Travesty

It's really unbelievable. The second video especially, which has more of the trial itself. Almost an hour each but I urge everyone to find the time. Beyond belief.

Things to come

How did you end up working for Sen. Obama?

His office called me when he began serving in the U.S. Senate in early 2005. He had just read "A Problem From Hell" and wanted to meet to discuss fixing American foreign policy. I thought, "Well that's interesting -- clearly he's in some other league." I mean, who spends Christmas reading a dark book on genocide? No other politician had ever contacted me to discuss it.

We were supposed to meet for only an hour but ended up meeting for three or four hours at a steakhouse. Suddenly it was almost midnight and I heard myself saying to him, "Why don't I just quit my job at Harvard and work in your office for a year or whatever?" I didn't even know what I was proposing, but he said, "Great."

How did you make the leap from journalist to going to work for a political candidate?

I got into journalism not to be a journalist but to try to change American foreign policy. I'm a corny person. I was a dreamer predating my journalistic life, so I got into journalism as a means to try to change the world. I didn't get into journalism by any means to win a Pulitzer Prize or do anything like that. Back then, I was obsessed with what was going on in Bosnia. I went over there because of that; I tried to get a job at NGOs ... But I didn't wait this long [to work for a candidate] because I was such a hardcore reporter. It was because I never met anybody worth doing it for before.

You were born in Dublin, Ireland, and grew up mainly in the United States. How did you come to write about genocide?

I read about the Holocaust in college [at Yale University]. Right around the time I graduated there were the concentration camps out of Bosnia with these emaciated men behind barbed wire. And I could tell a long story about why that moved me ... but it was so moving.

Genocide was the lens for me. And you can see genocide whether you go to Rwanda or you don't go to Rwanda, but you still have to figure out a way to inject concern for human beings into our foreign policy. This is what was so gratifying to me about the way Obama read "A Problem From Hell" -- for him it was about fixing American foreign policy.

--interview with Samantha Power

One, Two, Many Yugoslavias

Henry flies a kite:

Should we prevent the Pakistani state from splitting up into three or four ethnically based groups? I don't think we have the capacity to do that.

Ideology for beginners

Q: How do I know that my vote has been cast and counted?

A: Whenever a voter presses the CAST BALLOT button and the waving American flag appears, the vote is cast and counted.

SOMETHING Declares Independence

Camp Bondsteel, covering some 955 acres or 360,000 square meters. The camp also includes a prison, "one which you would absolutely recognize from the photographs of Guantanamo"....The IMP will be "responsible for: Assisting and advising with respect to the process of integration in Euro-Atlantic structures" and advising on "the involvement of elements from the security force in internationally mandated missions."

Meanwhile, making use of the engineering skills of Halliburton subsidiary, Brown & Root Services Corp., the United States built a giant military base, Camp Bondsteel, covering some 955 acres or 360,000 square meters. The camp also includes a prison. According to Alvaro Gil Robles, Human Rights Commissioner for the Council of Europe, who visited the prison in 2005,

"What I saw there, the prisoners' situation, was one which you would absolutely recognize from the photographs of Guantanamo. The prisoners were housed in little wooden huts, some alone, others in pairs or threes. Each hut was surrounded with barbed wire, and guards were patrolling between them. Around all of this was a high wall with watchtowers. Because these people had been arrested directly by the army, they had not had any recourse to the judicial system. They had no lawyers. There was no appeals process. There weren't even exact orders about how long they were to be kept prisoner."

[...]

There is also to be an International Military Presence (IMP) established by NATO; it is to "operate under the authority, and be subject to the direction and political control of the North Atlantic Council through the NATO chain of command. NATO's military presence in Kosovo does not preclude a possible future follow-on military mission by another international security organization, subject to a revised mandate." Furthermore, the IMP is to "have overall responsibility for the development and training of the Kosovo Security Force, and NATO shall have overall responsibility for the development and establishment of a civilian-led organization of the Government to exercise civilian control over this Force, without prejudice to the responsibilities of the ICR." The IMP will be "responsible for: Assisting and advising with respect to the process of integration in Euro-Atlantic structures" and advising on "the involvement of elements from the security force in internationally mandated missions."

also here.

Alain Robbe-Grillet

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say this is a promise to perpetuate a fraud on the American taxpayers: if he no longer intended to seek the presidency, he made a legally-binding promise to pretend to remain in the race just long enough to collect public money to repay the loan.

Good quote

A taste of fewer things to come

Over all, Americans are spending about 13 percent more on food and energy now than a year ago.

Stovepiping

Seymour Hersh interview on the September Israeli bombing of Syria.

Motif

"Bizarrely, the US is still holding hundreds of men suspected of contacts with al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan and elsewhere, while in Iraq many of the Awakening members are past and, in many cases, probably current members of al-Qa'ida being paid by the US Army. "I knew a young man, aged 17 or 18," says Kassim Ahmed Salman, "who was a friend of my brother and used to carry a PKC [a Russian light machine-gun] and fight for al-Qa'ida. I was astonished to see him a few days ago in al-Khadra where he is a lieutenant in al-Sahwa, standing together with Iraqi army officers.""

"Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday. (...) The threats halted the fraud inquiry, but triggered an international outcry, with allegations that Britain had broken international anti-bribery treaties. Lord Justice Moses, hearing the civil case with Mr Justice Sullivan, said the government appeared to have "rolled over" after the threats."

The British government really wanted to investigate this, but protecting you from islamo-evil comes first. What other motive could they possibly have had to stop the corruption investigation of Britain's largest defence company?

But is it true love, in the rectum?

We can ask the BBC journalist Matt Frei, who is nothing if not investigative:

Matt Frei: Mr President, thanks for joining us. You're famous for saying that you don't believe in opinion polls.

President George W Bush: Yeah!

Frei: Do you have any idea how you rate in the countries that you're going to be visiting in Africa?

Mr Bush: No, sir. I don't.

Frei: But, I've got news for you and it's good news.

Mr Bush: All right.

Frei: You rate pretty well. It's sort of - you know, in the average 80s... Is that one of the reasons why you're going there? This is one the parts of the world where you're still very popular?

Mr Bush: I - I go where needed. And - no, I'm going there because I've got a firm, heartfelt commitment to the continent of Africa and have ever since I became president

[...]

Frei: Your administration has given $15bn to treat Aids in Africa?

Mr Bush: Yeah.

Frei: Which is an unprecedented amount of money, and you want to double that amount yet again?

Mr Bush: Yeah.

Frei: This is a huge commitment. And, yet, the administration and you, personally, don't seem to be getting a lot of credit for it.

Mr Bush: Yeah - you know, this is kind of tied to your first question about polls. Polls are nothing more than just like a puff of air. What matters is results. And, ultimately, people will be able to make, you know, an objective judgment of a president and his administration and, in this case, a country's commitment. And so I care really about is the results of the programmes. I hope by now people have learned that I'm not one of these guys that - really gives a darn about elite opinion. What I really care about is, are we saving lives? And in this case, we are. As I mentioned in my speech that you kindly listened to - when I first went to Sub-Saharan Africa, 50,000 were receiving antiretrovirals. Today, 1.3 million. And that's a lot in a very quick period of time. But, there's so much more suffering. And that's why I've called for a doubling of aid. The good news is, it's not just America. As I mentioned in my speech, the G8 nations also are supporting this very important initiative. And, you know, it's... like an effort of mercy.

