US narrowly averted atomic disaster Guardian
Homeless Being Paid To Camp Out For iPhone 5C, 5S Associated Press
Contrast with: BlackBerry warns of near-$1bn loss Financial Times
How Close do You Live to America’s Dirtiest Power Plants? Bill Moyers
Is Colorado’s Fracking Industry at Threat from the Floods? OilPrice
House Extends Monsanto Protection Act Real News Network
Cat Paws Can Unlock the iPhone 5S Fingerprint Sensor Mashable. So is this going to revive the market for rabbits’ feet?
LinkedIn Customers Say Company Hacked Their E-Mail Contacts Bloomberg
Hacking U.S. Secrets, China Pushes for More Drones New York Times
The Crisis at Fukushima’s Unit 4 Demands a Global Take-Over Common Dreams (furzy mouse)
Norway abandons carbon capture plans BBC
Syria:
Syria submits chemical weapons inventory Financial Times
Media Spins Syrian Chemical Disarmament Process Moon of Alabama
Is Capitalism to Blame for the Syrian War Drive? TruthOut (May S)
Bahrain arrests opposition leader; U.S. shrugs Washington Post (May S)
“Don’t Be Fooled, Says Israel, Bomb Iran Instead. Israeli official: ‘No more time for negotiations’ with Iran” Common Dreams (Doug Terpstra)
Greenpeace Ship Seized, Crew Taken Hostage by Russian Security Agents Common Dreams
Big Brother is Watching You Watch:
New Intel-Based PC’s Permanently Hackable Popular Resistance (Chuck L)
Brazil moves to shield data from US BBC
NSA Caught Illegally Spying on Americans and Keith Alexander’s Answer Is a Group Hug Marcy Wheeler
Volume stressed security firm’s clearance staff Washington Post
“Free Flow of Information Act” Targets Independent Journalism Activist Post (Devo)
The Crazy Party Paul Krugman. True only up to a point. First, crazy is a very good strategy. Kissinger promoted the idea of Nixon as crazy (before Watergate really did make him paranoid) to improve US bargaining leverage. What is more scary than a rabid crazy anti Commie with nukes? Second, when Obama had more power (as in was less lame-ducky) he used Republican craziness as his air cover for doing what he wanted to do. That rewarded and encouraged super extreme behavior.
White sororities admit black students at U. of Ala Associated Press. Wow, am I naive. I had no idea whites only sororities and fraternities still existed (I’m probably going to offend a lot of NC readers, but I don’t approve of them, which is one reason I generally don’t read news relating to them)
Cop Throws Family To Ground During Traffic Stop AOL Autos (Carol B)
Postal Service Makes Deals to Rescue New Deal-Era Murals Bloomberg
Study: Black People are Worse Off Financially Than Any Other Group in America Your Black World
Target to Hire 18,000 Fewer Seasonal Workers This Holiday Season; Expect Other Retailers to Do the Same Michael Shedlock (furzy mouse)
Cassidy: Will Anyone Hold Dimon Responsible for London Whale? New Yorker. Peter W: “I’d bet there’s not a lot of overlap between NC readership and the New Yorker. Interesting that attitudes like Cassidy’s seem to be working into the mainstream.”
Federal Reserve Program Is Socialism For The Rich DS Wright, Firedoglake (Carol B)
Senior Fed official weighs October taper if economic data improve Financial Times
White House rounding up support for Yellen to take reins at Fed Reuters
Yellen: Do men lack the aptitude for economics? New Yorker (Peter W)
The 1 weird thing you need to know about Janet Yellen Lambert. Ooh, Lambert brings his color coding to a new frontier!
Elites’ strange plot to take over the world Matt Stoller, Salon. Today’s must read. And Stoller is on a roll, see: The radical constitutional change everyone missed
Antidote du jour (Lance N):
93 comments
Comments are closed.
“i’m crushing your heaaaad!”
….adding injury to insult!!
“Hmmm. So this is Rowlfing?”
That’s what happens when you name your cat Jamie.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/20/us-norway-carbon-idUSBRE98J0QB20130920
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongstad_scandal
errrm – ‘another ~mong bites the dust?’?
meanwhile:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24181341#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
how will we know we’ve won the war on carbon? is there a metric? or is it just another un-ending, non-defined, ‘war on terror’?
just another reason in a very long list of reasons why capital (assets, anticipated interest, cash flow, productivity gains, etc) are all nonsense compared to the problems we face…. think fukushima
they can’t keep oil from spilling when they suck it out, so why should they be able to keep gas from leaking when they pump it back in?
this maneuver has always seemed a boondoggle to me.
should say “a gas”
=/= gasoline
Several years ago a high level conference entitled “Energy and our Future” was held at Jackson Hole. Then Wyoming governor Fruendenthal called for a 12 billion dollar per year “Manhattan Project” to develop carbon capture (and ensure that Wyoming’s coal industry would continue on to infinity). I asked him how long it would take for 50% of the US coal production to convert to carbon capture if his proposal were funded immediately.
His answer: “I have no idea!” Imagine that. An honest politician!
@ “Is Capitalism to Blame for the Syrian War Drive?”
That is a stellar article, written by someone who understands how captialism, empire, and realpolitic actually work, and isn’t falling-down drunk on the Adam Smith KoolAid.
