Editorial

Israel is a criminal organization with no right to exist.

Thank you Ms. Loewenstein.  Very well said.  From Information Clearinghouse.

Strip away the clichés and the vacuous newspeak blaring out across the servile media and its pathetic corps of voluntary state servants in the Western world and what you will find is the naked desire for hegemony; for power over the weak and dominion over the world’s wealth. Worse yet, you will find that the selfishness, the hatred and indifference, the racism and bigotry, the egotism and hedonism that we try so hard to cover up with our sophisticated jargon, our refined academic theories and models actually help to guide our basest and ugliest desires. The callousness with which we indulge in them all are endemic to our very culture; thriving here like flies on a corpse.

Strip away the current symbols and language of the victims of our selfish and devastating whims and you will find the simple, impassioned and unaffected cries of the downtrodden; of the ‘wretched of the earth’ begging you to cease your cold aggression against their children and their homes; their families and their villages; begging you to leave them alone to have their fish and their bread, their oranges, their olives and their thyme; asking you first politely and then with increasing disbelief why you cannot let them live undisturbed on the land of their ancestors; unexploited, free of the fear of expulsion; of ravishment and devastation; free of permits and roadblocks and checkpoints and crossings; of monstrous concrete walls, guard towers, concrete bunkers, and barbed wire; of tanks and prisons and torture and death. Why is life without these policies and instruments of hell impossible?

Spitzer tried to stop predatory lending practices

 The Washington Post published this op-ed by then New York Governor Eliot Spitzer just three weeks before he was taken down.  Coincidence?

Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime
How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers

By Eliot Spitzer
Thursday, February 14, 2008; A25

Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.

The writer is governor of New York.

The Freeway Blogger Strikes Again

One man, one truck, and a bunch of bungee cords later...300,000 people have heard his message.

He says "if only one person in every city did what I'm doing, you wouldn't be able to drive anywhere without seeing messages (demanding impeachment)." 

But that will never happen.  For there isn't one person in every city who cares enough about the good of ALL of us to give up precious hours when they could be attending to the good of THEMSELVES. 

Thank you freeway blogger for doing your part to get the message out that things need to change!

I've also heard about activists who use spraypaint to paint messages such as "9/11 was an inside job" on sidewalks in high-traffic areas. Not that I would support or recommend such activities, heaven forbid!

Even though they have illegally invaded innocent countries, killed over a million innocent Iraqis, illegally tortured so-called "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo Bay, illegally spied on us and destroyed our Constitution, we wouldn't want to mess up a few sidewalks, would we? Above all, we are good citizens. I knew you would agree.

Why did we invade Iraq?

As usual, Paul Craig Roberts sees clearly and speaks plainly.  In Orwell's "1984," he would be a good candidate to be "vaporized."  Here is the key portion of his latest essay.

Sheila

If the US invaded Iraq for any of the succession of reasons the Bush Regime has given, why would the US have spent $750 million on a fortress “embassy” with anti-missile systems and its own electricity and water systems spread over 104 acres? No one has ever seen or heard of such an embassy before.  Clearly, this  “embassy” is constructed as the headquarters of an occupying colonial ruler.

The fact is that Bush invaded Iraq with the intent of turning Iraq into an American colony. The so-called government of al-Maliki is not a government.  Maliki is the well paid front man for US colonial rule. Maliki’s government does not exist outside the protected Green Zone, the headquarters of the American occupation...

...Why does the Bush Regime want to rule Iraq?  Some speculate that it is a matter of “peak oil.”  Oil supplies are said to be declining even as demand for oil multiplies from developing countries such as China. According to this argument, the US decided to seize Iraq to insure its own oil supply.

This explanation is problematic.  Most US oil comes from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela. The best way for the US to insure its oil supplies would be to protect the dollar’s role as world reserve currency.  Moreover, $3-5 trillion would have purchased a tremendous amount of oil.  Prior to the US invasions, the US oil import bill was running less than $100 billion per year.  Even in 2006 total US imports from OPEC countries was $145 billion, and the US trade deficit with OPEC totaled $106 billion.  Three trillion dollars could have paid for US oil imports for 30 years; five trillion dollars could pay the US oil bill for a half century had the Bush Regime preserved a sound dollar.

