Glenn Beck Channels Lunatic, Disassociated Rage Into a Quasi-Movement...

By Wallace C. Turbeville, NewDeal 2.0
http://www.alternet.org/story/148126/


A little over a week ago we were treated to Glenn Beck's quasi-religious extravaganza on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. I have had a gnawing sense that there was some greater meaning to this event, despite the absence of any apparent substance in the messages delivered.

Then it hit me: I recalled that, in a 2009 New York Times interview, Glenn Beck compared himself with Howard Beale, the character portrayed magnificently by Peter Finch in the 1976 film "Network." The metamorphosis of Beck into a self-proclaimed prophet of an ideologically conservative God suddenly made complete sense.

In Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay, Beale was a newscaster who suffered a psychological break when informed that he was to be fired because of low ratings. He wandered into the studio wearing his pajamas, drenched from walking in a thunderstorm, and delivered the famous speech urging viewers to throw open their windows and scream, "I'm as mad as hell, and I am not going to take it any more." Of course, the viewers complied en masse and Beale was given his own show that featured his lunatic rants. Ratings soared.

Before his famous exhortation, Beale recounted a list of problems plaguing society and admitted that he was totally clueless as to any solutions. Chayefsky was unsympathetic with Beale's audience. He brilliantly described the mass insanity of a public willing to follow a prophet with no inkling of a way to address problems, based only lunatic, disassociated anger. Chayefsky intended that "mad" be read as having both of its meanings. He was appalled by the public's self-indulgent eagerness to transform the immediate gratification of a primal scream into a social movement.

It is instructive to recall how Beale met his end. Network management found it necessary to restrain Beale when his rants put corporate strategy at risk. In redirecting Beale, they inadvertently reattached his mind, however tenuously, with rationality. Beale started speaking (quite eloquently) about the dehumanization of society, advising his viewers to make the best of the situation because the trend was irreversible. Ratings plummeted, not because the public disagreed, but because they became bored. As the film's narrator put it, "No one particularly cared to hear that his life was utterly valueless." The amoral head of programming, Diana Christensen, arranged to have Beale gunned down on live TV by the Ecumenical Liberation Army (they also had a prime time reality show, "The Mao Tse-Tung Hour"). That final show was a great success for the Network, if not for Beale.

Glenn Beck proves that Paddy Chayefsky's observations of American society in the 1970's are just as valid today.

I have often wondered whether Beck is a lunatic, exploited by Fox News and deserving of our sympathy. After all, he suffers from macular dystrophy, an inability to focus vision on the real world. (Chayefsky would have loved the irony.) But I now believe that he is sane (and I suppose deserving of no sympathy). He understands that disassociated anger is cathartic for today's public. Nonsensical conspiracy theories and baseless ridicule are entertaining fillers, but his real stock-in-trade is the public's rage at a "system" that must have betrayed them because their dreams have not been fulfilled. People are angry because they feel powerless to change conditions that they dislike. They cannot even describe what the problem is because no leader has articulated it. A rational explanation would at least mitigate the rage by calming anxieties. But no progressive leader has the courage to try it, and it is not in the conservatives' interest to do so. You might say that the public's experience is dehumanizing (but if you did, you would bore the audience).

The facts suggest that Beck is more Diana Christensen than Howard Beale. Like her, he understands that news, in the sense of events and public policies, cannot contend with entertainment in a world dominated by fear and uncertainty. He has simply chosen to be his own prophet. His claim to be a mouthpiece of God appears cynically calculated to complete the construction of a modern-day equivalent of Chayefsky's Network. As Max Schumacher, the only principled character in the film said of Christensen: "You are television incarnate, Diana [read, Glenn] — indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality."

This is all far more important than Glenn Beck. I believe that this disassociated rage has been an important characteristic of American society for at least 40 years. It is a product of the self-important and self-indulgent baby boomers (like me), who have always been susceptible to the message that they should hold on to their own money rather than sharing it, in the form of taxes, in pursuit of the greater good. The anger and cynicism, initially directed at the "system," was eventually turned on the government. The only leader whose message resonated in this era was Ronald Reagan — "Government cannot solve the problem; it is the problem."

Ideological conservatism has ruled the day for 40 years. The genius of the New Deal, in retreat throughout this period, was not ideology. It was the pragmatic observation that the only way to achieve long-term prosperity is for the government to draw the weak and less wealthy into participation in the economy. Left to their own devices, the strong and wealthy will rationally act in their own short-term interests. Only government can act in the collective long-term interest. The unbridled free enterprise and deregulation advocated by conservative ideologues can make a few people wealthy in the short-run, but it is unsustainable because middle- and lower- income families will inevitably be left behind.

What has been missing is a progressive leader willing to risk telling the public the truth. The middle- and lower-classes have been getting poorer. The quality of their employment in good times has deteriorated; and progressively, in each downturn, unemployment persists for longer and longer periods after the economy improves. As high school and college graduation rates have stagnated, the American dream of boundless opportunity has withered away, even for their children. Even the apparent success of the wealthiest is unsustainable unless increasing income disparity is reversed.

What an opportunity for progressives to redirect this anger toward conservative ideologies that have decimated the American Dream! For Mr. Obama, the path to a transformational presidency was, and hopefully still is, to channel this energy into an all-out effort to restore balance to the economy.

Chayefsky also created a character, Arthur Jensen, who was the head of the Network. Assuming his best voice-of-God tone, he tried to convince Beale to proclaim a utopian world view in which businesses roamed free of government interference, his "corporate cosmology." When Beale nervously asked why he should be the chosen prophet for this new world order, Jensen answered: "Because you are on the television, you dummy." Glenn Beck needs to be reminded that Arthur Jensen was not God; he was just a character in a movie.


Wallace C. Turbeville is the former CEO of VMAC LLC and a former Vice President of Goldman, Sachs & Co. He is Visiting Scholar at the Roosevelt Institute.

SUPREME COURT RULING ALLOWS CORPORATIONS TO LEGALLY BRIBE JUDGES

William K. Black, Naked Capitalism - The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision allows businesses to make unlimited political contributions to judges and politicians. When judges are elected, the need for these contributions inherently turns judges into politicians. Sympathetic judges are corrupt businesses' most valuable allies. Corporations and their senior officials can commit civil or criminal wrongs with impunity if their case is assigned to a friendly judge. The Robber Barons often had judges on their payrolls. Judges can serve a corporation as both a shield and a sword. They can declare statutes and regulations unlawful. They can issue favorable decisions when corporations sue their critics, which can intimidate, tie up, or even bankrupt the critics.

The fact that corporations are "investing" so heavily in getting pro-business judges elected demonstrates that their CEOs believe that the election of friendly judges will increase their incomes and decrease the risk that they will ever be sanctioned.

The Heart of Corporate Darkness

By STEPHEN MARTIN, Counterpunch

'Mistah Kurtz, he dead'
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.

It really is so very difficult to attempt to understand what is going on in the World today, though perhaps the point as made by Karl Marx; that the priority is not to understand the World but to change it is valid - and we certainly live in time of change - sense of 'Sic Transit Gloria Mundi'?

This small article seeks to examine what amounts to Political horror; that horror which is Corporatism become synonymous with 'Ecocide', and describable as 'Heart of Darkness'.

These small quarters write as a 'Prole', sense of George Orwell's abbreviation of 'Proletariat'; and it is certainly the case that Orwell had a sublime consciousness. His concept of 'Inner Party, Outer Party and Prole' holds approximate sense of Gini Co-efficient today in most parts of the Western World - as does his vision of 'Geopolitical Power Block' as 'supra National'; sense of 'Eastasia, Eurasia and Oceania', express prescience?

The Proletariat, and indeed the 'Lumpenproletariat' or 'Proletariat in rags', are growing in number daily in the Western World given the shrinkage of the middle classes under the onslaught of Economic Depression - and are increasingly liable to be viewed as 'superfluous' accordant the growth of power of 'Inner Party' as 'Masters of the Universe' or '?bermenschen'?

'Population Control' is a euphemism as can be employed by 'Philanthropists' who see themselves as '?bermenschen', and to whom 'Genocide' concerning the elimination of 'Prole' as '?ntermenschen' is but only a further step along the Corporate line in an Orthodoxy demanding seeing others as less worthy of Life - and as to be so 'constrained'?

So it goes.

It is a questionable proposition that the engineering of an Economic Depression constitutes Population Control?

The horror!

These small quarters write expressive of a psychophysical consciousness which is reflective of a neurophysiological integration, involving an 'anamnesis' as put by Socrates, and within context of a 'Paradigm' as would be determined by Empiricism. It is ultimately through Empiricism that Corporatism as an Orthodoxy has been spawned, much along the lines of 'Dialectic' as enumerated by Marx concerning relationship to means of Production determined by Science as a fruit of Empiricism - as it is also through same Empiricism as paradigm Corporate that a mere Prole is not 'meant' to use words such as 'psychophysical' or 'neurophysiological' - as Orwell in his concept of 'Newspeak' acknowledged?

The point being made is that the 'Heart of Darkness' is not only 'out there' in Cartesian sense of particular best laid scheme being played with 'matter', but is also 'in here' sense of best laid scheme being played with 'mind'?

The point is also that the 'Inner Party' as Stateless Bastards imposing Orthodoxy for gain 'Utilitarian' have a variety of ways of 'grinding' Man down through the imposition of illusion directed at destroying Hope; or at the very least rendering it capable of being described as 'audacious'?

Asking the 'right questions' in a Panopticon comes with the risk of being 'unintelligible' or labelled 'derogatory' - such the control as they who would have wrong questions asked have attained – never mind the truth that 'hope springs eternal in the human breast' as Pope stated?

The pragmatism of the Corporatist Age in which we currently 'live' will surely be viewed in the future as being 'Dark' as Lichtenberg proposed; and in such illumination the Horror of the Age as illusion imposed will necessarily be faced and recognised for the denial it was?

