On What The Presidency Requires
by Malooga
lifted from a comment
@Copeland:
BO's qualities as a human being are irrelevant.
As Arthur Silber has pointed out numerous times, the office of the Presidency -- Commander-in-Chief of the greatest, fastest collapsing, Empire in History -- requires a level of pathological violence which no one here would countenance in a family member, and which instantly would land you in jail, or worse, if you were a member of the underclass and stole one billionth of what any President does, or were responsible for one billionth of the death, destruction, violence, and mayhem.
It requires misstating, or perpetrating non-existent threats, in Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Cuba, Bolivia, North Korea, and a dozen other places around the globe, as BO already has done, in the murderous interest of said Empire. It requires terrorizing and subduing populations of those countries so that ostensibly US-based corporations can appropriate the resources and wealth of those lands. It requires the use of CIA, special-ops, death squads, aerial bombing, remote bombing, drones and surveillance aircraft, spraying of toxic chemicals, radiological poisoning, killing of union leaders, economic suasion (starvation, destruction of critical infrastructure, destruction of drug manufactories, economic embargos, etc.), proxy wars, wars on drugs, wars with drugs, wars funded by drugs, humanitarian wars, concentration camps (1 1/2 M in Gaza), spying, data-mining, eavesdropping, propaganda, fear-mongering, threats, lying, duplicity, fear, subversion, etc. in pursuit of those goals.
It requires starving -- and growing -- the underclass of your own country so that the wealthiest, most pathological, most environmentally destructive, banksters can be rewarded with 700 Billion dollars -- the single largest transfer of wealth upwards in the history of this country since the land grants the railroads received 140 years ago – a program BO is in favor of. It requires telling the lower and middle class of your country that there is no money for healthcare, social security, infrastructure, etc. while we spend over one trillion dollars (9% of GDP, 6th largest consumer of petroleum resources if it were its own country, which in effect it is) -- more than the rest of the world combined -- on offensive warfare. (Combined, warfare, its subsequent amelioration, and corporate profits, account for close to 25% of GDP -- enough to wipe out all want and poverty in this and many other countries)
It requires support for the planet-destroying nuclear energy industry, for the use of DU weapons, for Uranium mining and radioactive tailings blowing in the glowering western winds, for the irradiation of our planet for hundreds of millions of years -- which BO is in favor of.
It requires supporting the nefarious, deadly GMO conspiracy -- ADM, Cargill, Monsanto, Con-Agra, Syngenta, etc. -- which together with Buffett and Gates, seek to OWN and control the food supply of the entire world, regardless of the murder that causes, or the health and environmental effects of such a policy, and having already shamelessly and criminally contaminated mankind’s several heritage crops – corn, for one, while pushing peasants, through so-called “free-trade” agricultural export policies, into starvation, undercutting and destroying local producers in the name of corporate profits.
It requires support of a media system, educational system, and cultural industry -- a vast propaganda apparatus dwarfing any the former Soviet Union ever had -- which keeps the vast majority of our country completely distracted and entertained, while completely ignorant of the violence our country causes; of the ecological consequences of our daily life; of how, where, and under what labor conditions resources are extracted, and subsequently assembled into the ephemeral consumer products of our capitalist existence; of basic issues of cause and effect; of even the most elementary level of critical thinking, all the while eternally testing (No Child Left Behind) and forcing the rote memorization of trivia, lies, distortions, and propaganda; and continuously instilling a pathologically destructive belief in American Exceptionalism -- a cultish religion which is capable of excusing any level of violence, genocide (Iraq, nuking Japan, firebombing Dresden) and destruction because "we mean well." It requires vocal public support for the cult belief in endless growth which is cutting out the support systems necessary for life on this planet exponentially faster. It requires vocal public support for the murderous ideology that people should service capital, rather than capital servicing human needs, that is to say, Capitalism – an ideology based upon individual greed and societal atomization, which even most here on this blog believe COULD SOMEHOW (????) be properly regulated and restrained before it consumes the entire planet, ouroboros-like, including the proverbial final noose. All of the above, by definition, is supported by BO categorically, wholeheartedly, and without precondition.
It requires support for the continued socially unsustainable upward redistribution of wealth -- albeit, with a few Clintonite sops thrown in to quell the masses (Almost one trillion in combined profits for the energy giants -- oil, coal, nuclear), while perhaps several billion will be very publicly spread around (mostly to large corporations) for "renewables" and coal gasification, etc. It requires support for Insurance company based, privately afforded and purchased, donut-riddled, safety-net catastrophic illness systems; no health care system; uncritical support for the vampirish drug and cancer industry, which encourages the upward redistribution of wealth and impoverishment of the underclass by the creation of all manner of narrow-minded, blindered, complicit specialists, often paid upwards of half a million dollars a year (as if dispensing drugs were really more difficult than fixing brakes on a car, both of which are “life-affecting”), to dispense drugs, radiation, and surgery, to what has exploded from one-in-thirteen to one-in-three, projected to reach one-in-two of our population within my lifetime, all the while ostrich-like sticking their educated, pampered heads in the sand to the obvious causes to this epidemic, amelioration of which would be “politically unacceptable.” It requires support for a universal soma-like national medication system, involving up to one in three of the population, so that they don’t completely freak-out by whatever small bits of actual reality of our situation actually does creep in; so that they don’t feel personal or collective pain, but can still feel jingoistic national frenzy; while heedlessly polluting our waterways with their drug-laden urine, causing havoc among fish and wildlife .
It requires all of this, and more -- infinitely more than I care to detail in this short post -- and none of the corporations which invested over half a billion dollars in BO’s selection have any doubt in his (or his running mates, should he falter as JFK did) ability to continue to perpetrate these crimes against humanity and life itself. (Strange how little interest in voting irregularities the left suddenly has now that their side has won.)
Pravda recently stated that compared to the Bush regime, only the devil could be worse. Perhaps they are right. But there is a remarkable continuity of violence in support of the perpetration of empire ("Our way of life," if you will) from Presidency to Presidency. Every single President has supported all of what I have described above, unwaveringly, as will BO. All of them have worked ceaselessly to expand economic influence, kill off peasants and natives, and spread around the girdle of the globe as fast as possible -- like some sort of out-of-control human yeast infection, laying claim to every thing, concept, and idea they have come across. All of them have come up with pitifully puerile, and pathologically violent, "Doctrines," excusing or justifying all of this for State Historians and Public Intellectuals to analyze, normalize, natter over on talk shows, and otherwise drool over for the edification of the masses.