Frei: But, it has made a huge difference, hasn't it? So...

Mr Bush: Yeah.

Frei: Why not take some credit for it?

Mr Bush: Because it's just not my nature, you know?

[The post heading is a line from Beckett's Molloy.]

Political Spectacle

A failure, this, and suggestive of the stupid insularity and arrogance of cocaculture producing clerks. The conception is recycled niche product - targeted to 14-17 year old boys, who can't vote, and young men with adolescent sensibilities, who don't. Every note it strikes is wrong for the purpose: the slavish, empty, sarcastic mimicry of mimicry pitiably straining to sell itself as "ideas and innovation", the ostentatious avowal of the commodity nature of the product-candidate for sale (explicitly the analogue of a robotic appliance certain to be obsolete in less than four years), the unabashed nerd-machiste misogyny, the careless and giggling, infantile sadistic aggravation of real anxieties about dictatorship with this peculiar cocaculture pomosity which openly offers ersatz solutions, escape into the world of computer assisted fantasy, flight into the playstation. Beyond that, what appears to be a truly religious belief that irrational pseudosity is so strong, irony so ubiquitously corrosive and conquering, and audiences so manipulable, that one could sell a Presidential candidate with the screaming insinuation that only an elite and exclusive minority would ever "buy" him, and thus a vote for him makes he who casts it a rebel, committing an act of self-distinction and self-description through commodity consumption. Thus the ad reveals its designer's cocksure convinction that they can fool a huge audience into all doing the same thing - whether is it buying a pair of sports shoes or touching the name on a voting machine screen - by convincing them precisely that only insiders are doing this and that doing that thing will make each of them unique. Vote for Obama - like Apple, he's sure to come in a distant third. Because irrationalism and irony is imperial, the makers seem to believe, no audience will be troubled by or contemptuous of an image meant to represent Iconoclasm which is an exact and faithful replica of an iconic advertisement which itself exploited through faithful fetish exhibition - not undermining, much less smashing - well known, sacred icons. The ad seems to assume that this message cheerfully and smugly promising failure of the purported quest, this content, which requires audience rationality to decipher, cannot be problematic for the brand image cultivation underway here, as rationality is entirely abolished, and the only task undertaken by this ad is to associate Obama with a superior, if less widely used, product than the market leader, a product whose image is associated with California billionaires in casual clothes. In the elite nerd newmedia subculture from whence this ad springs, this utter absence of signification on which the ad wagers, this pure faith in the endlessly manipulable, sense-vacated, history-vacated, rinsed and re-usable images deployable at the whim and will of the video artist, can indeed be widely observed; but that subculture, being irrational in this way, being as it is so sure of the wisdom of the neoNietzscheanism to which it is devoted, remains in deep denial of the very exclusivity and eliteness it prides itself on. The result is a display of delusional self-confidence, and the ad provides a wry self portrait of its makers - in the grey herd which somehow engenders the macho blonde babe of boy's dreams to smash mommy, and "conversation", in the face with Nietzsche's hammer. In the subculture which sprouts this bit of doggedly derivative, comically arrogant advertising art, one can hold two contradictory ideas about the culture's own status - minority and majority, counter-culture and dominant culture - in one's heads simultaneously without getting a headache. This is the culture of the billionaire bohemian, after all.

In this promotional misfire, the exhaustion of this aesthetic and style is revealed as its usually veiled malice, manipulativeness and mendacity rise to the surface.

The later, successful Obama campaign retrieved What If? from the cybergeek fantasyland of the pseudo-imaginitive postmodern echochamber of the branding hard sell. It was all about disseminating a feeling of relief. Not Oz but Kansas. Not aggression but negotiation. Not anxiety but reassurance. Not cliché pseudo-worlds from the playstation, settings and pretext of tiring and pseudo-risky (success is assured) gestes and daring, but slightly updated small townscapes, with greenery, picket fences, schools, workplaces.

And look at this - the first image is a book. A relic from the gutenberg galaxy, from the lost rational past.



This stuff is corny to be sure, but at this point it is less corny - or appears so at least for not seeming deluded about its own corniness - than VoteDifferent. Its use of the style arsenal of "the digital age", though no less minutely controlled than in VoteDifferent, is on the surface very understated: the faux "hand held" quality of the footage, as if Obama's speech and audience are filmed by another member of the audience, ceding smoothly to a series of stills with titles - you are permitted a pause in bg motion to absorb this as information, as language with content. But the stills also work to suggest a shortage of video to complete the piece, as well as to allow a pause for the sake of a pause, a rest, a moment to digest - the pace unhurried - and additionally to evoke the reliability of a certain kind of documentary which traditionally involves narrative, sense, and information. The editing of the piece subtly seeks to replicate not a deliberate alienating and self referential joltiness but the ever so slight, residual joltiness one would find in a competent non-professional product when working with footage not expressly shot to be cut together. It's a very subdued effect but it also helps to instill this sense of calm and relief, this sense of communication, that the maker of this piece and its audience are striving for a clear line of interaction, that the maker is not trying to nauseate or confuse but to be as frank as possible, patiently and sincerely. The assemblage, which is the result of a professional editor aiming "insincerely" for just a touch of seemingly inadvertant roughness, simulates the result of an enthused amateur trying for maximum smoothness but falling just a hair short because of imperfect materials and limited resources.



Now this one is interesting (an amateur campaign ad) because it is a faux history channel documentary about the rise of President Barack Obama. The audio plus stills suggest something already sealed in amber, something further back in time, something "historic", something, unlike our present unfolding history, not recorded constantly on video - something from an earlier age but also something whose historic significance was not fully perceived as it happened. Its message is fait accompli. We are reminiscing. Reminiscing very affectionately with the photo album about our President who ended the nightmare, also our First Black President. We enjoy those old recordings of his voice...(and like the voice of so many of our cherished Figures, Bobby Kennedy, MLK but also Roosevelt, this one has to be matched to stills, as if there were no video. As a voice matched to stills, Obama's speeches remind us that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.) This, then, is hindsight. The implied perspective from which these images and sounds are delivered is the future, long after Barack Obama's glorious presidency has ended and delivered us all the prosperity promised. An homage from the future to the present as glorious and memorable past, as "historic" moment unaware in the moment of its momentousness. Now we have insta-ersatz-historic-moment-ness. In the digital age of the society of the spectacle we don't have to wait for history to deliver its verdict. We are made aware that we will always remember where we were when President Obama was elected as we will always remember the instant of hearing the allies had landed at Normandy, or that John Lennon and JFK were shot; we can feel that full intensity and nostalgia immediately, brought to us by this message from the future, when that relief now promised has long set in, when the rewards of this historic moment have been reaped.



This one is a student project.

"I Had A Bad Dream...."

