"Freedom or death," is the popular Palestinian mantra. These are not simply words, but a rule by which Palestinians live and die. Gaza is the proof..."
Ramzy Baroud
We will survive this latest Nakbah too
May A. Altoukhi | Arab News
...And I will teach my nieces to always hold their heads up high, simply because they are Palestinians. I will teach them to always stand strong, and never back down. I will teach them to always be proud. I will teach them to live, and to love, and to thrive simply because they are Palestinian. And, I will teach them that we will always survive, no matter what. So, listen up dear world. We survived the 1948 Nakbah, and we survived the 1967 war, and we survived the past 60 years of oppression, concentration camps, displacement, and murder, and we will survive this genocide, we will never cease to exist... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=51221
Israel to fund Gaza war with US loan guarantees:
"The government must use the US loan guarantees to raise money abroad - a step that needs US approval - to prevent a problem in the domestic market," Gabai said. In 2003, the US awarded Israel as much as $9 billion in guarantees.http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=561&fArticleId=4807307
"EMBARGO IS WAR"
The issue of the border crossings is one of the most intractable and at the heart of Hamas’s cease-fire demands. On Sunday, a weeklong cease-fire technically ended, but a Hamas official in Egypt said Hamas offered to extend it for a year, provided Israel opened the crossings... Israel... said the Hamas offer was not new. Ahmed el-Kurd, the minister of labor in the Hamas-run government in Gaza, stated Hamas’s view in an interview on Sunday: “The embargo is war.” Gaza’s deficits began long before the war, with an economic embargo imposed by Israel after Hamas seized power from Fatah in June 2007... arguing a blockade would weaken the group and possibly dislodge it.
Nearly all Gaza’s imports come through Israel, except for what moves through smuggling tunnels from Egypt, which has kept its Gaza border closed since the Hamas takeover....Peter Lerner, the spokesman for the [Israeli] Defense Ministry’s coordination office for Gaza, said.. it would not consider reopening the crossings fully for commercial use, and any reconstruction projects would need to be approved individually. “We are not interested in rebuilding Hamas at any stage,” he said in a telephone interview....
Israel and the West want aid to flow through the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank and is dominated by Hamas’s rival, Fatah. But after being ejected from Gaza, the Palestinian Authority does not have the presence to manage aid to Gaza...
Hamas, meanwhile, is stepping in to fill the gap. This week, the government will hand out checks of as much as $5,000 for those whose homes were destroyed, Mr. Radwan said. In Mr. Atar’s neighborhood, they already started. He pulled five crisp hundred-dollar bills out of an envelope from Hamas’s Public Affairs Department.... “Somebody knows I am here.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/world/middleeast/26mideast.html?_r=1&t...
Haykal Unveils Plot to "Dissolve" Hamas Resistance
23/01/2009
Egyptian prominent journalist Mohamad Hassanein Haykal said that the next stage would witness an attempt to dissolve the Palestinian Resistance movement of Hamas through the "weapon" of the re-construction of the Gaza Strip following the Israeli 23-day aggression. In a program broadcasted by Al-Jazeera, Haykal said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would play the major role in the next stage in which a status-quo would be imposed on Arabs "who didn't play any role in ending the Israeli aggression. According to Haykal, the Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair is the "architect" of involving the NATO in the Arab region. He said that the construction loan would be given under NATO patronage, noting that there would be huge quantities of money which would be spent at the aim of bypassing the political side of the Palestinian cause.
http://www.almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=71273&language=en
Doctors Document Gaza Horrors
Special for IslamOnline.net
A team of Arab doctors who rushed to the rescue of thousands of civilians injured during Israel's 22-day onslaught against the sealed off Gaza Strip are coming back with heart-breaking stories of horror and never-seen-before injuries. "The destruction and death I saw in front of my bare eyes were unprecedented in human history," Mohamed el-Sheriey, an Egyptian doctor, told a joint press conference on Sunday, January 25. "They couldn’t even be masterminded by the most evil-minded of fiction writers."...Even to men whose profession taught them to come to term with death, the scenes were hard to comprehend... people admitted to hospital with burnt organs and lacerated tissues or without the lower half of their bodies. One of the victims – currently laying at the Egyptian Red Crescent Hospital in Cairo – received a wound in his right cheek which was almost two inches big, continues to grow bigger and bigger by the hour. "When we shut off the light, the wound becomes luminous," said Rashid Emam, a medical specialist from al-Azhar University...http://www.uruknet.de/?p=51229
'Cancer within a year of attack'
New Straits Times
FOR the victims of white phosphorus attacks, the horrific burns are just the beginning of their problems. If past experiences are to be taken into account, those hit by the deadly chemical can expect to develop cancer within a year of the attack. Al-Sifa Hospital Burn Unit surgeon Dr Aladdin Ali said white phosphorus burns are different and worse from those incurred in normal fires. "Victims feel not only the burning sensation, but an unbearable itch, too. "The burns c over a huge area of the body, eat up the flesh and sink down to the bone. "It also affects other organs like the kidneys, and interferes with many bodily functions."..http://www.uruknet.de/?p=51222
US envoy to strengthen Abbas:
George Mitchell, will be working to secure a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, as part of an attempt to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. He does not intend to meet with Hamas representatives.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3662282,00.html
Ground Troops Return to Gaza; Hamas Attacks Negev:
The government authorized the IDF to send ground troops back into central Gaza Tuesda. Hamas warned that it has not agreed to a "calm" and that its previous ceasefire announcement is dependent on Israel's re-opening Gaza crossings to all commercial traffic.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/159921
got it? Obama is executor of 'new' continuity and unity behind same old imperialist global domination agenda
Mouin Rabbani and Chris Toensing trace "The Continuity of Obama's Change," now in Middle East Report Online:
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero012709.html
The US ambassador to the United Nations has said the new Obama administration will engage in "direct diplomacy" with Iran.
Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said the US would use "all elements of our national power" to address its concerns about Iran's nuclear programme.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/01/2009126195224889956.h...
'DIRECT DIPLOMACY'
US seizing of Iranian ship 'a covert op'
The interception of an Iranian arms ship by the US Navy in the Red Sea last week likely was conducted as a covert operation and is being played down by the US military due to the lack of a clear legal framework for such operations, an American expert on Iran told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday evening....
