Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Thousands @OccupyOakland #J28 Protest, Police respond with Kettling & Tear Gas; 300 Arrested
January 29, 2012 - theCORPORATIONblog
By Jennifer Slattery
Violent police clashes again rocked the city of Oakland January 28th (#J28) as Occupy Oakland protestors attempted to occupy a vacant building. Their announcement, via a letter to the Mayor referring to the action as Move-In Day, declares their intent to use the building:
“As a social center, convergence center, headquarters, free kitchen, and place of housing for Occupy Oakland. Like so many other people, Occupy Oakland is homeless while buildings remain vacant and unused. For Occupy this is in large part because of yourselves, having evicted us twice from public space that was rightfully ours. For others it is because of the housing bubble, predatory lending, the perpetual crises of capitalism, and far reaching histories of imperialism and systemic violence.”
By the end of a long day of marches and failed occupation attempts, three hundred people, from a crowd that swelled at times to 2,000, were arrested. Much of the corporate media reporting on the start of the violence points the finger squarely at the protestors who are alleged to have begun the violence by pelting officers with rocks, bottles and even Improvised Explosive Devices. The claim that peaceful protestors used IEDs is on it’s face false and inflammatory, as first hand accounts and live streaming video footage of the event seems to show that protestors only threw some debris as a reaction to being pelted with explosive percussion grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas canisters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sFaviIoy4rg
Via Occupy Oakland’s twitter feed:
#OccupyOakland #OO OPD claim they ordered us to disperse, after blocking us in & arresting us. Chanting "this is a hostage situation."
"For their first attempt at a kettle, the cops charged the group with police lines from the front and back. They ran towards us aggressively. Us being 1000+ peaceful marching protesters. The group was forced to move up a side street. The police moved quickly to surround the entire area; they formed a line on every street that the side street connected to. Police state status: very efficient. They kettled almost the entire protest in the park near the Fox theater. AFTERWARDS, as in after they surrounded everyone, they declared it to be an unlawful assembly BUT OFFERED NO EXIT ROUTE. Gas was used, could of been tear or smoke gas."
Similar claims that law enforcement "had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks." after the violentclearing of the original Occupy Oakland camp had to be walked back, because there was no evidence that any such violence by Occupy had occurred:
“Oakland PD's Chief of Staff, Sgt. Chris Bolton conceded that the department was unable, at this time, to substantiate claims made by Jordan that gas was deployed in order to protect law enforcement personnel from violent demonstrators, despite the Chief's unqualified claim that evening that "the deployment of gas was necessary to protect our officers and protect property around the area and to protect injuries to others as well."
Instead, Bolton softened Jordan's initial claim. The sergeant described it as "the Chief's preliminary belief.”
The claims of the Oakland PD are especially hard to swallow after internal emails show that interim police chief Johnson lied to paint Occupy Oakland as a crime problem in order to garner support for their actions:
“In the days leading up to the Nov. 2 march on the Port of Oakland, city leaders warned about the drain on police resources.
When Jordan received an update that crime was actually down 19 percent in the last week of October, he wrote an email to one of Mayor Jean Quan's advisers.
"Not sure how you want to share this good news," he wrote. "It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland."
Police and the city said Occupy has had an ongoing impact on their ability to respond to crime.
In all of the emails there was not a single one written by Quan.”
This may be the only way to correct the course of a police department that has long since gone off the rails and has not found the leadership from the Police Chief or the Mayor to make the badly needed reforms. As the San Francisco chronicle noted:
“It's a step away from surrendering responsibility for the city's police to federal management. If the city doesn't clean up its act - which doesn't look likely given all the other crises Oakland now faces - the judge made it clear that receivership will be the next step.”
I lived in Oakland during the time of the Oscar Grant murder and subsequent protests, and personally throw my support behind this action to get the department functioning for the people again. Even in basic everyday interactions, the civility required by the men and women on the force is lacking. This is creating a gap between the police and citizens that endangers all, and the department has had more than enough time to right it's own ship.
Occupiers across the country are mounting solidarity actions today (#J29) to show support for Oakland. The Rise Up Festival announced in the Move in Day letter is confirmed to still be on for today, according to Occupy Oakland’s twitter feed. The group is also asking for supporters to donate as much as they can to the Occupy Oakland bail fund.
By Jennifer Slattery
“As a social center, convergence center, headquarters, free kitchen, and place of housing for Occupy Oakland. Like so many other people, Occupy Oakland is homeless while buildings remain vacant and unused. For Occupy this is in large part because of yourselves, having evicted us twice from public space that was rightfully ours. For others it is because of the housing bubble, predatory lending, the perpetual crises of capitalism, and far reaching histories of imperialism and systemic violence.”
By the end of a long day of marches and failed occupation attempts, three hundred people, from a crowd that swelled at times to 2,000, were arrested. Much of the corporate media reporting on the start of the violence points the finger squarely at the protestors who are alleged to have begun the violence by pelting officers with rocks, bottles and even Improvised Explosive Devices. The claim that peaceful protestors used IEDs is on it’s face false and inflammatory, as first hand accounts and live streaming video footage of the event seems to show that protestors only threw some debris as a reaction to being pelted with explosive percussion grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas canisters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sFaviIoy4rg
Via Occupy Oakland’s twitter feed:
#OccupyOakland #OO OPD claim they ordered us to disperse, after blocking us in & arresting us. Chanting "this is a hostage situation."
"For their first attempt at a kettle, the cops charged the group with police lines from the front and back. They ran towards us aggressively. Us being 1000+ peaceful marching protesters. The group was forced to move up a side street. The police moved quickly to surround the entire area; they formed a line on every street that the side street connected to. Police state status: very efficient. They kettled almost the entire protest in the park near the Fox theater. AFTERWARDS, as in after they surrounded everyone, they declared it to be an unlawful assembly BUT OFFERED NO EXIT ROUTE. Gas was used, could of been tear or smoke gas."
Similar claims that law enforcement "had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks." after the violentclearing of the original Occupy Oakland camp had to be walked back, because there was no evidence that any such violence by Occupy had occurred:
“Oakland PD's Chief of Staff, Sgt. Chris Bolton conceded that the department was unable, at this time, to substantiate claims made by Jordan that gas was deployed in order to protect law enforcement personnel from violent demonstrators, despite the Chief's unqualified claim that evening that "the deployment of gas was necessary to protect our officers and protect property around the area and to protect injuries to others as well."
Instead, Bolton softened Jordan's initial claim. The sergeant described it as "the Chief's preliminary belief.”
The claims of the Oakland PD are especially hard to swallow after internal emails show that interim police chief Johnson lied to paint Occupy Oakland as a crime problem in order to garner support for their actions:
“In the days leading up to the Nov. 2 march on the Port of Oakland, city leaders warned about the drain on police resources.
When Jordan received an update that crime was actually down 19 percent in the last week of October, he wrote an email to one of Mayor Jean Quan's advisers.
"Not sure how you want to share this good news," he wrote. "It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland."
Police and the city said Occupy has had an ongoing impact on their ability to respond to crime.
In all of the emails there was not a single one written by Quan.”
