Disinformation » United States

The Waning Influence Of The United States Constitution

majestic — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:41:17 +0000

Photo: Terry Miller

Adam Liptak describes the decline of the United States Constitution’s global popularity in the New York Times. (If the U.S. adopted Roger Copple’s Third Constitution might the American model become more popular?)

The Constitution has seen better days.

Sure, it is the nation’s founding document and sacred text. And it is the oldest written national constitution still in force anywhere in the world. But its influence is waning.

In 1987, on the Constitution’s bicentennial, Time magazine calculated that “of the 170 countries that exist today, more than 160 have written charters modeled directly or indirectly on the U.S. version.”

A quarter-century later, the picture looks very different. “The U.S. Constitution appears to be losing its appeal as a model for constitutional drafters elsewhere,” according to a new study by David S. Law of Washington University in St. Louis and Mila Versteeg of the University of Virginia.

The study, to be published in June in The New York University Law Review, bristles with data. Its authors coded and analyzed the provisions of 729 constitutions adopted by 188 countries from 1946 to 2006, and they considered 237 variables regarding various rights and ways to enforce them.

“Among the world’s democracies,” Professors Law and Versteeg concluded, “constitutional similarity to the United States has clearly gone into free fall. Over the 1960s and 1970s, democratic constitutions as a whole became more similar to the U.S. Constitution, only to reverse course in the 1980s and 1990s.”…

[continues in the New York Times]

Miami Is Most Miserable City In U.S.

majestic — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:10:24 +0000

For those Americans who think that escaping the frigid climes of the northern states for sunny Florida is the path to happiness, think again (about Miami at least). Reuters reports:

Warm sun, white beaches, and million-dollar mansions notwithstanding, Miami has captured the dubious distinction of being the most miserable city in the United States, according to a new poll.

Photo: UpstateNYer (CC)

The playground of the rich and famous is home to a crippling housing crisis, one of the highest crime rates in the country, and lengthy daily commutes for workers, all of which have propelled it to the No. 1 position in the Forbes.com list.

“Miami has sun and beautiful weather but other things make people miserable. You have this two-tier society: glitzy South Beach attracts celebrities, but the income inequality has skyrocketed in recent years,” explained Forbes Senior Editor Kurt Badenhausen.

The rankings are based on factors including jobless rates, violent crime, foreclosures, income and property taxes, as well as considerations like weather, commute time and political corruption.

Reeling for decades from the decline of the U.S. auto industry, Michigan’s troubled duo of Detroit and Flint registered at No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, among the most miserable cities…

[continues at Reuters]

America’s Survival Subculture

majestic — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:18:35 +0000

Reuters reports on yet another uniquely American subculture:

When Patty Tegeler looks out the window of her home overlooking the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, she sees trouble on the horizon.

“In an instant, anything can happen,” she told Reuters. “And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared.”

Tegeler is among a growing subculture of Americans who refer to themselves informally as “preppers.” Some are driven by a fear of imminent societal collapse, others are worried about terrorism, and many have a vague concern that an escalating series of natural disasters is leading to some type of environmental cataclysm.

They are following in the footsteps of hippies in the 1960s who set up communes to separate themselves from what they saw as a materialistic society, and the survivalists in the 1990s who were hoping to escape the dictates of what they perceived as an increasingly secular and oppressive government.

Preppers, though are, worried about no government.

Tegeler, 57, has turned her home in rural Virginia into a “survival center,” complete with a large generator, portable heaters, water tanks, and a two-year supply of freeze-dried food that her sister recently gave her as a birthday present. She says that in case of emergency, she could survive indefinitely in her home. And she thinks that emergency could come soon.

“I think this economy is about to fall apart,” she said…

[continues at Reuters]

Ten Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The Land Of The Free

DeepCough — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:03:00 +0000

Jonathan Turley suggests some self-reflection for Americans, writing in the Washington Post:

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit…

[continues at the Washington Post]

Thirty Percent Of Americans Arrested By Age 23

majestic — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:48:50 +0000

I’m sure “they” won’t rest until the percentage is 99% … From NPR:

There’s been a sharp increase in recent decades in the number of young Americans who report they’ve been arrested at least once, researchers report in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

While in the mid-1960s about 22 percent of Americans reported having been arrested by the time they turned 23, researchers estimate that the “prevalence rate” for arrests by that age now lies “between 30.2 percent and 41.4 percent.”

Increasingly, “arrest is a pretty common experience,” Robert Brame, a criminologist at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and one of the study’s authors, tells USA Today.

