Tag: Obama

The enormous service that a certain whistleblower has provided to Americans and the world at large, is becoming clear even in the face of shrill cries of “traitor” and histrionic accusations of “aiding the enemy.”

That certain whistleblower (who will not be named, in hopes of avoiding comments about personalities rather than revelations) has shone a light on a shadow government, a set of parallel institutions that operate without democratic controls.  It is a government-corporate warren of institutions that uses secrecy and the application of large amounts of cash to avoid democratic control by the people and has allied with corporate chieftains and hijacked large corporations, defying the “discipline of the market” and the democratic controls of shareholders and chartering states.

Some portion of these institutions have been described before; Dana Priest and William Arkin did ground-breaking work scouring the public record and describing the size and shape of the leviathan entity:

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation’s other findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – about 17 million square feet of space.

* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year – a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.

James Bamford did remarkable work describing the capabilities of some of these institutions and previous whistleblowers like William Binney and Thomas Drake have described what some of these institutions do.  Binney and Drake, however, did not have documentary proof, the gold standard of credibility, which changes discussions marred with accusations of “conspiracy theories” to discussions about conspiracy reality:  

One of the arguments about [redacted] that I’ve occasionally gotten caught up in is: What difference has he made? Has he really told us very much we didn’t know before?

In a broad sense, you can argue that he hasn’t. We knew (or certainly suspected) that NSA was collecting enormous streams of telephone metadata. We knew they were issuing subpoenas for data from companies like Google and Microsoft. We knew that Section 702 warrants were very broad. We knew that domestic data sometimes got inadvertently collected. We knew that massive amounts of foreign phone and email traffic were monitored.

As it happens, we’ve learned more than just this from the documents on [redacted’s] four laptops. Still, even if you accept this argument in general terms-and I’ve made it myself-[redacted] still matters. It’s one thing to know about this stuff in broad strokes. It’s quite another to have specific, documented details. That’s what [redacted] has given us, and it makes a big difference in public debate. …

This is how change happens. The public gets hit over the head with something, lawmakers are forced to take notice, and maybe, just maybe, Congress holds oversight hearings and decides to change the law. There’s no guarantee that will happen this time, but it might. And regardless of how “new” [redacted’s] revelations have been, we have him to thank for this.

A certain whistleblower has documentation.  That documentation has already outed high government officials as (unindicted) perjurers and liars and impugned the veracity of information presented to the public on the NSA website and caused the NSA to hastily remove the misleading documents.

These high government officials have made a mockery of the President’s asssertion that his administration is being transparent and that we should have a national debate about these matters.  One cannot seriously debate an issue when one side controls access to the facts and is economical with the truth, while at the same time introducing blatant falsehoods into the discussion.  If the administration wanted to have a debate, and its behaviors indicate otherwise, it must stop acting in bad faith toward the American people.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Predator

With apologies to Wallace Stevens

Other readings: “On Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,

The only moving thing

Was the X-47B.

II

I was of three minds,

Like a Predator A

In which there are three missiles

III

The Reaper circled in the autumn winds.

It was the eye of the operation.

IV

A marine and his rifle

Are one.

A marine and his rifle and a Raven

Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The Hellfire explosion

Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window

With barbaric glass.

The shadow of the drone

Crossed it, to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,

Why do you imagine golden birds?

Do you not see how the Global Hawk

Circles the heads

Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;

But I know, too,

That the predator is involved

In what I know.

IX

When the drone flew out of sight,

It marked the edge

Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of drones

Flying in a green light,

Even the bawds of euphony

Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Washington

In a glass coach.

Once, a fear pierced him,

In that he mistook

The shadow of his equipage

For an RQ-7.

XII

The village is a ruin.

The Predator must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The Predator sat

In its hangar.

This week with all of the focus on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war, I’ve been reading a lot of analysis of the war and its legacy.  I think that most of the commentators that I’ve read thus far have either missed or failed to appropriately assess the gravity of at least one legacy of the war.

I think that the crucial legacy of the Iraq war is how inconsequential the dissent of the people is to those that make the decisions.  I was listening to Democracy Now the other day when they had Arundhati Roy on, and they said that 50 million people around the world had protested against the commencement of hostilities.  If I am remembering correctly, I and my family joined between a million and a million and a half Americans around the country who marched in protest on that day.

The voices of millions of people didn’t make a difference.

We pointed out that they were clearly lying. It didn’t matter.  They got their war on.

As time wore on and the war became increasingly unpopular, that didn’t seem to matter, either.  There was no stopping the powers that be.

They tortured people and disappeared people and later bragged about it on national teevee.

There have been no prosecutions, only a “forward looking” president who has expanded some of the worst policies of his war criminal predecessors.  In the pursuit of his inherited wars and his own new ones, he has committed what many see as war crimes of his own. Among them are his assassination programs, “signature” murders and the cruel and inhuman punishment of at least one whistleblower.

Nothing seems to stop these people and there is no force in our “democracy” that seems to be up to the task of making things right.

That, I think is the most momentous legacy of the Iraq war – our system seems to be a military juggernaut that is utterly unaccountable to anyone.