Not even the most hysterical person I have encountered has expected BO to continue, or exceed, Bush's level of overt confrontation. But not even the most optimistic, most Kool-Aid-inebriated groupie expects BO to reverse all of the damage done by Bush -- to be able to miraculously bring us back to the exalted, whistfully reminisced year, 2000, when only two-thirds of Iraq was being bombed daily.
The "Ratchet Effect" is the operative metaphor here. We will get a
troop drawdown in Iraq, and the closing of Gitmo. (These items are
elite planner consensus, and would have happened even if McCain had
magically been selected won. We will not get a
cessation of violence world-wide, in any way. The Empire is a shark
which consumes all in its path and it will continue to be so. We will
not get the closing of the many other Gulags of Empire beside Gitmo,
many in other "friendly" countries, most unknown to all but a few who
monitor CIA plane landings world-wide, and unpublicized. We will not
get a redefinition of torture, nor will we get a restoration of the
constitutional rights taken away from us. Instead, we will get another
faux-terrorist 9-11, a further crack-down on our freedoms (small as
they are), further monitoring of all behavior, the introduction and
normalization of a new family of offensive weapons: so-called
"non-violent" crowd control technologies, of which tasers are merely
the first public launching, continued spying, filming, data-mining of
all of our actions, resulting in the public culling of a vocal few to
great calmative effect upon the many. Under Holbrooke, Albright, Ross,
Powers, and Rice (and Soros), we will get fewer "offensive" wars, and
more "humanitarian" ones, and, of course, a huge ratcheting up of
economic ones (begun already by the IMF and commodities price
manipulation). (Yugoslavia and Rwanda have been adequately discussed
here. The violence inflicted upon civilian life and structure is
identical regardless of the justifications of Empire.) We will get more
NGO intervention (read your Arundhati Roy on this pernicious weapon) to
"aid" the afflicted.
The style of this administration will be much better, easier on the
eye and the ear: We will be treated to the intelligent (if equally
deceitful) disquisitions of a Clinton, along with the now ubiquitous
(hollow) national self-congratulatory Afro-American, Horatio Alger
story -- four years from State Senator to President -- and to the
Kennedy-like Camelot cult fairy tale of a young couple steering a
nation towards a new, even greater, America. We’ll feast our eyes on
better clothes, savor over better meals being prepared in the White
House, and proudly watch as all manner of liberal Public Intellectuals
fawn over the new power couple at Affairs of State. Perhaps Maya
Angelou will even write a poem:
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
(She wrote those lines before NAFTA, before welfare reform, before the US abetted bloody coups in Rwanda, and Haiti, and before the half million dead children in Iraq -- which not a single member of the ruling elite sought to contradict the bi-partisan sentiment that it was all, somehow, in Albright’s dark wording, “worth it.”)
And the symbolizism will be much softer. We will hear talk about humanity’s needs, and nation’s struggles against bad leaders and violent renegade movements, who must be overthrown for the welfare of the people. But nothing I’ve detailed above will change in the least. The vast bi-partisan death juggernaut will miss nary a beat. If our President appears less extreme, the climate (in more ways than one) will become even more extreme. And yet, perhaps the Cubs will finally go all the way one of these next four years. So we do have hope and there is much to look forward too.
But, seriously: In light of the vast, bi-partisan, undiscussed but universally accepted narrative and agenda, and the monstrous destruction it causes world-wide, focusing on BO’s purported, public-image manipulated, personality traits – his “decency as a human being”; or as NPR does in support of the cult-of-personality of the President, eternally filling dead air time with endless chipper-voiced stories of BO’s poker playing aptitude and strategy, his version of manhood compared to the hip-hop model, and anything else that the thirty-something, well-adjusted, metrosexual, young producers can mine from the cartoon-addled recesses of their normalized imaginations – imaginations which can dream up anything imbued with diaphanous “hope,” but are repulsed by “downers” like death and destruction – is, as I said above – completely irrelevant.
Posted by b on November 11, 2008 at 16:57 UTC | Permalink | Comments (52)
Uranium Traces in Syria - Laughable Nonsense
Reuters wants us to react to this:
U.N. investigators have found traces of uranium at a Syrian site Washington says was a secret nuclear reactor almost built before Israel bombed the target last year, diplomats said on Monday.
...
"It isn't enough to conclude or prove what the Syrians were doing but the IAEA has concluded this requires further investigation," said one diplomat accredited to the IAEA."It was a man-made component, not natural (ore). There is no sign there was already nuclear fuel or (production) activity there," another diplomat told Reuters.
Let's determine the validity of this.
This news is obviously not an IAEA finding but something someone planted with Reuters. The information was leaked by diplomats and "The International Atomic Energy Agency and Syria had no immediate comment."
The IAEA has such fine instruments that it can detect artificially altered, i.e. man-made, Uranium atoms about everywhere in the world. Thanks to the two nuclear bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan in 1945 and lots of open air nuke testing in the following years the existence of man-made components of uranium is inevitable and meanwhile provable anywhere on this planet.
The alleged reactor in Syria was supposed to be a copy of the North Korean Yongbon type which is a copy of the UK's Magnox reactor.
That type uses natural uranium to breed bomb-quality U235 and plutonium. To moderate the process such a reactor needs tons of graphite. If the alleged Syrian whatever was loaded with natural uranium or graphite, lots of such would have been found in detectable traces in the nearby environment.
As there is no leak or factual report that points to increased levels of
natural uranium or graphite in the samples the IAEA took around the site
after the Israelis bombed it, one can only conclude that the Syrian
installation, if it was a reactor at all, was not a filled reactor near operational capability.
Instead some diplomats, i.e. Israeli, U.S. and U.K. operatives accredited to the IAEA in Vienna, now leak that the IAEA found some traces of man-made Uranium around the site.
That might well be correct. They would have found such in my living room too. But that fact would neither prove that my toaster is a nuclear something nor does it prove that my TV was build with the intend of converting it into a reactor.
There is so far nothing, zero, nada that would prove that Syria had one or another kind of nuclear program at all. There was a "Box on the Euphrades" that some Israeli bombers hit for whatever reason. There is zero believable prove that the site had to do with WMDs or other nefarious things.
