American Judas

Hello to 2012, Farewell to Judas

2012-01-05T13:14:00.001-08:00

Despite what the title implies, this is not my final blog post. As the New Year approached and I looked back on a year where my blogging was very infrequent compared with last year, I must reassess what I really want to do. 2011 was just a dreary exercise of drudgery at best and a tragic funeral dirge at worst. I'm tired of the misery. I'm tired of the empty negative cynicism. My search for unearthing the truth where Deep Politics is concerned has lately felt tied to a downward spiral into bitter venting and resentment. That might be a natural response, but if you wallow in it, I can say from personal experience it is not healthy.

So, what's the antidote? How do I avoid these unhealthy feelings without becoming an ostrich buried neck-deep in denial? Can I continue to explore the deep dark recesses of political skullduggery while expressing my discoveries in an way that doesn't provoke a biblical wailing and gnashing of teeth? I believe I have found a solution that I am resolved to employ in 2012. I am going to create a stand-up comedy act and haunt as many open-mike nights with my presence as I can. There I can hopefully instigate an atmosphere where people will feel safe to explore every subject I have written about on this blog - and laugh about it.

This means I no longer have time to write here. All my future writing efforts will be geared toward possible inclusion in my stand up, but they will not appear here. My hope is that this will help me with an idea for a book I had that is presently mired not only in a dark pool of brooding bile, but worse, bordering on being tediously academic and pedantic. In short, it lacks fart jokes. So my writing here will be limited to the shameless self-promotion of my stand up appearances throughout the Southern California area.

So to leave you with a smile and a resolution for a year filled with hilarity, here is a photo gallery of my all time stand up heroes and influences:

From childhood:

I've been an Andy Kaufman fan all my life. In childhood, I loved his Elvis transformation and his "Here I come to save the day!" lip-synch. In my teenage years, I loved watching Taxi re-runs. In adulthood, I am astounded at his fearlessness in deliberately confounding audience expectations. He is the only performer who will appear twice in this gallery, for reasons to be explained later.

In addition to occasionally watching episodes of Fat Albert as a child, Bill Cosby performed the first full stand up act I ever watched, Bill Cosby Himself.

Even as a child, I was fascinated with the improvisational dexterity of Robin Williams every time I saw him on variety shows or Mork and Mindy, which I watched religiously. As a teenager, I became a bigger fan of his stand up with Robin Williams A Night at the Met.

From my teenage years:

While I might have heard of his Saturday Night Live exploits from childhood friends, (too late for me to watch) it wasn't until my teenage years that I discovered his stand up. Delirious is just a classic, the album I tried to hide from my parents, the one that opened my eyes to just how funny being nasty could be!

Ahhh...back when he was wild, crazy, and funny! Steve Martin's stand up act was a truly hilarious experience.

Billy Crystal is another comedian whose stand up album, Mahvelous!, I got into in my teenage years.

Rodney Dangerfield is an absolute comedy hero to me, both for his personal perseverance in breaking through with his stand up act at age 40, and for all the wonderful opportunities he gave to rising comedians in his comedy specials on HBO.

Speaking of Rodney Dangerfield's HBO comedy specials, that was how I was introduced to Sam Kinison. With an unparalleled presentation, Sam opened up the possibilities of exploring humor through unbridled rage as well as skewering religious hypocrisy.

From adulthood:

Another comedian I first caught through HBO in my teenage years, I didn't really catch on to what Jerry Seinfeld was doing until adulthood when I became addicted to Seinfeld. When I went back to revisit his stand up, I realized just how amazing he always was.

I love Albert Brooks' movies, but his stand up, especially Comedy Minus One, absolutely kills!

One of the pioneers of modern stand up. Always a great listen, I wish there was more out there of Lenny Bruce to see. Every comic working today owes him a debt of gratitude.

Mainly recognized today for his genius as a film director, it was in the world of stand up where Woody Allen initially rose to prominence. I'd say his material has stood the test of time.

Probably the only comedian on this list still regularly doing stand up, Eddie Izzard stands out for his stream of consciousness style and his deep abiding love of history.

I was introduced to the stand up legacy of Richard Pryor via Eddie Murphy's adulation in his movie Raw. To watch his stand up, especially Richard Pryor: Live in Concert is to witness a master class in the art form.

Sharing Lenny Bruce's gift for expanding the boundaries of stand up, George Carlin amassed a body of work as a stand up comic that in my opinion is the greatest of all time. Jammin' in New York in particular is absolutely, and I only use this word when I believe it's warranted, genius.

Speaking of expanding boundaries, Bill Hicks was a comic revolutionary. Starting at age 15, Hicks left no target untouched without putting his rifle scope precision aim on it. A huge success in England, as evidenced by the profound Revelations, Hicks is sorely missed in the world of comedy today.

Here is the only performer on this list to appear twice. He calls himself Tony Clifton, but I have it on record that this is actually Andy Kaufman. Or is it? Andy Kaufman passed away in 1984, yet Tony Clifton lives on. Talk about the ultimate in stand up: the act that never dies. As Tony would say, "If I have made just one person happy here today, it's all been worth it".

Capitalism vs. the Climate

2011-11-10T16:16:00.000-08:00

I have been astounded by the growth and strength of a movement that started just four days after my last blog entry: #Occupy Wall Street. In the future, I hope to write more about their representation near my city of residence, Occupy Los Angeles. But at this time I want to post an article that I believe best illustrates the revolutionary potential that this movement holds for, believe it or not, the future of civilization.

This is a long piece, but it's one of the most well written and most important that I've read in a long time. I've always loved her research and writing ever since I read The Shock Doctrine, one of my top ten favorite political books. But here I really became impressed with her wide-ranging vision of how the present and future is shaping up. I hope you read the whole piece, but these paragraphs in particular stood out for me:

Capitalism vs. the Climate
Naomi Klein
November 9, 2011

The fact that the earth’s atmosphere cannot safely absorb the amount of carbon we are pumping into it is a symptom of a much larger crisis, one born of the central fiction on which our economic model is based: that nature is limitless, that we will always be able to find more of what we need, and that if something runs out it can be seamlessly replaced by another resource that we can endlessly extract. But it is not just the atmosphere that we have exploited beyond its capacity to recover—we are doing the same to the oceans, to freshwater, to topsoil and to biodiversity. The expansionist, extractive mindset, which has so long governed our relationship to nature, is what the climate crisis calls into question so fundamentally. The abundance of scientific research showing we have pushed nature beyond its limits does not just demand green products and market-based solutions; it demands a new civilizational paradigm, one grounded not in dominance over nature but in respect for natural cycles of renewal—and acutely sensitive to natural limits, including the limits of human intelligence.

snip

In addition to reversing the thirty-year privatization trend, a serious response to the climate threat involves recovering an art that has been relentlessly vilified during these decades of market fundamentalism: planning. Lots and lots of planning. And not just at the national and international levels. Every community in the world needs a plan for how it is going to transition away from fossil fuels, what the Transition Town movement calls an “energy descent action plan.” In the cities and towns that have taken this responsibility seriously, the process has opened rare spaces for participatory democracy, with neighbors packing consultation meetings at city halls to share ideas about how to reorganize their communities to lower emissions and build in resilience for tough times ahead.

snip

But here is where things get complicated. There is a growing body of economic research on the conflict between economic growth and sound climate policy, led by ecological economist Herman Daly at the University of Maryland, as well as Peter Victor at York University, Tim Jackson of the University of Surrey and environmental law and policy expert Gus Speth. All raise serious questions about the feasibility of industrialized countries meeting the deep emissions cuts demanded by science (at least 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050) while continuing to grow their economies at even today’s sluggish rates. As Victor and Jackson argue, greater efficiencies simply cannot keep up with the pace of growth, in part because greater efficiency is almost always accompanied by more consumption, reducing or even canceling out the gains (often called the “Jevons Paradox”). And so long as the savings resulting from greater energy and material efficiencies are simply plowed back into further exponential expansion of the economy, reduction in total emissions will be thwarted. As Jackson argues in Prosperity Without Growth, “Those who promote decoupling as an escape route from the dilemma of growth need to take a closer look at the historical evidence—and at the basic arithmetic of growth.”

snip

We know the answers already. The corporate quest for scarce resources will become more rapacious, more violent. Arable land in Africa will continue to be grabbed to provide food and fuel to wealthier nations. Drought and famine will continue to be used as a pretext to push genetically modified seeds, driving farmers further into debt. We will attempt to transcend peak oil and gas by using increasingly risky technologies to extract the last drops, turning ever larger swaths of our globe into sacrifice zones. We will fortress our borders and intervene in foreign conflicts over resources, or start those conflicts ourselves. “Free-market climate solutions,” as they are called, will be a magnet for speculation, fraud and crony capitalism, as we are already seeing with carbon trading and the use of forests as carbon offsets. And as climate change begins to affect not just the poor but the wealthy as well, we will increasingly look for techno-fixes to turn down the temperature, with massive and unknowable risks.

more...(all emphasis added)

http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate?page=full

What I found most exhilarating about this article is that it is far from a "doom and gloom" piece. Klein does a wonderful job exploring the positive possibilities of a future with a "new civilizational paradigm" and rightly credits Occupy Wall Street with leading the way as a commendable example.

10 Years Later, We Still Have Trouble With "Truth"

2011-09-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted here. Several months, in fact, have elapsed since posting anything overtly political. Leave it to September 11 to change that.

No, it's not the solemn remembrances of what we've learned over the last 10 years that have been flooding mainstream media. Rather it's what we haven't learned, what we refuse to examine and comprehend, what we sweep under the rug or stick our fingers in our ears and shout, "La-la-la, can't hear you, can't HEAR YOU!" That inconvenient thing that in spite of a Congressional probe and an "independent" commission investigation, keeps seeping through like the blood on Lady Macbeth's hands that isn't there, but is all too real. You know, the truth!

I wrote about this general subject a year ago today. Little did I imagine one year later, more specific connections between 9/11 and the group I consider to be the genesis for that horrific homicide, BCCI, would come to light:

Posted on Wednesday, 09.07.11

Link to 9/11 hijackers found in
Sarasota
Special to The Miami Herald

FBI found
ties between hijackers and Saudis in Sarasota but never revealed the
findings

Photos
By Anthony Summers and Dan
Christensen
Special to The Miami Herald
Just two weeks before the 9/11
hijackers slammed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, members of a Saudi
family abruptly vacated their luxury home near Sarasota, leaving a brand new car
in the driveway, a refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter — and an open
safe in a master bedroom.

In the weeks to follow, law enforcement agents not only discovered the
home was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers, but phone calls were linked
between the home and those who carried out the death flights — including leader
Mohamed Atta — in discoveries never before revealed to the public.

Ten years after the deadliest attack of terrorism on U.S. soil, new
information has emerged that shows the FBI found troubling ties between the
hijackers and residents in the upscale community in southwest Florida, but the
investigation wasn’t reported to Congress or mentioned in the 9/11 Commission
Report.

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who co-chaired the
congressional Joint Inquiry into the attacks, said he should have been told
about the findings, saying it “opens the door to a new chapter of investigation
as to the depth of the Saudi role in 9/11. ... No information relative to the
named people in Sarasota was disclosed.”

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/07/v-fullstory/2395698/link-to-911-hijackers-found-in.html#ixzz1XiF2Pb4l

Fantastic revelations! Just four days before the 10th anniversary, you would think something this shocking would have been headline news. Not that I thought it would when I read it. After 10 years of seeing anything that questions the "official story" get squeezed down the memory hole, it didn't surprise me that I only found out about this report from alternative media sources. What surprised me was that I found out about this in the General Discussion forum at Democratic Underground. Usually a story like this would get banished to their 9/11 forum, known affectionately or unaffectionately as "the dungeon".

Two days later, Mark G. Levey, who posts on Democratic Underground as leveymg, followed up this story with his own research confirming the connection between Ghazzawi and BCCI:

leveymg (1000+ posts)
Fri Sep-09-11 07:55 PM
Original message
Florida al-Qaeda fugitive Esam Ghazzawi linked to BCCI and two dead Saudi Princes

This follows up my posting yesterday, which examined the Miami Herald report Wednesday that the FBI had covered up the escape of a Saudi financier living in Florida who had hosted Mohamed Atta at his Sarasota villa in the months leading up to the 9/11 attacks. See, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/595

Esam Ghazzawi, his daughter, Anoud, and her husband, Abdulazzi al-Hiijjii suddenly disappeared on August 30, 2001, leaving behind a million dollar, fully furnished Sarasota home, several automobiles, and their personal belongings. For ten years, the FBI withheld information from Congressional investigators and the public that Ghazzami has been visited by Atta and another hijacker, and phone records showed numerous calls to other figures involved in the 9/11 attack. Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/07/2395698/link-to-9...

Ghazzawi linked to BCCI and two dead Saudi Princes

Background checking since yesterday’s news account reveals evidence that Ghazzawi, who was on US government watch-lists along with his daughter and son-in-law, has a long history of association with Saudi financiers linked to terrorism and major global bank frauds in the 1980s and 1990s. He now lives openly in Jeddah and owns the posh Orient Restaurant in Khobar, KSA. Most intriguingly, he is mentioned in a 1997 London court document as having held funds for Prince Fahd bin Salman, a member of the Saudi Royal family who died suddenly at the age of 46 on July 24, 2001.

Prince Fahd's father Salman is the governor of Riyadh and brother of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. The eldest of four brothers, and born in 1955, Prince Fahd acted as deputy governor of Riyadh's Eastern Region during the Gulf War of 1991. Little has ever been written about the death of Fahd, but his involvement with BCCI was noted several years earlier in connection with a law suit in London. Reprinted at: http://www.sauduction.com/issues/11

PRINCE FAHD BIN SALMAN'S DUBIOUS BANKING PRACTICES

Private Eye reports: "Prince Fahd bin Salman, eldest son of ... Prince
Salman, the governor of Riyadh ... a court case brought by the BCCI liquidators
over the little matter of $397,000 owed to the rogue bank. Since 1994 the
liquidators had been seeking repayment of this money under a guarantee given by
the prince for the overdraft of an offshore company, Colchest Corporation N.V.
In an unusual response, Prince Fahd sought to offset against this debt money
held at another BCCI branch in the name of one Esam Ghazzawi, claiming that this
was his money. The court of appeal rejected this suggestion on the basis that it
was unclear who owned what in the Ghazzawi accounts."

Prince Fahd’s death five weeks before Ghazzami suddenly fled his Sarasota home, barely 6 weeks before 9/11 might not in itself be more than coincidence. However, the unfolding story takes a particularly sinister turn when one realizes that Faud’s older brother, Prince Ahmed bin Salman died almost exactly a year later (November 17, 1958 – July 22, 2002), and his death has been labeled the first of a series of post-9/11 U.S. targeted killings of prominent figures identified as having had leading roles in the attacks.

In his 2003 book Why America Slept, author Gerald Posner writes that Prince Ahmed bin Salman had had ties to al-Qaeda and had advance knowledge of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. When 9/11 figure Abu Zubaydeh was captured, Posner claims that he revealed to American interrogators the identity of a number of top al-Qaeda backers, including Prince Ahmed, and the head of the Pakistani Air Force, who died with his family and closest aides in a February 2003 mid-air transport plane explosion.

To the timeline of events leading up to 9/11, including the 08/30/2001 flight of Ghazzawi and his family, we must now add the death five weeks earlier of Prince Faud and the death almost a year to the day of his older brother, Prince Ahmed. Their father is a co-director of the Saudi intelligence service along with Prince Turki bin Faisal, who suddenly resigned his 25 year commission as the Director of the Saudi General Intelligence agency and departed his long-time post in Washington suddenly on September 4, 2001. That is another important date that should put on anyone’s 9/11 timeline.

It is now past time for the redacted material in the 9/11 Report about Saudi al-Qaeda finance to be released, and the case reopened to examine new evidence.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x320954

It was exciting to see the headline for this follow up post. I immediately recommended and bookmarked it to read later. When I tried to read it later so I could comment and contribute to the discussion, I found the DU moderators had once again returned to form and banished this thread to the dungeon. Apparently even in the alternative media universe, it still isn't good form to broadly display any questioning of the 9/11 official story beyond a cursory nod.

What would Bill Hicks say if he were still alive? Oh yeah, "Go back to bed, America!"

Impressions of Life

2011-06-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

Watching Terrence Malick's new film The Tree of Life was one of the most unique movie-going experiences I have had. I concur with Roger Ebert's comparison with 2001: A Space Odyssey, though the similarity can really only be drawn to the Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite sequence of Kubrick's masterpiece. There is a floating elliptical quality to the style of that last half-hour in 2001 that runs throughout the entirety of Tree of Life. This style allows Malick to dispense with conventional narrative plot and tell the story in a manner that is best described as Impressionistic. I've seen a lot of filmmakers employ surrealism to tell a story, but this is the first example of an American Impressionist film that I've seen.

The movie begins with scenes showing the reactions of a mother, Mrs. O'Brien (Jessica Chastain) reading a telegram and a father, Mr. O'Brien (Brad Pitt) trying to listen to a co-worker over the roar of airplanes taking off. As an audience, we do not get to see or hear exactly what they are reacting to. While there is a smooth fluidity to Emmanuel Lubezki's artful cinematography, Malick doesn't seem to linger longer than a minute. The result is that film has a mosaic quality where every shot adds up to tell the larger story while letting the viewer fill in the narrative gaps with their own impressions. I got the impression that their child had been killed. Through the fantastic period detail from Jack Fisk's production design, I got the impression that he may have been killed in Vietnam. I might be wrong, but I think Malick's intent is that these minute details are inconsequential in the grand scheme of life. What does matter within the focus of the film is the grief and longing of those who loved this person and how his passing leads them to ponder the deeper philosophical questions regarding just what this life we possess is really about.

It is right about the time these questions pop up that the movie visually departs from the scenes of the O'Brien family in mid 20th century, their son Jack (Sean Penn) reflecting on his life several decades later, and is literally absorbed by the cosmos. We enter into an illustration of life in its most elemental and explosive beginnings, zigzagging from supernovas and volcanoes to the tiniest zygote. The visual tapestry not only traverses space but also time. When we come back to Earth, we recognize a lush landscape of oceans, mountains and, of course, trees, but instead of human activity, the dominant animal is the dinosaur. The dinosaur was the top of the food chain in their time, just as humans are in our time. What caused this paradigm shift? It is to Malick's credit that we get to visually witness the demise of the dinosaur. It is a scene that is short and simple, yet spectacular and shocking. Ultimately, the most profound effect it had on me is how humbling it was, how small humanity is in the vastness of the universe.

We return to the O'Brien family, it is in their hometown of Waco, Texas in the 1950's where Jack is now a young boy (Hunter McCracken, brilliant debut). Through his eyes, we see life unfold through joyful play in the backyard to stoic respect in the church. It's no surprise that in a movie that explores the deeper philosophical questions of the human condition that there is a spiritual dimension involved. It seems to lurk in between what Mrs. O'Brien observes about the balance between nature and grace that humanity rests on. Within her character, we see that spiritual balance through a love for animals (nature), in her admonishment of Jack for abusing one, and her capacity for forgiveness (grace), as she accepts Jack's request not to tell his father of his transgression. Mr. O'Brien is a stern disciplinarian, but not an unfeeling one. We see the roots of his struggle as he strives vainly to climb the ladder at his job when the only peace he seems to get is when at the end of the day or on the weekend, he can play the piano. There is a beautiful, heartbreaking subtlety to Brad Pitt's performance that captures the quiet desperation of a suburban dad who views his life in terms of failure. All he ever wanted to be was a musician but, in his own words or warning to his son, he got "sidetracked". He doesn't want his boys to repeat his mistake in their lives, so he tries constantly to keep them tough and wary of a world he sees as just wanting to tear you down if you're weak.

Throughout the movie, Malick employs the voiceover as a means of advancing the story, but in a very unique way. Often, we hear brief whispers, sometimes providing emotional insight into what we visually see, sometimes expressing questions about events we have yet to witness. This is one of the reasons why, as much as I loved and was overwhelmed by this movie, I would love to see it again. Sometimes the whispers were too soft and brief and I missed what was trying to be conveyed. But the emotional journey of this film is so layered that I think what I missed in words was conveyed in images. The spiritual dimension hinted at in earlier scenes is brought to the forefront as the movie reaches a conclusion. A good filmmaker might attempt to answer the big philosophical questions but a great filmmaker, which I think Malick is, allows the viewer to find their own answers. I walked out of the theater filled with a wonder of the universe, a love for humanity, and an intense desire to go home and give my wife a hug. As I opened the door to my house, the intensity built as I walked up the stairs toward our bedroom, only to dissipate as I entered the bedroom and found my wife lying on the floor dead.

I'm just kidding. Actually, it was my wife who was kidding, playing a practical joke on me. We shared a silly laugh, but it made me realize that's one emotional area Malick doesn't really explore: humor. As serious as life and death issues are, I think humanity would collapse under the weight of that seriousness if it wasn't for our capacity to mock ourselves and laugh at the absurdity of life. It's a minor quibble in the context of a profound film, but an important one in the context of a profound existence.

Art of Dying

2011-05-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

There'll come a time when all of us must leave here
Then nothing sister Mary can do
Will keep me here with you
As nothing in this life that I've been trying
Could equal or surpass the art of dying
Do you believe me?

-George Harrison "Art of Dying"

Sometimes blogging must take a back seat to real life. That's what happened this April. My father passed away a month ago, on April 12. He fought a valiant three year battle against colon cancer, but recently it spread to his liver. As horrific and tragic as the grieving process has been, I do take comfort in the fact that my three sisters and I got to say goodbye to him. We were able to take him home from the hospital so that, in accordance with his wishes, he was able to spend his last days in the home that he loved surrounded by all his children and his beloved Abyssinian cat, Sophinka.

In the past eight years, Dad and I built a deep friendship together. While we didn't seem to agree over anything politically (I described him to friends as "My Right-Wing Dad"), we bonded over a shared love of many other interests. Both of us loved the Los Angeles Lakers, and I will always treasure the memory of sharing with him the earth-shattering thrill of watching Derek Fisher's buzzer-beating playoff shot against the Spurs with 0.4 seconds on the clock, as well as the final game we watched together, Game 7 beating the Celtics for the NBA Championship in 2010. With his inspiration, I acquired an abiding love for Belgian beer, culminating in a 2004 trip to Bruges where we shared a Leffe Bruin and a Delirium Nocturnum at the Herberg Vlissinghe. (A cafe I plan on visiting again in 2015 when they celebrate their 500th anniversary)

We also enjoyed wine tasting and spent many Sideways trips in the Santa Ynez Valley. During those trips, we would drive from winery to winery, usually with the accompaniment of another shared love: 60's music. Regardless of whether we preferred the syrah or the pinot, we were constantly flying high to the sounds of the Beatles, Chambers Brothers, Charlatans, or the Doors. For those who knew my father as the reverent, conservative, Orthodox Christian deacon, this might be a strange image to process. But one of my funniest memories is watching Dad laugh while listening to Jim Morrison toy with his fans. After waxing rhapsodic about his particular astrological sign, he bellows, "Well I don't believe any of that. I think it's a bunch of bullshit. But I tell you this: I'm gonna get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames".

Perhaps that was my Dad's secret philosophy during retirement. Despite our political differences, there was one issue in which we were in complete agreement: Peak Oil. We both agreed that because of the way our economy is structured, there is an expiration date to the Happy-Motoring-Continental-Jet-Set-Society we are currently consuming and consumed by. We may have reached our conclusions through different people, Dad through Matthew Simmons and David Goodstein, me through Michael Ruppert and Richard Heinberg, but we both understood the ultimate destination. But I think my father knew intuitively that he would not experience the ultimate destination. So he got his kicks before the whole shithouse went up in flames. How did he accomplish this? During the final weekend we shared together, my older sister asked him, "How many countries did you visit in your life? Fifty three?!" He corrected her gently, "Fifty five".

While the experience of the preparation, immediacy and aftermath of my father's death has pushed politics to the background of my life and brought philosophical and spiritual matters to the forefront, finding out about the death of Osama bin Laden was still a jarring event. Of course, people I work with wanted to know the day after if I thought there was some sort of conspiracy involved with the event. Honestly, I had not given it much thought. I'm sure once the "fog of war" lifts, it will be easier to separate fact from fiction. At this point, from what I know, I sincerely doubt this was the way he wanted to go. As I indicated in a previous blog entry, I don't pretend to know enough about the spiritual realm to define it in any tangible sense. But I find it hard to believe that my Dad and Osama bin Laden are sharing the same spiritual mansion. That's not a moral judgment on my part, it's a consideration from the perspective of the life you live determining the spiritual space you inhabit. I don't see them having enough in common to share that space.

Then again, that sort of assumption undermines one of my most basic spiritual credos: Anyone who claims they comprehend the metaphysical realm is wrong, including myself! It's quite possible my father has some very valuable life lessons to teach Osama bin Laden about the art of dying before he can transition from one mansion to the next.

Perhaps Jim Morrison and George Harrison are teaching in the same room!

Fair Game

2011-03-31T14:25:00.000-07:00

There is the movie I wished Fair Game would be and there is the movie I feared Fair Game would be. My wish for Fair Game was an epic indictment of the corrupt neo-con juggernaut within the Bush administration using the outing of CIA NOC operative Valerie Plame as a starting point for documenting what co-pResident Dick Cheney actually presided over: a criminal enterprise. Since this is exactly what I had spent years documenting in the first and second editions of American Judas, my hope was that this movie would incorporate the same scope as my papers. I envisioned at least a three hour running time, the kind of political movie Oliver Stone used to make like JFK and Nixon. My fear was that Fair Game would be completely devoid of any political focus or foreign intrigue. I was worried that the movie would solely focus on the relationship between Valerie Plame and her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Any controversial element of their stories that coincided with neo-con criminality would be either brused aside or minimized as an unfortunate accident that upset their happy family life.

The actual movie Fair Game, as directed by Doug Liman of Bourne Identity fame, is neither of those films. While the scope is not as ambitious as I envisioned, it does not shy away from politics or foreign intrigue. In fact, I believe it is because there is such a heavy plot focus on the political events and machinations swirling around Plame and Wilson that when problems develop between them concerning their marriage and the focus of the movie switches to their relationship, it made me care more about them as human individuals screwed over by a Machiavellian government. Plus, the political focus within the plot does not reduce the movie to an academic exercise in history. This is a suspenseful movie with a tight script that knows exactly where it's taking its audience and Liman knows how to make it an exciting journey.

A good example of this excitement is in one of the first scenes in the movie. Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) is undercover in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as a Canadian venture capitalist hoping to make a sales pitch on behalf of her company to a successful Malaysian executive. Her attempt appears to be thwarted by a twenty-something cousin of the executive, who claims he is authorized to hear her pitch on his behalf. She is able to arrange another meeting with him in a more private setting. As he sits in the dark in her car parked on a hill overlooking the city wondering who this attractive blond is, the young man is startled to observe that they are being followed. When he makes a motion to split, Plame grabs him by the arm and tells him that if he runs she can no longer protect him. Then she reveals her true intention: to use him as an asset for obtaining intelligence on the man his uncle is working for - black market nuclear technology proliferator A.Q. Khan. For anyone who has read American Judas, this man and his "Nuclear Walmart" needs no introduction.

