Day: September 18, 2008

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Spun Around Nation

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Thanks to Diggers who left this as a link on another blog post.

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Who gains to win in war? The biggest winners are the War Profiteers. Over 150 in US government are profiting in a big way. NO PUBLIC SERVANT SHOULD PROFIT FROM WAR. That is a conflict of interest. Bring back dignity. Increase the Peace. Many thanks to Rook Faded – http://www.wildscreen.tv/videos/323/rooky-faded – – Gonzo – http://www.wildscreen.tv/videos/386257 – – Babylon A.D – – http://www.wildscreen.tv/videos/386254 – – Political vdo – – Vietnam – – Gonzo — Eagle Eye — Iron Man — I.O.U.S.A. – – W. – – We all can make a difference and increase the peace. More opportunities are open to us then ever before. * StopWarOnIran.org * Get involved.

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Nader: Restoring the Rule of Law

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by Ralph Nader
September 17, 2008

Statement of Ralph Nader September 16, 2008 Before the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee on “Restoring the Rule of Law”

Mr. Chairman and members of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony on the important and fundamental topic of “Restoring the Rule of Law” to the workings of the Executive Branch. I ask that this statement be made part of the printed hearing record and I commend you for taking the initiative to explore what steps the next President and the next Congress must take to repair the massive damage that President George W. Bush has done to the rule of law and our democracy.

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Democracy Now!: US bails out AIG for 85 million dollars

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US Seizes Control of AIG with $85 Billion Bailout

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It’s the Derivatives, Stupid! Why Fannie, Freddie, AIG had to be Bailed Out

Congressional Hearing Federal Bureau of Investigation Oversight

Rep. Kapture: They Want Mama To Make It All Better!

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

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Mosaic News – 9/17/08: World News from the Middle East

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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.

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Mosaic needs your help! Donate here: http://linktv.org/contribute
“U.S. Embassy Attacked in Yemen,” Dubai TV, UAE
“Nigeria: Militant attacks cutting oil production,” Al Jazeera English, Qatar
“Clashes Rage at Ain al-Hilweh,” Al Arabiya TV, UAE
“Kadima Party Elections Under Way,” Al Jazeera TV, Qatar
“Exit polls: Livni clear winner in Israeli primary,” IBA TV, Israel
“Darwish Poem’s Under Israeli Scrutiny,” Al-Alam TV, Iran
“Four Iraqi TV Crew Members Assassinated,” Al-Iraqiya TV, Iraq
Produced for Link TV by Jamal Dajani.

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It’s the Derivatives, Stupid! Why Fannie, Freddie, AIG had to be Bailed Out

by Dr. Ellen Hodgson Brown
featured writer
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Ellen’s post
Sept 5, 2008
webofdebt.com

“I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.” – Sir Isaac Newton, after losing a fortune in the South Sea bubble

Something extraordinary is going on with these government bailouts. In March 2008, the Federal Reserve extended a $55 billion loan to JPMorgan to “rescue” investment bank Bear Stearns from bankruptcy, a highly controversial move that tested the limits of the Federal Reserve Act. On September 7, 2008, the U.S. government seized private mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and imposed a conservatorship, a form of bankruptcy; but rather than let the bankruptcy court sort out the assets among the claimants, the Treasury extended an unlimited credit line to the insolvent corporations and said it would exercise its authority to buy their stock, effectively nationalizing them. Now the Federal Reserve has announced that it is giving an $85 billion loan to American International Group (AIG), the world’s largest insurance company, in exchange for a nearly 80% stake in the insurer . . . .

The Fed is buying an insurance company? Where exactly is that covered in the Federal Reserve Act? The Associated Press calls it a “government takeover,” but this is not your ordinary “nationalization” like the purchase of Fannie/Freddie stock by the U.S. Treasury. The Federal Reserve has the power to print the national money supply, but it is not actually a part of the U.S. government. It is a private banking corporation owned by a consortium of private banks. The banking industry just bought the world’s largest insurance company, and they used federal money to do it. Yahoo Finance reported on September 17:

“The Treasury is setting up a temporary financing program at the Fed’s request. The program will auction Treasury bills to raise cash for the Fed’s use. The initiative aims to help the Fed manage its balance sheet following its efforts to enhance its liquidity facilities over the previous few quarters.”

Treasury bills are the I.O.U.s of the federal government. We the taxpayers are on the hook for the Fed’s “enhanced liquidity facilities,” meaning the loans it has been making to everyone in sight, bank or non-bank, exercising obscure provisions in the Federal Reserve Act that may or may not say they can do it. What’s going on here? Why not let the free market work? Bankruptcy courts know how to sort out assets and reorganize companies so they can operate again. Why the extraordinary measures for Fannie, Freddie and AIG?

The answer may have less to do with saving the insurance business, the housing market, or the Chinese investors clamoring for a bailout than with the greatest Ponzi scheme in history, one that is holding up the entire private global banking system. What had to be saved at all costs was not housing or the dollar but the financial derivatives industry; and the precipice from which it had to be saved was an “event of default” that could have collapsed a quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble, a collapse that could take the entire global banking system down with it.