'Grundrisse' as outlines critique of Political Economy is Marx's prescience concerning the inevitable effects of concentration of wealth as a polarisation of power- and the degeneration of Capitalist Democracy to Corporatism?

That 'History is written by the 'Victorious' was illustrated through alternative interpretation expressing a transcendence of such 'paradigm' by Howard Zinn - as an iconoclast concerning Orthodox American History?

For as there are certain Men as cannot be 'ground down' sense of Illegitimum non carborundum, and who retainthe right to have own opinions, idiosyncratic or offensive as they may be, but whose consciousness constitutes the attempt at 'CounterPunch' against Corporatist illusion in the denial of denial; so there is orthodox propaganda founded in a cynical pragmatic of the materialism which Corporatism has come to represent at the level of hegemony?

Squeezed out to the margins through technologically enhanced Hegemony of Orthodoxy; the narrative of those as are able to refuse reduction to the cynicism of pragmatism and deny imprisonment within the paradigm of illusion yet remains a vital sign of 'Political Life on the Planet' -though there exists an ongoing effort to render such not only 'illegitimate' but 'unintelligible'? Corporatism 'works' by means of invisible restraint as of 'unwritten rule' concerning what is palatable, what is acceptable, what will be 'rewarded' - and in the final analysis what is comprehensible?

As Orwell put sublimely in 1984:

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?…The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

For we all exist in a 'cage' do we not, such as 'Yellow Submarine' as song sung of represents 'imprisonment' of sensibilities, and for some such a 'tubular cage' is more constraining, and not just in the singularity of 'One Dimensional Man', as Marcuse put, but also by way of multiplicity; as in the context of 'Realpolitik' the imperative exists of division, as of by way of the Roman maxim which has rationale of 'conquering', by way of illusion become as between 'Republican' or 'Democrat' concerning the power of 'Inner Party' - and as there can be 'cages within a cage'?

The Corporatist Orthodoxy demands a uniformity which has the inevitable developmental line of marginalising Humanity through abrogation of Life as denial of Truth in the propagation of Death - as the acceptance of Lie as an unconsciousness; as in 'no need to think'?

The tragedy of such Darkness' as would be even at 'Noon' sense of Koestler, is that such cage will become ever more confining but yet would be 'unseen' under the illusion which is expressive of 'power of mind over mind'.

The tragedy of America contemporaneous is of the Darkness of a Panopticon, such as the Heart of Corporatism would 'pump up the volume' to point of incapacitating level; as in where Man cannot hear himself or herself think – and so gives up the ghost' concerning the imperative of consciousness?

Concerning Politics as 'moral economics', there is a Manichean aspect; given the acknowledgement of 'morality'?

These small quarters seeing the trend contemporaneous in Western World as being primarily evil, as evident in the infliction of sufferance epitomised by Corporatism.

At present these small quarters can only speak as a 'mushroom' kept in a particular darkness the intent of power of mind over mind. In such darkness there exists as 'foodstuff' a certain kind of 'shit' which defines the demanded illusion of 'geopolitical power block'. The unity of such power block is expressed in the currency, or money which is believed in, and controlled as of the exercise of a hidden taxation - to the 'wetting of the beak' in Mafia parlance by the 'Inner Party' as International Financier?

That 'The Heart of Corporate Darkness' is to be found within a 'Continuity of Memoranda' relating to identifiable horrors is the proposition of this small article.

In mind here is the 'Ford Pinto Memo' as real and demonstrable - and a Memorandum as must exist somewhere concerning the 'Gulf of Mexico', which summates the mechanics of deliberation concerning disaster as a series of pragmatic calculations within an obscene and warped Orthodoxy, realised in the denial of Life?

Increasingly mere 'Proles' such as these small quarters are being 'asked' to 'suspend disbelief' in the face of a crafted illusion which is wreaking 'havoc!', given 'unleashing' of the Corporatist 'Dogs of War'; where 'War', as in the multiplicity concerning context of restraint apropos 'cage' above, is a polymorphous horror: ranging from a wrought Economic Depression with its 'collateral damage' of millions impoverished, to the abuse of military force against Nation with its 'collateral damage' of millions killed, to the destruction of Ecosystem with its 'collateral damage' of millions of lives lost - as considered across a wondrous diversity of species.

America, Iraq and the Gulf of Mexico exemplify respectively.

The horror!, the horror!, the horror!

Yet the manifold forms of Warfare as 'Racket' are not just for Mind, they are ultimately for Soul, such the 'what it is all about' concerning the pump of the Heart of Darkness - as every beat of dark bastard heart leads to further sufferance reflecting breakdown of 'Life'; which in the case of America means making a mockery, to point of tragedy, of the best Political Constitution which the World has yet seen, through the destruction of 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness' evident through impoverishment of the Citizenry - and the diversion, under Orthodoxy, of precious resources to a Military Industrial Complex which projects 'Empire' fearful to point of 'shock and awe' under such pitifully perverse illusion as the imposition of Democracy by force in an Irony far from sublime as the grubby racket it represents by way of expropriation?

The horror!

Americans need not look far to see what such horror as irony means; for every American Citizen reliant on Food Stamp to survive, every American Citizen under threat of foreclosure and homelessness, every American Citizen living in fear of losing livelihood, is a testimony to the Obscenity of the Orthodoxy of Corporatism which would continue to propagate cruel illusion denying the horror of such actuality?

Welcome to the 'Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave' - such the 'Doublethink'?

It is not without meaning that the last two published articles by these small quarters this exemplary Journal of Democracy have ended with one particular extract from the Political Constitution of the United States of America as an understanding of what Corporatism represents way of what it can deny - and what is held to be self evident.

For what is held as self evident these small quarters is the destruction of America by an enemy within as would be unseen; the takeover of power to issue money as a 'permit' being as a fatal blow to Democracy, as cannot be hidden despite the truly expensive efforts of Corporatist illusion to deny what is become so clear as it is so tragic, - and given awareness of the concept of 'opportunity cost'?

It is become inevitable, such the Dialectic as reflecting the mechanics of deliberation as can be epitomised in a Memorandum; and as continuity demands consideration of Memoranda, that in America today there is a tragedy of homelessness, a tragedy of businesses closing, a tragedy of immiseration through impoverishment as unemployment and dependency upon food stamp represents; a tragedy which is of the 'cages within cage' of Corporatism - given the prevalence of fear, almost Universal such context as the beat of a 'Heart of Darkness' inevitably pumps out sufferance form of the destruction of Constitution by way of a Panopticon condemned to destroy Truth?

The horror!

It is a tragedy as would be unseen, unmentionable to the pathological state of 'mind' become dominant which is as Corporatism representing the 'ascendancy' of an Orthodoxy through which an Oligarchic Collective 'survives', as within such 'Gutenbergian Galaxy' become digitised, as per McLuhan, such medium contains a message indeed, and it is fearful as it arises from 'Darkness' - as of 'enough never being enough', such the greed as driven maniacal as abrogative of Humanity - or as Satanic as would destroy the Joy which the 'Gift of Life' represents?

'Less than Zero' such the 'Luciferian Burn' as the avoidable death of People in a Ford Pinto become magnified in the avoidable death of Life in the Gulf of Mexico as vehicle of the 'buy in' to illusion - form of trust extended or as permit granted? It is a tragedy of continuity as in a denouement expressive of the degeneration of 'Citizenry' and 'Democracy' by a 'Coterie' as constitutes Oligarchic Collective; it is a tragedy of the slow but sure strangulation of the breath of Life to the point beyond whimper whence last gasp of despair concerning materialism exists; at the end of the 'day' sense of the termination of the period of sunlight direct, such tragedy is of 'cide' can be summative; as in the ascending scale of obscenity represented by, 'sui, ethno, geno, eco' to such suffix.

Rather than 'side' as within humane context of debate as prefix of 'for' or 'against', the ubiquity of 'cide' as a suffix context of inhumane Warfare is a tragedy of expropriation, arrogation and abrogation, such the sadness that mere Corporatism can eliminate Democracy in the marginalisation of Humanity to point of 'hollow man' become dominant - such the 'patter of rat's feet over broken glass'. -T.S. Eliot was in his own way above and beyond the mechanics of deliberation?

Corporatism is a tragedy because it is unnecessary; because it is an avoidable abrogation of potentiality, because as simply put in colloquial vernacular: 'it don't have to be this way'?

The challenge for Corporatism is to sustain and perpetuate a life denying illusion which calls into ever greater question the ability of Man to refuse to believe the evidence of his or her own eyes. The dynamic or dialectic is of the suspension of disbelief given a growing disparity between the illusion as would be imposed, and the day to day reality for the ever growing Majority as truly suffer 'impoverishment Utilitarian'. Orwell saw within such challenge a form of illusion he described as 'Doublethink', encapsulated within the slogans:

'War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, andIgnorance is Strength.'

The motivation for adoption of life denying illusion is as simple as the biological 'rationale' for the diversity of parasitical life; it is material gain and the occupation of a comfortable niche with minimal expenditure of effort and provision of return. It is 'survival' as an imperative experienced as 'superseding' the need to speak up, sense of as Neimöller wrote - for all those who give up the right to 'speak up' experience an inevitable execution through joining the 'chorus' of a Moritaten, or 'Ballad of Death' concerning 'consciousness'?

If humble parasites such as leeches could speak and dream, such would tell of Corporatism as a 'rise' above mere hematophagy and the feed upon lifeblood of an individual host; such would tell of money and power and corruption, and control and manipulation towards the end of ever greater expropriation from a greater diversity - as of all other life become as 'host'?

Such a horror of the Necrotrophy as has destroyed the American Dream?