But as much as I would have enjoyed American Judas: The Movie, I can understand why after introducing this set-up, Liman moved these characters into the background of Plame's CIA clandestine work to tighten the scope. Most people simply aren't aware of the details surrounding the outing and ultimate destruction of Valerie Plame's CIA cover company Brewster, Jennings and Associates. Sure, many right-wingers howl over their perception of these details, harping over the fact that Dick Armitage was the initial leaker and try to portray this as an innocent mistake chalked up to "gossip". But if the movie had incorporated the revelations in Sibel Edmonds' 2009 sworn deposition regarding how Armitage and Marc Grossman at the State Department leaked the identity of Plame's cover company to the target of an FBI investigation back in the summer of 2001 to counter this argument, the focus would shift from domestic repression against the backdrop of war abroad to the international criminality that made the war possible.

So Liman does a nice balancing act of keeping Valerie Plame the focal point of the story while keeping political events and international intrigue in the background. From the CIA conference rooms in Langley, Virginia in 2002 where pressure from the Office of the Vice President over a report from Niger indicating the sale of uranium to Iraq that the CIA had previously debunked as a forgery necessitates further investigation, Plame is asked if she can refer this assignment to her husband Joseph Wilson (Sean Penn), since he was previously an Ambassador to Niger. Wilson accepts and comes back from Niger with news the CIA already knew and Cheney doesn't want to hear: there was no Iraqi purchase of Nigerian uranium. Cheney never appears except in news footage, but Lewis "Scooter" Libby is his point guard constantly driving his agenda to the basket by any means necessary, and David Andrews does an excellent job conveying his relentless drive. When Wilson sees his work disregarded as George W. Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address uses the Niger Forgeries as part of a justification for preemptive war in Iraq, he writes an editorial for the New York Times calling the administration out on their falsehood.

The administration responds by virtually declaring war on Joseph Wilson. Though his wife's CIA identity is supposed to be protected, in the war to protect their phony rationale for regime change in Iraq, the Bush administration makes Valerie Plame, in the words of Karl Rove, "fair game". The attack is relentless in the media, with talking heads from FOX and other outlets partial to Bush propaganda leading an assault of insults and false accusations questioning their loyalty and patriotism. The movie does an excellent job of illustrating how this wears the couple down and threatens them. Watts and Penn both traverse this emotional cauldron brilliantly, allowing the audience to feel their frustrations while rooting for them to fight back.

Since the DVD was just released this Tuesday, I'll be curious to see what kind of extra features might be available, both for entertainment and factual purposes. But even without extras, I recommend everyone see this movie.

The Nation Marches On, Sans Ruppert

2011-03-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

One of the first things I did the morning after returning the rental car from a vacation I took last week visiting relatives whose access to the internet is limited was to click on the “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” link that I've been promoting heavily on this blog. I had been anticipating the announced release of the Mike Ruppert interview for March 16 and I was anxious to see it. What a shock to see that the space for March 16 was now completely blank, without explanation. Several readers commented on this conspicuous absence, wondering why. I was concerned that perhaps Ruppert declined to give the interview because of The Nation's association with David Corn, who wrote a malicious hit piece on Ruppert in 2002. But then why would Ruppert agree to do the interview in the first place? Then I thought perhaps the whole series had been put on hold, but this week The Nation released a new interview:

Lester Brown: The Planet's Scarcest Resource Is Time

The Nation and On The Earth Productions

March 22, 2011

In this eleventh video in the series “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, analyst, author and founder of the Earth Policy Institute Lester Brown discusses how unprepared the world really is for the growing effects of climate change. "Economists doing supply and demand projections are largely unaware" of the scale of the resource crises facing the world, Brown says, and "food is going to be the weak link for our civilization as it was for so many earlier civilizations."

Most importantly, Brown emphasizes, is that we find a way to stabilize the Earth's population, climate and aquifers, which help provide water to many people in the world. "Many resources are becoming scarce but none more scarce than time," Brown says, and confronting peak oil and climate change demands immediate action. Already, eighteen countries are overpumping their aquifers, and few realize that in the event of a crisis, the US food supply would run out in three days.

"We need a mobilization at wartime speed on a wartime scale. Just fine-tuning this situation is not going to do it," Brown says.
more...
http://www.thenation.com/video/159399/lester-brown-planets-scarcest-resource-time

So the series continues, but what happened to the Ruppert interview. I searched the internet and finally found the answer at the Energy Bulletin:

A world in trouble (Michael Ruppert interview)

by Karen Rybold-Chin

Description:

Mike talks to the average citizen about where we stand in the energy crisis.

Video:

Editorial Notes

This interview was originally intended to be part of the series that has been running on the Nation (Are we running out of oil?). Karen Rybold-Chin, the series's producer, has told us that the Nation has declined to publish this interview.

From EB co-editor Bart Anderson:
Although we at EB are not Rupper-ites, I find him one of the most intriguing personalities on the peak oil scene. He rates much higher on the doomerosity scale than we do, and I have problems with his specific predictions. I think it's much better to look on Ruppert as someone gifted at identifying trends early and painting them in technicolor terms. He's right on when it comes to the importance of community and the sacred.

Mike Ruppert has been at this much longer than most of the rest of us, and has undergone painful experiences as a result. I'm glad he's back from Venezuela and is active again.
http://www.energybulletin.net/media/2011-03-16/world-trouble-michael-ruppert-interview

So there you have it. Mike Ruppert gave an interview, but The Nation simply declined to publish it, without explanation. It certainly couldn't have been because they felt his interview was too "doomerish" for them. Just compare Ruppert's interview to Brown's interview: both are talking about global catastrophe. Brown's focus on food, oil, water and the environment seems set in the next 5-10 years, Ruppert's focus on food, oil, money and revolution is set right now.

Shame on The Nation for their sin of omission last week. I'm glad they're continuing to publish the series, but I won't continue to promote them. I'll watch future interviews either through Energy Bulletin or through ontheearthproduction's Channel on YouTube. You can agree or disagree with Mike, but to deny him a platform after all the groundbreaking original reporting on Peak Oil he did on From The Wilderness in a series focusing on Peak Oil is an act of unforgivable censorship. I was hopeful that The Nation had buried their differences with Ruppert. I was mistaken.

Big Meetup Last Night!

2011-03-10T10:11:00.000-08:00

This was the third and by far the largest turnout for the Los Angeles Peak Oil Meetup Group. Once again, we met at The Cat & Fiddle in Hollywood. When I arrived at 7:05 last night, there were already seven people at an outside table. Within a half hour, I think the number in attendance reached a peak (bad pun unintended) of 16 people! This was probably the first time where instead of one dominant conversation lasting throughout the meetup, multiple conversations around the general topic were cropping up. It was great to see such lively social interaction, but I hope that it wasn't too overwhelming for some. We'll definitely need to find a more accommodating venue in the future, the wait staff seemed as though their patience was being tried over our scooting three tables together to try to squeeze everyone in.

I wish I could have had time to connect with everyone on a personal level. Going over the threads of conversation in my head from last night, I thought I would post some links. Alex, regarding what we were talking about concerning government awareness and planning for Peak Oil, here is the Department of Energy report from Robert Hirsch on the mitigation and expense for Peak Oil. Bahar, I think you had asked about a Peak Oil primer, this is one that I've shared with others. Also, I remember talking about the International Energy Agency admission that global conventional oil production peaked in 2006. Mainstream media did a pretty good job of burying that revelation, it was STORY #4 in my UNDER THE RUG blog post.

For everyone else at the meetup last night, I thought you might enjoy seeing this week's installation of The Nation's ongoing series of interviews with Jean Laherrère:

Jean Laherrère: Why Cheap Energy Is a Bad Thing

The Nation and On The Earth Productions

March 9, 2011

In this tenth video in the series “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, petroleum geophysicist and author Jean Laherrère explains that we are in the current energy crisis not only because fuel is running out, but because it's cost is too cheap. Laherrère, a former TOTAL oil company employee, used his insider knowledge to co-author a game-changing 1998 article, "The End of Cheap Oil," which studied oil depletion based on the most accurate database of the world’s oilfields at the time. The article's findings were not reassuring.

Many European countries have responded to the impending fuel crisis with taxes on energy, driving down consumption with higher prices. But the US hasn't followed their lead, and the consequences may be disastrous for our collective future. “We have been living for the last 10,000 years with open space," Laherrère explains. When you have a problem, ‘go west,’ open space. There is no 'west' to go anymore. We have reached the end of the world limit."

Go here to view last week's video, Thom Hartmann talking about how corporations are fueling our peak oil crisis. Go here to learn more about "Peak Oil and a Changing Climate," and to see the other videos in the series.
more...
http://www.thenation.com/video/159001/jean-laherrere-why-cheap-energy-bad-thing

Next week, The Nation will be posting an interview with one of the authors who first got me interested in Peak Oil back in 2004, Mike Ruppert. Should be good!

Peak Oil Interviews: Hartmann and Heinberg

2011-03-02T11:31:00.000-08:00

There were a couple interviews published this week regarding Peak Oil that I definitely think are worth taking a look at. Today, The Nation continued their ongoing series with an interview of Thom Hartmann:

Thom Hartmann: Corporations Are Fueling Our Peak Oil Crisis

The Nation and On The Earth Productions

March 2, 2011

In this ninth video in the series “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, radio and television host and author of The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight Thom Hartmann talks about ways we can all help combat global warming. Speaking from the grounds of Wisconsin's 2010 Fight Bob Fest, Hartmann insists that Americans need to change the way we live if we are going to save the planet, and the first step has to be getting active in the political process.

He believes the weather's "global weirding" will be the thing most people notice first about our changing climate: tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and vanishing freshwater glaciers are extreme enough that they should eventually force people to adapt and take action.

But for Hartmann, who also wrote Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became People—And How You Can Fight Back, the most critical fact we must face is that "the unholy alliance of corporation and government is every bit as destructive as the alliance of church and state was perceived to be two hundred years ago." We have to to fight back against the corporate capture of government, Hartmann says, because the companies profiting off our addiction to oil are doing everything in their power to keep us on our destructive course.
more...
http://www.thenation.com/video/158892/thom-hartmann-corporations-are-fueling-our-peak-oil-crisis

There was another interview published this week from Lindsay Curren at Transition Voice of Richard Heinberg, the author of The Party's Over, Powerdown, The Oil Depletion Protocol, Blackout and Peak Everything. In the interview, he discusses the subject of his upcoming book due in June or July of 2011, The End of Growth. It's worth reading the whole interview, but here are some highlights:

RH: Sure. Let me just say a few words about the book. The book is making the argument that we have reached the limits to growth.

And the first of those limits has to do with oil. We’ve reached the end of cheap oil.

I mean, whether we’ve actually, technically seen the highest month or year of oil production at this point may still be arguable. Maybe in 2011 or 2012 we will see a month of oil production higher than July 2008, or maybe 2011 as a total year will see higher production than 2005 which is so far the record year for world oil production.

But that’s all kind of academic.The reality is that the cheap oil is gone. And we’re seeing oil prices right now in the range of, well today $90 a barrel (this interview took place 12/21/2010) historically a very high price.

In effect, the oil price has become a limit to economic growth. Because if the economy starts to recover, then that drives oil prices higher. Every time we have high oil prices, really high oil prices, that undercuts economic activity.

If you look back in the last forty years, every time we’ve had an oil price spike we have had a recession immediately following. It happened in 2008. We had the highest oil price spike in history and we had the worst recession starting then since World War II.

Now, was the oil price spike the only cause of the recession? Absolutely not. And I agree with people like Nicole Foss who say that the financial economy was set up for a crash.

The financial system is based on debt and there are limits to debt. And we’re beyond those limits to debt and that’s part of what’s causing the economic crisis.

But at the same time, I would say that the oil price is essentially forming a cap on possible economic recovery at this point. That’s why I’m fairly confident in saying that we have reached the end of growth. And what we’re seeing now is basically the US economy just sort of bouncing along under that ceiling.

....

Meanwhile, I had a discussion just this afternoon with a very, very high placed environmentalist who was instrumental in the founding of some of the country’s foremost mainstream environmental organizations and has worked in the White House and so on. I asked him, does he see any policy maker in the US who really gets growth and how growth is undermining the environment and how we need to move away from a growth-based economy? And he thought for fifteen, twenty seconds and he said, “No, can’t think of a single one.”

....

Dumb ideas

LC:Now here's one. We decided to read a chapter from Glenn Beck on peak oil. His take on peak oil lead him to conclude that the direction the United States needed to go was more coal-to-liquid.

What are your thoughts on this direction and what are your thoughts on the probability of policy makers and those in the position to move things going in a dirtier energy direction or going in a cleaner energy direction?

RH: Right, well coal-to-liquids really has no future.

It’s going to be a very expensive way of making liquid fuels. I think the only future it’s likely to have is with the military to produce fuel for tanks and fighter aircraft and so on. But even at that it’s going to be really problematic.

Because, as I pointed out a few weeks ago in an article for Nature co-written with David Fridley of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, our analysis shows that global coal prices are going up. And sharply up. Largely because of consumption patterns in China.

China’s going to be absorbing virtually all of the export coal volumes that are presently available.

Countries like Australia and Indonesia and South Africa are going to really have a tough time mining and exporting enough coal to satisfy the needs of China, much less China and India and all the other countries that want to import coal. So that’s going to drive up coal prices not only for those countries, but also for the US.

Even if you can somehow make the math work for coal-to-liquids with coal at current prices, once you start factoring higher coal prices you’re talking about liquid fuels that are so expensive that economic activity would be highly depressed by liquid fuels at that price point. So again, the only way that works really is for the military which doesn’t have to worry about paying for things.

So, you know I’m sorry that Glenn Beck doesn’t have better sources of information. If he could look into these things a little bit more deeply, I think he’d come to very different conclusions. But they’d be conclusions that I think he would find upsetting to his whole paradigm.

Because you start following out all of the potential solutions to the energy problem, and...as we did in our study at Post Carbon Institute last year, Searching for a Miracle, we looked at 18 different energy sources, analyzed them by 10 criteria and our conclusion was there is no likely mix of alternative energy sources including nuclear and solar and wind and tidal and all the rest that’s likely to make up for fossil fuels as fossil fuels become scarce and expense.

They’ll help, certainly, around the margins, especially if we invest now while we still have some cheap energy.

But the days of abundant cheap energy are effectively over and that means we have to change the way we live. And we have to change the goals that we’re pursuing.

I think people like Glenn Beck imagine that we Americans have economic growth sort of as our birthright and we should all be driving SUVs. And if we don’t it’s because some pointy-headed intellectual in Washington who works for the EPA is writing regulations keeping us from doing so.

That’s simply not true.

The reality is that it’s the market that’s going to keep us from pursuing business as usual. So we have to adjust to that. And helping people adjust to it could be a huge help.

Glenn Beck with his national TV show, regardless of his politics, if he were helping people to understand the situation we’re in, and helping them to adapt, that would be a good thing.

more...
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-03-01/interview-richard-heinberg

In other news, the Los Angeles Peak Oil Meetup group is alive and well! I'll be attending a Meetup at the Cat & Fiddle on March 9 at 7pm. Hopefully it will be a fun time and I'll give a report on that next week.

Why I'm really upset that Watson the supercomputer won $1 million on Jeopardy

2011-02-18T10:46:00.000-08:00

Part of my contradictory nature is that when it comes to unwinding at the end of the day with my ass superglued to the sofa, I can't be satisfied with completely mindless entertainment. So a game show like Jeopardy fits the bill nicely. This week, I was excited to see former champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter compete against Watson, a supercomputer from IBM. But it was upsetting to see Watson win the $1 million first prize. Not so much because this is the beginning of computers overtaking humans on the road to complete social servitude, as Ken Jennings astutely observed. Rather, I'm upset at who is actually getting the one million dollars.

IBM Watson Wins Jeopardy, Humans Rally Back

By Ian Paul, PCWorld Feb 17, 2011 5:13 AM

IBM super computer Watson came away victorious during Jeopardy Wednesday, but not before the game show's former champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter rallied a formidable defense. In the end, however, the humans were no match for Watson, which won with a commanding lead of $77,147 after three days of Jeopardy play. Jennings took second place at $24,000 and Rutter was third with $21,600. "I for one welcome our new computer overlords," Jennings jokingly wrote in his answer during Final Jeopardy on Wednesday's broadcast. The three-night Jeopardy challenge was taped in January at IBM's T. J. Watson Research Laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York.

As victor, Watson takes home a $1 million prize, which IBM plans to donate to World Vision and World Community Grid. Jennings and Rutter will also donate 50 percent of their winnings to separate charities.

more...
http://www.pcworld.com/article/219900/ibm_watson_wins_jeopardy_humans_rally_back.html

A shiver went down my spine when I heard that World Vision would be one of the "charity" organizations receiving the prize. I had to grit my teeth listening to the IBM rep tug on the heartstrings about all the wonderful humanitarian work they do all over the globe, most recently in Haiti. Haiti, where even a dictator from a genocidal family like "Baby Doc" Duvalier can get a chance to come home. Now maybe it's just a coincidence that after World Vision brought their "help" there, Baby Doc came back. But when you take their Deep Political history into account, anything is possible. Look who used to be the President of World Vision:

World Vision International

From SourceWatch

Jump to: navigation, search

World Vision International "is a Christian relief and development organisation working for the well being of all people, especially children. Through emergency relief, education, health care, economic development and promotion of justice, World Vision helps communities help themselves.

"Established in 1950 to care for orphans in Asia, World Vision has grown to embrace the larger issues of community development and advocacy for the poor in its mission to help children and their families build sustainable futures.

"Working on six continents, World Vision is one of the largest Christian relief and development organisations in the world." [1]

"In 2005,World Vision:

Served more than 100 million people
Worked in 96 nations
Directly benefited 2.7 million children through child sponsorship
Raised $1.97 billion (US) in cash and goods for its work
Employed 23,000 staff members" [2]

Kevin Jenkins, president and chief executive officer
Dean Hirsch, former president and chief executive officer (1996-2009)

Member of InterAction.

Victor W. C. Hsu is the National Director of the DPRK Program at World Vision International.

From 1993 to 1998, Andrew Natsios was vice president of World Vision U.S. [3] "Richard E. Stearns became President of World Vision U.S. in June 1998." [4]

Dean R. Hirsch was president of World Vision International in 2002 and he still is in 2007.[5]
snip
Related SourceWatch Resources

Bryant L. Myers - Vice President for Development and Food Resources
Tim Dearborn - Director of Faith and Development Programmes
Richard Stearns
W. Stanley Mooneyham, Former President (1969 to 1982)
World Vision Australia
World Vision United States
Ellsworth Culver - executive vice president of World Vision International (1958-1961)
Rory Anderson
President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief
Edward P. Reed
John W. Hinckley, Sr. - Former President
Torund Diane Bryhn - former staff
Mary Ann Arnado - 2009 peace prize [7]
Kleo-Thong Hetrakul - board member
Ximena Pacheco
David Knibbe - former vice president
John Githongo
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=World_Vision_International

That's John W. Hinckley, Sr., as in the father of the man who attempted an assassination of President Reagan on March 30, 1981. Just a tangential coincidence? Well, here's another one: he was also President of the Vanderbilt Energy Corporation, one of the larger contributors to the George H. W. Bush Presidential campaign in 1980:

Forgotten Coverage of the
Reagan Assassination Attempt

Bush Son Had Dinner Plans With Hinckley Brother Before Shooting
The Associated Press Domestic News
March 31, 1981, Tuesday, PM cycle

John Hinckley
HOUSTON
The family of the man charged with trying to assassinate President Reagan is acquainted with the family of Vice President George Bush and had made large contributions to his political campaign, the Houston Post reported today.

Scott Hinckley, brother of John W. Hinckley Jr., who allegedly shot Reagan, was to have dined tonight in Denver at the home of Neil Bush, one of the vice president's sons.

Neil Bush

The newspaper said in a copyright story, Scott Hinckley, brother of John W. Hinckley Jr., who allegedly shot Reagan, was to have dined tonight in Denver at the home of Neil Bush, one of the vice president's sons.
The newspaper said it was unable to reach Scott Hinckley, vice president of his father's Denver-based firm, Vanderbilt Energy Corp., for comment. Neil Bush lives in Denver, where he works for Standard Oil Co. of Indiana.
In 1978, Neil served as campaign manager for his brother, George W. Bush, the vice president's oldest son, who made an unsuccessful bid for Congress. Neil lived in Lubbock throughout much of 1978, where John Hinckley lived from 1974 through 1980.
On Monday, Neil Bush said he did not know if he had ever met 25-year-old John Hinckley.

From what I know and I've heard, they (the Hinckleys) are a very nice family and have given a lot of money to the Bush campaign."
SHARON BUSH

"I have no idea," he said. "I don't recognize any pictures of him. I just wish I could see a better picture of him.
Sharon Bush, Neil's wife, said Scott Hinckley was coming to their house as a date of a girl friend of hers. "I don't even know the brother. From what I know and I've heard, they (the Hinckleys) are a very nice family and have given a lot of money to the Bush campaign. I understand he was just the renegade brother in the family. They must feel awful," she said.
The dinner was canceled, she added.
George W. Bush said he was unsure whether he had met John W. Hinckley.
http://hereinreality.com/hinckley.html

The connections that World Vision has with the milieu of intelligence covert operations and assassination are more than tangential. Political researcher John Judge documented many of these connections:

The international operations of World Vision and the related evangelical groups continue unabashed. World Vision official John W. Hinckley, Sr. was on his way to a Guatemalan water project run by the organization on the day his son shot at president Reagan.[280] A mysterious "double" of Hinckley, Jr., a man named Richardson, followed Hinckley's path from Colorado to Connecticut, and even wrote love letters to Jody Foster. Richardson was a follower of Carl McIntyre's International Council of Christian Churches, and attended their Bible School in Florida. He was arrested shortly after the assassination attempt in New York's Port Authority with a weapon, and claimed he intended to kill Reagan.[281]
Another World Vision employee, Mark David Chapman, worked at their Haitian refugee camp in Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas. He was later to gain infamy as the assassin of John Lennon in New York City.[282] World Vision works with refugees worldwide. At the Honduran border, they are present in camps used by American CIA to recruit mercenaries against Nicaragua. They were at Sabra and Shatilla, Camps in Lebanon where fascist Phalange massacred the Palestinians.[283] Their representatives in the Cuban refugee camps on the east coast included members of the Bay of Pigs operation, CIA-financed mercenaries from Omega 7 and Alpha 66.[284] Are they being used as a worldwide cover for the recruitment and training of these killers? They are, as mentioned earlier, working to repopulate Jonestown with Laotians who served as mercenaries for our CIA.[285]
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/Jonestown.html

This is just a small snip from an extensively researched article titled "The Black Hole of Guyana: The Untold Story of the Jonestown Massacre" that Judge wrote in 1985. In addition to the connections between World Vision and the Bay of Pigs, John Lennon's assassination, the 1982 Palestinian massacre and 80's contra recruiting, the focus of the research regards how Jim Jones, cult leader of The People's Temple, had extensive connections with the CIA. There was also a link with World Vision early in his "ministry" mentioned in the article:

With his new wealth, Jones was able to travel to California and establish the first People's Temple in Ukiah, California, in 1965. Guarded by dogs, electric fences and guard towers, he set up Happy Havens Rest Home.[98] Despite a lack of trained personnel, or proper licensing, Jones drew in many people at the camp. He had elderly, prisoners, people from psychiatric institutions, and 150 foster children, often transferred to care at Happy Havens by court orders.[99] He was contacted there by Christian missionaries from World Vision, an international evangelical order that had done espionage work for the CIA in Southeast Asia.[100] He met "influential" members of the community and was befriended by Walter Heady, the head of the local chapter of the John Birch Society.[101] He used the members of his "church" to organize local voting drives for Richard Nixon's election, and worked closely with the republican party.[102] He was even appointed chairman of the county grand jury.[103]

Why would an organization ostensibly created to be Christian missionary organization be involved in so many horrific events? Judge laid out the reason in an interview in 2000:

The father in that family, John W. Hinkley Sr., was also the president of the board for World Vision. World Vision is a far-right evangelical missionary operation that does missionary and "good work" operations in countries where there is a political purpose for it to be there. From it's inception, it was rabidly anti-Communist and it focused on refugee populations of people running from countries that had been taken over by Communism. This was from the fifties on.
World Vision had a hand in the movement of the Cubans into the United States and other refugees of revolutionary regimes. When you're a refugee you're cut loose, basically, and pretty much fair game to be manipulated by whoever is willing to give you a hand because you don't have a home or any place to stay and somebody has got to accept you.
World Vision was able to recruit out of these mercenary populations, people who could be politically turned to their intelligence purposes. World Vision served as a penetration force -- not as visible as the military actually going in or the CIA going in -- going in as missionaries and working among the people.
This link between missionary and intelligence for capitalistic infiltration operations goes way back. It was part of the internationalism with the Rockefellers. It's talked about in a book called Thy Will Be Done^[4] about Rockefeller, Venezuela, and Latin American Oil, the Summer Linguistic Institute, World Vision and others. But they operated in this way for a long time.
They were paid by the CIA for a long time during the Vietnam war and went into SE Asia -- Cambodia and Laos. Throughout Vietnam they were given U.S. military equipment to use. They still maintain a budget under USAID, which was just (Agency for International Development), which was just a pass-over in order to give the CIA more cover. They ran operations through USAID. The current cover replacing that is the NED (National Endowment for Democracy), which is supposed to be how we're exporting democracy around the world.
But of course, we're exporting exactly the kind of corrupt democracy we have here, which is rigged and manipulated elections and press manipulation in order to keep in power or put in power the people that we want to be in those countries for the purpose of having our investments protected and milking what we can out of the resources and the labor available in any of those countries.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/112600.html

Is this where we can expect the $1 million Jeopardy prize to be invested? Elementary, my dear Watson.

"Peak Oil and a Changing Climate" - Bill McKibben

2011-02-16T12:09:00.000-08:00

Last week, I commended The Nation for their ongoing online video series "Peak Oil and a Changing Climate" with the post Hooray for The Nation! Today, they posted the sixth video in the series:

Bill McKibben: Why Climate Change Is the Most Urgent Challenge We Face

The Nation and On The Earth Productions

February 16, 2011

Bill McKibben, author and founder of the international environmental campaign 350.org, says that a global campaign to curb climate change, the ecological devastation that will result could make our planet uninhabitable. His appeal to citizens and policy-makers, the sixth video in the series" Peak Oil and a Changing Climate" from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, is a call to action as much as it is a sobering account of the damage we're already doing to our environment.

It’s a “crisis breaking over our heads at this moment,” he says as he points to wildfires in Russia and flooding in Pakistan as examples of the severe weather that will continue, and intensify, if we continue to ignore climate change. Failing to rein in the carbon in our atmosphere will mean more than just inhospitable weather. It also threatens global food production: “If we allow the temperature to increase anything like what people are projecting, we’ll see grain yields fall by a third or more, simply because it will be too hot for things to grow,” he says. “If it rains every day in a row for 30 days, you’re out of luck, you are not growing anything. That’s the kind of world we are building.”

The most important policy change crucial to curbing this crisis, he says, is to force fossil fuel companies to pay the price for the damages they inflict on the environment. If the environmental movement harnesses mass action and civil disobedience tactics to their advantage, there's still a chance, McKibben says, that the earth's citizens can convince policy makers to crack down on big polluters.

Go here to view last week's video, Noam Chomsky explaining how climate change became a "liberal hoax." Go here to learn more about "Peak Oil and a Changing Climate," and to see the other videos in the series.

—Sara Jerving

http://www.thenation.com/video/158009/bill-mckibben-why-climate-change-most-urgent-challenge-we-face

Hooray for The Nation!