The more likely explanation for the US invasion of Iraq is the neoconservative Bush Regime’s commitment to the defense of Israeli territorial expansion. There is no such thing as a neoconservative who is not allied with Israel.  Israel hopes to steal all of the West Bank and southern Lebanon for its territorial expansion.  An American colonial regime in Iraq not only buttresses Israel from attack, but also can pressure Syria and Iran from giving support to the Palestinians and Lebanese.  The Iraqi war is a war for Israeli territorial expansion.  Americans are dying and bleeding to death financially for Israel.  Bush’s “war on terror” is a hoax that serves to cover US intervention in the Middle East in behalf of “greater Israel.”

In memory of Martin Luther King Jr.

In his last speech, Martin Luther King said he was afraid of no man, for he had been to the mountain top.  He was murdered by the CIA forty years ago today, on April 4, 1968.

Thank you, Martin Luther King Jr, for all you did and tried to do for this nation.

On YouTube:

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s last speech

Wow! Throw out everything you've ever heard about public speaking and watch this man.  No performance jitters here, just a man with a blazing passion and driven to communicate it. 

Drugs Too Easy an Enemy

Published August 6, 1988 in The Denver Post

Societies love having a common enemy.  It bonds us in ways that little else can.  You could see it in Denver when we rallied together against external threats like the Washington Redskins or a passel of tornadoes. 

That's one reason drugs are such a popular foe these days.  In a time when virtually everybody's self-interests seem to step on somebody's toes, drugs are a risk-free target.  Until the Medellin cartel develops a P. R. department (or takes a cue from the tobacco industry about the power of advertising dollars) the political/media machine will continue to soak this "epidemic" for all it's worth.

Politicians race to prove themselves tougher than the next in the The War on Drugs.  Shrimp boats are hauled in for sporting a single marijuana seed.  Newsweek features a crack bust on every third cover, and seems proud of it. 

Most of this can probably be explained by a simple demographic fact:  the baby boomers now have kids.  The boomers remember their own wild, dangerous youth -- tripping, smoking, snorting, free love and cross-country jaunts in dilapidated jalopies.  They may wonder how they survived intact.  And they're convinced that, should their kids go the same route, they won't.

Both sides are acting predictably.  It is the job of the elders to support and uphold society, and it is the job of youth to defy it, question it and experiment with forbidden practices. 

My response to "Jay Leno's" rant

Friends of mine often assume I must have come from a liberal family. Safe assumption, given that the fruit often doesn't fall too far from the tree. But this fruit got kicked right out of the orchard, and my family is in fact populated primarily by right-wingers.

Which is not all bad. It helps keep me open minded. It gives me bragging rights ...."Some of my best friends are right-wingers." People gape at me, knowing I must possess a superhuman level of open-mindedness. Or else they back away, as if I'd said I'd made a pact with the devil.

After viewing my blog, one dear right-leaning uncle (I have three uncles, all tilting right) sent me this rant, supposedly from Jay Leno. The jist of it is that the 67% of Americans who think the country is going in the wrong direction are a bunch of spoiled brats. We need to wake up and realize how good we have it! Our lives are bursting with material pleasures and yet we whine, whine, whine.

A little bit of research turned up the real author, Craig R. Smith. Craig's rant has had a long life these past six months, forwarded from one inbox to another under the guise of the thoughts of Jay Leno. Snopes.com explains how this Craig/Jay mix-up occurred.

To Craig and all those who wonder what 67% of America is whining about, I have this to say: You presume that we care only about ourselves. Once we are safe and happy, sleeping on a high thread count with our kids in good jobs, we can forget about everything but golf and our cholesterol numbers.

Does it concern you at all Craig, to know that while you swing your golf club, someone is upside down and gasping for air while being water-boarded? Someone who has been detained for years, thousands of miles from home, never having been charged with a crime? Without even the right, now that habeus corpus is dead, to know the charges against him, once they are brought?

Does is trouble you that the Bush administration outed a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame, to punish her husband, Joe Wilson, for criticizing the Iraq war? That Bush vowed to fire anyone involved but hasn't done so? To follow through would mean, apparently, dismissing his own VP. Time has proven that Joe Wilson was correct, and Bush lied when claiming that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger.

Does it bother you, Craig, that Alberto Gonzales, our nation's highest law enforcement officer, has repeatedly lied under oath to Congress? That he is a puppet of the Bush administration and has used the Justice Department to influence elections?

As you enjoy the good life here in America, Craig, does it cross your mind that much of what we enjoy will be paid for by our children and grandchildren? The billions spent in Iraq have ballooned the national debt, just as boomers are reaching retirement age. Who is going to pay for W's debacle?