The Reuters story will sell well. The journalist who was used as propaganda tool by some diplomats will be lauded by his bosses because the news s/he created will be printed everywhere. There is no reason for Reuters to verify the basic physics as it will make a nice profit with the involved scare-mongering.
The whole motive behind this scare is an Israeli plot to maneuver Syria into a corner where it is seen as a WMD proliferation danger. That tactic, bare of facts, has worked well with regard to Iran.
Iran has an open and IAEA supervised civil nuclear program to create energy on a self sustained basis. Such a program could at a point be abuse for some tiny nuclear weapons program as could similar programs in the Netherlands, Japan, Brazil and elsewhere.
But Syria does not even have the rudimentary infrastructure for a civil nuclear energy program and certainly not for a military one.
Asserting otherwise may help the Zionist racist cause and Reuter's profits. Don't fall for it.
Posted by b on November 10, 2008 at 22:51 UTC | Permalink | Comments (21)
How To Ruin A Retail Company
A prime case study on how to ruin a retail company:
- Profits from sales were down a bit, because some retail sales changed to the Internets.
- Management switched salespersons from commission based pay to meager hourly wages.
- Sales droped further.
- Management fired long-term, experienced and expensive salespersons and hires unqualified but cheaper people instead.
- Sales drop further.
- Overpaid management gets fired.
- New management finds the company is bankrupt.
Circuit City Fires 2,000 Workers to Cut Costs, Feb. 6, 2003
Circuit City Stores Inc. has fired 2,000 people, including salespeople at its outlet near Gateway Mall in Springfield, in a move to cut costs.The electronics retailer announced it is firing 5 percent of its work force and also converting commissioned sales people to hourly pay.
Circuit City to Fire 3,400, Hire Less Costly Workers, March 28, 2007
Circuit City Stores Inc., the second-largest U.S. electronics retailer after Best Buy Co., fired 3,400 of its highest-paid hourly workers and will hire replacements willing to work for less.
...
"Firing 3,400 of arguably the most successful sales people in the company could prove terrible for morale," Colin McGranahan, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein & Co., wrote in a note today. "The question remains as to whether Circuit City can rebuild in time for the all-important holiday season."
...
Circuit City shares rose 35 cents to $19.23 at 4:18 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
...
In 2003, Circuit City switched employees from commission- based pay to hourly pay, matching an earlier move by Best Buy. That switch had a "dramatically negative impact on sales," McGranahan said today.
Circuit City, Electronics Retailer, Seeks Bankruptcy , Nov. 10, 2008
The petition for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Virginia, listed $3.4 billion in assets and $2.32 billion in liabilities, driving the shares down 56 percent before the New York Stock Exchange halted trading.
...
Circuit City fell 14 cents to 11 cents at 9:30 a.m. before the start of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The NYSE halted buying and selling of the shares after the stock's early plunge.
...
On Sept. 29, Circuit City reported a loss of $239.2 million that was more than triple from a year earlier after sales fell for the sixth straight quarter.
Without well motivated sales-persons any specialized retailer can only lose.
Here the shareholders lost too. No tears for them. Why did they not stop the disastrous management plans?
Only long term Circuit City CEO Philip Schoonover, who was only fired six weeks ago, made a fortune by ruining the company. He got more than twice per year of what successful retail chain CEO's got. From the second link:
Chief Executive Officer Philip Schoonover was paid $8.52 million in fiscal 2006, including a salary of $975,000. Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson received $3.85 million, including a $1.17 million salary.
Under-payed salespersons are bad for any company. Overpaid management is much worse.
Posted by b on November 10, 2008 at 17:03 UTC | Permalink | Comments (10)
More Taxpayer Rip-Offs
The U.S. government will invest additional $40 billion into the bankrupt insurer A.I.G. The company will use the money to buy up more or less worthless Collateral Debt Obligations and Mortgage Backed Securities who's value A.I.G. originally insured. Two off-balance-sheet vehicles will be created to hold these papers. Losses in those off-balance-sheet entities will mostly have to be carried by the government.
The NYT writer trying to explain the issue falls for the sales-pitch. He has been told that the government would get something tangible for its investment in form of more A.I.G. shares. But the numbers do not add up:
The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve were near a deal to abandon the initial bailout plan and invest another $40 billion in the company, these people said.
...
At the same time, the government, using part of the $700 billion fund, would buy $40 billion in preferred shares in A.I.G.
...
A.I.G. negotiated the original $85 billion revolving credit line with the Federal Reserve after its efforts to raise money from private lenders failed in the panic of mid-September.
...
In exchange for making the loan, the Fed was promised a 79.9 percent stake in A.I.G.The $40 billion of preferred shares will not change the size of the government’s stake in A.I.G., people briefed on the plans said.
How is this supposed to work?
The government already owns 80% of A.I.G.'s shares. It will get more shares now for handing over more money. But the size of the government stake in A.I.G. will not increase?
The WaPo version is not enlightening either. But it contains a morsel of information that the NYT seems to have missed. The NYT writes:
The government created an $85 billion emergency credit line in September to keep A.I.G. from toppling and added $38 billion more in early October when it became clear that the original amount was not enough.
When the restructured deal is complete, taxpayers will have invested and lent a total of $150 billion to A.I.G., ...
But according to WaPo, the government already spend much more on A.I.G.:
After the Federal Reserve of New York first extended the $85 billion loan to AIG on Sept. 16, the company quickly began burning through the funds. Twice, the government had to increase the sum -- to $123 billion in early October, then to $143 billion at the end of last month.
Somehow the NYT (and I) missed the news of an additional $20 billion put into A.I.G. at the end of last month. But how do the WaPo numbers add up? Starting with the $143 billion at the end of October we read this:
First, under this arrangement, the original $85 billion loan would shrink to $60 billion and could be repaid over five years, two sources said.
...
Second, and most critically, the government has now agreed to spend $30 billion buying troubled real estate investments that AIG had guaranteed and that were the cause of the company's near-failure. AIG would contribute another $5 billion to this pool.
...
A third component of the new deal would entail the government buying $40 billion in preferred shares of AIG as securities for taxpayers. The AIG board was considering the plan last night.
Somehow the $85 billion will shrink by $25 billion. But another $30 billion and another $40 billion will be added: 143-25+30+40=188. But the WaPo piece says with the new plan the total government aid to A.I.G will be a $150 billion. It makes no attempt to reconcile these numbers.Where do the additional $38 billion come from?