I just watched all the Obama tv ads and some other footage. One really can't help but "root" for him personally to take home the statuette, the sane, rational and familiar can-do suit flanked by two repugnant maniacs, Clinton and McCain. But there's more - every note of the campaign is precisely pitched to succeed in the present situation, where the electoral process is fully assimilated to a genre of media contests, the Academy Awards, The Apprentice, the World Series. The Obama campaign cultivates a mood of unbroken calm, ordinariness, de-escalation of the crisis-on-the-hour atmosphere of hyperventilation that is US mass media, a certain groundedness. None of that prodding of anxiety, the ominous narrative voice whispering in your ear of the scams and schemes and corruption of the opponent, the list of dangers, threats, risks and impending catastrophes as the clock tick tick ticks. All that is blessedly absent. Instead, we are transported to the bureau of trouble shooting. Entering the Obama campaign, you exit the swirling swooping CGI realm of calamity and helplessness and return to the brightly lit halls of competence and management, where the ground is steady under your feet and the camera doesn't swing around incessantly and sarcasm is not the only attitude possible for coping. The figure of Obama is imbued with the essence of achievement and capability, and so without making it explicit the campaign promises you will never catch him boasting of his incompetence, inattention, lack of foresight, bad judgement, poor information, and bungling. And to stitch this image and atmosphere into memory of more optimistic times, and feelings of empowerment, there are passing historical allusions for all - "our dream won't be deferred" - left quite vague so, as Murr notes below, everyone can fill in the details of their own dreams. And a little gentle move leftward, answering criticisms without exactly acknowledging them, as the nomination is sewn up. Image and personality wise, the contest as contest is no contest. Obama is the only appealing and reassuring figure. And he's packaged as just this dream lawyer you were hoping to find when you are really in trouble. Not an activist, just a professional, but not a snake. He at least acknowledges who is supposed to be working for whom. Counsellor Obama happily accepts an obligation to argue, to make a case, to make the elements of reasoning connect. He projects himself as your counsel, antidote to "the decider", who will, if nothing else, restore rationality and reasonableness to fashion. The "inspirational" ornamentation seems stuck on by the speechwriters, and the handlers who have advised him to affect an ever so slightly southern accent on the "y"s of "poverty" and "prosperity"; one can dismiss all that as courtroom theatrics. You're his client and he won't lie to you. (Hilary Clinton would lie to you every minute, just out of habit; she'd be secretly working for the other side if the price was right). Obama is that lawyer who looks at the case and tells you, yes he can fix it. And very frankly, looking you in the eye, he freely admits this will not be justice - but he can get you a deal you can live with and the nightmare you have been experiencing every moment of every day will be over.

A deal you can live with, and the nightmare will be over.

That's the subtext of the Obama campaign.

McKinney

Starts slow, but really worth listening to the whole thing.

Casting "The Prez"

The producers settled of course as expected with the WGA because of the Oscars which holds the whole political system together. You really can’t lose the Oscars during Presidential Primaries because it’s all one seamless spectacle, and the Academy Awards are the core event, which legitimates the whole American electoral system. The indispensable event of American “democracy” is the Oscar broadcast. If it were somehow not to happen people would know that the God Blessèd USofA was no more, that the crisis had come and swept it away.

We can confirm this by listening to and reading the best and brightest – this guy, Lawrence Lessig, is imagined to be not only a grown up, an actual adult, but an expert of some kind, savvy and slightly dissident, a bright guy and a sincere one – advising us on how to cast the role of Prez for the next hundred episodes in the four year series pre-order of Leader of The Free World. Lawrence Lessig easily explains that Barack Obama would be better television. So. That’s that. But he doesn’t even seem to comprehend that this is what he is saying. That he is speaking of a spectacle as if it were all there is. It sounds just like he is spitballing for a season of The West Wing – the policies yeah yeah, who cares, they’re fine, they’re the norm, there’s no choice anyway, there is no alternative. But this doesn’t matter for our nationwide casting session because the policies are not part of the drama anyway – they’re not featured in the Free World storyline. You don’t cast a lead role like The Prez in a hit show like New Free World Order according to some trivia like policies. What matters is the Prez should be compelling and likeable. And a good actor. He should embody. He should symbolise. He should convince. He should have a certain charisma and image. Of course this is all really advice to the writers who thank god are back at their computers, but their job will be so much easier if the casting directors do theirs like pros and match the face and figure to the backstory and character. Martin Sheen was Our Best President Ever, and it's a hard act to follow, but Obama is clearly the producers' and director's joint first choice for the next season…so Cast Obama As The Prez. If he loses, vote him in as the next James Bond.

That the final line here is just an out and out lie (Obama has repeatedly voted to fund the war, every chance he's had as Senator) should not tarnish this paragraph's marvellous unconditional surrender to victorious Reality Television. Read it and admire:

So I want you to shut your eyes and imagine what it will seem like to a young man in Iraq or in Iran, who wakes up on January 21st, 2009, and sees the picture of this man as the president of the United States. A man who opposed the war at the beginning, a man who worked his way up from almost nothing, a man who came from a mother and a father of mixed cultures and mixed societies, who came from a broken home to overcome all of that to become the leader in his class, at the Harvard Law Review, and an extraordinary success as a politician. How can they see us when they see us as having chosen this man as our president?

There can be no clearer way that we could say, that we could say that the United States could say, that we have changed, than by electing this man. There is no way we could more clearly move on toward peace than this. He represents the very best of who we are, the best of character, of integrity and ideals. And someone who opposed the war from the start.

Just picture it - the faces of those young men, all over the world, from Borneo to Nome, their eyes agleam, cut to the madrassah in Northern Pakistan, to the café in Gaza, to the slums outside Mexico City, see the wonder and happiness, face - face- face - hear the soundtrack swell...Filipinos, slowly beginning to applaud...worshippers in Mecca, looking up, as one, to read the news in skywriting overhead, slowly releasing smiles....O...B...half an A... and in Sierra Leone someone lifts a scarred limb and cries Obama! There won't be a dry eye in the house!

Bubbles and Value

Jean-Pierre Jouyet, France's minister for European affairs
Tue, Feb 12 2008, 11:37 GMT

Dow Jones - "Everyone agrees that the strength of the euro is prejudicial to a certain number of industries. You cannot act if there is insufficient willingness to cooperate on the part of the United States. The last G7 showed there was insufficient willingness to cooperate to eliminate the existing imbalances on exchange markets. For the markets to follow you there has to be a homogeneous message from monetary powers."

"Every insurgency is, of course, unique and different from all others, because the backgrounds are different, as are the cultures of the occupied peoples and the occupiers. The British differ from the Dutch, and both from the French. George Washington was different from Tito, and Ho Chi Minh from Yasser Arafat. Yet in spite of this, there is an amazing similarity between all the liberation struggles. For me, the main lesson is this: from the time the general public embraces the rebels, the victory of the rebellion is assured. That is an iron rule: an insurgency supported by the public is bound to win, irrespective of the tactics adopted by the occupation regime. The occupier can kill indiscriminately or adopt more humane methods, torture captured freedom fighters to death or treat them as prisoners of war – nothing makes a difference in the long run."