2011-02-10T14:08:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, a leaked cable from Wikileaks caused a little stir in the blogosphere. It even got some mainstream media (MSM) coverage, though it was greater in England than the US. Here is the report from The Guardian:

WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices

US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world's biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40%

John Vidal, environment editor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 February 2011 22.00 GMT
Article history

Saudi oil refinery. WikiLeaks cables suggest the amount of oil that can be retrieved has been overestimated. Photograph: George Steinmetz/Corbis

The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.
The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.
snip
However, Sadad al-Husseini, a geologist and former head of exploration at the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, met the US consul general in Riyadh in November 2007 and told the US diplomat that Aramco's 12.5m barrel-a-day capacity needed to keep a lid on prices could not be reached.
According to the cables, which date between 2007-09, Husseini said Saudi Arabia might reach an output of 12m barrels a day in 10 years but before then – possibly as early as 2012 – global oil production would have hit its highest point. This crunch point is known as "peak oil".
more...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/08/saudi-oil-reserves-overstated-wikileaks

On a Democratic Underground thread on the subject started by Newsjock, I added this comment:

I've seen the writing on the wall and it's pretty obscene.

Posted by robertpaulsen in Latest Breaking News
Wed Feb 09th 2011, 09:58 PM

As I detailed in STORY #4 in my UNDER THE RUG report, global production of conventional oil peaked in 2006, according to the International Energy Agency. Now after reading the Guardian's report on the Wikileak cables, if al-Husseini is referring to total reserves in Saudi Arabia, meaning not just conventional oil but natural gas liquids and unconventional oil, I think that the decline is going to be a whole lot steeper than anyone has anticipated if Saudi Arabia has indeed overstated its total reserves by 40 percent. Remember that 25 percent of the total oil reserves in the world are in Saudi Arabia. Once their production is in irreversible decline, $3.50 a gallon will be the good old days. I don't think the issue any longer is when Peak Oil will occur, the issue is how long will the plateau last before the inevitable decline?

Of course, if there's a revolution in Saudi Arabia, which might be in its initial stages, then the point is moot if the people of Saudi Arabia decide that pricing their oil in dollars is not in their best interests. Can you imagine President Obama responding to such an event by voiding the Carter Doctrine? Do you think Dick Cheney was only speaking for neo-cons when he said, "The American way of life is not negotiable"? Are you reading the same writing on the wall that I am?

Recently I discovered that Dick Cheney was not the first White House Republican to say, "The American way of life is not negotiable". At the Earth Summit in 1992, George H.W. Bush forcefully declared, "The American way of life is not negotiable." But both men were talking about the same thing: US oil consumption. What is tragic is that they don't realize how right they really are. You don't negotiate with the Real Primal Forces of Nature. If the American way of life is predicated on an economic infrastructure rooted in infinite growth dependent on non-renewable resources, there's no room to negotiate! You either adapt to the reality that this way of life is no longer sustainable, or you lose that way of life, if not life itself.

Which brings me back to what I think is the most important point in my comment: I don't think the issue any longer is when Peak Oil will occur, the issue is how long will the plateau last before the inevitable decline? If we are going to adapt to the reality that our way of life is no longer sustainable, we must stop debating when and start acting now. That means being aware of the complete ramifications of Peak Oil/Global Climate Change and taking the time to prepare yourself and your loved ones to the best of your ability to adapt to the social/political/economic reactions to this reality as it comes. Think Globally Act Locally should no longer be a sentimental hippie slogan, it should be a mantra for personal sustainability.

While MSM has had a pretty pathetic track record in preparing people for this eventuality, I have to give huge praise to The Nation for their recent attempt to do so. Throughout the months of January, February and March, The Nation is publishing a series of videos on their website to educate people about the twin crises of Peak Oil and Global Climate Change:

Peak Oil and a Changing Climate

The Nation
January 5, 2011

The scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels cause to us now, what will happen when the world's supply of oil runs out?

Peak Oil is the point at which petroleum production reaches its greatest rate just before going into perpetual decline. In “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate,” a new video series from The Nation and On The Earth productions, radio host Thom Hartmann explains that the world will reach peak oil within the next year if it hasn’t already. As a nation, the United States reached peak oil in 1974, after which it became a net oil importer.

Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and the other scientists, researchers and writers interviewed throughout “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” describe the diminishing returns our world can expect as it deals with the consequences of peak oil even as it continues to pretend it doesn’t exist. These experts predict substantially increased transportation costs, decreased industrial production, unemployment, hunger and social chaos as the supplies of the fuels on which we rely dwindle and eventually disappear.

Chomsky urges us to anticipate the official response to peak oil based on how corporations, news organizations and other institutions have responded to global warming: obfuscation, spin and denial. James Howard Kunstler says that we cannot survive peak oil unless we “come up with a consensus about reality that is consistent with the way things really are.” This documentary series hopes to help build that consensus. Click here to watch the introductory video, and check back here for new videos each Wednesday.
more...
http://www.thenation.com/article/157434/peak-oil-and-changing-climate?rel=emailNation

They just released the video for Noam Chomsky yesterday, which is excellent. Future interviews to be released include Thom Hartmann, Greg Palast and my favorite, Mike Ruppert. I encourage everyone to watch, learn and prepare!

Be Careful What You Wish For - You Just Might Get It

2011-02-03T14:16:00.000-08:00

Watching the events unfolding in Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt, I'm reminded of a moment in Denial Stops Here, the DVD compilation of Michael Ruppert's speaking engagements from 2004-2005. The movie is a fantastic document of his political and economic predictions for the future, many of which came true with startling accuracy. At one point as he is describing the layout of the coming economic collapse (he believed it would occur in 2005, he was off by three years), he predicts that General Motors will have to file for bankruptcy. The crowd bursts out with applause. Ruppert then cautions them, "Hold on! Before you cheer, think about what that means". After then explaining what the worldwide economic ramifications of such an event would mean (General Motors eventually did file for bankruptcy on June 8, 2009), Ruppert concludes saying, "So be careful what you wish for. You just might get it".

We are witnessing a revolution in the Middle East, probably the largest such revolt in a region since the Eastern bloc revolution of 1989. With each passing day, the phenomenon seems to grow. The president of Tunisia flees the country to live in exile in Saudi Arabia. Yemen's president has said he will not run for re-election in the wake of protests there. But of course the largest and bloodiest revolt is happening in Egypt, where the course of history is changing radically on a daily basis.

But this may only be the beginning. This recent article from The Guardian highlights some new developments:

Spirit of Egypt protest spreads to Yemen, Algeria and Syria

Demonstrators gather on streets of Sana'a as Algeria aims to defuse tensions by lifting 19-year state of emergency

Tom Finn in Sana'a and Mark Tran
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 February 2011 19.33 GMT
Article history

Opposition demonstrators wave Yemeni flags as they take part in a ‘day of rage’ in Sana’a. Photograph: Hani Mohammed/AP

Reverberations from the mass protests in Tunisia and Egypt continued to be felt around the Arab world as demonstrators gathered on the streets of Yemen for a "day of rage" and Algeria became the latest country to try to defuse tensions by lifting its 19-year state of emergency.
More protests are expected across the region following Friday prayers, including in Syria, where activists have used Facebook to organise demonstrations in front of parliament in the capital, Damascus, and at Syrian embassies across the world.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/03/yemen-syria-algeria-arab-protests

But hey, this is all good isn't it? These are all non-democratic, mostly military dictatorships that are the focus of the protests by their respective citizens, so what's wrong with them rising up against their oppressors? You would think the neo-cons of all people would be rejoicing the rise of freedom and democracy in the Middle East! Especially when their pResident George W. Bush had this to say in the aftermath of another "regime change":

"Yet there's a great challenge today in the Middle East. In the words of a recent report by Arab scholars, the global wave of democracy has -- and I quote -- "barely reached the Arab states." They continue: "This freedom deficit undermines human development and is one of the most painful manifestations of lagging political development." The freedom deficit they describe has terrible consequences, of the people of the Middle East and for the world. In many Middle Eastern countries, poverty is deep and it is spreading, women lack rights and are denied schooling. Whole societies remain stagnant while the world moves ahead. These are not the failures of a culture or a religion. These are the failures of political and economic doctrines."
snip
"The great and proud nation of Egypt has shown the way toward peace in the Middle East, and now should show the way toward democracy in the Middle East. (Applause.) Champions of democracy in the region understand that democracy is not perfect, it is not the path to utopia, but it's the only path to national success and dignity.

As we watch and encourage reforms in the region, we are mindful that modernization is not the same as Westernization. Representative governments in the Middle East will reflect their own cultures. They will not, and should not, look like us. Democratic nations may be constitutional monarchies, federal republics, or parliamentary systems. And working democracies always need time to develop -- as did our own. We've taken a 200-year journey toward inclusion and justice -- and this makes us patient and understanding as other nations are at different stages of this journey."
http://www.ned.org/george-w-bush/remarks-by-president-george-w-bush-at-the-20th-anniversary

These words are from November 6, 2003. Eight years later, Egyptians are doing exactly what the fearless neo-con leader asked for. Yet instead of neo-con ecstasy, the mood from the talking heads around Fox News is one of sheer horror. One of the biggest fraidy-cats is former State Department stooge John Bolton, who came up with this thoughtless strategy:

Bolton: If Mubarak falls in Egypt, Israel should bomb Iran
By Eric W. Dolan
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 -- 11:24 am

Former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said the ouster of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would speed the timetable for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

"Do you think that the Israelis are going to have to strike — they are going to have to take action?" Fox News Republican opinion host Sean Hannity asked the former ambassador on his radio program Monday.

"As you pointed out, ElBaradei ran cover for the Iranians for all those years that he was with the IAEA. And, I just don’t think the Israelis have much longer to wait… they're going to have to act in fairly short order."

"I think that's right," Bolton responded. "I don't think there’s much time to act. And I think the fall of a Egyptian government committed to the peace agreement will almost certainly speed that timetable up."

Bolton chided the protests in Egypt last week, saying that "the real alternative is not Jefferson democracy versus the Mubarak regime, but that it’s the Muslim Brotherhood versus the Mubarak regime, and that has enormous implications for the US, for Israel, and our other friends in the region."
more...
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/bolton-israel-bomb-iran-mubarak-falls/

Why all the fear tactics in regards to the Muslim Brotherhood? True, these are not good guys by any stretch of the imagination. They have documented historical ties with the Nazis and questionable ties with al-Qaeda. But in proportion to the population of Egypt in the event of a democratic government actually occurring, they really are what Chris Matthews described them as: the Tea Party of the Middle East. In a democratic society, both have a right to exist, but as columnist Bob Norman said, "and then be put on the fringes where they belong". Perhaps the real reason for all the commotion in the reich-wing echo chamber is that this is what they want: an Armageddon slugfest between these counterpoint crackpots. It certainly wouldn't be the first time there was an association for their mutual benefit:

Michael Hughes
Foreign Policy Strategist

Posted: September 3, 2010 08:15 AM

When Right-Wing Christians and Neocons Loved Islamic Jihadists
snip

In the mid-1950s, the C.I.A. and the British MI6 had developed a close relationship with an Islamic extremist group called the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and forged a partnership with Saudi Arabia to defeat the secular and nationalist policies of Egyptian President Gamal Abddul Nasser. The C.I.A. enabled the Muslim Brotherhood to return from banishment and infect Afghan society with a radical version of Islam that began to supplant the traditional and more moderate indigenous form. According to Gould and Fitzgerald:

The radical Islam of the Muslim Brothers returning to Afghanistan from exile in the late 1960s and early 1970s shared none of the "celebratory, personalized and ecstatic" traits of Afghan Islam -- nor did it offer itself as a political or economic reform movement. Instead, what reentered Afghanistan following its exile was a violent, antimodernist hybrid (described by French expert Olivier Roy as more akin to the extremist Catholic sect Opus Dei than anything native in Afghanistan) which at first challenged the weakened boundaries of the old patriarchy, then in triumph broke free from traditional limits on violence and clan rivalries.

While Afghanistan's progressive King, Zahir Shah, tried to institute modern reform, how mind-boggling is it that the U.S. backed antimodernist fundamentalist Muslims whose goal was to overthrow the constitutional monarchy and establish an Islamic Caliphate?

Fast forward to the late 1970s when a Pentecostal inhabited the White House while neoconservatives, led by hawkish National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, preyed on Carter's ingrained end times theology. Brzezinski pushed forward the agenda of what became known as "Team B" -- a cabal of neocons such as Paul Wolfowitz, Paul Nitze, Seymour Weiss, Richard Pipes, Richard Perle, Daniel O. Graham and Leo Cherne, who exaggerated Soviet nuclear and military capabilities to force U.S. leaders to take a hard line against communism.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/when-right-wing-christian_b_704589.html

So does this alliance put President Obama between a rock and a hard place? Not quite. As my good friend Octafish pointed out, he's got Frank Wisner from inside the bowels of Washington's power elite. Whether Muburak stays until summer or leaves office today, Wisner is the man with the connections to smooth things over. Whether it's power to the people or sustaining the status quo, we can rest assured American interests will be protected.

I'm sorry, do I sound cynical? Well, in light of this recent find by vanlose kid at Rigorous Intution, I most certainly am. As you read this, think about it in the context of the Carter Doctrine, which I am quite certain President Obama would uphold if push came to shove:

Saudi Hiccup?

As riots raged in Cairo on Friday and dominated the news wires around the globe, Saudi Arabia, it appears, may be getting ready to join the list of Arab nations protesting their governments.

In the port of Jeddah relatively heavy rainfall combined with a non-existent drainage system to wreak havoc on the city and its 4 million inhabitants. The city is literally flooded and the torrential, and very rare, rains have caused around $ 1 Billion USD worth of damages.

So far there are 11 dead and over 100 injured as a result. Incredibly, over 11,000 cars were stranded in floodwaters as water levels were reported to be 4 meters (13.2 feet) deep in some areas. Rescue helicopters have ferried almost 500 people to safety!

Oddly enough, and unfortunately for the government, the same scenario happened in 2009!

Back then it was dubbed Saudi's "Katrina Moment". Over 122 people were killed (some estimate it was more like 500) and hundreds injured as the government fell on its face during the response effort.

That led to widespread discontent and a fury of criticism of the local government mainly via, you guessed it...Facebook. The main theme was "Where are the billions in oil revenue going?".

Back in 2009 and according to the CS Monitor:

Mr. Khair, the lawyer, says he intends to file a class action suit against Jeddah's municipality. He does not think any official will be forced to resign, he adds. "In Saudi Arabia, we didn't hear about someone leaving his office."
The attorney says that the Facebook page was a useful alternative because street protests are illegal in the kingdom. The Internet "is the only way. We don't have another way," he says.

The episode has demonstrated "how technology allows people to shout out loud. I have never seen this before in Saudi," says Asaad, the lecturer. Even if people commenting on Facebook "use pseudonyms, it's a start," she adds. "But nowadays, people are using their real names."

Which brings us to today.

A mass blackberry messenger message has gone out in Jeddah calling for a demonstration on Saturday, the 29th. It says:

“On Saturday there will be a demonstration in front of the municipality for Jeddah … gather as many people as you can,” the message ran. “We need brave men and women. We don’t want any more lies … We have to do something.”

Another message also sent via Blackberry urged all government and private sector employees to hold a general strike next week in protest at the authorities’ neglect of the city’s infrastructure.

This is very serious news if it happens. The ruling Saud family's main areas of support are centered around the capitol city, Riyadh. There are long standing historical tensions with the people of the western provice, Hijaz, of which Jeddah is the largest city. Jeddah is also the second largest city in Saudi Arabia overall and is the port of arrival to the more than 2 million Muslims who make the pilgrimage to Mecca every year.

Also, in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia are most of the shunned Shia Muslims of the country. They are regarded as infidels by some hardline Wahhabists and face a glass ceiling when working in public bureaucracies. There have been tensions there also and several protests.

Here is an excellent paper about the ethnic and religious background of Saudi Arabia.

In addition to the religious and social tensions in Saudi, perhaps the economic tensions are the greatest of all. According to a recent report by Booz & Co., unemployment in Saudi Arabia is estimated to be 13-14% in 2008. Additionally, 48% of Saudis between the age of 20-24 are unemployed as well as 31% of Saudis between 25-29.

70% of the population is under the age of 34 and the Median age is 24.9.

In other words, the powder is dry...

Here is a video of the clashes between police and Saudi Shia's (keep in mind the source is Iran's Press TV)

Here is a video of the catastrophic floods in Jeddah this week:

http://fedupmontrealer.blogspot.com/201 ... iccup.html

Sometime in the future, there will come a real day of reckoning for the USA. It may happen in the wake of revolution spreading across the Middle East this year or it may not happen until the 20's. But sometime in this generation we will face the day when we face the reality that maintaining an empire of friendly regimes protecting a permanently decreasing supply of non-renewable resources is economically unsustainable. As a result of this, governments in the future will have to focus on relocalization, regardless of whether they are 1st world or 3rd world countries, if they want to serve the interests of their citizens and alleviate the risk of a revolt.

Oh sure, we could get lucky where Saudi Arabia is concerned. Maybe the House of Saud can continue their stranglehold on power like the House of Kim in North Korea, just starve 'em into submission. Or perhaps a democratic uprising will result in a representative government that wants to remain allies with the US. But what if they don't want to? Over 60% of all proven oil supplies in the world are in the Middle East. 25 percent is in Saudi Arabia alone. 100% is currently priced in dollars. What if they decided to price it in another currency? Where is it carved in stone that the indigenous people of countries halfway across the globe must have our best interests at heart, even at the expense of their own? Are we prepared to use the same armed forces currently stretched to the breaking point in Afghanistan and Iraq to enforce our interests at the expense of a population trying to express the freedom for self-determination?

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

Loose Ends

2011-01-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

The occasion of Martin Luther King Day this week seemed an appropriate time to talk about conspiracy theory. After all, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King was no doubt accomplished through a conspiracy, the verdict on December 8, 1999, in the wrongful death civil trial by the King family against Loyd Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators" found Jowers liable and that governmental agencies were parties to the assassination plot. Even career coincidence theorist Gerald Posner has conceded the possibility of conspiracy, just not involving the government. But of course, the government couldn't let an impartial jury of six whites and six blacks have the last word, so the Department of Justice completed an investigation in 2000 that they did not find evidence to support the allegations about conspiracy in the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Naturally, they recommended no further investigation. After all, what the jurors ruled on was just a "theory".

Where conspiracy theory is concerned, my chief complaint is the way the word "theory" itself has become denigrated in our culture to a degree that is unconscionable in a supposedly intelligent society. Why is it that gravity and relativity are accepted as reality, yet evolution and the greenhouse effect are a source of controversy? All four concepts are scientific theories. It seems to me that the more deeply a theory threatens the way certain powerful institutions in society operate (think Galileo and the Catholic Church), the more controversial that theory is made to appear within society by those same powerful institutions. As it goes for scientific theories, it goes to an even greater degree for conspiracy theories. After all, the academic study of conspiracy theory hasn't exactly been embraced by institutions of higher learning to the same degree the study of scientific theory has. If anyone offers a Doctorate in Political Conspiracy Theory, I'm not aware of it. Lacking that legitimacy, it is a field of study that is easy to debase because so many practitioners fail to apply the same rigorous standards that a scientist does when testing a hypothesis.

So without the same rigorous standards that scientists apply, how do you differentiate a conspiracy theory from a conspiracy hypothesis? Make sure the practitioner has actually tested their hypothesis against the larger pattern of facts to substantiate their claim. I'll take the most recent example by examining the case of Jared Lee Loughner. When I first heard about this tragedy last weekend, there had been initial reports that Loughner may have had an accomplice that accompanied him to the Safeway supermarket in Tucson, Arizona where six people were murdered and thirteen injured, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who remains hospitalized in serious condition with a gunshot wound to the head, and Judge John Roll, who died of his wounds. While Judge Roll had been a target of death threats in the past after ruling that a group of illegal immigrants could go forward with a multi-million dollar civil rights lawsuit against a state rancher, it was reportedly Congresswoman Giffords that Loughner was obsessed with and it was her event in the Safeway parking lot that Loughner targeted her.

So right from the beginning, an immediate hypothesis for conspiracy was established:

Shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner had an accomplice in a conspiracy to assassinate Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords

Taking into account prior death threats, there was another conspiracy hypothesis:

Shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner's accomplice conspired to assassinate Judge John Roll

It seemed as if both hypotheses could be invalidated the day after the shooting. The police had questioned the man whose picture had been published as a person of interest and discovered that he was only the taxi driver that Loughner had called for a ride to the Safeway. With his alibi verified by his employer, the police were no longer interested after questioning. This would invalidate the taxi driver as an accomplice if he were the only other person of interest detained by the police. The problem is, according to the Huffington Post, he wasn't:

“Tucson Citizen:
==========
===
"Police arrest man near Thornydale and Magee Roads who is suspected of being connected to the shooting of Giffords and others. A third man is being sought."”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Oilygarch/jared-laughner-gabrielle-giffords-shooter_n_806229_73184003.html

However, as was originally pointed out by pepsified thinker at Rigorous Intuition, the Tucson Citizen citation by Oligarch at Huffington Post no longer contains any information about this arrest. Clearly the arrest is not in reference to the taxi driver; he was never arrested or apprehended on Thornydale and Magee on the day of the shooting. The driver, John Marino, was questioned by the FBI and Pima County sheriff's officers at the taxi company where he worked on Sunday morning, January 9, but was not taken into custody and had no idea he had dropped off the alleged shooter at Safeway the previous day.

So who was the man arrested "near Thornydale and Magee Roads who is suspected of being connected to the shooting of Giffords and others"? Clearly it was not the taxi driver and it couldn't have been Loughner either. Originally, I thought the Safeway that the shooting occurred at was located at 9705 North Thornydale Road in Tucson, which would be 2.14 miles north of where the arrest occurred. Later, I found out it was located at 7100 North Oracle Road, 5.19 miles away from the arrest. Either way, it's not Loughner, who was arrested in the Safeway parking lot. There has been no word from the Tucson Citizen regarding why any mention of this report was scrubbed from their website. So the identity of the arrested man remains a mystery.

What about the assassination of Judge John Roll? While I agree with Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks that there can be no debate that the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords was an intended political assassination ("Was Jared Loughner's act in shooting Rep. Giffords political? Apparently this is what's being debated with a straight face now. Is this a joke? He shot a politician in the head. He called it an "assassination." What part of that was unclear?"), the murder of Judge Roll is less clear. There is no evidence that Loughner had any prior hatred toward Roll in his writings as there is with Giffords. Was he aware that Roll would be stopping by to see Giffords at the event? No evidence has been found that he was aware. Who was it that told Roll over the phone an hour before, according to Homeland Security who found out from his wife, that he was invited to attend? (Thanks for the link, surfaceskimmer!)If someone else told him to come there, who was it? There could be a connection to Loughner or it could be an unfortunate coincidence. The questions need answers for verification one way or another.

Does all this add up to conspiracy theory? Maybe, maybe not. The possibility that Loughner may have an accomplice is still a working hypothesis that has not been invalidated. But for this hypothesis to move out of the realm of possibility into probability, more questions need to be answered regarding who, what, when, where and most importantly: why? There were early reports that Loughner was connected to a racist organization American Renaissance, later denied by Homeland Security, that if confirmed might have given a clue as to motive. Loughner's alleged professed motive, deducted from his internet ramblings, seems to be rooted in a belief that the government is engaged in a practice of mind control through grammar. While the grammar aspect is new, government involvement in mind control is not. Was Loughner's mind "programming" self-inflicted or brought about by another controller?

At this point, gathering all the loose ends hasn't clarified that picture. But that's why I think that the theoretical research of conspiracy is a valid academic endeavor: it ties up the loose ends, if done thoroughly, and gives a more complete picture of the whole truth. I'd like to thank everyone at Rigorous Intuition for their participation in this pursuit. Hopefully with the passage of time and the diligence of focused research, we will paint a more complete picture to separate the plausible from the possible. We'll see if either of my conspiracy hypotheses will eventually be deemed a conspiracy theory.

Happy New Year?

2011-01-03T17:17:00.000-08:00

One area in which 2010 was a productive use of time was writing this blog. I wrote more entries within one year (45) than I did in the previous three years combined (46). But reflecting on the positive exposure that my last entry received on Rigorous Intuition and Democratic Underground (169 recommendations! Thanks!), it seems I'm always building on the foundation first established with the first and second editions of my initial research into Valerie Plame and Sibel Edmonds. I draw upon that foundation in analyzing this latest report:

Leading conservatives call for Obama to back terrorist group

By David Edwards
Monday, January 3rd, 2011 -- 2:03 pm

A group of prominent Republicans may have actually committed a crime last month when they traveled to Paris to speak to an Iranian opposition group that the US has deemed to be terrorists.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former national security adviser Fran Townsend and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey all attended a forum organized by supporters of Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK).

The MEK is a communist group that helped Saddam Hussein carry out attacks against Iraq's Shiite population in the 1990s. The group attacked Americans in Iran in the 1980s and helped with the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran.

The US designated the MEK a foreign terrorist organization in January 2009.
more...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/leading-conservatives-call-obama-terrorist-group/

The name MEK sounded very familiar to me. I found it within the second edition of American Judas. It seems these terrorists have favorite sons of the neo-cons for some time:

It is clear the neo-cons have had plans for Iran, with or without Chalabi’s help. Even during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Undersecretary of State John Bolton was credited with saying, “Real men want to go to Iran”. www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/mar06/page6.html On May 30, 2003, the Pentagon was reported to be advocating massive covert action to overthrow Iran’s ayatollahs. Indicating they would like to use the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), though the State Department had them on their terrorist list, Feith went on the record arguing that the MEK had not targeted Americans since the 1970s and was only put on the terror list in 1996 by President Clinton to improve Iran relations. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0530-03.htm Subsequently, in the spring of 2006, the MEK was committing acts of violence in Iran in hopes of staging an insurgency among the Iranian Sunni population. They were being used by the Pentagon to do this in a plan made by Rumsfeld under pressure from Cheney. (Yet another example of what former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson describes as the “Oval Office Cabal” headed by Cheney. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1020-01.htm) The crazy plan was carried out by Stephen Cambone, which consisted of him making them swear an oath to democracy and resign the MEK. He then incorporated them into their special unit and trained them. http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/US_outsourcing_special_operations_intelligence_gathering_0413.html That might explain why Major Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib infamy, stated in a memorandum that the US has designated members of the MEK as “protected persons”. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?id=1521846767-2744 It might also explain why the MEK was the subject of the Paris meeting in June 2002 between Ghorbanifar, Rhode and convicted spy Larry Franklin. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=harold_rhode

I'm not sure if Guiliani and company are doing this because they feel emboldened by the Tea Party-fueled GOP House takeover in November or not. (Though I find it hard to imagine TP warming up to a group of commie terrorists, but then avoiding hypocrisy has never been their strong suit) But it just seems to me that the more things change, the more they stay the same!

UNDER THE RUG: What Project Censored Missed and MSM Didn't Want You to Know in 2010

2010-12-27T10:07:00.000-08:00

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.
Harry S. Truman

The past is never dead. It's not even past.
William Faulkner

This is the second consecutive year that I've highlighted stories that our mainstream media (MSM) outlets seemed to be oblivious of. For the last 35 years, this is a task that Project Censored has done a fantastic job of doing with their annual list of Top 25 Censored Stories. But sometimes, even with their great track record of illuminating "the most important underreported stories" of the year, some stories slip through the cracks. Last year, I highlighted two such stories, this year I have four to report. In retrospect, I should have reported three stories last year, there was an important story I neglected which I will reference when I report the final story.

