Long Live The Revolution

Long Live The Revolution

By Bretigne Shaffer
Information Clearing House
Friday, August 31, 2012

I’ve seen many posts like this one today, from Antonia Litsinger:

“Well, I'm not going to get into the classic insanity mode - doing
things over and over and expecting different results. I'm done
with this whole political shit. It was fun for a while and I met a
whole bunch of great people in the liberty movement. Let the
crooks and the deviants have it. I've withdrawn my consent and
am turning my back to them all.”

This is good. This is someone waking up.

This is someone - and there are many of them - who has put
a real effort into changing things for the better through the
political system.

Many have been doing it since 2007, some even longer.

And while some will continue the fight, continue working to get
“good people” into bad offices, others are starting to look a little
deeper, are starting to recognize that it is the system itself that is
broken, not the particular individuals who happen to be heading it
up at the moment.

I shouldn’t be, but I am still surprised when I hear people urging
me to support Romney because Obama will be so much worse, or
Obama because Romney will be so much worse.

I hear this from smart people, people I respect, and I have to do
a double take because I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

I can’t believe they can’t see that both of these people - or
more accurately, the interests that support both of these people -
are phenomenally evil and that to support either one is to support
driving our country further toward a police state, aggressive
military adventurism, economic cronyism and ultimately bankruptcy.

Yet people are so tribal, and so ruled by fear.

I don’t know where the tribalism comes from. Some of it is
learned, but I fear some of it is innate, and it still astounds
me to see how powerful it is, to watch otherwise intelligent
and caring people throw their support behind what can only be
described as a fascist dictator, all because he’s “one of them”.

“He’s a Democrat and I’m a Democrat and Democrats are good!”
Or “yes, he’s awful, but the other guy is so much worse!”

It is such a powerless position to be in, and is precisely how the
power elite maintain their control over our lives - through fear.

Fear of the terrorists their own policies incited; fear of “rich”
people; fear of “illegal” immigrants; fear of the other guy who
might win if you don’t throw your support behind our equally
awful candidate.

What struck me, in reading the Tweets of those watching
the proceedings, was this:

Those who today were cheering because now “Ron Paul will
finally retire and we’ll be done with him”, or berating him
for not falling in line and supporting Romney like a good
Party Member, really don’t get it.

It’s not that they don’t “get” Ron Paul, it’s not that they don’t
agree with his message or don’t understand why so many people
are so passionate about him.

It’s not even that they don’t “get” that Romney and Obama are
essentially the same.

What they don’t get is that the point of the liberty movement is not
simply to win elections, and it is certainly not to win elections just
for the sake of winning them.

The point of the liberty movement is to bring about liberty.

And after witnessing the corruption and dishonesty of the 2008
election proceedings and now the 2012 elections so far, it just may
be dawning on more than a few in this movement that participating
in the establishment’s rigged game is not an effective way of
bringing about a free society.

If there is anything good that comes out of the Republican National
Convention of 2012, it will be this:

That the Republican Party leadership’s blatant disregard for its own
procedures, its willingness to change the rules at the last minute to
prevent an outcome it does not want, will be instructive to those
who still believe in “working within the system to change the system.”

It will push more liberty activists to start thinking of more creative
ways, more productive ways of bringing about a free society.

And it’s about time.

Many of us were cynical about building a free society by using the
machinery of the state all along. But we supported Ron Paul
because we had to say we tried.

For myself, I felt that if his presidncy was even a possibility (even
though I don’t even believe in the office of the presidency) I had
to do what I could to make it happen, for the sake of the lives that
would be saved by reining in an aggressive foreign policy if nothing
else.

And I did, and I don’t regret it. But now it’s time to get serious
about building a free society.

The illusion that we can do it through the voting booth should
by now be thoroughly discredited.

Our focus should now be on building the society we believe in - one
that is based on peaceful, voluntary interactions, where violence is
only acceptable as a response to violence.

The coercive system is failing, and it will only get worse.

It’s time for us to get to work.


Bretigne Shaffer is the author of Memoirs of a Gaijin and
Why Mommy Loves the State. She blogs at www.bretigne.com.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32314.htm

Scared and Silent: Censoring the Truth Under Obama

Scared and Silent: Censoring the Truth Under Obama

By Jemima Pierre
Black Agenda Report
August 29, 2012

Legacies are built around what is known about a presidency.

However, President Obama is amassing a legacy of secrets kept
and whistleblowers punished.

The Obama administration has been after Wikileaks since that
organization released classified military reports and diplomatic
cables showing evidence of US war crimes in Iraq.

This past weekend, while giving a televised speech from the
balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Julian Assange
directed a segment of his comments towards US president
Barack Obama.

Assange demanded that the Obama administration stop its
unprecedented “war on whistleblowers” – a war in which
Assange himself has been cast as an enemy.

