The Obama Conundrum: Progress and Protest in the Face of Reality by John Caelan

Dandelion Salad

Sent to DS from the author, thanks, John.

John Caelan

by John Caelan
John’s blog post
www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs
Whiskey and Wine

Nov. 15, 2008

The Bush Administration has nearly passed into the annals of apologetic history. One might imagine that these last hours of despot rule are akin to the tedious torture of water boarding, wherein the perpetrator promises the end is nigh but the anguished prisoner will not believe it until the torment stops and they are returned to the relative comfort of their urine-soaked bed mat.

As King George secures the stratagem for the chosen elite, President-elect Barack Obama gears up for what may be either a pivotal resuscitation of our failing Nation or the final liquidation of a country that has choked to death on the constant torrent of its own hypocrisy.

Waiting in the wings, like oh-so-many children anticipating the elves’ declaration of Santa’s arrival, the pundits, protestors, and progressives stand with baited breath, scrolls of hopeful wish-lists dangling to the ground. Obama and his developing staff most assuredly are fortifying their flanks, readying their resolve for the inevitable onslaught of subterfuge that will attempt to render this new Executive impotent within days of the Inauguration. However, it may be those lingering in the wings, invited guests and welcomed constituents, who present the greater distraction to Obama over the first year of his Presidency.

The neo-cons, whatever form in which they choose to appear, are fundamentally predictable—this is the price of the dogmatic design: all roads must lead to the nonnegotiable objective, thus all roads can be traced back from that objective. Obama is surrounding himself with plenty of ruthless people who can attend to that front. Progressives are not immune to the rigid doctrine, but by nature they tend to be more flexible, reassessing and reflecting as reality dictates. However, for the last eight years, along with all of the other more visible transgressions, the Bush Administration has managed to sew a more subtle seed of democratic impairment. When an extreme of ideology remains unmoved before the public for such an unreasonable period of time, it serves as an absolving alibi for every failed progressive effort known to man. There is no greater equalizer of ideas than an authoritarian regime that summarily dismisses all ideas except for their own.

What If We Let The Banks Fail? by Josh Sidman

Josh

by Josh Sidman
Dandelion Salad
featured writer
Josh’s Blog Post
November 16, 2008

Since the beginning of the financial crisis, one of the things that has been most striking is the unanimity of opinion that large financial institutions cannot be allowed to fail. The conventional wisdom is so one-sided in this regard that nobody (that I’m aware of) has actually gone through the exercise of asking what exactly would be the result if we simply did nothing and allowed the banks to fail. Given the enormous costs we are incurring to prevent this outcome, we have to at least consider the alternative. Would it not be more economical to simply let any bank fail that can’t stand on its own and let the government print money to pay off all the claims of the FDIC?

In broad terms, the banking industry uses three primary inputs in order to fulfill its functions. These inputs are capital, information, and human resources. Obviously much of the first category has been destroyed, but capital can always be rebuilt in time. The other two categories of inputs are largely unaffected by the current crisis. The informational infrastructure of the banking industry is completely intact (and will almost certainly be improved upon as a result of the hard lessons we are currently learning), and the available human capital is undiminished. So, even if the greater part of the banking industry were to cease to exist, new institutions would spring up (and would employ many of the same people – hopefully a little older and wiser now – who staffed the old ones). What would be so terrible about that?

Yes, I am my brother’s keeper By Siv O’Neall

Dandelion Salad

Sent to DS by the author, thanks, Siv.

By Siv O’Neall
axisoflogic.com
Nov 12, 2008

The polarized world

Do we need further proof that greed is not the solution for a sound economy? Do we need further proof that capitalism is foundering? Do we need further proof that ignoring the poor is not the way to make the world go round? That selfish accumulation of wealth is not the key to peace of mind and a life worth living?