STORY #1: Key Evidence From Russian Report Corroborating Allegations of Ronald Reagan's Presidential Campaign Interference in 1980 "October Surprise" Hidden From the American Public in 1993

This revelation was reported by George Polk Award winning investigative reporter Robert Parry on May 6, 2010. I wrote about this report in a blog post commemorating the 30th anniversary of the October Surprise. Here's an excerpt from that report:

Key October Surprise Evidence Hidden

By Robert Parry (A Special Report)
May 6, 2010

A Russian government report, which corroborated allegations that Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign interfered with President Jimmy Carter’s Iran-hostage negotiations in 1980, was apparently kept from the Democratic chairman of a congressional task force that investigated the charges a dozen years later.
Lee Hamilton, then a congressman from Indiana in charge of the task force, told me in a recent interview, “I don’t recall seeing it,” although he was the one who had requested Moscow’s cooperation in the first place and the extraordinary Russian report was addressed to him.

The Russian report, which was dropped off at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Jan. 11, 1993, contradicted the task force’s findings – which were released two days later – of “no credible evidence” showing that Republicans contacted Iranian intermediaries behind President Carter’s back regarding 52 American hostages held by Iran’s Islamic revolutionary government, the so-called October Surprise case.

I was surprised by Hamilton’s unfamiliarity with the Russian report, so I e-mailed him a PDF copy. I then contacted the task force’s former chief counsel, attorney Lawrence Barcella, who acknowledged in an e-mail that he doesn’t “recall whether I showed [Hamilton] the Russian report or not.”

In other words, the Russian report – possibly representing Moscow’s first post-Cold War collaboration with the United States on an intelligence mystery – was not only kept from the American public but apparently from the chairman of the task force responsible for the investigation.
more...
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/050610.html

There was a follow-up article that Robert Parry wrote in June 2010 that I neglected to mention in my October blog post. Here is an excerpt of that article:

HIDDEN TREASON:

The Tricky October Surprise Report

by Robert Parry

Originally published in ConsortiumNews.com yesterday, 17 June 2010

A congressional report on a turning point of modern U.S. political history – whether candidate Ronald Reagan struck a treacherous deal with Iranian radicals to help win the White House in 1980 – was written haphazardly and deceptively, including an apparently false claim that Reagan’s innocence was approved unanimously by a House task force.

A recent reexamination of the task force’s work also reveals that evidence implicating Reagan’s campaign in a pre-election deal to delay the release of 52 Americans then held hostage in Iran was kept from the U.S. public and even from members of the task force; that senior staff investigators shelved late-arriving evidence of Republican guilt; and that dissent within the task force was suppressed.

Recently, one task force member, retired Rep. Mervyn Dymally, D-California, while working on his personal memoirs, noticed that the cover letter accompanying the task force report claimed that there had been a unanimous vote on Dec. 10, 1992, exonerating Reagan. Dymally told me that he knew of no such vote on that date nor at any other time.

When I contacted former task force chairman Lee Hamilton, he told me that he would not have claimed there was a unanimous vote if there hadn’t been one.

However, when I checked with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I was told that no record could be found of a roll call of the task force vote. “From the records we have there is no evidence of a recorded vote,” said committee spokesman David Barnes in an e-mail. (In the mid-1990s, when I searched through the task force’s unpublished files, I also found no record of a roll call.)
more...

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2010/061810Parry.shtml

In addition to the new revelation that task force member Dymally did not approve of the findings of the investigation, Parry's article does a wonderful job of providing a context for what these revelations really mean in the world today. The election of 1980 was truly a cultural crossroads where America faced two distinct choices. To quote Parry, "The significance of Reagan’s victory on modern American history can hardly be overstated. For instance, while Carter wanted to use his second term to press for U.S. energy independence and to secure a lasting Middle East peace, Reagan had little use for such policies and instead pushed through an anti-government agenda of tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of corporations." While the anti-government agenda, which Parry mentions, is a distinct aspect of the Tea Party mentality that fueled the House GOP takeover this November, another aspect that remains entrenched since 1980 is the lack of accountability that allows such criminal behavior to flourish. Though the October Surprise was a prequel involving many of the same players in the Iran-Contra scandal, it was the last chapter in the official cover-up by our government.

STORY #2: Fired AIPAC Employee Steve Rosen Threatens to Expose Massive Spy Ring, Files $20 Million Lawsuit Alleging Passing Classified Info is Common Practice

This story has an explosive potential on many levels. As I detailed in my November blog post, exposing the AIPAC Spy Scandal could open a Pandora's Box that Sibel Edmonds detailed revolving around multi-billion dollar drug smuggling and black market nuclear sales to terrorists such as what Valerie Plame's cover company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was tracking prior to being exposed in the media. If that wasn't explosive enough to interest MSM, there is also the tawdry sexual aspects of this case:

Ex-AIPAC official threatens to uncover mass spying at Israel lobby

By Daniel Tencer
Sunday, November 21st, 2010 -- 11:41 am

Top AIPAC officials visited prostitutes, regularly watched porn at work: claim

Is US's most influential advocate for Israel about to implode?
snip
Steve Rosen, who was in charge of foreign policy issues at AIPAC until 2005, is suing his former employer for $20 million, alleging that AIPAC defamed him when they fired him. Rosen and colleague Keith Weissman were charged in 2004 with espionage for allegedly pressuring a Washington Post reporter into running classified US government information they had obtained about Iran. The charges were dropped last year, evidently due to lack of evidence.
snip
Rosen says his actions were common practice at the organization. He said his next move is to show that AIPAC, Washington’s major pro-Israeli lobbying group by far, regularly traffics in sensitive U.S. government information, especially material related to the Middle East.
snip
"Unfortunately for AIPAC, Rosen has 180 documents which could prove that Howard Kohr, AIPAC's executive director, and probably the AIPAC board as well, knew exactly what Rosen was doing," reports M.J. Rosenberg at Al-Jazeera.

He suggests that Rosen's threat to reveal AIPAC trafficking of data is meant to intimidate the lobby group into settling out of court. Making the lawsuit go away "will not be easy - even if Steve Rosen ultimately accepts a payoff from the organization and refrains from telling what he knows," Rosenberg writes.
more...
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/official-uncover-mass-spying-israel-lobby/

One month later, this story is still alive and MSM still refuses to touch it:

FRIDAY UPDATE: AIPAC Bill Passage Shows AIPAC Weakness, Plus Rosen Follies, & The GOP Rabbi's Chutzpah Lands Him With 20 Years

By M.J. Rosenberg - December 16, 2010, 11:08AM

AIPAC scandal finally shows on Hill. My earlier piece indicated that the AIPAC/Berman bill's quick passage showed that the status quo lobby is as strong as ever. This fine analysis by Josh Ruebner after the bill's passage indicates otherwise!

***
The Forward reports on some new filings on the AIPAC espionage/sex/blackmail case. (And here is JTA on same)

Steve Rosen, pushing with all his might for a $20 million payoff, asserts that there are other occasions (other than the one for which he was indicted) in which AIPAC trafficked in government secrets. He is the worst enemy the lobby ever had. (Irony. When I worked there, I always told my friend, then executive director, Tom Dine, to fire that spook before he destroyed the organization. I'm glad he ignored me).

The Forward thinks that AIPAC will ultimately settle. Of course it will. It cannot allow AIPAC to be exposed for what it is.

But, so what. The payoff itself will send a clear message that AIPAC cannot allow the truth to come out. Remember that memo Steve Rosen sent to me in 1982: "A lobby is a nightflower. It thrives in the dark and withers in the sun."
more...
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/16/the_noose_tightens_for_aipac/

I believe Mr. Rosenberg's analysis of the story may prove to be correct. AIPAC will not allow the truth to come out. The deeper underlying truth is that the AIPAC Spy Scandal is bigger than AIPAC, it's bigger than Israel. This is a common misunderstanding; when I originally posted my blog post of this story at Democratic Underground, my original post in the General Discussion forum received 186 recommendations. However, one of the moderators moved my post to the Israel/Palestine forum, apparently not comprehending that the broader context and real focus of this scandal is not AIPAC or Israel: it's the neo-cons!

The commonplace espionage exhibited in this scandal appears to be part of a broader set of FBI and Pentagon investigations of close collaboration between prominent U.S. neo-conservatives and foreign officials going back 40 years. Apparently, this informal right-wing network began in 1970 led by Democratic Senator Scoop Jackson, whose staffers included Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz. In October 1970, an FBI wiretap at the Israeli Embassy records Richard Perle discussing classified information with an Israeli official. In 1978, Paul Wolfowitz was investigated for allegedly passing a classified document on proposed US weapons sales to Israel through AIPAC. Elliott Abrams, of course, was indicted for deceiving Congress on the Iran-Contra scandal and Douglas Feith was questioned in 2004 about passing classified information to an Iraqi politician or a U.S. lobbying group allied with Israel.

But the habit of neo-cons passing classified info extends beyond the original circle of Jackson staffers and beyond just Israel and AIPAC. As detailed in my UNDER THE RUG post last year, Marc Grossman and Dick Armitage exposed Valerie Plame's classified cover company in June 2001 to Turkish clients connected with the American Turkish Council. In 1989, Doug Feith registered International Advisors Inc. (IAI) as a foreign agent representing the government of Turkey, earning $60,000 a year for doing so from 1989-1994. And then there is Michael Ledeen. Ledeen served as the go-between for Oliver North in the early stages of the Iran/Contra scandal, working with Israeli spy David Kimche to gain the release of US hostages in Beirut through an Iranian arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar. He also received $120,000 in 1980 or 1981 from Italian intelligence agency SISMI and was reputed by the CIA station in Rome to also be an agent of influence of Israel.

These are all questionable associations, some which may or may not be connected with the threats that Rosen made in 2010 regarding his lawsuit. A thorough investigation might resolve some of these questions. But considering the lack of attention MSM is shining on this case, that possibility seems remote.

STORY #3: Mumbai Plotter Worked for DEA While Training With Terrorists

This is a story I had written about when it was originally reported in October:

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Mumbai Attacks Update: The DEA Connection

Almost two years ago, there were a series of coordinated terror attacks on multiple targets in Mumbai, India that killed 166 people, including six Americans. At the time, I wrote a blog post about it titled Who's really responsible for Mumbai? Dick Cheney doesn't want you to know. It explored how the primary suspects in the terror attacks, Dawood Ibrahim and the terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba, were connected with Dick Cheney through their mutual financial profiteering via the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network. There was also reports cited that the attackers might not have all been Arab or Pakistani; the possibility of a Chechen connection was explored because of tactical similarities and eyewitness accounts of "foreign looking, fair skinned" men with "blonde hair" and "a punkish hairstyle".

Since then, there has been minimal exposure in American mainstream media (MSM) regarding investigations into the Mumbai attacks. But recently, there has been a bombshell revelation:

Feds Confirm Mumbai Plotter Trained With Terrorists While Working for DEA

by Sebastian Rotella
ProPublica, Oct. 16, 2010, 11:04 p.m.

Updates:

Feds Confirm Mumbai Plotter Trained With Terrorists While Working for DEA [1]

U.S. Embassy Didn’t Pass Along Tip About Headley’s Ties to Terrorists [2]

Federal officials acknowledged Saturday that David Coleman Headley, the U.S. businessman who confessed to being a terrorist scout in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was working as a DEA informant while he was training with terrorists in Pakistan.

Federal officials, who spoke only only on background because of the sensitivity of the Headley case, also said they suspect a link between Headley and the al Qaeda figures whose activities have sparked recent terror threats against Europe.

Courtroom drawing of David Coleman Headley, left. Dec. 9, 2009. (Verna Sadock/AP Photo)
The revelations came after a report Friday [3] by ProPublica and the Washington Post that the FBI had been warned about Headley’s terrorist ties three years before the Mumbai attacks. Headley wasn’t arrested until 11 months after the attack.
After Headley was arrested in a 2005 domestic dispute in New York City, his wife told federal investigators about his long involvement with the terrorist group Lashkar-i-Taiba and his extensive training in its Pakistani camps. She also told them he had bragged about being a paid U.S. informant while undergoing terrorist training.

more...
http://www.propublica.org/article/feds-confirm-mumbai-plotter-trained-with-terrorists-while-working-for-dea

Quite an astounding revelation! Yet except for reporter Sebastian Rotella having his article reprinted in the Washington Post and a related story in the New York Times, MSM has been strangely silent on this story. Perhaps this is excusable to the predominate focus on the upcoming election in November. But still, an American confessing to involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks turns out to be a DEA informant, turns out the FBI was warned of his terrorist links three years prior to the attacks, yet this story doesn't merit nationwide front page headlines? No morning talk or evening cable news interviews with the ex-wife, or with the DEA or FBI? A more likely reason for MSM muting of this story is Deep Politics. As long as the links between government, intelligence, drugs and terrorism are not officially acknowledged, how are we to know they exist?

http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2010/10/mumbai-attacks-update-dea-connection.html

There have been no further updates regarding Headley's connection with the DEA. But there was an interesting development courtesy of a Wikileaks cable:

WikiLeaks: Headley Wasn't Acting Alone, Said Chidambaram
2010-12-18 17:20:00
New Delhi/London, Dec 18 (IANS) Home Minister P. Chidambaram had insisted on having access to Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley, who scouted for targets for the 26/11 terror attack. 'I have a feeling in my bones that Headley was not acting alone,' the minister is quoted as saying in a fresh WikiLeaks US cable.
A 'secret' US cable of Feb 26 this year, put out by the whistleblower website and reported by Guardian, said that in a Feb 23 meeting in 2010, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Chidambaram discussed the case of Headley, who is in US custody.

The cable said: 'Chidambaram insisted that the GOI (Government of India) have access to Headley: 'we must be able to say we had access, even if Headley did not speak'. He also requested access to Headley's spouse, Shaiza, who he said is in Chicago so GOI investigators can question her on the meaning of her alleged message to Headley that she `saw your graduation'.'
snip
During the meeting, Chidambaram confided that 'I have a feeling in my bones that Headley was not acting alone' in India and expressed frustration over what he characterised as Headley's false claim that he had no accomplices in India, the daily reported.
more...
http://www.sify.com/news/wikileaks-headley-wasn-t-acting-alone-said-chidambaram-news-international-kmsrulfeaab.html

Before I report STORY #4, I want to preface my report with a story that I should have highlighted on last year's list, but neglected to. Every year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes their World Energy Outlook, a forecast of trends in global oil production and energy consumption for the next 25 years. While their goal is to exist as an independent agency providing unbiased and accurate projections for the 28 national governments that support the agency, that isn't always the case. In 2009, even as the IEA's chief economist Dr. Fatih Barol said that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years, there were whistleblowers claiming that the IEA's pretense at independence was not all it appeared to be:

Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower
Exclusive: Watchdog's estimates of reserves inflated says top official

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.
snip
Now the "peak oil" theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. "The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.
"Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources," he added.
A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organisation was that it was "imperative not to anger the Americans" but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted. "We have [already] entered the 'peak oil' zone. I think that the situation is really bad," he added.
more...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

Though The Guardian is a mainstream British publication, this story was ignored by American MSM last year. So what does the IEA have to say this year?

STORY #4: IEA Confirms Global Production of Conventional Oil Peaked in 2006

This should have been the biggest story of the year. On November 9, the 2010 IEA World Energy Outlook became available. On page 6 of the executive summary, the IEA tucked this nugget of data within an otherwise innocuous sentence:

"Crude oil output reaches an undulating plateau of around 68-69 mb/d by 2020, but never regains its all-time peak of 70 mb/d reached in 2006, while production of natural gas liquids (NGLs) and uncoventional oil grows strongly."

The IEA did not emphasize that part of the sentence, I did. Perhaps the whistleblowers were correct that US pressure to underplay a looming shortage has had an effect on the IEA. That might also explain the MSM silence on the revelation:

IEA acknowledges peak oil

by Stuart Staniford

3.5

Average: 3.5 (2 votes)

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If you go to the executive summary of the 2009 International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook, and search for "peak oil", your browser will come up empty. The whole subject was so beneath the dignity of a serious energy agency that they didn't even bother mentioning it.

However, yesterday, the 2010 IEA World Energy Outlook became available. And if you repeat the exercise in that executive summary, you will come upon a section titled:

Will peak oil be a guest or the spectre at the feast?

Followed by an explicit discussion of the whole question. The IEA's position is summarized in the graph above - conventional crude oil production has already peaked in 2006! Suddenly, the subject of impending peak has gone from not worthy of discussion to in the past already!

snip

Alas, if you rely on the New York Times, you'd still be in the dark. The piece on the report doesn't make a peep about peak oil (being focussed entirely on the China demand growth aspect of the report, which is admittedly interesting and important).

more...

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-11/iea-acknowledges-peak-oil

What does this mean in layman's terms? Remember back in the late 90's when you would drive into a gas station, see a sign that said Regular Unleaded - $1.20 and think, "That Clinton! If he didn't 'wag the dog' in the Middle East, gas would be so cheap!" Well, those were the good ol' days, and those days are never coming back. Conventional oil generally refers to light sweet crude, the kind of oil that in the past was the easiest to find and is always the cheapest to refine. Naturally, this is the type of oil that is the highest in demand by consumers in civilized countries. We will never be able to produce as much as we did in 2006, no matter how high demand gets! So to make up the difference and hopefully avoid the lines at the gas station prevalent in 1973 and 1979 there will be an increase in the production of uncoventional oil, which to their credit the IEA mentioned in their report. What they did not mention was how much more expensive it is to refine Venezuelan heavy oil or Canadian tar sands and how much more the consumer would have to pay.

But the economic ramifications of Peak Oil are much deeper than just paying more at the pump. There are many websites that provide detailed descriptions, but here is a succinct explanation of why:

What does peak oil mean for our societies?

Our industrial societies and our financial systems were built on the assumption of continual growth – growth based on ever more readily available cheap fossil fuels. Oil in particular is the most convenient and multi-purposed of these fossil fuels. Oil currently accounts for about 43% of the world's total fuel consumption [PDF], and 95% of global energy used for transportation [PDF]. Oil and gas are feedstocks for plastics, paints, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, electronic components, tyres and much more. Oil is so important that the peak will have vast implications across the realms of war and geopolitics, medicine, culture, transport and trade, economic stability and food production. Significantly, for every one joule of food consumed in the United States, around 10 joules of fossil fuel energy have been used to produce it.
http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php

When the full ramifications of Peak Oil become too severe to ignore, I believe that there will be a tremendous outcry similar to the one we experienced during the economic meltdown in the autumn of 2008 with the same plaintive question, "Why didn't anyone see this coming?!" When that happens, I hope that Richard Heinberg will be around to say, "I told you so!" Another prophet-turned-historian, Kenneth Deffeyes will hopefully do the same. I agree with his analysis of the IEA's current predicament, that they are trying to say, “look, oil production peaked five years ago and nothing catastrophic happened” – that is if you ignore the worst global recession in 80 years which certainly was helped along by the $147 a barrel oil we had two years ago. But there is one no longer around who first piqued my curiousity in the 2004 documentary The End of Suburbia. At an Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) seminar in May 2003, when asked when he thought Peak Oil would occur, Dr. Ali Samsam Bakhtiari, Corporate Planning Directorate of the National Iranian Oil Company stated, "I think it's between 2005 and 2007. That's what my model shows".

No wonder Michael Ruppert called him "The Prophet Ali" on page 562 of his book, Crossing the Rubicon. Every Peak Oil researcher, starting with M. King Hubbert in 1949 on to many others not mentioned here working today, should be accorded such praise for efforts and their prescient voices.

Krampus of the Year: Newt Gingrich

2010-12-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

This is officially the second annual Krampus of the Year award, an American Judas exclusive. For an explanation of who Krampus is and why I gave the award to Joe Lieberman a year ago, please read this link.

This year, it was a much tougher choice. I thought I might bestow this honor on one of the loudest complainers in what has become a perennial "War on Christmas" that those to the right of Father Coughlin seem to think is not only real but is a real threat to America, or even Christian civilization itself! Where it got too humorous to seriously consider giving an award to these social baboons was how certain people in Congress expressed this concern. I'll let Andrea Stone explain:

It began when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that senators might have to work through the Christmas break if that's what it takes to get through a spending bill, a nuclear arms treaty, the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" and other pressing legislation.

That prompted Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona to accuse the Democrat of Grinch-like behavior, saying it was not possible to stay in session "without disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians."

AP

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., shown near the floor of the Senate in Washington on Wednesday, called plans for the Senate to work through the Christmas break "sacrilegious."

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint soon piled on. He told Politico the schedule was "sacrilegious," suggesting Reid, a Mormon, was acting in a most un-Christian fashion. "What's going on here is just wrong. This is the most sacred holiday for Christians," he said.

Reid would have none of that. He took to the Senate floor to blame Republican filibusters all year long for keeping lawmakers at work.

more...

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/16/congress-latest-battlefield-in-annual-war-on-christmas-debate/

Sorry Senators Kyl and DeMint, you came close but no cigar. You just had to pick on a Mormon, didn't you? You just had to imply that the Church of Latter Day Saints doesn't consider the day of Christ's birth to be holy? What, Mitt Romney and Glenn Beck weren't around to chastise you? I was all set to give those bloviators, as well as Congressman Mike Pence the award, but a latecomer from out of the blue yesterday blew those pretenders to the throne out of the water.

And the winner of the American Judas 2010 Krampus of the Year Award is...

Newt Gingrich!

How did he come to deserve the honor of being considered an honorary Bad Cop of Christmas? Check out what Laura Bassett reported that he had to say yesterday:

Newt Gingrich Blames Nation's Problems On Unemployed People

First Posted: 12-20-10 05:48 PM | Updated: 12-20-10 05:56 PM

Newt Gingrich, who is currently mulling a presidential bid in 2012, said at a political event in South Carolina on Thursday that most of America's problems can be blamed on the "leftist news media," Hollywood, tenured academics, overpaid federal workers, and unemployed people.

"I'm opposed to giving people money for doing nothing," he told the crowd of 250 cheering GOP activists in a state with a 10.6 percent unemployment rate.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Comparing unemployment benefits to welfare, a system he worked with former President Clinton to overhaul in the mid-1990s, Gingrich asserts that the country spent $134 billion last year on unemployment compensation "and got nothing for it." Instead of wasting money "paying people to do nothing for 99 weeks," he would make job training mandatory for anyone getting an unemployment check.

There are five jobless people for everyone one job opening right now, making it difficult for even the most industrious job hunters to find work, yet Gingrich's comments echo the sentiments of a number of GOP Congressman who believe unemployment benefits make people lazy. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), for instance, said jobless benefits mean people are "encouraged not to go look for work," and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) told South Carolina's News 13: "We can't just keep paying people to stay at home."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/20/newt-gingrich-blames-nati_n_799391.html

That headline is from the Huffington Post, not The Onion. The Huffington Post may host some humorous columns, but the one above was not intended for humor. But how can you not read the headline "Newt Gingrich Blames Nation's Problems on Unemployed People" without your jaw hitting the floor? So Gingrich wins the award in a breakaway final sprint, with Sen. Jim DeMint a close second since he had the misfortune of being quoted in the same article. What fine Christian men!

But wait, perhaps I'm being too hard on him and rushing to judgment! After all, this potential presidential nominee claims he has a solution to this problem. He wants to make job training mandatory for anyone getting an unemployment check. Way to put the cart in front of the horse, Newt! Since Newt didn't mention that his prospective mandatory job training would be 100% faith-based, I think I'm safe in assuming that Newt is proposing that our tax dollars go to fund a secular-socialist program! Which I think is great, I have no problem with such a blatantly hypocritical 360 degree reversal if the program actually created jobs in America for Americans. But see, that's the problem: it doesn't. Training people for jobs that don't exist would be a real waste of taxpayer money. At least when unemployed people spend their unemployment checks (which by the way Newt, is a government program that unemployed people payed into when they were employed, which technically makes it their money that they're receiving!) that money gets spent on food, clothing, rent, electricity - you know, buying things that actually help the economy grow, Newt!

But when unemployed CEOs get their golden parachutes, do they spend that money creating jobs? No, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to convince the same people whose jobs they outsourced to China, India and Bangalore among other countries that they should be given job titles like Governor and Senator where this time, they'll do the job right, by gum! So it seems to me that the only fiscally responsible way for Newt Gingrich to employ (no pun intended) his plan for training the unemployed would be to force them upon graduating from this mandatory job training program to empty out their savings account or their closest relative's savings account and buy them a plane ticket so they can fly (after a full cavity search courtesy of TSA, of course!) to the nearest or farthest foreign country where the golden parachuted CEOs outsourced all our jobs!

Would Newt Gingrich consider such an austere solution? Why else would I name him Krampus of the Year? To quote a fictional 19th century Krampus, “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”

Hey Interpol! Why Don't You Issue an Alert For This Criminal?

2010-12-10T17:18:00.000-08:00

It seems to me the lesson of the Wikileaks revelations and the international manhunt for it's activist founder, Julian Assange, is that if you threaten to expose corporate crime, you are a target. If you commit corporate crime, people conveniently look the other way. Otherwise, why wouldn't Interpol arrest this man?:

Halliburton may pay $500 million to keep Cheney out of prison: report

By Daniel Tencer
Thursday, December 9th, 2010 -- 10:52 pm

Oilfield services company Halliburton is in negotiations with the Nigerian government to keep its former CEO, Dick Cheney, out of prison, according to a news report.

Sources inside Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission told GlobalPost this week that a settlement keeping the charges against Cheney out of court could cost as much as $500 million.

Nigeria filed charges against Cheney this week in an investigation of alleged bribery estimated at $180 million. Prosecutors named both Halliburton and KBR in the charges, as well as three European oil and engineering companies -- Technip SA, EniSpa, and Saipem Construction.

The charges allege that engineering contractor KBR, until 2007 a subsidiary of Halliburton, was among companies that paid bribes to secure a $6 billion contract for a natural gas plant. KBR pleaded guilty to the same bribes in a US court in 2009, and agreed to pay a $382 million fine. The Nigerian charges appear to stem from the US case -- though, in that trial, Cheney was never directly charged.

more...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/halliburton-500-million-cheney-prison/

Anyone care to issue a citizen's arrest?!

Winnebago Man

2010-12-08T09:56:00.000-08:00

Prior to viewing the documentary Winnebago Man, I had never heard of the Winnebago Man. Somehow this pop culture phenomenon had slipped under my radar. But as the story unfolded, there were elements of the tale that had a ring of familiarity to it. The Winnebago Man, also known as "The Angriest Man in the World", is Jack Rebney, a pitchman who shot an industrial promotional film for Winnebago in 1989. During the shoot, his inability to remember his own dialogue resulted in a series of outbursts colored with so much cursing, the editors of the film cut the outtakes together and passed around VHS copies of Rebney's meltdown to share the hilarity. During the 90's, long before there was a youtube, the Winnebago Man became a viral video courtesy of fans copying the video on VHS and giving it to friends who made even more copies. When youtube.com opened in 2005, the Winnebago Man became an internet sensation.

But what had become of the real Jack Rebney? That is the question the director of Winnebago Man, Ben Steinbauer, is intent on answering. At first, it seems as though he has completely fallen off the map. The only clue to the whereabouts of Rebney is an an advertisement he placed the purchase a sailboat. Is Jack deliberately trying to avoid being found? Steinbauer explores the 21st century phenomenon of cyber-bullying, how the subjects of viral videos are often the targets of intentional humiliation. His own feelings toward Rebney are sympathetic; often he has felt similar frustrations on film shoots and at the end of the day would pop in a copy of Rebney's ranting as a stress reliever. Many fans expressed similar identification. Was Jack aware of his popularity?