The Ford Pinto Memorandum is a testimony to the mechanics of deliberation which epitomises Corporatism as Orthodoxy. ' It is 'Life', Jim, and just as we have come to know it'' more the horror, such as a 'Trek amongst the Stars' it is not; but closer to the scatological ravings of perverse degenerates such as coprophagiacs become as Hegemony; such the 'existence' for Man when lunatics take over an asylum. Because the reduction of any life to mere dollars and cents in concept of 'worth' is obscene, and reflects a level of perversity to which the sadness of Coprophagia as a state of perverse degeneracy could represent 'improvement'?

The irony being that Corporatists exist on the premise of People 'eating' the shit of Propaganda; sense of illusion being swallowed as Orthodoxy accepted - and evidence of Man as has own eyes denied?

The Ford Pinto Memorandum concerned Corporate product as designed, built, marketed and branded which had a design flaw which meant an increased risk of the product bursting in to flames in a collision. Given recognition of this flaw, some sad bastard of Corporatist Orthodoxy sat down and ran calculations of contingency within margins of levels of confidence, ultimately expressed in levels of 'bottom line' of dollars and cents reaching a conclusion in terms of 'EMV' or 'Expected Monetary Value' concerning 'recall and replace' or 'recompense for fatality/injury' as part of a 'decision tree'. The answer being as History demonstrates, such the discovery of what 'life' can mean in a paradigm of Obscene Orthodoxy.

Every person burned to death - or lucky enough to escape with 'degree of burn' - in such a product of Corporatism contributed to a profit as would be maximised under costs minimised - so the Orthodoxy goes.

The hypothetical 'Gulf of Mexico Memorandum' posits a development of the above horrific obscenity, written by an even sadder bastard than the author of the Ford Pinto Memorandum.

Why sadder?

Because the calculations concerning the ongoing tragedy of 'Deepwater Horizon' would have to reflect an even greater 'incorporation' of diversity of life denied, evidenced in bigger figures concerning dollars and cents, such the scale of obscenity as 'Homicide' can be represented as 'mere' when it comes to 'Ecocide'; such the failure, such the Denial. We are not just talking of children as passengers or drivers as parents burned alive as the Ford Pinto Memorandum 'incorporated'; we are talking of the diversity of species encompassed by an ecosystem 'incorporated' as a cost, sense of dollars and cents, and as can determine the choice between a number of courses of action -where 'denial' is the inevitable outcome of obscene Orthodoxy.

The hypothetical Gulf of Mexico Memorandum represents the 'Big League' of Corporatist Orthodoxy; commensurate with resonance of the illusion as to 'Where has all the money gone?' realising Genocide in an Economic Depression as disastrous illusion become 'Where has all the Oil gone? in an Environmental Catastrophe of Ecocide as illusion would seek to deny – such the 'Too big to fail' premise as the illusion of Corporatism demands the inevitable imposition of sufferance and denial, variant only the prefix of the 'cide', such the obscenity.

But yet the failure of Corporatist Orthodoxy is all too evident, sense of the loss of life, sense of the magnification of expenditure of resources gone in to the support of illusion, sense of the Depression being as denial of Life - and of the Joy which it is as a wondrous gift.

The horror!

To reiterate a point made in a recent article by these small quarters, the drill of Corporatism as an Orthodoxy died in the Gulf of Mexico, and that is not tragic, but long overdue. What is truly tragic is the horror of the sacrifice it has taken to bring about the death of such Orthodoxy as an assassin of consciousness; for it is a sacrifice which many lives, and not just of Man, have yet to 'enumerate' - sense of acknowledgement of Truth as the absence of denial?

Citizens as People of America, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico, are beginning to open their eyes to what this current 'evolutionary trajectory' represents - as they are beginning to see the illusion of Corporatism for what it represents as the denial of Life?

At a pragmatic level given sense of horror reflected in ability to hypothesize, concerning the continuity as of 'Memoranda', what this means for Orthodoxy is that People have to be eliminated – and for People read Citizenry; read Majority; read 'Prole'?

To parallel of a journey to the Heart of Darkness, way of the river of the Mississippi rather than the Congo as in Conrad's Novella, and as in a Memorandum as somewhere exists as parallels 'Ford Pinto Memorandum':

'The Gulf of Mexico. It Dead'

-How such horror expressive of an Obscene Orthodoxy such as Corporatism has come to prevail in a Nation which has a Constitution enshrining:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

is a right question, as 'they', sense of Inner Party, would have not asked – as they indeed would not have the consequences of such truths as above find meaning in 'Right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'?

As a fact becoming increasingly self evident, such the horror of the pump of the Heart of Corporate Darkness.

The horror! The horror!

-Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is available here, superb example of consciousness concerning horror still unfolding as 'slow violence' of Orthodoxy revealed concerning the Gulf of Mexico is to be found here.

Stephen Martin can be reached at: stephenmarti@yahoo.com

--

Pete
Belief is the death of intelligence--Robert Anton Wilson

Dear Tea Partiers, Let's Get Mad Together

Disturbing Truths About Our Government
By PAUL BUCHHEIT, COUNTERPUNCH

Not because the government does too much. But because it's done too little.

Consider a few disturbing truths:
-- We cry 'socialism!' at the mention of higher taxes, but we allow a
businessman to make enough money to pay the salaries of every police
officer, firefighter, and public school teacher in the city of Chicago.

-- The richest 1% had a big slice of the American income pie in 1980.
Since that time, they've cut a second piece of the same size for
themselves, and then a THIRD piece! Three times as much in 25 years. They
got this extra pie not from being good hard-working little boys, but from
tax cuts and deregulation.

-- As Howard Zinn argued, low-income people go to jail for thefts of a few
hundred dollars. The people who take BILLIONS from society by calling
their income "carried interest" instead of income are considered shrewd
capitalists.

-- And how about corporations, the driving force of a 'revitalized'
economy? Right now the 500 largest non-financial corporations are sitting
on $1.8 trillion in cash instead of investing in people. And they're not
paying much in taxes. The portion of federal revenue derived from
corporate income tax decreased from 33% in the 1950s to 12% in 2005.
Companies have saved billions by moving their headquarters to tax havens
such as Bermuda or the Cayman Islands. Business-backers claim that the
U.S. has one of the highest corporate tax rates among OECD countries, but
the U.S. is actually the fourth lowest among OECD countries in the
collection of corporate taxes as a percentage of GDP.

Tea Partiers, we should get mad together at government, because they've
done too little to correct these injustices. It is not in their own best
interests to raise taxes on the rich.

And we should get mad together at the mainstream media for not reporting
on the abuses of the small percentage of very wealthy people who make it
so hard on the rest of us.

Paul Buchheit teaches in the School for New Learning at DePaul University.

--
Pete
Belief is the death of intelligence--Robert Anton Wilson

History According to Beck and Palin

The Myth of the Founding Fathers

By TOM TURNIPSEED

Led by Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, Tea Party worshippers of the Founding
Fathers want to return to the "good ol' days" of 1787, when most
African-Americans were slaves, many poor whites were indentured servants,
and women couldn't vote. At the time the Founding Fathers wrote the
Declaration of Independence and Constitution, Native Americans were being
slaughtered for their land, and Mexicans who were indigenous to the
Southwest and the West coast of what became the United States were
included in the genocide.

None of the ancestors of the African American, Native American, or Latino
speakers addressing the mostly white Tea Partiers at the Lincoln Memorial
on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech
would have been among the Founding Fathers. No women, Jews, Muslims, poor
people or non-land owners were numbered amongst the Founders who were rich
white men.

Conservatives have trouble seeking sensible solutions to our present-day
problems of poverty, violence, and perpetual war that make rich folks
richer while poor people suffer and weapons makers and war profiteers make
big bucks while killing and injuring innumerable innocent people. The
problems are caused by big moneyed interests with the help of simple
minded sycophants like Beck, Sarah Palin and the Tea Partiers. Their
answer is to look backward to the wealthy Founding Fathers for guidance.
The Tea Partiers believe the mythologized Founding Fathers are more
intelligent and moral than anyone today except maybe radical right-wingers
like Beck and Palin.

While hosting the Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio
show and the Glenn Beck Show on Fox News Channel, Beck has been promoting
conspiracy theories and delivering incoherent diatribes against socialists
and environmentalists. Beck has called President Obama a Marxist,
communist, and socialist who is taking America down the road to fascism.
He has accused Obama of being a racist with a "hatred for whites", and
alleged that the Obama Presidency is like evil gorillas, endangering
humankind and compared Obama's America to "the Planet of the Apes". He
said that Al Gore wants to create a new "Hitler youth" because he promotes
environmental awareness among young people. Beck doesn't believe in global
warming, but loves guns and militarism.

In Washington Beck did not mention Obama or Gore, but rather, assumed the
role of an evangelist, presenting a religious theme of "Faith, Hope and
Charity" which was a lame attempt to mask his worship of Mammon, the God
of big business. Beck's big show "just happened" to be at the Lincoln
Memorial where Martin Luther King II made his iconic speech 47 years ago
to the day. Beck said he was totally unaware it was the anniversary of
King's address when he scheduled his event and he believes the Lord led
him to schedule the event at that time and place. He also boasted that the
right wing rally had "reclaimed the civil rights movement." Beck said he
heard the voice of God while addressing his flock, a symptom
characteristic of schizophrenia. He and his far right friend and probable
Republican Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin repeatedly mentioned King's
legacy, as giant screens carried King's image and brief excerpts of his
1963 address. Earlier this year Beck denounced King as a "radical
socialist" and questioned why a national holiday had been named in his
honor. Beck was born in a Roman Catholic family, but converted to
Mormonism. He says he "found the Lord" who saved him from his alcohol and
drug addiction and his channeling the voice of God sounds like the faith
required in a 12 steps effort to stay on the wagon.