It’s great, but it would be much better with more specifics. E.g.: “This pipeline” or “that oil field” versus “capitalism.”
capitalism itself is very non-specific; usually relying on accounting tricks to define a point! Grief…. which pipeline according to which capitalism…
“Because of fear of detention, @ggreenwald & @laurapoitras cannot be here in US to accept Pioneer awards given to them by @eff tonight.” – Xeni Jardin, co-editor of Boing Boing.
The U.S. government has long targeted radicals; Greenwald, though, is far from a radical. He is basically an old-fashioned muckraking journalist and a principled liberal reformer (which are hard to find nowadays). He is not advocating an end to capitalism or even a dismantling of the NSA and the other intelligence services. If anything, he is protective of NSA covert agents.
The fact that journalists, with what appear to be extraordinarily mild reformist goals, have to stay out of the U.S., for fear of detention, is really, really scary. I am not sure if the “slow motion military coup†” that Yves has referred to is so much underway, as it is fait accompli.
† Or national security state coup.
what we should define is “capitalism”
I mean, the specifics, which are admittedly harder to come by — the full story itself — is what I would like. Now, the only way to get there may be extrapolation from what is known. And perhaps general discussions of that sort could help get one there. For instance, what do you suppose “capitalism” means to the capitalists. I posit, as a starting place, “Greed is good.” Now, I would need to marshal some evidence…
But, really, my cry is for a very specfic and researched history or biography of current events. Hey, throw in the future, while you’re at it. Or you know, various hypotheses, contingencies. Just dreamin’ over here. … Total information awareness would be nice. Er, really, I guess I feel that it’s nice reading an article which echoes my own sense of things, but I am yearning for some harder stuff which will serve to convince others — or at least inform them!!
House Extends Monsanto Protection Act Real News Network
Mondiablo and the GMObsters ride again!
Here’s an anti-industrial food video making the rounds and apparently causing quite a sensation:
http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/chipotles-scarecrow-ad-brilliant.html
We need tax reform which encourages small, independent food producers and retailers. Big is the enemy. Failing that, Grow Your Own! Sound familiar?
Food adulteration now enshrined in law by Congress? Corruption of the governmental system can’t get more basic than that!
“I can see the day comin’ when even your home garden’s gonna be against the law.” ~ Bob Dylan
If gardens are outlawed, only outlaws will be gardeners.
“I’m probably going to offend a lot of NC readers, but I don’t approve of them . . .” -Yves Smith
Well then, it’s a good thing we’re not ultra-sensitive.
I never thought of NC readers being inclined to frats and sororities myself, so I was surprised by Yves’s comment. So too about the New Yorker. I’ve been a subscriber for many years, and I read NC every day. Agreed that the quality of the magazine is deteriorating, but it still comes up with good reporting I find consistent with NC.
That comment grabbed me as well.
I must be in the wrong neighborhood if Yves’ readers think segregated Greeks are A-OK. But I’ve never seen such an inclination amongst the commenters. Whew.
OK, now I reread her comment. Makes more sense. Not segregated, but Greeks in general.
Hoookay. It’s early on the west coast.
Yea, well I’m sensitive, how dare you flush up memories from my halcyon days at ole Tappa Keg! Ah yes, and the girls from Felta Thi, good times… good times.
they always sounded like “instant friends, just add hazing” to me. forming an artificial network for –need to belong– reasons rather than natural affinity and real relationships.
but heck, NETWORKING!! *barf
I was trying to make a joke, where “them” are NC readers.
I guess it was too complicated. :)
Yes, that was a one of the few places where my copy editor for ECONNED did something really important. I’m super sloppy about reference with pronouns, as your catch demonstrates!
Elites’ strange plot to take over the world Matt Stoller, Salon.
From that article:
“…global free trade agreements that subordinate national court systems…”
National court systems are increasingly recognizing each others’ judgements even though they are made in different countries. In Canada, for instance:
“Americans can go to Ontario’s courts and successfully enforce judgments obtained in the USA. In Canada, Ontario courts recognize an American court’s jurisdiction over an Ontario defendant and enforce foreign judgments against that defendant if there is a “REAL AND SUBSTANTIAL CONNECTION” between the Ontario defendant and the American jurisdiction in which judgment has been obtained. ”
http://www.hg.org/article.asp?id=6168
So, for example, if you Buck Canuck, get in a beef in Florida with a well connected Bubba who gets a judgement against you from a Bubba Court, you are on the hook! Just another reason to be careful and limit your transactions when in Dodge.
As we go down the Diminished Rule Of Law Road, this can only get worse. Simply put, you only need to corrupt one national court not all of them. Much more efficient and less expensive.
perfect statement skeptic
Good point Skeptic. What should international look like. A hodgepodge? Not.
It was a really good article by Matt Stoller. Yes we have been under the influence of the Atlanticists for almost a century. I didn’t object too much to the whole idea until Sarkozy sent the French jets to bomb Libya while holding a press conference extolling the virtues of the non-conflict society. Really Sarko? Just what the hell are you talking about? Well, so the whole idea foundered. It will take an act of god, a true fiat, to bring it into reality. Peter Dale Scott was the first person I read who referred to the Deep State and he implied it was NATO. Makes sense. But clearly if it was NATO, then LBJ’s decision to go into Vietnam would indicate that he was pro the Atlantic Alliance – so did he pretend he was not?