Indeed it seems that the Interim Police Chief is not the man to solve the problems plaguing the Oakland Police Department. The Oakland PD is now facing a Federal Receivership in March. While several cities have had to have Federal Monitors installed, this would be the first time in United States history that a department has been completely turned over to Federal control. The Federal Judge ruling in the case expressed his astonishment that the OPD is continuing using controversial and violent tactics in the face of reforms demanded almost a decade ago that still have not been implemented:
"The court remains in disbelief that Defendants have yet - nine years later - to achieve what they themselves agreed was doable in no more than five years," U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson wrote.”
"The court remains in disbelief that Defendants have yet - nine years later - to achieve what they themselves agreed was doable in no more than five years," U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson wrote.”
This may be the only way to correct the course of a police department that has long since gone off the rails and has not found the leadership from the Police Chief or the Mayor to make the badly needed reforms. As the San Francisco chronicle noted:
“It's a step away from surrendering responsibility for the city's police to federal management. If the city doesn't clean up its act - which doesn't look likely given all the other crises Oakland now faces - the judge made it clear that receivership will be the next step.”
I lived in Oakland during the time of the Oscar Grant murder and subsequent protests, and personally throw my support behind this action to get the department functioning for the people again. Even in basic everyday interactions, the civility required by the men and women on the force is lacking. This is creating a gap between the police and citizens that endangers all, and the department has had more than enough time to right it's own ship.
Occupiers across the country are mounting solidarity actions today (#J29) to show support for Oakland. The Rise Up Festival announced in the Move in Day letter is confirmed to still be on for today, according to Occupy Oakland’s twitter feed. The group is also asking for supporters to donate as much as they can to the Occupy Oakland bail fund.
Mortgage giant Freddie Mac bet against homeowners
Holy shit!!!--jef
By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
US-owned mortgage giant Freddie Mac is holding billions of dollars in investments that only pay off if homeowners remain locked into high interest rates, a media investigation has found.
The report by the ProPublica website and National Public Radio on Monday said the mortgage giant began dramatically increasing such bets in 2010 at the same time it was making it more difficult for homeowners to refinance.
It said the trading arm of the firm is in theory “walled off” from its housing finance activities, which by government charter are to be directed at making home loans more accessible.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which supervises Freddie, said in a statement to ProPublica that it had ordered a halt to such investments — known as “inverse floaters” — in December, following an internal assessment.
The assessment “had “identified concerns regarding the controls, including risk management,” it said in a statement published in full by ProPublica.
The statement said inverse floaters make up $5 billion out of a portfolio of $650 billion, and did not have any impact on its refinance program.
White House spokesman Jay Carney expressed concern about the report during a press conference on Monday.
“We saw those reports and they certainly raise concerns. As you know, this is an independent institution with independent governance, so we don’t make those kinds of decisions. But I believe Treasury is looking into it,” he said.
Freddie Mac and its cousin Fannie Mae were taken over by the government in 2008 to prevent their collapse in the financial crisis.
The crisis was triggered by the collapse of the mortgage-backed securities market, which went belly-up due to the proliferation of bonds tied to dodgy “subprime” loans.
By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
US-owned mortgage giant Freddie Mac is holding billions of dollars in investments that only pay off if homeowners remain locked into high interest rates, a media investigation has found.
The report by the ProPublica website and National Public Radio on Monday said the mortgage giant began dramatically increasing such bets in 2010 at the same time it was making it more difficult for homeowners to refinance.
It said the trading arm of the firm is in theory “walled off” from its housing finance activities, which by government charter are to be directed at making home loans more accessible.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which supervises Freddie, said in a statement to ProPublica that it had ordered a halt to such investments — known as “inverse floaters” — in December, following an internal assessment.
The assessment “had “identified concerns regarding the controls, including risk management,” it said in a statement published in full by ProPublica.
The statement said inverse floaters make up $5 billion out of a portfolio of $650 billion, and did not have any impact on its refinance program.
White House spokesman Jay Carney expressed concern about the report during a press conference on Monday.
“We saw those reports and they certainly raise concerns. As you know, this is an independent institution with independent governance, so we don’t make those kinds of decisions. But I believe Treasury is looking into it,” he said.
Freddie Mac and its cousin Fannie Mae were taken over by the government in 2008 to prevent their collapse in the financial crisis.
The crisis was triggered by the collapse of the mortgage-backed securities market, which went belly-up due to the proliferation of bonds tied to dodgy “subprime” loans.
The Biggest Risk to the Economy in 2012, and What’s the Economy For Anyway?
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 by Robert Reich's Blog
by Robert Reich
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos a few days ago, said the “critical risks” facing the American economy this year were a worsening of Europe’s chronic sovereign debt crisis and a rise in tensions with Iran that could stoke global oil prices.
What about jobs and wages here at home?
As the Commerce Department reported Friday, the U.S. economy grew 2.8 percent between October and December – the fastest pace in 18 months and the first time growth exceeded 2 percent all year. Many bigger American companies have been reporting strong profits in recent months. GE and Lockheed Martin closed the year with record order backlogs.
Yet the percent of working-age Americans in jobs isn’t much different than what it was three years ago. Yes, America now produces more than it did when the recession began. But it does so with 6 million fewer workers.
Average after-tax incomes adjusted for inflation are moving up a bit. (They increased at an annual rate of .8 percent in the last three months of 2011 after falling 1.9 percent in prior three-month period. For all of 2011, incomes fell .1 percent.)
But beware averages. Shaquille O’Neal and I have an average height of six feet. Exclude Mitt Romney’s $20 million last year — along with everyone else securely in the top 1 percent — and the incomes of most Americans are continuing to slip.
Consumer spending picked up slightly in the fourth quarter mainly because consumers drew down their savings. Obviously, this can’t last.
Meanwhile, government is spending less on schools, roads, bridges, parks, defense, and social services. Government spending at all levels dropped at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the last quarter – and that’s likely to continue.
Some economists worry this drop is a drag on the economy. But it also means fewer public goods available to all Americans regardless of income.
Congress still hasn’t decided whether to renew the temporary payroll tax cut and extend unemployment benefits past February. If it doesn’t, expect another 1 percent slice off GDP growth this year.
Tim Geithner is surely correct that the European debt crisis and Iran pose risks to the American economy in 2012. But they aren’t the biggest risk. The biggest risk is right here at home – that most Americans will continue to languish.
All of which raises a basic question: Who or what is the economy for? Surely not just for a few at the top, and not just big corporations and their CEOs. Nor can the success of the economy be measured by how fast the GDP is growing, or how high the Dow Jones Industrial Average is rising, or whether average incomes are turning upward.
The crisis of American capitalism marks the triumph of consumers and investors over workers and citizens. And since most of us occupy all four roles – even though the lion’s share of consuming and investing is done by the wealthy – the real crisis centers on the increasing efficiency by which all of us as consumers and investors can get great deals, and our declining capacity to be heard as workers and citizens.
Modern technologies allow us to shop in real time, often worldwide, for the lowest prices, highest quality, and best returns. Through the Internet and advanced software we can now get relevant information instantaneously, compare deals, and move our money at the speed of electronic impulses. We can buy goods over the Internet that are delivered right to our homes. Never before in history have consumers and investors been so empowered.