In his rambling speech Beck gave several quotes from the Declaration of
Independence, recited the Gettysburg Address, invoked trite clichés of
Americana and read bible verses. Palin said she was the mother of a
"combat vet" and led a chant of "USA, USA, USA."

In the past other extremist populist movements in America also wrapped
themselves in the cross and the flag, but espoused some social and
economic policies that appealed to the common man. Father Charles Coughlin
and Rev. Gerald L.K. Smith were demagogic leaders in the depression days
of the 1930s, who at least talked about the dangers of capitalism, with
Coughlin advocating a guaranteed annual wage and nationalization of some
industries and Smith calling for income limits for the wealthy and old age
pensions for everyone.

When he announced the rally, Beck promised to present a plan which would
provide "specific policies and action steps" to found "a new national
movement to restore our great country." Instead, in his speech on
Saturday, he said he decided to not reveal the plan, because of a
conversation he had with God. Rather than explaining his plan "to restore
our great country", Beck said that people should turn to the Lord by
praying on their knees and leaving their doors open so their children
could see them doing so. Could it be that the billionaires and corporate
entities who fund the tea party movement nixed the plan that might help
poor and working class people at their expense?

Beck, Palin and their fellow Tea Partiers worship the rich white men and
moneyed interests who fund their movement and their politics. Their gods
are 21st century manifestations of the rich white men who were the
Founding Fathers.

Tom Turnipseed is an attorney, writer and peace activist in Columbia, SC.
His blog is http://tomandjudyonablog.blogspot.com

--
Pete
Belief is the death of intelligence--Robert Anton Wilson

The Prison State

Lock 'Em Up
By MICHAEL YATES
Sometimes events conspire to make you think that things are worse than you
imagined. On August 3, Marilyn Buck died. Marilyn was a fighter in the
struggle for racial justice and against the most virulent pestilence in
the world—United States imperialism. Unlike most of us, she put her money
where her mouth was and her life on the line. It is easy now to forget
that the agents of repression—the police, the FBI, the courts, the
government itself—consciously and actively targeted those who were active
in and led the civil rights and Vietnam war resistance movements. They
infiltrated and acted as provocateurs in movement organizations; they
arrested innocent people; they enacted and enforced draconian laws; they
illegally tapped phones and spied on any and all persons suspected of
"subversive" activity; and they tortured and murdered those who they
deemed to be the most dangerous radicals.

Whites like Marilyn who militantly supported black liberation were high on
the list of suspects. She was arrested in 1973 for buying (legal) arms
under a false name. She was sentenced to ten years in prison, and during a
furlough to consult with her lawyers in 1977, she went underground. She
was arrested again in 1983, accused of multiple crimes—aiding the prison
break of Asata Shakur, planning and participating in several bombings of
public facilities, and taking part in the infamous Brinks robbery of 1981
in which a guard and two policemen were killed. She was convicted and
sentenced to eighty years in prison.

While incarcerated, Marilyn earned college degrees, became a poet and
writer of distinction, mentored many prisoners, fought for the rights of
those behind bars, and continued as an activist in the battles that
defined her before her imprisonment. Finally scheduled for parole, she
discovered that she had cancer. Treatment failed and she died at home,
having been released a few weeks early because of her failing health. She
was sixty-two years old.

This bare bones sketch hardly does justice to her life or what she endured
in prison. In an interview published in Monthly Review in 2001, here is
how answer to a question about how prison time had affected her personally:
Imagine yourself in a relationship with an abuser who controls your every
move, keeps you locked in the house. There's the ever-present threat of
violence or further repression if you don't toe the line. I think that's a
fairly good analogy of what happens. And imagine being there for fifteen
years.

To be punished, to be absolutely controlled, whether it's about buttoning
your shirt; how you have a scarf on your head; how long or how baggy your
pants are—all of those things are under scrutiny. It's hard to give a
clinical picture of what they do, because how do you know, when you're the
target, or the victim, what that does to you? But theres a difference
between being a target and being a victim.

Like most prisoners, she was not allowed to attend her mother's funeral.

From the same interview:

My mother died about six weeks ago. She became ill in September, so I went

through a phase of real guilt that I wasn't there. And real sorrow and

real anger. I think I've looked at the guilt a little more. I just

couldn't be there. But the sorrow of not being able to hold my mother's

little bird hand by the time she was starving to death from the cancer …

just breaks my heart. And there's nothing I can do about it.

I could intellectualize it. I could have been on a ship halfway around the

world, and we got stuck in the trade winds and couldn't get there in time.

But I'm an extreme realist and understand who I am as a political

prisoner. I knew that I would not be allowed to go to her bedside, nor to

her funeral. That was just the reality. She died on a Sunday. And she was

buried on my birthday. So it's just all very hard.

I talked to my mother every week I could. And she came to visit me once a

year. It was hard for her to get here. My mom was seventy-four She had to

drive a long way and go through all the emotional turmoil that you can't

avoid when you see somebody you can't do anything for. So I had to look at

her anger, too.

In a certain way, I want to be able to lie on the floor and bang my heels

and cry and scream, but that just hurts my heels…So what can I say? I'm

having a hard time. I'm having a very, very hard time. I…you know, it's

grief. But it's grief under dire conditions. I'll always miss my mother.

A few days after Marilyn Buck's death, I received the current print
edition of the CounterPunch newsletter. In it there is an astonishing
article by journalist JoAnn Wypijewski. The title is "Defending the
700,000 Most Despised People in America," and it describes efforts by the
mothers of accused and prosecuted sex offenders to get our draconian sex
offender laws changed.

JoAnn interviews several mothers, and their stories of what has been done
to their sons are heartrending. A typical scenario unfolds like this.
Local cops troll internet chat rooms posing as young girls and boys. An
adult, usually a young man, says he is looking for female friendship. The
cop then does everything possible to seduce the man into coming to his or
her house, presumably for sex. If the young man resists, the decoy uses
explicitly sexual language to entice him. If he succumbs and goes to the
house, vice cops are waiting. What follows then is a nightmare of arrest,
sensationalist stories in local—and sometimes national— media (fed to them
by ambitious district attorneys), expensive and often corrupt lawyers,
extreme family and financial stress, a plea bargain, probation and
counseling (paid for by the young man or his family), community service, a
lifetime as a registered sex offender, and the most invasive and
incredible set of rules and regulations, which must be obeyed to the
letter under threat of more or less permanent probation or prison. These
include regular breathalizer, urine, and lie detector tests, for which the
"offender" must pay. All for an absolutely victimless "crime." After a
mother tells Wypijewski that her son must have a "safety plan," approved
by the probation officer before going anywhere, there is this exchange:

JW: So, say, I will be brought to the appointment by an adult in a car and

if a child comes in I'll run down to the parking lot and sit in the car

until the kid is gone?

D: That kind of thing.

S: You have no idea how inhumane. Tell her about that test, D.; what's it

called – plasmo-something?

JW: Plesmograph?

D: You go into a room with an examiner. They hook your penis up to a

monitor. They show you pictures of women in different states of dress, and

they monitor the flow of blood in your penis. My son's test came back as

"inconclusive." It didn't show that he had any sexual deviance, but it

didn't show that he didn't either. So the recommendation was that he go to

therapy to learn to manage his sexual deviance, and to learn the patterns

of his sexual deviance.

There are even court-imposed fines for the "victims" of the sex offender,
despite the fact that there were no victims.

I was interested to note that one of the states singled out in the article
as having especially harsh laws is Colorado, where we have lived. Here
decades of right-wing religious fervor and vicious radio talk show
jockeying have borne fruit for those hoping for a police state before they
die.

Not long after I read JoAnn's essay, we went to the huge Goodwill store on
West Burnside Street in Portland, Oregon to buy a few things for cooking
in our apartment. Portlanders love their many thrift shops, and, like this
one, they're always crowded. Karen was looking for pans and saw a young
man holding a small plate and looking on the shelves next to her. She said
to him, "There's a lot of stuff here." He said that he was looking for a
plate but could only afford one. Karen suggested that he get something
larger, since a large plate could do what a small one could and more. She
asked about a glass, and he said that he had a plastic cup. Karen said
that it would be nicer to drink from a real glass. When it was evident
that he had little money, Karen gave him enough to cover the plate and a
glass. He thanked her and went to the checkout counter. A few minutes
later, we took our items to the same counter and found ourselves behind
him. He had a few items on the counter and a voucher for thirty dollars to
pay for them, plus the two dollars he got from Karen. He had calculated
closely and had just enough money. When the clerk couldn't figure out
whether to take the cash first or the voucher, we spent a few minutes
talking to the young man. He had just gotten out of prison and was staying
at a halfway house for ninety days. The $30 was the state's "start a new
life fund." It didn't go very far. He said that he was going to school to
become a chef, and the state was going to pay. We gave him $20, as much
encouragement as we could, and wished him luck. The clerk finally rang him
up. He opened his backpack and tried to get his new possessions into it.
As he rearranged his pack, we saw a package of cheese and some other food
items he had bought for his supper.

While were talking, a man joined the line behind me. He looked a little
more street-worn than our new friend. He had been listening in on our
conversation, and he asked me, "Did that guy say he just got out of
prison?" "Yes," I said. "What did he do? I've spent a lot of time in
prison. He doesn't look like someone whose been there." I said that I
hadn't asked him and that maybe you couldn't always tell if someone had
been in jail. He then began to complain about his shoulder. He showed me a
lump on his collarbone. It looked broken, and I told him he should
consider going to an emergency room, he said that he owed hospitals too
much money already. "At least, put your arm in a sling," I said. He
wrapped a shirt around his neck and arm and said, "Yeah, that helps." He
began to fumble with the items he was buying , mostly clothes. Then he got
out his $30 voucher. I offered him some money, but he said he didn't need
any. I stuffed some bills in his gym bag and said, "Take this anyway."