Ultimately, Steinbauer hires a private investigator to track Rebney down. After a few weeks, his search is successful as Rebney returns his call and leaves a message welcoming Steinbauer to visit him. Rebney lives by himself in a Shasta County mountain cabin in Manton, California. Steinbauer is surprised to find such a warm, articulate and relatively calm individual, saying that it's as though Rebney has spent the time since his days on the Winnebago shoot "doing yoga". While he claims he was notified of his notoriety on the internet by a friend, his general attitude toward it is described by Steinbauer as a "minor anecdote" in the grand scheme of Rebney's life. Rebney bids him farewell and Steinbauer returns home, disappointed and wondering if he has made too much of the whole Winnebago Man phenomenon.

But then a week later, Rebney calls him back. And he keeps calling him. Apparently, the sweet docile old man behavior was just an act. As he relates how he really feels about his notoriety, which he has been aware of since the collection of outtakes was passed around on VHS, the bitterness comes out with the same cursing cantakerousness we are familiar with from the viral video. It seems he has changed his mind about the impression he tried to convey when Steinbauer initially visited him. He is still upset, but now the primary focus of his anger is the political direction the country is heading toward and he wants to voice his opinions. He invites Steinbauer out for a second visit, but before that visit happens, Regney's glaucoma causes him to go blind.

Sound dramatic? Actually, this is one of the funniest documentaries I've ever seen. Even after his blindness, Regney is constantly cutting loose with the funniest foul-mouthed observations. From the interaction with his faithful dog and his best friend, to the way he drags out the word "Waaaal-Mart" as he rants in front of one in Redding, Regney is a constant source of laughter. What really surprised me is how the movie ended. I won't print a spoiler, but it was amazingly sweet and touching. If I have one critique of the movie, it's that I wish Steinbauer had quit trying to rein Regney in. If Regney wants to shoot a video where he castigates Dick Cheney for destroying the economy a full year and a half (March 2007) before the stock market actually collapsed (September 2008), then for f@#$% sake, let the man say whatever he g$%@#%* feels like! S#$%!

The 100 Year Old Bankster Conspiracy

2010-11-28T10:23:00.000-08:00

In November of 1910, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich (R) of Rhode Island, chair of the National Monetary Commission formed in the wake of the Panic of 1907 to review banking policies in the United States, invited a small group of men out to Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia for a "duck hunt". That was what people were led to believe at the time, anyway. But this was no ordinary group of amateur outdoor sportsmen. In addition to the Senator and his personal secretary Arthur Shelton, the Jekyll Island group gathering for the "duck hunt" was comprised of Dr. A. Piatt Andrew, a former Harvard University assistant Professor of Economics and as of 1910, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Henry P. Davidson, partner at J.P. Morgan and Co., Frank A. Vanderlip, President of the Rockefeller-owned National City Bank and Paul M. Warburg, representing US interests as a partner of Kuhn, Loeb and Co. and extensive international interests as a member of the Warburg banking family.

How many ducks they actually bagged on that trip is inconsequential; it was subterfuge for the real purpose: the most powerful monied interests in the world secretly redesigning the way money works in America. The plan hatched on this trip was the basis for what would eventually become the Federal Reserve. Though Aldrich's initial legislation upon return from this trip would be rejected by Congress, it did approve a similar proposal complete with a central banking system in 1913, which President Wilson signed into law called the Federal Reserve Act. This law, which forever altered the structure of the US economy, would never have been conceived if these most powerful monied interests (Morgan, Rockefeller, Warburg) had not secretly conspired to make it so.

One hundred years later, the world looks very different on the outside, but business still gets done pretty much the same way it did back then. Even in the 21st century, we still see that a "duck hunt" can be used as a ruse by powerful interests to get business done. That's how I would define the word conspiracy as it relates to economic and political power: how business gets done. Why is the subject of conspiracy not given a more open and honest examination within the context of US historical analysis? I leave it to the late, great comedian George Carlin to explain:

"The limits of debate in this country are established before the debate even begins.

And everyone else is marginalized and made to seem either to be communists, or some sort of a disloyal person; or 'kook' - there's a word - and now its 'conspiracy', see.

They've made that something that should not be even entertained for a minute! That powerful people might get together and have a plan! 'Doesn't happen! You're a kook! You're a conspiracy buff'!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO0-u900OG4

If you think this 100 year old conspiracy is a joke, I would counter by saying not only do the powers that profit the most from this arrangement think the joke is on you, they are still rubbing that joke in our faces. Consider recent events from earlier this month:

Fed has starring role in 'Return to Jekyll Island'

By Neil Irwin

(Photo Credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

By Neil Irwin
JEKYLL ISLAND, Ga. -- After making their most significant monetary policy decision in quite a long time earlier this week, top officials of the Federal Reserve are now set to turn their attention to some big-picture questions about their institution: Where has it been? How did it get here? And where is it going?

They are gathering this weekend at the very resort on the Georgia coast where 100 years ago a group of bankers and finance experts met to craft what would eventually become the Federal Reserve System.

Indeed, the 1910 Jekyll Island gathering has long been viewed by conspiracy theorists as the root of what they consider to be the central bank's shadowy, elitist ways. There is even a Fed-bashing book called "The Creature from Jekyll Island."

Now, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is hosting a conference titled "Return to Jekyll Island." It may sound like the sequel to a bad horror movie, but it is in fact a meeting that aims to examine the full scope of the Fed's history (see the agenda here).

more...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-economy/2010/11/fed_has_starring_role_in_retur.html

As Neil Irwin points out, unlike the original meeting 100 years that was deliberately shrouded in secrecy, there were plenty of journalists on hand to record what happened this November. Here is a recording of one moment that stood out in particular:

Is it time yet for America to force these banks into receivership?

To force prosecution for these frauds..... these crimes?

And to hold accountable the regulators.... including The Fed..... who intentionally ignored these frauds and crimes?

How many Americans have to lose their homes?

How many jobs have to go to China?

How much devaluation of our currency - undertaken to prop up these scams - will you tolerate?

How much higher does gasoline and food have to go in price, while your wages remain stagnant or you lose your job - and you're evicted from your house - before you demand it stop and the scammers go to prison?

more...

http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=171691

While I have gone on record many times in the past with my condemnation of the astro-turf front known as the Tea Party, I have no problem citing the likes of Karl Denninger, especially since he has seen what he had thought was the original intent of the organization be usurped by the likes of Sarah Palin & Newt Gingrich focusing on "Guns, gays, God," instead of "enforcement of the law against those who have robbed, financially ****d and pillaged the nation." I would hope that all people of good conscience, regardless of their ideological preference, would stand in unity against this assault from the Elite. There can be no real justice or real democracy in this country until there is economic justice and economic democracy. While there may not be a consensus on how to get there, the first step is to recognize that the banksters are not a realistic part of that solution, only the continuation of a very debilatating problem.

PLAME/EDMONDS/AIPACGATE UPDATE: Rosen Threatens to Open Pandora's Box

2010-11-22T13:53:00.000-08:00

Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one. Completely by chance, I, a lowly translator, stumbled over one piece of it. But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It's massive. So to do this investigation, to really do it, they will have to look into everything… That's the beauty of it. You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people. There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us.

-Sibel Edmonds

About a year ago, I had reached the acceptance stage of my grief over the fact that justice would not be served and the perpetrators behind the outing of Valerie Plame, the corruption that Sibel Edmonds witnessed before the FBI fired her and the espionage at AIPAC would never pay for their crimes. The cover-up of these crimes by both the justice system and the mainstream media (MSM) put me in a depression that for six months made writing a blog seem like a waste of time. But by November of 2009, I had moved on to documenting other aspects of deep politics in the midst of a global scenario of permanently declining resources. The prospect of finding justice in a labyrinthian conspiracy I had spent the past five years documenting was not even worth entertaining anymore.

One year later, that possibility is still facing astronomical odds. But there is a faint glimmer of hope; the slightest shred of a chance. This is why:

Ex-AIPAC official threatens to uncover mass spying at Israel lobby

By Daniel Tencer
Sunday, November 21st, 2010 -- 11:41 am

Top AIPAC officials visited prostitutes, regularly watched porn at work: claim

Is US's most influential advocate for Israel about to implode?

snip

Steve Rosen, who was in charge of foreign policy issues at AIPAC until 2005, is suing his former employer for $20 million, alleging that AIPAC defamed him when they fired him. Rosen and colleague Keith Weissman were charged in 2004 with espionage for allegedly pressuring a Washington Post reporter into running classified US government information they had obtained about Iran. The charges were dropped last year, evidently due to lack of evidence.

snip

Rosen says his actions were common practice at the organization. He said his next move is to show that AIPAC, Washington’s major pro-Israeli lobbying group by far, regularly traffics in sensitive U.S. government information, especially material related to the Middle East.

snip

"Unfortunately for AIPAC, Rosen has 180 documents which could prove that Howard Kohr, AIPAC's executive director, and probably the AIPAC board as well, knew exactly what Rosen was doing," reports M.J. Rosenberg at Al-Jazeera.

He suggests that Rosen's threat to reveal AIPAC trafficking of data is meant to intimidate the lobby group into settling out of court. Making the lawsuit go away "will not be easy - even if Steve Rosen ultimately accepts a payoff from the organization and refrains from telling what he knows," Rosenberg writes.

more...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/official-uncover-mass-spying-israel-lobby/

As the story notes, there is still the strong possibility the truth will remain covered up through an out of court settlement. But if that doesn't happen, the revelations Rosen possesses could be the equivalent of what James McCord revealed to Judge Sirica in a letter dated March 19, 1973. That letter, which stated that perjury had occurred and the Watergate burglars had plead guilty under pressure from John Dean and former Attorney General John Mitchell. As wikipedia summarizes, "His letter set off the Watergate scandal in earnest by implicating many higher-ups in the Richard Nixon administration for covering up the conspiracy that led to the burglary." I noted the potential for a similar Pandora's Box opening existed within the AIPAC spy scandal in the second edition of American Judas three years ago:

On January 20, 2006, Judge T.S. Ellis, III sentenced Franklin to 12 years and 7 months in prison sentence and a $10,000 fine for passing classified information to a pro-Israel lobby group and an Israeli diplomat. In August, he denied Weissman and Rosen's motion to dismiss their indictment on the grounds that the government could still prosecute and punish those who retransmitted classified information regardless of whether they had a security clearance or not, an interpretation of the Espionage Act that could have wide-reaching implications if it were allowed to become legal precedent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC_espionage_scandal This was done in spite of the efforts of defense lawyers, who tried to excuse their clients actions by claiming that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that Franklin did. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/21/AR2006042101648_pf.html While the defense’s attempt to highlight this as an example of backchannel exchanges that are part and parcel of how Washington works failed to persuade Judge Ellis to dismiss the case, in light of Ledeen’s implication that Rice approved of Hadley authorizing the December 2001 Rome meeting between Franklin and Ghorbanifar, this might turn out to be a Pandora’s Box if the defense chooses to open it when Weissman and Rosen’s trial occurs later this year.

Steven J. Rosen AIPAC

I believe Rosen's documentation could be just as explosive if allowed to publicly see the light of day. If anyone could do it, it seems the most likely bet that it would come through a powerful disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind and a sex scandal tied in to boot. The biggest impediment, even if Rosen does have his day in court, is MSM. When will they awake from their collective slumber and report the deep dark truth? This timeline doesn't give any indication that they ever will:

DC Press Corps Ignoring AIPAC’s Tawdry Civil War, the Biggest Story in Washington?

This post is by Paul Woodward and originally appeared on War in Context.

The story so far:

November 8: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) files a 260-page motion [large pdf -- don't attempt to download without broadband] in the District of Columbia Superior Court, in which AIPAC is attempting to fend off a $20 million defamation suit from former employee Steven J Rosen who claims he was wrongfully dismissed. AIPAC ditched him and his colleague Keith Weissman in 2005 when the pro-Israel lobby feared investigation by the FBI.

November 15: Grant Smith highlights much of the politically damaging content of the motion in an Antiwar article, AIPAC Bares All to Quash Lawsuit.

November 16: the story is picked up by MJ Rosenberg, The Forward and others.

November 17: the story is gathering steam in the Jewish press, with items in the JTA and Haaretz.

As for the Washington Post, the New York Times and the rest of the US mainstream media, well as of noon Wednesday, it’s apparently still nap time — or, a figurative bloodbath at that obscure and uninfluential lobbying organization really isn’t news — or, there’s no such thing as the Israel lobby and so why should the press pay any attention — or, a bunch of spineless editors, worried about embarrassing their friends at AIPAC, are looking over their shoulders waiting to see which of their competitors is going to break loose first and force them to report on this unseemly turn of events.

more...

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/11/17/dc-press-corps-ignoring-aipacs-tawdry-civil-war-the-biggest-story-in-washington/#

So it looks to me as if the only way the truth will be revealed is through slow, incremental pieces in little tucked-away corners of the blogosphere like this:

AIPAC On The Brink: And Not One Word In MSM

By M.J. Rosenberg - November 16, 2010, 9:46AM

AIPAC is in big trouble and the media is ignoring it. If this was, say, the National Rifle Association or NARAL, this story would be on page one.

But it's AIPAC, and few want to mess with it. ( Clay Swisher's does here. ). And here is Nathan Guttman at the Forward.

The story was broken in a Antiwar.com piece but is carried in the court filings by AIPAC and its ex-employee Steve Rosen who was fired by the lobby after being indicted under the Espionage Act (the case never went to trial).

snip

Beyond the smut, the most shocking revelation in the court documents is when Rosen reveals that immediately upon being told by the FBI that he was in serious trouble, and being warned by AIPAC's counsel to come immediately to his office and talk to no one in advance, he immediately ran to meet with the #2 at the Israeli embassy!

more...

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/16/aipac_on_the_brink_and_not_one_word_in_msm/

As I've indicated before, I'm not holding my breath for any tectonic plate shift. But I will remain vigilant and keep my eyes and ears open.

Dr. Strangecorp or: How the ACLU Learned to Stop Worrying and Enable the US Chamber of China

2010-11-09T10:47:00.000-08:00

What I wrote in my last blog entry about a "sham election" wasn't an attempt at prophecy. It's just that the writing on the wall was very clear to me in the weeks leading up to the House takeover by the GOP on November 2. That writing on the wall came courtesy of ThinkProgress.org in a number of articles they published on a number of meetings and financial dealings between various dark actors that borders on, dare I say, a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Much thanks to Octafish and kpete at DemocraticUnderground.com for bringing these stories to my attention:

What Role Have Scalia And Thomas Played In The Koch Money Machine?

Earlier today, ThinkProgress’ Lee Fang revealed several documents outlining the details of one of right-wing billionaire Charles Koch’s secret convenings of corporate political donors. As Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal in 2006, the purpose of these meetings is to recruit “captains of industry” to fund the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks and media outlets. Buried in this document, however, is a surprising revelation about the role two supposedly impartial jurists have played in these extended fundraising solicitations: “Past meetings have featured such notable leaders as Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.”

A Supreme Court justice lending a hand to a political fundraising event would be a clear violation of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, if it wasn’t for the fact that the nine justices have exempted themselves from much of the ethical rules governing all other federal judges. Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the Supreme Court tells ThinkProgress that “[t]he Justices look to the Code of Conduct for guidance” in determining when they may participate in fundraising activities. Under that Code:

Fund Raising. A judge may assist nonprofit law-related, civic, charitable, educational, religious, or social organizations in planning fund-raising activities and may be listed as an officer, director, or trustee. A judge may solicit funds for such an organization from judges over whom the judge does not exercise supervisory or appellate authority and from members of the judge’s family. Otherwise, a judge should not personally participate in fund-raising activities, solicit funds for any organization, or use or permit the use of the prestige of judicial office for that purpose. A judge should not personally participate in membership solicitation if the solicitation might reasonably be perceived as coercive or is essentially a fund-raising mechanism.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/20/scalia-thomas-koch

The article referred to in the first paragraph by Lee Fang is very important. Before I go into those details however, I'd like to point out that Scalia and Thomas are not the only current Supreme Court Justices heavily involved in right-wing fundraising. Lee Fang has a new article out today on another Justice on who the concept of impartiality is completely lost:

Exclusive: Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito Dismisses His Profligate Right-Wing Fundraising As ‘Not Important’

Last night, the American Spectator — a right-wing magazine known for its role in the “Arkansas Project,” a well-funded effort to invent stories with the goal of eventually impeaching President Clinton — held its annual gala fundraising event. The Spectator is more than merely an ideological outlet. Spectator publisher Al Regnery helps lead a secretive group of conservatives called the “Conservative Action Project,” formed after President Obama’s election, to help lobby for conservative legislative priorities, elect Republicans (the Conservative Action Project helped campaign against Democrat Bill Owens in NY-23), and block President Obama’s judicial appointments. The Spectator’s gala last night, with ticket prices/sponsorship levels ranging from $250 to $25,000, featured prominent Republicans like RNC chairman Michael Steele, hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer (a major donor to Republican campaign committees and attack ad groups), and U.S. Chamber of Commerce board member and former Allied Capital CEO William Walton. Among the attendees toasting Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), the keynote speaker for the event, was Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito.

It’s not the first time Alito has attended the Spectator dinner. In 2008, Alito headlined the Spectator’s annual gala, helping to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the political magazine. According to Jay Homnick, a conservative who attended the 2008 Spectator gala, Alito spent much of his speech ripping then Vice President-elect Joe Biden as a serial plagiarizer.

As Alito entered the event last night, I approached the Justice and asked him why he thought it appropriate to attend a highly political fundraiser with the chairman of the Republican Party, given Alito’s position on the court. Alito appeared baffled, and replied, “it’s not important that I’m here.” “But,” I said, “you also helped headline this same event two years ago, obviously helping to raise political money as the keynote.” Alito replied curtly, “it’s not important,” before walking away from me.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/10/sam-alito-republican-fundraiser/

But the shady fundraising from Koch-aligned groups goes beyond these activist judges. Back to the Lee Fang article from October 20:

MEMO: Health Insurance, Banking, Oil Industries Met With Koch, Chamber, Glenn Beck To Plot 2010 Election

In 2006, Koch Industries owner Charles Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore that he coordinates the funding of the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks, media outlets and other anti-government efforts through a twice annual meeting of wealthy right-wing donors. He also confided to Moore, who is funded through several of Koch’s ventures, that his true goal is to strengthen the “culture of prosperity” by eliminating “90%” of all laws and government regulations. Although it is difficult to quantify the exact amount Koch alone has funneled to right-wing fronts, some studies have pointed toward $50 million he has given alone to anti-environmental groups. Recently, fronts funded by Charles and his brother David have received scrutiny because they have played a pivotal role in the organizing of the anti-Obama Tea Parties and the promotion of virulent far right lawmakers like Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). (David Koch praised DeMint and gave him a “Washington Award” shortly after the senator promised to “break” Obama by making health reform his “Waterloo.”)

While the Koch brothers — each worth over $21.5 billion — have certainly underwritten much of the right, their hidden coordination with other big business money has gone largely unnoticed. ThinkProgress has obtained a memo outlining the details of the last Koch gathering held in June of this year. The memo, along with an attendee list of about 210 people, shows the titans of industry — from health insurance companies, oil executives, Wall Street investors, and real estate tycoons — working together with conservative journalists and Republican operatives to plan the 2010 election, as well as ongoing conservative efforts through 2012. According to the memo, David Chavern, the number two at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Fox News hate-talker Glenn Beck also met with these representatives of the corporate elite. In an election season with the most undisclosed secret corporate giving since the Watergate-era, the memo sheds light on the symbiotic relationship between extremely profitable, multi-billion dollar corporations and much of the conservative infrastructure. The memo describes the prospective corporate donors as “investors,” and it makes clear that many of the Republican operatives managing shadowy, undisclosed fronts running attack ads against Democrats were involved in the Koch’s election-planning event:

snip

– Participants collaborated with infamous consultants who specialize in generating fake grassroots movements, as well as experts on how corporations should take advantage of Citizens United. One session, about how to “mobilize citizens for November,” involved a discussion with Republican strategists Tim Phillips and Sean Noble, anti-union leader Mark Mix, and longtime Koch operative Karl Crow. Phillips — a veteran astroturf lobbyist who previously managed a deceptive grassroots lobbying campaign to help the Hong Kong-based Tan family maintain their forced abortion sweatshops in the Mariana Islands — now leads the day-to-day operations of Americans for Prosperity, the group ThinkProgress first reported to have helped organize many of the initial Tea Party rallies against Obama. Americans for Prosperity, founded and financed by David Koch, has a field team of over 80 campaign staffers spread out around the country, and additionally plans to spend $45 million dollars worth of attack ads against Democrats. Shortly before the planning meeting, Crow authored a campaign finance memo explaining that because of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, he advised specifically that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 501(c)(6) and Americans for Prosperity’s 501(c)(4) can “now use general treasury funds to produce communications materials opposing or supporting specific candidates” and corporations can aggressively pressure their employees to vote a certain way.

snip

After ThinkProgess published its exclusive investigation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce revealing that the Chamber has been actively fundraising from foreign corporations for its 501(c)(6) account used to run a $75 million attack ad campaign, Chamber lobbyists found common cause with Beck and many of the conservative talking heads. Shortly after our investigation, Beck hosted an on-air fundraiser, asking his audience to give to the Chamber. Casual observers might have been surprised by the Chamber’s swift alliance with Beck (Chamber executives appeared on the Beck radio program and sung Beck’s praises on the Chamber blog), who has compared Obama to Adolf Hitler and called the President a “racist” who has a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” By telling his listeners to give money to the Chamber, Beck, who owns a media company worth more than $32 million dollars and an experimental Mercedes Benz, essentially told his working class viewers to give their wages back to their employers. However, Beck never disclosed his long working history of discussing political strategy with America’s largest corporations. The Koch memo clearly shows that Beck has been collaborating with the Chamber, as well as other titans of industry, for years. In his latest appeal for support to the Chamber’s foreign-funded trade association, which already counts JP Morgan and ExxonMobil as dues-paying members, Beck yesterday told his audience that the Chamber simply “defends the little guy.”

more...

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/20/beck-koch-chamber-meeting

I have detailed in many previous blog entries the machinations of the Koch brothers, Glenn Beck, the real "activists" on the Supreme Court and evil corporate powers. But I have yet to document the machinations of the US Chamber of Commerce. Prior to the 2010 election season, I had not even heard of this organization. This fall, they seemed omnipresent in political TV ads castigating Democratic politicians and propagandizing in favor of corporate-friendly state initiatives. Every time their ads came on TV, I kept wondering, "Who are these guys?" Now, thanks to ThinkProgress.org, we know.

Through their investigative reporting, which President Obama cited while campaigning for Democratic Congressional candidates, we know that the US Chamber of Commerce is fueled by foreign oil and is funded by top offshoring companies working to send American jobs overseas. What did the US Chamber of Commerce do with this funding? They spent $75 million in the attack ad campaign we witnessed this fall. But that's not the worst part of the story. The worst part is that the US Chamber of Commerce raises money from foreign-owned businesses for its 501(c)(6) entity, the same account that finances its unprecedented $75 million dollar partisan attack ad campaign. Only $885,000 from 80 foreign companies have been documented in disclosed donations. The US Chamber of Commerce response to this investigation is that "we have a system in place" to prevent foreign funding for the Chamber's "political activities." Unfortunately, most donations are undisclosed, so there is no way to verify this claim. But they did not deny that they rely heavily on fundraising from firms all over the world, including foreign companies controlled by foreign governments, like China.

Think about that. The US Chamber of Commerce is financed by China. It astounds me how so many of these reich-wing, Teahadist-loving corporatists who normally red-bait at the drop of a hat where it concerns President Kenyan Marxist Obama can turn a blind eye to having their favorite candidates and causes funded by Red China. Oh wait, sorry, they have a "system in place" to prevent that. Is that system called Don't Ask Don't Tell? I call bullshit, and unless they can prove otherwise, I'll throw their red-baiting back in their face by referring to them as the US Chamber of China from now on. If they can't walk the walk, they shouldn't talk the talk.

Yeah, that's the ticket. What if name-calling solved all our problems? Unfortunately, the situation is much graver than that. It would be so convenient if I could just slap the label "American Judas" on a person or organization that deserved it and just neatly separate the right from the left. But it's not that simple. If there is a person or organization that has been characterized as or embraced by the left that is complicit in selling this country out, then I have a moral obligation to slap the label "American Judas" on them too. Not because I enjoy name-calling, but because when diagnosing what is ailing this country and why, then I have to name who is responsible for those problems, regardless of ideological preference.

This is where the story of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who has had the reputation of being a left-wing organization, enabling the US Chamber of China to saturate the media with propaganda that essentially bought the Congressional Class of 2010 comes into play. I've already cited how the US Chamber of China took advantage of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling when a longtime Koch brothers operative, Karl Crow (What a Dickensian name! Like Karl Rove and Jim Crow had a love child!), advised them they could “now use general treasury funds to produce communications materials opposing or supporting specific candidates”. Who fought for these corporations so that five Supreme Court justices (including Scalia, Thomas and Alito mentioned above for their heavy involvement in right-wing fundraising) could give them these "rights"? That would be the ACLU. The ACLU filed a brief in the Citizens United case on behalf of the side that ultimately won.

I have searched the internet and have yet to find any apologies, regrets or action to rectify this enabling of corporatism, i.e. fascism, on behalf of the ACLU. The New York Sun reported on January 24 that the ACLU board was debating whether or not to reverse their position and endorse government limits on corporate campaign spending. The Atlantic noted on February 5 that: "In the meantime, however, the ACLU is apparently laying low, keeping its opposition to campaign finance restrictions officially in place, and at the same time, keeping quiet about it". One person who did not lay low was Ira Glasser, retired Executive Director of the ACLU. On The Huffington Post, he defended the ACLU's action as "a huge victory... for freedom of speech and against government censorship. Yes, censorship." There were more examples of condescending sanctimony in his defense of Citizens United and his attack against "liberals", but it basically boiled down to this question that he posed: "Do we want the government--the government??!!-- to be deciding which corporations can speak and which not?"

With that rhetorical question, Glasser revealed the truth about what the ACLU really stands for. They are not left-wing at all. Despite being reviled on the right and embraced by the left for being "liberal", the correct designation would be to say that they are libertarians with a pretense at social consciousness. That pretense is up front and center on most social issues, yet evaporates completely on the most important issue of all: economic justice. Money talks and bullshit walks. And in the case of Citizens United v. FEC, money literally talked and the ACLU walked out on justice. Glasser and everyone at the ACLU who thinks, talks and acts like him, will never get the problem with his question. Otherwise, they might have seen the answer one week earlier on January 27 from Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman at AlterNet:

We respectfully -- but vehemently -- disagree. Simply put: money is not speech, corporations are not people.

Given the immense sums of cash these corporations have to spend, the Citizen's United decision is the equivalent not of guaranteeing individual Nazis the freedom to march, but instead of granting the Party itself the right to drive tanks down the street, guns ablazing.

It's not the same as giving individual Klan members the right to hold a rally, but rather for the organization to do public lynchings as part of a terror campaign aimed at taking tangible power.

