Links March 27 09 – Moon of Alabama

March 27, 2009

Links March 27 09

Senate voted 90-8: Congress passes wide-ranging bill easing banking laws, NYT, 1999
How finance captured your government: The Quiet Coup, The Atlantic

Obama's War on AfPak: $4,444,444 per hour, WaPo
Minimum wage in Kansas: $2.65 per hour, McClatchy

The consequences of dumb editorials: The Times Plans Temporary Pay Cuts, NYT
More consequences of dumb editorials: Washington Post to Offer New Buyouts to Employees, WaPo

Afraid of getting jailed: Swiss banks ban overseas travel amid global crackdown on secrecy, FT
The return of A.W.Mellon: Republican Road to Recovery, (pdf)

Please add your remarks and links of the day in the comments.

Posted by b on March 27, 2009 at 06:30 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Man cannot live from bread alone: Bernard Chazelle on Bach’s “Erbarme Dich”.

Posted by: Colin | Mar 27 2009 7:19 utc | 1

Greenwald citing several opinions on how the U.S. economy has come to resemble 2ed or 3rd world emerging economies:
Desmond Lachman:

I still recall the shock I felt at a meeting in Russia’s dingy Ministry of Finance, where I finally realized how a handful of young oligarchs were bringing Russia’s economy to ruin in the pursuit of their own selfish interests, despite the supposed brilliance of Anatoly Chubais, Russia’s economic czar at the time.
[…]
In the twilight of my career, when I am hopefully wiser than before, I have come to regret how the IMF and the U.S. Treasury all too often lectured leaders in emerging markets on how to “get their house in order” — without the slightest thought that the United States might fare no better when facing a major economic crisis. . . . If we insist on improvising and not facing our real problems, we might soon lose our status as a country to be emulated and join the ranks of those nations we have patronized for so long

And Jonathan Schwarz:

There’s been a common phenomenon in the third world over the past three decades or so. A country’s financial sector, in collaboration with the larger financial world, would create some type of gigantic economic fuck up. The IMF would then (in collaboration with the local financial elites) step in and provide loans in return for what was called “structural adjustment.” Structural adjustment involved getting rid of any kind of social spending that made life bearable for everyone else.
In other words, the country’s financial elites would use the catastrophes they’d created themselves in order to do what they’d always wanted to but couldn’t get away with in normal times. They took the profit, and then imposed all the costs on everyone else.

And Simon Johnson:

In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). . . .But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.

And Glenn:

So our political class cheers on treasury-draining wars, allows financial elites to rob and pillage, witnesses huge transfers of wealth to the richest, and then when the whole thing explodes, the “real fiscal answer” is for ordinary Americans to have their Medicare benefits “slashed” and Social Security benefits reduced.

Personally, I’m beginning to wonder whether the U.S. ever was a first world country.

Posted by: anna missed | Mar 27 2009 8:50 utc | 2

John Mearsheimer: Please tell me, where is Israel headed?

My bottom line is that Israel, with the backing of the lobby, is pursuing a remarkably foolish — Ehud Olmert would say suicidal — policy towards the Palestinians.
I would appreciate it greatly if Israel’s American backers would explain what I am missing here. They must think that there is a happy ending to this story that Olmert and I simply fail to see. Otherwise they would not be backing the Greater Israel enterprise. There is no need for Christian Zionists to respond, because I know what their happy ending is: the Battle of Armageddon and then the Second Coming of Christ. Israel’s Jewish backers do not buy this story, which, in fact, many consider anti-Semitic. But they must have an alternative explanation for how Greater Israel is good for the Jews. What is it?

Posted by: b | Mar 27 2009 11:40 utc | 3

Government Faces Challenge to Practice of Denying Foreign Scholars Entry Based on Political Beliefs
As I said recently, the war on thinking, on ideals, on ways of seeing, continues. You may have freedom of speech in this pretend country, but freedom of thought, is not in the Constitution.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 27 2009 13:31 utc | 4

Gregory Corso

2
They are frankensteining Christ in America
in their Sunday campaigns
They are putting the fear of Christ in America
under their tents in their Sunday campaigns
They are driving old ladies mad with Christ in America
They are televising the gift of healing and the fear of hell
in America under their tents in their Sunday
campaigns
They are leaving their tents and are bringing their Christ
to the stadiums of America in their Sunday
campaigns
They are asking for a full house an all get out
for their Christ in the stadiums of America
They are getting them in their Sunday and Saturday
campaigns
They are asking them to come forward and fall on their
knees
because they are all guilty and they are coming
forward
in guilt and are falling on their knees weeping their
guilt
begging to be saved O Lord O Lord in their Monday
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
and Sunday campaigns
3
It is a time in which no man is extremely wondrous
It is a time in which rock stupidity
outsteps the 5th Column as the sole enemy in America
It is a time in which ignorance is a good Ameri-cun
ignorance is excused only where it is so
it is not so in America
Man is not guilty Christ is not to be feared
I am telling you the American Way is a hideous monster
eating Christ making Him into Oreos and Dr. Pepper
the sacrament of its foul mouth
I am telling you the devil is impersonating Christ in America