Yet these great deals increasingly come at the expense of our own and our compatriots’ jobs and wages, and widening inequality. The goods we want or the returns we seek can often be produced more efficiently elsewhere around the world by companies offering lower pay, fewer benefits, and inferior working conditions.
They also come at the expense of our Main Streets – the hubs of our communities – when we get the great deals through the Internet or at big-box retailers that scan the world for great deals on our behalf.
Some great deals have devastating environmental consequences. Technology allows us to efficiently buy low-priced items from poor nations with scant environmental standards, sometimes made in factories that spill toxic chemicals into water supplies or pollutants into the air. We shop for great deals in cars that spew carbon into the air and for airline tickets in jet planes that do even worse.
Other great deals offend common decency. We may get a great price or high return because a producer has cut costs by hiring children in South Asia or Africa who work twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Or by subjecting people to death-defying working conditions.
As workers or as citizens most of us would not intentionally choose these outcomes but as seekers after great deals we are indirectly responsible for them. Companies know that if they fail to offer us the best deals we will take our money elsewhere – which we can do with ever-greater speed and efficiency.
The best means of balancing the demands of consumers and investors against those of workers and citizens has been through democratic institutions that shape and constrain markets.
Laws and rules offer some protection for jobs and wages, communities, and the environment. Although such rules are likely to be costly to us as consumers and investors because they stand in the way of the very best deals, they are intended to approximate what we as members of a society are willing to sacrifice for these other values.
But technologies for getting great deals are outpacing the capacities of democratic institutions to counterbalance them. For one thing, national rules intended to protect workers, communities, and the environment typically extend only to a nation’s borders. Yet technologies for getting great deals enable buyers and investors to transcend borders with increasing ease, at the same time making it harder for nations to monitor or regulate such transactions.
For another, goals other than the best deals are less easily achieved within the confines of a single nation. The most obvious example is the environment, whose fragility is worldwide. In addition, corporations now routinely threaten to move jobs and businesses away from places that impose higher costs on them – and therefore, indirectly, on their consumers and investors – to more “business friendly” jurisdictions. The Internet and software have made companies sufficiently nimble to render such threats credible.
But the biggest problem is that corporate money is undermining democratic institutions in the name of better deals for consumers and investors. Campaign contributions, fleets of well-paid corporate lobbyists, and corporate-financed PR campaigns about public issues are overwhelming the capacities of Congress, state legislatures, regulatory agencies, and the courts to reflect the values of workers and citizens.
As a result, consumers and investors are doing increasingly well but job insecurity is on the rise, inequality is widening, communities are becoming less stable, and climate change is worsening. None of this is sustainable over the long term.
Blame global finance and worldwide corporations all you want. But save some blame for the insatiable consumers and investors inhabiting almost every one of us, who are entirely complicit. And blame our inability as workers and citizens to reclaim our democracy.
by Robert Reich
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos a few days ago, said the “critical risks” facing the American economy this year were a worsening of Europe’s chronic sovereign debt crisis and a rise in tensions with Iran that could stoke global oil prices.
What about jobs and wages here at home?
As the Commerce Department reported Friday, the U.S. economy grew 2.8 percent between October and December – the fastest pace in 18 months and the first time growth exceeded 2 percent all year. Many bigger American companies have been reporting strong profits in recent months. GE and Lockheed Martin closed the year with record order backlogs.
Yet the percent of working-age Americans in jobs isn’t much different than what it was three years ago. Yes, America now produces more than it did when the recession began. But it does so with 6 million fewer workers.
Average after-tax incomes adjusted for inflation are moving up a bit. (They increased at an annual rate of .8 percent in the last three months of 2011 after falling 1.9 percent in prior three-month period. For all of 2011, incomes fell .1 percent.)
But beware averages. Shaquille O’Neal and I have an average height of six feet. Exclude Mitt Romney’s $20 million last year — along with everyone else securely in the top 1 percent — and the incomes of most Americans are continuing to slip.
Consumer spending picked up slightly in the fourth quarter mainly because consumers drew down their savings. Obviously, this can’t last.
Meanwhile, government is spending less on schools, roads, bridges, parks, defense, and social services. Government spending at all levels dropped at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the last quarter – and that’s likely to continue.
Some economists worry this drop is a drag on the economy. But it also means fewer public goods available to all Americans regardless of income.
Congress still hasn’t decided whether to renew the temporary payroll tax cut and extend unemployment benefits past February. If it doesn’t, expect another 1 percent slice off GDP growth this year.
Tim Geithner is surely correct that the European debt crisis and Iran pose risks to the American economy in 2012. But they aren’t the biggest risk. The biggest risk is right here at home – that most Americans will continue to languish.
All of which raises a basic question: Who or what is the economy for? Surely not just for a few at the top, and not just big corporations and their CEOs. Nor can the success of the economy be measured by how fast the GDP is growing, or how high the Dow Jones Industrial Average is rising, or whether average incomes are turning upward.
The crisis of American capitalism marks the triumph of consumers and investors over workers and citizens. And since most of us occupy all four roles – even though the lion’s share of consuming and investing is done by the wealthy – the real crisis centers on the increasing efficiency by which all of us as consumers and investors can get great deals, and our declining capacity to be heard as workers and citizens.
Modern technologies allow us to shop in real time, often worldwide, for the lowest prices, highest quality, and best returns. Through the Internet and advanced software we can now get relevant information instantaneously, compare deals, and move our money at the speed of electronic impulses. We can buy goods over the Internet that are delivered right to our homes. Never before in history have consumers and investors been so empowered.
Yet these great deals increasingly come at the expense of our own and our compatriots’ jobs and wages, and widening inequality. The goods we want or the returns we seek can often be produced more efficiently elsewhere around the world by companies offering lower pay, fewer benefits, and inferior working conditions.
They also come at the expense of our Main Streets – the hubs of our communities – when we get the great deals through the Internet or at big-box retailers that scan the world for great deals on our behalf.
Some great deals have devastating environmental consequences. Technology allows us to efficiently buy low-priced items from poor nations with scant environmental standards, sometimes made in factories that spill toxic chemicals into water supplies or pollutants into the air. We shop for great deals in cars that spew carbon into the air and for airline tickets in jet planes that do even worse.
Other great deals offend common decency. We may get a great price or high return because a producer has cut costs by hiring children in South Asia or Africa who work twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Or by subjecting people to death-defying working conditions.
As workers or as citizens most of us would not intentionally choose these outcomes but as seekers after great deals we are indirectly responsible for them. Companies know that if they fail to offer us the best deals we will take our money elsewhere – which we can do with ever-greater speed and efficiency.
The best means of balancing the demands of consumers and investors against those of workers and citizens has been through democratic institutions that shape and constrain markets.
Laws and rules offer some protection for jobs and wages, communities, and the environment. Although such rules are likely to be costly to us as consumers and investors because they stand in the way of the very best deals, they are intended to approximate what we as members of a society are willing to sacrifice for these other values.
But technologies for getting great deals are outpacing the capacities of democratic institutions to counterbalance them. For one thing, national rules intended to protect workers, communities, and the environment typically extend only to a nation’s borders. Yet technologies for getting great deals enable buyers and investors to transcend borders with increasing ease, at the same time making it harder for nations to monitor or regulate such transactions.