According to ABC News, “Brame and his colleagues analyzed responses to a national survey of more than 7,000 young people between 1997 and 2008. … Not all of the young people remained in the study for all 11 years, accounting for the uncertainty reflected in the wide ranges of the study’s findings…

[continues at NPR]

Does God Still Belong On Our Money?

majestic — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:54:42 +0000

An opinion piece by Skeptic Magazine’s Michael Shermer in the LA Times has stirred up lots of strong opinions amongst Angelenos. What do disinfonauts think?

The House voted 396-9 this week to reaffirm as the national motto the phrase “In God We Trust” and encouraged its pronouncement on public buildings and continued printing on the coin of the realm. The motto was made official in 1956 during the height of Cold War hysteria over godless communism and — in the words of Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper in “Dr. Strangelove” — “Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.”

As risible a reason as this was for knocking out a few bricks in the wall separating state and church, it was at least understandable in the context of the times. But today, what is the point of having this motto? There are no communist threats, and belief in God or a universal spirit among Americans is still holding strong at about 90%, according to a 2011 Gallup Poll. The answer is in the wording of the resolution voted on: “Whereas if religion and morality are taken out of the marketplace of ideas, the very freedom on which the United States was founded cannot be secured.”

What is troubling — and should trouble any enlightened citizen of a modern nation such as ours — is the implication that in this age of science and technology, computers and cyberspace, and liberal democracies securing rights and freedoms for oppressed peoples all over the globe, that anyone could still hold to the belief that religion has a monopoly on morality and that the foundation of trust is based on engraving four words on brick and paper.

If you think that God is watching over the U.S., please ask yourself why he glanced away during 9/11 or why he chose to abandon the good folks of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and why he continues to allow earthquakes and cancers to strike down even blameless children…

[continues in the LA Times]

British Lawyers Claim US Declaration Of Independence Is Illegal

majestic — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:30:40 +0000

John Trumbull's "Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776"

BBC News reports on some British lawyers who have dared to show up in Philadelphia and claim that US Independence is illegal:

Was the Declaration of Independence legal?

In Philadelphia, American and British lawyers have debated the legality of America’s founding documents.

On Tuesday night, while Republican candidates in Nevada were debating such American issues as nuclear waste disposal and the immigration status of Mitt Romney’s gardener, American and British lawyers in Philadelphia were taking on a far more fundamental topic.

Namely, just what did Thomas Jefferson think he was doing?

Some background: during the hot and sweltering summer of 1776, members of the second Continental Congress travelled to Philadelphia to discuss their frustration with royal rule.

By 4 July, America’s founding fathers approved a simple document penned by Jefferson that enumerated their grievances and announced themselves a sovereign nation.

Called the Declaration of Independence, it was a blow for freedom, a call to war, and the founding of a new empire.

It was also totally illegitimate and illegal.

At least, that was what lawyers from the UK argued during a debate at Philadelphia’s Ben Franklin Hall.

The event, presented by the Temple American Inn of Court in conjunction with Gray’s Inn, London, pitted British barristers against American lawyers to determine whether or not the American colonists had legal grounds to declare secession.

For American lawyers, the answer is simple: “The English had used their own Declaration of Rights to depose James II and these acts were deemed completely lawful and justified,” they say in their summary.

To the British, however, secession isn’t the legal or proper tool by which to settle internal disputes. “What if Texas decided today it wanted to secede from the Union? Lincoln made the case against secession and he was right,” they argue in their brief…

[continues at BBC News]

Are Americans The Coolest People In The World?

majestic — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:09:47 +0000

Photo: gcardinal (CC)

Well according to a new poll, the answer is “yes!” Reuters reports:

They may be witnessing their global superpower influence decline in the face of challenges from other emerging players on the world stage, but Americans have been voted the world’s “coolest nationality” in an international poll.

Social networking site Badoo.com asked 30,000 people across 15 countries to name the coolest nationality and also found that the Spanish were considered the coolest Europeans, Brazilians the coolest Latin Americans and Belgians the globe’s least cool nationality.

“We hear a lot in the media about anti-Americanism,” says Lloyd Price, Badoo’s Director of Marketing. “But we sometimes forget how many people across the world consider Americans seriously cool.”

Of course, not all Americans are cool far from it. Some like Snoop Dogg, Lady Gaga, Samuel L. Jackson, Johnny Depp and Quentin Tarantino are way cooler than others.

Americans, however, are the dudes who invented cool and who still embody it in many fields from music to movies and TV to technology.

“America,” says Price, “boasts the world’s coolest leader, Obama; the coolest rappers, Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg; and the coolest man in technology, Steve Jobs of Apple, the man who even made geeks cool.”