Posted by: Lizard | Mar 27 2009 14:08 utc | 5

Colin-beautiful, thank you! A good read with beautiful background music (and after clicking on the vid), to read by.
For those of you dreaming of being an armchair general, here is a how-to video by .One Tong Two Tong
And a Two Tong original, not Bach, true, but still a good video…Suck on the TV
Not anything to do with the horrors of the world, but a good escape from them instead. Come float…
And after all the fun, take a river trip, Westwater

Posted by: d.13 | Mar 27 2009 14:20 utc | 6

Obama Says He Will Maintain Illegal Occupation of Iraq

Despite Obama’s Vow, Combat Brigades Will Stay in Iraq
By Gareth Porter
March 25 – Despite President Barack Obama’s statement at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina Feb. 27 that he had “chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months,” a number of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs), which have been the basic U.S. Army combat unit in Iraq for six years, will remain in Iraq after that date under a new non-combat label.
A spokesman for Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates, Lt. Col. Patrick S. Ryder, told IPS Tuesday that “several advisory and assistance brigades” would be part of a U.S. command in Iraq that will be “re-designated” as a “transition force headquarters” after August 2010.
But the “advisory and assistance brigades” to remain in Iraq after that date will in fact be the same as BCTs, except for the addition of a few dozen officers who would carry out the advice and assistance missions, according to military officials involved in the planning process.
Gates has hinted that the withdrawal of combat brigades will be accomplished through an administrative sleight of hand rather than by actually withdrawing all the combat brigade teams. Appearing on Meet the Press Mar. 1, Gates said the “transition force” would have “a very different kind of mission”, and that the units remaining in Iraq “will be characterised differently”.
“They will be called advisory and assistance brigades,” said Gates. “They won’t be called combat brigades.”

Wait..re-branding is change? Feel suckered yet America? And if the O man will weasel out on this, what wont he…ahhh, fuck it.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 27 2009 14:21 utc | 7

U$-trying to make a point?

Posted by: d.13 | Mar 27 2009 14:39 utc | 8

Trough here

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Mar 27 2009 14:57 utc | 9

d.13, i’d humbly suggest you to go back to moa’s archives to get Uncle’s point…

Posted by: rudolf | Mar 27 2009 15:30 utc | 10

Oh, I got uncle’s point, I just thought it a bit of overkill to post it 10 times… But I got the point, I got the point way before O got elected, you might check the archives to see my point of view, as I agreed with U$ most of the time. You might not remember because I was posting as “David” until I realized that I might not be the only “David.”
I felt I was doing all the other David’s a disservice as they were being forced to tell relatives, friends and coworkers that my post weren’t their post… There were several threats to kick me out of the Dave club and I thought it was better to change my Internet name, rather than change all my other legal paperwork… 🙂
An NPR interview about women’s basketball pointed out that his highness made his pick in the men’s college games but never gave his two-cents regarding the women’s playoffs. Not that he had to, but with him raising two daughters and being married to a woman who played sports, the commentator pointed-out how nice it would have been to draw the public’s attention to the woman’s tourney. But maybe that would have been too radical?

Posted by: d.13 | Mar 27 2009 16:12 utc | 11

@d.13 – @11 – I just thought it a bit of overkill to post it 10 times.
that was posted some 300 times by some system quirk and I cleaned it up – it wasn’t Unlce’s intend.
BTW David is a much more personal name than d.13

Posted by: b | Mar 27 2009 19:03 utc | 12

b-I figured that out about U$, but it was pretty funny and I wanted to comment. It reminds me of many years ago listening to one of my favorite CA central coast radio stations and the DJ had Madonna singing “Material Girl” which fit into his set about money.
For some weird reason, known only to the gods of irony, the CD chose to start skipping as Madonna sang the chorus, “I’m a material girl… I’m a material girl…” over and over. The DJ having a sense of humor left it spinning for an entire minute, then faded into another money song. He’d interrupt the song to bring Madonna back up reminding the world that she is, ” A material girl…” Funny and ironic and appropriate, much like the ghost in MoA’s machine posting U$ Obama link 300 times, just to remind us the machines are watching (and laughing.)

Posted by: d.13 (DavidS) | Mar 27 2009 19:59 utc | 13

Wha? 300 times? geez…
Sorry b…
While I’m here, I shamelessly stole the following:

A manufactured War on terror.
A manufactured financial meltdown.
A manufactured War on Drugs.
Manufactured and increasingly controlled food.
Manufactured and increasingly controlled medicine
Manufactured and increasingly strictly controlled information and education
Manufactured religion.
Manufactured History, including the “origins of the species”
Manufactured science, ( false parameters).
Manufactured Energy crises.
Manufactured diseases of both body and mind.
Manufactured ( both by omission and fabrication ) mainstream media.
Manufactured Democracy
Manufactured by whom ?