For another, goals other than the best deals are less easily achieved within the confines of a single nation. The most obvious example is the environment, whose fragility is worldwide. In addition, corporations now routinely threaten to move jobs and businesses away from places that impose higher costs on them – and therefore, indirectly, on their consumers and investors – to more “business friendly” jurisdictions. The Internet and software have made companies sufficiently nimble to render such threats credible.
But the biggest problem is that corporate money is undermining democratic institutions in the name of better deals for consumers and investors. Campaign contributions, fleets of well-paid corporate lobbyists, and corporate-financed PR campaigns about public issues are overwhelming the capacities of Congress, state legislatures, regulatory agencies, and the courts to reflect the values of workers and citizens.
As a result, consumers and investors are doing increasingly well but job insecurity is on the rise, inequality is widening, communities are becoming less stable, and climate change is worsening. None of this is sustainable over the long term.
Blame global finance and worldwide corporations all you want. But save some blame for the insatiable consumers and investors inhabiting almost every one of us, who are entirely complicit. And blame our inability as workers and citizens to reclaim our democracy.
US Elections: No Matter Who You Vote For, Money Always Wins
Monday, January 30, 2012 by The Guardian/UK
Dollars play a decisive role in US politics. And more so since the supreme court allowed unlimited campaign contributionsby Gary Younge
Republican presidential debates are not for the faint-hearted. Last week in Jacksonville, Florida, Rick Santorum warned of the "threat of radical Islam growing" in Central and South America. Newt Gingrich advocated sending up to seven flights a day to the moon, where private industry might set up a colony, and reaffirmed his claim that Palestinians were invented in the late 70s. Mitt Romney argued that if you make things tough enough for undocumented people, they will "self-deport".
Given the general state of the Republican party, such comments now attract precious little attention. Truth and facts are but two options among many. The party's base, overrun by birthers, climate change deniers and creationists, floats its warped theories and every now and then one makes it to the top and bobs out into the airwaves.
Dollars play a decisive role in US politics. And more so since the supreme court allowed unlimited campaign contributionsby Gary Younge
Republican presidential debates are not for the faint-hearted. Last week in Jacksonville, Florida, Rick Santorum warned of the "threat of radical Islam growing" in Central and South America. Newt Gingrich advocated sending up to seven flights a day to the moon, where private industry might set up a colony, and reaffirmed his claim that Palestinians were invented in the late 70s. Mitt Romney argued that if you make things tough enough for undocumented people, they will "self-deport".
Given the general state of the Republican party, such comments now attract precious little attention. Truth and facts are but two options among many. The party's base, overrun by birthers, climate change deniers and creationists, floats its warped theories and every now and then one makes it to the top and bobs out into the airwaves.
So the oft-touted notion that these debates have been responsible for shifting the trajectory of this primary race would be worrying if it were true. It is difficult to think of anywhere else in the western world where these debates would have any credibility outside of a fringe party (even if the fringes in Europe are now spreading). Far from indicating America's exceptionalism, it looks more like an awful parody of the stereotypes most outsiders already believed about American politics at its most bizarre. "Those who follow this race daily may have long since lost perspective on how absurd it is," said the German magazine Der Spiegel last week. "Each candidate loves Israel. They all love Ronald Reagan. Each loves his wife, a born first lady, for a number of reasons."
The good news is, with the exception of Perry's demise, the debates have not been pivotal. The bad news is that the truly decisive element has been something even more insidious: money. Lots of it.
This is not new. But since a 2010 supreme court ruling allowing unlimited campaign contributions by corporations and unions, it has become particularly acute. Moreover, the contributors can remain anonymous. The organisations that are taking advantage of this new law are known as Super Pacs. Even at this early stage of the presidential cycle, their potential for framing the race is clear. In the whole of 2008 individuals, parties and other groups spent $168.8m independently on the presidential election. This year on Republican candidates alone, where voting started less than a month ago, the Super Pacs have reportedindependent expenditures of almost $40m. In 2008 election spending doubled compared with 2004. This year industry analysts believe the money spent just on television ads is set to leap by almost 80% compared with four years ago.
Money in American politics was already an elephant in the room. Now the supreme court has given it a laxative, taken away the shovel, and asked us to ignore both the sight and the stench.
The only real restriction is that there should be no co-ordination between the candidate and the Super Pac. In practice, this is little more than a fig leaf. A few weeks ago one of the ads, funded by the Super Pac supporting Gingrich, was slated for its many brazen inaccuracies. At a campaign stop in Orlando, Gingrich told supporters: "I am calling on this Super Pac – I cannot co-ordinate with them and I cannot communicate directly, but I can speak out as a citizen as I'm talking to you – I call on them to either edit out every single mistake or to pull the entire film."
Romney is no less compromised. His former chief campaign fundraiser and political director work for the main Super Pac supporting him, which was set up with the help of a $1m cheque from an ex-business partner. "This legalism of 'no co-ordination' is a filament-thin G-string,"wrote Timothy Egan in the New York Times recently. "Everyone co-ordinates."
Money alone can't guarantee success. Santorum spent around 74 cents a voter in Iowa and narrowly won; Perry spent around $358 per vote and came a distant fourth. Debate performances, policy positions, personal histories and retail politics play a role. But the fact that money is not the sole determinant doesn't mean it's not the key one. Two months ago Gingrich's surge in Iowa was halted after Romney's Super Pac ploughed millions of dollars into campaign ads attacking him. Romney's commanding lead in South Carolina was similarly thwarted when Gingrich's Super Pac injected several million dollars.
This is not a partisan point. Almost two-thirds of Americans believe the government should limit individual contributions – with a majority among Republicans, Democrats and independents. The influence of money at this level corrupts an entire political culture and in no small part explains the depth of cynicism, alienation and mistrust Americans now have for their politicians.
The trend towards oligarchy in the polity is already clear. There are 250 millionaires in Congress. Their median net worth is $891,506, nine times the typical US household. Around 11% are in the nation's top 1%, including 34 Republicans and 23 Democrats. And that's before you get to Romney, whose personal wealth is double that of the last eight presidents combined. All of this would be problematic at the best of times, but in a period of rising inequality it is obscene.
The issue here is not class envy, hating rich people because they are rich, but class interests – cementing the advantages of the privileged over the rest. The problem is not personal, it's systemic. In the current climate, it means a group of wealthy people in business will decide which wealthy people in Congress they would like to tell poor people what they can't have because times are hard. And unless the ruling is overturned there is precious little that can be done about it.
Last week in a Massachusetts Senate race, both the Republican incumbent and his likely Democratic challenger signed a pact agreeing not to use third-party money. The trouble is that the agreement is completely unenforceable. Already at least one pro-Republican group has refused to commit to it.
Downplaying money's central role at this point merely buys into the illusion of participatory democracy, where ideas, character and strategy are paramount, while others are actually buying the candidates and access to power. The result is a charade. Fig leaf, G-string – name the scanty underwear of your choice. The emperor is butt naked. Whoever you vote for, the money gets in.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Directed Energy Weapons Used On American Citizens in Tests
The Intel Hub
Shepard Ambellas & Joe Joseph
January 29, 2012
Listen to the exclusive podcast that accompanies this article here.