Nowhere in the Constitution do the Founders mention the word corporation. There were six of them at the time of ratification, all strictly limited by state charter to where and what kind of business they could do. They bear scant resemblance to the multi-national behemoths we confront today. Those who wrote and ratified the First Amendment would be horrified by their very existence.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/145447/why_the_aclu_supported_the_supreme_court%27s_shocking_assault_on_free_speech

That analysis cuts right to the heart of the real problem: until we compel our government to recognize the inherent truth that a corporation is not a person, then the 1st Amendment rights we're supposed to have as individuals will continue to be debased as we descend down the corporatist staircase until those rights are meaningless. Unless we have a Constitutional Amendment to End Corporate Personhood, we will continue to see our elections bought in proxy by the biggest corporations willing to sell us out to whoever will provide them with the quickest path to maximum profits, especially the corporate libertarians that James Howard Kunstler refers to as corn-pone Nazis: the Tea Party. Of course, by the next election cycle, TP may have been replaced by something far more hateful, far more racist and far more violent willing to serve their corporate masters in the name of "freedom". Our struggle to overcome this cannot begin too soon.

What About the Separation of Corporations & State?

2010-10-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

I am busy researching information for a blog post I will publish on the sham election about to take place next week that will detail exactly which dark actors are responsible for making next Tuesday's election a sham. But until then, here's some late breaking news on one of the biggest stories of the year which I have covered extensively on this blog:

BP, Halliburton knew Gulf oil rig cement was faulty: commission

By Raw Story
Thursday, October 28th, 2010 -- 4:28 pm

The presidential commission investigating the Deepwater Horizon oil spill says BP and its cement contractor, Halliburton knew the cement mixture used in the construction of the well could allow oil leaks.

According to a letter from Fred Bartlit, Jr., the commission's lead investigator, Halliburton carried out four tests of the cement mixture between February and April of this year, shortly before the rig exploded, and three of them showed the mixture to be faulty. A fourth, final one showed the mixture to work, but BP apparently only ever saw the results of one of the tests -- one that failed.

CNN reports:

According to the letter, the cement was poured to stabilize the well on April 19 and 20, the day of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig above that killed 11 workers and caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

"Halliburton and BP both had results in March showing that a very similar foam slurry design to the one actually pumped at the Macondo well would be unstable, but neither acted upon that data," the letter said.

"Halliburton (and perhaps BP) should have considered redesigning the foam slurry before pumping it at the Macondo well," the letter continued.

The news "appears to conflict with statements made by Halliburton Co., which has said its tests showed the cement mix was stable. The company instead has said BP's well design and operations are responsible for the disaster," reports AP.

more...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/bp-halliburton-knew-oil-rig-cement-faulty/

Two words come to mind to describe what happened: criminal negligence. So why I do I highlight this on the eve of an election where matters of state seem to dominate the headlines more than matters of corporations? Perhaps it is because we so often confuse the two as being the same thing. So many times I've heard that the election next week is a referendum on President Obama, even though you won't find his name on any ballot. Perhaps it is a fair assessment, there is so much he is responsible for that our Congress has either followed his lead on or obstructed that in a sense it is a referendum on what he has done and whether we should empower those who follow him or those who obstruct.

But one thing President Obama is not responsible for that I resent like hell seeing him get blamed for is the Deepwater Blowout. Those who label this tragic travesty as "Obama's Katrina" are shameless propagandists either ignorant of history or just flat-out lying. The only similarity I see between the two catastrophes is that, like Halliburton, Bush had foreknowledge of the potential for calamity and took no proactive measures to mitigate it. But whereas the New Orleans levees fell under the purview of government responsibility, Deepwater Horizon was a 100% corporate operation, therefore 100% of the responsibility for damage associated with 4.9 million barrels of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico and the surrounding areas lies with the corporations involved. Period. Any suggestion otherwise is either financed by or plays into the hands of the same guilty corporatists eager to make you, the American public, absolve them of their crimes this coming Tuesday.

Mumbai Attacks Update: The DEA Connection

2010-10-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

Almost two years ago, there were a series of coordinated terror attacks on multiple targets in Mumbai, India that killed 166 people, including six Americans. At the time, I wrote a blog post about it titled Who's really responsible for Mumbai? Dick Cheney doesn't want you to know. It explored how the primary suspects in the terror attacks, Dawood Ibrahim and the terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba, were connected with Dick Cheney through their mutual financial profiteering via the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network. There was also reports cited that the attackers might not have all been Arab or Pakistani; the possibility of a Chechen connection was explored because of tactical similarities and eyewitness accounts of "foreign looking, fair skinned" men with "blonde hair" and "a punkish hairstyle".

Since then, there has been minimal exposure in American mainstream media (MSM) regarding investigations into the Mumbai attacks. But recently, there has been a bombshell revelation:

Feds Confirm Mumbai Plotter Trained With Terrorists While Working for DEA

by Sebastian Rotella
ProPublica, Oct. 16, 2010, 11:04 p.m.

Updates:

Feds Confirm Mumbai Plotter Trained With Terrorists While Working for DEA [1]

U.S. Embassy Didn’t Pass Along Tip About Headley’s Ties to Terrorists [2]

Federal officials acknowledged Saturday that David Coleman Headley, the U.S. businessman who confessed to being a terrorist scout in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was working as a DEA informant while he was training with terrorists in Pakistan.

Federal officials, who spoke only only on background because of the sensitivity of the Headley case, also said they suspect a link between Headley and the al Qaeda figures whose activities have sparked recent terror threats against Europe.

Courtroom drawing of David Coleman Headley, left. Dec. 9, 2009. (Verna Sadock/AP Photo)

The revelations came after a report Friday [3] by ProPublica and the Washington Post that the FBI had been warned about Headley’s terrorist ties three years before the Mumbai attacks. Headley wasn’t arrested until 11 months after the attack.

After Headley was arrested in a 2005 domestic dispute in New York City, his wife told federal investigators about his long involvement with the terrorist group Lashkar-i-Taiba and his extensive training in its Pakistani camps. She also told them he had bragged about being a paid U.S. informant while undergoing terrorist training.

more...

http://www.propublica.org/article/feds-confirm-mumbai-plotter-trained-with-terrorists-while-working-for-dea

Quite an astounding revelation! Yet except for reporter Sebastian Rotella having his article reprinted in the Washington Post and a related story in the New York Times, MSM has been strangely silent on this story. Perhaps this is excusable to the predominate focus on the upcoming election in November. But still, an American confessing to involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks turns out to be a DEA informant, turns out the FBI was warned of his terrorist links three years prior to the attacks, yet this story doesn't merit nationwide front page headlines? No morning talk or evening cable news interviews with the ex-wife, or with the DEA or FBI? A more likely reason for MSM muting of this story is Deep Politics. As long as the links between government, intelligence, drugs and terrorism are not officially acknowledged, how are we to know they exist?

October Surprise - The 30th Anniversary

2010-10-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

As we head into the last few weeks leading up to Election Day, both sides look to gain lasting momentum over the other which will hopefully translate into substantial victories. Both hope for that one big down-to-the-wire incident that resonates in voters' minds as they head into the voting booth that encapsulates why their side is the best, or at least why the other side sucks more. It's called the October Surprise. Sometimes it is truly a surprise, some event unforeseen, beyond anyone's control. But there are occasions when it is orchestrated purposefully to take advantage of an uncertain electorate.

What may or may not have occurred in October of 1980 was not the first time an October Surprise was purposefully orchestrated, but is certainly one of the most famous. As wikipedia summarizes:

1980 Carter vs. Reagan

Main article: October surprise conspiracy theory

During the Iran hostage crisis, the Republican challenger Ronald Reagan feared a last-minute deal to release the hostages, which might earn incumbent Jimmy Carter enough votes to win re-election in the 1980 presidential election.^[2]^[3] As it happened, in the days prior to the election, press coverage was consumed with the Iranian government's decision—and Carter's simultaneous announcement—that the hostages would not be released until after the election.^[3]

It was first written about in a Jack Anderson article in the Washington Post in the fall of 1980, in which he alleged that the Carter administration was preparing a major military operation in Iran for rescuing U.S. hostages in order to help him get reelected. Subsequent allegations surfaced against Reagan alleging that his team had impeded the hostage release to negate the potential boost to the Carter campaign.^[4]

After the release of the hostages on the same day, literally 5 minutes following Reagan's inauguration on January 20, 1981, some charged that the Reagan campaign made a secret deal with the Iranian government whereby the Iranians would hold the hostages until Reagan was inaugurated, ensuring that Carter would lose the election.^[3]

Gary Sick, member of the National Security council under Presidents Ford and Carter (before being relieved of his duties mere weeks into Reagan's term) ^[5] made the accusation in a New York Times editorial [4] in the run-up to the 1992 election. The initial bipartisan response from Congress was skeptical: House Democrats refused to authorize an inquiry, and Senate Republicans denied a $600,000 appropriation for a probe.

Eight former hostages also sent an open letter demanding an inquiry in 1991 [5] In subsequent Congressional testimony, Sick said that the popular media had distorted and misrepresented the accusers, reducing them to "gross generalizations" and "generic conspiracy theorists." Sick penned a book on the subject and sold the movie rights to it for a reported $300,000. [6] His sources and thesis were contested by a number of commentators on both sides of the aisle. [7] [8]

Bani-Sadr, the former President of Iran, has also stated "that the Reagan campaign struck a deal with Teheran to delay the release of the hostages in 1980," asserting that "by the month before the American Presidential election in November 1980, many in Iran's ruling circles were openly discussing the fact that a deal had been made between the Reagan campaign team and some Iranian religious leaders in which the hostages' release would be delayed until after the election so as to prevent President Carter's re-election"^[6] He repeated the charge in "My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution & Secret Deals with the U.S."^[7]^[8]

Two separate congressional investigations looked into the charges, both concluding that there was no plan to seek to delay the hostages' release.^[3] At least three books have argued the case.^[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise

Campaign '80
Which message will resonate with voters?


"Let's talk better mileage" - Jimmy Carter	"Kill the Bastards" - Ronald Reagan

Fascinating history. But beyond just illuminating the 30 year passing of a conspiracy theory, I wanted to report some recent research that the mainstream media failed to shine a light on. Since Project Censored neglected to cover this story, I shall probably write about it in greater detail in my annual UNDER THE RUG blog post in December. I give full credit and applause to George Polk Award winning investigative reporter Robert Parry for continuing to dig up fresh dirt on a 30 year old story:

Key October Surprise Evidence Hidden

By Robert Parry (A Special Report)
May 6, 2010

A Russian government report, which corroborated allegations that Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign interfered with President Jimmy Carter’s Iran-hostage negotiations in 1980, was apparently kept from the Democratic chairman of a congressional task force that investigated the charges a dozen years later.

Lee Hamilton, then a congressman from Indiana in charge of the task force, told me in a recent interview, “I don’t recall seeing it,” although he was the one who had requested Moscow’s cooperation in the first place and the extraordinary Russian report was addressed to him.

The Russian report, which was dropped off at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Jan. 11, 1993, contradicted the task force’s findings – which were released two days later – of “no credible evidence” showing that Republicans contacted Iranian intermediaries behind President Carter’s back regarding 52 American hostages held by Iran’s Islamic revolutionary government, the so-called October Surprise case.

I was surprised by Hamilton’s unfamiliarity with the Russian report, so I e-mailed him a PDF copy. I then contacted the task force’s former chief counsel, attorney Lawrence Barcella, who acknowledged in an e-mail that he doesn’t “recall whether I showed [Hamilton] the Russian report or not.”

In other words, the Russian report – possibly representing Moscow’s first post-Cold War collaboration with the United States on an intelligence mystery – was not only kept from the American public but apparently from the chairman of the task force responsible for the investigation.

more...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/050610.html

If the name Lee Hamilton sounds familiar, you might remember he was the vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

As I said before, I'll analyze this story in greater detail in December. Until then, happy anniversary!

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

2010-10-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of the 1987 Oliver Stone film Wall Street. But when I saw the previews for his sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, I felt a little trepidacious. Why did Gordon Gekko spend eight years in prison for a crime that real-life inside traders like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken served a fraction of time in comparison? Why do we see a daughter in the trailer but not the son, who appeared as a little boy in the original? And what is Gekko going to do with that monstrously oversized cell phone? I went with a friend to the Los Feliz 3 Cinemas to find out.

The movie starts out with Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) being released from prison in 2001 after serving eight years, with no one arriving to pick him up. Cut to seven years later, where Gekko's daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) wakes her boyfriend, Jake Moore (Shia Lebouf). A top Wall Street broker for the firm Keller Zabel Investments, Jake's first instinct upon waking is to turn on CNBC. There, in addition to the everpresent ominous stat for the price of oil near $142 a barrel, is Gordon Gekko himself, promoting his new book titled Is Greed Good? Though Winnie throws the remote at the TV in disgust over her estranged father, who she blames for the suicide of her brother, Jake seems fascinated.

Jake's position at Keller Zabel seems secure, even though the board discourages his enthusiasm for a nuclear fusion project to bolster the firm's alternative energy assets. He receives a $1.5 million bonus from his managing director, Lewis Zabel (Frank Langella). Jake considers Lewis his mentor, so when Lewis soon after commits suicide in the wake of the collapse of Keller Zabel, Jake is distraught. He gets engaged to Winnie, then seeks out her father Gordon at a lecture he is giving. An interesting bond develops between Jake and Gordon where in exchange for opportunities to communicate with his estranged daughter, Gordon provides Jake with information to destroy Bretton James (Josh Brolin), who Jake believes profited from Keller Zabel's collapse and Gordon believes was responsible for his long jail sentence.

The intricacies of the plot are well executed, and I have to give the writers Allen Loeb & Stephen Schiff credit for creating an involving sequel that isn't just a retread of previous material. They also did a great job explaining that it wasn't just the securities fraud in the first film exposed by Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen, who has a hilarious cameo) that sent Gekko to prison for seven years, there was additional charges he believes Bretton, who he had a falling out with, was responsible for. I also think Oliver Stone did a masterful job of style and pacing. It was almost as though he reached back to his 80's style of elegant sweeping cinematic shots as opposed to the lightning quick edits of his 90's films. At times his visual allegory is a bit overstated, such as the multiple shots of floating bubbles, but I love how he highlighted the skyline of New York City as a visual metaphor for the rise and fall of the stock market. Plus this movie had great performances all around, but especially from Michael Douglas. He's not in as many scenes in this as in the original, but his presence is felt when he's gone. His effect on others and the world he inhabits is palpable; he's like the Hannibal Lector of the financial world: when and how he stakes his claim seem to be always on his seemingly all-powerful terms.

But there are some glaring problems with this film that keep it from greatness. I won't provide spoilers here, but the final scene is atrocious. Both in style and content, it's just too simple and sentimental to give any cinematic satisfaction. But I also had a problem with the way nuclear fusion was used as a deus ex machina to solve all our environmental and energy problems. I could buy using it as a plot device within some science fiction futuristic movie like Back to the Future, but within the realm of Wall Street as the Economic Meltdown of 2008 occurs, it just isn't plausible. Sure, there are companies out there exploring the technological possibility of nuclear fusion. But there wasn't a company two years ago on the verge of a realistic breakthrough, and there certainly isn't one now.

This was one of the issues I discussed with my friend over drinks at the Dresden Room after the movie. I think Stone was cleverly sly about the way he wove the issues surrounding oil production and energy use into the context of the story. He accurately detailed the financial reasons behind the 2008 Economic Meltdown such as sub-prime mortgages and debt in investment and commercial banking, but always in the background, whether through visual graphs or Gekko referring to alternative energy as "the next bubble", was the underlying issue of energy. I think Stone understands implicitly that while money represents the ability to do work, energy is the ability to do work. The problem Stone shares with the overwhelming majority of Americans, as evidenced by his yearning for a fusion energy future, is that he's still hanging on to the notion that there is something out there that can solve all our energy and environmental problems and still keep the economy growing. I've come to the conclusion the majority will maintain that notion until we're well past the peak of oil production. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.

The problem with education today? George Carlin nailed it years ago.

2010-09-29T13:05:00.000-07:00

When I originally wrote this piece on Democratic Underground yesterday, I wasn't planning on including it here. The main reason is because the piece is centered around a George Carlin bit that I had already quoted in a previous blog entry. But because the response was overwhelmingly positive, with 174 recommendations, I thought I should share it here too. Hope you enjoy!

The problem with education today? George Carlin nailed it years ago.

I have to shake my head in dismay that, suddenly, the media has found religion on the subject of education. With a slew of documentaries being released on the subject, our good ol' Corporate McPravda has awoken to the fact there is a problem with education and have diligently focused on finding a solution. What could the best solution be? Train better teachers? Get parents more involved? Neutralize those pesky unions?

It would funny if it wasn't so sad. If those in power really cared about finding a solution, they'd look in the mirror and realize that George Carlin nailed exactly what the source of the problem with education is:

"Not too bright, folks. Not too fucking bright. But if you talk to one of them about this, if you isolate one of them, you sit 'em down rationally, you talk to 'em about the low IQ's and the dumb behavior and the bad decisions; right away they start talking about education. That's the big answer to everything: Education. They say, 'We need more money for education. We need more books, more teachers, more classrooms, more schools. We need more testing for the kids!' You say to 'em, 'Well, you know, we've tried all that and the kids still can't pass the tests'. They say, 'Aw, don't you worry about that, we're gonna lower the passing grades!' And that's what they do in a lot of these schools now, they lower the passing grades so more kids can pass. More kids pass, the school looks good, everybody's happy; the IQ of the country slips another two or three points and pretty soon, all you'll need to get into college is a fucking pencil! 'Gotta pencil? Get the fuck in there, it's physics!' Then everyone wonders why 17 other countries graduate more scientists than we do. Education!

Politicians know that word; they use it on you. Politicians have traditionally hidden behind three things: the flag, the Bible and children. 'No Child Left Behind! No Child Left Behind!' 'Oh really, well it wasn't long ago you were talking about giving kids a Head Start! Head Start, Left Behind, someone's losing fucking ground here!' But there's a reason. There's a reason. There's a reason for this. There's a reason education sucks and it's the same reason it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that.

I'm talking about the real owners now. The big, wealthy...The real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They've got you by the balls! They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying – lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.

But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking.
They're not interested in that! That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right! You know something? They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don't want that! You know what they want? They want Obedient Workers – Obedient Workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club - and you ain't in it! You and I are not in the big club.

By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long and they tell you what to believe...All day long, beating you over the head in the media, what to believe, what to think and what to buy...The table is tilted, folks! The game is rigged! And nobody seems to notice, and nobody seems to care! Good honest, hard-working people! White collar, blue collar... Doesn't matter what color shirt you have on! Good honest, hard-working people continue...These are people of modest means!...continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them! They don't give a fuck about you! They don't give a fuck about you! They don't care about you! At all! At all! At all! Yeah! You know? And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on. The fact that Americans probably will remain willfully ignorant of the big red white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes every day! Because the owners of this country know the truth - it's called the American Dream: because you have to be asleep to believe it."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXWzSwZ_wPs

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9217128

Lamentations for a Lost God/dess

2010-09-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

You raise up your head
And you ask, "Is this where it is ?"
And somebody points to you and says
"It's his"
And you says, "What's mine ?"
And somebody else says, "Where what is ?"
And you say, "Oh my God
Am I here all alone ?"
-Bob Dylan "Ballad of a Thin Man"

On Sunday I attended another LA Peak Oil Meetup at the Cat & the Fiddle in Hollywood. This meeting was not as well attended as the last meeting I attended on August 1 that I wrote about previously. In fact, there were only three people in attendance this past Sunday, including myself. We certainly had a good time together, sharing drinks, discussing new developments involving politics and Peak Oil, and agreeing that the next time we meet, it should be in coordination with some event that more people would want to attend and talk about afterward. Next time would hopefully not coincide with another Meetup group meeting in the same place. We jokingly lamented the fact that the atheists had a much better turnout for their Meetup in the courtyard than we did.

But being less popular than atheists gave me much food for thought. What is the future of religion in a post-Peak Oil society? Michael Ruppert weighed in on this prospect in the Chris Smith documentary Collapse, where he said, "Everything is on the table, God is on the table, every religion in the world is on the table now. They'll all be measured as standards by 'this is reality - and this is what the religion says' and every religion in the world is going to be under a huge microscope. This is going to be the greatest age of evolution in human thinking that's ever taken place". For someone whom his detractors try to paint as a doomsayer, I think that's a much more positive perspective than one I could envision. It's an incredibly hopeful prospect to foresee society participating in an Age of Enlightenment rather than the Dark Ages.

Perhaps there will be both enlightenment and darkness, depending on which region you happen to be lucky or unlucky enough to reside in. Stupidity has a habit of getting intransigent in the face of extinction; the Dominionists and Islamists are sure to create continued misery for the regions they inhabit in the wake of declining resources. But in regions where the majority of the population retain their intelligence, the major religions of the world will undergo a tectonic shift in their focus of how they appeal to rational souls that they are in fact relevant to the new way that the world works. That means that rational Judeo-Christo-Islamic Biblical teachings will have to sidestep previous exhaltations of Genesis 1:28 to "be fruitful and multiply" by saying essentially, "That was then, this is now". What I believe will happen within this community is a renewed focus on the Tower of Babel story in Genesis chapter 11 as an allegorical tale of what happens to humankind when they attempt to grow infinitely within a finite planet while living off finite resources - God, i.e. Reality smacks them down!

So what does the future hold for people who reject these old constructs reimagined for an overpopulated planet finally confronting the reality of finite resources it ignored far too long? I propose that people like me start taking religious affiliations a little less seriously. Where am I at, spiritually speaking? It's easier to say what I am not. First, with all due respect to those super-popular folks who outdrew us at the Cat & Fiddle, I am not an atheist. While I respect their right to their own opinion, I think atheism is just as wrong as any other religion for the one simple reason that they claim to know what they're talking about! As I see it, the problem with almost every religion in the world is that they claim to understand the spiritual realm. Atheism does this by saying it definitively doesn't exist. I say they're all wrong. But I'm not agnostic. Agnosticism is just too wishy-washy for me. I can't say we don't know whether or not there is a metaphysical realm beyond our physical comprehension of the universe. I believe it does exist. I just don't think anyone knows what it is! I also believe anyone who claims they know is wrong, myself included!

I say it is way past time to create new religions rooted in this simultaneous embrace of doubt and faith. Just recently, a friend from high school told me that he is the founder of "the fastest growing religion on earth" and gave me the details in a Facebook comment:

It is called apethism. We believe that many things may be true or untrue but we are simply too disinterested to find out. Services are held whenever and when someone gets around to it. i leave you now with the apethists credo, "May god bless you and keep you, you know, if you're into that sort of thing man."

Well, maybe that religion is bit heavier with the embrace of doubt than faith. But in that spirit, but with a heavier embrace of faith, why not take a known fictional construct and imbue it with religious faith? As long as it is a concept that can accept faith and doubt in equal tolerance without wallowing in fundamentalism, what difference does it make who thought it up? Why not believe in this:

I'm not talking about worshipping Alec Guinness, or George Lucas for that matter. I think we need to stop thinking of God as a person and embrace God, to paraphrase John Lennon, as a concept. I'm talking about embracing The Force. For those poor souls who have yet to experience this Immortal Truth and know not what it is, I shall quote the definition from Ben "Obi-Wan" Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope, "It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together". Imagine attending church services at The Force Cathedral, training to be a Jedi Knight. Pretty cool, huh?

Or, for those of you not impressed with the prospect of the conversion of sci-fi fanboy geekdom into a religious order, perhaps you might find George Carlin's metaphysical perspective more persuasive:

"I think we’re part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron…whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn’t punish, it doesn’t reward, it doesn’t judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while."

I wonder if, in a post-Peak Oil society, worshipers of The Force and The Big Electron will be true allies or passive-aggressive frenemies. Personally, I don't think I would join either one. I'm more inclined to start the Church of The Thin Man. Instead of trying to attain Nirvana, we all stay content being Mr. Jones. Because we know something's happening, but we don't know what it is.

Then again, in the wake of planetary devastation in the form of that other civilization-shaking effect of overconsumption of fossil fuels, Global Climate Change, there might be a return back to The Goddess. The embrace of the Gaia theory, that the Earth is a living, breathing system of organisms, might revert back to its Greek origins of worshipping Gaia, the Goddess personifying the Earth. Those who believe might do so with the faith that such worship combined with adherence to obeying certain ecological principles will heal the planet, and by extension, the people. Hopefully there will be an atmosphere of tolerance between all these prospective religions. But then, as far as those who worship the planet go, there might be intolerant responses from the Dominionists and Islamists toward them. Intolerant to the point of being homicidal. Nothing new for "civilization". George Carlin summed up this tendency toward violent religious intolerance quite vividly:

"Hey, if you read history, you realize that God is one of the leading causes of death— has been for thousands of years. Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians, all taking turns killing each other because God told them it was a good idea. The sword of God, the blood of the lamb, vengeance is mine, millions of dead motherfuckers, all because they gave the wrong answer to the God question: "Do you believe in God?" "No." Boom! Dead. "Do you believe in God?" "Yes..." "Do you believe in my God?" "No." Boom! Dead. "My god has a bigger dick than your god!""

The Genesis of 9/11

2010-09-11T23:26:00.000-07:00

This past week, as it usually is for me around the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, is a time for reflection. While I personally did not lose anyone close to me, I reflect on how the world and our country has changed since then, and how I have changed in response. The most predominant personal impact this made was to kill any trace of political apathy I previously had. From that day forward, I really began to pay attention. To look beyond the headlines, beyond the front page stories, beyond what was happening to understand why. Why? Why was it that I could walk home from the subway with an American flag bandanna wrapped around my head feeling the warmth of patriotic pride as I smiled at the 50, 80, sometimes 100 cars a day flying tiny American flags from their antennas in the weeks after 9/11, yet when hearing the answer to the question, "Why?" stated, "Because they hate us for our freedom", I inwardly recoiled from the stink of bullshit? That stink compelled me to do my own research. My patriotic hobby became an avocation when our government willfully exposed covert US intelligence sources and compromised national security. My method for exposing the guilty parties began with the question, "Why was Valerie Plame's CIA cover blown?"

During the course of my research on the cases of Valerie Plame and Sibel Edmonds while writing the first and second editions of American Judas which led to the creation of this blog, I came across many of the same organizations and characters whose paths crossed on the road to 9/11. The primary catalyst for this was Paul Thompson. In the summer of 2004, his research, which was being compiled at the Center for Cooperative Research but is now operated by the History Commons website, helped me connect the dots and build a solid case. I highly recommend the published book of Thompson's research, The Terror Timeline.

One particular dot that connected between the events of 9/11 and the outing of Valerie Plame that I took note of during the summer of 2004 was an organization I was previously unaware of called the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). What's interesting is that while the first chapter of Thompson's book detailing which "seeds of 9/11 were planted long before the Bush administration came to power" begins in 1979 with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, BCCI began in 1972. While Thompson includes only a few research entries in The Terror Timeline on BCCI, I believe they validate my contention that BCCI is the genesis of 9/11.

What was BCCI?

Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne broke the story of BCCI for Time Magazine and wrote a book about it titled The Outlaw Bank. To try to encapsulate just what the $20 billion scandal of BCCI was about, they described it as such in the introduction:

BCCI was the largest criminal corporate enterprise ever, the biggest Ponzi scheme, the most pervasive money-laundering operation in history, the only bank - so far as anyone knows - that ran a brisk sideline business in both conventional and nuclear weapons, gold, drugs, turnkey mercenary armies, intelligence and counterintelligence, shipping, and commodities from cement in the Middle East to Honduran coffee to Vietnamese beans.