Brazilians are ranked the second coolest nationality in the Badoo poll and the coolest Latin Americans, ahead of Mexicans and Argentinians. The Spanish, in third place, are the coolest Europeans…

[continues at Reuters]

African American Unemployment At 27 Year High

majestic — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 14:04:07 +0000

Annalyn Censky reports on this depressing statistic for CNN Money:

The August jobs report was dismal for plenty of reasons, but perhaps most striking was the picture it painted of racial inequality in the job market.

Black unemployment surged to 16.7% in August, its highest level since 1984, while the unemployment rate for whites fell slightly to 8%, the Labor Department reported.

“This month’s numbers continue to bear out that longstanding pattern that minorities have a much more challenging time getting jobs,” said Bill Rodgers, chief economist with the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.

Black unemployment has been roughly double that of whites since the government started tracking the figures in 1972.

Economists blame a variety of factors. The black workforce is younger than the white workforce, lower numbers of blacks get a college degree and many live in areas of the country that were harder hit by the recession — all things that could lead to a higher unemployment rate.

But even excluding those factors, blacks still are hit with higher joblessness.

“Even when you compare black and white workers, same age range, same education, you still see pretty significant gaps in unemployment rates,” said Algernon Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy program at the Economic Policy Institute. “So I do think the fact of racial discrimination in the labor market continues to play a role.”…

[continues at CNN Money]

The Trouble With Too Much Democracy

Pelliciari — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:43:23 +0000

Is America’s bigger problem the economic decline or it’s political decay? Andrew Potter writes in Axis of Logic:

The most telling moment of the recent standoff over talks to raise the American government’s debt ceiling came on July 22, when President Barack Obama called a press conference to announce that House Speaker John Boehner had backed out of the negotiations. “I’ve been left at the altar twice now,” Obama pouted. In case the image of the President as a jilted lover was not clear to everyone watching, he added that he had spent the previous day waiting for Boehner to return his phone calls.

The whole affair has left a lot of Americans in a state of bipartisan disgust, with citizens from all points on the political compass cursing out their elected representatives. Yet it doesn’t seem to have occurred to many people that there is something structurally flawed with a system that allows the head of just one legislative house to treat the supposed leader of the free world as his last choice for the senior prom. if there’s anything that needs cursing out it isn’t the elected politicians, but the constitution of the United States.

[Continues at Axis of Logic]

One In Seven Americans Lives On Food Stamps

majestic — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:02:11 +0000

Sad statistic of the day from IANS via Yahoo News:

Believe it or not, one in seven Americans – 15 percent of the country – now need government-provided food stamps simply to survive, according to latest government figures.

Nearly 46 million Americans receive food stamps out of a population of some 311 million people, the US Department of Agriculture, which administers what’s officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme reported Thursday.

The continued high unemployment and the weak US economy have contributed to the explosive growth of the food stamp programme with no end in sight to the monthly increases, CNN said noting that 27 million people were dependent on food stamps in October 2007…

[continues at IANS via Yahoo News]

8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

BananaFamine — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 04:47:13 +0000

Bruce E. Levine writes on Alternet:

The ruling elite has created social institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance.

Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination.

Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it.

A 2010 Gallup poll asked Americans “Do you think the Social Security system will be able to pay you a benefit when you retire?” Among 18- to 34-years-olds, 76 percent of them said no. Yet despite their lack of confidence in the availability of Social Security for them, few have demanded it be shored up by more fairly payroll-taxing the wealthy; most appear resigned to having more money deducted from their paychecks for Social Security, even though they don’t believe it will be around to benefit them.

How exactly has American society subdued young Americans?

For more information, see original article.

U.S. Approves Free Birth Control For Women

Pelliciari — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:26:42 +0000

Photo: Ceridwen (CC)

It’s a good time to be a woman. Via Reuters:

U.S. health insurance companies must offer women free birth control and other preventive health care services under Obama administration rules released on Monday, a historic decision supported by family planning groups and opposed by conservative groups.

The rules from the Health and Human Services Department are part of the nation’s healthcare overhaul and largely follow recommendations from an advisory group released last month.

The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, commissioned by the Obama administration, recommended that all U.S.-approved birth control methods — including the “morning-after pill,” taken shortly after intercourse to stop a pregnancy — be added to the list of preventive health services.