For the time being, the interceptions and searches are being carried out on the basis of the memorandum of understanding signed between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on January 16, which is "aimed at halting arms smuggling into Gaza as part of efforts to clinch the cease-fire," Tanter said. "I suspect that the 19-20 January interception stemmed from that deal. Moreover, having the US Navy intercept the suspect ship would have significantly better prospects for unopposed boarding than if Israeli commandos took it down. Were this ship to be operated by Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guards Corps or Quds force, and Israelis came aboard, it would not be a pretty scene, to say the least," he said.
Emily Landau, director of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program at the Institute of National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said Teheran would do its utmost to replenish Hamas weapons stocks in the coming months. "Iran has a very strong interest in terms of its regional hegemonic designs to continue to support its two proxies in our part of the Middle East," Landau said. "I think the result of the war and the obvious poor performance of Hamas will also have implications on Iran's regional standing. Iran hoped Hamas could have declared victory - this would give Iran more bargaining chips when it came to nuclear negotiations with the US," she said. At the same time, "Iran is not looking for an armed confrontation [with the US Navy] at this point," Landau said. "An armed confrontation would start a whole different set of dynamics that could have implications for what Iran could achieve." Iran's arms-smuggling and nuclear program "all tie in to the same agenda. Iran wants to be the leading power in the Middle East and to call the shots," she said.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull...
Pakistan an Early Test of Obama's Approach
By DAVID E. SANGER
President Obama is clearly in no rush to terminate some Bush administration policies. The not-so-covert attacks into Pakistan are a prime example.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/us/politics/27web-sanger.html?8au&emc=...
covert slaughter - imperialist transparency
Obama continues extra-judicial killings: kills 22 people including children in Pakistan
The airstrikes were authorised under a covert programme approved by Obama, according to a senior US official
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article55810...
President orders air strikes on villages in tribal area
Obama gave the go-ahead for his first military action yesterday, missile strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan which killed at least 18 people. Four days after assuming the presidency, he was consulted by US commanders before they launched the two attacks. The first attack yesterday was on the village of Zharki, in Waziristan; three missiles destroyed two houses and killed 10 people. A second attack hours later also in Waziristan killed eight people.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/24/pakistan-barack-obama-air-st...
Pakistan urges Obama to halt missile attacks killing civilians
Pakistan urged President Barack Obama to halt U.S. missile strikesr, saying Saturday that civilians were killed the previous day in the first attacks since Obama's inauguration.
http://tinyurl.com/bf73tn
U.S. commanders on Tuesday traveled to a poor Afghan village and distributed $40,000 to relatives of 15 people killed in a U.S. raid
http://tinyurl.com/ajdkga
3,000 U.S. troops originally destined for Iraq deployed south of Afghanistan’s capital in new military focus on the fight in the South Asian nation, NATO said Tuesday.
http://tinyurl.com/ddfkj8
US moves to consolidate new supply routes to Afghanistan
James Cogan
...Petraeus spoke last year of the "common interest" shared by the US and the Shiite fundamentalist regime in Tehran in regards to Afghanistan—preventing the return to power of Sunni extremists; stemming drug trafficking; and opening up new trade markets. The think tank Stratfor, which is close to the US intelligence agencies, commented on January 23: "If an arrangement can be worked out between the United States and Iran, western forces could thus reduc e their dependence on the main routes through Pakistan and perhaps avoid the logistical and geopolitical costs of having to transport supplies through Central Asia. The United States could clearly benefit from Iranian cooperation in Afghanistan..." At present, such "cooperation" does not exist. The Obama administration therefore has little choice but to bargain with Russia if it is going to advance its plans for the subjugation of Afghanistan. Russian President Medvedev has indicated that Moscow will be asking for significant concessions on issues such as the expansion of the NATO alliance and the US missile defence system. If such negotiations become difficult, the Iranian option may become more attractive.... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=5125
'leaving Iraq' -- NOT
Turkey, Iraq and the United States have agreed to set up a joint command center in northern Iraq to gather intelligence
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=165026&bol...
Obama met Wednesday with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the US ambassador to Iraq and senior military officers for what the White House said was a session to discuss planning for the withdrawal of US combat troops in 16 months. But asked whether the accelerated timetable was now the main plan, Gates told reporters that the session was just "the beginning of a process of evaluating various options."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hxFrtXweb4AiSLpXxCwvG...
Obama, Guantánamo, And US Hypocrisy
By Mickey Z.
Waiting a year to close a single prison is nothing to celebrate. Transferring those illegally detained humans is not change anyone can believe in. Public promises about not torturing have been heard before and even if we could trust such dubious assurances, why are we so goddamned appreciative when a US president merely declares his theoretical intention to think about adhering to fundamental international law? http://www.countercurrents.org/mickeyz260109.htm
VIDEO: Afghan inmates compare Policharkhi to Guantanamo
AlJazeeraEnglish
In Afghanistan more than 3,000 men are being held at the Policharkhi prison outside Kabul.... conditions are wretched and no access to fair trials...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=51228
SOFT POWER 'MODERATION' TO 'CURE' NATIONAL LIBERATION ['TERRORISM'] & CREATE 'COOPERATIVE' ARABS
Obama Signals New Tone in Relations With Islamic World In an interview with an Arab TV broadcaster, President Obama told Muslims, "Americans are not your enemy."