7.3 million adults in the United States are incarcerated, on parole, or on
probation. A 2009 Pew Charitable trusts report fleshes out the details of
this horrifying number tells us that:

–One in 31 adults in America is in prison or jail, or on probation or

parole. Twenty-five years ago, the rate was 1 in 77.

–Overall, two-thirds of offenders are in the community, not behind bars. 1

in 45 adults is on probation or parole and 1 in 100 is in prison or jail.

The proportion of offenders behind bars versus in the community has

changed very little over the past 25 years, despite the addition of 1.1

million prison beds.

–Correctional control rates are highly concentrated by race and geography:

1 in 11 black adults (9.2 percent) versus 1 in 27 Hispanic adults (3.7

percent) and 1 in 45 white adults (2.2 percent); 1 in 18 men (5.5 percent)

versus 1 in 89 women (1.1 percent). The rates can be extremely high in

certain neighborhoods. In one block-group of Detroit's East Side, for

example, 1 in 7 adult men (14.3 percent) is under correctional control.

–Georgia, where 1 in 13 adults is behind bars or under community

supervision, leads the top five states that also include Idaho, Texas,

Massachusetts, Ohio and the District of Columbia.

Without a doubt, most of those enmeshed in the (in)justice system are not
dangers to society and would not have been in it at all in a society that
wasn't so racist and so shot through with every kind of social and
economic inequality. Unfortunately, whatever the reasons why so many men
and women have been denied their freedom, once the numbers began to rise
dramatically, constituencies came into being—lawyers, police, probation
officers, prison guards and staff, drug and alcohol rehabilitation
counselors, sex offender counselors, vendors of all sorts, clerks and
other clerical support staff, court officers, judges, community service
employers—that have a strong stake in milking the new cash cow. Given that
inequality will continue to increase, that good jobs will be ever harder
to find, that towns and cities will be strapped for funds into the
indefinite future, that social unrest is likely to rise, that racism is
not abating, don't look for the criminal (in)justice system to shrink
anytime soon.

Michael D. Yates is Associate Editor of Monthly Review. His most recent
book is In and Out of the Working Class. He encourages correspondence and
can be reached at mikedjyates@msn.com.

So when's that stimulus gonna stimulate, huh?

CounterPunch Diary
America Enters a New Time 

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08132010.html

I went to get my hair cut the other day in the town of Fortuna and waited ten minutes when the elderly barber finished buzz-cutting a young Mexican American. After the young man had exited under his thin skullcap of black stubble, Don the barber sighed and said, “That’s the third boy I’ve cut today who’s headed into the Marines. They all say the same thing. “There’s no work around here and I’ve got a family to support.” When I tell them to hold off, they say the same thing: “Too late. I’ve signed up.”

This is Humboldt county, northern California, where the marijuana boom is in its final paroxysms, with people flocking from around the world to get a piece of the action, just like they did in the Gold Rush. One of the many places selling bags of good soil to marijuana growers ($10 a bag, 8 bags to each marijuana plant, grown in a 100 foot x 30 foot plastic greenhouse, $25,000 or so) had a $300,000 day lately. So there’s more money here than most places across America, where the situation is truly desperate.

Profits are up 41 percent since Obama’s election; yet half of American workers have suffered a job loss or a cut in hours or wages over the past 30 months. They’re saying around 28 million people either have no job or one that doesn’t yield them enough money to get through the week. On Friday, August 13, the Bureau of Labor Statistic noted on its home page that “Employers initiated 1,851 mass layoff events in the second quarter of 2010 that resulted in the separation of 338,064 workers from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

Millions are plummeting into total destitution, having reached the end of their 99-weeks of unemployment benefits. Their only option then is the soup line at a church and getting on he waiting list for a shelter. The nearest big city north of me is Portland, Oregon, adjacent to the CounterPunch co-editor bunker in Oregon City of Jeffrey St Clair. The downtown area in Portland is filled with homeless people, napping on steps, bedding down on cardboard in doorways. Jeffrey kayaks frequently down the Willamette and can see colonies of the destitute all along the river bank, from the shipyards to Willamette Falls, sleeping under thin plastic and grey skies.

California agriculture and much of the construction industry depends on undocumented workers coming across the border from Mexico – minimum cost $1000 – for an 8-day walk through the Arizona desert. Since building is in a terminal slump, many Mexicans would like to head back home till times improve, but nowadays it’s so tough to come back across, that they daren’t risk it. Hence the paradox: trying to lock “illegals” out means locking them in. Frank Bardacke who lives in the farm town of Watsonville, a couple of hours south of San Francisco, recently described amid an important piece in our newsletter a bank robbery by one young, desperate immigrant.

“Several months ago," Frank writes, “Jario took his father’s pickup truck, drove 20 miles to the upscale tourist playpen Carmel By the Sea, and walked into the local branch of the Bank of America. He waited in line to see a teller, and, when his turn came, he pretended to have a gun under his shirt and quietly demanded that the teller give him her cash. As she was passing out the money, he apologized for frightening her; meanwhile, she was hiding a GPS device among the bills.

“He left the bank, his crime apparently unnoticed, and returned to the truck for the drive home. On the way, he got confused and took a wrong turn through Monterey before he got back on the right road home. Twenty police cars from four different police jurisdictions followed the GPS signal and stopped him 45 minutes after he left the bank. He immediately confessed, explaining that he needed the money to help his dad pay the family mortgage. When his case came to trial, the DA pressed for two years in State Prison. The judge decided that six months in the county jail and five years probation would be enough.”

In Texas or anywhere in the South the fellow would probably have got 25 years. But in desperate times one can expect people to do desperate, stupid things, and this decent judge showed compassion and understanding. One can’t say the same for many Americans, starting with the Republicans in Congress who’ve been happily voting for a cut-off in benefits for the jobless, while simultaneously engaging in the politically insane enterprise of repealing the 14th Amendment, no longer making it a constitutional provision that those “born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Do the Republicans want to cede Texas and Florida permanently to the Democrats?

Conspicuous good works are always a feature of Depression, the rich zealous to purchase moral insurance. Some billionaires, led by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, have been pledging that they will earmark not less than 50 per cent of their personal wealth for charity. But since whatever they give away is tax deductible, so revenues to Uncle Sam will drop.

The rich don’t get to be rich by being the nicest guys in the shark tank. As Carl Ginsburg recently remarked in a fine piece on this site, “In its fledgling years, profits on Bill Gates’ software were reportedly 70 per cent annually. Another way to gauge Gates’s billions is by catching a glimpse of the multitudes of students priced out of the computer market – thanks in part to that Great Giver’s expensive software – lined up daily at community college libraries for some free access to computers, each machine an expression of Gates’ creative commitment to profit in the +40 percent range – a gift Gates gave himself that keeps on giving. As Gates told Fortune: ‘The diversity of American giving is part of its beauty.’”

We can probably expect more laid-off workers going postal, as David Rosen discussed here on our site last week On August 3, at seven am, Omar Thornton showed up for a disciplinary hearing at the Hartford Distributors, a Budweiser distribution warehouse in Manchester, Connecticut. Thornton had been caught on video pinching some beer. They asked him whether he wanted to be fired, or just quit. Thornton pulled out a handgun and killed seven fellow employees before shooting himself dead. Before he loosed off his last shot into his head, Thornton, a black man, called a friend on his cellphone and said he’s taken care of some racists who’d been giving him a hard time. Unemployment means fear and fear nourishes racism, all the more because we have a black president. Racism is drifting across America like mustard gas in the trenches in World War One.

And, final token of hard times, we have Bonnie and Clyde on the run. In their latest guise the duo consists of John McCluskey and his cousin and fiancee, Casslyn Welch, who’s no Faye Dunaway. She threw some wire cutters over the fence of her man’s Arizona prison. Cops suspect them of killing a couple of retirees, then stealing their truck and heading north up to the Canadian line through Glacier National Park. That’s the last sanctuary in America of Ursus horribilis, the American grizzly. Behind them the cops, ahead the bears. It could be the first movie of a new time.

Jail time for video-taping police

by Michael Billy, Helium

On May 24 Brian D. Kelly of Carlisle, Pennsylvania was arrested for violating a state wiretapping law. Kelly, 18, videotaped police officers during a routine traffic stop. His camera was immediately confiscated and he was taken to jail. He spent 26 hours in county prison until his mother posted her house as collateral for his $2,500 bail.

What act was Mr. Kelly perpetrating which the great state of Pennsylvania saw as wiretapping?

Well, it turns out that there is an obscure state law that bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone's oral conversation without their consent. The arrest apparently relates to the sound that Kelly's camera picked up, not the video.

Some people would claim that ignorance of the law is no excuse', but I would have to whole-heartedly disagree. How could someone possibly know that it is illegal to record an on-duty officer while on public property? It is not a law that one would assume exists based on common sense, such as murder or theft.

The only way that Kelly could have possibly known about this law would be if he actually read it. But lets be realistic, it could not honestly be expected that every citizen reads the tomes of laws that are passed, on state, local, and federal levels, every year, a process which would likely take an entire lifetime.

Kelly said that if he knew about this law before the incident occurred he would not have recorded the officers. What he does not seem to understand is that this is a law that does not make any sense and is blatantly unconstitutional. And bad laws, quite frankly, are meant to be broken.

Let me remind you of the text of the fourth amendment. It reads, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" The word unreasonable allows for some gray area, but I am sure that most people (a jury of our peers, perhaps) would agree that it was unreasonable for the police to take his camera.

The only crime' Kelly is guilty of is recording the officers doing their jobs, an act that should never be illegal in a free society. Is it not our duty as citizens to make sure that the police and all other government employees for that matter are doing their jobs properly? If not, then whose responsibility is it? And who watches them?

This law is an enemy of Liberty and needs to be repealed. It may have been passed with good intentions, i.e. prevention of blackmail, but we all know how to pave the road to hell. Only Police Officers and others who seek to abuse their powers truly benefit from laws like this one.