[Continues at Reuters]

Entire South Dakota Town For Sale For $800,000

JacobSloan — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:42:34 +0000

For under a million dollars, you can purchase Scenic, South Dakota, a small town with weather-worn charm that includes a jail, post office, dance hall, and several saloons that have stood since the days of the Wild West. Most of the remaining residents are relatives of a woman named Twila Merril. What you’ll do with your very own U.S. town is your business. Via CNN:

Scenic, South Dakota, might not have much — a dance hall, a jail and a handful of out-buildings. But it’s a town. And most of it could be yours for $799,000. “They’ve decided to sell and move on,” said Dave Olsen, a realtor who is hoping to sell the property. It’s 46 acres in total — 12 acres in town and 34 acres around it — located about 50 miles east of Rapid City, South Dakota.

The sale includes the “kit and kaboodle,” said Olsen — a saloon, dance hall, museum, bunkhouse, two stores, a train depot, jails (one abandoned) and a handful of out-buildings.

Since its heyday, Scenic has seen its population dwindle to less than 10 people. Nearly everyone in town is related to Twila Merril, Olsen said.

Heat Wave Due To “Exceptionally Strong” Air Mass

Pelliciari — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:51:36 +0000

Photos: Alex E. Proimos

Today has been the coolest day all week in the Northeast of the US. The Midwest, Northeast and Southern parts of the country have been experiencing consecutive days of high temperatures and humidity which have contributed to many deaths throughout the country. What is the cause of this cantankerous heat and is it an indication of future affects of global warming? The National Geographic reports:

A stubborn high-pressure system is the culprit behind the dangerously high heat wave that’s been baking much of the U.S., experts say.

The high-pressure system—a large area of dense air—is being held in place by upper-level winds known as the jet stream. Within the system, dense air sinks and becomes warmer, and since warm air can hold more moisture than cooler air, there’s also very high humidity. (Learn more about Earth’s atmosphere.)

Stationary high-pressure systems aren’t unusual during the summer, according to Eli Jacks, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.

But what sets this system apart is its size and strength.

“It’s exceptionally strong and very wide, covering thousands of miles from border to border and from the Rocky Mountains to the East Coast,” Jacks said.

[Continues at National Geographic]

Jesus Appears On Walmart Receipt In South Carolina

JacobSloan — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:00:31 +0000

This is basically the essence of United States encapsulated in a single news story. CBS 21 reports:

An engaged couple in Anderson County says a shadowy image that turned up on a receipt from Walmart looks like the face of Jesus.

Jacob Simmons and his fiancee, Gentry Lee Sutherland, said they bought some pictures from Walmart on June 12. The following Wednesday, the couple had just come home from a church service when Simmons spotted the receipt on the floor of Sutherland’s apartment. He says the receipt had changed. “I was leaving the kitchen and I just looked on the floor, and it was like it was looking at me,” Simmons said.

A dark gray mark on the receipt seems to show two eyes, a nose and a mouth in a thickly bearded face. “Then the more you look at it, the more it looked like Jesus, and it was just shocking, breathtaking,” Simmons said.

The couple said the image seemed to answer a question they had just been asked at church. “We had a message on knowing God, abiding in him,” Sutherland said. “(The preacher asked) ‘If you know God, would you recognize him if you saw him?’”

“We just feel like it’s a blessing that God showed it to us and opened our eyes. And we just feel like we should share the blessing God gave to us to everybody else,” Sutherland said.

The Use Of U.S. Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2010

JacobSloan — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:37:36 +0000

Presented by the Federation of American Scientists, the Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2010 chronologically lists the cases in which the United States has used its armed forces overseas in military conflict over the course of our nation’s history.

It’s fascinating, and a quick skim highlights both that the majority of military action is overlooked, forgotten or unknown by the much of the public, and that with each passing decade, we seem to engage in warfare with increasing frequency. A mid-eighties retro snippet:

America Just Keeps Getting Fatter

majestic — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:16:18 +0000

Melissa Healy reports on a comprehensive state-by-state report titled ‘F as in Fat,’ for the Los Angeles Times:

America continues to get fatter, according to a comprehensive new report on the nation’s weight crisis. Statistics for 2008-2010 show that 16 states are experiencing steep increases in adult obesity, and none has seen a notable downturn in the last four years.

Meanwhile, cases of Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure that health experts have long warned would result from the nation’s broadening girth and sedentary ways are becoming increasingly widespread, according to the report, titled “F as in Fat,” released Thursday.

Even Coloradans, long the nation’s slimmest citizens, are gaining excess pounds. With an obese population of 19.8% — it is the only state with an adult obesity rate below 20% — Colorado remains the caboose on the nation’s huffing, puffing train to fat land.

But in just the last four years, the ranks of the obese even in Colorado have grown 0.7%. Colorado’s hypertension rates have risen significantly as well, to 21.2% of adults.