Factions within the U.S. Government’s Military Industrial Complex have been, and indeed are testing Directed Energy Weapons, along with chemical, nuclear and biological agents on the civilian populace.
In fact, U.S. law, approved by Congress, allows chemical and biological testing on the populace. (see PUBLIC LAW 105–85—NOV. 18, 1997 111 STAT. 1915)
The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues is composed of 13 members and was established in November of 2009 by way of Executive Order 13521 which was issued by President Barrack H. Obama.
According to the PCSBI official government website;
The opening statement in Moral Science: Protecting Participants in Human Subjects Research reads like a mad scientists diary stating;
In its report, the Commission found that the federal government supported more than 55,000 projects involving human subjects around the globe in Fiscal Year 2010, mostly in health-related research, but also in other fields such as education, engineering and social science.
The PCSBI sounds great to the average person nearly skimming the surface pages of the government website.
However, a closer look reveals that the commission has possibly been put in place to aid in a massive cover-up of what is really taking place right in front of our eyes on a daily basis, congress has approved it, and apparently it’s legal.
The deliberate poisoning and desicration of humanity through a multi-tiered militarized program commonly referred to as geoengineering or chemtrail operations, and large scale testing of direct energy weapons on the American people is just a small dose of what the diabolic globalists have planned for you and your family.
A massive cover-up achieved by diverting the attention back to older “openly admitted” topics such as the Guatimalan STD’s continues while the powers that be spray the American populace like roaches with toxins — congress is aware of it, and there is even a budget tracing back to the top of the ladder, the President of the United States (POTUS). In essence, it’s one of the oldest tricks in the book.
These aerosol spraying campaigns can be used to modify and control the weather, and aid in advanced manipulation the weather derivatives market through practices utilized by criminally ran corporations such as Enron.
Peter Kirby (The Intel Hub) has covered this in the January 12, 2012 article entitled, The Chemtrail Business
The PCSBI official website gives a brief history of bioethics commissions dating back to the early 70′s stating;
A transcript excerpt from Meeting 4, Session 10 states;
Amy Gutman Chair of the PCSBI stated in a commission meeting;
Sadly these militarized weapons are now being tested regularly on American citizens as noted above. It has been openly admitted by Barrack Obama in documents that the U.S. has released weaponized versions of STD’s onto the Guatemalan populace in the 1940′s, showing the character and true colors of the people at the helm of our once great nation.
RECON REQUEST:
If anyone is in the area and can attend and videotape this meeting contact us at: contacts@theintelhub.com
The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues will conduct its eighth meeting in February. At this meeting, the Commission will discuss issues of privacy and access related to human genome sequence data.
The Commission will also be discussing neuroscience and related ethical issues.
DATES:
Shepard Ambellas & Joe Joseph
January 29, 2012
Listen to the exclusive podcast that accompanies this article here.
Factions within the U.S. Government’s Military Industrial Complex have been, and indeed are testing Directed Energy Weapons, along with chemical, nuclear and biological agents on the civilian populace.
In fact, U.S. law, approved by Congress, allows chemical and biological testing on the populace. (see PUBLIC LAW 105–85—NOV. 18, 1997 111 STAT. 1915)
The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues is composed of 13 members and was established in November of 2009 by way of Executive Order 13521 which was issued by President Barrack H. Obama.
According to the PCSBI official government website;
“The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (PCSBI) advises the President on bioethical issues that may emerge from advances in biomedicine and related areas of science and technology.
The Commission works with the goal of identifying and promoting policies and practices that ensure scientific research, health care delivery, and technological innovation are conducted in an ethically responsible manner.”The documentation provided on the PCBSI website concludes that the commission has engaged in various studies over time, one of which was the Dec 15, 2011 study entitled — Moral Science: Protecting Participants in Human Subjects Research.
The opening statement in Moral Science: Protecting Participants in Human Subjects Research reads like a mad scientists diary stating;
The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues today issued its report concerning federally-sponsored research involving human volunteers, concluding that current rules and regulations provide adequate safeguards to mitigate risk.The statement goes on to openly admit that the U.S. Government spread bio-agents (STD’s) to Guatemalans in the mid 40′s stating;
In its report, “Moral Science: Protecting Participants in Human Subjects Research,” the Commission also recommended 14 changes to current practices to better protect research subjects, and called on the federal government to improve its tracking of research programs supported with taxpayer dollars.
President Obama requested that the Commission undertake an assessment of research standards following the October 2010 revelation that the U.S. Public Health Service supported unethical research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 that involved intentionally exposing thousands of Guatemalans to sexually transmitted diseases without their consent.
The President gave the Bioethics Commission two assignments: to oversee a thorough fact-finding investigation into the specifics of the studies (released September 13, 2011); and to assure that current rules for research participants protect people from harm or unethical treatment, domestically as well as internationally.The statement goes on to highlight the Key Findings:
In the report’s central finding, the Commission found that the “U.S. system provides substantial protections for the health, rights, and welfare of research subjects.”Evidence has now been brought to light that over 55,000 human testing projects (with numerous people per project) took place during the year 2010;
In assessing the current regulations that protect human subjects, the Commission learned that there is no central source with information about the overall size, scope, and cost of the government’s research involving human subjects.
The Commission requested information from 18 individual agencies that conduct most federal human subjects research, but discovered that many federal offices could not provide basic data about the research they support.
The Pentagon, for example, required more than seven months to prepare information on specific studies supported by the Department of Defense.
In its report, the Commission found that the federal government supported more than 55,000 projects involving human subjects around the globe in Fiscal Year 2010, mostly in health-related research, but also in other fields such as education, engineering and social science.
The PCSBI sounds great to the average person nearly skimming the surface pages of the government website.
However, a closer look reveals that the commission has possibly been put in place to aid in a massive cover-up of what is really taking place right in front of our eyes on a daily basis, congress has approved it, and apparently it’s legal.
The deliberate poisoning and desicration of humanity through a multi-tiered militarized program commonly referred to as geoengineering or chemtrail operations, and large scale testing of direct energy weapons on the American people is just a small dose of what the diabolic globalists have planned for you and your family.
A massive cover-up achieved by diverting the attention back to older “openly admitted” topics such as the Guatimalan STD’s continues while the powers that be spray the American populace like roaches with toxins — congress is aware of it, and there is even a budget tracing back to the top of the ladder, the President of the United States (POTUS). In essence, it’s one of the oldest tricks in the book.
These aerosol spraying campaigns can be used to modify and control the weather, and aid in advanced manipulation the weather derivatives market through practices utilized by criminally ran corporations such as Enron.
Peter Kirby (The Intel Hub) has covered this in the January 12, 2012 article entitled, The Chemtrail Business
The PCSBI official website gives a brief history of bioethics commissions dating back to the early 70′s stating;
The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1974-78) is generally viewed as the first national bioethics commission.
Established as part of the 1974 National Research Act, the National Commission is best known for the Belmont Report. It identified fundamental principles for research involving human volunteers and was the basis of subsequent federal regulation in this area.
