Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

How did greedy big business demolish the U.S. economy?  This is a story that must now be told.

The fact is that ex-Fed chief Alan Greenspan with his 40-year low interest rate has demolished the U.S. economy!

It really is quite simple.  

For years the U.S. dollar represented the bench mark for world currency.  That dramatically changed when the U.S. stock market plummeted as high tech, over-valued stocks surged downward.  Other stocks tumbled.   Alan Grenspan, who sat on the sidelines as the high tech boom skyrocketed stock prices, made this observation:

To paraphrase Harry Truman's dictum that the only things we don't yet know being the history we haven't yet read, current headlines, in a comparative vein, are reminiscent of 1960.

Shortly before the beginning of the Democratic Convention of 1960 a group of prosperous looking Texans stood in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, the convention's headquarters, and one said in a strong, determined accent with a notable Texas twang:

"That Kennedy is making me damned mad!"

The youthful Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy and the politically experienced majority leader of that same body, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, had exchanged plenty of verbal blows as each sought to win the Democratic nomination and the opportunity to face Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the fall presidential campaign.

Ever since the George Bush Republican administration launched the Iraq War debacle on the false claim of the U.S. was being threatened by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction the entire world is on the edge of a nuclear disaster.

If the most powerful nation, militarily speaking, can unleash a war on the basis of lies and not be brought to the International Court of Justice at The Hague to be thoroughly investigated, and promptly brought to justice, a horrifying precedent in war crimes against humanity has been established.

When the Democrats were empowered to stop the Iraq War, the Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi betrayed the Democratic vote, brazenly declaring that "impeachment of George Bush is off the table!"

Basically she did have the decency to admit that she did disagree with his policies but thought that he was a nice person.

On Fox News snippets were distributed throughout the mainstream media of Bill O'Reilly snarling with impending dyspepsia to Hillary Clinton over the sheer audacity of her statement that his federal income tax might be raised to 39 percent under a plan she would offer as president.

This is so prevalent under the crybaby yuppie mentality of the Bush-Cheney Administration, fostered by the neoconservatives at the top carrying the spears for the likes of the company Cheney continues to, in all reality, lead, Halliburton, along with Bechtel.  

Then there are the revered telephone communication giants, and how Bush wants you to believe that U.S. intelligence sources will dry up post haste if we do not grant these giants immunity from prosecution.

Amid this jockeying that is occurring not only in America but worldwide over the New World's Order to keep things running in a neoconservative fashion by having the "super haves" hold on to all they have while expanding to own even more, there are efforts afoot to provide economic justice by giving those groups whose rights have been lying dormant all too long in the wake of expanding costs an opportunity to achieve needed economic benefits.  

The April 26 edition of the Toronto Star in an article by its environmental reporter Moira Welsh reveals, "The City of Toronto plans to pay its citizens to go green."

Starting in May, a staff with the Live Green Toronto program, operating with $20 million in city funding for five years, will begin meeting with residents to discuss carbon-saving projects it will help subsidize.

Toronto Mayor David Miller has said that the "the plan's success depends on residents creating change."  

An initial target has been projected of a 6 percent decrease in carbon emissions by 2012.

The above headline was revealed on a Seattle Times local news page April 28.

Why would 150 officeholders resign quickly before revealing personal data, such as names of relatives?  

Goodbye and god luck is what, in effect, 150 office holders hastily exclaimed as they rushed to resign.  

Ah!  At long last an ethics law recently passed revealed name by name who was afraid of being discovered.

For any international historian who had been away for a time either on another planet or taking a Rip Van Winkle style nap, how would that person find contemporary America?

That individual would have found the "60 Minutes" interview time that CBS generously bestowed on Chief Justice Antonin Scalia highly informative.  He presented the term "originalist" as defining his philosophy on the U.S. Constitution, but after listening to him in detail the question would have to be asked whether what he presented is unstead unvarnished fascism.

The first point that would have to be questioned was when segment moderator Leslie Stahl referred to Scalia, without any supporting evidence, as "one of the most brilliant" jurists we ever had serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Where are his credentials to justify such a glowing introductory comment?

