"Karl Marx had it right. At some point capitalism can self-destroy itself. That's because you can not keep on shifting income from labor to capital without not having an excess capacity and a lack of aggregate demand. We thought that markets work. They are not working."
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Gwen Stefani's tattoos
(or: The media is as liberal as the corporations that own it)
Mickey Z.
"They control the minds of the masses."
- Malcolm X (on American media power)
Perhaps my favorite illustration of life in a corporate propaganda state is the daily New York Times corrections box. Each morning, the newspaper of record comes clean about what it got wrong the day before.
For example, I remember a Times article that referred incorrectly to the status of Gwen Stefani’s tattoos. The next day, in the corrections box, came a dose of reality: Gwen Stefani has no permanent tattoos.
We can all sleep better knowing that Gwen Stefani has no permanent tattoosand secure in the knowledge that the media readily admits its mistakes. It’s all there in black and white—every single day—right?
Of course, the tacit message behind the daily New York Times corrections box is this: Besides a few minor typographical errors, everything else in yesterday’s paper was correct. It was accurate. It was, to use their phrase, fit to print... and has now passed on to become part of our official history. This is typical of life within a society dominated by a corporate-run press.
Whether you label them liberal or conservative, most major media outletsare large corporations owned by or aligned with even larger corporations, and they share a common goal: to make a profit by selling a product (an affluent audience) to a given market: advertisers.
Therefore, we shouldn’t find it too shocking that the image of the world being presented by a corporate-owned press very much reflects the biased interests of the elite players involved in this sordid little love triangle.
That’s why every major daily newspaper has a business section, but not a labor section. Why at least once a week, those same newspapers run an automobile section, but no bicycle section.
This is why when the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops, it makes headlines. But if the global extinction rate rises, it’s questionable if it'll even make the papers (and if it does, it’ll be buried in a small item on page 23).
If you created a blueprint for an apparatus that utterly erased critical thought, you could make none more efficient than the American corporate media.
Kill someone while wearing a uniform and you're a hero... do it in gang colors and you're a criminal. Hire a lawyer to help you find tax loopholes and you're a good businessman... make a few bucks off the books and you're a tax cheat. Sell cigarettes, alcohol and lottery tickets and you're an entrepreneur... smoke a joint and bet with a bookie: you're a menace to society.
Of all the beguiling propaganda tactics Corporate America has cultivated, the usurping of language is the greatest victory of all. Have you ever considered that also right after World War II the "Department of War" was renamed the "Defense Department"? Almost 70 years later, thanks to legions of pinstriped mountebanks, we exist in an age where helicopters named Apache are unselfconsciously used to quell (often alleged) ethnic cleansing.
It's all about setting standards and defining the accepted parameters. Yes, we can "have it our way," as long as we stay well within the range of choices being offered. We can “just do it” any time we damn well please. All we need is a $120 pair of sneakers. We've strayed so far from reality that even the most elementary truths have become obscured.
Show some flesh in a particular magazine and you're a pornographer…flash some skin on a public bus and you're a Calvin Klein ad. Collect food stamps and you're a welfare queen... hire a lobbyist to win government subsidies, tax breaks, and protectionist tariffs and you're a corporation.
Let's say you're a big city mayor and you want to institute a regressive tax on your city's poor residents. Easy, call it a "transit fare hike." Rich people don't ride the subway.
What if your company wants to dump toxic sludge on farmers to be used as fertilizer? Hire a massive public relations firm to give it a new image by renaming it "biosolids.”
There’s really nothing to it: Cars aren’t used, they’re pre-owned. Invasions aren’t invasions when they’re pre-emptive wars. Missiles aren't weapons, they're peacekeepers.
Claim that the Messiah regularly visits your suburban home and Mel Gibson’s faithful will beat a path to your door…claim to be the Messiah in Waco and they'll drive a tank through your living room. Serve the charred flesh of tortured animals and you're a gourmet…choose a lifestyle of compassion and logic and you're a zealot.
Since today's words have developed an uncanny knack for altering their meaning from situation to situation until they have no meaning at all, perhaps it's time for Americans to hold a mass dictionary burning. What good are definitions when they give peace prizes to men like to Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama—and so many of us believe these war criminals deserve such accolades?
As South African activist Steven Biko once said: “The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
Reprint State Department press releases verbatim and you're a respected investigative journalist... dig up the truth and you're gonna have a hell of a time trying to earn money as a writer.
With a nod to Guy Debord, I say it’s time we reinvent everyday life—steal it back from corporate propagandists and reintroduce the joy of living. Stop settling for less pain and start demanding more pleasure. Today’s progressives can provoke dramatic changes simply by refusing to submit to the societal formula they’re presented with.
We know what we feel…so no longer should we allow Hollywood, Madison Avenue, the government, or Corporate America to define us. We must trust our own instincts and break free from manufactured needs and illusory goals in order to cultivate new American Dreams (yes, plural):
Dreams not for sale
Dreams not based on celebrity
Dreams not based on material consumption
Dreams not based on physical beauty
Dreams not based on military conquest
Dreams that promote unity and collective action while maintaining individuality and independence
Dreams that challenge us to think for ourselves and about others
Breaking away from the omnipresent message of “work, consume, and obey authority without question” can be this generation’s way of challenging—and smashing—a culture that has us programmed to be more concerned with Gwen Stefani's tattoos than the corporate pirates raping the planet and controlling our minds.
Comrades, it’s time to rediscover the subversive pleasure of thinking for ourselves…
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
Project Censored
P.O. Box 571
Cotati, 94931
United States
Mickey Z.
"They control the minds of the masses."
- Malcolm X (on American media power)
Perhaps my favorite illustration of life in a corporate propaganda state is the daily New York Times corrections box. Each morning, the newspaper of record comes clean about what it got wrong the day before.
For example, I remember a Times article that referred incorrectly to the status of Gwen Stefani’s tattoos. The next day, in the corrections box, came a dose of reality: Gwen Stefani has no permanent tattoos.
We can all sleep better knowing that Gwen Stefani has no permanent tattoosand secure in the knowledge that the media readily admits its mistakes. It’s all there in black and white—every single day—right?
Of course, the tacit message behind the daily New York Times corrections box is this: Besides a few minor typographical errors, everything else in yesterday’s paper was correct. It was accurate. It was, to use their phrase, fit to print... and has now passed on to become part of our official history. This is typical of life within a society dominated by a corporate-run press.
Whether you label them liberal or conservative, most major media outletsare large corporations owned by or aligned with even larger corporations, and they share a common goal: to make a profit by selling a product (an affluent audience) to a given market: advertisers.
Therefore, we shouldn’t find it too shocking that the image of the world being presented by a corporate-owned press very much reflects the biased interests of the elite players involved in this sordid little love triangle.
That’s why every major daily newspaper has a business section, but not a labor section. Why at least once a week, those same newspapers run an automobile section, but no bicycle section.
This is why when the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops, it makes headlines. But if the global extinction rate rises, it’s questionable if it'll even make the papers (and if it does, it’ll be buried in a small item on page 23).
If you created a blueprint for an apparatus that utterly erased critical thought, you could make none more efficient than the American corporate media.
Kill someone while wearing a uniform and you're a hero... do it in gang colors and you're a criminal. Hire a lawyer to help you find tax loopholes and you're a good businessman... make a few bucks off the books and you're a tax cheat. Sell cigarettes, alcohol and lottery tickets and you're an entrepreneur... smoke a joint and bet with a bookie: you're a menace to society.
Of all the beguiling propaganda tactics Corporate America has cultivated, the usurping of language is the greatest victory of all. Have you ever considered that also right after World War II the "Department of War" was renamed the "Defense Department"? Almost 70 years later, thanks to legions of pinstriped mountebanks, we exist in an age where helicopters named Apache are unselfconsciously used to quell (often alleged) ethnic cleansing.
It's all about setting standards and defining the accepted parameters. Yes, we can "have it our way," as long as we stay well within the range of choices being offered. We can “just do it” any time we damn well please. All we need is a $120 pair of sneakers. We've strayed so far from reality that even the most elementary truths have become obscured.
Show some flesh in a particular magazine and you're a pornographer…flash some skin on a public bus and you're a Calvin Klein ad. Collect food stamps and you're a welfare queen... hire a lobbyist to win government subsidies, tax breaks, and protectionist tariffs and you're a corporation.
Let's say you're a big city mayor and you want to institute a regressive tax on your city's poor residents. Easy, call it a "transit fare hike." Rich people don't ride the subway.
What if your company wants to dump toxic sludge on farmers to be used as fertilizer? Hire a massive public relations firm to give it a new image by renaming it "biosolids.”
There’s really nothing to it: Cars aren’t used, they’re pre-owned. Invasions aren’t invasions when they’re pre-emptive wars. Missiles aren't weapons, they're peacekeepers.
Claim that the Messiah regularly visits your suburban home and Mel Gibson’s faithful will beat a path to your door…claim to be the Messiah in Waco and they'll drive a tank through your living room. Serve the charred flesh of tortured animals and you're a gourmet…choose a lifestyle of compassion and logic and you're a zealot.
Since today's words have developed an uncanny knack for altering their meaning from situation to situation until they have no meaning at all, perhaps it's time for Americans to hold a mass dictionary burning. What good are definitions when they give peace prizes to men like to Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama—and so many of us believe these war criminals deserve such accolades?
As South African activist Steven Biko once said: “The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
Reprint State Department press releases verbatim and you're a respected investigative journalist... dig up the truth and you're gonna have a hell of a time trying to earn money as a writer.
With a nod to Guy Debord, I say it’s time we reinvent everyday life—steal it back from corporate propagandists and reintroduce the joy of living. Stop settling for less pain and start demanding more pleasure. Today’s progressives can provoke dramatic changes simply by refusing to submit to the societal formula they’re presented with.
We know what we feel…so no longer should we allow Hollywood, Madison Avenue, the government, or Corporate America to define us. We must trust our own instincts and break free from manufactured needs and illusory goals in order to cultivate new American Dreams (yes, plural):
Dreams not for sale
Dreams not based on celebrity
Dreams not based on material consumption
Dreams not based on physical beauty
Dreams not based on military conquest
Dreams that promote unity and collective action while maintaining individuality and independence
Dreams that challenge us to think for ourselves and about others
Breaking away from the omnipresent message of “work, consume, and obey authority without question” can be this generation’s way of challenging—and smashing—a culture that has us programmed to be more concerned with Gwen Stefani's tattoos than the corporate pirates raping the planet and controlling our minds.
Comrades, it’s time to rediscover the subversive pleasure of thinking for ourselves…
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.
Project Censored
P.O. Box 571
Cotati, 94931
United States
AT&T’s New Text Plan Overcharges You by 10,000,000 Percent. Literally.
Sam Biddle
Aug 18, 2011
http://gizmodo.com/5832245
AT&T's killing their $10/1,000 text plan. Now, you'll have to choose between $20 for unlimited, or forgo a plan and pay $0.20 per message. AT&T calls this "streamlining." We call it what it is: an outrageous, gigantic scam.
It's important to note, before considering anything SMS, that text messages are essentially free. Not for you, of course, but for companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Unlike uploading a video to YouTube from your phone, which eats mobile bandwidth, text messages ride the same itsy bitsy communication channel your handset uses to check in with local towers to make sure it's turned on. Each text hitches a ride on an infinitesimally small data packet, chugging through traffic that would've been there anyway. For AT&T, it's basically a freebie—160 bytes of data. A trifle. Compared to the rest of what they're transmitting, AT&T's texts are like amoebas on the back of a tyrannosaurus.
For you, it's quite the opposite. For you, text messages cost money. A lot of money. How much money? Well that all depends. Starting next week, the only texting options for new AT&T subscribers will be a $20/month unlimited buffet, or paying per text, which is insane.
And here's why it's insane. Absolutely, skull-implodingly, village-razingly, jump-out-your-window-into-spikes insane.
AT&T offers a 2 gigabyte per month phone data plan for $25. By breaking this down, we can find out how much they think each text's worth of data costs. And according to this value, when you're using the same amount of data to send a text without a messaging plan, they're charging you 100,000 times more. Yes. Blink a few times and read that again. When AT&T calls data texting, it costs 100,000 times more than when it's in the form of photos, music, email, or anything else. They're ripping you off with the force of a nuclear bomb.
Here's how it breaks down:
AT&T charges $25 for 2 gigabytes of mobile data, which states how much they think their bits and bytes are worth. That comes out to 80 megabytes per dollar. 80 megabytes will get you 500,000 text messages—assuming you're writing the largest possible message, which you're often not (i.e. "Hey" "Nothing" "lol").
Now divide that dollar by the 500,000 potential texts. That comes out to $0.000002 per text—two ten thousandths of a cent. A very, very, very small amount of money.
Now, let's say you send 5,000 texts a month. That's a large, though wholly realistic number. Multiply that by the above worthless cost per text, and you've got—hold onto your wallet!—$0.01. A penny for five thousand texts, according to how much AT&T says its data is worth in a data plan.
But outside of the data plan? Oh boy! Things get very different very fast. And by very different, I mean inordinately overpriced. Those same 5,000 texts, at a rate of $0.20 per message, will cost you $1,000. Not a penny—a grand. Two very different prices for literally the exact same thing.
They're not alone—every other carrier charges similarly grotesque rates for texting without an SMS plan. The difference here is that AT&T's taken away new customers' option to spend less, whereas carriers like Verizon still offer tiered texting plans for varying budgets. (Though don't be surprised if they follow suit—AT&T's been leading the industry in its data/pricing, often in the worst ways.)
When the blue curtain's pulled back and you see the enormous money tree they're shaking, there's nothing to conclude but outrage. Texting messages are as costly to AT&T as blowing bubbles, but they sell them to you like they're vomiting molten gold.
Aug 18, 2011
http://gizmodo.com/5832245
AT&T's killing their $10/1,000 text plan. Now, you'll have to choose between $20 for unlimited, or forgo a plan and pay $0.20 per message. AT&T calls this "streamlining." We call it what it is: an outrageous, gigantic scam.
It's important to note, before considering anything SMS, that text messages are essentially free. Not for you, of course, but for companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Unlike uploading a video to YouTube from your phone, which eats mobile bandwidth, text messages ride the same itsy bitsy communication channel your handset uses to check in with local towers to make sure it's turned on. Each text hitches a ride on an infinitesimally small data packet, chugging through traffic that would've been there anyway. For AT&T, it's basically a freebie—160 bytes of data. A trifle. Compared to the rest of what they're transmitting, AT&T's texts are like amoebas on the back of a tyrannosaurus.