Perhaps it seems, from where you sit, that wealth and abundance spread as far as the eye can see. Have you forgotten the images from New Orleans? According to Bob Herbert, columnist for The New York Times, 90 million Americans are poor. That is hardly a vindication of our current economic policies.

If I had the moral maturity of a three year old, sure, I'd be just fine to munch animal crackers and suck on my juice box, never mind that no one else had any. I'm thankful that I do care about the rest of the world, care if our nation behaves like the leader it should be, care if others are suffering, and particularly I care if they suffer because of the actions of a government which in theory represents the will of the American people.

I'm glad I'm me and not you, Craig R. Smith.

Why the GOP loves having an open border

A friend wrote me today, apoplectic with rage over the swelling numbers of illegal immigrants in the US. My reply:

More than anything, this gives the lie to the idea that the GOP protects us best from terrorists. They care nothing for cutting off the cheap labor which flows over the open border, cause business owners LOVE having a pool of virtual slaves who will never complain, never file a sexual harrassment suit or any other kind of suit, and work for nothing. And big business put the GOP in office. So ultimately that trumps all the hot air about protecting us from the evil doers.

These people don't come here for our scenery-- they come here for jobs. If we made sure you had to be here legally to get a job, it would all be over in an instant, with no need for a fence. But that will never happen, cause business just doesn't want it.

And, I might add (to you, not to him) in George Bush's America, what business wants, business gets.

Michael Moore's indictment of the US healthcare industry: Sicko

Here's the trailer. Coming June 29, I can't wait.

Fox News Goes Green

I don't know whether to laugh or cry--after a decade of ridiculing Al Gore, environmentalists, and the so-called "pseudo-science" of global warming, Rupert Murdoch finally gets it.  Maybe the fact, as he puts it, that "99 percent of scientists agree about the serious extent of global warming," finally overcame his inherent disdain for anything that smacks of liberal consciousness or, heaven forbid, government regulation.

On a side note, think of what our world would look like without  "regulations" against littering, or what your workday would be like if there were no "regulations" against smoking in the office.  Environmental regulation tells people who don't know better: "don't force us to deal with your garbage."  But dealing with garbage is expensive, something corporations will resist as long as they can get away with it.

Now, stories about climate change will be woven into Fox's programming, and Murdoch expects even stalwart skeptics like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly to come around.  (If they want to keep their jobs, natch.)  Murdoch believes the focus on climate change will be, first and foremost, "good business," which is another way of saying, he read the polls and realized he's outnumbered.  "The younger generation gets the issue of climate change completely," he noted. 

Translation:  Jerry Falwell's generation is dying off,  it's getting harder and harder to find a scientist to support our extreme pro-business, anti-regulation, anti-environment agenda, so let's cave now before the whole world realizes what bloody fools we are.

Oliver Stone directs VideoVets ad

The chorus of those calling for us to leave Iraq is now overwhelming.  Only someone who cares nothing for this country or its people would persist in keeping our soldiers there.  That someone is GW Bush.

What nefarious reason does he have for wanting to keep us there?  I suspect it's about the oil, the same reason we invaded in the first place.  By keeping permanent US bases there, he hopes to have first dibs on Iraqi oil.  If we leave now, bringing home every last soldier, what will become of all that oil?  That's what he and Cheney worry about. 

Looking for WMDs, bringing democracy to the Middle East, fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here, preventing a safe haven for Al Qaeda, waiting for them to stand up so we can stand down--that's all smoke and mirrors to keep our eyes off the real ball--the liquid gold in them thar Iraqi hills. 

Iraq War veteran John Bruhns speaks out about the immorality of the US occupation in a spot directed by Oliver Stone.

Energy profits vs. planet earth

Link: Draft of climate report maps out 'highway to extinction' - CNN.com.

Another dire report from a broad coalition of world scientists re. global warming:

A key element of the second major report on climate change being released Friday in Belgium is a chart that maps out the effects of global warming, most of them bad, with every degree of temperature rise. There's one bright spot: A minimal heat rise means more food production in northern regions of the world. However, the number of species going extinct rises with the heat, as does the number of people who may starve, or face water shortages, or floods, according to the projections in the draft report obtained by The Associated PressSome scientists are calling this degree-by-degree projection a "highway to extinction."

Why is the GOP unwilling to admit the obvious regarding global warming? You would think, that since we all depend upon mother earth for our very existence, the right would have as much interest as the rest of us in the continuation of the species. If a giant meteor was speeding towards Earth, about to destroy us, wouldn't the GOP be as alarmed as the rest of us? Wouldn't they want to do something to divert that meteor? You bet they would. But there are key differences between speeding meteors and global warming.