The report, prepared by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Trust for America’s Health, is their sixth annual state-by-state accounting of obesity.

In the last 15 years, the report said, adult obesity rates have doubled or nearly doubled in 17 states. Two decades ago, not a single state had an obesity rate above 15%. Now all states do.

“When you look at it year by year, the changes are incremental,” said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the Trust for America’s Health. But if you back up a generation and look at the slow but steady climb of Americans’ weight, he said, “you see how we got into this problem.”…

[continues in the Los Angeles Times]

The Koch Brothers Echo Chamber Attacks Social Security

Pelliciari — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:06:52 +0000

Senator Sanders connects the dots between the Koch brothers and the attacks on Social Security. This video, part of the Brave New Films‘ Koch Brothers Exposed campaign, investigates the millions of dollars that the Koch brothers spend to create an echo chamber to take away our Social Security. Read more about the right wing echo chamber at Alternet.

Help spread the word so we can expose the Koch brothers and protect our Social Security.

The Secret History of Iraq’s Invisible War

BananaFamine — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 07:38:10 +0000

Noah Shachtman writes in Wired’s Danger Room:

In the early years of the Iraq war, the U.S. military developed a technology so secret that soldiers would refuse to acknowledge its existence, and reporters mentioning the gear were promptly escorted out of the country. That equipment – a radio-frequency jammer – was upgraded several times, and eventually robbed the Iraq insurgency of its most potent weapon, the remote-controlled bomb. But the dark veil surrounding the jammers remained largely intact, even after the Pentagon bought more than 50,000 units at a cost of over $17 billion.

Recently, however, I received an unusual offer from ITT, the defense contractor which made the vast majority of those 50,000 jammers. Company executives were ready to discuss the jammer – its evolution, and its capabilities. They were finally able to retell the largely-hidden battles for the electromagnetic spectrum that raged, invisibly, as the insurgencies carried on. They were prepared to bring me into the R&D facility where company technicians were developing what could amount to the ultimate weapon of this electromagnetic war: a tool that offers the promise of not only jamming bombs, but finding them, interrupting GPS signals, eavesdropping on enemy communications, and disrupting drones, too. The first of the these machines begins field-testing next month.

On a fist-clenchingly cold winter morning, I took a train across the Hudson River to the secret jammer lab.

Story continues at Wired.

LulzSec ‘Takes Down’ CIA Website

Pelliciari — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 21:34:55 +0000

Via BBC News:

The hacker group Lulz Security has claimed it has brought down the public-facing website of the US Central Intelligence Agency.

The alleged attack on CIA.gov occurred on the same day the group opened a telephone request line so its fans could suggest potential targets.

On its Twitter feed, the group wrote: “Tango down – cia.gov – for the lulz”.

The CIA website was inaccessible at times on Wednesday but appeared to be back up on Thursday.

It was unclear if the outage was due to the group’s efforts or to the large number of internet users trying to check the site.

The CIA would not confirm if it had been the victim of an attack. In a statement, a spokesperson told BBC News: “The CIA’s public web site experienced technical issues that caused it to respond slowly for a short time yesterday evening. Those issues are now resolved.”

[Continues at BBC News]

Kill Bill 2011: The Ongoing Sabotage Of Financial Reform

Danny Schechter — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:39:58 +0000

Some years back Thomas Franck nailed it in his book, The Wrecking Crew. It was subtitled “How Conservatives Rule” and showed how narrow self-interest and well practiced cynicism in the service of partisan warfare has crippled our political system resulting in a deep paralysis despite the threat of a collapse.

I call it sabotage, a tactic that goes way back and involves deliberate effort to insure that reforms are effectively undermined.

When the book came out, Publishers Weekly praised it and criticized it in the same breath, writing,

“Frank paints a complex and conspiracy-ridden picture that illuminates the sinister and controversial practices of the Republican Party in the 20th and 21st centuries. While Frank’s assessments and interpretations of key events, players and party doctrines is accurate and justifiable, his overwhelming blame of the Republican Party as the source of everything that’s wrong with this county and as the emblem of self-destructing government denies the Democrats and the citizenry their roles in a decaying democracy”

How true! They didn’t quibble with his findings, calling them “accurate and justifiable,” but also note that political labels are often poor guides to understanding how this game operates.

That’s because politics is no longer, if it ever was, a game played just by politicians. Politics is now an industry that plays itself out in an arena of the seen and unseen. Today, the hatchets are out to torpedo needed financial reforms in a bill that has already been neutered and nit-picked, trimmed, sliced and diced by what’s called legislative compromise.