Realize this: Any protest that ever takes place in Pennsylvania can not legally be recorded by bystanders. This allows the police, who can potentially abuse their power, to confiscate the cameras of anyone who records them, essentially eliminating evidence of any possible wrong doing.

We are losing civil liberties in this country everyday and I don't know about you but I'm getting sick and tired of it.

If you still do not believe that the country we live in resembles a police state, I have a simple question for you: What will it take for you to open your eyes?

Yesterday they stole away habeas corpus. Today we can not record the police. Tomorrow they remove our right to a trial by jury. Then they take away our guns. What will we have then? Only a hollow shell of the republic that our Founders once envisioned.

Racism Implodes Tea Party

Can the NAACP Rise to the Challenge?
By GREG MOSES, COUNTERPUNCH

Man what a short weekend.  On Thursday the Tea Party was setting up a bigger tent.  By Sunday their center pole was cracked in half.  Suddenly we live in a country where the NAACP is on the rise, again.

Naturally the racist framing of the past month was drawn and squared by Rush Limbaugh who charged that the President had only his race to offer as the reason for his political success.  Limbaugh forgets how much the Obama factor was empowered by a widespread social yearning to get out of the frame that Limbaugh, Fox News, and Bush had locked us into.  Perhaps Obama's Black heritage lent some credibility to the hope that he could lead us out of that cave instead of right back into its depths.

Limbaugh's ability to profit commercially from racism as "entertainment value" probably had some mentoring influence upon Mark Williams.  When NAACP President Benjamin Jealous dared the Tea Party to repudiate its racism, Williams decided to try a little minstrel style mockery which, come to think of it, pretty much connects Williams to the commercial history of American radio as well.  The main mistake Williams made according to the culture code of contemporary social reality is that he forgot to go into show biz before he acted out.

Williams is guilty of what up North people call "stupid" racism, because right up until he put on his blackface the Tea Party had been playing its racism "smart".  Of course, nobody should be taken in by the Tea Party's rehab.  Their economic model is practically racist as was the Reaganomics upon which it is built.

Now is the time for the NAACP to step into the opportunity that it created and offer some workable disaster relief plan that even the President can't evade.  It's been at least a decade since we've seen any real vision with half a chance of winning anything but a ballot count on election day.  And of course odds could be better this time around.

Progressives have pretty much stranded themselves in the shallow waters of the Democratic Party, exactly where the ballast of the NAACP is lodged.  Just as we can't afford to be fooled by the Tea Party's vapid denials of racism, neither can we afford to believe that the NAACP has this week made a significant dent in the racist structure of the economic crisis or the racist paralysis that prevents all progressive advance.

Whether or how much progressives can afford to waste on another round of Congressional balloteering is a dandy question.  But it would be too cynical to bet the movement on the iron weight of the system's internal contradictions crashing.

Yes, that crash is upon us.  And as it continues to thunder down, the NAACP could stake ground for that other tent city, the one where those of us who have never trusted the Tea Party can gather for some badly needed refreshment.

Greg Moses is editor of TexasWorker.org and author of Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence.  He can be reached at gmosesx@gmail.com.

The Fall of Obama...

Alexander Cockburn, Counterpunch

It is not Obama's fault that for 30 years America's policy – under Reagan,
both Bushes and Bill Clinton – has been to export jobs permanently to the
Third World. The jobs that Americans now desperately seek are no longer
here, in the homeland, and never will be. They're in China, Taiwan,
Vietnam, India, Indonesia.

No stimulus program, giving money to cement contractors to fix potholes
along the federal interstate highway system, is going to bring those jobs
back. Highly trained tool and die workers, the aristocrats of the
manufacturing sector, are flipping hamburgers – at best – for $7.50 an
hour because U.S. corporations sent their jobs to Guangzhou, with the
approval of politicians flush with the money of the "free trade" lobby.

It is not Obama's fault that across 30 years more and more money has
floated up to the apex of the social pyramid till America is heading back
to where it was in the 1880s, a nation of tramps and millionaires. It's
not his fault that every tax break, every regulation, every judicial
decision tilts toward business and the rich. That was the neoliberal
America conjured into malign vitality back in the mid 1970s.

But it is Obama's fault that he did not understand this, that always, from
the getgo, he flattered Americans with paeans to their greatness, without
adequate warning of the political and corporate corruption destroying
America and the resistance he would face if he really fought against the
prevailing arrangements that were destroying America. He offered them a
free and easy pass to a better future, and now they see that the promise
was empty.

It's Obama's fault, too, that, as a communicator, he cannot rally and
inspire the nation from its fears. From his earliest years he has schooled
himself not to be excitable, not to be an angry black man who would be
alarming to his white friends at Harvard and his later corporate patrons.
Self-control was his passport to the guardians of the system, who were
desperate to find a symbolic leader to restore America's credibility in
the world after the disasters of the Bush era. He is too cool.

So, now Americans in increasing numbers have lost confidence in him. For
the first time in the polls negative assessments outnumber the positive.
He no longer commands trust. His support is drifting down to 40 per cent.
The straddle that allowed him to flatter corporate chieftains at the same
time as blue-collar workers now seems like the most vapid opportunism. The
casual campaign pledge to wipe out al-Quaida in Afghanistan is now being
cashed out in a disastrous campaign viewed with dismay by a majority of
Americans.
--

A POLITICAL WARNING FOR OBAMA

As we have noted, Barack Obama is part of the first generation of black
ivies, black politicians who got elected thanks to passing white exams
rather than crossing white police lines. Others include Corey Booker,
Deval Patrick and DC mayor Adrian Fenty. The first two are doing well
politically, but Fenty, who won every precinct in his first mayoral
election and exudes, even more than Obama, an unappealing narcissism, is
suffering one of the great political come-downs of recent history, as this
story describes. Remember: a high percentage of the boos are coming from
black voters.

Nikita Stewart Washington Post - Adrian M. Fenty wasn't even at the
Academies at Anacostia graduation ceremony in the District on Friday, but
when the mayor's name was mentioned, an unmistakable chorus arose: "Boo!"
many in the crowd shouted. This Story

Almost simultaneously, across town, where Fenty was attending a funeral
for go-go great Anthony "Little Benny" Harley, his attempts to deliver
condolences were nearly drowned out by a similar din. The taunts were so
thunderous that Pastor Deron Cloud had to grab the microphone to calm the
crowd at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

"This is not the place," Cloud said, to no avail.

The chorus heard 'round some parts of the District is one of vocal
dissatisfaction for the 39-year-old Fenty. It's a far cry from the summer
of 2006, when drivers honked excitedly whenever they saw him campaigning
for mayor. Then, residents were as tickled to see the young candidate come
to their doors as if a celebrity had dropped by with a sweepstakes prize.

Now, Fenty is in a contentious battle with D.C. Council Chairman Vincent
C. Gray, his chief rival for mayor, in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary.
Supporters say that the criticism and boos are unfair, particularly
because city services get high marks, students' test scores are rising,
and new libraries, schools and recreation centers have opened citywide. . .

Outside the gathering at the law school, Ivan Lee Robinson, 66, sat in the
shade with a group of friends. But he was alone with his Fenty sticker and
Fenty sign.

"I'm the only one voting for him," the LeDroit Park resident said in jest
but in a serious tone. "The man is good. . . . He did a pretty good job
with the snow."

A friend asked: "Did you see him get out and shovel anything?"

In the citywide Democratic straw poll taken at the event, Gray garnered
703 votes to Fenty's 190 votes. Former television reporter Leo Alexander,
also a candidate for mayor, received 75 votes.

In the past year and a half, Fenty has developed a reputation for
arrogance, a lack of transparency, and a failure to work with council
members and constituencies. He delayed giving council members tickets to
suites at Verizon Center and Nationals Park. He would not disclose his
whereabouts when he went out of town, drawing criticism when he missed
several memorial services and funerals for victims of last year's Metro
Red Line crash.

There has also been unrest in some parts of the District about Schools
Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, whose blunt style has rubbed many the wrong
way.

A week ago, some Dunbar High School graduates and their parents booed
Fenty, who was the main speaker at the school's graduation. They wanted
Gray, a Dunbar alumnus who offered remarks to the graduating class, to
deliver the keynote address.

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The People's Party?

Sam Smith - The present and former Democratic presidents of the United
States actively challenged the major labor union-backed candidate for US
Senator from Arkansas. And then they bragged about it when their own
candidate won. A senior White House official told Politico's Ben Smith,
"Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members' money down the
toilet on a pointless exercise,"

Not too long ago, this would have been - for a Democratic official - a
criminal offense. But the contemporary Democratic Party's list of periodic
targets includes not only labor unions but school teachers (Race to the
Top), seniors (the assault on Medicare and Social Security), the middle
class (saving banks but not soon-to be-foreclosed homes), the young
(jailed for minor drug offenses and sent, sometimes repeatedly, to fight
in useless wars) and civil liberties (wiretapping and other constitutional
attacks).

In short, it is fair to say that the Democratic Party now treats as foes,
or with contempt, many of the very constituencies that led to its periods
of greatness.

What goes around comes around

Via Counterpunch

One of the greatest bailouts in history came in 1953, when the Eisenhower
administration authorized a CIA-backed coup in Iran. The Anglo-Iranian Oil
Company, owned by the British government, had been expropriated and
nationalized in 1951 by unanimous vote of Iran's parliament. The '53
coup evicted prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq and installed Shah Reza
Pahlevi, the creature of the West's oil companies , with full tyrannical
powers. The AIOC got back 40 per cent of its old concession and became an
internationally owned consortium, renamed… British Petroleum.