For you, it's quite the opposite. For you, text messages cost money. A lot of money. How much money? Well that all depends. Starting next week, the only texting options for new AT&T subscribers will be a $20/month unlimited buffet, or paying per text, which is insane.
And here's why it's insane. Absolutely, skull-implodingly, village-razingly, jump-out-your-window-into-spikes insane.
AT&T offers a 2 gigabyte per month phone data plan for $25. By breaking this down, we can find out how much they think each text's worth of data costs. And according to this value, when you're using the same amount of data to send a text without a messaging plan, they're charging you 100,000 times more. Yes. Blink a few times and read that again. When AT&T calls data texting, it costs 100,000 times more than when it's in the form of photos, music, email, or anything else. They're ripping you off with the force of a nuclear bomb.
Here's how it breaks down:
AT&T charges $25 for 2 gigabytes of mobile data, which states how much they think their bits and bytes are worth. That comes out to 80 megabytes per dollar. 80 megabytes will get you 500,000 text messages—assuming you're writing the largest possible message, which you're often not (i.e. "Hey" "Nothing" "lol").
Now divide that dollar by the 500,000 potential texts. That comes out to $0.000002 per text—two ten thousandths of a cent. A very, very, very small amount of money.
Now, let's say you send 5,000 texts a month. That's a large, though wholly realistic number. Multiply that by the above worthless cost per text, and you've got—hold onto your wallet!—$0.01. A penny for five thousand texts, according to how much AT&T says its data is worth in a data plan.
But outside of the data plan? Oh boy! Things get very different very fast. And by very different, I mean inordinately overpriced. Those same 5,000 texts, at a rate of $0.20 per message, will cost you $1,000. Not a penny—a grand. Two very different prices for literally the exact same thing.
They're not alone—every other carrier charges similarly grotesque rates for texting without an SMS plan. The difference here is that AT&T's taken away new customers' option to spend less, whereas carriers like Verizon still offer tiered texting plans for varying budgets. (Though don't be surprised if they follow suit—AT&T's been leading the industry in its data/pricing, often in the worst ways.)
When the blue curtain's pulled back and you see the enormous money tree they're shaking, there's nothing to conclude but outrage. Texting messages are as costly to AT&T as blowing bubbles, but they sell them to you like they're vomiting molten gold.
Libya: "Investment Surge Sparks Nationalist Rhetoric, Policies"
Robalini's Note: This cable from Wikileaks perhaps explains the motivations behind the not-so-completely covert operation this year in Libya better than any establishment piece...
The regime has made a point of putting companies on notice that "exploitative" behavior will not be tolerated. In his annual speech marking the founding of his regime, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi in 2006 said: "Oil companies are controlled by foreigners who have made millions from them -- now, Libyans must take their place to profit from this money." His son, Seif al-Islam al-Qadhafi, said in March 2007 that, "We will not tolerate a foreign company to make a profit at the expense of a Libyan citizen."
Beyond the rhetoric, there are other signs of growing resource nationalism. -- Some IOCs with local subsidiaries have been forced to adopt Libyan names this year, including TOTAL (now officially titled "Mabruk"), Repsol ("Akakoss"), ENI ("Mellita") and Veba ("Al-Hurruj"), although these names have yet to catch on. -- The Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) is currently in the process of reworking long-standing oil concessions with several different IOCs (Ref B), in an effort to wring more favorable terms. There is a growing concern in the IOC community that NOC, emboldened by soaring oil prices and the press of would-be suitors, will seek better terms on both concession and production-sharing agreements, even those signed very recently. -- Libyan labor laws have also been amended to "Libyanize" the economy in several key sectors, and IOCs are now being forced to hire untrained Libyan employees. The Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) has recently begun insisting that deputy general managers, finance managers and human resource managers in local offices of IOC's be Libyan.
Source URL:
http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/11/07TRIPOLI967.html
The regime has made a point of putting companies on notice that "exploitative" behavior will not be tolerated. In his annual speech marking the founding of his regime, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi in 2006 said: "Oil companies are controlled by foreigners who have made millions from them -- now, Libyans must take their place to profit from this money." His son, Seif al-Islam al-Qadhafi, said in March 2007 that, "We will not tolerate a foreign company to make a profit at the expense of a Libyan citizen."
Beyond the rhetoric, there are other signs of growing resource nationalism. -- Some IOCs with local subsidiaries have been forced to adopt Libyan names this year, including TOTAL (now officially titled "Mabruk"), Repsol ("Akakoss"), ENI ("Mellita") and Veba ("Al-Hurruj"), although these names have yet to catch on. -- The Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) is currently in the process of reworking long-standing oil concessions with several different IOCs (Ref B), in an effort to wring more favorable terms. There is a growing concern in the IOC community that NOC, emboldened by soaring oil prices and the press of would-be suitors, will seek better terms on both concession and production-sharing agreements, even those signed very recently. -- Libyan labor laws have also been amended to "Libyanize" the economy in several key sectors, and IOCs are now being forced to hire untrained Libyan employees. The Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) has recently begun insisting that deputy general managers, finance managers and human resource managers in local offices of IOC's be Libyan.
Source URL:
http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/11/07TRIPOLI967.html
Woman allegedly raped in Iraq sued by defense contractor KBR
Eric W. Dolan Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/23/woman-allegedly-raped-in-iraq-sued-by-defense-contractor-kbr
Defense contractor KBR has filed a lawsuit against Jamie Leigh Jones, a former employee who sued the company in 2007 after allegedly being drugged and raped by a group of co-workers in Iraq.
The lawsuit seeks more than $2 million to cover their legal fees, and accuses her of making fabricated and frivolous claims, according to the Wall Street Journal.
A Houston jury deliberated for more than 10 hours before deciding there was not enough evidence against the defendants.
“They have beaten us and now they are attempting to crush us,” her lawyer, Todd Kelly, told the Wall Street Journal. “This is an attempt by KBR to chill other people from bringing claims against them.”
Jones had filed suit against KBR, its former parent company Halliburton, and former co-workers. All parties involved denied the allegations and the co-workers insisted the sex had been consensual.
She acknowledged that she had no memory of the alleged rapes but claimed it was because she had been drugged prior to the assault. Jones said the company imprisoned her in a shipping container after she reported the rape.
She had promoted her own case on her website and had asked for $145 million from KBR for allegedly failing to enforce its sexual harassment policies and not telling her of the danger of rape when she signed her employment contract.
Jones had sued the defendants for negligence, negligent undertaking, sexual harassment and hostile environment under Title VII of the Civil rights Act of 1964, breach of contract, fraud in the inducement to enter the employment contract, fraud in the inducement to agree to arbitration, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and false imprisonment.
KBR had attempted to keep the case from going to a jury trial, because Jones' contract required arbitration in the case of workplace disputes, but the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that she had the right to sue in court.
The Crime Victims Office at the Department of Justice was unable to investigate the incident because of a lack of jurisdiction over private contractors in Iraq.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/23/woman-allegedly-raped-in-iraq-sued-by-defense-contractor-kbr
Defense contractor KBR has filed a lawsuit against Jamie Leigh Jones, a former employee who sued the company in 2007 after allegedly being drugged and raped by a group of co-workers in Iraq.
The lawsuit seeks more than $2 million to cover their legal fees, and accuses her of making fabricated and frivolous claims, according to the Wall Street Journal.
A Houston jury deliberated for more than 10 hours before deciding there was not enough evidence against the defendants.
“They have beaten us and now they are attempting to crush us,” her lawyer, Todd Kelly, told the Wall Street Journal. “This is an attempt by KBR to chill other people from bringing claims against them.”
Jones had filed suit against KBR, its former parent company Halliburton, and former co-workers. All parties involved denied the allegations and the co-workers insisted the sex had been consensual.
She acknowledged that she had no memory of the alleged rapes but claimed it was because she had been drugged prior to the assault. Jones said the company imprisoned her in a shipping container after she reported the rape.
She had promoted her own case on her website and had asked for $145 million from KBR for allegedly failing to enforce its sexual harassment policies and not telling her of the danger of rape when she signed her employment contract.
Jones had sued the defendants for negligence, negligent undertaking, sexual harassment and hostile environment under Title VII of the Civil rights Act of 1964, breach of contract, fraud in the inducement to enter the employment contract, fraud in the inducement to agree to arbitration, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and false imprisonment.
KBR had attempted to keep the case from going to a jury trial, because Jones' contract required arbitration in the case of workplace disputes, but the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that she had the right to sue in court.
The Crime Victims Office at the Department of Justice was unable to investigate the incident because of a lack of jurisdiction over private contractors in Iraq.
$1.2 Trillion to Banks, You 0
Robert Oak
Sun, 08/21/2011
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/12-trillion-banks-you-0
Bloomberg News has researched a bombshell story, the Federal Reserve gave $1.2 trillion in secret loans to banks during the financial crisis, from August 2007 until April 2010. This is in addition to the TARP bail outs which was publicly known.
The $1.2 trillion peak on Dec. 5, 2008 -- the combined outstanding balance under the seven programs tallied by Bloomberg -- was almost three times the size of the U.S. federal budget deficit that year and more than the total earnings of all federally insured banks in the U.S. for the decade through 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The top three banks at peaking borrowing are: Morgan Stanley, $107.3 billion, Citigroup took $99.5 billion, Bank of America $91.4 billion, or a total of $298.2 billion. Gets worse, foreign banks amounted to half the loans.
Half of the Fed’s top 30 borrowers, measured by peak balances, were European firms. They included Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, which took $84.5 billion, the most of any non-U.S. lender, and Zurich-based UBS AG (UBSN), which got $77.2 billion. Germany’s Hypo Real Estate Holding AG borrowed $28.7 billion, an average of $21 million for each of its 1,366 employees.
Bloomberg had filed a Freedom of Information act in 2008 to find out the details on these loans. They finally won to be presented with 21,000 transactions and massive amounts of data to crunch.
Think about it, while people are foreclosed on with no help in sight and none reall to this day, we had another secret bailout happening to the tune of $1.2 trillion, with half of it bailing out banks not even incorporated in this nation.
Sun, 08/21/2011
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/12-trillion-banks-you-0
Bloomberg News has researched a bombshell story, the Federal Reserve gave $1.2 trillion in secret loans to banks during the financial crisis, from August 2007 until April 2010. This is in addition to the TARP bail outs which was publicly known.
The $1.2 trillion peak on Dec. 5, 2008 -- the combined outstanding balance under the seven programs tallied by Bloomberg -- was almost three times the size of the U.S. federal budget deficit that year and more than the total earnings of all federally insured banks in the U.S. for the decade through 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The top three banks at peaking borrowing are: Morgan Stanley, $107.3 billion, Citigroup took $99.5 billion, Bank of America $91.4 billion, or a total of $298.2 billion. Gets worse, foreign banks amounted to half the loans.
Half of the Fed’s top 30 borrowers, measured by peak balances, were European firms. They included Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, which took $84.5 billion, the most of any non-U.S. lender, and Zurich-based UBS AG (UBSN), which got $77.2 billion. Germany’s Hypo Real Estate Holding AG borrowed $28.7 billion, an average of $21 million for each of its 1,366 employees.
Bloomberg had filed a Freedom of Information act in 2008 to find out the details on these loans. They finally won to be presented with 21,000 transactions and massive amounts of data to crunch.
Think about it, while people are foreclosed on with no help in sight and none reall to this day, we had another secret bailout happening to the tune of $1.2 trillion, with half of it bailing out banks not even incorporated in this nation.
Top 10 Film Stock Risings 2001-11
Robert Sterling
Konformist.com
http://robalini.blogspot.com/
If films were stocks, some would scream "BUY!" Here's my list of ten movies that have risen the most in cultural appreciation over the last decade.
10. Pulp Fiction (1994)
In some ways, this one may be a surprise pick, since its always been a very well received film. Still, Pulp Fiction is a movie that has always had a chip on its shoulder, snubbed in 1994 Oscars by Gump fever and overtaken in Web popularity by another 1994 film, The Shawshank Redemption (probably the most popular film of the Internet age, and another film with high stock returns.) No matter: 17 years later, Pulp Fiction is decidedly now recognized as a landmark film which changed the entire film industry almost singlehandedly, and the fact that Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill & Inglourious Basterds were both so well received make his status as a supreme auteur unquestioned.
9. Suspiria (1976)
Perhaps the most obscure movie on this list, you'd be forgiven if you've never heard of this Italian-made horror flick by Dario Argento. But it seems every Halloween season when lists of greatest horror films are published, this one is always among them. There's a good reason, as even 35 years later, this film knows just how to scare the crap out of people.
8. Back to the Future (1985)
Though it was the box office hit of its year, you could perhaps be forgiven if you dismissed it as a second-rate wannabe Spielberg popcorn flick when released. (Though Spielberg was executive producer, the actual director and brains of the film was Robert Zemeckis.) After the adulation it received last year on its 25th anniversary, it's clear it has stood the test of time, and having Michael J. Fox as its star (perhaps the most personally beloved actor of his generation due to his fortitude in personal health battles) has certainly kept the film in a positive limelight.
7. The Matrix (1999)
While it was extremely well received upon release, it suffered some appeal after its sequels failed to capture the public imagination. Still, twelve years later, it's clear The Matrix is the most important sci-fi film since Blade Runner, which is no small feat.
6. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Being the sequel to what is arguably the most culturally important film in the history of cinema is a no-win situation. Yet 31 years later, there are many who think this is best of the Star Wars series.
5. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
John Hughes is a director whose work is increasingly more appreciated as time goes by, with films like The Breakfast Club, Home Alone and Planes, Trains & Automobiles all being recognized as classics. But the one Hughes film that seems most well received is his tale of a teenage hero with the luck of James Bond.
4. The Shining (1980)
Even from the start, this was considered one of the best horror films ever made. But over the last decade, enough film analysis and theories have been floated on the Web to put this on the top tier of Stanley Kubrick films along with Dr. Strangelove, 2001 and A Clockwork Orange.
3. Toy Story (1995)
The movie was a box office hit and beloved from the start. But with the ridiculous run of hits released by Pixar since this was released has turned this film into a defining moment in the history of cinematic animation.
2. Fight Club (1999)
When the movie was released, it was considered a flop and passed over during Oscar season. Now, it is widely viewed as the last great movie of the 1900s.