Earl Warren had as his enduring legacy Brown v. Board of Education and Baker v. Carr, both landmark decisions that positively changed the face of American education and legislative democracy.  John Marshall, who served 34 years on the Court, in Marbury v. Madison presented the cornerstone principles of judicial review that shaped the Republic during succeeding years.

The aforementioned question is the number one burning issue in the U.S.A. today and has never been anwered by an investigation.

Rob Lewis of Langley, Washigton in a Seattle Times Letter to the Editor appearing in the Aparil 25 edition wrote:

"The New York Times' revelation of a massive, orchestrated Pentagon propaganda campaign that used retired officers to parrot George Bush's ... support of the war."

The statement continues by noting, "Many media analysts under sway of Pentagon."

Rush, your reign of gutter radio commentary has embedded you into the public consciousness as one of the ultimate slime wallowers in our nation's history.

You show no sign of letting up.  In fact, perhaps an air of desperation has finally reached you as the taste for your style of "political analysis" is receding.

To say that you embrace hypocrisy is letting you off far too gently.  Yours is the mammoth category of hypocrisy that would have to be carried to the realm of infinity and beyond.

Remember Rush, you were the one who took the stern and unrelenting view that anyone caught consuming drugs under any circumstances should sustain one of two punishments: 1) execution; 2) be dismissed from America without ever receiving a future opportunity to return.

Andrew C. Revkin in a New York Times in a January 8, 2008 article reveals a daunting reporting on the melting surface of Greenland.

As stated by Revkin:

"For a lengthening string of warm years, a lacework of blue lakes and rivulets of meltwater have been spreading ever higher on the ice cap (cloaking Greenland).  The melting surface darkens, absorbing up to four times as much energy from the sun as unmelted snow, which reflects sunlight.  Natural drainpipes called moulins carry water from the surface into the depths, in some places reaching bedrock.  The process slightly, but measurably, lubricates and accelerates the grinding passage of ice toward the sea."

Glaciologists report the breakup of huge semi submerged clots of ice "where some large Greenland glaciers, particularly along the west coast, squeeze through fjords as they meet the warming ocean.  As these passages have cleared, this has sharply accelerated the flow of many of these creeping, corrugated, frozen rivers."

A look at the current London mayor's race gives every indication of a nail-biter with incumbent Ken Livingstone of the Labour Party seeking a third term.

On those two previous occasions Livingstone was compelled to secure victory in a second round of voting.  

A current Sunday Times telephone survey of one thousand Londoners suggests that history will repeat itself once more.  

The result showed incumbent Livingstone with 45 percent of the vote, just a shadow of a nudge ahead of Conservative challenger Boris Johnson with a 44 percent figure.  Liberal candidate and former Metropolitan police commander Brian Paddick received 9 percent.

"Bush could apologize for deceiving the American people into supporting a completely unnecessary war."

So says Ken Swenson of Pound Ridge, New York in an April 13 New York Times Letter to the Editors.

Swenson continued:

"Through these five years of senseless loss, I have yearned for a thorough analysis and recounting of the deceit and manipulation that brought us here.  A complete reckoning by Congress might force us all, even President Bush, to accept responsibility."

Let's face it!  The runaway spending spree the Bush Administration has finally unleashed has hit with the big bang!

Stagflation has overtaken the nation!

No sword dance with friendly Saudi royalty or meeting with world leaders to try to plant rocket launching pads on European nation's borders can cover up a raging big bank meltdown.

The New York Times on April 21 headlined the review by Barry Gewen with the following:

The Seattle Times April 16 headline read:

"Shareholders' Fury Forces Policy Changes at WAMU".

Underneath this headline describing the rage shareholders of stock in Washington Mutual Bank felt as they saw their investment in one of the biggest banks in the U.S.A. collapse, the article continued to explain how this devastating economic meltdown shattered their faith in Washington Mutual Chief Executive Officer Kerry Killinger.

But before Killinger announced another huge loss of $19 billion in more bad loans, Alan Henry, a retired radio executive, blasted Killinger's record as Washington Mutual's CEO.  Directing his diatribe to the bank's stockholders, he reminded them, "You're the owners, not them (referring to the bank's executives).  They're employees."

The so-called debate presented in Philadelphia this week consisting of moderators George Stephanopoulous and Charlie Gibson substituted what should have been a serious analysis of the major topics facing America and the globe and substituted frivolity and absurdity, reducing the issue of presidential politics to a laughable side show.