There are plenty of American ingredients in the company, with such BP
acquisitions and mergers down the years as Standard Oil of Ohio, Amoco and
Arco,. No matter, it's "British Petroleum" now in the minds of Americans
and the company is the designated fall guy – a role it richly deserves
since, as Jeanne Pascal, a former lawyer for the US Environmental
Protection Agency, recently put it, "They are a recurring environmental
criminal and they do not follow US health, safety and environmental
policy."

No mercy.

Footnote: A CounterPuncher writes to me: "BP is indeed a conscience-less
company, possibly even more so than the rest. My father who was an
eye-surgeon was appointed by the Shah government and A.I.O.C.
(Anglo-Iranian Oil Co, later renamed BP) to teach Persian doctors to
battle trachoma in South Persia (Abadan). I remember the many instances of
utterly callous behavior from A.I.O.C. officials towards heavy accidents
in the huge refinery there affecting Persian workers, the neglect of
normal safety procedures and even the disgust about A.O.I.C.'s working
methods expressed by the Dutch director of Shell at whose house we were
staying for some time on Mount Demawand near Teheran."

Cop Busts into Hospital ICU Unit Pretending to be a Terrorist

This post originally appeared on Hullabaloo.

What is going on in this country? Do people think we are living in a
damned movie?

How's this for an ill-conceived emergency preparedness drill? An off-duty
cop pretending to be a terrorist stormed into a hospital intensive care
unit brandishing a handgun, which he pointed at nurses while herding them
down a corridor and into a room.

There, after harrowing moments, he explained that the whole caper was a
training exercise.

The staff at St. Rose Dominican Hospitals-Siena Campus, where the incident
took place Monday morning, found the exercise more traumatizing than
instructive.

Hospital employees would have been justified in fearing for their lives.

Just last year, Henderson police shot and killed an armed, hostile man in
the emergency room. So it would make sense that security and emergency
preparedness have been a focus at the hospital.

But in Monday's incident, which occurred in a unit that houses the
hospital's sickest patients, nurses, patients and their families did not
know it was a drill, said Renee Ruiz, organizer of the California Nurses
Association, which represents staff at the hospital.

I guess it's a good thing Glenn Reynolds and the boyz haven't had their
way or all the armed nurses and critically ill patients would have opened
fire on this off duty cop. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

I just don't get this mentality. Yes, there are dangers in this world. And
we all need to be vigilant against crazy people armed with easy-to-obtain
guns. But somehow or another with this puerile Jack Bauer obsession,
common sense about violence has gone out the window and everybody's acting
like we're living in the wild west — except that even the wild west wasn't
this kind of stupid free-for-all. (Wyatt Earp was first made famous as a
lawman who confiscated cowboys' guns on their way into town.)

Sadly, I'm beginning to think all this craziness is the natural result of
emotionally stunted conservatives having a mid-life crisis. They pretended
to be adults their whole lives, but never actually grew up. So now we have
a whole bunch of frustrated, middle aged adolescents running things with
no sense of morality or limits.
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Why a Criminal Case Against Goldman Sachs Matters and Why Charges Could Stick

What Was Fab's Job Description

By PAM MARTENS

Goldman Sachs used to be the firm that pursued top government posts; now
government is in hot pursuit of it, and not in a good way. The SEC has
charged the firm and an employee, Fabrice Tourre, with securities fraud
and the Justice Department has commenced a criminal investigation,
according to news reports.

Change appears to be swallowing Goldman Sachs. It began quietly moving
out of its storied and staid headquarters at 85 Broad last Fall to flashy
new multi-billion dollar digs at 200 West Street, including a 54,000
square foot gym (roughly the size of 20 homes for average Americans; those
who can still afford one after the Wall Street pillage). And after the
release of internal emails by the SEC and Senate, Goldman looks more like
a sleazy boiler room pump and dump operation in drag than an investment
bank (in drag as a bank holding company). Comedy talk show hosts are
having a field day (Jon Stewart calls them "those f*!*!ing guys") and
Goldmanfreude (pleasure in watching Goldman shamed for the pain it
inflicted on others) is in full swing.

It all sounds eerily familiar to the wealth transfer maneuver by Goldman
Sachs Trading Company in the asset bubble of 1928. The Trading Company
was a closed end fund (called a trust in those days) that Goldman Sachs
created and offered to the public at $104 a share, stuffed with conflicted
investments while paying Goldman a hefty management fee, only to end up a
few years after the 1929 crash trading at a buck and change. On May 20,
1932, Walter Sachs, President of the Goldman Sachs Trading Company, was
grilled by the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency. The implication
was the same as the current round of Senate hearings: Goldman royally
fleeced its customers to line its own pockets.

Security lawyers who watched the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations grill Goldman Sachs employees on April 27, 2010 hopefully
were more eagle-eyed than investment guru Warren Buffet, who is now
echoing the same refrain as Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, that the firm has
done nothing wrong and is being unfairly pummeled. Never mind that Mr.
Buffet has $5 bilsky invested in Goldman on which he is earning 10
percent. (Goldman employees like to refer to $1 billion in their emails as
a bilsky when bored of characterizing what they're selling to clients as
crap or sh---y deals.)

The first Goldman Sachs panel to line up before Senator Carl Levin's
subcommittee on April 27 consisted of Daniel Sparks, Joshua Birnbaum,
Michael Swenson and Fabrice Tourre. Mr. Sparks headed the Mortgage
Department and supervised the other three who worked in the Structured
Product Group at the time the SEC has alleged the securities fraud
occurred.

To hear these four tell it, their jobs included trading for Goldman's
benefit (proprietary trading), originating investment products, selling
the products to customers once they were created (distribution), and, in
Mr. Tourre's case, even speaking with the rating agency that would
transform these subprime bets into AAA derivatives. And how did they sum
up all of this as a job description? They testified, under oath I might
add, that they were "market-makers." In a sane world, a market maker is
an entity that matches buyers with sellers and profits from capturing a
portion of the spread (bid and ask) on the buy and sell price of
securities.

To a lay jury, this might fly as legitimate conduct; something akin to a
short order cook who shops for the groceries, whips up the omelets, throws
a little parsley garnish on the plates, serves the diners, and tallies up
his P&L at the end of the day. If he overbought on ground beef, he might
have to have three days of specials like Shepherd's Pie, Hungarian
Goulash, and Spaghetti with Meat Sauce to "flatten" his position and "get
closer to home." Nothing criminal going on here; just good ole American
know-how and innovative workouts.

The major problem with this analogy, and most others in defense of
Goldman, is that the short order cook wasn't trying to pass off E. coli
beef for prime rib. Another problem for Goldman is that embedded in the
heart of every securities law is the principle that the customer must be
treated honestly and fairly and any mechanism or device to deceive,
manipulate or defraud is patently illegal. Remember, securities laws grew
out of the ingrained Wall Street corruption exposed in two years of Senate
hearings in 1932 and 1933.

It is difficult to see how one can be engaging in proprietary trading for
the benefit of the firm at one moment, acting in an agent capacity for the
benefit of the customer the next moment, and creating investment products
designed to fail on a latte break. Sparks, Birnbaum and Swenson all had
principal licenses to engage in investment banking activities like
underwriting as well as the Series 7 license to trade securities. Mr.
Tourre had only the Series 7 and Series 63 licenses to trade securities.
He had no principal license according to his regulatory file available
online. That could be a big legal issue for Goldman as a firm, for Mr.
Sparks who supervised him, and for the controlled-demolition investment
product he assisted in creating without a principal license. Failure to
supervise is one of the first areas security lawyers review in assessing a
firm's liability.

According to the SEC complaint, Mr. Tourre knowingly assisted in creating
and then peddled an investment product designed to fail that had been
handpicked for that purpose by a hedge fund manager to facilitate his
profiting from a short position. (John Paulson, the hedge fund manager,
made approximately $1 billion while those on the other side of the trade
lost about $1 billion while never being advised of the hedge fund
manager's role.) According to the Senate, Goldman was itself shorting
(betting on subprime derivative products to fail) while actively promoting
these products to clients. The Senate hearings raised a practice and
pattern of deceit by Goldman against its own clients. And let's not
forget that the approximately $12.9 billion of taxpayer bailout funds that
went in the front door of AIG and came out the backdoor into Goldman's
coffers was a result of Goldman's well-placed subprime bets offloaded onto
AIG.

Clearly, Goldman's defense is being structured around the idea that
anything goes if you call yourself a market maker. That seems like a
fairly lame defense when your shareholders have lost $20 billion in market
cap despite your top tier law firms playing hardball and the Oracle of
Omaha waving pompoms. (This Buffet gesture is reminiscent of Prince
Alwaleed bin Talal cheering on Citigroup as its share price plummeted to
earth along with tens of billions of off balance sheet debt derivatives.
He also owned a boatload of the stock.)

My advice to Goldman is to throw yourself on your sword. Come clean on
everything and clean house. Put a modest gym in the basement of your new
digs and donate the 54,000 square foot space to charities for the
struggling folks you ripped off in their pensions and 401(k)s. And maybe
it's time to apologize for what you did in 1928 and 1929 as well.

Then have a sit down with Warren Buffett and start co-authoring OpEds on
why the Glass-Steagall Act separating investment banks from insured mom
and pop funds at commercial banks must be restored. If you have any
trouble finding an argument for this, just lay all those recently
disclosed internal emails end to end and observe the narcissistic,
sociopathic culture you've created out of the uber-testosterone Wharton
School boys.

Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years; she has no security
position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She
writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire. She can be reached
at pamk741@aol.com

The Subprime Conspiracy

Was There a Plan to Blow Up the Economy?