1. The Big Lebowski (1998)
Could anything besides this be number one? Here is the latest and biggest cult film hit, the Rocky Horror for lazy stoners. Drink a White Russian and press play on the DVD!!!
Honorable Mention: Movies from the last decade aren't on this list, but Donnie Darko, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and The Hangover are definitely on the rise...
Konformist.com
http://robalini.blogspot.com/
If films were stocks, some would scream "BUY!" Here's my list of ten movies that have risen the most in cultural appreciation over the last decade.
10. Pulp Fiction (1994)
In some ways, this one may be a surprise pick, since its always been a very well received film. Still, Pulp Fiction is a movie that has always had a chip on its shoulder, snubbed in 1994 Oscars by Gump fever and overtaken in Web popularity by another 1994 film, The Shawshank Redemption (probably the most popular film of the Internet age, and another film with high stock returns.) No matter: 17 years later, Pulp Fiction is decidedly now recognized as a landmark film which changed the entire film industry almost singlehandedly, and the fact that Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill & Inglourious Basterds were both so well received make his status as a supreme auteur unquestioned.
9. Suspiria (1976)
Perhaps the most obscure movie on this list, you'd be forgiven if you've never heard of this Italian-made horror flick by Dario Argento. But it seems every Halloween season when lists of greatest horror films are published, this one is always among them. There's a good reason, as even 35 years later, this film knows just how to scare the crap out of people.
8. Back to the Future (1985)
Though it was the box office hit of its year, you could perhaps be forgiven if you dismissed it as a second-rate wannabe Spielberg popcorn flick when released. (Though Spielberg was executive producer, the actual director and brains of the film was Robert Zemeckis.) After the adulation it received last year on its 25th anniversary, it's clear it has stood the test of time, and having Michael J. Fox as its star (perhaps the most personally beloved actor of his generation due to his fortitude in personal health battles) has certainly kept the film in a positive limelight.
7. The Matrix (1999)
While it was extremely well received upon release, it suffered some appeal after its sequels failed to capture the public imagination. Still, twelve years later, it's clear The Matrix is the most important sci-fi film since Blade Runner, which is no small feat.
6. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Being the sequel to what is arguably the most culturally important film in the history of cinema is a no-win situation. Yet 31 years later, there are many who think this is best of the Star Wars series.
5. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
John Hughes is a director whose work is increasingly more appreciated as time goes by, with films like The Breakfast Club, Home Alone and Planes, Trains & Automobiles all being recognized as classics. But the one Hughes film that seems most well received is his tale of a teenage hero with the luck of James Bond.
4. The Shining (1980)
Even from the start, this was considered one of the best horror films ever made. But over the last decade, enough film analysis and theories have been floated on the Web to put this on the top tier of Stanley Kubrick films along with Dr. Strangelove, 2001 and A Clockwork Orange.
3. Toy Story (1995)
The movie was a box office hit and beloved from the start. But with the ridiculous run of hits released by Pixar since this was released has turned this film into a defining moment in the history of cinematic animation.
2. Fight Club (1999)
When the movie was released, it was considered a flop and passed over during Oscar season. Now, it is widely viewed as the last great movie of the 1900s.
1. The Big Lebowski (1998)
Could anything besides this be number one? Here is the latest and biggest cult film hit, the Rocky Horror for lazy stoners. Drink a White Russian and press play on the DVD!!!
Honorable Mention: Movies from the last decade aren't on this list, but Donnie Darko, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and The Hangover are definitely on the rise...
New Libya More Arab, Less African?
Joe DeCapua
August 25, 2011
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/decapua-libya-au-arab-laegue-25aug11-128388573.html
Libyan rebels patrol to try to find any of Moammar Gadhafi's relatives in Tripoli, Libya, August 24, 2011.The Arab League Thursday recognized Libya’s rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) as the country’s legitimate government. It said it’s time Libya once again had a permanent seat on the league’s council.
Libya’s representative to the Arab League said the country would take part in a ministers meeting on Saturday.
Too much, too soon?
“I think that it’s premature. The government of Libya under Gadhafi is not completely overthrown as yet. Gadhafi is still at large. And the United Nations has not officially recognized a new government for Libya. And I think it’s premature for individual states or even groupings like the Arab League to take that step,” said Na’eem Jeenah, executive director of the Afro Middle East Center in Johannesburg.
He said the question remains as to exactly whom the Transitional National Council represents.
“It’s a council that was formed in the east in Benghazi. When it was formed and up to recently, and I would say up to now, it still represents groupings of people in the east. Even the so-called rebels in the west, like the people who rose up in Tripoli, etc., are not necessarily accountable to or within the constituency of the Transitional National Council,” said Jeenah.
So long and goodbye
The Arab League’s recognition of the TNC may simply be a signal that it’s glad to see Mr. Gadhafi go.
“I think that’s a big part of it,” he said, “Remember that they were very quick to come out against Gadhafi when the uprising began. There’s no real love lost between Gadhafi and almost all the heads of state in the Arab League.”
Jeenah said Mr. Gadhafi had two main problems with the league.
“One was his kind of policy of, as far as they were concerned anyway, turning his back on the Arab world and turning towards the rest of Africa. He was kind of regarded either as something of a traitor or as a maverick, who just looked to where his bread was buttered politically,” he said.
The other problem was the Libyan leader’s personal style.
“It’s very difficult to expect the Emir of Qatar, for example, to like you very much when in a public forum you loudly call him a fat man and things like that. Or call the King of Saudi Arabia stupid. It was that kind of interpersonal relations that he really messed up,” he said.
African Union
Mr. Gadhafi once proposed that countries on the continent form a United States of Africa. Now that his days appear to be numbered, Libya’s relationship with the AU may never be the same.
“I think that the relationship will change quite significantly. I think that the importance that Gadhafi had given to the African Union and to the African continent will be reduced. And in general there will be much more of an emphasis on being part of the Arab League and the Arab world and developing stronger relations with other Arab states and with Europe,” he said.
The AU’s response to the Libyan situation may have sealed its fate.
“With the Arab League having come out so strongly against Gadhafi in favor the rebels,” he said, “there’s been a kind of stronger relationship and camaraderie that’s developed with other Arab states. The African Union, on the other hand, as far as the rebels are concerned, were not very helpful and didn’t come out in clear support of the rebel groups as many Arab states did,” he said.
Under Gadhafi, Libya was a major financial backer of the AU. Jeenah expects that to change.
“I think it’s going to be a problem, at least financially. Libya itself had been contributing about 15 percent of the AU’s budget. And it has also been paying the dues of a number of other countries that had defaulted. Well, it won’t stop completely because I think that Libya will remain a member of the AU and will continue paying its dues. But those dues will be much smaller than 15 percent of the budget,” he said.
Jeenah thinks it will be difficult for the AU to make up for the expected shortfall.
August 25, 2011
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/decapua-libya-au-arab-laegue-25aug11-128388573.html
Libyan rebels patrol to try to find any of Moammar Gadhafi's relatives in Tripoli, Libya, August 24, 2011.The Arab League Thursday recognized Libya’s rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) as the country’s legitimate government. It said it’s time Libya once again had a permanent seat on the league’s council.
Libya’s representative to the Arab League said the country would take part in a ministers meeting on Saturday.
Too much, too soon?
“I think that it’s premature. The government of Libya under Gadhafi is not completely overthrown as yet. Gadhafi is still at large. And the United Nations has not officially recognized a new government for Libya. And I think it’s premature for individual states or even groupings like the Arab League to take that step,” said Na’eem Jeenah, executive director of the Afro Middle East Center in Johannesburg.
He said the question remains as to exactly whom the Transitional National Council represents.
“It’s a council that was formed in the east in Benghazi. When it was formed and up to recently, and I would say up to now, it still represents groupings of people in the east. Even the so-called rebels in the west, like the people who rose up in Tripoli, etc., are not necessarily accountable to or within the constituency of the Transitional National Council,” said Jeenah.
So long and goodbye
The Arab League’s recognition of the TNC may simply be a signal that it’s glad to see Mr. Gadhafi go.
“I think that’s a big part of it,” he said, “Remember that they were very quick to come out against Gadhafi when the uprising began. There’s no real love lost between Gadhafi and almost all the heads of state in the Arab League.”
Jeenah said Mr. Gadhafi had two main problems with the league.
“One was his kind of policy of, as far as they were concerned anyway, turning his back on the Arab world and turning towards the rest of Africa. He was kind of regarded either as something of a traitor or as a maverick, who just looked to where his bread was buttered politically,” he said.
The other problem was the Libyan leader’s personal style.
“It’s very difficult to expect the Emir of Qatar, for example, to like you very much when in a public forum you loudly call him a fat man and things like that. Or call the King of Saudi Arabia stupid. It was that kind of interpersonal relations that he really messed up,” he said.
African Union
Mr. Gadhafi once proposed that countries on the continent form a United States of Africa. Now that his days appear to be numbered, Libya’s relationship with the AU may never be the same.
“I think that the relationship will change quite significantly. I think that the importance that Gadhafi had given to the African Union and to the African continent will be reduced. And in general there will be much more of an emphasis on being part of the Arab League and the Arab world and developing stronger relations with other Arab states and with Europe,” he said.
The AU’s response to the Libyan situation may have sealed its fate.
“With the Arab League having come out so strongly against Gadhafi in favor the rebels,” he said, “there’s been a kind of stronger relationship and camaraderie that’s developed with other Arab states. The African Union, on the other hand, as far as the rebels are concerned, were not very helpful and didn’t come out in clear support of the rebel groups as many Arab states did,” he said.
Under Gadhafi, Libya was a major financial backer of the AU. Jeenah expects that to change.
“I think it’s going to be a problem, at least financially. Libya itself had been contributing about 15 percent of the AU’s budget. And it has also been paying the dues of a number of other countries that had defaulted. Well, it won’t stop completely because I think that Libya will remain a member of the AU and will continue paying its dues. But those dues will be much smaller than 15 percent of the budget,” he said.
Jeenah thinks it will be difficult for the AU to make up for the expected shortfall.
Sweet and Lowdown: A Crude Analysis of the Libyan Liberation
Chris Floyd
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2160-sweet-and-lowdown-a-crude-analysis-of-the-libyan-liberation.html
Another war for oil? Surely not! But just to be on the safe side, the world's oil barons are already moving in to seal some sweetheart deals on that sweet, sweet crude with the new, NATO-installed masters of Libya.
And guess what? It turns out that companies from the Western countries that eagerly rained tons of death-metal on the Libyan people are being given the inside track to the post-Gadafy gusher. Meanwhile, countries that had urged caution in humanely intervening with thousands upon thousands of bombs, drones and missiles to, er, protect human life now face relegation to the outer darkness.
As the New York Times reports, Libya's old colonial masters, Italy, are leading the way in the new scramble, even ere the Green Pimpernel has been found. They, along with other Western oil behemoths, are being welcomed with open arms by the peace-loving democratic rebels, who, er, murdered their own chief military commander just a few weeks ago. But for intervention skeptics like Russia, China and Brazil, there may be "some political issues" in renewing old deals and inking new ones, say the new regime's oil honchos. NATO si, BRIC no.
But remember. This is not a war for oil. Oil has nothing to do with it. Of course, you can find cranks and crackpots like, say, Patrick Cockburn, who has only been doing frontline reporting in the region for decades, coming out with nonsense like this, in a recent piece about the "murderous rebels in Libya":
"The enthusiasm in some 30 foreign capitals to recognise the mysterious self-appointed group in Benghazi as the leaders of Libya is at this stage probably motivated primarily by expectations of commercial concessions and a carve-up of oilfields."
But what does he know? Especially compared to progressive, peace-loving, war-hating supporters of the, er, war like Professor Juan Cole. As the professor himself tells us, he is someone "who has actually heard briefings in Europe from foreign ministries and officers of NATO members." I'll bet you haven't done that! (Although Patrick Cockburn probably has -- for decades. But never mind.) Anyway, Cole assures us that the very idea of oil playing any part in this noble endeavor is "daft," because Libya was "already integrated with the international oil markets."
Well, loath as one is to quibble with a man who has actually heard briefings from NATO officers and all, even the New York Times notes that:
Colonel Qaddafi proved to be a problematic partner for international oil companies, frequently raising fees and taxes and making other demands. A new government with close ties to NATO may be an easier partner for Western nations to deal with. Some experts say that given a free hand, oil companies could find considerably more oil in Libya than they were able to locate under the restrictions placed by the Qaddafi government.
Less regulation, fewer restrictions, sweeter deals, more oil, higher profits -- no, there's nothing there to interest the oil companies. Or the governments they "influence" so persuasively -- and pervasively. So it must be true, as Cole asserts, that this noble endeavor was no more and no less than a humanitarian intervention designed to safeguard human lives (with those thousands of bombs and missiles), protect the right of free assembly (or at least the right to mill around in one of those wired, barricaded, kettled, corralled "free speech zones" now so prevalent in the freedom-loving, liberating lands of the West), and uphold "a lawful world order."
Cole now looks forward to seeing Gadafy and sons in the dock for war crimes, for, as he rightly notes: "deploying the military against non-combatants was a war crime, and doing so in a widespread and systematic way was a crime against humanity." Unless, of course, you quote "just war" theologians as you, say, conduct a widespread and systematic terror bombing campaign of defenseless villages in an allied nation with drone missiles, as Barack Obama has been doing in Pakistan from the moment he took office. But Cole "agree[s] with President Obama and his citation of Reinhold Niebuhr. You can't protect all victims of mass murder everywhere all the time. But where you can do some good, you should do it."
If only Gadafy had thought to quote a man whose "influence has been acknowledged by such recent leaders of American foreign policy as Jimmy Carter, Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, [and] John McCain"! Perhaps that would have absolved him from the other crimes Cole lays at his door: "bankrolling brutal dictators and helping foment ruinous wars." Certainly none of our Niebuhr-quoting leaders have ever done anything like that!
In any case, the deed is done and now, as the Times headline says, "The Scramble for Access to Libya's Oil Wealth Begins." But the latter is just incidental, of course -- a spandrel, a happy accident, an unintentional by-product of a noble deed done by noble men for noble purposes. Oily business aside, the deed itself is something that should be celebrated by everyone -- including anti-war dissidents like Cole, or even rock-ribbed "anarchists" like Crispin Sartwell (whose call for "exhilaration" at Libya's NATO-bomb liberation receives an answer here from Arthur Silber). Only the dead -- the uncounted, forgotten dead, mangled and buried under tons of liberating metal -- might demur.