The weirdoes who are presently at the helm of the world don’t know a thing about what a good life is all about. A half-starving family in India may well have a more meaningful life than high-riding madmen who accumulate riches and who never stop striving for more – the very people who are ruining the lives of the poverty-stricken slum dwellers in the third world, people who were once farmers, poor but self-sustaining. Now they are scavenging on the garbage dumps on the outskirts of the big cities. The goals in the lives of the poor rich people who are ruining the earth couldn’t be more out of joint.

There is certainly no beauty in desperate poverty, nothing positive in being deprived of the decent lives of billions of the earth’s population. But the poor soulless billionaires who have set as a goal in their lives to destroy the lives of millions, so as to wallow in luxury in their secluded mansions, are the victims of their own selfishness and their disastrous misjudgment of the human psyche.

Why haven’t those criminals who are the mad founders of ‘disaster capitalism’ been tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail a long time ago?

The G20 Won’t Change This Financial Crime Scene by Richard C. Cook

by Richard C. Cook
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
richardccook.com
November 16, 2008

Remarks by Richard C. Cook
George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
November 15, 2008

We Hold These Truths by Richard C. Cook

Originally uploaded by Lorri37

The G20 is meeting today in Washington, D.C., to discuss the world financial crisis, its causes, and what can be done about it. But this won’t help the people of the U.S. who have been victimized by their own financial system.

The stated objectives are to find ways to stabilize and reduce speculation in the financial markets and make financial transactions more transparent, more efficient, and more international in scope. But this is also a revolt by the nations of the world against over-reliance on the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. What we are likely to see over time is a multi-currency regime that includes the Euro and one or more Asian currencies as well.

But the conference will not address the real causes of why the world is heading into a global recession or why the U.S. economy in particular is in such dire straits. Nor will the meeting lresult in redress of the staggering level of bankers’ criminality abetted by the U.S. government in the creation of the financial bubbles whose collapse is underway.

The real problem is that the world is locked into a debt-based financial system run by the world’s banks, where the only way currency can be entered into circulation is through lending. It’s been massive amounts of completely irresponsible lending which have leveraged the bubbles against much smaller amounts of tangible value.

The GDP of the entire world is $55 trillion. This is dwarfed by speculative lending in the derivatives markets of ten times that amount–$525-$550 trillion. No nation has clean hands in this travesty. The governments of the world and the central banks have allowed it to come into being.

Within the U.S., reliance on money-creation through bank lending has been the problem since the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. At that point the U.S. monetary system was privatized. The case has been the same with all the other nations which have private banking systems that control their central banks. The granddaddy is the Bank of England which dates from 1694.

The creation of the Federal Reserve System marked the start of a century of world war. This is hardly a coincidence. Indeed, the central banking system encourages wars and lives off them, because it is war and the threat of war that is most profitable to a system where the more money governments borrow the more profits the banks make.

Bush cheers “free enterprise” as US capitalism goes bust

Dandelion Salad

By Bill Van Auken
http://www.wsws.org
15 November 2008

US President George W. Bush came to Wall Street Thursday to deliver a speech extolling the virtues of the “free enterprise” system even as multiple economic indicators made it clear that the so-called “magic of the market” is spelling misery for millions more working people in the US and around the globe.

Bush delivered his paean to American capitalism at Federal Hall, just a stone’s throw from the New York Stock Exchange. The historic building was the site of the inauguration of George Washington and the first sessions of the US Congress. The august setting stood in stark contrast to the character of the select audience, which, in the gap between its ideological proclivities and socioeconomic reality, resembled a meeting of the flat earth society.

A total of 175 people turned out for the session, organized by the Manhattan Institute, a right-wing think tank that specializes in demonizing the poor while promoting tax cuts, financial deregulation, the dismantling of social programs and the decimation of public education.