The Presidential Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1978-83), also established by Congress, produced reports on foregoing life-sustaining treatment and access to health care, among other topics.
Its 1981 report Defining Death was the basis of the Uniform Determination of Death Act, a model law that was enacted by most U.S. states.
The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (1994-95) was created by President Bill Clinton to investigate human radiation experiments conducted from 1944 -1974 as well as radiation intentionally released into the environment for research purposes. The committee considered the ethical and scientific standards for evaluating these events and provided recommendations aimed at ensuring that similar events could not be repeated.If thats not enough, check out the Meeting 4 transcript, where a U.S. citizen reports she has been involved in direct energy weapons testing as an unwilling participant.
A transcript excerpt from Meeting 4, Session 10 states;
MS. MARSHALL:
Good afternoon. My name is Connie Marshall. I am a former mayoral candidate from Louisville, Kentucky. I have never been involved in any criminal activity. I found a document in my bank account that said problem with Kentucky government. Check federal government paperwork in file before releasing information to anyone.
I am an eight year victim survivor of assaults by directed energy weapons. The torture I have experienced consists of body overheating, body extremely cold, seizures, heart pain, earaches, itching behind eyes, burning behind eyes, swelling, headaches, involuntary movement of my limbs, exhaustion, speeding and heart racing, hair coming out by the handfuls as if I have had chemotherapy, mind paralysis, being hypnotized or being placed in a trance-type state, being tracked by a drone or satellite, controlled dreams, sleep deprivation, V2K which is voice to skull, projected sound, extreme muscle spasms and extreme muscle cramps; being made to fall down; blue circles around the pupils of my eyes and I am here and you can look at them if you like; low frequency noises in my home; high frequency noises in my home; sexual stimulation.
Numerous electrical appliances in my home are destroyed; four computers, two fax machines, seven telephones, four CD players, VCR, DVD players, the electrical igniter switch on my furnace, washer and dryer, air conditioner.
Also my car radio, CD player and engine were destroyed. I am watched in my home 24 hours a day and followed around everywhere I go, though I do not have a criminal history.
When I ran for Mayor of my town, I was also attacked at debates and forums. My website is www.justiceforallcitizens.com. Thank you. And I would like to leave you with these flyers as well. Thank you.
DR. GUTMANN:To fall into the mindset and character of the people selected for the committee we must take a closer look at some of the top members connections.
Thank you.
Amy Gutman Chair of the PCSBI stated in a commission meeting;
“Good morning, and I’m Amy Gutmann. I’m president of the University of Pennsylvania and I’m chair of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. On behalf of myself and my vice chair, Jim Wagner, who is president of Emory University, I’d like to say welcome to everybody and welcome to day one of our second public meeting.
I’d also like to note the presence of our designated federal officer, our newly appointed commission executive director, Valerie Bonham. Valerie, we’re happy to have you as executive director, not the least because you make this meeting official but you also do many other things to help us move forward.”Amy goes on to talk about morality;
“I don’t know how many of your experts in synthetic biology are already here and sitting behind me. With all due respect to the extraordinary work now being done in synthetic biology, synthetic biology joins what is likely a never-ending stream of rapidly developing areas of science that raise challenging societal issues.
One of the most important things that your commission could do would be to put forward a general framework for the moral and policy assessment not only of synthetic biology but of emerging technologies more broadly.”
Sadly these militarized weapons are now being tested regularly on American citizens as noted above. It has been openly admitted by Barrack Obama in documents that the U.S. has released weaponized versions of STD’s onto the Guatemalan populace in the 1940′s, showing the character and true colors of the people at the helm of our once great nation.
RECON REQUEST:
If anyone is in the area and can attend and videotape this meeting contact us at: contacts@theintelhub.com
The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues will conduct its eighth meeting in February. At this meeting, the Commission will discuss issues of privacy and access related to human genome sequence data.
The Commission will also be discussing neuroscience and related ethical issues.
DATES:
The meeting will take place February 2, 2012 from 9 a.m. to approximately 5:15 p.m. and on February 3, 2012 from 9 a.m. to approximately 12 p.m. ADDRESSES: Millberry Union, University of California, San Francisco, 500 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94143, (415) 476–2019.
Important Things You Should Know About Privacy and the Supreme Court Ruling on GPS Tracking
On its face, this represents an important victory against the surveillance state. But this is a narrow ruling that leaves many crucial questions unanswered.
By Scott Lemieux, AlterNet
Antoine Jones was sentenced to life in prison on drug distribution charges. The key evidence against him came from a month’s worth of data collected by a GPS tracker that police had attached to Jones’s car. The GPS, however, was attached without a valid warrant (police had obtained a warrant, but is was expired and for another jurisdiction.) Jones appealed his conviction, arguing that the warrantless GPS tracking violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibitions against “unreasonable search and seizures.” The government replied that the installation of the GPS did not constitute a “search,” and hence could not have violated Jones’s constitutional rights. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the government’s argument, however. And earlier this week in United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the police actions constituted a “search” and were subject to the restrictions of Fourth Amendment.
Here are some things you should know about this case and how the Bill of Rights might apply to modern technologies that increase the government’s power to invade private space:
By Scott Lemieux, AlterNet
Posted on January 29, 2012
Antoine Jones was sentenced to life in prison on drug distribution charges. The key evidence against him came from a month’s worth of data collected by a GPS tracker that police had attached to Jones’s car. The GPS, however, was attached without a valid warrant (police had obtained a warrant, but is was expired and for another jurisdiction.) Jones appealed his conviction, arguing that the warrantless GPS tracking violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibitions against “unreasonable search and seizures.” The government replied that the installation of the GPS did not constitute a “search,” and hence could not have violated Jones’s constitutional rights. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the government’s argument, however. And earlier this week in United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the police actions constituted a “search” and were subject to the restrictions of Fourth Amendment.
Here are some things you should know about this case and how the Bill of Rights might apply to modern technologies that increase the government’s power to invade private space:
- While the Court ruled that Jones had been subject to a “search,” it did not address the question of whether the search was “unreasonable.” Because the search was conducted without a valid warrant, the search was presumptively unconstitutional. But – especially when it comes to cases involving the War On (Some People Who Use Some) Drugs – the Republican-dominated federal courts have been increasingly willing to carve out exceptions for warrantless searches. Until the courts decide this question, we don’t even know if the search of Jones will ultimately be ruled illegal.
- Even in cases where a search has been held to be illegal, the Supreme Court has shown a willingness to water down the “exclusionary rule,” which holds that illegally obtained evidence cannot be used in courts. The provides strong incentives for the police to respect constitutional rights, because they cannot profit from illegal behavior; conversely, absent the exclusionary rule police have little incentive to comply with the law (civil remedies for violations of the Fourth Amendment are generally ineffective.) For example, in its infamous 2006 ruling Hudson v. Michigan, the Court ruled that while dangerous “no-knock” searches of homes were illegal, evidence obtained from them was admissible. If the courts rule that the search of Jones was illegal but the evidence can be admitted anyway, it will be a hollow victory for civil liberties indeed, as police will have strong incentives to push the envelope as new surveillance technologies emerge.