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2160-sweet-and-lowdown-a-crude-analysis-of-the-libyan-liberation.html
Another war for oil? Surely not! But just to be on the safe side, the world's oil barons are already moving in to seal some sweetheart deals on that sweet, sweet crude with the new, NATO-installed masters of Libya.
And guess what? It turns out that companies from the Western countries that eagerly rained tons of death-metal on the Libyan people are being given the inside track to the post-Gadafy gusher. Meanwhile, countries that had urged caution in humanely intervening with thousands upon thousands of bombs, drones and missiles to, er, protect human life now face relegation to the outer darkness.
As the New York Times reports, Libya's old colonial masters, Italy, are leading the way in the new scramble, even ere the Green Pimpernel has been found. They, along with other Western oil behemoths, are being welcomed with open arms by the peace-loving democratic rebels, who, er, murdered their own chief military commander just a few weeks ago. But for intervention skeptics like Russia, China and Brazil, there may be "some political issues" in renewing old deals and inking new ones, say the new regime's oil honchos. NATO si, BRIC no.
But remember. This is not a war for oil. Oil has nothing to do with it. Of course, you can find cranks and crackpots like, say, Patrick Cockburn, who has only been doing frontline reporting in the region for decades, coming out with nonsense like this, in a recent piece about the "murderous rebels in Libya":
"The enthusiasm in some 30 foreign capitals to recognise the mysterious self-appointed group in Benghazi as the leaders of Libya is at this stage probably motivated primarily by expectations of commercial concessions and a carve-up of oilfields."
But what does he know? Especially compared to progressive, peace-loving, war-hating supporters of the, er, war like Professor Juan Cole. As the professor himself tells us, he is someone "who has actually heard briefings in Europe from foreign ministries and officers of NATO members." I'll bet you haven't done that! (Although Patrick Cockburn probably has -- for decades. But never mind.) Anyway, Cole assures us that the very idea of oil playing any part in this noble endeavor is "daft," because Libya was "already integrated with the international oil markets."
Well, loath as one is to quibble with a man who has actually heard briefings from NATO officers and all, even the New York Times notes that:
Colonel Qaddafi proved to be a problematic partner for international oil companies, frequently raising fees and taxes and making other demands. A new government with close ties to NATO may be an easier partner for Western nations to deal with. Some experts say that given a free hand, oil companies could find considerably more oil in Libya than they were able to locate under the restrictions placed by the Qaddafi government.
Less regulation, fewer restrictions, sweeter deals, more oil, higher profits -- no, there's nothing there to interest the oil companies. Or the governments they "influence" so persuasively -- and pervasively. So it must be true, as Cole asserts, that this noble endeavor was no more and no less than a humanitarian intervention designed to safeguard human lives (with those thousands of bombs and missiles), protect the right of free assembly (or at least the right to mill around in one of those wired, barricaded, kettled, corralled "free speech zones" now so prevalent in the freedom-loving, liberating lands of the West), and uphold "a lawful world order."
Cole now looks forward to seeing Gadafy and sons in the dock for war crimes, for, as he rightly notes: "deploying the military against non-combatants was a war crime, and doing so in a widespread and systematic way was a crime against humanity." Unless, of course, you quote "just war" theologians as you, say, conduct a widespread and systematic terror bombing campaign of defenseless villages in an allied nation with drone missiles, as Barack Obama has been doing in Pakistan from the moment he took office. But Cole "agree[s] with President Obama and his citation of Reinhold Niebuhr. You can't protect all victims of mass murder everywhere all the time. But where you can do some good, you should do it."
If only Gadafy had thought to quote a man whose "influence has been acknowledged by such recent leaders of American foreign policy as Jimmy Carter, Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, [and] John McCain"! Perhaps that would have absolved him from the other crimes Cole lays at his door: "bankrolling brutal dictators and helping foment ruinous wars." Certainly none of our Niebuhr-quoting leaders have ever done anything like that!
In any case, the deed is done and now, as the Times headline says, "The Scramble for Access to Libya's Oil Wealth Begins." But the latter is just incidental, of course -- a spandrel, a happy accident, an unintentional by-product of a noble deed done by noble men for noble purposes. Oily business aside, the deed itself is something that should be celebrated by everyone -- including anti-war dissidents like Cole, or even rock-ribbed "anarchists" like Crispin Sartwell (whose call for "exhilaration" at Libya's NATO-bomb liberation receives an answer here from Arthur Silber). Only the dead -- the uncounted, forgotten dead, mangled and buried under tons of liberating metal -- might demur.
Chavez on Libya
From the London Guardian:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that Libya's crisis is just beginning with the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's government.
Chavez has been a staunch defender of Gadhafi throughout the conflict, and he condemned NATO airstrikes and killings of civilians.
"The drama of Libya isn't ending with the fall of Gadhafi's government. It's beginning," Chavez said. "The tragedy in Libya is just beginning."
Libyans hunting Moammar Gadhafi offered a $2 million bounty on Gadhafi's head and amnesty for anyone who kills or captures him as rebels battled Wednesday to clear the last pockets of resistance from the capital, Tripoli.
Asked about such efforts to hunt for Gadhafi, Chavez said they reflect a "madness let loose."
"What the Yankee empire and the European powers ... want is Libya's oil," Chavez said...
Chavez: Libya's tragedy begins with Gadhafi's fall
Wednesday August 24 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9813496
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday that Libya's crisis is just beginning with the fall of Moammar Gadhafi's government.
Chavez has been a staunch defender of Gadhafi throughout the conflict, and he condemned NATO airstrikes and killings of civilians.
"The drama of Libya isn't ending with the fall of Gadhafi's government. It's beginning," Chavez said. "The tragedy in Libya is just beginning."
Libyans hunting Moammar Gadhafi offered a $2 million bounty on Gadhafi's head and amnesty for anyone who kills or captures him as rebels battled Wednesday to clear the last pockets of resistance from the capital, Tripoli.
Asked about such efforts to hunt for Gadhafi, Chavez said they reflect a "madness let loose."
"What the Yankee empire and the European powers ... want is Libya's oil," Chavez said...
Chavez: Libya's tragedy begins with Gadhafi's fall
Wednesday August 24 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9813496
Libyan 'Revolution' made in France
From the Asian Times:
Let's start with the basics. The Frogs did it. It's always worth repeating; this is a French war. The Americans don't even call it a war; it's a "kinetic action" or something. The "rebel" Transitional National Council" (TNC) is a French invention.
And yes - this is above all neo-Napoleonic President Nicolas Sarkozy's war. He's the George Clooney character in the movie (poor Clooney). Everybody else, from David of Arabia Cameron to Nobel Peace Prize winner and multiple war developer Barack Obama, are supporting actors.
As already reported by Asia Times Online, this war started in October 2010 when Gaddafi's chief of protocol, Nuri Mesmari, defected to Paris, was approached by French intelligence and for all practical purposes a military coup d'etat was concocted, involving defectors in Cyrenaica.
Sarko had a bag full of motives to exact revenge on The Big G.
French banks had told him that Gaddafi was about to transfer his billions of euros to Chinese banks. Thus Gaddafi could not by any means become an example to other Arab nations or sovereign funds.
French corporations told Sarko that Gaddafi had decided not to buy Rafale fighters anymore, and not to hire the French to build a nuclear plant; he was more concerned in investing in social services.
Energy giant Total wanted a much bigger piece of the Libyan energy cake - which was being largely eaten, on the European side, by Italy's ENI, especially because Premier Silvio "bunga bunga" Berlusconi, a certified Big G fan, had clinched a complex deal with Gaddafi.
Thus the military coup was perfected in Paris until December; the first popular demonstrations in Cyrenaica in February - largely instigated by the plotters - were hijacked. The self-promoting philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy flew his white shirt over an open torso to Benghazi to meet the "rebels" and phone Sarkozy, virtually ordering him to recognize them in early March as legitimate (not that Sarko needed any encouragement).
The TNC was invented in Paris, but the United Nations also duly gobbled it up as the "legitimate" government of Libya - just as NATO did not have a UN mandate to go from a no-fly zone to indiscriminate "humanitarian" bombing, culminating with the current siege of Sirte.
The French and the British redacted what would become UN Resolution 1973. Washington merrily joined the party. The US State Department brokered a deal with the House of Saud through which the Saudis would guarantee an Arab League vote as a prelude for the UN resolution, and in exchange would be left alone to repress any pro-democracy protests in the Persian Gulf, as they did, savagely, in Bahrain.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC - then transmuted into Gulf Counter-Revolution Club) also had tons of reasons to get rid of Gaddafi. The Saudis would love to accommodate a friendly emirate in northern Africa, especially by getting rid of the ultra-bad blood between Gaddafi and King Abdullah. The Emirates wanted a new place to invest and "develop". Qatar, very cozy with Sarko, wanted to make money - as in handling the new oil sales of the "legitimate" rebels.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may be very cozy with the House of Saud or the murderous al-Khalifas in Bahrain. But the State Department heavily blasted Gaddafi for his "increasingly nationalistic policies in the energy sector"; and also for "Libyanizing" the economy.
The Big G, a wily player, should have seen the writing on the wall. Since prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh was deposed essentially by the Central Intelligence Agency in Iran in 1953, the rule is that you don't antagonize globalized Big Oil. Not to mention the international financial/banking system - promoting subversive ideas such as turning your economy to the benefit of your local population.
If you're pro-your country you are automatically against those who rule - Western banks, mega-corporations, shady "investors" out to profit from whatever your country produces.
Gaddafi not only crossed all these red lines but he also tried to sneak out of the petrodollar; he tried to sell to Africa the idea of a unified currency, the gold dinar (most African countries supported it); he invested in a multibillion dollar project - the Great Man-Made River, a network of pipelines pumping fresh water from the desert to the Mediterranean coast - without genuflecting at the alter of the World Bank; he invested in social programs in poor, sub-Saharan countries; he financed the African Bank, thus allowing scores of nations to bypass, once again, the World Bank and especially the International Monetary Fund; he financed an African-wide telecom system that bypassed Western networks; he raised living standards in Libya. The list is endless...
NATO's agenda of dominating the whole Mediterranean as a NATO lake is as bold as Africom's agenda of becoming Africa's Robocop. The only trouble spots were Libya, Syria and Lebanon - the three countries not NATO members or linked with NATO via myriad "partnerships".
To understand NATO's global Robocop role - legitimized by the UN - one just has to pay attention to the horse's mouth, NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. As Tripoli was still being bombed, he said, "If you're not able to deploy troops beyond your borders, then you can't exert influence internationally, and then that gap will be filled by emerging powers that don't necessarily share your values and thinking."
So there it is, out in the open. NATO is a Western high-tech militia to defend American and European interests, to isolate the interests of the emerging BRICS countries and others, and to keep the "natives", be they Africans or Asians, down. The whole lot much easier to accomplish as the scam is disguised by R2P - "responsibility to protect", not civilians, but the subsequent plunder.
Against all these odds, no wonder The Big G was bound for a red card, and to be banned from the game forever...
Why Gaddafi got a red card
Pepe Escobar
9-1-11
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MI01Ak02.html
Let's start with the basics. The Frogs did it. It's always worth repeating; this is a French war. The Americans don't even call it a war; it's a "kinetic action" or something. The "rebel" Transitional National Council" (TNC) is a French invention.
And yes - this is above all neo-Napoleonic President Nicolas Sarkozy's war. He's the George Clooney character in the movie (poor Clooney). Everybody else, from David of Arabia Cameron to Nobel Peace Prize winner and multiple war developer Barack Obama, are supporting actors.
As already reported by Asia Times Online, this war started in October 2010 when Gaddafi's chief of protocol, Nuri Mesmari, defected to Paris, was approached by French intelligence and for all practical purposes a military coup d'etat was concocted, involving defectors in Cyrenaica.
Sarko had a bag full of motives to exact revenge on The Big G.
French banks had told him that Gaddafi was about to transfer his billions of euros to Chinese banks. Thus Gaddafi could not by any means become an example to other Arab nations or sovereign funds.
French corporations told Sarko that Gaddafi had decided not to buy Rafale fighters anymore, and not to hire the French to build a nuclear plant; he was more concerned in investing in social services.
Energy giant Total wanted a much bigger piece of the Libyan energy cake - which was being largely eaten, on the European side, by Italy's ENI, especially because Premier Silvio "bunga bunga" Berlusconi, a certified Big G fan, had clinched a complex deal with Gaddafi.
Thus the military coup was perfected in Paris until December; the first popular demonstrations in Cyrenaica in February - largely instigated by the plotters - were hijacked. The self-promoting philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy flew his white shirt over an open torso to Benghazi to meet the "rebels" and phone Sarkozy, virtually ordering him to recognize them in early March as legitimate (not that Sarko needed any encouragement).
The TNC was invented in Paris, but the United Nations also duly gobbled it up as the "legitimate" government of Libya - just as NATO did not have a UN mandate to go from a no-fly zone to indiscriminate "humanitarian" bombing, culminating with the current siege of Sirte.
The French and the British redacted what would become UN Resolution 1973. Washington merrily joined the party. The US State Department brokered a deal with the House of Saud through which the Saudis would guarantee an Arab League vote as a prelude for the UN resolution, and in exchange would be left alone to repress any pro-democracy protests in the Persian Gulf, as they did, savagely, in Bahrain.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC - then transmuted into Gulf Counter-Revolution Club) also had tons of reasons to get rid of Gaddafi. The Saudis would love to accommodate a friendly emirate in northern Africa, especially by getting rid of the ultra-bad blood between Gaddafi and King Abdullah. The Emirates wanted a new place to invest and "develop". Qatar, very cozy with Sarko, wanted to make money - as in handling the new oil sales of the "legitimate" rebels.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may be very cozy with the House of Saud or the murderous al-Khalifas in Bahrain. But the State Department heavily blasted Gaddafi for his "increasingly nationalistic policies in the energy sector"; and also for "Libyanizing" the economy.
The Big G, a wily player, should have seen the writing on the wall. Since prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh was deposed essentially by the Central Intelligence Agency in Iran in 1953, the rule is that you don't antagonize globalized Big Oil. Not to mention the international financial/banking system - promoting subversive ideas such as turning your economy to the benefit of your local population.
If you're pro-your country you are automatically against those who rule - Western banks, mega-corporations, shady "investors" out to profit from whatever your country produces.