[...]

via Bush cheers “free enterprise” as US capitalism goes bust

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Bush will NEVER be able to set foot outside the U.S.! Jeremy Scahill & Naomi Klein

The Great Depression of the 21st Century: Collapse of the Real Economy

Wall Street’s Bailout is a Trillion-Dollar Crime Scene — Why Aren’t the Dems Doing Something About It? By Naomi Klein

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

Antiwar Radio: Mark Ames: The Cold War that Wasn’t

Dandelion Salad

AntiwarRadio

Oct 31, 2008

more about “AntiwarRadio: Mark Ames: The Cold War…“, posted with vodpod

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Parts 2-7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlpYqIje1TQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNqQASyE268

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb_vhIun0qE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQYahrqNfaE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPguHkgBZ80

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXFape96sSM

Mark Ames, author of The Cold War that Wasnt in The Nation, discusses the dominant narrative and ideological underpinnings in the U.S. press regarding the recent Georgian attack on South Ossetia and subsequent Russian counterattack on Georgia, the attempt to portray Russia as the aggressor by floating the idea of a first-strike cyber war despite the lack of any evidence, the alleged poisoning of Ukraines Victor Yushchenko and the current dispute between Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko over her reaction to the Georgia war, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, the precedent set by U.S. intervention in Kosovo, the danger of putting defensive missiles in Eastern Europe while the U.S. foreign policy establishment contemplates first strike capability, U.S. NED support for the Russian National Bolsheviks, the shock therapy robbery of Russian resources under Yeltsins autocracy in the 1990s and the consequences.

Mark Ames is a journalist who has written for several publications including the New York Press, The Nation and GQ Russia and is the founding editor and regular contributor of the Moscow-based newspaper The eXile. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion From Reagans Workplaces to Clintons Columbine and Beyond and The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia.

see

Georgia fired first shot, say UK monitors

A damning admission on the Georgian war by Alex Lantier + 1000’s demand Saakashvili’s resignation

BBC wakes up to Georgian `war crimes`

U.S. need Czech radar to spy on Russia

Georgia

Litvinenko death: sensational new revelations

Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko/Ex-KBG Spy

Bush will NEVER be able to set foot outside the U.S.! Jeremy Scahill & Naomi Klein

Dandelion Salad

Up on current

Thanks to Cspanjunkie for uploading the full video.

Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill 2008 Miami Book Fair International

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

92 min – Nov 15, 2008
cspan – www.cspanjunkie.org

November 15, 2008 C-SPAN FIRST 3:40 SECONDS CROWD SHOT! SORRY!
Live coverage from the 2008 Miami Book Fair International featured book talks by authors, interviews with authors this segment includes Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army

more about “The Rise of Disaster Capitalism with …“, posted with vodpod

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[shorter clip]

Bush will NEVER be able to set foot outside the U.S.! Jeremy Scahill & Naomi Klein

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Democrats Cover Up Bush Era War Crimes

Cafferty: Should Dems Investigate Bush After He Leaves

Beware The Obama Hype What “Change” In America Really Means By John Pilger

Ali Abunimah: Obama picks pro-Israel hardliner for top post

Eric Margolis: Bush admin has left Obama an international ‘mess’ + When Camelot meets Gitmo

Vote for Change? Atrocity-Linked US Officials Advising Dem, GOP Pres Frontrunners (videos)

Bush White House ‘endorsed torture’

War Crimes

Obama-Barack

Biden-Joe

McCain-John

Palin-Sarah

Ralph Nader Posts & Videos

Iraq cabinet approves troop agreement with U.S.

Dandelion Salad

By Adam Ashton
McClatchy Newspapers
Nov. 16, 2008

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s cabinet today approved a security pact that calls for Americans to withdraw from the country within three years. That action sets up a final vote on the agreement in Iraq’s parliament.

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki built political momentum for the agreement through the weekend, declaring his support and helping persuade leading Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani to give it the green light on Saturday.

[...]

via McClatchy Washington Bureau | 11/16/2008 | Iraq cabinet approves troop agreement with U.S.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Finding the words to say it By William Bowles

By William Bowles
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Creative-i
16 November 2008

“The BBC’s Tim Franks in Jerusalem says we have no clue as to when or where this video was shot and it is impossible to know just how frequently such incidents occur.” — ‘BBC: Israel army studies ‘abuse video’

But right below this it says,

“But a leading Israeli human rights group says “many instances of abuse are not exposed because they have become the norm””.