Indeed, Assange had been granted political asylum by Ecuadoran
President, Rafael Correa in an attempt to prevent his extradition
to the US, and his supporters are rightly worried that the US
government is gunning to punish the man responsible for one
of the greatest release of classified information in history.

One doesn’t have to dismiss the serious rape allegations against
Assange, or agree with his bizarre libertarian politics, to recognize
the truth in his claim of a US witch-hunt.

The Obama administration has been after Wikileaks since that
organization released classified military reports and diplomatic
cables showing evidence of US war crimes in Iraq, and that
verified its corrupt imperialist actions around the world.

But the Assange stand off provides one more example of the rogue
nature of the Obama administration.

This administration has punished so-called whistleblowers – those
who reveal certain illegal actions by US government agencies –
more than any other in US history.

It has used the obscure Espionage Act, a WWI law meant to go after
spies, more than all other presidential administrations combined.

Similar to George W. Bush, the Obama administration has also been
over-classifying documents that deal with US torture, corruption,
and imperial misadventures, making it much easier to label and
charge so-called enemies of the state.

This is where Assange and Wikileaks come in.

In retaliation, Obama’s administration has gone after both Julian
Assange, the editor of Wikileaks, and Bradley Manning, 24 year old
US army intelligence analyst who is accused of releasing Wikileaks’s
trove of classified information, including the “Collateral Murder”
video of the US military slaughter of Iraqis, two of whom were
Reuters journalists.

For that allegation, Bradley Manning, who has yet to be convicted
of a crime, has spent more than 800 days in military prison,
relentlessly tortured and kept in inhumane conditions.

He is subject to intensive solitary confinement 23 hours a day,
denied a pillow and sheets for his bed, barred from accessing
news events, and subject to extreme sensory deprivation.

But while most people (or, I hope, some people) may be aware of
Assange and Manning, they are probably not familiar with the cases
of other “whistleblowers,” such as John Kiriakou or Thomas Drake.

Kiriakou is a former CIA agent who was indicted in April and
charged under the Espionage Act for allegedly releasing classified
information to journalists.

Kiriakou exposed and assailed the torture technique of “enhanced
interrogation” (otherwise known as waterboarding).

It is this critique of waterboarding, his defense argues, that has
earned him the wrath of the US government.

Thomas Drake is a former National Security Agency (NSA) official
who was also charged under the Espionage Act for criticizing the
agency’s wasteful use of taxpayer money on useless intelligence
gathering.

He complained that NSA’s mismanagement did not allow it to
catch the 2001 September 11th plot, and led it to spend more
than a billion dollars on a spying program that was eventually
cancelled.

He also questioned the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping.

Drake’s case has received more media attention than the others,
and he recently managed to defeat the government’s espionage
charges.

Yet, with these vindictive – and selective – prosecutions the
Obama administration is sending a clear message: that dissent
will be silenced through blatant verbal, physical, and legal
bullying.

In fact, as Noam Chomsky recently reminded us, Obama, much
more than Bush, has shifted the law towards a culture of political
censorship.

And it is those who blow the whistle who are punished, not those
who commit the crimes.

Consider that no one from the Bush administration has been
punished for torturing prisoners or for warrantless wiretapping,
or that no Wall Street banks or their executives have been
indicted for causing the global financial collapse.

Now, consider the information “leaked” to the New York Times by
senior government officials that glorified Obama’s personal role in
picking names of victims for his “Kill List,” and the access granted
to filmmakers making a movie about the assassination of Osama Bin
Laden.

Thus, those who celebrate the president’s callous murder
directives, and who support the US empire’s misadventures
get a free pass.

What the Obama administration is prosecuting, then, is not leaks,
but information that brings the illegal activities of the US under
scrutiny and that show evidence of a failing – and flailing – empire.

As BAR columnist Margaret Kimberly wrote of the Manning case,
“The enemy is anyone, anywhere who dares to consider revealing
the truth about how this country actually conducts itself around
the world.”

Obama has surpassed Bush not only in the criminal treatment
of those who point out this country’s wrongdoing, but also
in its unmatched violations of the rights of those he governs.

Because along with the persecution and prosecution of
whistleblowers, comes the draconian laws, such as the
National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that allows
the government to detain and kill its citizens at will,
and a growing and frightening national security apparatus.

These are meant to keep us all in line – scared shitless and silent.


http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/scared-and-silent-
censoring-truth-under-obama

The Sentence of Death

The Most Privileged Actors Deserve the Most Severe Punishment

By B. Sidney Smith
Counter Punch
August 27, 2012

I was a staunch opponent of the death penalty, but in recent
years I have had a change of mind on the issue.

I now support the death penalty, but only for the privileged.

This is not meant to be funny.