The Anatomy of a Bubble

Until recently, most people had never even heard of derivatives; but in terms of money traded, these investments represent the biggest financial market in the world. Derivatives are financial instruments that have no intrinsic value but derive their value from something else. Basically, they are just bets. You can “hedge your bet” that something you own will go up by placing a side bet that it will go down. “Hedge funds” hedge bets in the derivatives market. Bets can be placed on anything, from the price of tea in China to the movements of specific markets.

“The point everyone misses,” wrote economist Robert Chapman a decade ago, “is that buying derivatives is not investing. It is gambling, insurance and high stakes bookmaking. Derivatives create nothing.”1 They not only create nothing, but they serve to enrich non-producers at the expense of the people who do create real goods and services. In congressional hearings in the early 1990s, derivatives trading was challenged as being an illegal form of gambling. But the practice was legitimized by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who not only lent legal and regulatory support to the trade but actively promoted derivatives as a way to improve “risk management.” Partly, this was to boost the flagging profits of the banks; and at the larger banks and dealers, it worked. But the cost was an increase in risk to the financial system as a whole.2

Since then, derivative trades have grown exponentially, until now they are larger than the entire global economy. The Bank for International Settlements recently reported that total derivatives trades exceeded one quadrillion dollars – that’s 1,000 trillion dollars.3 How is that figure even possible? The gross domestic product of all the countries in the world is only about 60 trillion dollars. The answer is that gamblers can bet as much as they want. They can bet money they don’t have, and that is where the huge increase in risk comes in.

Credit default swaps (CDS) are the most widely traded form of credit derivative. CDS are bets between two parties on whether or not a company will default on its bonds. In a typical default swap, the “protection buyer” gets a large payoff from the “protection seller” if the company defaults within a certain period of time, while the “protection seller” collects periodic payments from the “protection buyer” for assuming the risk of default. CDS thus resemble insurance policies, but there is no requirement to actually hold any asset or suffer any loss, so CDS are widely used just to increase profits by gambling on market changes. In one blogger’s example, a hedge fund could sit back and collect $320,000 a year in premiums just for selling “protection” on a risky BBB junk bond. The premiums are “free” money – free until the bond actually goes into default, when the hedge fund could be on the hook for $100 million in claims.

And there’s the catch: what if the hedge fund doesn’t have the $100 million? The fund’s corporate shell or limited partnership is put into bankruptcy; but both parties are claiming the derivative as an asset on their books, which they now have to write down. Players who have “hedged their bets” by betting both ways cannot collect on their winning bets; and that means they cannot afford to pay their losing bets, causing other players to also default on their bets.

The dominos go down in a cascade of cross-defaults that infects the whole banking industry and jeopardizes the global pyramid scheme. The potential for this sort of nuclear reaction was what prompted billionaire investor Warren Buffett to call derivatives “weapons of financial mass destruction.” It is also why the banking system cannot let a major derivatives player go down, and it is the banking system that calls the shots. The Federal Reserve is literally owned by a conglomerate of banks; and Hank Paulson, who heads the U.S. Treasury, entered that position through the revolving door of investment bank Goldman Sachs, where he was formerly CEO.

The Best Game in Town

In an article on FinancialSense.com on September 9, Daniel Amerman maintains that the government’s takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was not actually a bailout of the mortgage giants. It was a bailout of the financial derivatives industry, which was faced with a $1.4 trillion “event of default” that could have bankrupted Wall Street and much of the rest of the financial world. To explain the enormous risk involved, Amerman posits a scenario in which the mortgage giants are not bailed out by the government. When they default on the $5 trillion in bonds and mortgage-backed securities they own or guarantee, settlements are immediately triggered on $1.4 trillion in credit default swaps entered into by major financial firms, which have promised to make good on Fannie/Freddie defaulted bonds in return for very lucrative fee income and multi-million dollar bonuses. The value of the vulnerable bonds plummets by 70%, causing $1 trillion (70% of $1.4 trillion) to be due to the “protection buyers.” This is more money, however, than the already-strapped financial institutions have to spare. The CDS sellers are highly leveraged themselves, which means they depend on huge day-to-day lines of credit just to stay afloat. When their creditors see the trillion dollar hit coming, they pull their financing, leaving the strapped institutions with massive portfolios of illiquid assets. The dreaded cascade of cross-defaults begins, until nearly every major investment bank and commercial bank is unable to meet its obligations. This triggers another massive round of CDS events, going to $10 trillion, then $20 trillion. The financial centers become insolvent, the markets have to be shut down, and when they open months later, the stock market has been crushed. The federal government and the financiers pulling its strings naturally feel compelled to step in to prevent such a disaster, even though this rewards the profligate speculators at the expense of the Fannie/Freddie shareholders who will get wiped out. Amerman concludes:

“[I]t’s the best game in town. Take a huge amount of risk, be paid exceedingly well for it and if you screw up — you have absolute proof that the government will come in and bail you out at the expense of the rest of the population (who did not share in your profits in the first place).”4

Desperate Measures for Desperate Times

It was the best game in town until September 14, when Treasury Secretary Paulson, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and New York Fed Head Tim Geithner closed the bailout window to Lehman Brothers, a 158-year-old Wall Street investment firm and major derivatives player. Why? “There is no political will for a federal bailout,” said Geithner. Bailing out Fannie and Freddie had created a furor of protest, and the taxpayers could not afford to underwrite the whole quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble. The line had to be drawn somewhere, and this was apparently it.

