EDITORS NOTE: Back in March we mirrored an article posted by Webster Griffen Tarpley on this very issue, that according to the US Army in 2007 Libyan nationals from the east of Tripoli, from cities like Darna and Bengazi, where actually found to be Al-Qaeda operatives and trainees. This recent report from Libya corroborates Mr. Tarpley's and the US Army's accounts. The Obama administration and NATO have much explaining to do...
The Obama and Bush administrations aren't so different when it comes to growing government and refusing to acknowledge, in the words of the late Chalmers Johnson, "the sorrows of empire."
Columnist Glenn Greenwald Salon.comand MSNBC's The Last Word with Chris Hayes on Thursday admonished the American public for welcoming back Dick Cheney, vice-president to George W. Bush, into "polite society." Like President Bush months ago, Dick Cheney had no qualms with utilizing the enhanced interrogation method of waterboarding, considered torture by many, to extract information from high value detainees.
The current administration isn't blameless here either. The reason why Barack Obama would rather "look forward, not backward" when it comes to allegations of war crimes and torture is because with two examples of comparable characteristics analogies are easy to draw. Although Obama claimed to have rescinded Bush era interrogation policies, significant loopholes still exist.
It is like walking into a classroom where the professor is teaching a class about how the Soviet Union put the first man on the moon...
It seems as though every time someone refers to the Great Depression they subsequently thank Franklin Delano Roosevelt for literally digging us out of it. If they don't they invariably annunciate the macroeconomic dogma (the belief that public institutions ought to influence the economy), that the Great Depression "shattered" the previous orthodoxy presumed by our Constitution, that free markets are self correcting.
While this may be true, that economic mores radically changed after the turn of the century, to not thoroughly explore why we abandoned over 125 years of tested theory, practices, which raised a feeble constellation of colonies into an unparalleled economic power by 1900 is blatant intellectual disinterest and frankly annoying.
The problem with using the Great Depression to bolster the macroeconomic strategies of monetary and fiscal stimulus, favored tools of the new economic vantage, is they were used just before, during, and after the decade long depression and therefore can be included among those suspected influences, which exacerbated what would arguably have otherwise been only a serious recession. Banking panics prior to 1929 stretching back to the founding never persisted for more than a couple years let alone over a decade!
Furthermore, the previous orthodoxy's policies, those promulgated by Adam Smith and lain down officially by the Founders, suffered damning blows in 1913 (see Federal Reserve, 16th and 17th Amendments) and were almost all effectively on the bench by 1933. To blame laissez faire economics, an environment where interactions between private parties are free from government intervention, for the Great Depression and its abnormal longevity is not dissimilar to blaming a sidelined quarterback for his backup's interception and the subsequent touchdown.
To be sure, the prospect that public officers could wield control over our economic environment was (and still is) intoxicating and considering what we had achieved since our founding it was a pretty easy sell. The very idea of control is incredibly self aggrandizing and antithetical to free markets as Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, according to Joyce Appleby: "described an economic universe that was not subject to the laws of the state, but on the contrary, subjected the state to its laws." In other words, the government can't make the grass green. We may be able to isolate and explain many parts of an economy because of these known laws, but to expect to steer the fluidity, dynamism, and titanic scope of modern economies with any sort of precision parallels only the naïveté and results of the Sorcerer's Apprentice.
The motives for abandoning over a century of limited intervention was not to create an army of patriotic economic sentinels through the Federal Reserve, economic councils, or the alphabet soup of regulatory agencies. The United States scuttled sound economics because of a newly landed elite's common desire to accomplish what European aristocracy had achieved, government sponsored capitalism also known as "crony capitalism." It is imperative to understand this was not the necessary evolution of capitalism, quite the opposite, it was a return to feudalistic if not mercantilistic economics! According to W. Cleon Skousen:
“In Europe, certain confederations of wealthy families had gained control of their respective governments and were making a financial killing. Some of the wealthy families in America coveted the rich government monopolies of their trans-Atlantic cousins.”