Gaddafi not only crossed all these red lines but he also tried to sneak out of the petrodollar; he tried to sell to Africa the idea of a unified currency, the gold dinar (most African countries supported it); he invested in a multibillion dollar project - the Great Man-Made River, a network of pipelines pumping fresh water from the desert to the Mediterranean coast - without genuflecting at the alter of the World Bank; he invested in social programs in poor, sub-Saharan countries; he financed the African Bank, thus allowing scores of nations to bypass, once again, the World Bank and especially the International Monetary Fund; he financed an African-wide telecom system that bypassed Western networks; he raised living standards in Libya. The list is endless...
NATO's agenda of dominating the whole Mediterranean as a NATO lake is as bold as Africom's agenda of becoming Africa's Robocop. The only trouble spots were Libya, Syria and Lebanon - the three countries not NATO members or linked with NATO via myriad "partnerships".
To understand NATO's global Robocop role - legitimized by the UN - one just has to pay attention to the horse's mouth, NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. As Tripoli was still being bombed, he said, "If you're not able to deploy troops beyond your borders, then you can't exert influence internationally, and then that gap will be filled by emerging powers that don't necessarily share your values and thinking."
So there it is, out in the open. NATO is a Western high-tech militia to defend American and European interests, to isolate the interests of the emerging BRICS countries and others, and to keep the "natives", be they Africans or Asians, down. The whole lot much easier to accomplish as the scam is disguised by R2P - "responsibility to protect", not civilians, but the subsequent plunder.
Against all these odds, no wonder The Big G was bound for a red card, and to be banned from the game forever...
Why Gaddafi got a red card
Pepe Escobar
9-1-11
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MI01Ak02.html
Robalini on Libya
I just find it so amusing to hear talking heads and mouthpieces on news pretending this is about democracy or helping the Libyan people. Read the Wikileaks cable on Libya and its absolutely Orwellian: the argument that the only way for Libyan people to benefit from their oil is to give MNC oil companies a greater cut (Mo K demanded from the start of his revolution that Libya must receive a majority of all oil profits, although giving oil companies 49 percent doesn't seem like a ripoff to me.) They also must stop demanding key jobs of power go to Libyans so that the decision makers have a vested interest in the country. If you think the neoliberals make legitimate arguments here, then there's no reason to dismiss the GOPs argument that cutting taxes for the rich will actually help the poor. Neoliberalism is just right wing economics instituted internationally in disguise, with the same disastrous results.
Kadaffi also has used Libya's oil wealth to give low interest loans to African nations without the neoliberal strings attached by the IMF. I know Bono in his increasingly pathetic attempt to win a Nobel Peace Prize (Jesus, at least Marty Scorsese kept his dignity with his desperation to win an Oscar) became an apologist for GW Bush and WB/IMF figures supposedly for their concern for people for Africa, but if helping out Africans is the measuring stick for a Peace Prize, nobody has come close to Kadaffi over the last decade thanks to this. Odd this isn't really pointed out at all in the establishment press.
Indeed, the establishment consensus version of reality just ignores all these giant elephants I've just pointed out. This isn't to deny that Mo has his issues or there was legitimate opposition to the Libyan establishment in this battle. But if two of the first things the new Libyan government do is renegotiate all oil contracts to give oil companies a greater cut and stop their loans to fellow African states, can anyone pretend that the overwhelming goal of the US and Europe here was to put in a puppet government? "We are concerned about the lack of democracy and he's a tyrant and blah blah blah" sounds a lot more appealing than "We want to steal from African people."
Kadaffi also has used Libya's oil wealth to give low interest loans to African nations without the neoliberal strings attached by the IMF. I know Bono in his increasingly pathetic attempt to win a Nobel Peace Prize (Jesus, at least Marty Scorsese kept his dignity with his desperation to win an Oscar) became an apologist for GW Bush and WB/IMF figures supposedly for their concern for people for Africa, but if helping out Africans is the measuring stick for a Peace Prize, nobody has come close to Kadaffi over the last decade thanks to this. Odd this isn't really pointed out at all in the establishment press.
Indeed, the establishment consensus version of reality just ignores all these giant elephants I've just pointed out. This isn't to deny that Mo has his issues or there was legitimate opposition to the Libyan establishment in this battle. But if two of the first things the new Libyan government do is renegotiate all oil contracts to give oil companies a greater cut and stop their loans to fellow African states, can anyone pretend that the overwhelming goal of the US and Europe here was to put in a puppet government? "We are concerned about the lack of democracy and he's a tyrant and blah blah blah" sounds a lot more appealing than "We want to steal from African people."
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Why did Japan surrender?
Sixty-six years ago, we dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. Now, some historians say that’s not what ended the war. Gareth Cook
August 7, 2011
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender
What ended World War II?
For nearly seven decades, the American public has accepted one version of the events that led to Japan’s surrender. By the middle of 1945, the war in Europe was over, and it was clear that the Japanese could hold no reasonable hope of victory. After years of grueling battle, fighting island to island across the Pacific, Japan’s Navy and Air Force were all but destroyed. The production of materiel was faltering, completely overmatched by American industry, and the Japanese people were starving. A full-scale invasion of Japan itself would mean hundreds of thousands of dead GIs, and, still, the Japanese leadership refused to surrender.
But in early August 66 years ago, America unveiled a terrifying new weapon, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a matter of days, the Japanese submitted, bringing the fighting, finally, to a close.
On Aug. 6, the United States marks the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing’s mixed legacy. The leader of our democracy purposefully executed civilians on a mass scale. Yet the bombing also ended the deadliest conflict in human history.
In recent years, however, a new interpretation of events has emerged. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa - a highly respected historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara - has marshaled compelling evidence that it was the Soviet entry into the Pacific conflict, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that forced Japan’s surrender. His interpretation could force a new accounting of the moral meaning of the atomic attack. It also raises provocative questions about nuclear deterrence, a foundation stone of military strategy in the postwar period. And it suggests that we could be headed towards an utterly different understanding of how, and why, the Second World War came to its conclusion.
“Hasegawa has changed my mind,” says Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Making of the Atomic Bomb.” “The Japanese decision to surrender was not driven by the two bombings.”
President Truman’s decision to go nuclear has long been a source of controversy. Many, of course, have argued that attacking civilians can never be justified. Then, in the 1960s, a “revisionist school” of historians suggested that Japan was in fact close to surrendering before Hiroshima - that the bombing was not necessary, and that Truman gave the go-ahead primarily to intimidate the Soviet Union with our new power.
Hasegawa - who was born in Japan and has taught in the United States since 1990, and who reads English, Japanese, and Russian - rejects both the traditional and revisionist positions. According to his close examination of the evidence, Japan was not poised to surrender before Hiroshima, as the revisionists argued, nor was it ready to give in immediately after the atomic bomb, as traditionalists have always seen it. Instead, it took the Soviet declaration of war on Japan, several days after Hiroshima, to bring the capitulation.
Both the American and Japanese public have clung to the idea that the mushroom clouds ended the war. For the Japanese, Hiroshima is a potent symbol of their nation as victim, helping obscure their role as the aggressors and in atrocities that include mass rapes and beheading prisoners of war. For the Americans, Hiroshima has always been a means justified by the end.
“This seems to touch a nerve,” observes Hasegawa.
That may help explain why Hasegawa’s thesis, which he first detailed in an award-winning 2005 book and has continued to bolster with new material, is still little known outside of academic circles, says Ward Wilson, a nuclear weapons scholar who has drawn on Hasegawa’s insights in his own recent work. Measured against the decades of serious and settled thinking about World War II, Hasegawa’s scholarship feels radical. But another reason, Wilson argues, is that to look at history in this new light is to entertain what seem like shocking ideas. That the destruction of cities does not sway leaders. That what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not overly remarkable. And, strangest of all: That nuclear explosives may not be particularly effective weapons of war.
The Pacific War began in 1941 with the violent humiliation at Pearl Harbor. Japan already held parts of China, and quickly invaded New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies, Burma, and Singapore. Manila fell. The country enjoyed air supremacy across most of Southeast Asia; in February 1942, it even attacked Australia. Japan’s control was tightening, and it appeared unstoppable.
After the epic Battle of Midway in the summer of 1942, however, the United States and its allies gained the momentum. Still, progress was slow as Marines hopped from atoll to island to atoll: wading through bloody coral shallows under a rain of shelling, engaging an enemy that was dug in, highly trained, and willing to fight to the death. The names of these tropical hells - Gaudalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa - have become Marine Corps legend. The casualties were heavy.
By the summer of 1945, the Americans had cornered Japan and assembled a final invasion plan, codenamed Operation Downfall. The first stage was scheduled for the fall, and would have opened with the landing of more than 700,000 troops on Kyushu, the southernmost of the big four islands. It would have been a larger operation than D-Day, certain to result in a bloody slaughter.
Americans, then and today, have tended to assume that Japan’s leaders were simply blinded by their own fanaticism, forcing a catastrophic showdown for no reason other than their refusal to acknowledge defeat. This was, after all, a nation that trained its young men to fly their planes, freighted with explosives, into the side of American naval vessels.
But Hasegawa and other historians have shown that Japan’s leaders were in fact quite savvy, well aware of their difficult position, and holding out for strategic reasons. Their concern was not so much whether to end the conflict, but how to end it while holding onto territory, avoiding war crimes trials, and preserving the imperial system. The Japanese could still inflict heavy casualties on any invader, and they hoped to convince the Soviet Union, still neutral in the Asian theater, to mediate a settlement with the Americans. Stalin, they calculated, might negotiate more favorable terms in exchange for territory in Asia. It was a long shot, but it made strategic sense.
On Aug. 6, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped its payload on Hiroshima, leaving the signature mushroom cloud and devastation on the ground, including something on the order of 100,000 killed. (The figures remain disputed, and depend on how the fatalities are counted.)
As Hasegawa writes in his book “Racing the Enemy,” the Japanese leadership reacted with concern, but not panic. On Aug. 7, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo sent an urgent coded telegram to his ambassador in Moscow, asking him to press for a response to the Japanese request for mediation, which the Soviets had yet to provide. The bombing added a “sense of urgency,” Hasegawa says, but the plan remained the same.
Very late the next night, however, something happened that did change the plan. The Soviet Union declared war and launched a broad surprise attack on Japanese forces in Manchuria. In that instant, Japan’s strategy was ruined. Stalin would not be extracting concessions from the Americans. And the approaching Red Army brought new concerns: The military position was more dire, and it was hard to imagine occupying communists allowing Japan’s traditional imperial system to continue. Better to surrender to Washington than to Moscow.
By the morning of Aug. 9, the Japanese Supreme War Council was meeting to discuss the terms of surrender. (During the meeting, the second atomic bomb killed tens of thousands at Nagasaki.) On Aug. 15, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally.
How is it possible that the Japanese leadership did not react more strongly to many tens of thousands of its citizens being obliterated?
One answer is that the Japanese leaders were not greatly troubled by civilian causalities. As the Allies loomed, the Japanese people were instructed to sharpen bamboo sticks and prepare to meet the Marines at the beach.
Yet it was more than callousness. The bomb - horrific as it was - was not as special as Americans have always imagined. In early March, several hundred B-29 Super Fortress bombers dropped incendiary bombs on downtown Tokyo. Some argue that more died in the resulting firestorm than at Hiroshima. People were boiled in the canals. The photos of charred Tokyo and charred Hiroshima are indistinguishable.
In fact, more than 60 of Japan’s cities had been substantially destroyed by the time of the Hiroshima attack, according to a 2007 International Security article by Wilson, who is a senior fellow at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. In the three weeks before Hiroshima, Wilson writes, 25 cities were heavily bombed.
To us, then, Hiroshima was unique, and the move to atomic weaponry was a great leap, military and moral. But Hasegawa argues the change was incremental. “Once we had accepted strategic bombing as an acceptable weapon of war, the atomic bomb was a very small step,” he says. To Japan’s leaders, Hiroshima was yet another population center leveled, albeit in a novel way. If they didn’t surrender after Tokyo, they weren’t going to after Hiroshima.
Hasegawa’s work is an important new entry into the scholarly conversation, reconstructing the conflicting perspectives of Russians, Americans, and Japanese, and concluding that the bomb played a secondary role. Barton Bernstein, a professor of history emeritus at Stanford University, is the unofficial dean of American atomic bomb scholarship and counts himself as both a fan and a critic of Hasegawa. Hasegawa’s ability to read three languages, Bernstein says, gives him a unique advantage over other scholars. Hasegawa spent years working through primary documents, with a deep understanding of linguistic and cultural nuance. His knowledge was especially valuable because historians of the period face such fragmentary and contradictory evidence, in part because the Japanese destroyed many documents.
But therein lies the weakness of the Hasegawa interpretation as well, Bernstein says. After a long war and in the space of a few days, the Japanese leadership was hit with two extraordinary events - Hiroshima and the Soviet invasion - and sorting out cause and effect, based on incomplete documentation, may prove impossible.
“When you look through all the evidence, I think it is hard to weigh one or the other more heavily,” Bernstein said. “The analysis is well intentioned, but more fine-grained than the evidence comfortably allows.”
Yet Bernstein, Hasegawa, and many historians agree on one startling point. The public view that the atomic bomb was the decisive event that ended World War II is not supported by the facts.
What happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki has framed the world’s thinking about nuclear weapons. Those days in August remain the only instance of nuclear war. The sheer horrors of the destruction, and the lingering poison of radioactivity, inform what has come to be called nuclear deterrence: No sane nation would bring a nuclear attack on itself, and so having nuclear weapons deters your enemies from attacking. When two rival nations have nuclear weapons, as during the Cold War, the result is stalemate.
Hasegawa’s scholarship disturbs this simple logic. If the atomic bomb alone could not compel the Japanese to submit, then perhaps the nuclear deterrent is not as strong as it seems. In fact, Wilson argues, history suggests that leveling population centers, by whatever method, does not force surrender. The Allied firebombing of Dresden in February of 1945 killed many people, but the Germans did not capitulate. The long-range German bombing of London did not push Churchill towards acquiescence. And it is nearly impossible to imagine that a bomb detonated on American soil, even one that immolated a large city, would prompt the nation to bow in surrender.
If killing large numbers of civilians does not have a military impact, then what, Wilson asks, is the purpose of keeping nuclear weapons? We know they are dangerous. If they turn out not to be strategically effective, then nuclear weapons are not trump cards, but time bombs beneath our feet.