Obama's choice of Al Arabiya for his 'respectful tone', repeating his commitment to israel and willingness to 'listen' to others reveals u.s. agenda
US president Barack Obama made a "first", by appearing on Al Arabiya on Jan 26 2009 declaring that US is not an enemy of the Islamic world, defending Israel's war on terror from radical Palestinians that target the innocent [1], the very apperance on that media sparked also some controversy
Al Arabiya was created to be a direct competitor of Qatar-based Al Jazeera.[5] According to a 2008 New York Times profile of Al Arabiya director Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, the station was founded "to cure Arab television of its penchant for radical politics and violence," with Al Jazeera as its main target. Mr. Rashed alleged that Arab television's coverage of militant groups was overly friendly. "You have to remember, it was television that made bin Laden into a celebrity," Rashed said. "That made Al Qaeda, and its recruiting, and this is how violence spread throughout the region." Mr. Rashed said Al Arabiya works to describe incidents of Islamist violence with neutral, non-supportive language. He also said the station had pushed Al Jazeera to be more critical of the insurgency in Iraq. "Now Al Jazeera is a very soft, reasonable station when it comes to the Iraqis," he said. Al Arabiya has, in turn, drawn accusations of pro-American
A voice of moderation helps transform Arab media
By Robert F. Worth
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=9026494
January 4, 2008
DUBAI: It has been almost four years since Abdul Rahman al-Rashed set out to cure Arab television of its penchant for radical politics and violence..... Rashed was hired to take Al Jazeera on and provide another direction for journalism in the region... He was an obvious man for the job. Born in Saudi Arabia, he had lived for 17 years in London, where he worked his way up the ladder of that city's thriving Arab expatriate media community to became editor in chief of Al Sharq Al Awsat, the prominent Saudi-owned paper. He had also gained a reputation as a passionate critic of the jihadist mind set. Soon after taking the job at Al Arabiya he provoked anger and gratitude across the Islamic world by writing in one of his columns that "not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that most terrorists are Muslims." ... critics lambasted Al Arabiya as an American vehicle. Some mockingly called it "Al Hebraia," or the Hebrew, and accused it of being even more pro-American than Al Hurra, which is sponsored by the United States and widely dismissed in the Arab world as propaganda.... Al Arabiya is the market leader in Saudi Arabia and has done well in the Gulf generally, though it is far less popular in Egypt, Jordan, Syria and the Palestinian territories.
The harder accusation to rebut is Al Arabiya's Saudi orientation. The station is owned by the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation, which is based in Saudi Arabia, and to some extent the Saudi rulers see it as a vehicle for their own designs.... Last year, Al Arabiya heavily promoted a multipart series about King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The first episode apparently angered members of the royal family, and the rest of the series was abruptly canceled. "We had an internal conflict about the program, and we hope to show it in the future," is all Rashed will say about the incident. But other members of the Al Arabiya staff say the program was canceled on direct orders from the Saudi royal family....
Al Arabiya led the way, replacing the old, loaded terms with more neutral ones, offering a wider variety of opinions, aiming at balance. Other stations, including Al Jazeera, have begun to follow Al Arabiya's practices. He runs through a list of changes: the insurgents in Iraq are no longer called the "muqaawama," or resistance; instead they are "musulaheen," or armed men. Iraqis killed by Americans are not necessarily "martyrs." Now, they are just civilians who have been killed. "Three years ago, most of the TV stations - and you can add to that the newspapers and Web sites - were taking one side on most issues," he says. "They were very much for the resistance in Iraq."
"Religious enlightenment"
U.S. Working to Reshape Iraqi Detainees
Moderate Muslims Enlisted to Steer Adults and Children Away From Insurgency
By Walter Pincus
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR200709...
September 19, 2007
The U.S. military has introduced "religious enlightenment" and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday. Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to "bend them back to our will" and are part of waging war in what he called "the battlefield of the mind." Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the "House of Wisdom."....
As a result of the increased U.S. troop presence in Iraq this year, the number of Iraqis in U.S. detention has swelled from about 10,000 last year to more than 25,000. The effort to reshape attitudes among the growing detainee population is aimed at addressing a problem that has vexed U.S. troops in Iraq for the past four years: Military detention facilities have served as breeding grounds for extremist views, transforming some prisoners into hard-core insurgents, according to military analysts. Stone wants to identify "irreconcilables" -- those detainees whose views cannot be moderated -- and "put them away" in permanent detention facilities. Psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and interrogators help distinguish the extremists from others, he said....
After reassessments and interrogations, Stone said, some detainees are recommended for release. "If a detainee is an imperative security risk . . . then I'm going to reduce that risk and I'm going to replace that destructive ideology," he said. "And then when he's assessed to no longer be a threat, I'm going to release the detainee being less likely to be a recidivist."...
Other initiatives at the facilities include vocational training and basic education programs for about 7,000 detainees. Stone said he believes his approach is "compelling because it's how you win this war, not only the one in Iraq, but the one on a greater basis." He quoted Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi as saying that "America could win the war if they just applied the exact process that you're putting in detention to the rest of the entire nation," in Stone's words.
The 25,000 detainees now being held in U.S. facilities in Iraq include more than 820 juveniles, Stone said, most of whom are held in the House of Wisdom, which opened last month and is located at the Camp Victory military base near Baghdad's airport. He said that six additional young people had been sent to him just yesterday, and that "the trend is towards the youth," including 11-, 12- and 13-year-olds. He described older juveniles -- the 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds -- as "harder nuts" and said that 50 to 60 of them have been removed from U.S. detention facilities and turned over to Iraqi authorities for trial.
The new religious training, Stone said, helps U.S. forces pinpoint the hard-core extremists. "I want to know who they are," he said. "They're like rotten eggs, you know, hiding in the Easter basket." Stone said his staff conducts polygraph tests for detainees who promise to change after undergoing the religious training program. "We were trying to figure out if they're messing with us. . . . You're not talking about radicals going to choirboys." But he also added that they're succeeding in countering extremists in the facilities. "We're busting them down, we're making whole moderate compounds that didn't exist before."
Stone described a sort of religious insurgency that occurred at one detention facility on Sept. 2. "We had a compound of moderates for the first time overtake . . . extremists. It's never happened before. Found them, identified them, threw them up against the fence and shaved their frickin' beards off of them. . . . I mean, that is historic." Jack Holt, the spokesman for the Pentagon's new media operations, said that 60 people were invited to join the Stone interview yesterday but that only four bloggers did so. Of those four, at least two appear to be active-duty military, but as of yesterday evening none so had discussed Stone's presentation online.
Other elements of Stone's program are being developed. He said he has created a "transition-out barracks" where detainees being released discuss civics and human rights. He has also begun a "huge, expensive" Rand Corp. research study on detainee motivation and morale and has plans for a major communication campaign....