Terrorist Talk Show Host/Guest Cancelled

Montel Williams, celebrity and a former serviceman, says nothing about Iraqis murdered, maimed, raped, brutalised, immiserated, imprisoned, tortured, humiliated, poisoned and terrorised. He says nothing about US troops maimed and traumatised. He mentioned only the US troops who died, "defending democracy", interrupting the Heath Ledger coverage. He speaks of those troops as on a mission to "protect America". But even this reference to the war is inadmissible.

Plan

There's Just Something Off About TV

"After a rare Obama attack on Hillary Clinton for supporting policies that eliminated jobs, Bill Clinton quickly likened Obama's campaign to Jackson's, and the Clinton campaign told the Associated Press Obama was "the black candidate." These were deliberate statements telling Obama that if he talks about class, they'll talk about race. And so, as Marable says, Obama's pitch includes "no mention of the class struggle or class conflict." It is "hope" instead of an economic case, bromide instead of critique."

"Practically all of today’s developed countries, including Britain and the US, the supposed homes of the free market and free trade, have become rich on the basis of policy recipes that go against neo-liberal economics."

"Greenpeace makes more money from anti-whaling than Norway and Iceland combined make from whaling."

"The group had been reading my book American Music in the 20th Century, and he had each person prepare a question, the questions all asked in turn without being immediately answered; after which discussion could proceed with all the questions in mind. One question was, did I think complex music like that of the New Complexity guru Brian Ferneyhough had the potential for reaching a larger audience? Can pop music be saved? How much did I, as a composer, believe in keeping the audience in mind while composing? How relevant were Uptown/Downtown issues to a music scene like that of South America? Did the nature of what we think of as "art music" need to be redefined? I can't remember them all, but as we went around the room, it dawned on me that all the questions were really one urgent question: What kind of music can survive in a corporate dictatorship?"

"In Arizona, Tupperware-style Taser parties have become all the rage, thanks to the enterprising savvy of saleswoman Dana Shafman, founder of Shieldher Inc. Shafman’s little soirees aren’t just popular, they’re also highly profitable. Over light conversation and snacks, women are invited to handle the palm-sized C2, the latest (and smallest) civilian version of a Taser stun gun. The C2 is also the most affordable Taser to hit the market, starting at $299.99—with an option to upgrade the C2 with a $50 laser beam to better the chances of debilitating a human target. Because practice makes perfect, the women in attendance are encouraged to grab a C2 and take turns shooting at a cardboard cutout representing a male attacker. “I felt that we have Tupperware parties and candle parties to protect our food and house, so why not have a Taser party to learn how to protect our lives and bodies?” Shafman told the the Arizona Republic."

Maybe another rate cut?

"Worst credit crunch on record."

Saving the Dollar

"Responding to complaints from the Religious Right, Congress has passed legislation mandating that the phrase "In God We Trust" be moved from the edge to the back or front of the new presidential dollar coins.

President George W. Bush signed the measure into law Dec. 26. It was tucked into a $555 billion domestic spending bill after having been pushed by U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). Brownback and other Religious Right conservatives have been complaining about the new coins since the series started last year."

"Few Americans are aware that for at least 16 years big business and banks have been secretly taking out millions of life insurance policies on their rank and file workers and naming the corporation the beneficiary of the death benefit without the knowledge of the worker. The individual policies are frequently in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. If the employee leaves the company, no problem; big business is still allowed to collect the death benefit and they track the employee through the Social Security Administration to keep tabs on when they die. These policies are commonly known as "dead peasant" or "janitor" policies because they insure low-wage earners including janitors. Some of the largest corporations in America have been boosting their income statements by including cash buildup in the policies as well as receiving the death benefit tax free."

"Military PC games. I play them compulsively, enjoying the freedom to dwell in the virtual space where I can do with impunity all the horrible things I was always dreaming of - killing innocent civilians, burning churches and houses, betraying allies... Plato was right: there are only two kinds of people on this earth, those who dream about doing horrible things and those who actually do them. My favourite game? Stalin Subway, a Russian one: Moscow 1952, the player is a KGB investigator, called by Stalin Himself to unearth the plot to kill Stalin and other members of the Politburo. One can arrest and kill suspects at one's will. If one wins, one gets a medal from Stalin and Beria! What more can one expect in this miserable life?"

Open Letterlet To American Media Professionals

What ought a hairdresser charge such a man? Minimum wage? Tip only? Should he have slaves to cut his hair? Or what?

Let them eat mud

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

Financial Times: "the financiers are frightened".

Peak Everything: Gideon Rachman in the FT, on "The global battle for food, oil and water":

...But while the bankers grapple with the top end of the process – the movement of billions of dollars around the world financial system – the political analysts are increasingly preoccupied by the way globalisation is affecting people at the bottom of the pile.

The costs of food and energy are rising fast. The availability of water is also becoming an issue, from Australia to Africa. The struggle for these three basic commodities – food, energy and water – came up repeatedly in Davos. [...]

... Andrew Liveris, chairman of Dow Chemical told the Davos meeting that: “Water is ... the oil of the 21st century. ”

The food, energy and water problems all touch on each other. America’s pursuit of alternatives to oil has led to massive investment in biofuels made from maize. That in turn has cut the amount of maize being used for food production and so contributed to rising food prices. The production of biofuels is also very water-intensive. Meanwhile, increased demand for agricultural land to grow more food is leading to the clearing of forest in Brazil – which could worsen global warming – leading to further stress on the world’s water supplies.

The potential for political conflicts increases along with the rise in food, energy and water prices. [...]

The theme of this year’s World Economic Forum was meant to be “collaborative innovation”. It is difficult to think of anything less collaborative or innovative than a new era of resource wars.

Class Warfare

...it’s now virtually certain that by the end of the Bush administration homeownership will be lower than it was at the beginning.

BAIER: Is being president confining?

BUSH: Yeah I guess so, I knew what I was getting in to and so I’m not frustrated in that sense. I can remember telling people that “well, when I decided to run that if I want, I’d never be able to go buy Berkely Power Worms again on my own.” And by that I meant that you know there’s just a certain freedom of movement that you don’t have and so I tell people, “yeah, there’s a bubble but life’s pretty comfortable inside the bubble.”

In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) created oppositional defiant disorder, defining it as "a pattern of negativistic, hostile and defiant behavior." The official symptoms of ODD include "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules" and "often argues with adults." While ODD-diagnosed young people are obnoxious with adults they don't respect, these kids can be a delight with adults they do respect; yet many of them are medicated with psychotropic drugs.
(...)
Throughout American history, both direct and indirect resistance to authority has been diseased. In an 1851 article in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, Louisiana physician Samuel Cartwright reported his discovery of "drapetomania," the disease that caused slaves to flee captivity. Cartwright also reported his discovery of "dysaesthesia aethiopis," the disease that caused slaves to pay insufficient attention to the master's needs. Early versions of ODD and ADHD?

Georgia understood that impeding the capital flow to subprime loans might raise the cost of borrowing for some state residents—those who, for one reason or another, had poor credit but could and would repay high-priced loans. But Georgia judged that this was more than balanced by protection for its most vulnerable from the scourge of predatory lending and the wrenching costs associated with overpayment and eventual foreclosure. New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico made the same judgment and within two years had enacted their own versions of laws exposing downstream owners of loans to fines if they bought predatory loans.

