It Is Time That We Clean Our Own House And Create And Advocacy Networks That Means Business And Represents/Works For Our Interests.
We Have Enough Trouble With Our Own Government That We Don’t Need The Same Operation In Our Own Advocacy Family.
"The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice. I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then,
to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in
broad daylight!"
- Emile Zola, J'accuse! (1898) –
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude
than the animating contest of freedom, — go from us in peace. We ask
not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed
you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget
that ye were our countrymen!”
-Sam Adams-
GET READY!
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A Truth Commission to Investigate Bush-Cheney Administration Abuses
I have set up a petition at BushTruthCommission.com, and I hope you will sign it to urge Congress to consider establishing a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the Bush-Cheney administration's abuses. We already have over 7,000 signatures, but we need to hit 10,000 signatures -- or more -- by next week, to build momentum behind this idea.
Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator
Camus Cafe Political Coffee House: Leahy Opens Petition Drive to ...
By Ed. Dickau
Dear Ed. Dickau, Thank you for signing my petition at BushTruthCommission.com, urging Congress to consider the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate Bush-Cheney Administration abuses. ...
Camus Cafe Political Coffee House - http://cafecamuspoliticalcoffeehouse.blogspot.com/
Poll: It Is Time That Obama Investigates And Prepares To Prosecute Those Promoting Torture
It Would Appear That (UFPJ) has turned into one of those Centrist Progressive Chicken Shit Organizations I Have Been Harping About. If I Want A Rubber Stamp I’ll Go To A Stationary Store. If I want a chicken I’ll go to the butcher…and I don’t want a centrist organization pretending to be a membership advocacy group.
We had enough of this with Moveon.org’s mock “Support Impeachment” votes. It is about time for an “Advocates Summit” and a damn good straightening out and house cleaning. If folks are not going to abide by the wishes of their paying membership; then it is time that they go out of business like a failed Bank! (Ed.)
From: David Swanson <david@davidswanson.org>
Date: Feb 16, 2009 8:17 AM
Subject: UFPJ Opposes Its Members' Decisions
United for Peace and Justice Has Discarded and Opposed the Decisions of Its Members
February 16, 2009
From December 12 to 14, 2008, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) held its National Assembly in Chicago. Hundreds of representatives of member groups from all over the country spent most of those three days voting on the language to go in the documents that would determine what UFPJ would work on in the coming year and a half, the Unity Statement, the Strategic Framework, and the Program of Action. This last document directly determines what areas the coalition will work in. All three documents are available at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=4009
In past years, UFPJ has declined to put major resources into work on accountability or impeachment, arguing that these campaigns were not contained in its Program Document. This time was different. Participants in the National Assembly voted overwhelmingly to make accountability and prosecution for war crimes an item on the agenda, and part of all three documents. The full assembly even voted explicitly and overwhelmingly to make work on those campaigns just as important as work in other areas.
Enthusiasts for accountability and prosecution within UFPJ formed a Working Group and even persuaded UFPJ to send an Email to its member groups in December. But, from that point forward, the Working Group on Accountability and Prosecution was shut out, not given a webpage, not given a listserve, not consulted in planning for major events around the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and plans for a big event in New York on April 4th. On Friday, UFPJ sent its member groups a long document listing topics that people should discuss with their Congress members during the coming week's recess. It's available at
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=6Zy7h3LJM8GJJkXGIdYl9gysd%2B1dgD05
This document closely resembles the Program Document over which hundreds of people tediously labored, discussing and voting on every section for three days, except that there are changes. Any mention of accountability or prosecution or war crimes has been deleted. That entire section is gone. Other elements have been deleted and completely new ones added that were never approved by any assembly.
UFPJ has turned its elaborate and laborious shows of democracy into a charade and to allow a certain clique of individuals to impose their will on the coalition, a procedure that should matter even to member groups opposed to working for accountability.
Here are the section headings in the document UFPJ members voted on for three straight days until it was just right:
UFPJ PROGRAM FOR ACTION
As amended and adopted at the 4th UFPJ National Assembly – 12/13/08
1) We remain committed to the urgent goal of immediately ending the U.S. wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan and bringing all the troops home.
• 6th Anniversary of the War in Iraq:
• Pressure on Congress to End the War in Iraq:
• Voices of Iraqis, Humanitarian Crisis and Rebuilding Iraq:
• Afghanistan
• Support for Military Resisters, Veterans and Military Families:
• Truth In Recruiting:
• Campaign to Bring Home the National Guard:
2) Our work for peace and justice will include an action response to the economic, social and environmental crisis at home and worldwide.
• Economic Crisis and a Green Job Economy:
• End to Global Warming, Climate Justice Now:
3) We will work to prevent new wars in Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere.