Iraq Detention 'counter-insurgency' Imams Work for $2 Billion Private Equity Fund
Re-educating Armed Occupation Resisters
By Nick Mottern and Bill Rau
2008-11-18
When Iraqi imams sit down with prisoners at a US detention center in Iraq to discuss Islam, they are working for a subsidiary of Global Innovation (GI) Partners LLP, a California- and London-based private equity firm that claims to have “$2 billion in capital under management”. GI Partners sells, among other things: base maintenance for US military forces in Iraq; psychiatric care in the United Kingdom; in-room television and movies for hotels; wine; movie production studios and pubs. GI Partners also manages hundreds of millions of dollars for California and Oregon public employees pension funds and, according to the GI Partners website, pension funds in the Netherlands and the Middle East.
The imams...“certified, trusted and moderate Islamic clerics” offering “detainees a broader understanding of Islam"... work in a “counter-insurgency” program apparently intended to undermine religious arguments that have provided underpinning for armed resistance to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and to the US-Iraqi government. (See Truthout October 14, 2008.) The imams join the GI Partners world when they go to work for Russian and East European Partnerships (REEP) Inc., the GI Partners subsidiary hired by the US military to run Islamic discussion, civics, and vocational programs in its Iraq detention centers. These centers now hold about 16,600 Iraqis and are under the command of Multi-National Force – Iraq’s Task Force 134 (MNF-I/TF-134).
REEP, which does business under the trade name Operational Support and Services (OSS), “advises DoD (Department of Defense) personnel on all local nationals (Imams and Social Workers) that may be hired to work in TF-134 programs,” according to a TF-134 spokesman.... the work of the imams, which is shrouded in secrecy, appears to violate international principles protecting religious freedom. It is work that may be unwelcome news to GI Partners investors, such as public employee pension funds reeling from the economic downturn that is traceable in significant measure to the Iraq War.
US military to teach Iraqi prisoners how to be moderate Muslims
The Wall Street Journal reports US commanders in Iraq have begun releasing hundreds of Iraqi prisoners after concluding the military’s detention policy might be harming US goals in Iraq. The US is currently holding about 23,000 Iraqis, many without charge. The US military has begun building a pair of large halfway houses in Taji and Ramadi, where detainees will undergo vocational training. The Wall Street Journal reports the US military also plans to teach religious courses to the former prisoners about how to be a moderate Muslim. Imams will be brought in by the military to teach courses that highlight the Islamic precepts that bar the killing of innocents and offer alternative interpretations of jihad... The reality in the detention system is that, according to TF-134, participation in the Islamic Discussion Program and other courses is likely to help speed a prisoner’s release. Religious discussion with and “education” of a person who is a prisoner and whose resistance has a religious base can be described as a form of coercion.
The use of a private contractor for religious work in US detention facilities, says international human rights lawyer Karen Parker, provides the US government with a layer of protection against charges of human rights violations: “They try to hide behind yet another wall.”
Full article: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/37762
SOFT POWER: to "put a civilian face on American engagement with the world"
Really Soft Power
By GARY SCHAUB
...Defense Department civilians simply don’t have the authority to hold their own with the regional commanders. They are ranked as deputy assistant secretaries of defense and are fourth-tier civilians within the secretary’s office. They reside in small offices in the Pentagon and have even smaller staffs. Rarely do they engage with regional commanders... General Petraeus oversees Central Command — America’s military presence in the Middle East — and has assembled a task force to develop a strategy for the area that stretches from Egypt to Pakistan. This task force will not develop a traditional military strategy with a focus on offensive and defensive operations. Centcom will aim to help nations in the region govern effectively, build their economies and provide security to their people...
Mr. Gates could promote these officials, give their staffs bigger budgets and more support, and coordinate their activities with the regional commanders so that they would have increased awareness and influence over American policy. Reorganization of the Defense Secretary’s office along these lines would not solve the structural problem of a weak State Department. But it would be a necessary first step toward more effective oversight of foreign policy, and it would put a civilian face on American engagement with the world.
Gary Schaub is an assistant professor of strategy at the Air War College. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/opinion/27schaub.html?th=&emc=th&pagew...
bourgeois economist sees the inevitable results, but capitalism has no solutions for the problems it generates
The World Won't Buy Unlimited U.S. Debt
We're asking others to sacrifice for our 'stimulus.'
By PETER SCHIFF
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123266988914308217.html
Currently, U.S. citizens comprise less than 5% of world population, but account for more than 25% of global GDP. Given our debts and weakening economy, this disproportionate advantage should narrow. Yet the U.S. is asking much poorer foreign nations to maintain the status quo, and incredibly, they are complying. At least for now....
Chinese, Japanese and the Saudis -- need to be prepared to sacrifice. They have to fund America's annual trillion-dollar deficits for the foreseeable future. These creditor nations, who already own trillions of dollars of U.S. government debt, are the only entities capable of underwriting the spending that Mr. Obama envisions and that U.S. citizens demand.
These nations, in other words, must never use the money to buy other assets or fund domestic spending initiatives for their own people. When the old Treasury bills mature, they can do nothing with the money except buy new ones. To do otherwise would implode the market for U.S. Treasurys (sending U.S. interest rates much higher) and start a run on the dollar. (If foreign central banks become net sellers of Treasurys, the demand for dollars needed to buy them would plummet.)
In sum, our creditors must give up all hope of accessing the principal, and may be compensated only by the paltry 2%-3% yield our bonds currently deliver.
As absurd as this may appear on the surface, it seems inconceivable to President Obama, or any respected economist for that matter, that our creditors may decline to sign on. Their confidence is derived from the fact that the arrangement has gone on for some time, and that our creditors would be unwilling to face the economic turbulence that would result from an interruption of the status quo. But just because the game has lasted thus far does not mean that they will continue playing it indefinitely. Thanks to projected huge deficits, the U.S. government is severely raising the stakes. At the same time, the global economic contraction will make larger Treasury purchases by foreign central banks both economically and politically more difficult.