Whatever the merits of this position, it suffers the great handicap of trying to change, fundamentally, how several generations have thought about the atomic age, says Linton Brooks, who has served in arms control and nuclear policy positions in several administrations. “Fifty years of telling ourselves that these things are different has sort of made them different,” says Linton. “That is the mystique of nuclear weapons.”
Hasegawa’s own relationship to the events of August of 1945 testifies to the degree to which, all these years later, they resist clear appraisal. As a child, Hasegawa watched the Tokyo firebombing from his roof, and he can still recall the eerie orange glow on the horizon. Growing up, he felt anger at the Japanese government for bringing the conflict onto its people. Later, working as a scholar in America, he accepted the position that the atomic bombing was necessary to end the war. Today he views America’s bombings of Japan’s cities - Hiroshima and Tokyo included - as war crimes. Yet, he adds, they are crimes America should not apologize for until Japan comes to terms with war crimes of its own. These are the evolving views of a man who has mustered the courage to look at an ugly period of history without flinching - something that most people, Americans and Japanese alike, have found themselves unable to do.
Gareth Cook is a Globe columnist and former editor of Ideas.
August 7, 2011
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/08/07/why_did_japan_surrender
What ended World War II?
For nearly seven decades, the American public has accepted one version of the events that led to Japan’s surrender. By the middle of 1945, the war in Europe was over, and it was clear that the Japanese could hold no reasonable hope of victory. After years of grueling battle, fighting island to island across the Pacific, Japan’s Navy and Air Force were all but destroyed. The production of materiel was faltering, completely overmatched by American industry, and the Japanese people were starving. A full-scale invasion of Japan itself would mean hundreds of thousands of dead GIs, and, still, the Japanese leadership refused to surrender.
But in early August 66 years ago, America unveiled a terrifying new weapon, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a matter of days, the Japanese submitted, bringing the fighting, finally, to a close.
On Aug. 6, the United States marks the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing’s mixed legacy. The leader of our democracy purposefully executed civilians on a mass scale. Yet the bombing also ended the deadliest conflict in human history.
In recent years, however, a new interpretation of events has emerged. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa - a highly respected historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara - has marshaled compelling evidence that it was the Soviet entry into the Pacific conflict, not Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that forced Japan’s surrender. His interpretation could force a new accounting of the moral meaning of the atomic attack. It also raises provocative questions about nuclear deterrence, a foundation stone of military strategy in the postwar period. And it suggests that we could be headed towards an utterly different understanding of how, and why, the Second World War came to its conclusion.
“Hasegawa has changed my mind,” says Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Making of the Atomic Bomb.” “The Japanese decision to surrender was not driven by the two bombings.”
President Truman’s decision to go nuclear has long been a source of controversy. Many, of course, have argued that attacking civilians can never be justified. Then, in the 1960s, a “revisionist school” of historians suggested that Japan was in fact close to surrendering before Hiroshima - that the bombing was not necessary, and that Truman gave the go-ahead primarily to intimidate the Soviet Union with our new power.
Hasegawa - who was born in Japan and has taught in the United States since 1990, and who reads English, Japanese, and Russian - rejects both the traditional and revisionist positions. According to his close examination of the evidence, Japan was not poised to surrender before Hiroshima, as the revisionists argued, nor was it ready to give in immediately after the atomic bomb, as traditionalists have always seen it. Instead, it took the Soviet declaration of war on Japan, several days after Hiroshima, to bring the capitulation.
Both the American and Japanese public have clung to the idea that the mushroom clouds ended the war. For the Japanese, Hiroshima is a potent symbol of their nation as victim, helping obscure their role as the aggressors and in atrocities that include mass rapes and beheading prisoners of war. For the Americans, Hiroshima has always been a means justified by the end.
“This seems to touch a nerve,” observes Hasegawa.
That may help explain why Hasegawa’s thesis, which he first detailed in an award-winning 2005 book and has continued to bolster with new material, is still little known outside of academic circles, says Ward Wilson, a nuclear weapons scholar who has drawn on Hasegawa’s insights in his own recent work. Measured against the decades of serious and settled thinking about World War II, Hasegawa’s scholarship feels radical. But another reason, Wilson argues, is that to look at history in this new light is to entertain what seem like shocking ideas. That the destruction of cities does not sway leaders. That what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not overly remarkable. And, strangest of all: That nuclear explosives may not be particularly effective weapons of war.
The Pacific War began in 1941 with the violent humiliation at Pearl Harbor. Japan already held parts of China, and quickly invaded New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies, Burma, and Singapore. Manila fell. The country enjoyed air supremacy across most of Southeast Asia; in February 1942, it even attacked Australia. Japan’s control was tightening, and it appeared unstoppable.
After the epic Battle of Midway in the summer of 1942, however, the United States and its allies gained the momentum. Still, progress was slow as Marines hopped from atoll to island to atoll: wading through bloody coral shallows under a rain of shelling, engaging an enemy that was dug in, highly trained, and willing to fight to the death. The names of these tropical hells - Gaudalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa - have become Marine Corps legend. The casualties were heavy.
By the summer of 1945, the Americans had cornered Japan and assembled a final invasion plan, codenamed Operation Downfall. The first stage was scheduled for the fall, and would have opened with the landing of more than 700,000 troops on Kyushu, the southernmost of the big four islands. It would have been a larger operation than D-Day, certain to result in a bloody slaughter.
Americans, then and today, have tended to assume that Japan’s leaders were simply blinded by their own fanaticism, forcing a catastrophic showdown for no reason other than their refusal to acknowledge defeat. This was, after all, a nation that trained its young men to fly their planes, freighted with explosives, into the side of American naval vessels.
But Hasegawa and other historians have shown that Japan’s leaders were in fact quite savvy, well aware of their difficult position, and holding out for strategic reasons. Their concern was not so much whether to end the conflict, but how to end it while holding onto territory, avoiding war crimes trials, and preserving the imperial system. The Japanese could still inflict heavy casualties on any invader, and they hoped to convince the Soviet Union, still neutral in the Asian theater, to mediate a settlement with the Americans. Stalin, they calculated, might negotiate more favorable terms in exchange for territory in Asia. It was a long shot, but it made strategic sense.
On Aug. 6, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped its payload on Hiroshima, leaving the signature mushroom cloud and devastation on the ground, including something on the order of 100,000 killed. (The figures remain disputed, and depend on how the fatalities are counted.)
As Hasegawa writes in his book “Racing the Enemy,” the Japanese leadership reacted with concern, but not panic. On Aug. 7, Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo sent an urgent coded telegram to his ambassador in Moscow, asking him to press for a response to the Japanese request for mediation, which the Soviets had yet to provide. The bombing added a “sense of urgency,” Hasegawa says, but the plan remained the same.
Very late the next night, however, something happened that did change the plan. The Soviet Union declared war and launched a broad surprise attack on Japanese forces in Manchuria. In that instant, Japan’s strategy was ruined. Stalin would not be extracting concessions from the Americans. And the approaching Red Army brought new concerns: The military position was more dire, and it was hard to imagine occupying communists allowing Japan’s traditional imperial system to continue. Better to surrender to Washington than to Moscow.
By the morning of Aug. 9, the Japanese Supreme War Council was meeting to discuss the terms of surrender. (During the meeting, the second atomic bomb killed tens of thousands at Nagasaki.) On Aug. 15, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally.
How is it possible that the Japanese leadership did not react more strongly to many tens of thousands of its citizens being obliterated?
One answer is that the Japanese leaders were not greatly troubled by civilian causalities. As the Allies loomed, the Japanese people were instructed to sharpen bamboo sticks and prepare to meet the Marines at the beach.
Yet it was more than callousness. The bomb - horrific as it was - was not as special as Americans have always imagined. In early March, several hundred B-29 Super Fortress bombers dropped incendiary bombs on downtown Tokyo. Some argue that more died in the resulting firestorm than at Hiroshima. People were boiled in the canals. The photos of charred Tokyo and charred Hiroshima are indistinguishable.
In fact, more than 60 of Japan’s cities had been substantially destroyed by the time of the Hiroshima attack, according to a 2007 International Security article by Wilson, who is a senior fellow at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. In the three weeks before Hiroshima, Wilson writes, 25 cities were heavily bombed.
To us, then, Hiroshima was unique, and the move to atomic weaponry was a great leap, military and moral. But Hasegawa argues the change was incremental. “Once we had accepted strategic bombing as an acceptable weapon of war, the atomic bomb was a very small step,” he says. To Japan’s leaders, Hiroshima was yet another population center leveled, albeit in a novel way. If they didn’t surrender after Tokyo, they weren’t going to after Hiroshima.
Hasegawa’s work is an important new entry into the scholarly conversation, reconstructing the conflicting perspectives of Russians, Americans, and Japanese, and concluding that the bomb played a secondary role. Barton Bernstein, a professor of history emeritus at Stanford University, is the unofficial dean of American atomic bomb scholarship and counts himself as both a fan and a critic of Hasegawa. Hasegawa’s ability to read three languages, Bernstein says, gives him a unique advantage over other scholars. Hasegawa spent years working through primary documents, with a deep understanding of linguistic and cultural nuance. His knowledge was especially valuable because historians of the period face such fragmentary and contradictory evidence, in part because the Japanese destroyed many documents.
But therein lies the weakness of the Hasegawa interpretation as well, Bernstein says. After a long war and in the space of a few days, the Japanese leadership was hit with two extraordinary events - Hiroshima and the Soviet invasion - and sorting out cause and effect, based on incomplete documentation, may prove impossible.
“When you look through all the evidence, I think it is hard to weigh one or the other more heavily,” Bernstein said. “The analysis is well intentioned, but more fine-grained than the evidence comfortably allows.”
Yet Bernstein, Hasegawa, and many historians agree on one startling point. The public view that the atomic bomb was the decisive event that ended World War II is not supported by the facts.
What happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki has framed the world’s thinking about nuclear weapons. Those days in August remain the only instance of nuclear war. The sheer horrors of the destruction, and the lingering poison of radioactivity, inform what has come to be called nuclear deterrence: No sane nation would bring a nuclear attack on itself, and so having nuclear weapons deters your enemies from attacking. When two rival nations have nuclear weapons, as during the Cold War, the result is stalemate.
Hasegawa’s scholarship disturbs this simple logic. If the atomic bomb alone could not compel the Japanese to submit, then perhaps the nuclear deterrent is not as strong as it seems. In fact, Wilson argues, history suggests that leveling population centers, by whatever method, does not force surrender. The Allied firebombing of Dresden in February of 1945 killed many people, but the Germans did not capitulate. The long-range German bombing of London did not push Churchill towards acquiescence. And it is nearly impossible to imagine that a bomb detonated on American soil, even one that immolated a large city, would prompt the nation to bow in surrender.
If killing large numbers of civilians does not have a military impact, then what, Wilson asks, is the purpose of keeping nuclear weapons? We know they are dangerous. If they turn out not to be strategically effective, then nuclear weapons are not trump cards, but time bombs beneath our feet.
Whatever the merits of this position, it suffers the great handicap of trying to change, fundamentally, how several generations have thought about the atomic age, says Linton Brooks, who has served in arms control and nuclear policy positions in several administrations. “Fifty years of telling ourselves that these things are different has sort of made them different,” says Linton. “That is the mystique of nuclear weapons.”
Hasegawa’s own relationship to the events of August of 1945 testifies to the degree to which, all these years later, they resist clear appraisal. As a child, Hasegawa watched the Tokyo firebombing from his roof, and he can still recall the eerie orange glow on the horizon. Growing up, he felt anger at the Japanese government for bringing the conflict onto its people. Later, working as a scholar in America, he accepted the position that the atomic bombing was necessary to end the war. Today he views America’s bombings of Japan’s cities - Hiroshima and Tokyo included - as war crimes. Yet, he adds, they are crimes America should not apologize for until Japan comes to terms with war crimes of its own. These are the evolving views of a man who has mustered the courage to look at an ugly period of history without flinching - something that most people, Americans and Japanese alike, have found themselves unable to do.
Gareth Cook is a Globe columnist and former editor of Ideas.
GQ’s '25 Coolest Athletes of All Time' has a Slight Omission
An Entire Gender Dave Zirin | August 16, 2011
http://www.thenation.com/blog/162804/gq%E2%80%99s-25-coolest-athletes-all-time-has-slight-omission-entire-gender
I know it’s GQ. I know it’s a magazine written for barbershops, cigar bars, and massage parlors. I know it assumes that men are men and women are scenery. But the magazine’s list of “25 coolest athletes of all time” [1]truly sets a new standard for phallocentric panic. Gentleman’s Quarterly has given us 25 athletes they see as the coolest of cool, and not one woman makes the cut.
This isn’t about feminism, or tokenism, or quotas. It’s about ignorance and a national magazine not having an even basic knowledge if sports history. “Cool” should mean grace under pressure with a soupcon of style. By that definition, here are the first six women who come to mind when summon my inner-CM Punk [2]and ponder true transgressive coolness.
How could there be any list without Billie Jean King? In addition to her 12 Grand Slam [3] singles and 16 doubles titles, Billie Jean beat Bobby Riggs in the 1973 Battle of the Sexes match in front of a packed house at the Houston Astrodome and one of the largest national television audiences ever. As she said years later, "I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn't win that match. It would ruin the women's tour and affect all women's self esteem." She had the weight of the women’s movement on her shoulders and still dispatched Riggs in three straight sets. Her signature early 70s mullet and Gloria Steinem glasses [4]were part of the deal.
Or what about Cheryl Miller? Miller dragged women’s basketball into the spotlight by virtue of her own brilliance at USC in the 1980s. She was college player of the year three times and a two time champion. Miller also did it with a style and attitude that forced people to reconsider their own ideas of what women could do on the court. I remember playing ball in NYC growing up and if a woman shook you on the court, you were “Cheryl Millered.” She made women's hoops appointment television.
If Cheryl Miller brought true swagger to the women’s game, Diana Taurasi took that swagger and used it as a club. The Phoenix Mercury WNBA MVP was a two time player of the year at UConn but also played with a smack-talking sneer backed by the sweetest jump-shot in the game. Before the 2004 final game her coach, Geno Auriemma [5], predicted victory with the simple theory: "We have Diana, and you don't.” That’s more than cool. It’s Jordan-esque.