- Justice Scalia’s majority opinion rested on grounds that actually have little application to new surveillance technologies. According to Scalia, since the GPS installation required trespassing private property, it “would have constituted a “search” within the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” While this isn’t necessarily wrong per se, as the concurrences by Justices Alito and Sotomayor point out ruling on this basis says nothing about more crucial questions about how the courts should assess searches that don’t require the direct invasion of physical property. As Justice Alito points out, “the Court’s reasoning largely disregards what is really important (the use of a GPS for the purpose of long-term tracking) and instead attaches great significance to something that most would view as relatively minor.” As a result, the long-term consequences of this decision are unclear.
- Justice Alito’s concurrence proposes that rather than focusing on whether a trespass of property has occurred, the Court should focus on whether or not an individual had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” (the standard the Court has generally used since the early 1970s.) Again, there’s nothing wrong with this in and of itself, but in practice these kinds of balancing tests are only as good as the judges applying them. (In theory, the rule that abortion regulations that constitute an “undue burden” are unconstitutional could provide robust protection for reproductive freedom; in practice, it doesn’t.) Alito focuses on the relatively extreme facts of the case (tracking that lasted a month seeking evidence for a non-violent crime), which opens up the possibility that the state will be given wide latitude under this standard.
- By far the strongest opinion, then, is Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s concurrence. As she notes, “[a]wareness that the Government may be watching chills associational and expressive freedoms.” Given the rapidly expanding tools that the executive branch has at its disposal to conduct surveillance on citizens, and the general unwillingness of legislatures to restrain intrusive searches, it is crucial that the courts not be behind the curve in applying Fourth Amendment protections. United States v. Jones could be a good first step – but only if the many questions it leaves open are answered in a way that takes the protection of privacy seriously. Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence provides a good road map.
Parasites Lost
"We're viruses with shoes."~ Bill Hicks
Sunday, January 29, 2012 by Common Dreams
Sunday, January 29, 2012 by Common Dreams
I once asked a Native American if he thought whether North America
was in any way in a post-colonial period. His response was, “Have they
left yet?” Of the New World republics that came about as a result of
colonization, the United States is going to have the hardest time
dealing with its past. Recently, we’ve seen a lot of people willing to
strut about with their guns and imagine themselves in some pre-pubescent
fantasy of John Wayne’s “unbridled individualism.” Some become so
deluded as to be willing to use these guns on perceived “enemies.” But
this is symptomatic only; it is useful to remember how the actual land
of North America came to be claimed by European and Euro-American
colonists. More importantly, the causes of these neuroses can be better
understood when one realizes what separating people from their resource
base means.
For over ninety-nine percent of human history, the earth and its human offspring were united. Humans were unique in the degree to which we could fashion natural products into useful items. With our minds, hands, and intuition we made the stuff of the earth more useful to us. Nothing stood between us and our resources – we were immersed in our environment and what we did to improve our surroundings and make our lives better we ourselves enjoyed. As the Thoreau disciple and wilderness advocate Bradford Angier once pointed out, “The hardest part about roughing it is smoothing it.” We were pretty good at “smoothing it.” Even cave paintings, figurines, Petroglyphs and the like helped people to understand their relationship with the world into which they had emerged. Contrary to the assumptions of the old “Whig” histories, people were generally time-rich – indeed, they could easily make more than they needed. These surplus goods could be traded for others’ surplus goods and the fruits of individuals’ skills could be shared. At some point someone began to think about accumulating these surplus goods. How, the calculating mind asked, might I enjoy these manufactures and the potential wealth they represent without having to engage in this difficult work myself? Many methods were tried with varying degrees of success. But one that did work and continues to work was coercion – physical, political, legal, economic – forcing a wedge between people and their resource base (the land) and make their reunion with it conditional. The condition for this reunion with the “means of production” is a controlling cut of the wealth produced by the interaction of human and other-than-human nature.
This division between people and nature put us on a path many are beginning to question. Besides the sense of alienation being cut off from our natural relationships with the other-than-human world produces, we are separated from our own means of production. Now, instead of using our wits and our hands to mold the stuff of the earth into usefulness, we have to go to the bourgeois “owner” and ask him to buy our labor, since it is often all we have since being deprived of our access to resources. The bourgeoisie figured out that if you usurp the land and resources, you have control of interaction between human and other-than-human – also known as labor power, which is the only real power humans have.
This defense of the relationship between humans and their resources should in no way be construed as a defense of, say, corporate access to the minerals of the Grand Canyon or oil in the Arctic. That is a looting of both nature and labor that I have discussed elsewhere. No, we have come so far down the path of exploitation of both human and other-than-human nature that assumptions and myths regarding the righteousness of this path remain unquestioned from the halls of power to the public discourse.
The surplus of useful goods that was often so abundant in pre-modern communities – under the influence of market-obsession, has acquired an exchange-value separate from its use. The result is “capital,” or surplus-value flowing to the bourgeoisie but which they themselves did not produce. Capital bought and still buys power and influence to entrench this economic system and heavily skew it toward the bourgeoisie – a sort of modern feudalism. A wedge was driven between people and their resources. Having been deracinated – alienated from their resources, homes, families, and livelihood – people had nothing to sell but their labor, and oftentimes the going rate was at starvation levels. In some regions where this deracination is at full throttle, many have chosen suicide over this type of slavery.
In North America, this separation of the land from the indigenous peoples took on an unprecedented scope. While there was certainly plenty of room in North America in 1492, there were still no fewer than five to ten million people who, in most respects, lived off the fat of an abundant land. Then, Europeans and unwilling and unwitting Africans came to the New World. With varying degrees, separating indigenous people from the land became an institution and was developed to the point of becoming a national myth: of course the Indians must be removed in the face of “progress” – removed or exterminated. Cold hard fact that it is we have yet to internalize this as a society; denial or ignorance of this history remains rampant in the U.S.
The denial becomes increasingly difficult as the separation of people from property takes on new dimensions, (if nothing else, the bourgeois class is very creative about accumulating wealth and power). Now, newcomers as well as descendents of the original colonizers – who themselves usurped the land – have found themselves being separated from their resources by a rigged system in which they have no say. Some might call this karma and that may be true, but it is certainly a continuation.
Working people took a stand in the U.S. from the Industrial Revolution to the post-World War II era and created the wealthiest working class in history. It was so successful that this working class took to calling itself the “middle class,” a democratization of the original turf held by the bourgeoisie and characterized by untitled wealth. Many people once again had a say in their relationship between themselves and their tools and resources. They did not go to the so-called “owner” with hat in hand begging to sell their labor, they collectively bargained with him to get a reasonable share of the surplus value they were producing. Some would say these negotiations were a gift to the bourgeoisie from producers who cut them more slack than they deserved. The abandonment of the American working class by the bourgeoisie, by their politicians, and even by their unions, has been nothing short of a betrayal and indeed a form of robbery.
The wealth accumulated by hook or by crook and used to manipulate the economy and political power structure is turned against the people who produced it. The old tried and true strategy of divide and conquer – white and blue collar, black and white skin, English- and Spanish-speaking, male and female, etc., etc., ad nauseum – so far still works. The financialization of the economy has turned Wall Street into a giant Las Vegas, operating – at least in part – independently of actual wealth production – subsidized and insured by taxing those who actually do produce wealth. It must keep moving fast, though, because something is gaining on it. The separation of workers from the wealth they produce; of workers from their resources; of humans from nature, is a contrivance that cannot last.