Or was the Fed just saving its ammunition for AIG? Recent downgrades in AIG’s ratings meant that the counterparties to its massive derivatives contracts could force it to come up with $10.5 billion in additional capital reserves immediately or file for bankruptcy. Treasury Secretary Paulson resisted advancing taxpayer money; but on Monday, September 15, stock trading was ugly, with the S & P 500 registering the largest one-day percent drop since September 11, 2001. Alan Kohler wrote in the Australian Business Spectator:

“[I]t’s unlikely to be a slow-motion train wreck this time. With Lehman in liquidation, and Washington Mutual and AIG on the brink, the credit market would likely shut down entirely and interbank lending would cease.”5

Kohler quoted the September 14 newsletter of Professor Nouriel Roubini, who has a popular website called Global EconoMonitor. Roubini warned:

“What we are facing now is the beginning of the unravelling and collapse of the entire shadow financial system, a system of institutions (broker dealers, hedge funds, private equity funds, SIVs, conduits, etc.) that look like banks (as they borrow short, are highly leveraged and lend and invest long and in illiquid ways) and thus are highly vulnerable to bank-like runs; but unlike banks they are not properly regulated and supervised, they don’t have access to deposit insurance and don’t have access to the lender of last resort support of the central bank.”

The risk posed to the system was evidently too great. On September 16, while Barclay’s Bank was offering to buy the banking divisions of Lehman Brothers, the Federal Reserve agreed to bail out AIG in return for 80% of its stock. Why the Federal Reserve instead of the U.S. Treasury? Perhaps because the Treasury would take too much heat for putting yet more taxpayer money on the line. The Federal Reserve could do it quietly through its “Open Market Operations,” the ruse by which it “monetizes” government debt, turning Treasury bills (government I.O.U.s) into dollars. The taxpayers would still have to pick up the tab, but the Federal Reserve would not have to get approval from Congress first.

Time for a 21st Century New Deal?

Another hole has been plugged in a very leaky boat, keeping it afloat another day; but how long can these stopgap measures be sustained? Professor Roubini maintains:

“The step by step, ad hoc and non-holistic approach of Fed and Treasury to crisis management has been a failure. . . . [P]lugging and filling one hole at [a] time is useless when the entire system of levies is collapsing in the perfect financial storm of the century. A much more radical, holistic and systemic approach to crisis management is now necessary.”6

We may soon hear that “the credit market is frozen” – that there is no money to keep homeowners in their homes, workers gainfully employed, or infrastructure maintained. But this is not true. The underlying source of all money is government credit – our own public credit. We don’t need to borrow it from the Chinese or the Saudis or private banks. The government can issue its own credit – the “full faith and credit of the United States.” That was the model followed by the Pennsylvania colonists in the eighteenth century, and it worked brilliantly well. Before the provincial government came up with this plan, the Pennsylvania economy was languishing. There was little gold to conduct trade, and the British bankers were charging 8% interest to borrow what was available. The government solved the credit problem by issuing and lending its own paper scrip. A publicly-owned bank lent the money to farmers at 5% interest. The money was returned to the government, preventing inflation; and the interest paid the government’s expenses, replacing taxes. During the period the system was in place, the economy flourished, prices remained stable, and the Pennsylvania colonists paid no taxes at all. (For more on this, see E. Brown, “Sustainable Energy Development: How Costs Can Be Cut in Half,” webofdebt.com/articles, November 5, 2007.)

Today’s credit crisis is very similar to that facing Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s. In 1932, President Hoover set up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) as a federally-owned bank that would bail out commercial banks by extending loans to them, much as the privately-owned Federal Reserve is doing today. But like today, Hoover’s ploy failed. The banks did not need more loans; they were already drowning in debt. They needed customers with money to spend and invest. President Roosevelt used Hoover’s new government-owned lending facility to extend loans where they were needed most – for housing, agriculture and industry. Many new federal agencies were set up and funded by the RFC, including the HOLC (Home Owners Loan Corporation) and Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association, which was then a government-owned agency). In the 1940s, the RFC went into overdrive funding the infrastructure necessary for the U.S. to participate in World War II, setting the country up with the infrastructure it needed to become the world’s industrial leader after the war.

The RFC was a government-owned bank that sidestepped the privately-owned Federal Reserve; but unlike the Pennsylvania provincial government, which originated the money it lent, the RFC had to borrow the money first. The RFC was funded by issuing government bonds and relending the proceeds. Then as now, new money entered the money supply chiefly in the form of private bank loans. In a “fractional reserve” banking system, banks are allowed to lend their “reserves” many times over, effectively multiplying the amount of money in circulation. Today a system of public banks might be set up on the model of the RFC to fund productive endeavors – industry, agriculture, housing, energy — but we could go a step further than the RFC and give the new public banks the power to create credit themselves, just as the Pennsylvania government did and as private banks do now. At the rate banks are going into FDIC receivership, the federal government will soon own a string of banks, which it might as well put to productive use. Establishing a new RFC might be an easier move politically than trying to nationalize the Federal Reserve, but that is what should properly, logically be done. If we the taxpayers are putting up the money for the Fed to own the world’s largest insurance company, we should own the Fed.