If only some divinity were involved, but no. It will not take an act of God to start war in Syria. It’s perfectly clear now that it will take an act of Israel — the bombing of Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities.
Israel took out Iraq’s reactor in the Eighties, and took out Syria’s reactor a couple years back, because Israel fears dirty bombs will be their reward for tolerating Muslim reactors. Israel has made it more than clear that they will not permit Iran or any other Muslim nation in the Middle East to enrich uranium or to run reactors.
So one fine morning when the weather’s good, Israel will up and bomb Iran’s facilities. Iran will shoot back, Hezbollah will flood northern Israel with missiles, Israel will shoot back and we will get pulled in, then away we go with war raging across the Middle East with Syria will just be an afterthought thrown into the mix.
Iran’s too far away. The Israeli attack aircraft might be stealthy but the tankers they need for refuelling are not stealthy. The Iranians would get early warning.
Iran’s nuclear facilities are dispersed and some of them are well-fortified. The Israelis cannot make a surprise attack on a sufficient scale to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme. In the absence of surprise, the Israelis don’t have a big enough air force to sustain the sort of prolonged aerial bombing campaign that would be necessary. Short form: impracticable.
Iranian counter-intelligence has so far been reasonably successful in denying the Israelis the sort of information they need to do proper target selection. The Israelis don’t have the network on the ground in Iran that they would need to evaluate the success of their strikes.
Contrast the situation Israel enjoyed when attacking the Iraqi nuclear programme: that time, not only did the Israelis turn one of the lead Iraqi scientists, the Israelis also got detailed plans from French contractors working on the project. The Israelis were also able to infiltrate a ground team to help attacking aircraft achieve accurcy.
Evidently none of those things apply in Iran.
Have you ever known the Israelis to hesitate in bombing anybody? Have you even known the Israelis to make such loud protestations?
The reason the Israelis are bitching so much about Iran is that it would be too risky and too costly for Israel to attack Iran. The Israelis need the USA to attack the Iranians on their behalf. Hence all the whingeing.
In the event of an American war with Iran, the Israeli intention is merely to attack southern Lebanon again. That’s a country closer, smaller, cheaper and tastier for the Israelis.
I don’t recall reading that RIMM was in cahoots with the NSA. Could this be partly responsible for their failure? You’d think they could leverage their NSA free network to people and businesses that would rather not be surveilled.
On the “Elites’ plot to take over the world”
The U.S. had won WWII and effectively dominated the word. Inadvertedly, mostly, the US had already become world leader. Therefore there was no need for a plot, as the title suggests. Merely a need to organise the post-war world. According to national interest, of course. Perfectly normal for the victor in a conflict.
Unless “the West” had organised to dominate as best it could, the top dog position had been taken by someone else. By the Soviet empire. Now, the Chinese are back and have an inherent need for expansion and domination that automatically follows with size and power. The Roman Empire all over again. The Romans did not set out to dominate the world, as the Brits did not. But the virus of Empire infects all those that have managed to breed enough conquests and domination. It snowballs.
“The West” now has a choice. Status quo, i.e. gradually hand over the top dog position to the Chinese (and embark on crazy things like wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), or team up again.
I am not saying that anything of this is good or desirable. But until there is world governance by a force that is more benevolent than not, these feuds for domination will continue.
Or move to Switzerland.
• Swedish Lex says:
I could not disagree more vehemently.
The rentier-oligarchs who have gained a near-monopoly of political power in the United States don’t give a rat’s ass about the national interest. The only interest they care about is their own.
And they believe, rightly or wrongly, that the best way to further their own self-interest is in an alliance with other rentier-oligarchs from other countries, in a global alliance.
• Swedish Lex says:
I don’t disagree with this statement as vehemently as I do with the first, but I tend to gravitate toward the position Scott Noble elaborated in his latest video documentary, The Power Principle:
Obviously I’m conflicted on this point, and get caught up between the competing positions of Noble and Reinhold Neibuhr, who believed the Soviet Union did constitute an existential threat to the US.
• Swedish Lex says:
Well again, we have to ask: “Would the true aggressor please stand up?” Andreas von Bülow has a very different response to that question than you:
• Swedish Lex says:
Well again, von Bülow posits a very different solution to the dilemma than you do:
Ola Mexico. Have some grocery shopping to do right now but looking forward to our exchange later.
FYI – Hola – H is silent.
At least there seems to be no dispute on the “or move to Switzerland” part :)
The starting point was whether there was a “plot”, or a conspiracy, to take over the world. Sometimes conspiracies for coup d’états do actually occur, but when it comes to the post WWII, and later the world of the Cold War, those historic periods are so enormously complex that it is almost impossible to frame them without over-simplification or categorizations that leave out too much to provide a basis for a more comprehensive understanding.
Yes, one can say that the post WWII world was designed by the “rentier-oligarchs” working together in an organised, globalised, fashion. I would prefer the term “elites”, however, since most, if not all, societies are governed by the elites with or without some kind and degree of accountability. But the “elite” or “East/West” perspectives do not suffice. Europe then and now is marked along ethnic visible or invisible borders too. The various brands of religion also play a role, as do other factors such as access to natural resources, etc.
One leading force all through history is, I believe, the inherent quest of and between communities/groups/tribes/ethnicities/nations/ideologies/religions for domination. Domination as a reflex and not necessarily as a thought trough strategy, in order to have the best chances to persevere, perhaps or probably at the expense of the dominated. The Romans kept on expanding their empire to satisfy their need for slaves, taxes and natural resources. Inside the Empire, there was a modern economic and legal system that allowed the elites to thrive. Once the empire stopped expanding, it began to fall together.