The major issues were the ones that were not tackled at all.

People throughout the world would like to know what will be done about a war of occupation launched on provable lies, chiefly that Saddam Hussein must be stopped before he can wage nuclear war on America with weapons he did not possess, and that according to the respected British journal Lancet has documented that over 1.2 million Iraqi lives have been lost.

How about the U.S. debt that exceeds the amount of all of our previous debts combined?  How about the largest debt in the history of the planet that now exceeds $9.3 trillion as it approaches an astronomical $10 trillion figure?

Now is the time for Hilary Clinton to take a bold position that in one brilliant, courageous stroke shows the nation that she is more willing to pursue true reforms of the two-party plutocratic political system than Obama is.

One of my annual diaries (when I remember to do them) is honoring the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during WW II, which happened to coincide with Hitler's birthday in 1943. I happen to feel that it was a particularly good birthday present for Hitler: the defeat of his elite force by a bunch of half starved, barely armed Jews.

This year the anniversary is particularly poignant because, as in 1943, Passover began at sundown on April 19th and April 20th, the day the uprising took off, was the first day of Passover. And that coincidence influenced the Seder I attended last night. In honor of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, in "honor" of Hitler's Birthday, in in honor of all who fight against tyrrany, I bring you a piece of history worth remembering.

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal and x-posted at The Wild, Wild Left, Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus, The Independent Bloggers Alliance, The Peace Tree and World Wide Sawdust.

As many of you know by now, The Huffington Post reported yesterday that Senator Clinton slammed the activist organization Moveon.org at a fundraiser in February:

Amidst all the uproar over ABC's debate moderators' divisive, distracting and sometimes just inane questions, there are a couple of gems from the discussion that shouldn't be overlooked. From Hillary Clinton's raw honesty and new insights on middle east conflicts to Barack Obama's revelations on employment and educational barriers for poor whites, here's a selection of items that shouldn't be overlooked.

They are not the rich and superrich, nor the politically powerful running the two-party plutocracy, nor the greedy heads of banking and finance companies, and certainly not the media moguls and bloviating pundits.

At some point the business sector realized the best way to take advantage of consumers was to use default options that make them spend money.  A default option works because it creates an automatic decision by the consumer doing nothing.  And doing nothing is the path of least resistance for time-poor consumers struggling to balance the many difficult responsibilities associated with work, family, maintaining financial security, and coping with stresses on their health.

In the year 2008, most Americans would acknowledge that their national politics has degenerated into quite a sorry state in recent years. Name-calling and mudslinging, detraction, slander and libel have never been so commonplace. Not a single solidly-pro-life candidate is likely to win Republican nomination, much less Democratic nomination, for the presidency. People are being asked which candidate they like or trust instead of which candidate measures up to their core convictions. A significant minority of allegedly pro-life Americans is even placing a candidate's support for the "War on Terrorism" ahead of his position on abortion. Finally, thanks to the endemic corruption of our modern political system, the presidential candidates likely to be nominated do not come close to truly representing the American people.

Here are my top 10 reasons to "take it to the streets." I think you know what I mean.  Our best hope of salvaging what's left of our economy involves ordinary people like you and me engaging in peaceful public protest of the recent moves by the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury Department.  All of these moves were sanctioned by our Congressional leadership -- meeting behind closed doors -- to ensure a soft landing for liars and cheats while decent people lose their houses, life savings, and pension funds.

If Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted we nearly avoided a domino-like crash of the nation's secondary financial institutions (i.e., Bear Stearns) it admitted that it allowed the housing bubble backed by inflated ABS/MBS securities and the even more inflated securities derivative debacle to go on for way too long.  I think we're past the point of no return.  And I think so do many of you.  

I'm not writing here trying to impress anyone.  Many people have a better idea of how bad things are than I do. And I'm certainly no economist -- I'm just appealing for public support to voice opposition to the contempt for working-class people that we've endured for 8 years.

Why?

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal on April 6th and x-posted today at The Wild, Wild Left, The Peace Tree,The Independent Bloggers Alliance and Worldwide Sawdust.