There are generally two arguments made in favor of the death
penalty: deterrence and proportionality.

The deterrence argument is really about defending the public
welfare, the idea being that if a would-be perpetrator of capital
crimes knows it might mean their death if they are caught, they
are less likely to commit such crimes.

The proportionality argument has to do with retributive justice;
some crimes are so horrific, it is argued, that justice can only be
served by the ultimate punishment.

Neither of these arguments is supportable in the present system,
which is partly why I previously opposed the death penalty.

The overwhelming majority of death sentences are handed down
for crimes committed by persons who did so at least in part out
of some sort of mental defect.

I don’t mean insanity, exactly; in most cases it is a mix of
ignorance, sociopathy, post-traumatic stress, psychopathy, or
schizophrenia—any of which are likely brought on by conditions
beyond the control of the perpetrator.

Also in many cases the capital crime was occasioned by some form
of extreme emotional or physical duress, despair, or desperation.

This is as true of the private aggravated murder as it is of the
mass murder, such as the recent ones in Colorado, Wisconsin,
and Norway.

In no such case is the death penalty’s deterrence potential
likely to be a factor in the perpetrator’s cogitations, and
to the exent that it might be it is surely countered by the
implicit endorsement of societal violence that state-sanctioned
killing represents.

The proportionality argument fails on two counts.

First, to be just, the degree of punishment must be independent of
any factors other than the crime committed and its circumstances.

But it is incontrovertible that the likelihood of receiving the
death penalty in the present system depends not on the crime
but upon the race and economic status of the defendant.

Second, a crime that results in at most a few dozen deaths may
attract the death penalty but a crime that results in thousands
of deaths, say by falsifying research results in order to rush a
new drug to market, goes effectively unpunished.

This cannot under any analysis be considered proportional.

However, when it comes to persons who occupy top leadership
positions in the public or private sector, or to those whose great
wealth itself establishes them in positions of extraordinary
privelege (the categories of course overlap quite a bit), both the
deterrence argument and the proportionality argument have great
merit.

One generally cannot become privileged without being a rational
actor.

Indeed, leaders and the financially successful must be capable of
determining to a very fine precision the effects and consequences
of their actions.

They are perhaps best able to weigh the possible repercussions
of their choices against their perceived benefits.

For such a person the knowledge that a given choice might mean
their life is highly likely to be a factor in their decision whether
to commit a capital crime.

The death penalty for such men and women is, in short, apt to
be a deterrent, in most cases a very strong one.

Moreover, while the lone deranged gunman may mow down dozens
in a manic rage, this is very small potatoes next to the mass death
and destruction that the privileged may visit upon their victims.

The corporate CEO or bank president who destroys the household
savings of millions in the service of his own greed, the politician
who visits the devastation of war upon whole societies in service
to corruption and ambition or who betrays his oath of office by
subverting the rule of law and weakening the very fabric of
democratic government—measured by their harm these are the
crimes of greatest proportion, and surely call for the greatest
punishment society deems fit to impose.

Surely, too, these are the crimes that we should most wish to
deter.

There is ample precedent for reserving to the most privileged
actors the most severe punishments.

The Nuremburg trials of World War II are perhaps the foremost
example of the principle in action: it was not the mid-level
managers overseeing the Holocaust, nor the guards at the
camps, but the top leaders who were hanged, to the general
approval of the civilized world.

Even contemporary Americans recognize the validity of this
principle—at least when it is applied to others—as shown in
the outpourings of public approval at the hanging of Saddam
Hussein and the execution in captivity of Osama bin Laden.

In a just society it is not the weakest transgressors who suffer
the severest public wrath, but those who by dint of privilege
can betray the greater trust and bring the greatest harm.

In our society it is reversed: those least able to defend themselves
are likeliest to meet the executioner, while our most privileged
miscreants have become effectively immune to legal justice.

It is past time to restore the proper balance.

Let responsibility attend privelege, let accountability be the mantle
of leadership, and let culpability be the measure of our retribution.


B. Sidney Smith is a recovering math professor, gardener,
and creative loafer. He may be reached through his website,
bsidneysmith.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/24/the-sentence-of-
death/

Invisible Americans Get The Silent Treatment

Invisible Americans Get The Silent Treatment

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
Common Dreams
Saturday, August 25, 2012

It’s just astonishing to us how long this campaign has gone on with
no discussion of what’s happening to poor people.

Official Washington continues to see poverty with tunnel vision –
“out of sight, out of mind.”

And we’re not speaking just of Paul Ryan and his Draconian budget
plan or Mitt Romney and their fellow Republicans.

Tipping their hats to America’s impoverished while themselves
seeking handouts from billionaires and corporations is a bad habit
that includes President Obama, who of all people should know
better.