A Congressional style Seal Team Six has been assembled and is ready to pounce against the new enemy—financial reform. There is no corporate privilege or malevolent bank practice that the lobbyists will not defend in the name of fostering economic growth.

One juicy sex scandal involving one or more pols gets more ink than all the investigations of how special interests, well paid lobbyists, billionaire funders, think-tank gun-slingers and slippery lawyers for hire operate to serve the status quo and stop even mild reforms that might cost the industries they work for money or influence. They are no reforms they won’t endlessly amend into oblivion.

First, they commission bogus and selective studies to “prove” why reforms need to be “reformed” their way. Then, with PR and complicit media, they orchestrate coverage to sell their policies. They start with something small like protections for debit cards and then escalate a full-scale war.

Thanks to the Democratic majority in the Senate, an attempt to delay rules governing what banks and credit card companies can charge for retailers to process cards was voted down, with the NY Times noting that this war will continue, “Even with the defeat, the vote represented a remarkable come-from-behind lobbying campaign by banks to recover from the drubbing they took during the anti-Wall Street atmosphere that pervaded last year.”

A day later, the knives were out for the new Consumer Protection bureau with a major campaign targeting Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren who first proposed the agency and was considered the most qualified to lead it. She was then demonized by the industry and the right—and now the Obama Administration seems ready to abandon her, rather than fight for her.

Four years ago, the markets melted down sparking a global crisis. The bailouts followed and a bank-led “recovery” helped many banks recover. Unemployment and foreclosures stayed high. Growth seized up. The crisis continues.

What to do?

There were several schools of thought.

The Administration locked itself into an alliance with Wall Street. They killed proposals for structural reform and restraints on private economic power. They are gambling on a turnaround—their version of faith-based politics—even as jobs are not coming back.

In short they have no answers and are not prepared to fight any messy battles with the real power structure. In the name of pragmatism, they are betrayed their own campaign compromises and tacked right to out Republican the Republicans.

They call it “triangulation.” Their critics call it a sell-out although, what’s left of the left was quickly left out.

The Republicans retreated into simplistic ideologies, blaming everything on Democrats and government spending. They began fueling a scare about the deficit the way their predecessors raved against the Red Menace.

They have no answers either.

In Congress, the wise men came up with a financial reform called Dodd-Frank, after stripping it of any radicalism, they offered up some pragmatic measures to increase regulation and try to force the finance industry to act responsibly with more transparency and accountability. The bill explicitly rejected proposes for any and all international standards.

Dodd-Frank passed, but then the real bargaining began on what the new rules should be. The finance industry mounted a lobbying force of 25 high-powered lawyers and consultants for every member of Congress. The deliberations moved out of public view and into the corridors and closed clubs in Washington.

The predictable result has now surfaced in The New York Times:

“Nearly one year after Congress passed financial changes to rein in the banking sector, more than two dozen of the legislation’s rules are behind schedule, and no end to the wrangling over details is in sight.

The delays come as regulators extend public comment periods on the rules, and as some on Wall Street and in Congress resist the changes. One result may be that many new safeguards do not take hold in earnest before the next election, an outcome that could open the door for newly elected officials to back away from the overhaul.”

The respected blog, Naked Capitalism, has followed this in excruciating detail. Concluded Richard Smith, a London based capital markets IT Specialist:

“So where does that leave us with our shadow banking reforms? Well, we have a modest tweak to bank capital requirements, of unknown efficacy. The mountain has labored, and brought forth a mouse.

Or you might prefer to pursue the anaconda/rabbit imagery to a physiologically realistic conclusion.”

(Translation: The snake swallowed the rabbit.)

Yves Smith, the editor of the blog is not surprised, suggesting this was the outcome that was always intended: To kill the bill by appearing to “strengthen” it.

So where are we? Nowhere, or perhaps it’s even worse than that. Many in the public backed the reforms including protections of consumers. They think it is being enacted.

When the next market crash occurs, as many insiders fear it will, they will realize how they were played, but then it will be too late.

Are we condemned for more of this rollercoaster ride to the apocalypse?

Smith seems disgusted, pointing out that even these tepid reforms emerged from a “weak analysis of the causes of the crash, some disjointed looking proposals, some mild BS. Kind of picking at the problem, with lobbyists at the ready.

But what is the result of nine months’ thought and some horse-trading with concerned Congressmen, juggling lobbyists and angry voters?

What, indeed! We can see where all this is headed. We will find out soon enough if the predications of a possible “great, great depression” come to pass.