The different forms in which a country (or whatever unit you are looking at) defines its method for domination, or at least for avoiding being dominated, is the national interest.
The Vatican is probably the most successful multinational service corporation in history. What a brand and what a business model; Eternal Bliss! The modern multinational corporation is merely the most recent expression of what has been around for a long time. The Soviet Communist Party was another multinational and there is no doubt in my mind that if the Soviets had believed that they could have managed world domination, without nuclear risking annihilation, they would have gone for it. The same way that Sweden would have loved to destroy Peter the Great’s army in order to dominate the region, but failed to do.
Must stop here. Have to go. /Lex
Update: defense budget is now $600B+
Also, the US is guaranteed to lose the arms race. Already an Indian-Russian partnership is building a cruise missile 4X faster than Tomahawk and the latest Chinese fighter plane may rival anything the US has. When Asia goes into mass production on arms for the export market, the only thing the US is guaranteed of is we will have the most EXPENSIVE military in the world.
just like our healthcare system
Do not underestimate the margin of military superiority enjoyed by the USA. That margin of superiority is not only very wide, but there are entire categories of operations which are feasible for the USA, but which Russia, China, or India dare not attempt.
Only one power in the world has global military projection capability whether on sea, on land, or in the air: USA.
Only one power in the world has practical capacity to wage anti-satellite warfare: USA.
Only one power in the world has been intensively developing anti-ballistic missile technology for over 30 years: USA. Regarding BMD, I know that most news reports and most pundits usually talk about failed tests. But ask yourself if such reports are genuine, or planted in the media. Ask yourself why five presidents, from both parties, have continued developments unabated through three decades.
Only one power has had a recent decade of constant combat experience: USA.
From the standpoint of the globalist bourgeoisie, the USA is a proven enforcer of last resort. No other country’s armed forces have such a track record of crushing people, anywhere on the planet, who dare oppose or obstruct the designs of global capital.
The USA is a high-cost proivider of Global Enforcement Services, but they are a well-proven provider. The entry cost threshold to the marketplace of Global Enforcement Services is very high. The lead times to enter that market are very long (i.e. over 20 years for most weapons systems, from specification to deployment). It takes time to develop reputation and credibility–the “branding,” as it were–which are important to the globalist bourgeois customers of Global Enforcement Services.
The main thing that would undermine the USA’s near-monopoly status in the Global Enforcement Services market would be a falling out among different elements of the globalist bourgeoisie.
Some of the world’s bourgeois might suspect that the USA will abuse its Enforcement Services monopoly to deprive some elements of the global bourgeoise of their precious class status, reducing them to pathetic compradores. Fearing this loss of status, some national bourgeoisies may be driven to find innovative, cost-effective solutions to their Enforcement Services problems.
Thanks for the update Captain America.
Do you have the financial data – income statement and balance sheet – for this Global Enforcement Services corporation? Are you sure they operate in Asia? (ex-japan, I mean)
I think I’d like to buy stock in the place. Do they pay a dividend? How’s growth been so far? Do they have any competition in the US market?
I would suggest that the Transpacific Trade Agreement is an attempt to have a one state corporate system.
I read both of the pieces from Matt Stoller and came away nonplussed by his contextualization of many things.
In one of the articles he writes about how the allies defeated the fascists in WWII. If the Bush family sold stuff to Hitler then did we really defeat the fascists?…..and isn’t that what we really have today, so WTF point is being made here or is it more obfuscation to hide the class system in the “Western” world countries and ongoing and unfettered inheritance that enables it to continue?
Where is the screed that historically puts global inherited plutocracy at its core and describes what has transpired from that context?….oh, that’s right, anyone attempting that effort probably would not live to complete the work, if they could sus out the details and players.
Please, please, please let there be a Snowden that has captured and shares the machinations of the global plutocrats/families that continue to rule our world.
Stoller was once on the inside as a congressional aid. Is he still?
If so, or if he still has those sorts of aspirations, that may explain why he is pulling his punches.
But that’s why folks like you exist, to stake out a more subversive position and try to move the center in a more positive direction.
LOL!!!!
If it is a subversive person I am, then I am proud of it….but I think there is a bit of Overton window in your use of that term.
I would proudly be a martyr to the cause of structurally changing the global inheritance rules….to the benefit of the 99%.
I have meaning to my life now instead of my bike saddle invention and the breath exercise I have recently innovated to heal from PTSD…….LOL!
Onward, into the breech!
ASAIK he’s working for Alan Grayson again.
We don’t need to wonder about Stoller’s aspirations.
That he was a congressional aid (which is not all that much “inside”) says a lot about his initial world view and knowledgebase. We can probably guess about what he learned there.
Would he learn… be allowed to discover… american realpolitik? Would the people he worked for know?
With Operation Paperclip, some Nazi scientists were given a new life as American scientists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
Yves,
I beg of you for entertainment sake to speak to the latest rantings by our leader in chief about how the US is NOT a banana republic….grin
Methinks he doth protest too much, eh? Why, I can see the US dollar bubble growing from my back porch….
House Extends Monsanto Protection Act. In related news, the sun rose this morning.