Remember: for three years in the 1980’s he was a community
organizer in Roseland, one of the worst, most poverty-stricken
and despair-driven neighborhoods in Chicago.

He called it “the best education I ever had.”

And when Obama left to go to Harvard Law School, author
Paul Tough writes in The New York Times, he did so, “to
gain the knowledge and resources that would allow him to
eventually return and tackle the neighborhood’s problems
anew.”

There’s a moving line in Dreams from My Father where Obama
writes: “I would learn power’s currency in all its intricacy and
detail” and “bring it back like Promethean fire.”

Oddly, though, for all his rhetorical skills, Obama hasn’t made a
single speech devoted to poverty since he moved into the White
House.

Five years ago, he was one of the few politicians who would talk
about it. Here he is in July 2007, speaking in Anacostia, one of the
poorest parts of Washington, D.C.:

“The moral question about poverty in America — How can
a country like this allow it? — has an easy answer: we can’t.
The political question that follows — What do we do about
it? – has always been more difficult. But now that we’re
finally seeing the beginnings of an answer, this country has
an obligation to keep trying.”

Barack Obama the candidate said he wanted to spend billions
on a nationwide program similar to Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem
Children Zone in New York City, widely praised for its focus
on comprehensive child development.

In the last three years, only $40 million have been spent with
another $60 million scheduled for local community grants.

Obama’s White House team insisted their intentions were good,
but the depth of the economic meltdown passed along by their
predecessors has kept them from doing more.

And yes, billions have been spent on direct aid to families in
the form of welfare, food stamps, housing vouchers and other
payments.

What’s needed, as Paul Tough at the Times and others say, is
a less scattershot, more comprehensive program that gets to
the root of the problem, focusing on education and mentoring.

Not easy to do when a disaffected middle class that votes says
hey, what about us? — and the wealthy one percent who lay out
the fat campaign contributions simply say, so what?

Just a few days ago, The Chronicle of Philanthropy issued a
report on charitable giving. Among its findings:

“Rich people who live in neighborhoods with many other wealthy
people give a smaller share of their incomes to charity than rich
people who live in more economically diverse communities.”

Responding to that study, social psychologist Paul Piff told
National Public Radio, “The more wealth you have, the more
focused on your own self and your own needs you become, and
the less attuned to the needs of other people you also become.”

Those few who dedicate themselves to keeping the poor ever
in sight realize how grave the situation really is.

The Associated Press reports that, “The number of Americans
with incomes at or below 125 percent of the poverty level is
expected to reach an all-time high of 66 million this year.”

A family of four earning 125 percent of the federal poverty level
makes about $28,800 a year, according to government figures.

That number’s important because 125 percent is the income limit
to qualify for legal aid, but although that family may qualify for
help, budgets for legal services have been slashed, too, and pro
bono work at the big law firms has fallen victim to downsizing.

So it’s not surprising, the AP goes on to say, that there’s a crisis
in America’s civil courts because people slammed by the financial
meltdown, overwhelmed by foreclosure, debt collection and
bankruptcy cases, can’t afford legal representation and have to
represent themselves, creating gridlock in our justice system and
one more hammer blow for the poor.

We know, we know: It is written that, “The poor will always be
with us.”

But when it comes to our “out of sight, out of mind” population
of the poor, you have to think we can help reduce their number,
ease the suffering, and speak out, with whatever means at hand,
on their behalf and against those who would prefer they remain
invisible.

Speak out: that means you and me, and yes, Mr. President, you,
too.

You once told the big bankers on Wall Street that you were all
that stood between them and the pitchforks of an angry public.

How about telling the poor you will make sure our government
stands between them and the cliff?


Bill Moyers is the host of the new show Moyers & Company, a
weekly series of smart talk and new ideas aimed at helping
viewers make sense of our tumultuous times through the
insight of America’s strongest thinkers. His previous shows
on PBS included NOW with Bill Moyers and Bill Moyers Journal.

Michael Winship, senior writing fellow at Demos and president
of the Writers Guild of America, East, is senior writer of the
new public television series Moyers & Company, premiering in
January 2012.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/08/25-4

Party Down: The 2012 Politics of Fantasy

Party Down: The 2012 Politics of Fantasy

Those who succeed in politics, as in most of the culture,
are those who create the most convincing fantasies.

— Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion

By Ben Schreiner
Dissident Voice
August 24, 2012

With both tickets now set, the democratic farce that is
the U.S. presidential election lumbers into its final act.

And for a campaign already rife with all the petty trivialities
and celebrity intrigues more suiting of a reality TV show, it
is no surprise that both political parties intend on using their
upcoming political conventions to furnish choreographed
spectacles designed for little more than prime time viewing.

According to the New York Times, a “$2.5 million Frank Lloyd
Wright inspired theatrical stage,” complete with 13 different
video screens, will welcome the television viewer of the
Republican national convention in Tampa.