Proposals for reforming the banking system are not even on the radar screen of Prime Time politics today; but the current system is collapsing at train-wreck speed, and the “change” called for in Washington may soon be taking a direction undreamt of a few years ago. We need to stop funding the culprits who brought us this debacle at our expense. We need a public banking system that makes a cost-effective credit mechanism available for homeowners, manufacturing, renewable energy, and infrastructure; and the first step to making it cost-effective is to strip out the swarms of gamblers, fraudsters and profiteers now gaming the system.

1 Quoted in James Wesley, “Derivatives – The Mystery Man Who’ll Break the Global Bank at Monte Carlo,” SurvivalBlog.com (September 2006).

2 “Killer Derivatives, Zombie CDOs and Basel Too?”, Institutional Risk Analytics(August 14, 2007).

3 Kevin DeMeritt, “$1.14 Quadrillion in Derivatives – What Goes Up . . . ,” Gold-Eagle.com (June 16, 2008).

4 Daniel Amerman, “The Hidden Bailout of $1.4 Trillion in Fannie/Freddie Credit-Default Swaps,” FinancialSense.com (September 10, 2008).

5 Alan Kohler, “Lehman End-game,” Business Spectator (Australia) (September 15, 2008).

6 Ibid.

Ellen Brown, J.D., developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles.  In Web of Debt, the latest of eleven books, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.”  She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves and how we the people can get it back.  Her websites are www.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com.

© Copyright Ellen Hodgson Brown, webofdebt.com, 2008

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Rep. Kapture: They Want Mama To Make It All Better!

The end of (capitalist) history? By William Bowles

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse

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Burning the First Amendment by Walter Brasch

by Walter Brasch
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
Sept 18, 2008

“Got a match?”

I didn’t know where he came from, but there he was, right behind me—as usual. “You know I don’t smoke,” I told Marshbaum. “Come to think of it, you don’t either. What’s up?”

“Not much. Planning to roast some marshmallows and hotdogs. Burn some books.”

“Marshbaum,” I commanded. “You can’t burn books.” Continue reading →

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Valuable, Voluntary and Educational National Youth Service by William Cox

by William Cox
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
www.thevoters.org
Sept 18, 2008

Irrespective of who’s anointed at the presidential coronation in January, many more Americans will soon be performing national service, including compulsory military tours of duty in the never-ending War Against Terror and the soon-to-be-announced Wars Against Sedition, Starvation, Unemployment, and Internal Insurrection, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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America and its wars on terror

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Warning

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

AlJazeeraEnglish

An in-depth examination of the US War on Terror, its logic and effect, with Marwan Bishara.

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Noble Evo faces Allende’s fate

Dandelion Salad

Sent to me by Jason Miller from Thomas Paine’s Corner. Thanks, Jason.

photos at the original source

By Roger Burbach
9/17/08
Simulposted with The Greanville Journal

Day after day, the crisis deepens in Bolivia, where a rightwing insurgency, supported by the usual suspects, is threatening to shut down the Evo Morales presidency and produce an “Allende” outcome. We all know that Washington, mired in Iraq/Afghanistan, and now with some headaches of its own due to its impertinence in Russia’s sphere of influence, has not been able to intervene in the usual manner to stem the leftwing drift in Latin America. But rest assured that this monster nation has plenty of well-paid, well-trained personnel — above ground and under—in and out of uniform, watching and meddling in such events, even if the distractions elsewhere have prevented a more forceful and effective response.

Now, however, in the defiant insurrectionist stance of Eastern elites who control most of the nation;s riches, Washington planners have bumped into something promising: a native rightwing power base to roll back the long overdue reforms that President Morales is struggling to secure. We must always keep in mind that what is cigarette money at the Pentagon is big money in Latin America and other parts of the Third World, so even a few dollars and resources from the US can easily complicate matters enormously for the growing Latin revolution. And Washington, of course (Obama or McCain won’t be different in this area) wants to bag the big prize: to isolate and then bring down Venezuela’s Chavez and possibly even the Fidelistas. This report by Latin America expert Roger Burbach outlines clearly the high stakes in Bolivia and the rest of the Southern Hemisphere.

Confronting Right Wing Rebellion, Bolivian President Evo Morales’ Commitment to Democracy Evokes Memories of Salvador Allende

As Bolivia teeters on the brink of civil war, President Evo Morales staunchly maintains his commitment to constructing a popular democracy by working within the state institutions that brought him to power. The show down with the right wing is taking place against the backdrop of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the overthrow of Salvador Allende, the heroic if tragic president of Chile who believed that the formal democratic state he inherited could be peacefully transformed to usher in a socialist society.

