LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic

More On The WSJ’s Austrian Moment (links added)

September 1, 2010 // 5 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

Update (September 2, 2010):

The links will have to wait for a few days.  Business calls…and a friend who has been around a long time gives advice:

“Actually I have a sense of deja vu all over again. You are encountering
the same old enemies: misrepresentation, straw men, name appropriation,
and bait and switching that have been around forever. La misma mierda siempre.

As a wise lady once said,

“Rather than forcing the country to change, a far simpler and humbler strategy is to let the country go whichever way it wants, and get out of its way. I’m not a cynic. I’m not telling you to stand on the sidelines and egg both sides on. I’m not telling you to forget your native soil or your community. I’m suggesting that it might be easier for you to defend them from abroad. And I’m suggesting that you start making yourself a foothold abroad. Just in case.”

Every good trader has an exit strategy.”

Time to take my own advice?

ORIGINAL POST

A friend of The Bell who also posts with insight here  responded to my previous post on the WSJ’s piece on the Austrians. I’ve chosen to place his response with a new post and address his points one by one, as I think there’s a degree of misunderstanding behind them. He starts with a cite from my post below:

“The rest of Mises-on-the-web is to be swept under the carpet, along with Jon Stewart shows, raucous blogs, politicians, hard-money cranks, stock-tipster and other vulgar riff-raff.”

(Lila: quoted from my original post)

Comment from Bell associate:

You seem to be implying that the Journal article was explicitly intended to do help this. We do not believe that this was the explicit intention of those who were involved in the article. Horowitz says it was not, and he is closely associate with Boettke and spoke to the reporter.

Lila’s Response:

Your argument here changes. Only your first line seems accurate to me. I AM implying that the Journal article is a deliberate positioning. Your next line slides from “implying….and intending” - which was what I said, to “explicit intention..those involved…Horowitz…Boettke..”.

Respectfully, this is a straw man. I never attacked Boettke in anyway, except to say he’s not the name most associated with Austrian economics.  My entire argument was directed against the WSJ. As for Kelly Evans, I didn’t even mention her or impute any motives to her. The positioning of an article does not even have to involve the “explicit” knowledge of the author. I’ve seen some of my own arguments reused in different contexts to accomplish ends exactly opposite what I intended them for. I have previously written about positioning by editors, where I think the author did not “intend” what the positioning in fact accomplished.

The logic in this comment is weak on other counts. Because a friend says something does not make it so. One would expect Boettke’s friends to say something positive about a positive article about their friend, right? Besides, as I said, neither Boettke…or even Evans…is the target of my criticism. My very first comment on the Bell article indicates who the target is: WSJ’s editors.

Comment from Bell Associate:

Some more thoughts for you, Ms. Rajiva:

1. The Bell pointed out that the WSJ article was motivated either by willful ignorance or antipathy on the part either of the writer or editor(s). We rejected the idea that the article was vetted by the CIA or (implicitly/explicitly) composed by GMU/Boettke et. al. We think statements by the Boettke’s group (see Horowitz’s feedbacks on the second Bell feedback thread) substantiate this point.

LILA:

Where did I say the piece was “vetted by the CIA” or “implicitly/explicitly/ composed by GMU Or Boettke”? This is a puzzling statement…

What I wrote was that the CIA has a large presence on campus, especially on DC-area universities. That the Mercatus Center and other groups in libertarian circles in the Beltway are funded by the brothers Koch, and that this “Kochtopus’ sets the limits of what can be said at those institutions. I also cited a quote from one of the Kochs themselves to Brian Doherty. (Note what the Jane Mayer piece misses. I don’t endorse The New Yorker’s positions just because I read its research). In fairness to the Kochs, here is their response from their website and here is the response of Nick Gillespie, editor of the libertarian magazine Reason which is funded by the Kochs, as Gillespie discloses in his piece.

I then cited a credible article. “The Mighty Wurlitzer” (Daniel Brandt, Namebase.org, 1997), which quotes CIA director Bill Colby that intelligence interventions into the media are frequent and explicit. I cited this as part of a general discussion of how paradigms are set, boundaries are policed, polite discourse is monitored, and the integrity of intellectual exchange is subverted. To reduce that informed position to the ranting of a tinfoil hat conpiracist is not fair.

COMMENT

2. Since we’ve pointed out on numerous occasions that a control of the dialectic involves setting artificial boundaries, your point about rhetoric is well taken.

LILA: Indeed you have pointed out many useful things and The Bell’s point(s) are ALL well-taken.

I believe I’ve said so many time. I said this piece was an “excellent catch.”.

What I said wasn’t intended to undermine The Bell’s analysis, but to supplement it. I think The Bell operates outside this country and might not have the first- hand and by now quite lengthy interaction with subversion that many activists have had.

Having encountered the “usual suspects” at work manipulating the record over and over and over, forgive us if we don’t stand around waiting when we see something afoot. We anticipate it…. and are only surprised when it doesn’t occur. Wake me up when the WSJ does NOT reposition something to support its agenda. Wake me up when the MSM develops some integrity.

COMMENT

But as we pointed out, this is ONE article. We are not willing to identify it yet as a new, full-fledged promotion - a dominant social theme of the elite, or even a sub dominant social theme. Why not? Compare it to the decade long global warming campaign that involved thousands of media outlets, books, articles and think tanks plus the establishment of a UN-based authority, legislative agendas, global conferences, etc.

LILA:

Let me quibble with you on this. Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) was shown to be trumped up. The rest, I suspect to be trumped up as well, but don’t know for sure. Climate-change itself is real enough. The question is if human beings are the prime culprit, and if so, can anything be done about it which wouldn’t be counterproductive.

Other than that, no quarrel with this. The Bell has performed a first-class service to the public and we love you for it.

COMMENT:

To elaborate: Elite campaigns work on a massive scale.

LILA

Aware of this. Have been studying propaganda since 1993 at university, written dozens of research papers (some book-length) on the subject..and have two other books on the subject,

COMMENT

They cannot do otherwise. Here at The Bell, we will wait for more indications (in the mainstream media) before deciding if this constitutes a new promotion - a generalized, mainstream media attack on the Mises Institute and Rockwell.

LILA:

IMHO, there is no need for a “new” attack because the old one never stopped. The Bell operates outside the country and may well not be fully aware of how long the campaign against the Miseseans has gone on.  It isn’t some recent invention, nor is it solely “personal antipathy”. There seems to be more to it, as even a sensitive observer can discern. Besides that,  I have heard some of the details from at least one of the horses’ mouths….

COMMENT:

4. One can also make the point that the creation of Boettke’s group is itself a promotion, an intellectual lie because they apparently endorse a softer view of libertarianism and Austrian economics. This conclusion is based on Lew Rockwell’s recitation of events as regards the antipathy of the Kochs toward Mises and the conclusions that can be drawn, both implicitly and explicitly. But Horowitz has just stated that the Boettke group is just as “radical” as Mises et al. There are shades of gray.

LILA:

You are right to look for as much evidence as possible. The less emotional and the more rational the debate, the better. But again, the issue - at least for me - is not about how “radical” Boettke is or isn’t. He might be very well be more radical than I am. I’m no radical. I’m a middle-class moralist who doesn’t admire Marc Rich or irresponsible corporations or charming speculator-rogues. I have no special gripe with teachers or postal workers. I think Dr. Block’s arguments are initially plausible but wrong…disagree with Stephen Kinsella on IP…consider a lot of Miseans unnecessarily shrill, nativist, and not necessarily the least abrasive people in town (although, have you read the language of some of their critics?). I’m sure Peter Boettke and Steve Horwitz are fine human beings. That is not the issue.

The issue is intellectual honesty in public discourse, the incessant revisionism of the media, and whether this particular piece was evidence of an intentional campaign against the Mises folks, a campaign that seems to be intelligence-connected. That seems so in my mind and in the mind of at least one other person who of all people would know.

COMMENT

5 Boettke writes: “But again, I am myopically focused on publications — refereed publication; SSCI ranked journals preferred; or elite university presses.” Is this so terrible? Take the Austrian perspective to formal academia, so long as it is not watered down - and Horowitz says it isn’t. Even if it does depart from the Mises/Rockwell perspective, that doesn’t mean it’s merely paid propaganda? We disagree with Rothbard’s idea that private fractional reserve banking is a criminal enterprise (with resultant criminal consequences). We think the market ought to decide, which is apparently what Boettke thought in 2007.

LILA:

Nobody said anything about Boettke’s research. Boettke isn’t the issue. No one claims his research is “paid propaganda”.

COMMENT

6. Yes, there are shades of gray in the larger debate in our view. In fact, the Kochs and Boettke have a right to back a Hayekian view of Austrian economics, whatever that means, as an alternative to Mises - within a private context. Even Mises wasn’t perfect.

LILA:

I’ve never said Mises was perfect. Or that Boettke has no right to interpret him as he wants. In fact, I’ve often criticized Rothbardian positions…and have wanted to create a middle-way between them and more statist positions. I’m much less doctrinaire than The Bell.  If you read my blog, you’ll see that you’re attributing to me positions I don’t hold. I support LRC in this fracas not because I like their positions (or their outfit) in any unqualified way, but because their version of events seems accurate to me. It has nothing to do with my personal likes. In fact, I can fairly state that I doubt I would get on with several people at LRC and am quite sure I would get on well with the crowd at WSJ and with Ms. Kelly Evans….and with Mr. Boettke and Mr. Horowitz.. if I knew them. There is nothing personal in any of this.

COMMENT

7. The private sector is a great place to exchange viewpoints. The PROBLEM is the use of both public and private mechanisms to create fear-based promotions that end up with legislative conclusions that use the force of law to shape what should be private interactions.

LILA

No quarrel with this

COMMENT

8. One article, in our view, does not constitute a fear-based promotional campaign. Nor does it set the parameters for the larger debate. One article does not do that.

LILA

Yes, one article would not. But IMHO this isn’t one article. This positioning and revisionism in relation to the Mises institute has been repeated ad nauseum. And it is the Mises people who have been proved right, more often than not.

COMMENT

If the Kochs are working in concert with a generational familial conspiracy to undermine the Mises Institute, one article is not going to do it. Not one article.

LILA

Again - these aren’t my words.  And, as I also said, it’s not one article.

COMMENT

9. We see no signs of a full-fledged, power-elite PROACTIVE promotional campaign. For the most part, the stance of the elite has not changed yet. The strategy is to ignore the Institute, Rockwell, et. al.

LILA

You’re entitled to your views and they are good ones. They’re very well -presented and sophisticated and are very judiciously expressed. It’s my view, however, that you underestimate what’s going on. I hope I’m wrong and you’re right.

COMMENT

10. One article does not set the parameters for an Austrian dialogue - though it is certainly a thoughtful point. But will need to see more than one article in one newspaper before we are willing to conclude that there is a significant shift in how the elite intends to deal with the problem of the growing mainstream acceptance of free-market  thinking.

LILA

You are right. But you yourself daily point out dozens of similar machinations about supply-side economics and the Tea Party. And you’re ignoring several links posted citing the Kochs’ own comments, showing the influence of intelligence on GMU, and other valid evidence.

COMMENT

You write: “[Boettke's response] substantiates my earlier comments at Swiss libertarian newsletter The Daily Bell that yesterday’s WSJ piece about the Austrians had everything to do with defining the academic boundaries of what Austrian economics. Our response (if the above is not clear enough): If this single, terrible article is the best that an intergenerational familial banking conspiracy can do to combat the Mises Institute, the power elite has a big problem.

LILA

“Intergenerational family banking conspiracy” are not certainly not my words. I notice Tibor Machan’s recent piece also defended the Kochs. He’s entitled to. And I’m entitled to draw my conclusions. No offense.  Dr. Machan’s personal opinions, like Mr. Boettke’s friends opinions, are not really evidence of anything, except that the Kochs also have friends and supporters who take their part and so has Boettke. By the way, NO OFFENSE/innuendo is intended by this comment in any way. I enjoy reading his pieces.

COMMENT

Of course they DO have a big problem, and not just with Mises. But we will wait a while before concluding that a new front has been opened against Rockwell. We do not see it yet. We will wait for another article, interview, etc. - and then more. We will look for signs of a continued, mainstream media promotion. Without the mainstream you do not HAVE a promotion. Not an elite promotion. One article does not a promotion make. Nor does it redefine the terms of an argument. One article cannot do that. Only a full-scale promotion can, one that involves numerous resources, media outlets, etc.

LILA: One article does not make a promotion, true. But over the last 3 years, I’ve collected dozens/scores of articles by academic libertarians (see here and here) doing the same thing to the Mises Institute  folks, I have seen enough evidence to suit me. Many journalists apparently think they’re fighting the good fight against racism or sexism or anti-Semitism by attacking the Mises folks….as they also did with Rothbard. And as they believed they were going when they revived various innuendos about Ron Paul .

The day the WSJ publishes an article accurately citing the Mises folks by name for their contributions (love ‘em or hate ‘em), treating their output and accomplishments fairly and even-handedly, is the day propaganda in the US will give way to journalism.

Do I think Mises is being revived? Actually, yes. But I think the revival is being positioned so as to cut the Mises Institute and Mises.org out of it, along with all the other positions/people believed to be associated with them…

That is, Mises will be repositioned in a way more acceptable to academia. I have no quarrel with that, since that is partly my interest, which is why I try to take into consideration issues of gender, race, and language that libertarians (including The Bell) scorn as PC.

My issue - contra The Bell - is not with Boettke or Kelly Evans - but with the WSJ’s intellectual honesty about Austrian economics.

On that question, the case has long ago been decided.

Update 5:

I’m posting below the money quote from Dr. Boettke’s response. It substantiates my earlier comments at Swiss libertarian newsletter The Daily Bell that yesterday’s WSJ piece about the Austrians had everything to do with defining the academic boundaries of what Austrian economics. The rest of Mises-on-the-web is to be swept under the carpet, along with Jon Stewart shows, raucous blogs, politicians, hard-money cranks, stock-tipster and other vulgar riff-raff. As these things go, it’s a fair enough statement..albeit a bit sniffy. Professor Boettke proposes peer-review and refereed journals as the gold-standard of intellectual truth.

“I have no doubt that many individuals are doing a better job spreading Austrian ideas in the popular imagination, and I am sure that there are individuals that are producing better scholarship as judged by my peers in the economics profession.  I never claimed otherwise. And, in fact, I have always tried to claim that judgments are always best left to one’s peers, rather than self-assessment.  And, I would like to add, I have tried to be fair in my own judgments of others within the Austrian movement and give credit where credit is due.  But again, I am myopically focused on publications — refereed publication; SSCI ranked journals preferred; or elite university presses. Again, this is all because of the advancement of Austrian ideas in the scientific literature of economics, not in the popular imagination. Perhaps advancing the ideas in the popular imagination requires something different than my admittedly myopic perspective.  I don’t know, but I am betting that for my purposes and that of my students we are going to keep pushing the academic mission.  I don’t want to show up on the Daily Show, nor do I want to appear on the Tonight Show, and I certainly do not want to run for political office. I also don’t offer investment advice by predicting the next downturn in the economy or anticipating the next upswing.  That is not the business I am in.  Others have a comparative advantage in such activities, I don’t.

I have also repeatedly claimed that I do not want to get involved in internet wars, nor do I believe that internet contributions on blogs, etc. are really helping us in the task that I do care about exclusively — advancing the cause of Austrian economics within the economics profession and academia.  I might be wrong.  In fact, I am somewhat caught in a contradiction because I am using blogging to try to pursue my goals of academic advancement of Austrian economics.  My only “defense” is that I try to cultivate a different type of conversation on this blog than what takes place on other Austrian oriented blogs, but I don’t always get what I would like in terms of the discourse.”

Here’s what I said in a comment at The Bell yesterday:

“Perhaps you analysis is erroneous there, because you assume
those distortions are aimed at bamboozling well-read and savvy readers. They aren’t.
They’re intended to establish the boundaries of polite discourse, beyond which it will/should not stray. These boundaries will establish where academic writers will go and who will or won’t be referenced…from wikipedia to journals.

The rewriting is also directed toward popular debate. People’s attention spans are short, most have only recently heard of Austrian economics, and if the WSJ can trade on its reputation to redirect such discussions to its own precincts, there’s nothing to lose.

By the miracle of self-referential citation compounded by google and wikipedia and the tendency of all debates to “move on,” history is constantly being revised in all things, petty and large.

There are only so many people who are spotting and undoing this kind of false history, and they can’t get to all of it fast enough and often enough to undo it completely.”

WSJ Whites Out Mises Institute, Rothbard, Rockwell….Responses..(Updated)

August 30, 2010 // 4 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

Update 7

David Kramer’s blog post (cited below) has now, disappeared from the LRC archive. Possibly this is related to his quote about the Fed, since Peter Boettke, apparently, is for abolition of the Fed..at least, theoretically. Kramer might just have come across some quotes out of context. But it also seems that Boettke holds many positions…This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I’m willing to believe that he’s not a masquerading statist himself.  However, I still think the WSJ promotion of a Mercatus center professor is no accident.

Update 6

A friend of The Bell who also posts with insight here  responds to my post. I’ve chosen to create a new post to respond.

Update 5:

I’m posting below the money quote from Dr. Boettke’s response. It substantiates my earlier comments at Swiss libertarian newsletter The Daily Bell that yesterday’s WSJ piece about the Austrians had everything to do with defining the academic boundaries of what Austrian economics will be. The rest of Mises-on-the-web is to be swept under the carpet, along with Jon Stewart shows, raucous blogs, politicians, hard-money cranks, stock-tipster and other vulgar riff-raff. As these things go, it’s a fair enough statement..albeit a bit sniffy. Professor Boettke proposes peer-review and refereed journals as the gold-standard of intellectual truth.

“I have no doubt that many individuals are doing a better job spreading Austrian ideas in the popular imagination, and I am sure that there are individuals that are producing better scholarship as judged by my peers in the economics profession.  I never claimed otherwise. And, in fact, I have always tried to claim that judgments are always best left to one’s peers, rather than self-assessment.  And, I would like to add, I have tried to be fair in my own judgments of others within the Austrian movement and give credit where credit is due.  But again, I am myopically focused on publications — refereed publication; SSCI ranked journals preferred; or elite university presses. Again, this is all because of the advancement of Austrian ideas in the scientific literature of economics, not in the popular imagination. Perhaps advancing the ideas in the popular imagination requires something different than my admittedly myopic perspective.  I don’t know, but I am betting that for my purposes and that of my students we are going to keep pushing the academic mission.  I don’t want to show up on the Daily Show, nor do I want to appear on the Tonight Show, and I certainly do not want to run for political office. I also don’t offer investment advice by predicting the next downturn in the economy or anticipating the next upswing.  That is not the business I am in.  Others have a comparative advantage in such activities, I don’t.

I have also repeatedly claimed that I do not want to get involved in internet wars, nor do I believe that internet contributions on blogs, etc. are really helping us in the task that I do care about exclusively — advancing the cause of Austrian economics within the economics profession and academia.  I might be wrong.  In fact, I am somewhat caught in a contradiction because I am using blogging to try to pursue my goals of academic advancement of Austrian economics.  My only “defense” is that I try to cultivate a different type of conversation on this blog than what takes place on other Austrian oriented blogs, but I don’t always get what I would like in terms of the discourse.”

Here’s what I said in a comment at The Bell yesterday:

“Perhaps you analysis is erroneous there, because you assume
those distortions are aimed at bamboozling well-read and savvy readers. They aren’t.
They’re intended to establish the boundaries of polite discourse, beyond which it will/should not stray. These boundaries will establish where academic writers will go and who will or won’t be referenced…from wikipedia to journals.

The rewriting is also directed toward popular debate. People’s attention spans are short, most have only recently heard of Austrian economics, and if the WSJ can trade on its reputation to redirect such discussions to its own precincts, there’s nothing to lose.

By the miracle of self-referential citation compounded by google and wikipedia and the tendency of all debates to “move on,” history is constantly being revised in all things, petty and large.

There are only so many people who are spotting and undoing this kind of false history, and they can’t get to all of it fast enough and often enough to undo it completely.”
Update 4

Response by Peter Boettke, which argues that the responses below from Lew Rockwellians and The Daily Bell mischaracterize his position.

Response by Tibor Machan at The Daily Bell that The Brothers Koch held anarcho-capitalist views from conviction and not because it helped their business. Machan was responding to a Frank Rich piece in The New York Times that extrapolated from an extensive piece by Jane Meyer at The New Yorker on the Kochtopus.

Update 3:

Tom di Lorenzo sets the record straight on the supposed misbehavior of the loosey-goosey Austrians at an uptight occasion (see Wenzel’s blog below) that allegedly resulted in the displacement of LRC from the lap of academic favor.

As Lorenzo points out,  Boettke works at the Koch-funded Mercatus center at George Mason University. I pointed this out myself at The Daily Bell (see below), where the editors were inclined to see the article citing Boettke at the WSJ as sheer happenstance. Would that it were so…

The billionaire Koch brothers, their foundations and funding (the Kochtopus), and the Mises folks go back a long way…

Update 2

Here, Joe Salerno at Mises.org gets into more detail on Boettke’s positions and how Austrian they are.

Update 1

Meanwhile, Bob Wenzel cleverly inserts a photo of the very attractive Ms. Kelly Evans, author of the WSJ piece, into his take, which is that Boettke leads the “uptight” wing of the Austrians.

Wenzel, like The Daily Bell, has respect for Boettke himself and directs his scorn at the WSJ.

ORIGINAL POST:

David Kramer at Lew Rockwell blog points to a fascinating piece of intellectual chicanery from the Wall Street Journal. It manages to discuss Austrian economics without mentioning Von Mises, the Mises Institute, Murray Rothbard, or Lew Rockwell….but does cite Peter Boettke, a DC academic, and Schumpeter, who wasn’t even an Austrian…

“After you’re done being perplexed by such a ridiculous question from me, let me ask you another question: Have any of you ever heard of Peter Boettke? I thought so. Though there are many of you who have also heard of Boettke, there are also many of you who have not—and I can assure you that you can go to your grave not fretting over that lack of knowledge.

Lila: I’ve actually linked to Peter Boettke a couple of times for pieces he had up at his blog Cato. But anything I learned from him is a cipher next to what I learned from Mises.org or Lewrockwell.com, which I had the great good fortune to discover in 2003. No disrespect meant to Professor Boettke. But a minimal regard for the truth demands that this bit of propaganda have a stake driven through its heart.

Yet, “somehow,” one of the biggest One World Government propaganda rags—the War Street Journal—wrote a puff piece on Prof. Boettke of George Mason University who (according to this rag) “is emerging as the intellectual standard-bearer for the Austrian school of economic.” Perhaps in the minds of Peter Boettke and the folks at the War Street Journal. Now why in the world would the WSJ print such a baldfaced lie when Boettke could not even shine the shoes of the greatest living Austrian economists in the world today—Hans Hoppe, Walter Block, David Gordon, Joseph Salerno, Guido Hülsmann (I could go on)? Hmmm…could it be…could it be…could it be because Prof. Boettke is still a believer in one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated on human civilization?

“The Fed, he [Boettke] says, should be to make money “as neutral as possible, like the rule of law, which never favors one party over the other.” [You see, folks, there's a reason for everything. Now you know why the War Street Journal wouldn't dare publish an article on any of the real Austrian economists I mentioned in the previous paragraph.]

And guess who is the only Austrian (albeit barely) economist that the rag mentions in conjunction with Boettke and the Austrian school of economics? Friedrich Hayek. You know, the “Austrian” economist who once stated that the welfare state works. (I have yet to find out if, at the very least, that was a qualified statement.) I guess that’s why the Socialist members of the Nobel Price committee gave Hayek the Nobel Prize in “Economics” rather than the exponentially superior Ludwig von Mises (the number one Austrian economist—and, for that matter, economist—in history) or Murray Rothbard (the number two Austrian economist—and, for that matter, economist—in history).

Here’s a bit of historical ”ignorance” in the article:

“Mr. Boettke “has done more for Austrian economics, I’d say, than any individual in the last decade,” says Bruce Caldwell, an editor of Mr. Hayek’s collected works.”

“Of course” he has. Forget about a man named Lew Rockwell who started The Mises Institute back in 1982, giving Austrian economists Hans Hoppe, Walter Block, David Gordon, Joseph Salerno, Guido Hülsmann, et al. a central location from which to promote the Austrian school of economics (which, at that time, barely anyone outside of academia—and many even inside academia—had ever even heard of). And forget about Lew Rockwell’s Austrian economics-promoting website lewrockwell.com, which happens to be the number one libertarian website in the world. Even Ron Paul has done more to bring Austrian economics to the attention of the public than Boetkke in the last decade. Of course, Lew and Ron want to end the fed, not “improve” it—as “Austrian” Prof. Boettke implies he wants to in his above-quoted statement.
Lila: A ferocious discussion at The Daily Bell on why (and how) Prof. Boettke might  differ from the Rockwellian/Paulian position.

This propaganda piece intentionally omitting Mises, [sic] Rothbard, The Mises Institute, Llewellyn Rockwell, et al. in relation to the Austrian school of economics reminded me of two things—one personal and one public.