The Wall Street Journal's version as well as the Financial Times' report do not add clarity to this.
The deal is supposed to be announced this morning. But from what leaked out so far, expect this to be another major rip-off from taxpayers.
Meanwhile the Washington Post reports in a different piece on an illegal Treasury move in late September that will cost the tax-payer another big chunk of money:
In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.
But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.
...
The guidance issued from the IRS caught even some of the closest followers of tax law off guard because it seemed to come out of the blue when Treasury's work seemed focused almost exclusively on the bailout.
...
More than a dozen tax lawyers interviewed for this story -- including several representing banks that stand to reap billions from the change -- said the Treasury had no authority to issue the notice.
Congress is unlikely to undo the illegal changes. Concludes one expert:
"It's just like after September 11. Back then no one wanted to be seen as not patriotic, and now no one wants to be seen as not doing all they can to save the financial system," said Lee A. Sheppard, a tax attorney who is a contributing editor at the trade publication Tax Analysts. "We're left now with congressional Democrats that have spines like overcooked spaghetti. So who is going to stop the Treasury secretary from doing whatever he wants?"
Indeed.
Posted by b on November 10, 2008 at 8:48 UTC | Permalink | Comments (29)
OT 08-38
Your news & views ...
Posted by b on November 9, 2008 at 11:17 UTC | Permalink | Comments (93)
Loans For Car Manufacturers And Structural Changes
GM, Ford and Chrysler are on the brink of bankruptcy and may run out of money by the end of the year.
Should they get taxpayer money in an attempt to keep them alive?
The big three are said to have four major structural problems:
- uncompetitive products
- customers depend on debt to buy cars
- the dealership structure
- high cost due to health care and pension obligations
It is not true that GM and Ford do not have the products that are more environment friendly, have low mileage and would probably sell better. Ford Europe and GM's Opel/Vauxhall in Europe offer attractive small and medium size cars with low mileage. It should be no problem to transfer production lines for these to the U.S. under U.S. brands. But the U.S. management seems to be unwilling to do so. They believe that such cars do net sell and push them into niche brands. GM has a total of thirteen brands, Toyota has three. Who is doing better?
The basic idea that car manufacturers should offer producer finance to car buyers seems wrong to me. Companies and their management usually make either good products or are good in banking operation. Partnering with local banks for car finance might be a better way to do that business. And why do consumer finance cars at all? It is quite expensive if you include the full insurance that is demanded.
The dealership structure in the U.S. is a consequence of the historic buying/selling habits that are no longer justified. The manufacturers send cars to the dealers in various colors and with various features independent of real customer demand. The dealers are supposed to sell the cars they get upfront, not the cars the customers really want. A different selling system would provide the dealers with one car of each type. The customer could test-drive that car, smell it, feel it and check the possible variants. The buyer could then decide what features and color s/he exactly wants. A clever produce-on demand system could deliver the individualized car within one or two weeks. And why not sell such individually configured cars through the internet?
Health care is an issue where the government could really help the car companies. Single payer universal health care in a regulated government provided system would do a lot to lower health care costs in the U.S. while providing, in average, much better service. For companies like the car manufacturers the effective hourly wage cost would sink and make them more competitive.
Many of the pension obligations companies and cities, counties and states have are already under-financed. Many of their pension funds will go bust and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp will have to take care of them. The PBGC is backstopped by the federal government. One can argue that the under-financed pension funds are already a form of silent socialization of risk and losses and in effect a scam. Socialize the companies' and other pension funds now by putting their money and their obligations into an extended social security system. The effects will be the same than with universal health care.
In my view the government could and should help the car manufacturers. But just to provide loans now when it is obvious that without deep structural changes more loan requests will follow before the inevitable bankruptcy, does not help.
Band aid is not sufficient now. The debt bubble busted and there is deep need for structural changes to get back to some healthy economy. The government can provide some of these structural changes, especially in health care and pensions. The other structural changes have to be in the mindset of the car manufacturers and their management. Any loan to these companies should be conditioned on such changes taking place.
Posted by b on November 8, 2008 at 19:43 UTC | Permalink | Comments (22)
Doubleplusungood Economy News
A hefty unemployment report was released to day by the Labor Department:
Nonfarm payroll employment fell by 240,000 in October, and the unemployment rate rose from 6.1 to 6.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. October's drop in payroll employment followed declines of 127,000 in August and 284,000 in September, as revised.
The headline number is the U3 measurement of unemployment which not very inclusive. The realistic number measured as U6 includes "Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers" is at a seasonal adjusted 11.8%.
Average hours of those employed are down while seasonal and inflation adjusted hourly wages are up a bit.
Notice that the original number for September 2008 was a drop of 159,000. It was now revised to 284,000. The original August number was a drop of 84,000, now revised to 127,000. The October number published today will likely need a huge correction.
On October 27 the Dow was at a low of 8,175. It rallied from there to 9,625 on November 4. Since then it is down to 8,800 and I expect it to at least retest the 2002 low of 7,528. It could go down much lower though because current earning expectations are still much too high.
Posted by b on November 7, 2008 at 14:41 UTC | Permalink | Comments (56)
Who Ordered The Slow News On Georgia
It took the New York Times three month, four reporters and lots of expenses to provide news that I provided here within hours after the war over South Ossetia started.
One wonders why the Times needed so long.
Who gave the orders to hold the truth back and who allowed it to be printed today?
The New York Times sells this news today, November 7 2008:
Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.
Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.
Moon of Alabama provided this news for free on August 8 2008, 8:00am est:
Despite yesterday's announced ceasefire, the government of Georgia today launched an all out military attack on the breakaway South Ossetia region in northern Georgia.
NYT on Nov 7:
Two senior Western military officers stationed in Georgia, speaking on condition of anonymity because they work with Georgia’s military, said that whatever Russia’s behavior in or intentions for the enclave, once Georgia’s artillery or rockets struck Russian positions, conflict with Russia was all but inevitable. This clear risk, they said, made Georgia’s attack dangerous and unwise.
MoA on Aug 8, 8:00am est (headlined: Saakashvili Wants War - He Will Get It)
For internal reasons as much as on foreign policy ground Russia will not allow Saakashvili to take over South Ossetia. It will either support the Ossetians with weapons which may lead to a prolonged guerrilla war, or it may even invade on its own.