And further, as another said in reply, that would be “the PTMB” (powers that make believe) in symbiosis to capital.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 27 2009 21:05 utc | 14

uncle #14: manufactured by our owners, as Charles Fort speculated, and I believe you wonder. Lizard I think named himself for same, in defiance of Icke, and David is indeed more distinctive locally than d.13, and I’ve always enjoyed his stuff. Will now watch for d.13.

Posted by: plushtown | Mar 27 2009 22:03 utc | 15

something for soul

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 28 2009 1:18 utc | 16

theodorakis in thirteen parts

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 28 2009 1:22 utc | 17

The Demarest Factor: The Ethics of U.S. Department of Defense Funding for Academic Research in Mexico:

Kansas University Geography professors, Peter Herlihy and Jerome Dobson received the funding for their mapping project named the Bowman Expeditions from the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO), located at the U.S. Army base, Fort Leavenworth in Leavenworth, Kansas. The Mexican incarnation of the project is named “Mexico Indigena” and began mapping in 2005 in an indigenous region known as “La Husteca”, which is partially located in the state of San Luis Potosi, and then moved their operation to the state of Oaxaca amidst the statewide popularuprising of the APPO – Oaxacan People’s Popular Assembly, in 2006.
On the 14th of January, 2009, UNOSJO the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juárez of Oaxaca, released a communique, in which the organization expresses concerns of BioPiracy in the Mexico Indigena mapping project, and claims that communities were deceived, having no idea that a primary funder of the project was the FMSO. UNOSJO cites a clear lack of transparency and additional suspicions of implications related to the US Army’s controversial Human Terrain Mapping System. Indeed there is very compelling evidence that the FMSO is engaging in what they themselves define as “Civil Information Management in Support of Counterinsurgency Operations.”

John Stanton – Human Terrain System Meets the Bowman Expeditions (quoting UNOSJO):

UNOSJO began looking into the México Indígena Project. The investigation revealed that México Indígena forms a part of the Bowman Expeditions, a more extensive geographic research project backed and financed by the FMSO [US Army’s Foreign Military Studies Organization], among other institutions. The FMSO inputs information into a global database that forms an integral part of the Human Terrain System (HTS), a United States Army counterinsurgency strategy designed by FMSO and applied within indigenous communities, among others. Since 2006 the Human Terrain System (HTS} has been employed with military purposes in both Afghanistan and Iraq and according to what we have been able to determine Bowman Expeditions are underway in Mexico, the Antilles, Colombia and Jordan.
In November 2008, the México Indígena Project completed the maps corresponding to Zapotec communities San Miguel Tiltepec and San Juan Yagila. Contrary to the often-mentioned promise of transparency, México Indígena created an English-only web page, a language that the participating communities do not understand. Before the communities received the work, said maps had already been published on the Internet. Furthermore, the communities were never informed that reports detailing the project would be handed over to the FMSO. In addition to publishing the maps, the México Indígena team created a database into which pertinent information was entered: community member names and the associated geographic location of their plot(s) of land, formal and informal use of the land, and other data that cannot be accessed via the Internet.

Posted by: Arcturus | Mar 28 2009 2:05 utc | 18

plushtown: good to see you around again, but to clarify, my moniker is neither endorsement, nor defiance of Icke, but merely an extension of a dj handle i use when i play music at our local college radio station. on air, i go by chameleon. on line, lizard.
i’m not sure what you mean when you say “David is indeed more distinctive locally than d.13” but i do hope he abandons the d.13 for the original.

Posted by: Lizard | Mar 28 2009 2:09 utc | 19

OK David it is. Gawd, a fella tries to have a moniker that makes him sound all gangsta and it just don’t fly in this place. Everybody else in the hall of MoA has cool names and natty costumes, why not me? 🙂
Good ol’ David then. I’ll add an “S” to keep it reel… I’m thinking of fishing(reels) because I’m designing an ad for the Gunnison River Pleasure Park
And since I’m posting gratuitously anyway, remembereringgiap, two lovely pieces. I hate to be flippant about such wonderful music, but I couldn’t help thinking of two things while watching the 13 part concert.
The first thing that comes to my ignorant mind, is Steve Martin’s stand-up when he’s talking about visiting France, “Boy, those French: They have a different word for everything!” I tried to find him doing it on youtube, but no luck… but that’s the phrase that comes to mind when I hear/read foreign languages. There are times those Babylonian kooks really piss me off… and there are times I enjoy the magic of strange tounges.
The first piece, “The Two Kites” I’m sorry, as beautiful as it was (how did they get a south-paw and righty together that play so well?) I couldn’t help thinking of “Dueling Banjos” while I watched them play. Damn, my lowbrow ways are showing again tonight.
Thanks for the links remembereringgiap.

Posted by: DavidS | Mar 28 2009 2:51 utc | 20

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