• Iran – Stop Threatening, Start Talking:
• Nuclear Disarmament:
• Pakistan, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and elsewhere:
4) It is time to challenge the Global War on Terror and the Empire Building Agenda of the U.S.
• No Foreign Bases Campaign:
• End the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territories:
• Offering New Approaches for U.S. Foreign Policy:
5) Defending, protecting and expanding civil liberties, civil rights and democracy are necessary
steps to ensure our ability to achieve our other strategic goals.
• Restore Civil Liberties, End Torture:
• Accountability and prosecution of high officials guilty of war crimes, including the supreme crime of aggressive war.
• Immigrant Rights:
Here, in contrast, are the section headings from the new document:
BEYOND WAR - A New Economy is Possible
Send America to Work, Not to War
1. Militarism
Out of Iraq and Afghanistan
16 MONTH PLAN FOR IRAQ
AFGHANISTAN
THERE IS NO "GOOD WAR"
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
FOREIGN BASES
MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
THE PENTAGON IS NOT A JOBS ENGINE
HUMANITARIAN AID
2. Poverty
CUT THE MILITARY BUDGET AND FUND HUMAN NEEDS
POVETY [sic] IN THE UNITED STATES
HOME FORECLOSURES
HEALTHCARE
EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT
GET RID OF INEFFECTIVE "TRICKLE DOWN" ECONOMICS
THE GRAVITY OF THE CLIMATE CRISIS
WE SHOULD INVEST IN GREEN
3. Racism
BLACK PRISON POPULATION
BLACK POVERTY
EDUCATION
Member groups of UFPJ wishing to confirm that the coalition wants their dues but not their input can contact UFPJ at (212) 868-5545 .
Strike updates for Bulgaria, Iceland, France, Canada, US, UK, Spain, Chad
Eastern Europe is about to Blow
February 17, 2009 "ICH" -- -Eastern Europe is about to blow. If it does, it could take much of the EU with it. It's an emergency situation but there are no easy solutions. The IMF doesn't have the resources for a bailout of this size and the recession is spreading faster than relief efforts can be organized. Finance ministers and central bankers are running in circles trying to put out one fire after another. Its only a matter of time before they are overtaken by events. If one country is allowed to default, the dominoes could begin to tumble through the whole region. This could trigger dramatic changes in the political landscape. The rise of fascism is no longer out of the question.
The UK Telegraph's economics editor Edmund Conway sums it up like this:
"A 'second wave' of countries will fall victim to the economic crisis and face being bailed out by the International Monetary Fund, its chief warned at the G7 summit in Rome....But with some countries' economies effectively dwarfed by the size of their banking sector and its financial liabilities, there are fears they could fall victim to balance of payments and currency crises, much as Iceland did before receiving emergency assistance from the IMF last year." (UK Telegraph)
Foreign capital is fleeing at an alarming rate; nearly two-thirds gone in matter of months. Deflation is pushing down asset prices, increasing unemployment, and compounding the debt-burden of financial institutions. It's the same everywhere. The economies are being hollowed out and stripped of capital. Ukraine is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary have all slipped into a low-grade depression. The countries that followed Washington's economic regimen have suffered the most. They bet that debt-fueled growth and exports would lead to prosperity. That dream has been shattered. They haven't developed their consumer markets, so demand is weak. Capital is scarce and businesses are being forced to deleverage to avoid default. All of Eastern Europe has gotten a margin call. They need extra funds to cover the falling value of their equity. They need a lifeline from the IMF or their economies will continue to crumble.
The UK Telegraph's economics correspondent Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has written a series of articles about Eastern Europe. In "Failure to save East Europe will lead to Worldwide meltdown" he says:
"Austria's finance minister Josef Pröll made frantic efforts last week to put together a €150bn rescue for the ex-Soviet bloc. Well he might. His banks have lent €230bn to the region, equal to 70pc of Austria's GDP.
"A failure rate of 10pc would lead to the collapse of the Austrian financial sector," reported Der Standard in Vienna. Unfortunately, that is about to happen.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says bad debts will top 10pc and may reach 20pc....
Stephen Jen, currency chief at Morgan Stanley, said Eastern Europe has borrowed $1.7 trillion abroad, much on short-term maturities. It must repay – or roll over – $400bn this year, equal to a third of the region's GDP. Good luck. The credit window has slammed shut.
Almost all East bloc debts are owed to West Europe, especially Austrian, Swedish, Greek, Italian, and Belgian banks. En plus, Europeans account for an astonishing 74pc of the entire $4.9 trillion portfolio of loans to emerging markets. They are five times more exposed to this latest bust than American or Japanese banks, and they are 50pc more leveraged (IMF data). (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard UK Telegraph)
An economic crisis is quickly turning into a political crisis. Riots have broken out in capitals across Eastern Europe. Mr. Geithner had better be paying attention. The prospects for political upheaval are growing. Public anxiety can spill out onto the streets at a moments notice. Governments must act quickly and with resolve. These countries need hard currency and guarantees of support. If they don't get help, the simmering public fury will turn into something much more lethal.