NYT on Nov 7:
[A]ccording to observations of the [O.S.C.E] monitors, documented Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, Georgian artillery rounds and rockets were falling throughout the city at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between explosions, and within the first hour of the bombardment at least 48 rounds landed in a civilian area. The monitors have also said they were unable to verify that ethnic Georgian villages were under heavy bombardment that evening, calling to question one of Mr. Saakashvili’s main justifications for the attack.
MoA analysis on Aug 12:
On the evening of August 7 the Georgian President Saakashvili went on TV and announced a cease-fire. This came after some small tit for tat fire exchanges on the border between Georgia and South Ossetia. A few hours later Georgia launched a massive artillery barrage against the South Ossetian city of Tskhinvali. It used Grad multiple-launch rocket systems. Such weapons are effective against area targets, like large infantry clusters, not against pinpoint aims.
NYT on Nov 7:
Civilians repeatedly reported resting at home after the cease-fire broadcast by Mr. Saakashvili. Emeliya B. Dzhoyeva, 68, was home with her husband, Felix, 70, when the bombardment began. He lost his left arm below the elbow and suffered burns to his right arm and torso. “Saakashvili told us that nothing would happen,” she said. “So we all just went to bed.”
MoA on Aug 12:
The attack hit people at sleep in their homes.
NYT on Nov 7:
At 12:15 a.m. on Aug. 8, Gen. Maj. Marat M. Kulakhmetov, commander of Russian peacekeepers in the enclave, reported to the monitors that his unit had casualties, indicating that Russian soldiers had come under fire.
...
Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said that by morning on Aug. 8 two Russian soldiers had been killed and five wounded.
MoA on Aug 12:
The Russian peacekeepers in South Osssetia had less than a battalion of mechanized infantry between the border and Tskhinvali. This batallion was attacked by a multi battalion Georgian tank and armored infantry forces.
and so on ...
Posted by b on November 7, 2008 at 13:37 UTC | Permalink | Comments (28)
The People Voted For A Liberal
Politico does a wrap up piece on the McCain campaign. In it Mark Salter, the co-writer of McCain's books, says:
“Our polling showed that more than 60 percent of voters identified Obama as a liberal. Typically, a candidate is not going to win the presidency with those figures. But I think the country just disregarded it. People didn’t care. They just wanted the biggest change they could get.”
That is a wrong, but typical Washington inside talk.
"People do not want liberals," the elite in DC says. How do they know?
Could the fact that lots of people voted for someone they (falsely?) perceived as liberal be explained by their will to put a liberal into the White House? Yes, it could and it is the most logical explanation.
But the Washington elite is full of this nonsense. "The country must be ruled from the center," they now say. What bullshit. Did Bush ever ruled from the center?
Now give the people what they asked and voted for.
Posted by b on November 6, 2008 at 19:04 UTC | Permalink | Comments (18)
This Week In Baghdad
Today the Washington Post reports:
Gen. David H. Petraeus has decided to reduce the number of U.S. combat brigades in Iraq from 15 to 14 about six weeks earlier than planned, as a result of dramatically lower violence there, Pentagon officials said yesterday.
..
The departing brigade has served in Baghdad, where attack levels have plunged.
Combat Brigade Is Cut 6 Weeks Early in Iraq
Petraeus is right to withdraw troops from Iraq. He is wrong in asserting 'dramatically lower violence there.' That is simply a lie to justify moving troops to Afghanistan as his new Commander in Chief demands.
There are 150,000 U.S. soldiers and ten thousands of security-contractors in Iraq. But they seem to make little difference to the ongoing violence.
There were at some twenty bomb explosions in Baghdad in just the last four days. The civil war is back in Iraq and there is nothing the U.S. can do about it. The war will stop only after the U.S. has left.
Monday:
One of the explosions hit the busy Karrada district, damaging many shops.
...
One bomb was detonated outside a police building in eastern Baghdad, and then as people ran away, a second bomb was set off in their path.Police appeared to have been the target in the most serious attack, but it claimed the lives of six civilians.
In the third explosion, the deputy oil minister of Iraq escaped a bomb attack on his convoy with minor injuries but a bodyguard was seriously hurt.
One policeman was killed in a bombing north of Baghdad, while another bomb exploded near a police patrol in west Baghdad, injuring one policeman and a civilian, police said.
Seven dead in Baghdad bomb blasts
Tuesday:
Seven people were killed and 18 wounded when a bomb exploded in the depot in the eastern Baghdad neighbourhood of Al-Mashda, the officials said.
In a similar attack, four people were killed and eight wounded when a roadside bomb went off in Al-Qahira in the north of the capital, they said.
One person was killed and seven wounded when a bomb planted in their car, part of a government convoy, exploded in the central Karrada district.
A civilian was killed and five wounded when a bomb blew up in a car near the University of Technology in Baghdad, the security officials said.
In another attack, a policeman was killed and three others wounded when they were shot at by gunmen driving in a vehicle in the the southeastern Baghdad district of Al-Gadhir.
An Iraqi police major was also wounded along with his two sons when a bomb planted in their car exploded in Al-Wahda in the centre of the capital.
String of Baghdad bombings kill 14
Wednesday:
A car bomb near a checkpoint on the road to Baghdad's airport killed four people and wounded nine on Wednesday, police said.
Two policemen were among the dead and three policemen were among the wounded in the blast, which took place by a statue near a major checkpoint outside the heavily guarded airport, police said.
Four killed in Baghdad airport road blast
Thursday:
The deadliest attack Thursday came near a checkpoint in central Baghdad when two bombs exploded during the morning rush hour, police said. Four people were killed and seven wounded in the blasts.
Another bomb targeting a government convoy injured six people, police and hospital officials said. Police said the convoy was carrying city workers. The police spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release information.
The twin blasts in the capital's Sunni enclave of Sheik Omar happened at a checkpoint manned by members of an Awakening Council, the mostly Sunni groups that have joined forces with the Americans against al-Qaida in Iraq.
Another two Awakening Council members was killed in a bombing just before noon in southeastern Baghdad. The councils come under frequent attacks by insurgents because they have sided with U.S. forces.
Roadside bombs targeting two separate convoys carrying Baghdad city officials injured eight people, the mayor's office said in a statement. The municipal officials were not hurt in the attacks.
Nine other people were wounded in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad's sprawling Shiite slum of Sadr City, police said.