Like Allende, Morales faces a powerful economic and political elite aligned with the United States that is bent on reversing the limited reforms he has been able to implement during his nearly three years in power. Early on, Morales — Bolivia?s first indigenous president — moved assertively to exert greater control over the natural gas and oil resources of the country, sharply increasing the hydro-carbon tax, and then using a large portion of this revenue to provide a universal pension to all those over sixty years old, most of whom live in poverty and are indigenous.

The self-proclaimed Civic Committees in Media Luna (Half Moon) — Bolivia’s four eastern departments — have orchestrated a rebellion against these changes, demanding departmental autonomy and control of the hydro-carbon revenues, as well as an end to agrarian reform and even control of the police forces. The Santa Cruz Civic Committee, dominated by agro-industrial interests, is supporting the Cruceño Youth Union (UJC), an affiliated group that acts as a para-military organization, seizing and fire bombing government offices, and attacking Indian and peasant organizations that dare to support the national government.

Morales’ efforts to transform the institutions of the country have focused on the popularly elected Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution. The assembly was convened in mid 2006 with representatives from Morales political party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) holding 54 percent of the seats. In the drafting of the new constitution, the right wing political parties, led by Podemos (We Can), insisted that a two-thirds vote was needed even for the working committees to approve the different sections of the constitution. When they were overruled and a new constitution was close to being approved in November, 2007, members of the assembly, including its indigenous president, Silvia Lazarte, were assaulted in the streets of Sucre, the old nineteenth century capital where the assembly was being held.

“Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, great avenues will again be opened, through which will pass the free man, to construct a better society…”—President Salvador Allende, Last Address from the Moneda Palace (as it was being bombed), September 11, 1973

Using words that evoked Allende’s last stand in the Chilean presidential palace, Evo Morales declared dead or alive, I will have a new constitution for the country. He quartered the assembly in an old castle under military protection where it adopted a constitution that has to be approved in a national referendum. Labeling Morales a “dictator”, the civic committees and the departmental prefects (governors) of Media Luna were able to stall the vote on the referendum, and instead organized departmental referendums for autonomy in May of this year that were ruled unconstitutional by the National Electoral Council.

Taking recourse in democracy rather than force, and searching for a national consensus, Morales then held up the vote on the new constitution, and instead put his presidency on the line in a recall referendum in which his mandate as well as that of the prefects of the departments could be revoked. On August 10, voters went to the polls and Morales won a resounding 67 percent of the vote, receiving a majority of the ballots in 95 of the country’s 112 districts with even the Media Luna department of Pando voting in his favor.

However, the insurgent prefects also had their mandates renewed. Based on the illegal, departmental plebiscites held in May, they moved to take control of Santa Cruz, the richest department. UJC shock troops roamed the streets of the city and surrounding towns, attacking and repressing any opposition by local indigenous movements and MAS-allied forces. Not wanting to provoke an outright rebellion, Evo Morales did not deploy the army or use the local police, leaving the urban area under the effective control of the UJC.

Simultaneously, the right wing — led by the Santa Cruz Civic Committee — began sewing economic instability, seeking to destabilize the Morales government much like the CIA-backed opposition did in Chile against Salvador Allende in the early 1970s. As in Chile, the rural business elites and allied truckers engaged in strikes, withholding or refusing to ship produce to the urban markets in the western Andes where the Indian population is concentrated, while selling commodities on the black market at high prices. The Confederation of Private Businesses of Bolivia called for a national producers’ shutdown if the government “refused to change its economic policies.”

The social movements allied with the government have mobilized against this right wing offensive. In the Media Luna, a union coalition of indigenous peoples and peasants campaigned against voting in the autonomy referendums, and have taken on the bands of the UJC as they try to intimidate and terrorize people. In the Andean highlands, the social movements descended on the capital La Paz in demonstrations backing the Morales? government, including a large mobilization in June that stormed the American embassy because of its support for the right wing. In July, the federation of coca growers in the Chapare, where US anti-drug operations are centered, expelled the US Agency for International Development.

This past week the Civic Committees stepped up their efforts to take control of the Media Luna departments. In Santa Cruz on September 8, crowds of youth lead by the UJC seized government offices, including the land reform office, the tax office, state TV studios, the nationalized telephone company Entel, and set fire to the offices of a non-governmental human rights organization that promotes indigenous rights and provides legal advice. The military police, who had been dispatched to protect many of these offices, were forced to retreat, at times experiencing bloody blows that they were forbidden from responding to due to standing orders from La Paz not to use their weapons. The commanding general of the military police, while angrily denouncing the violent demonstrators, said that the military could take no action unless Evo Morales signed a degree authorizing the use of firearms.

What was in effect occurring was a struggle between Morales and the military over who would assume ultimate responsibility for the fighting and deaths that would ensue with a military intervention in Media Luna. The armed forces do not support the autonomous rebellion because it threatens the geographic integrity of the Bolivian nation. Yet they are reluctant to intervene because under past governments, when they fired on and killed demonstrators in the streets of La Paz, they were blamed for the bloodshed.