Though it was fundamentally a financial fraud, BCCI itself was not a bank in any conventional sense. Or, more precisely, banking was only a part of the global organism, the ingeniously constructed platform from which its other lines of business were launched. Taken collectively, it was more of an armed Renaissance city-state of Machiavelli's era than a modern corporation. This "bank" possessed its very own diplomatic corps, intelligence network, and private army, its own shipping and commodities trading companies. And BCCI itself was so thoroughly enmeshed in the official affairs of Pakistan that it was often impossible to separate the two.

BCCI was bigger even than that: It was the unsettling next-stage evolution of the multinational corporation, the one the theorists had been predicting for years but which never seemed to be able to shed its sovereign boundaries. (General Motors and Mitsubishi are both good examples of this - huge companies with holdings and operations all over the world that nonetheless persist in being fundamentally American and Japanese entities.) In taking that step, BCCI became truly stateless and very nearly invisible to the authorities in each country where it did business. The BCCI scandal shows what sort of frightening mischief can be made in a world where trillions of electronic dollars routinely wash in and out of the international financial markets.

Nor was BCCI a conspiracy. In much of what it did, BCCI reflected the way the world works. The organization was designed to mimic the way the world's largest corporations and banks move and hide their money. It was no accident that BCCI was incorporated in Luxembourg, one of the least regulated nations on earth and a favorite haven of the money men at the Fortune 500. It was no accident that it ran its wildest manipulations through what amounted to a branch in the Cayman Islands - a place long favored by major banks to hold offshore money away from the ken of the IRS and banking authorities. BCCI had mastered these black arts so well that it became the bank of choice for the intelligence agencies of the Western hemisphere, who found its deeply secretive methods more and more useful. BCCI was necessary to them; it was part of the way they worked too. It was those alliances, along with bribery on a grand scale, that allowed the criminal bank to flourish for two decades with effective immunity from the law.

One of Jonathan Beaty's primary sources in his initial investigation of BCCI for Time Magazine was investigator and Chief Counsel to Senator John Kerry's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, Jack Blum. As he put it:

The problem that we are all having in dealing with this bank is that . . . it had 3,000 criminal customers and every one of those 3,000 criminal customers is a page 1 story. So if you pick up on one of [BCCI's] accounts you could find financing from nuclear weapons, gun running, narcotics dealing, and you will find all manner and means of crime around the world in the records of this bank.

I believe this explains part of why, as much as investigators were able to uncover about this scandal, the full truth will never be revealed. It is the way the world works. It infects everything. BCCI may have been closed for business in July 1991, but the way it operated lives on. Paul Thompson documented this on page 259-260 of The Terror Timeline with this entry expanded for the History Commons website:

October 10, 2001: Report: Bin Laden’s Financial Network Is Successor to the BCCI Bank

A 70-page French intelligence report claims: “The financial network of [Osama] bin Laden, as well as his network of investments, is similar to the network put in place in the 1980s by BCCI for its fraudulent operations, often with the same people (former directors and cadres of the bank and its affiliates, arms merchants, oil merchants, Saudi investors). The dominant trait of bin Laden’s operations is that of a terrorist network backed up by a vast financial structure.” The BCCI was the largest Islamic bank in the world before it collapsed in July 1991 (see July 5, 1991). A senior US investigator will later say US agencies are looking into the ties outlined by the French because “they just make so much sense, and so few people from BCCI ever went to jail. BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations.” The report identifies dozens of companies and individuals who were involved with BCCI and were found to be dealing with bin Laden after the bank collapsed. Many went on to work in banks and charities identified by the US and others as supporting al-Qaeda. About six ex-BCCI figures are repeatedly named, including Saudi multi-millionaire Ghaith Pharaon (see October 10, 2001). The role of Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz in supporting bin Laden is emphasized in the report. In 1995, bin Mahfouz paid a $225 million fine in a settlement with US prosecutors for his role in the BCCI scandal. [Washington Post, 2/17/2002] Bin Laden lost money when BCCI was shut down, but may have benefited in the long term as other militants began relying on his financial network instead of BCCI’s (see July 1991 and After July 1991).

I hope the preceding passage clarifies why I consider BCCI to be the genesis of 9/11. I've always believed that to uncover any conspiracy, one must follow the advice that Deep Throat gave to Bob Woodward in All The President's Men: "Follow the money". Ultimately, this is one of the primary reasons why I consider Thompson's research superior to The 9/11 Commission Report. Regarding the failure of the US government to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks, page 172 of The 9/11 Commission states, "Ultimately the question is of little practical significance."

Once again, I recoil from the stink of bullshit.

The Scariest Blog Post I Have Read All Year

2010-08-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

Guest Post: How Hyperinflation Will Happen

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/23/2010 10:56 -0500

Submitted by Gonzalo Lira

How Hyperinflation Will Happen

Right now, we are in the middle of deflation. The Global Depression we are experiencing has squeezed both aggregate demand levels and aggregate asset prices as never before. Since the credit crunch of September 2008, the U.S. and world economies have been slowly circling the deflationary drain.

To counter this, the U.S. government has been running massive deficits, as it seeks to prop up aggregate demand levels by way of fiscal “stimulus” spending—the classic Keynesian move, the same old prescription since donkey’s ears.

But the stimulus, apart from being slow and inefficient, has simply not been enough to offset the fall in consumer spending.

For its part, the Federal Reserve has been busy propping up all assets—including Treasuries—by way of “quantitative easing”.

The Fed is terrified of the U.S. economy falling into a deflationary death-spiral: Lack of liquidity, leading to lower prices, leading to unemployment, leading to lower consumption, leading to still lower prices, the entire economy grinding down to a halt. So the Fed has bought up assets of all kinds, in order to inject liquidity into the system, and bouy asset price levels so as to prevent this deflationary deep-freeze—and will continue to do so. After all, when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

But this Fed policy—call it “money-printing”, call it “liquidity injections”, call it “asset price stabilization”—has been overwhelmed by the credit contraction. Just as the Federal government has been unable to fill in the fall in aggregate demand by way of stimulus, the Fed has expanded its balance sheet from some $900 billion in the Fall of ’08, to about $2.3 trillion today—but that additional $1.4 trillion has been no match for the loss of credit. At best, the Fed has been able to alleviate the worst effects of the deflation—it certainly has not turned the deflationary environment into anything resembling inflation.

Yields are low, unemployment up, CPI numbers are down (and under some metrics, negative)—in short, everything screams “deflation”.

Therefore, the notion of talking about hyperinflation now, in this current macro-economic environment, would seem . . . well . . . crazy. Right?

Wrong: I would argue that the next step down in this world-historical Global Depression which we are experiencing will be hyperinflation.

Most people dismiss the very notion of hyperinflation occurring in the United States as something only tin-foil hatters, gold-bugs, and Right-wing survivalists drool about. In fact, most sensible people don’t even bother arguing the issue at all—everyone knows that only fools bother arguing with a bigger fool.

A minority, though—and God bless ’em—actually do go ahead and go through the motions of talking to the crazies ranting about hyperinflation. These amiable souls diligently point out that in a deflationary environment—where commodity prices are more or less stable, there are downward pressures on wages, asset prices are falling, and credit markets are shrinking—inflation is impossible. Therefore, hyperinflation is even more impossible.

This outlook seems sensible—if we fall for the trap of thinking that hyperinflation is an extention of inflation. If we think that hyperinflation is simply inflation on steroids—inflation-plus—inflation with balls—then it would seem to be the case that, in our current deflationary economic environment, hyperinflation is not simply a long way off, but flat-out ridiculous.

But hyperinflation is not an extension or amplification of inflation. Inflation and hyperinflation are two very distinct animals. They look the same—because in both cases, the currency loses its purchasing power—but they are not the same.

Inflation is when the economy overheats: It’s when an economy’s consumables (labor and commodities) are so in-demand because of economic growth, coupled with an expansionist credit environment, that the consumables rise in price. This forces all goods and services to rise in price as well, so that producers can keep up with costs. It is essentially a demand-driven phenomena.

Hyperinflation is the loss of faith in the currency. Prices rise in a hyperinflationary environment just like in an inflationary environment, but they rise not because people want more money for their labor or for commodities, but because people are trying to get out of the currency. It’s not that they want more money—they want less of the currency: So they will pay anything for a good which is not the currency.

Right now, the U.S. government is indebted to about 100% of GDP, with a yearly fiscal deficit of about 10% of GDP, and no end in sight. For its part, the Federal Reserve is purchasing Treasuries, in order to finance the fiscal shortfall, both directly (the recently unveiled QE-lite) and indirectly (through the Too Big To Fail banks). The Fed is satisfying two objectives: One, supporting the government in its efforts to maintain aggregate demand levels, and two, supporting asset prices, and thereby prevent further deflationary erosion. The Fed is calculating that either path—increase in aggregate demand levels or increase in aggregate asset values—leads to the same thing: A recovery in the economy.

This recovery is not going to happen—that’s the news we’ve been getting as of late. Amid all this hopeful talk about “avoiding a double-dip”, it turns out that we didn’t avoid a double-dip—we never really managed to claw our way out of the first dip. No matter all the stimulus, no matter all the alphabet-soup liquidity windows over the past 2 years, the inescapable fact is that the economy has been—and is headed—down.

But both the Federal government and the Federal Reserve are hell-bent on using the same old tired tools to “fix the economy”—stimulus on the one hand, liquidity injections on the other. (See my discussion of The Deficit here.)

It’s those very fixes that are pulling us closer to the edge. Why? Because the economy is in no better shape than it was in September 2008—and both the Federal Reserve and the Federal government have shot their wad. They got nothin’ left, after trillions in stimulus and trillions more in balance sheet expansion—

—but they have accomplished one thing: They have undermined Treasuries. These policies have turned Treasuries into the spit-and-baling wire of the U.S. financial system—they are literally the only things holding the whole economy together.

In other words, Treasuries are now the New and Improved Toxic Asset. Everyone knows that they are overvalued, everyone knows their yields are absurd—yet everyone tiptoes around that truth as delicately as if it were a bomb. Which is actually what it is.

So this is how hyperinflation will happen:

One day—when nothing much is going on in the markets, but general nervousness is running like a low-grade fever (as has been the case for a while now)—there will be a commodities burp: A slight but sudden rise in the price of a necessary commodity, such as oil.

This will jiggle Treasury yields, as asset managers will reduce their Treasury allocations, and go into the pressured commodity, in order to catch a profit. (Actually it won’t even be the asset managers—it will be their programmed trades.) These asset managers will sell Treasuries because, effectively, it’s become the principal asset they have to sell.

It won’t be the volume of the sell-off that will pique Bernanke and the drones at the Fed—it will be the timing. It’ll happen right before a largish Treasury auction. So Bernanke and the Fed will buy Treasuries, in an effort to counteract the sell-off and maintain low yields—they want to maintain low yields in order to discourage deflation. But they’ll also want to keep the Treasury cheaply funded. QE-lite has already set the stage for direct Fed buys of Treasuries. The world didn’t end. So the Fed will feel confident as it moves forward and nips this Treasury yield jiggle in the bud.

The Fed’s buying of Treasuries will occur in such a way that it will encourage asset managers to dump even more Treasuries into the Fed’s waiting arms. This dumping of Treasuries won’t be out of fear, at least not initially. Most likely, in the first 15 minutes or so of this event, the sell-off in Treasuries will be orderly, and carried out with the idea (at the time) of picking up those selfsame Treasuries a bit cheaper down the line.

However, the Fed will interpret this sell-off as a run on Treasuries. The Fed is already attuned to the bond markets’ fear that there’s a “Treasury bubble”. So the Fed will open its liquidity windows, and buy up every Treasury in sight, precisely so as to maintain “asset price stability” and “calm the markets”.

The Too Big To Fail banks will play a crucial part in this game. See, the problem with the American Zombies is, they weren’t nationalized. They got the best bits of nationalization—total liquidity, suspension of accounting and regulatory rules—but they still get to act under their own volition, and in their own best interest. Hence their obscene bonuses, paid out in the teeth of their practical bankruptcy. Hence their lack of lending into the weakened economy. Hence their hoarding of bailout monies, and predatory business practices. They’ve understood that, to get that sweet bail-out money (and those yummy bonuses), they have had to play the Fed’s game and buy up Treasuries, and thereby help disguise the monetization of the fiscal debt that has been going on since the Fed began purchasing the toxic assets from their balance sheets in 2008.

But they don’t have to do what the Fed tells them, much less what the Treasury tells them. Since they weren’t really nationalized, they’re not under anyone’s thumb. They can do as they please—and they have boatloads of Treasuries on their balance sheets.

So the TBTF banks, on seeing this run on Treasuries, will add to the panic by acting in their own best interests: They will be among the first to step off Treasuries. They will be the bleeding edge of the wave.

Here the panic phase of the event begins: Asset managers—on seeing this massive Fed buy of Treasuries, and the American Zombies selling Treasuries, all of this happening within days of a largish Treasury auction—will dump their own Treasuries en masse. They will be aware how precarious the U.S. economy is, how over-indebted the government is, how U.S. Treasuries look a lot like Greek debt. They’re not stupid: Everyone is aware of the idea of a “Treasury bubble” making the rounds. A lot of people—myself included—think that the Fed, the Treasury and the American Zombies are colluding in a triangular trade in Treasury bonds, carrying out a de facto Stealth Monetization: The Treasury issues the debt to finance fiscal spending, the TBTF banks buy them, with money provided to them by the Fed.

Whether it’s true or not is actually beside the point—there is the widespread perception that that is what’s going on. In a panic, widespread perception is your trading strategy.

So when the Fed begins buying Treasuries full-blast to prop up their prices, these asset managers will all decide, “Time to get out of Dodge—now.”

Note how it will not be China or Japan who all of a sudden decide to get out of Treasuries—those two countries will actually be left holding the bag. Rather, it will be American and (depending on the time of day when the event happens) European asset managers who get out of Treasuries first. It will be a flash panic—much like the flash-crash of last May. The events I describe above will happen in a very short span of time—less than an hour, probably. But unlike the event in May, there will be no rebound.

Notice, too, that Treasuries will maintain their yields in the face of this sell-off, at least initially. Why? Because the Fed, so determined to maintain “price stability”, will at first prevent yields from widening—which is precisely why so many will decide to sell into the panic: The Bernanke Backstop won’t soothe the markets—rather, it will make it too tempting not to sell.

The first of the asset managers or TBTF banks who are out of Treasuries will look for a place to park their cash—obviously. Where will all this ready cash go?

Commodities.

By the end of that terrible day, commodites of all stripes—precious and industrial metals, oil, foodstuffs—will shoot the moon. But it will not be because ordinary citizens have lost faith in the dollar (that will happen in the days and weeks ahead)—it will happen because once Treasuries are not the sure store of value, where are all those money managers supposed to stick all these dollars? In a big old vault? Under the mattress? In euros?

Commodities: At the time of the panic, commodities will be perceived as the only sure store of value, if Treasuries are suddenly anathema to the market—just as Treasuries were perceived as the only sure store of value, once so many of the MBS’s and CMBS’s went sour in 2007 and 2008.

It won’t be commodity ETF’s, or derivatives—those will be dismissed (rightfully) as being even less safe than Treasuries. Unlike before the Fall of ’08, this go-around, people will pay attention to counterparty risk. So the run on commodities will be for actual, feel-it-’cause-it’s-there commodities. By the end of the day of this panic, commodities will have risen between 50% and 100%. By week’s end, we’re talking 150% to 250%. (My private guess is gold will be finessed, but silver will shoot up the most—to $100 an ounce within the week.)

Of course, once commodities start to balloon, that’s when ordinary citizens will get their first taste of hyperinflation. They’ll see it at the gas pumps.

If oil spikes from $74 to $150 in a day, and then to $300 in a matter of a week—perfectly possible, in the midst of a panic—the gallon of gasoline will go to, what: $10? $15? $20?

So what happens then? People—regular Main Street people—will be crazy to buy up commodities (heating oil, food, gasoline, whatever) and buy them now while they are still more-or-less affordable, rather than later, when that $15 gallon of gas shoots to $30 per gallon.

If everyone decides at roughly the same time to exchange one good—currency—for another good—commodities—what happens to the relative price of one and the relative value of the other? Easy: One soars, the other collapses.

When people freak out and begin panic-buying basic commodities, their ordinary financial assets—equities, bonds, etc.—will collapse: Everyone will be rushing to get cash, so as to turn around and buy commodities.

So immediately after the Treasury markets tank, equities will fall catastrophically, probably within the next few days following the Treasury panic. This collapse in equity prices will bring an equivalent burst in commodity prices—the second leg up, if you will.

This sell-off of assets in pursuit of commodities will be self-reinforcing: There won’t be anything to stop it. As it spills over into the everyday economy, regular people will panic and start unloading hard assets—durable goods, cars and trucks, houses—in order to get commodities, principally heating oil, gas and foodstuffs. In other words, real-world assets will not appreciate or even hold their value, when the hyperinflation comes.

This is something hyperinflationist-skeptics never quite seem to grasp: In hyperinflation, asset prices don’t skyrocket—they collapse, both nominally and in relation to consumable commodities. A $300,000 house falls to $60,000 or less, or better yet, 50 ounces of silver—because in a hyperinflationist episode, a house is worthless, whereas 50 bits of silver can actually buy you stuff you might need.

Right now, I’m guessing that sensible people who’ve read this far are dismissing me as being full of shit—or at least victim of my own imagination. These sensible people, if they deign to engage in the scenario I’ve outlined above, will argue that the government—be it the Fed or the Treasury or a combination thereof—will find a way to stem the panic in Treasuries (if there ever is one), and put a stop to hyperinflation (if such a foolish and outlandish notion ever came to pass in America).

Uh-huh: So the Government will save us, is that it? Okay, so then my question is, How?

Let’s take the Fed: How could they stop a run on Treasuries? Answer: They can’t. See, the Fed has already been shoring up Treasuries—that was their strategy in 2008—’09: Buy up toxic assets from the TBTF banks, and have them turn around and buy Treasuries instead, all the while carefully monitoring Treasuries for signs of weakness. If Treasuries now turn toxic, what’s the Fed supposed to do? Bernanke long ago ran out of ammo: He’s just waving an empty gun around. If there’s a run on Treasuries, and he starts buying them to prop them up, it’ll only give incentive to other Treasury holders to get out now while the getting’s still good. If everyone decides to get out of Treasuries, then Bernanke and the Fed can do absolutely nothing effective. They’re at the mercy of events—in fact, they have been for quite a while already. They just haven’t realized it.

Well if the Fed can’t stop this, how about the Federal government—surely they can stop this, right?

In a word, no. They certainly lack the means to prevent a run on Treasuries. And as to hyperinflation, what exactly would the Federal government do to stop it? Implement price controls? That will only give rise to a rampant black market. Put soldiers out on the street? America is too big. Squirt out more “stimulus”? Sure, pump even more currency into a rapidly hyperinflating everyday economy—right . . .

(BTW, I actually think that this last option is something the Federal government might be foolish enough to try. Some moron like Palin or Biden might well advocate this idea of helter-skelter money-printing so as to “help all hard-working Americans”. And if they carried it out, this would bring us American-made images of people using bundles of dollars to feed their chimneys. I actually don’t think that politicians are so stupid as to actually start printing money to “fight rising prices”—but hey, when it comes to stupidity, you never know how far they can go.)

In fact, the only way the Federal government might be able to ameliorate the situation is if it decided to seize control of major supermarkets and gas stations, and hand out cupon cards of some sort, for basic staples—in other words, food rationing. This might prevent riots and protect the poor, the infirm and the old—it certainly won’t change the underlying problem, which will be hyperinflation.

“This is all bloody ridiculous,” I can practically hear the hyperinflation skeptics fume. “We’re just going through what the Japanese experienced: Just like the U.S., they went into massive government stimulus—hell, they invented quantitative easing—and look what’s happened to them: Stagnation, yes—hyperinflation, no.”

That’s right: The parallels with Japan are remarkably similar—except for one key difference. Japanese sovereign debt is infinitely more stable than America’s, because in Japan, the people are savers—they own the Japanese debt. In America, the people are broke, and the Nervous Nelly banks own the debt. That’s why Japanese sovereign debt is solid, whereas American Treasuries are soap-bubble-fragile.

That’s why I think there’ll be hyperinflation in America—that bubble’s soon to pop. I’m guessing if it doesn’t happen this fall, it’ll happen next fall, without question before the end of 2011.

The question for us now—ad portas to this hyperinflationary event—is, what to do?

Neanderthal survivalists spend all their time thinking about post-Apocalypse America. The real trick, however, is to prepare for after the end of the Apocalypse.

The first thing to realize, of course, is that hyperinflation might well happen—but it will end. It won’t be a never-ending situation—America won’t end up like in some post-Apocalyptic, Mad Max: Beyond Thuderdome industrial wasteland/playground. Admittedly, that would be cool, but it’s not gonna happen—that’s just survivalist daydreams.

Instead, after a spell of hyperinflation, America will end up pretty much like it is today—only with a bad hangover. Actually, a hyperinflationist spell might be a good thing: It would finally clean out all the bad debts in the economy, the crap that the Fed and the Federal government refused to clean out when they had the chance in 2007–’09. It would break down and reset asset prices to more realistic levels—no more $12 million one-bedroom co-ops on the UES. And all in all, a hyperinflationist catastrophe might in the long run be better for the health of the U.S. economy and the morale of the American people, as opposed to a long drawn-out stagnation. Ask the Japanese if they would have preferred a couple-three really bad years, instead of Two Lost Decades, and the answer won’t be surprising. But I digress.

Like Rothschild said, “Buy when there’s blood on the streets.” The thing to do to prepare for hyperinflation would be to invest in a diversified hard-metal basket before the event—no equities, no ETF’s, no derivatives. If and when hyperinflation happens, and things get bad (and I mean really bad), take that hard-metal basket and—right in the teeth of the crisis—buy residential property, as well as equities in long-lasting industries; mining, pharma and chemicals especially, but no value-added companies, like tech, aerospace or industrials. The reason is, at the peak of hyperinflation, the most valuable assets will be dirt-cheap—especially equities—especially real estate.

I have no idea what will happen after we reach the point where $100 is no longer enough to buy a cup of coffee—but I do know that, after such a hyperinflationist period, there’ll be a “new dollar” or some such, with a few zeroes knocked off the old dollar, and things will slowly get back to a new normal. I have no idea the shape of that new normal. I wouldn’t be surprised if that new normal has a quasi or de facto dictatorship, and certainly some form of wage-and-price controls—I’d say it’s likely, but for now that’s not relevant.

What is relevant is, the current situation cannot long continue. The Global Depression we are in is being exacerbated by the very measures being used to fix it—stimulus is putting pressure on Treasuries, which are being shored up by the Fed. This obviously cannot have a happy ending. Therefore, the smart money prepares for what it believes is going to happen next.

I think we’re going to have hyperinflation. I hope I have managed to explain why.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-how-hyperinflation-will-happen

So my big question is, can anyone refute the logic presented here? Are our Treasuries really that toxic? Is our deflationary situation really divergent enough from Japan's Lost Decade that we could end up following in the footsteps of the Weimar Republic? Certainly this scenario is possible, but is it plausible?

Technocracy: Is It The Way To Change How Money Works?

2010-08-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

My Peak Oil activism became a pleasurable social outlet a couple weeks ago when I went to The Cat & Fiddle in Hollywood for Sunday afternoon drinks with the Los Angeles Peak Oil Meetup Group. It was a very enjoyable two hours filled with intelligent conversation with friendly people. Though it was certainly a relaxing environment sitting outdoors discussing subjects as diverse as raising chickens and growing and fruits and vegetables, the levity would occasionally be augmented with the stray comment, "So, we're in agreement? We're all screwed, right?" The response would be laughter, because when you're aware of the full ramifications of Peak Oil, you have to have a sense of humor to be able to keep on living.

One of the members, Winston Hale, recently addressed the ramifications with a post on the LA Peak Oil Meetup Message Board:

Our global capitalist system has created great technological breakthroughs and better living standards. But at what cost? With these benefits we also face challenges like global climate change, overpopulation, and a peak in resource usage. All of this happening at an exponential rate. If we continue at this pace business-as-usual the world 50-100 years could potentially be a wasteland. Y'all just need to see the world GDP rate over the last 1000 years to see that in the not to distant future the bubble will burst. Neoclassical economics' one major flaw is the belief that we can have unending growth on a physically limited planet, which is impossible. This is the system which we currently live in. The problem with the system is that it is a giant pyramid scheme. More and more people will have higher standards of living, but it requires more people, resources, and energy to sustain those people above them. This system depends on population growth. An economy with a continuous negative population rate is still a theoretical field of study because it's never really happened on a long term trend in history. You can see today that population decline happens in first world developed countries because of economic security, proper infrastructure, and sex education. Whereas population growth happens in the third world because of the lack of all of the above. This is a step in the right direction, but how can our modern economies function in the long run without having to import immigrants from the third world to make up for the future labor shortages? Y'all should check out Masse Bloomfield's The Automated Society to see his conclusion to this dilemma. He proposes that in order to make up for the population shortfall in the first world, we would need to build automated machines to substitute the declining labor force. Obviously before we tackle this element to our unsustainable system we would have to have sustainable alternative energies. Also to take into account the declining population rate, we would have to assume that world GDP and resource consumption would have to decline or reach a steady state. Like permanent zero percent growth. This would mean that we would have one giant resource pie that cannot grow because the world has physical limits. In this scenario we have two options either permanent mass polarization of wealth or some system of equal access of goods and services to all, because the pie isn't growing anymore to bring more goods and services to the poorer people. Clearly, this system presents multiple problems, first is the energy problem that we currently face, and the second is the amount of material and goods that can be available. For example, in a system that tries to give everyone whatever they need, what system will determine who gets more than who. There's only so much beach front property to go around. We would need to create a system that allows status and classes, but not status based on wealth or perpetual growth. Chime in and give me some feedback.

So I chimed in:

Great food for thought, Winston Hale. It sounds to me like you're tackling the real problem that Peak Oil poses, which is an economic infrastructure predicated on infinite growth colliding with finite energy resources within the natural physical limits of our planet. That brings to mind a popular quote in the Peak Oil movement worth repeating, "Until you change the way money works, you change nothing". Which prompts the question: what's the best way to do that?

I haven't read The Automated Society, so I'm not sure what Masse Bloomfield's answer to that question is. But you know who did have an answer? M. King Hubbert. Here's a blog post I found that provides some details on it:

Hubbert: King Of The Technocrats

Posted by Big Gav in hubbert, technocracy

In the wake of the recent interview with Jay Hanson posted at The Oil Drum, there was some discussion of Hubbert's role in the Technocracy movement.

I hadn't been aware that Hubbert was a Technocrat (or that the technocrats were an organised grouping, for that matter), so in this post I'll explore the Technocracy movement and Hubbert's role in it.

The knowledge essential to competent intellectual leadership in this situation is preeminently geological - a knowledge of the earth's mineral and energy resources. The importance of any science, socially, is its effect on what people think and what they do. It is time earth scientists again become a major force in how people think rather than how they live. - M King Hubbert

Genesis of the Technocrats

M. King Hubbert joined the staff of Columbia University in 1931 and met Howard Scott, who had earlier founded a short-lived group of engineers and scientists called "The Technical Alliance". Hubbert and Scott co-founded Technocracy Incorporated in 1933, with Scott as leader and Hubbert as Secretary.