By MIKE WHITNEY
Many people now believe that the financial crisis was not an accident.
They think that the Bush administration and the Fed knew what Wall Street
was up to and provided their support. This isn't as far fetched as it
sounds. As we will show, it's clear that Bush, Greenspan and many other
high-ranking officials understood the problem with subprime mortgages and
knew that a huge asset bubble was emerging that threatened the economy.
But while the housing bubble was more than just an innocent mistake, it
doesn't rise to the level of "conspiracy" which Webster defines as "a
secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act."
It's actually worse than that, because bubblemaking is the dominant
policy, and it's used to overcome structural problems in capitalism
itself, mainly stagnation.

The whole idea of a conspiracy diverts attention from what really
happened. It conjures up a comical vision of top-hat business tycoons
gathered in a smoke-filled room stealthily mapping out the country's
future. It ignores the fact, that the main stakeholders don't need to
convene a meeting to know what they want. They already know what they
want; they want a process that helps them to maintain profitability even
while the "real" economy remains stuck in the mud. Historian Robert
Brenner has written extensively on this topic and dispels the mistaken
view that the economy is "fundamentally strong". (in the words of former
 Treasury secretary Henry Paulson) Here's Brenner :

"The current crisis is more serious than the worst previous recession of
the postwar period, between 1979 and 1982, and could conceivably come to
rival the Great Depression, though there is no way of really knowing.
Economic forecasters have underestimated how bad it is because they have
over-estimated the strength of the real economy and failed to take into
account the extent of its dependence upon a buildup of debt that relied on
asset price bubbles.
"In the U.S., during the recent business cycle of the years 2001-2007, GDP
growth was by far the slowest of the postwar epoch. There was no increase
in private sector employment. The increase in plants and equipment was
about a third of the previous, a postwar low. Real wages were basically
flat. There was no increase in median family income for the first time
since World War II. Economic growth was driven entirely by personal
consumption and residential investment, made possible by easy credit and
rising house prices. Economic performance was weak, even despite the
enormous stimulus from the housing bubble and the Bush administration's
huge federal deficits. Housing by itself accounted for almost one-third of
the growth of GDP and close to half of the increase in employment in the
years 2001-2005. It was, therefore, to be expected that when the housing
bubble burst, consumption and residential investment would fall, and the
economy would plunge. " ("Overproduction not Financial Collapse is the
Heart of the Crisis", Robert P. Brenner speaks with Jeong Seong-jin, Asia
Pacific Journal)

What Brenner describes is an economy \that--despite unfunded tax cuts,
massive military spending and gigantic asset bubbles--can barely produce
positive growth. The pervasive lethargy of mature capitalist economies
poses huge challenges for industry bosses who are judged solely on their
ability to boost quarterly profits. Goldman's Lloyd Blankfein and JPM's
Jamie Dimon could care less about economic theory, what they're interested
in is making money; how to deploy their capital in a way that maximizes
return on investment. "Profits", that's it. And that's much more
difficult in a world that's beset by overcapacity and flagging demand.

The world doesn't need more widgets or widget-makers. The only way to
ensure profitability is to invent an alternate system altogether, a new
universe of financial exotica (CDOs, MBSs, CDSs) that operates independent
of the sluggish real economy. Financialization provides that opportunity.
It allows the main players to pump-up the leverage, minimize
capital-outlay, inflate asset prices, and skim off record profits even
while the real economy endures severe stagnation.

Financialization provides a path to wealth creation, which is why the
sector's portion of total corporate profits is now nearly 40 per cent.
It's a way to bypass the pervasive inertia of the production-oriented
economy. The Fed's role in this new paradigm is to create a hospitable
environment (low interest rates) for bubble-making so the upward transfer
of wealth can continue without interruption. Bubblemaking is policy.
As we've pointed out in earlier articles, scores of people knew what was
going on during the subprime fiasco. But it's worth a quick review,
because Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, Timothy Geithner, and others have
been defending themselves saying, "Who could have known?".

The FBI knew ("In September 2004, the FBI began publicly warning that
there was an "epidemic" of mortgage fraud, and it predicted that it would
produce an economic crisis, if it were not dealt with.") The FDIC knew. (
In testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, FDIC chairman
Sheila Bair confirmed that she not only warned the Fed of what was going
on in 2001, but cited particular regulations (HOEPA) under which the Fed
could stop the "unfair, abusive and deceptive practices" by the banks.)
Also Fitch ratings knew, and even Alan Greenspan's good friend and former
Fed governor Ed Gramlich knew. (Gramlich personally warned Greenspan of
the surge in predatory lending that was apparent as early as 2000. Here's
a bit of what Gramlich said in the Wall Street Journal:

"I would have liked the Fed to be a leader" in cracking down on predatory
lending, Mr. Gramlich, now a scholar at the Urban Institute, said in an
interview this past week. Knowing it would be controversial with Mr.
Greenspan, whose deregulatory philosophy is well known, Mr. Gramlich
broached it to him personally rather than take it to the full board. "He
was opposed to it, so I didn't really pursue it," says Mr. Gramlich. (Wall
Street Journal)

So, Greenspan knew, too. And, according to Elizabeth MacDonald in an
article titled "Housing Red flags Ignored":

"One of the nation's biggest mortgage industry players repeatedly warned
the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and other bank
regulators during the housing bubble that the U.S. faced an imminent
housing crash....But bank regulators not only ignored the group's
warnings, top Fed officials also went on the airwaves to say the economy
was "building on a sturdy foundation" and a housing crash was "unlikely."

So, the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America [MICA] also knew. And,
here's a clip from the Washington Post by former New York governor Eliot
Spitzer who accused Bush of being a 'partner in crime' in the subprime
fiasco. Spitzer says that the OCC launched "an unprecedented assault on
state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general just to make
sure the looting would continue without interruption. Here's an except
from Spitzer's article:

"In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis....the OCC
promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their
own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal
government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50
state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents,
actively fought the new rules. (Washington Post)

So, the Fed knew, the Treasury knew, the FBI knew, the OCC knew, the FDIC
knew, Bush knew, the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America knew, Fitch
ratings knew, all the states Attorneys General knew, and thousands, of
traders, lenders, ratings agency executives, bankers, hedge fund managers,
private equity bosses, regulators knew. Everyone knew, except the unlucky
people who were victimized in the biggest looting operation of all time.
Once again, looking for conspiracy, just diverts attention from the nature
of the crime itself. Here's a statement from former regulator and white
collar criminologist William K. Black which helps to clarify the point:

"Fraudulent lenders produce exceptional short-term 'profits' through a
four-part strategy: extreme growth (Ponzi), lending to uncreditworthy
borrowers, extreme leverage, and minimal loss reserves. These exceptional
'profits' defeat regulatory restrictions and turn private market
discipline perverse. The profits also allow the CEO to convert firm assets
for personal benefit through seemingly normal compensation mechanisms. The
short-term profits cause stock options to appreciate. Fraudulent CEOs
following this strategy are guaranteed extraordinary income while
minimizing risks of detection and prosecution." (William K. Black,
"Epidemics of'Control Fraud' Lead to Recurrent, Intensifying Bubbles
 andCrises", University of Missouri at Kansas City - School of Law).

Black's definition of "control fraud" comes very close to describing what
really took place during the subprime mortgage frenzy. The investment
banks and other financial institutions bulked up on garbage loans and
complex securities backed by dodgy mortgages so they could increase
leverage and rake off large bonuses for themselves. Clearly, they knew the
underlying collateral was junk, just as they knew that eventually the
market would crash and millions of people would suffer.

But, while it's true that Greenspan and Wall Street knew how the
bubble-game was played; they had no intention of blowing up the whole
system. They simply wanted to inflate the bubble, make their profits, and
get out before the inevitable crash. But, then something went wrong. When
Lehman collapsed, the entire financial system suffered a major heart
attack. All of the so-called "experts" models turned out to be wrong.
Here's what happened: Before to the meltdown, the depository "regulated"
banks got their funding through the repo market by exchanging collateral
(mainly mortgage-backed securities) for short-term loans with the
so-called "shadow banks" (investment banks, hedge funds, insurers) But
after Lehman defaulted, the funding stream was severely impaired because
the prices on mortgage-backed securities kept falling. When the
bank-funding system went on the fritz, stocks went into a nosedive
sending panicky investors fleeing for the exits. As unbelievable as it
sounds, no one saw this coming.

The reason that no one anticipated a run on the shadow banking system is
because the basic architecture of the financial markets has changed
dramatically in the last decade due to deregulation. The fundamental
structure is different and the traditional stopgaps have been removed.
That's why no one knew what to do during the panic. The general assumption
was that there would be a one-to-one relationship between defaulting
subprime mortgages and defaulting mortgage-backed securities (MBS). That
turned out to be a grave miscalculation. The subprimes were only failing
at roughly 8 percent rate when the whole secondary market collapsed.
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill explained it best using a clever
analogy. He said, "It's like you have 8 bottles of water and just one of
them has arsenic in it. It becomes impossible to sell any of the other
bottles because no one knows which one contains the poison."

And that's exactly what happened. The market for structured debt crashed,
stocks began to plummet, and the Fed had to step in to save the system.
Unfortunately, that same deeply-flawed system is being rebuilt brick by
brick without any substantive changes.. The Fed and Treasury support this
effort, because--as agents of the banks--they are willing to sacrifice
their own credibility to defend the primary profit-generating instruments
of the industry leaders. (Goldman, JPM, etc) That means that Bernanke and
Geithner will go to the mat to oppose any additional regulation on
derivatives, securitization and off-balance sheet operations, the same
lethal devices that triggered the financial crisis.

So, there was no conspiracy to blow up the financial system, but there is
an implicit understanding that the Fed will serve the interests of Wall
Street by facilitating asset bubbles through "accommodative" monetary
policy and by opposing regulation. It's just "business as usual", but it's
far more damaging than any conspiracy, because it ensures that the economy
will continue to stagnate, that inequality will continue to grow, and that
the gigantic upward transfer of wealth will continue without pause.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at
fergiewhitney@msn.com
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