Naw, but seriously, what is wrong with our country? What are we going to do to prevent a 2016 matchup of Hillary vs. Paul Ryan? We have got to do better than this, but it seems the only people who can afford to run as an independent are billionaires. Perhaps we should recruit Jon Huntsman? I think he’d be a conciliatory president, which would be great.
From now on Lambert must color code every article he posts :) . It actually makes it easier to explain to others all the nefarious BS that is currently polluting our politics
Speaking of drones and “plots” by the élites to take over the world (I wasn’t impressed by either of Stoller’s articles), take a look at our “killer robot” policy:
http://thebulletin.org/us-killer-robot-policy-full-speed-ahead
No worries!
Except for a few which the Russians will make for themselves somewhere in the Urals, they will all be made in one megafactory in China. The Red Army will pay $2 each. The Pentagon will pay $2 + shipping + $1000000 each.
They will even change their colors when they turn their coats.
Socialsm for the Rich – Firedoglake.
Why can’t we be more straightforward – it’s called droit de seigneur.
The rich get ‘virgin’ new money from the Fed…always. We get what they throw away.
The rich get ‘virgin’ new money from the Fed…always. We get what they throw away. Beffy
But don’t you oppose a universal bailout of the rest of us with new fiat? Because like any good conservative you oppose “money printing?”
Just for you today F. Beard……please think when reading it and don’t go to the Rocking Horse Winner place…thank you
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/21/stephen-hawking-brain-could-exist-outside-body-but-conventional-afterlife-is-a-fairy-tale-for-people-afraid-of-the-dark/
He may be a great physicist, but he knows bollox about the brain.
“I think the brain is like a programme in the mind, which is like a computer, so it’s theoretically possible to copy the brain on to a computer and so provide a form of life after death.
“However, this is way beyond out present capabilities. I think the conventional afterlife is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark.”
Really?
This is from a physicist…but even biologists cannot understand the brain (I know, I studied postgrad neuroscience etc…once upon a not-that-long-ago…as a prelude to postgrad AI).
“Computer program”? here’s a “thought-experiment”…if you code a computer to “understand” water…what is it’s terms of reference? Answer: random bits with no more “meaning” than any other…otoh, how do YOU (or any living entity on planet earth) understand water? Answer: direct experience of it’s qualities…you die if you dehydrate too much, you drown if submerged long enough, it feels wet, etc etc etc…
It’s yet another case of VERY subject-specific knowledge apparently giving the right to pontificate on shit you know little/nothing about…
And that’s ignoring the issues with non-computationally tractable problems, which are abundant in the real world…
…and I started as a physicist
Hawking once asserted that time would run backwards if the universe ever contracted.
Plausible but wrong as he later admitted.
Please psycho, you’re out of your league with this topic because I’m a Christian who finds the movie “AI” plausible (Because consciousness is inherent in matter? So we really are dust even wrt to our mind?)
“AI” is a dang fine tear-jerker too including the ending and any one who disagrees I pity.
What were we talking about?
Brazil moves to shield data from US:
read this article the other day on another site, shows the concern other Nations have with U.S. spying activities probably driven more from there elite’s who are involved in world wide trade and want to protect there financial interests but its does show a direction that may gain influence to shield countries from U.S.
Friends;
Re. the Post Office Murals piece: I remember seeing one of those in a front room of the St Tammany Parish Louisiana School Board offices on New Hampshire Street in Covington La. Quite a nice example of Social Realism Art from the Thirties. I remember being the only person in the building who was at all interested in the mural. For all I know it’s still there, gracing the wall of someones’ office. Now that’s a perk!
Friends;
I just read the Guardian piece about the Goldsboro Atom Bomb Fall Out and noticed the author, Ed Pilkington. Any relation to the often read here Philip Pilkington? Somehow, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Stoller’s piece of writing is one bolstered by a review of the US Congressional Record, which has much of our nation’s recent history just hiding in plain sight. Of course, not everyone naively reads the reading list in every class, silly me, how was I supposed to know? But, Matt sure does look at the record in black and white and unsurprising to the students of political and economic history finds an Elite plot. And for good reason. While I no longer see plots, conspiracy and wicked schemes, I do recognize the generational rediscovery of facts that appeal in way that received from previous generations can never compete with.
I would like to add that there are, for simplicity’s sake, 2 strains of plot discovery in American politics that is not the result of paranoia, but observation. Let’s take a sample from the American New Left. “THE YANKEE COWBOY WAR: CONSPIRACIES FROM DALLAS TO WATERGATE” BY CARL OGLESBY
http://www.scribd.com/doc/58702117/The-Yankee-and-Cowboy-War
He sees among the elites, a political faultline, that is real, and distinguishes itself as the NorthEastern Liberal Establishment, The Kennedys, The Rockefellers, aka Yankee and the South and SouthEastern up and comers, with the Koch Brothers and their father, the Cowboy. You could also call it Sunbelt vs Rustbelt, but again, this is for simplicities sake. Relevant to Stoller’s discussion is the Internationalist orientation of the NorthEasterners and the USA USA USAism of the pure bred All American. The differences can also, again for simplicities sake, be drawn between those whose wealth derives from a purely domestic power base of mineral, oil, gas and timber extraction and processing, and not export or trade and those that can expand their enterprises internationally, the best example being Wall St Banksters. Now, Haliburton has sailed from its moorings in the safe harbor of the continental US for Dubai. Which is why so many troops are in Qatar and Kuwait etc. But, the dawning of political awareness led to seeing the internationalist trend when analyzing domestic politics. But, this counter example comes decades after he first showed us the lay of the land.