Look no further than J.D. Rockefeller, "competition is a sin." The "robber barons" of the new world sought to harness central government to wipe out competition, expand their interests, and bail them out in times of need; all on the backs of the American public. This desire should not be used to deride capitalism and definitely should not be considered laissez faire.
Capitalism, an economic and political system where trade and industry are controlled solely by private owners, is a novel idea to this world. The relationship between the state and the economy, until the 1700s, had historically been an intimate one; the nostalgia, therefore, to recapture lost conventions was persuasive. In the words of Mrs. Appleby:
“…the mores of a more traditional organization of society do not die out with the dominance of capitalism. Rather they regroup to fight again with new leaders and new causes. Any history of capitalism must contain the shadowy history of anticapitalism, sometimes carried out in the name of a new theory, but often as a reexpression of values that prevailed before the eighteenth century.”
This is what was sold to the American working class and all over Europe, a repackaging of benighted policies, by an odd amalgam of interests including, but not limited to eager politicians, "...wealthy industrialists, heads of multi-national banking, leaders in the academic world, and some of the more innovative minds in media" according to Skousen. While their goals were progressive, as their moniker insinuates, their methods for achieving those goals were in fact regressive. American aristocracy required a powerful and gullible ally in its quest to fend off the waves of creative destruction inherent within capitalism, the working masses offered that alliance. From Appleby:
“…critics saw industrialization [brought about by capitalism] as a rapacious transformation engineered by an upstart upper class eager to destroy both the aristocracy and the peasantry, which had once been protected from economic turbulence.”
No doubt! Who wants either peasants or aristocrats in a modern economy? The new socioeconomic organization of capitalist economies resembled more a tomato than a pyramid, however, the foundation of the New Deal was essentially integrated by the Great Depression even before the legislation by the same name was passed through Congress in 1933.
The grand bargain was achieved. In turn for 8 hour work days, minimum wage, elections for nearly all public officials, social insurance, etc. the elite received the keys to the castle: the Federal Reserve, a public cartel of private banks, introduced plans for a fiat currency and proclaimed their members immortalis corporatus, while an income tax fed their cause and pooled massive wealth under Washington's discretion.
By dismantling the Senate and its strict allegiance to the state legislatures a centralized and seemingly endless regulatory bureaucracy arose with the powers to legislate, adjudicate, and enforce most laws and without democratic deliberation beckoned legions of lobbyists. And the grand prize, an emboldened executive, with what would become the most spectacular military in human history was proffered to carve up the world into spheres of influence under the guise of making the world safe for democracy.
Here we are over 90 years later still wrangling over similar issues: pensions, benefits, workers rights, depression/recession, and blaming it all on capitalism again while our currency is debased, we prosecute multiple foreign wars and occupy foreign lands, our benefits teeter on the brink of insolvency, while we bail out the aggressive multinational and foreign banks which wrought this travesty upon just us as they did in 1929!
All of this old baggage rehashed only to fight amongst ourselves over how to pay for it all in some apocalyptical pincer move on what is left of a middle class first created almost a century ago by ideals almost forgotten.
This is the position of a mere serf and why talking about the Great Depression annoys me.
What can we learn from our experience with JFK and OBL? Image Source: Time Magazine
Last Friday the United States suffered the worst attack in Afghanistan in 10 years. Three months earlier it was enjoying its greatest victory...
"The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know."
- John F. Kennedy, New York City, April 27th 1961
Conspiracies from Jesus to JFK
Upon hearing the word conspiracy, most people automatically turn off. The subsequent information is relegated to the trash heap and the messenger is instantaneously discredited. Used as a pejorative, conspiracy theorist, is just as powerful.
We are a nation based on empiricism, a nation founded on enlightenment principles favoring science over dogma, at least we think of ourselves this way. If there was a conspiracy afoot in a free society their would be consensus in opposition, therefore when conspiracy theories are proffered and we find them contrary to established belief we scoff, but why? Conspiracies are as old as time.
Looking through a different lens Americans may see conspiracies more clearly. Once emancipated from temporal, cultural, and religious bias the reality that conspiracies have been effecting human events since our inception is irrefutable. The most famous of all is arguably Judas Iscariot's nefarious plot to the arrest and crucify Jesus of Nazareth. Rarely does anyone contest this was in fact a conspiracy.