Greetings fellow inhabitants of Earth.  We, the Committee to End the Future, a purposely shadowy global organization of extremely wealthy and powerful people wish to thank you for your cooperation in completing the final round of our “Great Game.”

For centuries we have played a series of rounds of the “Great Game,” accumulating resources by dominating governmental and economic structures, subjecting citizens of the various countries of Earth to a variety of schemes to divert the products and value of their labors to our use and to pauperize those not of our sort.

To cut to the chase, though, the reason for this communication is to warn our fellow inhabitants away from a very dangerous movement that could potentially disrupt our game and cause something of an annoying reset just as we are getting close to declaring a winner.  We have discovered to our dismay that a small but noisy group of citizen activists wish to rein in the emission of carbon and methane which are essential to both our economy and completion of the Game.

If these noisy, misguided activists are successful, we shall have to write off many Trillions of dollars worth of energy assets that are important as game pieces as well as means of game completion.

We hope that we can count on you, our fellow inhabitants to continue your demand for carbon and methane emitting energy sources which are essential, let us not forget, to your personal comfort and ease of living.  No matter what these activists say or do, please continue to ignore them.  Continue to listen to the politicians that we support and their long-term, incremental plans that will bring down carbon emissions so gradually that you will never notice it.

We are now very close to the end of the Game.  No game is complete without an end state.  In short, we need to know who the winners are.  At the end of this round of the Great Game we shall finally know, and in the tradition of the Egyptian Pharoahs that buried their fellow players alive at the end of their games, so shall we.  We believe that our fellow inhabitants will enjoy a final rest from the great toils required of all those who play the Game.

Thank you for your cooperation!

It was a time of gaiety and dancing and singing and fighting and drinking and – well not so much the naughty because Mother Church frowned on such goings on except with the scarlet ladies beyond the pale that my father told me about in Ireland.

A typical household consisted of a straw hut, a mother, father, passel of kids and a pig.  Not only was furniture rare (rocks sufficed for chairs) but so were utensils and dinnerware.  Just outside the front entrance was a pile of pig shit.  If you never smelled pig shit, count yourself blessed.

An Irish peasant with much more than the usual amount of land allowed the Irish peasantry by the English overlords for growing potatoes sadly noted that he had to hire a maid because his wife got so lonely for the gaiety of the commons.

This is part of the beginning of a book on the Irish Potato Famine told largely through drab documents and letters and other tedious products of deep research that puts a lie to the usual apocryphal notions of the famine.  It is a horror far beyond the artistry of even the master of horror, Edgar Allan Poe. It is some hard reading and I will probably never finish the book.

The problem was not so much the hatred and contempt for the Irish by the English, though there is no shortage of that and vice versa to this day, but a misunderstanding of the genius of Adam Smith along with a benevolence that often did more harm than good.  Who can top the widely circulated pamphlet on how to cook rotten potatoes?  The Irish were already and are the only people on earth with worse cuisine than the English.

One has to be insensate not to notice the relief, even among Republican stalwarts, that Romney, who is now revealing himself plainly for what he always was, did not attain the reins of power.  Instead, says Cornell West, we got Romney in blackface.  You don’t have to agree fully even if you can get past the – ahh, umm – insensitivity of Mr. West but how to explain glowing promises that the U.S. will be pumping more oil out of the ground in the near future by a fine fellow who says he accepts the science of global warming which decrees Sandy is just a red-haired stepchild of what is to come?

Contrary to crazed popular notions, America was not founded on Christian-Judaic doctrine (whatever that is supposed to be) but on contempt for the hatred espoused by religions, including atheism.  George Washington and, I think, Adams were Deists.  Deists decreed that God created the world but God takes care of God and man can damn well take care of himself.  Man isn’t doing so hot at the task.

Jefferson was a Unitarian, which is little different but far more elaborate and colorful.  Kinda funny that Jefferson would go for the pomp and circumstance.  But he, like all the others with the usual human failings, wanted real change and respected science and learning.

That was then.  This is now.  Hope there is a tomorrow for the kids and grandkids.

Best,  Terry

Has it occurred to you how strange it is that your job can slip across international boundaries, but you are prohibited from crossing the same border to follow that job? It should.

Multinational Corporations have been busy for the last twenty years creating a new type of serf. In feudal Europe and Asia, serfs were tied to the land by a master, called the lord, and obligated to work for him. Now, the 1% are creating serfs out of whole nations of people. Sure, those lands are huge-nations-but they are still boundaries that bind you, and prevent you for selling your work freely, while multinational corporations are borderless entities.

Seeking to continue the tail spin to the bottom of wages, big business has been busy writing international treaties, allowing jobs to shift to ever lower paying environments with the least protections for workers. Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, United States, and Vietnam are already involved in the latest negotiations, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. If signed the treaty will be a “docking agreement” open to any country to sign later. Canada and Mexico are expected to join this month. Japan and China are being courted to join. It is the largest trade agreement the world has ever seen.