From the right, the John Birch society pushed the aptly title concept/book: “NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY” BY GARY ALLEN, INTER ALIA.
http://archive.org/details/NoneDareCallItConspiracy
The cooperation between the Soviets and the leaders of the Free World lead to the obvious conclusion that with more collusion than competition going, what was the Cold War all about then, if not a fight to the death with the commies? The ONE WORLDERS were thinly disguised commies, as was nearly everyone to one degree on another. Sen McCarthy told me so. But, the facts are there to see the internationalist movement boldly and openly expressing itself, or spitting in the face of freedom loving real Americans, depending on your politics.
http://www.wfm-igp.org/site/
The World Federalist Movement has some important policy intersections with the current Obama Administration, that on the surface sound admirable. Submitted for your discussion, the brain child of the recently appointed Internationalist, American UN Representative, Samantha Powers. She is the chair of a real White House initiative which will help to decode the behavior of the foreign policy of the current administration.
——————————————————
http://www.usaid.gov/atrocities
Tech Challenge for Atrocity Prevention
In support of President Obama’s strategy for atrocity prevention, USAID and Humanity United launched the Tech Challenge for Atrocity Prevention to identify innovative applications of new and existing technologies to help prevent mass atrocities. Meet our second round winners!
————————————————————
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/04/23/469559/obama-atrocitiies-prevention-board/
Obama Announces Atrocities Prevention Board: ‘Sovereignty Is Never A License To Slaughter Your Own People’
————————————————————
Has Syria scuttled Samantha Power’s Atrocity Prevention Board?
BY JOHN NORRIS | JULY 16, 2013
With the confirmation hearings of Samantha Power to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations imminent, it is a good time to take a look at one of her signature projects from her tenure at the National Security Staff: the Atrocities Prevention Board.
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A little more than a year ago, President Barack Obama announced the creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board during an address at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, saying that this initiative would make the deterrence of genocide and mass atrocities “a core national security interest and core moral responsibility.”
Both the president and Power seemed acutely aware of the challenges and risks of trying to develop an inter-agency atrocities prevention mechanism while the humanitarian tragedy continued to unfold in Syria — a conflict into which this administration has been reluctant to wade. Indeed, in many ways, the creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board, or APB, has felt a bit like trying to build a fire department in the middle of a three-alarm fire.
The roots of the APB come from a bipartisan belief that the United States, in places like Rwanda and Bosnia, simply did not do enough to counter genocides and mass atrocities as they gathered force. The 2008 report from the Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, recommended the creation of a new high-level interagency body — what they called an Atrocities Prevention Committee — to improve U.S. government crisis-response systems and better equip Washington to mount coherent preventive responses.
As Obama’s special advisor for multilateral affairs, an outspoken champion for human rights and genocide prevention, and the author of a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the U.S. government and genocide, Power was a natural fit to breathe life into the Genocide Prevention Task Force’s concept while at the National Security Staff (NSS)……….
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/16/apb_for_the_apb_syria_atrocities_prevention_board_samantha_power?wp_login_redirect=0
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The use of International Courts for trying war criminals is a key aspect of World Federalism. Is American Soveignty up for negotiation? No, only a handful of nations have sovereignty, even your membership in NATO and Eurozone indicates otherwise. A nation recognized as such by other nations, and welcomed into the UN, does not make you a sovereign nation, not by right of the rule of law being thwarted, but by the fact that the social construct of national sovereignty was not for all, much like humanity was only a 3/5th proposition at best for African slaves in America. The high minded notions of this or that ideal were never meant for everyone, but for the elect, the royal, the aristocrat, the job creator and so on. These are awe inspiring ideals, but they don’t pay the rent or keep you employed long enough to hold onto your home and sanity. I would love to have the best and highest uses of civilization be of direct benefit to me and my family and surrounding community, but, alas, I know better, and that is not the case. Of course, that not being the case doesn’t mean that I do not continue to demand that it does and insist on acting by all means to extend as much of the high minded ideals into my life, along with as much of the benefit that I can extract in my lifetime.
The cultural integration parallels the economic,financial and military integration with the sovereignty of the UK being beyond question. Witness a European power invading the Americas, fighting a war with Argentina, getting a free pass from the US Reagan Administration, all the while we swoon over princess Di, prince Charles and the queen mum’s stupid fucking hats! Who decided that we as a nation are so in love with British Royals. Why not the Spanish Royals, they are much hotter looking!
Why would Yves think she might offend NC readers by disapproving of whites-only policies?
I can think of two honest reasons to exclude people by race:
– You’re working on treatments for inherited diseases
– You’re looking for actors to cast in a particular role
Social organizations don’t seem to qualify, so if you’re excluding people by race for THAT, you’re probably just a jackass.
I think she was referring to fraternities/sororities.
I’m sure she was. Adding, for myself: Fraternities and sororities are not really an INTJ thing…
Haircare products?
@Tim… can we desist with Race nomenclature, as its utterance poisons the conversation – from its application – in the thought process.
Ethnic origin is the apt word.
skippy… just saying.
Interesting and relevant:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=brown+paper+bag+test
Janet. The New Yorker. Humor. Worthy of the Onion.