The root problem is [digest: LATE-STAGE CAPITALISM ITSELF] not that America may have difficulty borrowing enough from abroad to maintain our GDP, but that our economy was too large in the first place. America's GDP is composed of more than 70% consumer spending. For many years, much of that spending has been a function of voracious consumer borrowing through home equity extractions (averaging more than $850 billion annually in 2005 and 2006, according to the Federal Reserve) and rapid expansion of credit card and other consumer debt. Now that credit is scarce, it is inevitable that GDP will fall.... it is clear that Mr. Obama's opening bid will likely move north considerably before any legislation is passed. It is also clear from the political chatter that the policies most favored will be those that encourage rapid consumer spending, not lasting or sustainable economic change. So when the effects of this stimulus dissipate, the same unbalanced economy will remain -- only now with a far higher debt load....
If any other country were to face these conditions, unpalatable measures such as severe government austerity or currency devaluation would be the only options. But with our currency's reserve status, we have much more attractive alternatives. We are planning to spend as much as we like, for as long as we like, and we will let the rest of the world pick up the tab.
Currently, U.S. citizens comprise less than 5% of world population, but account for more than 25% of global GDP. Given our debts and weakening economy, this disproportionate advantage should narrow. Yet the U.S. is asking much poorer foreign nations to maintain the status quo, and incredibly, they are complying. At least for now. You can't blame the Obama administration for choosing to go down this path. If these other nations are giving, it becomes very easy to take. However, given his supposedly post-ideological pragmatic gifts, one would hope that Mr. Obama can see that, just like all other bubbles in world history, the U.S. debt bubble will end badly. Taking on more debt to maintain spending is neither sacrificial nor beneficial.
Mr. Schiff is president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of "The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets: How to Keep Your Portfolio Up When the Market is Down (Little Books. Big Profits)" (Wiley, 2008).
DAVOS WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM: GLOBAL DOMINATOR U.S. CAPITALISM TO AVOID SPOTLIGHT AS SOURCE OF GLOBAL CRISIS
....with much of the financial system in Britain and the United States edging toward a government takeover, the 2009 agenda at Davos, “Shaping the Post-Crisis World,” seems to have concentrated minds on the here and now more than past themes like climate change and globalization. “The pendulum has swung and power has moved back to governments,” said Klaus Schwab, the German-born economics professor who founded the World Economic Forum in 1971 and has been its impresario ever since.... To Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which does research for the richest industrial democracies, “Davos is reflecting what’s happened in real life: the main protagonists and the ones setting the agenda are the political leaders.”
Along with Gordon Brown and Wen Jiabao, other top political figures set to appear include Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. All together, the leaders of at least 40 countries will make it up the mountain, up from 27 last year and 20 in 2007.
President Obama is a little too busy to attend, however. Lawrence H. Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, and James L. Jones, the national security adviser, were originally supposed to attend, but withdrew late last week. Instead, the headliner from the White House will be Valerie Jarrett, a top White House aide who is a longtime confidante of both Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle.... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/business/26davos.html?th&emc=th
WHY U.S. NEEDS LIBERAL 'SOFT' FACE FOR STATE CAPITALIST/NATIONAL SOCIALIST BAILOUT OF CAPITALISM
“We’re now into the danger zone,” said Brian Bethune, chief United States financial economist at IHS Global Insight.
74,000 JOBS GONE IN ONE DAY, INCREASING & CONSOLIDATING PROFITS & POWER OF FINANCE CAPITAL BY DESTROYING LIVES IT BLEEDS IN 'GOOD' TIMES
So far in 2009, Challenger has counted 128,600 announced layoffs among only 19 major corporations. It is anticipated that US payrolls will decline by nearly 600,000 in January, which would mark the third consecutive month that the economy has lost more than one half million jobs and the fifth straight month of more than 400,000 job losses. This would be "the first such occurrence of either dating back to the beginning of 1939," Dan Greenhaus of the equity strategy group Miller Tabak & Co. told Marketwatch.
The mass layoffs suggest that job losses in 2009 may well outstrip those of 2008, when an estimated 2.6 million jobs were purged—the most since 1945—and the official unemployment rate will continue to climb from the 7.2 percent level it hit in December, which was already the highest level in 16 years.
The Pfizer dismissal of 8,000, announced in conjunction with its acquisition of Wyeth, was the third mass layoff announced by the firm this month. On January 16 it laid off 1,300 sales representatives and earlier in January it sacked 800 scientists. But this is only the beginning. On Monday Pfizer announced plans to eventually fire 15 percent of the two companies' combined work force, which would mean approximately 12,000 more jobs lost... where the big banks provided the capital needed to further monopolize the drug industry and slash thousands of additional jobs at Pfizer reveal the class character of the government intervention into the economic crisis...propping up the largest banks. Pfizer's takeover of Wyeth was made possible by loan financing of $4.5 billion each from Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Barclays.
In October, politicians of both parties, including Barack Obama, insisted that it was urgently necessary to give the major financial institutions hundreds of billions of dollars in the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). This, they promised, would result in a wave of lending that would then create jobs. It has had just the opposite effect...[as expected]
http://www.inteldaily.com/news/140/ARTICLE/9427/2009-01-27.html
News Analysis
Nationalization Gets a New, Serious Look
By DAVID E. SANGER, NYT
...“The case for full nationalization is far stronger now than it was a few months ago,” said Adam S. Posen, the deputy director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “If you don’t own the majority, you don’t get to fire the management, to wipe out the shareholders, to declare that you are just going to take the losses and start over. It’s the mistake the Japanese made in the ’90s.” “I would guess that sometime in the next few weeks, President Obama and Tim Geithner,” he said, referring to the nominee for Treasury secretary, “will have to come out and say, ‘It’s much worse than we thought,’ and just bite the bullet.”