That's when the feds came in. Some of the biggest players in the secondary mortgage market are national banks, and the states' efforts to curb predatory lending clashed with the banks' fervent desire to keep the market in subprime loans rolling. And so the national banks turned to the Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC is a somewhat conflicted agency: While its primary regulatory responsibility is ensuring the safety and soundness of the national bank system, almost its entire budget comes from fees it imposes on the banks—meaning that its funding depends on keeping them happy. It was unsurprising, then, that the OCC leapt to attention when the national banks asked it to pre-empt the Georgia-like subprime laws on the grounds that they conflicted with federal banking law.

While the banks' legal arguments were thin, the OCC issued regulations in early 2004 nullifying the state laws as they applied to national banks. In part, the OCC reasoned that the states just got it wrong: As the then-comptroller explained in a speech to the Federalist Society, "We know that it's possible to deal effectively with predatory lending without putting impediments in the way of those who provide access to legitimate subprime credit." With the state laws nullified, national banks were free to engage in the sharp practices the states were hoping to stamp out. (Indeed, Georgia scuttled its law because it didn't want to give national banks a competitive advantage over its state institutions.) Facing intense pressure from subprime lenders and Wall Street, and left without a real chance of holding investors responsible for purchasing ill-advised loans, state legislatures gave up.

When I was seventeen, I was preparing myself for my compulsory IDF service. Being a well-built teenager fuelled with Zionist spirit and soaked in self-righteousness, I was due to join an air force special rescuing unit. But then the unexpected happened. On an especially late night Jazz program, I heard Bird (Charlie Parker) with Strings.

I was knocked down. It was by far more organic, poetic, sentimental and yet wilder than anything I had ever heard before. My father used to listen to Bennie Goodman and Artie Shaw, these two were entertaining, they could play the clarinet, but Bird was a different story altogether. He was a fierce libidinal extravaganza of wit and energy. The morning after, I decided to skip school, I rushed to “Piccadilly Record”, Jerusalem’s No 1 music shop. I found the jazz section and bought every bebop album they had on the shelves (probably two albums). On the bus, on the way home, I realized that Bird was actually a Black man. It didn’t take me by complete surprise, but it was kind of a revelation, in my world, it was only Jews who were associated with anything good. Bird was a beginning of a journey.

At the time, like my peers, I was pretty convinced that Jews were indeed the chosen people. My generation was raised on the Six Day War magical victory, we were totally sure of ourselves. Since we were secular, we associated every success with our omnipotent qualities. We didn’t believe in divine intervention, we believed in ourselves. We believed that our might is brewed in our resurrected Hebraic soul and flesh. The Palestinians, on their part, were serving us obediently and it didn’t seem at the time as if this was ever going to change. They didn’t show any real signs of collective resistance. The sporadic so-called “terror” attacks made us feel righteous, it filled us with some eagerness to get revenge. But somehow within this extravaganza of omnipotence, to my great surprise, I learned to realize that the people who exited me the most were actually a bunch of Black Americans. People who have nothing to do with the Zionist miracle. People that had nothing to do with my own chauvinist exclusive tribe.

By military Keynesianism, I mean the mistaken belief that public policies focused on frequent wars, huge expenditures on weapons and munitions, and large standing armies can indefinitely sustain a wealthy capitalist economy. The opposite is actually true.

Group A: Ghana v Guinea

January 15, 1919

The Argentine-born musician is believed to be the first person in the world to possess both passports after receiving his new documentation at the end of a piano concert of Ludwig van Beethoven sonatas, which he performed in Ramallah in the West Bank at the weekend.

Mr. Sepi did not like to venture outside too late. But, plagued by nightmares about an Iraqi civilian killed by his unit, he often needed alcohol to fall asleep. And so it was that night, when, seized by a gut feeling of lurking danger, he slid a trench coat over his slight frame — and tucked an assault rifle inside it.

“Matthew knew he shouldn’t be taking his AK-47 to the 7-Eleven,” Detective Laura Andersen said, “but he was scared to death in that neighborhood, he was military trained and, in his mind, he needed the weapon to protect himself.”

Far, far more important than the size of the sample, however, is the degree to which the overall sample is truly random, that is, trule representative of the population sampled and here is where the first of many serious questions about the NEJM effort arise. As the authors themselves admit, they did not visit a significant proportion of the original designated clusters: "Of the 1086 originally selected clusters, 115 (10.6%) were not visited because of problems with security," meaning they were inconveniently situated in Anbar province, Baghdad, and two other areas that were dangerous to visit, (especially for Iraqi government employees from a Shia-controlled ministry.) While such reluctance is understandable--one of those involved was indeed killed during the survey--it also meant that areas with very high death tolls were excluded from the survey.

To fill the gap, the surveyors reached for the numbers advanced by the Iraqi Body Count, (IBC) a U.K. based entity that relies entirely on newspaper reports of Iraqi deaths to compile their figures. Due to IBC's policy of posting minimum and maximum figures, currently standing at 80,419 and 87,834, their numbers carry a misleading air of scientific precision. As the group itself readily concedes, the estimate must be incomplete, since it omits deaths that do not make it into the papers, a number that is likely to be high in a society as violently chaotic as today's Baghdad, and higher still outside Baghdad where it is even harder for journalists to operate.

Nevertheless, the NEJM study happily adopted a formula in which they compared the ratio between their figures from a province they did visit to the IBC number for that province, and then used that ratio to adjust their own figures for places they did not dare go. Interestingly, the last line of the table on page 8 of the Supplementary Appendix to the report, "adjustment for missing clusters using IBC data," reveals that in using the Body Count's dubious figures to fill the holes in their Baghdad data, the formula they employ actually revises downward the rate of violent deaths on what they label "low mortality provinces."

Power Speaking Truth To Us

via UFO Breakfast Recipients

I used to claim that the world would end not with a great book, but with a wonderful advertisement. - André Breton

100

The US military budget was almost 29 times as large as the combined spending of the six "rogue" states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $14.65 billion.

The News

Entertainment actually drove selection of news stories. Since "Dateline" was the lead-in to the hit series "Law & Order" on Friday nights, it was understood that on Fridays we did crime.

We're a dozen or so old, white, mostly male people who for the most part don't hold elected office. Unless the presidential candidates do what we tell them to do, we're going to encourage our short divorced pal from New York City to spend a billion bucks of his personal fortune to fuck around with the election because that's what the people need.

Guest post by Jean Genet

Quelques poètes, de nos jours, se livrent a une très curieuse opération: ils chantent le Peuple, la Liberté, la Révolution, etc., qui, d'etre chantés, sont précipités puis cloués sur un ciel abstrait ou ils figurent, déconfits et dégonflés, en de difformes constellations. Désincarnés, ils deviennent intouchables. Comment les approcher, les aimer, les vivre, s'ils sont expédiés si magnifiquement loin? Ecrits, parfois somptueusement, ils deviennent les signes constitutifs d'un poème, la poésie étant nostalgie et le chant détruisant son prétexte, nos poètes, tuent ce qu'ils voulaient faire vivre.

