Imagine

Allow me to preempt the simple-minded before viewing: this is not an endorsement of Ron Paul but merely a thought exercise. Major thanks to Jack Crow to whom my lazy ass is increasingly in debt of late...

Soon There Will Only Be One

The following comes courtesy of Lenin's Tomb and helps to graphically illustrate the level of Capital's concentration today.

How may we be of service?

Since the G20 Summit will be coming around these parts soon with plans to hash out the further institutionalization of austerity for the masses, I thought this little ditty would be a nice lullaby for those of us charged with protecting the pampered asses of our guests:

Whew! Thank goodness NATO has saved Libya from itself in the nick of time.

Africa's crown jewel now lays in ruins but then again that's the whole point friends. Now that the most developed nation on the continent with the largest proven oil reserves has been pulled apart someone's got to put it back together again.

Silly Libyans just didn't understand that this sort of shit is for sovereign people... and "we" don't allow that sort of thing bub:


Please don't mistake the posting of this video as an endorsement of Giddafi the man. No, as should be clear to all but the willfully blind, what now awaits the Libyan people left to the tender mercies of NATO and the IMF will be orders of magnitude worse than anything Big G may have dished out.

Blame it on Warren

Billionaire Warren Buffet's modest proposal in a recent New York Times editorial has set off the mouth pieces of plutocracy like you wouldn't believe. Well, actually what's not to believe given the characters in question? In any event I thought Jon Stewart of The Daily Show had a pretty funny take on it:
Part 1:

The Daily Show
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Part 2:

The Daily Show
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The Debt Limit "Debate" in Six Panels

Hat tip: Jesse's Cafe

The Naked Face of Plutocracy, Part Duex

It is hard to determine what Obama really is, what he stands for, behind the artfully crafted, histrionic façade. He seems at times to be a sort of Herbert Hoover, or even a Neville Chamberlain, consistently giving ground to the bankers' bully boys. Or is he just another power groupie like so many others these days, without principle or character, wishing to 'get his share,' wishing to be accepted?

I suspect that like most of the politicians and bureacrats he is without a moral compass, rationalizing a grotesque selfishness above honor, oath, and duty, despising the many, worshipping at the altar of greed.-JCA

You think?

The Naked Face of Plutocracy

"A few weeks before announcing his re-election campaign, President Obama convened two dozen Wall Street executives, many of them longtime donors, in the White House’s Blue Room. The guests were asked for their thoughts on how to speed the economic recovery, then the president opened the floor for over an hour on hot issues like hedge fund regulation and the deficit..."-NYT (aka Stenographers of Record)

Yes, I know you're shocked but here's the rest anyway...

You think AT&T saw this coming?

Big time hat tip to Jack Crow for this one, and yes, Lupe Fiasco does get it:

It's all for the best

You can rest assured that no one would cheer on such a development here in my home state of Illinois more than the jackass who ran the city of Chicago for more than two decades. Recently, former Chicago mayor-for-life Richard M. Daley cashed in his chips so to speak after 22 years on the throne by accepting a paid advisory position with the law firm of Katten Muchin Rosenman which served an instrumental role in the sell-off of city assets such as the Chicago Skyway (short-cut to northern Indiana, formerly a public highway), the city parking garages, and parking meters. This firm also negotiated the attempted sale of Chicago's Midway Airport (third-world style) that fortunately fell through with the 2008 financial crisis.

For his tireless work in transforming the city into a reliable source of economic rent-extraction for Big Business and major investors Rich Daley can expect to be richly rewarded. This of course is the expected trajectory of those who faithfully serve Capital at the expense of the public (think Bill Clinton). King Richard certainly isn't unique in this regard but his legendary lack of sophistication (no brief stopover in academia for the sake of appearances) brings the practice into unseemly bold relief given the realities of Chicago's cratered economy.