The personal: Many years ago a friend of mine (whom I suspected of being homosexual) wrote me a long letter about how he had met someone who he was in love with. Yet not only did he not mention the person’s name, he never once used a pronoun in the entire letter!! I wrote back to him goading him into telling me the person’s name. He wrote back to me mentioning the man’s name.

The public: I remember when Murray Rothbard died, The New York Slimes obituary “just happened” to come up with an extremely unflattering photo of Rothbard to accompany the obit rather than this standard one:

I guess it was one of those “unfortunate” lapses that are so “rarely” found in the One World Government media.

By the way, please don’t bother to write me any emails praising Peter Boetkke. I’m sure Peter’s done some fine work—but he is NO Mises, Rothbard, Hans Hoppe, Walter Block, David Gordon, Joseph Salerno, Guido Hülsmann, Robert Murphy, Stephan Kinsella, Roger Garrison, et al.

And when it comes to someone “who has done more for Austrian economics, I’d say, than any individual in the last decade,” the only person on this planet who can lay claim to that monumental, heroic achievement is LLEWELLYN ROCKWELL. (Except it hasn’t been a decade. It has been over a quarter of a century.)

UPDATE: John Grimsley wrote to me to point out a glaring omission in my post:

“You missed one thing in your recent blog post on lewrockwell.com: Peter Boettke isn’t even the “intellectual standard-bearer for the Austrian school of economic” at his own university. That would be Walter Williams.”

Aurobindo On Imagination and Illusion in Human History

August 29, 2010 // 1 Comment

Posted in: Uncategorized

Indian revolutionary and mystic Aurobindo Ghosh on why war continues:

“The progress of humanity proceeds by a series of imaginations which the Will in the race turns into accomplished facts and a train of illusions which contain each of them an inevitable truth. The truth is there in the secret Will and Knowledge that are conducting our affairs for us and it reflects itself in the soul of mankind; the illusion is in the shape we give to that reflection, the veil of arbitrary fixations of time, place and circumstance which that deceptive organ of knowledge, the human intellect, weaves over the face of the Truth. Human imaginations are often fulfilled to the letter; our illusions on the contrary find the truth behind them realised most unexpectedly, at a time, in ways, under circumstances far other than those we had fixed for them.

Man’s illusions are of all sorts and kinds, some of them petty though not unimportant, ­ for nothing in the world is unimportant, ­ others vast and grandiose. The greatest of them all are those which cluster round the hope of a perfected society, a perfected race, a terrestrial millennium. Each new idea, religious or social, which takes possession of the epoch and seizes on large masses of men, is in turn to be the instrument of these high realisations; each in turn betrays the hope which gave it its force to conquer. And the reason is plain enough to whosoever chooses to see; it is that no change of ideas or of the intellectual outlook upon life, no belief in God or Avatar or Prophet, no victorious science or liberating philosophy, no social scheme or system, no sort of machinery internal or external can really bring about the great desire implanted in the race, true though that desire is in itself and the index of the goal to which we are being led. Because man is himself not a machine nor a device, but a being and a most complex one at that, therefore he cannot be saved by machinery; only by an entire change which shall affect all the members of his being, can he be liberated from his discords and imperfections.

One of the illusions incidental to this great hope is the expectation of the passing of war. This grand event in human progress is always being confidently expected, and since we are now all scientific minds and rational beings, we no longer expect it by a divine intervention, but assign sound physical and economical reasons for the faith that is in us. The first form taken by this new gospel was the expectation and the prophecy that the extension of commerce would be the extinction of war. Commercialism was the natural enemy of militarism and would drive it from the face of the earth. The growing and universal lust of gold and the habit of comfort and the necessities of increased production and intricate interchange would crush out the lust of power and dominion and glory and battle. Gold-hunger or commodity-hunger would drive out earthhunger, the dharma of the Vaishya would set its foot on the dharma of the Kshatriya and give it its painless quietus. The ironic reply of the gods has not been long in coming. Actually this very reign of commercialism, this increase of production and interchange, this desire for commodities and markets and this piling up of a huge burden of unnecessary necessities has been the cause of half the wars that have since afflicted the human race. And now we see militarism and commercialism united in a loving clasp, coalescing into a sacred biune duality of national life and patriotic aspiration and causing and driving by their force the most irrational, the most monstrous and nearly cataclysmic, the hugest war of modern and indeed of all historic times.

Another illusion was that the growth of democracy would mean the growth of pacifism and the end of war. It was fondly thought that wars are in their nature dynastic and aristocratic; greedy kings and martial nobles driven by earth-hunger and battle-hunger, diplomatists playing at chess with the lives of men and the fortunes of nations, these were the guilty causes of war who drove the unfortunate peoples to the battlefield like sheep to the shambles. These proletariates, mere food for powder, who had no interest, no desire, no battle-hunger driving them to armed conflict, had only to become instructed and dominant to embrace each other and all the world in a free and fraternal amity. Man refuses to learn from that history of whose lessons the wise prate to us; otherwise the story of old democracies ought to have been enough to prevent this particular illusion. In any case the answer of the gods has been, here too, sufficiently ironic. If kings and diplomatists are still often the movers of war, none more ready than the modern democracy to make itself their enthusiastic and noisy accomplice, and we see even the modern spectacle of governments and diplomats hanging back in affright or doubt from the yawning clamorous abyss while angry shouting peoples impel them to the verge. Bewildered pacifists who still cling to their principles and illusions, find themselves howled down by the people and, what is piquant enough, by their own recent comrades and leaders. The socialist, the syndicalist, the internationalist of yesterday stands forward as a banner-bearer in the great mutual massacre and his voice is the loudest to cheer on the dogs of war.

Another recent illusion was the power of Courts of Arbitration and Concerts of Europe to prevent war. There again the course that events immediately took was sufficiently ironic; for the institution of the great Court of International Arbitration was followed up by a series of little and great wars which led by an inexorable logical chain to the long-dreaded European conflict, and the monarch who had first conceived the idea, was also the first to unsheath his sword in a conflict dictated on both sides by the most unrighteous greed and aggression. In fact this series of wars, whether fought in Northern or Southern Africa, in Manchuria or the Balkans, was marked most prominently by the spirit which disregards cynically that very idea of inherent and existing rights, that balance of law and equity upon which alone arbitration can be founded. As for the Concert of Europe, it seems far enough from us now, almost antediluvian in its antiquity, as it belongs indeed to the age before the deluge; but we can remember well enough what an unmusical and discordant concert it was, what a series of fumblings and blunderings and how its diplomacy led us fatally to the inevitable event against which it struggled. Now it is suggested by many to substitute a United States of Europe for the defunct Concert and for the poor helpless Hague tribunal an effective Court of International Law with force behind it to impose its decisions. But so long as men go on believing in the sovereign power of machinery, it is not likely that the gods either will cease from their studied irony.

There have been other speculations and reasonings; ingenious minds have searched for a firmer and more rational ground of faith. The first of these was propounded in a book by a Russian writer which had an enormous success in its day but has now passed into the silence. Science was to bring war to an end by making it physically impossible. It was mathematically proved that with modern weapons two equal armies would fight each other to a standstill, attack would become impossible except by numbers thrice those of the defence and war therefore would bring no military decision but only an infructuous upheaval and disturbance of the organised life of the nations. When the Russo-Japanese war almost immediately proved that attack and victory were still possible and the battlefury of man superior to the fury of his death-dealing engines, another book was published called by a title which has turned into a jest upon the writer, the “Great Illusion”, to prove that the idea of a commercial advantage to be gained by war and conquest was an illusion and that as soon as this was understood and the sole benefit of peaceful interchange realised, the peoples would abandon a method of settlement now chiefly undertaken from motives of commercial expansion, yet whose disastrous result was only to disorganise fatally the commercial prosperity it sought to serve. The present war came as the immediate answer of the gods to this sober and rational proposition. It has been fought for conquest and commercial expansion and it is proposed, even when it has been fought out on the field, to follow it up by a commercial struggle between the belligerent nations.

The men who wrote these books were capable thinkers, but they ignored the one thing that matters, human nature. The present war has justified to a certain extent the Russian writer, though by developments he did not foresee; scientific warfare has brought military movement to a standstill and baffled the strategist and the tactician, it has rendered decisive victory impossible except by overwhelming numbers or an overwhelming weight of artillery. But this has not made war impossible, it has only changed its character; it has at the most replaced the war of military decisions by that of military and financial exhaustion aided by the grim weapon of famine. The English writer on the other hand erred by isolating the economic motive as the one factor that weighed; he ignored the human lust of dominion which, carried into the terms of commercialism means the undisputed control of markets and the exploitation of helpless populations. Again, when we rely upon the disturbance of organised national and international life as a preventive of war, we forget the boundless power of self-adaptation which man possesses; that power has been shown strikingly enough in the skill and ease with which the organisation and finance of peace were replaced in the present crisis by the organisation and finance of war. And when we rely upon Science to make war impossible, we forget that the progress of Science means a series of surprises and that it means also a constant effort of human ingenuity to overcome impossibilities and find fresh means of satisfying our ideas, desires and instincts. Science may well make war of the present type with shot and shell and mines and battleships an impossibility and yet develop and put in their place simpler or more summary means which may bring back an easier organisation of warfare.

So long as war does not become psychologically impossible, it will remain or, if banished for a while, return. War itself, it is hoped, will end war; the expense, the horror, the butchery, the disturbance of tranquil life, the whole confused sanguinary madness of the thing has reached or will reach such colossal proportions that the human race will fling the monstrosity behind it in weariness and disgust. But weariness and disgust, horror and pity, even the opening of the eyes to reason by the practical facts of the waste of human life and energy and the harm and extravagance are not permanent factors; they last only while the lesson is fresh. Afterwards, there is forgetfulness; human nature recuperates itself and recovers the instincts that were temporarily dominated. A long peace, even a certain organisation of peace, may conceivably result, but so long as the heart of man remains what it is, the peace will come to an end; the organisation will break down under the stress of human passions. War is no longer, perhaps, a biological necessity, but it is still a psychological necessity; what is within us, must manifest itself outside.

Meanwhile it is well that every false hope and confident prediction should be answered as soon as may well be by the irony of the gods; for only so can we be driven to the perception of the real remedy. Only when man has developed not merely a fellowfeeling with all men, but a dominant sense of unity and commonalty, only when he is aware of them not merely as brothers, ­ that is a fragile bond, ­ but as parts of himself, only when he has learned to live, not in his separate personal and communal ego-sense, but in a large universal consciousness, can the phenomenon of war, with whatever weapons, pass out of his life without the possibility of return. Meanwhile that he should struggle even by illusions towards that end, is an excellent sign; for it shows that the truth behind the illusion is pressing towards the hour when it may become manifest as reality.”

The Foundation For The Defense Of Democracy (Links Added)

August 29, 2010 // 5 Comments

Posted in: Ideology, Uncategorized

Update: This post follows on an interview with former conservative Presidential candidate and business media mogul, Steve Forbes, at The Daily Bell. Forbes comes out with three important predictions: the US will stay on in Afghanistan; Iran will be attacked; and the world will go back to some kind of gold standard. None of it was surprising to me or to anyone who has followed the globalist/Zionist story since 9-11.

I thought I’d add some useful links for anyone who read the interview. They’ll show where Forbes comes from.

1.  Forbes is a founding-member of the Project for the New American Century, a document that explicitly lays out globalist/Zionist plans for world domination. The globalists have since pooh-poohed it importance, but this is simply white-wash.  Many of Forbes’ fellow neo-conservatives can be found rubbing shoulder with him, as signatories of the PNAC mission statement.

2. Forbes is on the board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, which is one of the most influential neoconservative think-tanks.

3. Forbes has supported the Tea-Party movement, but one wonders if that’s simply to latch onto the its popularity. I say this because Forbes’ own media outlets often promote positions that might better be called “beltway libertarianism” - i.e. libertarian on certain domestic social and economic issues, but fervently supportive of aggressive war abroad. As this poster points out, while paying lip-service to Ron Paul’s libertarianism, Forbes has endorsed Rand Paul, whose positions are far more conservative than his father’s (pro-Afghan war and anti-decriminalization of drugs). Forbes has also supported Rudy Guiliani.

That makes him a full-fledged neo-conservative, in my book. It’s notable that in the interview with The Bell, he was careful to call himself an economic libertarian.

Neo-conservatives are neither libertarians nor conservatives.
They are, with all due respect, proto-fascist.

Many of them are, however, exceptionally idealistic and intelligent people. Their principal drawback is an unfortunate inability to accept disorder, untidiness, lack of certainty, and the messy and creative state of flux characteristic of the real world. They’re convinced that change must be controlled and they’re even more convinced that god has appointed them to do it.

We haven’t heard anything about this from god’s side so far..

On The Narcissism Of Tyrants

August 28, 2010 // 0 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

The personalities of two tyrants, Josef Stalin and Czech president Gustav Husak, as portrayed by writers, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Ivan Klima:

“Yet it is clear that the portraits of Solzhenitsyn’s and Klima’s respective oppressors have a great deal in common. They identify accurately the overriding character trait of the dictator, namely narcissism. One can do worse than quote from Alan Bullock’s monumental study Hitler and Stalin – Parallel Lives:

“Narcissism” is a concept originally formulated by Freud in relation to early infancy, but one which is now accepted more broadly to describe a personality disorder in which the natural development of relationships to the external world has failed to take place. In such a state only the person himself, his needs, feelings, thoughts, everything and everybody as they relate to him are experienced as fully real, while everything and everybody otherwise lacks reality or interest.

Fromm argues that some degree of narcissism can be considered an occupational illness among political leaders in proportion to their conviction of a providential mission and their claim to infallibility of judgment and a monopoly of power. When such claims are raised to a level demanded by a Hitler or a Stalin at the height of their power, any challenge will be perceived as a threat to their private image of themselves as much as to their public image, and they will react by going to any lengths to suppress it. (p. 11)

Bullock distinguishes between this personality disorder and any other (paranoia, schizophrenia, psychopathic condition) since these would normally affect the sufferer’s ability to function on a day to day basis, let alone allow him to achieve what Hitler and Stalin did. From the examples we have in Solzhenitsyn and Klima it would seem that the creative writer can tell us as much about mind of the tyrant as can the psychiatrist or the historian.

One final question: both our tyrants seem to have started out with some degree of idealism and sense of destiny. In the case of Stalin, as perceived by Solzhenitsyn, these qualities become perverted into a God-like notion of immortality and infallibility. In the case of Husak, as seen by Klima, there is hardly a trace of such early idealism – the resignation speech is shallow and trite in the extreme. The president comes across as a cynic and opportunist, exhibiting a combination of racism, boorishness, callous indifference and sentimentality. In terms of morality the results are the same: the debasement of a society. Thus both writers - inadvertently? - raise as a moral lodestar the standard of if not healthy skepticism then at least an uncertainty factor, as displayed in their most successful works. The real heroes of The First Circle are the questioners (Rubin, Nerzhin, Sologdin); the real heroes of Waiting for the dark, Waiting for the Light are the film-maker, forever compromising in order to survive but with some sense of decency and integrity. It is ironic that tyrants, so convinced of their own immortality, are so frequently, paranoically afraid of death; similarly, it is ironic that Solzhenitsyn and Klima, both increasingly preoccupied with conscience and clear -cut moral divisions, are at their most engaging when presenting us with seekers rather than finders.

Swamp Fox

August 28, 2010 // 0 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

Dedicated to warriors against the state everywhere:

Swamp Fox! Swamp Fox!
Tail on his hat,
Nobody knows where The Swamp Fox’s at.

Swamp Fox! Swamp Fox!
Hiding in the glen,
He runs away to fight again.

I fire a gun the birds take wing.
There startled cries a signal clear.
My men march forth to fight the king.
And leave behind there loved ones dear.

(Chorus)

We had no lead, we had no powder.
Always fought with an empty gun.
Only made us shout the louder.
We are men of Marion.

We had no cornpone, had no honey.
All we had was Continental money.
Wouldn’t buy nothing worth beans in the pot.
Roasted ears and possum was all we go.

(Chorus)

We had no blankets, had no bed.
Had no roof above our head.
We get no shelter when it rains.
All we got is Yankee brains.

The Redcoats fight in a foreign land.
Their hearts are far across the sea.
They never try to understand.
We fight for home and liberty.

MSM Working Overtime To Promote War On Iran

August 28, 2010 // 0 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

Judith Bello in Counterpunch:

“The Atlantic published a disturbing article recently, “The Point of No Return” by Jeffrey Goldberg, who makes the case that, since Israel is guaranteed to initiate an attack on Iran by next spring, the US should take the initiative and do the job itself.

The ‘War with Iran’ propaganda machine is running full throttle. First, there are the grand statements of propaganda denouncing the government for terrorism, barbarism, supporting terrorism, meddling in the affairs of their neighbors, not having a free press and other undemocratic practices. All this floats atop the assumption/insinuation that they have a nuclear weapons program which will come to fruition in the very near future as an international menace of intolerable proportions. Then the spinners. There are 50 comments after every article and post, arguing, elaborating, spinning a story where the details have been obscured by lies, threats and counter-threats, innuendo, histrionics and a high energy conflagration of information with misinformation. Ultimately, its really hard to predict whether there will be a strike on Iran just because there is so much unconstrained energy in the issue, and so little recourse to reason in addressing it.

After reading the Goldberg article, I find myself inspired to add a few words to the ongoing discussion to address one aspect of The Atlantic’s presentation. On the same web page, embedded in one of the first few paragraphs of the article, there is a video of Jeffrey Goldberg conducting an interview with Christopher Hitchens on Israel and Iran that is a shameless piece of hysteria. Ironically, the 6 minute video begins with a full 25 seconds of Bob Dylan singing The Gates of Eden (”Of war and peace the truth just twists . . . “).

During the first 15 seconds the camera pans the books in the book cases in the room, (Hitchen’s study, perhaps), followed by the credits, and photos of Hitchens, who is being treated for cancer at present, and looks very ill, from a happier time. We get the impression of a scholar who is both hip and wise, not to mention very well read, and long suffering. When he speaks, Hitchens’ tone is hesitant, deeply emotional; he often looks down and fidgets before speaking.

Goldberg tells us Hitchens has deep knowledge of the ‘Holocaust’, and “the protean eternal nature of antisemitism”. Eternal antisemitism. That’s a big statement, a cynical statement. In a world where racism and greed have impoverished and debilitated broad swaths of humanity who have darker skin, who sit on resources other, better armed, races covet while they lack the basic necessities of life, water, for instance, we are to focus on man’s inhumanity to man in the form of “eternal” bigotry against an etno-religious group, largely white, well fed and successful, who have been given permission to drive out the indigenous inhabitants of their ‘Promised Land’ and unconditionally supported in the establishment of their homeland through violent, separatist, racist policies towards their neighbors.

Hitchens is asked what he would do if he were in Netanyahu’s shoes. Hitchens speaks reverently about the US role as the leader in fostering Human Rights in the world, not just because the US wrote the treaties, but because it convinced other countries to sign on to them. He specifically mentions the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations and the Convention for Human Rights. Apparently he hasn’t noticed that the US has openly scorned those conventions and repeatedly bullied, cheated and undermined the UN for some time now. But apparently he’s assuming that you haven’t noticed either as he goes on to build his argument. Iran, he says, has signed all kinds of treaties and guarantees that they have no ambitions to build a nuclear weapon. So, if it “turns out” they have done so, then “there is no international law”. And, if we find we have allowed this to happen, then “we have watched while [the law] was contemptuously dismantled”.

This is a curious basis, and his logic grows more fantastic with every statement. If someone breaks the law, he argues, then there is no law, because if we allow this so far unproven violation to occur, then we are responsible for this fall into lawlessness, and this is important [because . . . . we are the law?] By contrast, another country has placed itself above the law, refused to sign the salient treaties – those supporting human rights, rejecting WMD and showing a willingness to work with other nations - built the bombs, persists in a policy of ethnic cleansing and openly declares its right to attack its neighbors with impunity in the name of preemptive “defense”. But the US’s willing complicity in that project doesn’t undermine the law.

Hitchens goes on to make some rather strong statements about those being menaced and under threat having an “obligation” to “take out” the offending regime. Then he says, “don’t look at me like that, don’t look at the Jewish people like that”. Apparently he isn’t aware that his statements are pretty menacing, and represent a serious threat to someone. Furthermore, he purports to speak, not for Christopher Hitchens, not for the State of Israel, but for all of the Jewish People. It is problematic enough to live in a country where you disagree with government policy which is assumed to be ’speaking for you’, but the Jewish people aren’t safe anywhere from the aggressive little nation that insists on speaking for them. As for Hitchens, he was invited to speak [for Israel], so I guess you can’t fault him on doing so. He finishes his thought in a defensive tone, with the statement that if you haven’t acted, then you have acted. Inaction is action, culpable action. You deserve what you get. I suppose you could make this argument in a fever pitched crisis, but in the current case, it’s a little over the top.

Goldberg now raises the issue that Iran will point out (as I have above) that Israel has developed an arsenal of nuclear weapons outside the international treaties, i.e. outside the law. Hitchens hangs his head, then looks up and responds defiantly, saying that he regrets the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the world, BUT, “there is a big difference a country that has a weapon to preserve a certain, what we used to call ‘balance of terror’, and one that wants one to upend the existing order”. He refers to a regime (the Iranian regime we must assume) that ” is a messianic dictatorship that crushes its own citizens and threatens the territories of its neighbors”. If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, I don’t know what is! It’s true the Iranian theocracy is no gem, but a supporter of a country that was founded through ethnic cleansing, and has preemptively attacked its neighbors repeatedly since its inception resulting in the occupation of neighboring territories nearly equal to its allotted area, is hardly in a position to criticize.

But let’s face it. That is what this is really about, that idea that we have to “preserve the balance of terror.” And what we are really talking about here is a “balance”, nay, an “imbalance” of “power” that we are preserving through the means of “terror.” That’s what it’s all about. But Hitchens really is, dare I say it, paranoid on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people, which are conflated into a single entity in his mind. When asked whether Israel’s nukes are required to “prevent another Holocaust”, he says that perhaps if Israel had never existed, it would be OK with him, but now that it’s here “civilization” must defend Israel to prevent the “unthinkable”.

He goes on to say that if we have to pick on a client country for its corruption and human rights violations, we should pick Pakistan. The remark is a petty indirection, but it’s an interesting choice, actually. Pakistan, like Israel, was created by Great Britain in the process of unwinding its empire. Like Israel, it was a gift to a small elite population, a bribe of sorts to insure their post-colonial loyalty, and imposed on the masses who now inhabit the country, and those who were forced to leave. Here we are more than 60 years later, still trying to manage the consequences of this disastrous policy.

So, more than enough analysis. This interview ought to be an embarrassment, to Jeffrey Goldberg and Christopher Hitchens, and to The Atlantic. I suppose you can view it as propaganda, but Hitchens’ reality is so twisted, and his presentation so childlike and sulky that it’s just another sad testament to the pathetic level of analysis to which Americans are regularly subjected. It really is time the mainstream media (and our president) give a hearing to independent and experienced foreign policy experts who actually practice diplomacy. To practice diplomacy, you have to be willing to talk to people. Pragmatism in international relations doesn’t mean bowing to the baddest boy on the block, or the most deserving or the longest suffering. It means working with others to construct reasonable solutions to real problems that cause everyone to suffer.”

Stephen King On The Decline Of The Dollar

August 27, 2010 // 0 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

“Well, don’t look to me, Dolores. All my money is tied up in cash.”

– “Dolores Claiborne,” Stephen King

Why Libertarians Defend The Rights Of Muslims In The US

August 27, 2010 // 0 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

Assasinations ‘R Us

August 27, 2010 // 8 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

Alternet:

“[General McChrystal says that] for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies.” – “The Runaway General,” Rolling Stone, 6/22/10

The truth that many Americans find hard to take is that that mass U.S. assassination on a scale unequaled in world history lies at the heart of America’s military strategy in the Muslim world, a policy both illegal and never seriously debated by Congress or the American people. Conducting assassination operations throughout the 1.3 billon-strong Muslim world will inevitably increase the murder of civilians and thus create exponentially more “enemies,” as Gen. McChrystal suggests — posing a major long-term threat to U.S. national security. This mass assassination program, sold as defending Americans, is actually endangering us all. Those responsible for it, primarily General Petraeus, are recklessly seeking short-term tactical advantage while making an enormous long-term strategic error that could lead to countless American deaths in the years and decades to come. General Petraeus must be replaced, and the U.S. military’s policy of direct and mass assassination of Muslims ended.

The U.S. has conducted assassination programs in the Third World for decades, but the actual killing — though directed and financed by the C.I.A. -- has been largely left to local paramilitary and police forces. This has now has changed dramatically.

What is unprecedented today is the vast number of Americans directly assassinating Muslims – through greatly expanded U.S. military Special Operations teams, U.S. drone strikes and private espionage networks run by former CIA assassins and torturers. Most significant is the expanding geographic scope of their killing. While CENTCOM Commander from October 2008 until July 2010, General Petraeus received secret and unprecedented permission to unilaterally engage in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, former Russian Republics, Yemen, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, the Horn of Africa, and wherever else he deems necessary.