People are looking for that part of themselves that is connected to everything else. There is a deep cognitive dissonance in the U.S. resulting from a simple historical truth: wealth enjoyed by many American citizens came from resources acquired through systematic conquest and pillage. It makes it particularly hard to defend your resources on moral grounds when they were stolen to begin with. Much easier to deny or invent an alternative narrative.
Parasites often kill their hosts. To the extent that humans have become parasites, of labor and/or the resource base, we act for our own destruction. The short-term thinking institutionalized in this system is an indulgence we can no longer afford. One alternative to the path of exploitation remains vaguely familiar to us: the path of husbandry and cooperation. But alternative paths require introspection, a difficult facing of fears and facts and, finally, understanding what the relationship between humans and the earth means. As people have known for over ninety-nine percent of our history, the earth is literally our mother – our source of life. It is human nature to interact with our environment and treat it with the respect it deserves – as a part of ourselves. We act self-destructively when we assume the exploitative attitude of parasites. As with most problems, the answers are in the mirror, which is why they don’t get solved.
For over ninety-nine percent of human history, the earth and its human offspring were united. Humans were unique in the degree to which we could fashion natural products into useful items. With our minds, hands, and intuition we made the stuff of the earth more useful to us. Nothing stood between us and our resources – we were immersed in our environment and what we did to improve our surroundings and make our lives better we ourselves enjoyed. As the Thoreau disciple and wilderness advocate Bradford Angier once pointed out, “The hardest part about roughing it is smoothing it.” We were pretty good at “smoothing it.” Even cave paintings, figurines, Petroglyphs and the like helped people to understand their relationship with the world into which they had emerged. Contrary to the assumptions of the old “Whig” histories, people were generally time-rich – indeed, they could easily make more than they needed. These surplus goods could be traded for others’ surplus goods and the fruits of individuals’ skills could be shared. At some point someone began to think about accumulating these surplus goods. How, the calculating mind asked, might I enjoy these manufactures and the potential wealth they represent without having to engage in this difficult work myself? Many methods were tried with varying degrees of success. But one that did work and continues to work was coercion – physical, political, legal, economic – forcing a wedge between people and their resource base (the land) and make their reunion with it conditional. The condition for this reunion with the “means of production” is a controlling cut of the wealth produced by the interaction of human and other-than-human nature.
This division between people and nature put us on a path many are beginning to question. Besides the sense of alienation being cut off from our natural relationships with the other-than-human world produces, we are separated from our own means of production. Now, instead of using our wits and our hands to mold the stuff of the earth into usefulness, we have to go to the bourgeois “owner” and ask him to buy our labor, since it is often all we have since being deprived of our access to resources. The bourgeoisie figured out that if you usurp the land and resources, you have control of interaction between human and other-than-human – also known as labor power, which is the only real power humans have.
This defense of the relationship between humans and their resources should in no way be construed as a defense of, say, corporate access to the minerals of the Grand Canyon or oil in the Arctic. That is a looting of both nature and labor that I have discussed elsewhere. No, we have come so far down the path of exploitation of both human and other-than-human nature that assumptions and myths regarding the righteousness of this path remain unquestioned from the halls of power to the public discourse.
The surplus of useful goods that was often so abundant in pre-modern communities – under the influence of market-obsession, has acquired an exchange-value separate from its use. The result is “capital,” or surplus-value flowing to the bourgeoisie but which they themselves did not produce. Capital bought and still buys power and influence to entrench this economic system and heavily skew it toward the bourgeoisie – a sort of modern feudalism. A wedge was driven between people and their resources. Having been deracinated – alienated from their resources, homes, families, and livelihood – people had nothing to sell but their labor, and oftentimes the going rate was at starvation levels. In some regions where this deracination is at full throttle, many have chosen suicide over this type of slavery.
In North America, this separation of the land from the indigenous peoples took on an unprecedented scope. While there was certainly plenty of room in North America in 1492, there were still no fewer than five to ten million people who, in most respects, lived off the fat of an abundant land. Then, Europeans and unwilling and unwitting Africans came to the New World. With varying degrees, separating indigenous people from the land became an institution and was developed to the point of becoming a national myth: of course the Indians must be removed in the face of “progress” – removed or exterminated. Cold hard fact that it is we have yet to internalize this as a society; denial or ignorance of this history remains rampant in the U.S.
The denial becomes increasingly difficult as the separation of people from property takes on new dimensions, (if nothing else, the bourgeois class is very creative about accumulating wealth and power). Now, newcomers as well as descendents of the original colonizers – who themselves usurped the land – have found themselves being separated from their resources by a rigged system in which they have no say. Some might call this karma and that may be true, but it is certainly a continuation.
Working people took a stand in the U.S. from the Industrial Revolution to the post-World War II era and created the wealthiest working class in history. It was so successful that this working class took to calling itself the “middle class,” a democratization of the original turf held by the bourgeoisie and characterized by untitled wealth. Many people once again had a say in their relationship between themselves and their tools and resources. They did not go to the so-called “owner” with hat in hand begging to sell their labor, they collectively bargained with him to get a reasonable share of the surplus value they were producing. Some would say these negotiations were a gift to the bourgeoisie from producers who cut them more slack than they deserved. The abandonment of the American working class by the bourgeoisie, by their politicians, and even by their unions, has been nothing short of a betrayal and indeed a form of robbery.
The wealth accumulated by hook or by crook and used to manipulate the economy and political power structure is turned against the people who produced it. The old tried and true strategy of divide and conquer – white and blue collar, black and white skin, English- and Spanish-speaking, male and female, etc., etc., ad nauseum – so far still works. The financialization of the economy has turned Wall Street into a giant Las Vegas, operating – at least in part – independently of actual wealth production – subsidized and insured by taxing those who actually do produce wealth. It must keep moving fast, though, because something is gaining on it. The separation of workers from the wealth they produce; of workers from their resources; of humans from nature, is a contrivance that cannot last.
People are looking for that part of themselves that is connected to everything else. There is a deep cognitive dissonance in the U.S. resulting from a simple historical truth: wealth enjoyed by many American citizens came from resources acquired through systematic conquest and pillage. It makes it particularly hard to defend your resources on moral grounds when they were stolen to begin with. Much easier to deny or invent an alternative narrative.
Parasites often kill their hosts. To the extent that humans have become parasites, of labor and/or the resource base, we act for our own destruction. The short-term thinking institutionalized in this system is an indulgence we can no longer afford. One alternative to the path of exploitation remains vaguely familiar to us: the path of husbandry and cooperation. But alternative paths require introspection, a difficult facing of fears and facts and, finally, understanding what the relationship between humans and the earth means. As people have known for over ninety-nine percent of our history, the earth is literally our mother – our source of life. It is human nature to interact with our environment and treat it with the respect it deserves – as a part of ourselves. We act self-destructively when we assume the exploitative attitude of parasites. As with most problems, the answers are in the mirror, which is why they don’t get solved.
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