Hermetically under siege, after decades of occupation and years of Intifada in which Israel destroyed the little infrastructure that the Strip ever had, following many months of total embargo on everything except basic food products, which brought the economy to a halt, with daily invasions of Israeli tanks and extra-judicial killings by Israeli airplanes, and now with gasoline supplies cut and electricity supply to be reduced soon, the Gaza Strip (1.5 million people, 80 percent refugees) is no longer the world's biggest open-air prison. It's a huge laboratory for human experimentation, run by the Israeli army.

... just about every Pakistani with whom I spoke blamed her death not on al-Qaeda, but on their own government - and the United States.

Benazir, as Pakistanis called her, had already cheated death in October, on the day she made an emotional return from exile to run in elections. A suicide bomb narrowly missed her but killed about 140 supporters. The government had done little to investigate that bombing, and many of her followers believed government intelligence agencies were behind the attack.

Cleaning up the crime scene:


"Benazir popped her head out of her armoured car for about two or three seconds, during which a gunmen armed with a 9mm pistol fired three shots from 30 feet away, two of which landed in her neck," he told me. There was an ongoing discussion at the club's canteen between eyewitnesses, and the consensus was that anyone that can land so many shots in a frame of a few seconds had to have been trained by the military or the intelligence agencies.

There are some residencies that overlook the site of the shooting, and I spoke with some of the house owners about the incident. "Political rallies are apt to happen around these parts, and the police always ask us if they can depute officers from our roof to survey the situation. They didn't this time. When I asked them about it prior to BB's arrival, they told me to stay inside and bolt my gate," one resident told me.

While the ambush was being prepared, the police had sealed off Murtaza’s house (from which his father had been lifted by Zia’s commandos in 1978). The family inside felt something was wrong. At this point, a remarkably composed Fatima Bhutto, aged 14, decided to ring her aunt at Prime Minister’s House. The conversation that followed remains imprinted on her memory and a few years ago she gave me an account of it. It was Zardari who took her call:

Fatima: I wish to speak to my aunt, please.

Zardari: It’s not possible.

Fatima: Why? [At this point, Fatima says she heard loud wails and what sounded like fake crying.]

Zardari: She’s hysterical, can’t you hear?

Fatima: Why?

Zardari: Don’t you know? Your father’s been shot.

Fatima and Ghinwa found out where Murtaza had been taken and rushed out of the house. There was no sign on the street outside that anything had happened: the scene of the killing had been wiped clean of all evidence. There were no traces of blood and no signs of any disturbance. They drove straight to the hospital but it was too late; Murtaza was already dead. Later they learned that he had been left bleeding on the ground for almost an hour before being taken to a hospital where there were no emergency facilities of any kind.

The New Gilded Age

They had built a self-contained world unto themselves, complete with their own health-care system (concierge doctors), travel network (Net Jets, destination clubs), separate economy….The rich weren’t just getting richer; they were becoming financial foreigners, creating their own country within a country, their own society within a society, and their own economy within an economy.

Then they came for the Nordic blondes...

...and I was silent, for my hair was mousey-brown. (Besides, I was planning a winter break in Miami.)

The story of Eva Ósk Arnardóttir.

Otway

With the help of a theremin, John Otway makes his body talk:



With the help of a mutant guitar, Otway does Sweet's 'Blockbuster':

Conspiracy Praxis: Government fabricated terror group

Stand easy: it was only the Egyptian government. (Them Muslims, eh?) Couldn't happen here. of course.

(Strangely enough, that cant term and all-purpose thoughtstopper "conspiracy theory" does not appear once in this BBC piece - just as it never appeared in any British media report on Putin's alleged involvement in the assassinations of Russian journalists abroad. Why not? An unfathomable mystery.)

Egypt 'fabricated terror group'

A US-based human rights group has accused the Egyptian government of using torture and false confessions in a high-profile anti-terrorism case.

Twenty-two alleged members of an unknown Islamist group, the Victorious Sect, were accused of planning attacks on tourism sites and gas pipelines.

Human Rights Watch says its research suggests the security forces may have fabricated the group's name.

It reports claims the case was used to justify renewing emergency laws. ...

A sound is a sound

Why do they hate us?

Guantanamo prisoner cut his throat with sharpened fingernail, survives

By Ben Fox, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, Dec 4

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A Guantanamo Bay prisoner slashed his throat with a sharpened fingernail last month, spilling a lot of blood but surviving, a U.S. military commander said Tuesday.

Guards administered first aid and took the prisoner to the prison clinic, said navy Cmdr. Andrew Haynes, the deputy commander in charge of the guard force.

"There was an impressive effusion of blood," Haynes told reporters visiting the base. He would not disclose the man's name or nationality. A medical officer, who could not be identified under military rules for journalists, said the prisoner received several stitches and spent a week under psychiatric observation.

There have been four suicides since the United States opened the military prison at Guantanamo in January 2002 for men suspected of involvement in terrorism or links to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Haynes said he doubted the latest incident was a real suicide attempt, and characterized it instead as an act of "self-harm."

The incident occurred while the man was taking his daily five-minute shower in early November, around the time when more than two dozen journalists were visiting Guantanamo for a military court hearing.

Haynes said there have been up to half-dozen "self-harm incidents" in the two months he has been assigned to Guantanamo Bay. He described suicide as a "paramount tactic" used by prisoners to discredit U.S. forces. But defence lawyers and human rights groups say the suicides are a result of the prisoners' despair.

Many of the 305 men held at Guantanamo have been there for more than five years without charge. The military has said it plans to prosecute up to 80 of the prisoners.

In other developments, a Guantanamo prison manual from 2004 that was posted anonymously on the Internet on Tuesday indicated that some detainees were prevented from having any contact with representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross. The military said it could not immediately confirm the document's authenticity.

...

The New York Times adds:

Commander Haynes said there had been four to six occurrences in the last two months in which detainees harmed themselves, a rate that he said was consistent with recent experience. Those instances show that a potentially deadly struggle between detainees and their jailers continues, largely out of public view. One detainee committed suicide in May, after three other suicides the previous June, and there have also been numerous suicide attempts.

...

In interviews with reporters Tuesday, officials said nine detainees remained on hunger strikes and were being force-fed daily. The detainee engaged in the longest of the hunger strikes, the officials said, has been force-fed for 816 days.

This Will Cheer You Up

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov vs. Viswanathan Anand

Conspiracy Praxis: The CIA as Keystone Kops (Again)

CIA erred and had tapes in September 11 conspirator case

Tue Nov 13, 2007 6:05pm EST

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA erred [sic!] in twice telling a court in the case of September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui that it did not have any recordings of interrogations of "enemy combatants," when in fact it had three video or audio tapes, according to a letter released on Tuesday.

Two questions:

1. Which contortionist at Reuters came up with that unparodiable headline?

2. When is the Left finally going to get real about 9/11?

"It's amazing what some people will do to their houses."