So far the Obama administration has signaled that it is trying to avoid that day, and members of its economic team — among them Mr. Geithner and the president’s top economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers — made the case during the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s that governments make lousy bank managers....“We told the Asians that they had to be willing to let banks and companies fail,” said Jeffrey Garten, a professor at the Yale School of Management and a top official in the Clinton administration. “We warned that there was great moral hazard if governments just bailed them out.”... Indeed, the risks of nationalization they warned about then apply equally to the United States now. The first is that nationalization can prove contagious. If the Obama administration took over Bank of America and Citigroup, two of the largest banks in the United States, private investors could decide to flee from the likes of JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, or other major banks, fearing they could be next. Moreover, Mr. Obama’s advisers say they are acutely aware that if the government is perceived as running the banks, the administration would come under enormous political pressure to halt foreclosures or lend money to ailing projects in cities or states with powerful constituencies, which could imperil the effort to steer the banks away from the cliff. “The nightmare scenarios are endless,” one of the administration’s senior officials said....
not satire
Geithner Sets Limits on Lobbying for Bailout Money
The new rules announced Tuesday will also “ensure that political influence does not interfere” with bailout “decision making, using as a model for these protections the limits on political influence over tax matters,” the Treasury Department said.... Mr. Geithner said that the bailout program needed “serious reform” and pledged that the Obama administration would impose “tough conditions to protect the taxpayer and the necessary transparency to allow the American people to see how and where their money is being spent and the results those investments are delivering.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/business/economy/28lobby.html?ref=busi...
ruling class crimes are 'mistakes'
Geithner’s Mistake on Tax Is Common, Experts Say
Treasury nominee, Timothy F. Geithner, failed to pay more than $34,000 in taxes for Social Security and Medicare when he was a senior official at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003, including a small payment in 2004 after he left.... he apologized to senators for what he called 'a stupid but innocent mistake' ... Shouldn’t the man chosen to run the United States Treasury — which oversees the Internal Revenue Service — have had a better understanding of what taxes he owed? ... several tax experts said, it is an easy mistake for an employee of an international organization to make... Mr. Geithner worked at the I.M.F. after leaving the Treasury Department, where he was under secretary for international affairs in Bill Clinton’s administration. He became president of the New York Federal Reserve in late 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/us/politics/15tax.html?scp=2&sq=geithn...
Timothy F. Geithner’s nomination for Treasury secretary hit a snag over, among other mistakes, an issue relating to a housekeeper.
U.N. crime chief says drug money flowed into banks
VIENNA: The United Nations' crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday. Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money often became the only available capital when the crisis spiraled out of control....
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2009/01/25/europe/OUKWD-UK-FINANCIAL...
not satire: NYT editorial
The Obama administration will have to send a clear signal to the bureaucracy that the days of neglect are over. Officials will also have to make clear that the Bush administration’s practice of distorting science and weakening regulation to favor industry also is over.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/opinion/27tue3.html?th&emc=th
WHY CAPITALIST 'HEALTHCARE' IS AN OXYMORON:
MEDICARE RECIPIENTS FACE DEADLY CUTS
Medicare Widens Drugs It Accepts for Cancer
Although President Obama has made a goal of controlling health care costs, a spokesman for the Obama administration declined to comment on the Medicare changes....
Medicare, with little public debate, has expanded its coverage of drugs for cancer treatments not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Cancer doctors had clamored for the changes, saying that some of these treatments, known as off-label uses, were essential if patients were to receive the most up-to-date care. But for many such uses there is scant clinical evidence that the drugs are effective, despite costing as much as $10,000 a month...
The new Medicare rules are the latest twist in a protracted debate over federal spending on off-label drugs — drugs prescribed for uses other than those for which they have been specifically approved.... opponents argue that the new approach may waste money and needlessly expose patients to the side effects of drugs that may not help them. They raise the possibility of conflicts of interest, because the rules rely on reference guides that in some cases are linked to drug makers.... “We have very little faith that those indications that make it into the compendia are safe, let alone effective,” said Dr. Allan M. Korn, the chief medical officer for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, who added that Medicare should cover off-label drugs only if the results of their use are carefully tracked afterward. There is no such requirement in the new Medicare guidelines... these new compendiums have close financial ties to the drug industry, according to the draft of a report Medicare commissioned last year after Congress raised questions about possible conflicts of interest. The draft was completed in October, with a final version to be released soon. The draft criticizes the new rules for essentially taking most decisions about off-label cancer drugs out of Medicare’s hands, even when the agency is aware of potential conflicts. The guide’s recommendation, the report says, “becomes the final word.” ...
Drug makers say they welcome the Medicare changes... A spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry’s main trade group, said the new rules ensured “that cancer patients have access to the treatments they need.”...
The new policy, which took effect in November, makes it much easier to get even questionable treatments paid for, critics of the changes say. Medicare is providing “carte blanche in treatment for cancers,” said Steven Findlay, a health policy analyst for Consumers Union. He said overly expansive coverage encourages doctors to use patients as guinea pigs for unproved therapies. Because Medicare officials canceled a cost analysis of the changes, it is hard to predict how much spending will increase beyond the $2.4 billion Medicare paid in 2007 for cancer drugs. But cancer doctors and other experts say the new policies, adopted in the final months of the Bush administration, seem almost certain to raise the federal drug bill, while making it more difficult for the new administration to rein in spending on unproven medical treatments.
Although President Obama has made a goal of controlling health care costs, a spokesman for the Obama administration declined to comment on the Medicare changes....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27cancer.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&p...
CRIMINAL CAPITALIST BAILOUT CONSOLIDATES BIG PHARMA
For Pfizer, a Big Deal and a Test
Pfizer, which had sales of $48 billion in 2007, is looking forward to absorbing Wyeth, which is based in Morristown, N.J. Wyeth deal promises a big payoff.... The combined company would be the fourth largest in the United States by market value based on Monday’s stock prices, which valued Pfizer at $105 billion and Wyeth at $57 billion. Only Exxon, Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble would be larger than Pfizer. And it gained control of a range of biotech drugs, vaccines, consumer products and research opportunities to try to fill the gaps in its own product pipeline... To make the Wyeth deal work, Mr. Kindler promised to cut $4 billion in combined spending by 2012 and to slash 15 percent of the companies’ combined work force....
David Moskowitz, an analyst with Caris & Company, praised the deal for its biotechnology drugs and vaccines from Wyeth and the cost-cutting potential of combined operations. In a note to investors Monday, he predicted an “exciting” year for pharma mergers and acquisitions, with Schering-Plough and Bristol-Myers Squibb being the most likely takeover targets. Timothy D. Anderson, an analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein, said he expected cost-cutting to be closer to $6 billion. “The next big pharma merger is likely to see a level of cost-cutting not seen before,” he wrote Monday to investors....
