reap huge benefits from the plan, as do many of his former associates and colleagues. It is also plausible to assume Paulson will cover-up any criminal activity by corporations and executives involved in the financial meltdown. Congressman Peter DeFazio cynically suspected Congress was being "rolled by a Wall Street executive who is masquerading as the secretary of the Treasury."
* ALL THE MONEY WILL LIKELY DISAPPEAR: The bailout calls for using the $700 billion to buy toxic assets from banks. This means that the Treasury will receive the worst of the assets from Wall Street, the ones with the lowest likelihood of any return. Meanwhile, as noted on the Calculated Risk blog, the bill doesn't merely give the Treasury Secretary $700 billion to use as he pleases once, but rather a total of $700 billion at one time. This means if any money is actually returned to the Treasury, it can be poured back into Wall Street. Such a strategy seems doomed to leave the Treasury stuck with $700 billion in the most toxic of investments, with Wall Street off scot-free and the American taxpayer left holding the bag.
* WALL STREET EXECUTIVES GET A FREE RIDE: The plan calls for no limits on pay to CEOs and other executives of companies receiving the funds, a point that lead to deserved criticism. If the American public gives $700 billion to Wall Street in these tough economic times, shouldn't the heads of these companies (who created the crisis with their own reckless decisions) be willing to make some sacrifice in return? Not according to Paulson, who claims such limits would lead to companies not participating in the bailout. Despite much feigned outrage and finger wagging from the Democrats (including House Financial Services chairman Barney Frank stating that CEOs who refuse pay cuts are "selfish and unpatriotic") the final plan passed without changing this.
* COST: As previously pointed out, $700 billion is a lot of money. The amount would also likely push the 2009 budget deficit over $1 trillion, possibly even to the astounding level of $1.5 trillion. Even at $1 trillion, the amount of the deficit would be nearly 2.5 times the previous record amount set in 2004, and at 7 percent of GDP, it would best the previous record during 1983, when Ronald Reagan's "Voodoo Economics" and a major recession led to a 6 percent rate. This will fuel political demands for cuts in social services to the poor and middle class, while Wall Street executives continue to live large.
* $700 BILLION IS TIP OF THE ICEBERG: As noted by CNBC on September 21, Wall Street had already received $1.1 trillion dollars in bailout money this year already, meaning the total now amounts to $1.8 trillion. Meanwhile, Bloomberg TV analyst Marc Faber predicts the total bailout for Wall Street will eventually amount to an astounding $5 trillion. Economist Michael Hudson (who was Dennis Kucinich’s Chief Economic Advisor during his presidential campaign) has warned that funneling these gigantic sums of money into Wall Street is a "once in a century rip-off" that could lead to hyperinflation and the collapse of the dollar, the same things which destroyed Germany's Weimar Republic and created Hitler's Third Reich.
* ZERO FOR THE POOR & MIDDLE CLASS: As early as March, The Konformist was noting the gross inequity in what was being pumped into Wall Street and what was being done for those facing foreclosure due to the subprime crisis. Cut to October, and still not a penny of federal money or help has gone to the American working class. It's time to call class warfare what it is. As Michael Hudson put it: "It’s not a bailout, it's a give away and it's a give away that will create a new Kleptocracy of billionaires."
Of course, all these objections are met by establishment mouthpieces with the following predictable refrain: "Well, we have to do something." Of course, "something" shouldn't mean "the worst plan cooked up by the most cynically exploitative political mob in the history of America." Here are some alternative views that could have been explored instead of Bush's Wall Street Swindle:
* New York Times economist Paul Krugman recommended the Treasury purchase equity capital instead of toxic assets. Instead of being stuck with bad investments, the Treasury would be invested in companies and could expect some returns from their $700 billion. This is precisely what was done during the S&L bailout and the highly successful Swedish banking rescue of the 1990s.
* In The Wall Street Journal, Hillary Clinton called for helping regular homeowners instead of just throwing money to Wall Street. She advocated creating a new Home Owners' Loan Corporation, modeled after the New Deal program. The HOLC would help homeowners refinance their mortgages, combined with a moratorium on foreclosures and freezing of rate hikes in ARM loans.
* Economist Nouriel Roubini combined reviving the HOLC along with a new Resolution Trust Corporation (used to recover funds during the S&L crisis) and Reconstruction Finance Corporation (another New Deal plan to provide liquidity to the banking system) to battle the crisis. He would also comment: "It is pathetic that Congress did not consult any of the many professional economists that have presented – many on the Monitor Finance blog forum – alternative plans that were more fair and efficient."
* Filmmaker Michael Moore may not be a respected economist or a politician, but his populist instincts are central to his popularity. On his Website, he advocated a policy that combined the following principals: have any bailout paid for by taxes on the wealthy, corporations and investors; equity capital in all banks for any bailout money; limiting executive pay to 40 times what their average wor