Mysterious Manhattan Odor

Link: Gas-Like Odor Permeates Parts of New York City - New York Times.

Authorities were investigating widespread reports today of a strong odor that many described as similar to natural gas, permeating parts of New York City and nearby areas of New Jersey during the morning commute. In some buildings, office workers were evacuated and subway and train lines affected, but the mysterious smell did not appear to be harmful. New York City agencies and the United States Coast Guard responded to numerous calls on emergency telephone lines. Fire trucks raced around in search of the odor.

The image of fire trucks racing around in search of an odor is frankly hysterical.

Invading Iraq after 9/11 like invading Thailand after Pearl Harbor

How can we think that the path to peace comes through demonizing everyone who thinks differently than we do, or fails to bow down before our obvious superiority? The USA has WMDs and we're the only nation that has used them, yet when other countries want the same protection for themselves, we consider them evil. Couldn't they just as easily consider us evil and dangerous? In fact, many of them do.

The number of Iraqis and Afghanis killed during our world-wide post 9/11 rampage far exceeds the number who died on 9/11, yet we clearly don't consider their lives as important as ours. We have dwelt endlessly on the pain and horror of that one day in September 2001, we have heard the story from every conceivable angle, we have commiserated with the families left behind, we have seen the photos and heard the last cell phone messages of the victims, and the grieving families have received millions of dollars in compensation.

Yet when we hear that 70 Shiite laborers were killed by a carbomb, do we see their faces in the newspaper, hear stories of their last hours, or imagine the wives, children and parents rendered inconsolable by the loss of someone they adored? Is their grief any less because they dress, eat, pray and live differently than we do? Those bombs go off every day, with bodies stacking up like cordwood.

Do we really think that 650,000 dead Iraqis is a reasonable price to pay to accomplish a goal--any goal?

Whether you think we're there to find WMDs, to prevent another attack from Al Qaeda, to establish democracy, or to insure a supply of oil, the "collateral damage" from this mission (which was justified by 9/11) so far exceeds the loss we suffered on 9/11 as to be completely disproportionate. It's like a bully in a bar: somebody knocks over his drink and he gets out an Uzi and opens fire, killing everyone in sight.

More aptly: somebody knocks over his drink and he goes to ANOTHER BAR and kills everyone in sight. Or this: after we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, we retaliate by invading Thailand. We're like drunken sailors with loaded guns, staggering across the world stage, clutching our pain to our chest and using it to justify the most horrible atrocities. We want someone to pay, goddamnit, and we're not all that concerned with who it is. As we lumber about, leaving chaos in our wake, our enemies increase and the pain suffered on 9/11 is no less.

We need a different way. We need a new paradigm. The old ways are not working.

How about this? Sketchy on specifics, but a great big-picture strategy.

Americans would rather have wealth than meaning

Link: Who Americans Are and What They Do, in Census Data - New York Times.

In 1970, 79 percent said their goal was developing a meaningful philosophy of life. By 2005, 75 percent said their primary objective was to be financially very well off.

Are we evolving or devolving? Recent census data would say the latter. With everyone scrambling to be the richest guy on the block, no wonder we've made a mess of things. We've each become like little corporations, interested only in maximizing our own profits. And we all know what great global citizens corporations are. (See Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, Wal-mart.)

Why is it verboten to question our support of Israel?

Link: Jimmy Carter - Palestine Peace Not Apartheid - Books - Report - New York Times.

Hats off to Jimmy Carter, our bravest ex-president, for speaking the truth that the MSM won't allow: that those who were victimized by one of the greatest crimes of the last century, the Holocaust, are now victimizing others.

It was an unusual interruption during an unusually controversial book tour, which began with a few faint complaints last month and has escalated to a full-scale furor, with Mr. Carter being trailed by protesters at book signings, criticized on newspaper op-ed pages and, on the normally sedate “Book TV” program on C-Span2, being called a racist and an anti-Semite by an indignant caller.

Such backlash is triggered by Mr. Carter’s assertions that pro-Israel lobbyists have stifled debate in the United States over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; that Israelis are guilty of human rights abuses in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories; and that the editorial pages of American newspapers rarely present anything but a pro-Israel viewpoint.

Gore Vidal on GWB

Link: Truthdig.com interview of Gore Vidal, on Bush: “There are a few crazies who want to cheer the flag and this yappy little terrier as though he were a real president—well he’s not a real president. He’s a thing, a chimera who was put together by the supreme court, first time around, and reelected by Diebold...”.