Perhaps the Ides of March will proffer up a more formidable example of our modern notion of conspiracy theory or what many prefer to call conspiracy fact. Julius Caesar was the victim of a massive conspiracy of over 60 men. After stabbing Caesar 23 times the conspirators justified their actions not as an attempt at a coup d'état, but tyrannicide. Their "patriotic" endeavor, albeit grounded in just cause, sowed the seeds of Rome's collapse.
Fast forward 1600 years and we find the 1605 gunpowder plot of Guy Fawkes, a conspiracy, which has garnered much attention is recent popular culture and one, which was verifiably aimed to kill not only the King of England, but the entire upper house of parliament!
Modern examples of conspiracy fact are innumerable, but many are well known, heavily corroborated and in hindsight are highly palatable. For example, it is easy to believe the Reichstag fire was perpetrated by Adolf Hitler due to decades of investigation and dramatization that have painted the Nazi's as warmongering xenophobic occultists bent on world domination. The initial tragedy, however, was the inebriation of the German people by a potent political cocktail. Impoverished by the Treaty of Versailles, defenseless due to a lack of countervailing democratic institutions, and under assault by a charismatic cult of personality under Hitler and his Nazi party the Germans were convinced to give up their rights and liberties for a new German millennia. The burning of the German congress was a superbly successful conspiracy which provided the legal basis for the deaths of tens of millions and it occurred just 60 years ago.
There are some insane conspiracies throughout history, they effect all nations and the United States is no exception as the the Business Plot (you though Bush Jr. was bad) of 1933, the Tuskegee Experiments (got syphilis?), the CIA's MKULTRA project (super spies anyone?), Watergate (presidential paranoia), and the Iran/Contra affair (selling drugs for freedom is fun!) can attest. There are, however, no conspiracy theories as famous as the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
"This is historically important, because it’s the first official tie to an establishment member on the inside admitting to suspicion of conspiracy.
The Warren Commission’s report that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone was really a promise to the American people: “Of course there was no conspiracy—your government would never betray you and kill your leader.” That piece of propaganda, submitted in September 1964, fractured America between those who would put their trust in the state establishment against all logic and those who believed the state had participated in assassinating its own leader and lied to cover it up–an irrevocable stain on democracy."
In order to function properly conspiracies need only a few willing and influential actors, the right timing, official narrative, and copious amounts of credulity to win decades of influence.
JFK and 9/11
In the pantheon of conspiracy theories there is nothing as well documented as the attacks of September 11th, 2001. Because the 9/11 attacks came on the heals of the information revolution everything was recorded virtually in high definition and stored for posterity.
The heavily criticized and revised online movie Loose Change has received tens of millions of views and has been called the first internet blockbuster. Websites from Alex Jone's Infowars.com (which seemingly predicted 9/11) to whatreallyhappened.com enjoy millions of hits per day and guard massive stores of information debunking the official story of the 9/11 attacks. In depth investigations like Inside Job by Jim Marrs and Synthetic Terror by Webster Griffen Tarpley provide every alternative angle to the official story.
The success of these movies, websites, and books have led to movements like 911truth.org and wearechange.org, which are active in not only exposing inconsistencies in the official narrative, but have started to physically confront and record government abuse in every theater. However, the main driver pushing so many to believe the most atrocious attack in American history may have come from our own government is because JFK is believed to have been the first casualty. His wife's newly revealed suspicions lend unparalleled credence to this belief.
Bin Laden was Killed Twice
Speaking on Operation Neputne's Spear, there was about "25 minutes where we really didn't know what was going on." - CIA Director Leon Panetta
The raid on the compound in Abottobad, Pakistan in early May is, from any perspective, the exclamation point to this bizarre post Cold War saga. After trillions of dollars spent on executing the worldwide War on Terror, ostensibly in response to 9/11 and under rollback (a geopolitical stratagem popularized in the Cold War), the US military's elite SEAL Team 6 unit finally took out America's Most Wanted and dumped him into Indian Ocean.