The treaty creates an über-government superseding and overriding existing law in sovereign nations–seeking to stamp out democracy. In old feudalism, it was the Catholic church that held dominion over the nations of man. Now “the market” has taken the place of God. Profits are all that matters. Anything the market endorses is right because the market is infallible, unchallengeable. Keep democracy out of it.

The powerful and wealthy have finally found a way to regain the power they once held in feudal times. They have done it in ways intentionally hidden from the majority. Most of us don’t even realize we are in a battle for the type of global governance we will have in the future. For the last 50 years corporate leadership have simply bought our democracies and media outlets, making it easy for corporations to gain the upper hand, and convince voters to support governance that is secretive and totalitarian, without letting voters know they are doing so. Now the 1% want to solidify that power into an actual international treaty. They are seeking one economy under the rule of American corporations. They are, in fact, seeking world dominion.

I ran across this posting in Rolling Stone from a management-level whistleblower, who provided information about frauds which took place at Countrywide Home Loans and Bank of America.  The author has prevailed in a wrongful termination ruling from OSHA that requires Bank of America to reinstate her and pay significant damages.

The whistleblower writes:

In 2010, I was interviewed by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) and offered evidence of systemic fraud. Other whistleblowers have done the same. The Commission’s report concluded that fraudulent actions were systemic in certain financial institutions, and referred these practices to federal authorities. Not a single successful criminal prosecution has resulted.

President Obama’s DOJ claims that prosecutors can’t indict and convict financial executives just because they behaved badly; greed, they say, is not a crime. Together with other FCIC witnesses, however, I alleged fraud, not greed, and that is a crime. The DOJ needs to investigate our allegations, and prosecutors could start by contacting whistleblowers like me. We have a lot to say, but many of us are gagged by our former employers unless subpoenaed.

Today, millions of Americans are paying more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, and millions more are facing foreclosure. Meanwhile, those who cashed in while ordinary Americans lost their homes and their jobs remain at large, continuing both the crimes and the cover-up. Whistleblowers like me know who they are because we were there. We’re willing to talk. Why won’t the government listen?

There are people with knowledge of serious crimes that want to come forward and help the justice system to set things right.  But there is a piece missing:

The Obama administration plans to add thousands of investigators to enforce the health care reform law, but has added just 25 positions to investigate whistleblower claims.

The Obama administration does not seem interested in what whistleblowers are reporting, nor does it seem all that interested in protecting whistleblowers that can provide valuable information to prosecutors.

If the Obama administration was paying attention, they would find that public disappointment with the lack of significant and aggressive prosecutions of the serious frauds that caused our financial crisis has spread far beyond the Occupy movement and has now entered the jury pool.  In a recent SEC prosecution of a Citigroup employee, the jury had some interesting thoughts:

As Beau Brendler sat in the jury box listening to the government’s case against a former Citigroup midlevel executive, the same question kept entering his mind.

“I wanted to know why the bank’s C.E.O. wasn’t on trial,” said Mr. Brendler, who served as the jury’s foreman. “Citigroup’s behavior was appalling.”

So, despite the fact that the jury found that the SEC had failed to prove its case against the midlevel employee, in an unusual act for a jury, they issued a statement along with their verdict:

“This verdict should not deter the S.E.C. from continuing to investigate the financial industry, review current regulations and modify existing regulations as necessary.”

The jury foreman explained their reasoning this way:

“We were afraid that we would send a message to Wall Street that a jury made up of regular American folks could not understand their complicated transactions and so they could get away with their outrageous conduct,” Mr. Brendler said. “We also did not want to discourage the government from investigating and prosecuting financial crimes.”

There is a thirst for justice in the American public.  It is long past time for the Obama administration to demonstrate that they are on the side of regular Americans and do something.  

Let’s see, there’s big money on one side of this issue and votes on the other side.  What’s a politician to do?  

Reprinted from: Daily Kos

In an unprecedented move, we are delaying the publication of our regular Anti-capitalist meet-up diary to bring you a special report.  Four hours ago, several hundred US citizens and residents, reportedly members of OWS (Occupy Wall Street), occupied both chambers of the United States Congress.

Corporate media sources have refused to report the event until control can be reestablished by authorities. However, according to Al Gazeera, who just started running a live stream an hour ago, the occupiers entered both houses and forced the Senate into the House of Representatives Chamber for a joint session.  We can only speculate whether the occupiers used guns to force the Senators into the Chamber or simply took over using the force of their numbers. We understand they dismantled the microphones in the chamber and began a General Assembly using the human microphone.

On March Fifth, President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder presented a speech at Northwestern University to explain President Obama’s approach to targetted assassinations and legal justification for them, including a retroactive justification of the assassination of US citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki.

In the speech, Holder articulated a new standard of due process that President Obama is relying on as a basis for his actions:

Some have argued that the President is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of al Qaeda or associated forces.   This is simply not accurate.   “Due process” and “judicial process” are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security.   The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.

Unfortunately, Mr. Holder did not present any evidence that the process that the administration is providing meets any particular standard other than the “trust us on this” standard.