All part of an effort, the Times notes, to cloak that cold,
vulture capitalist Romney in a veil of “warmth, approachability
and openness.”

As a senior Romney advisor boasted to the paper, “Even
the [wooden video screen] frames are designed to give it
a sense that you’re not looking at a stage, you’re looking
into someone’s living room.” (Presumably a direct mock-
up of one Romney’s living rooms.)

Protecting Mitt’s newly crafted aura of “approachability
and openness” from the potential wayward vagabond, the
city of Tampa will spend $24.85 million alone on law
enforcement personnel during the four day convention.

This will include a massive deployment of 3,500-4,000
“contingency officers” from up to 63 outside police
departments. Hospitality clearly has its limits.

It is all much the same for the Democratic convention set
for early September in Charlotte.

The award-winning Brand Obama is also much too valuable
to be tarnished by the taint of social unrest.

The looming crackdown on dissent Charlotte-style, though, will
be eased by nothing short of an Orwellian city law allowing any
large public gathering to be declared “an extraordinary event.”

Arbitrary search and arrest of any individual the police fancy
will then be ipso facto legal. (Like such police practices are
in any way “extraordinary.”)

Of course, all those hapless souls set to be greeted with the swing
of the police truncheon in the streets of Tampa and Charlotte will
garner nary a mention from the herd of corporate media planning
to embed safely within the bunkered convention halls.

Instead, the legions of dimwitted media pundits and talking heads
will busy themselves filling air time as they wax-poetic on the true
splendor of American democracy manifested in the sheets of
convention confetti raining from the rafters.

The media’s neat packaging of the entire spectacle as all part of
the must-see docudrama titled “Decision 2012” will undoubtedly
do little to hide the true nature of the charade from the perceptive
observer.

Nonetheless, the politics as entertainment orgy will precede
forth, with the media present to celebrate and partake in it
all. Which can only give added credence to the Neil Postman
quip that, “In America, the least amusing people are its
professional entertainers.”

The fundamental matter of whether there is truly decision
at all to be made in 2012, needless to say, is rather dubious.

As the New York Times writes of the international outlooks
of Obama and Romney:

“The actual foreign policy differences between the two seem
more a matter of degree and tone than the articulation of a
profound debate about the course of America in the world.”

Put differently, threats to bomb Iran, “contain” China,
and bow to Israel are simply beyond debate.

Indeed, even leftist supporters of Obama admit there is
no discernible difference between the two candidates.

As Obama backers Bill Fletcher and Carl Davidson instead argue,
“November 2012 becomes not a statement about the Obama
presidency, but a defensive move by progressive forces to hold
back the ‘Caligulas’ on the political right.”

Such bankrupt arguments inevitably rear their ugly head every
four years in the now tired attempt to send the fractured
American Left scurrying straight into death vise of the
“Party of the people.”

Given this altogether pitiful state of affairs, the presidential
campaign necessarily must devolve into little more than a
national marketing campaign—replete with the assorted
gimmicks, tricks, and deceptions inherent to that vile craft
deemed “public relations.”

Thus, the “decision” to be made in 2012 is limited to that
between Brand Obama and Brand Romney.

No different in approach, really, than choosing between
Pepsi and Coke—Nike and Adidas.

For just as with all branding, the 2012 decision is not about
deciphering between two differing products or candidates—as
they both promise to deliver the same agenda of neoliberalism
at home, imperialism abroad—but rather choosing between two
sets of experiential promises (fictitious as they are).

In terms of 2012, it’s the dim hope and vague slogan of
“Forward” proffered from camp Obama, versus team Romney’s
promise of comfort to be found in a restoration of America
power.

In other words then, the man best able to peddle the most
convincing fantasy to the American consumer this fall shall
be the one to ultimately prevail in November.

All befitting of an empire of illusion.


Ben Schreiner is a freelance writer living in Salem, Oregon.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/08/party-down-the-2012-politics-
of-fantasy/

MF'ing Justice

MF'ing Justice

By Jim Karger
The Dollar Vigilante
August 21, 2012

Jon Corzine is a contemporary Richard Nixon: a low rent thief,
liar, and American success story.

Corzine, you may recall, bet $6.3 billion on the wrong side of
European sovereign debt, a wager his own risk department at
MF Global told him was nuts, and a wager so big and so wrong
that it wiped out the entire firm.

After the news hit the wire and blood hit the water MF's
customers started jumping ship and that is when MF
deliberately took customer money as its own to keep its
head above water.

It was too little, too late. The company filed for bankruptcy
protection and Corzine resigned.

Over $1 billion in customer funds remain missing in action.

Depending on who you listen to, Corzine may have known
the funds he ordered transferred were customer money.