But cool should also mean possessing the power of reinvention and no one has ever represented that in sport quite like tennis great Martina Navratilova. Martina started her career as a very talented but poorly conditioned Czech teenager. In the span of a decade she defected to the US, came out of the closet, had her lover Judy Nelson sitting courtside in the family section, died her hair blond, and transformed her body into a new standard for women athletes: all corded muscle wrapped with pulsing veins. And all with Reagan in the White House.
Martina’s musculature was reflected in her play: a fast powerful, serve and volley game that she rode six straight Grand Slam victories. She also found her political voice in this time, and has been a consistent and public presence against homophobia and intolerance. Martina once said, “The most absurd part of my escape from the unjust system is that I have exchanged one system that suppresses free opinion for another. The Republicans in the U.S. manipulate public opinion and sweep controversial issues under the table. It's depressing. Decisions in America are based solely on the question of how much money will come out of it and not on the questions of how much health, morals or environment suffer as a result." Connie Chung challenged Martina’s statement on CNN, saying to her, [6] “Go back to Czechoslovakia....if you don't like it here. This a country that gave you so much, gave you the freedom to do what you want." Navratilova responded, "And I'm giving it back. This is why I speak out. When I see something that I don't like, I'm going to speak out because you can do that here. And again, I feel there are too many things happening that are taking our rights away."[
Martina is so cool, she is known by just one name. So is the tennis player who plays most like her: Serena. Serena and her sister Venus Williams have both dominated tennis for the last 15 years. But only Serena has done it with a style that matches or even exceeds her substance. That’s quite a statement considering that Serena has won more Grand Llam titles than any active player, male or female. But we’re talking about cool and only Serena has ever warmed up at Wimbledon in a white trench court. Only Serena showed up to play at the US Open in a denim skirt and knee high boots. (Officials intervened to prevent play in the boots.) Only Serena is a certified nail technician. Only Serena wore “the cat suit.”
This is just a taste of some of the cool GQ left off their list. I could go on about Florence Griffith-Joyner with the speed and the fingernails, or Oksana Baiul, winning the 1994 figure skating gold under the weight of the Kerrigan/Harding drama. But if there is one other name I’d leave you with, it’s Wyomia Tyus. [7] Tyus became the first person to retain the Olympic [8] title in the 100 meter dash, winning in 1964 and 1968. But her cools came in 1968, after winning another gold by running anchor in the 4x100 dash relay. That was the year John Carlos and Tommie Smith electrified the Olympics with their black-gloved salute. Their movement, with its emphasis on “reclaiming manhood”, didn’t involve women athletes. Wyomia Tyus recalled many years later. “It appalled me that the men simply took us for granted. They assumed we had no minds of our own and that we’d do whatever we were told.” But Carlos and Smith had been expelled from Olympic Village and were being torn to shreds across the media and Tyus saw that there was a bigger principle at play. In front of the press, and standing with her team, Tyus said, “I’d like to say that we dedicate our relay win to John Carlos and Tommie Smith.” That took guts. That took cools. That took the kind of grace under pressure the listmakers at GQ chose to ignore.
I hope people read the GQ piece. But read it as a statement of the kind of narrow, myopic gender segregation best located in a museum. In other words, GQ might be slickly produced. It might have Mark Sanchez on the cover. It might have ads that smell like the latest cologne. But one thing it’s absolutely not, is cool.
Contact Dave at dave@edgeofsports.com
[1] http://www.gq.com/sports/lists/201102/25-coolest-athletes-poll
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqUl6n92DJg
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Slam_(tennis)
[4] http://www.hollywoodmemorabilia.com/files/cache/billie-jean-king-former-tennis-pro-autographed-8x10_7250297c1302e22222836272538d823d.jpg
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geno_Auriemma
[6] http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0207/17/cct.00.html
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyomia_Tyus
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games
http://www.thenation.com/blog/162804/gq%E2%80%99s-25-coolest-athletes-all-time-has-slight-omission-entire-gender
I know it’s GQ. I know it’s a magazine written for barbershops, cigar bars, and massage parlors. I know it assumes that men are men and women are scenery. But the magazine’s list of “25 coolest athletes of all time” [1]truly sets a new standard for phallocentric panic. Gentleman’s Quarterly has given us 25 athletes they see as the coolest of cool, and not one woman makes the cut.
This isn’t about feminism, or tokenism, or quotas. It’s about ignorance and a national magazine not having an even basic knowledge if sports history. “Cool” should mean grace under pressure with a soupcon of style. By that definition, here are the first six women who come to mind when summon my inner-CM Punk [2]and ponder true transgressive coolness.
How could there be any list without Billie Jean King? In addition to her 12 Grand Slam [3] singles and 16 doubles titles, Billie Jean beat Bobby Riggs in the 1973 Battle of the Sexes match in front of a packed house at the Houston Astrodome and one of the largest national television audiences ever. As she said years later, "I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn't win that match. It would ruin the women's tour and affect all women's self esteem." She had the weight of the women’s movement on her shoulders and still dispatched Riggs in three straight sets. Her signature early 70s mullet and Gloria Steinem glasses [4]were part of the deal.
Or what about Cheryl Miller? Miller dragged women’s basketball into the spotlight by virtue of her own brilliance at USC in the 1980s. She was college player of the year three times and a two time champion. Miller also did it with a style and attitude that forced people to reconsider their own ideas of what women could do on the court. I remember playing ball in NYC growing up and if a woman shook you on the court, you were “Cheryl Millered.” She made women's hoops appointment television.
If Cheryl Miller brought true swagger to the women’s game, Diana Taurasi took that swagger and used it as a club. The Phoenix Mercury WNBA MVP was a two time player of the year at UConn but also played with a smack-talking sneer backed by the sweetest jump-shot in the game. Before the 2004 final game her coach, Geno Auriemma [5], predicted victory with the simple theory: "We have Diana, and you don't.” That’s more than cool. It’s Jordan-esque.
But cool should also mean possessing the power of reinvention and no one has ever represented that in sport quite like tennis great Martina Navratilova. Martina started her career as a very talented but poorly conditioned Czech teenager. In the span of a decade she defected to the US, came out of the closet, had her lover Judy Nelson sitting courtside in the family section, died her hair blond, and transformed her body into a new standard for women athletes: all corded muscle wrapped with pulsing veins. And all with Reagan in the White House.
Martina’s musculature was reflected in her play: a fast powerful, serve and volley game that she rode six straight Grand Slam victories. She also found her political voice in this time, and has been a consistent and public presence against homophobia and intolerance. Martina once said, “The most absurd part of my escape from the unjust system is that I have exchanged one system that suppresses free opinion for another. The Republicans in the U.S. manipulate public opinion and sweep controversial issues under the table. It's depressing. Decisions in America are based solely on the question of how much money will come out of it and not on the questions of how much health, morals or environment suffer as a result." Connie Chung challenged Martina’s statement on CNN, saying to her, [6] “Go back to Czechoslovakia....if you don't like it here. This a country that gave you so much, gave you the freedom to do what you want." Navratilova responded, "And I'm giving it back. This is why I speak out. When I see something that I don't like, I'm going to speak out because you can do that here. And again, I feel there are too many things happening that are taking our rights away."[
Martina is so cool, she is known by just one name. So is the tennis player who plays most like her: Serena. Serena and her sister Venus Williams have both dominated tennis for the last 15 years. But only Serena has done it with a style that matches or even exceeds her substance. That’s quite a statement considering that Serena has won more Grand Llam titles than any active player, male or female. But we’re talking about cool and only Serena has ever warmed up at Wimbledon in a white trench court. Only Serena showed up to play at the US Open in a denim skirt and knee high boots. (Officials intervened to prevent play in the boots.) Only Serena is a certified nail technician. Only Serena wore “the cat suit.”
This is just a taste of some of the cool GQ left off their list. I could go on about Florence Griffith-Joyner with the speed and the fingernails, or Oksana Baiul, winning the 1994 figure skating gold under the weight of the Kerrigan/Harding drama. But if there is one other name I’d leave you with, it’s Wyomia Tyus. [7] Tyus became the first person to retain the Olympic [8] title in the 100 meter dash, winning in 1964 and 1968. But her cools came in 1968, after winning another gold by running anchor in the 4x100 dash relay. That was the year John Carlos and Tommie Smith electrified the Olympics with their black-gloved salute. Their movement, with its emphasis on “reclaiming manhood”, didn’t involve women athletes. Wyomia Tyus recalled many years later. “It appalled me that the men simply took us for granted. They assumed we had no minds of our own and that we’d do whatever we were told.” But Carlos and Smith had been expelled from Olympic Village and were being torn to shreds across the media and Tyus saw that there was a bigger principle at play. In front of the press, and standing with her team, Tyus said, “I’d like to say that we dedicate our relay win to John Carlos and Tommie Smith.” That took guts. That took cools. That took the kind of grace under pressure the listmakers at GQ chose to ignore.
I hope people read the GQ piece. But read it as a statement of the kind of narrow, myopic gender segregation best located in a museum. In other words, GQ might be slickly produced. It might have Mark Sanchez on the cover. It might have ads that smell like the latest cologne. But one thing it’s absolutely not, is cool.
Contact Dave at dave@edgeofsports.com
[1] http://www.gq.com/sports/lists/201102/25-coolest-athletes-poll
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqUl6n92DJg
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Slam_(tennis)
[4] http://www.hollywoodmemorabilia.com/files/cache/billie-jean-king-former-tennis-pro-autographed-8x10_7250297c1302e22222836272538d823d.jpg
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geno_Auriemma
[6] http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0207/17/cct.00.html
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyomia_Tyus
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Games
Capybara California Dreaming
Loren Coleman on August 17th, 2011
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/capybara2011
On July 22, 2011, Nick Kamp, a wastewater operator, reported spotting a capybara at the Paso Robles Wastewater Treatment Plant in California. As it turns out, sightings of the rodent have focussed on two nearby locales to the wastewater treatment plant.
Officials in the Paso Robles area now say they may set traps after Kamp and other workers at a wastewater plant spotted a capybara three weeks ago.
Kamp took photos of the animal during his 2011 encounter and described it thusly, “It had the body of a pig, but it had a longer nose and head to it.”
He said that the animal seemed calm, and swam with its head above and below the water.
Todd Tognazzini, a lieutenant with the Department, believes the capybara is an escaped pet, although the animal cannot legally be kept without a special permit. Department of Fish and Game spokesman Andrew Hughan said that the capybara isn’t dangerous, “just weird looking.”
Eight months later, a man who was feeding his horses said a large rodent-like creature came up, scared his horses away, ate some hay and then chased after a dog. The man fired a shotgun at the animal to protect his dog, and called wildlife officials after it left the property. Wardens confirmed footprints at the scene were that of a capybara, but traps they set caught nothing.
Two years ago, a capybara was spotted at a ranch near to the treatment plant, only a mile away, and the ranch owner took photos of the animal. Game wardens received a report about three years ago of a capybara in a pond near Hunter Ranch Golf Course.
Konformist Book Club: MYSTERY OF THE OLMECS
http://adventuresunlimitedpress.com/proddetail.php?prod=MOLM
MEET THE OLMECS -- MYSTERIOUS ANCIENTS OF MEXICO!! Author David Hatcher Childress has traveled around the world several times over, but finds one of the most fascinating mysteries of history very close to home--the Olmec culture of ancient Mexico. The Olmecs were not acknowledged to have existed until an international archeological meeting in Mexico City in 1942. Now they are slowly being recognized as the mother culture of Mesoamerica having developed metallurgy, writing and the calendar long before the Maya. The statuary left behind by these enigmatic people very clearly depict features that seem to indicate residents of the Land of Olman came from Africa, Asia and Europe. Was the narrow isthmus of southern Mexico an important part of a trade route that spanned both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans? Examine the evidence in this fascinating book by one of the most interesting historians around. You might learn more than you wanted to know about these strange people who populated the old New World! -- JOURNEY TO THE FASCINATING WORLD OF OLMAN!
Price: $20.00
BabeWatch
Thanks to Yahoo.com & DailyMail.co.uk
Lady Gaga
Jenna Jameson
Halle Berry
Eva Longoria
Rihanna
Carmen Electra
Demi Lovato
Rose McGowan
Victoria Justice
And in the rear, Kim Kardashian...
Lady Gaga
Jenna Jameson
Halle Berry
Eva Longoria
Rihanna
Carmen Electra
Demi Lovato
Rose McGowan
Victoria Justice
And in the rear, Kim Kardashian...
CGI & Rise of the Planet of the Apes
From Time.com:
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a reboot of the original movie series, which is a cult favorite. A prequel to the futuristic story of the 1968 Charlton Heston film, Rise is set in present-day San Francisco, years before apes take over the world. James Franco plays Will Rodman, a scientist looking to discover a cure for Alzheimer's disease. His drug trials are done on, you guessed it, chimps.
After an experiment goes awry, he finds himself caring for Caesar, a baby chimp whose intelligence has been dramatically increased by the testing. Caesar is easily the star of the film, as the chimp that's responsible for galvanizing apes against the oppressive practices of humans. (By the way, no one should be surprised when PETA has a field day with this plot.)
Early on, the film's director Rupert Wyatt decided that they wouldn't be using live chimps in the film (too complicated and unpredictable) so he initially struggled with a way to portray them. “Then performance capture came along in terms of providing us with that opportunity,” he tells TIME, referring to the fast-evolving technique of using computer-generated characters based on real actors' performances.
Once it was decided that CGI apes were the way to go, it wasn't that much of a surprise that Andy Serkis was cast in the role of Caesar. Serkis, who played Kong in King Kong and Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, is no stranger to CGI technology and performance-capture acting. And thanks to his nuanced performance and Peter Jackson's digital technology company Weta Digital, Caesar is the most believable character in the film (sorry, James).
Though he makes bringing Caesar to life look easy, Serkis admits that it was a challenge. “You're trying to do that without dialogue,” he says. “It's all conveyed through the eyes and through body language and through projecting your emotions.”
But whatever challenges Serkis faced, his performance helped the rest of the cast. Previous CGI movies have been filmed in front of a green screen, with some characters added in post-production, which, as you can imagine, would be an added hurdle for actors. However, in Rise, every interaction between Caesar and the other characters was filmed in real-time. Frieda Pinto of Slumdog Millionaire fame, who plays Franco's girlfriend Caroline, says she didn't find acting across from a faux-chimp difficult. “It would have been a challenge if Andy did not play Caesar,” she says. “I feel it was easier having Andy play the whole emotion in order for us as actors to play off of him.”