Never before has a nation unleashed so many assassins in so many foreign nations around the world (9,000 Special Operations soldiers are based in Iraq and Afghanistan alone) as well as implemented a policy that can be best described as unprecedented, remote-control, large-scale “mechanized assassination.” As the N.Y. Times noted in December 2009: “For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for killing in a country where the United States is not officially at war.”

This combination of human and technological murder amounts to a worldwide “Assassination Inc.” that is unique in human affairs.

The increasing shift to direct U.S. assassination began on Petraeus’s watch in Iraq,where targeted assassination was considered by many within the military to be more important than the “surge.” The killing of Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was considered a major triumph that significantly reduced the level of violence. As Bob Woodward reported in The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008:

“Beginning in about May 2006, the U.S. military and the U.S. intelligence agencies launched a series of top secret operations that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in extremist groups. A number of authoritative sources say these covert activities had a far-reaching effect on the violence and were very possibly the biggest factor in reducing it. Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) responsible for hunting al Qaeda in Iraq, (conducted) lightning-quick and sometimes concurrent operations When I later asked the president (Bush) about this, he offered a simple answer: ‘JSOC is awesome.’” [Emphasis added.]

Woodward’s finding that many “authoritative sources” believed assassination more important than the surge is buttressed by Petraeus’ appointment of McChrystal to lead U.S. forces in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s major qualification for the post was clearly his perceived expertise in assassination while heading JSOC from 2003-’08 (where he also conducted extensive torture at “Camp Nama” at Baghdad International Airport, successfully excluding even the Red Cross).

Another key reason for the increased reliance on assassination is that Petraeus’ announced counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan obviously cannot work. It is absurd to believe that the corrupt warlords and cronies who make up the “Afghan government” can be transformed into the viable entity upon which his strategy publicly claims to depend — particularly within the next year which President Obama has set as a deadline before beginning to withdraw U.S. troops. Petraeus is instead largely relying on mass assassination to try and eliminate the Taliban, both within Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The centrality of assassination to U.S. war plans is revealed by the fact that it was at the heart of the Obama review of Afghan policy last fall. The dovish Biden position called for relying primarily on assassination, while the hawkish McChrystal stance embraced both assassination and more troops. No other options were seriously considered.

A third factor behind the shift to mass assassination is that Petraeus and the U.S. military are also determined to attack jihadi forces in nations where the U.S. is not at war, and which are not prepared to openly invite in U.S. forces. As the N.Y. Times reported on May 24, “General Petraeus (has argued) that troops need to operate beyond Iraq and Afghanistan to better fight militant groups.”

The most significant aspect of this new and expanded assassination policy is President Obama’s authorizing clandestine U.S. military personnel to conduct it. The N.Y. Times has also reported:

In roughly a dozen countries — from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife — the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists (Military) Special Operations troops under secret “Execute Orders” have conducted spying missions that were once the preserve of civilian intelligence agencies.

Particularly extraordinary is the fact that these vastly expanded military assassination teams are not subject to serious civilian control. As the N.Y. Times has also reported, Petraeus in September 2009 secretly expanded a worldwide force of assassins answerable only to the military, without oversight by not only Congress but the president himself:

The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents. The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa. Unlike covert actions undertaken by the C.I.A., such clandestine activity does not require the president’s approval or regular reports to Congress. [Emphasis added]

Although sold to the American public and Congress as targeted, selective assassination aimed only at a handful of “high value” insurgent leaders, the program has in fact already expanded far beyond that. As personnel and aircraft devoted to assassination exponentially increase, so too do the numbers of people they murder, both “insurgents” and civilians.

While it is reasonable to assume that expanding the number of Special Operations commandos to its present worldwide level of 13,000 will result in increasing assassinations, the secrecy of their operations makes it impossible to know how many they have murdered, how many of those are civilians, and the effectiveness of their operations. It is not known, for example, how many people U.S. military assassins murder directly, and how many they kill indirectly by identifying them for drone strikes. Much of their activity is conducted, for example, in North Waziristan in northwest Pakistan which, as the N.Y. Times reported on April 4 “is virtually sealed from the outside world.”

More information, however, has emerged about the parallel and unprecedented mass mechanized assassinations being carried out by the C.I.A. drone programs. It is clear that they have already expanded far beyond the official cover story of targeting only “high-level insurgent leaders,” and are killing increasing numbers of people.

The CIA, of course, is no novice at assassination. Future CIA Director William Colby’s Operation Phoenix program in South Vietnam gave South Vietnamese police quotas of the number of civilians to be murdered on a weekly and monthly basis, eventually killing 20-50,000 people. CIA operatives such as Latin American Station Chef Duane “Dewey” Clarridge also established, trained and operated local paramilitary and death squads throughout Central and Latin America that brutally tortured and murdered tens of thousands of civilians, most notably in El Salvador where CIA-trained and -directed killers murdered Archbishop Romero and countless other Salvadorans.

But the present CIA assassination program in Pakistan and elsewhere is different not only because it is Americans who are themselves the assassins, but because of the unprecedented act of conducting mechanized mass assassination from the air. The CIA, as Nick Turse has reported for TomDispatch.com, is exponentially increasing its drone assassination program:

“(Drone) Reapers flew 25,391 hours (in 2009). This year, the air force projects that the combined flight hours of all its drones will exceed 250,000 hours. More flight time will, undoubtedly, mean more killing.”

There were already signs in 2009, when drone strikes were a fraction of what they are now, that they were striking large numbers of civilians and proving militarily and politically counterproductive. Most Pakistanis believe it is largely civilians who are being killed, and anti-American hatred is growing accordingly. A Gallup poll conducted in July 2009, based on 2,500 face-to-face interviews, found that “only 9 percent of Pakistanis supported the drone strikes.” A Global Research study documented the drone murder of 123 civilians in January 2010 alone.

A particularly significant indication of the drone strikes’ military ineffectiveness has come from Colonel David Kilcullen, a key Petraeus advisor in Iraq, who testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 23, 2009, that, “Since 2006, we’ve killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we’ve killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area. We need to call off the drones.”

Kilcullen’s testimony was ignored, however, and as drone strikes have not only been continued but exponentially increased, there are increasing signs that they have vastly increased the scope of the killing far beyond the claimed “high-level insurgent leaders.” The N.Y. Times reported on Aug. 14:

[The CIA has] broadened its drone campaign beyond selective strikes against Qaeda leaders and now regularly obliterates suspected enemy compounds and logistics convoys, just as the military would grind down an enemy force.

Reuters reported on May 5 that:

The CIA received approval to target a wider range of targets in Pakistan’s tribal areas, including low-level fighters whose identities may not be known, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Former intelligence officials acknowledged that in many, if not most cases, the CIA had little information about the foot soldiers killed in the strikes.

What this means is clear: the CIA is assassinating an expanding number of “low-level” people, labeling them as “fighters,” but has little if any idea of who they really are. The history of such mechanized campaigns from the air, such as Laos where I have studied the U.S. 1964-’73 air war intensively, is that increased warfare from the air inevitably becomes increasingly indiscriminate, destroying civilian and military targets alike. As the drone program continues to expand, it will inevitably wind up killing more civilians — and, if McChrystal is right, exponentially create more people committed to killing Americans.

Numerous moral, legal and ethical objections have been raised to this program of mass assassination. Philip Alston, the United Nations special representative on extrajudicial executions, has stated that “this strongly asserted but ill-defined license to kill without accountability is not an entitlement which the United States or other states can have without doing grave damage to the rules designed to protect the right to life and prevent extrajudicial executions.”

The notion that a handful of U.S. military and CIA officials have the right to unilaterally and secretly murder anyone they choose in any nation on earth, without even outside knowledge let alone oversight, is deeply troubling to anyone with a conscience, belief in democracy, or respect for international law. It was precisely such behavior that made the Gestapo and Soviet secret police symbols of evil. Since the U.S. Congress has never reined in an Executive Branch that has routinely ignored international law since 1945, however, it is likely that the question of whether this program will be continued will be determined by its perceived effectiveness, not its morality.

The evidence is mounting that U.S. assassinations are so ineffective they are actually strengthening anti-American forces in Pakistan. Bruce Reidel, a counterinsurgency expert who coordinated the Afghan review for President Obama, said: “The pressure we’ve put on (jihadist forces) in the past year has also drawn them together, meaning that the network of alliances is growing stronger not weaker.”

Reidel’s striking conclusion that jihadi forces in Pakistan are stronger after six years of drone airstrikes the CIA claims are weakening them, is echoed by numerous other reports indicating that General Petraeus’ strategy of using military force against Al Qaeda, Afghan and local insurgent forces in Pakistan has pushed them further east from isolated northwest areas into major cities like Karachi, where they operate freely and work together far more closely than before. The general’s miscalculations regarding Pakistan are reason enough for him to be replaced.

In the long run, General Petraeus’ strategy of expanding both ground and mechanized assassination throughout the 1.3 billion-strong Muslim world is likely to do the greatest disservice to his country’s interests. It is true that U.S. leaders have used local forces to assassinate tens of thousands since 1945 and that while these programs were largely ineffectual, they did not lead to attacks on American soil.

But 9/11 has changed the calculus. It is clear that in today’s wired and globalized world, marked by large-scale immigration, cheap telecommunications and airline travel, where crude technologies like car bombs or IEDs can be as easily detonated in New York as in Kandahar, and where America’s enemies are growing increasingly technologically sophisticated even as nuclear weapons proliferate and become miniaturized, it is the height of folly to foment geometrically growing anti-American hatred in the volatile Muslim world.

A growing number of military and counterinsurgency experts support Colonel Kilcullen’s belief that these assassination programs abroad are not protecting Americans at home. Both the “Underwear” and the “Times Square” bombers attributed their attempts to blow up Americans to their anger at the drone strikes. While Americans were saved by their incompetence, the U.S. may not be so lucky the next time, and the time after that. One thing is crystal clear: inflaming anti-American hatred throughout the Muslim world can only exponentially increase the numbers of those committed to killing Americans.

Such fears are increasing in Washington, as the N.Y. Times reported in the wake of the Times Square bombing:

A new, and disturbing, question is being raised in Washington: Have the stepped-up attacks in Pakistan — notably the Predator drone strikes — actually made Americans less safe? Are they inspiring more attacks on America than they prevent? As one American intelligence official said, “Those attacks (on two Pakistani Taliban leaders) have made it personal for the Pakistani Taliban — so it’s no wonder they are beginning to think about how they can strike back at targets here.”

As General Petraeus and the U.S. military “make it personal” to increasing number of people throughout the Muslim world, they are recklessly sowing a whirlwind for which many of us, our children and grandchildren may well pay with our lives for decades to come.

It is difficult for most Americans to grasp the fact that their leaders’ incompetence — Republican and Democrat, civilian and military — poses one of the single greatest threats to their own safety. But only when Americans do so will there be any hope of making America more secure in the dangerous years to come.

A clear place to begin protecting America is to abandon the assassination approach to war, ditch General Petraeus, end the military and CIA’s focus on worldwide and mechanized mass assassination, and halt its reckless expansion of U.S. war-making into nuclear-armed Pakistan and so much more of the Muslim world.

Final Note: Duane ‘Dewey’ Clarridge: The True Face of U.S. Policy Toward the Muslim World

We’ll intervene whenever we decide it’s in our national security interest. And if you don’t like it, lump it. Get used to it, world!” -- Duane Clarridge, interviewed by John Pilger in “The War on  Democracy”

As the N.Y. Times reported, Clarridge is presently advising CIA assassination efforts in Pakistan. (”Duane R. Clarridge, a profane former C.I.A. officer who ran operations in Central America and was indicted in the Iran-contra scandal, turned up this year helping run a Pentagon-financed private spying operation in Pakistan.”) Watch an extraordinary three-minute video interview with Clarridge that reveals the true face of U.S. policy in the Muslim world.

The US Government Would Never Commit False-Flags?

August 27, 2010 // 0 Comments

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From GeorgeWashington.blogpost.com:

“Has the U.S. Government ever carried out false flag terror attacks?

Well, as shown by this BBC special (which contains interviews with some of the key players), it is probable that America knew of the Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbor – down to the exact date of the attack — and allowed it to happen to justify America’s entry into World War II. See also this short essay by a highly-praised historian summarizing some of the key points (the historian, a World War II veteran, actually agreed with this strategy for getting America into the war, and so does not have any axe to grind). The Pearl Harbor conspiracy involved hundreds of military personnel. Moreover, the White House apparently had, a year earlier, launched an 8-point plan to provoke Japan into war against the U.S. (including, for example, an oil embargo). And — most stunning — the FDR administration took numerous affirmative steps to ensure that the Japanese attack would be successful.

And the New York Times has documented that Iranians working for the C.I.A. in the 1950’s posed as Communists and staged bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected president (see also this essay).

And, as confirmed by a former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence, NATO, with the help of U.S. and foreign special forces, carried out terror bombings in Italy and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: “You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security.”

Moreover, recently declassified documents show that in the 1960’s, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. If you view no other links in this article, please read the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

In addition, the FBI had penetrated the cell which carried out the 1993 world trade center bombing, but had — at the last minute — cancelled the plan to have its FBI infiltrator substitute fake power for real explosives, against the infiltrator’s strong wishes (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view).

And the CIA is alleged to have met with Bin Laden two months before 9/11.

And the anthrax attacks — which were sent along with notes purportedly written by Islamic terrorists — used a weaponized anthrax strain from the top U.S. bioweapons facility, the Fort Detrick military base. Indeed, top bioweapons experts have stated that the anthrax attack may have been a CIA test “gone wrong”; and see this article by a former NSA and naval intelligence officer. It is also interesting that the only congress people mailed anthrax-containing letters were key democrats, and that the attacks occurred one week before passage of the freedom-curtailing Patriot Act, which seems to have scared them and the rest of congress into passing that act without even reading it. And it might be coincidence, but White House staff began taking the anti-anthrax medicine before the Anthrax attacks occurred.

Even the former director of the National Security Agency said “By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism - in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation”(the audio is here).

Then, of course, there is 9/11…”

General Smedley Butler On War As A Racket

August 27, 2010 // 0 Comments

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“War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

(Lila: Which is mercantalism, not free markets)

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

– General Smedley Butler

The Mosque Meme…

August 27, 2010 // 0 Comments

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A comment I posted at The Daily Bell, recently:

Dear war-mongers:

I’ve seen the light. I was so dumb, bigoted, anti-American, anti-Semitic, ungrateful, and downright all-round stupid (put it down to being from an inferior culture) that I really, really thought that ratcheting up tensions with over one billion Muslims was a bad idea. Might lead to real war. How idiotic of me.

(Slap on forehead).

Now I see. Real war is JUST what we need.

All this back and forth is simply a waste of time. Get a move on it, folks. Quit talking. Get to bombing.

Lookit. I’ve done the math.

We have so many unemployed people – at least 10% of the population, 15-20% if you believe John Williams at Shadowstats.

Imagine how much better the job market would be if we could bundle a fifth of the population off to Kabul or Samarkhand or Whogivesaflyingheckistan? Less supply, more demand – didn’t Keynes say something about demand?

And yeah, we’re all Keynesians now, because, of course, Keynesians were the guys who called this way, way, way back in 2002…weren’t they?

(Another slap on forehead)

Comes right back to me, now. I remember one of them – guy by the name of Crockman. er…Krugman..telling us we needed to buy, buy, buy…houses, I think it was. (but no reason why we can’t just cross out houses on the loan form and put in daisy-cutters, instead)

So let’s pay attention to Keynesians when they speak.

And lo, they’ve come down from Mount New York Times and spoken:

Let there be demand.

What’s better for demand than war?
Especially war with a billion plus Muslims.

And remember, we have all that budget-surplus floating around.

And our creditors love us too. Companies are picking up from China and moving here. Woo-hoo. Look at all the factories going up in Florida.

We can afford it. We’re worth it…
Actually, we don’t spend near enough on defense. 30% of the budget, you say? 40%? More?

Wa–aay too little. Make it 80%. No, make it 100%.

That’s it. 100% of what we have should go to preemptive…er..defense.

That’s how they do it in North Korea – and you know, they tell me it’s not such a bad place….

Scroogle V. Google

August 25, 2010 // 5 Comments

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An interesting development.

My webstalker’s post (Chicago Indymedia) had disappeared into about the third-fourth page of a google search of my name. Recently I posted negative pieces about google. I noticed that the webstalker post trashing me suddenly popped back onto my first page.

Wondering why that was, I did a search with Scroogle, which is just google, scraped. You’d think the results would be the same. But the trash post was at about 35 in the list of results, rather than 3rd or 4th, as it was on google.

Imagination?

Several up and coming bloggers have told me that they’ve noticed google manipulation of their results. I won’t specify how the search results were manipulated, though both had a good idea. They didn’t openly voice their findings on their blogs, though.

I’ll be more forthcoming.  Whenever I post a criticism of google or wikipedia, I tend to find the old trash post resurfacing to the front page. Criticism of certain elites also tends to produce the same result.

Shouldn’t I be more circumspect about criticizing Brin, Wales, and their merry men?

Probably. But circumspection has never been my strong point. Why start now…

Rhett Butler On Reputations

August 25, 2010 // 0 Comments

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With enough courage, you can do without reputation

–  Rhett Butler in “Gone With the Wind”

The Mind Is The Builder

August 19, 2010 // 6 Comments

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The spirit is life.
The mind is the builder.
The physical is the result

–    American psychic and healer, Edgar Cayce

Why You Should Support Scroogle

August 14, 2010 // 7 Comments

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I took this from the Scroogle site and urge everyone to use their service as much as possible. For Net newbies, if you run Mozilla Firefox (and it’s hoped that you use that or Linux in preference to Microsoft, another privacy offender), click on Tools, go to Options, and then set your homepage to http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm, which will take you directly to the search box. You won’t get Google’s ads, junk sites, or page counts and the like, but the results are more than enough for most everyday searches. If you have the money, please VISIT THE SCROOGLE SITE AT SCROOGLE.ORG (http://www.scroogle.org/donatesc.html) AND MAKE YOUR DONATION THERE.

“There are two reasons why an ad-free scraper of Google’s main search results is important. One reason is personal, and the other is political.

On a personal level, your support for Scroogle says that search engines should not be tracking you and retaining this information indefinitely. Not only does Google scrape much of the web, but they keep records of who searches for what. If information about your searching is accessible by cookie ID or by your IP address, it is subject to subpoena. This is a violation of your privacy. Someday Google’s data retention practices will be regulated, because Google is too arrogant to do the right thing voluntarily. In the meantime, you should not be leaving your fingerprints in Google’s databases.

There are other proxies that can protect your privacy on the web. Almost all are general-purpose proxies that cloak all of your web activity behind an IP address that is not easily traced to your service provider. One is Anonymizer.com. A possible problem with this one is that the founder, Lance Cottrell, has connections with the FBI and the Voice of America. It also costs money for a reasonable level of service. Another is Tor, which is much more secure. But it is also slow, because Tor is a complicated system that needs networks of volunteers to run server software. Juvenile surfers from video pirates to rogue Wikipedia editors tend to clog free services such as Tor, which slows them down even more.

Since Scroogle does just one thing, it is fairly fast and simple. But because it does only one thing, it is vulnerable to action by Google. They could block our IP address, which would require that we relay requests to other servers that are more difficult for them to locate. They could also centralize their system more in order to better detect and throttle any outside address that does too many searches per minute. Finally, they could make minor changes in their output format on a regular basis, which would break our scraper and require frequent reprogramming. Any of the above might quickly get too complex and expensive for us, and that would be the end of Scroogle.

One action that Google is less likely to take is to serve Scroogle with a cease and desist letter. This introduces the second reason why Scroogle deserves support. As a nonprofit with a history of activism on privacy issues, it would be difficult for Google to sue us on the grounds that their search results and rankings are copyrighted. The main reason for this is that we are noncommercial. None of our sites has ever carried ads, we have zero employees, and our gross annual income is about $10,000. Our lack of commercial intent strengthens our claim that we have the right to scrape Google. It’s obvious that we are doing it in the public interest.

Showing Google’s results without their ads is another political statement. About 99 percent of Google’s total revenue comes from ads, and these are ruining the web. Thousands of “Made for AdSense” domains are spewing garbage. Since these sites need content to trigger Google’s ads, they steal it by scraping legitimate sites, or generate their own by purchasing junk from bulk writers. Meanwhile, click fraud is rampant. Zombie botnets are used to click on ads. If you cannot afford to buy a botnet from some shady character, then you can contract with someone in a country where labor is cheap. They will hire people to click on ads all day at below-minimum wage.

It’s time to stop pretending that Google’s revenue model is anything more than a temporary bubble, and it’s time for Google to start developing more socially-responsible sources of income. Showing Google’s results without the ads amounts to more public-interest advocacy. It says that the web spam situation is intolerable.

We remain vulnerable to blocking, throttling, or breaking by Google, which unfortunately is legal if they decide to stop us. But the longer Scroogle exists and the more our traffic grows, the stronger our statements become. We cannot survive many more months without at least one more server, even if Google leaves us alone. While we could apply for foundation grants, our experience tells us that foundations are about ten years behind on Internet and other high-tech issues. Any funding proposals we send out would strike them as bizarre and incomprehensible. It’s not worth our time to send out proposals to foundations.

That leaves us asking lots of Scroogle users for small contributions. Searchers who prefer Scroogle are making a unique statement about important issues. Nothing else we know of is making the same points as effectively. “

The Real US Border Fence

August 14, 2010 // 3 Comments

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MBP reader Clark posted this at Argentine survivalist Ferfal’s forum. I thought it worth republishing on the blog:

The Real US Border Fence

People seem to be focused on shoo-ing away the hands that reach out for free services rather than questioning the re-distributionist idea itself -  the idea of forcibly taking from one group and giving to another that started and still maintains the whole illegal immigration fiasco (not to mention the Al Capone-like environment created by bad laws).

What do people think happens when a store gives out free steak? Do they think people won’t show up in numbers and come back for seconds and thirds and hang around for more?

Rather than complain about (and take positive steps to end) the Free Steak Give-Away provided by the taxpayer, people focus on those who reach for the steak and the way they reach for it. Don’t get me wrong. People need to get mad as hell. But they need to focus on the true cause of the illegal immigration problem.

There’s a huge lack of clarity about this that needs to end. Does having a driver’s license mean a person knows how to drive? No. Obviously not. The same holds for immigration too. Documentation means nothing in the big scheme of things. Just look at the behavior of the fully legal American banksters who continue to do what everyone finds so repulsive. Obviously, it’s not legality that defines the morality or justice of anyone’s behavior.

On top of everything else, lawmakers are now talking about making a separate helot caste through Florida law. Don’t people realize that these sort of things have a tendency to expand and include everyone except the ruling class?

We don’t need an increase in tyrannical laws. We don’t need the the Berlin wall on America’s borders.

The notion that crime rates are specific to certain groups is misleading too. It’s not any particular group that’s the root cause of the problem. Just as an example, look at the black community in the U.S.A., prior to “goberment” stepping in and taking the place of the head of the household.  Before “goberment” assumed total responsibility for it (and, eventually, for all of us), the black community, especially in the DC area, was made up of  highly literate, low-crime, tightly-knit strong family units with a religious foundation -  just the kind people like Rush Limbaugh long for.

Forgotten history, I suppose, and perhaps the result of the Soviet-style subversion of education in America via “goberment” schooling.

So sure, people need to get mad as hell about illegal immigration.

But let’s also get mad at what’s really behind it.

Thomas Sowell On Bean Counting and Balkanization…

August 13, 2010 // 3 Comments

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Thomas Sowell at Lew Rockwell on when differences are just differences:

“In countries around the world, all sorts of groups differ from each other in all sorts of ways, from rates of alcoholism to infant mortality, education and virtually everything that can be measured, as well as in some things that cannot be quantified. If black and white Americans were the same, they would be the only two groups on this planet who are the same.

One of the things that got us started on heavy-handed government regulation of the housing market were statistics showing that blacks were turned down for mortgage loans more often than whites. The bean-counters in the media went ballistic. It had to be racism, to hear them tell it.

What they didn’t tell you was that whites were turned down more often than Asians. What they also didn’t tell you was that black-owned banks also turned down blacks more often than whites. Nor did they tell you that credit scores differed from group to group. Instead, the media, the politicians and the regulators grabbed some statistics and ran with them.

The bean-counters are everywhere, pushing the idea that differences show injustices committed by society. As long as we keep buying it, they will keep selling it – and the polarization they create will sell this country down the river.”

The Constitution And The Growth Of The State

August 13, 2010 // 0 Comments

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“The Constitution is like a chastity belt of which the lady herself has the key.”

–     Anthony De Jasay in “The State”

Newsweek’s Intelligence Connection

August 12, 2010 // 0 Comments

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Tim Shorrocks notes the ties that blind at The Daily Beast:

“Sidney Harman, who just bought Newsweek magazine, has for years been influential in the area of national security—and not just through his marriage to Rep. Jane Harman.