Forbes Calls Goldman CEO Holier Than Mother Teresa
I got a lot of letters from folks this week about an online column for Forbes written by a self-proclaimed Ayn Rand devotee named Harry Binswanger (if that’s a nom de plume, it’s not bad, although I might have gone for “Harry Kingbanger” or “Harry Wandwanker”). The piece had the entertainingly provocative title, “Give Back? Yes, It’s Time for the 99% to Give Back to the 1%” and contained a number of innovatively slavish proposals to aid the beleaguered and misunderstood rich, including a not-kidding-at-all plan to exempt anyone who makes over a million dollars from income taxes.
This article is so ridiculous that normally it would be beneath commentary, but there’s a passage in there I just couldn’t let go:
Imagine the effect on our culture, particularly on the young, if the kind of fame and adulation bathing Lady Gaga attached to the more notable achievements of say, Warren Buffett. Or if the moral praise showered on Mother Teresa went to someone like Lloyd Blankfein, who, in guiding Goldman Sachs toward billions in profits, has done infinitely more for mankind. (Since profit is the market value of the product minus the market value of factors used, profit represents the value created.)
Instead, we live in a culture where Goldman Sachs is smeared as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity. . .”
What a world we live in, where Mother Teresa wins more moral praise than Lloyd Blankfein! Who can bear living in a society where such a thing is possible? Quel horreur!
It reads like an Onion piece, just hilarious stuff. I mean, Jesus, even Lloyd Blankfein himself didn’t go so far as to take the “God’s work” thing 100% seriously, and here’s this jackass saying, without irony, that the Goldman CEO literally out-God-slaps Mother Teresa.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/forbes-calls-goldman-ceo-holier-than-mother-teresa-20130920#ixzz2fYemesvP
Wow, just Wow!
I suspect, for a price, Rome could be encouraged to fast track sainthood for any and all GS leadership. If the price were really good they wouldn’t even have to die before getting sainthood.
And Obama should get sainthood immediately for his “humanistic” drone program.
That would quiet all those True believers……..
That is some exceptional piece of advertiser base butt kissing. The circulation of Forbes must be down to 2000 subscribers. Actually, I suspect most billionaires on the Forbes 400 list would puke after reading that, starting with Warren Buffet. Warren woulda never manhandled Mother Teresa like he did LLoyd Blankwanger.
Besides, I think LLoyd looks more like the Penguin than Mother Teresa. On the other hand, The Vatican does look around for a Pope now and then.They have those catacombs where the Penqie would feel right at home.
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090728173436/batman/images/4/42/The_Penguin_2.png
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/139044/thumbs/s-LLOYD-BLANKFEIN-BONUS-large.jpg
The Mother Teresa – Loyd Lloyd Blankfein comparison is quite apt IMO. All the M/millions donated in the cause for kids went straight to the RCC coffers, whilst the kids didn’t even get an amount equal to the ROI on that sum.
SO yes under that metric Loyd should become a Saint, he’s *Earned* it.
skippy… Mother Teresa has be quoted, para phrasing, as saying the suffering was good for their little souls.
Hello Mister Victim… nice to do business with you!
Were quite keen to get into the orphan business…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUhb0XII93I
as saying the suffering was good for their little souls. skippy
But not good for hers if she could have prevented it but didn’t! (cf. Lazarus and the rich man – Luke 16:19-31)
Your cognitive inability to perceive, after so much discussion and evidence, where myself stands on ex nihilo foundation myths – is – another pathological indicator.
In addition your use of probability tools, trying to justify your personal views, is another sign ie. extractions within vacuums.
Go fix the arsenic poison suffers in India after those thousands of wells were bored, go fix up all the stuff and then get back to me.
Skippy… Until then – Fob Off – with your cheap words.
What? Did you wait till you thought I was vulnerable before lobbying that “FoB” at me? I extend a hand and you cut it off ala Tarus Bulba?
I did not cause the suffering in India but how many widows and orphans have you created? Tending to them, are you?
Your cognitive inability to perceive, after so much discussion and evidence, where myself stands on ex nihilo foundation myths – is – another pathological indicator. skippy
I was pointing out that Sister T’s theology is not consistent with the Bible so any attempt to broad-brush all Christians with her flawed theology is ignorant.
where myself stands on ex nihilo foundation myths skippy
You do realize that our universe was once smaller than a proton? Or smaller? How much closer to ex nihilo do you need?
Looks like only bluntness will suffice…
Those that weld tombs that validate child slavery, sex slavery, pits a husband love for his family into slavery, see non believers as heathens/foreigners and a hole cavalcade of other horrors, on going IMO, is the last damn place to reference in ones seeking of a better world.
India is just one place, the wreckage is actuality global, but, as always, grasp claim to victory and dismiss – don’t claim the failures.
skippy… I never asked for your hand… but nice plea to sympathy.
PS. Humans don’t need affiliation with cults to live peaceable lives, you just do it.
Bluntness? India is not a Christian country. It’s a Hindu/Muslem country.
But ultimately it’s about fruit. The West has put men on the Moon and reduced very much human misery. The slavery and child labor were givens before Christian (I won’t say Roman Catholic) missionaries arrived. Btw, it was Christians behind the abolition of slavery. Gee wiz! How could they ever do something so un-Biblical? Because it isn’t un-Biblical to an honest reader of Scripture, not someone like you who hasn’t the imagination or flexibility of mind to take things in context or reconcile apparent contradictions.