But is this all this group said? Why isn’t the group named? Why is the source not identified? It seems the ‘rules’ that allegedly govern reportage are as flexible as Mr Franks interpretation of events are.

So it is possible to know how often such abuses occur and if Mr Franks bothered to subscribe to the excellent (and ‘balanced’) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights regular reports on events in the Occupied Territories, he would not need to qualify his comments about “just how frequently such incidents occur.” So much for our intrepid journalists in their never-ending search for the ‘truth’.

The overall tone of Franks’ report creates the impression of scepticism as the first quote illustrates. But what does it matter where the video was shot? Franks appears to be implying that the video is a fake let alone an ‘exception’?

I still find it difficult to get my head around the so-called civilized world’s reactions—or rather lack of them—over the treatment being méted out to the Palestinian people by the state of Israel (and ably assisted by the West).

The Daily Show: Bill O’Reilly

Dandelion Salad

The Daily Show

Bill O’Reilly thinks Barack Obama is a brilliant guy who ran the best campaign he’s ever seen anyone run.

more about “The Daily Show: Bill O’Reilly“, posted with vodpod

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Bill O’Reilly says there’s a foundation to America, and secular progressives want drastic change.

more about “Bill O’Reilly Pt. 2 | The Daily Show …“, posted with vodpod

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Kucinich debates O’Reilly

Obama-Barack

Mosaic News – 11/14/08: World News from the Middle East

Dandelion Salad

Warning

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This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

linktv

Mosaic needs your help! Donate here: http://linktv.org/contribute

“UN General Assembly Concludes Interfaith Dialogue,” Abu Dhabi TV, UAE
“More Settlements in E. Jerusalem,” Al Jazeera TV, Qatar
“Ousted Mauritanian President Transferred to Village,” Dubai TV, UAE
“Darfur Rebels Reject Ceasefire,” Nile TV, Egypt
“Iraqi Government Ready to Discuss Security Agreement with Obama,” Baghdad TV, Iraq
“Ahmadinejad: Guns N’ Roses,” Link TV, USA
Produced for Link TV by Jamal Dajani.

more about “Mosaic News – 11/14/08: World News fr…“, posted with vodpod

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Help us create a Charter for Compassion

Help us create a Charter for Compassion

Dandelion Salad

The Golden Rule

“That which is hateful to you do not do to another … the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study.”

- Rabbi Hillel

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http://charterforcompassion.com/

People of all nations, all faiths, all backgrounds, are invited to contribute.

By recognizing that the Golden Rule is fundamental to all world religions, the Charter for Compassion can inspire people to think differently about religion. This Charter is being created in a collaborative project by people from all over the world. It will be completed in 2009. Use this site to offer language you’d like to see included. Or inspire others by sharing your own story of compassion.

more about “Help us create a Charter for Compassion“, posted with vodpod

 

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Do Unto Others

World religions too often seem predicated on prejudice, when their true roots lie in compassion

By Karen Armstrong
Information Clearing House
November 14, 2008 “The Guardian”

The practice of compassion is central to every one of the major world religions – but sometimes you would never know it. Instead, religion is associated with violence, intolerance and seems more preoccupied by dogmatic or sexual orthodoxy.

People don’t even seem to know what compassion is; they imagine that it means to feel pity for somebody, whereas the root meaning of this Greco-Latin world is “to feel with” the other, realising at a profound level that we share the same human predicament. This is crucial at a time when we are bound together – politically, economically, and electronically – as never before but have rarely been more perilously divided.

This is why we have launched a Charter for Compassion. During the next few days, millions of Jews, Christians and Muslims worldwide will be invited to comment, stage by stage, on a draft Charter on a multilingual website. Later, a council of inspirational thinkers representing the different faiths will examine their findings and write the final version. Finally, there will be a large signing ceremony.

[...]

via Do Unto Others      : Information Clearing House – ICH

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The Crossing: The Event That Changed My Life by Rocket Kirchner