He certainly should have known and there is little dispute
he has a serious gambling problem and that he destroyed
the savings and lives of hundreds of investors and businesses.

Now, after 10 months of a pretend investigation, one that has not
involved so much as an interview by the FBI of Corzine himself,
federal prosecutors have decided they are not going to charge him
with anything.

Nothing. Nada. Vaya con dios, amigo.

Such is the nature of justice in America's fast lane.

Plausible Deniability Retested

Taking a cue from Nixon's "plausible deniability" gambit, Corzine
has reminded us of a few important political truths that every
American should remember as they struggle to find a safe place
for themselves and whatever money they have left:

1. Former CEOs of Goldman Sachs, like Goldman Sachs itself, are
too big and too connected to fail, no matter how egregious their
conduct.

And, to make sure we all know that, in addition to giving Corzine
a pass, the government also announced last week that they are
ending an investigation into whether Goldman Sachs misled
investors in a $1.3 billion sale of residential mortgage-backed
securities in 2006, shortly before the housing crash.

You may recall that Goldman was packaging this rancid financial
trash so that one client (John Paulson) could short them, while
simultaneously selling the other side of the deal to their own
clients, conveniently failing to disclose that these instruments
were specifically designed to fail.

2. Former US Senators won't be prosecuted for anything, ever,
even if caught with underage boys on videotape.

They know where too many bodies are hidden, as evidenced by the
softballs a fourth grader could have handled when Corzine testified
in Congressional hearings on what happened to the money.

3. Big-dollar supporters of any sitting President and his party are
too important to lose to jail.

Corzine was one of Obama's biggest campaign "bundlers", a way
for the rich to gain direct access to a candidate by leaning on
people inside their organizations to contribute far more than
ostensibly they would have without implicit threats to do so.

Proven Techniques of Truth Suppression

Not wanting to bet the farm solely on his political connections,
but needing to make sure the fix was in, Corzine used several
of the time-tested "Thirteen Techniques of Truth Suppression",
favorites of politicians and their owners who don't want to go
to jail, which I estimate to be all of them.

In Corzine's case, he selected from the liar's list as if were a
menu of fine wines, first using technique number nine:

“Come half-clean. This is also known as 'confession and avoidance'
or 'taking the limited hang-out route.'

This way, you create the impression of candor and honesty while
you admit only to relatively harmless, less-than-criminal "mistakes.'
This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back position
quite different from the one originally taken."

Corzine played this gambit well, even professionally, first
suggesting that he knew nothing, a proposition so absurd
that it fell apart like a cheap suit, then subtly implying
that he actually was a moron, a gambler with a problem,
too stupid to be held liable for anything, though not in
those exact words.

His prepared testimony was, in a word, disturbing:

"I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts
have not been reconciled to date. I do not know which accounts
are unreconciled or whether the unreconciled accounts were or
were not subject to the segregation rules. Moreover, there were
an extraordinary number of transactions during MF Global’s last
few days, and I do not know, for example, whether there were
operational errors at MF Global or elsewhere, or whether banks
and counterparties have held onto funds that should rightfully
have been returned to MF Global."

Yes, Corzine swore to all that with a straight face.

To make sure no stonewall was left unturned, Corzine borrowed
from the crook's playbook once more, this time technique number
ten:

“Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth
as ultimately unknowable."

This worked well when the big banks got behind Henry Paulson,
another former Goldman Sachs CEO during the housing meltdown,
as he explained not-so-patiently that we, the general public, were
far too ignorant to ever understand what went wrong and so we
should stop trying.

Matt Taibbi observed in his brilliant article in Rolling Stone:

"There’s been an intense effort at trying to convince the public that
no crime has been committed. Whoever is handling MF Global’s P.R.
. . . appears to have convinced the company’s officers to emphasize
the word 'chaos' in describing the last days of the firm – as though
$1.2 billion wasn’t intentionally stolen, per se, but simply lost in
a kind of uncontrolled whirlwind of transactions that magically
carried the money out of accounts off to worlds unknown."

No one with good sense professes to believe Corzine except
those who matter, Congress, and federal prosecutors.

Finally, Corzine called on technique number twelve, “Require
the skeptics to solve the crime completely," which was easy
in this case since he was never interviewed by federal law
enforcement, making their inability to prosecute true, albeit
pathetic.

The fact that MF Global was a client of Attorney General
Eric Holder's, and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer’s,
former law firm Covington & Burling, didn't hurt Corzine's
chances either, and the all clear signal was given when Holder
(an accomplished criminal in his own right) refused to appoint
a Special Prosecutor.

Like Nixon, Corzine is a one man epidemic of deceit, a thug with
the conscience of a rabid hyena, and like Nixon, he is not going
to jail.