Blasts in Baghdad kill 4, wound more than 20
Posted by b on November 6, 2008 at 14:39 UTC | Permalink | Comments (16)
Change? Middle East Policy Version
Ynetnews: Aide to Rahm Emanuel: Obama pro-Israel
Despite reports in US media that Illinois Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel has accepted US president-elect Barack Obama's offer to serve as White House chief of staff, a source close to Emanuel told Ynet he has not yet accepted and was still considering the offer due to personal and family reasons.
Emanuel is the son of American Jew and Israeli immigrant Dr. Benjamin Emanuel. The source told Ynet on Wednesday, "Emanuel is pro-Israeli, and would not be willing to consider accepting the job unless he was convinced that President-elect Obama is pro-Israel."
Haaretz: Obama kick-starts transition, picks Israeli Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff
Emanuel is the son of a Jerusalem-born pediatrician who was a member of the Irgun (Etzel or IZL), a militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948.
J'Post: Obama names Emanuel chief of staff
Emanuel, who served in the Clinton White House, has Israeli family and spent significant amounts of time in Israel.
...
In an interview with Ma'ariv, Emanuel's father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, said he was convinced that his son's appointment would be good for Israel. "Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel," he was quoted as saying. "Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."The Ma'ariv article also quoted Dr. Emanuel as saying that his son spends most summers visiting in Tel Aviv, and that he speaks Hebrew, but not fluently.
Posted by b on November 6, 2008 at 9:23 UTC | Permalink | Comments (59)
Change: The Possible One And The One You Might Get
I happen to agree with both, Malooga's stirring piece below (which I lifted from a comment), and John B. Judis' analysis on America the Liberal
If Obama and the Democrats in Congress act boldly, they can not only arrest the downturn, but also lay the basis for an enduring majority. As was the case with Franklin Roosevelt, many of the measures necessary to combat the recession--such as spending money on physical and electronic infrastructure, adopting national health insurance--will also help ensure a Democratic majority. The rural South remained Democrat for generations because of Roosevelt's rural electrification program; a similar program for bringing broadband to the hinterland could lead these voters back to the Democratic Party. And national health insurance could play the same role in Democrats' future prospects that Social Security played in the perpetuation of the New Deal majority.
...
The Republican Party will be divided and demoralized after this defeat. Just as the Great Depression took Prohibition and the other great social issues of the 1920s off the popular agenda, this downturn has set aside the culture war of the last decades. It wasn't a factor in the presidential election. And the business lobbies that blocked national health insurance in 1994 will incur the public's wrath if they once again try to buy Congress.If, on the other hand, Obama and the Democrats take the advice of official Washington and go slow--adopting incremental reforms, appeasing adversaries that have lost their clout--they could end up prolonging the downturn and discrediting themselves. What could have been a hard realignment could become not merely a soft realignment, but perhaps even an abortive one. That's not the kind of change that America needs or wants--and, hopefully, Obama and the Democrats understand that.
---
by Malooga:
Remember those old TV commercials where the unsuspecting housewife learns that her old brand of laundry detergent has been surreptitiously replaced with a newer better brand, and she just can't believe it?
Well, that's what happened to us. The brand was changed with the pre-planned financial collapse and the largest transfer of wealth in human history. We all really know this, but because the corporate press does not "catapult the propaganda" it still doesn't seem real.
All we're seeing now is the paper being peeled back to reveal the new brand we will be using for the next four years. Sure, we'll like the tone and timbre of this new product, but the structural adjustments were put into place well ahead of time.
A system whereby two corporate controlled images are put before us, allowed to say whatever they want knowing that they will never be held accountable (eg. Bush: humble foreign policy), and we are told that voting for the preferrable image, who will then "represent" us; such a system whereby the fetish act of voting is intended as a substitute for actual democratic engagement (something most of us, as structurally intended, have no time for anyway) is not a Democracy, but a triumph of totalitarian propaganda.
(I have recently been involved in legislation at the State level, and just to see how relatively innocuous legislation is taken hold of by monied interests, how swans are turned into arcane pigs -- too complex for any but the smartest of those professionally involved in all of this to grasp -- given cute names, and foisted upon the ignorant, prejudiced and fearful public; to see how these bulbous, heinous, genetically-modified creatures are dumped on the public plate and called meat is more than discouraging.)
So, what has happened? People have been so scared, so shock-therapied, that they have endorsed a man who says things they don't advocate and cannot be held to his pronouncements anyway. Endless articles have been written daily, on Counterpunch for one, detailing those pronouncements, the advisors, where the unprecedented amounts of moolah where coming from, but all of this counts for nothing for the True Believers, where belief and hope short-circuit logic and strategy. I'm sorry that Arthur Silber came up against some unforseen problems, because his expected but unpublished series on tribalism promised far more insight into this phenomenon than my poor mind is able to come up with.
In the end, people are controlled by stimulating them until their emotions overcome their reason. Resistance falls away and they are easily lead.
What is so galling to me here is not the expectation that things will change for the better in spite of all evidence to the contrary, not this magical thinking, no, but the almost universal belief around here that strategies for fundamental change come from elections and that such strategies for fundamental change must necessarily be limited to single election horizons, even if proved strategies, which could take a generation to effect deep, meaningful, and life-affirming change, exist. Obama Tina (There Is No Alternative, as Maggie Thatcher used to say about the neo-conservative program). Just don't labor under any illusions that the elite limits their own plans and machinations to single election spans. That's not what think-tanks are for. So who has the advantage in this contest, this game of chess -- the voters, or the ruling elite?
The ruling class has nothing in common with the common man, indeed cannot have anything in common with him, because their job is to control you. It's called the ruling class because it rules. It doesn't matter how smiley the face you see and hear daily is -- it will be just as lethal because the beast is a shark and that is its nature. Yes, crony dollars will now trickle down to the equally dirty democrats now, but all others in its voracious path will be destroyed.
It was clear for quite some time that a much larger faction of the ruling elite preferred the Obama image, knowing that USAans have had their fill of the current public tenor. (If we stop bombing people, we will go back to bombing water plants and farms. Peasants must be starved before they will give up their farms and local foods and brands and incorporated into the wage-slavery system as the new place to open low-cost factories in the inevitable drive to the bottom. This is how we won in Vietnam, and how we will inevitably win in Iraq and Afghanistan. TINA. Starve them into submission, then let the NGO's come in and feed them.)