The only real problem the West has is it’s money system which isn’t Biblical to begin with! And once that is rectified, assuming it won’t result in The End Times first which I seriously doubt now, the West will once again cause the world to marvel.
Humans don’t need affiliation with cults to live peaceable lives, … skippy
No. It’s only Western science, itself an off-shoot of Christianity, that allows you the fig-leaf of plausible atheism. Even the Romans were suffused with cults. Still, and this you should make you fear, there were a few atheists DESPITE any plausible reason to deny a Creator! Humans can be that stupid/rebellious!
This is what enables him to believe such a thing:
“(Since profit is the market value of the product minus the market value of factors used, profit represents the value created.)”
And, seriously, who can refute him? Do it! I don’t care if coffee shot out of your nose when you read it: the stains on your shirt do a fine job at refutation, but, alas, they cannot speak beyond their context very well.
Hell.. mother teresa? They’re better than God, apparently: they create value ex nihilo, don’t they?
Do you hear him? He is saying that profit is a measurement of an incremental betterment brought to the world — after all, the profiteers would not be awarded with such if the other end of the transaction didn’t find Goldman’s contributions worth buying. And, so, we have soon bridged the gap between the “goods” and “the good.” And who will rescue us from this position? Who will articulate some other notion of “the good” which would compel the present subscribers to the position “greed is good” to that of a new offer, some new slogan… Even if there isn’t a free marketplace in anything else, perhaps there is still one of ideas; of course, if thinking is a luxury for some people, and it is only the idle rich who are afforded the opportunity to innovate in this area…
Look, how else are we to get to a point where “the world” is afforded the comfort and ability to thrive afforded to those who presently afford it, if folks like Goldman aren’t out there trying to furiously manufacture all the goodies and things which will one day make — maybe not equality but general quality — a tolerable reality for those who today would find a reorganization along these lines rather painful and who, at the same time, are always in grateful acknoweledgment of people like Mother Teresa, who are willing to endure a bit of pain alongside those unfortunate others, who there, despite the grace of God, go they.
That is to say: do you have a better or more daring notion of the “good,” which isn’t simply a variant on “more stuff, but less of the bad kind”? Because, hey, until the dawn of the Age of Aquarius… well, as long as Goldman stays profitable, the people will have spoken: “Oh, more of the good stuff, less of the bad? Sorry, just bought from Goldman, yesterday. Best of luck to you out there on the highway.” But, hey, at least it wasn’t: “Get your tweedy ass off my property.”
The capitalist Western and Westernized world is a lot less secular than most Westerners think.
You can always tell a people’s religion by taking one quick look at their cities, to see the collection of large and magnificent buildings, staffed by a numerous and well-fed priesthood. It might be a bunch of ziggurats, or a flamboyant cathedral, or whatever.
With our civilization: banks. Mammon is our One True God.
There are some major metaphysics involved in our capitalism today. There is a fundamental and untestable belief that everyone pursuing self-interest ultimately creates good.
Our fiat currencies are presided over by a conclave of priests more cryptic than the pagan oracles of old, whose prophecies we all avidly receive and study.
Our priests have glass-walled offices, and compose their Vision Statements and Values Statements, while the lesser clerks toil in windowless cubicles.
One may object that capitalist banks do actually perform management and allocation services in the economy. But Babylonian temples were granaries, and Greek temples were treasuries.
Another thing: just as there is a good deal of consistency of style among Corinthian-order temples or Gothic cathedrals, there is a remarkable consistency in style of our bank temples in the acropoles of today’s cities.
Future archaeologists will recognize this.
An interesting description of the situation. But you leave at best implied … whether some sort of iconoclasty is called for, to use a cautious, passive tense.
“Is Capitalism to Blame for the Syrian War Drive?” The kleptocratic classes drive empire and the dictates of empire drive the push for war with Syria.
Bribery is supposed to be illegal….
Published on Sep 20, 2013
On Thursday, a Texas appeals court overturned the 2010 conviction of former House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Texas). He was convicted of money laundering and conspiracy, and, according to the court, the evidence against the Republican leader was insufficient. Now, the Travis County District Attorney’s office plans to appeal the motion and Mark Levine, former congressional attorney, joins RT’s Ameera David to discuss.
http://youtu.be/xEyouRqbdZc
You’ve got to stop publishing these remote-management-services-as-hacks links, they miss the boat pretty badly. The point is these services can *actually* be super useful (and are usually touted as a feature) in large IT environments. They can present additional vulnerabilites, though, like any other service on your computer which can be accessed remotely (e.g., your web browser, flash) and precautions should be taken (e.g., disable if not needed).
And yes Virginia, some are hardware based services, such as vPro, which is a fairly specific application. And yes that article is claiming everything after Sandy Bridge has an on-die radio, and yes I’m sure CPUs with on-die radios already exist, and yes I’m pretty sure you could still disable these services via software or at least from bios, and no they aren’t making you buy one of them (yet).
Re: Fukushima
Are there any nucular physicists, other physicists, or other nucular policy wonks out there among NC readers & commenters? If so, would they care to comment on whether Harvey Wasserman’s article is a ‘Chicken Little’ piece? It it’s not, it looks like something very nasty hiding out in plain sight.