Epilogue

Not only is Corzine avoiding prosecution, but under the heading
of "in your face, MF'er," he is going into business again.

Doing what you ask? Handling the money of others, of course.
Max Keiser summarized the situation best:

"Corzine is considering opening a new hedge fund, though the
notion that anyone — even a slack-jawed muppet happy to buy
whatever Goldman‘s prop traders want to sell — would seed
Corzine money so he can trade or steal it away seems absurd —
rather like putting a child molester in charge of a day-care."

Absurd, yes, but true nonetheless and odds are he will raise
millions, and if not become a high-priced political or financial
consultant.

The Big Ugly Picture

Corzine is just another poster child for fraud and malfeasance at
the highest levels, public and private. His photo is not alone on
that wall of shame.

In the big picture, he is small potatoes. Other bigger players are
being given passes for far more egregious crimes.

JP Morgan, infamous manipulator of silver, stepped closer to the
edge by losing $6 billion in a single trading loss.

It's megalomaniacal CEO, Jamie Dimon, no stranger to truth
suppression, expertly employed technique number four:

“Knock down straw men. Deal only with the weakest aspect of
the weakest charges.

Even better, create your own straw men. Make up wild rumors and
give them lead play when you appear to debunk all the charges,
real and fanciful alike."

Dimon took full responsibility (for a nanosecond) before blaming
it all on a straw man, a rogue trader who turned out to have all
the authority he exercised.

No one is going to jail.

To the contrary, almost as a gift, the US Commodity Futures
Trading Commission (CFTC) dropped a four-year investigation
(mainly held behind closed doors) into JP Morgan's obvious and
rampant silver price manipulation just to show there were no
hard feelings.

Still another shining example of "justice", as that term is
now defined by the owners, is Barclay's Bank, believed to
be a mastermind in the virtually incalculable LIBOR fraud.

Its execs have skated criminal prosecution and the bank has
paid a relatively meager $350 million fine for everyone to
forget it ever happened, except its former CEO, Bob Diamond,
who used technique number two:

“Wax indignant. This is also known as the ‘how dare you?’
gambit..." after British Parliament observed the obvious—
that he is an unmitigated filthy liar like all the rest.

And, then there is Standard Chartered who will pay
a $340 million to settle charges that it illegally
funneled hundreds of billions of dollars to Iran in
violation of innumerable US and international sanctions.

No criminal charges, mind you, just $340 million to take care
of what amounted to a $250 billion conspiracy. Some might
characterize that as a good investment.

Finally, it would be unfair to leave out Morgan Stanley, lead
underwriter of the now infamous Facebook offering, who took
a play from Goldman Sachs and the great Paulson short.

They marketed Facebook stock to the unwitting while shorting
it all the way down, making another $100 million.

It is not just about Corzine anymore. The pathology of cronyism
is endemic and spreading.

Immoral Of The Story

So, what is the moral of this hideous little tale? What are the
lessons for our children?

Perhaps we should sit them down and wax philosophical:

"Kids, you know the old saying that 'crime doesn't pay?' Well,
that's bullshit.

Crime pays and pays big unless you are poor and without political
connections in which case you will likely join the American gulag
and soon.

"And that rule about always telling the truth? How can I put this
gently? That's bullshit, too.

Liars, good ones, rise to the top of government and corporations.
They are sociopaths by nature and have no empathy for anyone
other than themselves.

They are sick, but they are rich. You can make more money
from five minutes knowing the right insider than you can
from a lifetime of hard work.

"And, finally, about that Biblical 'suggestion' to 'do unto others
as you would have them do unto you?'

Well, that will get you a job selling printer cartridges at Best Buy
or teaching yoga to the woo-woos if you are limber.

"No, my children, If you want to make it big in this world, smile,
lie, follow the money, suck the ass of those on the fast train,
step on the little people and fuck anyone who gets in your way.

"Make Daddy proud."


Jim Karger is a lawyer, and frequent contributor to The Dollar
Vigilante, who has represented American businesses against
incursions by government and labor unions for 30 years.

http://www.dollarvigilante.com/blog/2012/8/20/mfing-justice.html

The American Way

The American Way

By Stephen Lendman
Information Clearing House
Friday, August 17, 2012

Past and present leaders reveal the soul of their nations.

Arguably America never had one.

Current domestic and foreign policies provide convincing evidence.

Police state harshness targets defenders of right over wrong
everywhere.

National resources go for militarism, belligerence, and making
super-rich elites richer.

Corporations are licensed to steal, exploit, and plunder.

Wars ravage one country after another. Humanity is ruthlessly
destroyed.

Battlefields shift from one theater to another. Gangsterism
writ large reflects official policy.

Syria is ground zero.

Months of Western generated violence left thousands dead, many
more injured, and countless numbers displaced. Nothing deters
America's war machine madness.