It’s well-known that Sidney Harman, the electronics mogul who just bought Newsweek, is married to Rep. Jane Harman, one of Washington’s heavyweights on intelligence.

Rep. Harman, a Democrat, spent eight years on the House Intelligence Committee and is chairwoman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence & Terrorism. She has had an intimate, and sometimes controversial, relationship to America’s spy agencies during her eight terms in Congress.

But few in Washington are aware that the real intelligence insider of the Harman family may be Sidney himself, through his connections to an obscure but highly influential organization known as Business Executives for National Security.

In many ways, BENS can be considered the godfather of the contracting revolution that transformed the U.S. government into a vast, $600 billion market for corporate America and made national security—and spying in particular—a gross vehicle for private enterprise. Over the past 28 years, BENS has participated in dozens of high-level commissions that have altered the way the Pentagon and the intelligence community do business, and has become a favored perch for former high-ranking officials and generals, from Henry Kissinger to Gen. Peter Pace.

Its leaders have historically been quite conservative; barely two months after the 9/11 attacks, founding BENS Chairman Stanley Weiss called on the Bush administration to remove Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq in the pages of the International Herald Tribune.

But it can also be pragmatic and run against the grain, as it did last year when it sent a delegation of American executives, including Ross Perot, to North Korea to meet with the government of Kim Jong Il to use the incentive of U.S. investments to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

Founded by Weiss, a mining and chemical executive who for years served as a director of Harman’s audio-equipment company, BENS today represents about 350 of the country’s largest manufacturing, transportation, information technology, communications, and national-security firms.

Harman himself chaired the organization’s executive committee from 1982 to 2009 and “contributed over $1 million over the years” to the organization, Weiss told The Daily Beast in an email from Indonesia. Although its CEO, retired Army General Montgomery C. Meigs, manages the organization, its corporate members, led by Harman, have set the pace. “Dr. Harman played an important role [in BENS] for a quarter century,” Weiss told me. “He was deeply involved in all aspects of BENS’ work.” Harman could not be reached for comment.

Originally, it was a kind of liberal alternative to the hawkish business organizations that flourished during the Cold War, and its early efforts focused on arms treaties. But it has evolved into a full-time consultant to the Pentagon on business practices, functioning as a liaison between government and industry. (Weiss, speaking for the organization, said BENS’ efforts in defense, intelligence and homeland security are aimed at “helping the country deal with the very bloated element of the miltary-industrial-congressional complex.”)

In its advisory role, BENS has been a driving force in the privatization of U.S. defense capabilities, including the outsourcing of the precious intelligence assets that Rep. Harman had direct oversight over for eight years as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Since 2001, it has expanded its ties with the intelligence community; last year, it elected Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency (and now a contractor himself), to its advisory council.

One of BENS’ biggest advisory projects came during the “reinventing government” days of the Clinton administration. The Tail-to-Tooth Commission, which included Harman and numerous defense contractors and privatization advocates, proposed a sweeping array of policy changes, and its recommendations were enthusiastically embraced by both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

Thus began a massive push toward outsourcing—and a new era defined by companies like Halliburton, and later, Blackwater……”

Bill Engdahl: Something Stinks About Wikileaks

August 12, 2010 // 1 Comment

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Update 1: Some previous posts on Wikileaks, for anyone who wants to see what changed my mind from positive… to wait-and-see…. to pee-yew. (I’ll add the rest soon..)

1. Iranian IT Expert Alleges Wikileaks Insurance Is Spy Trap

2. Douglas Valentine: CIA Tighter Than Ever With New Media

3. Open Society Institute Denies Its Foundations Fund Wikileaks

4. Wikileaks’ Sources In Sweden Unprotected, Report Confirms

5. The Ship That Leaks From The Top

6. State Department Report on Terrorism in 2009

7. Wikileaks Story Involves Fed Internet Spy Agency

8. The Tangled Web

9. Wikileaks On The Web

10. Chris Floyd On Wikileaks.

11. “Pirate” Site Hosted by Wikileaks’ ISP Publishes Data of Thousands of Facebook Users

12. Wikileaks Forces Debate On Afghanistan?

13. More on Assange and Wikileaks

14. Wikileaks’ Julian Assange In Danger From Pentagon?

15. Australia Confiscates Passport of Wikileaks Founder

16. Reports Suggest Wikileaks Might Be Front

Original Post:

Bill Engdahl seems to have come down in favor of the nay-sayers (and I suppose I’m one now).

Other than the usual suspects in the defense community and ardent terror-warriors, WL critics include:

1. Co-founder John Young (remaining agnostic about Assange’s personal credibility and reserving his strongest criticism for JA’s modus operandi, which is also my position)
2. Former NSA analyst Wayne Madsen (much more critical than Young of JA and fingering him as a CIA or Soros front)
3. Social anthropologist Max Forte (moderate skepticism about Assange’s MO)
4. Propaganda analyst and author of several books on the CIA and mind-control, Alex Constantine (citing Madsen)
5. Conspiracy site, Cryptogon, taking the position that disinformation should be suspect, by default. Also, Alex Jones and Co.
6. Parts of the center-left establishment (such as uber investigative mag, Mother Jones)
7. Former Larouche researcher and well-respected chronicler of the machinations of the Power Elite, Bill Engdahl

8. Former Larouche researcher and author of an internet classic on George Bush, Dr. Webster Tarpley

9. Long-time critic of empire, Chris Floyd.

Pro-Assange forces are broad and large and include the mainstream antiwar libertarian, liberal, and progressive crowd, most without reservation (LRC, Counterpunch, Kos, Antiwar, Scott Horton, Justin Raimondo etc.); others, with more circumspection.

The non-US media seems to be much more skeptical, if I can go by what I’ve read on the European and Asian blogosphere…..

Here’s Engdahl:

“Since the dramatic release of a US military film of a US airborne shooting of unarmed journalists in Iraq, Wiki-Leaks has gained global notoriety and credibility as a daring website that releases sensitive material to the public from whistle-blowers within various governments. Their latest “coup” involved alleged leak of thousands of pages of supposedly sensitive documents regarding US informers within the Taliban in Afghanistan and their ties to senior people linked to Pakistan’s ISI military intelligence. The evidence suggests however that far from an honest leak, it is a calculated disinformation to the gain of the US and perhaps Israeli and Indian intelligence and a coverup of the US and Western role in drug trafficking out of Afghanistan.

Since the posting of the Afghan documents some days ago the Obama White House has given the leaks credibility by claiming further leaks pose a threat to US national security. Yet details of the papers reveals little that is sensitive. The one figure most prominently mentioned, General (Retired) Hamid Gul, former head of the Pakistani military intelligence agency, ISI, is the man who during the 1980’s coordinated the CIA-financed Mujahideen guerilla war in Afghanistan against the Soviet regime there. In the latest Wikileaks documents, Gul is accused of regularly meeting Al Qaeda and Taliban leading people and orchestrating suicide attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The leaked documents also claim that Osama bin Laden, who was reported dead three years ago by the late Pakistan candidate Benazir Bhutto on BBC, was still alive, conveniently keeping the myth alive for the Obama Administration War on Terror at a point when most Americans had forgotten the original reason the Bush Administration allegedly invaded Afghanistan to pursue the Saudi Bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks.

Demonizing Pakistan?

The naming of Gul today as a key liaison to the Afghan “Taliban” forms part of a larger pattern of US and British recent efforts to demonize the current Pakistan regime as a key part of the problems in Afghanistan. Such a demonization greatly boosts the position of recent US military ally, India. Furthermore, Pakistan is the only muslim country possessing atomic weapons. The Israeli Defense Forces and the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency reportedly would very much like to change that. A phoney campaign against the politically outspoken Gul via Wikileaks could be part of that geopolitical effort.

The London Financial Times says Gul’s name appears in about 10 of roughly 180 classified US files that allege Pakistan’s intelligence service supported Afghan militants fighting Nato forces. Gul told the newspaper the US has lost the war in Afghanistan, and that the leak of the documents would help the Obama administration deflect blame by suggesting that Pakistan was responsible. Gul told the paper, “I am a very favourite whipping boy of America. They can’t imagine the Afghans can win wars on their own. It would be an abiding shame that a 74-year-old general living a retired life manipulating the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan results in the defeat of America.”

Notable, in light of the latest Afghan Wikileaks documents, is the spotlight on the 74-year-old Gul. As I wrote in a previous piece, Warum Afghanistan? Teil VI:Washingtons Kriegsstrategie in Zentralasien, published this June, Gul has been outspoken about the role of the US military in smuggling Afghan heroin out of the country via the top-security Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan.

As well, in a UPI interview on September 26, 2001, two weeks after the 9-11 attacks, Gul stated, in reply to the question who did Black Sept. 11?, “Mossad and its accomplices. The US spends $40 billion a year on its 11 intelligence agencies. That’s $400 billion in 10 years. Yet the Bush Administration says it was taken by surprise. I don’t believe it. Within 10 minutes of the second twin tower being hit in the World Trade Center CNN said Osama bin Laden had done it. That was a planned piece of disinformation by the real perpetrators…” [1] Gul is clearly not well liked in Washington. He claims his request for travel visas to the UK and to the USA have repeatedly been denied. Making Gul into the arch enemy would suit some in Washington nicely.

Who is Julian Assange?

Wikileaks founder and self-described “Editor-in-chief”, Julian Assange, is a mysterious 29 [39?, possibly] -year-old Australian about whom little is known. He has suddenly become a prominent public figure offering to mediate with the White House over the leaks. Following the latest leaks, Assange told Der Spiegel, one of three outlets with which he shared material from the most recent leak, that the documents he had unearthed would “change our perspective on not only the war in Afghanistan, but on all modern wars.” He stated in the same interview that ‘”I enjoy crushing bastards.” Wikileaks, founded in 2006 by Assange, has no fixed home and Assange claims he “lives in airports these days.”

Yet a closer examination of the public position of Assange on one of the most controversial issues of recent decades, the forces behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center shows him to be curiously establishment. When the Belfast Telegraph interviewed him on July 19, he stated,

“Any time people with power plan in secret, they are conducting a conspiracy. So there are conspiracies everywhere. There are also crazed conspiracy theories. It’s important not to confuse these two….” What about 9/11?: “I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.” What about the Bilderberg Conference?: “That is vaguely conspiratorial, in a networking sense. We have published their meeting notes.” [2]

That statement from a person who has built a reputation on being anti-establishment is more than notable. First, as thousands of physicists, engineers, military professionals and airline pilots have testified, the idea that 19 barely-trained Arabs armed with box-cutters could divert four US commercial jets and execute the near-impossible strikes on the Twin Towers and Pentagon over a time period of 93 minutes with not one Air Force NORAD military interception, is beyond belief. Precisely who executed the professional attack is a matter for genuine unbiased international inquiry.

Notable for Mr Assange’s blunt denial of any sinister 9/11 conspiracy is the statement in a BBC interview by former US Senator, Bob Graham, who chaired the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when it performed its Joint Inquiry into 9/11. Graham told BBC, “I can just state that within 9/11 there are too many secrets, that is information that has not been made available to the public for which there are specific tangible credible answers and that that withholding of those secrets has eroded public confidence in their government as it relates to their own security.” BBC narrator: “Senator Graham found that the cover-up led to the heart of the administration.” Bob Graham: “I called the White House and talked with Ms. Rice and said, ‘Look, we’ve been told we’re gonna get cooperation in this inquiry, and she said she’d look into it, and nothing happened.’”

Of course, the Bush Administration was able to use the 9/11 attacks to launch its War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and then Iraq, a point Assange conveniently omits.

For his part, General Gul claims that US intelligence orchestrated the Wikileaks on Afghanistan to find a scapegoat, Gul, to blame. Conveniently, as if on cue, British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, on a state visit to India, lashed out at the alleged role of Pakistan in supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, conveniently lending further credibility to the Wikileaks story. The real story of Wikileaks has clearly not yet been told.

Endnotes:

[1] General Hamid Gul, Arnaud de Borchgrave 2001 Interview with Hamid Gul, Former ISI Chief, UPI, reprinted July 2010 - read here

[2] Julian Assange, Interview in Belfast Telegraph, July 19, 2010.

Iranian IT Expert Alleges Wikileaks “Insurance” Is Spy Trap

August 12, 2010 // 1 Comment

Posted in: Uncategorized

More entertainment from the whole Wikileaks business. Now Iranian IT experts are weighing in. And no doubt they are as credible (or as little) as US IT experts. Caveat emptor is the best defense against the whole benighted world of “spies,” “snitches,” “leakers” and “hackers.”

No need to trust Messiahs, even when they come armed with hacker credentials…

Expert Cautions about Intelligence Trap in WikiLeaks ‘Insurance’ File

TEHRAN (FNA)- An Iranian IT expert warned here on Wednesday that a mysterious download file posted by the WikiLeaks website, labeled as ‘Insurance’, is likely a spy software used for identifying the information centers of the United States’ foes.

“The mysterious file of the WikiLeaks might be a trap for intelligence gathering,” Hossein Mohammadi told FNA on Wednesday.

The expert added that the file will attract US opponents and Washington experts can identify their enemy centers by monitoring individuals’ or organizations’ tendency and enthusiasm for the file.

Meantime, the expert said that the file is not so dangerous to the US as it is claimed because of its encrypted information and password lock.

Although the website manager has warned that he would disclose the password in the event of a “takedown” of WikiLeaks by the US authorities or if anything happens to its founder, Julian Assange, all those who download the file cannot see and use its contents because it has a password, and unlocking the file and processing its encrypted information requires access to super-computers normally owned by giant organizations and IT centers, he said.

“Then the US can find supercomputers, secrete sites, strategically important centers of the opponent countries, specially China, Russia and Iran, through the downloaded file,” the expert noted.

Earlier, the western media reported that in the wake of strong US administration statements condemning WikiLeaks’ recent publishing of 77,000 Afghan War documents, the secret-spilling site has posted a mysterious encrypted file labeled “insurance.”

The huge file, posted on the Afghan War page at the WikiLeaks site, is 1.4 GB and is encrypted with AES256. The file’s size dwarfs the size of all the other files on the page combined. The file has also been posted on a torrent download site.

WikiLeaks posted several files containing the 77,000 Afghan war documents in a single “dump” file and in several other files containing versions of the documents in various searchable formats.

It’s not known what the file contains but it could include the balance of data that US Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning claimed to have leaked to Assange before he was arrested in May.

In chats with former hacker Adrian Lamo, Manning disclosed that he had provided Assange with a different war log cache than the one that WikiLeaks already published.

This one was said to contain 500,000 events from the Iraq War between 2004 and 2009. WikiLeaks has never commented on whether it received that cache.

Additionally, Manning said he sent Assange video showing a deadly 2009 US firefight near the Garani village in Afghanistan that local authorities say killed 100 civilians, most of them children, as well as 260,000 US State Department cables. “

Douglas Valentine: CIA Tighter Than Ever With New Media

August 12, 2010 // 1 Comment

Posted in: Uncategorized

The more I hear how Wikileaks has been threatened with assassination etc. etc., and the more I hear, “just like so-and-so,” the more I sense something fishy.

How much frantic cueing does it take to get us to turn our heads in the same direction?

Douglas Valentine talking to Susan Mazur:

“To answer your question about the connections between the CIA and the media and new media – I’d say they’re tighter than ever. It has to do with the centralization of wealth and influence. News organizations used to be a lot of independent owners of news outlets. There’s now less and less of that.

It goes hand in hand with the consolidation of capital in the United States. The media’s in the hands of fewer and fewer people, and those people are closer and closer to the imperial interests of the United States abroad. Their interests are now more in tune with the interests of the CIA. And they’re more likely to skew, without even being agents of the CIA.

So you don’t have to rely on the old boy system anymore; accommodating the CIA is built into the system because of the consolidation of capital.

It’s been reported that the CIA writes for Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. So establishing and corroborating sources is more important now than ever. Also, since Watergate and Deep Throat, there’s a tendency on the part of CIA-connected journalists like Bob Woodward and Seymour Hersh to use anonymous sources. Just another sign of how incestuous it is between the media and the CIA.”

Open Society Institute Denies Its Foundations Fund Wikileaks

August 12, 2010 // 2 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

John Young at Cryptome had the following exchange with George Soros’ Open Society Institute (ISI) about Wikileaks.  I’m posting it below, although, to my mind, if there were a link it’s unlikely to be one so obvious. Still, since Wayne Madsen made the claim, I think it’s fair to follow up on it.

Note: The denial specifies ‘the Open Society Foundations‘; Young’s question addresses ‘the OSI or other initiatives funded by George Soros. It’s not clear to me that the foundations are the only Soros initiatives or that OSI is the only way funding might reach someone. However, since at least one group denies funding, that is a score for Wikileaks.

Also note that John Young has been quite scathing of people who smear Wikileaks from ulterior motives, claiming that one or two of Al Jazeera’s correspondents, while claiming to be asking on behalf of AJ, might be pursuing other agendas.

Dear Ms. Viczian,

This is the second time Al Jazeera has misled me into providing
information under guise of being interviewed for an appearance.

Claire Clark of Al Jazeera did the same on July 30, 2010. Her
initial message below, followed by telephone calls asking urgently
for more information, just as you have, claiming a deadline was near.

Ms. Clark lost her temper on the telephone at my accusation, but could
not effectively deny it, instead sceamed at me about her reputation
and accomplishments. I reminded that flaunting reputation is also
part of the tactic to conceal ulterior motives. I told he she was
lying about her reputation. That set off another scream of fake
outrage.

These are a common tactics employed by intelligence and law enforcement
agencies. I told Ms. Clark and I tell you, you are liars, working on behalf
of undisclosed parties under disguise of Al Jazeera. 

These are unbelievable pretenses, although that is a trademark of
Al Jazeera.

John Young
Cryptome.org

I’ve had similar experiences. Someone calls up pretending they want an interview. They interview at length…taking information and research..and then you never hear from them, or a miniscule amount of the interview appears somewhere, only to be later deleted. Meanwhile, you have worked for nothing…

Professional journalists (if one dares to give them that title) are some of the most ignorant, arrogant, and ethically- challenged “professionals” around, and yet, they are the filters through which most of us get to see the world. A truly frightening thought.

Either way, credible or not credible, the end result of all the leaking seems to me more confusion rather than less..

CRYPTOME:

10 August 2010

Subject: FW: Site Submission From Contact Us Form
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:31:36 -0400
From: “Amy P. Weil” <AWeil[at]sorosny.org>
To: <cryptome[at]earthlink.net>Dear John Young,

Thank you for your query.

The Open Society Foundations do not support Wikileaks.org.

Best regards,

Amy Weil

soros-osi-2006.zip    George Soros OSI Foundation Tax Report 2006      August 10, 2010 (5.7MB)
soros-osi-2007.zip    George Soros OSI Foundation Tax Report 2007      August 10, 2010 (5.7MB)

9 August 2010. A has provided Soros Open Society Institute Foundation 2008 Tax Report:

soros-osi-2008.zip    George Soros OSI Foundation Tax Report 2008      August 9, 2010 (6.7MB)

No obvious mention of Wikileaks in the report.

9 August 2010

A writes:

I’ve been following coverage of Wikileaks’ release of the Afghan Diaries closely, and have admired your skepticism. I feel firmly we are on the same page. However, I would like to make an attempt to clear some possible disinformation that is floating about. While it’s obvious that the “diaries” are a mix of propaganda and publicly available information, I do suspect the entire operation is funded from a controlling interest.

Thank you for taking the time to read this far, and allow me to voice my concern. Many are running with the claim that Wikileaks was funded by The Open Society Institute. (Soros connection). I, myself, suspected the same, after Declan’s CNET interview with you…

“Operating a Web site to post leaked documents isn’t very expensive (Young estimates he spends a little over $100 a month for Cryptome’s server space). So when other Wikileaks founders started to talk about the need to raise $5 million and complained that an initial round of publicity had affected “our delicate negotiations with the Open Society Institute and other funding bodies,” Young says, he resigned from the effort.”

However, judging by that article, it’s just not clear to me, whether or not Open Society Institute, in fact, provided funding for Wikileaks.

http://www.soros.org/contact

Does the Open Society Institute or other initiatives financed by Mr. George Soros support Wikileaks.org, its staff, supporters or its affiliates, either directly or indirectly though other parties.

If financial or other support is provided could you describe it: extent, time frame, terms and conditions?

Your response will be published on the public education website Cryptome.org of which I am the administrator.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

John Young
Cryptome.org
251 West 89th Street
New York, NY 10024
212-873-8700

Contact

Thank you for contacting the Open Society Institute. Your message has been forwarded to the appropriate department for review.

We make every effort possible to respond to all inquiries—and in a timely fashion. However, due to the volume of email received, we cannot guarantee a response to every message.

General information about OSI and the Soros foundations network may be found in the About Us section of this website. Specific information about OSI programs and projects may be found in the Initiatives section.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/sample_request_letter.asp

9 August 2010

By mail and fax to: (703) 613-3007

Information and Privacy Coordinator
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505

Dear Coordinator:

Under the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. subsection 552, I am requesting information or records on Wikileaks.org, Julian Assange and others unknown associated with Wikileaks and its affiliates.

Please supply the records without informing me of the cost if the fees do not exceed $1,000.00, which I agree to pay.

If you deny all or any part of this request, please cite each specific exemption you think justifies your refusal to release the information and notify me of appeal procedures available under the law.

Information or records provided by you will be published on the public education website Cryptome.org for which I am the administrator.

If you have any questions about handling this request, you may telephone me at (212) 873-8700.

Sincerely,

John Young
Cryptome.org
251 West 89th Street
New York, NY 10024

German Court Approves Surveillance Of Leftist Leaders

August 11, 2010 // 2 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

Earlier, I posted Dr. Wolfgang Eggert’s petition against the Iraq war, but I’ve felt since then that the call to ban theocratic groups has more than a few problems with it that I should point out.

I understand the urge to do something forceful about an increasingly dangerous situation, but banning entails surveillance and surveillance is inherently expansive.

How does the government know which groups will turn out to be dangerous? It will have to monitor a much larger pool of allegedly “extremist” groups. Out of those the dangerous ones will be very few, but that won’t stop the net being cast wider and wider.

A second danger stemming from a ban is that the criteria employed are also likely to expand over time.  Theocrats and Nazis today. Conservatives and socialists tomorrow. Recent developments in Germany demonstrate this. Last month, the courts, which have already let the government deny the right of association to neo-Nazi groups, moved to uphold the government’s right to monitor certain leftist groups, with “historic” ties to the Communist party and “links” to violent extremists.

Clearly, such language is tenuous  at best and only illustrates how slippery this terrain can get both legally and morally…..

From Jurist.org (July 21, 2010).

“A German federal court on Wednesday ruled the government’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (OPC) can keep tabs on members of the socialist Left party using publicly available information. The decision overturns a ruling by a state court in North Rhine-Westphalia, which had said it was not appropriate for Germany’s intelligence agency to be gathering a file on The Left’s Thuringia state party leader Bodo Ramelow.

In its ruling the, court stated that the party has unconstitutional goals, which makes the government surveillance legitimate. The Left party has some historic ties to the former East German Communist party and has been linked to violent left-wing extremist groups. The suit challenging the surveillance was filed by Ramelow, who has indicated that he will appeal the court’s decision to the Constitutional Court.

The German government continues monitoring the rise of extremist groups and attempting to limit their influence within the country. Last November, the Constitutional Court upheld legislation prohibiting public support and justification of the Nazi regime. The ruling means that neo-Nazis are forbidden from assembling for the purposes of of approving, glorifying or justifying the Nazi regime.”

Our Soviet School System

August 11, 2010 // 6 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

Alan Caruba describes the subversion of the educational system (LRC):

(Note: I previously posted a left-oriented perspective of the government’s nefarious influence on education. As you probably know by now, I think an excessively ideological approach is something the power elite love - it keeps everyone fighting their neighbors while the PE get away with murder and mayhem…)

“I’ll bet you think that the problems with our nation’s schools are a fairly recent phenomenon. Wrong. It dates backs to the 1960’s. Those that have implemented the subversion of our educational system have sought to fly well below the radar of public awareness, depending on stealth and duplicity to achieve the wreckage that has already stunted the lives of thousands who have passed through it.

No other topic has evoked as much email as did our weekly “Warning Signs” commentary, “Indoctrination, Not Education.” Good. Time to wake up America!

In this and three other commentaries, I will walk you through the history of the problem with the help of an extraordinary book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. The facts I will share with you are found in a fat compendium of research by this former senior official with the US Department of Education who discovered the mother lode, copied it, and fled. She is one of America’s unsung heroes.

As Iserbyt points out, in the 1960’s “American education would henceforth concern itself with the importance of the group rather than with the importance of the individual.” The purpose of education would shift to focus on the student’s emotional health, rather than academic learning. Remember the 1960’s? Sex, drugs and rock’n roll? Drop out, tune in, and turn on? Just about everything that is wrong with America today had its genesis in this pathetic decade of youthful self-indulgence.