No city embraced the neoliberal model with more fervor than Chi-town and Daley relished his role as the Pied Piper. To pick just one example, under Daley's tutelage Chicago helped pioneer the privatization of public schooling with the charter school scam now being pimped across the country by the Obama administration, tellingly with the same hack as the spearhead: Arnie Duncan. The overall purpose of such schemes being to transform that which the public holds in common, be it railroads, airports, toll roads, forests, or... school systems into privately held entities from which tribute in the form of access fees may be charged to the very public for which these resources were developed at taxpayer expense generations ago. We can expect Daley's successor Rahm Emanuel to accelerate this process as opportunities present themselves. Only committed and organized popular resistance can prevail against the coming onslaught.

Our Loss

Gil Scott-Heron April 1, 1949 - May 27, 2011

What Is To Be Done?

A common device now being utilized wherever the subject of the economy is discussed in the mainstream media these days is to treat any solution that does not first preference the needs of corporations as unserious and in need of no further pursuit. The most effective methodology is deletion of alternatives by omission--they just... don't enter into the discussion. Therefore, advocates for alternative solutions are, unsurprisingly, absent from this debate on mainstream platforms. So don't look for Michael Hudson, Dean Baker, or Richard D. Wolff on CNN, MSNBC, Faux News, or Meet the Press. Conventional wisdom has it that the solution to the financial crisis caused by Wall Street greed and malfeasance and a thirty year adherence to neoliberal policies that de-industrialized the nation and financialized the economy to the primary benefit the top 1% of "earners" is to introduce austerity measures to the population at large.

The aforementioned Dr. Wolff has illuminated an alternative strategy in his latest essay wherein he challenges the currently received wisdom that only the financial oligarchs can lead us out of the crises:

More and more we hear that nothing can be done to tax major corporations because of the threat of how they would respond. Likewise, we cannot stop their price gouging or even the government subsidies and tax loopholes they enjoy. For example, as the oil majors reap stunning profits from high oil and gas prices, we are told it is impossible to tax their windfall profits or stop the billions they get in government subsidies and tax loopholes. There appears to be no way for the government to secure lower energy prices or seriously impose and enforce environmental protection laws. Likewise, despite high and fast rising drug and medicine prices, we are told that it is impossible to raise taxes on pharmaceutical companies or have the government secure lower pharmaceutical prices. And so on.

Such steps by "our" government are said to be impossible or inadvisable. The reason: corporations would then relocate production abroad or reduce their activities in the US or both. And that would deprive the US of taxes and jobs. In plain English, major corporations are threatening us. We are to knuckle under and cut social programs that benefit millions of people (college loan programs, Medicaid, Medicare, social security, nutrition programs, and so on). We are not to demand higher taxes or lower subsidies or fewer tax loopholes for corporations. We are not to demand government action to lower their soaring prices. And if we do, corporations will punish us...
The rest...

*The art that accompanies this post comes from the pen of political cartoonist Mike Flugennok whose work pulls no punches. The rest of his work can be seen at his web site Sinkers.org. Give him a visit.

Truly Priceless

Hat tip to As'ad AbuKhalil aka the Angry Arab...

Julian Assange speaks

It's always important for the accused to be given the opportunity to speak on the charges against them for reasons that should be self-evident. The case of Julian Assange is of particular importance because he and, by extension, the organization he founded, Wikileaks, is under extraordinary pressure from the world's hyper-power and its many client states around the globe. Unless you've been in a coma over the past few weeks you should by now be aware that Wikileaks has snatched the sheets off of indecent activities that the powerful would prefer to remain concealed. Many talk of the importance of "speaking truth to power" which is absurd on its face when one considers the fact that power already knows the truth and certainly doesn't need to hear it from us. No, power much prefers that the truth and its implications be concealed from us and requires only our obedience. Wikileaks, to its credit, explodes this paradigm and therefore must be destroyed. The mission of Wikileaks is to allow the Great Unwashed access to the unfiltered truth of what their governments and other powerful institutions do behind closed doors and without accountability. One cannot hope to make informed decisions without access to accurate information i.e the truth, a fact well understood by those who seek to dominate the many. Wilileaks has defied the world's most powerful institutions and the people who control them in the face of ferocious reaction under the principle that the public has the right to know what decisions are being made in their name---a responsibility long abdicated by a servile, corporate media.