The problem is that while many see, the logic of an illogical system, so intricately sabotaged from within, it is set up to make almost impossible to stop the train wreck.

On this, the press is largely missing following the semen, not the money.

The astute economics editor of the Guardian, Larry Eliot, sees only one possible way to stop this disaster in the making.

“Policy, as ever, is geared towards growth because the great existential fear of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and whoever occupies the White House is a return to the 1930s. Back then; the economic malaise could be largely attributed to deflationary economic policies that deepened the recession caused by the popping of the 1920s share market bubble. The feeble response to today’s growth medicine suggests the US is structurally far weaker than it was in the 1930s.” (Emphasis mine)

To tackle these weaknesses it must break finance’s stranglehold over the economy and boost ordinary families’ spending power to cut their reliance on debt.

Can we break finance’s stranglehold over the economy if these issues displace the sex scandal of the week, as the real threat to our future? Can we identify and stop the saboteurs?

We keep reading about the Arab Spring, but not the American winter.

Filmmaker and News Dissector Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org.

For more on his film Plunder: The Crime of Our Time and companion book The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big To Jail, visit plunderthecrimeofourtime.com

Video Games Now Legally Considered An Art Form In The U.S.

BananaFamine — Mon, 23 May 2011 05:50:44 +0000

Paul Tassi writes in Forbes:

Roger Ebert’s Twitter has informed me this morning that the government has attempted to prove him wrong in the seemingly endless “games as art” debate.The famed critic got many riled up when he said that no, games were not art, and in fact, they never possibly could be. He was hailed by some as an old man out of touch, but more pressingly, one who didn’t PLAY the games he was critiquing, which is rather essential to the experience.

But gamers have now found themselves an unlikely ally in the debate, the National Endowment for the Arts, which for 2012 has reclassified their definition of “art” to the following:

Projects may include high profile multi-part or single television and radio programs (documentaries and dramatic narratives); media created for theatrical release; performance programs; artistic segments for use within an existing series; multi-part webisodes; installations; and interactive games. Short films, five minutes and under, will be considered in packages of three or more.

For more information, see original article.

The Rise of ‘Sovereign Citizens’ (Video)

BananaFamine — Sat, 21 May 2011 16:18:39 +0000

A slanted, but interesting story from CBS’ 60 Minutes:

This is a story about a group of Americans you’ve likely never heard of: they’re called “sovereign citizens.” Many don’t pay taxes, carry a driver’s license or hold a Social Security card. They have little regard for the police or the courts, and some have become violent.

The FBI lists them among the nation’s top domestic terror threats.

By some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 sovereign citizens in the U.S. And with the sluggish economy and mortgage mess, their ranks are growing.

Wikileaks Cables Show Race To Carve Up Arctic

BananaFamine — Sat, 14 May 2011 19:38:14 +0000

BBC News reports:

Secret US embassy cables released by Wikileaks show nations are racing to “carve up” Arctic resources — oil, gas and even rubies — as the ice retreats.

They suggest that Arctic states, including the US and Russia, are all pushing to stake a claim.

The opportunity to exploit resources has come because of a dramatic fall in the amount of ice in the Arctic.

The US Geological Survey estimates oil reserves off Greenland are as big as those in the North Sea.

The cables were released by the Wikileaks whistleblower website as foreign ministers from the eight Arctic Council member states – Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland – met in Nuuk, Greenland on Thursday to sign a treaty on international search-and-rescue in the Arctic and discuss the region’s future challenges.

The cables claim the Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller joked with the Americans saying “if you stay out, then the rest of us will have more to carve up in the Arctic”.

For more information, see original article.

Why The Ron Paul Presidential Run Will Be A MUCH Bigger Deal This Time Around

BananaFamine — Sun, 01 May 2011 04:41:04 +0000

Will Ron Paul be a serious presidential contender for the 2012 election? Joe Weisenthal writes for Business Insider:

It’s just obvious that in the last four years, since the last time Ron Paul ran for President, the ideological center of gravity in the GOP — and the whole country for that matter — has shifted a lot closer to Ron Paul’s position.

In 2008, Paul ran a cult campaign as a libertarian, anti-Fed, anti-war Republican.

At the time, nobody in the GOP really cared about the Fed, and for the most part, Bush’s wars enjoyed broad support.

Today they’re Obama’s wars, and the Fed is one of the most disliked institutions around, taking daily abuse even from mainstream outlets like CNBC.

It’s inconceivable to think that in the GOP primary, candidates won’t be asked for their position on Bernanke, quantitative easing, the role of the dollar, and of all the candidates, only Ron Paul has made a career on all these issues. In fact, after decades fighting his fight, he must be somewhat shocked that in just the last few years, his ideology has become so popular (or maybe he’s shocked that it took so long).