In 1965, there were two major federal initiatives developed with funding from The Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed that year. One was the 1965–1969 Behavioral Science Teacher Education Program and the other was the publication by the government of “Pacesetters in Innovation,” a 584-page catalogue of behavior modification programs to be used by the schools.

Let me repeat that: a catalogue of behavior modification programs! We’re not talking of programs to teach students anything. We are talking about programs to indoctrinate children passing through the system to believe in values contrary to those on which this nation was based.

In brief, the intention was to create a generation or two of Americans who would accept the United Nations, not the United States, as their new “nation,” a global nation, one-world government. The last thing the conspirators wanted was a nation of individuals who could or would actually think for themselves. This is how we ended up with Bill Clinton, the classic student achiever of the 1960’s.

Iserbyt writes that, “In 1960, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Convention Against Discrimination was signed in Paris. This convention laid the groundwork for control of American education, both public and private, by UN agencies and agents.”

Now connect the dots. In 1960, “Soviet Education Programs: Foundations, Curriculums, Teacher Preparation” was published under the auspices of the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare. It was the blueprint for the US school-to-work restructuring that would take place and it would rely on the “Pavlovian conditioned reflex theory.” The mastermind of mind control and conditioning was a psychologist, Dr. B.F. Skinner, who was the guru of the mess that passes for education in America today.

Though hard to believe even now, the US adopted the Soviet Communist approach to education. In 1961, Rep. John M. Ashbrook tried to alert Congress to what was happening. Citing a document published by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare called “A Federal Education Agency for the Future,” he called the new education programs “a blueprint for complete domination and direction of our schools from Washington. Guess what? He was right.

That is why the educational reform this nation really needs is the complete elimination of the US Department of Education. It won’t happen. For the same reason we are now only learning that those “Red baiters” of the 1950’s were right to assert the Department of State was shot through with Communists, no one in 2001 is going to believe that the US Department of Education is modeled on Communist theories.”

BP’s Silent Siren

August 10, 2010 // 2 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

From The Rag Blog:

“Now, comes the disquieting news that the emergency alarm on the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico was turned off the night that 11 workers were killed, and that the biggest oil spill in U.S. history began to wreak havoc. This news comes not from a CEO at BP, but, as is so often the case, from a worker — from Mike Williams, who was the chief electronics engineer on the rig. Williams recently told investigators that the alarm was turned off deliberately so that workers would sleep through the night and not be woken by “false” alarms. Hey, who wants to lose sleep, especially when the world might be blown to kingdom come?”

The Defense-Academic Complex At U Penn

August 10, 2010 // 5 Comments

Posted in: Ideology, Uncategorized

Aletho News:

“The Pentagon permeates everyday life in America. Its influence, along with that of the 15 U.S. intelligence agencies, is almost everywhere. From movies like Iron Man and G.I. Joe to video games like Halo 2 and America’s Army, from Home Depot to Google, from MIT to Harvard, the list of Pentagon-sponsored corporations, institutions and products is miles long.

Of course, with two wars going strong and more than 800 military bases in 40 different countries and overseas territories, our global military presence is massive and requires maintenance. As a result, the U.S. accounts for nearly half of all military spending across the globe.

All in all, this presence has meant 60 years of near-constant warfare for America. Between the end of World War II and the end of the Kosovo conflict, the U.S. engaged in more than 200 non-covert military operations, according to a tally by the Federation of American Scientists.

But what does this have to do with you? Penn is part of the “military-industrial complex” (to borrow a term from President Eisenhower) that keeps America’s war machine running. In fact, academia in general is a key pillar in the apparatus that produces weapons, technology, information and innovation for America’s military bureaucracy and its private corporate partners.

According to a 2002 report by the Association of American Universities, nearly 350 colleges and universities do Pentagon-funded research. The Department of Defense (DoD) is, in fact, the third-largest provider of funding for university research, after the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Penn is a microcosm of this reality. It has a long history with the DoD, as well as the CIA and the FBI, including a decade-long stint in the 1950s and ‘60s as one of the premier institutions for secret chemical and biological weapons research in the country. Penn does not engage in classified research today, but non-classified research continues apace. For example, in the 2009 fiscal year Penn received approximately $34.3 million in funding from the DoD, according to Penn’s Vice Provost for Research Dr. Steven Fluharty. This money represents only 4.8 percent of total government-sponsored research at the university, but since Pentagon money is often concentrated in very specific departments and laboratories, it has a large impact on a number of disciplines, especially engineering, computer science and math.

The Coming Robot Army: The Case of the GRASP Lab

Penn’s General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Lab is an interdisciplinary research center nestled neatly into the fourth floor of the Engineering School’s Levine Hall. Bringing together engineers, biologists, mathematicians and computer scientists, the GRASP Lab develops sophisticated robots and the operating systems on which they depend. As a result, it is an on-campus favorite of the Pentagon, which is currently working to replace a large swath of U.S. military personnel with robots and drones.

Almost all of what is being undertaken at the GRASP Lab involves graduate students. The end product is often a series of algorithms, a computer system or a conceptual framework — no one at Penn is developing actual bombs or missiles. And because such research is basic, it also has potential applications outside the realm of war, in search and rescue missions, for instance. Yet as far as the DoD is concerned, the work the GRASP Lab does is the first link in a chain of research and development on which the Department depends as it develops technology for use on the battlefield.

Many have read about the drones the U.S. military is using to conduct bombing raids and surveillance operations in the Middle East. According to Defense Industry Daily, Penn professors, through the SWARMS project, are trying to get those drones to “autonomously converge on enemy troops, aircraft and ships, decide what to do, then engage the enemy with surveillance or weapons to help U.S. forces defeat them. All this without direct human intervention.”

SWARMS, which stands for Scalable Swarms of Autonomous Robots and Mobile Sensors and is headed by Penn professor Vijay Kumar, was funded by a $5 million grant from the Army Research Office. The project is near completion, but similar technology is being developed and applied further under another project, Micro Autonomous System Technologies (MAST) Alliance. This was funded by a $22 million grant for 10 years from the Army Research Lab — the single largest grant in the Engineering School’s history. Like SWARMS, the project is working to enhance “warfighting capabilities” and “situational awareness” in “complex terrain, such as caves and mountains, or an urban environment,” according to the Army.

The SWARMS project and MAST Alliance are being developed for use in the drones that have a central role in the military’s strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan and are highly publicized in U.S. media. These technologies, nevertheless, are controversial. The New York Times estimates that such attacks have killed approximately 700 Pakistani civilians between 2006 and 2009, while the New America Foundation reports that between 250 and 320 Pakistani civilians have been killed in drone bombings over the same period.

For another project, the Nano Air Vehicle, professor Mark Yim says he received a 10-month $1.7 million contract from Lockheed Martin, the largest arms manufacturer in the world an

d a subcontractor of the DoD. His task was to help develop a 1.5-inch flying robot that looks like a maple tree seed and includes a “chemical rocket enclosed in its one-bladed wing,” a tiny robot that can fly in the air, conduct surveillance operations and readily deliver two-gram “payloads,” a euphemism for bombs, rockets, surveillance devices or whatever else can fit in its minuscule frame.

When researchers were asked about the ethical implications of their work — the preceding examples are only a brief sampling of Penn’s military research — almost all of them took refuge in “hope.” Kumar, for instance, said he “would hope that [the SWARMS technology] would be used to save human lives.” The military, however, has a clearer view of what it wants out of Kumar’s project and others like it. Discussing its overall research agenda in its 2008 annual report, the ARO stated: “The vision of the Director, Army Research Office is to develop the science and technology that will maintain the Army’s overwhelming capability in the expanding range of present and future operations.” In other words, SWARMS and projects like it are meant for war.

Intelligence Agencies, Mandarin Teachers and Covert Classrooms

Research is not the only area of university life in which the military and intelligence establishment are interested. What happens in the classroom has also become a priority for certain agencies. The most notable example of this phenomenon is the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program (PRISP). With the advent of PRISP, the federal government now operates its own secret scholarship program for future spies and intelligence analysts.

The brainchild of anthropologist Felix Moos and Senator Pat Roberts, “PRISP links undergraduate and graduate students with U.S. security and intelligence agencies like the NSA or CIA, and unannounced to universities, professors or fellow-students, PRISP students enter American campuses, classrooms, laboratories and professors’ offices without disclosing links to these agencies,” according to anthropologist and reporter David Price.

Participants in PRISP receive up to $50,000 in tuition and stipends over a two-year period for university programs that have been approved by one of the U.S. intelligence agencies. In return for this funding, each participant must work as an analyst for the approving agency for at least one and a half years. There is no way to tell if PRISP students are active on Penn’s campus, and that’s the point. Nobody knows who is or is not a soon-to-be secret agent or analyst for the government.

There are other cases in which intelligence agencies are operating openly on Penn’s campus. The most explicit example is that of International Relations 290, Introduction to Theory and Practice of Counterintelligence. Frank Plantan, Bruce Newsome and Anne-Louise Antonoff will teach this undergraduate course for the first time this spring. The course is not particularly unique, except for the fact that the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX) developed it.

International Relations 290 came about when a representative from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) approached the International Relations department at a national security symposium held at Penn in the spring of 2009. Plantan, a co-director of the undergraduate International Relations program, says that both the curriculum and the syllabus for the course came from the DNI (of which OCNIX is a part), which will also send speakers to Penn to discuss the various subjects the class will cover. Penn professors merely teach the material that is provided.

Another example of visible operation of intelligence agencies at Penn is the Startalk Penn High School Chinese Academy. In 2006 the National Security Agency (NSA), in partnership with the University of Maryland, began sponsoring a series of language programs in an initiative called Startalk that teach “critical languages” — those deemed important by the national security establishment — to youth across the country. At Penn, Startalk kicked off in the summer of 2007, when 30 high school students and four local teachers received government subsidies to learn the intricacies of the Chinese language from Penn faculty. The program has continued every summer since.

Mien-hwa Chiang, one of the faculty members involved, recognizes that this program is the U.S. government’s attempt to develop the capacity to exert “soft power ” in the realms of language, culture and communication. She acknowledges, however, that while the students are familiar with the Startalk name they do not know that the program is an NSA initiative. In fact, in scanning Startalk promotional material it is nearly impossible to find any mention of the NSA.

Penn sophomore Chloe Summers participated in the Startalk program two years in a row before enrolling at Penn. She said that while she assumed the program had something to do with the government, she was never told that she was involved in a national security initiative. “Basically what I thought is they are trying to get students to learn Chinese so [the government] can hire them in the future. But it wasn’t explicitly said, they didn’t say it was sponsored by the NSA. It was very ambiguous,” she says. As with INTR 290, an intelligence agency is taking an active role in the classroom with Startalk. But in this case, children under the age of 18 are being incorporated into a national security strategy without full disclosure.

Footnotes from History

None of this is new to Penn. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, according to documents obtained at the University Archives, Penn’s now-defunct Institute for Cooperative Research researched biological and chemical weapons and developed delivery systems for them, funded by massive secret grants from the Pentagon. Back then, students could take Political Science 551, Strategic Intelligence and National Policy, a “thinly disguised training course for future intelligence agents” taught by a pair of former spies, according to a 1966 report in Ramparts magazine title “A War Catalog of the University of Pennsylvania.”

A string of revelations in the 1970s, many of which appeared in reports in the Daily Pennsylvanian, revealed the extent of Penn’s covert involvement with the national security establishment: In 1977, for instance, declassified CIA documents revealed that Penn had participated in the CIA’s secret MKULTRA mind-control experiments, which used narcotics, electric shocks, poisons and chemicals on volunteers, unwitting human subjects and prisoners. Declassified documents from the FBI’s domestic spying program, COINTEPLRO, revealed that at least one member of the University administration in the late 1960s was an FBI informant and that the FBI had attempted to influence coverage in the DP during the same period. It also came to light that the CIA had spied on student protestors in 1969 and that the University’s own campus security force had a history of spying on left-wing student dissident groups. The last revelation led to the resignation of two members of the University administration.

This is all to say that Penn has long been a stomping ground of the military and the U.S. intelligence establishment. There is one major difference, however, between the past and the present. Back then, when students learned about these issues, they took action. For instance, after the secret germ warfare research was revealed a series of large student protests shook the campus, including a six-day occupation of College Hall by 1,000 students and community members. Student action was supported by the faculty senate, which threatened to chastise Penn President Gaylord Harnwell if he did not cancel the secret germ warfare contracts. These actions worked: The contracts were canceled. Penn no longer engages in secret research.

These were the days when young people had their say. It was the age of the student power movement, which took seriously President Eisenhower’s warning, when he said: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Buy & Bail: Rich Bail-Out Babies Try New Fraud

August 10, 2010 // 0 Comments

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Here are the poor, dear, desperate suffering home-owners whom savers (often retired folks on pensions, or thrifty low-income people) have to bail out:

Bloomberg:

“Harvey Collier, a mortgage broker in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, says he gets as many as 10 calls a month from people planning to default on their loans. The twist: They first want financing to buy another home.

Real estate professionals call it “buy and bail,” acquiring a new house before the buyer’s credit rating is ruined by walking away from the old one because it’s “underwater,” or worth less than the mortgage. It’s an attempt to escape payments on a home whose value may never recover while securing a new property, often at a lower price with a more affordable loan.

The practice, which constitutes fraud if borrowers lie on loan applications, is continuing even after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the biggest U.S. mortgage-finance companies, beefed up standards to prevent it, according to brokers such as Collier and Meg Burns, senior associate director for congressional affairs and communications at the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Whether driven by greed or desperation, the persistency of buy and bail underscores the lingering impact of the worst housing crash since the Great Depression.

“People were holding on, hoping the market would turn around,” Collier, who won’t work with applicants who intend to go into foreclosure, said in a telephone interview. “But now they’re giving up because there’s no light at the end of the tunnel in places like Florida.”

It’s bad enough that the thrifty and prudent have to foot the bill for all these slick white-collar tricksters, but on top of that, we’re supposed to be broken-hearted for them……

FOMC Buys Time: Gold Up, Dollar Down

August 10, 2010 // 0 Comments

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The Fed announcement today:

“The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.

To help support the economic recovery in a context of price stability, the Committee will keep constant the Federal Reserve’s holdings of securities at their current level by reinvesting principal payments from agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in longer-term Treasury securities.¹ The Committee will continue to roll over the Federal Reserve’s holdings of Treasury securities as they mature. “

Hard to tell exactly how this will pan out, but, for now, gold popped up and the dollar sank…

Bombs Against Burqas: White Men Rescue Brown Women From Brown Men..

August 10, 2010 // 0 Comments

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Bretigne Shaffer has an excellent analysis at Lew Rockwell on the way the media is, again, drumming up support for expansion of the war in Afghanistan by appealing to women’s rights. This was precisely the same strategy employed during the war in Iraq, when statistics about female kidnapping, honor killings and so on were massaged to argue that further American intervention in the area was needed, when, in point of fact, the opposite was true - it was the US intervention that had  provoked the deterioration in the general economic picture and, as a consequence, the treatment of women. This is in keeping with the old colonial strategy decribed by post-colonial feminist critics -  “White men rescuing brown women from brown men…”.

“The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission reported in March of 2008 that violence against women had nearly doubled from the previous year, and a 2009 Human Rights Watch report concludes that “(w)hereas the trend had clearly been positive for women’s rights from 2001–2005, the trend is now negative in many areas.” Other reports (including one from Amnesty International in May of 2005) call the first part of that statement into question:

Says Ann Jones, journalist and author of Kabul in Winter, “For most Afghan women, life has stayed the same. And for a great number, life has gotten much worse.”

Sonali Kolhatkar, co-director of the Afghan Women’s Mission, says “the attacks against women both external and within the family have gone up. Domestic violence has increased. (The current) judiciary is imprisoning more women than ever before in Afghanistan. And they are imprisoning them for running away from their homes, for refusing to marry the man that their family picked for them, for even being a victim of rape.”

Anand Gopal, Afghanistan correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, says “The situation for women in the Pashtun area is actually worse than it was during the Taliban time. …(U)nder the Taliban, women were kept in burqas and in their homes, away from education. Today, the same situation persists. They’re kept in burqas, in homes, away from education, but on top of that they are also living in a war zone.”

“Five years after the fall of the Taliban, and the liberation of women hailed by Laura Bush and Cherie Blair, thanks to the US and British invasion,” wrote The Independent’s Kim Sengupta in November of 2006, “such has been the alarming rise in suicide that a conference was held on the problem in the Afghan capital just a few days ago.”

The US military has made life worse for women in Afghanistan, not better. Is it possible that a US exit will result in their lives becoming even worse than they are now, as Bret Stephens and Time magazine fear? Of course it is possible. But what is certain is that the occupation has had a harmful effect on the lives of the vast majority of Afghan civilians – not a positive one as the promoters of war as a vehicle for social change assert. Also indisputable is that the Taliban has grown in strength since the occupation began, and it only continues to do so. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has looked closely at the motives for terrorism. Even US intelligence agencies have acknowledged that the US occupation of Iraq has strengthened Islamic fundamentalism and .”..made the overall terrorism problem worse.”

To call for even more certain death and destruction as a defense against imagined, possible worse bloodshed reveals a curious kind of moral reasoning. For let’s not forget what it is that Time magazine (despite its protestations to the contrary) and Stephens are defending: The indiscriminate killing of innocent men, women and children, in the pursuit of what they believe to be some greater good.”

Rick Ackerman: Debt Burden Defines Deflation

August 9, 2010 // 1 Comment

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Rick Ackerman argues that the burden of debt is the key to identifying whether it is the “I” word or the “D” word at work in the economy today: 

“Concerning the inflation-vs-deflation debate, we’re going to try and kick the level of discussion up a notch or two with a couple of suggestions.  First, because the pro and con arguments often bog down in pseudo-intellectual claptrap about what constitutes “money,” we are going to provide you with foolproof way to recognize deflation for what it is – namely, an increase in the real burden of debt. Some will say that this is just a symptom of inflation, but we would tell them that it is ultimately only the symptoms that matter. Trust us on this: You’re a deflationist, just like us, if you believe that paying off your mortgage, servicing the $200,000 debt your daughter racked up attending Vassar, and retiring at 65 will not get any easier within the foreseeable future. If, on the other hand, you believe that Helicopter Ben and his band of tooth fairies will come to the rescue, raising your real income very substantially and causing perpetual increases in the value of your home sufficient to allow you to borrow against it just like in the good old days, then you are an inflationist.

When Money Dies

Our second suggestion is that you beg, buy, steal or borrow a copy of Adam Fergusson’s book, When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Hyper-inflation. Used original copies of this minutely detailed and fascinating work go for upwards of $800, but if you search the web for the title, you can turn up cheaper ways to access it.  The book is essential for anyone who wants to understand why it would be impossible for the U.S. to trigger off a hyperinflation in the way the Germans did. The mechanisms simply don’t exist.  Fergusson will save you the trouble of searching a million web pages to find out how all those D-marks actually got into the hands of German workers. Surely this question has occurred to you, right?  Nearly all sources say the same thing – i.e., that the government revved up the printing presses, and… Bitteschön!… hyperinflation simply happened. In fact, putting a google of D-marks into circulation required a degree of collusion between the government and major employers that could not exist in the U.S. without major changes in the law.

It turns out that certain large German companies were allowed to print their own money in times of emergency. Because they did so most promiscuously when Germany’s official-currency printers were on strike, as occurred several times, the ironic result was that the most severe stretches of hyperinflation during the nearly three-year period occurred when sovereign notes were not even being printed. Another revelation from Fergusson is that some officials failed to see a hyperinflation threat even when money-creation was at full-bore. Would America’s political leaders be so stupid as to let hyperinflation occur inadvertently? And, was screwing the allies out of war reparations Germany’s motive for hyperinflating? In fact, maintaining a high level of employment was the original goal, and it worked to the extent that Germany in 1921 had full employment while the war’s victors were wallowing in joblessness. This book is a great read, and the answers you’ve been looking for are all here. ”

Matt Simmons, BP Oil Spill Pessimist Dies Of Heart Attack (Updated)

August 9, 2010 // 0 Comments

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Update 5:

Simmon’s opinions about the Gulf Oil spill seem, in retrospect, to have been discredited by events and reports that appear to show that the spill was far, far less of a disaster than imagined. That being the case, what would be a cogent thesis that would explain what’s been going on so far? (more to come)

Note: We’ve never bought the “peak oil” thesis, at least not in its black-and-white incarnation (”The world is running completely out of oil”). We’ve always subscribed to some version of the abiotic theory, since we read about it in a newsletter put out by respected fund manager Bill Miller (of Legg Mason).

Update 4:

This blog post suggesting some kind of a “hit” on Simmons is showing up on the first page of a Google search for “Matt Simmons death,” so, to all appearances, it’s not conspiracy-mongering per se that’s the problem for the powers-that-be (PTB).

It’s who mongers a given conspiracy. Yours truly is, apparently, not “licensed to spill” (sigh)….

Anyway, the post suggests that Simmons might have become persona non grata for whistle-blowing on the BP story. However,  if you read through commentary about Simmon’s public pronouncements, knowledgeable insiders seem to think he was a panic-monger with a vested interest in what he said, not a whistle-blower. His public statements were intended to bolster stock positions he held. He was, after all, a friend of the Hunt brothers -  famous for having tried to corner the silver market…

Of course, there’s no reason Simmons couldn’t be a panic-monger who turned into a whistle-blower…. or some variant thereof.

So, while I think his death certainly falls under the category of “suspicious,” what the reasons are and who the perpetrators might be are questions that are a bit more complicated than one would first think. Someone who was an adviser to George Bush, did work for Halliburton (which, along with Transocean and BP, was involved in the Macondo well), “exposed” the Saudis about the depletion of their oil stocks, put a lot of money into alternative energy businesses that stood to profit from the demise of the oil industry,  pushed the “peak oil” thesis, tried to short BP stock to a dollar without disclosing his position publicly, and recently pronounced the oil business dead….is likely to have made more than one enemy.

Update 3:

Died in his hot tub from drowning, with heart disease as the contributing factor. That’s the verdict of of the autopsy on Monday.

“Matthew Simmons’ body was found Sunday night in his hot tub, investigators said. An autopsy by the state medical examiner’s office concluded Monday that he died from accidental drowning with heart disease as a contributing factor”

Update 2:

One report says that the cause of death is not confirmed:

Bangor Daily News Today 01:55 PM in reply to MyNameIsTaken

Updating as I go along:

*Coincidentally,  when this news came over PR wire, I was blogging about remote brain-sensing and researching microwave-induced heart attacks (a technology that’s been around for 30 years).

(This train of thought was set off by a link about electronic surveillance and induced illness in the comments section to a recent post about GPS surveillance).

“Neurological research has found that the brain has specific frequencies for each voluntary movement called preparatory sets. When you pick up an object, there is a specific preparatory set for this action. By firing at your chest a microwave beam containing the ELF signals given off by the heart, this organ can be put into a chaotic state, the so called heart attack. In this way, high profile leaders of political parties, who are prone to heart attacks, can be killed off -before they cause any trouble. Neil Kinnock’s Labour government was allegedly cheated out of an election victory by postal vote rigging in twenty key marginal seats. When a new even more electable Labour leader was found, it is rumoured that John Smith, the then Labour leader, was prompted to have a fatal heart attack, while walking in the country with his family, by means of a concealed microwave device which operated on the Vagus nerve to bring about a massive heart attack. Since MI5 have a long history of naked hatred toward the Labour Party, there may be some truth in the above, though no hard evidence has yet been found.”

More here about microwave weapons at The Daily Mail.

I’m not suggesting that this is what happened with Simmons. I’m simply pointing out the coincidence that I was researching microwave-induced heart attacks this morning, and had been discussing Matt Simmons and whether he was the source of the story about a massive volcano of oil under Macondo…

And then we get this news.

Simmons *died of a heart attack in a hot tub at his home in Maine,” according to Deal Journal, which also adds this:

“Simmons was back in the limelight this spring when BP oil’s rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded. He went out on a limb (his critics say too far out) by predicting in June that the spill would cause BP to go bankrupt and that “if a hurricane comes and blows this to shore, it could paint the Gulf Coast black.”

Business Insider notes that Simmons also didn’t think BP’s cap was sufficient:

“What we don’t know anything about is the open hole which is caused by the drill bit when it tossed the blow-out preventer way out of the hole…and 120,000 minimum of toxic poison has now covered the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. So what they’re talking about is the biggest environmental cover-up ever. And they knew that that well, that riser, would finally deplete. And then they could say it’s over. And unfortunately, we now have killed the Gulf of Mexico.” (comment, July 21, cited in BI)

I just noticed that my blog post, which was on page one of a Google search of “Matt Simmons dies,” above Zerohedge, has suddenly disappeared in about five seconds flat…not to be seen for the first several pages (not in the first 15)…could it get buried that deep that fast? Maybe a lot of people jumped on it….

(I just checked and Matt Simmon’s death is the 14th most searched string on google…)

ORIGINAL POST

Not to get all conspiratorial, but we were just discussing Matt Simmons, the energy expert and peak-oil alarmist (or realist, depending on where you stand) on The Daily Bell forum, last Saturday.