There are consequences for this kind of courage. As the face of Wikileaks Assange is a natural target so the rape allegations against him in Sweden have come as little surprise [I'd have bet on child-molestation]. The clumsy "investigation" that led to the charges against him have been well documented and discussed elsewhere so I won't further contribute to what I consider to be a distraction [swallowed whole-hog by much of the Left] from the actions of the US government abroad. Below is, to my knowledge, the only sit-down interview Assange has given since his release. Unsurprisingly, no platform has been offered him in the mainstream media outlets who have spared no expense in moving the conversation away from US power.

Ok, I'll buy it

Let's tighten those screws a bit... there, is that better?

You may be forgiven if you thought recent events would have convinced Israel to loosen its stranglehold on the 1.5 million Gaza prisoners in the interest of propaganda if nothing else. Ignorance is a kind of bliss I guess, however, in this instance that ignorance would rest on the (unfounded) assumption that Israel's decision makers operate rationally. Consider the following (courtesy of Craig Murray):

By Vittorio Arrigoni, Gaza City, Gaza July 4, 2010

Ketchup, mayonnaise, thread and needles are the items that were included last week by Israel on the list of those few goods now allowed into Gaza. Farming tools, spare parts for cars, toys and make-up were added to the list on Tuesday, items we watched being carried into the Strip loaded onto 130 trucks.

Taking into account the decision of the Israeli government to "loosen" the siege of Gaza by allowing the entry of more goods, B'Tselem, the Israeli organisation for human rights commented: "This is a first, tiny step towards the right direction, the direction which'll bring Israeli policy in line with its obligations."

A veritable microscopic step, considering that before the start of the siege, more than ten thousand trucks a month would drive through the Karni pass alone, and even then, these deliveries were miles away from the 500 truckfuls of goods a day (15,000 trucks a month), the minimum decreed by the United Nations to cover the basic needs of one and a half million people.
According to some Palestinian political analysts, this step might even be counterproductive, because it proposes to attempt to legitimise the siege. This is a siege that is a form of collective punishment against a civilian population. As such, it violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and is considered illegal by all major human rights organisations, whether governmental or otherwise, as Amnesty International and the International Red Cross have recently decreed.

Cement, iron and any other building material continues to be banned from the Strip, so much so that according to the UN, one year after the Cast Lead bombings, 75% of the damaged buildings still gape open among the rubble.
According to Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the UNRWA (UN Agency for Palestinian refugees), Israel's new policy is an attempt to throw smoke into the eyes of the international community and hide its blatant violation of international law: "The Israeli strategy is that of getting the world to talk about a random bag of cement being let in on one side, and a sponsored project on another. What we really need is complete and free access through all the passes."

All eyes are now turned towards the mirage of the opened Israeli passes. Yet, forgetting to take note of the Egyptian border is a mistake. Rafah continues to remain semi-open, or better still…semi-closed. The Egyptian border authorities refuse to let any type of goods through, including tons of food supplies and medicine collected during the last weeks by the union of Cairo chemists. The bullies of the infamous Egyptian Mubarak, renowned for their rough treatment of Palestinian civilians, including women, children and sick people, have sent back hundreds of travellers with regular passports and visas over the past few weeks.

For internationals in Egypt who plan to come and report on what they see, or support the population of Gaza in any way, entering "the Rafah Pass" remains forbidding. John, a freelance journalist who accompanied us from the International Solidarity Movement to report on the daily harrassment that the farmers face from Israeli snipers at the border, eventually came in through the tunnels when he had grown tired of waiting for a pass that never came at Al Arish.