UK Telegraph's economics correspondent Ambrose Evans-Pritchard:
"Global banks have so far written down half the $2,200bn losses estimated by the IMF. On top of this, EU banks have $1,600bn of exposure to Eastern Europe -- increasingly viewed as Europe’s subprime debacle, and EU corporate debts are 95pc of GDP compared to 50pc in the US, a mounting concern as default rates surge.
“It is essential that government support through asset relief should not be on a scale that raises concern about over-indebtedness or financing problems. Such considerations are particularly important in the current context of widening budget deficits, rising public debt levels and challenges in sovereign bond issuance." (UK Telegraph)
It's the same wherever banks merged their commercial and investment branches. Debt has skyrocketed to unsustainable levels destabilizing the entire economy. The banks have been operating like hedge funds, concealing their activities on off-balance sheets operations and maximizing their leverage through opaque debt-instruments. Now the global economy is caught in the downdraft of a collapsing speculative bubble. East Europe has been hit hard, but it's just the first of many bowling pins that will fall. All of Europe has been infected by the same virus which originated on Wall Street. Monday's New York Times summarizes developments in the EU:
"Europe sank even deeper into recession than the United States in the closing months of last year, according to figures published Friday...The economy of the 16 countries sharing the euro currency declined by 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter, (an annualized drop of roughly 6 percent) according to the European Union's statistics office. That is even worse than the 1 percent decline in the United States economy during that period, compared with the previous quarter.
“Today’s data wipes out any illusion that the euro zone is getting off lightly in this global downturn,” said Jörg Radeke, an economist at the Center for Economics and Business Research in London. ("Europe Slump Deeper than Expected" New york Times)
The "liquidationists" would like to see governments cut off the flow of funds to ailing financial institutions and let them fail by themselves. It's Darwinian madness, like waiting out a heart attack on the kitchen floor instead of rushing to the hospital for emergency care. The global economy is decelerating at the fastest pace on record. 40 percent of global wealth has been wiped out. The banking system is insolvent, unemployment is soaring, tax revenues are falling, the markets are in shock, housing is crashing, deficits are soaring, and consumer confidence is at its lowest point in history.
This is no time to cling to half-baked ideology. The global economy is undergoing a massive system-wide contraction which could spin out of control and plunge us into another world war. Political leaders need to grasp the urgency of the moment and keep the vehicle from careening into the ditch.
FOX News: The Hate America First Network
Greed At A Glance
The stimulus compromise blessed last week by House-Senate negotiators — and then sent to the White House — is missing one key Senate provision: a $400,000 cap on executive pay at bailed-out enterprises. The rationale for axing the cap: Some lawmakers apparently argued that the $400,000 limit would lower tax revenues — because top execs would have less income that could be taxed. Notes Institute for Policy Studies analyst Sarah Anderson: “By this reasoning, Congress should let companies dump their toxic waste in the nearest river. Think how much more in corporate profit taxes we could be collecting if factories didn’t have to follow environmental standards.” The stimulus does include one encouraging new pay restriction: a provision that limits executive bonuses to one-third of total annual compensation . . .
New York’s Park Avenue may be starting to feel the nation's economic pain. Earlier this month, the owner of a 14-room Park Avenue duplex on sale for $34 million dropped the asking price — to $29 million.Crain’s, a New York business journal, estimates that a Wall Streeter needs at least $500,000 in annual income to afford a Park Avenue address. In 2007, the latest year with stats available, 75,000 New Yorkers met that threshold. Who can afford a Park Avenue co-op these days? More people than you might think. Banking giant Merrill Lynch, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo revealed Thursday, “secretly” awarded 700 of its power suits $1 million or more in bonuses right before Bank of America swallowed Merrill whole this past January 1 . . .
A generation ago, high-flyers from firms like Merrill Lynch contributed, via taxes, a significant share of their paychecks to the upkeep of their city and state. A coalition of New York citizen groups has launched a campaign to recreate these fiscally fairer days of yore — by upping the tax rate on New York’s wealthiest. The new Fair Share Tax Reform campaign is mobilizing behind legislation from state senator Eric Schneiderman that hikes the top state tax rate on income over $1 million to 10.3 percent. New York’s top tax rate on high income has sunk by 50 percent over recent decades, and state working families now pay taxes on income over $40,000 at the same 6.85 percent rate as New York’s richest pay on income over $4 million. The Fair Share bill would raise $6 billion in new revenues, enough to offset all the education and health care cuts Governor David Patterson is demanding in his new state budget . . .