Simmons has been accused by some of doom-mongering over the BP oil spill:

“Simmons also says that as the leak has no casing, a relief well will not work, and the only possible resolution is, as he said previously, to use a small nuclear explosion to convert the rock to glass. Simmons concludes that as punishment for BP’s arrogance and stupidity the government “will take all their cash.”

I was wondering if he was the source for one of Pastor Lindsay Williams’ more infamous statements on Alex Jones.…that the Maconda well had tapped into something much bigger, like a volcano of oil…That was just a couple of days ago.

Now comes news that Simmons, aged 67, just died from a heart attack in his pool.

Recording Brain Waves Remotely

August 9, 2010 // 0 Comments

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The technology for recording brainwaves from a distance has existed for sometime, lending credence to people who’ve complained of government remote surveillance. Here’s a BBC report from 17 November, 2002:

“Scientists have developed a sensor that can record brainwaves without the need for electrodes to be inserted into the brain or even placed on the scalp.

They believe the new sensor will lead to major advances in the collection and display of electrical information from the brain - and could even be used to control machines in a more effective way than is currently possible.

It is a new age as far as sensing the electrical dynamics of the body is concerned
Conventional electroencephalograms (EEGs) are collected either by inserting needle electrodes directly into the brain or by fixing electrodes to the scalp.
This process often leads to trauma, so that it may be necessary to remove some of the patient’s hair.
In addition, the process of attaching conventional electrodes may lead to skin abrasion and irritation.
Now a team from the Centre for Physical Electronics at the University of Sussex has developed a far more user-friendly technique.

From a distance

Instead of measuring electric current flow through a fixed-on electrode, the new method takes advantage of the latest developments in sensor technology to measure electric fields from the brain without actually having to make direct contact with the head.
We deal with patients who have Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia who often have delusions about electrodes in their head
Lead researcher Professor Terry Clark said current imaging techniques were very good at providing information about fixed anatomical structures in the body.
But it had proved more difficult to find ways to monitor the body’s ever-changing electrical currents - the information that was needed to gain a real insight into the electrical workings of the body.
He said the new system provided a way to do this effectively, and because it was non-invasive it was completely safe, and more accurate because it did not interfere with the electrical fields generated by the body.
Professor Clark said: “It is a new age as far as sensing the electrical dynamics of the body is concerned, like seeing in colour for the first time.

Many possibilities

“The possibilities for the future are boundless.
“The advantages offered by these sensors compared with the currently used contact electrodes may act to stimulate new developments in multichannel EEG monitoring and in real-time electrical imaging of the brain.
“By picking up brain signals non-invasively, we could find ourselves controlling machinery with our thoughts alone: a marriage of mind and machine.”
The same group of scientists has already made remote-sensing ECG units which can detect heartbeats with no connections at all.

Professor Tonmoy Sharma, a neuropsychologist at the Clinical Neuroscience Research Centre at Dartford, Kent, said a device to measure electrical activity in the brain without the need for electrodes would potentially be very useful.
“We deal with patients who have Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia who often have delusions about electrodes in their head, and who refuse treatment.
“A non-invasive method would allow us to monitor the effects of drugs on the brain over time, and to tailor treatments more effectively.”

Plug’n'Sniff: Now You Too Can Have Your Own “Wikileaks”….

August 9, 2010 // 0 Comments

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no cookies   | no search-term records   | access log deleted within 48 hours

Scroogle Is Back

August 8, 2010 // 6 Comments

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Scroogle, which is Google scraped of its invasive elements, wasn’t working a few months back, but I looked at the site today and it looks fine.

In case you don’t know why you need Scroogle, here’s why: no cookies, no search-term records, access log deleted within 48 hours.

(From the Scroogle website)

How Scroogle’s SSL option protects your privacy

Secure Socket Layer is an encryption protocol that is available in almost all browsers. If you’ve ever entered your credit card number to purchase something online, you should have checked for the little yellow padlock at the bottom right of your browser. That means no one can intercept your number as it travels between your browser and the online merchant, because the browser has established a secure connection. That’s SSL.

For Scroogle, SSL is used to hide your search terms from anyone who might be monitoring traffic between your browser and Scroogle’s servers. This encryption happens when you send your search terms to Scroogle, and it also happens when Scroogle sends the results of your search back to you. No one snooping between your browser and Scroogle can figure out what you were looking for, because the information is encrypted and looks like gibberish. The connection between Scroogle and Google, which still must happen for every search, is not encrypted because Google doesn’t use SSL. However, this connection is not associated with you at that point, and only Scroogle knows who entered those search terms. Your IP address is dropped before your search terms are sent to Google.

Most employers monitor the websites visited by their employees. There are impressive “employer spyware” packages such as Websense that they use to do this. Because the GET method is preferred by almost all search engines (see this page), even if the employer sees only the web address that you used to arrive at Google, he already knows the search terms you requested. With a record of all the search terms you’ve used while you were at work, each with a date and time recorded in his log, your employer has a pretty good idea of what you’ve been thinking. There are no laws that prevent employers from doing this sort of snooping.

If you use Wi-Fi and you haven’t set up your router for secure operation, your neighbors could see what you are doing on the web. Again, your search terms might be interesting to them.

In some countries, the government could be monitoring your web activity by requiring your service provider to log the sites you visit, and make the logs available on demand. In fact, most governments wouldn’t even have to ask the service provider for this information. They could tap the line upstream of the provider, and just look for packets containing www.google.com/search. Next to this are your search terms in plain text, with your IP address in the same packet. Government spies salivate at the thought of data-mining this information. With your search terms revealing what you are thinking, and the email you send revealing your network of associates, that’s almost everything they need to know about you.

Besides encrypting everything between your browser and Scroogle, there are other details that may interest you about SSL. We prefer the POST method over the GET method, but if you use SSL, even the GET method is secure. You will see the Scroogle address and the search terms in your browser address bar with the GET method only because the browser displays this before it starts the SSL negotiation with Scroogle. Those search terms don’t go any further than your browser. The SSL in your browser strips off the portion of the URL after the question mark, and then provides this information to Scroogle only after the secure connection has been established.

When the Scroogle results come back from an SSL search, and you click on any of the links shown on that secure page, there is another advantage. SSL does not allow the browser to record the address where that secure page came from, and attach it to any outgoing non-SSL links on that page. Normally all browsers do this, and it’s called the “referrer” address. Using SSL blanks out this referrer, so that any non-SSL site you click on from a Scroogle SSL page won’t even know that you arrived at their site from Scroogle. The referrer will be blank, and your log entry at that site will look like any of the hundreds of bots that crawl the web all day and night with similar blank referrers.

All of these are good reasons to use Scroogle’s SSL option. It increases the load on our servers because the encryption handshaking is complex, but so far it hasn’t been a problem for us. If it does become a problem, we hope to get more donations so that we can add more servers.

How The CIA Tormented Paul Robeson

August 8, 2010 // 4 Comments

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Alexander Cockburn in “All The News That’s Fit To Buy” describes how the CIA disposed of Paul Robeson through drugging:

“Consider the CIA’s probable poisoning, at a fraught political moment, of Paul Robeson, the black actor, singer, and political radical. As Jeffrey St Clair and I wrote a few years ago in our book Serpents in the Garden, in the spring of 1961, Robeson planned to visit Havana, Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. The trip never came off because Robeson fell ill in Moscow, where he had gone to give several lectures and concerts. At the time, it was reported that Robeson had suffered a heart attack. But in fact Robeson had slashed his wrists in a suicide attempt after suffering hallucinations and severe depression. The symptoms came on following a surprise party thrown for him at his Moscow hotel.

Robeson’s son, Paul Robeson, Jr., investigated his father’s illness for more than 30 years. He believes that his father was slipped a synthetic hallucinogen called BZ by U.S. intelligence operatives at the party in Moscow. The party was hosted by anti-Soviet dissidents funded by the CIA.

Robeson Jr. visited his father in the hospital the day after the suicide attempt. Robeson told his son that he felt extreme paranoia and thought that the walls of the room were moving. He said he had locked himself in his bedroom and was overcome by a powerful sense of emptiness and depression before he tried to take his own life.

Robeson left Moscow for London, where he was admitted to Priory Hospital. There he was turned over to psychiatrists who forced him to endure 54 electro-shock treatments. At the time, electro-shock, in combination with psycho-active drugs, was a favored technique of CIA behavior modification. It turned out that the doctors treating Robeson in London and, later, in New York were CIA contractors. The timing of Robeson’s trip to Cuba was certainly a crucial factor. Three weeks after the Moscow party, the CIA launched its disastrous invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. It’s impossible to underestimate Robeson’s threat, as he was perceived by the U.S. government as the most famous black radical in the world. Through the 1950s Robeson commanded worldwide attention and esteem. He was the Nelson Mandela and Mohammed Ali of his time. He spoke more than twenty languages, including Russian, Chinese, and several African languages. Robeson was also on close terms with Nehru, Jomo Kenyatta, and other Third World leaders. His embrace of Castro in Havana would have seriously undermined U.S. efforts to overthrow the new Cuban government.

Another pressing concern for the U.S. government at the time was Robeson’s announced intentions to return to the United States and assume a leading role in the emerging civil rights movement. Like the family of Martin Luther King, Robeson had been under official surveillance for decades. As early as 1935, British intelligence had been looking at Robeson’s activities. In 1943, the Office of Strategic Services, World War II predecessor to the CIA, opened a file on him. In 1947, Robeson was nearly killed in a car crash. It later turned out that the left wheel of the car had been monkey-wrenched. In the 1950s, Robeson was targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist hearings. The campaign effectively sabotaged his acting and singing career in the states.

Robeson never recovered from the drugging and the follow-up treatments from CIA-linked doctors and shrinks. He died in 1977.”

The View From The Street

August 8, 2010 // 0 Comments

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Luxury For Them; Austerity For Us

August 8, 2010 // 0 Comments

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Renew America asks a pointed  question about austerity for the proles versus r-’n-r for the elites.

Note: we don’t think Michele Obama is any worse than any other presidential spouse…but…BUT…we are in the biggest recession since the Great Depression and her husband did spend a lot of his stump time “feeling our pain.”

So..hmm…I don’t recall him saying he would be doing it from Marbella?

Come on. If King Barack could wag his finger at Tony Hayward…a private executive… for taking time out in the middle of the Gulf oil spill crisis, then shouldn’t he be a little circumspect about his own glass house? (And yes, we know that Hayward and BP are as much about “the private sector” as Obama and the government are about “public service”). This Renew America commentary is perhaps ungenerous…but then again, why should generosity be a one-way street? People are cutting back all over the country. Do the Obamas really need eight vacations in a year?

“One of the fun games I used to play at cocktail parties was theorizing what a current politician had been in a former lifetime. Snickering over Henry Kissinger being a reincarnation of Cardinal Woolsey or Benito Mussolini popping back as Janet Napolitano only shows how obscure things can get after a few tequila shooters. However, there is nothing obscure about the current comparison between First Lady Michelle “Let ‘em eat arugala” Obama and France’s 18th Century Queen, Marie “Let ‘em eat cake” Antoinette.

Unlike with Marie Antoinette, Michelle’s critics don’t have to go apophrycal when it comes to her living large on the taxpayers’ dime. In a nation where food stamps, unemployment benefits, mortgage foreclosures and a steadily declining standard of living are fast becoming the norm, Michelle Obama is on her eighth vacation this year, living la vida ultima maxima with 40 of her closest gal pals at the Hotel Villa Padierna, one of the poshest hotels in the world let alone Marbella, Spain.

Estimates for the deluxe rooms, travel, food, Secret Service entourage, tourism, flight readiness/maintenance, local police action, like clearing off a public beach for Michelle and daughter, Sasha, are running close to half a million dollars. Limp excuses coming out of the White House Press Room like, “They’re paying for their personal expenses out of their own pockets.” (Like what? Toothpaste?) or “She’s visiting the King and Queen of Spain so that makes Michelle’s trip a public function.” ring hollow. If Michelle was truly visiting Spain on a goodwill tour, she’d be parking herself and her daughter with a minimal staff at the American Embassy in Madrid.

Even Argentina’s corrupt Eva Peron’s “Rainbow” good will tour actually brought tourism dollars back to her country. The only thing Michelle Obama will bring back with her is resentment over having to return to Washington, DC.

Now add up all this tin-ear extravagance of the First Lady with Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi’s taxpayer paid perks like $60,000 a year for office flowers alone, her commandeering of Air Force jets for private travel for herself and her family, the obscenely high rent of $18,736.00 per month she pays for her offices in San Francisco, and you have only scratched the surface marked “Waste of Taxpayers’ Money.”

Seriously, if those and thousands of other extravagant examples of fraud, waste and abuse are financed eagerly and without scrutiny by the General Services Administration, why are we being told that we must have our taxes raised? Just look at the utter surprise and shock on the faces of Congressman Charlie Rangel (D — NY) and Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D — CA) at being brought to task for what they consider “business as usual” fraud and ethics violations. Why isn’t anyone pointing out that if the government has this much money to throw around on nonessentials then it is collecting too much money to begin with?

Is it truly necessary to pump another 10, 20, 30 billion US Dollars into the kleptocratic bank accounts of African leaders under the guise of foreign aid? To what end? Did all our bribe money to Kim Jong Il of North Korea ever buy one minute of his or his nation’s good behavior? Why do we still need WWII military bases 65 years after hostilities ceased in countries that while they claim to still need our protection from whatever perceived political bogeymen are still out there, are openly hostile to our continued presence? What about all the US blood, ruined lives and treasure poured into Iraq and Afghanistan only to have those nations scheduled by the Democrats for abandonment next year?

Swinging back to more White House extravagance, do we really need to foot the bill for $100,000.00 plus Presidential date nights in New York or Chicago or photo ops buzzing the Statue of Liberty? Every third night there’s some sort of unnecessary gala or banquet going on where the Obama’s simply must be feted. All that expensive and distractive adoration leads one to wonder if the Obamas have yet to figure out how to operate the television remote control in their living quarters. Perhaps Michelle just calls down to one of 122 staff members to come up and switch channels for her.

The Obamas and their grotesque sense of entitlement are simply a sick manifestation of the socialist elites’ mindset. One of the dirty little secrets of that parasitical class is that they don’t really believe in socialism for themselves. It is simply a political tool with which to claw their way up what they see as the political dung heap. They are the roosters, if you will, of that dung heap. Standing proud and tall on the mess that they have created, dumping excrement on everyone beneath themselves, and crowing loudly in exultation as the sun warms their fine feathers all the while unaware that the Gods of the Copybook Heading are sharpening their axes for a Sunday dinner day of reckoning.”

St. Matthew: Peace-Makers Talk Peace, Not War

August 8, 2010 // 0 Comments

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Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

—  Matthew 7:16

India: Dialogue Best Way To Tackle Pakistani Support For Terrorism

August 8, 2010 // 0 Comments

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Indian’s foreign secretary Nirupama Rao wisely puts Wikileaks, third-party meddling, and the Global War on Terror in their places, using the language of national and regional interests (which conform, in this context, to the libertarian principles of subsidiarity and localism)

NEW DELHI: It is vital to talk to Pakistan despite WikiLeaks expose on the role of the Pakistani intelligence in terror attacks on Indian interests, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has said.

In a wide-ranging interview with a private news channel, Rao also made it clear that Islamabad cannot be given a blank cheque on the future of Afghanistan.

Underlining that dialogue was the most effective means of addressing contentious issues, she said that giving up the talks would not serve any purpose “in getting Pakistan to stop its pursuit of terrorism against India”.

The foreign secretary was asked if this held true despite WikiLeaks disclosures that Pakistan was directly and clearly involving in instigating terror against India, including in Afghanistan.

“I believe that dialogue is the most effective means to tackle outstanding issues with Pakistan,” she said. “In other words, dialogue is the most intelligent means of addressing points of contention.”

Dialogue, she said, “has served the purpose of putting across our deepest concerns in Pakistan”.

She said that what WikiLeaks had come out with was known to India for a long time.

“The role of officials agencies from Pakistan in promoting terrorism against India is something we have been speaking of and drawing attention to for a long time now,” Rao said.

“We understand and we know that country better perhaps than any other country in the world.”

She denied that India was dependent on the US to curb Pakistan’s terror machine.

“We are not dependent on any third country when it comes to transacting relations with Pakistan,” she said. “We deal directly with Pakistan, and bilateral issues are taken up bilaterally with that country.”

Turning to Afghanistan, Rao said that Washington’s increasing leaning on Islamabad for an American military withdrawal would not diminish Indian interests in that country.

“We are confident about our profile in Afghanistan and the fact that our interests will be well recognized by the international community,” she said.

“This is increasingly evident in the dialogue we have with our key partners.”

Rao added that “Pakistan cannot be given a blank cheque” vis-a-vis Afghanistan and any assistance to Pakistan ostensibly for counter-insurgency “could very well be used against India as the history of the last 60 years goes”.

She sought to allay fears that Pakistan would virtually take over Afghanistan once the US military left, saying Afghans were too independent a people to allow themselves to be subjugated.

“Afghanistan is a fiercely independent country. And the take away we have had from meetings with the Afghan leadership in the recent past is that they are zealous about guarding that independence.”

A former Indian envoy in Beijing, Rao said the relationship between India and China was complex but would be the “big story of the 21st century”.

“A story based on dialogue, which we intend to conduct intelligently and which we intend to conduct with confidence so that our concerns are protected always,” she added.

“Rao said the two Asian giants not only have a multi-pronged, multi-sectoral dialogue but also consulted each other on multilateral issues.

India and China fought a war in 1962 but have since witnessed an increasing economic relationship, with trade volume expected to increase to $60 billion by the end of this year.”

Gurdjieff: The Fourth Way

August 7, 2010 // 2 Comments

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One must do everything one can and then say ‘God have Mercy!’ “

– G. I. Gurdjieff

The idea of the fourth way is strongly associated with Gurdjieff, who appears to have been the first to use this phrase. The bulk of his discussion of this idea is to be found in Ouspensky’s record of his teaching in Russia, In Search of the Miraculous. In his own writings, the idea is implicit but never mentioned as such (this is similar to his teaching on the enneagram). In Russia, he referred to three traditional ways:

1. Way of the Fakir, involving effort in the body
2. Way of the Monk, involving devotion and concentration of feeling
3. Way of the Yogi, involving largely mental attention.

In the fourth way, effort is made in all three: body, feeling and mind. This is harmonious development, as in Gurdjieff’s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. To some degree, his series of movements or ’sacred gymnastics’ epitomised this approach (in the learning of them rather than their performance). His inner exercises, insofar as these are reported, usually involved an act of mental concentration combined with physical effort; the feelings are also involved but spontaneously in the ‘I am’ state.

As with the other ways, the fourth requires its own kind of social organisation. How this has been interpreted has varied from group to group. However, in contrast with the traditional ways, the fourth does not require separation from conditions of ordinary life. Indeed, Gurdjieff often indicated that these conditions were ideal, especially in times of turmoil, for the ‘awakening’ process that he so strongly advocated and which is integral to the effectiveness of the fourth way. At the same time, work with others of like mind is essential.

Some of the reasons for this are:

(a) Different types of people see the same thing differently and thus a group working together can get an all round understanding (this is only valid if the ‘work group’ contains enough diversity, which is often not the case).

(b) Differences between people can lead to useful ‘friction’ providing energy for inner work.

It should be noted here that the latter consideration has led to considerable indulgence in negativity amongst Gurdjieff groups, and it must be remembered that such friction, to be useful, must be entirely voluntarily entertained and intelligent. Gurdjieff also said: ‘In the fourth way there are many teachers’. This belongs to the same requirement for diversity of vision. In the fourth way here should not be adherence to ritual, blind obedience or pursuit of a single idea, but understanding.

The fourth way is also the way of the sly man. Of him, Gurdjieff said that if he needs to obtain an inner result, he simply ‘takes a pill’. To obtain the same results the traditional ways would take days, weeks, months. The pill in question is probably not a psychotropic drug but a capsule of ‘intentional suffering’.

Why would the fourth way be introduced in this time and, is it something new? To answer the last question first, it is probably not; but, every time it is introduced it has to take a new expression. To a large extent, Idries Shah claimed that Sufism incorporated Gurdjieff’s idea of the fourth way; but it is common to find explanations for the sources of Gurdjieff’s ideas from whatever tradition one upholds. However, the Sufi idea of ‘being in the world but not of it’ strikes a resonance with the fourth way. To answer why it was introduced at this time is not easy. There are suggestions that, in this time of rapid transition and exceeding turmoil, new impulses need to enter humanity and these cannot be transmitted fast enough through the traditional ways.

This is problematic. There are no clear cut indications from Gurdjieff about the relation between ‘fourth way people’ and the rest of humanity. At the same time, we assume that Gurdjieff being an intelligent man did not believe that his ideas were the sole source of fourth way initiative in the world. One of the models for Gurdjieff’s own endeavour is provided by Arnold Toynbee’s concept of ‘creative groups’ that withdraw and concentrate and then re-enter their civilisations with new ideas and impulses.

The practice of the fourth way seems to require a special very adaptable know-how and cannot be followed by adherence to any set of standard procedures. Needless to say, the form of the fourth way has become ossified in many groups which have settled into a pattern of working together that has its roots in previous experience. But, if understanding is crucial to this way, then it must be creative and find ways of challenging itself. Understanding requires conditions of uncertainty, change, diversity and challenge. We believe that this understanding is not at all the same as seeking to understand what Mr Gurdjieff meant. In the literature, reference is made to the critical transformative step called the ’second conscious shock’. It is said that this must always and in every case be unique.

This leads us to suppose that there is a whole class of approaches similar to the fourth way which exhibit various degrees of uniqueness and specificity. In this context, we need to develop our own way in every moment.

The fourth way is associated with the term ‘work’, which had great appeal in terms of the Protestant ethic. This term refers to conscious efforts by an individual to change herself and also the whole ‘enabling means’ that makes this possible, sometimes called ‘The Work’. The ‘work’ divides into three aspects: (1) work for oneself; (2) work for the group; (3) work for the greater whole (the ‘world’, the ‘Work’, even ‘God’). These three should be in balance. This scheme leaves itself open to a variety of interpretations, of various degrees of spiritual orientation. For example, John Bennett came close to identifying The Work with God. In this respect, one might easily find intense resonances with Gnostic teachings.

Bennett also gave rise to another scheme of the seven lines of work. Some of these were ‘active’ (effort) and others ‘receptive’. Over the years since Gurdjieff’s death there had been a tendency to bring in more passive lines of work such as is loosely called ‘meditation’; but, perhaps more importantly, some began to suspect the critical importance of being able to learn, which is a receptive act. There was also one line neither active nor receptive, but ‘reconciling’. In this line, it is the Work that manifests through us.

Finally, what is the fourth way and/or the Work to achieve? In brief, to cease to be a slave of external and internal influences and be able to contribute consciously towards the working of the whole.”

Wikileaks Sources In Sweden Unprotected, Report Confirms

August 7, 2010 // 1 Comment

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An earlier  report from Euractiv (which styles itself as a “cross-lingual” network of news) claimed that Swedish law protects whistle-blowers who post documents to Wikileaks. This has been repeated like a mantra across the MSM. Now we have a Swedish newspaper report that confirms the opinion of more informed critics that Wikileaks‘ claims of protection under Swedish law are exaggerated and false. Swedish law requires a license before protection can be claimed, and Wikileaks doesn’t have one. So anyone who leaked documents to it would indeed be vulnerable. Just as Wikileaks’ original co-founder John Young of Cryptome pointed out, Wikileaks is guilty, at the very least, of overpromising security. That certainly adds to suspicions about its true nature:

“Whistle-blower website WikiLeaks did not have a licence to publish material in Sweden and its claim that its sources were protected by Swedish constitutional law could therefore be questioned, reports said Saturday.WikiLeaks recently published thousands of pages of classified documents detailing the war in Afghanistan. The move was criticised by the governments of Afghanistan and the United States, among others.The whistle-blower’s website says that material is “routed via Sweden and Belgium which have first rate journalist-source shield laws.”But the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act requires a certificate of publication issued by the Radio and TV Authority that lists a publisher who can, for instance, be prosecuted for publishing information.Both the Sydsvenskan daily and Swedish radio’s media affairs programme Medierna on Saturday carried interviews with media and legal experts who said that since WikiLeaks did not have a licence to publish material in Sweden, authorities could therefore probe sources without violating press freedom and freedom of speech laws.Medierna said it had tried to contact WikiLeaks about the issue, and late Friday received an email from WikiLeaks co-founder and editor in chief Julian Assange saying that the site’s lawyers would look into the matter.”To my mind, it is too simple to claim that all WikiLeaks sources are totally protected in Sweden,” Hakan Rustand, deputy Chancellor of Justice told Sydsvenskan.The Chancellor of Justice is the sole prosecutor in cases concerning offences against freedom of the press and freedom of expression.”If the constitutional laws are non-applicable, ordinary liability laws take effect. This means a source could be brought to court by a common prosecutor,” Rustand added.Journalist Anders R Olsson, a specialist on freedom of speech, observed that “even when the publisher is protected by constitutional law, the ban on investigating sources isn’t watertight.”