Pfizer also said Monday that it would cut its dividend in half, to 16 cents a share, partly to shore up credit ratings, as the company borrows $22.5 billion to help finance the deal from five banks — four of which recently received federal bailout money. “It’s good to see banks doing what banks are supposed to be doing,” Mr. Kindler said. “I think it is really good for America to support a competitive, strong, healthy, biopharmaceutical industry.”...
[Phizer was accused of] paying off doctors and making false and misleading claims about the drug to encourage its unsafe use for acute and surgical pain. The investigation also expanded to the marketing and safety of other Pfizer drugs. A spokeswoman for the United States attorney for Massachusetts, who is leading the investigation, did not return phone calls.
Bextra was withdrawn by Pfizer in 2005. The company settled Bextra complaints from 33 states for $60 million last October and agreed to pay $894 million to settle suits over Bextra
On any other day, the Bextra settlement might have been big news for Pfizer — which is why some analysts said the company had probably decided to disclose it on Monday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/business/27chief.html?th&emc=th
SEC POLITICAL PROTECTION RACKET:
SEC/GOVT. has 'resources' to attack Apple/Jobs re: his 'health disclosure'...to aid MICROSOFT, key U.S. imperialist partner
Regulators Defend Madoff Oversight
REUTERS
Top federal regulators told a Senate committee that they had investigated Bernard L. Madoff’s brokerage firm in the past, but found no evidence of a vast fraud. S.E.C. said resources for the agency had not kept pace with the growth in the securities industry and said the agency simply did not have the resources to fully investigate every tip.
SEC: No Trace of Madoff Stock Buys Since 1960s
Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme deepened further yesterday after the securities industry's watchdog said there was no evidence the accused swindler ever traded a single share on behalf of clients, suggesting financial irregularities going back to the 1960s. http://www.nypost.com/seven/01162009/business/bernies_fake_trades_150467...
http://www.legitgov.org/
ANOTHER LITTLE SEC 'OVERSIGHT'
NY financier arrested in purported $400 million scam:
Authorities on Monday arrested the chief executive of a private New York financing firm on suspicion of running a purported Ponzi scheme that attracted $400 million in investments, U.S. law enforcement officials said. Cosmo was convicted of felony fraud and swindle in 1999 and sentenced to 21 months in prison. He was released in August 2000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. Cosmo was working for a brokerage at the time of his conviction. He lost his National Association of Securities Dealers license.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE50Q0EQ20090127
BUT...
Apple Disclosures About Jobs Said to Face SEC Review
Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. faces a government review of its disclosures about Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs’s health problems to ensure investors weren’t misled...
In the past year, the SEC has been criticized by lawmakers, investors and its own inspector general as lacking aggressiveness and being deferential to companies, including Wall Street banks. Last month, the agency admitted it failed to detect Madoff’s alleged fraud, even though it had received “credible and specific” complaints about the 70-year-old New York money manager for at least a decade. ... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&refer=&sid=a.RXubj_uVPM
SOFT FASCISM & MANDATORY 'SOCIAL' DRAFT
NYT Editorial
The Moment for National Service
President Obama used his Inaugural Address to summon the nation to “a new era of responsibility” and personal engagement to solve the nation’s problems. He set an example by spending part of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday painting walls and furniture at a shelter for homeless teenagers.
Now is the moment for the new president and Congress to harness the sense of idealism and unity evident amid the huge crowds that massed in the nation’s capital by greatly expanding the opportunities for sustained and productive national and community service....... Building on the ongoing success of AmeriCorps, Bill Clinton’s signature domestic service program, and relying on its administrative framework, their Serve America Act would rapidly expand the number of full-time and part-time national service volunteers eligible for minimal living expenses and a modest educational stipend at the end of an intensive year of work... The new positions would be devoted to meeting challenges in a handful of targeted areas: tackling the dropout crisis, strengthening schools, improving health care and economic opportunity in low-income communities, cleaning up parks, aiding efforts to boost energy efficiency, and responding to disasters and emergencies.
personalizing unmediated state propaganda and control: 'social networking' as political command & control center
White House...to accomplish what aides say is one of their most important goals: transforming the YouTubing-Facebooking-texting-Twittering grass-roots organization that put Mr. Obama in the White House into an instrument of government.... have created a group, Organizing for America... to mold public opinion....“This is not a political campaign,”... The organization will be housed in the Democratic National Committee, rather than the White House.... there will be clear coordination between this independent operation at the Democratic National Committee and a communications arm being set up at the White House, under Macon Phillips, the “new media” director for Mr. Obama’s administration....
The approach is causing some concern among news media advocates, who express discomfort with what effectively could become an informational network reaching 13 million people, or more, with an unchallenged, governmental point of view.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/us/politics/26grassroots.html?pagewant...
Obama With Bush in Spy Case
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/obama-sides-wit.html
Spy The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.
The Obama administration is also siding with the former administration in its legal defense of July legislation that immunizes the nation's telecommunications companies from lawsuits accusing them of complicitity in Bush's eavesdropping program, according to testimony last week by incoming Attorney General Eric Holder. That immunity legislation, which Obama voted for when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois, was included in a broader spy package that granted the government wide-ranging, warrantless eavesdropping powers on Americans' electronic communications. A decision on the constitutionality of the immunity legislation is pending before Judge Walker in a separate case brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
OBAMA'S LOOPHOLE
http://www.newsweek.com/id/181281
Publicly at least, President Obama has made a clean break with his predecessor's controversial counterterrorism policies, but in private the new administration is leaving itself some wiggle room. A day before Obama signed executive orders closing Guantánamo Bay and banning torture, the White House's top lawyer privately indicated to Congress that the new president reserved the right to ignore his own (and any other president's) executive orders. In a closed-door appearance before the Senate intelligence committee, White House counsel Gregory Craig was asked whether the president was required by law to follow executive orders. According to people familiar with his remarks, who asked for anonymity when discussing a private meeting, Craig answered that the administration did not believe he was. The implication: in a national-security crisis, Obama could deviate from his own rules. A White House official said that Craig's remarks were being "mischaracterized." Some Capitol Hill sources and intel officials said Craig's private remarks constituted a big loophole in new guidelines, one that would allow Obama to behave much like President Bush. "I don't think there's a really big change, sub rosa," said one veteran undercover spy....