The corporate media could have destroyed Obama as easily as one brushes away a gnat if they had wanted. No stories about what type of underwear Obama wears, or whether his ears are too flappy, his suits too loose, his face too much like Alfred E. Neuman's. Instead, the corporate media turned on McCain with a vengeance. The straight-talk express of eight years ago became a mean, surly cur. The media manufactures consent and the public buys it. Even those who study and know its rules fall for it. The images of the two candidates could have been reversed with ease if those who own the media had wanted it.
All of my research into the mechanics of elections over the past eight years have proven to me that this election could have been stolen just as easily as the past two, if the elite had wanted it. That they didn't does nothing to restore my faith in the ultimate justice and reliability of the system. Those who spent their time campaigning may have helped assuage their own feelings of hopelessness and uselessness, but the fix was in, and in the end they changed nothing. (We have no idea how many votes were stolen in this selection to preserve some sense of contest and excitement. (It is hard to draw people into an inevitable confidence game.)
Well, it's a new morning in America, or whatever the slogan this time was. Ah yes, "Change." I advise you all to beware the pernicious word "reform," which inevitably follows the word "change." Welfare reform, entitlement reform, social security reform, health care reform. Beware. Some fool here actually mentioned health care reform as a reason to support Obama and no one called him out on it. First of all, peel off the Orwellian use of words. We have no healthcare system in the US. The rich can afford healthy food and safe working conditions and less stress and clean air and non-polluted locales and the poor cannot. What is hoped to be thrust down the gullets of the sheeple is a catastrophic illness program, which would be well needed, but instead is a give-away to the insurance industry, as pioneered in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney (remember him?) whereby one is obligated by law to purchase health insurance, regardless of your ability to pay, and regardless of how flea-riddled said insurance proves to be.
Obama will not be a savior. He has no answer to the real structural problems which are never addressed in elections: the fact that, as Sheldon Wolin points out, we spend almost as much of our offensive mlitary in this country as the sum total of all corporate profits (ponder that and what it says about us as a people), or the fact that, according to Derrick Jenson, plastic now outweighs phytoplankton in our oceans by a ratio of six to one.
Change. Remember how seven years ago Shrub was drifting along aimlessly when suddenly "A New Pearl Harbor" happened and the small Bush was transformed into a wartime leader while the rest of us had little option but to follow the piper? Detestable corporate-whore, now VP Biden, has already informed us that if the protests for genuine change become too loud we will be treated to a similar enactment. (As Dr. Johnson said about the purpose of art: Instruct and delight, instruct and delight.) Beware. We are soon to be instructed and delighted.
Change never came from an election without social movements, just as love never came from a hand that happened to be your own.
So everyone here now has their candidate; even the casinos where I live let you win every once in a while so you keep coming back. All of those who invested time and energy in the campaign; all of those who supported the duopoly by voting for Obama have every moral right to take credit for any good they may have helped bring about. But, by the same logic, every death -- whether by bombing or democratic starvation -- that Obama brings about during the next four years, well, some small part of the responsiblity, the guilt, the violence, the vengence, the pain caused, and the lives shredded so effortlessly by the machine, some part of that must also rightly accrue to you and your efforts.
Yes, even my pacifist housemate, whose father was a conscientious objector during the "Good War," WWII, and later became a minister and went to France to aid the afflicted, all at great personal cost, even she voted for Obama and had no answer to my challenge. She does not believe in killing under any circumstance (the simplified fairy-tale we are sold about Gandhi), but she voted for a killer, a supporter of murder, hence a murderer himself. I believe that the oppressed of the world have the right to defend their lives against those who would exterminate them -- by violence and even by killing. But I could not bring myself to share in the complicity of being, even in some small measure, the oppressor of others, the killer, as Martin Luther King said, "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world."
It's a deadly game I want no part of, and I just couldn't do it. I could not bring myself to feed the machine of oppression, pillage and murder.
Change. Enjoy. Bask. Even gloat. Your team won this time. The tribal part of you, the "us against others" deserves to feel good. Hey, what's that red stuff on my hands?
Posted by b on November 5, 2008 at 15:48 UTC | Permalink | Comments (114)
Fed Hires Experienced Chief Risk Manager
NEW YORK, Nov 5 (RBN and agencies) - The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has hired the former chief risk officer of Bear Stearns Cos, Michael Alix, to advise on bank supervision, according to a release in the Fed's Web site.
Alix will serve as a senior adviser to William Rutledge in the Bank Supervision Group and his appointment is effective Nov. 3, according to the release dated Oct. 31
Mr. Rutledge praised the exceptional experience of his new hire: "He has been through all this stuff. He knows how people escape effective risk supervision. Micheal now joins us to make sure that they will continue to do so."
At Bear Stearns, an investment bank that collapsed in March and has become hallmark of the global credit crisis, Alix served as chief risk officer from 2006 to 2008 and global head of credit risk management from 1996 to 2006.
Timothy F. Geithner, the president of the New York Fed and a possible Secretary of the Treasury candidate under President-elect Obama emphasized the good relation the Fed had with Alix while he was working at Bear Stearns: "He called me just in time to sell my Bear Stearns shares. Without his advise, me and my colleagues would have lost millions."
Mr. Geithner expects a bigger future role for Mr. Alix: "Michael will not only advise on the supervision of other banks, but will also help us to assess risk the Federal Reserve Bank and the Treasury have taken on."
"He'll let me know when the time has come to move my retirement savings from treasuries to gold."
The interview was cut short, when Mr. Geithner received an urgent call from Mr. Alix.
Posted by b on November 5, 2008 at 14:31 UTC | Permalink | Comments (4)
Obama
Congratulations!
Thanks to all who helped.
(The Israeli government welcomed Obama's win by killing six people in Gaza. Didn't Biden say Obama would be 'tested' within six month? Seems like Israel conceded him six minutes.)
Posted by b on November 5, 2008 at 4:46 UTC | Permalink | Comments (58)
Election Results
When the results come in, I will be asleep. That is a time zone issue, but also the fact that knowing the results today or tomorrow will not change anything.
Anyway - please let us know in comments what the results are and, more importantly, what the reaction to these are. Parties in the streets?
Assessing from far away, anything but a sound Obama win would lead to serious riots. I think the elites and the media know as much and will take care that it does not happen. Obama will win and they will press him to go along with their program: Ross, Rubin and Rahm may give you an idea of what that program will be.