Voters in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland's banking capital, have just opted to eliminate the tax break that has helped make Switzerland a top tax haven for the world’s super rich. Current Swiss law lets foreigners negotiate their tax bills secretly with Swiss local governments. They end up paying taxes, on average, at one-tenth the rate for Swiss citizens. This sweet giveaway has convinced about 4,000 deep pockets — celebrity rich who range from superstar singer Shania Twain to Swedish furniture baron Ingvar Kamprad of Ikea fame — to take up Swiss residence. The left-of-center organizers of the Zurich tax initiative are hoping Switzerland’s other cantons will now follow suit . .
The Zurich voter uprising against wealth and power caps what has been a rather worrisome winter for Switzerland’s most financially fortunate. The global banking meltdown, by itself, would have been bad enough. But then came Bernie Madoff. Switzerland’s huge private wealth industry — 600 “asset managers” for the rich operate out of Geneva alone — has so far seen $8.5 billion of client cash evaporate. Also evaporating: private jet trips to Geneva, down 26 percent, and sales of Switzerland’s most coveted skis, the $5,000 aluminum-titanium Zai Spadas. One top Geneva nightspot, the Coco Club, has had to lower the price on house champagne down to $215 a bottle, from $260. Notes the Coco Club's Hayley Menzies: “We're trying to be sympathetic to the current climate.”-
The Existentialist Cowboy: Why We Must Restore the 'Fairness Doctrine'
By Len Hart
As the fraudulent nature of Bush's administration crumbled, it had been hoped that the American media would take a cue from one of its pioneers. The standard Murrow set is yet to be lived up to. ... like the Fox Network, Sinclair et al -- big corporations where the likes of Bill O'Reilly and other right-wing shills had merely to wag an accusing finger while shouting "LIBERAL, LIBERAL" to sink a candidacy or --earlier --impeach the most competent President since FDR. ...
The Existentialist Cowboy - http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/
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Afghanistan
Guardian: US military's most dangerous outposts show just how western forces are losing ground
Whitehall devised torture policy for terror detainees
guardian.co.uk, UK
A policy governing the interrogation of terrorism suspects in Pakistan that led to British citizens and residents being tortured was devised by MI5 lawyers ...
Whitehall colluded in torture of British suspects, says agent
Independent, UK By Nigel Morris Deputy Political Editor British terrorist suspects who claim they were tortured in Pakistan were then interrogated by MI5 agents under rules ...
Net closes on UK and ‘terrorist’ torture
Blatherskite, UK
A court in London heard today that UK subject Binyan Mohamed (only just a British subject but a subject all the same) had been interviewed in Karachi by an ...
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The Ghost Of Vice President Wallace Warns: "It Can Happen Here"
By Thom Hartmann
Written in 2004, and published by CommonDreams.org, Henry Wallace's quoted article comes into focus ever clearer after the "meltdown" toward the end of GW Bush's 2nd term. Progressives can be advised to save it in their documents after that term finally (!) ended.
"The really dangerous American fascists," Wallace wrote, "are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."
Vice President Wallace bluntly laid out in his 1944 Times article his concern about the same happening here in America:
" If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."
Nonetheless, at that time there were few corporate heads who had run for political office, and, in Wallace's view, most politicians still felt it was their obligation to represent We The People instead of corporate cartels. "American fascism will not be really dangerous," he added in the next paragraph, "until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information..."
Noting that, "Fascism is a worldwide disease," Wallace further suggest that fascism's "greatest threat to the United States will come after the war" and will manifest "within the United States itself."
In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician "' Buzz Windrip "' runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy as anti"'American. When Windrip becomes President, he opens a Guantanamo"'style detention center, and the viewpoint character of the book, Vermont newspaper editor Doremus Jessup, flees to Canada to avoid prosecution under new "patriotic" laws that make it illegal to criticize the President.
As Lewis noted in his novel, "the President, with something of his former good"'humor [said]: 'There are two [political] parties, the Corporate and those who don't belong to any party at all, and so, to use a common phrase, are just out of luck!' The idea of the Corporate or Corporative State, Secretary [of State] Sarason had more or less taken from Italy." And, President "Windrip's partisans called themselves the Corporatists, or, familiarly, the 'Corpos,' which nickname was generally used."
Lewis, the first American writer to win a Nobel Prize, was world famous by 1944, as was his book "It Can't Happen Here." And several well"'known and powerful Americans, including Prescott Bush, had lost businesses in the early 1940s because of charges by Roosevelt that they were doing business with Hitler. These events all, no doubt, colored Vice President Wallace's thinking when he wrote: ….
They Should Have Asked: “Which president Has Been Our Most Dangerous”
http://www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/Overall-Ranking.aspx
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