As many as 25 percent of Las Vegas' bank-foreclosed homes suffer intentional damage, according to an informal R-J survey of valley appraisers and real estate agents. According to Thomas Blanchard, owner/broker of First Realty Group, this damage -- most of which is inflicted in the four to 12 months between the notice of default and the constable's knock at the door -- typically requires $3,000 to $10,000 to repair. However, it can approach or exceed 10 percent of a home's total value. "Some of the time, the house's worth is a detriment to the land value," says Blanchard. "It's amazing what some people will do to their houses."

Oppose Economism

The normal economist's view is that economic changes drive political changes. Thus, the Depression led to the New Deal, for example. In our time, global competition, the IT revolution, and the demand for high skills led to higher inequality, which in turn meant a shrinking constituency for a populist politics and a larger constituency, among the winners, for the kind of top-down, class-warfare politics that today's GOP engages in.

Krugman had always believed— even "when I began working on this book"—that this was how things unfolded. "Yet," he writes of our era:

I've become increasingly convinced that much of the causation runs the other way—that political change in the form of rising polarization has been a major cause of rising inequality. That is, I'd suggest an alternative story for the last thirty years that runs like this: Over the course of the 1970s, radicals of the right determined to roll back the achievements of the New Deal took over the Republican Party, opening a partisan gap with the Democrats.... The empowerment of the hard right emboldened business to launch an all-out attack on the union movement, drastically reducing workers' bargaining power; freed business executives from the political and social constraints that had previously placed limits on runaway executive paychecks; sharply reduced tax rates on high incomes; and in a variety of other ways promoted rising inequality.

Magnificat

NAPLES (Reuters) -
Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said Washington must let him open a military base in Miami if the United States wants to keep using an air base on Ecuador's Pacific coast. Correa has refused to renew Washington's lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for counter-narcotics surveillance operations on Pacific drug-running routes. "We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami -- an Ecuadorean base," Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy. "If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States."

Time Porn

There are all kinds of porn other than sex porn. Since 1980, Hollywood has made mostly redemption-through-violence porn and happy-ending porn. Some TV shows, like Seinfeld, are time porn, indulging a stressed-out audience with characters who are free to just hang out all day.

The Freedom to Serve and the Freedom to Starve

“America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you’ve lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn’t belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don’t care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.”

Ruling Class/ History

... this proposition, that the Ruling Class already has the knowledge 'we' have, that they are not ideological dupes sleepwalking through their acts of corporate vandalism etc but soberly and even cynically ensconced behind ideological spin, this is almost universally resisted by the intellectual classes. They think it unsophisticated, vulgar, conceptually uninteresting. For some reason, they want to think that the ruling class is stupid. As if their own knowledge was - politically speaking - enough. Not at all. Their own knowledge implies no political position. ONly active commitment will do.

....To be serious about theoretical reflection is to be ready to engage in a tremendous labour of detail, the sifting through all kinds of cultural and historical minutiae. With a microscope and telescope at once, maintain perpetual vigilance against the self-evidence of the contemporary moment. Dig into its contingency. What is unserious is to wonder around wide-eyed in the bazaar of the present pointing to endless examples of one’s pet concepts – ooh look, another instance of the Big Other! These New Concepts that can never drink their fill of examples!!

here

Robinho

Jean-Guihen Queyras

Sur Incises

"Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground."

"In hindsight it's easy to mock Lennon for his political pretensions; indeed, those born since 1975 will probably be mystified that a pop star could ever have been taken so seriously as to become a prized figurehead for radical movements, let alone monitored by the security agencies of Britain and America. The key word here is "radical". Nowadays, there is neither an equivalent to the radical politics of the early Seventies nor anything that begins to approach the extent to which such radicalism was then de rigueur for young thinking people."

- the late Ian McDonald on John Lennon, born 67 years ago today.

Via Mr. Agreeable

BOOM

Greenhouse gas emissions hit danger mark

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The global economic boom has accelerated greenhouse gas emissions to a dangerous threshold not expected for a decade and could potentially cause irreversible climate change, said one of Australia's leading scientists.

Tim Flannery, a world recognized climate change scientist and Australian of the Year in 2007, said a U.N. international climate change report due in November will show that greenhouse gases have already reached a dangerous level.

Flannery said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will show that greenhouse gas in the atmosphere in mid-2005 had reached about 455 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent -- a level not expected for another 10 years.

"We thought we'd be at that threshold within about a decade," Flannery told Australian television late on Monday.

"We thought we had that much time. But the new data indicates that in about mid-2005 we crossed that threshold," he said.

[...]

Flannery said global economic expansion, particularly in China and India, was a major factor behind the unexpected acceleration in greenhouse gas levels. ...

- continues here

October 9, 1967

Mario Terán was the Bolivian Army sergeant who executed revolutionary Che Guevara as a young man on October 9, 1967. He had drawn a short straw after arguments over who would kill Guevara broke out among the soldiers. In 2006, Terán was treated for cataracts by Cuban physicians in the Cuba-Venezuela Operación Milagro (Operation Miracle) program, which restored his sight. This was first revealed when Terán's son wrote a letter to the Santa Cruz de la Sierra newspaper El Deber thanking the Cuban doctors. In 2007 it gained wider attention when Granma (the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba) reported the treatment, opining that "Four decades after Mario Terán attempted to destroy a dream and an idea, Che returns to win yet another battle...Now an old man, he [Terán] can once again appreciate the colors of the sky and the forest, enjoy the smiles of his grandchildren and watch football games."

Revisionist Daydreaming

Women's suffrage? Big mistake: "If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it's going to happen."

Social movements of the past? Liquidate retroactively: "In this election, we're going to find out if the heritage of May 68 is going to be perpetuated or if it will be liquidated once and forever."

Invasion of Iraq? Sensible idea after all: "You know, I've thought for a long time that Obama's not in quite as strong a position on the war in Iraq as he really thinks he is. Remember, when he famously came out against the war, it was back in a time when the entire world believed that Saddam Hussein in Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that he would probably be willing to use them himself at some time or pass them along to terrorists who would use them. And yet, Barack Obama was against going to the war at that point. I don't think that shows that he is very strong on national security, which he needs to be."

Slavery? Maybe not as bad as you thought: "There is no reason to believe that today's African-Americans would be better off if their ancestors had remained behind in Africa."