An Obama win will make little difference for the world. McCain would probably bomb other people than Obama will bomb. To the folks who will have their limbs teared off, to prove the U.S. president's copulation capacities to the U.S. population, that will make no difference at all.
Sorry for such pessimism. But Obama did not beat the system - he simply was more effective using it than McCain. Maybe he will use the power he gained wisely.
But that is unlikely - and a frightening thought.
Posted by b on November 4, 2008 at 21:08 UTC | Permalink | Comments (55)
Human Rights Watch Again Backtracks - Still Keeps Up False Claism
During Georgia's war over South Ossetia Human Rights Watch asserted that Russia used cluster bombs. Russia denies to have used any cluster ammunition in that war. My analysis of the pictures provided by HRW and supposed to show such weapon use found that the weapons in question were obviously of 'western' origin.
A few days later HRW acknowledged that Georgia used cluster bombs in that war but kept up the claim that some of its pictures showed Russian ammunition debris even while the pictures provided obviously do not show the ammunition type HRW claims they show.
In further backtracking HRW now acknowledges that it were Georgian cluster bombs that killed Georgian people. Writes the Wall Street Journal today:
Georgia used cluster bombs that malfunctioned and fell into towns and villages, killing several of Georgia's own civilians during its summer war with Russia, according to new research by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based humanitarian organization. Georgia called that conclusion "impossible."
The group found that Russia also made extensive use of cluster bombs during the brief war.
...
Researchers from Human Rights Watch went further, saying that Georgian cluster bombs landed in at least nine Georgian towns, including several located far from the area where Georgia acknowledges using them against Russian soldiers who stormed the country in fighting over the fate of the breakaway republic South Ossetia.
The cluster bombs, which Georgia says it bought from Israel, appeared to have malfunctioned on an "absolutely massive scale," said Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon intelligence official who now serves as Human Rights Watch's senior military analyst. He said rockets failed to disperse the cluster bombs over the intended targets, and many of the small bombs failed to explode on impact.
It seems that Israel sold dreck (payed for by the U.S.?) to Saakashvili and his soldiers were incompetent in using it, killing their own people.
But while the WSJ repeats the claim of Russian use of cluster ammunition, Human Rights Watch has up to now provide absolutely zero proof that Russia used such in Georgia at all.
Its page on Georgia has not been updated with the new finding but still holds the false claims of Russian cluster bomb use, including the erroneous identification of ammunition debris.
Marc Garlasco is the person that was widely quoted accusing Russia in media pieces that picked up the false HRW claims (but not the subsequent corrections.)
Back in July Garlasco had no problems at all with 'his' side dropping bombs on civilians:
“In their deliberate targeting, the Air Force has all but eliminated civilian casualties in Afghanistan,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst with Human Rights Watch. “They have very effective collateral damage mitigation procedures.”
That quote came only days after U.S. bombs had killed 47 civilians or their way to a wedding.
If Human Rights Watch wants to keep some semblance of neutrality it should look for real experts instead of propagandists like Marc Garlasco.
Posted by b on November 4, 2008 at 15:31 UTC | Permalink | Comments (19)
Election Anecdotes
Amuse-gueule: Obama Takes Dixville Notch Away From The GOP
The first results are in for the 2008 general election, with the small village of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire again performing its tradition of having everyone turn out to vote at midnight and then immediately reporting the results.
Result: Obama 15 votes, McCain 6.
In my life so far I never experienced voting lines, non-paper ballots or election fraud. People here are amazed that U.S. elections are not organize better. Then again - we do not elect dog catchers, judges, sheriffs or school boards and do not have many prop. x, y and z. So voting here is a bit easier. It is also usually done on a Sunday.
To folks in the U.S. - please let us know what you see in the streets. How are people feeling about it? What do they expect?
Posted by b on November 4, 2008 at 12:06 UTC | Permalink | Comments (56)
Obamas Cabinet and Iran's Crude Oil Imports
We all know that Obama's emphatically denies his Jewish Ties but what about his cabinet?
Rahm Emanuel is floated as a possible chief of staff in the White House:
When Bill Clinton began his campaign for presidency, he appointed Rahm Emanuel to direct the campaign's finance committee. But Emanuel left when the Gulf War broke out, in order to volunteer in the IDF.
He served in one of Israel's northern bases until the war ended, and upon his return to the US became Clinton's advisor in the White House for almost eight years.
There is also Dennis Ross, who may become Sec State or at least Middle East handler. WINEP, an AIPAC outlet, names him as no.2 in their staff listing. Ross also heads the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute in Jerusalem:
JPPPI's work is based on deep commitment to the future of the Jewish people with Israel as its core state.
Ross was involved in a recent Bipartisan Policy Center report: (ms word):
The report is the product of a high-level bipartisan Task Force led by former Senators Daniel Coats and Charles Robb, and including Ambassador Dennis Ross and Steve Rademaker, ..
...
It advises the new President to engage Iran in negotiations with a pre-determined timetable once our European allies impose greater economic sanctions. If negotiations fail, the report advises the U.S. to pursue more aggressive tactics, including possibly blockading Iran’s gasoline imports and eventually its crude oil imports.
Those folks seem dangerous.
Then again - anyone who wants to strangle crude oil imports to Iran, a tactic that I suspect to fail, may not have the capacity to do real damage.
It seems like the Democrats attract only the interlectually lower level of the neocons. That may change though.
Posted by b on November 3, 2008 at 20:26 UTC | Permalink | Comments (15)
Billmon: Landslide Watch
It might not be a 1964 or 1972 or 1984 style absolute landslide, especially in the electoral college, where the Republicans have built in structural advantages (like the overweights given to small rural states), but -- again, assuming Gallup is even close to right -- there shouldn't be any doubt on Wednesday morning that the country has decisively rejected both the Republican Party and the conservative ideology that has dominated American politics since Ronald Reagan first took office.
Some fun, huh?
Billmon: Landslide Watch
Posted by b on November 3, 2008 at 9:09 UTC | Permalink | Comments (56)
OT 08-37
Unexpected busy day for me.
But long term barfly anna missed is now blogging at annamissed.com - good thoughts and pictures.
Please use this as an open thread ...
Posted by b on November 2, 2008 at 15:40 UTC | Permalink | Comments (51)