U.S. to Build $3.4 Billion Homeland Security Complex
14,000 Homeland Security employees to work in new headquarters
After years of battling historic preservationists, the federal government won approval yesterday to build a massive headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security on a 176-acre hilltop site east of the Anacostia River. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/08/AR200901... http://www.legitgov.org/
Main Core, PROMIS, and 'SOFT' AMERIKAN FASCISM
By Len Hart
Suppose the United States Government, or an unaccountable privatized intelligence colossus empowered by the reaction to the 9/11 attacks... had a surveillance tool capable of peering into the most private aspects of American lives on a whim... that the new growth industry of a previously unthinkable police state was already in place, fully operational, has been online and actively utilized for domestic spying for years before those two airplanes slammed into the World Trade Center. The 'terrorist' attacks were used as the justification for every unconstitutional reigning in of civil liberties ever since... we stepped into the brave new world of perpetual war, fear, suspicion and vengeance into a parallel reality in 'The Homeland'. What if this surveillance complex was in possession of a database so large and so powerful that not only could it instantly process and retrieve the most minute or intimate aspects of a citizen’s lives, but was also able to utilize extremely sophisticated artificial intelligence capabilities to actually predict likely patterns of future behavior.
Such a huge database would be able to use cutting edge technology funded with taxpayer dollars and awarded to unaccountable private corporations largely through ‘business as usual’ no bid contracts to create the most invasive tool of oppression this country has ever seen. This database would rely on software that was capable of performing social network analysis based on block modeling technology to monitor all forms of electronic communications, all internet searches, all debit and credit card transactions, all travel arrangements, all library records, all bank activity and all telephone records. It would then be able to use the data to not only find links between persons who already know and interact with each other but to categorize each individual into a particular group that possess similar behavioral and purchasing habits. These groups could then be further divided into subgroups and further analyzed in order to determine under some loosely defined and largely unknown guidelines whether they could potentially represent a threat. While all of this may sound like some sort of futuristic dystopian nightmare straight out of Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report and "Precrime" it is very real and it goes by the name of Main Core...
An article in Radar magazine in May 2008, citing three unnamed former government officials, reported that "8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect" and, in the event of a national emergency, "could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and even detention."...
Despite the departure of the Bush regime, martial law is a very serious possibility with it having now been established that the executive branch can exercise dictatorial powers during a "catastrophic emergency" (as put forth in the Bush administration's NSPD-51) which is defined as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy or government functions". With events unfolding as they currently are it is especially troubling to note that the "economy" is one of the criteria that would trigger the declaration of martial law ... How much of it will the Obama administration undo?....
Author Bertram Gross published a book back in 1980 that was entitled Friendly Fascism, Jim Garrison once said that "fascism would come to America in the name of national security", and author Kevin Phillips in his 1983 book Post-Conservative America warned of the potential of an "apple pie authoritarianism" and a coming society in which: "the Star Spangled Benner would wave with greater frequency and over many more parades; increased surveillance would crack down on urban outbreaks and extreme political dissidents". This very accurately describes post 9/11 America where any semblance of reason has been abandoned for cheap flag-waving pimped off as patriotism, criticism of authority has made into potential treason... sloganeering and demagoguery have replaced discourse, critical thinking is becoming extinct and just as George Orwell so accurately predicted Big Brother is now watching over us, protecting us and ensuring that we understand that war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.
'patriotic service' to pacify and control ghettos of oppressed nationalities
Delaware Charter School Linked To On Homeland Security
http://govtsecurity.com/news/homeland-security-school/
The first high school dedicated to preparing students for the front lines in the Homeland security field has gone from theory to planning in Wilmington, Del., reportsThe Delaware Business Ledger.... Innovative Schools, a professional firm will coordinate the mechanics of preparing the school for its eventual opening.
The process of finding and funding a site for upwards of 600 young men and women in Wilmingtons inner city is now under way. Curriculum choices for students, who will be called Cadets, range from SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) to prison guard, water rescue, paramedic, firefighter, professional demolition and emergency response operator, according to a Board statement.
The first Principal of the institution will be Dr. Fred Fitzgerald. A [former corporate executive] retired captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, Fitzgerald teaches English, speech and debate at New Castle Christian Academy...
obama said no more divisions, we're all amerikans united now [to save u.s. world capitalist hegemony]
Will Obama Save Liberalism?
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
... Lest conservatives be too proud, it’s worth recalling that conservatism’s rise was decisively enabled by liberalism’s weakness. That weakness was manifested by liberalism’s limp reaction to the challenge from the New Left in the 1960s, became more broadly evident during the 1970s...In 1978, the Harvard political philosopher Harvey Mansfield diagnosed the malady: “From having been the aggressive doctrine of vigorous, spirited men, liberalism has become hardly more than a trembling in the presence of illiberalism. ... Who today is called a liberal for strength and confidence in defense of liberty?” Over the next three decades, it was modern conservatism, led at the crucial moment by Ronald Reagan, that assumed the task of defending liberty with strength and confidence. Can a revived liberalism, faced with a new set of challenges, now pick up that mantle?...
We don’t really know how Barack Obama will govern. What we have so far, mainly, is an Inaugural Address, and it suggests that he may have learned more from Reagan than he has sometimes let on. Obama’s speech was unabashedly pro-American and implicitly conservative.
Obama appealed to the authority of “our forebears,” “our founding documents,” even — political correctness alert! — “our founding fathers.” He emphasized that “we will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense.” He spoke almost not at all about rights (he had one mention of “the rights of man,” paired with “the rule of law” in the context of a discussion of the Constitution). He called for “a new era of responsibility.”... Can Obama reshape liberalism to be, as it was under F.D.R., a fighting faith, unapologetically patriotic and strong in the defense of liberty? That would be a service to our country. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/opinion/26kristol.html?th&emc=th William Kristol’s last column.