I'm Not Sure We Could Really Do Anything About These People Now

Contractors take on expanded role in drug warBy Katherine McIntire Peters kpeters@govexec.com September 12, 2007 Late last month, the Pentagon tapped five major defense contractors to provide wide-ranging support in global counter-narcotics operations. The contract, worth up to $15 billion over the next five years, illustrates the extent to which the Defense Department is relying on contractors to perform critical missions while combat forces are stretched thin by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In response to specific task orders issued under the indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract, companies will develop and deploy new surveillance technologies, train and equip foreign security forces and provide key administrative, logistical and operational support to Defense and other agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration.
According to the work statement provided to bidders, the vast majority of the drive will be conducted overseas.
"The contractor shall provide security and related services in support of [counter-narcoterrorism and] related missions to include, but not limited to, intelligence, medical, logistics, canine services, surveillance, counter-surveillance, aerial over-watch, security advisory, etc. The services may be incidental to other activities (i.e., training programs, construction, etc.) or the primary purpose of the [task order]," the statement said.
Three task orders included in the request for proposals issued last December give some sense of the contract's scope:
The first task order requires the contractor to develop and install high-resolution shortwave infrared cameras and all necessary appurtenances on two types of aircraft. A second requires the contractor to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support in Trans-Saharan Africa by identifying the best platform and sensor suite; designing, building, operating and maintaining a base of operations; and providing various analytical reports. A third "sample" task order requires the contractor to develop a program to train border police in Afghanistan to guard crossings, prevent the flow of contraband, and search people and vehicles.
All contractor personnel must have security clearances for handling classified information, and some must possess clearances for special access programs, including those at the Top Secret/sensitive compartmented information level.
Awardees include Raytheon Technical Services Co., Lockheed Martin Co., Northrop Grumman Corp., Arinc Inc., and Blackwater USA. The contract was let by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command on Aug. 24 on behalf of the Pentagon's Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office.
The mission of the counter-narcoterrorism office is to "develop and deploy technology that aids disrupting, deterring and denying the flow of drugs, people, information, money and weapons related to illegal drug trafficking and narcoterrorism," according to a 2003 Pentagon memo that expanded the charter. The office was formerly known as the DoD Counterdrug Technology Development Program Office.
While contractors have long supported federal counternarcotics programs, the scope of requirements in the contract issued last month is new. In late February 2006, Space and Missile Defense Command issued a "sources sought" document seeking information from industry about the support that contractors could provide for the counter-drug mission.
Two months later, at an industry briefing in April, Defense officials estimated that the value of the contract would be $500 million to $750 million per year over five years, according to briefing documents. Clearly, the Pentagon's requirements expanded between that briefing and last December, when Defense issued its request for proposals.
As the work statement in the request noted: "Due to the rapid adaptability of the counter-narcoterrorist threat, special federal government spending authorities are available to the [deputy assistant secretary of Defense for counter-narcoterrorism]."

Revealed: CIA offered $2m to Lockerbie witness and brother

The Lockerbie case stinks nearly as badly as the 9/11 cover-up. Years ago, a former Scottish police chief confirmed that evidence had been planted by the CIA. Nothing was done. Now comes this, from the Glasgow Herald:

Revealed: CIA offered $2m to Lockerbie witness and brother

Exclusive by LUCY ADAMS, Chief Reporter October 03 2007

The CIA offered $2m (£1m) to the Crown's key witness in the Lockerbie trial and his brother, sources close to the case have told The Herald.

Recently discovered papers show Scottish police officers investigating the 1988 bombing were aware the US intelligence service had discussed financial terms and witness protection schemes with Tony Gauci and his brother, Paul.

They documented the talks and it would have been standard practice for such information to have been relayed to the prosecution team before the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the Libyan serving 27 years for the bombing.

However, his defence team was never told of the CIA offer, in what critics say is another example of non-disclosure that undermines the credibility of Mr Gauci and, in turn, the Crown's case against Megrahi.

It has not been confirmed that the brothers accepted any money, but the fact that an offer was made is directly relevant to the credibility of Tony Gauci, who became the lynchpin of the case. Paul was never called as a witness.

The latest remarkable twist comes a day after The Herald revealed a top-secret document vital to the truth about Lockerbie was obtained by the Crown but never disclosed to the defence.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission found that document during its three-year investigation, which concluded earlier this year that Megrahi should have a fresh appeal.

The document, thought to be from the CIA, contains highly classified information about the MST13 timer which allegedly detonated the bomb. The Crown, for national security [sic] reasons, is still refusing to hand the material over to the defence.

An offer of remuneration by the US agency could be explained by the political imperative then for the US and Britain to secure a conviction for Lockerbie. At the time, Libya was very much a hostile nation, unlike the more relaxed links between Tripoli and the West which now prevail.

Yesterday in Edinburgh, the defence lodged its case with the appeal court and a preliminary hearing has been set for a week tomorrow.

The defence team also lodged a specification of documents order, demanding the Crown release the classified document. Prosecutors are expected to challenge the appeal, despite the weight of new evidence.

A source close to the case said: "We understand the commission found new documents which refer to discussions between the US intelligence agency and the Gaucis and that the sum involved was as much as $2m.

"Even if they did not receive the money, the fact these discussions took place should have been divulged to the defence."

The Herald has also seen copies of an agreement with the US government and signed by a senior member of the Crown Office, agreeing not to disclose certain material.

Norman McFadyen, then one of the leading members of the prosecution team and now the Crown Agent, signed the non-disclosure agreement on June 1, 2000.

James Chalmers, a senior lecturer in law at Edinburgh University, said if a member of the Crown agreed not to disclose material shown by a foreign government, it called its worth into question.

"This would raise questions about whether the right to a fair trial has been breached. And if a witness were offered money before giving evidence, this could undermine their credibility.

"It would certainly need to be put to the witness under cross-examination. If such information was not disclosed to the defence, that could give rise to a miscarriage of justice. It is an issue of credibility."

Dr Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the tragedy, said: "It is shocking to me that if after 19 years of trying to get to the truth about who murdered my daughter, national security is being used as an excuse."

A spokesman for the Crown Office has previously declined to comment on the case
saying it would be "wholly inappropriate" while it is before the appeal court.

America: A Corporation Before It Was A Country

Shock Doctrine

Marta

It still matters

So what they’ve done -- and what happened, really, is this government finally realized that they had not been able to sell the American people on their view of the Iranian nuclear threat. In other words, it simply wasn’t working. Unlike in 2003, when we were sort of mushroom cloud into going along with the Iraqi war, the American public did not respond in any noticeable way to a fear. They didn’t share the fear of the leadership in the White House and many in the Israeli government of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Lawnorder

"I don't want to discuss my personal life with you, officer."

***

"I bet I could say you resisted arrest or something. You want me to come up with something? I come up with nine things."

***

"I was rudely accosted, assaulted with battery, and tased at Minneapolis St Paul USA international airport by Airport Police, simply for choosing to leave the airport by bicycle. I had broken no laws."

Records

Welcome to the Desert of the Unreal

I have a section in the book about how lies in a fascist shift serve a different purpose than they do in a democracy. In a democracy, people lie to deceive. In a fascist shift, lies serve to disorient. Lies in the service of a fascist shift make it hard for citizens to trust their own judgment about what's real and what's not. Once citizens don't know what's real and what's not real, they are profoundly disempowered. The Bush administration seems to have learned that lesson, and they regularly name things the opposite. And there's a long historical precedent for making people feel that there is no such thing as truth.

- Naomi Wolf

School Days

In a racist, terroristic police state.

The Spook Who Sat By The Door

via Zuky



Review at PopMatters.

Bear

Conquest

A critique of modern culture in 3 1/2 minutes, by Stan Goff and Audrey Mantey.

(Music: Shostakovich, Quartet No. 8)

At the Rugby World Cup

via Rugbydumb.com

Oh Happy Day!

The Edwin Hawkins Singers, 1969