On September 10, as violence intensified throughout Media Luna, Evo Morales expelled US ambassador Philip Goldberg for conspiring against democracy. The month before, Goldberg had met with the prefect of Santa Cruz, Ruben Costas, who subsequently declared himself “governor” of the autonomous department and ordered the formal take over of government offices — including those collecting tax revenues. Costas is the principal leader of the rebellious prefects, and the main antagonist of Evo Morales.

September 11, the 35th anniversary of the coup against Allende, was the bloodiest day in the escalating conflict. In the Media Luna department of Pando, a para-military band with machine guns attacked the Indian community of El Porvenir, near the departmental capital of El Cobija, resulting in the death of at least 28 people. In a separate action, three policemen were kidnapped. The Red Ponchos, an official militia reserve unit of Indians loyal to Evo Morales, mobilized its forces to help the indigenous communities organize their self defense.

The next day Morales declared a state of siege in Pando and dispatched the army to move on Cobija and to retake its airport that had been occupied by right wing forces. Army units are also being sent to guard the natural gas oleoducts, one of which had been seized by the UJC, cutting the flow of gas to neighboring Brazil and Argentina. General Luis Trigo Antelo, the commander in chief of the Bolivian Armed Forces declared: “We will not tolerate any more actions by radical groups that are provoking a confrontation among Bolivians, causing pain and suffering and threatening the national security.” In signing the order authorizing the use of force in Pando, Morales stated that he felt responsible for the humiliation of the military and the police by radicals and vandals because he had not authorized them to use their weapons. This was the quid pro quo for getting the military high command to act.

After sustained fighting with at least three dead, the army took control of the airport and moved on the city. An order for the arrest of the prefect of Pando was issued for refusing to recognize the state of siege and for being responsible for the massacre in El Porvenir. In Santa Cruz, the police arrested 8 rioters of the UJC. Peasant organizations have announced they will march on the city to retake control of the government offices. The dissident prefects, led by Costas, are still demanding departmental autonomy and refusing to accept a national vote on the referendum for the new constitution.

Evo Morales refuses to back down, declaring in a meeting with supportive union leaders, “we will launch a campaign to approve the new constitution.” He did, however, indicate he may modify the draft to accommodate some of the demands for autonomy by the prefects. Like Allende, Morales continues to search for a democratic solution to the crisis in his country. For the moment, he has the backing of the Bolivian armed forces along with overwhelming popular support, thereby avoiding the ultimate fate of the Chilean president.

Roger Burbach is Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA) based in Berkeley, CA. He has written extensively on Latin America and is the author of The Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and Global Justice.

See: http://globalalternatives.org/news

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Democracy Now: Tariq Ali on Pakistan and Bolivia

Bolivia: Fascist right launches ‘civic coup’ by Federico Fuentes & Stuart Munckton

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Congressional Hearing Federal Bureau of Investigation Oversight

Dandelion Salad

Federal Bureau of Investigation Oversight Congressional Hearing Sept 16, 2008

115 min – Sep 17, 2008
cspan

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Rep. Kapture: They Want Mama To Make It All Better!

Dandelion Salad

CSPANJUNKIEdotORG

http://cspanjunkie.org/
September 16, 2008 C-SPAN

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General Wesley Clark: America Needs Urgent Action

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Regarding Senator Biden and “Tasks from God”

Sent to me by Jason Miller from Thomas Paine’s Corner. Thanks, Jason.

photos at the original source

By Eileen Fleming
9/16/08

Recently Senator Biden spoke with Shalom TV and stated that, “There is this inextricable tie between culture, religion, ethnicity that most people do not understand…You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, I am a Zionist.” [1]

“Christian Zionism is a contradiction in terms…Zionism deviates from the heart of the New Testament…Christian Zionism is adding fuel to the tensions between Muslims, Christians and Jews…If the Christian Zionists’ agenda is realized, it will mean the death of Palestinian Christianity in the Holy Land…Zionism is militarizing the church…Christian Zionists overwhelmingly supported the war in Iraq and continue to support oppressive Israeli measures in the West Bank…the slaughter of [1,255,026 Iraqis*] goes virtually unnoticed and unchallenged because of their belief that President George W. Bush is a dedicated Christian who is carrying out the will of God…The ‘blind spot’ of Christian Zionists is the fact that the Palestinian people, every day and in every aspect of their lives are living under an oppressive military occupation…Unlike the prophets of the Old Testament Christian Zionists have no prophetic words of reprimand for the State of Israel.” [2]

But Christians who understand that God is love and who strive to practice the Beatitudes, have a few and “Love is not the starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of open cities. Love is not killing……Our manifesto is the Sermon on the Mount, which means that we will try to be peacemakers.” -Dorothy Day

Zionism began as a nationalistic philosophy that developed among European Jews in the 19th century which aspired to create a safe secure homeland for Jewish people.

Christian Zionism is an extremist movement which supports the claims of those who believe that the State of Israel should take control of all of the land currently disputed between Palestinians and Israelis. It views the creation and expansion of the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy toward the second coming of Jesus.

Christian Zionism is also a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel.

The Christian Zionist program provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it laces an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ’s love and justice today.