“In the case of top secret information that is of great importance to the military, police and prosecutors have a duty to try to find the leak and prosecute the source,” he said.”

Solzhenitsyn On Freedom From Fear

August 7, 2010 // 0 Comments

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You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power — he’s free again.

* Bobynin, in Ch. 17, The First Circle, Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1968)

The Reece Committee: Social Sciences As A Tool For Control

August 7, 2010 // 3 Comments

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From The Old Thinker (hat-tip to The Daily Bell comments page:

(Note: the goals of the elites are not in themselves “evil,” which is the common assumption. In fact, they’re downright noble.  Harping on the “evil” essence of world government is thus misleading. The real issue is that it matters very little if an objective is good or bad, if the means to it involves manipulating human beings against their will.  When the method is perverted, the goal, even if it sounds laudable on paper, must become perverted…)

“In 1954 the Reece Committee, chaired by Carroll B. Reece, produced its findings regarding the influence of tax-exempt foundations in the field of education.* The report also briefly mentions their influence in politics, propaganda, social sciences and international affairs. The Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation and others were discussed during the Committee hearings.

The Reece Committee was smeared by the media and by John D. Rockefeller the 3rd himself as being wholly inaccurate, but historical hindsight gives us a perspective that shows what the Committee found is far closer to the truth than Rockefeller would have you believe.

A predominant theme found in the Committee’s findings is the desire of the foundations and those behind them to create a system of world governance. The use of propaganda and social engineering was identified as a means to and end to achieve this goal. In 1932, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, Max Mason, stated that “The social sciences… will concern themselves with the rationalization of social control…”

The Committee cited a report from the President’s Commission on Higher Education, published in 1947, which outlines the goals of social engineering programs; The realization on part of the people of the necessity of world government “…psychologically, socially and… politically”. The cited report states,

“In speed of transportation and communication and in economic interdependence, the nations of the globe are already one world; the task is to secure recognition and acceptance of this oneness in the thinking of the people, as that the concept of one world may be realized psychologically, socially and in good time politically.

It is this task in particular that challenges our scholars and teachers to lead the way toward a new way of thinking. There is an urgent need for a program for world citizenship that can be made a part of every person’s general education.

It will take social science and social engineering to solve the problems of human relations. Our people must learn to respect the need for special knowledge and technical training in this field as they have come to defer to the expert in physics, chemistry, medicine, and other sciences.” [emphasis added] (p. 483)

Rene A. Wormser, author of the book Foundations: Their Power and Influence, served as counsel for the Committee. Wormser discussed the investigation of the social sciences on part of the foundations - such as the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations - and the influence that they wield.

“Mr. WORMSER. Professor, back to this term “social engineering,” again, is there not a certain presumption, or presumptuousness, on the part of social scientists, to consider themselves a group of the elite who are solely capable and should be given the sole opportunity to guide us in our social development? They exclude by inference, I suppose, religious leaders and what you might call humanistic leaders. They combine the tendency toward the self-generated social engineering concept with a high concentration of power in that interlocking arrangement of foundations and agencies, and it seems to me you might have something rather dangerous.” [emphasis added] (p. 579)

The Committee lists the various organizations who were involved with the Rockefeller Foundation’s investigation of the social sciences. Also identified were other organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations, which have been instrumental in crafting globalist policy.

“When the Rockefeller Foundation turned to the social sciences and the humanities as the means to advance the “well-being” of humanity, the section entitled “Social Sciences” in the annual report was set up under the following headings, which remained unchanged until 1935:

General Social Science Projects : Cooperative Undertakings.
Research in Fundamental Disciplines.
Interracial and International Studies.
Current Social Studies.
Research in the Field of Public Administration.
Fundamental Research and Promotion of Certain Types of Organization.
Fellowships in the Social Sciences.

The report states that the arrangement was for the purpose of “simplification and in order to emphasize the purpose for which appropriations have been made.”

In the decade 1929-38 the foundation’s grants to social-science projects amounted to $31 .4 millions and grants were made to such agencies as the Brookings Institution, the Social Science Research Council, the National Research Council, the Foreign Policy Association, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Institute of Pacific Relations in this country as well as a dozen or more in other countries, and the Fiscal Committee of the League of Nations.” (p. 879)

A campaign to smear the Reece Committee began shortly after it was released. John D. Rockefeller the 3rd himself responded to the findings of the Committee, flatly denying that the Rockefeller foundation or any of the organizations that it has given money to has ever advocated world government. Rockefeller states,

“If the expression “one-world theories of government” means anything, it means world government. No shred of evidence is presented in the report to show that the Rockefeller Foundation or any of the organizations to which it has made grants has advocated world government.” (p. 1104)

With the advantage of historical hindsight, this claim from Rockefeller is easily debunked. In reality, the Rockefeller family has - from a very early date - promoted globalism and world government, which today is almost a reality. The following are a few examples of Rockefeller influence over the past several decades. Programs of social engineering designed to acclimate the people to globalist policy and goals, combined with pushes for global governance have been pushed on the American people for almost 100 years.

The Interchurch World Movement

An early project of the Rockefeller family was the Interchurch World Movement, started in 1919. John D. Rockefeller Jr., the son of John D. Rockefeller the 3rd, founded the IWM. Charles E. Harvey, professor of history at California State University, wrote a history of the Interchurch World Movement in a 1982 paper titled “John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Interchurch World Movement of 1919-1920: A Different Angle on the Ecumenical Movement. The IWM goal was to consolidate the churches into a single organization that would control the direction of the churches as a whole. The IWM, in Rockefeller’s own words had a globalist slant. He writes,

“I do not think we can overestimate the importance of this Movement. As I see it, it is capable of having a much more far-reaching influence than the League of Nations in bringing about peace, contentment, goodwill and prosperity among the people of the earth.”

A revealing letter written by Rockefeller himself showed that he saw a potential for ensured “stability” by gaining control over the churches.

“I know of no better insurance for a businessman for the safety of his investments, the prosperity of the country and the future stability of our government than this movement affords…” [1]

The Federal Council of Churches

A later organization, the Federal Council of Churches, also highlights Rockefeller’s investment in world government promoting organizations.

Not surprisingly, the Federal Council of Churches - which was merged with the National Council of Churches in 1950 - received significant funding from John D. Rockefeller Jr. [1] Using a similar corporate structure of churches that the Interchurch World Movement first pioneered, the program developed several agendas for churches to adopt, with world government named as the ultimate goal. As reported by Time magazine in 1942,

“These are the high spots of organized U.S. Protestantism’s super-protestant new program for a just and durable peace after World War II:

>Ultimately, “a world government of delegated powers.”

>Complete abandonment of U.S. isolationism.

>Strong immediate limitations on national sovereignty.

>International control of all armies & navies.

> “A universal system of money … so planned as to prevent inflation and deflation.”

> Worldwide freedom of immigration.

> Progressive elimination of all tariff and quota restrictions on world trade.

> “Autonomy for all subject and colonial peoples” (with much better treatment for Negroes in the U.S.).

> “No punitive reparations, no humiliating decrees of war guilt, no arbitrary dismemberment of nations.”

> A “democratically controlled” international bank “to make development capital available in all parts of the world without the predatory and imperialistic aftermath so characteristic of large-scale private and governmental loans.”

This program was adopted last week by 375 appointed representatives of 30-odd denominations called together at Ohio Wesleyan University by the Federal Council of Churches. Every local Protestant church in the country will now be urged to get behind the program. “As Christian citizens,” its sponsors affirmed, “we must seek to translate our beliefs into practical realities and to create a public opinion which will insure that the United States shall play its full and essential part in the creation of a moral way of international living.” [2]

The United Nations

After World War II, John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated the land which holds the United Nations headquarters in New York City with a gift of $8.5 million. The U.N. has served as an outlet for various Rockefeller initiatives since its founding. Steven C. Rockefeller, former chair of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund board of trustees, has been intimately involved with the United Nations Earth Charter. During the early stages of the Earth Charter, he chaired the Earth Charter International Drafting Committee from 1997 to 2000.

The Atlantic Union

Nelson Rockefeller was a major proponent of the Atlantic Union between the United States and Europe. Today, this vision is a step closer to reality with the founding of the Transatlantic Economic Council in 2007. Gary Allen documents Rockefeller’s influence in the push for an Atlantic Union in The Rockefeller File (1976),

“In The Future of Federalism, Noble Nelson proclaimed:

No nation today can defend its freedom, or fulfill the needs and aspirations of its own people, from within its own borders or through its own resources alone …. And so the nation-state, standing alone, threatens, in many ways, to seem as anachronistic as the Greek city-states eventually became in ancient times.

Get it? The man who could not be elected to the White House, but managed to arrange an entrance there anyway, says that a free and independent United States is now anachronistic.

Webster’s defines “anachronism” as something from a former age that is incongruous in the present. Every effective World Government proponent learns early in the game some rhetorical tricks, such as calling black “white.” Nelson Rockefeller is no exception. In the same book, he suggests:

The federal idea, which our Founding Fathers applied in their historic act of political creation in the eighteenth century, can be applied in this twentieth century in the larger context of the world of free nations - if we will but match our forefathers in courage and vision.” [1]

The Alliance of Civilizations

As an example of the Rockefeller family’s continued commitment to social sciences and social engineering, the Alliance of Civilizations (AoC) Media Fund program for evaluating psychophysiological responses to media is a good place to start. The AoC is part of the organization’s “Rapid Response Media Mechanism” that is dedicated to oversee and attempt to guide the content of a variety of media outlets including Hollywood. With the goal of creating “…religious and cultural pluralism as a global value”, the AoC is supporting research into “…the process by which images of violence and humiliation affect physiological responses and behavior.” The research will further investigate,

“The use of psychophysiological (skin conductance, heart rate and impedence, hormone levels, etc.) and neuroimaging methods capture activation of the brain and body as individuals interact with media and/or out-group members, shedding light on how individuals’ emotions and beliefs may change — even without their awareness.”

The research will, according to the AoC “…be used to generate policy recommendations for media persons and government officials.” The research is a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

The Alliance of Civilizations’ methods are similar to another U.N. organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). UNESCO receives regular grants from the Rockefeller Foundation. In the founding document for the organization, UNESCO Its Purpose and Its Philosophy, Sir Julian Huxley writes,

“Taking the techniques of persuasion and information and true propaganda that we have learnt to apply nationally in war, and deliberately bending them to the international tasks of peace, if necessary utilising them, as Lenin envisaged, to “overcome the resistance of millions” to desirable change. Using drama to reveal reality and art as the method by which, in Sir Stephen Tallent’s words, “truth becomes impressive and living principle of action,” and aiming to produce that concerted effort which, to quote Grierson once more, needs a background of faith and a sense of destiny. This must be a mass philosophy, a mass creed, and it can never be achieved without the use of the media of mass communication. Unesco, in the press of its detailed work, must never forget this enormous fact.”

If there is any doubt as to the Rockefeller family commitment to globalism and world government, take a look at the words of David Rockefeller on page 405 of his Memoirs,

“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”

Citation:

*See the full Reece Committee document here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

The Interchurch World Movement

[1] Harvey, Charles E. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Interchurch World Movement of 1919-1920: A Different Angle on the Ecumenical Movement. Church History, Vol. 51, No 2. (Jun., 1982), p. 198-209.

The Federal Council of Churches

[1] lbid, Harvey. p. 205.

[2] “American Malvern.” Time. March 16, 1942. Available at: <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,801396,00.html>

The Atlantic Union

[1] Allen, Gary. The Rockefeller File. Seal Beach, California: ‘76 Press, 1976

Psyops 101: The Limited Hang-Out

August 7, 2010 // 3 Comments

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Psyop Strategies: Limited Hang-Out

A “limited hangout” is used by Intelligence Organizations when a clandestine operation goes bad; or, a phony cover story blows up. When discovered the Intelligence Organization volunteers some of the truth while still managing to withhold key and damaging facts in the case.

The public is so intrigued by the new information it doesn’t pursue the matter further. The new disclosures are sensational, but superficially so. Some of the lesser scoundrels are identified and publicly exposed to twist uncomfortably on network TV and in the press.“

The Shape-Shifting Of A Hitman

August 7, 2010 // 2 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

An old review I did of John Perkins’ “Confessions Of An Economic Hitman”:

“In August 1981, my bag was packed for my fifth visit to Panama when the news came to me over the telephone of the death of General Omar Torrijos Herrera, my friend and host. The small plane in which he was flying to a house that he owned at Coclesito in the mountains of Panama had crashed, and there were no survivors. A few days later, the voice of his security guard, Sergeant Chuchu, alias Jose de Jesus Martinez, ex-professor of Marxist philosophy at Panama University, professor of mathematics and a poet, told me, “There was a bomb in that plane. I know there was a bomb in that plane, but I can’t tell you why over the telephone.” [1]

In 1971, at the age of 26, John Perkins became what he called an economic hit man (EHM) for a secretive international consulting firm called Chas. T. Main, Inc. His job was to produce research to justify World Bank loans of billions of dollars to poor countries for public projects like dams and electrification. He was to produce economic forecasts for them of up to 20-25 years that were so exuberant that they would convince the governments to take the loans.

Straight out of the Peace Corps in Ecuador, Perkins was dazzled by the money, prestige, and James Bond aura his new life offered. Soon, he became a master of producing outrageous forecasts that brought in massive contracts for construction and engineering to Main and other US companies, like Bechtel, Halliburton and Brown and Root. Perkins’ work didn’t end with just enriching his firm, though. He claims he was also actively involved in schemes to bankrupt countries so that they would forever present easy targets for their first world creditors when the creditors were in need of military bases, access to resources, or votes in the UN. If the leaders of the targeted countries displayed too independent a style of thinking, the EHM was replaced by a more sinister figure — the jackal. The jackal simply eliminated the troublemaker. The jackals were the CIA-sanctioned thugs who instigate coups, abduct and assassinate. And behind them was the US military.

We have no idea how much of Mr. Perkins mea culpa is true. But if even a quarter of it has a toe-hold in reality, it will shock the average reader. By his account, the US government is running an empire of a size and duplicity unparalleled in world history.

Perkins’ first job was in Java, Indonesia, where a glamorous brunette with green eyes, Claudine, who worked as a consultant with Main, gave him the low down on his real function. Indonesia, she tells him, is likely to be the next domino to fall to communism after Vietnam. Indonesia also just happens to be oil rich and Muslim. His job is to make sure that it stays in hock to the international banks and aid organizations who want to lend it money.

“A large part of your job is to encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes U.S. commercial interest,” says she. “In the end, these leaders become ensnared in a web of debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire — to satisfy our political, economic, or military needs . . . ” [2]

Heady stuff for a young man from a frigid Calvinist background in New England. looking for money and adventure. Of course, Perkins is married . . . with problems. And, of course, Claudine has to undertake all this initiation and training, seductively, in her own apartment. And of course, it is done over a bottle of Beaujolais . . . .

“Once you’re in, you’re in for life,” says his siren — somewhat improbably, considering Perkins’ various successful career moves since. [3]

Under the green eyes of big sister, Perkins will write the forecasts that make third world countries borrow billions from the World Bank to undertake mammoth utility projects. The money goes directly to the US contractors who get the lucrative bids; the projects never yield the benefits to the country that they are projected to. But in return for the “loans,” the countries are forced to let the US milk their natural resources, environment and infrastructure rapaciously.

What do the EHMs do?

They funnel money from the World Bank, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

“It was not uncommon for us to seduce wives of oil company executives because that was a way of gaining information and learning things about their husbands.”

Our EHM then runs into a long-time Main forecaster, Howard Parker, whose conscience is still twitching. He refuses to pony up the inflated figures on Indonesia’s future energy needs that Main wants. Naturally, Perkins’s mentor, a Cary Grant double who will later become Main’s president, gets rid of Parker and promotes the more docile Perkins. Then it’s on to Panama. There, surrounded by graffiti announcing that Death for Freedom Is the Way to Christ, Perkins chats with the populist dictator Omar Torrijos. Torrijos, who wants to get the Japanese to build another Panama Canal, claims he needs bodyguards to protect him from the wrath of the Norte Americanos. Why? Perkins finds the answer in a desert in Iran, where a young radical introduces him to a victim of the Shah’s CIA trained Savak police. He is seated in the dark, in a wheelchair. Perkins catches the outline of the man’s face in profile — his nose has been cut off.

Comes the oil crisis of the 1970s, and the now savvy Perkins is given the task of finding out how to channel Saudi oil dollars back into the US. The answer is simple — outsource Saudi infrastructure to the US. Americans who are upset about losing jobs to Bangalore and Manila should console themselves with this episode in their country’s history. Aided by Perkins and Main, the US Treasury Department draws up a plan to bring modernity to Saudi Arabia, but it needs the help of the Saudi government and Perkins is given the job of convincing one Saudi prince — Prince W — whose weakness is blonds. Perkins procures “Sally,” a woman whose husband enjoys his own infidelities. The wages of pimping are hidden in expense accounts with posh Boston restaurants.

Through such titillating details do we learn of the swathe of plunder that the US has cut through the world — from Iran in the 1950s to Iraq in 2003 and of what happens to leaders who object. In Panama, Omar Torrijos is killed and Manuel Noriega is arrested and imprisoned. In Ecuador, Jaime Rold?s dies in a helicopter crash.

Then, at last, our hit-man’s somewhat supine conscience kicks him in the ankle, but only to lead him back later, one last time, into the mire. This time, he is an expert witness for the nuclear energy industry . . . at the same firm. One of his new jobs is to justify the Seabrook nuclear power plant to the New Hampshire Public Service Commission as the best and most economic choice to generate electricity in the state.

“Unfortunately,” he writes “the longer I studied the issue, the more I began to doubt the validity of my own arguments. I personally became uncomfortable with the position I was expected to take — was paid to take — under oath in what amounted to a court of law.”

It is after this last stint that he decides to quit. He enters his final incarnation — as a New Age guru. From prevaricating power plant purveyor to shape-shifting shaman might seem a bit of a hop, but the enterprising business major is equal to it. Soon, he is shuttling between home and the Amazon on trips intended to raise the consciousness of alienated gringos about indigenous cultures and the effects of globalization on them. His new career spawns several pre-Confessions tomes: Shapeshifting: Shamanic Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation; Spirit of the Shuar: Wisdom from the Last Unconquered People of the Amazon; The Stress Free Habit: Powerful Techniques for Health and Longevity from the Andes, Yucatan, and Far East; and Psychonavigation: Techniques for Travel Beyond Time.

We will let his blurb do the explaining:

“John Perkins relates his encounters with the Bugis of Indonesia, the Shuar of the Amazon, the Quechua of the Andes, and other psychonavigators around the world. He explains how the people of these tribal cultures navigate to a physical destination or to a source of inner wisdom by means of visions and dream wanderings. Learn to attract the inner guidance you seek.”

Dreams are important, Perkins says, because they enable the dreamer to visualize a different future, and then shape-shift to fit it. This shape-shifting varies: It can be cellular — which involves actual physical transformation, such as aging, or turning into a jaguar. It can be institutional — as when democracy emerged in the world. And it can be personal — as when one starts a new career, as Perkins did.

The bouncer at the New World Order club wakes up and smells the Ginseng. As New Age guru, the former hit man now urges people to put corporations to better use rather than simply attack them. We don’t need to get rid of Nike, he says. We just need to get Nike shoes on everyone. A McDonalds in every slum. Tom Friedman would feel right at home.

* * * * *

It’s all so inclusive . . . so warm and so very fuzzy we could easily not feel the hairs stand up on the back of our necks. But they do. We will explain why.

But first, we will explain why not.

It’s not that we find Perkins’ account outrageous, unbelievable or even implausible. In fact, we read the book at a sitting, feeling a bit of a let down. Mossadegh, Arbenz, Allende . . . the deposition of this smorgasbord of leaders by the CIA has never been seriously questioned . . . not even by the CIA. It’s all a matter not just of public record, but of PhD dissertations. Such stuff as stodgy careers at The Nation are made of.

So why does Perkins need all the Mata Hari trappings? Aha, says one suspicious critic, the man has just canvassed progressive opinion and tailored a book that perfectly plays to every anti-corporate globalist gallery and pulls at every Che-stricken heart-string, even to the point of dealing with media ownership — a concern right at the top for progressives, but an odd one for a truth-averse hit man.

And he may have a point. Perkins might talk the social consciousness talk but he walks the capitalist walk, with tidy book contracts from such fully paid members of the corporatocracy as Penguin books. From selling overpriced construction projects he’s simply gone on to selling social awareness. From limitless markets to “limitless potential.”

But if the book has been a capitalist success, it’s been one on its own . . . not because of the corporatocracy, but because of the free market. It was turned down 20 times before it got placed with an obscure San Francisco publisher; there was no advance, no marketing blitz; and, it was ignored by every major paper and magazine in the country. Yet, it’s been on the New York Times bestseller list and sold twice as many copies as Globalization and Its Discontents — the oeuvre of Nobel laureate and one-time World Bank chief Joseph Stiglitz. Anti-corporate globalization gurus cited it at their bash at Porto Alegre, and we hear it’s even managed to make it to Hugo Chavez’s reading list. Soon it will be turned into a film. Doubtless we can look forward to seeing Catherine Zeta-Jones in the role of Claudine.

But, we do not begrudge the book its success. If Perkins has looked steely-eyed at what the public wants and given it to them, and accomplished this without force or fraud, more power to him. And if a life of crime unfits you to be a preacher man, we will have to erase half of history’s most persuasive pulpit-pounders, from Saul of Tarsus to Jim Bakker of PTL.

Nor do we grudge Perkins his Damascene conversion. We do not mind — as some do — the vignettes of his sexual peccadilloes, his drinking, his bouts of depression and anger, or his convenient conversion from empire-flack to empire-foe, once he’s made his million. Even a hit man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s Shambhala for?

And, we also don’t doubt the essential truth of what the book says, though we may quibble with the details. True, there’s not much hard evidence to hang onto now that EHMs are defunct and Parker and Torrijos are dead. Parsons Corporation, which bought out Main in 1985, claims it no longer has Main’s records, so the Sally story can’t be verified. And, the Cary Grant double who might know, Bruno Zambotti, isn’t talking. Other Main employees claim they don’t know what Perkins is about and accuse him of leaving not out of a crisis of conscience but because he “thought he was worth more than he was.”

Still, one would pretty much expect that to be the case. Cloak and dagger work is usually done, well, with a cloak and a dagger. Your neighbors don’t know. Most often, your wife and kids don’t know either. And, people do move on . . . or die.

The US government’s media department might call the book a fantasy. But, scanning the page they devote to it, we find it remarkably free of any concrete criticism. The government’s defense is simple:

The National Security Agency, which Perkins claims recruited him into his clandestine life, is really devoted to cryptography not espionage — just look what it says on its web page! [4]

But when we start believing the web page of a country’s defense department, dear reader, it will be time for us to trade in our pen and paper for eye-shades and a hearing-aid. We don’t know any spy agency that announces its operations on the door plate. Or posts the curriculum vitae of its alumni on the web.

The other criticisms the government hacks make are just as light-weight.. Perkins, they claim, also writes weird books on outre New Age topics . . . like shamans, and psychic travel. The implication is that Confessions is some kind of peyote-induced raving.

This is even thinner stuff than the NSA bit — especially since the American government itself is knee deep in the New Age. You didn’t know? Dear me, yes. Uncle Sam has been channeling, astral traveling, and bending spoons for quite awhile. As Jon Ronson tells it, it’s even in the business of staring into the eyes of goats. Why would it do that? Because, according to ancient yoga texts, a powerful psychic force directed into someone’s eyes can kill them.

That would be a lot cheaper than Abrams tanks and Daisy-Cutters, we imagine. Naturally, Don Rumsfeld and the cost-cutting brigade at the Pentagon got interested. But the goats were impervious, alas. No, next to the CIA and the Pentagon, we do not believe that Mr. Perkins can come even close to the bizarre. [5]

Then the government delivers the coup-de-grace. Perkins, they claim is a conspiracy theorist, who is on record claiming that 9-11 was an inside job.

Actually, Perkins doesn’t quite say what sort of a job 9-11 was, except that it didn’t look obviously like the work of a cave-dwelling Saudi on the lam. But even if he were to subscribe to every article of the alternative 9-11 dogma, from remote-controlled airlines to missiles hitting the Pentagon, it hardly undermines his case. The government wouldn’t do such a thing? No? What about the little matter of Operation Northwoods, put in place by only the post-war’s most popular president, Dwight Eisenhower. Northwoods was a plan for the US government to attack and kill its own citizens to provide a rationale for the county to go to war with Cuba. And recently we have learned that the US has had an operation going on in Europe since the end of WW II to knock off European citizens and put the blame on socialists to discredit them politically. Remote controlled airlines? Well, there is that Boeing system meant to foil hijackers. It’s been in place in some countries since the early 1990s. As for conspiracy theory, what would you call a group of people getting together to put through a plan to dominate the world? A quilting circle?