Bloodlust defines it. Dominance matters most. Body counts mount.
Rule of law principles and democratic values are considered quaint
and out of date.

Stomping on people is policy.

Concern for human and civil rights is off the table. Winning hearts
and minds was never America's game. Crushing the will to resist is
more important.

Repression enforces the message harshly. Death squad diplomacy
eliminates non-believers. Where it ends, who knows!

Despite ongoing direct and proxy wars, hawkish US lawmakers want
more. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman are three
of America's worst.

Peace they believe is abhorrent.

Death squad massacres in Syria aren't enough. As a 2008
presidential candidate, McCain's advocated bombing Iran.

"Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran," he sang on his "Straight Talk"
tour to the tune of a popular Beach Boys song.

Lunatics like this run America. Now McCain wants more. So do
Graham and Lieberman.

They're not alone.

On August 5, the Washington Post gave them op-ed space. Together
they headlined "The risks of inaction in Syria," saying:

Provide "robust assistance" to opposition fighters. Establish and
reinforce safe zones. Use "airpower and other unique US assets."

Damn the risks. "(I)naction carries" greater ones. "(S)trategic" aims
matter most.

Failure to intervene more aggressively "jeopardiz(es) both our
national security interests and our moral standing in the world."

Fact check

Official US policy calls for replacing all independent governments
with pro-Western ones.

War is America's national pastime. Dominance alone matters.
Sovereign rights can't be allowed to interfere.

Washington planned war on Syria years ago.

It's orchestrating events on the ground. It's been involved from
day one. It's recruiting, arming, funding, training, and directing
mercenary killers.

It's not good enough so let's bomb, say McCain, Graham and
Lieberman.

With these type lawmakers influencing policy, don't bet money
on humanity surviving.

Don't expect America to renounce war. Don't imagine embracing
democratic values is planned.

Hunker down for worse to come. Get involved and try to stop it.

Syria is about to go up in flames. Iran is next, then other nations.

No good ending comes from this. Wars beget more of them.
Permanent ones assure self-destruction.

Perhaps America will take humanity with it. It's not far-fetched.

Partnered with Britain, other key NATO allies, Israel, and regional
despots, chances of armageddon are too high to risk.

Chances for homeland tyranny are virtually certain. Militarism writ
large heads it there. It's closer than most people imagine. It's not
pretty now. Expect much worse ahead. It could come any time.

Battleground Syria could shift venues to America if popular
resistance erupts. Daily violence and atrocities there could
become commonplace domestically.

Some neighborhoods already experience low intensity versions of
what could easily ratchet higher. Hammering one country after
another draws it closer.

Former State Department official Anne-Marie Slaughter mimicks
McCain, Graham and Lieberman. Halting Syrian violence depends
on increasing it, they believe.

People like this run America. They're interviewed on US television.
They're given feature op-ed space.

Earlier, Slaughter called for "no-kill zones." Pentagon officials
call them "buffer zones." They're ground-based no-fly zones. If
established, they assure full-scale war.

Slaughter supports no holds barred escalation.

On July 31, her Financial Times article headlined "We will pay
a high price if we do not arm Syria's rebels," saying:

"It is time for bold action," she said. She suggests Libya 2.0. Go
for broke, she urges. Other hawks echo her sentiment. "Syrians
will remember those who remember them," she said.

The longer fighting rages, the greater Assad's support grows,
the more America is hated.

Syrians aren't stupid. They know what Washington did to Iraq
and Libya. They know what's gone on in Afghanistan since 2001.

They understand that wherever America arrives, death,
destruction, and unspeakable human misery follow.

If Washington wins, they lose. They're willing to die to prevent it.

America plans full-scale war. Imagine how many more will die.
Imagine the vast destruction. Imagine any nation ravaging others.

It's the American way.

Permanent wars are waged for wealth, power and dominance.
At the same time, homeland needs go begging.

Out-of-control militarism heads America for tyranny and ruin.
Along the way, millions suffer and die.

Obama follows in the tradition of previous warrior presidents.

Over time, stakes and risks grow exponentially. State-of the art
weapons threaten everyone.

Obama's National Security Strategy "reserve(s) the right to act
unilaterally if necessary to defend out nation and our interests."

In other words, preemptive wars with weapons of mass destruction
is policy.

Obama claims it's "to keep the American people safe (and advance
the nation's) values and ideals." It threatens other countries to bend
to Washington's will or else.

In the process it destroys freedom.

Chalmers Johnson called war profiteering "the most efficient means
for well-connected capitalists to engorge themselves at the public
trough."

Expect more of it, he warned. Expect tyranny to replace
democracy. Expect hell on earth so globalists can control it.

Maybe they'll destroy it instead.


Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and His new book is titled "How
Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government
Collusion and Class War"

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32204.htm