Believing that God fights on the side of Israel, Christian Zionists call for the unqualified support for the most extreme political positions related to the Holy Land that preclude a just peace between all of its citizens. Some Christian Zionist spoke-persons have even attributed Hurricane Katrina to God’s wrath over America’s failure to stop Israel from ‘disengaging’ in Gaza. Many also consistently oppose any moves towards a solution to the conflict which would validate the political aspirations of both Palestinians and Israelis.

Christian Zionism is both a political movement and a way of interpreting current events with the focus on Israel and the Middle East and its promoters share many beliefs but are not organized through any one institution.

Throughout history Christians have at times twisted scripture to justify violence: for the Crusades, for Anti-Semitism, for slavery and the church has been too slow to respond to these biblical distortions with disastrous results.

Christian Zionists – particularly those with dispensationalist leanings, whose motives are couched in terms of compassion toward the Jewish people- adhere to a literal reading of scripture that promotes a political agenda of territorial expansion which has given the green light to injustices against Palestinians and added fuel to the fire of conflict in the Middle East.

However, some mainstream churches have spoken out against Christian Zionism which is an inherently anti-Semitic theology. The Presbyterian Church in the USA at its July 2004, National General Assembly issued a statement on Confronting Christian Zionism: “Christian Zionism promotes a theology that justifies grievous violations of basic rights of people who are also made in the image of God, and is contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

The United Church of Christ in July 2003, at its National General Synod offered An Alternative Voice to Christian Zionism: “We believe that the tenets of Christian Zionism neither reflect the intention of the teachings of Jesus and the prophets, nor promote peace in the Middle East, and respectfully recommend …an alternative voice to this theology.”

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in June 2005 at its Chicago Metropolitan Synod issued a Resolution to Encourage the Study of Christian Zionism: “the movement of Christian Zionism based on these biblical interpretations seeks to influence U.S. policy toward Israel in a manner that would arguably facilitate mistreatment of Palestinians, continued occupation of the land, opposition to a two-state solution, and exclusive Israeli control of Jerusalem.”

The United Methodist Church, in June 2005 at its Illinois Conference on Unwrapping the Rapture warned, “Every household should give prayerful consideration as to how God will actually judge us for our silence about and complicity in the crushing of the Palestinian people.”

The Episcopal Church, in November 2004 at its Diocese of Chicago Confronted Christian Zionism: “A partial response to Christian Zionism would be to say that we read Scripture in light of [Jesus’] two great commandments – to love God and our neighbor.”

In 2006, The Nation reported that Christians United for Israel/CUFI pressed White House officials to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran, to refuse aid to the Palestinians and to give Israel a free hand as it ramped up its military conflict with Hezbollah.

The White House has not revealed the names of the officials who met with the CUFI lobbyists, which is a venomous tentacle from the Armageddon-based foreign-policy view of its founder, John Hagee. Hagee is a fundamentalist, fire-and-brimstone preacher who seeks to convert Jewish people to his understanding of God or see them perish in a nuclear holocaust that he believes he and his kind of Christian will be raptured/lifted out of.

False prophets like Hagge adhere to a 200 year old convoluted interpretation of disparate scriptures that they have chosen to weave together to support their fear based judgmental narrow minded doctrine. Hagee has mesmerized nearly 18,000 misled Christians at his Cornerstone Church and hosts a major TV ministry where he explains his views of how the end times will unfold. He blatantly ignores the philosophy of Jesus for he is a warmonger, not a peace maker of peace seeker.

I contend that the cult of ‘Christian’ Zionism is what the concept of the Anti-Christ is all about, and by anti-Christ, I mean anti/against Jesus’ teachings which are that God is love, God loves all of his creation and the greatest command is that we love God first and then all of our neighbor [meaning all people] as we love our self.

Fundamentalist Christians have come to worship a worship a punitive father as God; a god of Armageddon and not the God of love, forgiveness and compassion that Jesus spoke of. The theology that is promoted in the Left Behind fiction is a theology based on fear and punishment and its adherents do not have eyes to see that nature is God’s primary temple, and war the greatest abomination, although they have been warned by Jesus:

“Violence breeds violence, those that live by the sword shall die by the sword.”–Mt. 26:52

“Blessed are the Peacemakers; they shall be called the children of God.”–Mt. 5:9

Christian Zionists often quote Genesis 12:3:”I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse: and in you all the families of the world are blessed.”

It is irresponsible and anti-Christ [against his teachings] “to suggest that God will bless us materially if we support the largely secular State of Israel, especially when this invariably means ignoring the plight of the indigenous Christian population of Palestine.” [3]

The indigenous Christians of the Holy Land have dwindled from 20% of the total population to less than 1.3% since 1948 when the British Mandate over Palestine expired and Israel became a state.

Talking with Shalom TV, Senator Joe Biden also called for leniency for Jonathan Pollard.

“Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst in the Navy, wanted to be a spy so badly that he even seemed to think he was a spy long before he actually was. As a college student at Stanford he boasted that he had contacts in the Israeli intelligence services and that his father was a CIA agent who worked in Prague. Both claims were false. He entered phony education and employment information on job applications and mailed himself telegrams under aliases he made up for himself. Strangely, none of the odd details about Pollard’s personality were noted on his Navy background check report.