How many economists have you read or watched on television in recent years that claimed the economy was performing well while you struggled to make ends meat and keep up with the cost of living? Indeed, until recently a happy talk virus had infected a cabal of conservative plutocrats who preached the virtues of limited regulation, market forces and free trade as wages declined and predatory lenders had a party. It seemed we were hearing conservative politicians and their mouthpieces at the Heritage Foundation or Fox news refer to the economy as "the greatest story never told" at every opportunity.

Now that the housing and credit crisis has metastasized, conservative apparatchiks are fighting to minimize government intervention on behalf of regular folks while preserving corporate welfare. They accuse anyone who raises a fuss of waging class warfare. Instead these agents of the status quo prefer we erroneously obsess about Social Security going bust and agree to privatize it for Wall Street's benefit.

Whether you see yourself as a truth seeker, patriotic American, independent thinker or voter, or just someone with bad memories of 9/11, you should make an effort to view The Reflecting Pool, a new independent movie.  It is not about 9/11.  It is about the credibility of the official government story about 9/11.  Though a drama, it is based on meticulously researched facts about 9/11 as revealed in the bonus material on the DVD.

The story is about the search for truth and the unsettling implications of discovering 9/11 truth that conflicts with what has become the folklore about the historic event.

Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number.
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you--
Ye are many, they are few.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

My friend Bernie says he can't believe the American people haven't figured out what it's all about. "The whole damn political scene is nothing but a corporate media freak show," he said. "There's no breathing room between elections -- no time nor interest in investigating, or even addressing, issues that are critical to our survival as a nation. The minute every last dollar is sucked out of the competition, the candidate who bought the most attack ads -- the most face time -- wins, and the election is over. Then," Bernie said with disgust, "it's time to start raising money for the next election, because the media is already out there campaigning."

In the past few days our surly Vice President who is normally in an "undisclosed location" surfaced to be interviewed by ABC's Martha Radditz in a now famous exchange, something to the effect that two thirds of Americans want us out of Iraq and his one word reply was "SO".

Then in this interview Cheney on ABC, on milestone of 4,000 dead

"The president carries the biggest burden, obviously," Cheney said. "He's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm's way for the rest of us."

If President Bush has the biggest burden, I wonder how the families of the 4,000 dead "volunteers" feel and the over 30,000 severely wounded, I am sure it bothers them that the President has this huge "burden" on him.

Let's face it - it's unfair, undemocratic and quite preposterous for the Democratic party to select a candidate for president without including voters from every state in the union. Now that it seems unlikely that either Florida or Michigan will have a revote for the presidential primary, the Democratic National Committee needs to move forward with a decision that empowers those states' voters without undermining DNC Rules and Bylaws and the state courts that have gotten involved in DNC's decision to strip those two states of their delegates.

It's likely that no matter what the DNC does at this point they won't please everyone, but since we're seeing an unprecedented response from Democratic voters this year the DNC needs to move forward quickly to ride the wave of public engagement this primary has already engendered.

The Clinton campaign wants desperately to woo primary voters – and swing superdelegates – with the argument that wherever she has led in the "big states" when she matched against Barack Obama she will surely carry the day in November in a faceoff against Republican John McCain. Her strategists cling to that hoped for scenario in states like CALIFORNIA, NY, FLORIDA, OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA, and so on.

But the numbers that came out since mid-March, though overshadowed by Obama confronting the controversy of his pastor, expose the Clinton big-state falsehood. Obama bests her against McCain . . .

. . . in the very biggest states.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal, as well as The Wild Wild Left, The Peace Tree, Independent Bloggers Alliance and Worldwide Sawdust.

Effective change agents and activists must blend their cognitive skills and passions with deep reservoirs of inner strength. It's a life path requiring self-sacrifice, discipline, a tough hide combined with empathy, idealism joined with pragmatism, a willingness to put ego aside, resiliency and a perspective beyond the moment of immediate conflict.

Alas, many of us dedicated to pursuing the cause of peace, justice and economic fairness are demoralized by setbacks and criticisms overtime. Personal lives are also easily consumed by the flames of devotion to causes larger than ourselves, such as reversing global warming or stopping genocide. It's so easy to lose our balance as we stand apart from professional colleagues, friends and relatives who don't share our passions or devotion to change the world for the better.