Three months later, literally days before 18 SEAL Team 6 members lost their lives in the bloodiest attack in the War on Terror, a moving narrative from the New Yorker was released describing in unprecedented detail every step of the official narrative, which allegedly killed Osama Bin Laden. The compelling story made no apologies for violating state sovereignty of a foreign ally or for killing an unarmed treasure trove of information (OBL). Most importantly Nicholas Schmidle stuck to the very uncontroversial series of events already admitted, more or less, by the White House and Department of Defense spokesmen.
The narrative posed by the New Yorker, however colorful and intricate, is merely an amalgam of public knowledge and the confidence of one "special operations soldier who is deeply familiar with the bin Laden raid." The new details avoided ambiguity and previous contradictions. It admitted false reports in the mainstream media and offered information which integrated surprisingly well with the explosive revelation (video below) that covert agents (whomever they were) assaulting the compound never made it out of Abottobad alive.
According to this anonymous government agent, the raid team used Pashto speaking soldiers whom told the local residents "to turn off the lights and stay inside" and whom purposefully blew up the stealth helicopter with C4 explosives and thermite grenades. The special operations soldier even went as far as to say "...I'm sort of glad we left the helicopter there. It quiets the conspiracy mongers out there and instantly lends credibility. You believe everything else instantly because there's a helicopter sitting there."
There is an extensive list of reports claiming the death of Osama bin Laden over the years from reporters to heads of state, but unfortunately no body has ever been claimed to have been found until the US government dumped it into the sea. But how did they remove the body if the only helicopter to touch ground never left? The following testimony has not been mentioned let alone refuted by any western journalist:
Mohammad Bashir is a confirmed (according to Samaa) resident of Abottabad, a neighbor of the supposed bin Laden compound. His cousin Sahab Jamrez Khan and many other residents are all witnesses to human remains being strewn about the compound after the helicopter suffered an explosion prior to take off.
Conspiracy theories and government transparency have an inverse relationship. This is not to say each theory has a corresponding cover up, the relationship is not necessarily causal, but the more our government creates secret armies, spends four times as much on defense as its closest "adversary", and preemptively attacks foreign nations conspiracies whatever their stripe will find believers.
The validity of the OBL conspiracy, as of right now, hinges on Bashir's testimony. If in fact what he says is true 9/11 and Osama bin Laden are merely chapters in a war that has been waged on the American public since Vietnam. Who knows, like JFK, it may take 50 years for alternative theories to be taken seriously.
Matt Damon and Michelle Fields of Reason.TV.
Image Source: Reason.TV
In this video Matt Damon lashes out at lovely libertarian reporter Michelle Fields after she pointed out the sharp contrast in incentives employed in Hollywood versus those allowed in public education. In a mind melting retort Will Hunting fires back in his classic histrionic prose.
It was seemingly a very simple series of questions: "In acting there isn't job security, right?" asked Reason.TV reporter Michelle Fields of Matt Damon, referring to the fact actors do not receive tenure as public school teachers often do after a certain amount of years worked. "There's an incentive to work hard and be a better actor because you want to have a job. So why isn't it like that for teachers?"
Obviously irritated by the question Damon responded immediately, albeit he never came close to answering the why of Ms. Field's question.
“You take this MBA style thinking, right? It’s the problem with ed policy right now! It's this intrinsically paternalistic [hu?] view of problems that are much more complex. It's like saying a teacher is gonna get lazy when they have tenure...A teacher wants to teach! Why else would you take a shitty salary and really long hours and do that job, unless you really love to do it?”
You can, however, almost pinpoint the moment Damon puts his foot in his mouth (hint, at the ellipses).
While Damon asserts education policy problems are "complex" (they no doubt are) he, in almost the same breath, reduces that intricate issue to "A teacher [simply] wants to teach!" Moreover, he then naively implies that all teachers love to teach - so much for complexity.
What is interesting about all of this is that in a roughly 1 minute video clip Matt Damon encapsulates roughly the entire constellation of assumptions public education apologists proffer the American people.