“…In 1984 Pollard was promoted to a position as an analyst in the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NIS)…He was placed in a new, high-priority unit, the Anti-Terrorism Alert Center, where he gained access to satellite photographs and CIA reports…Shortly after he began working at the NIS Pollard met an Israeli intelligence officer in New York named Avi Sella, who was posing as a graduate student at New York University. Sella requested classified information from Pollard — any information he could deliver — and told him that he would be paid for whatever he could provide…Pollard provided detailed information on chemical warfare manufacturing plants in Iraq. For this initial transaction Pollard was given a $10,000 diamond and sapphire ring for his fiancée, Anne Henderson, and paid over $10,000 in cash. Sella also agreed to pay Pollard $1,500 a month for his espionage activities as long as they continued. For about a year after the time Pollard met Avi Sella, he gathered computer printouts, satellite photographs, and classified documents from his department three times a week and brought them to various Washington apartments. There, they were copied and returned to Pollard, who restored them to the Navy the following day. In exchange for his services Pollard received, in addition to the agreed salary, a lavish collection of gifts for himself and his wife, including a honeymoon in a private compartment aboard the Orient Express.

“By his own estimates Pollard passed to his Israeli handlers more than 800 classified publications and more than 1,000 cables, probably the largest cache of materials ever passed through espionage…then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said, “It is difficult for me…to conceive of greater harm done to national security.” [4]

Initially Israel denied Pollard was spying for them, but eventually admitted he was. Israel has given him citizenship and has repeatedly called for his release. The Jerusalem City Council, in support of Pollard, changed the name of a square near the official prime minister’s residence from Paris Square to Freedom for Jonathan Pollard Square. The full extent of the information Pollard gave to Israel has still not been officially revealed.

A year after Pollard was arrested for espionage after walking out of his office with 60 top-secret documents in his briefcase, Mordechai Vanunu was kidnapped, clubbed, drugged, bound and gagged in Rome by the Mossad and transported back to Israel where he was convicted of treason and espionage treason for handing over to the London Sunday Times, 56 photos that documented Israel’s clandestine underground WMD facility in the Negev where upwards of 200 nuclear weapons were being assembled.

In 1963, Shimon Peres, then Israel’s Deputy Minister of Defense met with President John Kennedy at the White House. Kennedy told Perez, “You know that we follow very closely the discovery of any nuclear development in the region. This could create a very dangerous situation. For this reason we monitor your nuclear effort. What could you tell me about this?”

Peres replied, “I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first.”

In September of 1986, Peres ordered the Mossad, to “Bring the son of a bitch back here,” and Vanunu was, just a few weeks after being baptized a Christian. The London Times never signed a contract with Vanunu and he has not received any payment for the photos he shot because he listened to his conscience [another name for God] and wanted to avoid a nuclear holocaust.

In 1987, from prison Vanunu wrote that he was, “the secret agent of the people…the eyes of the nation. I have no choice. I’m a little man, a citizen, one of the people, but I’ll do what I have to. I’ve heard the voice of my conscience and there’s nowhere to hide.”[5]

Prophets do not necessarily predict the future, but prophets who are inspired by God will point out danger ahead and provoke people to remember God.

“The word of God is living and active. Sharper than a two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him whom we must give account.”– Hebrews 4:12-13

Christians understand that individuals as well as nations will be judged, not on Bible trivia, but on our hearts.

“War is the greatest plague that afflicts humanity, it destroys religion, it destroys states and it destroys families…Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” – Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

What the nations of the world so desperately need is a kitchen table meeting with the Prince of Peace who commanded his followers that in order to be forgiven, they must forgive, they must love all people, they are not judge any other and that it is the peacemakers who are God’s children: not those that bomb, torture or occupy any other.

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZvypFPscP8&feature=related
* http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

2. Rev. Alex Awad, Palestinian Memories, pages 244-248

3. Rev. Stephen Sizer, Zion’s Christian Soldiers, page 46

4. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/dece_pollard.html

5. http://vanunu.com/

LEARN MORE:

If Americans Knew What Israel Is Doing!
If Americans Knew What Israel Is Doing! Video was Censored! (video)

Patriot Follows the Money and Exposes Foreign Agents

The Vanunu Saga:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=660&Itemid=175

Eileen Fleming is the Reporter and Editor of WAWA, Author of “Keep Hope Alive” and “Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory,” and Producer of “30 Minutes With Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”

see

With God on Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military

Christian fundamentalism & Zionism – Time To Terminate This Unholy Alliance?

Bill Moyers Journal: The GOP’s Nominee + Christians United For Israel (CUFI)

Rapture Ready: The Christians United for Israel Tour (video)

RNN: Christian Zionists target Iran

Defending Israel to the “End Times” By Bill Berkowitz

Chris Hedges – American Fascists (vid)

If Americans Knew What Israel Is Doing! Video was Censored! (video)

And So This Was Christmas By Eileen Fleming (Vanunu)

Libby and Vanunu by Dr. Daniel Ellsberg

Christianity

Zionism