Dear reader, if you want a conspiracy theory, you don’t need Perkins or debates about the temperature at which jet fuel ignites. You need look no farther than the well known, clear as daylight “Project for the New American Century,” signed by the DC punditry’s most high-flying mainstream names from Bill Kristol to Francis Fukuyama.

But now we explain why Perkins’ book unsettles us:

The first problem with the book is all the parts that are obviously false and filled with the kind of fuzzy clap-trap that the silliest of the anti-corporate globalizers like to spout. In some of his economic analysis, Perkins doesn’t sound remotely like an economist — even a bad one.

The second problem with the book is — all the parts that are obviously true. The overthrow of Mossadegh, Arbenz, Noriega, and the rest are a matter of history. The US Treasury Department did create a commission called JECOR, under which the Saudis bid out all the construction projects in the country to foreign companies.

As for the motivations of the IMF and the World Bank, Perkins hasn’t gone half as far as Jude Wanniski, one-time economic adviser to Ronald Reagan and a senior editor of The Wall Street Journal, who likes to call the IMF-World Bank mafia an “Evil Empire.”

Wanniski does not mince words in describing the rationale for World Bank lending. It’s to get rid of the paper dollars accumulating in the vaults of private banks like Chase and Citicorp. Once America went off the gold standard in 1971, the paper could only lose value as it inflated. But lend them to foreign countries and the banks could be guaranteed a return . . . as long as you had the IMF — flush with tax payer dollars — stepping into the breach to collect the loan. It would force the countries to raise taxes on their people and devalue their currencies as part of the terms of the loan. [6]

So, we have no argument with Perkins on this. The World Bank and other organizations do routinely apply subtle and not so subtle pressure on governments to open up their countries to foreign contractors and privatization. Private companies do inflate their project estimates regularly. Einar Greve, the Norwegian who originally recruited Perkins to Main after his Peace Corps work in Ecuador and who also left the Tucson Electric Power in the thick of insider-trading allegations in 1989, did initially admit that Perkins was telling the truth, “Allowing for some author discretion, basically the story is true.”

Then he had second thoughts. Perkins and he didn’t meet on an airstrip but in a hotel bar; he doesn’t know anyone at the NSA . . . and even if he does, they wouldn’t talk about it to him. Perkins didn’t write to him from Ecuador and never set him up with Claudine. But Greve won’t come out and call Perkins a liar either. “I think that John,” he says, “really has convinced himself that a lot of this stuff is true.” [7]

We recognize weasel words as well as the next fellow. And we also recognize that Perkins’ psychological profile and background would have made him an ideal candidate for recruitment into a clandestine operation. Spy agencies don’t usually pick people with unshakable integrity. Habitual liars with a weakness for liquor, lucre, and loose living are what they want — they are easier to control. We would have had our doubts about the book if Perkins had confessed to being a celibate, tee-totaling origamist. We think Greve got it right the first time. The story is true.

Our problem with it is that it’s not true enough. Why does Perkins wait 33 years to come out with his tale? If his conscience hurt him as an EHM for Main, why did he leave and then go back to lie for the nuclear power industry? Why does he name no names, yet hint that he fears nameless retribution? Perkins points fingers at no one, using secondary material to back his claims most of the time. A Vanity Fair article is the source for his story about the Saudis. Why would the government bother with a book so thinly documented? Undergraduate papers on American foreign policy dig up more evidence every day. And, we wonder why the government didn’t try and do a better job trashing the book if it was so dangerous. That makes us think the book might not be dangerous . . . or even subversive at all.

We make no allegations, of course. We know nothing more than what we read in the papers about it. Confessions might be a fabrication from beginning to end . . . or it may be the most authoritative piece of writing since Moses came down from Mt. Sinai. We have no way of knowing. But that is the point. A book about the dirty deeds of empire that is neither verifiable nor falsifiable, does no real damage, and has a conclusion that would gladden the heart of Thomas Friedman, strikes us as one which the powers that be might actually want to cultivate. If we take Perkins at his word, Nike or McDonald’s or Pepsi or any of the lumbering giants of the corporate-state don’t have to get out of bed with their imperial paramour. They simply have to add a little do-gooding to their balance sheets. All that’s needed, says the reformed hit man, is a little shape-shifting for corporations. And really, they don’t even have to do that. They just have to put up a web-page saying they do. That should be evidence enough.

Copyright  2007 by Lila Rajiva.

ENDNOTES

[1] Getting to Know the Generals, Graham Greene, New York: Pocket Books, p. 1984, p. 11, cited in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins, New York: Plume, January 2006, p. 186.

[2] Perkins, op.cit., pp. 20-1.

[3] Perkins, op.cit., p. 17.

[4] “Confessions — or Fantasies — of an Economic Hit Man?” U.S. Department of State, February 2, 2006.

[5] The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson, Simon & Schuster, April 5, 2005.

[6] “Confession of an Economic Hit Man,” Jude Wanniski, Lew Rockwell, January 25, 2005.

[7] “Economic Hit Man,” Maureen Tcacik, Boston Magazine, July 2005.

Bob Dylan: Individualist Or Ideologue?

August 7, 2010 // 3 Comments

Posted in: Uncategorized

A socialist asks if Bob Dylan “sold out”

“The implication of the initial question is that Bob Dylan was a committed, full-time member of the early 60s movement that we will call ‘folk protest’; and then later on he sold out, abandoning his left-wing principles in the name of making different types of music – more personal songs, a rock and roll style.

Well, clearly as the 60s progressed, Dylan moved away from protest songs and made many different types of music. But far too many histories of the era take a very, well, dialectical perspective, based on two types of Dylan: one, the author of Blowin’ in the Wind, Masters of War, and all the rest; and the other, the cool, disengaged rock and roller of the mid sixties, who dismissed his earlier songs as “finger-pointing songs”, a phrase calculated to upset the likes of us, and rejected all that they represented.

This way of looking at things rules out so many important factors – including his pre-Greenwich Village life, and the almost four decades since he played those shows with The Hawks and caused such outrage, and most importantly, the reasons for and the nature of the shift that undeniably took place. I think implicit in the question of whether Dylan sold out is another question – ‘Did Dylan buy in?’ If we can look more honestly and realistically about where Dylan was coming from in the early and mid sixties, we can make a more meaningful assessment of that ‘selling out’ era.

As a general point, I find it best not to be surprised, or too disappointed, when my musical heroes don’t agree with me politically. I have always felt that it was best not to judge my musical heroes, with left-wing tendencies, by the same standards as I would judge say, members of the same political party as me, or colleagues of mine in the trade union I work for, or people who explicitly claim to be something like a socialist, a Marxist, or whatever.

Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, none of them have ever claimed to be proper socialists. Bragg comes close; Earle even closer in some ways, claiming he is a borderline Marxist, but although I think he is head and shoulders above those others, politically, I am not sure he fully knows what that means. Anyway it is far better to have low political expectations of your musical heroes. Then when they do good, solid left-wing things, it’s a bonus.

A comment from Mike Davis on the blurb of Mike Marqusee’s book on Bob Dylan caught my attention. He says that Marqusee “rescues” Dylan “from the condescension of his own later cynicism”. Now, apart from being one of those smug, patronising statements that turn people away from your cause, this quote demonstrates what I am talking about. Dylan doesn’t need rescuing!

Left-wing readers may need rescuing from Dylan’s later cynicism; his protest songs themselves may even need rescuing from the same thing, so that they can still be enjoyed as what they were – among the greatest left-wing protest songs ever written. But to say that Dylan himself needs rescuing is breathtakingly arrogant, because it suggests that whoever is saying it knows the mind of Dylan better than Dylan himself. Has he listened to Blood on the Tracks? Or Time Out of Mind? Or any number of Dylan’s other great albums? The rest of us struggle to understand the workings of Dylan’s mind, and so we are in no position to second-guess him, although I’m about to try. But Dylan does not need rescuing from himself.

So let’s get down to the question, or rather the two questions as I’ve interpreted it – did Bob buy in, and did he sell out. First, some basic facts, which I think these days are beyond debate.

Bob Dylan started off as a teen rock and roller with no politics or folk music in his work. He played Little Richard numbers on his piano, he rarely played the guitar, and it took a long time before he started writing songs.

Once in New York, he became part of the burgeoning folk protest movement, and in 1962 and 1963 made two albums, Freewheelin’ and The Times They Are A-Changing, which helped begin the definition of a generation. I don’t think I am engaging in hyperbole when I say that. These albums were full of acoustic protest songs which need no introduction – songs which were at once directly political and wonderfully poetic. ‘Blowin in the Wind’, ‘Masters of War’, ‘The Lonsesome Death of Hattie Carroll’, ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’. These songs had some effect, though it’s impossible to say how much, in galvanising and broadening the appeal of the civil rights and peace movements of the early 60s.

In the mid-sixties he left the folk scene behind, wrote songs about a variety of less political and more personal topics, and made more electric rock and blues music. Subsequently, he has made great albums in many genres – older-style folk, country, rock and roll, blues…Dylan is such a great songwriter that he transcends genre. Since the mid 60s, bar the odd political song and a flirtation with born-again Christianity, he has stayed out of politics, and these days seems comfortable performing for the Pope and selling an old live recording through Starbucks.

So far, so uncontroversial.

Now I would just like briefly to cover the argument that Dylan going electric, and all of the hoo-ha that accompanied it, was a political sell-out. Many of you will have seen the footage and read accounts of the set with the Butterfield Blues Band at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, and his 66 tour with The Hawks. These moves were of enormous historical significance for music, but not for politics.

For an acoustic folk singer, as Dylan was then seen, to go electric was a huge deal, not least because at the time he was subject to a hell of a lot of criticism. But that was because many people felt that electric meant pop. Years later, we know that serious messages can come from electrified music. From a political perspective, we shouldn’t dwell on Dylan going electric. You can sing political and non-political songs both electric or acoustic.

‘Folk’ does not mean ‘left-wing’. Before Pete Seeger ever played a guitar, people were singing folk music about their washing lines. And some great left-wing music has been recorded with electrification. So although at the time many people did equate an abandonment of acoustic music with selling out politically, it’s not a good argument.

Whether he sold out is a legitimate question, but using Dylan’s switch to electric music as justification for arguing that he did so doesn’t hold up.

Before Dylan wrote and played his outright folk protest songs, he was already playing what you might call that authentic, older-styled folk music. The quintessentially American music that everyday people would play to each other around the camp-fire, in their homes in the country, in the fields – music which could be about anything; not necessarily even vaguely political. Music chronicled by Alan Lomax and Harry Smith, usually based on either blues or country.

Dylan went back to this music not long after the Greenwich Village days, when he recorded the Basement Tapes with The Band in Woodstock; and he has returned to that music many times since, on record and in concert. One thing seems clear: Woody Guthrie, who was an exponent of both political and what might be called “pre-political” folk music, was an early hero of Dylan’s. Not just in terms of the politics: Dylan was attracted to Guthrie’s story-song style; his finger-picking techniques; his travelling hobo persona (to the extent that Dylan invented tales of his own travels); and his politics, which were very much for the common person, against oppression, and for a fair deal.

But maybe Dylan only paid lip service to each of these aspects of Guthrie’s personality and life. The young Dylan never travelled in the same way that Guthrie did; he wasn’t satisfied with sticking to the story-song spoken blues, let alone acoustic finger-picking; and, in terms of politics, while Guthrie was a sometime member and long-time supporter of the Communist Party, who dedicated the latter half of his life to the struggle, Dylan never went anywhere near that far.

So exactly how political was Dylan?

Richard Farina, with whom Dylan lived in the early 60s, characterises the politics of Dylan at the time as feeling “the intolerability of bigoted opposition to civil rights”. Fairly bland in itself. But Farina goes on to say that Dylan found opposition to such basic rights as an absurdity, and consequently he found it easy to write songs about it. The issue was open-and-shut, and so good material for songs; especially when there were specific, horrific case studies at hand – natural topics for songs like The ‘Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll’, and ‘Only a Pawn in Their Game’. The nuclear bomb situation seemed similarly obvious and clear-cut to Dylan – hence Masters of War.

Even then, Farina points out that it was always the music that mattered to Dylan, not the politics. Not that he didn’t believe in what he was singing about; in that sense he was very much a part of the civil rights movement, and an important one at that. But artistically speaking, the political issues were being used by the songs, not the other way round.

And Dylan has always – always – been an artist over and above anything else. And just as Dylan’s songs made use of the issues, in a general sense Dylan himself made use of the folk protest movement. Fame was not an end in itself – but Dylan was wily enough to realise that without it, he would not get the opportunity to practice his art with as much freedom as he wanted.

But as I hope I have made clear, I don’t believe that the exploitation here was all one way. Dylan did believe in the politics he was singing about – as I have said, it was the very fact that he believed them so strongly that made him put them in song. And the exploitation that went on was two-way, as Dylan used the movement to a degree, and the movement used him.

But one of the things that impressed me most about Martin Scorsese’s recent documentary about those years was that he wasn’t painted either as an all-out left-wing firebrand or as an unbelieving and cynical user. Cynicism may have come on later, but at the time, Dylan did go far beyond what he needed to do if he was only in it to advance his own career. And Scorcese’s film makes that point with its footage of Dylan, with only an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, playing songs for black sharecroppers in a field in the Deep South.

That footage was from Dylan’s trip, along with Theo Bikel and Pete Seeger, to a voter-registration drive in Greenwood, Mississippi – the kind of gradualist method for improving civil rights that President Kennedy approved of. The trip in itself proved that Dylan had some sort of belief in, and commitment to, the protest movement of the time, and the footage made quite an impression on me personally.

The trip was to be a significant one in other ways too. He debuted ‘Only a Pawn in Their Game’, a superb song telling the story of the murder of Medgar Evers, an NAACP activist. Also at the time, Dylan had long conversations with Jim Forman, the Secretary of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, and Dylan was impressed by what Forman had to say – questioning the effectiveness of the slow-moving Kennedy reforms, expressing outrage at Kennedy’s refusal to protect vote-registration workers, and favouring more direct action.

Nearly all chroniclers of Dylan’s career at that time accept that Dylan, Joan Baez and the rest were an integral part of that gradual approach – basically taking up the baton from Kennedy’s inaugural address and taking it to the people. Forman and SNCC rejected their approach. And in ‘Only a Pawn’ Dylan seems to lean towards Forman’s views – the murder wasn’t simply the white murderer’s fault – “it ain’t him to blame” – he is only a pawn in their game. There was a real structural problem here which required a more dramatic approach than the non-confrontational methods favoured up to that point.

Around the same time, Dylan wrote an apology to the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, for making a speech (which you may remember from the Scorsese documentary) when he accepted the group’s Tom Paine award, where he compared himself to Lee Harvey Oswald and attacked bald politicians for being bald, and bourgeois Negroes for wearing suits on the platform at the Great March on Washington, and “generally pissed on liberalism” as Dave Marsh puts it. But what is interesting is that his apology makes it crystal clear that his treatment of the ECLU event was not because he was rejecting left-wing politics; in actual fact, his behaviour represented a radicalisation, offering support to the Black Panther position that direct action led by black people, not white people, was the only solution to civil rights problems. The only thing he rejected was the liberal, white-led folk protest movement.

Dylan did perform at the March on Washington, despite Jim Forman discouraging attendance. But by this point his protest days were numbered. Dylan was increasingly struck by what the folk protest movement had or rather hadn’t achieved, its naivete, and as Marqusee points out, the authoritarian and hence hypocritical way in which it was run. He faced a choice: break off from the musical-political movement that had given him fame, and embrace a more direct form of political action; or, still break off from the musical-political movement that had given him fame, and retreat into himself, artistically.

Either way, events, lack of progress and the influence of others had helped persuade him that a new direction was required. And this is where we go back to a point I made earlier: above all else, Bob Dylan was and is an artist. So of those two choices, with hindsight, there can have been little doubt about which he would choose. And there should be no surprise. Such complicated political feelings as he was going through at the time would not make good song material.

I’ve had a look at the discussion on the Workers’ Liberty website, and the point is made that, from 1964 onwards, after the album The Times They Are A-Changing, Dylan still wrote political songs, damning critiques of the political elite, big business, inequality, and so on. His very next album, Another Side Of, contained some of these songs – like ‘Chimes of Freedom’. And not too long afterwards he wrote ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’, one his most lyrically brilliant songs, and a superb indictment of modern society.

I think Mike Marqusee’s central thesis is that Dylan’s post-acoustic songs of the mid-sixties – during that run of three magnificent, magnificent, albums – were actually full of social and political comment: ‘Maggie’s Farm’ is a class-based cry of rage against wage labour; ‘It’s Alright Ma’ is a damning indictment of a hypocritical, greedy and corrupt society. And there are more examples.

It is certainly true that Dylan didn’t retreat totally into himself, pulling back from any social awareness. But while we don’t have time to pick lots of songs and albums apart here, I’m not sure I’m with Marqusee all the way.

It seems to me that by the mid-sixties, Dylan was taking pot-shots against all manner of people and groups. He’d sweep in, condemn someone poetically, brilliantly and concisely, then move off somewhere else. And that would be that. Just like in the past, the ideal, the opinion, served the song; not the other way around. But now he would publicly deny any politics – ok he answered hecklers with “come on man, these are all protest songs”, but they weren’t. They were commentary. As he said to folk singer Phil Ochs at the time, “The stuff you’re writing is bullshit…the only thing that’s real is inside you. Your feelings. Just look at the world you’re writing about and you’ll see you’re wasting your time. The world is, well – it’s just absurd”.

You could say that while Dylan still ruled the counter-culture, he provided its apolitical, its personal direction – not its political direction. From a political perspective, the songs became increasingly less specific, less pointed, and with less purpose. He wrote for himself, and never even attempted to use them externally – and nor would he dream of licensing others to do so. One of the most memorable instructions on the 1965 album Bringing it All Back Home was this one: “don’t follow leaders”. He included himself among those leaders. He was moving away from the movement.

And in many ways, from the same album, It’s Alright Ma’ sums up most of what Dylan has ever tried to get across in song. The tension between the peaceful, folky style of protest on the one hand, and the more direct and possibly violent solutions on the other hand is made clear with these lyrics:

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

And while presidents, advertising and various other ills of modern liberal democratic capitalistic society are condemned, Dylan constantly refers back to his individualistic outlook, and implicitly his rejection of collective action to solve the problems he’s mentioned:

An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it.

And finally, he admits to the presence in his mind of what would be seen as impure and unworthy thoughts by his former folk protest comrades:

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine
But it’s alright, Ma, it’s life, and life only.

Later on in Dylan’s career, there was the occasional direct protest song. In 1971 he released the single ‘George Jackson’, about the death in prison of the Black Panther; and more importantly, in 1975 he wrote and recorded ‘Hurricane’ – a long and detailed exposition and critique of the miscarriage of justice surrounding the boxer Reuben Carter, wrongly convicted of murder.

Dylan sings with urgency, anger and conviction. But even this song reads like a tacit admission of the failure of the folk protest movement: “if you’re black, you might as well not show up on the streets”. So much for voter-registration; inequality runs a lot deeper than that, as we know. In any case, these songs were isolated instances.

So, bringing all of this together so as to answer the original questions. Did Dylan buy in? Dylan bought in to an extent. He was a part-time member of that folk protest movement – he just happened to be by a long way its best songwriter and hence an invaluable asset to it. He did far more than he needed to if his only goal had been to become famous, cynically, on the back of the movement.

As he became more involved in the movement, he came to question it, and as a result he drifted away from it. He continued to write what from most other songwriters would be called dangerously revolutionary songs, and he continued to work and perform with well-known left-wing artists – Allen Ginsberg, Phil Ochs, and Joan Baez again in the 70s – but once the songs were written, that was it. He would play them live, sure, but as songs at Bob Dylan concerts, not as statements.

So did he sell out? Unless you live in the world of pigeon-holes and mass over-simplifications, then the answer has to be no. Just as he had gone into the folk protest movement both for reasons of expediency and belief, he came out of it both because he questioned where it was going and also, and moreover, because it was where his art was going. That last point is one too huge to examine here, but let us not forget that it is the central point: within two years of Another Side Of, Dylan had recorded probably the best three consecutive albums recorded by one person – Highway 61 Revisited, Bringing it all Back Home, and Blonde on Blonde. As Bruce Springsteen said in a recent interview (one which was very revealing, both musically and politically), “Trust the art, not the artist”. So did he sell out? Not really – he just moved on.”

Mike Short

BP Buying Up Scientists Around Gulf Coast?

August 7, 2010 // 0 Comments

Posted in: Ideology, Uncategorized

This is a report similar to many I’ve seen circulating. While BP doesn’t come off well in it, neither does the government. Withdrawing research grants out of concern about conflicts of interest is one thing.  Penalizing scientists who might go to work for BP is another. The whole story is very puzzling and raises questions about BP and the government agencies involved in the spill studies.

Ben Raines at the Press-Register:

“For the last few weeks, BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists from public universities around the Gulf Coast to aid its defense against spill litigation.

BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university, according to scientists involved in discussions with the company’s lawyers. The university declined because of confidentiality restrictions that the company sought on any research.

The Press-Register obtained a copy of a contract offered to scientists by BP. It prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years.

“We told them there was no way we would agree to any kind of restrictions on the data we collect. It was pretty clear we wouldn’t be hearing from them again after that,” said Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama. “We didn’t like the perception of the university representing BP in any fashion.”

BP officials declined to answer the newspaper’s questions about the matter. Among the questions: how many scientists and universities have been approached, how many are under contract, how much will they be paid, and why the company imposed confidentiality restrictions on scientific data gathered on its behalf.

Shipp said he can’t prohibit scientists in his department from signing on with BP because, like most universities, the staff is allowed to do outside consultation for up to eight hours a week.

More than one scientist interviewed by the Press-Register described being offered $250 an hour through BP lawyers. At eight hours a week, that amounts to $104,000 a year.

Scientists from Louisiana State University, University of Southern Mississippi and Texas A&M have reportedly accepted, according to academic officials. Scientists who study marine invertebrates, plankton, marsh environments, oceanography, sharks and other topics have been solicited.

The contract makes it clear that BP is seeking to add scientists to the legal team that will fight the Natural Resources Damage Assessment lawsuit that the federal government will bring as a result of the Gulf oil spill.

The government also filed a NRDA suit after the Exxon Valdez spill.

In developing its case, the government will draw on the large amount of scientific research conducted by academic institutions along the Gulf. Many scientists being pursued by BP serve at those institutions.

Robert Wiygul, an Ocean Springs lawyer who specializes in environmental law, said that he sees ethical questions regarding the use of publicly owned laboratories and research vessels to conduct confidential work on behalf of a private company.

Also, university officials who spoke with the newspaper expressed concern about the potential loss of federal research money tied to professors working for BP.

With its payments, BP buys more than the scientists’ services, according to Wiygul. It also buys silence, he said, thanks to confidentiality clauses in the contracts.

“It makes me feel like they were more interested in making sure we couldn’t testify against them than in having us testify for them,” said George Crozier, head of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, who was approached by BP.

Richard Shaw, associate dean of LSU’s School of the Coast and Environment, said that the BP contracts are already hindering the scientific community’s ability to monitor the affects of the Gulf spill.

“The first order of business at the research meetings is to get all the disclosures out. Who has a personal connection to BP? We have to know how to deal with that person,” Shaw said. “People are signing on with BP because the government funding to the universities has been so limited. It’s a sad state of affairs.”

Wiygul, who examined the BP contract for the Press-Register, described it as “exceptionally one-sided.”

“This is not an agreement to do research for BP,” Wiygul said. “This is an agreement to join BP’s legal team. You agree to communicate with BP through their attorneys and to take orders from their attorneys.

“The purpose is to maintain any information or data that goes back and forth as privileged.”

The contract requires scientists to agree to withhold data even in the face of a court order if BP decides to fight such an order. It stipulates that scientists will be paid only for research approved in writing by BP.

The contracts have the added impact of limiting the number of scientists who’re able to with federal agencies. “Let’s say BP hired you because of your work with fish. The contract says you can’t do any work for the government or anyone else that involves your work with BP. Now you are a fish scientist who can’t study fish,” Wiygul said.

A scientist who spoke to the Press-Register on condition of anonymity because he feared harming relationships with colleagues and government officials said he rejected a BP contract offer and was subsequently approached by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with a research grant offer.

He said the first question the federal agency asked was, “‘is there a conflict of interest,’ meaning, ‘are you under contract with BP?’”

Other scientists told the newspaper that colleagues who signed on with BP have since been informed by federal officials that they will lose government funding for ongoing research efforts unrelated to the spill.

NOAA officials did not answer requests for comment. The agency also did not respond to a request for the contracts that it offers scientists receiving federal grants. Several scientists said the NOAA contract was nearly as restrictive as the BP version.

The state of Alaska published a 293-page report on the NRDA process after the Exxon Valdez disaster. A section of the report titled “NRDA Secrecy” discusses anger among scientists who received federal grants over “the non-disclosure form each researcher had signed as a prerequisite to funding.”

“It’s a very strange situation. The science is already suffering,” Shaw said. “The government needs to come through with funding for the universities. They are letting go of the most important group of scientists, the ones who study the Gulf.”