1. MBA style thinking has no place in public education administration. 2. Incentives have no place in motivating educators to become better. 3. All teachers love to teach as if being knighted educator somehow imbues the recipient with altruistic motives unknown to mere self-interested mortals and persists until either death or twilight years remove them from the classroom. 4. When we speak of supporting "teachers" what we mean is "public educators."
The real crux of this debate isn't based on reason (no pun intended), but many times on pure emotion. More often than not the arguments surrounding public education reform are ultimately reduced to two things: fond memories of excellent motivating teachers and needy students for whom public education is designed.
A film written by David Guggenheim and Billy Kimball
shows the explosive new world of education spreading
across America. A must see for everyone interested in
education policy.
Image Source: WaitingforSuperman.com
Warm fuzzies of motivating teachers aside, there are awful ones that aught to be removed, but cannot without great public expenditure. Even after taxpayers are bled dry the effort invariably results in failure, especially if the teacher is tenured. When it comes to needy children, public funds may still be applied, the argument is over how.
There is a growing mountain of evidence that under various decentralized models, outside the control of Washington DC, the Department of Education, state education boards, and unified school districts that student achievement is improved, the availability of quality education is increased, classroom size is reduced, and a higher degree of flexibility and fulfillment is offered to educators.
At the end of the clip, the Reason.TV cameraman claims "10 percent of teachers are bad" to which Damon jokingly fires back "Maybe your a shitty cameraman, I don't know." In an interview with the Washington Post Ms. Fields responded: "If our cameraman was underperforming we would fire him." It is too bad we can't say the same for most public school teachers.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, commonly known
as "Cicero" (106 BC - 43 BC).
Image Source: Wikipedia.com
"The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced. If the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt, people must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Tuesday August 2, 2011
"Ron Paul Sounds Alarm on 'Disturbing' Super Congress"
Congressman Ron Paul warns that the all-powerful new “Super Congress” created by the vote on the debt ceiling will be used to fast-track tax increases while concentrating more power over the nation’s purse strings in the hands of the Washington elite.
Read the rest of Paul Joseph Watson's explosive article at Alex Jone's Infowars.com.
Estonia might not be large, but it serves as a big lesson
to its neighbors and to the world.
Image Source: Prescottenews.com
This prediction may be more than premature, but this Baltic Tiger has much to teach Europe and the United States about how to grow an economy. Virtually entirely self sustaining and enjoying robust growth, almost zero debt, and plunging unemployment rates this tiny country is a state apart from a European Union in fiscal tumult and a languishing US.
Estonia has had anything, but an easy history. For roughly 700 years a once independent Estonia served successive conquerors as agrarian serfs until the 1920s when the Estonian government paid off their German landlords and restored home rule. Estonia decentralized and modernized its economy only to breathe one fresh breath of freedom until the Soviet Union and their former Nazi overlords returned with ghoulish force.
After allied victory in World War II the USSR illegally annexed and plundered Estonia, deported tens of thousands, centralized its economy, and sequestered civilians under iron hard tyranny. A ravaged country, Estonia was finally able to achieve independence in 1991 after the Singing Revolution, which initially featured spontaneous mass choirs singing illegal songs of patriotism and culminated years later in over 2 million people linked hand-in-hand over Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
During the 1990s Estonia embarked on the path of privatization handing over state owned industries to the Estonian people. In 1995, one year after the last Russian troops left Estonia, the revitalized economy began to grow at 4.6% and skyrocketed in 2007 to 10.4%. After sustaining a brief contraction of 0.7% in 1999, Estonia from 2000 to 2007 averaged supercharged growth upwards of 8.3%!
If you were to dissect this engine of true capitalism (to be contrasted with crony capitalism found in China and the US) you would find that very little of any one part of the economy is favored. Estonia features a constitutionally mandated balanced budget, the highest levels of internet freedom, one of the world's first flat tax systems (the government has just approved to cut income tax from 21% to 20% by 2015), an open banking system allowing for generous foreign investment, and unlike the United States (sitting on unparalleled and untouched oil reserves) Estonia is self sustaining supplying 90% of their energy from local oil shale. Aside from the obvious structural and political advantages Estonia benefits from frugal politicians more interested in seeing their country grow than growing their government.