In 2008, the GOP primary was dominated by Serious candidates like Mitt Romney and John McCain and Fred Thompson and even Rudy Giuliani. They were content to basically ignore what Ron Paul had to say. This time, they’ll be fighting on his turf.

For more information, see original article.

Superman Giving Up American Citizenship

majestic — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:14:16 +0000

What I want to know is why he didn’t do this after the Bush administration lied through its teeth in order to launch two never-ending preemptive wars. Needless to say the usual suspects are outraged at Superman’s perceived lack of patriotism. The Guardian reports (thanks to Lynne C. for sending us the link):

After years of declaring he stood for “truth, justice and the American way,” Superman has provoked the ire of rightwingers by threatening to renounce his US citizenship.

In the latest issue of Action Comics, which went on sale on Wednesday, the Man of Steel decides to take the step after he intervenes in a protest against the Iranian government.

After the Islamic regime brands his non-violent protest as an act of war taken on behalf of the US president, the DC comic hero says he will renounce his citizenship before the United Nations.

“I’m tired of having my actions construed as instruments of US policy,” he says.

Although Superman never actually renounces his citizenship in the story, conservative commentators reacted with disgust.

In a blogpost at The Weekly Standard, senior writer Jonathan Last questioned Superman’s beliefs, now that he seems to have rejected the United States. “Does he believe in British interventionism or Swiss neutrality?” Last wrote. “You see where I’m going with this: If Superman doesn’t believe in America, then he doesn’t believe in anything.”

Posters on comic book discussion forums drew parallels between the superhero’s doubts about his citizenship and the conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s nationality.

Several posters branded conservative critics of the storyline “Earthers” – a reference to the Birthers – the nickname for the rightwingers who have questioned Obama’s citizenship…

[continues in the Guardian]

Dogs Playing Poker: Leave The Gamblers Alone!

BananaFamine — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 05:47:35 +0000

John Stossel writes on Fox Business:

Yesterday ESPN announced they will remove all poker-related programming and advertising (except for this year’s World Series of Poker).

Wimps. And the gambling industry is no better. Industry lobbyist, former senator Al D’Amato, claims “[poker] is a game of skill” and therefore should not be subjected to federal anti-gambling laws. “Regulate it, but don’t ban it,” he says.

Give me a break. The cowardice of business in standing up for free markets never ceases to amaze me.

What wimps! Why don’t they have the courage to say the government has NO business intervening in an activity between consenting adults? I’d hope the poker lobby and the leading sports network would defend the game and its players. Instead they push legal tricks or distance themselves from poker.

The feds accuse the companies of bank fraud and money laundering…

For more information, see original article.

U.S. Homeland Security Changes Color Coded Terror Alert

Pelliciari — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:34:21 +0000

From Peter Fedynsky at Voice Of America:

The United States is adopting a new terror alert system to replace the color-coded one put into place after the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made the announcement Wednesday in New York’s Grand Central railway station. The new system is set to go into effect on April 26.

Secretary Napolitano told reporters that most Americans have ignored current alert system, while some have lived in fear because of it.

“We don’t want people to live in fear; we want people to live in a state of alertness and awareness,” said Secretary Napolitano. “And we want people to know how they can help themselves, how they can assist their community. One way to do that is to provide people with more information.”

Napolitano noted that the new National Threat Advisory System minimizes, but does not eliminate, the risk of terrorist attacks because, as she puts it, “the United States cannot be put under a glass dome.” But she said the new system maximizes the amount of information shared with the public about credible threats.

[Continues at Voice Of America]

Constitutional Lawyer Drafts Obama Impeachment

BananaFamine — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 18:50:34 +0000

Ben Smith writes for Politico:

A prominent libertarian constitutional lawyer and civil libertarian has drafted an article of impeachment against President Obama over his attack on Libya, throwing down a legal gauntlet that could be picked up by some Congressional Republicans.

Bruce Fein, a former Reagan administration official in the Department of Justice and chairman of American Freedom Agenda writes in his 15-page argument of Obama’s course that “Barack Hussein Obama has mocked the rule of law, endangered the very existence of the Republic and the liberties of the people, and perpetrated an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor.”

Fein is a small-government conservative who worked on the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and also called for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and his work doesn’t represent the Republican Party line. But it comes as some Republicans on the Hill, led by Senator Rand Paul, object vociferously to Obama’s decision to strike targets in Libya without Congressional authorization.

(View article of impeachment here)

For more information, see original article.