Italian state television is trying to put through the message that the siege has been loosened as an act of generosity on the part of the Israeli government, but the reality is indeed very different. The siege itself needs to be totally lifted, because the people here certainly don't need potato chips or toothpicks. They need cement, iron, medicine, medical supplies and all the essentials coming in the way they would normally come in…through import and export. Only that means will help boost the economy and make Gaza self-sufficient, besides opening the borders to make it possible for anyone to come into or leave this prison.
All that we have before our eyes these days is the artificial image of a tragic situation, made up to seem like an improvement after the cosmetic surgery of Israeli and Egyptian propaganda. Amid these far-reaching echoes of propaganda, Tony Blair's congratulations to Israel for the alleged "loosening" of its blockade comes across as a strident contradition. Behind the smile of Blair, one the of puppet masters of the Quartet (USA, EU, Russia and UN) who for years has produced nothing but useless press releases, is all the rot of the stone caryatids jointly holding up the current Iraqi genocide, as well as the political laxity of European governments in the face of the Palestinian tragedy.

I'm keen to remind Tony Blair that if two extra bags of flour enter the besieged Strip, it certainly isn't thanks to his work within the castrated quartet, or any other institution in charge of resolving the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It's actually thanks to the sacrifices over many years of thousands of ordinary civilians throughout the world committed to the rights of Palestinians. It's an effort that has culminated in the murder of nine Turkish activists on the Mavi Marmara, much the same way as before them, Tom Hurndall and Rachel Corrie gave their lives for the good of Gaza.

On the eve of the second Gulf war, the New York Times coined the phrase "second world power", to define the global pacifist movement that filled thousands of squares around the world. These civilians were protesting against a war "that never before in history had been met with as much blatant hostility." Well, that second world power has now joined us on the field and is siding with the Palestinians: it is now Israel that's under siege.

Stay human.

Vittorio Arrigoni from Gaza city
(translated by Daniela Filippin)

Fascinating, it's so ugly up close

Courtesy of Damon Vrabel:



I highly recommend the rest of this series...

Mr. Phillips, a few words if you don't mind...

That's when [Fry Pan Jack] told me - you know, he'd been tramping since 1927 -
he said, "I told myself in '27, if I cannot dictate the conditions of my labor,
I will henceforth cease to work." Hah! You don't have to go to college to
figure these things out, no sir! He said, "I learned when I was young that the
only true life I had was the life of my brain. But if it's true the only real
life I have is the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain
to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use on the presumption
that at the end of the day they will give it back in an unmutilated condition?"
Fat chance!

He was old enough to remember the sleigh rods under the boxcars, riding the
rods. Fry Pan Jack; the two bums.

the bum on the rods is hunted down as an enemy of mankind
the other is driven around to his club, is fatted, wined, and dined

and they who curse the bum on the rods as the essence of all that's bad
will greet the other with a winning smile and extend the hand so glad

the bum on the rods is a social flea who gets an occasional bite
the bum on the plush is a social leech, bloodsucking day and night

the bum on the rods is a load so light that his weight we scarcely feel
but it takes the labor of dozens of folks to furnish the other a meal

as long as we sanction the bum on the plush, the other will always be there
but rid ourselves of the bum on the plush, and the other will disappear

and make an intelligent, organized kick: get rid of the wasted crush
don't worry about the bum on the rods - get rid of the bum on the plush
-Utah Phillips (collected stories, songs, & poems)

You know some of my best friends are...

How odd. Try as I might I couldn't find a single word in the New York Times today about the 100,000 ultra orthodox Jews who marched in Jerusalem in support of segregation. I'm sure it was just an oversight... front page tomorrow you'll see.

(Hat tip: War in Context)

Doh!

Below is the damning footage that got away as far as the Israelis are concerned for they were no doubt secure in the belief that they had confiscated and destroyed all the embarrassing footage of their Pirates of the Mediterranean escapade. This footage is courtesy of Cultures of Resistance.org (hit tip: War in Context)