The most important characteristic of this economy, however, is its resilience. Because it is no longer burdened by a centralized economy and slowed down by immense bureaucracy Estonia has shown an uncanny ability to bounce back. In 2009 the economy plummeted by an abysmal 14%, due to easy lending and over speculation, but as of the first quarter of 2011 the Estonian economy exhibited traditionally strong growth at 8.5% (highest in the EU) and sent its unemployment rate from 18.8% to 13.8%. While the unemployment remains high, national debt is at a remarkable 6.6% of GDP (lowest in the EU) recently earning Fitch's, a rating agency, A+ rating.
Today, the United States Congress just increased its ability to take on more debt by the largest margin in US history. The fact that US leadership isn't at least taking clues from the mess in Spain, Greece, and Italy who's debts are 60%, 120%, and 142% respectively and are clamoring for bailouts to stave off open revolt is astonishing. Take a peak at someone else's playbook for once - its not cheating in the real world, its smart.
Compromise, the predictable spawn of divided government - hailed as progress and a testament to democracy. The nation has been held hostage by the debt crisis over the past month amidst a barrage of countervailing sound bytes from both sides of the isle and obnoxious CNN digital countdowns to default, and for what?
We are being led down a seemingly inevitable path, by our leaders, to credit downgrade, irreversible economic malaise, perpetual political tumult and loss of international leadership. The 2.4 trillion in "cuts" proposed by Washington should return us to 2004 spending levels, albeit in 2021 and if they were real, but they almost immediately could give us the largest debt-limit increase in US history! How can Washington be serious about tightening its belt when it apparently plans to create a bigger one?
Like shooting BBs at a battleship, "cutting" 2.4 trillion
over a decade wont take down this Leviathan.
Graph made by usgovernmentspending.com
The marathon long "cutting" plan will only succeed at mitigating the avalanche of government spending as it remains obvious "cuts" in Washingtonese means reduction in discretionary lower-than-projected spending not real cuts, you know like the ones you and I use planning our daily lives, which bring spending in line with revenue, balance our budget, and allow us to save. The "cuts" our fearless leaders propose pair down what they hoped to spend in the next 10 years and they praise it! This is like a welfare recipient pairing down their hope of buying a new Fendi purse and saying it was a relief they made the right decision.
The federal government has doubled its expenditures over the last decade and now the president and Capitol Hill want us to believe they'll reduce spending to 2004 levels? They actually want us to believe that they have flipped the political universe on its head and turned the tide of the past decade. According to Ron Paul (R-Texas) today:
"Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn't have double the population, or double the land area, or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount. In Washington terms, a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger "cut" than any plan being discussed."
Conservatives decry the compromise over cutting spending on our worldwide police force and not tackling entitlements, while liberals/progressives lament the lost opportunities to saddle the rich with an even higher proportion of tax burden and to incorporate newer environmental regulations.
I'll put it this way, growth in government perpetuated by both parties has led us to this atmosphere of hyper-politicization. When government usurps the lifeblood of a nation in ever-increasing amounts the people have no choice, but to argue over how it is spent. This is not a fight over a specific program, but a clash of reality and the ideologies that grew government for the last 100 years. The palatable national stress is the due to our collective cognitive dissonance! If taxing, rampant spending, printing money out of thin air, and economic oppression continues our republic will fall.
Albeit China has decades of economic and democratic growth to undergo before it can claim real international leadership it will nonetheless overtake the Unites States in GDP around 2015. The effect it will have on our politics, the radicalization of both parties, cannot be understated. The far right will attempt to posture and cajole the American public into thinking we are in a new Cold War and the far left’s argument will in some sick way be vindicated, that in fact large government can bread success and growth. Both as history has shown will exacerbate our insecurity of being second place.
...notice how I didn't mention anything about what to cut? Just cut, cap and balance like Americans and people all over the world do everyday.