The Technocrats were influenced by figures such as Thorsten Veblen, author of "Engineers and the price system", and Frederick Soddy, winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1921 and author of "Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt" which looked at the role of energy in economic systems. Soddy criticized the focus on monetary flows in economics, arguing that “real” wealth was derived from the use of energy to transform materials into physical goods and services.

The world's present industrial civilization is handicapped by the coexistence of two universal, overlapping, and incompatible intellectual systems: the accumulated knowledge of the last four centuries of the properties and interrelationships of matter and energy; and the associated monetary culture which has evolved from folkways of prehistoric origin. Despite their inherent incompatibilities, these two systems during the last two centuries have had one fundamental characteristic in common, namely, exponential growth, which has made a reasonably stable coexistence possible. But, for various reasons, it is impossible for the matter-energy system to sustain exponential growth for more than a few tens of doublings, and this phase is by now almost over. The monetary system has no such constraints, and, according to one of its most fundamental rules, it must continue to grow by compound interest. This disparity between a monetary system which continues to grow exponentially and a physical system which is unable to do so leads to an increase with time in the ratio of money to the output of the physical system. This manifests itself as price inflation. A monetary alternative corresponding to a zero physical growth rate would be a zero interest rate. The result in either case would be large-scale financial instability. - M King Hubbert

Technocracy

Technocracy is form of government which is administered by scientists and technical experts administer, resulting in a form of planned economy.

The Technocracy movement aimed to establish a zero growth, science based socio-economic system, based on ideas of conservation and abundance as opposed to the usual scarcity-based economic systems.

In a technocratic system, money is replaced with energy acounting, which records the amount of energy used to produce and distribute goods and services consumed by citizens in a Technate (Technocracy based society). The units of this accounting system are known as Energy Certificates.

Energy certificates are not saved or earned, but periodically distributed among the populace, with the number calculated by determining the total productive capacity of the technate and dividing it equally after infrastructure requirements are met. Certificates not used during a period expire.

The Technocracy movement flourished for a while in the 1930's but became steadily less influential over time in broader society (writer Charlie Stross dubbing science fiction "the fictional agitprop arm of the Technocrat movement" which "carried on marching in lockstep into the radiant future even after Technocracy withered in the 1930s").

Hubbert's membership of the Technocracy movement was investigated in 1943 by his employers, the Board of Economic Warfare, who may have regarded it (not entirely unreasonably) as a form of communism - though engineers desiring political control didn't seem to do much better in the Soviet Union either.

Technocracy Inc. lists the following papers as Hubbert's contributions to Technocracy:

* Professor Hubbert was the primary author of the Technocracy Study Course.
* Man-Hours and Distribution which was derived from an earlier article, Man-Hours -- A Declining Quantity in Technocracy, Series A, No. 8, August 1936.
* Determining the Most Probable in Technocracy, Series A, No. 12, June 1938
* Some Facts of Life in Technocracy, Series A, No. 5, December, 1935.
* The ``Spirit of the Constitution'' in Technocracy, Series A, No. 6, March 1936.
* Book review: The Tools of Tomorrow in Technocracy, Series A, No. 3, Aug 1935
* Book Review: Reshaping Agriculture and Nations Can Live at Home. Technocracy, Series A, Number 7, May 1936
* Book review: An Orientation in Science in Technocracy, Series A, No. 16, July, 1939.

Technocracy Inc also has a tract on Technocracy and peak oil, which outlines a fairly utopian vision of abundant energy for all if we are willingly to become sufficiently efficient in our energy usage.

So why does Technocracy think that its proposal can "save" us from Peak Oil? Quite simply Technocracy's plan knows how to do more with less. Technocracy's design will allow all North Americans to live with a standard of living many times greater than is the average even today. Not only this, but is does so by using far less, both in terms of resources and labour. The calculations done as part of the initial study performed by Technocracy's scientists back in 1930 showed that at that time it would be possible for every citizen to have a standard of living the equivalent of a lower-upper class income, and only have to work for 16 hours per week, with 2 and a half months vacation per year, at a job that they have both chosen and were well trained for. Also included were things such as free, high-quality education and health care, indefinite maternity rights, and retirement at age 45 with no loss of income or benefits. How they could achieve this was through an ingenious reorganization of continent-wide industry, that would unleash its potential to produce this "abundance" for all. They showed conclusively how business, politics, and money were all holding back this production, and causing ever-greater need of waste of resources. The key was automation, which allows us to produce more while requiring less resources to do it, as well as less labour to operate these machines.

Today it is obvious that automation has improved many thousands of times, with the advent of the computer and industrial robotics. There in no longer any need whatsoever for anyone to have to work at a menial labor or unskilled service-industry job because it can all be performed by machines. By harnessing automation like this, we consume far less resources, including energy, and can still increase our overall standard of living. One estimate shows how by simply reworking the continental transportation system, we could operate our entire society on as little as 5% of the energy we consume today, with no corresponding drop in standard of living! Adjustments in other areas would allow us to decrease even this number, but it should be obvious that with so little energy consumption, and the enhanced abilities of scientific research allowed by a society of abundance, we would have plenty of time to devise alternative and sustainable sources of energy that would also be non-polluting.

Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know. We are not starting from zero, wWe have an enormous amount of existing technical knowledge. It's just a matter of putting it all together. We still have great flexibility but our maneuverability will diminish with time. - M King Hubbert

http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/11/hubbert-king-of-technocrats.html

Be sure to read the link for the whole post. The excerpt from the tract on Technocracy and peak oil is quite utopian, which makes me wonder how the principles of Technocracy could feasibly be adapted to a world after the peak has passed and our economies are crumbling. The Hirsch Report from the DOE in 2005 stated that we needed at least a 20 year jump on the peak in order to get a functional energy infrastructure in place without severe economic repercussions. Since it's pretty obvious we don't have that kind of time, I'm not sure if implementing the principles of Technocracy will yield positive results. But I think it would be worth attempting. Beats corporatism, if you ask me!

Justice Is Not A Pony

2010-07-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

I never expected the Obama administration to prosecute George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and Don Rumsfeld for murder, though I personally am convinced, along with famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, that justice demands indictments on this charge. I am a realist about how historically unprecedented such an undertaking would be in this country. The prosecution of such a case might generate controversy beyond the imagination of the average American. I acknowledge the danger within our ideologically contentious culture, but I believe the concept of justice trumps the divisiveness the pursuit may cause. But I also acknowledge this desire was at the top of a personal wish list as I witnessed the dawn of regime change. I'm well aware that Barack Obama never made any promises, either during or after the campaign for the Presidency, that he would open any new investigations of criminal activity in the Bush administration. My support has no blinders, even before Eric Holder was confirmed as the new Attorney General under the administration of President Obama.

The problem that I and others have encountered upon lamenting the lack of justice for Valerie Plame, Sibel Edmonds, Don Siegelman, Russell Tice or the victims of a war based on lies is that whenever this is addressed in the context of our current Department of Justice failing to take action, many supporters of President Obama interpret such criticism as insulting. After all, if President Obama never made a promise to do anything about those specific cases, why should we criticize Holder's DoJ for not doing anything about it? In some cases, the defense breaks down into condescending hyperbole with the accusation that to desire something the Obama administration never promised is to ask for a "pony". A particularly odious cliche designed to express that the demand of the critic is a fantastical wish as childish as Christmas Eve longings that a pony will be found under the tree the following morning.

As of last week, you can add the name David Iglesias to the list of ponies I had the audacity to wish justice for:

DOJ: Prosecutor firing was politics, not crime

by MATT APUZZO, PETE YOST

updated 7/21/2010 4:53:26 PM ET

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration's Justice Department's actions were inappropriately political, but not criminal, when it fired a U.S. attorney in 2006, prosecutors said Wednesday in closing a two-year investigation without filing charges.

The decision closes the books on one of the lingering political disputes of the Bush administration, one that Democrats said was evidence of GOP politics run amok and that Republicans have always said was a manufactured controversy.

Investigators looked into whether the Bush administration improperly dismissed nine U.S. attorneys, and in particular New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, as a way to influence criminal cases. The scandal added to mounting criticism that the administration had politicized the Justice Department, a charge that contributed to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

In 2008, the Justice Department assigned Nora Dannehy, a career prosecutor from Connecticut with a history of rooting out government wrongdoing, to investigate the firings.

"Evidence did not demonstrate that any prosecutable criminal offense was committed with regard to the removal of David Iglesias," the Justice Department said in a letter to lawmakers Wednesday. "The investigative team also determined that the evidence did not warrant expanding the scope of the investigation beyond the removal of Iglesias."
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38348292

So the end result in this bizarro upside down pursuit of "justice" is that Karl Rove and Co. committed no wrongdoing and those who spoke ill of former AG Alberto "Fredo" Gonzales should apologize. Because the prosecutor in charge of this case has "a history of rooting out government wrongdoing" and so she must be above reproach, right?

Not so fast:

Prosecutor Who Cleared Bush Officials Has Ties to Misconduct

by RogerShuler

Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 08:26:19 AM PDT

Cross Posted at Legal Schnauzer

The special prosecutor who last week cleared Bush administration officials of criminal acts in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys was connected to evidence suppression in an earlier case.

Nora Dannehy led a team of lawyers that was found to have suppressed evidence in a major political-corruption case in Connecticut, according to a new report by Andrew Kreig at Nieman Watchdog and OpEd News.

The finding of evidence suppression against Dannehy's team dovetails closely with her appointment as special prosecutor in the U.S. attorney firings case. It also raises questions about a Justice Department investigation into a possible Bush-era coverup on torture.

RogerShuler's diary :: ::

Kreig, a veteran journalist and lawyer, is executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Integrity Project. He reports:

In September 2008, the Bush Justice Department appointed career federal prosecutor Nora Dannehy to investigate allegations that Bush officials in 2006 illegally fired nine U.S. attorneys who wouldn’t politicize official corruption investigations.

But just four days before her appointment, a federal appeals court had ruled that a team of prosecutors led by Dannehy illegally suppressed evidence in a major political corruption case in Connecticut. The prosecutors’ misconduct was so serious that the court vacated seven of the eight convictions in the case.

The evidence-suppression story was covered in the Connecticut press, but it apparently never received scrutiny when Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey named Dannehy a special prosecutor. Does the public have reason to doubt Dannehy's judgment now that she has found criminal charges were not warranted in the U.S. attorney firings? The Connecticut case indicates the answer is yes. Writes Kreig:

The ruling didn’t cite Dannehy by name, and although it was publicly reported it apparently never came up in the news coverage of her appointment.

But it now calls into question the integrity of her investigation by raising serious concerns about her credibility--and about whether she was particularly vulnerable to political pressure from within the Justice Department.

Kreig puts the profoundly important U.S. attorneys story in perspective:

Now, almost two years later, Dannehy has provided arguably the most important blanket exoneration for high-level U.S. criminal targets since President George H.W. Bush pardoned six Iran-Contra convicts post-election in late 1992.

The DOJ announced on July 21 that it has "closed the case" on the nine unprecedented mid-term firings because Dannehy found no criminal wrongdoing by DOJ or White House officials.

But the official description of her inquiry indicates that she either placed or acceded to constraints on the scope of her probe that restricted it to the firing of just one of the ousted U.S. attorneys, not the others--and not to the conduct of the U.S. attorneys who weren't ousted because they met whatever tests DOJ and the White House created.

Some observers have called Dannehy's findings a "whitewash"--or worse. Reports Kreig:

"This is an outrageous act of cowardice and cover-up!" former Alabama governor and alleged political prosecution victim Don Siegelman emailed me regarding DOJ’s decision and the failure to interview him.

Given what Kreig has revealed about Dannehy's background, perhaps we should have been expecting such a result all along. Reports Kreig:

Dannehy’s probe, my reporting suggests, was compromised from the beginning.

She was appointed by Bush Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on Sept. 29, 2008. On Sept. 25, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City found misconduct in a 2003 trial she had led.

The court found that the prosecution suppressed evidence that could have benefited the defendant, Connecticut businessman Charles B. Spadoni. Spadoni had been convicted of bribing former state Treasurer Paul Silvester to invest $200 million of state pension money with his firm.

But the appeals court found that prosecutors had failed to turn over to the defense an FBI agent’s notes of a key interview they conducted with Silvester's attorney. In doing so, the court ruled, "the government deprived Spadoni of exculpatory evidence going to the core of its bribery case against him."

The court reversed Spadoni’s convictions on seven counts of racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, bribery and wire fraud, leaving intact only an obstruction of justice conviction.

Where does the ongoing torture investigation enter the picture? Kreig provides the answer:

As it happens, the Spadoni case also raises concerns relative to the ongoing federal probe of potential Bush administration wrongdoing in covering up torture that is being led by John H. Durham, another prosecutor from Connecticut. Durham supervised Dannehy’s decade-long prosecution of Spadoni.

He also was appointed by Mukasey in 2008. Durham’s initial charge was to investigate suspected destruction of torture tapes by CIA personnel. In 2009, Holder expanded that probe to other decision-making, including by DOJ personnel.

Until now, neither DOJ nor anyone else has linked Dannehy and Durham by name to the prosecutorial misconduct against Spadoni, as far as I can determine. The court decision doesn’t cite specific actions by the two. But it clearly refers to their case, and the information is readily available online in Lexis and in any good law library.

Have Dannehy and Durham faced any repercussions for their actions in the Spadoni case? That remains unclear:

Prosecutors found by a court to have committed misconduct typically face some sort of internal investigation within the Justice Department. Whether there was any such investigation, and why or why not, is not publicly known.

For now, it appears that compromised special prosecutors were in charge of investigations into both the U.S. attorney firings and possible torture-related coverups. In the case of Dannehy, we know that her investigation was cursory, at best. And that, Kreig says, should give all Americans pause:

Dannehy never contacted obvious witnesses who may have been victimized by wrongdoing. Is there a good reason for that, or is it part of a pattern in which prosecutors tend to find scant wrongdoing against their colleagues? A question reporters need to pursue is whether a culture of error and cover-up prevailed in the Department of Justice under Bush and continues under President Obama. It is one thing to want to look forward, as Obama stated as he took office. But it is wrong and immoral for our criminal system not to examine what appear to be obvious abuses that discredit the justice system, local and regional politics, and, indeed, our nation’s standing in the world as a beacon of democracy and civil rights.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/7/27/888083/-Prosecutor-Who-Cleared-Bush-Officials-Has-Ties-to-Misconduct

We've been down this road before. A Republican administration rejected by voters because of its connection with scandal and corruption. This was the story as we witnessed the exit of Dubya's father, President George H. W. Bush, who before leaving the White House managed to pardon the convicted Iran/Contra felons, in spite of growing concern that the scandal was financed through an international criminal syndicate posing as a bank called BCCI. The Department of Justice response under the Clinton administration? Swept under the rug. The price for abdicating the pursuit of justice? Eight years later, George W. Bush hired many of these criminals into his administration.

Is it too much to ask that our Department of Justice actually pursue justice? I asked this question when Ashcroft and Gonzales held the post and I ask it again of Eric Holder. The promise of justice in this country goes beyond any campaign, beyond any party, beyond any ideology. It is a value enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, codified in our Constitution, and venerated by people of good conscience everywhere. It is not a pony.

What Will a World That is +4C Hotter Look Like?

2010-07-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

Since my vacation, it has taken me a while to get caught up with the news again. But rather than blog about the controversy du jour, I thought it would be best to post about a subject that's been pushed to the back of the current news cycle: Global Climate Change. Why does this subject have my current interest? Check this out -

Google climate map offers a glimpse of a 4C world

Interactive tool layering climate data over Google Earth maps shows the impact of an average global temperature rise of 4C

A new interactive Google Earth map was developed using peer-reviewed science from the Met Office Hadley Centre and other leading impact scientists. Photograph: earth.google.co.uk

Think it's hot this summer? Wait until you see Google's simulation of a world with an average global temperature rise of 4C.

Using a map that was first launched by the former Labour administration in October 2009, the coalition government has taken temperature data from the Met Office Hadley Centre and other climate research centres and imposed it on to a Google Earth layer.

It's a timely arrival, with warnings this month that current international carbon pledges will lead to a rise of nearly 4C and the Muir Russell report censuring some climate scientists for not being more open with their data (but exonerating them of manipulating the scientific evidence).

more...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/jul/14/google-climate-data

It's in the article link above, but here is the google link to the interactive map:

http://www.google.com/gadgets/directory?synd=earth&preview=on&cat=featured&url=http://maps.google.com/maps/gx?oe%3Dutf-8%26output%3Dghapi%26q%3Dhttp://www.fco.gov.uk/google-earth-4degrees.kml

You'll need download Google Earth 5 to view it.

Summer Road Trip

2010-07-15T09:33:00.000-07:00

Last week I took a wonderful vacation with my wife up to Oregon. One of the things I love the most about traveling up there is renting a car and enjoying the open road. I don't recall doing that during the summer of 2008 when gas was $4.50 a gallon. But with prices at the still historically expensive but much more financially manageable $2.92-2.99 a gallon, there wasn't much to impede my delight of driving up Interstate 5 and taking in the sights around me.

One of the first things I noticed on the ride up beyond the Grapevine but before the heavier traffic of Stockton and Sacramento was a change in the use of the landscape. I first noticed a gradual change starting about five years ago with what I call the Sideways Effect: where I used to see cotton fields blanketing both sides of the I-5 had been replaced by vineyards. This was right around the time the movie Sideways had become a critical and commercial success, which lead to an increase in sales of California wine. On this road trip, I noticed there was still plenty of vineyards with grapes growing, but the change we observed was a huge increase in the amount of corn fields being grown. My wife and I thought it might be crops used as feed for the cattle farms in the area, but there was only a slight increase in the number of cows we observed in the immediate region. When we reached the outskirts of Coalinga, which has a huge cattle holding pen, it seemed to me there were actually less cows than usual. Then it hit me: these are ethanol fields. We now have large sections of land previously allocated to grow material for clothing (cotton) or food and drink (grapes) that switched to growing a fuel source that is a net energy loser. And we wonder why this beautiful bounteous state has such a bad economy!

I say if you want to ride out the twilight of the Infinite Growth Paradigm intelligently, the most comfortable short-term solution is to ride the car we rented, a 2010 Toyota Yaris. We rented a red sedan model, and not only was it comfortable physically, but it turned out to be pretty comfortable on the wallet as well. Usually the drive up the I-5 requires us to refill the tank by the time we reach Santa Nella, one time a rental with really poor MPG only got us to Kettleman City before we had to get more gas. This time we made it all the way to Sacramento on one tank of gas. That's the kind of mileage I'm usually accustomed to hearing hybrid car owners brag about. I suppose hybrid and electric owners think they've got the higher road to ride out that twilight by being kinder to the environment. That may be so, but only as far as emissions are concerned. There are still seven gallons of oil in every new tire, the construction of the average car, regardless of whether it has an internal combustion engine or not, uses 42 barrels of oil. Pick your poison.

But I digress, I shouldn't be worrying about that stuff on vacation. And I certainly wasn't by the time we drove past Redding. There was a spectacular view of Mount Shasta on that sunny Saturday. Because we only had to stop once to refuel, we made it to Medford, Oregon by 3:45pm, a 10 1/2 hour drive. It was very relaxing staying at the Ramada Hotel there. We had a delicious dinner of pesto pasta and Pinot Noir at Vinny's Italian Kitchen with my sister, who recommended the place. There we finalized our plans for the next day, 4th of July, our Mom's birthday. My three sisters and I planned to surprise our Mom at Crater Lake, where she works as a park ranger. The surprise had been in the works for months and now we would finally know if we had been able to pull it off successfully or not.

Our surprise turned out to be a complete success! It turned out our Mom was caught completely offguard. Her chagrin at not being able to get her birthday off of work because she had to give a presentation to a group of 10 that requested her turned to elation at discovering that group was comprised of loving relatives who traveled from all over just for the opportunity to shout, "Happy Birthday!" Once she finished her admittedly "addled" presentation, the party began. We had a scrumptious lunch at her apartment consisting of cheese and crackers, smoked salmon and avocadoes, fruit salad, potato chips and hummus. We washed it down with a few bottles of sparkling wine that my wife and I brought. Then we finished with a birthday cake that had some of the creamiest frosting I've ever tasted. Once that party wound down, several of us went back to Medford and had a wine tasting at RoxyAnn, where my wife and I bought a 2008 Pinot Gris that was really smooth. Finally, the night ended for us with dinner at India's Kitchen and then fond farewells to Mom, right as the fireworks started blasting off.

That was just the first leg of the road trip. The next morning we checked out of the Ramada and stocked up at Food4Less on some Shasta diet cream soda, a personal favorite. Then we drove to Ashland, Oregon for some caffeinated delights. We stepped into The Beanery, a coffeehouse I used to work at 19 years ago. There we bought bags of Allann Bros. coffee beans for co-workers when we got back to L.A. and for relatives we would be meeting later on our journey. Before getting back on the I-5, we couldn't resist getting an iced chocolate coffee drink from the Dutch Bros. drive-thru. That pumped us up for the trail back into California all the way to the Rodeway Inn at Rohnert Park, a little town just south of Santa Rosa that was inexpensive and a convenient location for a short drive to wine tasting in Napa Valley.

We began our vino imbibing on Tuesday morning at the magnificent Castello di Amorosa in Saint Helena. The idea was to start off with a big tour, then work our way down to progressively smaller wineries until we hit our limit. Castello di Amorosa certainly didn't disappoint in its size. It is a tremendous 107 room castle, built in the style of 13th century Italian. The tour lasted over an hour and included a barrel tasting of a 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon and then stopping in a tasting room to sample 15 other wines. We ended up buying a bottle of 2005 Merlot that had a strong jammy flavor but a supple aftertaste. All the wines there were very high quality. Though the winery itself was young, the winemaker Dario Sattui is a 4th generation Napa winemaker whose great-grandfather Vittorio Sattui found the winery V. Sattui, which we were told was celebrating its 125th anniversary. So that was our next stop down the road for another tasting and self-guided tour of their cellar. Finally, we stopped at a small charming winery called Milat. Tastings there were the least expensive in Napa, $5 refunded with any purchase. What a deal, and great wine to boot! They had a fantastic dessert wine and chocolate sauce, but what really surprised me was the 2009 Chenin Blanc. I had never really appreciated that varietal until this one, so fruit forward yet complex; constantly changing all the way down the tongue. What a treat!

Totally wined out, we spent the next day exploring a town south of Rohnert Park called Petaluma. Petaluma is famous for many things, including being the location site for much of the filming of American Graffiti and for being the hometown of Winona Ryder. But we wanted to explore some of the deeper history of the town. While there were still many buildings in the historical downtown district still standing from the late 19th and early 20th century, I think we were a little disappointed with how yuppified it felt. A town of 50,000 people really shouldn't have more than a dozen overpriced restaurants spelled ristorante. Which is probably why we ended up eating at Hallie's Diner, where they served fantastic turkey sandwiches filled with some really sweet cranberry sauce. That wasn't the only highlight, there were other fascinating places in Petaluma. We enjoyed spending time at the Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park, where General Vallejo lived on his sprawling rancho during the 1830s and 1840s. They've done a great job of preservation of the building and recreations of how people lived, ate and slept in those days. I hope it lasts, it was a bit troubling that due to state budget cuts, there were no park personnel there. One other building I found fascinating was downtown; the historic Sonoma County National Bank building. Within this old bank is a thriving business appropriately called the Seed Bank. This business sells heirloom seeds with no GMO content. Every kind of seed from amaranth to watermelon. It was very encouraging to see the stomping grounds for a new generation of farmers.

We spent the final evening of our road trip north of Santa Rosa in the town of Windsor, where my cousin lives with his wife and new baby boy. It was our first time seeing their beautiful baby and their beautiful house. We took them out to dinner, feasting on pizza, pasta, and a rich Pinot Noir from a Sonoma winery they love, Amphora. Then they treated us to dessert at Powell's Sweet Shoppe where in addition to engorging on peanut butter and chocolate gelato, we bought candy we haven't seen since we were kids; Zotz and Fruit Stripe gum. It was a very fun evening with them. The next morning we checked out of the motel and hit the road for home. We stopped on the way down in Paso Robles. It was a temptation to have one final day of wine tasting, but instead I showed some restraint and limited myself to picking some guides and brochures to plan a future road trip!

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

2010-07-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

I think I pulled a muscle in my back while working out on my Iron Gym before dinner last night. Not excruciating pain, but the gradually building soreness grew aggravating. I thought it might be relaxing to spend the rest of the evening lying on the couch watching a movie. Then I made the inappropriate decision to watch a movie that recently came out on DVD, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

Bad timing on my part. The movie opens in the wake of the levee breaks in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. After rescuing an imprisoned man about to drown in the rising waters, Sergeant Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) is promoted to the rank of Lieutenant for his bravery, but pays the price by injuring his back. Informed by his doctor that he may have lower back pain the rest of his life, McDonagh in one year's time adds a cocaine habit to his Vicodin prescription. Watching Cage live through this affliction and addiction only heightened my own misery.

It's been a long time since Cage has really invested himself into a character with such commitment. The past decade has pretty much been filled with performances set on autopilot, with only a faint glimmer here and there of the level of brilliance he exhibited in the 80's and 90's. But in Bad Lieutenant, Cage is absolutely unhinged. Imagine the intensity of his inebriated highs in Leaving Las Vegas combined with the manic impulsiveness on display in Vampire's Kiss or Wild at Heart. That's the closest I can come to describing the energy on display. He is a man possessed by demons both physical and spiritual, and the result is a performance that is emotionally explosive.

Being a big fan of the original Bad Lieutenant from 1992 directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Harvey Keitel, I was interested in how director Werner Herzog would reimagine the story by taking it out of the mean streets of New York City and placing it in the post-Katrina morass of New Orleans. The results are both exhilarating and confounding. Both movies feature a similar character in a similar predicament: a corrupt cop whose personal demons drive him into a deep descent fueled by drugs, sex and gambling. But whereas Ferrara's incarnation is a brooding furrowing into the darkness of a tortured soul, Herzog's take is an exercise in insanity lapsing into surreal giddiness. Both movies are journeys into the darker side of life, but Herzog and Cage somehow manage to find the sick truth that debauchery has its sense of joy too.

What I found confounding was the differences in how each movie found resolution in the arc of their respective characters. At the end of Harvey Keitel's descent into a proverbial hell, he finds a spiritual redemption that saves his soul. What starts as a gritty crime drama morphs into a Catholic moral fable. Nicolas Cage's resolution is a little harder to label. As with Keitel's journey, there is a descending spiral of darkness tied to a criminal case the detective is following that fuels his drug and gambling frenzy. But the miracles that occur that transform Cage are much more temporal compared to the miracles that transform Keitel. This results in a resolution that is not as tragic/transcendental as Keitel's arc, but is more down to earth about the reality of dealing with addiction.

But I'm not sure if Herzog's Bad Lieutenant, for all its manic highs and bluesy lows, is as emotionally satisfying as its predescessor. Perhaps this is because it avoids passing moral judgment. My gut reaction in the wake of this rollercoaster is that the moral of the story is: Corruption Pays. Maybe that's an overly simplistic reading of the resolution, but that is reality, especially where the subject of narcotics is concerned. An article titled Solari Rising by Catherine Austin Fitts does an excellent job of analyzing how our economic infrastructure is addicted to the $500 billion to $1 trillion annual money laundering windfall from narcotics trafficking and all organized crime profits. So maybe Herzog isn't being too glib in showing that sometimes all you need to turn your life around is a lucky crackpipe.