And it'll likely be Andy-as-Caesar's emotion that wins over even the biggest CGI skeptics. It's also a prime example of a way the latest film trumps the original (yeah, I said it, and I'm pretty sure Richard Corliss agrees with me). It's Caesar's amazing evolution that makes the movie and that performance is thanks to Serkis's talents via performance capture...
Aping Reality: Behind the Scenes of 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'
Megan Gibson
8-5-11
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/08/05/aping-reality-behind-the-scenes-of-rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a reboot of the original movie series, which is a cult favorite. A prequel to the futuristic story of the 1968 Charlton Heston film, Rise is set in present-day San Francisco, years before apes take over the world. James Franco plays Will Rodman, a scientist looking to discover a cure for Alzheimer's disease. His drug trials are done on, you guessed it, chimps.
After an experiment goes awry, he finds himself caring for Caesar, a baby chimp whose intelligence has been dramatically increased by the testing. Caesar is easily the star of the film, as the chimp that's responsible for galvanizing apes against the oppressive practices of humans. (By the way, no one should be surprised when PETA has a field day with this plot.)
Early on, the film's director Rupert Wyatt decided that they wouldn't be using live chimps in the film (too complicated and unpredictable) so he initially struggled with a way to portray them. “Then performance capture came along in terms of providing us with that opportunity,” he tells TIME, referring to the fast-evolving technique of using computer-generated characters based on real actors' performances.
Once it was decided that CGI apes were the way to go, it wasn't that much of a surprise that Andy Serkis was cast in the role of Caesar. Serkis, who played Kong in King Kong and Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, is no stranger to CGI technology and performance-capture acting. And thanks to his nuanced performance and Peter Jackson's digital technology company Weta Digital, Caesar is the most believable character in the film (sorry, James).
Though he makes bringing Caesar to life look easy, Serkis admits that it was a challenge. “You're trying to do that without dialogue,” he says. “It's all conveyed through the eyes and through body language and through projecting your emotions.”
But whatever challenges Serkis faced, his performance helped the rest of the cast. Previous CGI movies have been filmed in front of a green screen, with some characters added in post-production, which, as you can imagine, would be an added hurdle for actors. However, in Rise, every interaction between Caesar and the other characters was filmed in real-time. Frieda Pinto of Slumdog Millionaire fame, who plays Franco's girlfriend Caroline, says she didn't find acting across from a faux-chimp difficult. “It would have been a challenge if Andy did not play Caesar,” she says. “I feel it was easier having Andy play the whole emotion in order for us as actors to play off of him.”
And it'll likely be Andy-as-Caesar's emotion that wins over even the biggest CGI skeptics. It's also a prime example of a way the latest film trumps the original (yeah, I said it, and I'm pretty sure Richard Corliss agrees with me). It's Caesar's amazing evolution that makes the movie and that performance is thanks to Serkis's talents via performance capture...
Aping Reality: Behind the Scenes of 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'
Megan Gibson
8-5-11
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/08/05/aping-reality-behind-the-scenes-of-rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes
FeedBack: New theory blames Soviets for death of Albert Camus
Jaye Beldo
The Myth of Sisyphus now needs revision: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is not suicide but whether or not the KGB did Camus in."
The Myth of Sisyphus now needs revision: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is not suicide but whether or not the KGB did Camus in."
Steamshovel Press Reviews
Kenn Thomas
SteamshovelPress.com
We laugh to keep from crying seems to be the lesson learned from The Sinister Truth, a graphic novel about MKULTRA. MKULTRA, of course, is the brainwashing program conducted by the CIA largely in secret although much has been learned about it since from declassified files. Researchers have poured over such things and produced much in terms of documenting and exposing this record of human abuse. Writer Jason Ciaccia and Aaron Norhanian have taken it in a different direction, as a satirical graphic novel. MKULTRA luminary Sidney Gottlieb appears as the first protagonist, a mad scientist rendered in Ralph Steadman like fashion, cavorting with hookers, making murderous chaos of laboratories, LSD drenched mania animating his every move. All the scenes of mayhem, of course, are accompanied by very neatly typed references to their corresponding government file or report. According to Sinister Truth it all started after Eisenhower snubbed Castro, forcing the Cuban dictator into the arms of Soviet Communism. Much of the Sinister Truth graphically depicts the various absurd assassination attempts against the Cuban dictator. The subject begs an even more thorough examination through such gallows humor and sick comedy-the roots of MKULTRA trace back to back engineering North Korea's brainwashing of American pilots and that could make a volume in and of itself. The creators state that their research involves over 18,000 recently declassified CIA File. Surely this is a cause for a multi volume series!
http://www.sinistertruth.com/
Prison remediation activists have produced It’s More Expensive To No Nothing, a DVD documentary about the effect of the rehabilitation programs behind bars. Steamshovel receives a lot of mail from prisoners in part because it presents points of view that differ from the mainstream which has an ideational center that many prisoners have long since departed. Reasons for this include unjust incarceration in some instances, in other instance prisoners seek to more to affirm the dissenting view of the world that led to criminal behavior; and, of course, many are just bored with whatever copies of Time and Newsweek the prisons leave out for reading purposes. It’s More Expensive To Do Nothing points out the cost advantage of remedial programs--$5000 for rehabbing as opposed to the $75,000 it costs to keep someone in prison for a year. Much often is said about many prisoners being exactly where they want to be—Charles Mansion often offered as the prime example, and with these figures that becomes easier to understand. So in a way this documentary exposes a prisoner scam; but, of course, in a more important way it makes a common sense argument about retraining and release, especially for nonviolent first offenders. Ordering Steamshovel in prison can be the first step in literacy retraining, one that allows for intellectual self-respect—that is, literacy as a gathering of intelligence rather than acquiescence to the status quo. There are hardball realities to face, though: many prions reject material that has even simple urse words—in one case, a book was returned that had a small amount of public hair appearing in a photo—and the outsourcing of prison maintenance to groups like Wackenhut ensure via competition that the prison industry will continue to be grown. Nevertheless, this documentary leads the way to the glimmer of hope that still resides within the locked up readership.
Contact: polly@humaneexposures.com
Westholme Publishing reprinted The Flying Saucer as part of its “America Reads” program, designed to present long forgotten fiction from various times in American history, although the fiction all seems British. The other two immediate volumes include Limbo, about cyborgs trying to takeover and replace human limbs; and One, a 1984-like examination of state suppression of individuality. These other two belong solidly in the science fiction camp. As the first novel to ever use the term “Flying Saucer” in its title, however, and coming so close to that first post-War wave of sightings that included Kenneth Arnold and Maury Island, the type of fiction represented by The Flying Saucer brings it a step closer to reality as actually experienced rather than speculated about. UK author and historian Bernard Newman has the first of the “saucers”--described actually as rockets--come down in Leicestshire but by chapter three has natives discovering them in the American southwest. It’s not a real alien threat, however, only a group of scientists staging crashes in order to unite world political factions, a la the sentiment expressed in the time of the novel by Douglas MacArthur and much later by Ronald Reagan. Unite the world behind a common threat from space, only here the threat includes depriving the earth of its gold. Saucer hysteria and parapolitical paranoia played out in prose contemporary to the day, without the filter of all the science-fiction excesses that came after and with some humor.
info@westholmepublishing.com
SteamshovelPress.com
We laugh to keep from crying seems to be the lesson learned from The Sinister Truth, a graphic novel about MKULTRA. MKULTRA, of course, is the brainwashing program conducted by the CIA largely in secret although much has been learned about it since from declassified files. Researchers have poured over such things and produced much in terms of documenting and exposing this record of human abuse. Writer Jason Ciaccia and Aaron Norhanian have taken it in a different direction, as a satirical graphic novel. MKULTRA luminary Sidney Gottlieb appears as the first protagonist, a mad scientist rendered in Ralph Steadman like fashion, cavorting with hookers, making murderous chaos of laboratories, LSD drenched mania animating his every move. All the scenes of mayhem, of course, are accompanied by very neatly typed references to their corresponding government file or report. According to Sinister Truth it all started after Eisenhower snubbed Castro, forcing the Cuban dictator into the arms of Soviet Communism. Much of the Sinister Truth graphically depicts the various absurd assassination attempts against the Cuban dictator. The subject begs an even more thorough examination through such gallows humor and sick comedy-the roots of MKULTRA trace back to back engineering North Korea's brainwashing of American pilots and that could make a volume in and of itself. The creators state that their research involves over 18,000 recently declassified CIA File. Surely this is a cause for a multi volume series!
http://www.sinistertruth.com/
Prison remediation activists have produced It’s More Expensive To No Nothing, a DVD documentary about the effect of the rehabilitation programs behind bars. Steamshovel receives a lot of mail from prisoners in part because it presents points of view that differ from the mainstream which has an ideational center that many prisoners have long since departed. Reasons for this include unjust incarceration in some instances, in other instance prisoners seek to more to affirm the dissenting view of the world that led to criminal behavior; and, of course, many are just bored with whatever copies of Time and Newsweek the prisons leave out for reading purposes. It’s More Expensive To Do Nothing points out the cost advantage of remedial programs--$5000 for rehabbing as opposed to the $75,000 it costs to keep someone in prison for a year. Much often is said about many prisoners being exactly where they want to be—Charles Mansion often offered as the prime example, and with these figures that becomes easier to understand. So in a way this documentary exposes a prisoner scam; but, of course, in a more important way it makes a common sense argument about retraining and release, especially for nonviolent first offenders. Ordering Steamshovel in prison can be the first step in literacy retraining, one that allows for intellectual self-respect—that is, literacy as a gathering of intelligence rather than acquiescence to the status quo. There are hardball realities to face, though: many prions reject material that has even simple urse words—in one case, a book was returned that had a small amount of public hair appearing in a photo—and the outsourcing of prison maintenance to groups like Wackenhut ensure via competition that the prison industry will continue to be grown. Nevertheless, this documentary leads the way to the glimmer of hope that still resides within the locked up readership.
Contact: polly@humaneexposures.com
Westholme Publishing reprinted The Flying Saucer as part of its “America Reads” program, designed to present long forgotten fiction from various times in American history, although the fiction all seems British. The other two immediate volumes include Limbo, about cyborgs trying to takeover and replace human limbs; and One, a 1984-like examination of state suppression of individuality. These other two belong solidly in the science fiction camp. As the first novel to ever use the term “Flying Saucer” in its title, however, and coming so close to that first post-War wave of sightings that included Kenneth Arnold and Maury Island, the type of fiction represented by The Flying Saucer brings it a step closer to reality as actually experienced rather than speculated about. UK author and historian Bernard Newman has the first of the “saucers”--described actually as rockets--come down in Leicestshire but by chapter three has natives discovering them in the American southwest. It’s not a real alien threat, however, only a group of scientists staging crashes in order to unite world political factions, a la the sentiment expressed in the time of the novel by Douglas MacArthur and much later by Ronald Reagan. Unite the world behind a common threat from space, only here the threat includes depriving the earth of its gold. Saucer hysteria and parapolitical paranoia played out in prose contemporary to the day, without the filter of all the science-fiction excesses that came after and with some humor.
info@westholmepublishing.com
The Cast Of 'The Big Lebowski' Reunites in New York
Sound problems and a rambunctious crowd made for a challenging but hilarious tribute to the fan-favorite film
Andy Greene
August 17, 2011
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/the-cast-of-the-big-lebowski-reunites-in-new-york-20110817
When The Big Lebowski hit theaters in March 1998, few people could have imagined it would quickly become one of the biggest cult films of all time. Most critics dismissed it as a disappointing follow-up to Fargo – and it got creamed at the box office. Here's a list of movies that had higher grosses that first weekend: the twelfth week of Titanic, the fourth week of The Wedding Singer, U.S. Marshals, Twilight (the widely forgotten Paul Newman film noir) and Hush. If you don't remember Hush, it's that awful Gwyneth Paltrow thriller where she's pregnant and Jessica Lange is trying to kill her.
Well, nobody is dressing up like a pregnant Gwyneth Paltrow and headed to Hush Fest these days – but every year thousands of young men (and the occasional woman) dress up like characters like The Big Lebowski to bowl and drink White Russians at Lebowski Fests all over the country. Tuesday night at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom, the entire main cast reunited to celebrate the release of the movie on Blu-ray and participate in a panel discussion. Achievers (the preferred nomenclature for Lebowski fans) travelled from all over the country for the celebration.
On paper, this is the outline for an amazing night. Unfortunately, the panel discussion didn't go very well. The sight of Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, John Turturro and musical supervisor T-Bone Burnett together again was awe-inspiring – but group interviews are notoriously hard to carry off. Factor in thousands of drunken fans screaming out lines from the movie every three seconds and endless sound problems that made it near-impossible for the panel to hear anything, and you have a borderline disaster. Entertainment Weekly writer Clark Collis was a trooper as moderator and did his best to navigate through the chaos, but you could see his frustration boiling over as the night went on. During a forty-minute discussion, he was able to ask about five or so questions to the panel.
That isn't to say that the discussion didn't have its moments. The cast members all told hysterical stories about being accosted by obsessed fans in the streets, John Turturro shared his plans for a sequel about Jesus becoming a bus driver and Buscemi shared his theory that Donnie is actually just a figment of Walter's imagination. The whole cast said they would be happy to participate in a sequel, though John Goodman took everybody back to reality by saying there was no chance it would ever happen. Nobody could quite explain why the Coen Brothers have been so reluctant to embrace the movie.
I had the pleasure of sitting extremely close to James Hoosier, who had a bit (but highly memorable) role as Jesus' bowling partner Liam O'Brien. Lebowski Fest organizers Will Russell and Scott Shuffitt introduced him to the crowd early in the night, and he was more than happy to recreate his famous belly shake for the crowd. He wore an O'Brien/Quintana bowling jersey and seemed delighted to mingle with the fans. He stuck around for the movie, and soaked in thunderous applause every time he was on the screen. The very instant his initial scenes were over, he got up and left.
In many ways, viewing the movie for the millionth time was more enjoyable than watching the panel discussion. The crowd's drunken catcalls became endearing, and we all sang along to "The Man In Me" and screamed out "shut the fuck up Donnie!" in unison. Tiny details that don't register during the first 30 screenings become hysterical – like the fact that The Dude has book called Japanese Cooking in his apartment or that The Dude is singing the theme song to Branded (an actual 1960s western) while in the back of the police car. I had honestly only planned on staying for a bit of the movie so I could go home and write this, but before I knew it I was singing along to the Townes Van Zandt cover of "Dead Flowers" while the end credits rolled.
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